Sometimes I forget that there are Christians in this world who take issue with the idea of sovereign grace. But then Sunday turns into Monday, and I veer out of my reformed rest into the open wilderness, being reminded that anxiety is prevalent, even among professing believers.
As a side note, my wife is a wonderful helpmeet. She is gracious enough to laugh at my jokes, and prudent enough to inform me after the fact that not everybody was laughing. At times, I acknowledge that the mockery was intentional, and in my judgement, necessary. But there are times when I confess to being dimwitted about the offense. A rash joke is not a good one. As a wise man once said, “A gentleman never insults someone on accident.” My goal is to ever and only insult others on purpose. Which, as low of a bar as that may be, is not as easy as it sounds.
With that said, let’s have some fun, carefully. Earlier, I presented a case for man’s unregenerate state as an important starting point when contemplating God’s salvation of mankind. In my second expository attempt to outline the basics of reformed soteriology, I am weary of the possibility to mess something up. Apart from my own flaws, which are not necessary to list here, we dwell within a tense and anxious society. The culture’s chronic levels of anxiety has always been present. But the freaking out has been put on mass display the last couple of years. The fumes have filled the room, and in some areas are teasing ignition. Choose your pick: enforced global shutdowns due to the flu, peaceful protestors that burn down buildings, people mutilating little kids, and others losing their minds because they might not be able to murder their babies.
Freaking out is normal today. It’s shouldn’t be a shocker to see someone losing their wits about something that didn’t go their way. But, of course, even then people are triggered. Anxiety is contagious. In his book, The Failure of Nerve, Edwin Friedman notes the levels of emotional fusion that is present among an anxious group of people. One person is triggered by the fact that the other one was triggered, and off it goes.
A reflection on individual and societal anxiety would be fruitful in many areas. Friedman’s work is thorough, and is applicable across the board. But my focal point on this binary page is to draw a line connecting the refusal to acknowledge God’s sovereign will over all things with a chronically anxious soul.
Arminians take issue with what can be referred to as Unconditional Election. They have a problem with God’s will being decisive, slandering Calvinism as being deterministic, and comparing it to Fatalism. Arminians, of course, utilize different points to argue for man’s ability to choose God apart from God’s decisive work. Although they accuse Calvinists for being cold and rational, it’s typically the Arminians who appeal to human reason to argue their position, relying on self-definitions of “love” and “justice.” They may even attempt a game of twister with the Corridor of Time theory. It’s an argument that God’s foreknowledge and election refers to Him foreseeing those who would respond to His call, and electing them to be saved. Kind of like enabling them to respond to His call? I see. Once the logic wears thin, what’s left is an attempt to justify God by their own standard. “Unconditional election isn’t fair. And since God is just, we must conclude that man holds the decisive scepter.”
The Calvinist might respond with the definition of justice or lean into the point of who has the authority to define it. The Arminian convoluting fairness with justice is brought to light, and the irony of his attempt to justify God by man’s standard is noted. The source of our faith is elaborated on, noting the decisive factor of our salvation. Back and forth debates are held regarding soteriological monergism and synergism. All good, useful, and necessary conversations. We can all learn a lot. But when the arguments are concluded, one issue is many a time left untapped, that being the anxiety present at the core of the Arminian’s position.
The Arminian’s principled difference with sovereign grace is fundamentally not a cognitive one, but emotional. The fact that God unilaterally chooses to save and damn whomever He pleases feeds the anxiety-producing denial of the notion that we are not in control of our own destiny. Us creatures don’t like to be reminded of our finitude. We want to hold on to a sense of control, even if we know that it’s a mirage. If we cede to the idea that our future is out of our hands, we get nervous.
However, this type of anxiety is in response to predestination. My argument is not simply that Arminians anxiously respond to sovereign grace. But that the position of conditional election itself is planted and watered in a bed of anxiety. Ironically, what drives man to anxiety is not the threat to his self-determination. Rather, it’s the presumption of eternal self-determination that nurtures chronic anxiety.
We know that we are not just unworthy of salvation, but are incapable of attaining it. Mankind is astutely aware of its own incapacity. Like an overblown, oozing bubble of pus, man’s incapacity threatens his security. And like a needle puncturing the cyst, the pressure of conditional election excretes the man’s anxiety on everything he touches. Chronic anxiety is at the root of the Arminian ideology. A man finds no rest in his own sense of eternal self-determination. If God electing him for salvation is conditioned upon his own actions in “choosing God first,” he knows that he is damned from the start. Conditional election does warrant a freak out. Whether or not he acknowledges the source of his anxiety is irrelevant. Stressed and drained plants don’t need to acknowledge the problem with the soil in order for them to experience the repercussions.
And yet, the Arminian still clings to his theoretical ability to choose salvation apart from God’s decisive work in him. Why is that? Perhaps it has something to do with the Apostle Peter’s exhortation. After calling believers to humble themselves under God’s mighty hand, he presents a way to demonstrate this humility and gives a reason why to do so.
“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” – 1-Peter 5:6-7, ESV (emphasis mine)
Anxiety finds its source in pride. Refusing to acknowledge and find rest under the mighty hand of God is a result of our pride. Eternal self-determination produces anxiety in our hearts, and yet the man still refuses to give it up and acknowledge God’s sovereign grace. Why? Because trusting God’s will seems like risky business. Does He really care? Does He really know what’s best?
To paraphrase a different apostle, who are you, oh man, to determine what’s best? Who are you to judge God’s decrees? Holding on to our anxieties because we refuse to trust God is a downward spiraling act of pride. The Arminian makes me think of a man gripping the millstone that’s pulling him to the bottom of the sea. Casting our anxieties on Him takes humility. And we can do so, because He cares for us. As one of the Disney princesses so vehemently exclaimed, “Let it go!”
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