Election: An arbitrary choice?

Unconditional Election as set forward in the Reformed Tradition states that the elect are those whom God has sovereignly chosen to receive His mercy through faith in Christ Jesus, not because of anything they have done, would do, or even a predisposition of who they would be. It is His unconditional setting of His affections on a people for the purpose of "making a people eager to do good".

"But then, if it doesn't depend on what a person does, or who they are, then whether or not they are elect is completely arbitrary. God just chooses this one and doesn't choose that one!" the struggling mind quickly surmises. This objection is as easily heard in the Armenian camp as it is felt in the Reformed. It is a scary thought that if true, would leave to an unshakable sense of purposelessness.

But this objection is the child of several fatal misconceptions.

1. What we do is more meaningful than what God decides

We subtly place our actions and decisions above God's decisions in the worth scale when we object that God's decisions are arbitrary. We think that in order for God to choose someone it must be based on what we have done. That He would have to look forward and see our actions in order to validate the decision. We think that He owes us a look at our resumes before choosing us, or casting us aside. If He is left to His own choice without seeing or knowing our actions we feel that the decision is unfounded and thus arbitrary. But how prideful are we? Are the creatures' actions necessary for the creator's decisions. Does a potter need to see how a pot will behave before he designs it with a purpose? By no means! In fact it is exactly the opposite. Because the potter designs the pot in a certain determines that it will be used in that way.

The problem is that we feel like our actions are the ultimate determiners of meaning. We feel like if we do something wrong then we deserve punishment, and if we do something right we deserve praise. It is our actions that determine meaning. Thus if God was free from our actions in choosing, then He was free from meaning, and thus, we conclude, His decision was arbitrary. But it is God's decisions that are the definitions of meaning. Because He has determined them, they therefore have meaning, just as with the potter above.

This discussion of cause and effect leads to the following misconception.

2. God is bound by time and knowledge that is revealed at some other time

Because we can only perceive the world through time and space we have an extremely difficult time forgetting that God is not bound by such material things. We place Him at a time before there was time and forget that He exists out of time. Therefore, we actually enable the discussion at all! Confining God by time allows us to talk about a time when God didn't know what we would do and what we would be like. We talk as if when He made the decision to choose us as if it was distinct from His eternally separate and always existing state.

The truth of the matter is that God is not bound by time, and therefore to even talk about God choosing us in a way that is dependent on future knowledge is ridiculous. Yes the Scripture speaks of God's choosing us before the beginning of the world, but this is merely a reduction of the Truth for our minds, because it is near impossible for us to grasp the fact that God's choosing us before the beginning of the world is His choosing us now!

3. God makes decisions like we make decisions

This is why Isaiah had to remind us that God's thoughts are so much higher than our thoughts. We think of God as making decisions without full knowledge of their outcome, because that is, after all, how we make ours. We live in shades of probability, while He lives in perfect light. His decisions are all together different from ours.

We also mistakenly think of God as making decisions in reaction to other things, again because this is our experience. We decide to do something because something else happens. But God is completely proactive in all of His decisions. There is no other motivator, no other cause, no other reason. He is the Motivation. He is the Cause. He is the Reason. It is completely within Himself that decisions are made. Not out of necessity from some outside pressure, but out of will of His own heart.

4. Love has to be motivated by some desirable quality in the object

Finally, our last misconception lends itself most readily to the heartache of the accusation of God's arbitrary choice. To image a husband who simply chose us by pinning the tail on the donkey, or drawing the name out of the hat, is of utmost detestation in our minds! We couldn't bear to think that someone would chose us just because, but that is because we still think of love as being motivated primarily by the desirability of the object.

Our error is this: forgetting we, in our fallen sinful state, stand as completely detestable creatures worthy of the utmost wrath and immediate death. We forget and gloss over the fact that there is NOTHING within us of our own, that is desirable to God. There is nothing that we have that is not already His. There is nothing that we could offer Him that would add to His collection or increase His standing, or help Him in any way.

So what then does it mean that He loves us? If there is nothing in us that is pleasing to Him, and everything within us is detestable before Him, what does it mean that He sets His affection on us?

This is a profound and fundamental reworking of our definition of love. His love for us, is His own decision. He loves us because He does. It is circular reasoning because the reason is God. He is His own reason. This truth, however, is not without its shadow in human experience. Eventually in the relationship between a man and a woman (if it is in the pattern of Scripture) will come to a place of covenant. And at some point either the man or the woman is bound to ask, "Why do you love me?" Whether out loud or in his/her heart one of them will ask that question. But if the lover is asked, only one answer is the ultimate response, "Because I love you." That is to say he loves her, because he loves her. His affections are spent on her because he decided to spend his affections on her. So it is with God. He loves us, because He loves us. The decision is not arbitrary in the sense that we mean it. It is full of passion and joy, if only we would be willing to admit that we are not worth the time of day that He gives us.

God's choices are not arbitrary simply because they are God's choices.