Irrational Baptists

Before busying himself with chasing after every new philosophical fad and having his ears tickled by so-called “Reformed Epistemology” while trying to resurrect the Romanish fantasy of natural theology, Michael Sudduth asked the question, Are Baptists Rational? His answer back in 1993 was a resounding “No.”  Sudduth wrote:

The rejection or disparagement of logic, then, whether it be by the religious irrationalist, the orthodox Reformed theologian, or a Calvinistic Baptist, is manifestly unscriptural. God is a God of truth, wisdom, and knowledge. Man was created in his image, endowed with an a priori reason by which he can think God’s thoughts after him. God’s revelation is rational because it is the revelation of the divine mind. Man can understand that revelation because he was created in the divine image. The Biblical writers reason, they construct arguments, they think in terms of the laws of logic. The Bible is, therefore, a rational revelation from God to man. Christian theology, because it is based upon that revelation, is inherently rational.

The suggestion of this concluding chapter is a basic one. If theologians would reconsider the relationship between God and logic, that belief in the former entails a commitment to the latter, the intellect will be restored to its rightful place in theology. The primacy of reason will thwart the forces of irrationalism in general and misology in particular. Theology will be, as Augustine once said, ”de divinitate rationem sive sermonem,’” rational discussion respecting the Deity.

The theological defense of logic is an argument quite easy to follow. Since theology implies Scripture, and Scripture implies logic, it follows that theology implies logic. Or, in other terms: to reject logic is to reject truth, and to reject truth is to reject God; therefore, misology is the rejection of God.

In the beginning was the Logic,

and the Logic was with God,

and the Logic was God.

– John 1:1

Sadly, the misology that Sudduth attributed to those calling themselves Reformed Baptists, which ends, and by good and necessary consequence, with the rejection of God, persists today.   Back in January of this year, someone posting on my blog’s comment box with the tag “deangonzales” took issue with something I wrote in a piece entitled, “The Sincere Insanity of the Well Meant Offer.” In defending the absurd notion of insoluble paradoxes in Scripture, which are in every sense indistinguishable from contradictions, and, frankly, if truly insoluble are really just contradictions despite all the feigned pious prattle by Vantilians about there not being any contradictions for God, “deangonzales” wrote:

Having read this post and the subsequent comments, I wonder how the line of thought that finds paradox (defined as an apparent not real contradiction) as “insane” would escape the same dilemma when trying to (1) affirm that God is not the author of evil while, simultaneously, (2) affirming that God plans, controls, and employs evil to accomplish his purposes. If God has written the script for creation history and inserted evil into that script, how can one avoid the seemingly logical conclusion that God is in fact the “author of evil”?

Admittedly, an interesting problem, but one that was a bit afield of my piece and already answered effectively by Gordon Clark back in 1932 in a piece entitled, “Determinism and Responsiblity,” which was later reprinted in Trinity Review  in 1991.  So, rather reinvent the wheel, I referred “Dean” to Clark along with recommending Robert Reymond’s discussion of the problem of evil in his systematic theology (which nicely expands on Clark’s solution).  Well, six months later “deangonzales” is back linking a piece he wrote defending the incoherence of the so-called Well Meant Offer entitled: “God Makes A Wish That Each and Every Sinner Might be Saved.”

Needless to say I was a little surprised to find out that the man I thought was “Dean Gonzales” was actually Dr. Bob Gonzales, Dean of Reformed Baptist Seminary in South Carolina.  Rather than just another misologist and paradox monger in blogosphere, clearly here is a man who is genuinely responsible for shaping the minds of men while purportedly training them for Gospel ministry.  I say purportedly because if “God Makes A Wish” is at all representative of the kind of training men receive at Reformed Baptist Seminary, it doesn’t bode well for anything approximating Gospel ministry coming out of RBS.   Paul said; “For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for ye shall speak into the air.”  Similarly, if the message of salvation is presented in an incoherent and contradictory manner then how can the words being preached be rightly understood?

Has it never entered the confused minds of these paradox mongers that if Scripture really does consist of a series of impenetrable mysteries and insufferable paradoxes, even as they touch upon God’s glorious plan of salvation, then they give every reason for unbelievers to reject the Gospel message as just so much nonsense?  And, since it seems that it is only those calling themselves “Calvinists” who persist in presenting and trying to justify their incoherent and irrational so-called “plan of salvation” where God is said to both desire and not desire the salvation of all, can there be any mystery why Calvinism remains the minority report relegated to the backwaters of the ersatz-Evangelical world?

After all, if the message of grace includes antinomies, contradictions and so-called paradoxes impenetrable by human minds, then we can concluded that at least some of the Gospel message is false, or, at the very least, not to be trusted.  Consequently, it would be better if such preachers were left preaching “into the air.”   Instead these men persist in teaching nonsense all in the name of Christ.

Which brings us back to the Dean of RBS, Dr. Bob Gonzales. First, consider the title of his piece; “God Makes A Wish That Each and Every Sinner Might be Saved.”  This image alone is disturbing.  Dr. Gonzales paints a picture for us of the Sovereign Lord God of heaven and earth shutting His eyes while making a wish and blowing out the candles on His celestial birthday cake, hoping against hope that His divine and holy birthday wish might come true.  Think I’m being unfair?  Well, in case anyone could possibly miss it, Gonzales includes with his article a nice picture of candles burning atop a birthday cake.  Is this the picture of God we get from Scripture? Concerning the God of Scripture didn’t the prophet Daniel say:  “And all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, But He does according to His will in the host of heaven And among the inhabitants of earth; And no one can ward off His hand Or say to Him, ‘What hast Thou done?’” And, didn’t the prophet Amos say: “Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?” Does God really wish for something to come true, knowing full well that it not only might not come true, but in the case of the salvation of all, most certainly will not come true and for no other reason than God wills it?

I found it deeply troubling that the Dean of a supposedly “conservative” and even “Calvinistic” Christian seminary would even attempt to paint such a nauseating and anemic picture of such an impotent and emasculated God blowing out some candles while making a wish. Frankly, I can hardly imagine such a disrespectful and  blasphemous analogy being  drawn of the Almighty God coming from a completely apostate and liberal seminary.  I have to wonder if the board of RBS approves of such a shameful portrayal of the Lord God Almighty?  My guess is they do.

Unfortunately, the content of Dr. Gonzales’ blog piece lives up to its title and fails before it even begins. On the plus side, Gonzales provides another excellent example of the illogic of the Well Meant Offer crowd. Gonzales begins:

The Lord expressly desired that Adam and Eve refrain from eating the forbidden fruit (Gen. 2:16-17), yet he ordained their Fall (Gen. 3:1-6).

However, notice that Genesis 2:16-17 is written in the imperative mood:

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die.”

From this Gonzales concludes that “The Lord expressly desired that Adam and Eve refrain from eating the forbidden fruit.”  The problem is one cannot infer anything in the indicative mood from something written in the imperative. Fittingly, Martin Luther ridiculed Erasmus for making this same elementary logical blunder only concerning the false idea of a free will:

Even grammarians and schoolboys on street corners know that nothing more is signified by verbs in the imperative mood than what ought to be done, and that what is done or can be done should be expressed by words in the indicative. How is it that you theologians are twice as stupid as schoolboys, in that as soon as you get hold of a single imperative verb you infer an indicative meaning…? [The Bondage of the Will, 159]

It is particularly troubling when the Dean of the Reformed Baptist Seminary has failed to learn as much as “schoolboys on street corners.”  For the same reason that it would be impossible to infer a libertarian free will  from any of God’s commands, it’s similarly impossible to infer a desire or longing on the part of God from the command to Adam not to eat from a particular tree.  That’s because imperatives or commands are neither true nor false.

In a brief discussion on propositions, Dr. Elihu Carranza (who wrote the workbook for Gordon Clark’s, Logic) rightly observes that propositions are alone “the premises and conclusions of arguments” simply because only propositions can be either true or false.  He goes on to note that commands, questions (with the exception of rhetorical questions which are intended as propositions) and exhortations “are neither true nor false.” So, how Gonzales thinks he can infer a desire or anything else from a command is indeed a mystery?  Even more paradoxical, Dr. Gonzales in a comment to me agrees with Dr. Carranza:

We don’t need the logician to tell us that imperative command, “Do this,” or prohibition, “Don’t do this,” are in themselves neither intrinsically true or false. We already know that.

Well, if Gonzales already knew that, one would think he would not be trying to foolishly ram commands, which he admits are neither true or false, as true premises in arguments. If a premise is neither true nor false then it follows that you cannot infer anything true from them. Luther was right!

Further, is it even true that “The Lord expressly desired that Adam and Eve refrain from eating the forbidden fruit”?  Now, since Gonzales admits that God ordained the Fall, one would think that if it was God’s desires that Adam and Eve not fall, then they would not have fallen.  But God clearly desired another outcome and even provides the reason as to why in Genesis 3:22a: “Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil….”  That hardly sounds like a lament.  Which makes sense, since God works all things, and not just some things, for His own glory, including Adams fall into sin along with all of his natural decedents.  For man to be like Christ he had to be translated from a state of innocency into a state of knowing good from evil. Adam had to fall in the economy of God’s providence so that Christ, and not Adam, would be “the first born of many brothers.”  Consequently, while Satan lied in Genesis 3:4, he didn’t lie in verse 3:5 when he said;  “For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  As Dr. W. Gary Crampton observes

a Biblical theodicy maintains, as the Westminster Confession of Faith (3:5; 5:1) says, that all that God decrees and  providentially brings to pass are “all to the praise of His glorious grace… [It is] to His own glory.” Robert Reymond correctly states that “the consentient view of all Scripture is that God’s supralapsarian purpose in creating the world is that He would be glorified (Isaiah 43:7, 21; Ephesians 1:6-14) through the glorification of His Son, as the ‘first-born among many brothers’ (Romans 8:29), and the Lord of His church (Philippians 2:11; Colossians 1:18). Creation’s raison d’être then is to serve the redemptive ends of God.”

Hence, it is logically consistent that the Fall of mankind had to occur if God is to be ultimately glorified through the glorification of His Son. That is, God’s foreordination of the Fall, and His providentially bringing it to pass, are necessary. He has purposed it for His own glory. The apostle Paul speaks to this in Romans 5:12-19. There we read that Adam and Christ are federal heads of two covenantal arrangements. It is necessary to postulate that if Adam had successfully passed his probation in the Garden (that is, the covenant of works), he would have been confirmed by God in positive righteousness. He would have passed from the state of being posse pecarre (possible to sin) to the state of non posse pecarre (not possible to sin). Adam’s righteousness, then, would have been imputed to all of his descendants (that is, the entire human race). And all mankind would have gratefully looked to him, not Christ, as Savior. For all eternity, God would then share His glory with His creature: Adam. Ironically, the obedience of Adam would have led to idolatry. Therefore, that alternative world is logically impossible. Only the actual world, in which the Fall of man occurred, is logically possible and redounds to the glory of God alone. Had Adam obeyed, Jesus Christ would have been denied His role as “the first-born among many brothers” and the Lord of His church. And the Father would not receive the glory for His work through the Son. It seems, then, that this supralapsarianism view of the purpose of creation is in agreement with a number of the Puritans who referred to the Genesis 3 event as “the fortunate Fall.” [A Biblical Theodicy]

Consequently, it is not true that “The Lord expressly desired that Adam and Eve refrain from eating the forbidden fruit.” This conclusion is contrary to a Biblical theodicy, it is contrary to logic, it is contrary to sound hermeneutics, and it is contrary to the analogy of faith.  It is simply impossible to infer a desire on the part of God for any outcome other than the one God has ordained.  The God of Scripture is not double minded and is not eternally forlorn left wanting for any outcome that He has not already determined and for His own glory.

Undeterred, Gonzales continues to build on the  illogic of trying to infer something in the indicative from something written in the imperative, by asserting:

And God sincerely yearns that each and every sinner might turn from his sinful autonomy, embrace his Creator as Lord and Savior, and enjoy God’s saving blessing, even though God has not in fact chosen to bring to fruition the salvation of each and every sinner. In other words, while God fulfills all his decreed wishes, he has chosen not to fulfil every one of his prescriptive or revealed wishes.

This mysterious and paradoxical reality is underscored in a text like Deuteronomy 5:29.

While we’ll look closer at Deuteronomy 5:29 in a moment, the first thing to notice is this supposed universal desire for the salvation of all has taken Dr. Gonzales into that dark incoherent Vantilian hallway of “mystery and paradox.”  Just so there is no mistaking his meaning, in a footnote Gonzales explains that by paradox he means; “that which seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a truth.”  Notice, he does not mean by paradox something that might appear at first to be self-contradictory or absurd but on closer inspection proves to be no contradiction at all.  He means that the self-contradictory notions he is advancing, i.e., that God desires and “yearns” for the salvation of all, while decreeing to save only some, are both true.  He explains this by trotting out the worn out and thoroughly refuted notion that while God fulfills all of his “decreed wishes” or desires, He has another category of desires, His “preceptive desires,” some or most of which remain forever unfulfilled.

An example of this Vantilian song and dance might be when Jesus said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” Here, we are told,  Jesus is expressing a “preceptive” wish, yearning and desire that “every sinner might turn from his sinful autonomy, embrace his Creator as Lord and Savior, and enjoy God’s saving blessing.”  Yet, this same Jesus says in Matthew:

I praise Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou didst hide these things from the wise and intelligent and didst reveal them to babes. Yes, Father, for thus it was well-pleasing in Thy sight. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son, except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.

Notice, Jesus praises the Father for not revealing the truth of who He is to the “wise and intelligent.”   In addition, He said that no one knows the Father except those “whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”  Needless to say it is painfully self-contradictory to say that God desires that “every sinner might turn from his sinful autonomy, embrace his Creator as Lord and Savior, and enjoy God’s saving blessing” while at the same time we see Jesus praising the Father for hiding the truth of Jesus effectively keeping many, if not most, from turning to Jesus so that they might be saved.  If it was Jesus’ desire that all might turn and embrace Jesus as Lord and Savior, one would think He would want to reveal the truth of His Father to all men.  Clearly, God’s “preceptive will” is at cross purposes with His “decretive will.”  Dr. Gonzales evidently thinks the God of Scripture is double minded, self-contradictory and as confused as he is.  It should be evident by now why it is always wrong to try and infer something in the indicative from something written in the imperative, even the imperative to “repent and believe in the gospel.”

Not surprisingly, and to justify advancing such patent nonsense while imputing irrationality to the Godhead, Gonzales appeals in another footnote to C. Van Til and even John Frame’s atrocious piece of illogic, “The Problem of Theological Paradox,” for support (for my response to Frame,  see “The Evisceration of the Christian Faith”).    Gonzales even goes one step further by asserting that “mystery and paradox “ is the “nature of biblical truth.”  There can be no question that Gonzales has learned his lessons well from the above mentioned paradox mongers and irrationalists.  What else can you expect from someone who believes it is the nature of biblical truth to be “mysterious and paradoxical.” While alarming in itself, this explains why he is not at all concerned that his position concerning God’s imagined universal desire for the salvation of all ends in “mystery and paradox.”

More importantly, the supposed distinction between God’s so-called “preceptive” and “decretive” desires is distinction without meaning.  If it were true that God desires and does not desire the same thing in two different senses, then the senses of the word these men assert would resolve any paradox. Yet, in spite of all their linguists gymnastics and prattle about God’s so-called “preceptive desires” the paradox of God’s imagined yearning for the salvation of the non-elect remains unresolved.  Again, a paradox for Gonzales is not that which on closer inspection turns out to be no contradiction at all, but  “that which seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a truth.”  While it would be a contradiction to say  that God desires to save and not to save all men, what makes this a “paradox” in the minds of these men is that both sides of this contradiction are both true. How they are both true they can’t explain, but they assure us this is indeed the case. I suspect Gonzales follows his mentor John Frame on this point who asserts “this is where faith comes in.” Consequently, the imagined distinction between God’s “decretive” and “preceptive” desires is just a smoke screens to fool the poor suckers in the pew (or, rather,  in the seminary classroom) that what these men are advancing is not the brazen contradiction it so clearly is.  Sophistry by any other name….

Consequently, when stripped of its meaningless rhetoric, Gonzales is left with a God who both desires and does not desire the same thing at the same time and in the same sense. He is right about one thing, this is without question “self-contradictory and absurd.”  Simply adding the words “decretive” “preceptive” as predicates to the word “desire” ought to fool no one.  Sadly, and I suppose this is not true for the poor souls who have to answer to Gonzales in order to get their degrees,  many take the bait.

Make no mistake, to adopt the hermeneutic being advanced by men like dean Gonzales requires the abandonment of the analogy of faith and the Confessional belief that the Scriptures present to the mind a “consent of all the parts” (WCF 1.5).  There is no middle ground.  Gonzales clearly  recognizes this and is more than willing to toss the analogy of faith and the “consent of all the parts,” what the Westminster Divines considered one of the central evidences as to the truthfulness of Scripture, overboard.  Gonzales writes:

Heterodoxy often results when men overemphasize one truth to the neglect or denial of another. We fear that some of our Calvinist friends suppress the clear teachings of certain texts that don’t seem to fit with their understanding of biblical doctrines like God’s sovereignty, transcendence, and immutability. In defense of rejecting the clear meaning of a text in favor of an implausible reading, they will appeal to “the analogy of Scripture.” But as Sam Waldron aptly cautions,

“There is but one step between the responsible interpretation of the Bible which believing in its theological unity, refuses to so interpret any text as to transgress that unity; and on the other hand, the dogmatic interpretation of the Bible which assuming its system to be biblical, refuses to allow the Bible to speak. This latter method gags the Bible under the pretense of the analogy of faith (emphasis his).”

Our duty is to believe and preach whatever God reveals in His inspired Word whether or not our puny mind can trace out all the connections. Hence, a Calvinist may ex animo adhere to and teach both to God’s absolute sovereignty in salvation and also to God’s free and well-meant offer of the gospel to all men indiscriminately because both doctrines are taught in Scripture.

Gonzales begins his assault on the linchpin of Reformed and Biblical hermeneutics by asserting, “Heterodoxy often results when men overemphasize one truth to the neglect or denial of another.”  No argument here, but note carefully that it is precisely the belief that the Scriptures present to the mind a consent of all the parts, the analogy of faith, that Gonzales and Waldron claim results in the “neglect or denial” of Biblical truth.  Waldron asserts that there is a “step between the responsible interpretation of the Bible which believing in its theological unity, refuses to so interpret any text as to transgress that unity; and on the other hand, the dogmatic interpretation of the Bible which assuming its system to be biblical, refuses to allow the Bible to speak.”  These men are unambiguous in their attack on Scripture and maintain that the analogy of faith “gags the Bible,” and, as a result, ends up favoring “an implausible reading” of Scripture instead of the “correct” and “responsible” one.

If the men at RBS had any allegiance to the truth of Scripture they would tie Gonzales to a rail and send him packing.  Unbelievably, and as we’ve just seen, Gonzales and Waldron assert that the analogy of faith, the belief that all biblical teaching logically cohere in all that it teaches is a “pretense” that “gags the Bible.”  The only gagging that should be done is by Christians who still understand what truth is.  Contrary to Gonzales and Waldron the nature of biblical truth is not “mystery and paradox,” but rather truth is evidenced by the logical harmony of propositions. This is what is meant by the idea that within Scripture there is a “consent of all the parts” (WCF 1.5)  and that the meaning of Scripture is “not manifold, but one” (WCF 1.9).  That’s because truth, by definition, is non-contradictory and no two truths can ever contradict each other.  This is also why one valid inference from true premises cannot contradict any other true proposition.

If a presumed interpretation or inferred conclusion contradicts Biblical teaching, the interpretation or inference must be either incorrect or  invalid. Biblical teaching is non-contradictory. But Gonzales and Waldron assures us that the truths of Scripture will require us to, and at various points,  abandon the analogy of the faith. They don’t realize that to abandon the logical unity of Scripture at one point necessarily implies abandoning it at all points. That’s because if the Scriptures contradict themselves at any one point then we can know that at least some of what the Bible teaches must be, and not may be, false.  All the pious drivel about “mystery and paradox” is nothing but more meaningless smoke and mirrors masking the authoritarian agenda of these paradox mongers.  The analogy of faith is the governing principle that assures us that our interpretation of Scripture is sound.  If this principle is abandoned then the interpretative playing field is wide open and virtually any interpretation of Scripture is permissible, and if one objects, any disagreement can be chalked up as just another example of “mystery and paradox.”  Rather than the analogy of faith resulting in heterodoxy and an abandonment of Biblical truth, it is its safeguard.

Which brings us to the centerpiece of Gonzales’ belief in God’s universal desire for the salvation of all: Deuteronomy 5:29.   In this verse we see God speaking to the people of Israel in the optative mood expressing the desire that they would fear Him and keep His commandments:

‘Oh that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear Me, and keep all My commandments always, that it may be well with them and with their sons forever!

From this verse Gonzales rightly notes:

This is the same bunch of Israelites who would never enter Canaan because of unbelief. “With most of them,” the apostle Paul remarks, “God was not pleased for they were overthrown in the wilderness” (1 Cor. 10:5). So most of these people were reprobates and are probably now suffering in hell. Whatever devotion and commitment they expressed at the foot of Mount Sinai was superficial and short-lived.

Of course, their shallow response didn’t pull the wool over God’s eyes. God knew their professed devotion was only skin-deep. Accordingly, God immediately qualifies his commendation of their initial response with a striking expression that highlights both the spurious quality of their devotion and also God’s wish that it were otherwise….

All well and good, however from this Gonzales concludes: “This passage teaches us that God passionately wishes the good of those who never experience that good.”  Well, that doesn’t follow. As Matthew Winzer notes in his masterful review and refutation of John Murray’s, “The Free Offer of the Gospel,”

the optative mood, while it may be restricted to a simple desire or wish, oftentimes carries the connotation of longing after, and that in a mournful way when it is an unfulfilled longing, as the comment on Ps. 81:13 indicates. Hence, the texts beckon the reader to understand the expressions as God speaking after the manner of men. As David Dickson has qualified, the lamenting of God for His people’s misery “is not to be taken so, as if there were in God any passion or perturbation, or miserable lamentation: but this speech is to be conceived, as other like speeches in Scripture, which are borrowed from the affections of men, and are framed to move some holy affection in men, suitable to that affection from which the Lord taketh the similitude.”  Such expressions, then, are intended to instruct the hearers as to what their passion ought to be, not to indicate that God is characterised by such passions Himself.

Interestingly Winzer cites an Old English translation of a sermon given by John Calvin on Deuteronomy dealing with the very verse in question:

God therefore to make the people perceive how hard a matter it is to keepe the lawe, sayeth here, I would fayne it were so… True it is that here God speaketh after the maner of men: for he needeth no more but wish things done, all things are in his hand.” And a little later on the same text, “And why then doth he pretend to wish it in this text? It is bicause he speaketh after the maner of men, as he doeth in many other places. And (as I said afore) it is to the ende that when there is any mention made of walking in obedience to Godward, we should understand that it cannot bee done without hardnesse, and that our wits should be wakened to apply our selves earnestly to that studie.

Not surprisingly, the great Puritan giant, John Owen, shares Calvin’s interpretation:

[I]n all these expostulations there is no mention of any ransom given or atonement made for them that perish… but they are all about temporal mercies, with the outward means of grace…. [T]here are no such expostulations here expressed, nor can any be found holding out the purposes and intention of God in Christ towards them that perish. Secondly, … all these places urged … are spoken to and of those that enjoyed the means of grace, who … were a very small portion of all men; so that from what is said to them nothing can be concluded of the mind and purpose of God towards all others…. Fifthly, that desires and wishing should properly be ascribed unto God is exceedingly opposite to his all-sufficiency and the perfection of his nature; they are no more in him than he hath eyes, ears, and hands.” [As cited by Garrett Johnson in “The Myth of Common Grace”]

And, that great Reformed Baptist theologian, John Gill (the one grossly maligned and libeled by the paradox mongers as a “Hyper-Calvinist”) similarly writes:

Not that there is properly speaking such volitions and wishes in God; but…the Scripture speaks after the language of the children of men; and may be considered as upbraiding them with want of such an heart, and with weakness to do what they had promised; and, at most, as approving of those things they spoke of as grateful to him, and profitable to them: the words may be rendered, “who will give that they had such an heart”; not to me, but to them, as Aben Ezra notes; they cannot give it to themselves, nor can any creature give it to them; none but God can, and therefore they ought to have prayed to him to give them an heart to hearken and do; agreeably to which is the Arabic version,“it is to be wished by them, that such an heart would continue with them;”which they by their language signified was in them: that they would fear me; which is not naturally in the heart of man, is a gift of God, a part of the covenant of grace, is implanted in regeneration, and is no inconsiderable branch of it; it is opposed to pride, and is consistent with faith and joy, and is increased by views of the grace and goodness of God, and is a distinguishing character of a good man….that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever; for the fear of God, and the keeping of his commandments, issue in the good of men, in their own good, their inward peace, and spiritual welfare; in the good of others, their neighbors, servants, and children, by way of example and instruction; and even in the public peace and prosperity of a nation in which they dwell: not that these things are meritorious of eternal life, but are what are approved of by the Lord, and are grateful to him; which is the chief view in the expression of the text. [ Commentary on Deuteronomy]

Not surprisingly, Gonzales believes Gill, along with the others mentioned above, are just “plain wrong.”  He complains that “The text cannot, according to these interpreters, denote a fervent longing for the salvation of the non-elect….”  Well, of course the verse cannot denote a longing, fervent or otherwise, for the salvation of the non-elect for the simple reason that the verse has nothing to do with salvation and doesn’t have the salvation of the elect or even the non-elect in view.  As Gill notes:

After all, these words do not express God’s desire of their eternal salvation, but only of their temporal good and welfare, and that of their posterity; for their eternal salvation was not to be obtained by works of righteousness done by them, by their fear or worship of God, or by their constant universal obedience to his commands. They were saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, even as we. Their fear of God, and obedience to his will, issued indeed in their temporal prosperity, and on this account were strictly enjoined them; that so they might live, and it be well with them, and they prolong their days in the land they were going to possess, as appears from verse 33; and with a view to this, God so ardently desired these things in them, and to be done by them. [Lord God of Truth sec.1.3]

In spite of the fact that “eternal salvation was not to be obtained by works of righteousness,”and that the all the saints, both under the Old and New dispensations, are saved “by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, even as we,” (something one would have thought that even the dean of a Reformed Baptist Seminary might know), Gonzales exclaims: “Clearly, Deuteronomy 5:29 DOES teach that God desires the salvation of reprobates.”  Needless to say, advancing a glaring contradiction in his soteriology is the least of Gonzales’ problems.  He believes in salvation by works as well.

By simply ignoring the temporal nature of Deuteronomy 5:29,  Gonzales’ confusion grows even deeper. He says that the above interpretations all fail because of the mistaken belief that “(1) genuine emotions cannot be predicated of God, and (2) unfulfilled desires are logically inconsistent with God’s sovereignty and perfect blessedness.”

Admittedly, unfulfilled desires are “logically inconsistent with God’s sovereignty and perfect blessedness.”  As the minority report adopted by the OPC correctly notes (which is a brilliant rejoinder to Murray’s irrational defense of God’s so-called universal desire for the salvation of the reprobate):

Desire suggests a want or lack in the one who desires which can be fulfilled only by the gratifying of the desire. This is incompatible with the self-sufficiency of God. Desire is something weaker than the firm determination of the will. No such weak wishing can properly be ascribed to God whose will is firmly fixed and fixes all things. God has not a will that can be frustrated as well as one that cannot be…The particular passages of Scripture alleged to support frustratable desires no more prove desire as an emotion or passion in God than the assertion “it repented God…” etc. proves a real change of his mind, or that God actually desired to know that the wickedness of Sodom was as it had been represented to him.

Yet, in contrast Gonzales maintains:

[A]ccording to the plain meaning of the text…God is not said merely to approve of human devotion and consequent felicity in the abstract. Rather, he is said to desire a concrete objective ardently, and that concrete objective is nothing less than that those identified in the text.

OK, now which of the above commentators said that God merely approves of human devotion and felicity in the abstract?  Well, none of course. What they did say is that temporal blessings, not for all men universally distributed, but only those who make up God’s chosen nation, Israel, is conditioned on the basis of human devotion and felicity to God’s commandments. Perhaps Dr. Gonzales needs to go back a chapter and read Deuteronomy 4:40:

So you shall keep His statutes and His commandments which I am giving you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may live long on the land which the LORD your God is giving you for all time.

Seeing that Gonzales’ interpretation of 5:29 necessarily implies salvation by works, perhaps he thinks 4:40 has salvation and eternal blessedness of the reprobate in mind too?

Finally, Gonzales claims the Reformed exegesis of Deuteronomy 5:29 fails because “a proper understanding of God’s transcendence, sovereignty, and immutability does not preclude the attribution of genuine emotions to God.”  Gonzales claims that human emotions are the analog of divine emotions:

[D]ivine emotivity is the Archetype of human emotivity, which is the ectype. Human emotions were not designed by God in order to cloud or confuse our understanding of what God is like. Rather, they were purposely designed to provide us with some analogy of the way in which God, as a moral being, evaluates and inwardly responds to good or evil.

Not only does Gonzales view God as making wishes for things He knows will never come to pass, He evidently feels bad about it too.  Combine that with the contradictory notion of the so-called Well Meant Offer and we see that the Sovereign and  immutable God of the universe is forever frustrated (after all, frustration can properly be categorized as an emotion), forever longing for the salvation of the reprobate, which by His determinative and sovereign decree  He knows will never come to pass as He casts them eternally into Hell for their sin. Can a more confused, distorted, and grotesque picture of the God of Scripture be imagined?  But that is the consequence of adopting contorted and confused theology of Reformed Baptists like Bob Gonzales.

Thankfully, there is an alternative.  Among the many other attributes of God,  the Westminster Confession describes God as “a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions.”  Consequently, if by “passions” the Confession writers  mean “emotions,” then God doesn’t have them.

As we have seen, Michael Sudduth was correct, “to reject logic is to reject truth, and to reject truth is to reject God; therefore, misology is the rejection of God.”

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