{"id":349,"date":"2020-07-03T21:46:29","date_gmt":"2020-07-03T19:46:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/logikos.club\/?p=349"},"modified":"2024-04-16T16:12:58","modified_gmt":"2024-04-16T14:12:58","slug":"was-fuer-eine-theologie-ist-denn-das-dave-hunts-falschdarstellung-von-gott-und-calvinismus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/logikos.club\/?p=349","title":{"rendered":"Was f\u00fcr eine Theologie ist denn das? \u2013 Dave Hunts Falschdarstellung von Gott und Calvinismus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Diese Rezension des links abgebildeten Buches von Dave Hunt (1926\u20132013) stammt von Steven J. Cole. Einige biographische Daten und der Quellverweis sind am Ende des Artikels aufgef\u00fchrt. Eine adaptierte \u00dcbertragung dieser Rezension ins Deutsche ist hier<\/a>. <\/em><\/span>
Das Buch von Hunt wurde 2011 ins Deutsche \u00fcbersetzt herausgegeben unter dem Titel: \u00bbEine Frage der Liebe: Wird Gott im Calvinismus falsch dargestellt?\u00ab [Die Frage des Titels ist keine Frage, sondern Hauptthese des Buchs.]<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u00bbAs I read Dave Hunt\u2019s latest book, What Love is This?<\/em> subtitled, \u201cCalvinism\u2019s Misrepresentation of God,\u201d I felt both profound sadness and righteous anger. I was sad because many unsuspecting and uneducated Christians will believe that Hunt is accurate and thereby miss out on one of the richest spiritual gold mines available, namely, the life and writings of John Calvin and his heirs in the faith. I was angry because Hunt deliberately misrepresents and slanders both Calvin and Calvinism, and in the process grossly misrepresents God Himself<\/strong><\/span>. I know that his misrepresentation is deliberate because many Calvinists, including myself, wrote repeatedly to Hunt as the book was being written, pointing out his errors and asking him to stop misrepresenting what we believe. But sadly, he stubbornly ignored our corrections and went full steam ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The resulting book is a first magnitude theological and spiritual disaster. <\/span><\/strong>If you rely on the supermarket tabloids as your reliable source of news, you\u2019ll probably find Hunt satisfying for your theology. It will give you the same sort of sensational slander as the tabloids, only it is presented as if it were biblically and historically based. But if you want to grow in your knowledge of the living God, I advise you to leave this tabloid theology on the shelf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have had to deal with the book because a former elder is giving it to some of my elders and others, telling them that it is a balanced critique of Reformed theology. On the back cover of the book are glowing endorsements from Chuck Smith, Elmer Towns, Tim LaHaye, and others. LaHaye even states, \u201cCalvinism \u2026 comes perilously close to blasphemy\u201d (ellipsis in the quote). Several families have left my church over this issue, because I teach what Scripture plainly affirms, that God sovereignly chooses to save some, but not all. Our salvation rests on the foundation of God\u2019s sovereign choice of us. His choice of us is the causative reason that we choose to believe. Thus no one can boast in his salvation, but only in the Lord (1 Cor. 1:26-31; Gal. 1:15; Eph. 1:3-12).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hunt\u2019s main gripe with Calvinism is its view that God is not totally loving toward every person. He argues that if God could<\/em> save everyone, but chose only to save some, He is immoral and unjust, just as someone who could save a drowning man, but chose not to, would be immoral (pp. 111-112, 114-115). Hunt\u2019s view is that God wishes for everyone to be saved and He has made salvation available to all. Now it\u2019s up to the individual to respond and every person is capable, in and of himself, to respond. If people are not able to respond to the gospel by their own free will, then God\u2019s offer of salvation would not be genuine, but a mockery. It would be as if God were dangling a rope above the grasp of a man trapped in a deep well, saying, \u201cGrab the rope.\u201d These are Hunt\u2019s arguments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These arguments are quite in line with human logic, but the crucial question is, are they in line with biblical revelation? Hunt wrongly assumes that the free offer of the gospel to all requires that those to whom it is offered are able to respond. But there are many Scriptures that directly state the inability of the sinner to respond to spiritual truth (John 6:44, 65; 8:43; Rom. 3:10-18; 8:6-8; 1 Cor. 2:14; 2 Cor. 4:4; Eph. 2:1-3; etc.). Hunt dismisses or waters down all of these texts, saying that they could not mean what Calvinists say they mean, because if they did mean that, sinners could not respond to the gospel and thus the offer of the gospel would not be valid. In other words, he reasons in a circle<\/span>, assuming what he later \u201cproves.\u201d But he does not accept the plain teaching of God\u2019s Word on the human inability to seek after God due to the fall. In so doing, Hunt pulls God in His absolute holiness down, making Him accessible to fallen man. And he lifts up sinful, proud man by telling him that he is able to choose God at any time he pleases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rejecting depravity (inability), he proceeds to reject all five so-called points of Calvinism. Hunt asserts that God could not possibly have sovereignly elected some to salvation, because then He would be unloving and unjust. Never mind that in one of God\u2019s earliest revelations of Himself, He plainly states, \u201cI will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion\u201d (Exod. 33:19). That statement loses all meaning if God is gracious and compassionate to every single person equally. From the outset, God establishes His right as the holy God to choose some and reject others, not based on human merit (there is none), but based on His sovereign will. But Hunt denies God this prerogative, in spite of abundant scriptural revelation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the process of setting forth and defending his humanistic (and unbiblical) view of God, Hunt rips Calvin and Calvinism, or at least he thinks that\u2019s what he\u2019s doing. Actually, Hunt does not understand even some of the basic teachings of Calvinism, although he thinks he does<\/span>. Thus from the very start, and on virtually every page, Hunt misrepresents what Calvinists believe<\/span><\/strong>. Even though he does not agree with what they truly believe, for the most part he is setting up and attacking a caricature that at times has some resemblance to the real thing, but more often is so far removed that biblically informed Calvinists would attack it too. They just would not label it as Calvinism, as Hunt erroneously does. Here are a few (of many) examples:<\/p>\n\n\n\n