Eyre Lines

A few months ago I posted that I seemed to be emotionally a five-point Calvinist, and how this irritated me.  A few years ago I wrote the following (over-inspired by the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s rap Othello):-

“Bro, let me tell you ’bout a concept called TULIP/big in the South where they like mint julep/totally bad is the way that we’re created/only by election is /the way that it’s fated/Jesus came for some but not for others/God gives grace to some of the brothers/Once you’re elected escape their ain’t/’cause you’ll persevere like all of the Saints”

otherwise “The Calvin Rap”, which I gather pretty accurately describes the five points under the acronym “TULIP”; Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, Persistence of the saints.

I also wrote the “Anti-Calvin Rap” in reply to myself:-

“God messed it up in his first creation/Gave a way to save themselves to Israel’s nation/”Follow my commandments” was his prescription/”Even if you sin, I’ll save” was the prediction/Are you serious that God can’t hack it?/Gives commandments that aren’t a good packet?/Jesus came to save us all as John well said/”Believe in what he said to us; you won’t be dead”/Gave new commandments that we could use/”Love me, your fellow men you don’t abuse”/We have the choice as to whether we do it/If we do we will reap the fru-it/Falling away a question poses/’Cause in that case your life ain’t ROSES”

ROSES is a reference to a competing concept, standing for Redeemed on condition of faith, Open to all, Separated by sin, Elect to good works, Sealed by the Spirit. “Elect to good works” means you are chosen by God to do certain things; if you don’t, you are still “saved” but subject to discipline.

There’s a spirited defence of ROSES against TULIP by Jeffrey A at http://community.compuserve.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=7&nav=display&webtag=ws-religion&tid=155430, which I won’t repeat here. As it happens, I’m not so sure about ROSES either, but it’s theoretically better than TULIP!

Now, as my history records, I got “zapped” in my mid-teens entirely out of the blue. I had really done nothing to deserve it, nor to make it more likely that such would happen. I was, frankly, a pretty miserable specimen of humanity before this, wholly self-centred, manipulative and – well – very teenager-like. Intrinsic to the experience was first a conviction of how bad I had previously been, but also a conviction that I was forgiven. I have no problem with “total depravity”!

I was powerless to resist the experience at the time (surprising, as my reluctance to “let go” has since been the bane of my existence in following a path of meditation and contemplation), so “irresistible” chimes. So does “unconditional”, as I was not fulfilling any conditions which I can think of at that time. I have never since felt that things could be (in the deepest sense) any way other than as in that experience, and have sought to repeat the experience and to act in accordance with the paradigm change it produced in me, so “persistence” probably works, though I’m uneasy about the word “saints”. That’s four points…

I suppose, in a sense, so does “limited”, as I have met very few people who have had a similar experience of such intensity. I don’t understand why I should have been favoured above others (particularly far more deserving candidates). Very many people seem to get by with relatively very weak experiences of consciousness of God, or indeed just on hope.

But… the consciousness of God which I experienced then and since is not consistent with an arbitrary selection of some and rejection of others; the inevitable result of 5 point Calvinism, it seems to me, is that you’re either saved or damned without any question of worth, without any consideration of what you have done or will do in the future, without even any requirement to try. That does not sound like the God I know, whose policy on acceptance or rejection seems to me far better summed up in Ezekiel 18, to which I was referring in the second rap.

I’ve also met a lot of people who have at some point had all the signs of having had at least a loosely similar experience to my own, and have then lost their adherence to their new paradigm. The usual answer I hear from the 5 point Calvinist is that they were merely imitating those who are actually saved, but it overwhelmingly seems to me that you can, in fact, fall away from at the very least the consciousness of being irrevocably in God’s love and protection, and certainly from keeping commandments and manifesting the fruits of the Spirit. People do. Sometimes they return. Often they don’t.  I don’t see persistence there, nor unconditional election, nor irresistible grace. Particularly not the last of these, as I have met a very few people who have testified to an experience very similar to mine and of at least near that force, but who have dismissed it as “just one of those things” or, as one friend charmingly puts it “a brain fart”. In conscience, I suppose it might have gone that way with me too – I didn’t at the time accept the existence of a God, and my first thoughts were to seek medical help. Had my doctor not assured me that there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with my brain function or mental processes at all (including TLE, which was my best guess), I suppose I might have just dismissed it, and not gone on to act on it.

I think I’ll stick with my head on this, whatever feels emotionally correct.