Two quotes that I will always remember from my college anthropology professor, Dr. Matthew Richards, are: “Our experience of reality is not what it is in our world, it is what we think is in our world. What we think is out there is shaped by what we expect to be out there and what we believe cannot possibly be out there.” and “Life is a web of meaning that we ourselves create.” These two quotes sum up what Humanism has become in our present day. During this time with Dr. Richards I was coming to grips with a strong Calvinistic push which I could not help but see standing forth from the Bible and it was this time of my life that these two ideas, Humanism and Calvinism, began their battle of epic proportion inside me. Also, I spent the whole previous summer in Kenya doing mission work, and for the first time I fell in love with another culture and doing missions there! All at once these ideas were swimming around in my head, trying to find their proper place to land. Thus, in a sense, this paper is a summary of the battles in my thought life during college. But in another sense this paper matters a lot because where you come down after these battles determines where you will land; and from the position you arrive comes implication upon implication upon implication played out in our daily lives. One of those implications is the idea of “Missions”. How does, as the title says, Calvinism defeat Humanism? What is Calvinism? What is Humanism? How does that empower Missions? What is Missions? To do this we will first define these terms and then see how they interact with each other. To this we now turn.
Humanism has had an interesting history. Down through the centuries from Ancient Greek philosophies to Modern humanist thought, this term has been used and abused by many. During the time of the 15th century, anyone who believed that human beings were of special value called themselves Humanists or have been called Humanists. There were even Christian Humanists, who believed that humans had such dignity “not as over against God but as a deriving from the image of God in each person.” Among those who called themselves or who have been labeled as Humanists were: John Calvin, Desiderius Erasmus, Edmond Spenser, William Shakespeare, John Milton, Thomas More, Francois Rabelais, Francesco Petrarch, and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. As you can tell from these names, not all agreed in their theologies and philosophies, but still fit into the category of ‘Humanist’. Later around the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century Humanism began to develop a new personality. No longer would a Humanist be defined as someone who sees value in human beings, but now a Humanist is one who holds human reason, justice, and ethics of ultimate importance, while rejecting any idea of superstition or supernaturalism. In 1952, the first World Humanist Congress convened, and Humanists agreed on a statement of the essentials of Humanism, as it is now defined. They called it “The Amsterdam Declaration”. After 50 years they met again in 2002 for their 50th anniversary. They collectively passed a declaration renewing and updating the 1952 creed. This time they called it “The Amsterdam Declaration 2002” and it became the official creed of present day Humanism. It is summarized as follows,
“Humanism is the outcome of a long tradition of free thought that has inspired many of the world’s great thinkers and creative artists. The fundamentals of modern Humanism are as follows: Humanism is ethical. It affirms the worth, dignity and autonomy of the individual and the right of every human being to the greatest possible freedom compatible with the rights of others. Humanism is rational. Humanists believe that the solutions to the world’s problems lie in human thought and action rather than divine intervention. Humanism supports democracy and human rights. Humanism aims at the fullest possible development of every human being. It holds that democracy and human development are matters of right. Humanism insists that personal liberty must be combined with social responsibility. Humanism ventures to build a world on the idea of the free person responsible to society, and recognizes our dependence on and responsibility for the natural world. Humanism is undogmatic, imposing no creed upon its adherents. It is thus committed to education free from indoctrination. Humanism is a response to the widespread demand for an alternative to dogmatic religion. The world’s major religions claim to be based on revelations fixed for all time, and many seek to impose their world-views on all of humanity. Humanism recognizes that reliable knowledge of the world and ourselves arises through a continuing process of observation, evaluation and revision. Humanism values artistic creativity and imagination and recognizes the transforming power of art, literature, music, and the visual and performing arts for personal development and fulfillment. Humanism is a life stance aiming at the maximum possible fulfillment through the cultivation of ethical and creative living and offers an ethical and rational means of addressing the challenges of our times. Humanism can be a way of life for everyone everywhere. Our primary task is to make human beings aware in the simplest terms of what Humanism can mean to them and what it commits them to. We call upon all who share this conviction to associate themselves with us in this endeavor.”
Do you see how different the Humanism of our day is with the days of the 15th century? John Calvin called himself a Humanist, but he, along with all the other Christian Humanists of that day would never say that the solutions to the world’s problems are in human thought and action rather than divine intervention. They would call these modern Humanists, heretics, and submitted them to the discipline of the Church. Thus we see that words apart from context mean nothing, especially words people use to define themselves. So what is a Humanist? Someone who sees that humans are truth creators, or meaning makers, in that we take a normal object and attach meaning to it. In choosing our symbols we will only choose what our culture has taught us to choose, proving that we have been socially constructed from the culture we are trapped in. Therefore the goal is to become aware of this entrapment and gain the ability to think critically about our cultures and ask, “Why do we do this?” or “How do you know?” Because when we can ask these questions of any cultural system, and see that every culture does the same thing with different symbols, then we can escape the entrapment and truly become free.
Now that we have an understanding of Humanism, we need to move on to Calvinism. Despite popular belief Calvinism is not a system of theology that John Calvin made up and named after himself. Rather it was after John Calvin died that his name was tagged on. Even more so, John Calvin did not even make the acrostic that Calvinism was made into! Calvinism was made in response to a heresy called the “Remonstrance.”
In 1610, just one year after the death of Jacobus Arminius (a Dutch seminary professor) his followers drew up five articles of faith that were based on his teaching. The five articles are: Human Ability, Conditional Election, Universal Atonement, Grace can be Resisted, and Falling from Grace. The Arminians, as his followers came to be called, presented these five doctrines to the State of Holland in the form of a “Remonstrance” (i.e., a protest). The Arminian party insisted that the Belgic Confession of Faith and the Heidelberg Catechism (the official expression of the doctrinal position of the Churches of Holland) be changed to conform to the doctrinal views contained in the Remonstrance. The Arminians objected to those doctrines upheld in both the Catechism and the Confession relating to divine sovereignty, human inability, unconditional election or predestination, particular redemption, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints. It was in connection with these matters that they wanted the official standards of the Church of Holland revised. A national Synod was called to meet in Dort in 1618 for the purpose of examining the views of Arminius in light of Scripture. The Synod was convened by the States-General of Holland on November 13, 1618. There were 84 members and 18 secular commissioners. Included were 27 delegates from Germany, the Palatinate, Switzerland and England. There were 154 sessions held during the seven months that the Synod met to consider these matters, the last of which was on May 9, 1619. The Synod gave a very close examination to the ‘five points’ that had been put forth by the Remonstrance, and had compared the teaching in them with the witness of Scripture. Failing to bring together these teachings with the Word of God, which they had definitely declared could alone be accepted by them as the rule of faith, they had collectively rejected them. They felt, however, that a mere rejection was not adequate. They decided to set forth the true teachings in relationship to those matters that had been called into question. In doing this they embodied the Calvinistic position in five chapters which have been known as ‘the five points of Calvinism” ever since. The five points of Calvinism are: Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and Perseverance of the Saints.
The name Calvinism was derived from the French reformer, John Calvin (1509-1564), who had expounded and defended these views but did not ever set forth these views in such a system as the Synod of Dort had. No doubt it will seem strange to many in our day that the Synod of Dort rejected the five doctrines advanced by the Arminians, for these doctrines have gained wide acceptance in the modern Church. In fact, they are seldom questioned in our generation. But the vast majority of the Protestant theologians of that day took a much different view of the matter. They maintained that the Bible set forth a system of doctrine quite different from that advocated by the Arminian party. Salvation was viewed by the members of the Synod as a work of grace from beginning to end; in no sense did they believe that the sinner saved himself or contributed to his salvation at all. He had a part in his salvation, but his part did not initiate salvation, God does that.
Total Depravity teaches that man, because of his nature, will not choose God, and even cannot choose God, because he will never want to apart from the enablement of God. If a lion is in a cage, and you put before him a bowl of meat, and a bowl of wheat, which one will the lion choose to eat? The lion will always choose the meat, he would never choose the wheat, because lion’s don’t eat wheat, that is who they are. A lion will always eat the meat because of who they are. Total Depravity is like this, in that our nature, using its freedom of choice, will only choose sin! Why? That is who we are! It must take an act outside of us to change what is going on inside of us. Calvinist’s find many Scriptures to back this up, one of which is Jeremiah 13:23 which states, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then you also can do good who are accustomed to doing evil.”
Unconditional Election teaches that God chooses us based on His choice alone, not on the basis of our foreseen faith. This is why it is un-conditional, because there are no conditions in God’s choice of us. If we are as sinful as Total Depravity says we are and we will never choose God on our own, than without God’s choosing us, no one would be Christians. John 6:44 is the foundation text on this: “No one can come to Me unless the Father draws him.”
Limited Atonement is perhaps the hardest doctrine to understand. It teaches that the cross is not limited in how many people could be saved, but in how many actually are saved. Fast forward to heaven, the people that you see around you, the people from every tribe, language, tongue, and nation; they are the elect, the ones for whom Jesus died. If someone who Jesus died for ends up in hell, than the blood of Christ was wasted on the person and God failed to bring them to Himself. Matthew 1:21 says who Jesus came to die for. “You shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”
Some people say that Irresistible Grace is wrong because God can be resisted, Acts 7:51 says so. But I ask, is it possible to resist the Holy Spirit when He draws (John 6:44) you? Acts 7:51 says, “You men who are stiff necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers are doing.” This question is answered by the definition of Irresistible Grace: God allows His grace to be resisted until He chooses to overcome our resistance, and give us a new heart, triumphing over our sin, and making us His own. God, in His timing (Jeremiah 1:5 & Gal. 1:15) will give us a new heart and give us new desires that are centered on Himself. I am not saying that we do not have a choice, but behind every choice we make, we have to ask, “Why did I, a child of wrath (whose heart will not choose God because of its depravity) choose something good, namely God?” Because God accomplished His saving work in me from before the foundation of the world, and it came about at exactly the moment that He wanted it to!
Lastly, perseverance of the saints teaches that Christians need to persevere to the end in faith to be finally saved; all true Christians will persevere, because God will keep them. Philippians 1:6 boasts of this when Paul says, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”
Now we have an understanding of Humanism, and Calvinism, so we now move on to define what “Missions” is. The word ‘missio’ means ‘to send’, this word was not used by the early church in regard to their sending out believers to spread the gospel. Rather the word used in the early church was ‘apostello’, which also means ‘to send’. The word missions is not found on any page of Scripture, but as the word ‘trinity’ is implicit all over Scripture, so too is missions. The word missions first began to be used around the time of William Carey, and the missionary movement that occurred during Carey’s time.
In speaking of missions we always want to do so in two senses. The first sense is the Mission of God. What I mean when I say the Mission of God is that there is a fundamental reason why God does everything He does. Why God made the world, why He made humans to inhabit it, and why He sent His Son into it. The reason is none other than glory. God does all things to glorify Himself. He made the world, and all that is in it, to make much of Himself, no one else (Isaiah 40 – 48)! He sent His Son into this world, ordaining His death, to make much of His mercy (Rom. 15:8-9)! God even forgave us our sins for Himself, for His name’s sake (1 John 2:12)! This Mission of God in creating the world for His own glorification is the fundamental thing behind everything that God does. It is out of this heart that missions, lower case m, missions, exists. The Mission of God fuels the mission of the Church, so that the nations would be glad and rejoice in the glory of God through Jesus Christ!
The second sense in which we want to describe missions is missions as a calling to do something as a response to God’s Mission in the world. God Himself gave us this command. This command is in Genesis 1:28, the dominion mandate. “God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” God placed Adam in a garden in Eden, and told him this. Adam, with his helpmate Eve, was to spread the image of God through procreation throughout the entire earth, extending the garden to the whole planet. Adam, God’s son (Luke 3:38), failed at this in the garden by partaking of the fruit of the tree. After Adam fell God blessed and cursed his seed. But, the dominion mandate was still there, needing to be fulfilled. In Genesis 9:1 we hear again the same mandate given to Noah. Noah was to fill the earth with the image of God through procreation. Noah failed at this also in a garden by partaking too much fruit of the vine and becoming drunk. After Noah fell (re-telling the fall of Adam) God blessed and cursed his seed.
Then comes Abraham who receives not a command to fulfill the mandate, but a promise that God Himself will bless all the nations through his seed! The command that was given to Adam and Noah, has now turned to a promise when it is given to Abraham in Genesis 12 and 15. Not only does God give this promise to Abraham, He seals the covenant by performing the covenant ritual. In the ancient near east cultures when two parties made a covenant with each other, by splitting an animal in two and walking through the parts together. By doing so, they were saying to each other, if I break this covenant with you, the curse that has fallen upon this animal will fall on me. But notice that it is not Abraham who walks through the parts with God, it is God alone who walks through the animal halves. God was letting us know that if this covenant is broken, than He Himself will bear the punishment of it (Genesis 15:1-7). What is so significant about that? God is giving us a foretaste of what is to come in the new covenant!
Israel, God’s firstborn son (Ex. 4:22) now comes to the scene after a time, once again falling like Adam, and Noah, in a garden like environment of the promise land. By falling they failed to carry out what they were to do, thus they broke the covenant. God was always faithful, they were the unfaithful ones!
But in the fullness of time, God sent His Son into the world, in the person of Jesus to take the punishment of that covenant. But death does not hold Him! Jesus rises from the dead, and gives this command, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20). Jesus just picked up the dominion mandate that has yet to be fulfilled. Jesus, the last Adam (1 Cor.15:45) will fulfill the mandate, not by procreation with a woman, but by spiritual procreation with His helpmate, the Church! When Jesus sent the Church out to spread the gospel to all the nations, He was sending them out to bring salvation to the ends of the earth. Upon salvation, a person begins the process of being conformed to the image of Jesus. What is the image of Jesus? Jesus is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15)! So in sending out His helpmate, the Church, all over the world, Jesus is remaking all who believe in Him in the image of God! You see? Jesus is fulfilling the dominion mandate that all of God’s sons have previously failed to complete. Jesus, God’s true Son, God’s only begotten Son, was obedient when all the rest were disobedient. Thus, we have the movement of the gospel of Jesus Christ to all the nations in missions, and we have mankind being remade into the image of God through the process!
Now, we have two questions left to answer. First, how does Calvinism defeat Humanism? Second, how does the defeat of Humanism by Calvinism produce a passion for missions that is fueled by the Mission of God?
Humanism teaches you that missions is wrong and immoral because who are we to say that our God is right while someone else’s is wrong? Who are we to tell someone to adopt our symbols of meaning and leave their own? Calvinism teaches you that God is sovereign in salvation; He initiates it, and brings it to completion. Humanism will tell you that the only reason a Christian is a Christian or a Muslim is a Muslim is because they have been socially constructed by a culture that said Christianity or Islam was correct. The Bible, (which teaches Calvinism) tells us that God is the One who determines the boundaries of all men’s habitations so that they would seek after Him. So how does Calvinism defeat Humanism?
Calvinism defeats Humanism by pointing out that there is a truth that exists outside all things, above all things, who controls all things! Culture does not define who a person is, God does. Culture does not define what symbols a person grows up with, God does. Culture does not ultimately construct you socially, God does. Culture does not tell humanity who, what, how, or where we are to worship, God does. He defines all things, culture does not. Therefore there is no cultural limitation that the gospel must stay within. The gospel is free to go into any culture because every culture was made to specifically show great things about the gospel. There are things about the Belgium culture that shine the gospel in ways that the Chinese culture cannot. There are things about the Chinese culture that shine the gospel in ways that the Canadian culture cannot. There are things about the Canadian culture that shine the gospel in ways that the Peruvian culture cannot. This is the beauty of the world wide Bride of Christ. We are blind to many beautiful things about the gospel because of our culture, and when we come together for the gospel, Christ is shown to the unbelieving world. This is why Calvinism, God’s sovereign defining of all things, fuels missions. Not just any mission, but God’s Mission, because we want the elect so badly from every tribe, tongue, language, and people, to be glad in Jesus, above all things. Therefore, strong Biblical missionaries (who are Calvinistic not Humanistic) who are set aflame for God’s Mission in the world will be the ones who make the biggest impact in the world.
Bibliography
1) – 2) Dr. Richards did not tell us where these quotes came from, he only told us the authors.
3) Sire,James W.. The Universe Next Door. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2004, 77.
4) Edd, Doerr. “Humanism Unmodified”. The Humanist: A Magazine of Critical Inquiry and Social Concern. 8/26/08 <http://www.thehumanist.org/humanist/articles/DoerrND02.htm>.
5) World Humanist Congress 2002, “Amsterdam Declaration 2002″. International Humanist and Ethical Union: The world union of Humanist organizations. 8/26/08 <http://www.iheu.org/amsterdamdeclaration.>.
