A Sovereign Bullet, A Traffic Accident, Respiratory Failure

Is the End Result God’s Doing?

What difference does it make whether one is an ardent Calvinist or, like me, has deconstructed and otherwise walked away from Christian faith? Within the last week I have lost two good friends – one to a car accident and the other to respiratory failure. One death was sudden and totally unexpected. The other was the result of a long and slow decline in health over time.

Perhaps not a good decision on my part. But seeking some insight, understanding and wisdom, I pulled down John Piper’s book, ‘A Sweet and Bitter Providence.’ After thumbing through the pages, I’m feeling a sense of anger and even loathing at those who embrace the doctrines of Calvinism. Ardent Calvinists will tell you that God is sovereign over all things and directs events throughout the world according to his will. And nothing is beyond God’s sovereign control. Suffice it to say that over the course of my deconstruction, the belief that God intentionally kills a particular individual for no obvious or apparent reason by way of a car accident is one of those faith-concepts which has caused me to question my own Christian faith and has, in part, led to my deconstruction from Christianity.

Well, that’s just me. Your ‘mileage’ may differ. To which, Piper writes of “God’s sovereign rule” (pg 44) in which:

• God the Almighty reigns in all affairs of men.
• [God] rules the affairs of nations.
• [God’s] providence extends from the US Congress to your kitchen.
• God governed every part of [Naomi’s] life.
• God gives rain, and he takes rain.
• God gives life, and he takes life.
• God governs the roll of dice and the rise of kings.
• Nothing from toothpicks to tyrants is ultimately self-determining
• Everything serves God – willing or not as it is the ‘purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.’
• God is the all-encompassing, all-pervading [and] all-governing reality.

Piper does provide scriptural references. To which should anyone care to, I would welcome the chance to discuss this further. Please leave a comment. Nevertheless, in my opinion, Piper reads too much into the text(s). And worse, Piper seems to take the above concepts out of context from the referenced verse/passage. Piper writes about an example of God’s sovereignty wherein a missionary couple’s plane was shot down in 2001 by the Peruvian Air Force having (apparently) mistaking the plane for a drug courier. Piper talks about the ‘sovereign bullet’ and how that bullet killed a mother and her child but did not exit the body of the child and hit anyone else in the plane. Piper dismisses any notion of the Air Force pilots or their command structure as having personal wills in the matter when he quotes Jim Bowers, “Those people who [shot down our plane] were used by God.” (pg 29)

Does it not seem logical that any expressed grief by an ardent Calvinist at a sudden death or some tragic situation is in fact a statement of disagreement or even anger directed towards God? Or, at a minimum, is any expressed grief a tacit admission as to a denial of God’s sovereignty? How could it be otherwise? To live is Christ but to die is gain. Right? So, is it not better to forsake all, hope that one’s life will soon be extinguished and rejoice in the pain and suffering of others? Is that not what Calvinism teaches?

That Christian faith is replete with those adhering to the Five Solas and believing that God’s sovereignty brings about everything that has or will happen in the future leads me to conclude that Christianity’s God is little more than a cruel, uncaring and unloving Creator who shows extreme favoritism to the very few elect people while denying his grace and mercy to the un-elect. We, believers and non-believers, are little more than toys to be played with for a while and then discarded.

On the flip side of God’s sovereignty is that so much of life appears random. Accidents happen. People make mistakes. Diseases infect. It follows that decisions made lead to naturally occurring consequences – whether good or bad. The myriad of specific actions taken by all persons involved for any specific event to come about other than in a random way is mind blowing. I take more comfort in believing that my friend’s sudden death was a tragic accident rather than God looking down over his ‘toys’ and deciding to have her walk through a parking lot and get run over by an elderly person backing out of a parking space. The question for my Calvinist friends becomes: in which scenario did God exhibit more love, grace and compassion – 1) causing the near instant death from getting run over by a car or 2) slowly suffocating over the course of ten years because your lungs couldn’t take in enough air?

Admittedly, I abhor Calvinistic doctrines and hate the thoughts and concepts which naturally come about through these doctrines. Some have said that I’m throwing the baby out with the bath water. Perhaps. But I find it even worse that Calvinistic doctrines and opinions are so readily expressed within Christianity and that the overwhelming majority of Christians allow Calvinism to be a part of ‘the community’.