We are Deeper than the Depth of Our Sin

I became passionately upset as I was reading over Demarest and Lewis' Integrative Theology and the favored explanation of a high-Calvinist stance on election. Many of you have heard this innumerable times before, but for those of you who are wondering what the hell I just said (as if anyone reads or even knows about this thing), high-Calvinism basically states that God both chose people for salvation before the foundation of the world and then, during these folks' time on earth, He also calls them to salvation. If you weren't chosen from before there was time, you're out of luck. This is an age-old debate, at least from the time of Augustine, but I have some questions, some of which I've never heard before, that I'm gonna throw out there:

1. If God's love is expressed in an irresistible form, how can this be called 'love'? In life on Earth, when is love ever irresistible? We all nod our heads in agreement when we hear someone claim that if you love someone, you have to let them go. Granted, this is simply a popular adage, but is it not also a simple expression of what we all recognize love to be in its deepest, truest sense? In his book, The Risk of Love, W.H. Vanstone characterizes Godly love as possessing three essential characteristics: limitlessness, vulnerability, and precariousness (risk). The God portrayed in the above view of election possesses none of these. If the picture of love painted here is even partially accurate, then the God of high-Calvinism is expressing a love that runs wholly counter to what we understand love to be. God is surely the source of love, so either we are incredibly twisted in our understanding and expression of love, or the God of Calvinism is not God at all.


2. Those who hold this view of election tend to claim that this is somehow an expression of God's goodness. Once again, as with love, how can this be seen as 'good', creating some people for salvation and some for doom? Moreover, there's nothing that any of us can do to change our status. In what sense is this good? Even those in the salvation camp would have to wonder at this. "I'm glad You chose me, God, but what about my brother? Is there anything You can do for Him? I love him quite a lot. Can we trade out or something?" As with many of these thoughts (except for the "love" thought above), this one is in its nascent stage, but is it not more likely that proponents of this view of election hold a particular exegetical bias and are thus forced to call this God's goodness based on the knowledge that God is by nature good and can therefore do nothing that is not good?


3. Finally (at least for now), I have issues with the implicit idea that sin is essentially human. It isn't, plain and simple. We are all sinners; this is not in question. But, sin is not of our very essence. God did not create us as sinners; we made ourselves sinners. I feel very strongly that we must both accept that we are sinners and at the same time understand that we are not created to be. Jesus proves that sin can be erased from us; our humanness cannot. I bring this up because the argument in the high-Calvinist camp often goes that we are sinners and therefore deserve punishment. This seems to assume that the identity of 'sinner' somehow trumps the identity of 'human'. My counter to that is that we are we are all imago-Dei humans, deeper than the depths of our sin, and therefore we are all worth saving.

I stated no teleological goals for this post, and I'm still not sure why I felt so compelled to write it, but here it is. That's all I've got.