I, Robot?

Soon after shifting into the Calvinist camp, one of the first arguments I encountered against my theology was "Calvinism makes man into a robot."

At first glance, this argument sounds logical; for if God has predestined every single detail of everything that happens in Creation (up to and including who is saved), how then can humanity be anything but bunch of robots?

By our very experience in life, we can see that we do make choices. That is, we make real choices that result in real consequences. Yet, somehow in a way that I do not understand, all of our choices are made freely, and yet, preordained by God before the foundation of the world.

To demonstrate this how God's decree and men's choice work together, I ask you to consider the following example from Acts 27:

During Paul's voyage to Rome by Sea, the ship encountered a terrible storm. During the storm Paul tells the sailors that an angel visited him by night and told him that no one would perish, yet the ship would be lost. Later on, some of the sailors decide to escape on a small boat, but Paul tells the Centurion and the soldiers "unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved." The soldiers decide to heed Paul's warning and cut the ropes to the small boat and abandon their escape plan. Later the ship wrecks and all 276 souls survive just as the angel foretold.

In this narrative we can get a glimpse of how the choices of men and God's sovereign decree work hand in hand. Paul knows that no lives will be lost because the angel of the Lord told him so, yet, Paul takes action when he sees the men act in a way that will lead to disaster.

Every person on the ship was making choices -of their own volition- concerning everything they were doing. Every choice they made had a potential outcome; yet out of all the possible outcomes, of all the choices that were being made by every person, the final outcome was, in fact, that which God revealed to Paul.

Concerning this passage, the great Baptist theologian John Gill has written:

"[T]his teaches us that the end and means, in the decrees of God, are not to be separated; nor is any end to be expected without the use of means; and means are as peremptorily fixed, and are as absolutely necessary, and must as certainly be accomplished, as the end."

As Gill has stated, God decrees the end and the means to bring about the appointed end. There's not one choice we will ever make, nor action that we will ever undertake that will fall outside of God's providential control. God's control includes actions good and evil alike.

As a matter of fact, the most heinous act in history -the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ- was the totally the fault of wicked men, and yet, predestined by God to take place! (see Acts 2: 22-23) Though men intended to murder Jesus out of the evil in their hearts, God planned Christ's death to redeem His people from their sin.

Even in spite of the example I have given from Acts 27, some will protest that God simply foresaw the outcome of Paul's situation. Likewise, they will also say that God simply foresees who will choose to be saved and who will not -and that He predestines everything accordingly. Many will do this with the intention of "getting God off the hook" for not choosing to save every human being.

Dr. Wayne Grudem explains why the idea of the predestination based on foreknowledge is incorrect:

"The idea that God's predestination of some to believe is based on foreknowledge of their faith encounters still another problem: upon reflection, this system turns out to give no real freedom to man either. For if God can look into the future and see that person A will come to faith in Christ, and that person B will not come to faith in Christ, then those facts are already fixed, they are already determined.

If we assume that God's knowledge of the future is true (which it must be), then it is absolutely certain that person A will believe and person B will not. There is no way that their lives could turn out any differently than this. Therefore it is fair to say that their destinies are still determined, for they could not be otherwise. But by what are these destinies determined? If they are determined by God himself, then we no longer have election based ultimately on foreknowledge of faith, but rather on God's sovereign will. But if these destinies are not determined by God, then who or what determines them?

Certainly no Christian would say that there is some powerful being other than God controlling people's destinies. Therefore it seems that the only other possible solution is to say they are determined by some impersonal force, some kind of fate, operative in the universe, making things turn out as they do. But what kind of benefit is this? We have then sacrificed election in love by a personal God for a kind of determinism by an impersonal force and God is no longer to be given the ultimate credit for our salvation." (From Grudem's Systematic Theology Ch. 32)


Are we really robots? No... The Apostle Paul said we are clay -and the Potter has the right to do with the clay as He sees fit!

You will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?" But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? (Romans 9:19-21 ESV)

Soli Deo Gloria!

Photo from Wikipedia.