More on Psalms 14

After posting my previous message about Reformed theology, I thought some additional comments on Psalms 14 might be appropriate. Psalms 14 is not all that Calvinistic and Evangelical theologians might like it to be. One of the rules of sound biblical exegesis is that you take into consideration the genre of the passage you are examining. You don’t exegete poetry in the same way you would exegete prose, because poetry makes much use of simile, metaphor, deliberate omissions, and exaggerated speech to achieve a desired effect that is not common to ordinary prose. The Psalms are poetry, and you don’t read, or try to understand them in the same way that you would a piece of historical narrative, or a didactic prose. Psalms 14 begins by addressing “the fool,” which in biblical terms is equivalent to the “unrighteous”:

Psalms 14:

1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none [of “the fool”] that doeth good.

Then in the next two verses it makes it sound as though it is now addressing everybody on the planet without exception—when in fact it is still addressing just “the fool”. That is the language of poetry:

Psalms 14:

2 The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.

3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

Those are the verses that have tripped up the Reformed and Evangelical theologians into thinking that it is saying that nobody ever is or can be righteous. But that is the exaggerated language of poetry. The next two verses make it clear that the previous two verses are not meant to be taken that way, but are still referring to “the fool,” or the “workers of iniquity” mentioned in verse 4, which is made clear enough by contrasting it with the “generations of the righteous” in verse 5:

Psalms 14:

4 Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the Lord.

5 There were they [the “fools,” or “workers of iniquity”] in great fear: for God is in the generation of the righteous.

That clarifies the meaning of the previous two verses. If nobody is righteous, according to verses 2 and 3, how do you explain verse 5? If nobody in the world ever is or can be righteous, which is the Calvinistic interpretation, where did the “generation of the righteous” come from in verse 5? Is the Psalm contradicting itself? It appears to be, because it is saying one thing In verses 2 and 3, and the opposite in verse 5. Which is it, and how do we resolve the contradiction? One of those two statements can’t be saying what it appears to be. So which one is it, and how do we know? We find the answer by comparing and contrasting it with other similar passages in the Psalms first, and in the rest of the Bible second that clarify them, as demonstrated in the examples given in my previous post on Reformed theology. If 99% of the Bible is saying one thing, and one odd passage appears to be saying something different, we go by the 99%, and use that to correctly understand the odd 1%. We create our theology on the basis of the 99%, and adjust the 1% with the help of the 99%, not the other way. Calvinism does it backwards. It builds its theology on the basis of the 1%, and turns a blind eye to the 99%. So Psalm 14 doesn’t teach what Calvinistic and Reformed theologians like to think it does.

If nobody ever is or can be righteous, how was Cornelius found righteous before God, who wasn’t even a believer, or a Christian or a Jew, but a pagan, and a believer in a polytheistic religion, at the time when he was visited by an angel (no less), who told him that he had been found righteous before God (Acts 10:2, 4, 22, 30–31, 34–35)? Whom should we believe more, Calvinism or the Bible? Or how do you explain Romans 2:6–16, which categorically states that you don’t even have to be a believer or a Christian to be saved, but simply to act in righteousness, and do what is good and right in the sight of God? A pagan who acts in righteousness out of a good conscience will be saved; whereas a “Christian” who does wickedly will be condemned. That is what Paul is saying in Romans 2:6–16. Which should I believe more, Calvinism or the Bible? Calvinism draws its support (erroneously) from 1% of the Bible, while turning a blind eye to 99% which speaks against it. And they are fanatical about it, and they think that they are “saved”.