I feel sorry for John Calvin. He wrote a bunch of pretty good stuff that people still read regularly. Interestingly, the more people read it, the less they seem to understand it or at least to get the point of what he was saying.
This post isn't about Calvin, although it could be.
In fact, most of the stuff Calvin wrote about gets morphed into a thing called doctrine. Doctrine is a set of instructions that you can memorize and you don't have to really think about much. You just have to be able to read them and do what they say, like a recipe. Sometimes, the recipe says you should feel something and then doctrine tells you how to go about feeling it. If you're married, that's probably how you met your spouse, right...by following the recipe? Well, maybe not.
This post isn't about doctrine, although it could be.
A guy named Arminius said that Calvin was almost right but that there was a bit more to his recipe, a couple things Calvin left out. He tried to add a little bit about how people and God actually related to each other. His temerity in messing with Calvin's recipe damn near got him killed. This is interesting because when he was in court arguing for his life, he said at least three times that he liked, yea verily, LOVED everything Calvin said. He just thought there was a bit more. Eventually the court decided that he really hadn't said anything that wrong. It's interesting though that they felt the need to put him on trial.
This post isn't about Arminius, although it could be.
I think in heaven, John and Jacobus (Arminius) sit together on a bench and offer apologies to everyone who wanders over their way. I don't think they need to be sorry really, but when something you've written gets so completely warped by so many other people, I think you're likely to wish you'd chosen a few different words here and there or maybe even kept silent entirely.
I wish this post was about silence, but it's not.
The above diatribe is actually about the causes and effects of a particular word. This post is about a word that is sometimes spoken, sometimes necessarily implied but always present when people disagree. That word might be the most horrible word ever spoken by man. I've used it in both spoken and unspoken forms way too many times in my life. This is the word: Therefore.
"Therefore" is a word that delivers finality and ending. For example, "We've done everything we can possibly do. Therefore, it's time to give up." More positively, "Well it looks like he's getting better. Therefore, we don't have to do anything." Virtually all social and intellectual context can apply this word.
This word is a two syllable invitation to an ending. I do think this word has some of the same problems associated with that Calvin and Arminius encountered. Namely, the word itself is fine, it just gets folded, spindled and even mutilated into things it was never intended to be.
"Therefore" is a wonderful word in engineering and fair to midlin' in science. In engineering, you can say things like, "I started the engine. Therefore it ran." In this case, there's an implicit but absolutely necessary link between an action and a result. For example, it wouldn't make sense to say, "I started the engine. Therefore it started laying eggs." Note that the only reason this doesn't make sense is because we all understand that laying eggs is not something an engine does.
In science "therefore" can still be OK, as in a test of gravity: "I dropped the pencil. Therefore it fell." That's pretty good...unless you're orbiting in space and then it's just flat wrong. And that example points to the very definite and completely ignored boundary of "therefore." This is the boundary: "Therefore" can only live out it's intended purpose in a clearly and completely defined context. That is, "therefore" can only add its intended value if it's applied in a completely understood and defined context.
People and relationships aren't anything like engines or even gravity. They aren't well defined or at least their definition isn't always clear. If their definition ever is clear, then this salient fact applies: Whatever we understand about a person now will change over time and we won't necessarily get a memo that things have changed. It's even true that our state changes and that in turn can change the way we look at others. Change, change, change...all relationships change. That simple fact severely limits the correct use of the word therefore.
Calvin and Arminius were in conversation about their relationship with God. By being in conversation, albeit indirectly, they were in relationship. (If you're bored right now, as a distraction you can note the implicit and I think appropriate use of "therefore" in the preceding sentence.) For the 400 or so intervening years between their lives and ours, there's been no conclusion to this conversation. That makes me want to say, huh...which I think is a humbler, more universal and all around better word than "therefore."
"Therefore" is way too much like an ending and even death for us to use it like we do. When we use it about each other either individually or as groups, we too often slam a door in ourselves that shouldn't even be closed.
Honestly, I don't care overmuch about the writings of Calvin, Arminius and their differences and similarities. I find them more interesting as historical figures than I do as thinkers or even spiritual mentors. As they sit on the imaginary bench I built for them, I doubt they care much about their writings either. I would imagine though that they care more about open doors than they used to.
As for me, I am slowly and sometimes painfully learning to keep doors open. Maybe they'll eventually make room on the bench for me and we can make up jokes. "Did you hear the one about the Calvinist and the Arminiust that went into the bar together?" I'll probably have to explain to them that in addition to it's other faults, "therefore" makes a lousy punch line.
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