{"id":1665,"date":"2017-05-13T14:51:48","date_gmt":"2017-05-13T18:51:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/?p=1665"},"modified":"2017-05-13T23:17:14","modified_gmt":"2017-05-14T03:17:14","slug":"calvinist-student-fails-multiple-choice-exam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/?p=1665","title":{"rendered":"Calvinist Student Fails Multiple Choice Exam"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sioux Center, IA<\/strong><\/p>\n

Honor student Matthew Van Duyken recently failed a final exam when he refused to answer a third of the questions on the Advanced Studies in Ephesians test. Van Duyken, a junior at Dordt College in Sioux Center, probably lost his opportunity to become the valedictorian of the class of 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe test wasn\u2019t fair,\u201d Van Duyken said. \u201cWe\u2019ve always been taught that man doesn\u2019t have free will, so how can Professor Jacobus expect students to choose between A, B, C, or D?\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Duyken was not alone in venting frustrations. James Beza\u00a0answered the questions but later complained about the professor. \u201cI can\u2019t believe he\u2019s allowed to teach here. As if multiple choice questions weren\u2019t a form of Pelagianism already, at least three of questions didn\u2019t even include \u2018God is sovereign\u2019 as an option. What other answer could I give?\u201d<\/p>\n

Classmate Amber Allen took her protests to Twitter. \u201cHe\u2019s destroying God\u2019s sovereignty by implying that we have free will. #NoSynergism #FireJacobus<\/p>\n

School officials said they understood the concerns shared by the students but added that they would not give another opportunity to take the test.<\/p>\n

Van Duyken said he is considering legal action against Dordt. \u201cI\u2019m trying to decide whether I should sue the school to give us a test in line with the statement of faith. But I know God must have sovereignly ordained this turn of events, so I should probably just choose to trust in His sovereignty and let it go.\u201d<\/p>\n

———————————————————————<\/p>\n

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Here are some tulips to add color to this post. For those who don’t know, TULIP is an acronym summarizing certain Calvinist beliefs.<\/p><\/div>\n

If you haven\u2019t figured it out by now, the above article is a piece of satire. It is intended to be a fun critique of some things I have heard Calvinists say. Of course, Calvinism, as a general term, encompasses a variety of beliefs and proponents may differ on many things, even the question of man\u2019s freedom. That is, some deny man’s freedom, believing that God is \u201cmeticulously sovereign\u201d in that He is the instrumental cause behind everything that happens\u2014even something as mundane as the decision of what you will drink with dinner tonight. Others hold to views that allow man to have freedom in most areas of life, but not when it comes to the decision to follow Christ.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t often discuss Calvinism and Arminianism on my blog (see my post on Romans 9:13<\/a> for the one article I\u2019ve done addressing certain related issues). I do not consider myself to be either of these. I wanted to have a little fun pointing out a few amusing and sometimes annoying things I\u2019ve heard from some of my Calvinist friends.<\/p>\n

A few people have accused me of destroying God\u2019s sovereignty after\u00a0suggesting that man does indeed have \u201cfree will.\u201d As if I, or any other person for that matter, could destroy the sovereignty of the Almighty. He is infinitely more powerful than I am. At most, if man indeed has free will, it would destroy versions of Calvinism that deny any human freedom, such as the position commonly referred to as\u00a0hyper-Calvinism. I’m certain the vast majority of Calvinists would never say that someone could destroy God\u2019s sovereignty.<\/p>\n

I also wanted to call attention to the overuse of the word sovereign<\/em>, particularly when it is made into an adverb. God is sovereign, so every time He does anything, He \u201csovereignly\u201d does it. He can never \u201cunsovereignly\u201d do anything. Yet, time and time again, I hear Calvinists say that God \u201csovereignly\u201d did this or that. Well, obviously. For some Calvinists, it seems as if they have a \u201csovereignty quota\u201d where the word must be mentioned a certain number of times per paragraph. God is also loving and just, and yet we don\u2019t repeatedly say, \u201cGod lovingly did this\u201d or \u201cGod justly did that.\u201d<\/p>\n

And finally, the main character in the satire, Matthew Van Duyken, believes God is meticulously sovereign. So even though he believes God is the instrumental cause behind everything that ever happens (that God decrees, ordains, and brings to pass every thought and action), Matthew complains about things that God must have \u201csovereignly\u201d brought to pass\u2014the hiring of Professor Jacobus and the professor\u2019s decision to include multiple choice questions on the exam. I cannot count the number of times I\u2019ve heard those who hold this view complain about certain events or warn people about false teachings. Yet if God is meticulously sovereign then He made those events happen, and He made those people teach false ideas. Matthew also pulled the “Pelagius” card by labeling anyone deemed a non-Calvinist as a Pelagian.<\/p>\n

I hope you enjoyed this bit of satire. If you have a good idea for an Arminian satire, let me hear it. If you decide to comment, please note that I am not going to debate Calvinism\/Arminianism, predestination\/free will, or any of the related discussions that I\u2019ve already had countless times. Attempts to draw me into such a debate will probably not be approved for posting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sioux Center, IA Honor student Matthew Van Duyken recently failed a final exam when he refused to answer a third of the questions on the Advanced Studies in Ephesians test. Van Duyken, a junior at Dordt College in Sioux Center, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[74],"class_list":["post-1665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections","tag-satire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1665"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1669,"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1665\/revisions\/1669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}