Are you following the Calvinistic argument?
Here it is put very simply:
God tells man they SHOULD keep all the commandments. Man CANNOT keep all the commandments. God also tells man they SHOULD humbly repent for breaking commandments. Therefore man also CANNOT humbly repent for breaking commandments.
If the fallacy in this argument is not obvious to you, please allow me to explain by way of analogy.
Back when my kids were younger we did a family activity that our church had suggested. I stood at the top of the stairs with my three children at the bottom. I said to them, “Here are the rules. You must get from the bottom of the stairs to the top of the stairs without touching any of the railing, the wall or even the stairs. Ready, go!” My kids looked at me and then each other and then back at their mother. With bewilderment in their eyes, they immediately began to whine and complain saying, “Dad, that is impossible!” I told them to stop whining and figure it out. The youngest stood at the bottom and started trying to jump, slamming himself into the steps over and over. The more creative one of the bunch began looking for tools to help build some kind of contraption. Another set down on the floor while loudly declaring, “This is just stupid, no one can do that!” Finally, in exasperation one of the kids yelled out, “Dad, why don’t you just help us?” I raised my eyebrows as if to give them a clue that they may be on the right track. The eldest caught on quickly. “Can you help us dad?” he shouted. I replied quietly, “No one even asked me.” “Can you carry us up the stairs?” he asked. “I will if you ask me,” I said. And one by one, I carried each child to the top after they simply asked. Then, we sat down and talked about salvation. We talked about how it is impossible for us to get to heaven by our own efforts, but if we ask Christ for help then He will carry us. It was a great visual lesson of God’s grace in contrast with man’s works.
But suppose that my children’s inability to get to the top the stairs also meant they were incapable of asking me for help. Imagine how this story would have played out if it was impossible for my children not only to get to the top of the stairs but equally impossible for them to recognize that inability and request help when it was offered.
This illustrates the mistake of Calvinism.
Let’s go back to their fallacy above as it relates to my story: Dad tells his kids they SHOULD get to the top of stairs. Kids CANNOT complete this task as requested. Dad also tells the kids they SHOULD ask for help. Therefore, the kids CANNOT ask for help. Do you see the problem now? The whole purpose of presenting my kids with that dilemma was to help them to discover their need for help. To suggest that they cannot realize their need and ask for help on the basis that they cannot get to the top of stairs completely undermines the very purpose of the giving them that dilemma.
The purpose of the father in both instances is to get others to trust him. The law was not sent for the purpose of getting mankind to heaven. Just as the purpose of the activity was not to get the kids to the top of the staircase. The purpose was to help them to see that they have a need and that they cannot make it on their own. Calvinists have wrongly concluded that because mankind is unable to attain righteousness by works through the law, they must also be equally unable to attain righteousness by grace through faith. In other words, they have concluded that because mankind is incapable of “making it to the top of the stairs,” then they are equally incapable of “recognizing their inability and asking for help.” It does not follow and it is not biblical.
Paul said: Rom. 9:30-32: “What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works.”
It seems Calvinists would have us believe that because pursuit by works fails in attaining righteousness that a pursuit by faith would not even be possible. This is simply never taught in Scripture. When Calvinists are pressed on the obvious implication that SHOULD implies COULD, they appeal to the demands of the law, which is like appealing to my demands for the children to get to the top of the stairs without touching anything.
I did not make that demand with the expectation of my children actually doing it, after all it is impossible. I made the demand to help them realize they could not do it without my help.
So too, God did not send the law with the expectation that we could actually fulfill its demands. That is not the purpose of the law. According the Scripture, “No one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin” (Rom. 3:20). The law is a “tutor” who points us to our need for Christ (Gal. 3:24). The law was never sent for the purpose of being fulfilled by mankind, just as the stair-climbing activity was never intended to be completed by my kids. It was a “tutoring” lesson to teach my children that they must rely on someone else, a useless activity indeed if they are somehow incapable of coming to that realization or admitting their need for help.
If my kids are as completely incapable of understanding their need for help in getting to the top of stairs as they are in getting to top of the stairs without help, then why would I bother with the activity in the first place?
Likewise, if mankind is as completely incapable of trusting in the One who fulfilled the law as they are in fulfilling the law themselves, then what is the point in sending an insufficient tutor to teach them a lesson they cannot learn?
As Traditionalists, we actually believe God sent the world a sufficient tutor, the Calvinist does not. The argument that SHOULD implies COULD remains virtually unanswered by the Calvinist who appeals to the law as their example.
That is, unless they can demonstrate that it actually was God’s intention for us to fulfill the law’s demand in order to attain righteousness. After all, to conclude that man cannot fulfill the purpose of the law’s demands begs the question, because it presumes man cannot fulfill the purpose of the law by believing in the One who fulfilled its demands.
Basic common sense tells us that if one ought to do something, he can do it. This is especially true if one is punished for his failure to do that which is expected.
In 2 Thessalonians 2:10, Paul says of the unrighteous, “They perish because they did not accept the love of the truth in order to be saved.” And in John 12:48, Jesus said, “There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; the very words I have spoken will condemn them at the last day.”
Scripture never once says that we will perish because of Adam’s sin. But over and over again it says that we will each be held accountable for our response to the clear the revelation of God. According to Paul, all men stand “without excuse” (Rom. 1:20), yet Calvinistic doctrine gives mankind the best excuse imaginable: Judge: “Why did you remain in unbelief?” Reprobate: “I was born hated and rejected by my God who sealed me in unbelief from the time I was born until the time I died due to the sin of another.” Can you think of any better excuse than that? I cannot.
~ Leighton Flowers
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