The following was inspired by an exchange I had with Jim Hilston just over twenty years ago. I started to post the actual exchange but that wouldn't have been that great. It was an exchange via old messaging apps. I was on one called "ICQ" and I think Jim was using AOL Instant Messenger. He was still using an AOL dial up internet connection, which was sort of silly even by 2005 standards. At any rate, I decided that rather than posting the whole exchange, I'd just rework the most important argument made in the exchange and present it here....
Calvinism teaches that God, from eternity past, unchangeably decreed everything that ever happens. Every thought, action, and event in human history was planned by God and must occur exactly as He intended. Nothing can happen apart from this decree. At the same time, Calvinists maintain that human beings are morally responsible for their actions, even though those actions were foreordained. Man’s choices are said to be the means by which God’s plan unfolds. God ordains the ends, and also the means. This includes even sin, though they insist God is not the author of sin.
Now if we grant those claims for the sake of argument, we arrive at a troubling conclusion.
Ask any Calvinist, “Is a person guilty for an accident?” They will answer no. Jim told me to stop being silly when I asked him that question. And that is the correct answer. Guilt requires intent. If a man slips and falls onto another person and injures them, we might say it was unfortunate, but we do not say it was a sin. The act was unintentional. It was, in moral terms, an accident and no moral guilt is attached.
This distinction between intentional and unintentional harm is not just intuitive, it is also biblical. Under the Mosaic Law, God made a clear distinction between murder and manslaughter. In Deuteronomy 19:4–6, provision is made for a man who kills another without intent. For example, if two men go into the forest to cut wood, and one swings an axe and the head flies off and kills his companion, the killer is not put to death. He may flee to a city of refuge and live, because the act was unintentional. It was an accident, and therefore not treated as a sin or a crime.
Now, let's apply this principle of intent to Calvinism.
If God decrees all things and man has no ability to choose otherwise, then every action performed by man is the inevitable result of God’s will. In such a system, man does not truly choose anything. He only does what was eternally decreed. Therefore, none of his actions are morally intentional in the way that guilt requires. They are, from the human perspective, accidents.
This presents a fatal problem for the Calvinist. If moral guilt requires intent, and if nothing is done on purpose by anyone except God and everything man does is predetermined by a will not his own, then moral guilt is impossible. A system that makes all human behavior the outworking of God's eternal decree cannot then turn and blame man for what he could not help doing. To do so is to blame a man for what amounts to an accident.
Calvinists want to hold on to both ends of the rope. They want to say that God ordains everything, and that man is still guilty. They claim that man acts willingly, but they deny that man’s will is free in any meaningful sense. The result is a contradiction. They assert responsibility where no moral intent is possible. They affirm guilt where no genuine choice exists. And then they call this “mystery.”
It is not mystery! It is incoherence.
The Open Theist offers a better answer. We affirm that God is sovereign, but not at the expense of moral agency. God created human beings with the ability to choose, to love, to obey, and to sin. He did not script every action, but endowed His creatures with genuine freedom. The future is not fixed in every detail because it includes the unfolding of those real decisions. God knows the future as it truly is (i.e. partly settled and partly open) and He interacts with us accordingly. In such a framework, guilt makes sense because choice exists. Accidents are not sinful. Intentional evil is.
Only a theology that preserves true freedom can preserve true guilt. And only one that preserves true guilt can speak of real justice and offer true grace. The cross does not cover accidents, it atones for sin. A world without real choice is a world without sin, and a world without sin is one in which the gospel is meaningless.
Calvinism, by collapsing all human choice into divine decree, unintentionally removes the very thing that makes moral responsibility, repentance, and redemption intelligible.
Calvinism teaches that God, from eternity past, unchangeably decreed everything that ever happens. Every thought, action, and event in human history was planned by God and must occur exactly as He intended. Nothing can happen apart from this decree. At the same time, Calvinists maintain that human beings are morally responsible for their actions, even though those actions were foreordained. Man’s choices are said to be the means by which God’s plan unfolds. God ordains the ends, and also the means. This includes even sin, though they insist God is not the author of sin.
"God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established." - The Westminster Confession of Faith
Now if we grant those claims for the sake of argument, we arrive at a troubling conclusion.
Ask any Calvinist, “Is a person guilty for an accident?” They will answer no. Jim told me to stop being silly when I asked him that question. And that is the correct answer. Guilt requires intent. If a man slips and falls onto another person and injures them, we might say it was unfortunate, but we do not say it was a sin. The act was unintentional. It was, in moral terms, an accident and no moral guilt is attached.
This distinction between intentional and unintentional harm is not just intuitive, it is also biblical. Under the Mosaic Law, God made a clear distinction between murder and manslaughter. In Deuteronomy 19:4–6, provision is made for a man who kills another without intent. For example, if two men go into the forest to cut wood, and one swings an axe and the head flies off and kills his companion, the killer is not put to death. He may flee to a city of refuge and live, because the act was unintentional. It was an accident, and therefore not treated as a sin or a crime.
Now, let's apply this principle of intent to Calvinism.
If God decrees all things and man has no ability to choose otherwise, then every action performed by man is the inevitable result of God’s will. In such a system, man does not truly choose anything. He only does what was eternally decreed. Therefore, none of his actions are morally intentional in the way that guilt requires. They are, from the human perspective, accidents.
This presents a fatal problem for the Calvinist. If moral guilt requires intent, and if nothing is done on purpose by anyone except God and everything man does is predetermined by a will not his own, then moral guilt is impossible. A system that makes all human behavior the outworking of God's eternal decree cannot then turn and blame man for what he could not help doing. To do so is to blame a man for what amounts to an accident.
Calvinists want to hold on to both ends of the rope. They want to say that God ordains everything, and that man is still guilty. They claim that man acts willingly, but they deny that man’s will is free in any meaningful sense. The result is a contradiction. They assert responsibility where no moral intent is possible. They affirm guilt where no genuine choice exists. And then they call this “mystery.”
It is not mystery! It is incoherence.
The Open Theist offers a better answer. We affirm that God is sovereign, but not at the expense of moral agency. God created human beings with the ability to choose, to love, to obey, and to sin. He did not script every action, but endowed His creatures with genuine freedom. The future is not fixed in every detail because it includes the unfolding of those real decisions. God knows the future as it truly is (i.e. partly settled and partly open) and He interacts with us accordingly. In such a framework, guilt makes sense because choice exists. Accidents are not sinful. Intentional evil is.
Only a theology that preserves true freedom can preserve true guilt. And only one that preserves true guilt can speak of real justice and offer true grace. The cross does not cover accidents, it atones for sin. A world without real choice is a world without sin, and a world without sin is one in which the gospel is meaningless.
Calvinism, by collapsing all human choice into divine decree, unintentionally removes the very thing that makes moral responsibility, repentance, and redemption intelligible.