Gordon Clark

The Man in the Mirror (Bonus: Spurgeon’s “Arminian Prayer”)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Jump to the history of the phrase “preaching like and Arminian, but sleeping as a Calvinist” and a response to Spurgeon’s “Arminian prayer.”

A recent short sermon clip I listened to by a yute pastor is this one…. and I must say, it is impossible to preach like a Reformed determinist or Calvinist who agrees with TULIP.

I will critique a bit [decode] his ideas lurking behind the scenes and show a more honest interpolation of the major issues:

Guys, God’s law makes demands of you. It demands that you be something you cannot be.

But the gospel — the gospel — doesn’t demand something from you that you don’t have. The gospel gives you something you desperately need: righteousness—clean hands and a pure heart.

One man put it this way:

“Run and run, the law demands,

but gives me neither feet nor hands.

Better news the gospel brings:

it bids me fly and gives me wings.”

Amen. That’s the gospel.

The law tells you to run, and you feel that pressure: “I’ve got to work to appease God. Run and run and run.”

If you’re on that treadmill of self-righteousness today, get off it. Throw yourself at the mercy of Jesus. Collapse there, and you can be made righteous today.

Maybe you, like me, have felt ashamed and thought, “I’m not the man I’m supposed to be. I’m not the man I was meant to be. I’m not the man I should be.”

But Jesus was—and He was for you.

Okay, first, I want to deal with two issues I hear  as Josh preaches that are running around behind the scenes. Both are important. The first issue deals with “The Gospel”. While I resonate with the gospel’s message being preached, the 16th century Augustinian systematic idea of election slides into the picture.

The “Gospel of Election”
Calvary or the Cosmic Lottery of Election?

Paul declares that the gospel “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16, CSB). But in Reformed determinism, the decisive question is not simply whether Christ died for sinners, whether His provision is sufficient, or whether the gospel is proclaimed. The decisive question is whom God unconditionally chose to make willing to believe before the foundation of the world.

Consider the implications.

Two sinners hear the same gospel. Both are commanded to repent. Both are told that Christ is the Savior and that they must believe in Him. Yet, according to this system, one will certainly believe because God has decreed to grant him effectual grace, while the other will remain in unbelief because God has not decreed to grant him that same grace.

What made the difference? Was it the clarity of the gospel? The sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice? The gracious invitation to repent and believe? No—not ultimately. The decisive difference was God’s prior, unconditional decree to bring one sinner to faith while withholding the effectual grace that, according to this system, would certainly bring the other to faith.

Election becomes the ultimate arbiter of who will be saved, while the gospel serves as the predetermined instrument through which the elect are brought to their predetermined response.

This is the heart of the problem: the gospel is proclaimed to both, but only one has been unconditionally chosen to receive the inward work that guarantees belief. The same message is preached; the same Savior is announced; the same command to repent and believe is issued. Yet the decisive difference was settled before either sinner heard a word.

What, then, is the ultimate explanation for the difference between them? The gospel they heard—or the decree that determined which one would certainly respond to it?

Jonah Preached, but Had Election Already Decided?

Consider Jonah and Nineveh. Jonah preached, and the Ninevites repented. Scripture presents a remarkable example of a divine warning followed by a genuine human response. God sent His messenger, the people heard the warning, and they turned from their wickedness.

Yet under Reformed determinism, their repentance was not ultimately what distinguished them from those who would remain unrepentant. God had already unconditionally determined whom He would effectually bring to repentance. Jonah’s message was the ordained means, but the decisive distinction had been settled before anyone heard him preach.

The question is not whether God ordained Jonah’s mission. He plainly did. The question is whether the proclamation itself was God’s gracious call to which the Ninevites responded, or whether the decisive explanation for their response must be found in an earlier, selective decree that guaranteed the repentance of some while withholding the same effectual grace from others.

In this framework, the preacher announces the warning, but the prior decree determines who will certainly respond. The message is indispensable as the ordained means, yet it is not the ultimate explanation for why one person repents and another does not.

That is why the image of a “cosmic lottery” presses the issue—not because Calvinists would describe their doctrine in those terms, but because the decisive distinction between the saved and the lost is assigned to an unconditional choice made before either person believes, repents, or hears the gospel.

What Does It Mean to Tell Someone, “Christ Died for You”?

The same problem becomes intensely personal when we consider the gospel invitation.

Suppose a preacher tells an unbeliever, “Christ died for you. His death is sufficient to save you. Repent and believe in Him, and you will be forgiven.”

Under a universal-provision understanding of the atonement, this is a straightforward announcement of good news: Christ provided salvation for humanity, and the sinner is called to receive that provision through faith.

But under a strict particular-redemption framework, the preacher cannot affirm that Christ bore that person’s sins in the same saving sense unless that person belongs to the elect. The preacher does not know whether the person is elect. The individual may hear the invitation, remain unconvinced, and die in unbelief—and, according to the system, Christ may never have died for that individual in the particular, saving sense being discussed.

What, then, can the preacher confidently promise that Christ has done for this specific person?

The invitation can still be sincerely offered within the Calvinistic system. Calvinists argue that the gospel command is genuine, that everyone who comes to Christ will be received, and that the preacher need not know the secret decree. But the Provisionist challenge remains:

How can the universal invitation be grounded in Christ’s provision for every person if the atonement itself is restricted to the elect?

Consider the difference between these two announcements:

  1. “Christ died for you, and He calls you to receive the salvation He has provided.”
  2. “Christ may have died for you—but whether He did depends on whether you were among the elect chosen before the foundation of the world.”

The second statement is not how Calvinists ordinarily frame their gospel invitations, and it would be unfair to suggest that every Calvinist preacher speaks that way. Nevertheless, it exposes the theological tension the Provisionist critique is addressing:

the preacher proclaims a universal command, while the scope of Christ’s particular saving work is understood to be limited to those already chosen.

The gospel invitation is heard in time. The decree, in this system, determines the outcome before time.

The Qualified-Buyer Problem

Imagine a car dealership advertising, “Good news! Qualified buyers can receive zero-percent financing.”

That offer may be perfectly honest. But notice the qualification: the offer is not available to everyone. Whether you receive the benefit depends on whether you meet the requirements.

Now apply the analogy to the question of atonement. If the announcement is, “Christ died for the elect,” the decisive question becomes:

HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU QUALIFY?

In Calvinism, the answer is not that you independently meet a condition that causes God to elect you. Rather, election is unconditional, and effectual grace brings the elect to faith. Faith reveals the saving work of God; it does not determine whom God chose.

But that is precisely the issue. If you believe, it is because you were elected and effectually brought to faith. If you remain in unbelief, you were not granted that decisive grace. The difference is not ultimately found in the atoning provision offered to both, nor in a response that God graciously enables both to make. It is found in God’s selective decree.

The question is no longer simply, “Will you trust the Savior?” It is, “Has God chosen to make you willing to trust Him?”

The Calvinist will answer that those who come to Christ do so willingly because God has renewed their hearts. The Provisionist objection is that this does not remove the problem; it identifies where the problem lies. Why does God effectually renew one person’s heart but not another’s?

If that selective renewal is the decisive difference, then election—not the sinner’s response to the proclaimed gospel—is the ultimate explanation for why one person believes and another does not.

Does Election Become the Fountain, and Christ the Means?

This concern is not merely a criticism imposed from outside Reformed theology. The Canons of Dort, a foundational Reformed confession, describe election as the “fountain of every saving good,” from which faith, holiness, and the other gifts of salvation proceed, ultimately leading to eternal life.

That language makes the issue especially clear. In the Reformed account, election is not merely God’s recognition of those who will believe. It is the unconditional decree from which saving faith and the other saving benefits flow.

The second video places this claim alongside John MacArthur’s defense of sovereign election throughout redemptive history. MacArthur points to God’s choice of Israel, Jacob, and the covenant people. Such passages certainly establish that God elects and chooses according to His purposes. But the further question is whether God’s election of a people for a historical and covenantal role automatically establishes the Calvinistic claim that God unconditionally selects particular individuals for salvation and effectually determines their response to the gospel.

Those are related questions, but they are not identical. God’s choice of Israel as a people does not, by itself, settle every question about individual election, the scope of the atonement, or the nature of saving faith.

The Provisionist challenge is that the Calvinistic system takes the reality of divine election and makes unconditional individual election the fountain from which every saving response flows. The result is a theological order in which the decree explains who will believe, while Christ’s work provides the necessary basis for the salvation of those already chosen.

Here the question becomes unavoidable:

  • If election is the fountain of every saving good, what does that make the cross in the explanation of why one sinner is saved and another is lost?

Christ’s death remains necessary in the Calvinistic account. But the cross, considered by itself, does not explain why one sinner receives its saving benefits while another does not. Both need Christ. Both need forgiveness. Both need grace. Yet only one receives the effectual grace that guarantees faith.

Election supplies the decisive distinction.

Does Election Overshadow the One Who Is “The Way, the Truth, and the Life”?

Jesus declares, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6, CSB).

Calvinists affirm this verse. They insist that no one is saved apart from Christ, His atoning death, and His resurrection. It would be inaccurate to claim that they consciously replace Jesus with election or believe that the cross is unnecessary.

But the question is one of explanatory priority.

If the ultimate reason a person believes in Christ is that God unconditionally elected that person and effectually renewed the person’s heart, while another person remains in unbelief because that same effectual grace was not granted, then election determines who will certainly come to the One who is the way, the truth, and the life.

Christ is indispensable to salvation. Yet election is the decisive explanation for why one sinner receives Christ’s saving benefits and another does not.

The Provisionist objection is not that Christ has become literally unnecessary in Calvinist theology. It is that the system makes the selective decree the decisive differentiator of salvation, even though the New Testament presents Christ and the gospel as the focus of God’s saving provision and proclamation.

Calvary provides the ground of salvation. The gospel proclaims Christ. But in this deterministic framework, election decides who will certainly believe the proclamation and receive its saving benefits.

Calvary or the Cosmic Lottery?

Return to the two sinners who hear the same gospel.

One believes. The other does not.

The Calvinist says the believer comes willingly because God effectually renews the heart; the unbeliever remains responsible because he acts according to his own desires. Yet both the believer’s renewed desires and the unbeliever’s continued resistance occur within God’s sovereign decree. The decisive question remains: Why does God grant the heart-changing grace to one and not the other?

The answer cannot ultimately be that one was more receptive, more spiritually perceptive, or more willing to respond to the gospel. In the Calvinistic account under consideration, the elect person’s willingness is itself the result of God’s effectual work. The decisive difference lies in God’s unconditional choice.

That is the issue. Not whether Calvinists believe in the cross or preach the gospel, but whether the decisive explanation for the difference between the saved and the lost is the gospel’s gracious call to faith—or God’s prior, selective decree.

Paul says the gospel “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16, CSB). He also writes that faith comes from hearing the message about Christ (Romans 10:17). The Provisionist challenge is this:

  • Why make an unconditional decree of selective regeneration the ultimate explanation for who can and will believe, rather than understand the gospel as God’s gracious call through which sinners may respond to His provision in Christ?

The question is not whether God saves by grace. The question is whether His grace is proclaimed in Christ as a genuine provision and invitation for all, or whether the decisive saving difference has already been settled by an unconditional decree that effectually brings some to faith while leaving others without that same grace.

Calvary provides the saving provision. The gospel announces the good news. But if election alone determines who will certainly believe, then election—not the proclamation of Christ—is the ultimate explanation for who receives salvation.

And that is the question every honest discussion of election and the gospel must confront:

  • Is the good news centered on what God has done for sinners in Christ and graciously calls them to receive—or does the ultimate answer to who will be saved lie in a selective decree that determines who will ever be willing to believe?

Okay, in this second section, some ideas need to be put in place BEFORE dealing with “looking at the man in the mirror.” I have more quotes here but I have chosen a select few to make the point:

Some Quotes Before Section Two

JOHN CALVIN:

  • “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.” — Institutes 1.16.8.
  • “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.” — Institutes 1.18.1.
  • “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.” — Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, trans. J. K. S. Reid, p. 175f.
  • “… how foolish and frail is the support of divine justice afforded by the suggestion 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. … Who does not tremble at these judgments with which God works in the hearts of even the wicked whatever He will, rewarding them nonetheless according to desert? 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.” — The Eternal Predestination of God 10:11.
  • “From these statements of the inspired word … it is, I think, sufficiently clear that God works in the hearts of men to incline their wills whithersoever He wills, whether to good deeds according to His mercy, or to evil after their own deserts; His own judgment being sometimes manifest, sometimes secret, but always righteous.” — Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God.
  • “Does God control even the evil wills of evil men? Calvin’s answer, in accord with Scripture, was ‘yes.’ Just as God controlled the rebellion of Pharaoh (Ex. 9:12), the cursing of Shimei (2 Sam. 16:10), and the rage of the Jerusalem crowds (Acts 2:23), so He controls even the will of all wicked men.” — The Secret Providence of God, ed. Paul Helm, trans. Keith Goad (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), 79–80. (Note: The last block is Helm/Goad framing Calvin, not a continuous Calvin paragraph.)

ALL men’s acts are decreed and happen by the will and purpose of God. All.

JOHN PIPER:

QUESTION: Has God predetermined every tiny detail in the universe, such as dust particles in the air? And then I should add here, including all our besetting sins.

PIPER RESPONDS: Yes, which means yes…

— John Piper (Video)

God determines every single thing even dust but you have to make the decision about the cross… What?

“Is God less glorious because he ordained that evil be? … no, just the opposite. God is more glorious for having conceived and created and governed a world like this with all its evil. The effort to absolve him by denying his foreknowledge of sin … or by denying his control of sin … is fatal.”

John Piper, “Is God Less Glorious Because He Ordained That Evil Be?” (1998).

“God so disposes all things … so that in accordance with moral necessity all men make only those choices ordained by God from all eternity.” […] “In this way He ultimately determines all acts of volition (though not all in the same way) and yet holds man accountable only for those acts which they want most to do.”

John Piper, Desiring God, A Response to J.I. Packer on the So-Called Antinomy Between the Sovereignty of God and Human Responsibility.

Mark Talbot/John Piper:

Ephesians 1:11 goes even further by declaring that God in Christ

“works all things according to the counsel of his will.” Here the Greek word for “works” is energeø, which indicates that God not merely carries all of the universe’s objects and events to their appointed ends but that he actually brings about all things in accordance with his will. In other words, it isn’t just that God manages to turn the evil aspects of our world to good for those who love him; it is rather that he himself brings about these evil aspects for his glory (see Ex. 9:13-16; John 9:3) and his people’s good (see Heb. 12:3-11; James 1:2-4). This includes—as incredible and as unacceptable as it may currently seem—God’s having even brought about the Nazis’ brutality at Birkenau and Auschwitz as well as the terrible killings of Dennis Rader and even the sexual abuse of a young child…

Mark Talbot, in John Piper and Justin Taylor, eds., Suffering and the Sovereignty of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2006), 42.

God can cause, actively, men to rape, torture, kill, and conduct horrendous scientific experiments on people just because they are Jewish

Theodore Zachariades:

God works all things after the Council 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!

— Dr. Theodore Zachariades (Video)

Pastor Zachariades says that God wills [causes, not just permits] a man to be unfaithful to his wife in his comment on becoming a Calvinist via Ephesians 1.

Gordon H. Clark:

“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 so. … In Ephesians 1:11, Paul tells us that God works all things, not some things only, after the counsel of his own will.”

Religion, Reason and Revelation (Nutley, N.J.: Craig Press, 1961), 221.

Excessive alcoholism? Murdering your family? All God’s fault.

End Of Quotes

The Man in the Mirror
The Man God Decreed You to Be

The preacher asks you to look in the mirror and admit, “I’m not the man I’m supposed to be. I’m not the man I was meant to be. I’m not the man I should be.”

But under theological determinism, that confession raises a deeper question: Who decreed the man staring back at you?

Who decreed his desires, his circumstances, his struggles, his failures, and the decisions that shaped his life?

John Calvin wrote that people act under God’s secret direction and that God works in human hearts to bring about His purposes. John Piper likewise affirms that God determines all things, even the smallest details of the universe, including human choices and sin. If these claims are taken seriously, then the man in the mirror is not merely a man whose choices fall within God’s foreknowledge. He is a man whose desires, decisions, and circumstances all fall within God’s exhaustive decree.

Yet the preacher still tells him to change.

  • “I need to quit drinking.”
  • “I need to stop hurting people.”
  • “I need to control my anger.”
  • “I need to become a different man.”

But here is the tension:

under theological determinism, the man cannot ultimately determine whether he will become that different man.

He must repent, yet his repentance will occur only if God has decreed to bring it about. He must believe, yet saving faith will occur only if God grants the effectual grace that ensures it.

And that raises the central question:

If God determines the desires and decisions that make one man who he is, and selectively grants the grace that transforms one man but not another, why does one change while the other remains unchanged?

The Calvinist response is that people act willingly according to their desires and are therefore responsible for their actions. But the Provisionist objection goes deeper than whether a person acts willingly. It asks where those desires ultimately came from and why the decisive, heart-changing grace is granted to one person but not another.

If God determines the circumstances and desires that shape a man, and if only God’s selective effectual grace can ensure that he will believe and be transformed, then the difference between the man who changes and the man who does not ultimately rests on God’s decree.

The law commands the man to become better. The gospel points him to Christ. Yet, in this deterministic framework, the man cannot finally be the one who determines whether he will respond to that call. The decisive difference is whether God has decreed to bring about the response in him.

IT’S GETS EVEN WORSE:

If the man in the mirror cries out to God for help in overcoming his sin, another question arises:

  • Under theological determinism, is he asking God to help him fight against desires and actions that God Himself decreed?

If God determines both the sinful desires he struggles with and the grace by which those desires are overcome, is the man essentially asking God to help him fight a battle whose opposing forces God has ultimately ordained?

So returning to the mirror. The man sees what is wrong and recognizes what needs to change. But if God decreed the very desires and decisions that made him the man he is, and also decreed whether he would receive the grace that ensures his transformation, the question cannot be avoided:

What exactly is the man being condemned for failing to become—and why was the decisive grace withheld from him?

So, that is my critique when I here these Calvinist – Reformed – TULIP types preach. They are preaching like and Arminian, but sleeping as a Calvinist. [As the saying goes.]

To Wit….

(GROK) The core observation—that Arminians (or those who emphasize free will/human responsibility) often sound different when preaching or talking slowly versus when praying (where dependence on God comes out more strongly)—is most famously and early associated with Charles H. Spurgeon. In his sermon “Free Will—A Slave” (preached December 2, 1855, on John 5:40), he said:

“You have heard a great many Arminian sermons, I dare say; but you never heard an Arminian prayer—for the saints in prayer appear as one in word, and deed and mind. An Arminian on his knees would pray desperately like a Calvinist. He cannot pray about free-will: there is no room for it.”

He then imagines a satirical “Arminian prayer” that no real Christian would actually pray, arguing that true prayer reveals a deeper dependence on God’s sovereign grace.

Here is that prayer:

“Fancy him praying, ‘Lord, I thank thee I am not like those poor presumptuous Calvinists. Lord, I was born with a glorious free-will; I was born with power by which I can turn to thee of myself; I have improved my grace. If everybody had done the same with their grace that I have, they might all have been saved.

“Lord, I know thou dost not make us willing if we are not willing ourselves. Thou givest grace to everybody; some do not improve it, but I do. There are many that will go to hell as much bought with the blood of Christ as I was; they had as much of the Holy Ghost given to them; they had as good a chance, and were as much blessed as I am. It was not thy grace that made us to differ; I know it did a great deal, still I turned the point; I made use of what was given me, and others did not—that is the difference between me and them.’”

Spurgeon then delivers his punchline:

“That is a prayer for the devil, for nobody else would offer such a prayer as that.”

This is the earliest clear, well-documented statement of the idea that people (especially Arminians) “pray like Calvinists.”

Related later variants and attributions

  • J.C. Ryle (in Expository Thoughts on the Gospels on John 6:44, published around 1869) made a similar point: “Many people are very low Arminians in print or in the pulpit, but excellent Calvinists on their knees.”
  • A.W. Tozer is sometimes quoted as saying something like “I preach like an Arminian but I pray like a Calvinist.” When asked about his own views, he reportedly quoted the Scottish Baptist preacher W. Graham Scroggie (1877–1958): “I am a Calvinist when I pray and an Arminian when I preach.”
  • Common modern sayings include “Work like an Arminian, sleep like a Calvinist,” “Pray/evangelize like an Arminian, but sleep like a Calvinist,” and “Be a Calvinist on your knees and an Arminian in the pulpit.” These appear frequently in 20th–21st-century Reformed discussions (e.g., critiques by John Piper and others) as popular or longstanding counsel, but they are often criticized as misleading or inconsistent with either system.

The idea has circulated as a rhetorical observation or piece of practical advice in Calvinist-leaning evangelical and Reformed circles for well over a century and a half. Spurgeon’s 1855 formulation is the earliest prominent, dated use of the core “pray like a Calvinist / Arminian on his knees” point. The exact phrasing you mentioned (“preaching or pray like an Arminian, but sleeping as a Calvinist”) is a later popular variant of that older theme rather than a phrase with one clear inventor.

A CALVINIST PRAYER

RPT: Source One | Source Two

A longer CALVINIST PRAYER using Theistic Determinisms systematic, bringing it to it’s logical conclusion:

An adaptation of the themes in Spurgeon’s “Free Will—A Slave”

O Sovereign God, I thank You that before the foundation of the world You unchangeably decreed whatsoever comes to pass. Nothing occurs outside Your eternal counsel—not a thought, not a desire, not a decision, not a word spoken in anger, not a crime committed in secret, and not a molecule that moves beyond Your meticulous determination.

I thank You that my life unfolded exactly as You ordained. You determined the circumstances of my birth, the family that raised me, the influences that shaped me, the thoughts that entered my mind, the desires that stirred within my heart, and the decisions that followed. I could not ultimately have become anyone other than the person You decreed I would be.

I thank You that even my prayer this morning was ordained before the foundation of the world. I could not have prayed it differently, for to do so would have required a different decree. I praise You for determining the words I speak, the thoughts I entertain, and the conclusions I reach concerning Your sovereignty.

Lord, I thank You that everything happens according to Your decree—even the things You command me not to do.

I thank You that when I am tempted, the temptation itself falls within Your eternal plan. When lust arises, when anger burns, when pride swells, when envy takes hold, and when hatred forms in my heart, none of these desires surprises You. You have ordained whatsoever comes to pass, and therefore these events cannot fall outside Your determination.

When I sin, I know that I act according to my own desires. I do what I want to do, and I am accountable for my actions. Yet those desires, the circumstances surrounding them, and the decision that follows all fall within Your exhaustive decree. I could not finally have desired otherwise, for the desires I possess are the desires You determined would govern my actions.

I thank You that I am responsible for doing what I could not ultimately have done otherwise.

O Lord, I thank You that You have ordained both the command and the transgression of the command, both the prohibition and the act prohibited. You command me to resist temptation, yet the temptation and my response to it are included in Your decree. You command me to repent, yet my repentance will occur only if You have decreed to bring it about.

I thank You that when I fall into sin, I have disobeyed Your revealed command, even though my disobedience has not fallen outside Your eternal decree. I thank You that You judge me for the desires and actions that You have determined would characterize my life, while I remain accountable because I acted willingly according to those desires.

Lord, I confess that I cannot resolve every question this raises. I shall therefore affirm that You ordain all things, that human beings remain responsible, and that Your decree is righteous, even when I struggle to understand how these claims fit together.

I thank You for the cross of Christ, without which there is no salvation. I thank You that Christ’s sacrifice was necessary to redeem sinners and that His blood provides the ground of forgiveness. Yet I also thank You that the benefits of His sacrifice are applied only to those whom You have unconditionally elected and effectually called to faith.

I thank You that before the foundation of the world You determined not only the provision of salvation but also which sinners would certainly believe and receive it. You ordained the preaching of the gospel, the hearing of the message, the conviction of sin, and the effectual work of grace by which Your elect are brought to faith.

When two sinners hear the same gospel, I thank You that one believes and the other remains in unbelief because You have determined to grant effectual grace to one and not the other. The believer did not ultimately supply the decisive difference, and the unbeliever cannot produce the faith that would change his condition apart from the grace You have decreed to grant.

I thank You that I cannot boast in my faith, because You determined that I would believe. But I must ask:

Why did You decree to bring me to faith while leaving another sinner without the effectual grace that would certainly bring him to faith?

I know that Your election is gracious and not based on foreseen merit. I know that You owe salvation to no one. Yet I ask why Your grace takes the form of a selective decree that guarantees the faith of some while leaving others in unbelief.

I thank You that You command all people to repent and believe, while in this system only those whom You effectually call will certainly do so. I thank You that the gospel is proclaimed to people whose ultimate response has already been settled by Your eternal counsel.

When I preach to the lost, help me proclaim Christ sincerely. Let me call sinners to repentance, urge them to believe, and tell them that everyone who comes to Christ will be received. Yet I cannot know which hearers You have elected, nor can I grant the effectual grace that will ensure their response.

So I pray for the lost: Lord, save them. Grant them the grace that brings them to faith. And when I ask You to save someone who remains unbelieving, I acknowledge that the decisive difference is not something I can produce through better preaching or more earnest prayer. It rests in Your sovereign determination.

But if I ask You to grant that person the grace You have decreed not to grant, I must also ask whether my prayer itself has been ordained to change the outcome or merely to accomplish the means by which Your already-determined outcome will occur.

O Lord, I thank You for ordaining all things, including the horrors of human history. I thank You

A Recent Sermon Maligning God’s Character/Holiness

Published by Papa Giorgio

Originally posted January 1st, 2026 – Updated Today

My visual video response:

TRANSCRIPT AT THE END – JUMP TO IT

Yes, this is from the church I attend. A wonderful place to attend, but definitely Calvinistic. This is a newer pastor, and I must say, even though I vehemently disagree, at least he is preaching honestly. Another pastor months before preached a sermon where he quoted Joshua 24:15 and said:

  • “Make a choice. Choose this day. In fact, you can choose one of the… He’s not saying that he’s happy if you choose the pagan gods, but he says, in fact, pick one of the pagan gods. Do you know that something that God is extremely kind and gracious to us and that he gave us free will? Did you know that? He didn’t force a relationship on us. He gave us free will. Do you remember what he gave Adam and Eve? Free will. You can make a choice. I’m not gonna force it. Hey, you choose, yeah, you, make the choice.”

When I asked an elder if this pastor really believed this statement he made regarding free will from the pulpit, I got an honest answer of “No.”

So I love the almost Provisionist preaching and call to come to God in faith — but this is not what is REALLY believed as these pastors overlay TULIP on to their understanding of Biblical text. I struggle with the good that can come from the “alter call” type preaching of the “Armininian style” while they sleep as a Calvinist. That being said, it is a duplicitous preaching like they make God out to be by overlaying a 16th century philosophy onto God. A Jaundiced view at best. AND, I can truly appreciate the rawness of the logical outcomes being honestly preached from the pulpit. Although even this pastor does not follow his own thinking to their ends without hemming and hawing with a myriad of qualifiers and nuances.

Here is my FACEBOOK comments on this sermon:

So, in the past I have praised good sermons from my church… if I do that, should I at times not critique [as publicly] a bad one? I will be clipping the main idea of it from the video for my site [like I have uploaded some clips from the good ones], but that is in the future tense. I am thankful, however, that this pastor was so forthright, and didn’t hide behind the “preaching as an Arminian, sleep as a Calvinist” idea.

Honest preaching is laudable. This was essentially the sermon:

(a) God decrees and ordains all evil for His glory
(b) God saves us from the evil He decreed and ordained…. for His glory.

In other words, while this pastor didn’t follow his sermon to its logical conclusion, it is essentially God saving us from Himself. So, all the pain and suffering mentioned in stories and text… are all God caused. Remember, this pastor chose AW Pink’s book for the last Monday men’s service series. [It could have been more in the pastorate choosing Pink’s book, as far as I know — because I do not actually know how these books are approved.] Pink is a hyper Calvinist, like this Pastor publicly is.

All I was thinking was,

  • “well, people who don’t get the raw [5-point, Calvinist] truth from other pastors are hearing it now.”

On the flip side of that “positive”, the new people on the “faith fence” — which only makes sense to those of the non-Calvinist soteriological bent — may have wrote off Crossroads as their home. Or worse yet, wrote off God.

Which in this pastor’s view, was also ordained.

The same pastor here eisegetes into Scripture a 16th century doctrine not understood as being the Bible before Calvin popularized it via his doctrinal hero:

  • The reason I added the SNL skit was to note that right when the sermon was starting to state some good position or truth, it was dashed shortly after by the “doctrines of grace.”

UPDATED CONVO

In another example, after a wonderful, Gospel oriented presentation by a senior pastor at the men’s Monday night class, I was perplexed. I thought I was crazy in fact. I was just about to tender my separation letter to the elders, pastors, and peeps at church. So I asked a question in text of the pastor (again, no names):

Ouch. That confirmed and upset me a bit. Did you catch it? This pastor admits that in order to convert people with the Gospel message, he withholds parts of his systematic because it would interfere with his evangelism.

Um… yeah it would.

But again, it is duplicitous in nature, as stated earlier.

How?

There is no Gospel in Calvinism.

See also: “Logical Ends of TULIP (No Rebellious Creatures)“

This illustration [via NotWilliangThatAny] is aiming to reflect a real tension in Calvinist theology, not exaggerate it. It takes the idea of election and shows it visually in terms of proportion. One petal represents the elect, while many “nots” represent those passed over. The focus is on how small the number of the elect might be compared to everyone else.

First, this connects to limited atonement. In this view, Christ’s death is effective only for the elect, not for every individual. Passages like John 10:26, “you do not believe because you are not among my sheep,” and John 17:9, “I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me,” are often used to support this. The illustration reflects that by showing a small number who are truly loved in a saving sense, and many who are not.

Second, it ties to unconditional election and reprobation. God chooses some to receive mercy while others are passed over. Romans 9:13 says, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated,” and Romans 9:22 speaks of “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction.” The many “nots” in the image visually represent this larger group who are not chosen, emphasizing the imbalance.

Third, it reflects the idea that salvific love is not universal. While Calvinists affirm that God shows a kind of general love or kindness to all (Matthew 5:45), His saving love is reserved for a specific people. The illustration presses on that distinction by asking what it means in practice. If most people are not recipients of that saving love, then the experience of humanity is largely outside of it.

This leads to a key question. If Scripture says God “so loved the world” (John 3:16) and desires “all people to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4), how should we understand the scope of His love? Does the picture of a few loved and many not align with the overall tone and message of the Bible, or should we rethink how we define God’s saving love?

Transcript With More Commentary:

A Recent Sermon Maligning God’s Character Holiness – TRANSCRIPT

Now before we jump into this, I do want to take a few moments to give us some context. I think it’s important sometimes, if you just pluck a passage out of a book, to take some time to give the book a little bit of context. So I want to do that this morning, just give you a couple of things to put in your mind.

We’re going to go to seminary for the next few minutes. Some of you are saying, “Pastor, I am in my seventh level of eggnog hangover. You’re asking me to think.” Let me give you a couple of points we can hang our thoughts on.

Number one, I want you to note God’s providential rule. Look there at verse 16:

“Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise man, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all the region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men.”

This man was so obsessed with himself, so obsessed with his rule, he wouldn’t suffer a single person to have his rule, to have his power. He’d kill whole swaths of people to make sure.

Now, this was a small village. Bethlehem was a tiny village back then. Most scholars believed he put to death about 20 or 30 young boys. And you may say, “Well, they got nothing on America. We killed millions of them.”

He killed 20 or 30 out of a very small village. The village was smaller than the people in this room. Can you imagine this room if suddenly we all discovered every one of your boys two years younger were dead, were killed? Wouldn’t that be awful?

Can you imagine them being pulled away from the mothers clinging on to their boys as they took the boys and executed them? A sad, terrible thought. This man, his rage made this happen. His tyranny made this happen.

It may come as a surprise to you, maybe not, but this existence, this universe, I mentioned a moment ago, this world is a history of tragedy. I know I’m speaking in generalizations. I know there’s lots of joy and lots of happiness and family, especially this time of year.

But again, prior to really the modern era, we didn’t have ways of hiding all the difficulty and hardship. We didn’t have sanitized institutions that sort of hid that away from us. We didn’t develop communities full of cops and firemen where there’s lots of safety and joy and peace.

No, everyone was exposed to everything. Most people who died of old age died in the home with their family members. So most people would have seen death for most of history in most cultures.

Let me point this out. When all those inventions came, democracy and capitalism and all the things that raised our standard of life and hid away some of the darker things of this world, did this world become less tragic?

Not at all.

The twentieth century, by every measure, both percentage and numerically, was the bloodiest century of all.

We live in a world of tragedy. We live in a world of darkness. And as believers, we’re forced to reconcile these two realities: that God is sovereign, God is in charge of everything, God is controlling the universe, but there remains this curse on the universe.

This is a difficulty for us. And we see this difficulty all the way to the point to our greatest difficulty, which is death, right? We face death just like these boys did.

How do a lot of people cope with this curse?

Well, some people just try to remain ignorant, right? I do this sometimes. I read news for a few weeks and I just get sick of it. I’m just tired of bad news and I just turn it off and turn that tap off and ignore it for a few days. Because it’s just so sad. It’s so tragic. It seems like there’s just an ever-ending flow of sin and depravity. I get tired of it.

So a lot of us, you stick your head in the sand. Ignorance is bliss. We just try to ignore what’s going on around us.

Second, a lot of people medicate, right? Whether they medicate through the bottle or through prescribed drugs or newly legal drugs or whatever, they try to find a way to escape it mentally. Again, it’s sort of like ignorance; it’s just getting away from it, ignoring it, trying to find a new way to deal with it.

And of course, another way that people deal with it is they just indulge. They say, “Well, this world’s such a terrible place. I might as well just give in to my carnal desires. If I can’t beat them, join them. Might as well just be as depraved as the rest of this world here.”

Well, we as believers have a different hope. We believe that any evil, no matter how dark, no matter how horrifying, no matter how deadly, any evil is not merely allowed, not merely permitted, but purposed and ordained by our God so that He can display His power, His beauty, His joy in the midst of it.

It’s so He can display His love, His mercy. It’s so He can have something that He can save us from.

And Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise man, became furious. And he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under.

The saddest song of all time, by my estimation, is in fact a Christmas song, likely from the 1300s. We know it as “Coventry Carol.” You may not recognize the title, but if you heard the very haunting, ominous tune, it has what’s called the Picardy Third.

Don’t get too excited; I’m not going to sing it for you. Don’t want your ears to bleed.

This sad song probably was written, the educated guess, it was written after the bubonic plague had swept through a small village and, of course, killed a number of people, but notably killed all the children from a certain age and younger.

And that’s when the bard, when he could hear the weeping of the mothers in the homes, he picked up his pen, so to speak, and wrote this song, “Coventry Carol.”

THE BEEPS ARE GOING BACK INTO THE SERMON AND REMINDING
THE LISTENER WHAT GOD SOVEREIGNLY BROUGHT ABOUT
– AS A REMINDER OF HOW JON UNDERMINED HIS OWN POSITION AND STATEMENTS.

[beep]

Now I want you to understand something. I don’t think that these fellows, the Maccabeans, were always faithful Yahweh followers who put their hope in the Messiah. In fact, we know it’s true by some of the things they did.

Indeed, one of the things that they did is sort of in a Muslim way, they would go around and convert people at the point of a sword.

[beep]

Herod the Great, when he wasn’t building, he was killing. And he killed anybody he thought would come in his way of ruling and having power. He started with his in-laws. He killed his father-in-law and mother-in-law.

Some of you fellows are saying, “Well, I can understand, you know, but sometimes you can get in a situation where…” He went on to kill several other in-laws. He killed some cousins, and then he discovered for some reason his wife didn’t like him anymore, so he killed her.

He thought he was done killing, and then he realized his oldest son was coming of age and he was pretty bright and articulate, so he killed him as well.

This man was a psychopath, at the very least, probably demon-possessed.

[beep]

But Matthew repeats it to say that this curse that we live under, this tragedy, this tyranny is about to be reversed.

Here is a Rebuttal of sorts… first with this reminder: One of the quotes used here is from a book recommended at a men’s group at my old church. Can you guess why I moved on and caution others of this unhealthy doctrine? VIDEO DESCRIPTION:

Calvinism Limits God’s Holiness and Omnipotence

Does Calvinism’s doctrine of exhaustive divine determinism actually magnify God’s sovereignty—or does it create serious problems for God’s holiness, omnipotence, and human responsibility?

In this presentation, prominent Calvinists—including John Piper, J.I. Packer, Edwin Palmer, Gordon Clark, R.C. Sproul, and John Calvin himself—are allowed to speak for themselves about God’s decree, sin, human choices, and the events that come to pass.

If God has eternally determined everything that happens, including sinful actions, what does that mean for God’s relationship to evil? And does God really need to determine every human choice in order to remain sovereign?

The argument presented here is simple: a God who can allow genuine human rebellion and still accomplish everything He intends is not less sovereign—but more sovereign.

RESPONSE

When Sovereignty Becomes the Explanation for Evil

What makes this sermon particularly troubling is not simply that the pastor believes in a strong doctrine of divine sovereignty. Christians should believe that God is sovereign. The problem is the definition of sovereignty being employed. The pastor tells his congregation that God is “in charge of everything” and “controlling the universe,” but then makes the crucial assertion that any evil—no matter how dark, horrifying, or deadly—is “not merely allowed, not merely permitted, but purposed and ordained by our God.”

That is a very different claim from saying that God permits evil, restrains evil, works through evil, or sovereignly brings good out of evil. He explicitly rejects those lesser formulations and insists upon divine purpose and ordination of evil itself.

That becomes especially disturbing because of how he has already described Herod. Herod’s rage “made this happen.” His tyranny “made this happen.” He was obsessed with power, murdered his family members, murdered his own wife and son, and was described as a psychopath. The pastor wants us to see Herod’s actions as genuinely wicked and genuinely attributable to Herod.

But if the murders of Bethlehem were themselves eternally and infallibly purposed and ordained by God, then the sermon owes us an explanation of what God’s sovereignty means in relation to Herod’s wickedness. Herod certainly intended evil—but under exhaustive divine determinism, God had already determined that Herod would have that intention, would make those decisions, would perform those murders, and that those particular children would die. The creature is then condemned for carrying out what the decree made certain would occur.

This is precisely why the distinction between permission and ordination matters so much. If God permits Herod to murder, God has not thereby become the moral author of Herod’s murderous decision. God can judge Herod for an act that God permitted while simultaneously overruling that act for His own purposes. But if God specifically ordained the murderous act itself—if the event could not possibly have occurred otherwise because God eternally decreed that it occur—then the theological problem becomes considerably more serious. The question is no longer merely, “Can God use evil for good?” Of course He can. The question becomes, “Why must the evil itself be included within God’s determining decree in order for God to be sovereign?”

And the answer cannot simply be, “Because otherwise God would not be sovereign.” That assumes the very definition that needs to be demonstrated. A God who must causally determine every human decision in order to remain sovereign is not necessarily a God with a larger view of sovereignty. One could argue that it is actually a smaller view of God:

  • a God who must determine every movement in order to guarantee His purposes.

A greater sovereignty is possible—the God who can permit genuine rebellion, allow creatures to act contrary to His moral desires, and still guarantee that no rebellion can ultimately frustrate His purposes. In that framework, God does not lose control when Herod sins. Herod is genuinely responsible for Herod’s evil, while God remains fully capable of accomplishing His purposes through and despite it.

This is especially important in light of the theological material being promoted within the church. You mentioned that the church sold books by John Piper that present an extremely strong view of God’s relationship to evil, and that this pastor had the men studying A. W. Pink’s The Sovereignty of God. That matters because Pink does not merely teach a generic doctrine that God is sovereign.

He explicitly argues that God decreed the Fall and that God “foreordained all its fruits and activities.” He describes God as having “foreordained all the activities of evil” and says that wicked creatures can do nothing except what God’s eternal counsel has determined. Pink even argues that saying God merely permits evil is insufficient to account for the biblical facts; he insists that God’s hand and counsel determined what wicked people would do.

So the pastor’s language in this sermon should not be treated as an isolated slip of the tongue. When someone steeped in that theological tradition tells his congregation that evil is not merely permitted but “purposed and ordained” by God, there is a very specific theological meaning available to that statement. It is the same theological trajectory in which God’s exhaustive decree encompasses not merely the existence of evil but the particular acts through which evil occurs.

That is why the statement deserves to be challenged rather than softened into the harmless proposition that “God can bring good out of bad circumstances.”

And this is where the sermon begins to undermine its own moral force. The pastor spends considerable time asking the congregation to recoil from Herod. He wants us to feel the horror of mothers having their children ripped away and executed. He wants us to recognize Herod’s rage and tyranny as the cause of the tragedy. He wants us to understand that Herod was a wicked man who killed people because he wanted power. All of that makes perfect moral sense. But then he tells us that every evil is ultimately purposed and ordained by God. If that statement is meant in the exhaustive Calvinistic sense, then Herod’s evil was not merely something God knew would happen and permitted. It was something God had eternally incorporated into His decree.

That produces an uncomfortable asymmetry. Herod cannot escape responsibility because he acted according to his own wicked desires. But God, according to the same system, determined that Herod would possess those wicked desires, determined that he would exercise them, determined the particular murders that would result, and determined that those particular children would die. The standard Calvinist answer is that God and Herod had different intentions:

  • Herod intended evil, while God intended a righteous purpose.

But that distinction does not answer the deeper question. It explains why Herod’s motive was evil, but it does not explain why God had to eternally determine that the evil action occur at all.

This is where the doctrine begins to put pressure on God’s holiness. The biblical God does not need to be the determiner of sin in order to remain sovereign over sinners. James does not tell us merely that God does not personally commit sin. He gives us a categorical statement about God’s relationship to evil:

  • “God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone.”

The concern is God’s character. God is holy. Evil is contrary to His nature. Sin is something God judges, hates, and ultimately destroys. We therefore ought to be very cautious about constructing a doctrine of sovereignty that requires us to say that every sinful action was eternally and infallibly determined by God.

There is an important distinction between saying

  • “God ordained that Christ would redeem the world through the evil actions of wicked men”

and saying

  • “God ordained every evil action because every evil action was part of His exhaustive decree.”

The first can be seen clearly in the biblical story of the Crucifixion: wicked men genuinely intended evil, while God brought about redemption through what they did. But once the principle is universalized to every evil act, the moral problem becomes much larger. Why stop at the Crucifixion? If every evil is equally “purposed and ordained,” then Herod’s murders, genocide, rape, torture, betrayal, child abuse, and every other horror become part of the same exhaustive decree.

And this is where some formulations of high Calvinism become particularly difficult to defend morally. Pink himself argues that God’s decree extends to “all the activities of evil.” He argues that even the evil actions of Judas and the crucifiers were decreed by God, while simultaneously maintaining that their evil intentions made them guilty. That distinction may preserve a formal doctrine of creaturely culpability, but it does not remove the question of why a holy God had to determine the evil act itself.

The other sermon you provided actually offers a better way to frame God’s greatness. It argues that Scripture presents a world filled with human actions that are “totally antithetical to the desires of a thrice holy God” while God nevertheless remains sovereign.

The point is profound:

  • God’s sovereignty is not measured by how much evil He determines, but by how completely He can accomplish His purposes without having to become the determiner of evil.

The same sermon argues that God can allow billions of human volitions to occur while still bringing all things together for good and holding people responsible for the choices they make.

That presents a much more compelling picture of divine power. God does not need to micromanage every human decision to remain God. He does not need to decree Herod’s murderous rage in order to guarantee the safety of Christ. He does not need to cause every evil in order to redeem some evil. He can permit rebellion without being threatened by rebellion. He can allow creatures to genuinely resist His moral will without surrendering His ultimate purpose. He can take what Joseph’s brothers meant for evil and turn it toward good without making God the author of their hatred. He can take the greatest act of human wickedness—the murder of His Son—and turn it into the greatest act of redemption in history.

That is not a smaller sovereignty. It is arguably a far greater one.

And this is ultimately why I think your “beeps” in the sermon are important. You were not merely interrupting him to disagree with Calvinism. You were forcing the listener to remember his own words.

  1. First he tells us that Herod’s rage made this happen. Herod’s tyranny made this happen.
  2. Then he tells us that every evil is not merely permitted but purposed and ordained by God.

The listener needs to hold those statements together and ask whether they actually fit.

If the pastor means that God sovereignly permitted Herod’s evil, restrained its extent, and used it to accomplish His redemptive purposes, then there is no fundamental problem. But if he means what the high-Calvinist tradition he was teaching means—that God eternally and infallibly determined that Herod would perform those murders—then the sermon has a serious theological problem. It is asking the congregation to condemn as evil something that, according to its own doctrine, God first determined would necessarily occur.

And that is precisely where I would sharpen the criticism:

  • the issue is not whether God is sovereign enough to overcome evil. The issue is whether we must redefine God’s sovereignty so that He becomes the determiner of every evil we subsequently condemn.

If that is what sovereignty means, then the doctrine has not magnified God’s holiness and power. It has made God’s relationship to evil unnecessarily—and dangerously—close.

The “Connective Tissue” Between Islam and Calvinism

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Updated the original post with some graphics) In my [I guess now, 4-month study of the Augustinian influenced [Gnostic] Calvinism, I kept coming back to the connections with Islam’s “god” as a close comparison to Calvin’s “god”.

So I have found a couple videos I liked on the matter that expanded this connection that came to my mind. Enjoy

(Video Description) Is God the author and the cause of sin? Does God ordain and decree evil and wickedness? Is infant damnation real? We will look at several of these claims from Calvinists and show their similarities to statements made from Mohammed and Islam. John Edwards, Augustus Toplady, James White, John Piper, Justin Peters, RC Sproul, Theodore Zachariades, Gordon Clark, Edwin Palmer, G3, Scott Aniol, Ephesians 1:11, Proverbs 16:4, God’s sovereignty, Satan’s influence, biblical responsibility, Westminster confessions, Council of Dort.

There are other videos out there as well, many make some good points — but I wouldn’t recommend them as a whole.

 

Consistent Calvinist has a decent video however. But I liked this video as it sent me searching for PDFs and text type sources… which will follow. (BTW, I assume the voices in this video are A.I. voices):

(Video Description) John Calvin’s theology exhibits a significant alignment with Islamic doctrine. The analysis focuses on shared tenets such as the denial of free will, the doctrine of double predestination, and the assertion that God ordains sin. By comparing Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion with the Quran and the writings of Islamic scholars, both theological systems emphasise God’s absolute sovereignty to the extent that it overrides human agency and traditional notions of divine justice. This Islamic basis undermines core biblical teachings regarding God’s nature and human responsibility.

A recommended read is what follows:

Islam and Calvinism: An Uncomfortable Comparison

… Determinism

The sovereignty of Allah in Islam and God in Calvinism is absolutely deterministic. They are the author of every action, word, and thought, including sin and evil. Moreover, they predetermined before time everything that shall occur in time including who will be given the gift of faith and eternal life, and who will not and be condemned to eternal death.

Calvinist church historian Phillip Schaff writes:

Calvinism…starts with a double decree of predestination, which antedates and is the divine program of human history. This program includes the successive stages of the creation of man, a universal fall and condemnation of the human race, a partial redemption and salvation: all for the glory of God and the display of His attributes of mercy and justice. History is only the execution of the original design… (History of the Christian Church 8.4.114).

Note that Schaff does not shy away from affirming that God Himself decreed the fall of man, and is therefore the author of sin!

The same view was affirmed by Calvin:

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; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of those ends, we say that he has been predestined to life or death (Institutes, 3.21.5).

Islam teaches the same doctrine as Calvinism. According to Islam, Allah is absolutely deterministic. As Caner and Caner write:

One of the foundational doctrines of Islam is the absolute sovereignty, to the point of determinism, of Allah. Allah knows everything, determines everything, decrees everything, and orders everything. Allah is even the cause of evil (Unveiling Islam, p. 109).

It follows that Allah predestines all who will be saved and all who will be eternally damned. Of those who cannot be saved, Surah 2:6-7 states:

It is the same to them whether you warn them or do not warn them; they will not believe. Allah has set a seal on their hearts and on their hearing. And on their eyes is a veil; Great is the chastisement they [incur].

Fatalism

It follows that Calvinism and Islam are both inherently fatalistic. In Calvinism, the sovereign God elects those who will be saved and rejects all others, as seen repeatedly in Calvin’s writings:

…some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of those ends, we say that he has been predestined to life or death (Institutes, 3.21.5).

[God] arranges all things by his sovereign counsel, in such a way that individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death…(Institutes, 3.23.6).

In the same way, Allah leads astray whom he wills, and saves whom he wills (Surah 14:4):

Allah is exalted and pleased as he sends people to hell: this is the fatalistic claim of Islam. Fatalism is a belief that events are fixed in advance for all time in such a manner that human beings are powerless to change them. In this case, Allah will send to heaven whomever he pleases, and send to hell whomever he pleases (Unveiling Islam, pp. 31-32).

An old joke tells of a Calvinist who fell down the stairs, got up, and said, “Thank God that’s over!” Interestingly, Caner and Caner recount from their Islamic childhood:

Our father used to say, “If you fall and break your leg, say, ‘Allah wills it,’ because he caused it to happen” (Unveiling Islam, p. 109).

The Love of God

Perhaps the most fundamental of all aspects of God’s character is love. “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:8). “For God so loved the world…” (John 3:16) “God demonstrates His own love toward us…” (Rom 5:8). These are just a few of the numerous Biblical texts which affirm the universal, sacrificial, eternal, personal, and unconditional love of God for all mankind. No character of God is more central to the message of the gospel. The incarnation and substitutionary atonement shout it. Everything in God’s saving action toward mankind declares it. But what do we see in Islam and Calvinism?

Love De-Emphasized

In Islam, Allah is virtually devoid of love. Caner and Caner list 99 names of Allah, and only one includes a reference to love (and this only to those who are “his own”). They write:

When Allah is discussed within the Islamic community, the absence of intimacy, atonement, and omnibenevolence becomes apparent. In all the terms and titles of Allah, one does not encounter terms of intimacy. . . Even the most faithful and devout Muslim refers to Allah only as servant to master; Allah is a distant sovereign (Unveiling Islam, p. 117).

But what do we find in Calvinism? God’s sovereignty—His power and holiness—are emphasized at the expense of His love. Dave Hunt observes:

But where is God’s love? Not once in the nearly thirteen hundred pages of his Institutes does Calvin extol God’s love for mankind. This one-sided emphasis reveals Calvinism’s primary defect: the unbiblical limitations it places upon God’s most glorious attribute. . . Something is radically amiss at the very foundation of this unbiblical doctrine (Debating Calvinism, p. 47).

Limited Love

As we look closer, we find reasons for this muting of God’s love in Islam and Calvinism. For example, Calvin’s God and Islam’s Allah are both bereft of unconditional love for everyone.

Allah’s heart is set against the infidel (kafir). He has no love for the unbeliever, nor is it the task of the Muslim to “evangelize” the unbelieving world (Unveiling Islam, p. 118).

Caner and Caner note, “This is why so many Muslims quickly disown children who have converted to another religion, especially Christianity. Why love them when almighty Allah will never love them?” (Unveiling Islam, p. 33).

But is this any different than Calvinism? Dave Hunt puts it bluntly:

Never forget that the ultimate aim of Calvinism…is to prove that God does not love everyone, is not merciful to all, and is pleased to damn billions. If that is the God of the Bible, Calvinism is true. If that is not the God of the Bible, who “is love” (1 John 4:8), Calvinism is false. The central issue is God’s love and character in relation to mankind, as presented in Scripture (Debating Calvinism, p. 21).

Conditional Love

While Calvinists (but not Muslims) would object to the idea their God has a conditional love, that is the effect of their doctrine.

This doctrine is openly announced in Islam: “Allah loves not transgressors” (Qur’an 2:190). “For [Allah] loves not any ungrateful sinner” (Qur’an 2:276). “For Allah loves not those who do wrong” (Qur’an 3:57). “For Allah loves not the arrogant, the vainglorious” (Qur’an 4:36).

Within Calvinism, God’s love is declared to be unconditional because He has given it “unconditionally”—i.e., not in response to anything we do. But whether or not one is actually loved in this “salvific” way is ultimately determined by what we do. This fact is enshrined by the last of the Five Points of Calvinism, i.e., the Perseverance of the Saints. Since all who are saved will inevitably persevere in living a faithful life, God’s saving love, in the end, is determined by our works.

Notably, as is always the result with synergism (i.e., salvation by faith and works), no amount of good works can give you assurance of salvation.

Insecure Love

It is impossible in Calvinism and Islam to know that you are loved by God. While Calvinists proclaim their belief in eternal security, what they mean is if you are really saved (which you cannot know with absolute certainty until you die), then you will never lose your salvation. But how can you know that? Based on your works. However, the threat of falling into some sin, and thus finding out that you were never really saved in the first place, is a possibility hanging over the head of every Calvinist.

Similarly, and blatantly, Islam teaches this same doctrine:

The Qur’an hints that the believer in Allah can be confident of his or her eternal destiny, but there is no guarantee, even for the most righteous. . . In Islam, the answer to the question, “What must I do to go to heaven?” is “mysterious and complex. . . Islamic tradition argues that the guarantee ofheaven is as impossible to find as a chaste virgin and pure speech. Consequently, the devoutMuslim makes every effort to please Allah and thereby obtain heaven. But fate (kismet) in the hands of the all-powerful Allah will decide the outcome (Unveiling Islam, p. 144).

Clearly, the love of God is at best compromised in both Islam and Calvinism.

…READ IT ALL…

This next piece is a clip from a Facebook Post… Here is the title of this post

“Calvinism Is Just Islam Repackaged”

Comparing the Calvinist God and the God of Islam

At first glance, Calvinism and Islam may seem vastly different due to their theological and cultural contexts. However, when examining the portrayal of God in Calvinist theology and Islamic theology, striking similarities emerge. Both traditions emphasize God’s absolute sovereignty, but in ways that challenge concepts of divine love, justice, and human freedom as revealed in the Bible. Here is a comparison of the Calvinist God and the God of Islam:

  1. Absolute Sovereignty and Determinism

Calvinist God:

  • Calvinism teaches that God’s sovereignty means He unconditionally decrees all events, including human actions, sin, and salvation. This leads to the doctrine of double predestination, where some are chosen for salvation and others are predestined for damnation, entirely apart from human free will.

Islamic God (Allah):

  • In Islam, Allah’s sovereignty is also absolute and deterministic. The Quran states that Allah guides whom He wills and leads astray whom He wills (Surah 14:4, Surah 16:93). Human actions, both good and evil, are believed to occur because Allah has willed them.

Comparison:

Both the Calvinist God and Allah are depicted as sovereign in ways that minimize or negate genuine human free will. This deterministic framework portrays God as the ultimate cause of sin and unbelief, raising serious questions about divine justice and human accountability.

  1. Justice and Predestination

Calvinist God:

  • According to Calvinism, God’s justice allows Him to predestine some to eternal damnation without any consideration of their actions or choices. This is often defended as a “mystery” of God’s will, though it conflicts with the notion of a just and impartial God.

Islamic God (Allah):

  • In Islam, Allah is described as just but is not bound by human notions of justice. Allah may forgive or punish as He pleases, and there is no guarantee of salvation even for the most devout believer. Salvation depends entirely on Allah’s arbitrary will.

Comparison:

In both systems, God’s justice is portrayed as inscrutable or arbitrary, leading to a sense of fear and uncertainty. The Calvinist doctrine of reprobation and the Islamic belief in Allah’s arbitrary judgment both suggest a God whose actions are beyond moral comprehension.

  1. Love and Mercy

Calvinist God:

  • Calvinism teaches that God’s love is limited to the elect. Christ’s atonement is “limited” and applies only to those predestined for salvation. The reprobate, by contrast, are excluded from God’s saving love and are created solely to demonstrate His wrath.

Islamic God (Allah):

  • In Islam, Allah is described as merciful (Ar-Rahman, Ar-Rahim), but His mercy is conditional. Allah does not love sinners or unbelievers (Surah 3:31-32). His mercy is reserved for those who obey Him and follow His commands.

Comparison:

Both the Calvinist God and Allah show love and mercy only to a select group—either the elect in Calvinism or the obedient in Islam. This stands in stark contrast to the biblical God, who loves all people and desires the salvation of everyone (1 Timothy 2:4, John 3:16).

  1. Human Freedom and Responsibility

Calvinist God:

  • Human free will is effectively denied in Calvinism. People are bound by their sinful nature and cannot choose God unless they are regenerated first. Even their “choices” are ultimately determined by God’s eternal decree.

Islamic God (Allah):

  • In Islam, humans have limited free will, but their actions are ultimately determined by Allah’s will. The Quran repeatedly emphasizes that Allah guides or leads astray whomever He wills (Surah 6:125).

Comparison:

In both systems, human freedom is subordinated to divine sovereignty, resulting in a deterministic worldview. This undermines the biblical teaching that humans are created in the image of God with the capacity to freely love and respond to Him (Genesis 1:27, Deuteronomy 30:19).

[….]

Conclusion: The Biblical God Is Distinct

While the Calvinist God and the God of Islam share similarities in their emphasis on sovereignty and determinism, they both fall short of the biblical portrayal of God. The God of the Bible is sovereign, but His sovereignty is expressed through love, justice, and respect for human freedom. He desires the salvation of all, offers grace universally, and seeks a personal relationship with every human being.

The biblical God is not arbitrary or partial but perfectly just, merciful, and relational. His love is unconditional, and His gospel is genuinely good news for all people. This is the God revealed in Jesus Christ, who came to save the world, not just a select few (John 3:17).

Click to enlarge.

Just an additional thought on Calvinism by this wonderful sermon that includes an excellent analogous story showing how absurd Calvinistic Reformed thinking is.

The Absurdity of Reformed Theology

Nov. 6, 2022, Adult Sunday School at Truth Baptist Church. 2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

The Consequences of Exhaustive Divine Determinism

Published by Papa Giorgio

A theological system should be judged not only by the verses it cites,
but by the world it creates when all of its doctrines are held together.

The Consequences of Exhaustive Divine Determinism

One of the least discussed aspects of Calvinism is its commitment to compatibilism—the view that God’s exhaustive sovereignty and man’s moral responsibility are compatible because people freely choose according to the desires God has ordained. Compatibilism is not an alternative to determinism; it is a particular form of determinism. As John Hendryx explains, compatibilism is no less deterministic than hard determinism; it simply attempts to reconcile exhaustive divine causation with human accountability.[1]

Ironically, John MacArthur has articulated what many critics see as the central problem with determinism. He argues that if God is the primary cause who compels and determines every human action, then God—not man—would ultimately bear responsibility for evil, divine judgment, and eternal punishment. He concludes that this is a view of God many people simply cannot accept.[2]

Yet many leading Reformed theologians openly affirm that God’s eternal decree extends to every event, including the Fall itself.

Loraine Boettner writes:

“Even the fall of Adam, and through him the fall of the race, was not by chance or accident, but was so ordained in the secret counsels of God.”[3]

Jerome Zanchius is even more explicit:

“Surely, if God had not willed the fall, He could, and no doubt would, have prevented it; but He did not prevent it: ergo He willed it. And if He willed it, He certainly decreed it.”[4]

Arthur W. Pink likewise rejects the idea that God merely permitted sin:

“Plainly it was God’s will that sin should enter this world, otherwise it would not have entered, for nothing happens except what God has eternally decreed. Moreover, there was more than a simple permission, for God only permits things that fulfill His purpose.”[5]

Pink continues:

“Not only did God have a perfect foreknowledge of the outcome of Adam’s trial; not only did His omniscient eye see Adam eating of the forbidden fruit, but He decreed beforehand that he should do so.”[6]

Contemporary Calvinist philosopher Vincent Cheung states the conclusion without qualification:

“I would not say that God permitted Adam to fall, but that God caused it.”[7]

John Calvin himself wrote:

“God not only foresaw the fall of the first man, and in him the ruin of his posterity; but also at His own pleasure arranged it…. Though their perdition depends on the predestination of God, the cause and matter of it is in themselves…. Man therefore falls, divine providence so ordaining, but he falls by his own fault.”[8]

Likewise, Gordon H. Clark argued:

“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 so…. In Ephesians 1:11, Paul tells us that God works all things, not some things only, after the counsel of his own will.”[9]

John Piper and Justin Taylor likewise argue that God does not merely permit evil but actively brings it about according to His sovereign purpose. They write:

“…he himself brings about these evil aspects for his glory…. This includes—as incredible and as unacceptable as it may currently seem—God’s having even brought about the Nazis’ brutality at Birkenau and Auschwitz, as well as the terrible killings of Dennis Rader and even the sexual abuse of a young child.”[10]

These quotations are not drawn from obscure hyper-Calvinists. They represent respected voices within the Reformed tradition and reveal a consistent theological principle: the Fall was not merely foreknown or permitted—it was specifically decreed.

That conclusion raises an unavoidable theological question. Scripture opens by declaring:

“God saw all that he had made, and it was very good indeed.” (Genesis 1:31, CSB)

Yet if Adam’s sin was eternally decreed before creation, then humanity was declared “very good” while already destined by divine decree to rebel. Scripture also records God condemning the burning of children to Molech:

“…something I never commanded or mentioned; I never entertained the thought.” (Jeremiah 19:5) (CSB)

 

Those words appear difficult to reconcile with the claim that every evil act was specifically ordained from eternity. Which leads to the central question:

If God eternally decreed every sin—including Adam’s fall, every murder, every rape, and every atrocity—then isn’t the cross ultimately saving humanity from the consequences of God’s own decree?

Or stated another way:

If the Fall was not merely permitted but specifically decreed as part of God’s eternal plan, in what meaningful sense is humanity being saved from anything other than the consequences of God’s own decree?

C.S. Lewis recognized the danger of resolving this tension by redefining God’s goodness. He observed that if God’s moral standard bears no meaningful resemblance to ours, then calling Him “good” becomes an empty statement. We could no longer distinguish the God of Scripture from an omnipotent tyrant. Lewis warned that when the doctrine of total depravity is extended to mean that mankind’s understanding of good is entirely worthless, Christianity risks collapsing into a form of what he called “devil-worship.”[11]

The issue, then, is not whether God is sovereign. Critics of exhaustive divine determinism [Calvinism] do not deny God’s sovereignty. The issue has never been whether God determines some events. Scripture plainly teaches He does. The question is whether Scripture teaches that God determines every thought, desire, and sinful act. The issue, then, is what kind of sovereignty Scripture actually teaches.

Does God’s sovereignty require that He eternally decree every evil act in order to accomplish His purposes? Or is God’s wisdom, power, and providence so great that He can infallibly accomplish His redemptive plan without specifically decreeing every sin that made redemption necessary?

Clay Jones notes: Paul promises that with every temptation God provides “the way of escape” (1 Cor. 10:13). If every sinful choice has already been eternally determined, from what exactly is the believer escaping? No one can escape what God has decreed must occur.

Every theological system must harmonize difficult passages. The question is whether our theology is being shaped by Scripture, or whether Scripture is continually being reshaped to preserve the system. When the plain meaning of passage after passage must be qualified, restricted, redefined, or explained away to fit a prior theological commitment—when ordinary words such as “all,” “world,” “whoever,” or “desires” are repeatedly given specialized meanings, or when distinctions such as God’s “decretive” will and “preceptive” will are invoked to reconcile texts that appear to conflict—it is worth asking whether these interpretive moves arise naturally from the biblical text or from the theological framework brought to it.

At some point, the question is no longer whether Scripture is shaping our theology, but whether our theology is reshaping Scripture.

[1] John MacArthur, “Why Doesn’t God Save Everyone?” Grace to You. (Insert the exact sermon or transcript citation once verified.)

[2] John Hendryx, “What Is Compatibilism?” Monergism.

[3] Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1932), 234.

[4] Jerome Zanchius, The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination, chap. 2, sec. 2, para. 4.

[5] Arthur W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1930), 162.

[6] Ibid., Appendix II, “The Case of Adam,” 283.

[7] Vincent Cheung, “The Author of Sin,” accessed July 29, 2025.

[8] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008), 3.23.7–8.

[9] Gordon H. Clark, Religion, Reason and Revelation (Nutley, N. J.: Craig Press, 1961), 221.

[10] John Piper and Justin Taylor, eds., Suffering and the Sovereignty of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2006), 42.

[11] C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: HarperOne, 2001), chap. 3, “Divine Goodness.”