I really wonder if in 125 years or so anti-Calvinists will be trying to quote John Piper to support their philosophical positions. You might read this and think, “That’s ridiculous! Piper’s a 7-point Calvinist! He’s influenced myriads of young men and women to accept Reformed soteriology! He’s about to receive the Puritan Boy award from Purgatorio!” While all of these objections may be true, I still say that there is a possibility, as Piper continues to gain popularity among a wide range of evangelicals, that someone may one day try to take portions of his books and sermons out of context and portray John Piper as supporting their anti-Calvinist agenda.

Want proof?

I submit to you one Charles Spurgeon (d. 1892). This great evangelistic preacher wrote A Defense of Calvinism and preached on the doctrine of Particular Redemption, yet Norman Geisler in his book Chosen But Free and Dave Hunt in his book What Love is This? have both tried to utilize Spurgeon’s teachings to attack the very Doctrines of Grace that the “Prince of Preachers” held so dear.

The most recent notable attempt to enlist Spurgeon for the anti-Calvinist cause has come from the blog of Ergun Caner.

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Many of you are already aware of the news that the debate between Ergun/Emir Caner and James White/Tom Ascol has taken abrupt change. Usually, such abrupt changes are for the worse, but not in this case. Actually, prior to yesterday’s news (which can be found on both Tom and James’ blogs), many of us thought it simply couldn’t get any worse. Ascol had decided to gracefully bow out of the debate while further disagreement seemed to make the debate almost impossible. But that was then as this is now.

Change of Heart

In the past six months, we have witnessed volumes of exchanges through various posts, hundreds if not thousands of comments, and lengthy PDF documents detailing e-mail correspondence. Finally, when all hope seemed lost in a meaningful and profitable debate, a change of heart has occurred which has been most humbly manifested in the public apology and repentance from those participating in the debate. Just why and how this occurred is not worth our speculation, but what is worth our attention is the example placed before us.

Many of us have commented or even contributed with unnecessary and harmful statements either through comments or blogposts in the past. The stream of culpability runs deep and wide, and I readily confess that I have been swept up in that rushing current. So rather than try to probe into the why’s and how’s of what came about, let me encourage us to look to ourselves and plead with humility that we be brothers who are known for our loving hearts and graceful speech. I apologize and regret whatever harm I have contributed to foster or inflame the matters of the past and look forward to future debate with great expectations.

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When I read this last Friday, I simply could not believe the double standard and historical inaccuracies being purported by Ergun Caner. After several long weeks without any response, James White was able to communicate with the moderator as well as Caner concerning the upcoming debate this October. As you may already know, the debate thesis has been the following:

“Resolved: That God is an Omnibenevolent God to all of humanity through salvation and opportunity.”

Before I interact with some of the comments made by Caner, let me reiterate the folly of such a thesis. First, the brothers Caner are seeking to debate an undefined topic. Is there a definition objectively or universally understood? Now, as you find out in their recent email exchange, they changed their thesis from the aforementioned thesis to simply “the omnibenevolence of God”. So what exactly about the omnibenevolence of God do you want to debate? How vague, obtuse, and nondescript can one get? The Caners agreed to debate Calvinism. If that is the case, then why don’t they put a thesis out there that at least resembles the purpose of the debate rather than omnibenevolence?

Below are just a few points about what Ergun Caner recently said and my response to them:

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Having addressed how the Bible speaks of God’s love and the reasons why the doctrine is so difficult, we must being to tackle some of the biblical tensions between God’s love and other realities such as God’s sovereignty, impassibility, and wrath. In the next three posts in this series, I will address these points of tension according to the D.A. Carson and possibly a few other authors. The doctrine of omnibenevolence, when applied to soteriology (as the Caner’s have done in their thesis), encounters serious biblical and theological problems as we shall see. Now, let’s address God’s sovereignty as prescribed by Carson.
God’s Love and God’s Sovereignty

1. God is utterly sovereign (49).
   
   1. God is transcendent.
   2. God is omnipotent.
   3. God is omniscient.
2. God’s sovereignty extends to election (50).

Quote: “We often speak of people who “accept Jesus as their personal Savior”—words not found in Scripture, though not necessarily wrong as a synthetic expression. But Acts may sum up some strategic evangelism by reporting that “all who were appointed for eternal life believed (Acts 13:48)” (51).

Quote: “Moreover, the Lord’s electing love is immutable. All that the Father has given to the Son will come to him, and the Son will lose none of them, we are told, because he came down from heaven to do the Father’s will—and this is the Father’s will, that he should lose none of those the Father has given him (John 6:37-40). In other words, for the Son to lose any of those the Father has given him, he would have to be either unable or unwilling to obey his Father’s explicit command” (51).

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A couple of days ago, I posted on D.A. Carson’s five reasons why the doctrine of the love of God must be judged difficult. Today, I want to continue with Carson and add his contribution by referring to the five different ways the Bible speaks of the love of God. These five ways are key to understanding Carson’s approach, delineations, and balance in understanding the love of God. Carson concludes with three observations about these different ways which I have included as well. Feel free to interact and respond in the comments section if you so choose. Remember, these posts are intended to probe into the idea of “omnibenevolence”.

5 Different Ways the Bible Speaks of the Love of God

1. The peculiar love of the Father for the Son, and of the Son for the Father (16). [Texts: John 3:35; 5:20; 14:31]

2. God’s providential love over all that he has made (16). [Texts: Gen. 1; Matt. 6]

Quote: “If this [Matt. 6] were not a benevolent providence, a loving providence, then the moral lesson Jesus drives home [feeding birds of the air and caring for sparrows], viz. that this God can be trusted to provide for his own people, would be incoherent” (17).

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Donald Carson has written a very insightful book called The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2000). This short, 94 page book is broken down into four chapters: On Distorting the Love of God, God Is Love, God’s Love and God’s Sovereignty, and God’s Love and God’s Wrath. Carson has addressed some of the key issues with the love of God, not the least of which is how God’s love is to be understood in light of His other perfections. Subsequently, as we begin to discuss the doctrine of omnibenevolence, I believe it is fitting to start with Carson’s five reasons why the doctrine of the love of God must be judged difficult. These five reasons are below and do not include my personal commentary; however, I would be interested in hearing yours.
5 Reasons Why the Doctrine of the Love of God Must Be Judged Difficult

1. If people believe in God at all today, the overwhelming majority hold that this God—however he, she, or it may be understood—is a loving being (9).

Quote: “This widely disseminated belief in the love of God is set with increasing frequency in some matrix other than biblical theology. The result is that when informed Christians talk about the love of God, they mean something very different from what is meant in the surrounding culture. Worse, neither side may perceive that this is the case” (9-10).

2. We live in a culture in which many other and complementary truths about God are widely disbelieved (11).

Quote: “I do not think that what the Bible says about the love of God can long survive at the forefront of our thinking if it is abstracted from the sovereignty of God, the holiness of God, the wrath of God, the providence of God, or the personhood of God—to mention only a few nonnegotiable elements of basic Christianity. The result, of course, is that the love of God in our culture has been purged of anything the culture finds uncomfortable. The love of God has been sanitized, democratized, and above all sentimentalized” (11).

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About a month ago, James White announced that the debate thesis proposed by the Caner brothers was the following:

Resolved: That God is an Omnibenevolent God to all of humanity through salvation and opportunity.

James White said, “The Caners are insisting upon using a thesis statement that has no meaning. It is not even written in proper English. It could be used and defended by a Unitarian Universalist. They refuse to use a thesis statement I have proposed that is clear and unambiguous.” Tom Ascol also replied thus, “Now, if you can explain exactly what is being asserted here, please let me know.” White and Ascol are no unlearned men, so when I heard that they were unaware of the term of “omnibenevolence” and its usage, I thought I would do some investigation and research on the subject.

Interestingly enough, the term “omnibenevolence” has scarcely been written about in any systematic theology, theological journal, or theological dictionary (only exception thus far is found in Dagg’s Manual of Theology, p.76 under “the goodness of God”). The reason is because its basis is philosophically grounded. A brief description is provided by Wikipedia, although its weak definition and descriptions show just how vague and nondescript this term really is. So where does the Caner’s get the idea of “an omnibenevolent God?” Here you must delve into the Arminian playbook (i.e. Geisler’s Chosen but Free and Hunt’s What Love Is This?). Here is a quote by Norm Geisler from his book Chosen But Free: A Balanced View of Divine Election:

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