Giving God a Pass<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
By Paul Shelby Lewis
 
Trendy doctrine runs through the church just like trendy fashions run through our culture.  The two that seem to have come full swing are the soft-soap, "do-it-yourself" salvation of the emergent church, and the polar opposite position of Calvinism.  This article is concerned with the latter.  Now, there are many verses that both Calvinists and non-Calvinists throw back and forth at each other, but I'd like to examine a small part of Christ's Sermon on the Mount, and its implications for Calvinists.
            Consider the words of our Lord in Matthew five: 
      You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'  But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.  For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?  Do not even the tax collectors do the same?  If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others?  Do not even the Gentiles do the same?  Therefore you are to be perfect, as your Father is perfect (Matt. <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />5:43-8).
There are several points in this passage that need to be emphasized.  First, Jesus laid forth a paradigm foreign to the Jewish mind when He told them that they were to love their enemies.  Second, He illustrated that there is no difference between the love of the righteous and the love of the unrighteous if the righteous man loves only those who love him.  Third, He ties this type of love-that which loves its enemies as well as its brother-to the perfection of the Father. 
These words have a crippling impact upon Calvinism for several reasons.  First, one might ask what sort of love Jesus is speaking of when He tells us to love our enemies.  Is this a general benevolence for our enemy (as Calvinists say God shows for the non-elect), or is it the type of sacrificial love that Christ showed for the church?  If we reference this verse to its origin in Leviticus 19:18 (which reads, you shall love your neighbor as yourself), one  discovers that it can't be a general benevolence; since no one has only a general benevolence for himself.  Strike one.
            Second, if a righteous man is exhibiting nothing more than the unrighteous man in his discriminating love, what then are we to say of Almighty God?  How can Jesus Christ, our moral example, stand before men and make such an earth-shattering statement about love when He does not exhibit such love?  If these were the actions of a pastor, we would be right in holding him accountable for such hypocrisy and in demanding that he either change his actions or change his vocation.  But for the sake of "Sovereignty," Calvinists insist that God is free to love whom He chooses.  So not only are we told to "let God off the hook" in this particular circumstance, but we are forced to suppose that we should hold Him to a lower standard than the one to which He holds us.  If any society founded upon moral principles whose leaders operate in such a way is doomed to fall apart, with what greater speed would the moral fabric of the universe self-destruct if its Governor operated on such principles?  As Edward Griffin states, "[The statement] It is so .  .  . is no adequate basis to support any of the measures of a moral government."  No subject in any system of morality can be held to a higher standard than the standard itself.  Thus, if we are called to love even our enemies, then God must set the standard for us by loving his enemies. 
God is not free to love some and not others; He was free to Create.  But, in choosing to create, and in choosing to giving to all things that which He is (namely, existence), there is something in every creature that demands God's love.  God cannot but love anything that flows from Him, and as existence flows from His very nature, He must love all things insofar as they exist, since in this way all things share in that nature.  Strike Two.
            This leads to the third point; Christ ties our perfection to the love for our enemies.  Now, there is no indication in this passage that one ought to take enemies in any other manner than its normal usage ("one who is opposed to another").  Thus, if our perfection follows such love, how much more should God's?  Strike three.
            So, why is it that Calvinists insist on "letting God off the hook?"  The shortened answer is that their theology which teaches limited atonement (that is, Christ did not die for all people, only for the elect) forces them into such a position.  For a Calvinist, it is prima facie clear that God does not love all people, since Christ only died for the elect, and perfect love is exhibited by dying for another.  But God is also perfect.  So, it follows that the perfection of God does not require that he love all people, specifically, his enemies.  This of course begs the question of this article; Why does God hold us to a higher standard than that to which He holds Himself?  I've yet to hear any satisfactory answer from Calvinists that is not a red herring or a rigid voluntarism (that is, God can do what he wants, when he wants, however he wants, without any regard for a moral standard; cf. Euthyphro's dilemma).  Perhaps there is one out there; I leave it to the reader to make such an investigation for himself/herself.