Robert Shank on Election according to Grace

        Certainly all agree that Romans 11:5f. posits that the election is not of works, but of grace. But this does not establish that election is unconditional. Rather, it only establishes that election is not conditioned on works. That election is conditioned on faith is clearly affirmed in the Scriptures. Consider the following propositions:

Romans 11:6 says in effect, Not of works, but of grace.
Romans 4:1-5 says, Not of works, but of faith.
The Bible nowhere says, Not of faith, but of grace.
Romans 4:16 says, By faith, so that by grace.
Ephesians 2:8 says, By grace, through faith.

Consider Romans 4:16: “Therefore [justification] is of faith, that it might be by grace.” So decisive is this verse that we may well observe it in another translation: “[That is why it] depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace” (RSV). The contention that faith as a condition nullifies grace, often urged by Calvinists, collapses at this point. Paul affirms precisely the opposite: faith, as a condition, establishes grace and its sine qua non[1] as a modus operandi.[2] “By grace … through faith.”
        It may be argued that God, acting in grace, need not have posited any condition whatever for election. At least this may be argued dialectically (though not ethically, in view of (1) the witness of the Scriptures to the moral nature of God, His economy, and His kingdom[,] and (2) the fact that faith has been posited as a condition). But the issue is not what God could do, but rather what God has done and does do, as disclosed in the Scriptures. We have earlier observed that the Bible contains many categorical affirmations positing faith as a positive factor in man of which God takes account in salvation. The many emphatic affirmations are confirmed by Romans 4:16 and also by Romans 11:7,14,17-24, which passage establishes that the election of individual men is not unconditional and is predicated on faith, as we have observed.

Robert Shank, Elect in the Son: A Study of the Doctrine of Election (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 1970), pp. 125–6, emphases and square brackets in original

Copyright © Robert Lee Shank, 1970, 1989. All rights reserved.

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Notes

        1. A sine qua non (Latin) is an essential condition or requirement.

        2. A modus operandi (Latin) is a particular way or method of doing something.  —J. D. Gallé

Addendum.  Robert Lee Shank (1918–2006)  died on Monday, 16 October 2006, aged eighty-eight.

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William G. MacDonald on Calvinism’s Obfuscation of the Gospel

        Attempts to make individualistic election the absolute of a theological system finally succeed in doing so by backing away from the contingencies of grace for the certainties of decrees that people are helpless against. God’s love for the whole world is then called into question, and it becomes easy to conceive of him as a potentate like the Muslim God, who loves most to impose his will, and whose identity and image are conceptualized totally apart from Christ.
        Moreover, it is a distortion of the doctrine of election to claim that God's will pertaining to salvation still remains a mystery after he has “made known to us the mystery of his will” (Eph. 1:9), and after “God has revealed it [his secret wisdom, hidden since time began][1] to us by his Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:7–10). It is theological tyranny of the worst kind (because it distorts God’s image and Word) to assert that lying behind the open gospel of the grace of God there exists more important but inaccessible, supersecret [sic] knowledge never revealed to anyone during this age. This “mystery” is alleged to be the composite of billions of eternal decrees by which God determined exclusively within himself and absolutely what he willed to become of every human being one at a time before he created them, assigning a destiny of damnation to the overwhelming majority, and grace to certain others, all the while keeping two things secret: (1) what is in his nature that kept all his decrees from going in the same direction and (2) who the lucky ones actually are.
        The God revealed in Christ can afford to lavish the riches of his grace on his church “with all wisdom and understanding” (Eph. 1:8). He knows how important it is for us as children to know that the adoption is valid and we are chosen to be holy sons and daughters with the certainty that adheres in Christ’s [sic] being the chosen one. And in response to our faith in Christ we are marked with the seal of his ownership, the Holy Spirit, promised in the Old Testament when the mystery was still on, and given now as the initial confirmation of election. It comes after faith (Eph. 1:11–14).
        A certain man who believed that election remains a mystery today and that God’s will in election is inscrutable, once announced to me strange words, that no one, except a person of his theological background, would ever think of saying: “I will love God always,” he said, “even if it should turn out in the end that his eternal decree was to send me forever to hell.” There was no place for Christ in this statement, and not even Christ’s cross had any bearing on the haunting question of his destiny. Whether out of fear or self-deception, he “loved” one who might be fooling him as to his real intentions for him. It seemed that he considered the quality of the love he professed for God superior to any his kind of God might have for him. Others have not been so charitable toward such an unpredictable will-over-love God as that.
        But our only concern should be this: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” (Rom. 8:35). It is ultimately a faithless question, arising out of false presuppositions about God, to ask, “Am I elect?” Faith focuses on Christ, and asks oneself only if one is trusting Christ fully and is therefore obedient to him (2 Cor. 13:5). Our election, like “every spiritual blessing,” is secure “in Christ.” We should not try to look beyond him.

William G. MacDonald, ‘The Biblical Doctrine of Election’, in Clark H. Pinnock (ed.), The Grace of God and the Will of Man (1989; repr., Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 1995),[2] pp. 224–6, emphases in original

Copyright © Clark H. Pinnock, 1989. All rights reserved.

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Notes

        1. The parenthetical elaboration contained in square brackets is in the original.

        2. Prior to its republication by Bethany House Publishers in 1995, this volume was originally entitled The Grace of God, The Will of Man: A Case for Arminianism (Grand Rapids, MI: Academie Books, 1989).  —J. D. Gallé

Addendum (21 Sept. 2022).  William G. MacDonald (1917–2007) died on Tuesday, 25 December 2007, aged ninety.

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Latest revisions: 19 November 2015 (note revised); 14 April 2016 (minor corrections made to citation); added one note, namely n. 1; converted what was formerly n. 1 to n. 2 (10 May 2022).

Clark H. Pinnock on Perseverance, Conditional Security, and Apostasy

        I cannot pretend that the open view of God is very appealing at this point [namely its doctrine of perseverance]. It may make sense of the biblical exhortations and it may follow from a personal model of salvation[,] but it does not appeal to our self-interest. From a biblical and theological point of view, eternal security is the first petal of Calvinism’s TULIP that should fall; from the point of view of self-interest it is surely the last. Cheap grace has appeal. There is in the flesh a desire for security apart from reciprocity born of a lack of trust in God. On the other hand, our experience of the struggles of the life of faith mesh with the open view of perseverance.[1] It is not the experience of a done deal. We who have the Spirit groan inwardly as we wait for the redemption of God (Rom. 8:23). […] (p. 170)

        For some, it is inconceivable that a believer may fail to be saved in the end. How could God’s purpose for a person be thwarted in this a way? They reason that if the Spirit awakened them to faith, why would they be allowed to perish? The answer is that God respects his covenant partners and does not override their freedom. Believers can be confident about persevering – perseverance in being faithful to the divine Lover who upholds us by his unwavering faithfulness [sic] – but must not ignore obstacles to their persevering. Apostasy is not a hypothetical danger: the risk is a real one, even though God does not want it and works against it. Our desire for security can be a carnal thing, the wanting of an ironclad guarantee apart from the proper source of security, Jesus Christ. (p. 171)

Clark H. Pinnock, Most Moved Mover: A Theology of God’s Openness, Didsbury Lectures, 2000 (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster Press / Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001)

Copyright © Clark H. Pinnock, 2001. All rights reserved.

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Note

        1. What Pinnock (1937–2010) refers to as ‘the open view of perseverance’ is virtually synonymous with any Arminian or non-Calvinistic doctrine of conditional security. The only significant difference lies in openness theology’s understanding of God’s foreknowledge (or lack thereof).

        Open theists typically maintain that human libertarian choices, by their very nature, are unknowable – even to God. Proponents of the open view agree with Arminians in that they believe God has granted humans a limited amount of freedom that is libertarian or contra-causal in nature (at least for the present age). Yet, contrary to any traditional or classical understanding of Arminianism, a distinctive mark of openness theology lies in its rejection of the notion that God possesses exhaustive knowledge of the future.† From a practical standpoint this means that, according to the open view, God presently does not (and cannot) know with certainty who will comprise the full company of the saved and condemned before the day of judgement.
        It is often maintained by open theists that, in order for God to possess an absolute, infallible, or certain knowledge of all future events, he would have to have foreordained all things exhaustively. Oddly, in maintaining this sentiment, openness advocates find themselves in agreement with theological determinists such as Calvinists, who altogether deny human libertarian freedom and uphold exhaustive divine determinism instead.

        †  For example, one leading theologian of the open view of God, namely Gregory A. Boyd, has argued that the future itself is non-existent and, apart from any future actions God has unilaterally determined to bring about, not knowable in any definite sense. See idem, ‘The Open-theism View’, in James K. Beilby and Paul R. Eddy (eds), Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views, Spectrum Multiview Books (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2001), pp. 13–47. 

J. D. Gallé

2015–2022

Note copyright © J. D. Gallé, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2021, 2022. All rights reserved.

Addendum (21 Sept. 2022).  Clark H. Pinnock (1937–2010) died on Sunday, 15 August 2010, aged seventy-three.

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Latest revisions: 19 November 2015 (note revised in a few places); 30 April 2016 (minor emendations made to title and note); 4 October 2016 (minor note emendations); 10 January 2017 (added hyphenation to one term); 19 February 2018 (minor emendations); 26 February 2018 (removed broken link); revised and updated website links (22 Jun. 2021); added one word and initial to par. 4 [as from 29 Jun. 2022; formerly par. 3] of note (20 Nov. 2021); slightly modified par. 4 [as from 29 Jun. 2022; formerly par. 3] of note (11 Feb. 2022); added a comma in par. 2 (formerly a part of par. 1); added a paragraph break (29 Jun. 2022).