Micah Coate's Gunman Analogy

(Note: I am using the Kindle version of Micah Coate's A Cultish Side of Calvinism. In this entry and future entries I will use the notation “KL” to refer to Kindle location numbers.)

A Calvinist may argue that God is not obligated to offer salvation to everyone and is in fact merciful to save anyone at all. Coate objects to this (KL 4708-25) and responds with his gunman analogy. A man carrying a gun walks into a church of 300 people and kills 275. Would the people rejoice over the gunman's graciousness for sparing them and accept his invitation to his house for a feast, or would they be recoiled and run from him? (KL 4725-35)

It should be noted that Coate does not even touch Romans 9 in this argument. However, leaving all of that aside, it should also be noted that this argument employs a serious level of misrepresentation. The gunman is not a holy God against whom the people (who are his creations and therefore owe him worship and obedience) have repeatedly and stubbornly rebelled and therefore deserve his judgment. The people in the church did not sin against the gunman and did not deserve to be shot. Unlike the people in the church who are worshipping God, we in our natural state rebel and sin against God every day and do deserve hell. The gunman, like us, is a sinner rebelling against God and God's moral standard. God, however, is God, and His eternal nature is the very foundation of all moral standards.

Coate says that the response that God does not need to save anyone is true, but "it fails to make coherent sense of an all-loving God" (KL 4734). First, what then does Coate mean when he says that God does not need to save anyone if he immediately argues that not offering salvation to everyone would be contrary to His nature as an all-loving God? Second, if Coate is correct then why does God not just save everyone (universalism)? Coate would likely cite human free will, but this ignores the fact that no one seeks God when left to his own nature (Romans 1:18-32, 3:11). More seriously, Coate's theology requires a divine love and mercy that can overwhelm the holiness and justice of the God who created people and the universe but must bow to the wishes of a stubbornly rebellious creation. This is blatantly unbiblical (Proverbs 16:9, 19:21). "Let God be true but every man a liar" (Romans 3:4). Coate might also cite the exclusivity of salvation through Christ (which I would also affirm), but if love and mercy are so overwhelmingly powerful compared to God's justice and holiness (as they must be if Coate is correct) then how can God set such a limit? How does Coate avoid universalism? Only by being inconsistent in applying his presuppositions, and that shows a serious flaw in his position.

Every person is equally in need of salvation. God is indeed loving and merciful in providing salvation to those who trust Christ for salvation, but He does so in a manner that is consistent with his holiness and justice and demonstrates the full range of His attributes.

One side note: Coate's gunman analogy appears immediately before what James White calls "The Absurdity" in which Coate reproduces a caricature of part of the White/Bryson debate as an alleged paraphrase (KL 4735). For further information on this see: here, here, here.

Coate speaks in his last chapter about the need to present a fair critique that gives an accurate presentation of the other side, but the entire book shows he does not attempt to do this.