Summary: A review of some of the basic teachings of Calvinism and their contradictions against the Bible.

29.04 Anti-Calvinism Page

"My problem with Calvinism"

by David Cox

My position: I disagree with all five points of Calvinism as being in some part unbiblical.

Introduction: Being a Fundamental Baptist myself, I have ascribed to the unique authority of Scripture as my only guide. I do not take the worldview or theological systems of people as my own, simply put, I accept and promote what God has said in Scriptures. As a pastor and missionary, I constantly study both the Scriptures and every sort of false doctrine and movement because they constantly assault our people. Calvinism is one of those false doctrines and an anti-biblical movement that has corrupted or destroyed many of God's people, ruined many a good solid church, and rotted many ministries.

Moreover, my analysis of Calvinism is not in a void. Being a missionary I have visited a little under a thousand churches so far, and in my dealings with many different pastors and churches, I come to mark recurring problems, and I seek understanding of these problems. I have noted that Calvinistic churches have an inverse relationship with desire and sacrifice in missions (likewise in evangelism, serious prayer to see the unsaved accept Christ, and preaching against sin). The more Calvinistic a church is, the tendency is always that that church is less interested in missions, and more interested in missions that promote Calvinism.

On an in-depth study of Calvinism, I find that I have to object on biblical grounds to the conclusions and practices taken from these conclusions and beliefs of ALL FIVE POINTS OF CALVINISM! None of them truly present the biblical position on the matters they presume to present from the Bible.

Key Points

Misplaced Focus | Spiritual elitism | Determinism & Theodicy |.

Misplaced focus - One of the most disturbing spiritual ailments of Calvinism is the spiritual attitude of a typical Calvinist. He is a missionary of sorts, spreading his doctrine of Calvinism. Oh sure he can recite the plan of salvation if asked, but he does not normally enter into a joyous state unless he is spreading or arguing over the "Doctrines of Grace", i.e. Calvinism. This should be a warning flag to most normal Christians that something is wrong. The center of our Christian faith is Christ dying on the cross providing salvation to all the world. Somebody told us about this, and in turn we should dedicate our lives to telling others about salvation. But the Calvinist does not concentrate on the gospel, but on "Grace". This is a euphemism for Calvinism, because it is Grace only for a few, and damnation for the majority. After all the fancy arguments and logic gymnastics are done, we always have to return to what is the heart of our Christianity? Is it the gospel, given to all? Or is it a plan of a few getting saved, the rest damned to hell without recourse even though they live and interact with us every day still? You will never see in the Bible a minister of God preaching election to the unsaved. Mentions of elections are few and rare, but the gospel is on every page. The focus of Calvinism is simply out of whack.

Spiritual elitism - This misplaced focus leads to some other problems. Study the concepts of pride, arrogance, humility, lowliness, and you will find that Satan fell because of his pride and arrogance. Christ taught the disciples humility, lowliness, service. This is a grand conflict that has no resolution except to condemn greatly arrogance and pride.

Psalm 131:1 LORD, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me.

It would be good for every Calvinist to memorize this passage and meditate on it every time he things he is in a better position or is closer to God than other Christians that don't understand the doctrines of Grace. King David clearly set off doctrines and concepts that are off limits to him as a believer because they touch or involve things that are restricted for us to get involved with. The bulk of Calvinism is exactly what David was referring to here.

Proverbs 6:16-17 Six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination to him. A proud look...
Psalm 10:4 The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.
Psalm 18:27 For thou wilt save the afflicted people; but wilt bring down high looks.

Among Calvinist groups and churches, there is a spiritual elitism that is promoted by Calvinists. There are those that are the "in" crowd because they understand and promote Calvinism, and there are those Christians which are the "out" crowd because they do not ascribe to Calvinism, they do not promote it, or worse, they out right oppose Calvinism. This division comes from an exaltation of intimate knowledge of God which they have and others are ignorant of. This is akin to the old mystery religions exaltation of inner knowledge and follows the same trend of spiritual exaltation of their group (elitism). Many a time a Calvinist will slur a good man of God which is not Calvinist by asking one of his members, "But your pastor doesn't preach the doctrines of Grace, does he?" That being the password through which you enter the elitism of the Calvinist.

Determinism and Theodicy - One of the ways people inflate their own egos and depreciate others is by the use of difficult words that others don't normally understand. This is a typical tactic to show others their ignorance and impose a measure of authority (knowing more than you do) over other people. The Calvinist is an expert at this. Two of these concepts he manipulates is the Decrees of God, and an issue which technically is called Theodicy. (There I just did it establish a submissive relationship with you if you didn't already know these terms.)

Determinism - This is commonly referred to as the "Decrees of God." Browse a Systematic Theology written by a Calvinist and normally you will find a large section devoted to the Decrees of God. By this the Calvinist means that God determined (past tense before creation) all things that are to be and how they are to be. Simply put, God determined sin, the fall of man, the cross, Satan and his rebellion, the salvation of every person in the history of mankind, and the perdition of all the rest, all preplanned, preprogrammed, and nobody can change what is predetermined by God.

Now Calvinism is a false cult, and one of the marks of a false cult is the twisting and turning of terminology to fit their beliefs, and to attack those who oppose them. At this point the phrase "Will of God" is applied, and this puts a finality on this determinism or decrees of God whereby nobody can change anything "that is predestinated by God", using the power of God as being supreme, so nobody can change or overpower God to change this "predestination" or "decrees of God."

Will the Real Will of God Please Stand Up? Unfortunately, the Bible is replete with references to God expressing His will and obviously that is not the case of what is reality. The classic problematic verse for the Calvinist here is 2 Peter 3:9.

2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

If everything God wills has to come to pass, and nobody is stronger than God to change God's will, then according to this verse every single person ever born will be saved. This is the reasoning of the Universalists that ascribe to this very position.

Passages like Luke 16, the rich man and Lazarus, and Numbers 16, the rebellion of Korah, which both present real people in the earth who die and are in hell simply throw these positions for a loop.

To solve this the Calvinist resorts to logic and logical gymnastics. Some probably reasonable, but in the scheme of the Calvinist, this is simply concessions when it suits me, absolutely no concession to nothing when it doesn't suit me. So on the one hand the Calvinist affirms that is an absolute will of God (that cannot be contradicted) and a permissive will of God (that allows other things to happen and come to pass that is not the will of God). Here we need to be very clear that the Bible never splits the will of God into two things, or two types. This is man's inability to handle the clear teachings of God.

If God's will (this is the term they use for it) is possible to not be completely, then God has allowed or structured things such that God presents to use "His Will", and we have to choose to accept it or reject it, or we just ignore the whole of these things which has the same result as rejecting it. Here it is best that we do not inflate ourselves to think that we can figure all of this out and understand God. We should just handle the matters that God places in our sphere of involvement to handle.

Theodicy - The Calvinist wants to make God the author of sin, and this is impute evil to God. This is exactly the tactic or plan of attack of Satan against God. Evil is at God's feet, nowhere else. Theodicy is a term that encompasses several things: the origin of evil, the origin of sin in mankind, and an explanation of why a good God would allow bad things to pass to His children.

The reasoning goes along this line: If God is absolutely good, nothing evil or bad in Him, then God created things (creation) and declares them "good". Something cannot come from nothing, therefore evil (sin) has to have its origin somewhere, and ultimately sin God created man and Satan and demons (good angels at the time), God must have declared or determined or predestinated them to fall into sin and rebellion, and therefore God is the ultimate author of sin.

This is the reasoning of the Calvinist. But this ignores several important points. First God created man in His image, in the image of God. This we cannot understand, but we do understand that God as a Being has a will. This is an expression of how he wants things to go, or what pleases Him. Anything that is sin is outside of God's will. That also places it outside of God for its origin. Then the postulation of "something cannot come from nothing" is shown to not be valid. God created creation from nothing. Something from nothing. If part of the image of God that we have is a power or ability to make decisions (determinations) that we seek to fulfill, then it is also possible that God gave this will in a form such that we do not have to follow prescribed paths. God may know all possibilities, and God may also foresee what we will do because of His infinite wisdom above us, but that does not necessarily mean that God causes us to make a certain decision.

This separation of God from the decisions of His creatures with wills is something that the Calvinist cannot grasp because of his prejudices and preconceived systematic theological thinking. It is not necessarily a violation of power or sovereignty of God to have creatures making decisions that were not predetermined by God. Perhaps it is easily to think this way, God gave His creatures the set of possible alternatives to decide between, one being submission and obedience, and one of the others being rebellion and sin. The one gives the other validity of options, and makes the creature have a "will" because there are options to decide between. Animals do not have these options because both of the options are conditioned on a law, or a declaration of God's will as being right, even in its most crude form in our conscience (which animals apparently do not have being "brute beasts"). If this defines man, and it defines somehow God archetype of man, then we can understand how God is not the author of sin, but the author of will.

A consideration of a few facts are in order here. First God is holy. Holiness means separated from sin and in the case of our present world, the commonness of man which lives in sin and rebellion. How can God be holy if He created sin? Sin is rebellion to His will, and we enter into a logistical nightmare if we try to make God's will is that man sin, or that evil enter the world. The Calvinist objects here by saying that if that is so, then something was greater than God, because it was not God's will that sin exist, and it exists. No, nothing is stronger or greater than God, but God is philosophical being. A being of principles that dictate and control and motivate God's will. If God's desire is to man a being that is not a robot but has a choice (will) to love and serve God and can willingly in himself without God pulling the strings or pushing a button to cause this, then God would have to allow the option of sin. He very easily could have made creatures that find it impossible to sin or disobey God, but that would be very close to our concept of a robot.

Whose will is it anyway? The will of God is something that God Himself allows His creatures to elect to not follow. The decision is theirs not His. If it was His will, they would follow it, and they would be in a position of blessedness not condemnation and eternal separation. The decision to separate from the will of God is a decision to separate oneself from God, and ultimately that is what hell is all about, separation from God and His blessings. God gives you what you want, nothing to do with God.

1 John 2:17 but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

In actuality, if salvation comes from praying the sinner's prayer, then that is a work. We are not saved by works. But we are saved by submitting ourselves to the will of God. The person that decides to submit himself to the will of God is the person that listens to God to find His will, and then does it.

John 6:40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.

This is the first step of obedience to the will of God that saves us. We hear this, we believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior with power to cleanse our rebellions and sins giving us eternal life in the process, and we are saved.

This point is exactly the problem with the majority of Christians today. They fail to conceive of Salvation as a submission to God's will, and take it as a "thing they do" to be saved, and once saved they have the liberty to sin with impunity, and perhaps receive some discipline from God for it, but still go to heaven anyway, and in most carnal Christians' minds, they also think they will occupy a high position in heaven in spite of their sinful and rebellious lives. The issue here is that salvation is submission to God's will, and although once you have faith in Christ, personally I do not believe you can lose that salvation, but always in every case the person will continue submitting to God's will.

We all are thick headed and stupid, and God is patience with even the worse of us, but the process is set by God, that each and everyone of us will slowly order their lives under that will of God. Set backs (sin) are common, but the process must go forward in all cases except those cases where there is not real faith and submission to God's will, and the person just does a work (pray a prayer).

The question of why didn't God stop evil and rebellion with Adam, and restart things again with a new set of first (second) humans? This was not "God's will" apparently. God will stomp out sin, but in the intermediate time, all of our human history is passing.

Total Depravity or Total Inability

Let's be clear about something here. Some people (normal people) consider salvation to be something that they procure on the basis of exchange. They "buy" or "exchange" one thing for another, and this is the norm of life for everybody (except those in a comma), and they consider that it must be possible somehow to exchange something they have or a service they can perform for salvation. Thinking upon salvation in this way, we declare with the Scriptures that nothing we have, can give, nor can do will be sufficient to "purchase" us salvation. In other words, on a buy or exchange basis, salvation is impossible. Why? Because the price that God has set for salvation is the death of His son. Who can gain the price of the Son of God? Nobody. So it is out of consideration.

Tito 3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us...
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

Salvation is a gift of God. It comes from God without any exchange on our part to procure this salvation. That is the way God has constructed salvation, and that is the way it works. God does it (saves us) for us, and it is not a coworking by God doing part and we doing part. Jesus died on the cross, and we do not need to likewise die on a cross also in order to be saved. His work is sufficient and complete.

Up to this point what we are discussing is the procurement of salvation on a basis of works or faith. One or the other. How do we get the salvation that we have? Did we "do" something to get it, or is it given freely by God on a condition (faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior)?

Total Inability - But the Calvinist uses this teaching which is biblical and twists it saying that by this the Bible also means that man is incapable of accepting the plan of salvation without God predetermining, predestinating, and electing him from eternity past to this salvation. In the concept of John Calvin as in his followers they are locked into thinking merit to procure salvation has to include ability to decide or accept a free gift.

Is accepting a free gift a merit? No. This should not need to be explained but the Calvinist insists that the ability to decide is a merit. It is a good work which is unacceptable in any talk of salvation. This pushes the discussion to arguments of whether man has merit in his sinful self, or whether he has no merit and therefore no ability to even decide or accept salvation.

John 1:12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

We see a reception by the individual of Jesus Christ as Savior before God gives them the power of Salvation. This is not merit but ability. It is nothing to brag about, it simply a fact of life. Men can decide whether they turn to God to be saved, or whether they do not choose this. The condition of God for saving a soul is that he receive Jesus Christ as Savior. We never see a person being "saved" before or outside of a conscious active reception of Jesus Christ willing by that person.

Is God dishonest? Deceptive? We need to take a step back from the intricate arguments of Calvinism and just evaluate a few common sense things. Who is always presented in the Bible as the personage of deception, lies, and dishonesty? Satan the father of lies (John 8:44). To attribute to God the deception of all deceptions (playing with the salvation of a man's soul) is just something that is to incriminate God with wrong doing.

Ezekiel 18:21 But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. 32 For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.

Ezekiel 33:11 Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel? 19 But if the wicked turn from his wickedness, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall live thereby.

To read this verses and take them at their most common and clear understanding, God places a choice in man's hands, to turn to God and obey His will and live eternally, or rebel or ignore God's will and spiritually die in eternal separation from God and His blessedness.

How can God say these words to man if man in his "own will" has no power (inability) to accept it? Is God presenting a cruel hoax, or taunting man in these verses? NO! The choice of salvation is at man's will, not at God predestination and election. God may know who will be saved and who will not, but that does not throw the decision and the responsibility for that decision on God's shoulders. It stays on man's shoulders.

Was Jesus ignorant of how God and salvation work? Without trying to be disrespectful, how can the majority of passages of the Bible about the place and circumstance of hell (eternal punishment) come from the mouth of Jesus trying to keep people out of their? This presents Jesus as either not understanding that persuasion is totally out of place in saving a soul, because election is the only important factor or the factor that really decides, or it presents Jesus as "out of the loop" on these things and talking totally out of character with the "will of God the Father". The whole idea of a minister of God trying to persuade an unsaved person to accept the Savior on the basis of persuasive arguments is totally "unCalvinistic", and Jesus is the first and foremost person doing this passionate evangelism.

The entire system of Calvinism lifts the deciding factor from man and places it on God exclusively. They are very detailed in their analysis that man has nothing at all to do with this decision, except to complete the preprogramming that God has in eternity past before creation put into each person. They explicitly specify that God did not foresee who would receive Christ and declare those people the elect of God, but that God is 100% responsible for their salvation, even down to their deciding to accept Christ is completely of God, and has nothing to do with them nor their own individual will. The question here is why do people then argue and not accept God at first hearing of the gospel? The Calvinist says that is because of their sinfulness, but isn't that exactly their point? Nobody can do anything without it be predetermined?

The problem with Calvinism in general is that they depend too heavily on their own brilliance and logic (which we should admit that some of the best logical minds of history have come into Calvinism). If things were to stop with God electing those who are saved everything would be alright. But they have to continue extending things (like good thinkers do), and they turn to the unsaved. God has to have predetermined, predestined them equally to hell.

Calvin said: "Predestination we call the eternal decree of God, by which He has determined in Himself, what He would have to become of every individual of mankind. For they are not all created with a similar destiny; but eternal life is foreordained for some and eternal death for others. Every man, therefore, being created for one or the other of these ends, we say is predestined either to life or to death." Institutes, Book III, Chapter XXI, Section 5.

Thus is born the doctrine of perdition or reprobation, or that God has decided who (the reprobates) will suffer eternally in hell on the sole basis of His good pleasure. This has nothing to do with either their inherit sinfulness nor with their rebellion or rejection of God and His will. According to Calvinism, this is independent of each individual's life and will, and is just a lottery sort of thing where God decides totally on his own good pleasure.

Unconditional Election

If we posit that all men are incapable of making the decision, moreover of even desiring salvation without the predestination of God coming in to give him that desire, then all men are unable to change their eternal destiny in any way, shape, or form. Those who are saved will be saved. Those who are reprobates will die without Christ no matter what anybody says to witness to them, no matter what prayers are offered on their behalf by believers, nor whether they themselves want to be saved or not. God's offers of turn and live are invalid, cruel hoaxes by a God that is deceptive, and therefore they are locked into perdition.

The Calvinist teaches that all men are totally depraved (meaning totally unable to accept Christ), and all men are without any kind of individual, personal will. God's election makes these people believe and accept Christ. (This is the view of Augustine and Luther).

Here we need to introduce some more big words, foreknowledge and foreordination. Foreordination is the decree of God where He has decided the eternal destiny of each individual according to God's own pleasure. Foreknowledge refers to an attribute of God that He can foresee the future, and know it.

It would seem that the Bible presents that the foreordination by God of future events rests in some degree on the foreknowledge of God. The Calvinist rejects this possibility. The Calvinist says of course God knows the future because He has carefully and meticulously planned every event down to the smallest detail, and nobody can change or alter these plans.

If man is incapable of making the decision to accept or reject Christ, then total depravity (for the Calvinist) or total inability (the truth of what he teaches) is incorrect. Unconditional election is also wrong. God presents the choice to the individual, accept the Savior and live, or reject or ignore him and die spiritually in the lake of fire.

There are some areas where God "decrees" what will happen, such as in Revelation, and such as the prophecies of Christ's birth and death. God is not powerless or bound by some unseen force to not cause things to come to a conclusion that he wants. God after all is God, and as God, God can make things happen. The freedom God gave to humanity in a free will does not overturn God being Sovereign. A king can give latitude to a general in how he runs a battle, but that does not mean that the King has lost his sovereignty. It means that the King has greatly blessed that general to make work within the structure that the King has set up, within the bounds the King has set. But this operates with God on the scale of humanity, and individually, in certain key people and events as God sees fit.

Roman 8:29-30 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

This is one of the favorite texts of the Calvinists, but read carefully what it says. God first foreknew, and on the basis of His foreknowledge, God predestinated and then called and eventually saved, and in the future will glorify. The order is important here. God did not predestinate first, then foreknow because He wrote the plan. God wrote the plan, and then foresaw who would take God's offer of salvation, and these God did predestinate to salvation.

1 Peter 1:2 Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father,

Simply put, there is biblical basis to affirm that foreknowledge is before election, not after it. In the Scriptures and in the church fathers up to the time of Augustine, the concept of foreknowledge is to know in advance.

To reject Calvinism we do not need to reject that God calls some and "effectually" works to bring them to salvation. The key operative word here is effectually. The Calvinist has defined this to mean against or independent of man's own will. The Calvinist uses verses like 2 Thess. 2:13 "God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth" and Acts 13:48 "As many as had been appointed to eternal life believed." The problem with unconditional election is not that it deals with the election of individuals but that it makes it unconditional, irrespective of that person's will. They are robots, and act to accept Christ AGAINST their will if not with their will. This is never presented in this light in the Bible.

The problem that the Calvinist has here is that he cannot accept that God is still sovereign if there are any other wills doing what they want to do. The fact of the matter is that there are many wills doing what they want and it is not God's will that they are doing. God does not make them sin. They sin of their own free will, and directly against the wishes of God (His Will).

There is a dynamic which God has placed in salvation that we must understand. On one hand, the actual salvation that saves us is a free gift from God. We cannot procure it on our own terms (buy it or exchange it by good works), but we must accept it on God's terms, faith in Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

Salvation then is free gift, but God has placed a condition on the enjoying of salvation. It must first be preceded by faith on the individual's part. This condition is not election by God, but by faith in the individual. But at the same time there is an aspect of salvation that is distinctly individual. He must "work it out" individually.

Philippians 2:12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Acts 2:40 And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.

See also James 2:14-26 that talks of this synchronization of faith and the individual's will.

God still controls the salvation process, but the individual decision to be saved is always assigned by God in the Bible to the will of each man. God works in that will, to convict and draw the man to God, but some will resist to perdition, and others will surrender their will to be saved. God does not force men to be saved, nor does God force some men to choose hell. God forces all men without Christ once they die to go to hell, because as Judge, He enforces the rules of the game.

Limited Atonement

The Westminster Confession says: "...Wherefore they who are elected being fallen in Adam, are redeemed in Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by His Spirit working in due season; are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by His power through faith unto salvation. Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted sanctified, and saved, but the elect only."(Chapter III, Section 6)

About this, Boettner says, "If from eternity God has planned to save one portion of the human race and not another, it seems to be a contradiction to say that His work has equal reference to both portions, or that He sent His Son to die for those whom He had predetermined not to save, as truly as, and in the same sense that He was sent to die for those whom He had chosen for salvation." (Loraine Boettner page 151)

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Exactly what is the declaration of God in this passage? That eternal life, salvation, is offered to whoever believes in Jesus Christ. This has to be twisted and convoluted horribly to make it mean something other than what it obviously means at first glance. Calvinism does a wonderful hack job on this making "whoever" meaning whoever that is elect, which is nowhere in this passage unless you put it there as an interpretation.

2 Corinthians 5:14 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: 15 And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.

Here is another passage that the Calvinist butchers royally. These passages clearly declare Jesus died for anyone who wishes to believe, and that Jesus died for all mankind. This is an unlimited atonement. The Calvinist cannot allow in his thinking the possibility of an unlimited atonement, because his determinist thinking leads him to conclude if Jesus died for everyone, and God's will is that everyone be saved (2 Peter 3:9) then everyone has to be saved. To the Calvinist, there can be no individual wills determining their destiny or future as God has a will. Everything must be controlled and locked down by God without any options or alternative possibilities.

Irresistible Grace

If we accept the first two points of total depravity and unconditional election, then irresistible grace logically follows.

Perseverance of the Saints

Each of these five points build one one another. To some people the inclusion of the perseverance of the saints would seem out of place with the previous four points, but in reality it is not out of place. The previous four points build the arrogance and "invulnerability" of the Calvinist (he sees himself as one of the elect), and therefore whatever he does, he can live in impunity towards God. To cap this theological system we need to inject the perseverance of the saints. This doctrine is simply that "once saved, always saved." Really this saying is a misconception to the Calvinist, although it really presents what he wants. He really believes that the elect have always been saved irrespective of their birth, death, or any "accepting" of Christ as their personal Savior. The saying is better put "always saved" to represent his position.

Salvation is presented as a personal and individual decision in the Bible, an accepting by the person of the way of God, the plan of God, the Savior (Messiah or Christ) of God. This is something that has a definite beginning point, when the person "believes" or "accepts" Jesus Christ. This is a focal point in the New Testament accounts of people's salvation. Paul's focal point of encountering Christ was on the Damascus road. Clearly unsaved and sinful before, and a clear point of confrontation, a submission and turning over to Christ by the person, and afterwards a clearly changed life. Paul argued his points of the sinfulness of his carnal nature still, and his struggling against it, but the focus point of his life was an encounter with Jesus.

All through Paul's career and the rest of the New Testament, we see the same dealing of God with the heart of the individual. We see some who claim to be saved, but turn back to the world and renounce God. These people are identified as never having been part of us.

1 John 2:19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.

The issue here is not really these people. Like the teaching of the Parable of the wheat and the tares, there is a time when distinguishing between these "wheat" and "tares" is impossible, but with time, by their fruit you shall know them.

Matthew 7:20-21 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. 21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

Again the issue is not whether you can lose your salvation or not. Our salvation is not in our possession until we die and enter heaven, or the rapture takes place and God takes us up. Therefore it is in God's possession and not something we can carelessly "lose". But the whole issue of salvation is what is it exactly, and how to relate to that salvation. If we consider that salvation is life a life insurance policy, that we buy it (works), put it in a drawer, and forget about it not to allow it to affect our lives, then it can be lost.

But if we understand salvation to be an allegiance and loyalty to the will of God, never to be broken, then we cannot change that decision and loyalty we have given over to God. Those who turn back obviously never really gave God their full allegiance in the first place.

For the Calvinist, perseverance of the saints is a doctrine which is the topping on the cake for him. He is elect, and nothing can severe that salvation from him, and the thing that he is worried about is his abandonment of the active play which the Bible demands of him. Instead of actively praying, witnessing, going, preaching, etcetera so that souls will be confronted with the Gospel, and false religions will be destroyed, he resigns himself to an inactive role in all of these "active play" elements. Holiness is necessary if we are to preach, pray and witness effectively. So his conscience kicks in and calls him to question if he really is saved, because he obvious disobeys all or most what God commands relating to witnessing, praying with passion (Christ sweated drops of blood), or sacrificing all to go to the ends of the earth to reach the unsaved with the gospel. His ministry has been gutted of all power because he has replaced an active dynamic between him and God (a personal relationship that needs maintenance) with a cold, dead formality that does not need sacrifice of a personal nature on his part.

Having lived, worked and ministered beside Calvinists for most of my life, I have to confess that they are mixed up bunch of people. The confusion in their lives comes contradiction between what they believe in Calvinism, and their own conscience that simply won't let them do that. I have met some Calvinists that to my understanding were excellent winners of souls. But their belief system constantly warred against their practice or the conclusion from their belief system of how they should live their lives.

The conclusion of the Calvinistic system is that nothing matters because God has predetermined everything and no matter what you do, nor how much you sacrifice, it will make zero difference in the end. Perhaps the Calvinist is right. But we cannot sit on God's shoulder and see things from His perspective, but we must react with what God places at our feet. Our actions make differences in whether people go to hell or not. Our prayers can change lives spiritually. Beyond our actions, our attitudes can affect others and cause them to "find God", or they can drive people off from the true God. We must deal with life as a set of experiences that are not all predetermined, in which we do play an active and effectual part in changing the course of things at least in a limited and local way. This is how God presents us the situation, and this is how God apparently wants us to live, energetically doing the will of God. Calvinism kills this totally. Any Calvinist that actively and energetically witnesses or prays is living a hypocrisy. His theology telling him one thing, and his practice is another.

Conclusion:

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Posted July 1, 2006