What does the Bible say about the matter? The Bible is inconclusive on the matter, which is strong evidence of scriptural inerrancy, in my opinion. We can look at the stories of Pharaoh and of Saul to see why.

Pharaoh

In Exodus 4:21, before Pharaoh has had any chance to respond to God’s warnings, God says to Moses:

“The LORD said to Moses, “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.”

Later, after Pharaoh saw some miracles, the Bible reports, in Exodus 8:15:

“But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had said.”

and Exodus 8:32:

“But this time also Pharaoh hardened his heart and would not let the people go.”

Clearly, Pharaoh seems culpable in these instances. However, after repeated warnings, when any reasonable human would have relented, Exodus 10:20 reports that God takes over:

“But the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go.”

What happened here? Who is culpable? Is this a contradiction in the Bible?

Did God preordain all of the heart-hardening? Or did He simply utilize His foreknowledge to make an example of Pharaoh in Exodus 10 after Pharaoh had already irreversibly implicated himself somewhere after Exodus 8? Maybe Pharaoh had already condemned himself by some previous sins, long before Moses’s challenge, and the entire thing was a charade meant to bring glory to God?

I think it’s a mistake to try to parse this story out and conclusively decide which explanation applies. Just fear God and pray that you don’t end up like Pharaoh.

Saul

The story of Saul is very similar. Very early in the story, Samuel anoints David, passing the blessing of God from Saul to David. Saul’s condemnation is already predestined, before David is even anointed (1 Samuel 16:1-2):

The LORD said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king.”
But Samuel said, “How can I go? Saul will hear about it and kill me.”

The anointing of David is performed surreptitiously, and to the bitter end David refuses to slay Saul, who he still regards as “The Lord’s anointed”. When Saul dies, he apparently does so by his own hand (1 Samuel 31:1-6):

Now the Philistines fought against Israel; the Israelites fled before them, and many fell slain on Mount Gilboa. The Philistines pressed hard after Saul and his sons, and they killed his sons Jonathan, Abinadab and Malki-Shua. The fighting grew fierce around Saul, and when the archers overtook him, they wounded him critically.
Saul said to his armor-bearer, “Draw your sword and run me through, or these uncircumcised fellows will come and run me through and abuse me.”
But his armor-bearer was terrified and would not do it; so Saul took his own sword and fell on it. When the armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he too fell on his sword and died with him. So Saul and his three sons and his armor-bearer and all his men died together that same day.

However, the narrative says that he was already critically wounded. His death was already a foregone conclusion, and he apparently hastened it on only out of a desire to avoid “abuse” by the “uncircumcised fellows”. Who killed Saul? God, the Philistines, or Saul himself?

The situation gets even more complicated in 2 Samuel 1:5-10:

Then David said to the young man who brought him the report, “How do you know that Saul and his son Jonathan are dead?”

“I happened to be on Mount Gilboa,” the young man said, “and there was Saul, leaning on his spear, with the chariots and riders almost upon him. When he turned around and saw me, he called out to me, and I said, ‘What can I do?’

“He asked me, ‘Who are you?’
” ‘An Amalekite,’ I answered.

“Then he said to me, ‘Stand over me and kill me! I am in the throes of death, but I’m still alive.’

“So I stood over him and killed him, because I knew that after he had fallen he could not survive. And I took the crown that was on his head and the band on his arm and have brought them here to my lord.”

Whoa! So an Amalekite is now claiming credit for Saul’s death. Again, in this narrative, Saul was already in the “throes of death”, so his death was apparently already a foregone conclusion. And the Amalekite claims the slaying as a “mercy killing”. So who is culpable now?

Clearly, David regarded the Amalekite as being culpable (2 Samuel 1:14-16):

David asked him, “Why were you not afraid to lift your hand to destroy the LORD’s anointed?”

Then David called one of his men and said, “Go, strike him down!” So he struck him down, and he died. For David had said to him, “Your blood be on your own head. Your own mouth testified against you when you said, ‘I killed the LORD’s anointed.’ ”

Did the Amalekite kill Saul after Saul had already initiated suicide? Or was the Amalekite simply lying to curry favor with David (despite this clearly being represented as a mercy-killing)? How do we resolve all of these apparent contradictions?

1 Samuel and 2 Samuel are part of the same original book, so this is not an example of clerical error. These apparent contradictions are essential parts of the story. God pre-ordained Saul’s defeat, while Saul, the Philistines, and the Amalekite are all held culpable in one way or another.

Again, I think it’s a mistake to over-analyze these apparent contradictions. Fear God, and pray that you don’t end up like Saul or the Amalekite.

Conclusion

The Bible is clear that determinism is, at least sometimes, a possibility, but that personal culpability is a reality. This appears to be a contradiction, but regardless of our position on determinism or libertarian free will, it is exactly what we intuitively know to be true.

If the Bible took a strong conclusive stance in either direction (either that determinism is never true, or that culpability is false), the Bible would not be credibly inerrant. Such bickering is the domain of fallen man.

On the other hand, I’ve become increasingly appalled at the behavior of “Calvinists” on the web.  It’s hard to believe that these people believe what they claim to believe.

In researching the history of the split, I found that Calvin and his supporters accused Arminius of siding with the Roman Catholics.  The fear was that Arminius’s interpretation would start a slippery slope to ecumenicalism and rapprochement with Rome, and it was this fear in part which led to Calvin taking such a hard position on predestination.  Ironically, it is this same mentality that underlies certain fundamentalists who want to elevate Young Earth Creationism to the status of “essential doctrine”.  These fundamentalists express dismay that conservative evangelicals have adopted most of the historical fundamentalist agenda, and the fundamentalists are terrified that ecumenicalism will triumph over militant separation – so they grasp at new doctrines to reinforce separation and defeat ecumenicalism.

Regardless of what threat Arminius posed to early Protestantism, I think it’s clear that modern Calvinist bloggers are out to discredit Protestantism.  In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that many of these strident bloggers and comment trolls are bankrolled by some anti-Protestant conspiracy.  At a minimum, these borderline-autistic idiots discredit Calvinism, which contributes to the slippery slope of ecumenicalism and makes the universalists look downright reasonable.  That is no small feat.

(Of course, there are exceptions.  For example, Dan Phillips at TeamPyro has a series titled “communicating better”, which presents Calvinist ideas in a common-sense format that is not gratuitously offensive or autistic.  Contrast Dan’s irenic style with the relatively disgusting treatment of Calvinism from speakers at Piper’s upcoming “Desiring God” conference, and you’ll see why Phillips is the exception that proves the rule.)

It turns out that the surface area of disagreement, while meaningful, is very small.  Contrary to the accusations, Arminianism has absolutely nothing to do with Pelagianism or semi-Pelagianism. And contrary to what I have recently read from a respected Calvinist preacher, Arminians do not even disagree with Calvinists on all 5 points of “TULIP”.  Arminians fully hold to the doctrines of Total Depravity and Perseverance of the Saints (the T and P in TULIP).  Olson documents this exhaustively, showing that Arminius was arguably more strenuous in defense of these doctrines than Calvin.  All of the Arminian thinkers were impeccably orthodox on these two points, and it is telling that none of the anti-Arminian accusations on the Internet ever bother to provide evidence for their charge in the form of Arminian doctrinal statements or writings.

The real “beef” between Arminians and Calvinists, therefore, comes down to just three doctrines (the U, L, and I in TULIP):

• Unconditional Election
• Limited Atonement
• Irresistible Grace

On these three points, Arminians accuse the Calvinists of making God into the devil, while Calvinists accuse Arminians of rejecting God’s sovereignty.  As far as I can tell, that about sums it up.

The anti-Calvinists have a lot of fun with this, imagining the contortions that a true Calvinist would have to go through in order to share the Gospel honestly:

• “Jesus died for my sins, and he might have died for yours, too!”
• “Jesus died for my sins, but you have no hope unless you are one of the elect like me!”
• “Jesus died for the sins of a small group of people, which sadly might not include you”.

After I first started dating, I dated a number of girls over a number of years without ever falling in love.  I sensed that it would be very wrong to lie to someone about loving them, so when girls tried to raise the subject, I learned to be very sneaky.  I learned to change the subject, or even to preempt the question with statements like “I love how you make me feel”, or “I love hanging out with you”. 

Since then, I’ve fallen in love and married, but this experience taught me a thing or two about sneakiness, and I can understand why anti-Calvinists find the sneakiness to be funny.  But I think that the anti-Calvinists are completely wrong on this point.

The typical Arminian will evangelize the gospel by saying, “Jesus died for your sins”.  But they know as well as the Calvinist that some of the people they approach will NOT be saved.  The Arminian and Calvinist would agree 100% with the honesty of an evangelical introduction, “Jesus died for the sins of the world, but I have no idea whether or not you will be saved”. 

Both Calvinist and Arminian would agree that such a statement is true.  The only difference is that the Arminian chooses to obfuscate the truth (and even mocks the Calvinist for hesitating to obfuscate).  The Arminian argues that it’s best to present a half-truth at first, and only share the full truth after the convert has been "snookered”, so to speak.

This would be identical to my telling my youthful dating partners, “Sure, I love you honey!”, and then, later, having to qualify that earlier affirmation with, “Well, when I said ‘love’, it didn’t necessarily mean ‘love’”.  Or worse, “Well, when I said ‘love’, that was before you proved yourself to be unlovable”.

So I conclude that if the Calvinists are sneaky, the Arminians are worse than sneaky on this particular point.  The Arminians want to be able to say exactly what you want to hear, in order to get what they want out of you, and therefore they are willing to obfuscate and twist the truth – the truth that not everyone will be saved.  The truth that some will perish.

I will stop short of claiming that the Arminians are apostate.  But both camps clearly place a different sense of gravity on truthfulness with the unconverted.  Arminians seem to think that the end justifies the means, while Calvinists seem to think that you must be respectful and avoid manipulation when talking to the unconverted. 

The Arminians want so badly to be able to say “I love you”, and so desperate to avoid saying “I love how you make me feel”; that they change the definition of love.  Which is sneakier?

I did find a defense of Arminianism posted by the book’s author, and find his arguments to be quite concerning.  Speaking about the bridge collapse in Minneapolis a couple of years ago, he argues that God could never allow humans to suffer, and says:

The God of Calvinism scares me; I’m not sure how to distinguish him from the devil. If you’ve come under the influence of Calvinism, think about its ramifications for the character of God. God is great but also good. In light of all the evil and innocent suffering in the world, he must have limited himself.

This line is very revealing.  He says, “The God of Calvinism scares me”, as if fear is a bad thing – as if “fear of the Lord” is an old-testament concept that doesn’t apply today.  His fatal flaw (and seemingly, the fatal flaw of many modern Arminians) is that he sees fear and love in purely human terms, and thus sees fear as being the polar opposite of love.

The scriptures say, “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”, and also say, “perfect love casts out fear”.  What does this mean?  The popular Death Cab For Cutie song, “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” asks this exact question:

In Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule
I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black
And I held my tongue as she told me
"Son fear is the heart of love"
So I never went back

While the statement may well have been apocryphal, it is quite profound.  It highlights the seeming contradiction between the two verses of scripture I quoted above.  Furthermore, it shows the natural scriptural ordering of these two (first fear, then love), and exemplifies the typical human reaction (revulsion).  What shall we make of this?

A closely related verse which may be challenging to Arminians like Roger Olson is Psalm 116:15; “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.”

Is our God a bloodthirsty God?  This is the question that an atheist blogger asks.  He correctly realizes that our conception of God so far leads to the conclusion that the saints delight in seeing the suffering of the damned.  Again, the reaction to this seeming contradiction is the most revealing of all.  A commenter on the atheist blog remarks:

In high school, I had a brief fling with Evangelical Christianity, mostly through the influence of a girlfriend. One of the things she said to me, in a particularly painful conversation, was that it filled with her with horror to imagine being in Heaven and looking down to see me among the Damned. It’s perhaps not surprising that sometime later — after we had broken up — she started rebelling major time against her church’s teachings, and ended up in very liberal Christian waters. Me, I just ended up by not being Christian at all

This reaction is completely human, and something we can all understand.  The girlfriend could not imagine herself among the saints, rejoicing in (or at least impervious to) the suffering of her boyfriend.  And the boyfriend felt at least a little bit of pride and validation at being able to compete with lord Jesus for the girlfriend’s loyalties (enough to brag about it on a message board).

This is exactly the reaction of modern Arminians.  They say, “God isn’t Love if He doesn’t let Billy into heaven!”.  They want to define love in their own terms – they want to have veto power on love.  They want to be able to say, “if not all of my friends, then none of us!”.  But love defined purely in human terms becomes merely human, and dissipates into darkness.  What could be more appropriate a title for this song than “I Will Follow You Into the Dark”?

But human-centered love has become so tainted that it bears little resemblance to the Love of God.  Perhaps in the love of father and son there is still the resemblance, and even at times in marriage.  But only very rarely in romantic love.  Only in an omnipotent God can Love originate and be perfected.  Only Love which is perfect, only in God, can fear be dispelled.  We say that “God is Love” specifically to make it clear the “love is NOT God”.  The phrase “God is Love” was coined during the time when the great whore Babylon worshipped love as a goddess named Ishtar.  We should be very careful not to let modern Arminianism become modern Ishtar-worship.

“What constituency is there for pessimism? People believe optimism is necessary, an American right. The presumption of optimism is the problem. That’s what creates the debt we have now.”

This is exactly the point I was making in my post about “Eschatology and Epistemology: Christians and the Housing Bubble”.

This also explains one major beef I have with the defenders of Arminianism.  I’ve seen numerous people argue that “God is Love, so he’ll give every unbeliever numerous chances to be saved, even it that doesn’t involve acknowledging the supremacy of Christ.”  They take God’s love and throw out the fear of God.  They even argue, “What constituency is there for fear of God?  People won’t believe in God or feel good about God if he is fearsome.  Belief in our own innate goodness is an American right.”

This presumption of our own innate goodness, of our own entitlement to stand in judgment of God and accept him only if he is harmless and cuddly enough, is what creates the spiritual deficit we have now.

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 is instructive:

Now, brothers, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, "Peace and safety," destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.

But you, brothers, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet. For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.