Lower Wisdom

For the past few years, something has vexed me deeply, leaving me feeling quite stupid.  I have studied, researched, and discussed with people, but am still left feeling stupid.  And no, I am not being sarcastic – I honestly feel like the slow kid in class.

I sometimes encounter people who will casually say things like, “I am a 5-points Calvinist”, or “I lean more toward Amyraldian”, or “I’m an Arminian”, and even “The truth lies somewhere between Arminianism and Calvinism”.  I read newspaper articles where churchgoers proudly talk about their tattoos while affirming that they are ALSO Calvinists.  This combinations (tattoos AND Calvinist) is presented as if it is earth-shattering.

My dilemma is, I have NO IDEA what they mean.  When someone self-identifies with a particular label, you assume that they are telling you something about themselves, and hoping to have their identity appreciated and validated by you.  If someone said, “I am Spider-Man”, I could reply, “Cool; it must be fun climbing tall buildings!”  But I don’t even know what all these religious labels mean.  It makes me feel stupid, and it makes me feel like I should choose one of the labels to share with all of my friends, too.  Can someone just tell me which creed St. Paul professed, so I can use that one?

My bewilderment shouldn’t be seen as a final destination.  I fully intend to get to the bottom of this puzzle, even if it takes a few more years.  This post is just to document my current state of puzzlement, and outline the sorts of questions I would expect to be answered once I fully understand.

For starters, of course, I have read all of the historical articles I can find, and I believe I have a good understanding of the history.  I of course know what the “5 points”, and “4 points” and so on are.  Some of the points seem at first glance to be non-distinction (saying, “if a man falls away, he wasn’t saved to begin with” seems semantically identical, for all practical purposes, to saying “a man can fall away and be re-saved”.  The end result is the same, isn’t it?).  However, when a person chooses one apparently semantically equivalent statement in favor of a different one, you can assume that it’s because he thinks that there is a practical difference.  All parties claim to believe in the doctrine of “justified by faith”, so the smoking gun should be in the divergent opinions about what the practical implications of this doctrine are.

This route of investigation seems promising, but I immediately ran into a problem.  Each party is quite eager to characterize the other parties and explain how everyone else is, in practical matters, totally wrong.  But the arguments mostly seem to be straw men that wouldn’t be accepted as accurate by the parties being thus portrayed.

For example, this sermon by pastor Dan Sweatt recently ruffled a lot of feathers by “attacking the threat of Calvinism”.  Even for a novice like me, it’s easy to see that Sweatt’s criticisms of Calvinism are completely unfounded and ignorant.  There is not a single self-identified Calvinist who would profess the things that Sweatt accuses Calvinists of professing.

People like Sweatt argue dishonestly that Calvinism destroys missionary zeal, because “there is no point in wasting time on someone who is not part of the elect, and God will save them if he wants”.  On the flip side, some Calvinists argue dishonestly that Arminianism destroys missionary zeal, because (they say) Arminius said that “good Muslims will go to heaven”. 

I don’t doubt that there are practical differences between the creeds, but it is exceedingly difficult to sift through the noise to find out what they are.  I am currently reading through the list of resources at this site.  To be honest, the first couple of documents were very disappointing and somewhat dishonest, but I press on.