A Crash Course in Calvinism (Calvinist quotes, part 1)
Here is the first half of the "Calvinist quote" part of the letter I wrote to pastors whom I don't think are Calvinists but who quote from Calvinists a lot. (I added a few extra quotes and notes that I didn't include in the letter I mailed to them. When do I ever make anything shorter!?!):
Here are some direct quotes from Calvinists, so that you can see what Calvinism really is in their own words, so that you can see that I’m not exaggerating or misunderstanding them [my comments in brackets and italics]:
John Calvin, from Institutes of the Christian Religion, book 1, chapter 16: “Hence we maintain that, by his providence, not heaven and earth and inanimate creatures only, but also the counsels and wills of men are so governed as to move exactly in the course which he has destined… Men do nothing save at the secret instigation of God, and do not discuss and deliberate on anything but what he has previously decreed with himself, and brings to pass by his secret direction.”
From Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God: “The hand of God rules the interior affections no less than it superintends external actions; nor would God have effected by the hand of man what he decreed, unless he worked in their hearts to make them will before they acted.”
From same as above: "... how foolish and frail [it is to suggest] that evils come to be, not by His will but by His permission... It is a quite frivolous refuge to say that God otiosely permits them, when Scripture shows Him not only willing, but the author of them... Again it is quite clear from the evidence of Scripture that God works in the hearts of men to incline their wills just as he will, whether to good for his mercy's sake, or to evil according to their merits."
From Institutes book 3, chapter 21: "By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation..."
From Institutes book 3, chapter 23: "Those, therefore, whom God passes by he reprobates, and that for no other cause but because he is pleased to exclude them from the inheritance which he predestines to his children.... individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death, and are to glorify him by their destruction.... The decree, I admit, is dreadful; and yet it is impossible to deny that God foreknew what the end of man was to be before he made him, and foreknew, because he so ordained by his decree."
And a quote attributed to Calvin in various online sources: "God preordained, for his own glory and the display of His attributes of mercy and justice, a part of the human race, without any merit of their own, to eternal salvation, and another part, in just punishment of their sin, to eternal damnation.” [He has a strange definition of “just punishment” if God predestined people to be unbelievers, with no choice, and then punishes them for it.]
J.I. Packer (from Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God): “[God] orders and controls all things, human actions among them…He [also] holds every man responsible for the choices he makes and the courses of action he pursues… Man is a responsible moral agent, though he is also divinely controlled… To our finite minds, of course, the thing is inexplicable.”
[It’s inexplicable because Calvinism is wrong, contradicting the Bible's plain teaching!]
Edwin Palmer (from The Five Points of Calvinism): “All things that happen in all the world at any time and in all history… come to pass because God ordained them. Even sin– the fall of the devil from heaven, the fall of Adam, and every evil thought, word, and deed in all of history… Foreordination means God’s sovereign plan, whereby He decides all that is to happen in the entire universe… He decides and causes all things to happen that do happen. He is not sitting on the sidelines wondering and perhaps fearing what is going to happen next. [A false dichotomy: “Either God predestines/controls everything, or else He has no idea what’s going to happen next and is at the mercy of humans.”] No, He has foreordained everything …even sin… Although sin and unbelief are contrary to what God commands…”
[And yet the fact that God supposedly causes things that are contrary to what He commands doesn't bother Calvinists!?! It doesn't make them question, doubt, reject their Calvinist views!?! Sadly, no. Instead, they hold firmly to their Calvinist views but then end up questioning, doubting, rejecting God when tragedies or overwhelming doubts (caused by Calvinism) shake their faith.]
R.C. Sproul (in Does God Control Everything?): “If God is not sovereign, God is not God. If there is even one maverick molecule in the universe – one molecule running loose outside the scope of God’s sovereign ordination – we cannot have the slightest confidence that any promise God has ever made about the future will come to pass.”
[But apparently, Calvinists can trust their Calvi-god who says one thing but means another, who causes us to do things he commands us not to do (sin) and who prevents us from doing things he commands us to do (repent and believe), and who will punish us for it anyway; a god who sounds like he gives everyone a real call to salvation and a real choice but who’s already predestined that most people will go to hell; a god who is glorified by sin and evil, not just in spite of it or through it, but by it. Calvinists can trust a god like that to keep his promises!?! And once again, Calvinists completely mis-define sovereignty. And they wrongly think that being “in control over all” must mean that God deliberately preplans/controls all. But God’s way of being “in control” is far different than they realize.]
R.C. Sproul Jr. (from Almighty Over All): “God wills all things that come to pass… God desired for man to fall into sin. I am not accusing God of sinning; I am suggesting that God created sin… We cannot imagine God looking at His wrath like unwanted pounds He wants to lose, if only He had the power. No, God is as delighted with His wrath as He is with all of His attributes. Suppose He says, ‘What I’ll do is create something worthy of my wrath, something on which I can exhibit the glory of my wrath. And on top of that I’ll manifest my mercy by showering grace on some of these creatures deserving my wrath.’”
[What is wrong with these Calvinists!?! God desired sin? He delights in exercising His wrath!?! God showers His grace on only some? (Calvinists do say that God shows grace to all people, but in different ways. For the elect, it's by saving them. But for the non-elect, it's by merely giving them food and water while they are on earth... before sending them to hell for all of eternity for being the unbelievers He caused them to be. But can that really be called "grace"? If we feed pigs well before slaughtering them to eat, does our feeding them really amount to "graciousness"?)
But do you know what the Bible says? It gives us verses that say the exact opposite:
Eph. 2:8-9 and Romans 3:23-24 show us that grace is not about giving damned people food and water before sending them to eternal hell, but grace is about wanting to SAVE US FROM HELL ("For by grace you have been saved" and "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus") and Titus 2:11 tells us that salvation-type grace is available to all, not just some ("For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men").
Proverbs 6:16-19 lists sins that God hates, but I have yet to find a verse where God desired sin. Psalm 5:4 says God does not delight in wickedness, but Sproul and Calvinists say that God desires sin. Proverbs 15:9 says that the Lord detests the way of the wicked, but Calvinists would have us think that God desired and created it. Proverbs 8:13 says that to fear the Lord is to hate evil, but why should we hate sin if God desires it? Wouldn't it be more glorifying to God, more "Christianly," to desire what God desires? And 1 John 2:17 and Matthew 7:21 instruct us to do God's will - and so if (as Calvinists say) it's God's Will that people sin and go to hell, then isn't that what we should be doing, pursuing?
{But if Calvinism is true that God wills people to sin and reject Him, then do you know what that means, according to Matthew 7:21? In this verse, God says that not everyone will be let into heaven but only those who do the Will of the Father. And Mark 3:35 says that whoever does God's Will is Jesus's family. So if Calvinism is true that everything that happens is God's Will, even when people sin and reject Him, then technically everyone is doing God's Will all the time, even wicked unbelievers, which would mean that everyone is part of Jesus's family and will be let into heaven. There'd be no one to say "Away from me, I never knew you" to, because everyone does God's Will all the time, even when they reject Him. According to Calvinism, that is. Either that, or Calvinists have to say that God's Will doesn't always get done.
But of course, to squirm out of this, they will bring up Calvinism's "God has two Wills: a spoken one and a secret one that contradicts the spoken one." But nowhere in the verse or the Bible do I see this taught. Nowhere do I see it taught that God commands one thing but has a secret Will that preplans/wants/causes us to do the opposite, such as that God says He wants all people to believe but then He causes them to reject Him because His secret Will is that they don't believe so that they go to hell. Do you see a verse that clearly teaches this anywhere in the Bible?
Instead, I see this, Acts 20:27: "For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God." The WHOLE Will of God! Paul's consistent message was "God wants you to be saved: to repent and believe in Jesus and be baptized in His name," and he calls it "the whole Will of God." Where is there room here for a secret, deeper, contradictory Will where God really does want people to sin and be in hell for His glory? If there is a deeper, secret Will, then Paul is lying. And if God has a hidden Will which contradicts the things He says, then God is lying. Either that, or Calvinism is lying. And I know which one I pick.}
And Ezekiel 33:11 says that He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. But Calvinism says He does.
Either God is schizophrenic... or Calvinism is wrong. (And I know which one I pick.)
But you know what? Sproul is right about one thing: God did "create something worthy of His wrath," to display His justice against sin. But it wasn't creating non-elect people to go to hell. It was creating a human body for Jesus so that He could take the wrath and punishment we deserved, so that God's justice could be exercised.
“God presented [Jesus] as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished- he did it [sent Jesus to the cross for our sins] to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” (Romans 3:25-26, emphasis added)
God Himself tells us that He punished Jesus in our place to satisfy His wrath/justice. And yet Calvinists would have us believe that God created people to be non-elect, to sin, and to reject Him so that He could show off His wrath/justice. (If we end up in hell, it's by our choice to reject God's offer of salvation, not because God predestined anyone to go there.)
Calvinism is a crock of crap! (Not sorry!)
Actually, that's too kind. It's satanic deception, an attack on God's Truth, on the Gospel, on God's character, on people's souls. And I'm not trying to be mean here, but if we believe Calvinism isn't truth, then we have to believe it's lies, which means we have to believe it's from Satan.
John 8:44: "... [Satan is] the father of lies."
2 Cor. 11:13-15: "For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve."
Gordan H. Clark (from Religion, Reason, and Revelation): “I wish very frankly and pointedly to assert that if a man gets drunk and shoots his family, it was the will of God that he should do it… Let it be unequivocally said that this view certainly makes God the cause of sin. God is the sole ultimate cause of everything…”
And from Predestination: “[Some people] do not wish to extend God’s power over evil things, and particularly over moral evils… [But] the Bible therefore explicitly teaches that God creates sin.”
[At least he’s an honest Calvinist.]
John Calvin says something similar in Institutes Book 1, Chapter 16, that "all things are ordered by the counsel and certain arrangement of God... produced by the will of God ... [and so if] a merchant, after entering a forest in company with trust-worthy individuals, imprudently strays from his companions and wanders bewildered till he falls into a den of robbers and is murdered, his death was not only foreseen by the eye of God, but had been fixed by his decree... The Providence of God [guided him to that end]."
Theodore Zachariades (as seen in this clip from Soteriology 101): "God works all things after the counsel of His will, even keeping those kings who want to commit adultery from committing so... and when He wants to, He orders those to commit adultery when HE WANTS TO!"
[Throughout this whole clip, he keeps contradicting himself, sometimes talking like God controls everything we do and sometimes talking like we choose to do what we do. Make up your mind, Teddy! And it's funny how he has a biblical example of God preventing someone from committing adultery, yet he didn't give a biblical example of God causing someone to commit adultery. Or did I miss it?]
James White was asked [listen here] this question: “When a child is raped, is God responsible and did He decree that rape?” And White replied "If He didn't then that rape is an element of meaningless evil that has no purpose... Yes, [He decreed it] because if not, then it's meaningless and purposeless... [But if He decreed it], it has meaning, it has purpose, all suffering has purpose, everything in the world has purpose, so there's no basis for despair [other than the fact that God Himself is evil enough to cause this kind of evil to happen to innocent, helpless children, terrible evil which He commands people not to do, making Him wicked, duplicitous, and untrustworthy and, therefore, not someone you'd want to trust with your well-being or seek comfort from for this kind of trauma - but other than that, no despair!]... But if we believe that God created knowing all this was going to happen but with no decree - He just created and all this evil is out there and there's no purpose - then every rape, every situation like that, is nothing but purposeless evil and God is responsible for the creation of despair...."
[And yet, in Calvinism, He's somehow not responsible for the creation of despair about evil and child-rape as long as He decreed all that evil and child-rape!?! What the...!?! White isn't making sense here, saying that believing God didn't decree child-rape (that He just let evil people choose to do it on their own) creates despair for which God is responsible, but believing that God did decree child-rape takes away the despair, that God is somehow not responsible now for any despair over this evil as long as He decreed it. Hmm? Truly bizarre! I guess, in Calvinism, it’s much better to have "meaningful" child-rape caused by a God who commands us not to do those things, than it is to have a God who allows men to choose for themselves to break His rules. And that's a god Calvinists love and defend and worship. That should scare us, not impress us.]
Mark Talbot/John Piper (from Suffering and the Sovereignty of God): “God brings about all things in accordance with his will. It isn’t just that God manages to turn the evil aspects of our world to good for those that love him; it is rather that he himself brings about these evil aspects… This includes God’s having even brought about the Nazi’s brutality at Birkenau and Auschwitz as well as … the sexual abuse of a young child.”
["Oh," says the Calvinist, "but we aren't saying that God is the author or cause of evil and sin." As if we'll just go "Oh, okay, I guess you aren't. It all makes sense now." Hogwash! (When you hear the word "Calvinism," the first word you think of should be "Hogwash!")]
John Calvin (in Institutes, Book 1, Chapter 16) says that the only way we can feel calm and secure is if we believe that all things, even evil things, are deliberately caused by God: "This rather is the solace of the faithful, in their adversity, that every thing which they endure is by the ordination and command of God..."
["So take comfort, abused child or raped woman or man whose family was murdered in front of you! It's not just that God allowed your abuse/tragedy and will work it into something good, but it's that He commanded it to happen, caused it to happen, and so it's all good!"
Hogwash!
How can we trust and find security in a God who commands people not to abuse or murder but who then turns around and causes people to abuse and murder, and who then punishes the people for doing what He "ordained and commanded" them to do!?! How is that calming and comforting!?!
Hogwash!
And let's not forget that Calvin teaches evanescent grace, that God tricks some non-elected people into thinking they are elected by giving them a temporary grace/faith that will fade, so that He can punish them in hell more.
From Institutes Book 3, Chapter 2: "I am aware it seems unaccountable to some how faith is attributed to the reprobate, seeing that it is declared by Paul to be one of the fruits of election; and yet the difficulty is easily solved: for though none are enlightened into faith, and truly feel the efficacy of the Gospel, with the exception of those who are fore-ordained to salvation, yet experience shows that the reprobate are sometimes affected in a way so similar to the elect, that even in their own judgment there is no difference between them. Hence it is not strange, that by the Apostle a taste of heavenly gifts, and by Christ himself a temporary faith, is ascribed to them. Not that they truly perceive the power of spiritual grace and the sure light of faith; but the Lord, the better to convict them, and leave them without excuse, instills into their minds such a sense of his goodness as can be felt without the Spirit of adoption."
And from Book 3, Chapter 24: "... there are two species of calling: for there is an universal call, by which God, through the external preaching of the word, invites all men alike, even those for whom he designs the call to be a savor of death, and the ground of a severer condemnation. Besides this there is a special call which, for the most part, God bestows on believers only, when by the internal illumination of the Spirit he causes the word preached to take deep root in their hearts. Sometimes, however, he communicates it also to those whom he enlightens only for a time, and whom afterwards, in just punishment for their ingratitude, he abandons and smites with greater blindness."
Calvin is saying that God sometimes gives non-elect people fake faith to make them feel saved, so that when God removes this fake faith He can punish them in hell even more strongly. (So apparently, it's not enough that God predestined the non-elect to hell, just because He wanted to, because He hated them before He even made them ... but now He wants to have even more reason to condemn them to hell, to make their damnation even more "justifiable"!)
And so I ask... How in the world can "the faithful" be comforted in trusting that God causes all evil when they themselves don't and can't even know for sure if they are truly one of the faithful "elected" ones? It's nonsense and hogwash! In Calvinism, no "faithful" person can be truly comforted by anything because they can't even know for sure if God made them one of the real faithful ones!]
John Piper (from his article “Does God Predestine People to Hell?”): “My answer is yes. God does determine from eternity who will be saved. But he does it in ways that are mysterious to us so that on that day no one will find any legitimate fault with God.”
[Calvinists think that since the non-elect follow their sinful, rebellious desires, they’re responsible and can be held accountable. But remember that, in Calvinism, they got the unregenerated nature God predestined for them, with the sinful/rebellious desires He built into it that they must obey, and they have no ability to change it, no option to do anything differently. And yet they are punished for it. This is NOT justice. It makes God unjust, unrighteous, untrustworthy, and the cause of all sin.
And note: Calvinists use the word “mystery” to cover up contradictions they create, to make people accept their nonsense without pushback. “It’s a mystery, so don’t try to figure it out, don’t think about it too much. Just accept it and trust what we say, like a humble Christian.” But if they can excuse any terrible twist they put on Scripture or any horrible destruction they do to God's character with "Well, it's a mystery. God understands it, so we don't have to," then they can get you to accept anything, even the idea that God causes child rape for His glory, that it's okay, and that He should be worshiped for it!
Calvinist theology creates terrible contradictions that have terrible implications for God's character and our faith, and yet they try in many ways to get you to not think too deeply about it, convincing you that you don't and shouldn't think about it now because it will all make sense later in eternity. Can you not see the dangerous, cult-like tactics here that have huge, damaging consequences?]
John Piper (from his article “Has God Predetermined Every Tiny Detail in the Universe, Including Sin?”): “Has God predetermined every tiny detail in the universe, such as dust particles in the air and all of our besetting sins? Yes… Now the reason I believe that is because the Bible says, “The dice are thrown in the lap, and every decision is from the Lord” (Proverbs 16:33)… Yes, every horrible thing and every sinful thing is ultimately governed by God… He controls everything, and he does it for his glory and our good.”
[Well, the good of the elect only. Certainly not the bulk of humanity, the non-elect. But as a theologian, Piper should know that the proverbs are principles/wise advice, not promises or hard-core theology.
If they were promises/hard-core theology, then all these would have to be too: Proverbs 22:4: "Humility and fear of the Lord bring wealth and honor and life" … 22:6: "Train a child up in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." ... 16:20: "Whoever gives heed to instruction prospers" … 21:5: "The plans of the diligent lead to profit" … 21:9: "Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife" … 12:21: "No harm befalls the righteous" … 23:2: "and put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony." … 23:14: "Punish [your child] with the rod and save his soul from death." (So salvation can come through Jesus or beating your child with a rod.)... And how could we apply both of these if they were both literal, bottom-line theological truths at the same time: "Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself" (26:4) and "Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes" (26:5)? They would cancel each other out.
I could go on, but you get the picture. If they’re gonna make Proverbs literal, hard-core, bottom-line theology, they can't just pick and choose verses; they've got to do it with all of Proverbs.
And here's an idea: When they (as they always do) use Prov. 21:1 (“the kings’ heart is in the hand of the Lord, he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases”) as literal, hard-core, bottom-line theology to "prove" that God controls our thoughts, desires, actions, destinies, then you remind them that it if they want to take it literally then it literally specifies that the king’s heart is in the Lord’s hand, and no one else’s.
And keep in mind that while Calvinists use proverbs - principles/wise sayings - to support their idea that God preplans and causes all things, even sin, they completely ignore verses that show He doesn't (and notice that these are God's own words about Himself, not King Solomon's ideas about God):
1 Kings 20:42: "He said to the king, 'This is what the Lord says: 'You have set free a man I had determined should die.''"
Hosea 8:4: "They set up kings without my consent; they choose princes without my approval."
Jeremiah 19:5: "They have built the high places to Baal to burn their sons in the fire as offerings to Baal - something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind."
Ezekiel 13:22 (CSB): "Because you have disheartened the righteous person with lies (when I intended no distress)..."
Isaiah 30:1: "'Woe to the obstinate children,' declares the Lord, 'to those who carry out plans that are not mine...'"
(And it's one thing to say that God is in control over all, but it's another to say - as Calvinists do - that He controls all. One is about the position of authority God has over all, but the other is about God actively preplanning/causing all things, even sin and evil and unbelief. One is biblical, but the other is not. One keeps God's character intact, but the other destroys it.)]
David Platt (in a sermon, see my post about it for the link) calls it “unbiblical and dangerous” to tell people they can "accept Jesus into their hearts." He says "Shouldn't it bother us that we tell people to do this but that the phrase 'accept Jesus into your heart' isn't in the Bible anywhere?"
[Hmm, let me see… Is “irresistible grace” in the Bible? Or “limited atonement”? Or "unconditional election"? Or "'Spiritually dead' means 'dead like a dead body that can't do anything but lay there all dead, that can't even want God, seek God, or believe in Jesus unless and until God causes you to do it, and He will only make the elect do it'"? Or “God ‘ordains’ all our sins and predestines people to hell for His glory?” Or "The Holy Spirit has to regenerate you before you can believe"? Etc.
No, they're not in the Bible anywhere.
So should it not bother us that none of these essential Calvinist ideas are clearly laid out in any verse in the Bible, that Calvinists have to fabricate support for these ideas by cobbling together other verses taken out of context and reinterpreted through a Calvinist lens?
But do you know what is in the Bible?
"That if you confess with your mouth 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." (Romans 10:9)
"Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me." (Revelation 3:20. Is Jesus knocking on a literal door at your house? Clearly not. This is a metaphorical door - the door of your heart.)
"I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith." (Ephesians 3:16-17)
So let's see ... "believe in your heart" ... "open the door of your heart to Jesus so that He can come in" ... Christ "dwells in your heart" ... sounds an awful lot like “accept Jesus into your heart” to me.
So tell me again, Calvinist, how "accept Jesus into your heart" is unbiblical, but how "irresistible grace, limited atonement, unconditional election, God ordains sin, etc." are biblical! 'Cuz I don't think I get it.]
Arthur Pink (Doctrine of Election): "... the elect of God might continue to commit all manner of wickedness and yet go to heaven... [but] the non-elect, no matter how virtuous they be, or how ardently they long for and strive after righteousness, must assuredly perish."
Arthur Pink (in The Sovereignty of God): "Faith is God's gift, and 'all men have not faith' (2 Thess. 3:2); therefore, we see that God does not bestow this gift upon all."
[Calvinists assume faith has to be given to you by God, and so if you don’t have faith, it’s because God didn’t give it to you because you were predestined to hell. But see this post to learn how faith is not the gift, but how eternal life is.]
"Upon whom then does He bestow this saving favor? And we answer, upon His own elect- … But is God partial in the distribution of His favors? Has He not the right to be? Are there still some who murmur against [Him]? Then His own words are sufficient reply - ‘Is it not lawful for Me to do what I will with Mine own?’ (Matt. 20:15). God is Sovereign in the bestowment of His gifts, both in the natural and in the spiritual realms… Not only has God the right to do as He wills with the creatures of His own hands, but He exercises this right, and nowhere is that seen more plainly than in His predestinating grace… Yet is it not self-evident that if God foreknows all things, He has also foreordained all things?"
[Calvinists redefine foreknowing as foreordaining, fore-planning, meaning that everything that happens is because God first preplanned it and then He caused it. I have even read Calvinists who say "Whenever I read in the Bible that God 'foreknows' something, I just substitute in 'fore-plan'." Wow, how nice to be able to change God's Word whenever you feel like it to fit your theology!
And if you look up Matthew 20:15 in context, it's not about God's supposed right to predestine some people to heaven but not others, as Pink is using it. It's about God choosing to bless recent converts as much as He blesses older converts. Big difference! And what a horrible twist to apply it to the idea that God can predestine some to heaven but the rest to hell!]
"Is it not clear that God foreknows what will be because He has decreed what shall be? … To say [the non-Calvinist view] that God the Father has purposed the salvation of all mankind, that God the Son died with the express intention of saving the whole human race, and that God the Holy Spirit is now seeking to win the world to Christ; when, as a matter of common observation, it is apparent that the great majority of our fellowmen are dying in sin, and passing into a hopeless eternity; is to say that God the Father is disappointed, that God the Son is dissatisfied, and that God the Holy Spirit is defeated."
[An argument made up by Calvinists, as if they know how God feels. And it's got the false premise that since there are people who die and go to hell, it has to mean that Jesus didn't die for them and that God doesn't want to save them. And Calvinists believe this because they cannot grasp the idea that God gave people the right to reject the offer of salvation that He gives to all people. And so they conclude that if Jesus died for you then you will be, must be, saved. And so if you're not saved, it's because Jesus didn't die for you. But this whole mess would be fixed if they just accepted the biblical truth that Jesus died for all and God offers salvation to all but He lets us decide to accept or reject it.]…
"To argue that God is ‘trying His best’ to save all mankind, but that the majority of men will not let Him save them, is to insist that the will of the Creator is impotent, and that the will of the creature is omnipotent."
[False dichotomy: Either God fully controls all, or we do.]
"When we say that God is sovereign in the exercise of His love, we mean that He loves whom he chooses. God does not love everybody…"
[Yeah, that's what our Calvinist pastor told us, too. So encouraging!]
John MacArthur (from “Election and Predestination: The Sovereignty of God in Salvation”): “The doctrine of election [a completely Calvinist concept] simply means that God, uninfluenced and before creation, predetermined certain people to be saved… Americans have a specially difficult time with this, because we don't know what a monarchy feels like. We have never lived under a sovereign ruler. We don't have any concept of that. You would find people historically in a culture where they're ruled by a king, who have a very clear understanding, and willingly bend their minds to the fact that somebody can actually be in charge… some people have a divine right to sovereignty. This is a bigger problem in America, I think, than it is in Europe… And it has to do with, I think, as much culturally, we just really have a hard time understanding that somebody is the king, and the king does whatever the king wants to do. And the King of the universe does exactly what He wants to do, whenever He wants to do it… And we don't like the idea of not being free, you know. We want to have the freedom to choose whatever we want to choose. And that may be the American way, but that isn't the biblical way.”
[This is what our Calvinist pastor said too, making us feel like the problem is with us - not his theology - if we don’t accept his (unbiblical) view of “sovereignty,” like if we disagree with him then we’re being unhumble Christians who can’t submit to God. Calvinism spreads heavily by manipulation and shaming and strong-arming! (And consider this: If we don't feel like "willingly" bending down before a "sovereign" ruler, whose fault is that? In Calvinism, it would be God's. So why does MacArthur shame the people for it, as if they had any choice or could change it?)]
John MacArthur (from same as above): “God does say he loves humanity, and there is a universal love of God that manifests itself in common grace, manifests itself in temporal, physical deliverance from death; the sinners live and enjoy life. It manifests itself in a universal call of the gospel [which the non-elect are created to resist]… And yet, we're told to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And so there is a universal offer [which the non-elect are created to reject] that, from the standpoint of God is a legitimate offer, and which, sad to say, even heightens the culpability of the sinner."
[Notice that he has to say it's a "legitimate offer from the standpoint of God" - because he knows that from our viewpoint it's not a legitimate offer to offer something to someone when you've made it impossible for them to accept it ... and he's got to trick us into accepting his theology somehow. Manipulation!]
"[To say that Jesus is the Savior of all men] means that He's the Savior of all men in a physical, temporal sense. All you have to do is look at the fact that the world is full of unbelievers who live, to know that God by nature is a Savior. [Nice spin, saying that just because sinners are allowed to live and breathe for awhile shows that Jesus is a Savior.] I mean it's His nature not to destroy the sinner [at least not in the temporary sense, but surely in the eternal sense, according to Calvinism – but what kind of grace is that!?!], when the sinner deserved destruction. I mean Adam sinned. Should have died on the spot, and that would have been a just act [though, in Calvinism, God ordained/caused his sin and the Fall – and so what kind of justice is that!?!]. But he didn't. He lived, what, 960 years? I mean that's grace. And that tells us that God, even on a temporal, physical level, is a Savior… And He shows that by giving people life [before their predestined eternal damnation]."
"So the real question, as I said then, is not, you know, why do certain people die, but why do most people live? [Deflection! Downplaying the bad! "Don't think about those predestined to hell but only about those predestined to heaven!" Hogwash! Heartless!] Because that's an evidence that God, it's just His nature to save. And with regard to believers… He's our Savior not physically and temporally, but spiritually and eternally… I would think you have to humble yourself before all these doctrines, right? [Calvinist-made, unbiblical doctrines!] I mean you just have to bow your knee and just humble yourself before these things, and don't demand that God explain every iota of every issue to you so you can understand it."
[We’re not demanding that God explain Himself; we’re demanding that Calvinists explain the damage they’ve done to God’s Word and character and the contradictions they’ve created with their unbiblical doctrines.]
"You're not that important in the big scheme of things; neither am I; any of us.”
[A typical Calvinist tactic: using humility against us, shaming us into Calvinism. And yet apparently, God thought we were important – important enough to leave heaven and die on a cross for us, when He didn’t have to. Why do we love Him? Because He first loved us. Even when He didn't have to. Even when He shouldn't have.]
John MacArthur (from the same, when contemplating what it would be like to be a preacher who believed in free-will, to believe that people make choices about accepting or rejecting Jesus and that preachers can have an effect on who’s saved and who’s not): “Oh, I'd be a mental case. Because I mean there's no way you could ever live with that kind of reality, if you were honest about it; if you took people's eternal destiny seriously… But if I actually believed that people would go to hell if, one, I didn't preach the kind of sermon that could manipulate them to make a decision or, two, if I didn't reach them, I'd be a frenetic person, running around button-holing everybody that crossed my path, living some kind of a bizarre and outrageous life, trying to make sure that people didn't go to hell because of me.”
[And yet, interestingly, in Acts 17:2-3, Paul reasoned with people to convince them of their need for Jesus. He worked harder than all others, enduring prison, floggings, exposure, forty lashes, beatings, a stoning, a shipwreck, bandits, toil without rest, hunger and thirst, etc. (2 Cor. 11), and became all things to all people (1 Cor. 9:22) in order to spread the Gospel and save some. In Phil. 3:18, he weeps over the lost. In Romans 9, he grieves over the lost, wishing that he could trade places with them if it would save them. But how nice for MacArthur to be able to sit back and relax, convinced that God’s already picked who goes to hell and that they will go to hell no matter what, regardless of what he does or doesn’t do!]
John MacArthur (from The God Who Loves, reprinted in the Grace to You - "Grace to Few" - article “Does God love the elect and hate the non-elect?”): "The fact that some sinners are not elected to salvation is no proof that God's attitude toward them is utterly devoid of sincere love. We know from Scripture that God is compassionate, kind, generous, and good even to the most stubborn sinners."
[Stubborn because God made them stubborn! Calvinism's god showers the non-elect with temporary food, rain, sunshine and delayed damnation before putting them in their predestined hell forever because Jesus didn't die for them... and Calvinists call this "love." But it's wildly different from how God Himself says He shows His love: "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us," Romans 5:8. Whose definition of God's love are you going to believe: the Calvinist's or God's?]
"There is a true and real sense in which Scripture teaches that God hates the wicked. So an important distinction must be made. God loves believers with a particular love... It is an eternal love that guarantees their salvation from sin and its ghastly penalty. That special love is reserved for believers alone [“the elect”, in Calvinism]. However, limiting this saving, everlasting love to His chosen ones does not render God's compassion, mercy, goodness, and love for the rest of mankind insincere or meaningless."
[Oh, what a relief for the non-elect: knowing that God “sincerely” showers His “compassion, mercy, goodness, and love” on them - in this brief “like a mist” life that vanishes quickly - by giving them food and rain for 80 years before sending them to hell for all of eternity for being the unbelievers He caused them to be! Wouldn’t want to miss out on that totally meaningful “love”! It’ll make all the difference when they’re burning in hell for eternity!]
John MacArthur (from oneplace.com article “Does God so love the world?”): “God's love for the elect is an infinite, eternal, saving love. We know from Scripture that this great love was the very cause of our election. Such love clearly is not directed toward all of mankind indiscriminately, but is bestowed uniquely and individually on those whom God chose in eternity past.”
John MacArthur (in Understanding Election, find the quote here, among others): “I’m a Christian today, because before the foundation of the world from all eternity past, God chose to set His love on John MacArthur and to give him the faith, to believe at the moment that God wanted him to believe. He chose us.”
[And yet, remember that MacArthur “always believed… never rebelled,” and that he couldn’t even discern the moment God supposedly put faith in his heart. Very suspicious!]
R.C. Sproul (in Chosen by God): “The world for whom Christ died cannot mean the entire human family. It must refer to the universality of the elect (people from every tribe and nation)….” [Chapter and verse, please?]
Wayne Grudem (from Election and Reprobation in Systematic Theology): “Election is not based on God’s foreknowledge of our faith… The idea that God’s predestination of some to believe is based on foreknowledge of their faith encounters still another problem: upon reflection, this system turns out to not give real freedom to man either. For if God can look into the future and see that person A will come to faith in Christ, and that person B will not come to faith in Christ, then those facts are already fixed, they are already determined… There is no way that their lives could turn out any differently than this. Therefore, it is fair to say that their destinies are still determined, for they could not be otherwise. But by what are these destinies determined? If they are determined by God himself then we no longer have election based ultimately on foreknowledge of faith, but rather on God’s sovereign will. But if these destinies are not determined by God, then who or what determines them? Certainly no Christian would say that there is some powerful being other than God controlling people’s destinies. Therefore, it seems that the only other possible solution is to say that they are determined by some impersonal force, some kind of fate, operative in the universe, making things turn out as they do. But what kind of benefit is this? We have then sacrificed election in love by a personal God for a kind of determinism by an impersonal force and God is no longer to be given the ultimate credit for our salvation.”
[This is the biggest bunch of manipulative garbage. First, he reinterprets foreknowledge as fore-determining, that it was predetermined to happen, locking it in. And once he’s got you hooked into predetermination (predestination), he sets up a false dichotomy: it’s either predetermined by God according to His sovereign choice (Calvinism), or by fate. He forces you to agree with Calvinism. And then he further manipulates you into it by essentially saying that if you believe anything other than that, you’re giving God’s credit to someone/something else. So many problems!
But the simple fix is this: Define foreknowing as foreknowing (God let us choose first, and then He foreknew what we would choose), and understand that since we had the real ability to choose among options, if we had made a different choice, then God would have foreknown that. God's foreknowledge didn't determine our choice; our choice determined what He foreknew. This IS real freedom. Only in Calvinism is it not, because they redefine foreknowing as fore-determining.]
James White (in “Does John 3:16 Debunk Calvinism?”, find the quote here): “He gave His only begotten Son, and here’s the purpose why He gave: The Son is given by the Father so that every believing one, notice not everyone, it’s every believing one, there is a limitation here, there is a particularity here, the Father did not give the Son for any other reason than for those, in regard to those who believe. That’s why the Son is given.”
[First off, White is dividing the verse wrong. It's not "God gave His Son for the believing ones"... it's "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life." The "whoever believes" part is in the second half of the verse, connected to the "will not perish" part, not to the "God sent His Son" part. But White connects "whoever believes" with the part about Jesus being given, in order to make it seem like Jesus was only given for whoever believes. But no, it's that only those who believe will get eternal life, even though the Son was given for all people (and so all people have the ability to believe, it's just that many will choose not to.)
And second, White apparently doesn’t understand parts of speech. In John 3:16, in the Greek, the word “believes” (whosoever believes) is a verb. But White made it an adjective – believing one – to make it fit Calvinism. Calvinists also turn it into a noun – believer – to make it say that Jesus only died for believers, “the elect,” in Calvinism. They make little changes like this all over the place. And yet the Jehovah’s Witnesses destroyed the Gospel with just one little change, adding one little letter: “The Word was a God.” How much more damage Calvinists do with their many small changes!]
Tim Keller (in a podcast critiqued in the Soteriology 101 video “Tim Keller on Election” by Leighton Flowers): “Both the Old Testament and the New Testament say, I believe, that if you believe, you believe because God has chosen you.”
[Or is it that God has chosen you because you believe? That when you believe - after you believe - God chooses to include you in His eternal family? At least that's what the Bible says: "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God" (John 1:12)]
Paul Washer (from The Gospel’s Power and Message): “Until God regenerates a man’s heart, that man will address the gospel in the same way the demons of the Gadarenes addressed the Lord Jesus Christ: “What have we to do with You?” The carnal man can have no true interest or appreciation in the gospel apart from the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit…”
[In Calvinism, being born-again by the Spirit (being regenerated and injected with faith) comes before – and leads to/results in - hearing, understanding, responding to the Gospel (which essentially is saying that people are saved before believing in Jesus, without belief in Jesus). But in the Bible, believing in Jesus/responding to the Gospel results in being born-again by the Spirit.
Acts 2:38: "... Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."
Ephesians 1:13: "And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit."
Calvinists have the same ideas but they reverse it, leading to a very different Gospel!]
Paul Washer (in “The Gospel is only Good News to a needy man”): “If you reject Christ, then the moment when you take your first step through the gates of hell, the only thing you will hear is all of creation standing to its feet and applauding and praising God because God has rid the earth of you. That’s how not good you are."
[Now how does that square with Ez. 18:23 where God says He does not take any pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that He is pleased when they turn from their ways and live? So God doesn’t take pleasure in the death of the wicked, but apparently Calvinists do.
And besides, if God was truly glorified by predestining people to hell, wouldn’t He delight in their deaths and their damnation because it brings Him so much glory? And yet He says He doesn’t, that He wishes they were saved instead. Calvinism is so messed up! A total corruption of the Gospel and God’s character and Word!]
Kevin DeYoung (Gospel Coalition) - in "Is it Okay for Christians to believe in the doctrine of hell but not like it?" - tries to make the case that Christians should actually rejoice in the idea of non-elect sinners being in hell: "It takes a certain courage to look at what the Bible teaches, not like it all that much, and still believe it... But it’s a better sign when we take our stand on the Bible and learn to love where the Bible stands. Take hell for example. Should Christians rejoice in the doctrine of hell?... in one sense it is appropriate for Christians to say 'I don’t like the idea of hell.' But be careful. It’s never safe to dislike the truths God has revealed. We should actually like what the Bible teaches... God is good and his ways are always right. [Yeah, I know, but it's the Calvinists who are wrong in their ideas of what God does!] It is a measure of our maturity that we not only affirm the truth of God’s word but rest in the goodness and rightness of it."
R.C. Sproul goes one further and says we will rejoice in seeing our own mothers in hell (start at the 4:45-minute mark in the Idol Killer video "James White Responds - Infant Salvation?"): "Don't you know that when you're in heaven, you'll be so sanctified that you'll be able to see your own mother in hell and rejoice in that, knowing that God's perfect justice is being carried out."
[Once again, Ez. 18:23 says God Himself does not take any pleasure in the death of the wicked but is pleased when they turn from their wicked ways and live. So why would Calvinists claim we'll be delighted in it, in something God Himself doesn't like or want? And Sproul has a very messed-up view of justice, especially when God Himself says, in Romans 3:25-26, that He demonstrated His justice by sending Jesus to the cross to save sinners from hell, not that He created non-elect sinners to go to hell for their sins.]
John Piper - in "How does it glorify God to predestine people to hell?" - says that having sin and people in hell is ultimately good because God's grace and mercy (for the elect only!) and the experience of salvation (for the elect only!) "shine the more brightly" in light of it, resulting in God's glory shining more brightly. And it makes the elect feel a "more exquisite joy and gratitude for our salvation... our gratitude will be intensified." So "How does God get glory? He gets glory because his grace and mercy shine more brightly against the darker backdrop of sin and judgment and wrath, and our worship and our experience of that grace intensifies and deepens because we see we don’t deserve to be where we are [compared to the non-elect]." [So the joy of the few elect at being saved is worth the torment of the many non-elect predestined to hell!?! That's sick!"]
