Fisk: Spurgeon Against Calvinism?

I had some time last night to look more through Fisk’s book, Election & Predestination. As a reminder, he seeks to show the problems of Calvinism with what he believes Scripture teaches. There are so many problems with the book it is truly difficult to know where to begin.

For instance, his exegesis of John 6 is simply just bad. He also attempts to explain the apparent Calvinism of Romans 9 by inadvertently turning Paul’s argument against his original thesis. You can always tell an interpretation is wrong if it goes against the Scope of the text.

However in error he may be at these points, there were some paragraphs highlighted (the book belongs to a friend) that pointed out an underlying misunderstanding by Fisk that guides his inability to truly interact with Calvinism. I will quote the paragraphs and then point out the problem. These paragraphs may be found on pages 64-67 in the chapter entitled, C.H. Spurgeon’s Other Side.

“Shall we never be able to drive into men’s minds the truth that predestination and free agency are both facts? Men sin as freely as birds fly in the air, and they are altogether responsible for their sin; and yet everything is ordained and foreseen of God. The foreordination of God in no degree interferes with the responsibility of man. I have often been asked by persons to reconcile the two truths. My only reply is—They need no reconciliation, for they never fell out. Why should I try to reconcile two friends? Prove to me that the two truths do not agree. These two facts are parallel lines; I cannot make them unite, but you cannot make them cross each other.” – Fisk quoting Spurgeon on pg 64

Fisk explaining the Spurgeon quote:

“The practical part of theology is that which is most important for us to understand. Any man may get himself into a terrible labyrinth who thinks continually of the Sovereignty of God alone, and he may equally get into deeps that are likely to drown him if he meditates only on the free will of man.”

In the first paragraph, I know of no Calvinist that would really object to Spurgeon’s understanding. Perhaps the "parallel lines" portion needs to be fleshed out a bit. As I would argue that the human will line comes from the decree of the Sovereignty of God line. One holds up the other to even exist. (Keep in mind, Fisk is citing Spurgeon to show that Spurgeon contradicted Calvinism by writing this paragraph.)

Aside from that the problem is in the definitions of words. Spurgeon says, “predestination and free agency are both facts”. As a Calvinist I agree. However, Fisk speaks of “the free will of man”. This according to several other places entails the “ability” of man to freely choose God despite his sin. Spurgeon, like most Calvinists, would not agree to some kind of autonomous free will.

No Calvinist is saying that when a man chooses to follow Christ, he is doing so against his free will. That is absurd. That, however, seems to be Fisk’s thinking throughout the entire work. It is a shame that so many pages are written with a false assumption that he never proves from Scripture.

Fisk cites Spurgeon against Calvinism on page 67:

“Inanimate matter obeys the divine law by force, but a human being can only obey God with his will, since unwilling obedience would be no obedience at all. There can be no such thing as unwilling love, unwilling trust, or unwilling holiness. Voluntariness enters into the essence of a moral act.”

Again, to attempt to cite Spurgeon against Calvinism by using this passage assumes a definition of free will that Spurgeon never believed. It also assumes that Calvinists believe that men are forced against their wills to come and believe in Christ.

This basic misunderstanding that could have been easily corrected if he had taken the time to actually interact with Calvinists flaws the entire book. But as so many of these crusade pastors, a willingness to truly dialogue is missing. Instead their Zeal to defend the Bible from the evil system of Calvinism keeps them from true knowledge of the subject.