Joe Barnhart

University of North<= /span> Texas

15 January 2001

barnhart@unt.edu

Introduction. According to supralapsarianism, before the Fall, the Creator elected to save only some of his cre= atures from the curse of the Fall. The Fall itself and = the accompanying curse were also predestined. Since this appears to leave a gap between creation and the Fall, a critical questi= on emerges. Did the Creator come under pressure (logical, ontological, or whatever) by which the election of only some became his only option? A dile= mma arises. Either creation before = Adam placed such restraints on the Creator that he had no option but to select s= ome for salvation and others for damnation, or election preceded creation and therefore presumably came about through no external restraints.

Since presumably nothing ex= isted before creation except the Creator, something internal directed him to elect only some. Does this not entail, however, that he wanted some of his creatures to gain everlasting bliss and othe= rs to suffer everlasting agony? According to supralapsarian Calvinism, creatio= n is precisely what the Creator wanted in every detail. He not only desired the damnation of some, but also arranged events and all the sequences that made their damnation inevitable.

Auschwitz<= span class=3DGramE>. Abundant pictures and documentaries graphically display the horrors that the Nazis perpetrated on Jews and others in Auschwitz and other concentration camps. Viewing such scenes through Calvinistic lenses forces = the conclusion that the Creator actually wanted the victims to suffer. He not o= nly foreknew that their prayers for deliverance would go unanswered, but also arranged all prior events so that they would lead to the atrocities, includ= ing all the implied human agonies. Furthermore, traditional Calvinism, insisting that the Creator controls all events to the infinite detail, advances the scenario in which the millions of Jews who died in the concentration camps = will one day be resurrected for the purpose of casting them into an eternal concentration camp called Gehenna. The word “Gehenna,” derived = from a Hebrew word meaning “valley of Hinnom,” refers litera= lly to a valley southwest of Jerusalem where some of the kings of Judah= engaged in human sacrifice by fire. In extracanonical Jewish literature and= in the New Testament, “Gehenna” designates the place/state of torm= ent of the wicked. The apocalyptic work of First Enoch portrays the accursed valley as the place of final judgment where= in the torment of the wicked will become a public and endless spectacle for the righteous to behold.

According to evangelical predestinations, Jews who fail to convert to Christianity will be classified among the wicked, their greatest sin being that of not worshipping Jesus as= the promised Messiah and Son of God. Hence, their place in Everlasting Auschwit= z is viewed as thoroughly deserved. A foreshadowing of this outlook can be found= in Martin Luther’s vicious lashing out against the Jews, who did not con= vert as he apparently had hoped. Claiming that Jews were depraved parasites on German society, he set forth his program for dealing with them. In 1543, he exhorted fellow Germans to set fire to synagogues; to destroy Jewish homes = and scriptures; to confiscate Jewish belongings; to deny Rabbis, on pain of dea= th, the right to teach; and to grant no safety to Jews on highways. He recommen= ded driving them out like dogs (Luther 135, 258, 266‑292).

The Question of Control. Gordon Clark, one of the most articulate of supralapsarian Calvinists in America, taught such notable evangelical leaders as Carl Henry, Billy Graham, Edward= J. Carnell, and Paul Jewett. During a conference at the Park Street Church in Boston, a Jew on the panel a= sked Clark, “What would you do if I could prove to you beyond all doubt that= you were wrong?” Without hesitating, Clark answere= d, “I’d shoot myself” (Nelson 211). Clark views God as the Creator in total control of everything that comes into existence. In his view, God is the cause of sin and of everything. “N= ot only is Satan his creature, but every detail of history was eternally in his plan before the world began; and he willed that it should come to pass[. . .]. God determined that Christ should die; he determined as well that Judas should betray him” (237‑38).

Although Judas chose to bet= ray, he did not freely choose, Clark insists. Both Pilate’s and Judas’s choices were necessary, predetermined even= ts. For Clark, if Judas, Pilate, or anyone else had enjo= yed free will, God would not have been in full control and, consequently, the prophecies of Christ’s crucifixion might not have come true. The idea= of divine permission clashes with that of absolute control. Permission leaves = open the real possibility of independent forces changing the outcome (Clark 205‑207).

Divine Goodness and Control. John Wesley and others have regarded Calvin’s God as immoral, as no G= od at all, but a conscious force subject to no stable controls. Cla= rk answers bluntly that since the Creator invents and contrives the moral standards, no one can judge him. God is “ex‑lex,” outside law.

Does this, then, make Clark’s God an amoral outlaw? Plato and Euripides would probably answer in the affirmative. As Clark sees it, God originates moral = laws for human beings. The laws are not binding on the Creator, however, which is why he can put a lying spirit into the mouths of prophets or direct and cau= se tools like Pharaohs to commit evil deeds. If so, how can any human tool be held morally responsible? Clark gives his answer.

Man is re= sponsible because the supreme power can punish him for disobedience. God, on the contrary, cannot be responsible for the simple reason that there is no power superior to him; no greater = being can hold him accountable; no one can punish him; there is no one to whom Go= d is responsible; there are no laws that he could disobey. (241 Italics added)
The key concept here is power or control. The outcome of the entire Calvinistic scenario would s= eem to generate unimaginable horror for doubtless most of the human race, inclu= ding the slaughter of Egyptian children in the time of Moses and the drowning of almost the entire population of children and adults in Noah’s time. T= he greatest horror, however, is reserved for Buddhists, Humanists, Hindus, Jew= s, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and millions of others either already in Gehenna= or en route.

The fact, if it were a fact= , that all this misery and agony would originate in the mind of an omnipotent Bein= g in full control of everything comforts some. For others, it compounds the terr= or; for the consequences of the controlled events seem worse than if the whole = had no conscious planner or cosmic manipulator. The latter group does not worsh= ip power per se and tends to regard as perverse those who subscribe to the principle that Supreme Might makes right.

The Psychology of Calvinism. Now, how does this idea of predestined atrocities affect the conscience of = each Calvinist? Perhaps not all subscribers deal with the problem in the same wa= y. Principles of clinical psychology open up several possibilities. First, some supralapsarian Calvinists may respond through abstraction and denial, think= ing of the damned less as feeling creatures and more as mere objects, as catego= ry members. The violence inflicted on the damned is not perceived as violence = if the recipients are not perceived as sentient human beings. Damnation is tre= ated more as “filing away” than as inflicting endless pain and torme= nt. According to the second option, by contrast, some supralapsarian Calvinists regard the damned as living, though vile, creatures to be either identified with or ranked closely with the demonic. The reasons given for so regarding them resemble those given for inflicting cruel punishment upon hardened criminals. Unbelievers deserve their punishment because of the heinous natu= re of their crime (sin) or their demonic nature. In the Gospel of John, Judas = not only is chosen to play the scripted part of the betrayer, but also is identified as a devil (6:70). Just as some governments strip prisoners of a= ll dignity and virtually all rights as human beings, so in Calvinistic theology the damned either have no innate dignity or have dignity in a perverse sense only.

According to the third opti= on, just because the damned enjoy human dignity, they cannot be put out of their mis= ery as one might put a cornered rat out of its misery. Rather, human dignity requires that the damned be punished (tormented) endlessly with no hope of relief or release. Rats, spiders, and other presumed loathsome creatures do= not receive endless torment because they, lacking human consciousness and digni= ty, cannot sin. Those taking this third way evidently must undergo a psychologi= cal hardening if they become its apologist for long.

The Amity‑Enmity Complex. In African Genesis and Territorial Imperative, Robert Ard= rey argues that the human species has inherited from its animal roots the amity= ‑enmity complex. The members of a group who are united within their home territory develop protective love for those in the group and hostility toward outside= rs of the same species. I would modify this hypothesis by suggesting that as a species gifted with symbolic interaction, we can treat various things, including an ideology or belief system, as if it were home territory. If so, then as believers humans have a predisposition to regard outsiders with enm= ity. Calvinism has provided a theological version of, and justification of, the primitive amity‑enmity complex. This is why many Calvinists have over= the centuries been able to accept the eternal damnation of all outside the ideological territory. Indeed, Ardrey argues that humans have a primitive duality of conscience, leading people to not only love insiders, but also to debase outsiders. In this connection, a Feuerbachian reading of the supralapsarian Calvinistic theology might disclose a great deal about human duality.

Works Cited

Clark, Gordon. Religion, Reason, and Revelation.<= /span> Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1961.

Luther, Martin. “On Jews and Their Lies.” Rpt. in Luthers Wahr. Vol. 47. Ed. Jaraslov Pelican. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1955‑75.<= /p>
Nelson, Rudolph. The Making and Unmaking of an Evangeli= cal Mind: The Case of Edward J. Carnell. New York: Cambridge UP, 1987.

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