< What If there was No Free Will?
The Five Spiritual Laws of Christian Fatalism
1. Everyone is God's robot. (Satan created no robots; he is a robot too.) God loves some and hates some. None were created with any free will. God made every single one of them function perfectly, without any flaws, doing everything that God decreed each would do; nothing more and nothing else. Even if the things God made the elect robots do don't please God now, God knows He will make them pleasing to Him in the future. Likewise, the reprobate robots do every single thing God decreed them do, and God hates them for it. God's wrath will punish them for doing what God made them do.
Do you really believe this?
2. Not only have all sinned, but it is the pre-ordained fate of every robot to commit every single evil that it was God's pleasure to decide for the robot commit, not a bit more and not a bit less. This makes God the author of everything. Even if a robot does not currently want to do those evil things, that is not relevant. Resistance would be futile. It is going to commit all of them in the future regardless, not because of blind fate, but because God pre-ordained that they would. None will go to Hell for what they freely chose to do. The reprobate will all go to Hell for what God decided He wanted to decree that they would do.
Do you really believe this?
3. Because of His great love, Jesus died on the cross for the sins God predestined the elect robots to commit. Whether a reprobate robot puts their hope of afterlife in Mohammed, Buddha, or Krishna is equally fine, because deep down they knew a truth: there was never any hope for them in Jesus. When reprobate robots go to Hell, they will go there holding on to the truth, that God would not love them, Jesus did not die for their sins.
Do you really believe this?
4. Regeneration involves no participation, cooperation, or faith from robots, so it is pointless to be concerned your robotic soul. If you are not an elect robot, it is pointless to consider Christ, because considering Him does nothing to help if you and not considering that does nothing to hurt if you are the elect. But at least could considering salvation help an elect robot come to Christ faster? No because you will be regenerated if and only at the exact moment God pre-determined you would be regenerated. Regeneration has nothing to do with a robot considering anything
Do you really believe this?
5. So don't bother listening to the gospel, it is a waste of time to preach, as humans participating in listening to it never had any power on anyone being regenerated anyway. In fact, as some Calvinists believed, in the Marrow Controversy, even Christians doing missions was pointless.
Do you really believe this?
If not, then how does Monergism differ from Christian Fatalism?
If you are a Monergist, consider the possibility that the above five statements might not be true. What if God not only pre-ordained the ends, but also pre-ordained the means of our cooperation and faith participating in our salvation. What if we are not saved by grace, period. Rather we are saved by grace, through faith. Though this might be consistent with Calvinism, it is not consistent with monergism.
Monergism is a manner of honor, - God's honor. Taken to its conclusion, it makes God the author of evil. It makes evangelism (and missions) a pointless command. Now some Calvinists see that God ordains the ends, but uses us (i.e. the participation and cooperation of both evangelists and hearers) as the means. But that is not monergism.
Bible Verses Against Christian Fatalism
God has not chosen to directly and expressly control some events. Jer 5:29; 8:19: 12:8; 19:5; 32:35; Ezek 8:6
Some break God's heart. Lk 19:41-44; Mt 23:37-39; Jer 4:19-22; 9:1
Many succeed in resisting God's commanded / desired will. Acts 7:39,51; 4:11; 13:46; 14:2; 2 Cor 6:1
Some things are on our own initiative. 2 Cor 8:17
Some things did not enter God's mind. Jer 19:5; 32:35
But ultimately, every event, even those permitted and not control-led, is woven into His ultimate purpose. See Eph 1:11; Prov 16:4,33; Rom 8:28; 11:36; 1 Cor 8:6; Rev 4:11
Probably a majority of Calvinists are not Christian Fatalists. Even John Calvin denied Fatalism:
"Fate is a term given by the Stoics to their doctrine of necessity, which they had formed out of a labyrinth of contradictory reasonings; a doctrine calculated to call God Himself to order, and to set Him laws whereby to work. Predestination I define to be, according to the Holy Scriptures, that free and unfettered counsel of God by which He rules all mankind, and all men and things, and also all parts and particles of the world by His infinite wisdom and incomprehensible justice... Had you but been willing to look into my books, you would have been convinced at once how offensive to me is the profane term fate." (Calvin's Calvinism p.261-262.)
After the Marrow Controversy, many Calvinists were in fact very active in missions. But they were not Christian fatalists, any more than these guys were. Samuel Zwemer, a famous Christian missionary to Muslims, (and also a Calvinist), says of Islamic traditions, "this kind of Predestination should be called Fatalism and nothing else. For Fatalism is the doctrine of an inevitable necessity and implies an omnipotent and arbitrary sovereign power." Moslem Doctrine of God p.97.
Charles Hodge of Princeton Theological Seminary, said, "God never decrees to do, or to cause others to do what He forbids. He may, as we see He does, decree to permit what He forbids. He permits men to sin, although sin is forbidden." (Curt Daniel's Dissert. p.230). In Chosen by God p.97 R.C. Sproul writes "[God] ordained the Fall in the sense that he chose to allow it, but not in the sense that he chose to coerce it."
Louis Berkhof says, "Concurrence may be defined as the cooperation of the divine power with all subordinate powers, according to the pre-established laws of operation, causing them to act and to act precisely as they do." Curt Daniel (p.201) adds "He acts in, with and under the things of Nature."
Lorraine Boettner explains: we have free agency (but not free will) like goldfish can swim freely in a bowl. "Predestination and free agency are the twin pillars of a great temple, and they meet above the clouds where the human gaze cannot penetrate. Or again, we may say that Predestination and free agency are parallel lines; and while the Calvinist may not be able to make them unite, the Arminian cannot make them cross each other." (ibid p.222)
Some see the Four spiritual Laws as anti-Biblical heresy. They are not perfect, Perhaps these Five spiritual Laws would be better?
Some Teachers of Monergism
Some Calvinists says that God ordains the ends, within his decrees uses our cooperation in the means. Monergism, as I understand it, denies that God uses our means or cooperation at all prior to being regenerated.
"...not only had God a perfect foreknowledge of the outcome of Adam's trial, not only did His omniscient eye see Adam eating of the forbidden fruit, but He decreed beforehand that he should do so. This is evident not only from the general fact that nothing happens save that which the Creator and governor of the universe has eternally purposed, but also from the express declaration of Scripture that Christ as a Lamb ‘verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world' (1 Pet 1:20)." (A.W. Pink The Sovereignty of God p.249.italics in original) (Reason 2 is used)
"To put it now in its strongest form, we insist that God does as He Pleases, only as He pleases, always as He pleases; that whatever takes place in time is but the outworking of that which He decreed in eternity." (Pink The Sovereignty of God p.194).