Defining Doublethink
John Calvin and his disciples have always maintained that God’s sovereignty is total and absolute at all times. [Note: When I refer to Calvinism in this book, I am generally restricting its meaning to the doctrine that God sovereignly foreordains all phenomena. Likewise, when I use the term Calvinist (or Reformed) thinker, I generally mean someone who strongly espouses that God has foreordained all history, not generally someone who necessarily embraces all the tenets of Calvinism. The term, absolute sovereignist, seemed too cumbersome and unfamiliar for extended usage here, and many who believe in the doctrine of God’s foreordination of all history often feel obliged to accept many or all of Calvin’s most controversial points, anyway.]
Probably the best-known statement that defines God’s absolute sovereignty for the average Calvinist today is found in the Westminster Confessions of 1647:
God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
This sentence is a contradiction because it involves two ideas in which each idea makes it impossible for the other idea to be true. Yet under the Westminster Confessions these two opposing propositions form a ’system’ (or synthesis) that is nevertheless held to be true. Let me give another example of a contradiction to make this clearer. Suppose I packed nothing but one apple and one orange for lunch. I might make the following statement:
Today I ate the apple before I ate the orange so I wouldn’t get sick, yet not in such a way so that the orange was eaten last, which would have made me sick.
Suppose you heard me say this. It sounds like nonsense to you, but I insist that this is exactly what happened during lunch. Here is how our conversation might proceed:
Me: I feel sick.
You: Apparently you got sick by eating the orange first. Why didn’t you eat the apple first?
Me: I did eat the apple first. Don’t you remember what I said? “I ate the apple before I ate the orange so I wouldn’t get sick.”
You: Then why are you sick?
Me: I believe I told you why. I said I didn’t eat the orange last, which is why I feel sick.
You: I’m a little confused—which fruit did you eat first?
Me: I’ll repeat myself entirely: “Today I ate the apple before I ate the orange so I wouldn’t get sick, yet not in such a way so that the orange was eaten last, which would have made me sick.”
You: But you’re sick—is that right?
Me: Not at all. I said a bit earlier that “I ate the apple before I ate the orange so I wouldn’t get sick.”
As long as I respond with this ‘logic’ you cannot come to any conclusions about what I said. You cannot know whether I am sick or well, which fruit I ate first, or even if I ate at all. You cannot know what events happened because I affirmed everything, and yet denied everything. Consequently, all the statements you heard are inconclusive. In effect, I used language to say nothing. You could not even determine properly if I was actually describing myself in the above events, since nothing was being said about ‘me.’ I created this confusion by upholding two ideas that were in contradiction to each other, but which I claimed were simultaneously true.
In general, the shorter the statement of contradiction the more absurd it immediately appears. I never ate the apple I ate, is an example. Longer contradictions, such as the apple and orange analogy, or the Westminster Confessions regarding the sovereignty of God and the free will of man, will not always appear immediately irrational. This delay happens because our minds have more time to latch onto each idea separately. Paraphrasing can help identify contradictions more quickly. Consider the Westminster Confession’s reference to sin in the phrase, “God is not the author of sin.” Any sin is fundamentally a behavioral act of the mind and the will (often engaging bodily effect), and any act is also an event; so every sin by nomenclature may also be called a sinful event. Can you recognize more easily, then, the contradiction in the Westminster Confessions if I paraphrase it to say, “God ordains whatever events come to pass, but not in such a way so that God ordains the sinful events that come to pass?”
As long as people embrace contradictory premises that abandon logic it is impossible for them to arrive at the truth. Consequently, in theology it can be exasperating to show a person the contradiction of their Calvinism, since they embrace the contradiction. You are only pointing out what they already admit to. In fact, they do not even believe their contradiction is a real contradiction, but only a ’seeming’ one. This is why a great division in Christian theology has continued to exist for centuries despite proponents from both sides appealing to the Bible. For centuries certain words in the Bible have been reinterpreted by some to fit the template of Calvinistic doctrine, and these followers of Calvin (in regard to all of their chief doctrinal distinctives) have read their Bibles through the lens of contradiction. Of course, the Calvinist would reply that it is the other side that is reinterpreting Scripture to fit their own template. This charge/counter charge leveled by Calvinists and non-Calvinists against each other is why all Christians themselves need to study the Scriptures. This way they will know which is the correct view and thus be “approved unto God, rightly dividing the Word of Truth.”
Contradictionism Noted in Secular Literature
The dilemma over accepting ideological contradictions has not been restricted to the Church. In fact, the idea that accepting a fundamental contradiction is dangerous to one’s understanding of things has also been noted by secular authors. Because their insights into this problem help explain the essence of Calvinism, as well as demonstrate why Calvin’s apologetic regarding the problem of evil remains fundamentally false, we will briefly survey a few statements by these authors. Perhaps most telling of all, these statements will show how Calvinism has frequently hindered the evangelizing of intellectuals who have helped to set the pace of Western thought.
Perhaps the most famous of these statements against contradictionism is found in George Orwell’s classic and futuristic, political novel, 1984. Though a political socialist himself, Orwell worried about what might happen if a socialist state was abusive. He specifically feared how a contradiction could be used by the State to annihilate individual freedom and thought. Orwell referred to this contradiction as a doublethink (or doublespeak). This concept arises in the novel when Winston Smith, the main character in 1984, violates the State’s code by having a girlfriend and having sexual relations with her apart from State supervision. Another character, O’Brien, is a torturer for Big Brother (i.e., the State). O’Brien’s job is to get Winston to repent of his individualism. This is accomplished by trying to torture Winston into accepting a doublethink.
O’Brien begins his interrogation by holding up four of his fingers and asking Winston how many fingers he is showing. When Winston replies “Four,” O’Brien tells him that the answer is “Five” if Big Brother says it is five. Winston appeals to the absolutism that says four fingers must always be four fingers. O’Brien replies that truth is defined by what the State says it is. O’Brien then begins to ‘work’ on Winston, and eventually under pressure Winston changes his reply to “Five.” “No, Winston,” says O’Brien, and in effect tells Winston that he must not merely say there are five, he must also believe there are five. In fact, Winston must know there are five fingers even though he knows there are four. After more excruciating torture Winston finally doublethinks, i.e. knows there are five fingers, even though he knows there are four, and thus he cries out “Five!”vii The certainty of Big Brother’s ‘truth’ lingers with Winston for about a half-minute. But then Winston challenges O’Brien about the difference between (a) the ‘truth’ of Big Brother’s self-serving relativism, and (b) the truth of absolute facts that cannot change. Significantly, O’Brien asks Winston if he believes in God. “No,” replies Winston. “Then what is this principle,” queries O’Brien, “this principle that will defeat us?” 1 viii Note here that Orwell views doublethinking as the instrument used by a more powerful entity to submerge and to subsume within itself the individual component. The result in 1984 is that Winston Smith is stripped of his identity, his ability to choose, and even his ability to know. At the last, he is resigned to act out the melancholy, puppet-like chorus-shouting of Big Brother slogans at State rallies with all the other citizen goons.
Another author, Herman Melville, directly addresses the contradiction of Calvinism in Moby Dick, America’s most famous novel of the 19th century. Melville believes the entire world is subject to a contradictory existence because its Creator-God is a contradictory Being. Melville, who once referred to his novel, Moby Dick, as “a blasphemous book,” ridicules the logic of the “infallible Presbyterian church” as early as the first chapter, then later mocks what he believes is the contradiction of Christianity in a chapter called “The Whiteness of the Whale.” Melville speaks through the character of Ishmael to give a scathing indictment of the Christian God whom Melville understands in completely Calvinistic (i.e., contradictory) terms. Melville does this through a rambling account of how the color white has had contradictory associations throughout history and its religious symbolism, including Christianity:
It was the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me. But how can I hope to explain myself here; and yet, in some dim, random way, explain myself I must, else all these chapters might be naught…
But not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness, and learned why it appeals with such power to the soul; and more strange and far more portentous—why, as we have seen, it is at once the most meaning symbol of spiritual things, nay, the very veil of the Christian’s Deity; and yet should be as it is, the intensifying agent in things the most appalling to mankind… Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a colour as the visible absence of colour, and at the same time the concrete of all colours; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows—a colourless, all-colour of atheism from which we shrink?… and when we proceed further, and consider that the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever remains white or colorless in itself, and if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank tinge—pondering all this, the palsied universe lies before us a leper; and like willful travelers in Lapland, who refuse to wear coloured and colouring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him. And of all these things the albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?ix
…among the Red Men of America the giving of the white belt of wampum was the deepest pledge of honour; though in many climes, whiteness typifies the majesty of Justice in the ermine drawn by milk-white steeds; though even in the higher mysteries of the most august religions it has been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness and power; by the Persian fire worshippers, the white forked flame being held the holiest on the altar; and in the Greek mythologies, Great Jove himself being made incarnate in a snow-white bull; and though to the noble Iroquois, the mid-winter festival of their theology, that spotless, faithful creature being held the purest envoy they could send to the Great Spirit with the annual tidings of their fidelity; and though directly from the Latin word for white, all Christian priests derive the name of one part of their sacred vesture, the alb or tunic, worn beneath the cassock; and though among the holy pomps of the Romish faith, white is specially employed in the celebration of the Passion of our Lord; though in the Vision of St. John, white robes are given to the redeemed, and the four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white before the great white throne and the Holy One that sitteth there white like wool; yet for all these accumulated associations, with whatever is sweet, and honourable, and sublime, there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood… Witness the white bear of the poles, and the white shark of the tropics; …their smooth, flaky whiteness makes them…transcendent horrors…
Thus, in mocking criticism thinly disguised as reflective meditation Melville sees the universe as morally reflective of its Creator—heartless, void in its immensity, and backstabbing humanity with the thought of annihilation. Slyly, he couples the very veil of the Christian’s Deity with things most appalling to mankind. Finally, he sees the color white as mired in contradiction, at once the void of all colors and yet also the combination of all colors—a dumb blankness, full of meaning—a contradiction that impossibly exists, and which would lead us to atheism were we not to shrink from our horror of the Void. Melville is stating what his contemporary, Charles Baudelaire, put more succinctly—”If there is a God,” said the French poet, “He is the Devil.”x
Again, Melville was not just writing a novel. Even according to today’s academicians he was writing the American novel of the 19th century. The novel’s influence upon the American Academy should not be underestimated, for it reflects the Academy’s general objection against the Christian God. How many unbelievers across past centuries, I wonder, rejected the Bible and Christianity because they assumed, like Melville, that Calvin’s position about the sovereignty of God represented the Bible’s actual teaching? One can only guess at the extent of Calvin’s effect on intellectuals of the past who wrestled with Scripture because they found the concept of an arbitrary God offensive. One ought not to think, then, that the dissent of certain New England intellectuals from the Calvinistic God of the Puritans was altogether misguided. Consider, for example, these lines from Emily Dickinson, America’s best-known potess of the 19th century:
΅***΅***΅***Papa above!
΅***΅***΅***Regard a Mouse
΅***΅***΅***O’erpowered by the Cat!
΅***΅***΅***Reserve within thy kingdom
΅***΅***΅***A “Mansion” for the Rat! xi
The exact nature of Dickinson’s faith is a little hard to determine from her various poems, since faith and accusation seem to alternate in a number of her poems; but again, the point here is that one cannot help but wonder how many people today continue to doubt Christ and the Bible because past intellectuals who have now become influential were miffed with the Calvinistic God, and because Evangelicals are still promoting the same errors of Calvin’s contradictionism. People are understandably confused about the character of a God who arbitrarily picks some people for eternal life while leaving others to eternal damnation. Meanwhile, Evangelical Calvinists are left with the Petrine command to “give a reason of the hope” that is in them, which under Calvinism can only mean telling the unbeliever that God has already settled his fate in heaven despite his ‘free will,’ and that he cannot hope to comprehend the reasons for it. That Peter’s command should mean something else in light of the disciple’s other statement that “God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come unto the knowledge of the truth,” seems apparent. Instead, Calvin’s most progressive followers have found in this latter verse an opportunity to interpret the words “any” and “all” as merely referring to the “elect” who under “limited atonement” are those referred to by the terms, “any” and “all.” Indeed, the opportunities for biblical revisionism have led Calvinists to interpret the word ‘world’ as restrictively meaning ‘the world of the elect’ in some 20 New Testament verses, i.e., verses which otherwise would prove their theory of ‘particular redemption’ false. So, let me ask the reader at this point—which theology do you suppose is maintaining the fiction here with a twisted kind of consistency? They both cannot be right. Which group—Calvinists, or non-Calvinists—is being more creative, so that its interpretation of the Bible fits a preconceived template?
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1 O’Brien also chides Winston regarding the empirical sciences, telling him that knowledge is defined according to the State’s need for the moment. Says O’Brien: “The stars can be near or distant, according as we need them. Do you suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that? Have you forgotten doublethink?” (Part 3, Chapter 3).
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vii Orwell, George. 1984. [http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/ 1984/19/].
viii Orwell, George. 1984. [http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/ 1984/20/].
ix Melville, Herman. World’s Greatest Literature: Vol. XVII, Moby Dick. (n.p. Spenser Press).
x Baudelaire, Charles.
xi Dickinson, Emily (edited by R.W. Franklin). The Poems of Emily Dickinson. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998). Vol. 1, p. 190-191.