Hey, I'm a pompous armchair theologian who is always down to insult some Calvinists! (Sorry. I know a few who are genuinely lovely people, but hard agree with your take on their theology.)
I actually love the main point of this piece, and totally agree that most people expect pillars of fire when God already speaks to us. "all that looking for God in fire and wind and earth is just a way to ignore it." – couldn't agree more!
However, I just want to give a few counterpoints to your statements about being created for God's glory. You expressed this in very human terms, and I fully understand that's partly an editorial choice. But worshipping God doesn't mean flattery and adulation and ego inflation. It is the nature of God to deserve (not need) worship because He is the ultimate good.
As you said, God doesn't need our worship – as the ultimate good, God's glory is already perfect and infinite. We can't materially add to something which is already complete. In that sense, that pastor was absolutely wrong due to his oversimplified language. But that's why there's the theological distinction of 'accidental glory' – deriving from the meaning of 'circumstantial', and not 'by chance', the usual meaning today.
In Catholic theology, all of creation adds to God's accidental glory. Every animal, tree, mountain and river is inherently praising God by acting in accordance with its nature as part of creation. Its participation in this act is worship. The difference is that, as creatures with free will (sorry Calvinists), when we praise God it carries the additional merit of our free choice to do so.
The annihilation of this individuality – which seems to be what you're describing later in the piece, forgive me if I've misunderstood – would mean complete dissolution to some kind of nirvana state.
Perfect unity with God by no means necessitates literally becoming God. As intelligent beings with free will, our individuality is pretty 'baked in' as part of our nature. Our eschatological telos is indeed perfect unity with the divine, which is why we can't achieve that until we're perfect ourselves, and in turn why Purgatory is a thing. Nothing imperfect can survive seeing God face-to-face, which implies that our survival as individuals is intended.
But crucially, your view on divinisation would mean that our divinely created nature is inherently imperfect and must be changed in order for us to reach our perfect end. Ironically, in defending the ordinary frumpy people in the pews as not-yet divinised, you denigrate their perfectly created nature that is simply obscured by sin. "For what is sinless and eternal except for God[...]?" Well, the angels, for one thing. Everyone else in heaven, for another. The difference is that we depend on God's will for our existence.
Worshipping God, on earth or in heaven, doesn't necessarily mean saying specific words, reciting lengthy prayers, or doing other things which you seem to find silly or cringe. We are part of God's creation, and our struggle on earth is to overcome the obstacles to the purpose for which we were created – which is to 'know Him and love Him in this life, and to be happy with Him forever in the next' (Baltimore Catechism). Our existence gives glory to God because He made us perfect, and it is in this way that we are made in His image. We just have to stop covering it up.
The Orthodox Church (The ones with all the incense and bells and such) never lost the teaching of theosis. Indeed, that is their definition of salvation.
Ah, I was laughing out loud over this one. Possibly the only notion more demented than eternal Hell is: the notion of a deity who would send you there out of pure arbitrariness and caprice, through no fault of your own, merely to prove that he can. Calvinism is quite obviously an evil blasphemy, a total slander against the living God.
And brilliant reflections across the rest of the post, as well—I think this is one my favorites of yours that I've seen thus far.
This resonates for someone who has spent time meditating and couldn't explain where the voice/thoughts were coming from (who is watching the watcher). I think I'll pray and then listen in a similar manner. Maybe God has been there all along.
I agree that a good deal of what we are taught to identify as our "selves" will not make it into the age to come, but we are going to have individual bodies forever. The resurrection of our bodies is the Christian hope. Yes, our spirit (which is not a floaty, mystical, abstract thing, but a concrete, practical, essential part of what makes us human) will have perfect connection with God, and I'm comfortable with describing what we will be as "gods", but we will still be ourselves.
In fact, we'll truly be ourselves for the first time. All the corrosion of spirit, soul, and body will finally be stripped away, and I will be free in love and power and capability for the first time in my life. You see this already in the saints in this age: as someone draws closer to the heart of God, they become more sharply and uniquely themselves, freed from the deadness of passion (old sense) and sin.
The story doesn't end with only God existing. It doesn't end at all. It blazes on, filled with fascinating, powerful, eternal beings, each one a world of potency and memory and uniquely expressed love to each other and all of creation.
As a Calvinist, I’m disappointed by this narrow caricature you’ve chosen to present. Choose to disagree, fine, but at least represent the other side in good faith. Furthermore, I fail to find the humor about killing brothers in Christ over a doctrinal disagreement. No wonder Christianity is often viewed as unappealing to those watching us. I’d be happy to discuss the fleshed-out Calvinist viewpoint if you’re truly interested in a dialogue.
Not sure how Yoshi would respond, but here's something to think about:
Imagine you have a loving father (I hope you don't have to imagine too hard). You meet someone who claims to be your father's friend, but who also insists that your father is petty, vain, and psychopathically vindictive. You might feel a little confused and irritated. Then imagine that you discover there is a whole group of people committed to telling everyone that your father is this wretched, pitiful, narcissistic, bombastic, abusive, arbitrary, cruel shadow of the man you know him to be... while still insisting that they are his friends and he is really a good guy. Your response might be less than charitable.
That is the feeling I have every time I hear a Calvinist talk or write about God. I've read Calvinist works, both popular and academic, and a fair amount of Calvin's Institutes, so I'm not just reacting against some caricature of the doctrine. I've followed Christ my entire life, I love Scripture, and I consider myself fiercely orthodox.
I hate the portrait of God's character painted by Calvinist theology.
I do not think it bears any resemblance to the God revealed in the person of Jesus Christ in the gospels. I think the Calvinist or Reformed (yes, they are different, but my critique is similar for each) reading of the New Testament - especially Paul's letters, and especially especially Romans - is deeply and utterly flawed. Flawed not for the misinterpretation of a verse, but flawed in character: flawed for thinking that the text could possibly be saying that, flawed for not hating the very idea that the Scriptures could be saying that about our Father.
I have intellectual and biblical and historical arguments, but the substance of my hatred for Calvinism is a spontaneous, angry roar from the depths of my soul, "do not speak those damned lies about the God I love."
So I think I understand Yoshi's point, even if it is not nice.
By the way, someone further down the comments is looking for a defense of Calvinism. I responded, but you are probably better qualified than I am to make that defense, and you are welcome to critique or amplify the defense I made.
What if worship isn’t primarily an act of sending feeble words of praise to an impossibly glorious God, but a act of remembering that our union with God is our ultimate purpose and the true answer to our spiritual hunger both now and eternity.
What if worship is the very experience of having those hungers satisfied by God himself? What if worship is having God satisfy our need for him and being glorified in that fact? What if God is most glorified in his creatures when his creatures are most satisfied in him?
Also the cartoon implies that the form of execution of hanging the victim, disemboweling and the cutting the body in quarters was used by Calvinists. It was not. It was used in England not for heresy but for ‘high treason’ and reserved for those not of high birth (who had the heads chopped off) - so, after the restoration, the nobels convicted of Charles regicide were hanged 9 (including Cook the chief prosecutor) were h,d & qeed. In our day a certain King claims he is above the law (the last one lost his head) but if he gets back in power - look out Jack Smith! “Three of the regicides, John Dixwell, Edward Whalley and William Goffe, fled to New England, where they avoided capture, despite a search” (Wickipedia) - I wonder whether their descendants are Blue or Red?
Footnote: it is absolutely inconceivable that the Puritans who executed King Charles and settled America, led the revolution against England and formulated the American Constitution could even conceive that any head of state could be above the law in any way. The case presented by Cooke at the trial of King Charles did not mention the Bible or God’s law, but was based upon the fact that the people themselves were the source of the law and as a commoner prosecutor is the origin of the American dream of equality and dignity for all (see Geoffrey Robinson https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/apr/23/john-cooke-my-hero-geoffrey-robertson?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other) and his book “The Tyrannicide Brief”)
You would do well to read Marilynne Robinson on Calvin in her non fiction books to provide a sympathetic Christian perspective on Calvin. My experience you prayer is as you say. Calvin’s followers (John Piper etc) have grown rigid and forgotten that “If you are a theologian, you will pray truly. And if you pray truly, you are a theologian.” (Evagrios the solitary) and the praying referred to is the ascent without distraction of the intellect (mind noos) to God.
A deeper dive into Calvinism was the catalyst to the suspicion that we might not, after all, be worshiping the same God. It was the beginning of a journey back through Church history to see the deal really was, and that ultimately lead me to the Orthodox Church.
Your last sentence is the most important. That's how I KNOW Jesus never existed and all the BS related to him are the concoctions of some crafty jews wanting to brainwash and control the masses.
Half of the sentence is TRUE, God is indeed in you. But as you put it in another article, you don't realize your little pinky or your nail growing or your cell diving. Same, you don't feel the DNA , the God's signature inside every cell of your body, you only feel it when you're ill and pain is present. So, in the same way, ONE doesn't really realizes when he's happy, when he is in communion with god, BUT realizes when he's suffering, when he's departing from god and thus more or less discomfort get felt.
The easiest way to LISTEN to god, and realize his existence, is, contrary to that jew-on-a-stick saying, TO OBSERVE. To observe nature, the outdoors, the great Creation. Just sitting on a mound, or hill, or even better, on a mountain, listening to everything that surrounds you, taking everything in, I guarantee you will feel happiness, you will feel that you belong, that you are a part of that Creation, and sooner rather than later you'll feel the comfort inside you, that comfort that realizing GOD IS IN EVERYTHING AROUND: in the mountains, in the seas, in the winds, in the flowers and the bees, in the birdsongs, in the flapping of a butterfly, in the falling of a leave... that everything lives and dies according to a "mathematical" pattern, the intelligent design behind it all, THEN you'll feel that you belong, and that's the way God speak to you: through that feeling of beatitude and utmost comfort you gain when you're connected with the (as you put it yet in another article) music of the stars.
I myself I never pray, I never ask.. what I do is find it in me the drive to complete a task, to fulfil a project, to take care of myself like I would take care of another..and then I'm just thankful. Thankful for the inner will, force, and wisdom bestowed upon me by my Creator that make me live my life avoiding (most) pain, sorrow and despair.
PS the holy trinity is said to be The Father , the Son and the Holy Ghost. These are, God, Man and DNA. The Son is not some failed-and-lazy-bastard-carpenter-but-primordial-hippie-socialist-jew, IS YOU. YOU were created by your father, GOD, and insufflated with the divine DNA. There's where the soul IS. And the best proof is the bright explosion of light at the moment of creation, the meeting of a spermatozoid with an ovum (each having JUST HALF of the total chromosomes a human has), when the two halves of distinct DNA unite and forge another complete one, attracting and binding a soul into the newly created living being.
Wow, that was an eyeful of intellectual and theological gymnastics! Good job, Yoshi: very thought provoking.
Of course, when we are dealing with our ultimate union with God and the truth of the Incarnation, we are running smack into mystery, in its most profound sense. These cannot ever be fully understood , though, like Aquinas and Augustine, we should nevertheless also strive to do so. Your article is a noble attempt. Perhaps Augustine said it the best: “Tu autem eras interior intimo meo et superior summo meo!” (Confessions III, 6:II).
You know, I'm never quite sure about what you say but I'm grateful that you said it. I'd love to explore the topic of theosis more; theosis, kenosis, and plerosis seem like incredibly valuable (and biblical) ideas that will inform our lives if we let them.
I have known some great people who were Calvinists in my life. My confidence in their error only reminds me of the many ways in which I myself may be equally wrong.
Hey, I'm a pompous armchair theologian who is always down to insult some Calvinists! (Sorry. I know a few who are genuinely lovely people, but hard agree with your take on their theology.)
I actually love the main point of this piece, and totally agree that most people expect pillars of fire when God already speaks to us. "all that looking for God in fire and wind and earth is just a way to ignore it." – couldn't agree more!
However, I just want to give a few counterpoints to your statements about being created for God's glory. You expressed this in very human terms, and I fully understand that's partly an editorial choice. But worshipping God doesn't mean flattery and adulation and ego inflation. It is the nature of God to deserve (not need) worship because He is the ultimate good.
As you said, God doesn't need our worship – as the ultimate good, God's glory is already perfect and infinite. We can't materially add to something which is already complete. In that sense, that pastor was absolutely wrong due to his oversimplified language. But that's why there's the theological distinction of 'accidental glory' – deriving from the meaning of 'circumstantial', and not 'by chance', the usual meaning today.
In Catholic theology, all of creation adds to God's accidental glory. Every animal, tree, mountain and river is inherently praising God by acting in accordance with its nature as part of creation. Its participation in this act is worship. The difference is that, as creatures with free will (sorry Calvinists), when we praise God it carries the additional merit of our free choice to do so.
The annihilation of this individuality – which seems to be what you're describing later in the piece, forgive me if I've misunderstood – would mean complete dissolution to some kind of nirvana state.
Perfect unity with God by no means necessitates literally becoming God. As intelligent beings with free will, our individuality is pretty 'baked in' as part of our nature. Our eschatological telos is indeed perfect unity with the divine, which is why we can't achieve that until we're perfect ourselves, and in turn why Purgatory is a thing. Nothing imperfect can survive seeing God face-to-face, which implies that our survival as individuals is intended.
But crucially, your view on divinisation would mean that our divinely created nature is inherently imperfect and must be changed in order for us to reach our perfect end. Ironically, in defending the ordinary frumpy people in the pews as not-yet divinised, you denigrate their perfectly created nature that is simply obscured by sin. "For what is sinless and eternal except for God[...]?" Well, the angels, for one thing. Everyone else in heaven, for another. The difference is that we depend on God's will for our existence.
Worshipping God, on earth or in heaven, doesn't necessarily mean saying specific words, reciting lengthy prayers, or doing other things which you seem to find silly or cringe. We are part of God's creation, and our struggle on earth is to overcome the obstacles to the purpose for which we were created – which is to 'know Him and love Him in this life, and to be happy with Him forever in the next' (Baltimore Catechism). Our existence gives glory to God because He made us perfect, and it is in this way that we are made in His image. We just have to stop covering it up.
Woohoo! That was some beautiful logic! God approves mightily! 👏🙌👏🙌🙏
The Orthodox Church (The ones with all the incense and bells and such) never lost the teaching of theosis. Indeed, that is their definition of salvation.
Ah, I was laughing out loud over this one. Possibly the only notion more demented than eternal Hell is: the notion of a deity who would send you there out of pure arbitrariness and caprice, through no fault of your own, merely to prove that he can. Calvinism is quite obviously an evil blasphemy, a total slander against the living God.
And brilliant reflections across the rest of the post, as well—I think this is one my favorites of yours that I've seen thus far.
Thank you!
This resonates for someone who has spent time meditating and couldn't explain where the voice/thoughts were coming from (who is watching the watcher). I think I'll pray and then listen in a similar manner. Maybe God has been there all along.
I agree that a good deal of what we are taught to identify as our "selves" will not make it into the age to come, but we are going to have individual bodies forever. The resurrection of our bodies is the Christian hope. Yes, our spirit (which is not a floaty, mystical, abstract thing, but a concrete, practical, essential part of what makes us human) will have perfect connection with God, and I'm comfortable with describing what we will be as "gods", but we will still be ourselves.
In fact, we'll truly be ourselves for the first time. All the corrosion of spirit, soul, and body will finally be stripped away, and I will be free in love and power and capability for the first time in my life. You see this already in the saints in this age: as someone draws closer to the heart of God, they become more sharply and uniquely themselves, freed from the deadness of passion (old sense) and sin.
The story doesn't end with only God existing. It doesn't end at all. It blazes on, filled with fascinating, powerful, eternal beings, each one a world of potency and memory and uniquely expressed love to each other and all of creation.
As a Calvinist, I’m disappointed by this narrow caricature you’ve chosen to present. Choose to disagree, fine, but at least represent the other side in good faith. Furthermore, I fail to find the humor about killing brothers in Christ over a doctrinal disagreement. No wonder Christianity is often viewed as unappealing to those watching us. I’d be happy to discuss the fleshed-out Calvinist viewpoint if you’re truly interested in a dialogue.
Not sure how Yoshi would respond, but here's something to think about:
Imagine you have a loving father (I hope you don't have to imagine too hard). You meet someone who claims to be your father's friend, but who also insists that your father is petty, vain, and psychopathically vindictive. You might feel a little confused and irritated. Then imagine that you discover there is a whole group of people committed to telling everyone that your father is this wretched, pitiful, narcissistic, bombastic, abusive, arbitrary, cruel shadow of the man you know him to be... while still insisting that they are his friends and he is really a good guy. Your response might be less than charitable.
That is the feeling I have every time I hear a Calvinist talk or write about God. I've read Calvinist works, both popular and academic, and a fair amount of Calvin's Institutes, so I'm not just reacting against some caricature of the doctrine. I've followed Christ my entire life, I love Scripture, and I consider myself fiercely orthodox.
I hate the portrait of God's character painted by Calvinist theology.
I do not think it bears any resemblance to the God revealed in the person of Jesus Christ in the gospels. I think the Calvinist or Reformed (yes, they are different, but my critique is similar for each) reading of the New Testament - especially Paul's letters, and especially especially Romans - is deeply and utterly flawed. Flawed not for the misinterpretation of a verse, but flawed in character: flawed for thinking that the text could possibly be saying that, flawed for not hating the very idea that the Scriptures could be saying that about our Father.
I have intellectual and biblical and historical arguments, but the substance of my hatred for Calvinism is a spontaneous, angry roar from the depths of my soul, "do not speak those damned lies about the God I love."
So I think I understand Yoshi's point, even if it is not nice.
By the way, someone further down the comments is looking for a defense of Calvinism. I responded, but you are probably better qualified than I am to make that defense, and you are welcome to critique or amplify the defense I made.
What if worship isn’t primarily an act of sending feeble words of praise to an impossibly glorious God, but a act of remembering that our union with God is our ultimate purpose and the true answer to our spiritual hunger both now and eternity.
What if worship is the very experience of having those hungers satisfied by God himself? What if worship is having God satisfy our need for him and being glorified in that fact? What if God is most glorified in his creatures when his creatures are most satisfied in him?
Also the cartoon implies that the form of execution of hanging the victim, disemboweling and the cutting the body in quarters was used by Calvinists. It was not. It was used in England not for heresy but for ‘high treason’ and reserved for those not of high birth (who had the heads chopped off) - so, after the restoration, the nobels convicted of Charles regicide were hanged 9 (including Cook the chief prosecutor) were h,d & qeed. In our day a certain King claims he is above the law (the last one lost his head) but if he gets back in power - look out Jack Smith! “Three of the regicides, John Dixwell, Edward Whalley and William Goffe, fled to New England, where they avoided capture, despite a search” (Wickipedia) - I wonder whether their descendants are Blue or Red?
Footnote: it is absolutely inconceivable that the Puritans who executed King Charles and settled America, led the revolution against England and formulated the American Constitution could even conceive that any head of state could be above the law in any way. The case presented by Cooke at the trial of King Charles did not mention the Bible or God’s law, but was based upon the fact that the people themselves were the source of the law and as a commoner prosecutor is the origin of the American dream of equality and dignity for all (see Geoffrey Robinson https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/apr/23/john-cooke-my-hero-geoffrey-robertson?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other) and his book “The Tyrannicide Brief”)
You would do well to read Marilynne Robinson on Calvin in her non fiction books to provide a sympathetic Christian perspective on Calvin. My experience you prayer is as you say. Calvin’s followers (John Piper etc) have grown rigid and forgotten that “If you are a theologian, you will pray truly. And if you pray truly, you are a theologian.” (Evagrios the solitary) and the praying referred to is the ascent without distraction of the intellect (mind noos) to God.
A deeper dive into Calvinism was the catalyst to the suspicion that we might not, after all, be worshiping the same God. It was the beginning of a journey back through Church history to see the deal really was, and that ultimately lead me to the Orthodox Church.
Your last sentence is the most important. That's how I KNOW Jesus never existed and all the BS related to him are the concoctions of some crafty jews wanting to brainwash and control the masses.
Half of the sentence is TRUE, God is indeed in you. But as you put it in another article, you don't realize your little pinky or your nail growing or your cell diving. Same, you don't feel the DNA , the God's signature inside every cell of your body, you only feel it when you're ill and pain is present. So, in the same way, ONE doesn't really realizes when he's happy, when he is in communion with god, BUT realizes when he's suffering, when he's departing from god and thus more or less discomfort get felt.
The easiest way to LISTEN to god, and realize his existence, is, contrary to that jew-on-a-stick saying, TO OBSERVE. To observe nature, the outdoors, the great Creation. Just sitting on a mound, or hill, or even better, on a mountain, listening to everything that surrounds you, taking everything in, I guarantee you will feel happiness, you will feel that you belong, that you are a part of that Creation, and sooner rather than later you'll feel the comfort inside you, that comfort that realizing GOD IS IN EVERYTHING AROUND: in the mountains, in the seas, in the winds, in the flowers and the bees, in the birdsongs, in the flapping of a butterfly, in the falling of a leave... that everything lives and dies according to a "mathematical" pattern, the intelligent design behind it all, THEN you'll feel that you belong, and that's the way God speak to you: through that feeling of beatitude and utmost comfort you gain when you're connected with the (as you put it yet in another article) music of the stars.
I myself I never pray, I never ask.. what I do is find it in me the drive to complete a task, to fulfil a project, to take care of myself like I would take care of another..and then I'm just thankful. Thankful for the inner will, force, and wisdom bestowed upon me by my Creator that make me live my life avoiding (most) pain, sorrow and despair.
PS the holy trinity is said to be The Father , the Son and the Holy Ghost. These are, God, Man and DNA. The Son is not some failed-and-lazy-bastard-carpenter-but-primordial-hippie-socialist-jew, IS YOU. YOU were created by your father, GOD, and insufflated with the divine DNA. There's where the soul IS. And the best proof is the bright explosion of light at the moment of creation, the meeting of a spermatozoid with an ovum (each having JUST HALF of the total chromosomes a human has), when the two halves of distinct DNA unite and forge another complete one, attracting and binding a soul into the newly created living being.
"if you talk to god you're religious, if god talks to you you're psychotic." -Dr.House
Wow, that was an eyeful of intellectual and theological gymnastics! Good job, Yoshi: very thought provoking.
Of course, when we are dealing with our ultimate union with God and the truth of the Incarnation, we are running smack into mystery, in its most profound sense. These cannot ever be fully understood , though, like Aquinas and Augustine, we should nevertheless also strive to do so. Your article is a noble attempt. Perhaps Augustine said it the best: “Tu autem eras interior intimo meo et superior summo meo!” (Confessions III, 6:II).
Paraphrasing the Sufi poet Hafiz:
...then God says,
“What the hell, Yoshi,
Why not give the whole world
My
Address”
Brilliant post. St Athanasius on the Incarnation should be required reading for every Christian.
You know, I'm never quite sure about what you say but I'm grateful that you said it. I'd love to explore the topic of theosis more; theosis, kenosis, and plerosis seem like incredibly valuable (and biblical) ideas that will inform our lives if we let them.
I have known some great people who were Calvinists in my life. My confidence in their error only reminds me of the many ways in which I myself may be equally wrong.