Halden Doerge has been sharing some “wisdom” from John Piper. This post includes Piper’s response to children who lost their fathers on Sept. 11. Piper says:
The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. But the very power by which God governs all evils enables him to govern your life. And he has total authority to turn this and every other evil in your life for your everlasting good. And that’s your only hope in this world and in the next. And therefore, if you sacrifice the sovereignty of God in order to get him off the hook in the death of your daddy, you sacrifice everything. You don’t want to go there
My paraphrase: Yes, God killed your daddy. And he’s your only ticket out of hell, so you better not get too lippy about it.
Doerge’s summation is apt: “Piper’s god is a crazy sociopath, not the God and Father of Jesus Christ. I don’t feel like I’m making any sort of stretch in saying that.”
I am a part-time local pastor serving 
This love we believe to be the medicine of life, the never-failing remedy for all the evils of a disordered world, for all the miseries and vices of men. Wherever this is, there are virtue and happiness going hand in hand. There is humbleness of mind, gentleness, long-suffering, the whole image of God; and at the same time a peace that passeth all understanding, and joy unspeakable and full of glory.
Good paraphrase.
I like to think of God as a big enough God, secure in his own divinity, that he wouldn’t get upset at fragile, misunderstanding creatues who get angry at him because they’re fragile and misunderstand things big enough that only he and hold and understand them.
The phrase “in order to get him off the hood for the death of your daddy” is a little harsh, but the theological point should not be discarded. I am wesleyan, and fall more on the free will side of things, but that has to be balanced by the fact that the sovereignty of God is also scriptural and important. To blindly explain everything with free will has the potential to make God one who either is unable or unwilling to interact in God’s creation. To say God loves us enough to give us free will in this case is to say that God believes it is more important to protect the free will evil action than to protect a child from becoming orphaned. From either perspective, God does hold some level of responsibility–Either as a God who chose to allow a loving father to die or as a God who created beings with free will that they might destroy the world in which they were created. The message that evil exists but God is working to make all things–including the death of your father to work together for the good of those that love God is scriptural and I think the point here.
“The message that evil exists but God is working to make all things–including the death of your father to work together for the good of those that love God is scriptural and I think the point here.”
Without sounding too unkind I would agree with this. When it would be right to tell this to an orphan who has lost their parents is a big question and one that you couldn’t really say unless you’re there at the time.
I have a question about John Piper though. Isn’t he just expressing the orthodox Calvinist view in these things? I disagree with him on plenty but I don’t see how any of these criticisms could also not have been made by Wesley 250 years a go. Are we just retreading the same arguments?
If we are then is it not possible to take an approach similar to Wesley and be thankful that these preachers are reaching people and telling them about Jesus and helping them become saved whilst still expressing that we think Piper and co. have wrong ideas about God? And if so can we do it without descending to claims that Piper is worshipping a ‘false god’ or a different God to ourselves?
Tom, this is a good question you ask.
I’m an admirer and reader of Wesley, but no scholar on the subject, so my answer is limited.
Wesley certainly takes a high view of God’s lordship, and his arguments with Cavlinists were much more over predestination and free will than whether God has the power to stop all evil.
But my impression – perhaps false – is that he would not say with Piper that since God did not stop the terrorists from killing people that God ordained that it happen. To do so would require a person to say that God ordained that women are raped and babies murdered by pedophiles.
Wesley’s conception of free will is that the people who do such acts have been left free by God to reject grace and righteousness. Having been left free to resist, it is then their choice and not God’s that such horrible things happen.
For Piper and strict Calvinists this is a horrible limiting of the power and majesty of God.
There is an important distinction between human caused disasters and “natural” ones. Wesley’s sermon on the cause of earthquakes clearly states that the “moral” cause of earthquakes is sin, whatever their natural causes may be. But he seems to suggest a more foundational argument. The world is broken by sin and rebellion. One consequence of that is God’s wrath which roils creation and causes earthquakes. In Eden, there were no earthquakes. My reading of the sermon, however, does not clarify for me whether he would say God puts his finger on the earth and causes a particular earthquake to hit a particular place or whether the earthquakes are the result of a more systemic brokeness.
In other words, Wesley would say that hurricanes happen because sin has broken the world, but I’m not sure he would say that Hurricane Katrina was a particular judgment on New Orleans and the Mississippi coast.
In writing about predestination, Wesley said the doctrine undermined the very motive for faith and blasphemed against God by saying God wants what people to go to hell, which scripture clearly says God does not want.
So, your point about affirming that preachers are reaching people for Christ is a fair rebuke. Villification of people is not proper Christian conversation. I should be challenged when I do that.
But even Wesley spent a great deal of time writing to correct the mischaracterizations of God being spread by fellow ministers. If a man says God is the author of Sept. 11 – and suggests a pastoral strategy that in my opinion will have the opposite of its intended effect – then I do feel it is proper to register my dissent.
John M said:
“So, your point about affirming that preachers are reaching people for Christ is a fair rebuke. Villification of people is not proper Christian conversation. I should be challenged when I do that.
But even Wesley spent a great deal of time writing to correct the mischaracterizations of God being spread by fellow ministers. If a man says God is the author of Sept. 11 – and suggests a pastoral strategy that in my opinion will have the opposite of its intended effect – then I do feel it is proper to register my dissent.”
I think we agree then. I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t disagree or dissent from what John Piper is saying. Just not accuse him of worshipping a false God or put words in to his mouth. There is much I disagree with John Piper over. However I would also add that apart from reading the occasional blog and from my own reading of Wesley’s sermons there seems to be little in the church at the moment promoting Wesleyan theology and that it is perhaps time that we did that a little better. That way when we come to someone like Piper we (as a group) could understand where he is coming from and why we find his words so off-putting at a ‘gut level’.
I am not a Wesley scholar either but my understanding was that he felt so strongly on Calvinism that he parted company with George Whitfield. Yet he still valued Whitfield that he praised him at his funeral. Would we be prepared to do the same today?
Whitfield and Wesley are a good case study.
I find Piper’s portrait of God cold and ruthless – even heartless. But my bigger issue with him is pastoral not theological. To tell a small child that God killed her father and since God is her only hope for eternal salvaton she better not challenge or questions such a doctrine is more than clumsy. I think it damages the faith.
That said, it is not my place to impugn the character or intentions of a fellow Christian based on a difference of – to use Wesley’s words – mere opinions. So, I regret being clumsy and glib in my critique. However, I still find Piper’s theology and pastoral strategy wrong.
When Piper preaches on things with which Wesleyans easily agree, he is passionate, powerful, and compelling.
And when he speaks as an uber-Calvinist . . . he is passionate, powerful, and compelling.
I don’t know what to do with those facts. Perhaps offer a Philippians 1 gratefulness that the Gospel — presented in way that makes our Methodist stomachs squirm a bit — is being preached and preached well.
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Pretty unfair paraphrase. What Piper is saying is true and biblical. If we sacrifice God’s sovereignty in order to absolve God of any responsibility in not preventing someone’s death, then we make God subject to things out of his control, and then we can’t rely on him for anything, at least not with 100% confidence that what God is doing will turn out for good, because you never know if this is one of the instances that will turn out to be a mistake or one of the spots where God loses a risky bet. This has nothing to do with Calvinism, either. Piper’s not here arguing for Calvinism but arguing against open theism. An Arminian/Wesleyan should say the same thing. It’s cold and heartless to diminish God’s sovereignty and remove a believer’s confidence in God’s ability to honor his promises to us.
Jeremy, for once your logic is faulty and has led you astray. You have committed the fallacy of the false dilemma. You present only two alternatives: God’s absolute sovereignty over all events such that he actively causes everything to happen; and a situation in which God is “subject to things out of his control”. But there is at least one other possibility, which is I believe the biblical picture: that God allows human beings (and spiritual beings and perhaps animals) to make their own free choices, while remaining in control because he has the power (albeit rarely used) to overrule any choices or reverse their effects. On this basis God remains entirely sovereign, and his almighty power and “ability to honor his promises to us” are not in doubt, but he is not logically or morally responsible for evil acts perpetrated by humans.
Peter, you’ve got me entirely wrong, even though I took pains to make it clear that the view you’re calling the in-between view is part of the sovereignty side of the dilemma I’m proposing. The view you’re expressing is one way to account for divine sovereignty. As I said, this isn’t a debate between Calvinists and non-Calvinists. It’s a debate between the traditional view of providence whereby every event is under God’s control in at least some sense (your sense included) and the open theistic view whereby some events surprise God because God takes risks and can’t predict what will happen. The latter view doesn’t allow us to trust God 100%. That’s the only point Piper is making. You need at least some kind of divine sovereignty over everything that happens, even if it’s just that God allows things for a reason by not preventing them. Piper even uses exactly that language, so it’s clear that he’s not arguing for Calvinism here but against open theism. I’m not relying on a false dilemma. There is no in-between. You can have a view of God taking risks, being taken by surprise, and therefore not being 100% trustworthy, or you can have a view where God is not surprised and can be relied on.
Jeremy, on re-reading your comment I accept that it can be understood as consistent with what I wrote, that you are agreeing with me that God is sovereign in the sense that I summarised as him “remaining in control because he has the power (albeit rarely used) to overrule any choices or reverse their effects”. It just didn’t seem the natural way of reading it in the context of your apparent endorsement of Piper’s thoughts on this matter.
My real objections are to Piper’s thoughts, as quoted more fully by TC Robinson. The thoughts John M has quoted are not entirely objectionable. But would you also agree with this part?:
It seems to me that in these words Piper is both making a false inference and making God the author of evil. Yes, God could have stopped 9/11, but that does not imply that he ordained it. You may not have committed the fallacy of the false dilemma, but Piper has.
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Jonathan Edwards says, God is the permitter . . . of sin; and at the same time, a disposer of the state of events, in such a manner, for wise, holy and most excellent ends and purposes, that sin, if it be permitted . . . will most certainly and infallibly follow.