Calvinism & The Parable Of The Talents

John Chipman has written an Op-Ed published at the Christian Post that joins a long line of tone deaf & ineffectual arguments against the Doctrines of Grace.  It’s ineffectual because it’s poorly argued, & it’s tone deaf insofar as it draws attention to the problems inherent in the Free Will Alternative by way of accusing Calvinism of failing to measure up to the standard the argument itself puts forth while simultaneously not realizing that the argument, such as it is, is actually describing the deficiencies inherent in the Free Will Alternative. 

Crider writes: 

In other words, God, whose business is the redemption of lost souls, expects profit, and profit in the soul-redemption business simply means more saved people.

If true, then “soul winning is a numbers game.” 

In context, the talents are distributed to sets of men (who are analogous to the Sanhedrin) who are entrusted according to their own abilities. Their Ruler returns & judges them in what amounts to an exercise in “to whom much is given, much is required.” This text is part of the Hebrew lawsuit in which Yeshua indicts part of the majority in the Sanhedrin for willful neglect.  

“The Calvinistic model of the Gospel fails to support God’s requirement that his servants provide profit.”.   Really?  Let’s examine Crider’s argument. 

In its most basic form, the Calvinistic doctrine of election can be explained like this: In the beginning, the Father chooses only certain people (the elect) to give to the Son to be saved. At the end, the Son gives the same people (the elect) back to the Father.

According to Crider, God gives the Elect to Christ, & Christ redeems them.  Calvinism does, in fact, affirm this.   

Note that God (the master) expects his servants, those in whom he has invested and gifted with special abilities (talents), to be effective and profitable, that is, to return to him more than they are given.

According to Crider, the Ruler distributes the talents to his vassals according to the ability of the vassals to invest them for a profit.   Calvinism & the Bible agree.   

In other words, God, whose business is the redemption of lost souls, expects profit, and profit in the soul-redemption business simply means more saved people. 

Does the text define “profit” relative to the application of redemption as “more saved people?”  No, it doesn’t.  The text, relative to Christ’s mediatorial work, isn’t describing the goal of evangelism & discipleship.  It’s describing the failure of the ecclesiastical leadership relative to their responsibilities to the LORD & the People.  That’s a major theme throughout Matthew’s Gospel.    In other words, Crider is attempting to analogize between the covenantal relationship between God & Christ (and within the Trinity itself) & the covenantal responsibilities of the subset of the Sanhedrin who are accused of failure — none of whom are the Redeemer-Mediator, & none of whom were theandric.  The analogy therefore fails to obtain insofar as at the critical point of comparison, the points of comparison are disanalogous to one another. 

It’s worth noting that on the one hand, Crider acknowledges that the Ruler distributed & entrusts the talents to the men in the story in a manner that is consistent with the abilties of the men, but when he describes Calvinism, he makes no mention of what the Bible (and Calvinism) has to say about Christ’s ability to save.   

According to Calvinism, Christ is able to redeem those entrusted to Him. He doesn’t neglect to do so. He does not bury them in the ground. He redeems them & even glorifies them by putting them on display to present to the LORD.  

Crider makes no mention of this.  According to Crider, in Calvinism, God, via election, entrusts the Elect to Christ & charges Him with accomplishing redemption.  Calvinism defines the atonement in effectual terms.  This applies to both Particularist & Universalist Calvinism. 

Crider also turns the accompaniment of redemption into a numbers game, as if the mission of the Sanhedrin/Calvinist evangelist/teacher/pastor is convertible with the mission of the Redeemer-Mediator.  The Redeemer Mediator’s mission is to redeem the Elect (however large or small the number).  The return on the investment relative to Christ as well as within the Godhead is the effectual accomplishment of redemption & the application of redemption.  

What is the mission of Evangelist?  According to the text, it is to use his or her abilities in a manner that accomplishes the qualitative & (if the Lord so wills) the quantitative growth of the  People (including Evangelist).  These two sets of goals intersect, & they are very similar — but, unlike Christ, there is on so much that Evangelist & Shepherd can do.  As a Teaching Elder & a human being,  I am not able to save anyone to the uttermost.   The LORD, however can, ergo the mission of Christ & that of Evangelist and Shepherd are not the same. 

What’s the Particularist Free Will alternative? 

The Calvinistic model of the Gospel fails to support God’s requirement that his servants provide profit. In view of the goal of God’s soul-saving business plan — the salvation of the world through his Son, Jesus Christ (John 3:17, 12:47) — the failed Calvinistic model should give us pause.

According to Crider’s own argument, God charges Christ with saving *everyone,* & his model is Particularist.   According to the Free Will Alternative. election ultimately depends on human decision, so Christ’s ability to redeem those entrusted to Him (the whole human species) is hampered by their free will altogether and God, for any number of reasons the Free Will lobby of the churches asserts or argues, refuses to effectually intervene. At most, it’s Universal Prevenient Grace (Arminianism) or people are able to effectually exercise saving repentance & faith (Semi-Pelagianism).   Consequently, Christ winds up burying some of those given to Him in the ground, which is what the man cast into Outer Darkness did.  

It’s true that in Calvinism, relative to the quantity of talents (people) entrusted to Christ, the number of talents entrusted to Christ & the number redeemed is the same — but the rate of return is 100 %.  However, since in the Particularist Free Will Alternative God entrusts the whole human species to Christ, but the number saved is less than the number entrusted to save, the rate of return is less than the number entrusted.  Consequently, Crider’s own argument exposes his own point of view in a manner that indicates that, when properly understood, it cannot bear the weight of his own stated standard of success.  

May God bless us all, each & every one, & “Go & sin no more.”