Calling Men to Salvation

One of the major questions that has been argued about for centuries centers around God calling men to himself in order to save them. Does he call everyone? Does he only call the elect? One of the central texts in this debate is Romans 8:29-30:

"For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified."

Some observations of the text itself are in order first. First, God foreknows people ("those"). Because he foreknows people, he predestined them. Those predestined are the ones called. The calling follows the predestining. Then the called are justified and glorified. Keeping the order of God's work in mind, this raises some issues for two of the major positions on this issue: Arminianism and Molinism. Calvinism already accepts a limited atonement, which means that God only calls the elect. I'll address each of the others in turn.

Arminianism (for a comprehensive look at Arminian theology, see: A Compendium of Christian Theology by William Burt Pope, vol. 2, pg. 335ff)
This system posits that "foreknew" means that God knew beforehand who would choose him and everything else flows from that knowledge. God knew I would pick him, so I was predestined to be like Christ, so he called me, justified me, and glorified me. The problem with this position is that God's foreknowledge in this passage is of "those", i.e. individuals, not decisions. The other issue is with the call. Arminians hold that God calls everyone to salvation. This means that God both wants everyone to be saved and gives everyone that opportunity, even if not everyone accepts the salvation of the Lord and is damned as a result. The issue lies in the text itself based on the order of God's work. If God calls everyone, then he justifies and glorifies everyone. That is universalism (everyone is eventually saved by God's loving will and Christ's atonement) and can't be correct based on other biblical texts (John 3:36 for example). It appears to me that even though Arminians want to affirm a universal call, they cannot. Based on Romans 8:29-30, if God called everyone, everyone would be saved.

Molinism (for a comprehensive look at Molinist theology, see: The Only Wise God by William Lane Craig)
Molinism may not be that well known, but it is gaining some headway among some theologians and Christian philosophers. Molinism posits that God has middle knowledge. This means that God knows what person P would do in circumstance C. If God knows what everyone would do in a given set of circumstances, that gives him the ability to create a world in which he has already taken into account all of his creatures free decisions before he instantiates the world we see now. This is seen as a way to protect the libertarian freedom of humans while also acknowledging the absolute sovereignty of God. So, in the Romans passage, a Molinist would simply say that God's foreknowledge includes middle knowledge and all of humanity's free decisions have been considered. There are two big problems with this philosophy. The first is that we still end up at the same place concerning the call as we did with Arminianism. If God calls everyone, everyone would be saved. Molinists (as far as I know) are not universalists, but, like Arminians, hold that God calls everyone. This means the calling of God can't be for everyone. The second problem is that the Bible does not indicate that God looked at his creatures' free decisions before he created the world. In fact, Ephesians 1:3-14, God chose us "according to the purpose of his will" (v. 5) and "the counsel of his will" (v. 11). That doesn't sound like we had any input when God created the world. It sounds like God, in his divine sovereignty over all things, chose us before he created the world.

The point of this post is to show that all of the major systems of thought concerning the operation of salvation; Arminianism, Molinism, and Calvinism; end up at the same place concerning the calling of men to salvation. That is that God doesn't call everyone. This in itself raise one more issue. Many scriptures indicate that God is calling everyone (such as Acts 2:38-39). It would be silly for Peter to exhort everyone to repent and be baptized if God isn't calling everyone. What gives? In this instance I think that Calvin has it right. There are two calls of God. One, the gospel call, is for everyone. This is simply the preaching of the Gospel to everyone. The second call is called "effective calling". This call is the drawing by the Father of the individual to Christ (John 6:44). Without God's working, no one would come to him, and it is evident in several places (Acts 13:48; 16:14, etc.) that it is God doing the work of salvation in our hearts.

I realize this raises other issues, but I think that's enough for this post. If you hold to any of these systems and want to say that God calls everyone to salvation the same way, you have to explain how that doesn't result in universalism and you have to show that it is in accordance with the clear teaching of scripture. If you can't do those two things, your theory won't work. But, if you can do those two things, I'm open to hearing and discussing your theory.