As most critics of the Church who are theists come from a Reformed/Calvinistic perspective, I think it would be useful to see how they interpret various Old and New Testaments to support their theology (here, the doctrine of reprobation). The quotes that follow come from Peter Sammons, Reprobation and God’s Sovereignty (2022).
For a thorough refutation of
Reformed theology, see, for e.g.
An
Examination and Critique of the Theological Presuppositions Underlying Reformed
Theology
Reformed understanding of Isa
45:7:
Many
texts speak of God’s control over catastrophe in general, stemming from the
weather to war. Isaiah 45:7 says about God: “The one forming light and creating
darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all
these.” The prophet Isaiah is not saying that God merely fashions an already
evil situation for his otherwise good purposes; rather, he uses the word “to
create” בָּרָא. On a linguistic level, “The root bârâ’ emphasizes the
initiation of the object” (Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament
[Chicago: Moody, 2004], 1:127). One cannot conclude that God is merely fixing a
problem, but in some measure he is causing it to exist. In fact, this is the
same term used in Genesis 1:1 to refer to God’s creation of the world. It is
not merely reshaping old material but creating something that has not existed.
(Peter Sammons, Reprobation and God’s Sovereignty: Recovering a Biblical
Doctrine [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Academic, 2022], 187-88)
Reformed understanding of Ezek
14:3-11 (note: the author believes this to be normative not merely an
instance of divine judgment):
.
. . God explained an important truth to Ezekiel concerning true prophets:
Son
of man, these men have set up their idols in their hearts and have put right
before their faces the stumbling block of their iniquity. Should I be consulted
by them at all? Therefore, speak to them and tell them, “Thus says the Lord
GOD, ‘Any man of the house of Israel who sets up his idols in his heart, puts
right before his face the stumbling block of his iniquity, and then comes to
the prophet, I the LORD will be brought to give him an answer in the matter in
view of the multitude of his idols, in order to lay hold of the hearts of the
house of Israel who are estranged from Me through all their idols.’” Therefore
say to the house of Israel, “Thus says the Lord God, ‘Repent and turn away from
your idols and turn your faces away from all your abominations.’” (Ezek.
14:3-6)
In
other words, if an Israelite asked a prophet for spiritual insight concerning
Jerusalem’s future, all the while secretly harboring sin in his heart, he would
not cooperate by proving a positive word for them—that is, if he were a true
prophet. After all, no true prophet would ever coddle an idolater’s feigned
devotion to God. Instead, he would rebuke the inquirer for his hypocrisy, and
call him to repentance. People like Ezekiel would expose the inquirer’s sin and
not give them the lie they wanted.
On
the other hand, God explained how false prophets would respond to these inquirers:
But
if the prophet is persuaded so that he speaks a word, it is I, the LORD, who
have persuaded that prophet; and I will stretch out My hand against him and
eliminate him from among My people Israel. And they will bear the punishment
for their wrongdoing; as the wrongdoing of the inquirer is, so the wrongdoing
of the prophet will be, in order that the house of Israel may no longer stray
from Me and no longer defile themselves with all their offenses. So they will
be My people, and I shall be their God,” declares the Lord GOD. (Ezek. 14:9-11)
Here,
God explained that if an Israelite approached a prophet in feigned devotion,
and the prophet was convinced or persuaded to give him the soothing lie that he
wanted, both the false prophet and the one who inquired of him would suffer
judgment. Nevertheless, don’t miss this vital detail in the passage: “If the
prophet is persuaded so that he speaks a word, it is I, the LORD, who have
persuaded that prophet” (Ezek. 14:9, emphasis mine).
In
other words, God said he would persuade false prophets to lie to those
who sought prophetic counsel while treasuring idols in their hearts. God would
give the false prophet a ministry opportunity that would bring about both the
prophet’s and the hearer’s own condemnation. He would be the one enticing
false prophets to give the people what they wanted. . . . . Some might try to
resolve this by saying that the Hebrew word for “persuade” doesn’t actually
mean what we understand it to mean in English. However, underlying the verb
“persuade” is the Hebrew word pathah, which means “to allure or
deceive.” . . . Lexically, then, the semantic range and use of the word enforces,
rather than refutes, a straightforward understanding of the word. “Persuade”
means “persuade.” (Ibid., 267-68, 269)
On the Reformed understanding of
John 17:12 and Judas being “the son of perdition”:
A
son of perdition is someone born to be lost; implying that destruction is the
ultimate purpose for decreeing and executing reprobation (in this case,
specific to Judas). In other words, the ultimate purpose of Judas’s life was
destruction. Judas’s betrayal of Christ was always part of God’s plan—it was
ordained before the foundation of the world. This is why Jesus says in John
6:70, “Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?”
(Ibid., 250-51)
Reformed interpretation of 1 Pet
2:8:
First
Peter 2:8 provides a helpful statement explaining the relationship between the
truth and the reprobate’s preordination to condemnation: “A STONE OF STUMBLING
AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE’; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the
word, and to this doom they were also appointed.” A more literal Greek
translation reads, “and the stone of stumbling and a rock of offense for they
stumble because they disobey the word as they were appointed to do.”
Commentators have very divided opinions as to the nature of the “appointment.”
The question commentators try to resolve is, “What is the antecedent of ο in the phrase εις ο και ετεθησαν?”
Some take it to be απειθουντες
(“disobedience”), while others take it to beπροσκοπτουσιν (“stumbling”). Those who appeal to προσκοπτουσιν (“stumbling”) do so on the basis of various
proofs. Some propose that disobedience is not preordained, yet stumbling is.
Their proposal results in making “stumbling” a mere consequence or penalty for
disobedience. According to such an interpretation, God ordains punishment
(stumbling) but not the crime (disobedience). Beyond the fact that it would be
illogical for God to ordain the effect (the punishment of stumbling) without
ordaining the cause (the crime of disobedience), it is difficult to see what
difference such a view makes. After all, stumbling is a form of disobedience.
These proposals do not alleviate the involvement of God in anyway.
One
simply cannot ignore the reality that this text presents God as ordaining
people to disobedience. With the pronoun being nearer to the relative clause,
it makes little sense to jump over the clause and connect the pronoun with
stumbling to the exclusion of disobedience. Further, stumbling is a form of
disobedience. The fact that God ordains people to punishment is indicated by
the word ετεθησαν because God has ordained people unto a
rejection of his Word resulting in their damnation. The stone of stumbling is
none other than Jesus Christ and the truth that he is Savior. They were
appointed to stumble upon him, to reject salvation by faith in him.
Condemnation was their appointment and Christ was the means of sealing their
fate.
The
fact that the truth provokes in the non-elect a response of rejection, by
divine appointment, unmistakably indicates that it is a means of reprobation.
Theologians have recognized this for a long time. Charles Spurgeon illustrates,
“The same sun which melts wax hardens clay; and the same Gospel which melts
some person to repentance hardens others in their sins” (The Lesson of the
Almond Tree”). Michael Horton states, “The same word that is faith0producing
and life-generating for some is for others an occasion to become more resolute
in unbelief” (For Calvinism, 69). Ultimately, Peter explains that the
Gospel is inherently scandalous for an additional reason often overlooked: the
same message has drastically different outcomes on the elect and the non-elect,
based on God’s foreordained intention. (Ibid., 256-58)
