A Philosophical Challenge to Calvinism

by John feakes

In Dave Hunt’s classic volume “What Loves is This?”[1],  he scripturally challenges the Calvinist doctrine that God has sovereignty chosen to send the vast majority of people to hell, even though He could save them. Remember that on the Calvinist view, God does indeed love the non-elect, but with a different kind of love than He has for those he has chosen to save.  Throughout his treatise Hunt asks the penetrating question: What love is this that consigns billions who could have been saved to eternal torment? Strange love indeed!

In this short article I wish to look at the other side of this coin. That is, I would like to consider how man’s love God-ward may also present a philosophical case against Calvinism.

The Greatest Commandment

“Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked [Jesus] a question, tempting him, and saying,
Master, which is the great commandment in the law?  Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.  This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”  Matthew 22:35-40

In John 15:16 the Lord tells us, “Greater love hath no man than this: that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Evidently there are “degrees” of love, even within this thing we call agape love. We understand that if the greatest commandment is to love God, it would follow that God is worthy of nothing less than the greatest love possible.

Love Freely Given vs. Love Through Compulsion
Assuming that love that is forced is even a possibility [2],  we understand intuitively that a greater love would be the love that is given freely. Consider a personal example. Years ago (make that many years ago) while my wife and I were still in the dating stage, I remember  telling her one evening, “I think I love you.” She was so overjoyed that she cried. Love freely given is a wondrous thing to be sure. Now suppose that 3 weeks later she learned that I wasn’t really offering her my love freely, but was compelled by her 3 brothers who earlier threatened to beat me up if I didn’t agree to marry her. The love that would have been offered her, if it could be love at all, would certainly be inferior to the love freely given.

God: The Ultimately Worthy Being

The following deductive syllogism is instructive:

1. God deserves the highest form of love
2. The highest form of love is love that is freely given, therefore,
__________________________________________________

3. God deserves freely given love

On the Calvinist view, human beings are incapable of freely loving God, but are compelled to love Him by a sovereign act of God. If this view is correct, then throughout all eternity, God is the recipient of a second-class sort of love. To put it negatively, God never really does receive the kind of love from His creation that He is so richly due.  Something is amiss with this picture. God is sovereign, omnipotent. It is impossible that he should fail in anything He purposes to do. If receiving the greatest love possible from His creation was what He purposed to do (and it ostensibly appears to be so in light of the greatest commandment) then it follows that He will receive this love. The Calvinist alternative seems, at least on the face of it, philosophically untenable.

Notes and References:

1. Dave Hunt, “What Love is This: Calvinism’s Misrepresentation of God”, 3rd Ed., The Berean call Publishing.
2. I don’t think that it is. Forced love belongs in the same category as “square circles” or “five-sided triangles.” The point I’m trying to make here is simply that even if forced love is a possibility, we understand intuitively that it is inferior to love freely given.