Book Review: A God I’d Like to Meet

A God I'd Like to Meet: Separating the Love of God from Harmful Traditional Beliefs by Bob Edwards
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In this short book, Bob Edwards argues for the case that Calvinism and its modern manifestations are really ancient Platonism couched in Christian language. He presents the case that many of Augustine's key theological points were derived not from the Bible, but from Platonic philosophy. In turn, Calvin saw himself as a faithful inheritor of Augustine, and some of today's prominent theologians and preachers see themselves as faithful to Calvin.

Bob utilizes extensive quotes from Platonic philosophers, St. Augustine, John Calvin, John Piper, and a few others to build his case. The similarities in words and ideas from Plato to Piper are uncanny. Bob uses numerous Bible texts in his arguments against Calvinistic interpretations.

The first chapter is a high-level overview of what the remainder of the book discusses in more detail.

The second chapter deals with the overall theological framework, motivation, and history that drives Calvinism. Bob discusses how modern psychology sheds light on the formation and perpetuation of the framework. He concludes the chapter writing, "Calvinism, then, is a systematic method of interpreting the Bible through the interpretive lenses, or schemas, of a philosophy that predates Christianity by approximately 400 years."

The third chapter discusses the problems of assigning absolute sovereignty to God. Also is discussed the issues with the concept of predestination, sin, and evil as is understood through Calvinism.

The fourth chapter deals with reason vs. emotion. Bob shows how this is a direct descendant of Platonic dualism. He shows how this leads to the teaching that "anything coming from 'the self' was declared by Calvin to be unholy... Calvin's solution to his understanding of the problem of sin was very straightforward: the self must be annihilated... there must be a destruction of our ordinary nature... All of our natural inclinations, therefore, must be put to death." Bob discusses how this leads to the preoccupation of some Calvinist adherents to the concept of working to achieve holiness above all else.

The fifth chapter is a logical progression from the fourth: how Augustine's desire to eliminate human passion and emotion led to his doctrine of control of women, and how this doctrine persists in hierarchicalism, patriarchy, and complementarianism in some Christian groups today. Bob shows how this philosophy, again, is derived directly from Platonism and its followers. He also discusses how errant translations and faulty interpretations of key passages in the Bible have contributed to these erroneous and problematic doctrines.

The final chapter discusses a different picture of God: a God who is first of all, love, rather than all-controlling and whose primary attribute is depicted as holiness.

Bob writes in this final chapter,

Many people today turn away from a God who is depicted as controlling, abusive and sexist. I believe this is understandable. They reject God as he has been made known to them by church leaders following in the interpretive footsteps of Augustine and John Calvin. Fortunately, there is good news. The distorting lens of Platonic philosophy can be removed from our perception of God. When we remove this lens, I believe that we have an opportunity to see God in the way the biblical authors intended. We are able to perceive that God is love.

He concludes,

In fact, as one looks closely at some of the doctrines of St. Augustine, they can begin to look as if they are anything but Christian... Dualism, a hierarchy of spirit over body, denial of the free will of humanity and the doctrine of self-mortification; these are some of the philosophical principles that eventually led to the formation of the Gnostic heresy. Shockingly, they are also some of alleged “principal matters of Christian philosophy” through which John Calvin encouraged all believers to make sense of the Bible. He derived them from Augustine, and Augustine derived them from the “books of the Platonists.” Rather than being a benchmark for Christian orthodoxy, St. Augustine’s theology appears more like a “union of Christian and pagan doctrines.”

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in some of the historical and philosophical origins of Calvinism, to anyone who has problems with some of its doctrines, and to anyone who wants to explore a different Christian theological framework.

A devoted Calvinist ought to take a look and see if they are able to provide reasonable responses that don't depend on Augustine or Calvin's interpretive framework to explain the problems.

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