The following book review was written by Garrett P. Johnson and published in The Trinity Review, March/April 1980. While rabidly anti-dispensational, few realize that Dr. John Gerstner was also a staunch Christian humanist. No wonder several of his students wound up joining Catholicism. In as far as this review is written from the Reformed point of view, we cannot agree with the recommended reading in the last paragraph and rather point the reader to a more biblical exposition regarding these subjects. See Our History in the First Adam.
by John H. Gerstner
(Winona Lake, Indiana: Alpha Publications, 1979 [1960], 51 pages)
Dr. Gerstner is professor of Church History and Government at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He is also a minister of the apostate United Presbyterian Church. One is not surprised, then, by the fact that Dr. Gerstner’s parvum opus on predestination is a defense of free will and an attack on divine sovereignty. The book contains many errors that are commonly preached in "Reformed" churches and seminary classrooms today. For that reason, a brief examination of these errors could be quite instructive.
In chapter one, Gerstner stipulates a distinction between the terms "foreordination" and "predestination." He writes, "Predestination is that part of foreordination which deals with the actions of free moral agents, be they angels, men, or devils" (6). In describing a falling, inanimate object, Gerstner says, "It therefore does not pertain to predestination but it is a part of foreordination, merely" (6). This seems to be a distinction foreign to Scripture. The King James uses both "foreordain" and "predestinate" when referring to persons. See, for example, 1 Peter 1:20 and Romans 8:29. Moreover, each word translates a different Greek word. Therefore, Gerstner’s stipulated usage does not reflect scriptural usage and should not be assumed to do so.
In this same chapter, a more serious problem occurs when Gerstner says, "reprobation is usually regarded as a permissive decree..." for "God predestinates the acts of sinful men by ordaining all the circumstances which lead to the sinner’s choice of evil.… God in this instance refrains from positive action. He does not change the heart of the individual, ... but on the contrary leaves the individual to himself" (7). In confusion, he cites John 1:12, 13, and 14:6 to prove that election and reprobation are asymmetrical: God actively acts in election, but merely permits evil choices and acts resulting in reprobation. But none of the verses demonstrates a permissive, "negative" decree in God. The idea that God does not positively determine moral evil, but merely permits the sinner to act on his own is a very common teaching found in The Writings of James Arminius (Baker, 1977). Arminius wrote: "God is the permitter of sin, ... in that He leaves to the creature the free disposition of his own influence" (Book 3, 450). These statements are contradicted by numerous scripture verses: "The king’s heart [i.e. mind] is in the hand of the Lord.... He turneth it whithersoever he will" (Proverbs 21:1). "The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord" (Proverbs 16:1); "He turned their heart to hate his people, to deal subtly with his servants" (Psalm 105:25); "And the Lord said to Moses ... I will harden [Pharaoh’s] heart, that he shall not let the people go" (Exodus 4:21); "There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel, ... for it was of Jehovah to harden their hearts, to come against Israel in battle, that he might utterly destroy them" (Joshua 11:19, 20).
These verses, and many more, teach that the sinful acts of men are not the result of a "negative," permissive decree, but rather a positive, active decree in the will of God. Nevertheless, Gerstner claims God "does not change the heart of the individual, or enable or incline the individual to do the virtuous and saving act, but on the contrary leaves the individual to himself. This individual then inclines toward the evil and does the wicked deed which brings about his damnation" (7). By concluding thus, as though sinners acted independently of God, he denies the plain teaching of Scripture and is deserving of Calvin’s rebuke. For Calvin wrote: "It is easy to conclude how foolish and frail is the support of divine justice afforded by the suggestion that evils come to be not by His will, but merely by His permission. Of course, so far as they are evils, which men perpetrate with their evil mind, ... I admit that they are not pleasing to God. But it is quite a frivolous refuge to say that God otiosely permits them, when Scripture shows Him not only willing but the author of them... Who does not tremble at these judgments with which God works in the hearts of even the wicked whatever He will, rewarding them none the less according to desert? Again it is quite clear from the evidence of Scripture that God works in the hearts of men to incline their wills just as He will, whether to good for His mercy’s sake or to evil according to their merits, His judgment being sometimes open and sometimes concealed, but always just" (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, 176-177).
Chapters 2-5 of Gerstner’s book, which together are only slightly longer than chapter 1, contain short discussions of total depravity, inability, the divine initiative, and predestination. These chapters are generally sound. However, in the sixth chapter on "Objections to Predestination," Gerstner displays his confusion once again. In bold defense of free will Gerstner claims that there is "one area [which] is invulnerable and impervious to anybody and anything, namely, the sovereignty of our own will…. Not even Almighty God, once he has given me this faculty of choice, can make me, coerce me, force me to choose" (29). Perhaps Daniel 4:35 is an appropriate response to this humanistic declaration of independence: "And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, what doest thou?"
Gerstner objects when a person says that "predestination renders an act certain and makes it impossible that the actor will do otherwise" (30). Apparently Gerstner abhors the idea of "the actor" being incapable of resisting God’s will. He says this "makes the actor a machine, taking away his freedom" (30). This statement illustrates the confusion in Gerstner’s mind. The difference between men and machines is not some alleged—and unscriptural—freedom, but consciousness. Because the Bible denies the power of contrary choice to man, Gerstner believes that man becomes a machine. He never defines the term "machine." The missing definition is essential to the argument, and Gerstner expects the reader to provide it. His argument becomes increasingly invalid when he concludes, "If God forced the will it would no longer be a will" (29). Now when Jesus says, "No man can come to me except the Father …. draw him," is it not clear that a man must be forced by God against his dead, evil will to believe on Christ? In John 6:44, the word "draw," elkuo, literally means to drag or to take for oneself. Liddell and Scott inform us that it means "draw, drag, with collat. notion of force or exertion." God must actively drag unregenerate men whose minds are not subject to the law of God to choose Jesus. If Gerstner is displeased with this idea then his dispute is with the Holy Spirit, for he chose the word.
In the latter part of chapter six, Gerstner’s infralapsarian and unscriptural notion of a permissive reprobation leads to even odder implications. He says, "if men are left to themselves they will perish while he [God] pleads with them to believe and be saved" (35). Here Gerstner confuses God’s decretive will with his preceptive will. The preceptive will or the Gospel command "to believe and be saved" he takes to be a secret desire of God’s that what he has determined will never come to pass, will come to pass. Like Arminius, Gerstner simply imputes stupidity to God. His confusion can be seen in the following quotation: "It is a perfectly legitimate question to ask why God strives with men whom he knows and has predestinated should perish…. [We] wonder why God …continues to work with [the reprobate] to persuade them to believe" (36). Gerstner bombards the reader with his paradoxes, and then concludes with a blatant falsehood: "[A]re we able to discover why God, who knows the futility of certain endeavors to convert certain persons, does proceed to make these endeavors which he knows are going to be futile ...? As we have said, it is only the wickedness of the human heart and not the decree of God which causes men to reject ... God and his gospel" (36-37). Paul eliminates this incredible confusion in one statement: "God ... causeth ... and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place. For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: to the one [i.e. reprobate] we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other [i.e., the elect] the savour of life unto life." Paul teaches that God has a two-fold purpose in the preaching of the Gospel, not one, as Gerstner apparently believes. One is to redeem the elect; the second is to condemn the reprobate, so that seeing, they might not see and hearing, they might not hear, lest they turn from their sins and be saved.
On page 39, Gerstner ends his discussion by recommending Loraine Boettner’s The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination (Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing Company, 1976). This is an excellent volume, although Boettner seems confused on the subject of God and evil. For a more consistent and scriptural treatment of predestination the reader should consult Gordon H. Clark’s Biblical Predestination and Predestination in the Old Testament. These books should be read before reading Gerstner. The Gerstner "Primer" is valuable only for the student who desires an example of the confusion that inhabits the minds of some so-called Calvinists.