TULIP (Calvinism)

Augustine of Hippo’s Gnostic Influence on the Church (Part 1)

Published by Papa Giorgio

I wanted to go through these referenced sources and summarize them and reproduce portions of the manuscript. Here are the sources:

THE CORE CONNECTIONS & ACCUSATIONS

  • Augustine’s Background: Critics point to Augustine of Hippo’s approximately nine years of involvement with Manichaeism, a religious movement with dualistic teachings, before his conversion to Christianity. Because Augustine’s writings significantly influenced John Calvin and later Reformed theology, critics question whether aspects of his earlier worldview influenced his understanding of sin and human nature. [1, 2]
  • Total Inability / Total Depravity: Manichaeism presented a deeply dualistic understanding of good and evil and the human condition. Critics argue that Calvinism’s doctrine of total inability—the “T” in TULIP, which teaches that fallen humanity cannot come to faith apart from God’s enabling grace—resembles this pessimistic view of human nature. [1, 2, 3, 4]
  • The Material World and the Flesh: Gnostic movements often viewed the material world as inferior, corrupt, or even evil, although Gnostic beliefs varied. Critics argue that Augustine’s teachings concerning original sin, its transmission through human generation, and the effects of sexual desire reflect a similar pessimism about embodied human existence. They further contend that aspects of this outlook carried into later Reformed theology. [1, 2]

Today I want to deal with the first bullet point — “Augustine’s Background,” source #2 — I say TODAY because I want to open up some of those resources for a better deep dive, of which this is the first. I will try to offer some of the mentioned resources highlighted in the videos and partial transcripts in the videos or summaries.

These sources I put into my earlier post: “Is Calvinism a Heresy? (Bonus: Allie Beth Stuckey)“, and the first source I am opening up today is “Did Gnosticism Influence Calvinism? ‪@Soteriology101‬ Dr. Leighton Flowers Ruslan Interview“, and here is a partial transcript with the video:

Books explicitly mentioned in the video

Resource Author(s) / details Context in the transcript
Foundations of Augustinian Calvinism Ken Wilson Discussed as an accessible version of Wilson’s Oxford doctoral dissertation, examining the historical roots of Augustinian Calvinism.
Why I’m Not an Arminian Robert A. Peterson and Michael D. Williams Cited by Leighton Flowers as a book by two Calvinist professors that acknowledges a difference between Augustine’s monergistic doctrine of grace and the tendencies of the Apostolic Fathers.

Important spelling correction: The transcript’s automatic transcription says “Why I’m Not an Armenian.” The intended title is Why I’m Not an Arminian.

Historical sources mentioned

  • Herman Bavinck — Mentioned as a Calvinist theologian whose writings are invoked in the discussion.
  • Lorraine Boettner — Mentioned as a Reformed historical and theological source. The transcript renders the name as “Buttner” or “Betner”; the likely intended author is Lorraine Boettner.
  • The Apostolic Fathers — Early Christian writers whose views on human nature, free will, and salvation are discussed through the quotation from Peterson and Williams.
  • Augustine of Hippo — His writings and theological development are the central historical subject.
  • John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion — Explicitly mentioned as a work in which Calvin cites Augustine extensively.

Partial Transcript:

Leighton Flowers

There’s also the book Why I’m Not an Armenian by two Calvinistic professors. They write, the semi-Pelagians were convinced that Augustine’s monergistic emphasis upon salvation by grace alone represented a significant departure from the traditional teaching of the church. They say, quote, and a survey of the thought of the Apostolic Father shows that their argument is valid.

From Calvinist scholars Robert A. Peterson and Michael D. Williams, Why I Am Not An Arminian, p. 39 (pages 35-41 quoted at the bottom):

Does the antipathy between Calvinism and Arminianism suggest that Pelagius, the arch-opposite of Augustine, is the proper ancestor of Arminianism? Calvinists have often sought to paint Arminianism in Pelagian colors. Associating your opponent with a position that the historic faith has repeatedly judged heretical can only help one’s cause. However, the allegation that Arminianism is Pelagian is unfortunate and indeed unwarranted. From Jacob Arminius and the ‘Remonstrance Articles’ on, the Arminian tradition has affirmed the corruption of the will by sin and the necessity of grace for redemption. Arminianism is not Pelagianism….The Semi-Pelagians thought of salvation as beginning with human beings. We must first seek God; and his grace is a response to that seeking. The Arminians of the seventeenth century, however, held that the human will has been so corrupted by sin that a person cannot seek grace without the enablement of grace. They therefore affirmed the necessity and priority of grace in redemption. Grace must go before a person’s response to the gospel. This suggests that Arminianism is closer to Semi-Augustinianism than it is to Semi-Pelagianism or Pelagianism.

Ruslan KD

Ruslan. Let’s talk about this idea of Gnosticism. You had a video up about Augustine, who’s the father of Calvinism. Augustine is who influenced John Calvin and Edwards and Martin Luther, who then influenced a lot of Charles Spurgeon and a lot of our guys today.

You could trace it all back to this gentleman named Augustine, who was a great thinker and a philosopher and all these amazing things. What people don’t know is that He came from a Gnostic background and that then impacted some of his views that you said were not there with the majority of Christians prior to Augustine.

So can you break down what Gnosticism is briefly and how it impacted some of Augustine’s views? Because I have a very specific segue that I deal with all the time with people in my community.

Can you give us just a brief breakdown of what Gnosticism is, how it impacted Augustine, how then that impacted John Calvin and Calvin?

Leighton Flowers

Saying what is Gnosticism can take some time because there’s a lot of different kinds of Gnosticism. Manichean Gnosticism, Manicheanism was the most predominant Gnostic group that many people would have heard of. And it was in particular what Augustine was for 10 years of his life. He was a Manichean Gnostic.

And Manicheanism is very, very different than Christian theology, but there are some similarities. And there are writings from the Manichaeans where they use many of the same proof texts like John 6.44 and other texts like that in order to demonstrate what they believe with regard to total inability.

In other words, one of the things they do teach, they have more of a dualistic view that there’s a good God and a bad God, an evil God and a good God. And they have a lot of different things that are not not like Christianity at all, but one of the things that’s similar to at least Calvinistic Christianity is that they believe that when we’re born, we’re born in a completely evil state and that we’re completely incapable of doing anything without a divine influence.

Ruslan KD

Sounds a lot like total depravity.

Leighton Flowers

Exactly. And so the argument is that this concept of total inability really did not originate within the Bible or early church teachings, but in a more Gnostic or Manichean philosophy of theistic determinism. Now that’s the argument.

But what’s interesting is if you even study John Calvin, he even says that the early church writings, he says they extol the powers of the human will. He says save the exception of Augustine, he said, are confused and they’re vacillating, they’re contradictory, and they extol the powers of the free will of man.

In other words, John Calvin, he wants to validate himself. His doctrines, he wants to make sure people believe them. And oftentimes, especially in that day of the Reformation, you would be reaching back to orthodoxy in order to establish your views as orthodox and as viable. And so he quoted from Augustine over 4,000 times in the Institutes of the Christian Religion.

And he admits, he says the early church writers, all the other early church writers prior to Augustine and even Augustine in his earliest writings, when he first converted out of Manichaeanism into Christianity for the first part of his Christian life, he did teach a doctrine of free will like you and I might believe it.

But only after many years and then eventually a debate with Pelagius does he begin to swing back, we believe, back into a more deterministic, philosophical way of thinking, and he begins to use some of the same arguments that you hear Manichaeans make.

Interesting, I recommend people read Ken Wilson on this particular subject. He’s taken his Oxford doctoral dissertation and made it into a smaller layman book that’s easier to approach than the one with seven different languages in it, and that’s huge.

And at our request, in fact, He was so gracious to do this, but at our request, he actually took his doctoral dissertation and broke it down to the basics and put it all into easy to approach, more English accessible. And it’s called the Foundations of Augustinian Calvinism.

And it really does kind of break down the roots of this and really goes through scholar after scholar after scholar who’s come to the same conclusion. And that’s what’s interesting about this. is not, you know, Leighton Flowers, the, you know, anti-Calvinist saying these things.

We’ve got quotes from Bavinck, Henry Herman Bavinck, who’s a well-known Calvinist, Lorraine Buttner, who is a well-known historical historian from the Calvinist. Matter of fact, Betner is the guy who made Tulip, the Across the Tulip, famous.

There’s also the book, Why I’m Not an Armenian, by two Calvinistic professors from Covenant Theological Seminary, Dr. Robert Peterson and Michael Williams. And they write this, they write, the semi-Pelagians were convinced, and semi-Pelagian is a pejorative term, we wouldn’t like that term, but that’s what they call us oftentimes, semi-Pelagians.

The semi-Pelagians were convinced that Augustine’s monergistic emphasis upon salvation by grace alone represented a significant departure from the traditional teaching of the church. So notice what they’re saying. They’re saying that Augustine, the accusation from semi-Pelagians is that Augustine took a significant departure from the early church.

And they say, quote, and a survey of the thought of the apostolic fathers shows that their argument is valid. In comparison to Augustine’s monergistic doctrine of grace, the teachings of the apostolic fathers tended toward a synergistic view of redemption, end quote.

In other words, I could read you about a dozen quotes here from Calvinist sources, not Armenian sources or provisional sources from actual Calvinistic historians who are intellectually honest enough to say, yeah, really Augustine is the first one on record to really begin to teach these doctrines.

And that’s just the fact of the matter. And it is a fact of the matter that he was influenced by Stoicism, Neoplatonism, and Manichean Gnosticism. That’s just a fact of the matter. That’s a part of his testimony. It’s on record. It’s not a disputable matter.

And so I think many of the scholars who know what they’re talking about realize that Augustine really is the first one to systematize and to teach more Calvinistic theology in the church.

Ruslan KD

That’s interesting. So here is where the logical conclusion of some of that goes. If he then elevates how evil man is and makes man just utterly evil. And you’re saying this doctrine isn’t found in the early church. We don’t see any of the other church fathers who believe them.

And if man is super duper, utterly sinful, hates God this whole bit, well then the material world, which is what also Gnosticism believes, the material world, the physical world is also evil. And everything here is evil and everything here is bad. And so you get saved. God could have just zapped you straight to heaven, but he kind of just leaves you on earth to suffer for a while with all these other filthy humans that he may elect or not elect.

This becomes extremely problematic when it again goes back to my heart for people is, hey, I want people to live out Matthew 25. I want people to live out the parable of the talents, the taking care of the least of these, having an amazing marriage, a godly marriage, a godly family. honoring God with your time, talent, and treasure, this becomes disconnected and incompatible when the worldview is people are utterly evil, humans are utterly evil, the world’s all evil, everyone’s evil, everything’s evil, the material is evil, the physical is evil.

So then, man, should I take that promotion at my job so that I can get my family out of this two-bedroom apartment? Because we’re crammed in here. I literally had somebody ask me this at a Bible study. We’re crammed into this little itty bitty place with two bedrooms. We got four kids. But is it evil? Is it my flesh to take this promotion? Because I don’t know. I mean, does God want me to have influence at my job and have a promotion?

And I’m like, bro, there’s certain things you don’t need to pray about. Your family’s hurting because you’re crammed into into this freaking small apartment, take the promotion and honor your family, right?

And begin, this is seeped into almost every denominational camp has this very low view of the material world of the physical world, forgetting that Jesus comes into the material world in material form as a baby.

I have a four week old, a four week old. She can’t do anything. She just lays there, right? She just lays there. We got to move her. We got to, she got to clean her. Jesus comes as a human, as a baby, and has to be cared for a minute before he could do anything. in the material physical world,

and so many Christians are caught up in this idea of the material physical world that escalates to this persecution complex. Everyone’s out to get me. I’m A Christian victim. The world’s all bad. It’s all evil. What’s the point of honoring God with my time, talent and treasure? What’s the point of taking care of my body? And then it literally just becomes fatalism. Like, well, what’s the point? It’s just all going to hell. It doesn’t make any sense.

And I think this is a vast heresy that is, I mean, every camp, whether you’re Pentecostal, Calvinistic, whatever, has this very low view of the physical material world, has this very low view of the Imago Dean people, has this very low view of our time, talent, and treasure on this side of eternity.

And it’s very frustrating because I deal with it all the time. So I want to hear your thoughts on some of this. And am I seeing the connection from Calvin to Augustine to Gnosticism? Do I see that connection? Is it as connected as I’m making it out to be? What are your thoughts, Doctor?

Leighton Flowers

I mean, there are some aspects of what you’re talking about that I would definitely see as some connection points. I call it worm theology, where no matter what is said in the Bible about us being created in the image of God and all the good things that God says about his creation and it being good, that some people will overemphasize the evil of man and how unworthy and our worthlessness of man.

And there’s a balance. There’s always a biblical balance between the extremes. You’ve got the extreme on the one side is just saying we’re all really good people and nobody’s really bad. And everybody’s basically good. You got that side, which a lot of the world is more in that camp.

You got the other side, the worm theology guys that we’re absolutely viper and diapers. We’re just horrible and nothing good whatsoever. we’re just worthless, all these kinds of things.

And I think that the balance is in the middle of those two things, where we obviously have worth in Christ and that we are created in his image and we are image bearers of the divine. Therefore, God doesn’t make junk. We don’t want to criticize that which God has created because it’s his.

Now, we can’t also underemphasize the impact of sin and corruption in this world. And sometimes we’re accused of doing that, but that’s usually by people who haven’t heard us out and really understood what we’re saying.

Because like I said from the very beginning of this interview with you, we’re in bondage to sin. We’re in enmity with God. We have horrible corruption, but the gospel is sufficient. That’s the good news.

All of the bad news is just as bad on our view as it is on Calvinism. It’s just that we believe that the gospel is sufficient for those who are in that condition.

And whereas the Calvinist says the gospel is not sufficient for the world, that it has to, really what’s sufficient is irresistible grace, this effectual regeneration that is only for some people and not for everyone. And that’s not good news as far as I can tell. That doesn’t seem like very good news.

It’s just It’s just, hey, if you won the divine lottery, so to speak, and I know that sounds pejorative and that’s a bad way to put it, but it’s kind of what it boils down to. It’s like, we don’t know why God picked some people and not others. He just, he picked some people and not others. And if you happen to be one of the blessed ones that got picked, then he’s going to grace you with this miracle of faith to cause you to believe.

I just don’t see this as the tenor of scripture. Instead, what I see within scripture is the good news is yes, we’re all fallen, we’re broken, we’re sinful, we’re depraved, we’ve gone our own ways.

And therefore, what is our only hope? Our only hope is to turn to the Lord so as to be saved. And he has provided a way of salvation for every man, woman, boy, and girl that no one perishes for lack of atonement. No one perishes because they’re rejected by their God. Anyone and everyone can be saved. And that’s what we want to try to highlight.

The book excerpt I mentioned by two Calvinist professors that acknowledges a difference between Augustine’s monergistic doctrine of grace and the tendencies of the Apostolic Fathers will follow these quotes.

BTW, other Calvinists agree with professors Peterson and Williams, which is to say they agree that Augustine introduced something new into the church previously not found in the early Fathers. [RPT and other will add: actually, it existed, but in Gnosticism.]

Herman Bavinck:

  • In the early church, at a time when it had to contend with pagan fatalism and gnostic naturalism, its representatives focused exclusively on the moral nature, freedom, and responsibility of humans and could not do justice, therefore, to the teaching of Scripture concerning the counsel of God. Though humans had been more or less corrupted by sin, they remained free and were able to accept the proffered grace of God. The church’s teaching did not include a doctrine of absolute predestination and irresistible grace.

Loraine Boettner:

  • “It may occasion some surprise to discover that the doctrine of Predestination was not made a matter of special study until near the end of the fourth century….They of course taught that salvation was through Christ; yet they assumed that man had full power to accept or reject the gospel. Some of their writings contain passages in which the sovereignty of God is recognized; yet along side of those are others which teach the absolute freedom of the human will. Since they could not reconcile the two they would have denied the doctrine of Predestination… They taught a kind of synergism in which there was a co-operation between grace and free … this cardinal truth of Christianity was first clearly seen by Augustine…“

Robert Peterson and Michael Williams of Covenant Theological Seminary:

  • “The Semi-Pelagians were convinced that Augustine’s monergistic emphasis upon salvation by grace alone represented a significant departure from the traditional teaching of the church. And a survey of the thought of the apostolic father’s shows that the argument is valid… In comparison to Augustine’s monergistic doctrine of grace, the teachings of the apostolic fathers tended toward a synergistic view of redemption” (36).

Louis Berkhof [in The History of Christian Doctrines]:

  • “Their representations are naturally rather indefinite, imperfect, and incomplete, and sometimes even erroneous and self-contradictory. Says Kahnis: “It stands as an assured fact, a fact knowing no exceptions, and acknowledged by all well versed in the matter, that all of the pre-Augustinian Fathers taught that in the appropriation of salvation there is a co-working of freedom and grace.”

Berkhof goes on to admit that “they do not hold to an entire corruption of the human will, and consequently adhere to the synergistic theory of regeneration…” (130).

Alister E. McGrath, Historical Theology: An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought (Malden, MA: Wiley & Sons LTD, 2013), 34.

  • One aspect of Augustine’s understanding of grace needs further comment. As human beings were incapable of saving themselves, and as God gave his gift of grace to some (but not all), it followed that God had “preselected” those who would be saved. Developing hints of this idea to be found in the New Testament, Augustine developed a doctrine of predestination. The term “predestination” refers to God’s original or eternal decision to save some, and not others. It was this aspect of Augustine’s thought which many of his contemporaries, not to mention his successors, found unacceptable. It need hardly be said that there is no direct equivalent in Pelagius’s thought.

Here is that excerpt…

Robert A. Peterson and Michael D. Williams, Why I Am Not an Arminian (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 35–41.

(PDF of these pages)

Semi-Pelagianism and the Synod of Orange

Although Pelagius was condemned by the bishop of Rome in 417 and then after his death by the Council of Ephesus in 431, he certainly did not set out to be a heretic. Bernhard Lohse makes the point that Pelagius’s intent was “to elevate the difficult ascetic demands which were then permeating monasticism to a position of a fundamental principle for all Christians.” While Pelagius’s inordinately low view of sin and grace might—and should—strike us as scandalous and indeed heretical, Lohse does not exaggerate when he notes that “there is hardly an opinion” in Pelagius’s teaching on sin and grace “for which some confirmation could not be found among the earlier fathers of the church.” Indeed, one could easily argue that it was Augustine, not Pelagius, who was out of step with the tradition of the church.

The generation after Augustine and Pelagius would give birth to the Semi-Pelagian movement. Monks like John Cassian and Vincent of Lérins agreed with Augustine regarding the seriousness of sin, yet they objected to his ideas of the total and disabling bondage of the will to sin, the irresistible power of grace and predestination as predicated upon a particular election. In 434 Vincent of Lérins wrote the Commonitory, which contained both a polemic against Augustine’s doctrine of grace as a dangerous innovation and a description of the Catholic principle of tradition that would become normative for the church. The Augustinian understanding of sin and grace, said Vincent, is contrary to the ancient tradition of the church, “that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For that is truly and in the strictest sense ‘Catholic,’ which, as the name itself and the reason of the thing declare, comprehends all universality.”[1]

The Semi-Pelagians were convinced that Augustine’s monergistic emphasis upon salvation by grace alone represented a significant departure from the traditional teaching of the church. And a survey of the thought of the apostolic fathers shows that the argument is valid.

While affirming the necessity of grace for salvation, early Christian theological reflection tended to be highly moralistic and even legalistic, emphasizing a view of the Christian life that focused more on conduct—often expressed as rigorous prescription—rather than grace, faith or forgiveness. In comparison to Augustine’s monergistic doctrine of grace, the teachings of the apostolic fathers tended toward a synergistic view of redemption. For them, salvation is the result of a working together of divine grace and human agency. Human beings are fallen such that they need divine help, but that help cooperates with our own striving toward God and the moral life. The synergism in pre-Augustinian thought held that divine grace is necessary for salvation but that our salvation is as much the product of the exercise of human free will and obedience to the law of God as of grace.

The Semi-Pelagian monastics affirmed the free will and ability of human beings. Yet they were far removed from the humanistic monergism of Pelagius. The Semi-Pelagians insisted that human beings cannot be saved apart from the supernatural assisting grace of God. But the fallen human will is not held in bondage to sin; it is not completely disabled by sinful corruption. Human beings can, unaided by grace, take the first step toward salvation. John Cassian held that human nature is weakened but not disabled by sin; we are fallen but able, fallen enough that we need help, but not so fallen that we cannot contribute to our own recovery. Cassian wrote, “And when He [God] sees in us some beginnings of a good will, He at once enlightens it and strengthens it and urges it on towards salvation, increasing that which He Himself implanted or which He sees to have arisen from our own efforts.”[2] In Semi-Pelagian synergism, human beings are the initiators of faith. Grace is responsive to our search for God and the good. God helps those who help themselves.

Throughout the fifth and early sixth centuries, the Augustinians and the Semi-Pelagians continued their debate, until the bishops met in 529 at the Synod of Orange to seek a resolution of the controversy. Even a century after his death, Augustine’s influence was so great that the synod sought to expunge any lingering strands of Pelagianism within the church. This does not mean, however, that the bishops affirmed Augustine’s teaching in its entirety. Somewhat inconsistently, they affirmed the doctrine of original sin and Augustine’s teaching on the bondage of the will, but they failed to affirm the doctrine of pre­destination. They argued that the freedom of the will has been destroyed by sin such that the only thing inherent in fallen humankind is “untruth and sin.”[3] Faith is not initiated by human beings and then completed by divine grace so that God’s work is dependent upon people. Rather, faith begins in the illuminating work and infused presence of the Holy Spirit, which “precedes” and “enables” human beings’ response to grace.[4] Much of the language of the Canons of the Council of Orange was taken directly from the works of Augustine. For example, using a citation from Augustine himself, the canons rejected the Pelagian charge that Augustine’s teaching was deterministic: “Men do their own will and not the will of God when they do what displeases him; but when they follow their own will and comply with the will of God, however willingly they do so, yet it is his will by which what they will is both prepared and instructed.”[5]

Any goodness or righteousness that humankind displays is the result of God’s grace working in them. But this should not be taken as evidence that the Synod of Orange affirmed Augustine’s gracious monergism. The synod softened the Augustinian teaching into a gracious synergism. First, as stated above, the synod did not endorse predestination. The canons explicitly reject predestination to damnation,[6] but they are completely silent concerning predestination to redemption. Second, while the synod insisted that the initiation of faith begins with the work of grace, it suggested that human agency cooperates with the divine in order to produce redemption. This synergism is subtly but crucially different from that of the Semi-Pelagians. While both see redemption as the product of both divine grace and human effort, the Semi-Pelagians depict redemption as beginning with human agency. The Semi-Augustinian synergism of Orange reversed the sequence. Hence, a person’s contribution to salvation is faithful response to the grace of God. Grace is prevenient here in that it precedes human response.

Nevertheless, there is a problem with the conclusions of the synod. If faith is a gift of God in that the seeds of faith are found in a grace that precedes the actual expression of faith in the responsive heart, and if grace must be given to people enabling them to respond (for a person cannot take the first step toward God), how does one account for the fact that not all respond in faith to the gospel? It seems that the bishops at Orange sought to escape having to address this question.

While the synod held that divine grace is necessary unto faith, its refusal to affirm the particularism of Augustine’s doctrine of predestination seems to be an implicit affirmation of universal preceding grace. That is, universal repairing and enabling grace is given to all, but each person must obediently respond to the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit in order to be saved.

Where Do Calvinism and Arminianism Fit?

The Calvinist understanding of the doctrines of sin and redemption closely conforms to Augustine’s gracious monergism. Redemption is utterly the work of grace. Does the antipathy between Calvinism and Arminianism suggest that Pelagius, the arch-opposite of Augustine, is the proper ancestor of Arminianism? Calvinists have often sought to paint Arminianism in Pelagian colors. Associating your opponent with a position that the historic faith has repeatedly judged heretical can only help one’s cause. However, the allegation that Arminianism is Pelagian is unfortunate and indeed unwarranted. From Jacob Arminius and the “Remonstrant Articles” on, the Arminian tradition has affirmed the corruption of the will by sin and the necessity of grace for redemption. Arminianism is not Pelagian.

If Arminianism cannot be traced back to Pelagius, perhaps the Semi-Pelagianism of John Cassian and Vincent of Lérins is the ancestor of Arminianism. Both Semi-Pelagianism and Arminianism insist upon a synergistic view of redemption. A person’s salvation is the result of two agencies: (1) God’s grace and (2) human faith and obedience. But here again, there are important dissimilarities. The Semi-Pelagians thought of salvation as beginning with human beings. We must first seek God; and his grace is a response to that seeking. The Arminians of the seventeenth century, however, held that the human will has been so corrupted by sin that a person cannot seek grace without the enablement of grace. They therefore affirmed the necessity and priority of grace in redemption. Grace must go before a person’s response to the gospel. This suggests that Arminianism is closer to Semi-Augustinianism than it is to Semi-Pelagianism or Pelagianism. The word Pelagian as a description of Arminians—or Roman Catholics for that matter—does them an injustice because it associates them with a theological tradition that is truly heretical in that Pelagius trivialized grace, and in so doing trivialized the work of Christ. Both the Semi-Augustinians of the fifth and sixth centuries and the Arminians of the seventeenth century sought understandings of sin and redemption that were qualifications of Augustinianism. Semi-Augustinianism was not a Pelagianism that had moved toward Augustine but rather a softening of Augustinianism that sought to modify or excise elements of Augustine’s teaching that were found offensive (particularist election and a doctrine of divine agency that seemed to render human agency irrelevant). As Arminianism began as a reaction to the Augustinian commitments of the Reformed churches and reacted negatively to much the same issues as had the Semi-Augustinians, Arminianism is properly understood as Semi-Augustinianism.

Yet we should appreciate the reality that the four positions sketched here as coming out of the Augustinian-Pelagian controversy of the fifth century do not exhaust the list of possible ways that sin and redemption can be understood or the ways in which divine agency can be thought of as relating to human action and decision making. Yes, Augustinianism (salvation is all of God’s grace) and Pelagianism (salvation is the product of human achievement) do seem to mark the polar extremes. But what lies between might be more of a continuum than a few discrete points. Between the two monergistic poles is the admixture, the synergism of dual agency in redemption. The realization of a continuum of beliefs may help us understand something of the diversity of belief within a tradition.

In 529 the Synod of Orange declared Semi-Pelagianism a heresy and declared a form of Augustinianism to be the official teaching of the Roman Church. Yet the emphasis upon the cooperation of human agency in redemption left a space for Semi-Pelagian ideas to flourish in popular belief. Even though the synod did not affirm a doctrine of meritorious works and insisted that God’s grace is the sole efficient cause of salvation, a Semi-Pelagian—and often an outright Pelagian—view of human agency would dominate in common folk belief. Indeed, the customs and structures that arose within the medieval Roman Church would lean to­ward a view of Christianity as a religion of performance, merit and obligatory rite. Something quite similar seems to exist within the Arminian tradition. Popular Arminian writing often tends to be so dismissive of anything that might qualify “libertarian free will” that it gives itself over to a moralist and meritorious doctrine of redemption. Redemption is offered by God, but we must earn it. This is, of course, the very danger that the Calvinist sees in all synergistic understandings of redemption.

But we Calvinists have our own version of popular or folk belief as well. If Arminian popular belief tends toward the overestimation of human ability and the redemptive contribution of human achievement, Calvinist popular belief often seems to overemphasize its redemptive monergism. We seek to out-Augustine Augustine. If a little monergism is good, more is better. As a result, we make God the sole cause of all things, sin as well as grace, unbelief as well as belief. And human beings do become mere pawns or actors walking through the scenery of their lives.

The Augustine-Pelagius controversy is our first monumental historical event. This controversy sets the stage for the following two chapters, which focus on issues keenly debated by Augustine and Pelagius and still disputed today: predestination and the perseverance of the saints.

NOTES

[1] Vincent of Lérins Commonitory for the Antiquity and Universality of the Catholic Faith Against the Profane Novelties of All Heresies 2.6.

[2] Quoted in Olson, Story of Christian Theology, p. 283.

[3] Canons of the Council of Orange, para. 1-2, 13, 22.

[4] Ibid., para. 3-7, 18.

[5] Ibid., para. 23.

[6] Ibid., para. 25.

 

Is Calvinism a Heresy? (Bonus: Allie Beth Stuckey)

Published by Papa Giorgio

 

VIDEO VIA IDOL KILLER!

For the entire video by Idol Killer, see: “What is the Gospel? – Allie Beth Stuckey vs John Mark Comer“

For clarity and historical depth: The first four belonged to the Western Latin Church, the historical church that developed into the Roman Catholic Church. They were not Eastern Orthodox councils. The first four gatherings occurred before the Great Schism of 1054, the conventional date associated with the separation between Eastern Orthodox and Western Catholic Christianity.

They therefore belong to the history of the Western Church, although their geographical and political settings differed. Mainz and Quierzy, in particular, were Frankish synods rather than ecumenical councils of the entire Christian church.

Jerusalem in 1672 was different: it was an explicitly Eastern Orthodox synod responding to Protestant theology, including doctrines associated with Calvinism.

Council or synod Church tradition Historical setting
Arles (475–480 AD) Western Latin Church Late Roman Gaul, in what is now southern France
Orange (529 AD) Western Latin Church Southern Gaul, now France; associated with Caesarius of Arles
Mainz (848 AD) Western Latin Church The Carolingian Frankish Church, in what is now Germany
Quierzy (853 AD) Western Latin Church The Carolingian Frankish Church, in what is now northern France
Jerusalem (1672 AD) Eastern Orthodox Church Convened under Patriarch Dositheus II of Jerusalem

Council of Arles (475–480 AD)

Issue: Human freedom, predestination, and the extent of Christ’s atonement

Arles required the priest Lucidus to renounce propositions associated with an extreme form of predestinarian teaching. These included the denial of meaningful human freedom after the Fall, the claim that Christ did not die for the salvation of all, and the idea that some people were predestined to damnation.

Connection to the “later” TULIP (explained in APPENDIX):

  • Total Depravity: Challenges interpretations that eliminate any meaningful capacity to respond to God’s gracious initiative.
  • Limited Atonement: Challenges the claim that Christ’s death was not intended for the salvation of all.
  • Unconditional Election and Reprobation: Raises objections to certain formulations of predestination to damnation.

The central question is whether God’s sovereignty and humanity’s fallen condition require the conclusion that human responses are determined by God rather than genuinely resistible.

Second Council of Orange (529 AD)

Issue: The necessity of grace and predestination to evil

Orange affirmed that fallen humanity cannot turn to God or embrace saving faith apart from God’s prior grace. It rejected the idea that God predestines people to evil and emphasized the necessity of divine grace in salvation.

Connection to the “later” TULIP (explained in APPENDIX):

  • Total Depravity: Orange affirms humanity’s dependence on grace, but does not establish every later Calvinist claim about spiritual inability.
  • Unconditional Election: Its teachings raise questions about how election and condemnation should be understood, although Orange did not settle every later debate over election.
  • Determinism: Its rejection of predestination to evil challenges interpretations in which God’s decree is understood to determine sinful actions in a way that makes God the ultimate determiner of evil.

The important distinction is between God permitting and governing a world in which sin occurs and God determining that particular sinful choices must occur. The council’s rejection of predestination to evil is relevant to that distinction, though it does not by itself settle the modern debate over theological determinism.

Synod of Mainz (848 AD)

Issue: Gottschalk’s doctrine of double predestination

The Synod of Mainz condemned Gottschalk of Orbais, who taught a form of double predestination: God predestines some people to eternal life and others to eternal death. His position also included a restricted understanding of the beneficiaries of Christ’s death.

Connection to the “later” TULIP (explained in APPENDIX):

  • Unconditional Election: Related to the teaching that God elects individuals to salvation independently of their response.
  • Limited Atonement: Gottschalk held that Christ died for the elect rather than for all people.
  • Double Predestination: His formulation raises the question of whether God’s decree determines not only who will be saved but also who will be condemned.

This is particularly relevant to the historical debate over whether reprobation is simply God’s decision not to elect certain people or a positive predestination to damnation.

The distinction matters because later Calvinists have offered different explanations of reprobation and do not all formulate it identically.

Synod of Quierzy (853 AD)

Issue: Predestination to salvation versus predestination to sin and damnation

The proceedings against Gottschalk began earlier, but the doctrinal statement associated with Quierzy dates to 853. It affirmed predestination to salvation while distinguishing it from God’s foreknowledge of those who would be condemned. It also affirmed God’s desire to save all and the universal scope of Christ’s redemptive provision.

Connection to the “later” TULIP (explained in APPENDIX):

  • Unconditional Election: The synod’s account of election and condemnation differs from formulations of double predestination.
  • Limited Atonement: Its affirmation of universal redemption conflicts with strict formulations that limit Christ’s saving provision to the elect.
  • Determinism: Its distinction between predestination to salvation and foreknowledge of condemnation challenges the claim that both outcomes should be understood as equivalent acts of divine predetermination.

From a Provisionist perspective, this distinction is important: God’s sovereign provision of salvation does not necessarily entail that God determines which individuals will believe or refuse to believe.

Synod of Jerusalem (1672 AD)

Issue: Unconditional predestination and the Reformed understanding of salvation

The Synod of Jerusalem, associated with Patriarch Dositheus, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, responded to Protestant teachings it regarded as inconsistent with Eastern Orthodox doctrine. Its confession rejected unconditional predestination as it understood the Calvinist position and emphasized the relationship between divine grace and human response.

Connection to the “later” TULIP (explained in APPENDIX):

  • Unconditional Election: The synod rejected the Calvinist formulation of unconditional predestination that it addressed.
  • Irresistible Grace: Its understanding of grace and human response differs from the Calvinist claim that saving grace effectually brings the elect to faith.
  • Perseverance: Its broader understanding of salvation differs from the Reformed account of the perseverance of the saints.

Jerusalem is the most direct example in this list of an ecclesiastical body addressing doctrines identified with Calvinism after the Reformation.

One qualification: it was an Eastern Orthodox synod, so its decisions represent the doctrinal position of that church, rather than a universally binding judgment accepted by all Christian traditions.

Augustine, the Father of TULIP?
Examining the Historical Foundations of Augustinian-Calvinism

Introduction: Did Calvinism Begin with Augustine?

The five points of Calvinism, commonly summarized by the acronym TULIP, are among the most recognizable features of Reformed theology. They describe a system of salvation involving humanity’s inability to come to God apart from divine grace, God’s unconditional election of individuals, the particular intent of Christ’s atonement, the effectiveness of saving grace, and the perseverance of the saints.

But where did this theological framework originate?

Many Calvinists appeal to Augustine of Hippo (AD 354–430), one of the most influential theologians in Western Christianity. John Calvin himself acknowledged Augustine’s enormous influence on his theology. The question, therefore, is not whether Augustine influenced Calvinism. The more significant question is whether Augustine’s later teachings on determinism, election, grace, and perseverance supplied the historical foundation for the distinctive doctrines later associated with TULIP.

Kenneth M. Wilson directly addresses this question in two works:

  • The Foundation of Augustinian-Calvinism (2019), which develops his historical argument concerning Augustine’s theological development and the philosophical and religious influences he believes shaped it.
  • “Calvinism Is Augustinianism,” Chapter 6 of Calvinism: A Biblical and Theological Critique (2022), which presents a more concise version of his argument within a broader critique of Calvinism’s historical foundations.

Wilson makes a particularly strong claim: Augustine was the historical father of the theological framework underlying TULIP.

According to Wilson, Augustine’s later theology represented a significant departure from the earlier Christian emphasis on human freedom to respond to God’s gracious offer of salvation.

That conclusion is controversial. Nevertheless, Wilson’s historical argument raises an important question for anyone examining Calvinism:

Did Augustine recover the original Christian understanding of predestination, or did his later theology introduce a deterministic interpretation that substantially departed from earlier Christian thought?

1. Augustine’s Importance to Calvinism

Augustine is a towering figure in the history of Western Christianity. His writings influenced medieval theology, the Protestant Reformation, and subsequent debates about sin, grace, election, and salvation.

Wilson emphasizes that Calvin’s dependence on Augustine was substantial. In Calvinism Is Augustinianism, he quotes Calvin acknowledging that he could express his theology through Augustine’s writings. Wilson also notes that Calvin cited Augustine hundreds of times in his Institutes of the Christian Religion.

Wilson cites other Reformed writers who acknowledge this relationship. The Reformed theologian Loraine Boettner famously characterized the Reformation as essentially a revival of Augustinianism.

Wilson also cites Matthew McMahon’s (a Calvinist arguing in favor of Augustine’s influence on TULIP) argument that Augustine, rather than Calvin, had already systematized much of what later became known as the five points of Calvinism. These admissions establish an important historical connection: Calvin did not develop his theology in isolation. He inherited and adapted an extensive theological tradition, and Augustine was a major source within that tradition.

One aspect of Augustine’s understanding of grace needs further comment. As human beings were incapable of saving themselves, and as God gave his gift of grace to some (but not all), it followed that God had “preselected” those who would be saved. Developing hints of this idea to be found in the New Testament, Augustine developed a doctrine of predestination. The term “predestination” refers to God’s original or eternal decision to save some, and not others. It was this aspect of Augustine’s thought which many of his contemporaries, not to mention his successors, found unacceptable. It need hardly be said that there is no direct equivalent in Pelagius’s thought.

Alister E. McGrath, Historical Theology: An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought (Malden, MA: Wiley & Sons LTD, 2013), 34.

However, influence does not establish that Augustine and Calvin taught identical doctrines in every respect. The issue is the relationship between Augustine’s later theological framework and the distinctive doctrines subsequently associated with Calvinism.

The filtered systematization of the five points of Calvinism which have been brought to the modern church as the doctrines of grace were originally systematized and widely written on, not by Calvin, but by Augustine. This is why one finds that every four pages written in the Institutes of the Christian Religion John Calvin quoted Augustine. Calvin, for this reason, would deem himself not a Calvinist, but an Augustinian. And both Augustine and Calvin would really deem themselves children at the feet of Jesus Christ and the teachings of the Bible, especially quoting their favorites passages from the Apostle Paul over and over again.

They are Pauline, and bibline, to the glory of Jesus Christ. To work backwards, then, one moves from the doctrines of grace today, to the Synod of Dordt, to the Institutes of the Christian Religion by Calvin, to the writings of Augustine, to the Bible. The biblical record is the foundation for all that came after concerning grace. It is no wonder why Augustine, even in his own day, was deemed the “Doctor of Grace.” Here we turn to him for this study.

This work is concerned with the writings of Augustine to determine Augustine’s views on the doctrines of grace (or what has become to be known as Calvinism or TULIP) and if his views are the same as John Calvin‘s, or for that matter the Synod of Dordt, the Westminster Confession and other reformed viewpoints on the Gospel that have been since penned. Knowing that the Bible does not change, and the matters of faith and practice in the Bible do not change, one should find Augustine’s words and thoughts about grace lying within the same veins as any reformer who believed the Gospel of grace, or any Puritan afterwards. It is easy to see where the Reformers or Puritans believed these doctrines. Again, those who believe these doctrines are referred to as “Calvinists.” But why are they not referred to as Augustinians? This is the scope of the study. Is it determinable that instead of calling one who believes the doctrines of grace a Christian Calvinist, should they be more likely deemed an Augustinian Calvinist? Are those terms interchangeable? Did Augustine believe these doctrines in the same way that Calvin, or the later Puritans did, or even Calvinists today?

C. Matthew McMahon, Augustine’s Calvinism: The Doctrines of Grace in Augustine’s Writings (Coconut Creek, FL: Puritan Publications, 2012), 7–9.

2. The Turning Point: Augustine’s Development Toward Determinism

One of Wilson’s most important arguments concerns the development of Augustine’s theology over time.

Wilson distinguishes Augustine’s earlier Christian writings from his later writings on predestination, grace, and the human will.

According to Wilson, Augustine initially defended a view of human freedom that allowed people to respond to God’s gracious offer of salvation. During this period, Augustine opposed Manichaean teachings that made human destiny dependent on a unilateral divine determination that left no genuine alternative response.

Wilson argues that this changed around AD 412, during Augustine’s controversy with Pelagius and Caelestius.

In Wilson’s reconstruction, Augustine increasingly adopted a theology in which God determined who would receive saving grace and who would not. Human beings remained responsible for their actions, but their ability to respond positively to God depended on God’s prior and decisive intervention.

Wilson calls this a form of “non-free free will”: people act voluntarily according to their desires, but their ultimate spiritual condition and saving response are determined by divine action rather than an independently exercisable ability to accept or reject God’s offer.

Why does Wilson identify AD 412 as significant?

Wilson argues that Augustine’s theological transition has often been dated too early, particularly to his work Ad Simplicianum, traditionally associated with approximately AD 396.

Wilson contends that Augustine continued defending positions compatible with human freedom for years after that work. He argues that the decisive shift becomes apparent around AD 412, when Augustine’s response to the Pelagian controversy led him to reconsider the implications of infant baptism, original sin, grace, and election.

Wilson believes this controversy was crucial because it forced Augustine to explain why some infants received baptism while others died without it, even though infants could not personally choose or reject baptism.

Wilson reconstructs Augustine’s reasoning as follows:

  1. Baptism was understood to convey forgiveness of sins and the reception of the Holy Spirit.
  2. Infants could not personally choose baptism or exercise faith in the same manner as adults.
  3. Some infants received baptism, while others died without it.
  4. If baptism was necessary for salvation, the difference between those outcomes could not be explained by the infants’ own choices.
  5. Augustine therefore concluded that God determined which infants would receive saving grace.

Wilson argues that this reasoning helped move Augustine toward unconditional election and a more comprehensive theology of divine determinism. The important point is that Wilson does not portray Augustine’s later theology as simply an unchanged continuation of his earlier writings. He argues that Augustine’s understanding of grace and predestination developed substantially in response to particular theological controversies.

3. The Philosophical and Religious Background: Stoicism, Neoplatonism, and Manichaeism

Wilson’s argument goes beyond Augustine’s response to Pelagius. He contends that Augustine’s earlier philosophical and religious experiences influenced his later theology. In The Foundation of Augustinian-Calvinism, Wilson examines four major intellectual traditions: Stoicism, Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, and Manichaeism.

His contention is that certain deterministic concepts found in these traditions reappeared in Augustine’s later Christian writings.

A. Stoicism: Meticulous providence and determinism

Stoicism taught a comprehensive understanding of providence in which events occurred within an ordered causal structure governed by fate.

Wilson argues that Augustine retained a strong conception of meticulous divine providence even after becoming a Christian. In this understanding, God’s providential ordering encompasses not merely broad historical purposes but the specific events and circumstances of human life.

Wilson sees a significant parallel between this conception and theological determinism: if every event is comprehensively determined by divine providence, then human decisions ultimately occur within an order from which they cannot finally depart.

This raises a question central to the debate between Calvinism and Provisionism:

Does God’s sovereignty require Him to determine every human choice, or can God sovereignly govern His creation while allowing people genuinely to respond to His gracious call?

Provisionists answer that God’s sovereignty does not require exhaustive divine determination of every human decision. God can accomplish His purposes while permitting meaningful human responses to His commands and offers.

Wilson argues that Augustine’s later understanding of providence moved away from the earlier Christian emphasis on divine foreknowledge and human freedom.

B. Neoplatonism: The corrupted will and the need for divine restoration

Wilson also examines the influence he attributes to Neoplatonic philosophy, particularly the writings of Plotinus and Porphyry. He argues that certain Neoplatonic concepts supplied a framework in which humanity’s fallen condition rendered the human will incapable of choosing the good without divine restoration.

Within Wilson’s comparison, this resembles the later Calvinist doctrine of total inability: the sinner cannot produce the saving response God requires unless God first acts to overcome that inability.

Wilson further argues that Neoplatonic thought offered a way to reconcile the absence of genuine alternatives with personal responsibility. A person could act voluntarily according to an existing disposition even if that disposition and the resulting action were ultimately determined. For Wilson, this resembles the compatibilist understanding of freedom found in some forms of Calvinism.

The comparison is important, but it requires precision. Neoplatonism was a diverse philosophical tradition, and its concepts should not automatically be equated with the full Reformed doctrine of total depravity. Wilson is arguing for a historical and conceptual relationship, not demonstrating that every Neoplatonic teaching is identical to Calvinist theology.

C. Gnosticism: A divinely differentiated humanity

Wilson also discusses Gnostic teachings in which humanity was divided into different spiritual categories. In some Gnostic systems, only a predetermined group possessed the capacity to receive saving knowledge, while others lacked the ability to attain salvation.

Wilson sees a structural resemblance between this idea and unconditional election understood as God’s unilateral determination of who receives the ability to believe. His comparison concerns the unequal distribution of saving ability: salvation may be proclaimed broadly, but only those specially enabled by divine action can ultimately respond.

This comparison should not be mistaken for a claim that Calvinists accept Gnostic cosmology or the Gnostic distinction between a good spiritual realm and an evil material realm. They do not need to hold those beliefs for Wilson’s narrower comparison to be relevant.

Calvinists desire to stand out among complacent Christians who might not be as educated in biblical studies as they are. At face value, being intellectual about the Bible is not an error in itself. That is, until intellectualism takes over. Dr. Ron Comfort, president and founder of Ambassador Baptist College in Lattimore, North Carolina, has noticed this. He observes the similarities between the ancient heresy of Gnosticism and present day Calvinism. He notes what the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia writes about Gnosticism:

Gnosticism is Christianity perverted by a learning and speculation. The intellectual pride of the Gnostics refined away the gospel into a philosophy making salvation exclusive and not universal. They lived under the conviction that they possessed a mysterious knowledge that could only be understood by them.

Comfort concludes with the question, “Now, I wonder, does that sound like something that is prevalent in our land today?” The parallels between Calvinism and Gnosticism are stunning. By speculative and intellectual assumptions, both Gnosticism and Calvinism deviate from orthodox Christianity in concluding that salvation is exclusive.

Micah Coate, A Cultish Side of Calvinism (2011), chap. 3, “The Marks of a Cult within Calvinism,” 66–67.

  • Gnosticism, as presented in the quotation: Salvation is associated with special knowledge unavailable to everyone.
  • Calvinism, as Coate characterizes it: Saving grace is given effectively to the elect, while others are not given the ability to respond savingly.

The question is whether a theological system that restricts the effective ability to respond to a predetermined group shares a significant structural feature with earlier systems that similarly differentiated the saved from the unsaved.

D. Manichaeism: Inability and unilateral divine intervention

Manichaeism is particularly important in Wilson’s argument because Augustine spent approximately nine years as a Manichaean hearer before becoming a Christian.

THE CORE CONNECTIONS & ACCUSATIONS

  • Augustine’s Background: Critics point to Augustine of Hippo’s approximately nine years of involvement with Manichaeism, a religious movement with dualistic teachings, before his conversion to Christianity. Because Augustine’s writings significantly influenced John Calvin and later Reformed theology, critics question whether aspects of his earlier worldview influenced his understanding of sin and human nature. [1, 2]
  • Total Inability / Total Depravity: Manichaeism presented a deeply dualistic understanding of good and evil and the human condition. Critics argue that Calvinism’s doctrine of total inability—the “T” in TULIP, which teaches that fallen humanity cannot come to faith apart from God’s enabling grace—resembles this pessimistic view of human nature. [1, 2, 3, 4]
  • The Material World and the Flesh: Gnostic movements often viewed the material world as inferior, corrupt, or even evil, although Gnostic beliefs varied. Critics argue that Augustine’s teachings concerning original sin, its transmission through human generation, and the effects of sexual desire reflect a similar pessimism about embodied human existence. They further contend that aspects of this outlook carried into later Reformed theology. [1, 2]

Wilson contends that Augustine later returned to certain deterministic interpretations associated with his former religious environment, particularly when addressing the relationship between inherited sin, the human will, and saving grace.

In Wilson’s reconstruction, the human will cannot independently escape its corrupted condition. A decisive divine intervention must restore the capacity to respond, and this intervention is not equally effective for everyone.

Wilson argues that this pattern resembles the later Calvinist understanding of regeneration and effectual calling: saving grace does not merely offer assistance to a person who may respond; it effectively brings about the saving response in those whom God has chosen.

The important qualification is that resemblance does not establish identity. Manichaeism’s cosmology, its account of matter and evil, and its understanding of salvation differ fundamentally from historic Christian theology. Wilson’s argument concerns specific parallels in determinism, inability, and divine selection—not an assertion that Calvinism is simply Manichaeism under another name.

4. Augustine and the Five Points of TULIP

Wilson brings these historical arguments together in his discussion of the five points of Calvinism. He argues that Augustine’s later theology supplied the essential framework from which these doctrines developed.

It is important to remember that TULIP is a later summary of Reformed theology. Augustine did not write a work organized under that acronym, and the five points were not formally formulated in their familiar arrangement during his lifetime.

Wilson nevertheless argues that the underlying theological ideas can be traced to Augustine’s later writings.

T — Total Depravity or Total Inability

The question: Can fallen human beings respond to God’s gracious offer of salvation, or must God first regenerate them so that they can believe?

Wilson argues that Augustine’s later theology developed a particularly strong understanding of humanity’s inability.

According to Wilson, Augustine moved beyond the idea that humanity is sinful, morally weakened, and dependent on grace. He increasingly taught that fallen humanity lacked the ability to make a saving response to God unless God first intervened.

Wilson connects this development with Augustine’s changing understanding of original sin. He argues that Augustine’s later doctrine involved inherited guilt and condemnation, rather than merely the mortality, moral weakness, and propensity to sin associated with his earlier writings.

Wilson also examines Augustine’s interpretation of passages such as Romans 5:12 and Psalm 51:5, arguing that Augustine’s later conclusions differed from his earlier understanding.

For Wilson, this change was foundational because the remaining doctrines of TULIP followed logically once humanity was understood to be totally unable to respond to God.

The Provisionist objection:

Humanity’s universal sinfulness does not necessarily establish that people have no ability to respond to God’s gracious call. Provisionism maintains that fallen people cannot save themselves, earn salvation, or come to Christ independently of divine grace. Nevertheless, God graciously provides what is necessary for people to respond to the gospel.

The disagreement is not whether grace is necessary. It is whether grace must first regenerate a person in order to make faith possible.

U — Unconditional Election

The question: Does God choose individuals for salvation without reference to their response to His gracious offer, or is election conditional upon faith that God foreknows?

Wilson argues that Augustine’s later doctrine of election developed from his understanding of humanity’s inability and the necessity of divine intervention.

His discussion of infant baptism is central. Because infants could not personally exercise faith or choose baptism, Wilson argues that Augustine concluded their salvation depended on God’s unilateral decision to provide the means of salvation.

Wilson contends that Augustine then extended this logic to humanity more generally. God determines who receives the saving grace necessary for faith, while others do not receive that grace.

Wilson uses the term “Divine Unilateral Predetermination of Individuals’ Eternal Destinies” (DUPIED) to distinguish this form of determinism from election understood in relation to God’s foreknowledge of human responses.

In Wilson’s interpretation, Augustine’s later understanding of election resembles the unconditional election taught in Calvinism.

The Provisionist objection:

Conditional election does not mean that people earn their salvation. God determines the gracious provision and the condition under which its benefits are received. Faith is not payment for salvation; it is the means by which a person receives what God has provided in Christ.

Provisionists therefore distinguish God’s sovereign decision to save believers from the claim that God unconditionally determines which individuals will believe and which will remain unable to believe.

L — Limited Atonement

The question: Did Christ die with the intention of saving only the elect, or did He provide atonement for all humanity, with its saving benefits received by those who believe?

Wilson argues that limited atonement follows logically from Augustine’s later understanding of election and providence.

His reasoning is that if God unilaterally determines who will be saved, and God’s providential purposes cannot ultimately fail, then Christ’s atoning work must be understood in relation to the people God has determined to save.

Wilson believes Augustine’s later theology increasingly restricted the saving intent of Christ’s death to the elect. He examines Augustine’s attempts to interpret 1 Timothy 2:4, which says that God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Wilson argues that Augustine struggled to reconcile the universal language of this passage with his increasingly deterministic understanding of divine sovereignty.

An important qualification is necessary here: Wilson acknowledges that Augustine did not always state the later doctrine of limited atonement in the explicit form familiar from Reformed confessions. Wilson’s claim is that Augustine’s later premises implied a restriction of Christ’s saving work to the elect.

The Provisionist objection:

Universal atonement does not require universal salvation. Christ’s death can be sufficient and intended for all without every person receiving its saving benefits. The atonement is God’s provision; faith is the means of receiving its benefits.

The central question is whether Christ’s death was provided for all people or exclusively for those whom God unconditionally determined to save.

I — Irresistible Grace

The question: Can a person resist God’s gracious call to salvation, or does God’s saving grace unfailingly produce the response He intends?

Wilson argues that Augustine’s later theology treated saving grace as an effective divine action that brings about the sinner’s saving response.

He connects this understanding with the philosophical and religious traditions he believes influenced Augustine, particularly their emphasis on divine intervention to restore an otherwise incapable will.

Wilson’s argument is that once total inability and unconditional election are accepted, irresistible grace follows naturally. If only those unconditionally elected receive the grace necessary to believe, and God’s decision to save them cannot fail, then saving grace must effectively secure their response.

In this framework, the person believes willingly, but the ultimate outcome is determined by God’s prior action.

The Provisionist objection:

Grace can be necessary, powerful, and entirely initiated by God without being irresistible. God calls, draws, convicts, reveals, and provides. A person does not overpower God by resisting His grace; rather, God has sovereignly permitted a genuine response to His gracious initiative.

Provisionism rejects the assumption that God’s saving purpose must be accomplished by determining every person’s response to the gospel.

P — Perseverance of the Saints

The question: Is perseverance guaranteed to every genuinely regenerated believer, or does final salvation depend on a special divine gift that determines who will persevere?

Wilson gives this point a distinctive historical treatment.

He argues that Augustine developed the doctrine of a special gift of perseverance to explain why some people who had received baptism and the Holy Spirit continued in faith while others subsequently fell away.

In Augustine’s developing framework, according to Wilson, the initial reception of grace did not necessarily guarantee final perseverance. God therefore had to grant an additional gift to those who would ultimately persevere.

Wilson sees this as a historical precursor to the perseverance doctrine later incorporated into TULIP.

However, this is also where an important distinction appears. Augustine’s account of perseverance does not map neatly onto the modern Calvinist assertion that everyone who is genuinely regenerated will certainly persevere to the end. Wilson argues that Augustine’s baptismal theology allowed for people who had received the Holy Spirit to fall away without receiving the additional gift of perseverance.

The historical point:

Wilson is not simply claiming that Augustine and modern Calvinists used different words for precisely the same doctrine. He is arguing that Augustine developed a theological solution to a problem that later became part of the Reformed understanding of perseverance, while the details of the two positions differ.

5. How the Five Points Fit Together

Wilson’s argument is not that Augustine independently developed five unrelated doctrines. He believes the doctrines emerged as interconnected consequences of a more fundamental change in Augustine’s understanding of the human will, divine sovereignty, and saving grace.

His proposed sequence can be summarized as follows:

  1. Total inability: Fallen humanity cannot make a saving response without prior divine intervention.
  2. Unconditional election: God determines which individuals receive the grace necessary for salvation.
  3. Effectual grace: God acts to ensure that those chosen respond to His saving call.
  4. Limited atonement: The intent and application of Christ’s saving work are restricted to those God has determined to save.
  5. Perseverance: God grants the additional grace necessary to ensure the final salvation of those who will persevere.

This is a summary of Wilson’s historical and theological reconstruction, not a claim that Augustine himself presented the doctrines in this exact order or in the modern terminology of TULIP.

Wilson’s argument is that the system developed from a foundational premise:

God’s unilateral determination of the individual’s eternal destiny, rather than a genuine human response to God’s universally offered grace.

Once that premise is accepted, Wilson contends, the remaining doctrines follow with considerable logical consistency.

The Provisionist challenge is directed at the foundational premise itself. If Scripture teaches that God graciously provides salvation to all, genuinely calls people to believe, and permits them to accept or resist His call, then the remaining points of TULIP cannot simply be assumed to follow from God’s sovereignty.

6. What About the Early Church Fathers?

One of Wilson’s strongest historical claims is that Augustine’s later determinism represented a significant departure from earlier Christian thought.

In both works, Wilson argues that the earlier Christian tradition generally defended human freedom to respond to God’s gracious provision while rejecting forms of unilateral determinism associated with Stoicism and Gnostic or Manichaean teachings.

He discusses figures such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Origen. Wilson interprets their writings as evidence that early Christian authors generally affirmed divine foreknowledge, grace, and predestination without concluding that God unilaterally determined each individual’s eternal destiny independently of that person’s response.

He also argues that Augustine’s earlier writings were more consistent with this understanding before his later theological shift.

If Wilson’s historical reconstruction is correct, this raises a significant question for appeals to church tradition:

should Augustine’s later theology be treated as the definitive interpretation of the early Christian consensus, or should it be examined against the writings of earlier Christian authors?

7. From Augustine to Luther and Calvin

Wilson traces the subsequent influence of Augustine through the Protestant Reformation.

Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk, drew heavily on Augustine in his understanding of grace and the bondage of the will. His 1525 work The Bondage of the Will became a major statement of his rejection of the idea that fallen humanity could independently choose salvation.

John Calvin likewise drew extensively on Augustine. Wilson argues that Calvin’s theological system adopted and further developed Augustine’s later understanding of predestination, human inability, and divine sovereignty.

This helps explain the term Augustinian-Calvinism. It describes the historical and theological relationship between Augustine’s later doctrines and the Reformed system associated with Calvin.

Nevertheless, Calvinism is not a single, unchanging body of thought in every historical detail. Later Reformed theologians developed, refined, and systematized their doctrines, and Calvinists disagree among themselves on a number of issues.

The five points of Calvinism were formally articulated in their familiar confessional setting at the Synod of Dort (1618–1619), long after Augustine and Calvin. Wilson’s argument is therefore best understood as a claim about the historical roots of the underlying theological ideas, not the literal existence of the TULIP acronym in Augustine’s writings.

8. Does This Mean Calvinism Is Gnosticism or Manichaeism?

No—not in the sense that the systems are identical. This distinction is essential to a responsible historical critique.

Wilson argues that certain deterministic concepts in Augustine’s later theology bear significant similarities to concepts found in Stoicism, Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, and Manichaeism. He believes Augustine incorporated elements of these earlier systems into his Christian interpretation of Scripture.

That is a claim about intellectual influence, historical development, and structural resemblance.

It does not mean that Calvinists accept every doctrine of these ancient philosophical or religious traditions. Historic Calvinism affirms the Christian doctrines of creation, the incarnation, the Trinity, the resurrection, and the goodness of God’s creation—positions that distinguish it sharply from important aspects of Gnostic and Manichaean systems.

The relevant question is narrower:

Did certain concepts concerning determinism, human inability, selective divine intervention, and saving grace enter Augustine’s later theology through philosophical and religious influences that differed from earlier Christian teaching?

Wilson answers yes.

His critics dispute aspects of his historical reconstruction and the degree to which the similarities demonstrate actual doctrinal dependence.

A fair assessment should examine the primary sources, the chronology of Augustine’s writings, and the specific doctrines being compared rather than treating a historical resemblance as proof of complete theological identity.

9. The Provisionist Alternative: Grace Without Theological Determinism

For those approaching the question from a Provisionist perspective, the historical discussion raises a deeper theological issue.

Does God’s sovereignty require Him to determine every human decision, including who will believe the gospel? Or can God sovereignly provide salvation, initiate the work of grace, and genuinely call people to repentance and faith without determining their response?

Provisionism maintains that salvation is entirely dependent on God’s gracious provision in Jesus Christ. Fallen humanity cannot earn salvation or save itself. God initiates the work, Christ provides the atonement, and the gospel calls people to believe.

But the fact that salvation is entirely of grace does not necessarily mean that God must unilaterally determine which individuals will believe.

The five traditional Provisionist affirmations can be summarized this way:

  • Human sinfulness: All people are sinful and need God’s grace, but sinfulness does not automatically establish total inability to respond to God’s gracious call.
  • Conditional election: God determines the condition of faith for receiving salvation; believers do not earn their election or salvation.
  • Universal atonement: Christ’s atoning work is provided for all humanity, although not everyone receives its saving benefits.
  • Resistible grace: God graciously calls and enables people to respond, but His gracious invitation can be resisted.
  • Faith and perseverance: Faith is not a meritorious work, and genuine Christian faith is to be lived out in continuing trust and obedience to Christ.

These affirmations do not deny God’s sovereignty or the necessity of grace. They reject the conclusion that grace must operate through the unilateral determination of every individual’s saving response.

From this perspective, Wilson’s historical argument is relevant because it challenges the assumption that theological determinism is the only possible way to understand divine sovereignty, election, and grace.

Conclusion: Examining the Foundation Rather Than Merely the System

Kenneth Wilson’s The Foundation of Augustinian-Calvinism and his chapter “Calvinism Is Augustinianism” offer a sustained historical challenge to the idea that the distinctive doctrines of Calvinism simply represent the uncontested teaching of the earliest Christian tradition.

Wilson argues that Augustine’s later theology departed from his own earlier emphasis on human freedom and developed a deterministic framework influenced, in Wilson’s interpretation, by Stoicism, Neoplatonism, and Manichaeism. He further argues that this framework became a major historical foundation for the theology later associated with Calvin and the five points of TULIP.

His most important contention is that total inability and unconditional election were foundational changes from which the other doctrines followed. He sees irresistible grace, limited atonement, and perseverance as interconnected consequences of Augustine’s later understanding of divine providence and saving grace.

These are substantial claims, and they should not be treated as established merely because Wilson presents them forcefully. His historical reconstruction is contested, and Calvinist theologians offer alternative readings of Augustine and the early church fathers.

Nevertheless, the questions he raises deserve serious consideration:

  • Did Augustine’s theology of predestination develop significantly during his controversy with Pelagius?
  • How did Augustine’s earlier philosophical and religious experiences affect his later understanding of divine providence?
  • To what extent did Calvin inherit Augustine’s later theology, and where did later Reformed theology develop it further?
  • Does the early Christian evidence support the claim that theological determinism was the original Christian understanding of salvation?
  • Does God’s sovereignty require the unilateral determination of every individual’s eternal destiny, or can God sovereignly provide salvation while allowing a genuine response to His grace?

For Provisionists, the central concern is not simply whether Augustine influenced Calvin. That influence is well established. The deeper concern is whether the deterministic features of Augustine’s later theology faithfully represent the biblical teaching on God’s character, universal saving provision, divine grace, and human responsibility.

The historical question and the biblical question must ultimately be considered together. A doctrine’s antiquity does not prove its truth, and a doctrine’s later development does not automatically disprove it. Each must be tested against Scripture and examined in its historical context.

The issue, then, is not whether Augustine was an important Christian theologian. It is whether the particular theological framework that developed in his later writings—and that Wilson identifies as the foundation of Augustinian-Calvinism—provides the most faithful account of God’s sovereignty and His gracious offer of salvation to humanity.

BONUS:

Allie Beth Stuckey gets early church history wrong:

God Provides, Faith Receives: A Five-Point Defense of Provisionism

Published by Papa Giorgio

I got a challenge to this graphic I made (which was a response to this one)… the graphic is first, then the polite challenge:

M.M. has another response version to the Calvinist one to view as well.

Here are the questions:

  1. If mankind is not depraved from birth to adulthood then are we to say we are neutral creatures?
  2. So election depends on who comes forward rather those who are selected for salvation?
  3. Would this make Christ atonement a failure we do know that not everyone will be saved yet the atonement were meant for everyone? Cuz the purpose of Christ death is to save and if someone didnt come forward for salvation so what Christ paid is gone to waste?
  4. So Holy Spirit is reduced to a persons free will decision to overcome it rather than accept it? What if corruption has been acquired and formed in someones life from child to adulthood that it leeches to them on how they think and act, so it means they have lost all hope?
  5. So if Faith is not a gift but rather a response out of free will then we are the ones whos maintaining our Salvation? right? So free will plays a big part of whether or not we will be saved at the end of the day cuz the moment we fail on exercising our faith we are doomed? So we are ought to be perfect in order for us to be deemed worthy of salvation?

So lets deal with these a little, if only to post to fill space on RPT.

1) IF MANKIND IS NOT DEPRAVED FROM BIRTH TO ADULTHOOD
THEN ARE WE TO SAY WE ARE NEUTRAL CREATURES?

The Provisionist/Traditional Baptist position in your sources is not:

“Humans are born morally neutral and therefore don’t really need grace.”

It is:

Humans are born into a sinful condition, inherit a nature and environment inclined toward sin, inevitably sin, and desperately need God’s grace—but they are not born guilty of Adam’s personal sin or rendered incapable of responding to God’s gracious gospel.

In Anyone Can Be Saved (Article 2: The Sinfulness of Man) his distinction is explicitly stated:

humanity inherits “a nature and environment inclined toward sin,” and every morally capable person sins, but Adam’s sin does not itself incapacitate someone’s will or make that person guilty before personally sinning. (Article 2 from the Journal for Baptist Theology and Ministry [JBTM] Volume 9 number 2 [Fall 2012])

That gives you a useful three-category distinction:

Calvinism:

Neutralism/Pelagianism:

Provisionist/Traditional Baptist position:

That’s why the Provisionism graphic says:

“Humanity Is Sinful and Lost, Yet God’s Grace Enables a Genuine Response.”

That’s the important middle position.

And Saved by Grace through Faith or Saved by Decree? makes essentially the same argument: Robinson distinguishes depravity from the Calvinistic claim of total inability, arguing that people can be deeply corrupted without that corruption making gospel response metaphysically impossible. So the answer to the first challenge is:

“No. We aren’t saying man is neutral. We’re saying sinful does not mean incapable of responding to God’s grace.”

2) SO ELECTION DEPENDS ON WHO COMES FORWARD
RATHER THOSE WHO ARE SELECTED FOR SALVATION?

This is probably the most important clarification to address. The answer is this, and it is simple [like the Gospel]:

God’s grace establishes the condition of salvation; faith does not earn election.

The Anyone Can Be Saved statement describes election as God’s eternal plan “in Christ” to have a people who are His by repentance and faith. It specifically rejects the idea that God predestines some individuals to salvation and others to condemnation irrespective of their response. AW Tozer says that “God’s sovereign decree establishes the destination and the conditions, without requiring God to decree which individual will make the choice.”

Robinson makes the same distinction in his discussion of Ephesians 1:

believers are chosen in Christ, and he argues that the New Testament presents election to salvation as involving union with Christ through faith and repentance. Saved by Grace through Faith or…

So saying that “Man chooses himself for salvation” is the wrong way to frame it.

That’s too strong and makes the objection easy. It should be stated as:

God chooses the terms of salvation; man does not choose the terms. God graciously provides Christ, the atonement, the gospel and the call to repent and believe. The sinner responds to that provision. Chafer notes, about 115 passages condition salvation on believing alone, and another 35 simply on faith.

Faith isn’t competing with God’s sovereignty. Faith is the condition God established for receiving His gracious provision.

Faith does not earn salvation; it receives the salvation God has graciously provided.

And that’s why Ephesians 2:8–9 is so important: the response of faith doesn’t become a meritorious work simply because it is genuinely exercised by the person. The Anyone Can Be Saved statement explicitly says grace takes the initiative and that faith is not a meritorious work earning salvation.

Article Four: The Grace of God

We affirm that grace is God’s generous decision to provide salvation for any person by taking all of the initiative in providing atonement, in freely offering the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit, and in uniting the believer to Christ through the Holy Spirit by faith.

We deny that grace negates the necessity of a free response of faith or that it cannot be resisted. We deny that the response of faith is in any way a meritorious work that earns salvation.

Ezra 9:8; Proverbs 3:34; Zechariah 12:10; Matthew 19:16–30, 23:37; Luke 10:1–12; Acts 15:11; 20:24; Romans 3:24, 27–28; 5:6, 8, 15–21; Galatians 1:6; 2:21; 5; Ephesians 2:8–10; Philippians 3:2–9; Colossians 2:13–17; Hebrews 4:16; 9:28; 1 John 4:19.

3) IF CHRIST DIED FOR EVERYONE BUT NOT EVERYONE IS SAVED,
DID CHRIST’S ATONEMENT FAIL?

This objection confuses “Provision” with “application.” The atonement can be:

Universal in provision

without being

universal in application.

That’s exactly the distinction Robinson makes.

He argues that the objective work of the cross is universal while its saving benefits are received by the individual through faith. Therefore, the fact that not everyone is saved does not mean Christ’s death failed. Saved by Grace through Faith or…

In Anyone Can Be Saved the authors are even more explicit. Article 3 says Christ’s sacrifice is the effective sacrifice for the sins of every person, while denying that the atonement automatically results in salvation without repentance and faith. It also explicitly denies that Christ died only for those who will ultimately be saved.

So:

Did Christ die for people who reject Him?

YES.

Does that mean those people are automatically saved?

No.

Does their rejection make Christ’s sacrifice defective?

No.

The cross accomplished what God intended it to accomplish: a sufficient and universal provision of redemption, which is savingly appropriated through faith.

Think of the distinction:

Faith simply receives what Christ provided. That’s why the objection: “What Christ paid is gone to waste” … doesn’t follow.

The cross isn’t a transaction in which Christ failed to save someone because that person rejected the benefit.

4) ISN’T THE HOLY SPIRIT REDUCED TO SOMEONE’S FREE WILL OVERCOMING HIM?

No. And this is where “resistible grace” is often badly characterized. Provisionist’s do not present the sinner as standing there with equal power to God and saying:

“My free will is stronger than the Holy Spirit!”

That’s not the argument.

The Anyone Can Be Saved statement actually describes grace as God taking all the initiative:

God provides the atonement, freely offers the gospel through the Holy Spirit, and unites the believer to Christ through the Spirit by faith. [adapted from — Anyone Can Be Saved, Article 4: “The Grace of God”]

It then specifically denies that grace cannot be resisted. THAT’S a radically different picture from:

“Man overpowers God.”

Rather:

God initiates.

God provides Christ.

God sends the gospel.

The Spirit convicts and draws.

The sinner is confronted with God’s gracious offer.

The sinner may receive or resist.

Robinson similarly describes God’s drawing, gospel proclamation, Christ’s cross and the Spirit’s conviction of the world as expressions of God’s grace available to everyone, while explicitly arguing that such grace can be resisted. Pastor Rogers puts it thus via an older post:

  • Within the Non-Calvinist camp, there are at least two nuanced views on how God allows sinners to respond in faith. The first view is the Arminian view — which says that God’s work of grace (prevenient grace) for all people is needed to enable any sinner to freely choose to respond in faith to the Gospel message. The second view is the Provisionist View — which says that the Gospel message itself [see more below]  is God’s work of grace so that when it is preached to all people, any sinner can freely choose to respond in faith. The proclamation of the Gospel is powerfully sufficient enough to bring salvation to those who will believe. While the Arminian and the Provisionist each have a different take on why all humans can respond to God’s offer, these two views both affirm the importance of God’s initiative of grace to invite all sinners to salvation. (from the book Grace For All: Understanding God’s Plan of Salvation).

— Michael R. Cariño

The “More Below”

Grace Enablements

Includes but are not limited to: God’s salvific love for all (John 3:16), God’s manifestation of his power so that all may know he is the Sovereign (Isa 45:21–22) and Creator (Rom 1:18–20), which assures that everyone has opportunity to know about him. Christ paying for all sins (John 1:29), conviction of the Holy Spirit (John 16:7–11), working of the Holy Spirit (Heb 6:1–6), enlightening of the Son (John 1:9), God’s teaching (John 6:45), God opening minds and hearts (Luke 24:45; Acts 16:14; 26:17–18;), and the power of the Gospel (Rom 1:16), without such redemptive grace, no one seeks or comes to God (Rom 3:11).

Because of these gracious provisions and workings of God, man can choose to seek and find God (Jer 29:13; Acts 17:11–12). Moreover, no one can come to God without God calling (Acts 2:39), drawing (John 6:44), and that God is drawing all individuals (John 12:32). The same Greek word for draw, helkuō, is used in both verses. “About 115 passages condition salvation on believing alone, and about 35 simply on faith.” Other grace enablements may include providential workings in and through other people, situations, and timing or circumstances that are a part of grace to provide an opportunity for every individual to choose to follow Christ.

These are grace enablements in at least three ways; first, they are provided by God’s grace rather than deserved by mankind; second, the necessary components for each and every individual to have a genuine opportunity to believe unto salvation are provided or restored by God; third, they are provided by God without respect to whether the individual will believe or reject, which response God knew in eternity past.

The offer of the Gospel is unconditional, but God sovereignly determined to condition the reception of the offer upon grace-enabled faith; therefore, faith is not reflective of a work or virtue of man, but of God’s sovereign plan of salvation by grace through faith (Eph 2:8). This indicates faith is the means to being regenerated and saved, not the reason for being saved. This truth of Scripture does not imply God is held captive to the choice of man, but rather it demonstrates God in eternity coextensively determined to create man with otherwise choice and provide a genuine offer of salvation, which can be accepted by grace-enabled faith or rejected. Additionally, to fulfill this plan, God is not obligated to disseminate the Gospel to people he knows have rejected the light he has given them (Rom 1:18–23) and will also reject the Gospel; although he may still send the Gospel to them.

So the question: “What if corruption has formed in someone’s life from childhood to adulthood?” — actually reinforces the need for grace.

The answer isn’t:

“People don’t need grace because they’re basically good.”

It is:

“They desperately need grace precisely because they are deeply corrupted.”

The disagreement is over whether that corruption means:

And there’s an important logical point:

Influence ≠ inability.

A person’s upbringing, habits, addictions, worldview, family, trauma, culture, desires, etc. can profoundly influence how he responds without establishing that he possesses zero capacity to respond to God’s revelation and grace.

So grace can be resisted… but our next dealing is with: assurance / security / apostasy / perseverance.

Those are related, but they’re actually two different questions:

  • Question A: Can a person resist God’s gracious call before salvation?
  • Question B: Once a person believes, what guarantees his salvation and what is the basis of assurance?

5) IF FAITH IS A RESPONSE, AREN’T WE MAINTAINING SALVATION?

This is the strongest objection rhetorically—but it also sneaks in another false equation: Human response = human merit.

It doesn’t follow.

Grace provides salvation; faith receives it.

And it specifically denies that the response of faith is a meritorious work. When Calvinists say “total depravity,” does that mean man cannot believe the gospel, or does it merely mean man cannot do anything meritorious enough to earn God’s favor?

We might raise a question at this point as to whether to understand total depravity as the lack of ability to believe (have faith) or just as the lack of ability to do something like perform a meritorious work that would obtain God’s favor. It is suggested here that the Dortian Calvinist position is both internally logically invalid and externally contradictory as it relates to the requirement to believe in Christ as the only means through which one might receive eternal life as a gift. Faith, not human works, is biblically the means through which regeneration is received from the Spirit. It is never said to be the inevitable ensuing result of such regeneration. We are not called on to be regenerated in order to believe, but we are obliged to believe as a condition for regeneration unto eternal life to take place. A life lived by faith after regeneration defines who are the overcomers in the realm of Christian life and demonstrates spiritual growth toward maturity.

A. Strong inability

The sinner cannot believe in Christ without first being regenerated.

B. Merit inability

The sinner cannot earn salvation through good works, but can nevertheless respond to God’s gracious offer in faith.

So: Faith, not human works, is biblically the means through which regeneration is received from the Spirit.

The end of that very long sentence in Ephesians says:

  • In him you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed. 14 The Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of the possession, to the praise of his glory.

HEARD THE GOSPEL BELIEVED IN CHRIST SEALED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT
THE SPIRIT IS THE GUARANTEE OF OUR INHERITANCE

The basis of assurance isn’t:

“I know I’m saved because I have successfully demonstrated sufficient perseverance.”

Rather, Paul points believers to God’s action and promise:

He seals the believer with His Spirit, and the Spirit is the guarantee of the inheritance.

And there’s an important grammatical detail, Ephesians 1:13 says:

“having believed, you were sealed…”

The Greek participle pisteusantes (“having believed”) precedes esphragisthēte (“you were sealed”). So the text naturally presents believing sealing, rather than requiring us to insert a prior regeneration faith sequence into the passage. Then verse 14 describes the Spirit as:

“the guarantee [arrabōn] of our inheritance…”

That word carries the idea of a pledge, deposit, or down payment guaranteeing what is to come.

And “if I stumble, I’m doomed” is not the position. This is another important distinction.

There is a huge difference between:

“I sinned.”

and

“I deliberately and finally renounce Christ and abandon the faith.”

Robinson specifically describes apostasy in the latter terms. He says the issue isn’t accidentally “losing” salvation, but a willful, deliberate decision to abandon or renounce the faith.

The crucial question in the case of apostasy concerns whether a true believer in Christ can at some point in their lives forsake their faith, or fall from grace. A common but unhelpful term is “lose one’s salvation.” The problem with this way of stating the issue is that it is too close to being something that happens accidentally—similar to “I lost my glasses.” But here we are not talking about something in the Christian’s life that happens accidentally, but rather is a willful, deliberate decision and choice to abandon or renounce the faith. To the question as to whether a Christian can fall from grace in a final sense, typically at least three different answers have been given. The Calvinist says no; the non-Calvinist says yes; and a third position says, “Theoretically Yes, but in practice, No” (hypothetical apostasy). — Oops – I Thought I Was a Four Point Calvinist

So the challenger’s formulation:

“the moment we fail on exercising our faith we are doomed”

doesn’t accurately represent the position.

It turns apostasy into ordinary Christian failure.

But the New Testament itself distinguishes falling into sin from abandoning Christ.

Its Article 9 of Anyone Can Be Saved, says that when a person responds in faith, God promises to complete the process of salvation into eternity. It describes justification, sanctification by the indwelling Spirit, and glorification—and explicitly says the Holy Spirit-sealed relationship cannot be broken.

Article Nine: The Security of the Believer

We affirm that when a person responds in faith to the gospel, God promises to complete the process of salvation in the believer into eternity. This process begins with justification, whereby the sinner is immediately acquitted of all sin and granted peace with God; continues in sanctification, whereby the saved are progressively conformed to the image of Christ by the indwelling Holy Spirit; and concludes in glorification, whereby the saint enjoys life with Christ in heaven forever.

We deny that this Holy Spirit-sealed relationship can ever be broken. We deny even the possibility of apostasy.

John 10:28–29; 14:1–4; Romans 3:21–26; 8:29–30, 35–39; 2 Corinthians 4:17; Ephesians 1:13–14; Philippians 1:6; 3:12; Colossians 1:21–22; 2 Timothy 1:12; Hebrews 13:5; James 1:12; 1 John 2:19; 3:2; 5:13–15; Jude 24–25.

Here are the Journal articles published on the position, full PDFs linked in pictures:

So Traditional Southern Baptist/Provisionist thought isn’t necessarily identical to an Arminian “you can lose salvation every time you stumble” position.

“I know I am saved because I have believed Christ’s promise; my assurance rests on God’s testimony and Christ’s finished work, not on successfully measuring my future perseverance.” — Pastor Andy Woods

This is someone who can be said walked away from the faith:

SO TO RECAP

  1. Sinfulness doesn’t require total inability. We can be thoroughly sinful without being incapable of responding to God’s gracious revelation.
  2. Conditional election doesn’t mean man earns election. God determines the condition—repentance and faith—and salvation remains entirely God’s gracious provision.
  3. Universal atonement doesn’t require universal salvation. Christ’s death provides salvation for all, while its saving benefits are received only by those who believe.
  4. Resistible grace doesn’t mean man overpowers the Holy Spirit. God initiates, draws, convicts, reveals, and provides; the sinner can nevertheless resist that gracious work.
  5. Faith isn’t a meritorious work. Trusting Christ doesn’t make Christ’s work unnecessary; faith is the means by which the sinner receives what Christ accomplished—and assurance rests on God’s promise and Christ’s finished work, not on successfully measuring future performance.

These are my rough notes to a Bible study I am still in with people from a church I left due to the increase in Calvinism from the shadows to the forefront. You will find a lot about “assurance of faith” vs. the “perseverance” many have in mind. This does not mean I settle the question, but it may add thinking to your understanding of our position.

BOTTOM LINE:

Debating TULIP on X (Quick Hits)

Published by Papa Giorgio

This is from a debate [of sorts] from X… really they are a series of snipes from INTJ68, So I will post his challenge, my response…. it’ll be choppy, but that is the nature of the WWW – I just want to get it on here to keep.

It started with this being posted on Dinesh D’Souza’s X:

INTJ68 responded with this… proof texts, not dissimilar to J-Dubs proving Jehovah is Unitarian, and “disproving” the Trinity, or Mormons “showing” the Trinity is three completely separate God’s, all born through sexual acts:

I responded that these “proof” texts have been responded to, giving three examples [one mine]:

 Just to name a few.

INTJ68 responded with clarity… LOL. He said this followed by the meme: “Nobody cares. Your team is a theology trash can of heresy.”

Kinda funny, I like the “Flowers” dig. So I responded in kind: “Lol. You care enough to grab a meme? Lol.”

[Bro, I am the “memester”] After those this series took place:

[This was the linked post of mine at the bottom: Reformational Determinism Undermines the Christian Witness]

Again, INTJ68

I Respond:

This is where John Hendryx’s admission becomes particularly important…. (From a post of mine I will link after the two videos)

Hendryx explains that theologians use “compatibilism” to reconcile God’s sovereignty with human responsibility, but he explicitly acknowledges that “compatibilism is a form of determinism” and is “no less deterministic than hard determinism.” The Calvinist answer, therefore, is not to deny that God determines human choices, but to argue that a person can still be morally responsible for a choice that God has determined him to make. In other words, compatibilism doesn’t solve the determinism problem by denying that human choices are determined; it attempts to reconcile determinism with human responsibility by insisting that a determined choice can still be considered the person’s responsible choice.

And that is precisely where the problem arises. If God determines that one person will believe and another will remain in unbelief—and the latter cannot believe unless God first regenerates him—then what does “responsibility” actually mean? The Calvinist can say the unbeliever willingly rejects Christ, but the deeper question remains: could he have done otherwise without God first giving him the ability to do otherwise? If the answer is no, then simply calling him “responsible” does not explain how responsibility works; it merely asserts it.

…continued…

The founder of Monergism .com says that “compatibilism is a form of determinism” and is “no less deterministic than hard determinism.”

John MacArthur, however, shows why that distinction raises a profound problem. He argues that if God is the primary cause and humans are merely secondary causes moved by that primary cause, then the determinism ultimately extends to the secondary cause as well. God is the one who ultimately “decided,” “compelled,” and “coerced” the action. In other words, the human being remains the immediate or secondary cause of the action, but that secondary cause itself is also determined by the primary cause. God remains the ultimate determining cause behind both the action and the secondary cause through which that action occurs.

You miss-define sovereignty to mean that God exhaustively controls everything.  So does all the “Reformed” Baptist and Calvinists I listed in a previous post.

INTJ68

I Respond:

Also, did God decree and ordain me to believe in Provisionism?

  • “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.” — John Calvin, Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, tr. J. K. S. Reid, p.175f

If God determines all things—including the interior affections and thoughts that precede our actions—then He determined the chain of thoughts, desires, experiences, and circumstances by which I came to believe Provisionism. As Calvin put it, God “worked in [our] hearts to make [us] will before [we] acted.”

So my belief in Provisionism is, on your own system, part of that determined chain. Why, then, mock me for believing what your theology says God determined me to believe? Before you call my theology “trash,” explain why your system requires God to determine the very thoughts and convictions you are condemning me for having.

INTJ68 said “Lol, you people always do the meme.” and then posted a meme. I did note he started this all essentially with a trash can meme.

I Respond:

Sorry Charlie, you are fighting the Paul Washers of your heretical faith

JOHN CALVIN

“… 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.

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.

JOHN M. FRAME

“The Reformed agree that God knows what would happen under all conditions, but they reject the notion that this knowledge is ever ultimately based on man’s autonomous decisions. Human decisions, they argue, are themselves the effects of God’s eternal decrees.”

— “Scientia Media,” Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 2nd ed., ed. Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 1075.

JOHN PIPER

“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.”

— Desiring God

MARK TALBOT

 “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 energeō, 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 … 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.”

— In John Piper and Justin Taylor, eds., Suffering and the Sovereignty of God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2006), 42.

How bout Macarthur, Sproul, Piper and others. I grant that some “say” compatibilism, but people are not thinking to the logical conclusion of it. What is free will compatible with? Theistic determinism? That crumbles un the law of non-contradiction. Sproul teaches double predestination…. so where is the “compatiblism” in that. You are fighting not me, but ….

John Calvin, Theodore Beza, William Perkins, Francis Turretin, Amandus Polanus, Girolamo Zanchi, John Owen, Thomas Goodwin, Stephen Charnock, Jonathan Edwards, A. A. Hodge, Charles Hodge, B. B. Warfield, R. L. Dabney, William G. T. Shedd, Herman Bavinck, Abraham Kuyper, Louis Berkhof, Cornelius Van Til, Gordon H. Clark, R. C. Sproul, John Piper, John MacArthur, J. I. Packer, James Montgomery Boice, Sinclair Ferguson, R. C. Sproul Jr., Michael Horton, Wayne Grudem, Thomas Schreiner, Albert Mohler, Paul Washer, James White

INTJ68

I Respond:

Thank you for proving my point. Took a while to get here. Notice what is happening here. Paul Washer says we are ‘free to will,’ but only according to our nature—and then says our fallen nature guarantees evil until God gives us a new heart. That’s not an explanation of libertarian free will; it’s an explanation of compatibilist freedom. The real question isn’t whether we voluntarily do what we want. The question is whether we could have done otherwise. If my nature determines what I will want, and God must first change that nature before I can choose Christ, then saying ‘you’re free to will’ doesn’t establish libertarian freedom—it simply redefines freedom so that determinism can still be called free will.

If the fallen man is genuinely free to choose Christ, why does he need God to give him a new heart before he can choose Christ? But if he cannot choose Christ until God changes his nature, then what exactly was his ‘free will’ doing in the first place?

FREE THINKING MINISTRIES: Free Will, Calvinism, & Romans 9

Another quick drive by continuing the above:

I respond:

It was the first 380 years of the church…. Augustinian Determinism VS. The Early Church (Updated)

And another dumb dig:

I respond:

Pelagius did not actually believe that—well, not quite. Of the fourteen charges brought against him, he accepted only half of one.

“So you deny original sin? Then you’re a Pelagian.”

That charge has been around for a long time. Luther, for example, attacked Zwingli’s view of original sin as Pelagian. But Zwingli did not simply deny that Adam’s fall affected the rest of humanity. He taught that Adam’s sin left humanity with an inherited condition of corruption, misery, bondage, and death; what he rejected was the idea that Adam’s guilt itself was personally imputed to his descendants.

That is what makes Ali Bonner’s historical analysis so useful. “Pelagianism” was not the name of a neat, clearly defined theological system into which everyone who disagreed with Augustine could be placed. Bonner argues that the category was shaped through controversy, and that the historical record is much messier than the formula “deny original sin = Pelagian” suggests. Pelagius himself believed that Adam’s sin affected his descendants, even though he rejected Augustine’s account of inherited original sin. A different view of Adam, original sin, or inherited guilt, then, does not by itself make someone a Pelagian.

A useful comparison is the label “trickle-down economics.” It became a standard way to describe—and criticize—Reagan-era economic policy, though Reagan did not use the phrase to define his own program. His administration spoke instead about cutting tax rates, encouraging growth, and supply-side economics. Nor did the broader idea begin with Reagan. JFK also pushed for major tax cuts, arguing that “tax rates are too high” and that stronger economic growth would ultimately increase revenue. He is also remembered for the line, “a rising tide lifts all boats.”

Of course, the point is not that Pelagianism and “trickle-down economics” are the same kind of thing. The comparison is about how quickly a polemical label can take the place of describing what someone actually believes.

So before calling someone a Pelagian, it is worth asking whether that person actually holds Pelagius’s theology—or merely has a different account of how Adam’s sin is transmitted and what its consequences are.

That is all I feel like cataloging here. Gotta go prep for the work week.

The Good Samaritan Test | Plus: The TULIP Blip

Published by Papa Giorgio

artly inspired by a PragerU video and some art/memes by some Facebook compatriots.

John Calvin himself wrote about God passing by certain people and excluding them from the inheritance predestined for His children. That language is precisely what makes the imagery of the Good Samaritan so provocative. Imagine the scene:

A man is dying on the roadside.

Jesus walks toward him.

The man cries for help.

And Jesus says:

“Let’s pass by on the other side.”

That picture is deliberately jarring.

WHY?

Because it is fundamentally contrary to the picture Jesus Himself gave us of mercy.

THE THEOLOGICAL TENSION

There are many arguments against Calvinism that begin with complicated questions about election, predestination, regeneration, or the interpretation of Romans and Ephesians. But there is another way to approach the question—one that goes straight to the character of God:

What does genuine love and mercy look like?

Jesus gave us a remarkably simple answer. In Luke 10, a man is beaten, robbed, stripped, and left half dead on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. A priest sees him and passes by. A Levite sees him and passes by. But a Samaritan sees him, has compassion on him, approaches him, binds his wounds, provides for him, and makes sure he receives further care.

Jesus then asks which man proved to be the neighbor. The answer was obvious: the one who showed mercy. The point is important because Jesus introduced the parable in response to the question,

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

The discussion had centered on loving God with all one’s heart and loving one’s neighbor as oneself. When the lawyer asked, “And who is my neighbor?”, Jesus answered by telling the story of the Good Samaritan. In other words, Jesus didn’t merely define love abstractly. He gave us a picture of what love does when it encounters someone in desperate need.

It doesn’t walk around the other side of the road.

It doesn’t say, “I could help, but I have chosen not to.”

It doesn’t leave the dying man where he is while congratulating itself for having a sovereign reason for doing so.

It stops. It has compassion. It acts. It shows mercy.

That is precisely why the Good Samaritan provides such a powerful theological test.

KEY: The Samaritan isn’t more loving than God

The Samaritan is not the standard above God. He is the example Jesus Himself selected to illustrate what loving one’s neighbor looks like. And that raises a profoundly important question:

Would Jesus command His followers to demonstrate a form of love and mercy that is somehow greater than the love and mercy God Himself possesses?

Soteriology 101 makes a similar argument from 1 Corinthians 13. Paul doesn’t merely tell us that love exists; he describes its character: love is patient, kind, not self-seeking, not easily angered, and persevering. The article argues that Christians are commanded to love even their enemies because this reflects the character of their heavenly Father. If we are called to imitate God in this way, then God’s own love cannot reasonably be portrayed as falling short of the kind of love He commands His children to demonstrate.

Dave Hunt presses the question even further in What Love Is This? His argument is not that Calvinists simply deny that God is loving. RATHER, he argues that Calvinism’s doctrines of unconditional election, reprobation, limited atonement, and irresistible grace create a picture in which God’s saving love and mercy are deliberately restricted to the elect. Hunt points out that Calvinists themselves can speak of God’s love while simultaneously maintaining that God chose not to provide the same saving provision for the non-elect.

That distinction is important. The question isn’t, “Do Calvinists say God is loving?” Of course many Reformed determinists emphatically do. The more penetrating question is:

What does God’s love actually look like toward those whom Reformed theology says God has passed over?

Hunt specifically points to this tension in his discussion of God’s character. He notes that Calvinism can place such overwhelming emphasis upon God’s sovereignty that God’s love, mercy, and grace toward the lost become secondary or restricted to the elect. He even cites R.C. Sproul acknowledging the difficult implication:

“If some people are not elected unto salvation then it would seem that God is not at all that loving toward them.”

Hunt’s objection is that this qualification sits uneasily with the biblical presentation of God’s love as infinite and perfect. And this brings us back to the Good Samaritan.

Jesus doesn’t portray mercy as something that should be extended only to a predetermined class of people. The Samaritan encounters a person in desperate need and responds with compassion. He sees the need, he has mercy, and he acts. So the challenge isn’t that the Calvinist refuses to call God loving. The challenge is whether the kind of love attributed to God within the Reformed/Calvinistic determinist system is consistent with the kind of love Jesus commands us to embody.

If Jesus tells us to love our enemies, show mercy to the unworthy, and come to the aid of those in desperate need because this reflects the character of our heavenly Father, then the question becomes unavoidable:

Would Jesus command His followers to display a broader compassion toward the needy than God Himself displays toward the lost?

That is the tension the Good Samaritan graphic is intended to illustrate.

This isn’t an argument that every Calvinist personally lacks compassion. Obviously, that would be unfair and demonstrably false. Nor does the parable, by itself, settle every question concerning election and salvation.

Rather, it raises a character-of-God question that deserves an answer:

If mercy toward the helpless is one of the clearest demonstrations of goodness that Jesus gives us, how can we understand a theology in which God sovereignly withholds the saving provision from people whom He could save?

That is the heart of the objection.

The Good Samaritan doesn’t ask whether the wounded man belongs to the right ethnic group.

He doesn’t ask whether the man has already demonstrated sufficient worthiness.

He doesn’t investigate whether the man’s future behavior will make the rescue worthwhile.

He sees someone in need—and shows mercy.

The forum article makes precisely this connection, arguing that Jesus’ portrayal of the Samaritan establishes mercy toward the person in need as the exemplary response and then asks whether we can consistently attribute something less than this kind of mercy to God Himself. (Berean Apologetics Ministry). And then comes 1 Corinthians 13… Paul gives us another piece of the puzzle.

“Love is patient, love is kind…”

“It does not seek its own…”

“It keeps no record of wrongs…”

“It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

And, most importantly:

“Love never fails.”

If GOD IS LOVE (1 John 4:8), then these aren’t merely instructions for Christians. They tell us something about the character of the God whom Christians are supposed to imitate.

Jesus tells us to love our enemies.

Paul tells us to love without self-interest.

Jesus tells us that the Good Samaritan demonstrates what it means to be a neighbor.

And throughout Scripture, God’s mercy is repeatedly presented as something that extends toward humanity.

So the question becomes unavoidable:

Would Jesus ask His followers to become more compassionate toward their enemies than God is toward His?

That would turn the entire biblical pattern upside down.Soteriology 101 makes this same connection by arguing that Jesus’ command to love enemies is grounded in the character of the Father: believers are to love their enemies “in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” (SOTERIOLOGY 101)

This contradistinction is what the graphic is trying to communicate.It isn’t simply saying, “Calvinism is wrong because it sounds mean.” It is presenting a deeper challenge:

What happens when our theological model makes God’s behavior look less compassionate than the behavior Jesus Himself holds up as the supreme example of neighbor-love?

The irony is almost unavoidable. Jesus—the very person Christians confess to be the revelation of God—tells us:

Don’t pass by the suffering person.

Show mercy.

Love your neighbor.

Love your enemy.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

And yet, in the strongest versions of Reformed determinism, God’s sovereign decree is understood as determining that a majority of people will never receive the saving grace given to others—not because they were less needy, but because God chose not to grant it to them.

Increasing his glory in someway, apparently. That is the tension the graphic is meant to expose. And it leads to perhaps the simplest question of all:

Is the Good Samaritan actually more merciful than God?

If the answer is no—and it must be no—then we have to ask whether our doctrine of God is consistent with the very picture of love and mercy Jesus gave us. The Samaritan isn’t the standard by which God is judged.

Jesus is revealing what God is like.

And the God revealed in Jesus is not the one who walks past the wounded man.

HE IS THE ONE WHO STOPS

THE “GOOD NEWS” QUESTION

The Snap, also known as the Decimation and the Blip, 
was the event in which Thanos snapped his fingers while
using the Infinity Gauntlet, resulting in the extermination
of half of all life in the universe.  (SOURCE)

The gospel is called GOOD NEWS because God has provided salvation through Jesus Christ. The message of the gospel is not merely that salvation exists—it is that God genuinely offers salvation to sinners.

Good News Apologetics summarizes that message by emphasizing that God loves the world, Christ died for us, salvation is available to all, and there is no limitation as to who can be saved. It points to passages such as 1 Timothy 2:4–6, which says that God desires all people to be saved and that Christ gave Himself as a ransom for all. That brings us to a difficult question concerning unconditional election and reprobation.

Where Has the “Good News” Gone?

The question is not whether Reformed Calvinists affirm that God is loving. They do. The deeper question is whether their doctrine of salvation allows the gospel to be genuinely good news for the person hearing it.

George Bryson presses the issue by examining the implications of unconditional election and reprobation. If God has unconditionally determined who will be saved and who will be lost, then the gospel invitation creates a difficult question:

Can the person hearing the gospel actually know that God’s saving provision applies to them?

Bryson argues that the Reformed doctrine of redemption and reprobation creates a division between those for whom salvation is provided and those for whom it is not. This is precisely the question Stephen Marcy raises in his analysis of Calvinist gospel presentations:

“AM I INCLUDED?”

Consider how the gospel is ordinarily proclaimed:

God loves you. Christ died for you. Repent and believe in Him. You can be saved.

Those statements sound like good news because they tell the sinner that the salvation accomplished by Christ genuinely applies to them and that they may come to Christ in faith. Marcy points out, however, that this creates a tension with Calvinist doctrines of unconditional election, total inability, limited atonement, and irresistible grace. Under those doctrines, not everyone is included in God’s saving purpose, not everyone can believe, and Christ’s atoning death is understood by many Calvinists as intended specifically for the elect.

That produces a very different message.

The sinner hearing the gospel does not know whether he is one of the people God has chosen to save. He cannot determine his election beforehand. And if he is among the non-elect, the very salvation being proclaimed to him was never intended for him in the saving sense.

So the question becomes unavoidable:

What makes the gospel “good news” if the person hearing it may not be included in the salvation being announced?

Marcy highlights this problem through Calvinist evangelistic language itself. A Calvinist preacher may tell a sinner to repent, trust Christ, and be saved. Yet, according to the underlying Calvinist system, the ability to believe depends upon God’s prior unconditional election and effectual calling. Thus the outward gospel invitation sounds universal while the underlying soteriology makes its saving applicability particular.

The same tension appears in Voddie Baucham’s presentation of the gospel. In his sermon on Romans 9:30–33, Baucham describes the gospel as “news” about what God has done in Christ and emphasizes God’s sovereignty. Marcy’s criticism is that, when Calvinist doctrines such as unconditional election and limited atonement are brought into the equation, the message ceases to function as universally applicable good news.

And that brings us back to the fundamental issue:

THE GOSPEL IS SUPPOSED TO BE GOOD NEWS.

Not merely news that God has predetermined the destinies of humanity.

Not merely news that Christ died for a particular group.

Not merely news that the elect will eventually be regenerated and given faith.

The biblical proclamation is presented as an invitation and promise to sinners: come, believe, repent, receive, and be saved.

That is what makes the message good news.

Graphics Used in video – click to enlarge:

If the hearer cannot know whether Christ’s saving work is intended for him, cannot respond unless he has first been secretly regenerated, and may in fact be one of those whom God has eternally passed over, then the question “Am I included?” is not a peripheral objection. It strikes at the very heart of what the word gospel means.

And this is where the “SNAP 90+%” graphic becomes relevant. The point is not that Calvinism teaches a precise numerical percentage of reprobates—Calvinism does not give us such a statistic. The point is that if the elect are a minority, then the majority of humanity are necessarily outside that saving election.

So the question remains:

If the “good news” of salvation is ultimately only good news for the elect, what makes it good news for everyone else who hears it?

That is the “Good News” question Calvinism has to answer.

This is where the “SNAP 90+%” graphic is intended to make the issue visible. The point isn’t that Calvinism teaches a precise mathematical percentage of reprobates—it doesn’t. The point is the logical consequence of the doctrine:

if the elect are only a minority of humanity, then the majority are passed over.

And that raises the question:

What kind of “good news” is it if Christ’s saving provision was never intended for the totality of humanity?

Jesus’ illustration of the Good Samaritan presents mercy as something radically different. The Samaritan sees the wounded man, has compassion on him, goes to him, tends his wounds, and provides for his recovery. Jesus then commands His hearers: “Go and do likewise.” (Luke 10:37)

The question, then, is not whether Calvinists can affirm that God is loving. They can and do….

In their twisted way….

The deeper question is whether our understanding of God’s love and mercy should look like the Samaritan who sees the helpless and responds with compassion, or whether God’s saving mercy is ultimately restricted to a predetermined group while the rest are passed by.

Saved Because We Just “Know” We Were Irresistibly Chosen

Published by Papa Giorgio

Gnostic ideas were rejected by the early church, but a particular Gnostic-like conception of predestination later re-entered Christian theology through Augustine. Some Gnostic systems, particularly the Valentinian Gnostics, incorporated a form of predestination in which certain people possessed a spiritual nature destined for salvation while others were destined for destruction. The elect were understood to possess a spiritual seed and a special gnosis—a divinely given knowledge associated with their spiritual nature and necessary for salvation. In this scheme, salvation was not ultimately dependent upon human choice or moral effort, but upon God awakening and enlightening those who were already destined for salvation. Indeed, one description of Valentinian teaching states that “the elect are saved by knowing that they are saved.”

The early church rejected these teachings, defending God’s good creation, human moral responsibility, the genuine incarnation of Christ, and the bodily resurrection. Early Christian writers specifically opposed the idea that some people were given the capacity to believe while others were excluded from salvation by nature or divine determination. The Gnostic conception of salvation thus involved not merely a predetermined destiny, but a divinely determined distinction between those capable of receiving saving knowledge and those who were incapable of doing so.

Centuries later, however, elements resembling this Valentinian Gnostic conception of predetermined salvation, spiritual inability, and divinely bestowed enlightenment reappeared in Augustine’s theology during his controversy with Pelagius. Ken Johnson argues that Augustine adapted the Valentinian concept of predestination, replacing the Gnostic idea of an inherently incorruptible spiritual nature with the claim that God sovereignly ordained certain Christians for salvation because humanity was totally depraved and unable to respond on its own. Johnson consequently identifies this development with Augustine’s formulation of predestination, total depravity, and bondage of the will.

The parallel becomes especially striking when compared with later Calvinistic theology. Reformed theologians likewise argue that fallen humanity is incapable of coming to Christ without a prior work of divine grace: regeneration precedes faith, God changes [irresistibly] the sinner’s heart and disposition, and the elect are thereby given [forced] the ability and desire to respond to Christ. The theological vocabulary is different, and Augustine was not simply reproducing Valentinian Gnosticism; nevertheless, the structural similarity is difficult to overlook: a predetermined elect, human inability, divine intervention, an inward transformation, and only then the capacity to believe and embrace salvation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

  1. Kenneth M. Wilson, The Foundation of Augustinian-Calvinism (Montgomery, TX: Regula Fidei Press, 2019);
  2. George L. Bryson, The Dark Side of Calvinism: The Calvinist Caste System (Santa Ana, CA: Calvary Chapel Publishing, 2004);
  3. Ken Johnson, The Gnostic Origins of Calvinism (2013).

SEE MORE:

Augustinian Determinism VS. The Early Church (Updated)

Critiquing Irresistible Grace and Augustinian Calvinism

Calvinism Embodies the Gnosis of Gnosticism

Calvinist’s Hiding Their Dreadful Decree Behind the Good News

Jonah’s ‘Irresistible Message’ vs. Noah’s ‘Passed Over’ Preaching

Jonah’s ‘Irresistible Message’ vs. Noah’s ‘Passed Over’ Preaching

Published by Papa Giorgio

TRANSCRIPT 1:

However, according to Reformed determinism, the Ninevites who repented had already been effectually called, unconditionally, before creation. Jonah’s message was therefore not the ultimate cause distinguishing those who repented from those who did not. It was the ordained means, but the decisive cause was God’s prior, irresistible determination. In that sense the story becomes a kind of “cosmic lottery”—not because Calvinists would describe election that way, but because the decisive distinction was settled unconditionally before anyone in Nineveh ever heard Jonah’s voice.

In that framework, God sent a messenger to overcome His own withholding of the grace necessary for those people to respond. Jonah’s preaching did not make repentance possible; it was the predetermined instrument through which God brought the predetermined elect to a predetermined response. The narrative reads like a genuine warning followed by a genuine human response. The deterministic system underneath it says the decisive question had already been answered before Nineveh heard Jonah at all.

Calvary is muted in a similar way by this sixteenth-century dogma. The message of the cross becomes secondary to the “lottery.” The cross may be proclaimed, the gospel may be preached, and sinners may be called to repent and believe—but the decisive question of who will actually receive the grace necessary to do so was, on this view, settled unconditionally before creation.

If that is so, then even Calvary begins to look less like God’s gracious provision genuinely offered to sinners and more like the historical means by which an already-determined number of sinners are brought to an already-determined salvation.

The same pattern appears in the flood. Noah preached, yet God effectually chose only eight and passed over the rest. And according to the determinist framework articulated by Piper, Sproul, Hendryx, and others, even the evil committed by those who were judged falls within God’s exhaustive determination—after which God judges them for those very acts.

The warnings appeared real. The preaching seemed genuine. The repentance was essentially orchestrated. The judgment was redundant. For if the entire outcome had already been unconditionally determined before creation, what could the warning ultimately change? What could the preaching ultimately alter? What could the sinner ultimately do otherwise? Beneath it all, according to the system, the decisive outcomes had already been unconditionally settled.

If theistic determinism is true in the way these Calvinist determinists describe it, then the apparent contingency of those events is illusory—not because Jonah’s preaching was imaginary, or because Nineveh’s repentance did not happen, but because the warning, the response, and the outcome could never have been otherwise. Those who would repent had already been unconditionally selected to repent. Those passed over had been denied the grace necessary to do otherwise.

The biblical drama remains on the stage, but the determinist script has already written every line: every response, every refusal, every act of evil, every repentant person, and every judgment.

It is a sad result when a theological system makes Scripture’s genuine calls to repentance functionally secondary to a decree that, before creation, supposedly determined who would receive the grace necessary to respond—and who would be passed over.

TRANSCRIPT 2:

The Cosmic Lottery

  • This is a rough outline to a chapter I will add to my digital book as I revamp the already written chapters. This chapter will essentially detail the pitfalls of determinism, whether secular/atheistic, or theistic.

In other words, were Enoch, Lot, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Rahab, Ruth, David, and the rest of the Old Testament saints effectually regenerated by a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit so as to decisively cause them to believe the truth God had revealed to them?

If we are going to interpret John 6 as addressing an overarching ontological reality of fallen humanity—namely, that fallen men cannot believe divine truth unless they are first regenerated—then it seems difficult to avoid that conclusion. The Old Testament saints were fallen human beings just as we are. If regeneration was an absolute prerequisite for believing God’s revealed truth, then they too must have been supernaturally regenerated in order to believe.

This leads directly into the Reformed doctrine of effectual calling. The elect whom God effectually calls will respond positively, while those whom He does not effectually call will not. Regeneration is God’s work, and the sinner’s response is ultimately the inevitable result of God’s prior work within the elect.

But this raises the obvious question: Why doesn’t God effectually call everyone?

Romans 9 is commonly brought forward as the answer. Election is God’s sovereign prerogative; He has mercy upon whom He has mercy. His decision does not ultimately rest upon anything found in the individual. The human being therefore has no grounds for questioning God’s sovereign choice any more than he has grounds for questioning why God saved Noah and his family from the Flood while allowing the rest of humanity to perish, or why He chooses to eternally punish sinners.

But notice what happens when this principle is carried through the biblical narrative.

The question is no longer merely whether God saves. The question becomes what ultimately distinguishes the person who responds in faith from the person who does not.

If regeneration and effectual calling are the decisive causes of saving faith, then the sinner’s response cannot ultimately be the distinguishing factor. Those who believe do so because God effectually called them. Those who do not believe do so because they were not effectually called.

The decisive distinction therefore exists prior to the response itself.

And that brings us to Nineveh.

The Ninevites heard Jonah’s preaching, repented, and were spared. The narrative presents Jonah’s proclamation as a genuine warning and the Ninevites’ repentance as a genuine human response. But according to Reformed determinism, those Ninevites who repented had already been effectually called, unconditionally, before creation. Jonah’s message was therefore not the ultimate cause distinguishing those who repented from those who did not. It was the ordained means, but the decisive cause was God’s prior, irresistible determination.

In that sense, the story becomes a kind of “cosmic lottery”—not because Calvinists would describe election that way, but because the decisive distinction was settled unconditionally before anyone in Nineveh ever heard Jonah’s voice.

God sent a messenger to overcome His own withholding of the grace necessary for those people to respond. Jonah’s preaching did not make repentance possible; it was the predetermined instrument through which God brought the predetermined elect to a predetermined response.

The narrative reads like a genuine warning followed by a genuine human response. The deterministic system underneath it says that the decisive question had already been answered before Nineveh heard Jonah at all.

And this is precisely where the problem becomes difficult to escape.

If God could have effectually called the others but chose not to, then the difference between those who repented and those who did not ultimately lies not in the message, not in the warning, and not in something the individuals themselves did. It lies in God’s unconditional determination concerning them.

The same logic reaches all the way to Calvary.

Calvary is muted in a similar way by this sixteenth-century dogma. The message of the cross becomes secondary to the “lottery.” The cross may be proclaimed, the gospel may be preached, and sinners may be called to repent and believe—but the decisive question of who will actually receive the grace necessary to do so was, on this view, settled unconditionally before creation.

If that is so, then even Calvary begins to look less like God’s gracious provision genuinely offered to sinners and more like the historical means by which an already-determined number of sinners are brought to an already-determined salvation.

The cross remains absolutely necessary within the system. The preaching of the gospel remains necessary. Faith remains necessary. Repentance remains necessary. But none of these, in themselves, effect the decisive stirring of the soul that results in saving faith. The Word may be preached, the warning may be heard, and the sinner may be commanded to repent and believe, but the decisive work must first occur through regeneration. The irresistible and effectual work of God must make the person spiritually alive before that person can respond savingly.

And this creates a striking tension with the way Scripture portrays the power of God’s Word. The Word is described as living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Yet within the deterministic framework, the preached Word itself cannot ultimately account for why one sinner responds while another does not. The same gospel may be heard by two equally fallen sinners, yet only one responds because only one has first been effectually regenerated.

The decisive distinction, therefore, is not ultimately found in the Word that both heard, nor in the warning that both received, nor in the command to repent that confronted both of them. It is found in the prior work of God within one and not the other.

The gospel is therefore proclaimed universally, but the grace that makes the proclamation effectual is distributed according to an unconditional decree. The Word is preached to all, but only those whom God has first regenerated are given the ability to respond savingly.

The result is that the historical preaching of the Word becomes the ordained instrument through which a prior decree is executed. The message appears to confront the sinner with a genuine possibility, yet the decisive question of whether that message will produce saving faith has already been settled before the sinner ever hears it.

The Word speaks in time.

The decree settled the response before time.

And this brings us to Noah.

Noah certainly was not the worst preacher in history. In fact, within the biblical account, his preaching was accompanied by a remarkable testimony of righteousness and obedience. Yet if the Reformed doctrine of effectual calling is correct, Noah’s lack of converts cannot ultimately be attributed to a failure of preaching technique, persuasion, clarity, or faithfulness.

The root cause of the people’s rejection was not ultimately found in Noah’s preaching, nor even in their own independent response to it. According to the determinist framework, God had determined not to effectually call them and not to grant them the regenerating grace necessary to respond positively to Noah’s message.

Conversely, the reason Noah and his family believed and were preserved was ultimately because God had determined to save them and effectually brought about the response necessary to that end. Thus, the decisive distinction between those who accepted God’s warning and those who rejected it was established by God’s prior determination.

In that sense, Noah was essentially 100 percent effective in accomplishing the purpose God had actually decreed for his preaching. Those whom God determined to save were saved; those whom He determined to pass over remained in their unbelief. Noah’s preaching did not fail to accomplish God’s predetermined purpose. Rather, within the system, the ultimate success or failure of his preaching was determined by God’s prior decision concerning the people who heard it.

This means that the people who perished were not ultimately lost because Noah’s message was insufficiently powerful. They were lost because, according to the doctrine, God had not determined to give them the effectual grace that would cause them to accept the message. The same preaching that was ordained to produce faith in the elect was ordained to leave the non-elect in their unbelief.

And that exposes the same difficulty we encountered with Nineveh. If God alone determines who receives the grace necessary to respond, then the apparent success or failure of the preacher is ultimately secondary. Jonah could preach and Nineveh could repent because God had determined to effectually call those Ninevites. Noah could preach for years and see no mass repentance because God had not determined to effectually call the people who perished.

The warnings appeared real. The preaching seemed genuine. The repentance was essentially orchestrated. The judgment was redundant—not in the sense that the ordained means had no purpose, but in the sense that the ultimate outcome could not possibly have been altered by the response of those involved.

For if the entire outcome had already been unconditionally determined before creation, what could the warning ultimately change?

What could the preaching ultimately alter?

What could the sinner ultimately do otherwise?

The Reformed answer is that God uses means to accomplish His predetermined ends. The warning accomplishes its predetermined purpose. The preaching accomplishes its predetermined purpose. The repentance accomplishes its predetermined purpose. The judgment accomplishes its predetermined purpose.

But that answer only reinforces the underlying problem.

Everything that happens is the means God predetermined to bring about what He had already predetermined would happen.

If theistic determinism is true in the way these Calvinist determinists describe it, then the apparent contingency of these events is ultimately illusory—not because Jonah’s preaching was imaginary, or because Nineveh’s repentance did not happen, or because Noah’s preaching was meaningless, but because the decisive outcomes could never have been otherwise.

Those who would repent had already been unconditionally selected to repent.

Those passed over had been denied the grace necessary to do otherwise.

The biblical drama remains on the stage, but the determinist script has already written every line: every response, every refusal, every act of evil, every repentant person, and every judgment.

And this brings us back to the original problem.

If regeneration is required before a fallen person can believe God’s revealed truth, and if regeneration is granted only to those unconditionally elected by God, then the ultimate distinction between the believer and the unbeliever is not found in the response to God’s revelation. It is found in the prior decree that determines who will receive the grace necessary to respond.

That makes Jonah’s warning genuine—but not genuinely decisive.

It makes Nineveh’s repentance real—but predetermined.

It makes Noah’s preaching real—but unable to alter the predetermined division between those saved and those destroyed.

And it makes the proclamation of the gospel universal in its announcement while the saving grace necessary to respond remains particular in its distribution.

The sinner is commanded to repent, but whether he receives the grace necessary to repent has already been unconditionally decided.

He is commanded to believe, but whether he receives the grace necessary to believe has already been unconditionally decided.

He hears the gospel, but the decisive question of whether the gospel will result in faith has already been answered.

That is the theological mechanism behind what I am calling the “Cosmic Lottery.”

Not chance.

Not randomness.

Not an accusation that Calvinists believe salvation is arbitrary in the ordinary sense of the word.

Rather, it is the unavoidable appearance produced when the decisive distinction between two equally fallen people is located in an unconditional divine choice made before either person existed.

One hears and believes.

Another hears and does not believe.

But beneath both responses, the determinist says, God had already decided who would receive the effectual grace that guarantees the first response and who would be passed over.

The outcome therefore appears to unfold through history, but the decisive distinction was established before history began.

The warning appears to open a genuine possibility.

The preaching appears to confront the hearer with a genuine choice.

The gospel appears to summon the sinner to a genuine response.

Yet beneath the system, the outcome has already been settled.

The biblical drama unfolds in time.

The decree settled it before time.

It is a sad result when a theological system makes Scripture’s genuine calls to repentance functionally secondary to a decree that, before creation, supposedly determined who would receive the grace necessary to respond—and who would be passed over.

The problem, then, is not that Jonah preached so well that Nineveh repented, or that Noah somehow preached poorly so that those who heard him failed to respond. Nor is the problem that God sovereignly saves; we all believe that. The root of the problem is what happens when that sovereignty is defined as an unconditional determination that decisively causes one person to respond while withholding the grace necessary for another to do so.

Again, the problem is the claim that God’s sovereign determination has already rendered the ultimate human response certain before the person ever encounters the revealed truth.

And if that is the case, then the question is unavoidable:

When Jonah stood outside Nineveh and cried, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” was Nineveh genuinely being called to repent—or was Jonah merely announcing the historical means by which a predetermined group of elect Ninevites would inevitably respond?

That is the question the doctrine must answer.

And that is where the Cosmic Lottery begins.

 

 

 

How the Cults Redefine Biblical Terms

Published by Papa Giorgio

i wanted to start with a large excerpt from Walter Martin’s Kingdom of the Cults (6th edition) to get the main idea across… I was reading Micah Coate’s book, “The Cultish Side of Calvinism, and he had some great sections of a chapter that are incredibly important. But first, Walter Martin:

The Riddle of Semantics

The problem of semantics has always played an important part in human affairs, for by its use or abuse, whichever the case may be, entire churches, thrones, and even governments for that matter, have been erected, sustained, or overthrown. The late George Orwell’s stirring novel 1984, in which he points out that the redefinition of common political terms can lead to slavery when it is allowed to pass unchallenged by a lethargic populace, is a classic illustration of the dangers of perverted semantics. It should be of no particular surprise to any student of world history that trick terminology is a powerful propaganda weapon. The communist dictatorship of China, which even the Russian theorists rejected as incalculably brutal and inept, dares to call itself the People’s Republic of China. As history testifies, the people have very little, if any, say in the actual operation of communism, and if democracy is to be understood as the rule of the people, the Chinese communists have canonized the greatest misnomer of all time!

Both the Chinese communists and the Russians have paid a terrible price for not defining terminology, and for listening to the siren song of Marxism without carefully studying and analyzing the atheistic collectivism through which the music came.

Applying this analogy to the field of cults, it is at once evident that a distinct parallel exists between the two systems. For cultism, like communism, plays a type of hypnotic music upon a semantic harp of terminological deception. And there are many who historically have followed these strains down the broad road to spiritual eternal judgment. There is a common denominator then, and it is inextricably connected with language and the precise definition of terminology. It is what we might call the key to understanding cultism.Precisely how to utilize the key that will help unlock the jargon of cult semantics is best illustrated by the following facts, drawn from over thirty years of research and practical fieldwork with cultists of every variety.

The average non-Christian cult owes its very existence to the fact that it has utilized the terminology of Christianity, has borrowed liberally from the Bible (almost always out of context), and sprinkled its format with evangelical clichés and terms wherever possible or advantageous. Up to now this has been a highly successful attempt to represent their respective systems of thought as “Christian.”

On encountering a cultist, then, always remember that you are dealing with a person who is familiar with Christian terminology, and who has carefully redefined it to fit the system of thought he or she now embraces.

A concrete example of a redefinition of terms can be illustrated in the case of almost any of the Gnostic cult systems that emphasize healing and hold in common a pantheistic concept of God (Christian Science, New Thought, Unity, Christ Unity Science, Metaphysics, Religious Science, Divine Science).

In the course of numerous contacts with this type of cultist, the author has had many opportunities to see the semantic maze in full operation, and it is awesome to behold. Such a cult adherent will begin talking at length about God and Christ. He will speak especially about love, tolerance, forgiveness, the Sermon on the Mount, and, as always, the out-of-context perversion of James’s “faith without works is dead.”

It should be noted that hardly ever in their discourses will such cultists discuss the essential problem of evil, the existence of personal sin, or the necessity of the substitutionary atonement of Christ as the sole means of salvation from sin, through the agency of divine grace and the exercise of faith. In fact, they conscientiously avoid such distasteful subjects like the proverbial plague and discuss them only with great reluctance. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, but on the average it is safe to assume that reticence will characterize any exploration of these touchy issues. Both Christian Science and Unity talk of God as Trinity; but their real concept of God is a pantheistic abstraction (Life, Truth, and Love constitute the triune divine principles—Christian Science).

The historic doctrine of the Trinity is seldom, if ever, considered without careful redefinition. If the reader consults the Metaphysical Bible Dictionary, published by the Unity School of Christianity, he will see the masterpiece of redefinition for himself. For in this particular volume, Unity has redefined exhaustively many of the cardinal terms of biblical theology, much as Mary Baker Eddy did in her Glossary of Terms in the book Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures. The reader will be positively amazed to find what has happened to biblical history, the person of Adam, the concept of human sin, spiritual depravity, and eternal judgment. One thing, however, will emerge very clearly from this study: Unity may use the terminology of the Bible, but by no stretch of the imagination can the redefinition be equated with the thing itself.

Another confusing aspect of non-Christian cultists’ approach to semantics is the manner in which they will surprise the Christian with voluminous quotations from no less authority than the Bible, and give the appearance of agreeing with nearly every statement the Christian makes in attempting to evangelize the cultist. Such stock phrases as “We believe that way too; we agree on this point” or the more familiar: “Mrs. Eddy, Mr. or Mrs. Fillmore, Mr. Evans, Dr. Buchman, Joseph Smith, or Brigham Young says exactly the same thing; we are completely in agreement.” All such tactics based upon the juggling of terms usually have the effect of frustrating the average Christian, for he is unable to put his finger on what he knows is error, and is repeatedly tantalized by seeming agreement which, as he knows, does not exist. He is therefore often forced into silence because he is unaware of what the cultist is actually doing. Often, even though he may be aware of this in a limited sense, he hesitates to plunge into a discussion for fear of ridicule because of an inadequate background or a lack of biblical information.

The solution to this perplexing problem is far from simple. The Christian must realize that for every biblical or doctrinal term he mentions, a redefinition light flashes on in the mind of the cultist, and a lightning-fast redefinition is accomplished. Realizing that the cultist will apparently agree with the doctrine under discussion while firmly disagreeing in reality with the historical and biblical concept, the Christian is on his way to dealing effectively with cult terminology. This amazing operation of terminological redefinition works very much like a word association test in psychology.

It is simple for a cultist to spiritualize and redefine the clear meaning of biblical texts and teachings so as to be in apparent harmony with the historic Christian faith. However, such a harmony is at best a surface agreement, based upon double meanings of words that cannot stand the test of biblical context, grammar, or sound exegesis. Language is, to be sure, a complex subject; all are agreed on this. But one thing is beyond dispute, and that is that in context words mean just what they say. Either we admit this or we must be prepared to surrender all the accomplishments of grammar and scholastic progress and return to writing on cave walls with charcoal sticks in the tradition of our alleged stone-age ancestors. To illustrate this point more sharply, the experience of everyday life points out the absurdity of terminological redefinitions in every way of life.

An attorney who is retained by his client must know the laws that govern trial procedure, cross-examination, and evidence. But above all else he must believe in the innocence of his client. A client who tells his attorney that he is guilty of a misdemeanor but not a felony is using the vocabulary of law. But if his attorney finds out that his client has perverted that vocabulary so that the terms are interchangeable, he will either refuse to defend him or will clarify the terminology before the court, because by definition a misdemeanor is a misdemeanor and a felony is a felony. A man who says he stole only ninety dollars (petty theft), but who really means that it was ninety dollars more or less, and in reality knows that it was in excess of five hundred dollars (grand theft), is playing a game that the law will not tolerate. He will most certainly be punished for such perversions of standard legal terms. In the realm of medicine, a doctor who announces that he will perform an open-heart operation, then proceeds in the presence of his colleagues to remove the gall bladder, and then attempts to defend his action by the claim that open-heart surgery actually means removal of the gall bladder in his vocabulary, could not practice medicine for long! Open- heart surgery is delicate repair of the heart muscle. Removal of the gall bladder is, by definition, surgery of another type. In law and in medicine, therefore, terms are what they are by definition. On the business and professional level this also holds true. But to the cultists words do not always mean what they have always meant by definition in specific context. And just as the American Bar Association will not tolerate confusion of terminology in the trial of cases, and as the American Medical Association will not tolerate redefinition of terminology in diagnostic and surgical medicine, so also the Church of Jesus Christ has every right not to tolerate the gross perversions and redefinitions of historical, biblical terminology simply to accommodate a culture and a society that cannot tolerate an absolute standard or criterion of truth, even if it be revealed by God in His Word and through the true witness of His Spirit.

The major cult systems, then, change the definition of historical terms without a quibble. They answer the objections of Christian theologians with the meaningless phrase, “You interpret it your way and I’ll interpret it mine. Let’s be broad-minded. After all, one interpretation is as good as another.”

A quick survey of how cults redefine Christian terminology illustrates this important observation:

Click to enlarger

Is it any wonder, then, that orthodox Christians feel called upon to openly denounce such perversions of clearly defined and historically accepted biblical terminology, and claim that the cults have no rights—scholastically, biblically, or linguistically—to redefine biblical terms as they do?

We ought never to forget for one moment that things are what they are by definition. Any geometric figure whose circumference is 2πr is by definition circular. Any two figures whose congruency can be determined by the application of angle-side-angle, side-angle-side, or side-side-side is, by definition, a triangle. To expand this, we might point out that any formula that expresses hydrogen to be in two parts and oxygen to be in one is water, and hydrogen to be in two parts, sulfur in one part, and oxygen in four parts is sulfuric acid. H2O can never be H2SO4. Nor can the Atonement become at-one-ment as the theology of the Gnostic cults (Christian Science, Unity, New Thought) explains it. It simply cannot be, if language means anything.

To spiritualize texts and doctrines or attempt to explain them away on the basis of the nebulous word interpretation is scholastic dishonesty, and it is not uncommonly found in leading cult literature. Cultists are destined to find out that the power of Christianity is not in its terminology but in the relationship of the individual to the historic Christ of revelation. The divine-human encounter must take place. One must become a new creation in Christ Jesus, and the emptying of Christian terminology of all its historic meanings serves only the purpose of confusion and can never vitiate the force of the Gospel, which is the Person of the Savior performing the historic function of redeeming the sinner by grace.

The Christ of Scripture is an eternal, divine personality who cannot be dismissed by a flip of the cultist’s redefinition switch, regardless of how deftly it is done. The average Christian will do well to remember the basic conflict of terminology that he is certain to encounter when dealing with cultists of practically every variety.

Summary

Whenever a Christian encounters a cultist, certain primary thoughts must be paramount in his mind: (1) he must strive to direct the conversation to the problem of terminology and maneuver the cult adherent into a position where he must define his usage of terms and his authority, if any, for

drastic, unbiblical redefinitions, which are certain to emerge; (2) the Christian must then compare these “definitions” with the various contexts of the verses upon which the cultist draws support of his doctrinal interpretations; (3) he must define the words interpretation and historic orthodoxy, and standard doctrinal phrases such as the new birth, atonement, context, exegesis, eternal judgment, etc., so that no misunderstanding will exist when these things come under discussion, as they inevitably will; (4) the Christian must attempt to lead the cultist to a review of the importance of properly defining terms for all important doctrines involved, particularly the doctrine of personal redemption from sin, which most cult systems define in a markedly unbiblical manner; (5) it is the responsibility of the Christian to present a clear testimony of his own regenerative experience with Jesus Christ in terminology that has been carefully clarified regarding the necessity of such regeneration on the part of the cultist in the light of the certain reality of God’s inevitable justice. It may be necessary also, in the course of discussing terminology and its dishonest recasting by cult systems, to resort to occasional polemic utterances. In such cases, the Christian should be certain that they are tempered with patience and love, so that the cultist appreciates that such tactics are motivated by one’s personal concern for his eternal welfare, and not just to “win the argument.”

Let it never be forgotten that cultists are experts at lifting texts out of their respective contexts without proper concern for the laws of language or the established principles of biblical interpretation. There are those of whom Peter warns us, who “wrest . . . scriptures, unto their own destruction” (2 Peter 3:16). This is an accurate picture of the kingdom of the cults in the realm of terminology.

Looking back over the picture of cult semantics, the following facts emerge:

  1. The average cultist knows his own terminology very thoroughly. He also has a historic knowledge of Christian usage and is therefore prepared to discuss many areas of Christian theology intelligently.
  2. The well-trained cultist will carefully avoid definition of terms concerning cardinal doctrines such as the Trinity, the Deity of Christ, the Atonement, the Bodily Resurrection of our Lord, the process of salvation by grace and justification by faith. If pressed in these areas, he will redefine the terms to fit the semantic framework of orthodoxy unless he is forced to define his terms explicitly.
  3. The informed Christian must seek for a point of departure, preferably the authority of the Scriptures, which can become a powerful and useful tool in the hands of the Christian, if properly exercised.
  4. The concerned Christian worker must familiarize himself to some extent with the terminology of the major cult systems if he is to enjoy any measure of success in understanding the cultist’s mind when bearing a witness for Christ.

We have stressed heavily the issue of terminology and a proper definition of terms throughout this entire chapter. It will not have been wasted effort if the reader has come to realize its importance, and will be guided accordingly when approaching the language barrier, which is an extremely formidable obstacle both to evangelizing cultists and to giving a systematic and effective defense of the Christian faith against their perversions.

As an armchair apologist and reading these ideas in the first edition… it made an impact on me. So much so that it is now a basis I incorporate into my understanding of how Calvinist “Reformed” ideology goes astray. In one of the best books I have read yet, there is some great apologetic themes in his critique of Calvinists changing terms that should be simply understood.

I will introduce each excerpt.

Section Introduction — “His Writing”

In this opening section, Coate examines the formative role of John Calvin’s writings—particularly the Institutes of the Christian Religion—in the development and interpretation of Calvinist theology. He argues that Calvin’s writings became more than historical works of theology: they became a framework through which Scripture was subsequently read and understood. Coate traces Calvin’s intellectual influences, his use of Augustine and earlier Reformers, and the continuing influence of Calvin’s commentary traditions, including the Geneva Bible and later Reformed study materials. His central concern is whether a theological system can remain genuinely Scripture-driven when the writings and interpretations of its principal theologian become the lens through which Scripture itself is interpreted.

The question Coate ultimately puts before the reader is simple:

  • Are we allowing Scripture to determine our theology, or are we allowing a theological system to determine how we read Scripture?

His Writing

Calvin goes on from the original Protestant experience of conversion to build a system, to extrapolate, to raise all the dark questions and give without flinching the dark answers.[1]  

—C. S. Lewis, on Calvin’s Institutes

Cult leaders rarely lead without their own writings. Mary Baker Eddie penned her Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures; Joseph Smith wrote The Book of Mormon; Ron Hubbard, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health; and John Calvin has his famed Institutes. Out of all his writings and commentaries, which by his own words were subordinate to his Institutes, no other writing has so “determined the course of history and changed the face of Europe” as have Calvin’s Institutes.[2] So influential are the Institutes that comparing them to other cultish writings might at first seem absurd.

To refresh our memory, John Calvin was eight years old when Martin Luther penned his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517. Born in one of the most tumultuous times in church history, John Calvin grew up in the midst of heavy Roman Catholic influence. Although Calvin officially broke allegiance to the Catholic Church at the age of twenty-five, a majority of his education had been completed under its authority. He studied at the University of Paris and later studied law at the University of Orleans. He wrote the first edition of his Institutes of the Christian Religion in 1536 at the age of twenty-seven. Because Calvin was so young, some scholars question his credibility. Dave Hunt states that the Institutes:

. . . could not possibly have come from a deep and fully developed evangelical understanding of Scripture. Instead, they came from an energetic enthusiasm of a recent law graduate and a fervent study of philosophy and religion, a young genius devoted to Augustine and a newly adopted cause.[3]

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It is also important to note that five years after writing the Institutes, the Genevan authorities asked Calvin to draft the Ecclesiastical Ordinances, an outline of church structure and doctrine. “Calvin borrowed Bucer’s assertion that the New Testament indicated four functions of ministry: pastors, doctors, elders, and deacons [but] was himself never ordained as priest or minister in any Church.” Nevertheless, he classified himself as a doctor. “Together the pastors and the senior doctors, who were obviously close to them in ministry, notably Calvin himself, formed a company of Pastors.” [4]

Although people have said that Calvin gave Protestantism its first systemized theology, it can hardly be said that he was the sole mind in formulating it. Calvin was well-read in the works of Reformers before him, and he relied heavily upon Bucer and Luther. However, he referred to no other theologian more than Augustine of Hippo, who is quoted in Calvin’s Institutes over 400 times. Spurgeon, acknowledging Calvin’s use of Augustine’s works, observes, “Perhaps Calvin himself derived it [sotereological system] mainly from the writings of Augustine,” and affirms that “Augustine obtained his views, without doubt, through the Spirit of God, from the diligent studies of the writings of Paul, and Paul received them from the Holy Ghost, from Jesus Christ.”[5]  

If Augustine “without doubt” received his views from the Holy Spirit and Calvin heavily received his views from Augustine, then one could nearly conclude that the Institutes of John Calvin are divinely inspired. Many Calvinists seem to have concluded just that. From the Institutes, Calvinism draws its doctrine, interpretation of Scripture, systemized theology, and distorted view of God. Claiming to be a Calvinist is nothing less than trusting that the Institutes are unparalleled in defining “true” Christianity. After the Institute’s twenty-three years of revisions, it was finally finished in 1559, just five years before Calvin’s death on May 27, 1564.

In most cults, the leader’s writings and doctrines determine the followers’ involvement with and interpretation of the Bible. Instead of plain Scripture leading to doctrine, doctrine leads the interpretation of Scripture. Although we will look at this in more depth in the next chapter, here are two examples: Those who follow The Book of Mormon consider it to be the fullness of the gospel. Thus, they deem it as more authoritative than the Bible itself. Those who follow the doctrines of Charles Taze Russell consider any translation of the Bible other than the New World to be incorrect. Cult members also interpret the Bible to fit the theology of their leader. For example, the audience of Mary Baker Eddie’s Key to the Scriptures interprets the Scripture from a very mystical, nonliteral perspective. The same can be said of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons. Likewise, when Calvinists read the Scriptures, they usually do so in the light of John Calvin’s Institutes, confirming the words of Kent R. Rieske:

Calvinists hold John Calvin in such a high esteem that his writings and teachings are studied and quoted in preference to Scripture. His teachings are used by Calvinists to interpret Scripture rather than the sound doctrine of using Scripture to interpret Scripture.[6]  

In Calvin hotbeds, the Institutes is referred to as often as the Bible, and is even studied in the same manner. Latter-day Saints are educated in the book of Mormon just as students at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, can take classes on Calvin’s Institutes and commentaries. Brigham Young founded the Mormon Brigham Young College (BYC) in Logan, Utah, on July 24, 1877, just two years after he founded Brigham Young Academy (Brigham Young University from 1903) in Provo, Utah. In the Mormon schools, students learn theology and read the Scriptures as interpreted by Joseph Smith, just as students in both Calvin Seminary and Calvin College learn the Bible as interpreted by John Calvin. At one school, Joseph Smith is highly esteemed; in the other, John Calvin is greatly revered.

Other than his Institutes, John Calvin offered much commentary in the marginal notes of the Geneva Bible. When England was ruled under Queen Mary I, many Protestant scholars escaped her persecution to Geneva. The city of Geneva was ruled by John Calvin who we know lead both church and civil matters. The Geneva Bible was partially printed in England in 1575 and fully printed a year later. There were over 150 editions made. With John Knox collaborating with Calvin in the new Bible, a law was passed in Scotland in 1579 requiring all houses to purchase a copy if financially possible. The commentary in the Bible’s margins was prized by Calvinists but was not liked by the Church of England nor King James, who later commissioned the “Authorized Version” or King James Version to replace it in 1611. Until the English Civil War, the Geneva Bible was widespread among all Puritans and Calvinists.

Kent Rieske astutely notes the apparent “need” for the Geneva Bible to be full of Calvin’s commentary. He writes, “Calvin’s theology could not be ascertained by the typical student of the Bible without the external study of Calvin’s Institutes . . . Calvin wrote commentary notes in the margin of the Bible to be used as the interpretation of the Scripture.”[7] Although soundly translated from Greek and Hebrew, the marginal notes of the Geneva Bible made it what is was. To its credit, the Geneva Bible was in fact the first “‘Study Bible,’ with extensive commentary notes in the margins.”[8] With Calvin’s commentaries included in its 1599 edition, the Geneva Bible was “the most complete study aide for Biblical scholars and students” at that time; the “extensive collection” of commentary was not a trivial part of the new Bible, for it is still considered the “greatest distinction of the Geneva Bible.”[9] Calvin’s notes comprise nearly 300,000 words, or nearly one-third the length of the Bible itself, and they are justifiably considered “the most complete source of Protestant religious thought available.”[10] As a result, the Geneva Bible became:

. . . the most widely read and influential English Bible of the 16th and 17th centuries. It was continually printed from 1560 to 1644 in over 200 different editions. It was the Bible of choice for many of the greatest writers, thinkers, and historical figures of the Reformation era. [11]

With men such as William Shakespeare, John Milton, John Bunyan, and Oliver Cromwell using the Geneva Bible, we can again see why Calvinism has had a strong foothold on theology.

Despite the wide acceptance of the Geneva Bible, its place in history was relatively short. Although the Geneva translation was accurate, the “not so marginal” notes of John Calvin so angered the Catholic Church, namely King James of England, that it was promptly replaced by the widely known 1611 King James translation, which was published without commentary. From then on, the Geneva Bible has gone mostly unnoticed in Christianity. And now that Calvinism is making a comeback, the new Reformation Study Bible[12] has recently appeared on the scene. Although it uses both the New King James Version and English Standard Version translations, it is full of marginal notes written by leading Calvinists.

One could rightly argue that this fact is unimportant, since most of today’s Calvinists are not even familiar with the Geneva Bible. However, although many Calvinists might not use either the new Reformation Study Bible or old Geneva Bible or hold them in the same light that past Calvinists have, the readers are indeed affected by their adherence to Calvin’s biblical interpretation. This point is made clear by a conversation I had recently with a Jehovah’s Witness as my truck was being fixed. We briefly discussed the New World Translation. (This purposely mistranslated Bible was proved in a court of law to have mangled the original language of the Bible for the intent of substantiating unorthodox views of Jesus and other biblical doctrines that accompany salvation). He was quick to mention that he reads all translations of the Bible. Regardless of this fact, the damage has already been done for him. Whenever this man had read other translations, his views of God, which are based on ideas by Charles Taze Russell, twisted his interpretation of even correctly translated verses that reveal the deity of Jesus.

Ultimately, no matter what translation of the Bible the man may read, his unorthodox views of Jesus will remain unchanged, because he holds to Russell’s teachings. The same can be said of the Mormon. Mormons read orthodox translations of the Bible. Yet, the unorthodoxy from Joseph Smith’s writings has horribly corrupted the sound interpretation found in other Bibles. Likewise, the Key to the Scriptures and Watchtower magazines can pervert the minds of readers and obscure their vision of plain scriptural truth.

This is true for many Calvinists today. They might not have a clue that the footnotes in the Geneva Bibles are unorthodox, but they still understand John 3:16 to mean something other than that Christ died for all of humanity. When one professes to be a Calvinist or a Reformed Christian, the damage has already been done. Calvinists align themselves with John Calvin’s beliefs and his interpretation of selective salvation. They align themselves with all his writings and footnotes—both the orthodox and the unorthodox.

Collin Hansen has recently noted that John Calvin, “appear[s] not to be a major figure among the latest generation to claim the theology he made famous.”[13] How can one not acknowledge John Calvin in Calvinism? Despite the claims from most cultists that they hold their leader’s writings as merely being equal to the Bible, in practice, the Bible usually takes a back seat. The Book of Mormon is blatantly tagged as “the fullness of the gospel.” Ellen G. White, the Seventh-day Adventists’ prophetess, claims that she writes not her own ideas but “what God has opened before me in vision.”[14] Although most Calvinists would never be so bold as to say that the Institutes are as authoritative as Scripture, the outcome of their biblical theology suggests otherwise. As with Joseph Smith, Charles Russell, Ellen White, Mary Eddie, and many other cult leaders, John Calvin’s writings have radically changed the way his followers interpret the Bible.

NOTES

  1. C.S. Lewis, Quote 139, “Calvin, John,” taken from the Introduction to English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, para. 61, p. 42, in The Quotable Lewis, ed. Wayne Martindale and Jerry Root (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1898), 83.
  2. Alister McGrath, A Life of John Calvin (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), xiii, 209.
  3. Hunt, What Love Is This?
  4. MacCulloch, The Reformation, 238.
  5. Charles H. Spurgeon, message delivered at the opening ceremony of the inaugural ceremonies for the new Metropolitan Tabernacle, in “Expositions of the Doctrines of Grace,” sermons 385-388 of The Spurgeon Archive [online]; accessed 28 January 2010; available from; Internet.
  6. Rieske, “Calvinism.”
  7. Rieske, “Calvinism.”
  8. Greatsite Marketing website, [online]; accessed 23 December 2010;
  9. “1599 Geneva Bible,” Introduction from L. L. Brown Publishing [online]; accessed 25 June 2010; available from website, Link.
  10. Ibid.
  11. Ibid.
  12. “Widely considered one of the best tools available for Bible study and previously only available in the New King James translation, The Reformation Study Bible has been updated to the readable and accurate English Standard Version (ESV). This foundational resource was created by more than fifty scholars and features thousands of in-depth study notes, 96 theological articles, 19 in-text maps, colored maps, and 12 charts to help you understand the Bible better.” [online]; accessed 23 December 2010; (LINK)
  13. Hansen, “Young, Restless, Reformed.”
  14. Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church Volume 5, 67 [online]; accessed 2 February 2010; all volumes.

Section Introduction — “Its Twisting of Scripture”

In this section, Coate shifts from the influence of Calvin’s writings to the more specific question of how Scripture is interpreted through a theological system. He argues that the central problem is not necessarily a new translation of the Bible, but the reinterpretation of biblical words, passages, contexts, and even study notes to make them conform to established Calvinist doctrines. Coate compares this approach with other examples of religious movements interpreting Scripture through the lens of their own authorities, then focuses on Calvinist treatments of passages concerning “world,” “all,” “whosoever,” human freedom, God’s desire for salvation, and the atonement.

A recurring theme throughout the section is redefinition: Coate argues that when a biblical passage appears to conflict with TULIP theology, the solution is sometimes found not by changing the doctrine, but by changing the way the biblical language is understood. He summarizes the concern through Norman Geisler’s description of theological “doublespeak” and Kent Rieske’s claim that Calvinism redefines biblical terminology and applies passages in ways that conform them to Calvin’s theological system.

The central question Coate raises in this section is therefore:

  • Are we allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture, or are theological conclusions being used to determine what Scripture is allowed to mean?

Its Twisting of Scripture

    • The fact is, the cults are notorious Scripture-twisters. When dealing with cults, one must keep in mind that they are always built not upon what the Bible teaches but upon what the founders or leaders of the respective cults say the Bible teaches.[1]

—Norman L. Geisler and Ron Rhodes

    • I am deeply troubled over the Reformed version of grace because through it, the precious and scriptural truths concerning grace are so maligned.[2]

—George Bryson

Manipulation of Scripture in order to construe a certain meaning that was not or could not be intended for the reader is the hallmark of a cult. The “Bible Answer Man,” Hank Hanegraaff, writes, “The first mark of a cult is its manipulation of Scripture. The Bible is twisted to fit the leader or group’s interpretation.”[3] Nothing has done more damage in Christianity than the use of unorthodox hermeneutics. As an example, there has been no more flagrant forgery of Scripture than the New World Translation of the Bible. Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that this so-called Bible was translated by Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew scholars and theologians. However, not only did the purported translators lie about having an education in Greek and Hebrew, the entire translation committee was sponsored solely by Jehovah’s Witnesses and composed by members of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.

Because Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe that Jesus Christ was God, verses from the Bible that reveal His being more than a man or an angel, were altered to support their heretical belief. Correct words were purposely omitted and false words were intentionally added in order to change an essential doctrine of the Bible— namely, that Jesus is God. Here are some examples of their twisting of Scripture.

The New World Translation (NWT) has exchanged the truth for a lie. In the NWT, Zechariah 12:10 reads, “They will look upon the one whom they have pierced.” Here the Hebrew “. . . look upon me whom they have pierced”—in which God is the speaker—has been altered in order to avoid the implication that the one who is to be pierced (on the cross) is God Himself.

Again, because the cult teaches that Jesus was a created being rather than the Creator God, Colossians 1:15–17 in the NWT reads:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; because by means of him all [other] things were created in the heavens and upon the earth, the things visible and the things invisible, no matter whether they are thrones or lordships or governments or authorities. All [other] things have been created through him and for him. Also, he is before all [other] things and by means of him all [other] things were made to exist.[4] 

The word “other” has been inserted several times to avoid the deity of Jesus. The first edition of the NWT was printed without brackets.

The NWT version of Hebrews 1:8 reads: “God is your throne forever.”[5] Despite that the translation makes no grammatical or logical sense, it continues to be used in place of the correct translation, which is, “Your throne, O God, is forever.”[6] Again, the text was altered because the original statement is referring to the Christ.

The most famous of the Watchtower mistranslations is found in John 1:1, where one letter, the article “a,” is slipped into the passage with huge theological consequences. The NWT translates John 1:1 as, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god.”[7] The correct translation is, “. . . and the Word was God.” The distorted translation of the NWT implies that Jesus was merely an angelic or supernatural being rather than God Himself.

Although the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society has been proven guilty of lies and perjury in an American court of law (March 17, 1913, Russell v. Ross) the incorrect renditions have not been retracted. Because the Jehovah’s Witnesses use the NWT as their scriptures they are continually misled and intellectually compromised, believing unbiblical doctrine. The NWT is a “translation” of the Bible written to fit a particular group’s beliefs by means of deception through the manipulation of God’s revealed words.

Since Mormons adhere to The Book of Mormon more than the Bible, a need to distort the Bible’s message is less essential. When essential contradictions are found between The Book of Mormon and the Bible, Mormons look to The Book of Mormon as their ultimate authority. Therefore, the need for Mormons to alter biblical doctrines is not as great as for Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose doctrine is supposedly derived directly from the Bible itself. Because Jehovah’s Witnesses do not have the option to claim another source of authority, they must make their peculiar doctrine seem as sound as possible. Mormons, nevertheless, do their fair share of mangling Scripture in hopes of passing their theology off as orthodox.

Because the founders of Mormonism were polygamists, Mormon doctrine concludes that a man should practice polygamy in order to enter the highest heaven.[8] This doctrine supposedly came from Joseph Smith’s “revelation.” Today, polygamy is still practiced among various sects of Mormonism even in light of the Bible’s denouncing of it. Mormon theology has purposefully misconstrued many biblical verses showing God’s tolerance of the practice in the Old Testament, for He clearly commanded His people not to “multiply wives” in Exodus 20:14–17. Other like verses include Deuteronomy 17:17; 1 Kings 11:1; and Matthew 19:9. There are also a number of other verses referring to the folly of practicing polygamy that are either ignored or twisted to confuse their intended purpose.

The Catholic Answers Web site also notes the Mormons’ misinterpretation of God’s Word. Concerning Ezekiel 37 they write:

Mormons neglect the plain sense of the words and ignore their true interpretation, given by God—in the very same chapter. The text makes clear, this is a prophecy of national reunification, not about the appearance of hidden scriptures. The Hebrew term translated as “stick” (aits) is never used anywhere in the Old Testament to mean “book,” “scroll,” “writing” or anything similar. It is variously translated as “wood” or “branch,” “timber,” or “tree.” Needless to say, the Book of Mormon was allegedly written on metal plates, not scrolls or sticks.

Only Mormonism can manage to mistake “timber” for “scrolls” and “nations” for “metal plates.”[9]

Mormons also teach that God the Father has a physical body. They pull the doctrine from Genesis 1:26–27, in which God says, “Let Us make man in Our image” (NKJV). From this statement, Mormons conclude that God has a body.[10] This idea contradicts what Jesus says, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth”[11] (John 4:24, NKJV). Jesus also points out that “a spirit has not flesh and bones” (Luke 24:39, NKJV).[12] Mormons choose to disregard any verse that clearly counters their doctrine. More verses distorted or ignored by Mormons about the nature of God include Numbers 23:19; Isaiah 45:12; Hosea 11:9; and Romans 1:22–23.

Likewise, unorthodox “Word Faith” leaders like Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Paul Crouch, and Benny Hinn also misconstrue Genesis 1:26–27. They teach that according to these verses, God’s followers are themselves “little gods.”[13] Although this belief is held at different levels of intensity by Word Faith followers, it is an unbiblical doctrine needing correction. The complete and “purest” meaning of Genesis 1:26–27 can indeed be argued and debated (as with many other verses), but its interpretation cannot fly in the face of other parts of Scripture if it is to be true. The two errant doctrines teaching that Christians are little gods and that God the Father has a physical body arise from poorly interpreted verses and discount others verses relevant to the subject. Despite claiming a biblical foundation for these doctrines, both Mormon and Word Faith teachers set themselves clearly against biblical orthodoxy.

John Calvin’s practice of manipulating Scripture is obvious to those who have taken a careful look at his theology. Although the majority of his commentaries are accurate, he was not afraid to change the words and meanings of certain verses in order to make his particular interpretation work. Historian Diarmaid MacCulloch writes:

Like the mainstream tradition of Judaism, he [Calvin] felt that imagery in relation to the divine was best restricted to words, where it could be extravagant or as startling as he pleased: in one sermon on Deuteronomy preached in 1555–6, for instance, he radically adapted some words of Jesus in order to compare God’s coming in flesh in the birth of Jesus Christ to a hen stooping down to the ground.[14]  

As we remember the words of historian James P. Byrd, Jr. when he states what Roger Williams thought of Calvin’s poor interpretive skills concerning ecclesiastical government over civil affairs, we see the validity of Williams’ claim. Byrd writes, “Williams revered Calvin’s theological genius and considered him a great man, but he attacked Calvin’s biblical interpretation, calling it a dangerous perversion that turned the Holy Word into a bloody instrument of persecution.”[15]

We will see many examples of how Calvin and his followers have misinterpreted portions of Scripture for the sake of TULIP. Calvinists have not invented their own religious books, as have the Mormons, nor have they created a new translation of the Bible, as have the Jehovah’s Witnesses, but they have taken a step in that direction. Although the Geneva Bible was once banned by King James of the Catholic Church, Thomas Nelson Publishing began printing the New Geneva Study Bible, or the Reformation Study Bible (RSB) in 1995 with the English Standard Version (ESV). Leading Calvinist R. C. Sproul gives the introduction, titled “Reformation Truth,” to the RSB with its explanations of Scripture. The Christian must ask: can absolute biblical truth be reformed? Sure, it can . . . but only into something less than absolute biblical truth. Look how clearly we can see this in the following attempts of the Reformation Study Bible to do away with the biblical doctrine of man’s free will and God’s offer of salvation to the whole world.

The ESV correctly translates John 3:16 as, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” However, under the guise of “Reformation Truth,” the RSB footnote interprets the verse to mean something quite different:

Some have insisted that God sent Jesus to die for the purpose of bringing salvation to everyone without exception, but only as a possibility . . . The point made by the “world” is that Christ’s saving work is not limited to one time or place but applies to the elect from all over the world.[16]

Again, knowing that the message of John 3:16 does away with Calvin’s third point of TULIP, Calvinists twist the Scripture at all cost. Leading Calvinist James White says that “whosoever believeth on him should not perish” actually means “in order that everyone believing on him should not perish.”[17] With the addition of a few words, White defends Calvinism by saying that the elect alone believe and thus Christ died for them only. How does this differ from the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ practice of adding words to the text and thereby changing its meaning?

The twisting of Scripture in the Reformation Study Bible is no less devious than that of the New World Translation. Orthodox Christian leaders often speak against Jehovah’s Witnesses for their new interpretation of the Bible while remaining silent regarding Calvinists, who also add words to scriptural texts in order to support their false claims.

First Timothy 2 speaks of God’s concern for all men and women of all classes. We are commanded to pray, intercede for, and give thanks for all people. In the RSB, 1 Timothy 2:1 reads, “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, and thanksgivings be made for all people . . .” (ESV). Here, however, a footnote appears, explaining that “all people” really does not “mean ‘every human being’ but rather ‘all types of people,’ whatever their station of life” (RSB).[18]

In verse 1 Timothy 2:3–4, Paul continues his thought: “. . . God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (ESV). Once again, the RSB attempts to “reform” this truth in its footnote:

. . . who desires all people to be saved. This does not mean that God sovereignly wills every human being to be saved . . . It may refer to God’s general benevolence in taking no delight in the death of the wicked, or to God’s desire that all types be saved (i.e., God does not choose His elect from any single group).[19]

With many verses contradicting TULIP theology within the English Standard Version, the RSB must rely on its footnotes to provide some connection between the actual text and its Calvinistic ideas and undertones.

Another example of the Reformation Study Bible’s mutilation of the intended meaning of the Word is in 2 Corinthians 5:14. The ESV reads, “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died.” Without reading into the verse’s meaning, we understand that Christ is the “one” who “died” literally “for all.” If Christ died for all, then all—not some—have died. Because this Scripture affirms what the five points of Calvinism deny, the footnote in the RSB reads, “The ones He died for are the same as the ‘all’ who ‘died’ with Him as a result of His death . . .”[20] No. The verse does not say nor give any indication that the ones for whom He died are the “ones who died with Him.” The verse clearly reads that the “one,” who is Christ, “has died for all.” Christ has died for all, regardless of whether or not we who have placed faith in Him undergo the salvific process of dying “with Him as a result of His death.”

This kind of biblical interpretation illuminates Kent R. Rieske’s radical statement that, “Calvinists have typically taught from the margin notes in the Calvinist’s Geneva Bible in preference to the Scriptural text.”[21] Although Calvinists would vehemently disagree, the few examples above show that when a verse clearly contradicts a doctrine of TULIP, it is usually supplemented by a footnote misinterpreting the verse to fit the doctrine. Like most cults, when confronted with scriptural truth that affirms what they deny, the followers are led by the founder’s interpretation.

Biblical footnotes can be very useful, but they can only be trusted when Scripture is interpreting Scripture. Did the above footnotes from the Reformation Study Bible sound like Scripture was being used to interpret Scripture or like Calvin’s TULIP was being used to interpret Scripture? We will answer this question in more detail later.

Many Calvinists praise John Calvin in an unhealthy and unbalanced way, heralding him as the apostle Paul’s “faithful interpreter.”[22] By this selective mentality, a Reformed conscience can be held captive by Calvin’s radical and unorthodox interpretations. Josh McDowell claims that one of the key characteristics of a cult is its offering “new interpretations of the Scripture.” He states, “Some cults make no claim to know truth or extra-biblical revelation, but believe they alone have the key to interpreting the mysteries in the Bible.”[23] Let’s stop here and note that a great mystery found within the Bible is how man’s free will and God’s sovereignty work together. But Calvinism claims to have the answer! This theological system does away with the mystery by doing away with man’s free will. Calvinists believe that, “they alone have the key to interpreting the mysteries in the Bible.”[24]  Reformed Theology, as Calvinist W. Robert Godfrey asserts, even has a “Reformed interpretation of Romans.”[25] Godfrey assumes that non-Reformed churches likely “miss the real meaning of the Word of God,” as well as “the real need of the un-churched—namely, the gospel of the grace of Jesus Christ.” He then concludes that, “To find that real meaning, we must turn from stories to a system.”[26]

Also note that Calvinism has cleverly interpreted the mysteries of the Bible without claiming (as most cults do) to have “new truth” or “extra-biblical revelation.” Instead, as McDowell states:

The scriptures are their only acknowledged source of authority, but . . . are interpreted unreasonably and in a way different from that of orthodox Christianity. They testify that the historic beliefs and interpretations of Scripture are based upon a misunderstanding of the Bible or were pagan in origin.[27]  

Is it a coincidence that leading Calvinists claim that the traditional doctrines of orthodox Christianity are at odds with TULIP theology? Since Calvinists believe that their interpretation is the “true gospel” message (coming on the scene 1500 years after the birth of Christianity), every Christian doctrine before their time must have been somewhat unorthodox. Could this be true?

Were the doctrines of the free will of man, God’s desire for all men to be saved, and Christ’s universal offer of atonement merely man-made teachings, having their roots in humanistic tradition rather than Scripture?

Leading Calvinist James Whites believes that:

If we derive our beliefs from the Bible (rather than assuming them as a tradition . . . ), we will conclude that the phrase, “God is love” does not mean that God has the same kind and level of love for all things, including for each and every single individual human being.[28] [Italics mine.]

He continues:

Surely it is part of the modern evangelical tradition to say, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life,” but providing a meaningful biblical basis for this assertion is significantly more difficult. Unfortunately, most are never challenged to think through their traditions.[29] [Italics mine.]

Though the Bible-believing Christian should be challenged to think through traditions, to say that God’s love for humanity stems from tradition rather than “biblical truth” is simply ludicrous—but then again, so are most twisted interpretations of the Bible. Mormons defend their trust in The Book of Mormon by asserting that the Bible has been corrupted, whereas Calvinists defend their trust in TULIP theology by asserting that the mainstream understanding of God’s universal offer of salvation is a man­made tradition and a “denial of biblical truth.”

McDowell concludes that cults reinterpret the Bible:

. . . usually out of context, to justify the peculiar doctrines of a cult. Without an objective and reasonable way to understand what the Bible teaches, the cult member is at the whims of the cult leader.[30]

Again, we see a perfect example of this through John Calvin’s attempt to justify one of his peculiar doctrines concerning his strict ecclesiastical rule over Geneva. Concerning Jesus’ parable of the weeds in Matthew 13, American historian James P. Byrd, Jr. states:

Above all, Calvin believed that the parable of the weeds contained valuable instruction on church discipline. . . . Calvin’s argument that the parable had to do with church discipline rested on his belief that the field signified the church. This presented an embarrassing dilemma because, as Jesus himself explained, “the field is the world (Matt 13:38).” Calvin’s exegesis of the parable therefore seemed to contradict the explanation that Christ gave to his disciples. In treating this delicate problem, Calvin argued that although Christ called the field the world, he intended “to apply” the field “to the Church, about which, after all, he was speaking,”. . . Calvin solved the apparent conflict by not taking literally Jesus’ interpretation of the field as the world. Calvin claimed that Jesus “transfers by synecdoche to the world what is more apt a part of it.” Jesus did not mean that the field was the world itself, but rather the church that existed within the world.[31]

James Byrd concludes that “Calvin rejected a simple reading of the Christ’s interpretation of the field as the world, preferring instead a figural interpretation at this crucial juncture in the parable.”[32] Therefore, Calvin arrogantly altered the actual meaning of Jesus’ words in this parable because they posed a threat to his conscience and his systematic approach to understanding the Bible.

Apart from changing the definitions of biblical words, the main aspect of twisting Scripture is taking a verse out of its immediate context, placing it in a different area of Scripture, and then using it to uphold a false doctrine. Sometimes this is done innocently and sometimes not. As we have seen before, the account of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead has been used a number of times by Calvinists to support their false doctrine of Total Depravity, as well as other doctrines in TULIP. We also see an example of this in James White’s book, Debating Calvinism. White uses Ezekiel 37:1– 14 to support “man’s inability” to come to Christ. However, Ezekiel 37 narrates a one-time event, experienced by one man, that took place in the Old Covenant, and it is meant to point to the future restoration of the nation and people of Israel. But White moves this passage from its context and places it as central to the salvation of all New Covenant believers, in order to support the belief that regeneration somehow precedes faith.

In responding to James White’s book, The Potter’s Freedom (a refutation of Geisler’s book, Chosen but Free), Norman Geisler states:

“Another technique employed by PF [Potter’s Freedom] to further its position is to redefine terms that cover the harsh reality of a biblically, morally, and rationally indefensible view.”[33] [italics mine]

Geisler also says:

A similar problem emerges when PF [Potter’s Freedom] employs a kind of theological doublespeak to forward its view. For example, it affirms that fallen humans can will, but yet they have no will (192); that grace is irresistible, but yet it is not coercive (161); that depraved humans are dead but are alive enough to hear and reject the gospel (101); that God does not force anyone, but He regenerates them contrary to their will (200). [34]

Calvinists have not produced a whole new book to support their theology as did the Mormons. They need only to explain away those verses that contradict TULIP. As Geisler states above, this is done by redefining terms and theological doublespeak. Kent Rieske also explains how this is accomplished:

Calvinism consists of theological doctrines which use words found in the Bible. However, Calvinism consistently redefines those words, takes them out of context, applies the doctrines inappropriately, exaggerates the meaning of the words to the extreme, or in some other way distorts the Word of God to match the theology written by John Calvin in his book, Institutes of the Christian Religion.[35]

While an orthodox Christian can easily point out the flaws found within the New World Translation, the theology of Calvinism is not so blatantly twisted since there is not a Calvinistic translation of the Bible. In dissecting Calvinism’s TULIP, one must point to the ill interpreted as opposed to ill translated verses. In either case, both pose serious problems with similar consequences. Using twisted footnotes, words, and contexts are all ways to pull unintended meanings from the Bible.

And yet it is under an intellectual guise of spiritual fervency that Calvinism shows just how it’s done.

NOTES

  1. Geisler and Rhodes, Correcting the Cults, 18.
  2. Bryson, The Dark Side of Calvinism, 30.
  3. Hanegraaff, “What Are Some Common Marks of a Cult?”
  4. New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (NWT) (New York: Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, 1961).
  5. NWT, Hebrews 1:8.
  6. NKJV, Hebrews 1:8.
  7. NWT, John 1:1.
  8. Smith, Introduction to The Book of Mormon.
  9. Isaiah Bennett, Catholic Answers (San Diego, CA, 1979-2008) [online]; accessed 5 July 2006; available from [Best I could find]
  10. Smith, The Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants 130:3.
  11. NKJV, John 4:24.
  12. NKJV, Luke 24:39.
  13. Geisler and Rhodes, Correcting the Cults, 21.
  14. MacCulloch, The Reformation, 249.
  15. Byrd, The Challenges of Roger Williams, 190.
  16. C. Sproul, ed., The Reformation Study Bible (RSB), (Orlando, FL: Ligonier Ministries, 2005) p. 1,514.
  17. James White, “Blinded By Tradition: An Open Letter to Dave Hunt Regarding His Newly Published Attack Upon the Reformation, What Love Is This? Calvin’s Misrepresentation of God” [online]; accessed 13 July 2007; (Link).
  18. RSB Footnote, p. 1,752.
  19. RSB Footnote, p. 1,752.
  20. RSB Footnote, p. 1,679.
  21. Rieske, “Calvinism.”
  22. Godfrey, An Unexpected Journey, p. 60
  23. McDowell, Handbook of Today’s Religions, 20.
  24. Ibid.
  25. Godfrey, An Unexpected Journey, 26.
  26. Ibid., 36.
  27. McDowell, Handbook of Today’s Religions, 21.
  28. White, in Debating Calvinism, p. 268.
  29. , 265.
  30. McDowell, Handbook of Today’s Religions, 21.
  31. Byrd, The Challenges of Roger Williams, 94–95; Byrd quotes
  32. Matthew 13:38 and Calvin, Harmony of the Gospels, Vol. 2 of Calvin’s Commentaries, 75.
  33. Ibid., 261.
  34. Geisler, Chosen but Free, p. 261.
  35. Ibid.
  36. Rieske, “Calvinism.”

Section Introduction — “Its Ignoring of Scripture”

In this section, Coate moves from the problem of twisting or redefining Scripture to the related problem of selectively ignoring Scripture. His argument is that a theological system can appear consistent when it focuses on the passages that support its conclusions while minimizing, excluding, or reinterpreting passages that create tension with those conclusions. He uses examples from several religious movements before applying the same principle to Calvinism, particularly concerning God’s sovereignty, human freedom, and God’s desire for all people to be saved.

Coate’s central concern is that Scripture must be considered as a whole rather than selectively. He argues that affirming God’s sovereignty does not require ignoring passages concerning human responsibility or God’s universal saving desire. Likewise, affirming human freedom or a universal offer of salvation should not require ignoring passages concerning God’s sovereignty and election.

The section therefore builds on the previous one: where the preceding section examines the reinterpretation of difficult passages, this section examines what happens when passages are simply left out of the theological equation. Coate ultimately argues that both practices can produce the same result—allowing a theological system to determine which biblical data receive controlling weight.

The question Coate places before the reader is:

  • Are we allowing the whole counsel of Scripture to shape our theology, or are we constructing our theology from selected passages and then finding ways to deal with everything else?

Its Ignoring of Scripture

When certain Scripture is ignored, the most ridiculous teachings can easily fool the novice and usher in a tidal wave of theological confusion. Although this practice varies among cults, it is indeed found to some degree in every cult. Radical cults with more glaringly unorthodox doctrines disregard hosts of passages, whereas more conservative cults may choose to overlook only the few passages that obstruct their beliefs. Either way, ignoring parts of Scripture to any degree has huge theological consequences for the cult’s followers.

A tragic example of a cult that excluded a vast majority of Scripture, despite claiming to have a biblical foundation, was the “Children or God” or “The Family” cult. The biblical “foundation” this cult claimed was from Matthew 4:19, in which Jesus says, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Yet in the hands of Children of God leader David Berg, Matthew 4:19 was bizarrely twisted into a justification of religious prostitution. This cult formed in 1974 and ended in 1987 (partially due to the AIDS scare). In David’s theology, being a fisher of men was the call for women to win converts by sexual attraction. These women were called “hookers for Jesus” and their offspring were sadly referred to as “Jesus Babies.” Prostitution was widely used as a means for “converts” or solicitors to donate or raise money for the cult. David’s foul “teaching” of the Scriptures were so perverted they insult and degrade common sense. Yet, internal records of the Children of God indicate that over 223,000 people or “fish” took the bait. These naïve people believed the lie and were sexually loved between 1978 and 1988.[1] The point is made: any doctrine, no matter how absurd, can amass a large cult following by claiming biblical roots and godly motives when Scripture is picked apart and discarded.

A fundamental difference between orthodox Christianity and Calvinism is that one holds two truths equally whereas the other holds one truth to the detriment of the other. The non-Calvinist does not rail against the truth that God is completely sovereign. The Calvinist, however, would have you believe that if you accept that God is sovereign, you cannot also believe that man has a free will. Orthodox Christians hold both to be true.

Think of it this way: If I were to debate a Calvinist, I would never deny the scriptural fact that God is completely sovereign. My opponent could go through a plethora of verses revealing that God is sovereign over creation and has an elect people. I would not argue or debate with these. We are not discussing whether or not God is sovereign. That is a biblical fact. But because the Calvinist ignores the biblical truth that man has a free will and that God offers salvation to all men, he must do one of two things when handling the Bible. Like a typical cultist, he must either falsely interpret any verses that testify to whatever he does not believe in, or more simply, to ignore those portions of Scripture altogether. Again, while the orthodox Christian should hold both truths in equality, Calvinists hold one truth—God’s sovereignty—over the other— man’s free will.

If I were trying to persuade you to believe that God is not sovereign and that there is no such thing as the elect, I would have to ignore that part of Scripture that teaches otherwise. I would only teach and focus on those passages that support my theology—and that would be absurd. Could I make a case that man has free will and that God desires to save all men, without regard to God’s sovereign elect? Of course . . . as long as I ignore the part of Scripture about God’s sovereign elect. Could the Calvinist make a case that God is sovereign and that He has an elect, without regard to man’s free will and God’s desire to save all men? Of course . . . as long as he ignores the part of Scripture about man’s free will.

To ignore means to refuse to notice or pay attention to somebody or something. The word stems from the Latin word ignorant, which means “to not know” or “to be without knowledge.”[2] But to ignore is different than simply not knowing. To ignore is purposefully to disregard. I might understand the reasoning behind Calvinistic theology if its followers withheld those scriptural texts that teach man’s free will and God’s universal offer of salvation to mankind. But no Scripture is withheld from the Calvinist, and they are accountable for purposefully ignoring parts of Scripture.

Dave Hunt argues, in his response to James White’s defense of “man’s inability”:

To support Calvinism’s denial of human ability and responsibility, White gives a few favorite proof texts while ignoring a plethora of passages that present the other side. He offers inferences but not one Scripture that clearly states that unregenerate man is unable to believe the gospel.[3]

In his book, Problems with Evangelical Theology, Ben Witherington notes this particular problem within Calvinism (especially among those who like to debate). He states, “It is perfectly possible to argue consistently and logically about something, but draw the circle of argumentation too narrowly, and so wrongly exclude some of the most important data.”[4] Excluding Scripture, or “important data,” is precisely the error of all cults. In order to practice prostitution and fulfill his own lusts, David Berg paid no attention to the parts of Scripture that deals with sexual purity, monogamy, and marital faithfulness. To uphold his book and writings, Joseph Smith disregarded the part of the Bible that condemned adding to it or subtracting from it. He upheld his book as the “fullness of the gospel” anyway, caring nothing for the words of Paul written to the Galatian believers: “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8, NKJV).[5] Likewise, in holding their belief that the apostle Peter was never married (being the supposed first pope), Catholics close their eyes to Matthew 8:14, “Now when Jesus had come into Peter’s house, He saw his wife’s mother lying sick with a fever.” In believing Jesus to be less than God, Jehovah’s Witnesses choose not to take into account that Jesus “is the image of the invisible God . . . For by Him all things were created . . . All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist” (Colossians 1:15– 17, NKJV).[6] Lastly, to believe that man has no free will and that God does not desire all to be saved, Calvinism simply glosses over verses like 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,” and 1 Timothy 2:3–4, “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (NKJV). While very few cults would ever admit to purposefully ignoring certain verses, some attempt to get around any verse that appears to threaten the validity of their doctrines by simply redefining the meanings of words. This maneuver is not easy to detect and usually misleads those not familiar with the details of the passage at hand. We see this clearly in Calvinism.

NOTES

  1. http://www.xfamily.org/index.php/Main_Page; Under “Flirty Fishing” (CAUTION: The article under ‘Flirty Fishing’ contains explicit text and/or images that some may find disturbing or offensive.), [online]; accessed 25 June, 2007; Internet. Found it in GROKEPEDIA
  2. Webster’s New World Dictionary, s.v. “Ignorant”.
  3. Hunt, in Debating Calvinism, 75.
  4. Witherington, The Problem with Evangelical Theology, 5.
  5. NKJV, Galatians 2:8.
  6. NKJV, Colossians 1:15 – 17.

Section Introduction — “Its Twisted Terminology”

This is the section where Coate brings the preceding arguments together most directly: theological systems can preserve familiar biblical vocabulary while assigning that vocabulary meanings that serve the system itself. He argues that this makes theological disagreement especially difficult, because two people can use the same words—grace, calling, election, foreknowledge, atonement, world, love, and others—while actually communicating different concepts.

Coate begins with the broader principle that terminology matters. He draws on Hank Hanegraaff, George Bryson, Walter Martin, and others to argue that using orthodox Christian words does not necessarily establish orthodox definitions. He then applies that concern specifically to Calvinist theology, examining distinctions such as external and internal calling, general and particular election, foreknowledge as “forelove,” common and regenerating grace, and various descriptions of the atonement.

The centerpiece of the section is Coate’s examination of words such as “world” and “love.” He argues that the theological significance of these words becomes especially apparent when their ordinary contextual meanings create difficulties for limited atonement or particular redemption. He therefore examines how writers such as A. W. Pink interpret passages containing world and how Calvinist explanations of God’s love distinguish between kinds of divine love.

Coate closes by returning to a principle emphasized by Hanegraaff:

  • biblical interpretation should follow the basic rules of language rather than assuming that ordinary words acquire hidden meanings whenever a theological system requires them to do so.

The central question of this section is perhaps the simplest—and the most important:

  • When two theological systems use the same biblical words, are they actually talking about the same things?

Its Twisted Terminology

[Cults] manipulate the Scriptures to fit their own beliefs. Although they may claim to serve Jesus Christ, and may even use the same terminology orthodox Christians use, their definitions are vastly different.[1]  

—Hank Hanegraaff

Monergism can, however, be defined unscripturally—as it is in Reformed Theology. The same can be said for just about any theological term. In the wrong hands, an otherwise good term can be used to convey a bad concept. So it is with monergism in the hands of a Calvinist.[2]

—George Bryson

Having a proper understanding of a cult’s terminology is paramount in differentiating the orthodox from the unorthodox. The novice might ask:

How does the Latter-day Saint differ from me? They believe that we all need God’s grace, and that we are all sinners. They believe in the Holy Spirit and in the work of Jesus on the cross and redemption.

The key words in the statements above are God, grace, sinners, Holy Spirit, Jesus, and forgiveness. Jonathan Rowe, a critic of Mormonism writes, “There is a lot of Christian terminology on the official [Mormon] website, but upon examination, you come to understand that though the terms are familiar, the meanings of those terms are foreign and heretical.”[3]

Although cults use Christian words, their definitions of them are far from orthodox. Some examples include the following:

The orthodox Christian believes in one God. The Mormon believes in many gods. The orthodox Christian believes that Jesus is the Son of God and Creator of all. Jehovah’s Witnesses believe Jesus was created and that He is not God. The orthodox Christian believes that sin is disobedience to God. Christian Science believes that sin is an illusion and merely an err in humanity. The orthodox Christian believes that salvation is reconciliation to God by Jesus’ death and resurrection. The New Age follower believes that salvation is being one with the universe. The orthodox Christian believes that God desires all of mankind to be saved. The Calvinist must logically believe that God desires a majority of mankind not to be saved but eternally punished in Hell.

In a frustrating argument with a Calvinist, in which no progress was made, Josh McDowell’s warning rang very true to me. He writes:

A feature of some cultic groups is that they say one thing publicly but internally believe something totally different. Many organizations call themselves Christians when in fact they deny the fundamentals of the faith. . . . One therefore must be on the alert for the organizations that advertise themselves as “Christians” but whose internal teachings disagree with Scripture.[4]

Cult leaders form new meanings of passages by redefining the words of the text. When faced with Scripture that seemed contradictory to his own teachings, John Calvin did just that. In his commentary on 1 Timothy 2:1–4, Calvin wrote that the modifier “all” men “doesn’t mean all men but all kinds and races of men.”[5] Dave Hunt writes, “Calvin’s audacity in changing the meaning of Scripture is breathtaking.”[6] He also writes, “For turning all men into all kinds and races of men and ‘princes and foreign nations’ in order to accommodate their system of theology, Calvinists will answer to God.”[7]

In his classic Kingdom of the Cults, Walter Martin challenges the Christian to tolerate absolutely no confusion of Christian terminology. He writes:

And just as the American Bar Association will not tolerate confusion of terminology in the trial of cases, and as the American Medical Association will not tolerate redefinition of terminology of diagnostic and surgical medicine, so also the church of Jesus Christ has every right to not tolerate the gross perversions and redefinitions of historical and Biblical terminology simply to accommodate a culture and a society that cannot tolerate an absolute standard or criterion of truth, even if it is revealed by God in his Word and through the true Witness of His Holy Spirit.[8]

In order to argue effectively and dialogue with a Calvinist, one must know his language. Calvinists often refer to the term regenerational grace (a term nowhere found in the Bible). As we have seen earlier, the terms total depravity of man, and the fall also take on new meanings with the Calvinist, as do the words, grace, atonement, mankind, and race. Concerning the word “grace,” George Bryson notes that, “It cannot be reasonably denied that Calvinists hold to a distinctive definition of grace.”[9] It is when we correctly understand how the Calvinist uses these terms that the playing field of argumentation will be even.

Not only do biblical words referring to salvation have different meanings as Calvinist terminology but the invention of new words and ideas seems to have no end. For example, Sproul’s What Is Reformed Theology? contains numerous terms in both categories, including monergism, synergism, operative grace, cooperative grace, prescient view, external call, internal call, effectual calling, ordo salutis, (order of salvation), pelagianism, semi-pelagianism, moral inability, moral ability, double predestination, reprobation, active decree, antinomianism, civil virtue, common grace, condign merit, congruous merit, consubstantiation, dynamic monarchianism, determinism, decretive will, general revelation, infralapsarianism, modalism, neo-platonism, passive decree, permissive will, pluralism, perceptive will, radical corruption, and utter depravity.[10] Thankfully, he includes a “Glossary of Foreign Terms.”[11] Although some of these words have the potential to clarify biblical theology, some do just the opposite. Again, in order to defend TULIP rather than the message of the Bible, Calvinists have been forced to invent new terms and redefine others. The Bible clearly reveals that God desires all to be saved and thus, calls all to repentance. But because Calvinists hold that God only calls those who will believe, they make a distinction regarding the word “call.” As Sproul says, “In Theology, we distinguish between two kinds of divine calling: the external call and the internal call.”[12] Only the theology of Calvinism and other Christian cults make such distinctions about vital biblical words pertaining to salvation. The Bible does not identify an “internal” and “external” calling, but simply a “calling.” Because the Scriptures were not written only for biblical scholars, the obvious and intended meaning of this “calling” and other words like it, are intended to be straightforward, with no double or hidden meanings.

John Calvin himself redefined the word “election.” Diarmaid MacCulloch explains Calvin’s interpretation of the “elect” within both the Old and New Testament:

Israel was the Old Testament equivalent of the true Church; it had been a covenanted, chosen nation. Everyone in Israel was elect: they enjoyed a “general election.” But not all Israelites followed God’s commandments . . .[13]

Calvin wrote, “We must now add a second, more limited degree of election . . . when from the same race of Abraham God rejected some but showed that he kept others among his sons by cherishing them in the Church.”[14] Yet the Bible does not speak of a “general election” or a “more limited degree of election.” While these terms are not even mentioned in Scripture, John Calvin and his followers have taken the liberty not to only invent them but to establish doctrine on their foundation, as well.

Because many non-Calvinists believe that the doctrine of election is based upon God’s foreknowledge of who will choose to receive Jesus, leading Calvinists have boldly changed the meaning of “foreknew” in Romans 8:28 (“For those whom He foreknew He also predestined . . .”). Steele, Thomas, and Quinn write in their book The Five Points of Calvinism that, “The word ‘foreknew’ as used here is thus understood to be equivalent to ‘foreloved’— those who were the objects of God’s love He marked out for salvation.”[15] This is what Calvinists believe.

This concept of adjusting definitions is also found with the salvific word “grace.” To accurately define the word “grace” in all of its multifaceted relations to mankind and the world is impossible. Nevertheless, Calvinists have meddled with the word to make distinctions like operative grace, cooperative grace, regenerational grace, and common grace, in order to promote Calvin’s TULIP. Titus 2:11 says, “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men . . .” But because this verse and many like it give the idea that God desires all to be saved and has extended His grace to everyone, the word “grace” undergoes a butchering, or in the words of a Calvinist, a “distinction.” George Bryson understands how Calvinists define grace differently than does the Bible, writing, “It cannot be reasonably denied that Calvinists hold to a distinctive definition of grace . . . I am deeply troubled over the Reformed version of grace because through it, the precious and scriptural truths concerning grace are so maligned.”[16] Once again, since Titus 2:11 reads that the “grace of God has appeared to all men,” the Calvinist is compelled to interpret “grace” as meaning common grace, as opposed to regenerational grace. “Common grace” does not lead to salvation and can be resisted, whereas “the grace of regeneration is irresistible.”[17] Again, these words do not appear in Scripture and are not even used consistently by major defenders of Calvinism. Ephesians 2:8 reads that grace is essential to one’s salvation: “For by grace you have been saved through faith.” Calvinism totally distorts this idea by redefining the word “grace.”

Several more words in Calvinism’s dictionary have been born from mere speculative philosophy, such as double predestination and reprobation. Sproul uses twisted and invented terminology both to defend and “sugar coat” the true doctrines of Calvinism. He even goes so far as to label himself not as a Calvinist but as a Reformed theologian. Richard Mouw, however, remains faithful to his Calvinist label, saying that such labels “serve us well when they are informative, when they tell us something important about the person who chooses to use a specific label.”[18] R. C. Sproul, however, seems to shy away from traditional Calvinistic names. Thus, he titled his book: What Is Reformed Theology? not What Is Calvinism? Inside, he goes further in renaming the Five Points of Calvinism “The Five Points of Reformed Theology.” He continues in this vein by revising the name of each point. Total Depravity is changed to “Humanity’s Radical Corruption”; Unconditional Election is “God’s Sovereign Choice”; and Irresistible Grace is the “Spirit’s Effective Call.” No longer is Christ’s atonement “limited” (lest the word “limited” suggest that Jesus died only for a few)—Sproul calls it Purposeful. One specific doctrine in Calvinism that has undergone many different name changes is Limited Atonement. Whether referred to as “limited,” “specific,” “particular,” “effective,” or “definite and personal,” calling Limited Atonement by other names “can never change the fact of what it really is.”[19]

Kent R. Rieske has also noted Calvinism’s modification of words and ideas:

John Calvin defined important doctrinal Bible words differently than the orthodox and historic Christian interpretation. These erroneous definitions are needed to give logical support to Calvin’s blasphemous doctrines. This technique is typical of cults such as Mormons who hold Joseph Smith in high esteem and base their doctrines on his writings. Calvinists are so indoctrinated with these false definitions that they cannot understand the opposition to their doctrines. Naturally Calvinists believe the false doctrines of John Calvin because they believe the false definitions of major doctrinal words.[20]

No other word in the history of Calvinism has been so maligned as the word “world.” How this word is interpreted determines whether Jesus’ atonement was limited or not, and ultimately whether TULIP blooms or dies. Calvinist author Duane Spencer says, “Much of what we think about the atoning death of Christ will be tempered by what we understand the simple word world to mean.”[21] At least he acknowledges that the word is indeed “simple,” but ironically, in the hands of a Calvinist, it is anything but simple. The word, instead, takes on several mysteriously incorrect and inconsistent meanings. In examining the theological weight of this word, Vance rightly states that “everything hinges on the meaning of the word world.”[22] The following verses give light to the fact that the standard meaning of the word “world” poses a great threat to the doctrine of Limited Atonement and TULIP as a whole.

John 1:29: “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.’”

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.”

John 4:42: “Then they said to the woman, ‘Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.’”

John 6:33: “For the bread of God is He Who comes down from Heaven and gives life to the world.”

John 6:51: “I am the living bread which came down from Heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”

John 12:47: “. . . for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.”

1 John 2:2: “And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.”

2 Corinthians 5:19: “. . . God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself . . .”

1 John 4:14: “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world.”

In order to remain faithful to TULIP theology, the Calvinist must reinterpret what the word “world” really means.

A.W. Pink, a popular expositor for Calvinism, goes to great lengths to avoid the plain truth of John 1:29 (see above). He changes the meanings of two words in the text: “‘Sin,’ here signifies guilt (condemnation) as in Hebrews 9:26; and ‘the world,’ refers to the world of believers.”[23] The word “sin” in this verse actually has no abnormal implication of guilt or condemnation in the original language and has no connection at all to Hebrews 9:26. Furthermore, saying that “the world” refers to the “world of the elect” is completely speculative and fundamentally changes the meaning of the word, verse, and message of the Bible.

In the example below, the word “world” is again interpreted by the Calvinist as the world of the godly.

In response to John 4:42 (see above), Pink proclaims, “This does not mean that Christ is the Saviour of the human race, but is a general term used in contradistinction from Israel, including all believing Gentiles scattered throughout the earth.”[24]

Another example of how “world” equates to the world of believers is found in the Calvinist’s most feared verse in all the Bible:

1 John 2:2 (see above). Regarding this verse, Pink explains:

. . .when John says, “He is the propitiation for our sins” he can only mean for the sins of Jewish believers. . . . when John added, “And not for ours only, but also for the whole world,” he signified that Christ was the propitiation for the sins of the Gentile believers too, for, as previously shown, “the world” is a term contrasted from Israel.[25]

Similarly, regarding John 6:33 (see above), Pink again writes, “The ‘world’ here does not include the whole human race . . . It is the ‘world’ of believers who are here in view.” [26]

According to Pink’s interpretations, Christ came for the elect only. Christ Himself said, however, that He had come for the sick and sinful, as opposed to the healthy and righteous: “When Jesus heard it, He said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance’” (Mark 2:17, NKJV).

After studying the eighty appearances of the word “world” in the Gospel of John, Vance emphatically concluded: “Not only does the word ‘world’ never denote the elect, it is unequivocally demeaned and condemned by God.”[27] In fact, the word “world” was written over two hundred times in the New Testament and never does it denote or even vaguely imply God’s elect.

The other most misused and incriminating word in Calvinist theology is the word “love.” Recognizing this, Dave Hunt based the title of his book on the question Calvinists have yet to adequately answer: What Love Is This? Calvinism defenders, Doug VanderMeulin and Steve Watkins, have tried to answer the question by confronting Dave Hunt on the grounds that his book inaccurately portrays Calvinism. Though after a two-hour discussion, Doug and Steve might have clarified some nonessentials of their faith, they only solidified the vital claims of Mr. Hunt’s book. When Dave Hunt asked, “Does God love those that he has predestined from eternity past to eternal doom?”[28] They replied, “Yes, He loves them . . . with an ‘agape’ love.”[29] To this, Hunt replied, “And that is why I titled my book, What Love Is This?”[30]

George Bryson also acknowledges the Calvinistic redefinition of the word “love,” stating, “Even those Calvinists who believe God loves all people have redefined that love, in their thinking and theology, to exclude any kind of saving grace for some of the people they say God loves.” [31] We find this to be true in how Calvinists such as Doug VanderMeulin and Steve Watkins justify the assertion that God does indeed love the people He has predestined to eternal doom by giving the definition of “love” a new meaning. Although the Greek language has four words for different kinds of love, not one of them hints of a love that is “salvific” in nature.[32] Not even eros, the most fleshly sort of love, would justify the act of forcing someone to suffer eternal punishment. The kind of love prescribed in Calvinism is well summarized by Hunt: “I’m going to shoot you guys, I’m going to torture you, I’m going to shoot you, but I want to show some love towards you and some mercy towards you, so I’m going to give you a good meal.”[33] 

Norman Geisler has also identified how Calvinist leader James White redefines certain verses in his book The Potter’s Freedom:

Yet PF [Potter’s Freedom] repeatedly reads “some men” into passages that clearly and emphatically say “all men” (140, 142). It insists against the context that 2 Peter 3:9 (where God desires that all men be saved) is not speaking about salvation (146–147) . . . It distorts the word “saves” to “saves himself” (64), and so on. . . . PF [Potter’s Freedom] is permeated with logical fallacies and reveals an inadequate comprehension of the unjustified theological and philosophical underpinnings of extreme Calvinism. . . . PF futilely attempts to make the implausible sound plausible and the unbiblical seem biblical.[34]

Geisler provides another example of problematic Calvinist terminology:

From the time of the later Augustine this text [1 Timothy 2:3–4] has been manhandled by extreme Calvinists. Spurgeon summarizes their attempts to avoid the obvious. He said here is how “our older Calvinistic friends deal with this text. ‘All men,’ say they—‘that is, some men’: as if the Holy Ghost could not have said ‘some men’ if he had meant some men. ‘All men,’ say they; that is, ‘some of all sorts of men’; as if the Lord could not have said ‘All sorts of men’ if he had meant that. The Holy Ghost by the apostle has written ‘all men,’ and unquestionably he means all men.’[35]  

Similarly,

Of this and like passages John Owen [also] offers the dubious view that “all” does not mean “all” here.[36]

In his book, The Apocalypse Code, Hank Hanegraaff writes about how unorthodox views of the Bible can stem from changing the meanings of simple words. He prefaces his argument by stating that we should “interpret the Bible in accordance with the basic rules of language.”[37] He then writes:

Suppose I told my children, “I don’t want you to touch this gingerbread cake, because we are going to have dinner soon!” They wouldn’t need an advanced degree in English from Yale to understand that by “this” I meant this gingerbread cake—not that gingerbread cake, as in a gingerbread cake that would be baked for their twenty-first birthday. Nor are they the least bit confused about the meaning of the “you,” which in context refers to them, not to children of a future generation. “Soon” is equally unambiguous. To say we were going to have dinner “soon” could possibly mean dinner in the distant future. When it comes to interpreting scripture, we should not suppose that the rules of grammar mysteriously change.[38]

Calvinists would do well to reconsider the core tenets of their theology in light of Hanegraaff’s advice. Let’s again ponder closely the words of Walter Martin on the danger of twisting the Bible’s words:

And just as the American Bar Association will not tolerate confusion of terminology in the trial of cases, and as the American Medical Association will not tolerate redefinition of terminology of diagnostic and surgical medicine, so also the church of Jesus Christ has every right to not tolerate the gross perversions and redefinitions of historical and Biblical terminology . . .[39]

Despite Calvinism’s historical and biblical appearance of intellectual orthodoxy, its insistence on maintaining the doctrines of TULIP has led it perilously close to “the kingdom of the cults.”

Most Christians would say that Calvinism is simply a Christian theology based upon John Calvin’s teachings. In my explanation of the five points, I argued that Calvinism is a Christian but cultlike theology that strips humanity of free will. Although descriptions may vary, the essential philosophy of Calvinistic religion has a name—fatalism. As George Bryson writes:

For all practical purposes, Calvinism amounts to Theistic Fatalism. A theist believes in a personal God. A fatalist believes the future (especially regarding the destiny of individuals) is fixed. A Theistic Fatalist believes that a personal God unconditionally determines where individuals go when they die, that is, whether they go to heaven or hell. . . When I say that Calvinism amounts to Theistic Fatalism or that it has a dark side, it is not for the purpose of offending Calvinists, though some will no doubt take offense at my use of these words. I use the label Theistic Fatalism because it perfectly describes Reformed Theology. I use the words dark side, because Calvinism has, as a central tenet, a very dark and disturbing distinctive.[40]

Lawrence Vance, as well, deduces the following:

Although Calvinists go out of their way to distance themselves from fatalism, they are in essence teaching the same thing. When a philosopher believes “what is to be will be” it is called determinism. When a stoic believes “what is to be will be” it is called fate. When a Muslim believes “what is to be will be” it is called fatalism. But when a Calvinist believes “what is to be will be” it is called predestination.[41]

Geisler likewise states that “there is no real difference . . . between the extreme Calvinists and fatalistic Islam,”[42] concluding that:

. . . some Calvinists reject this “double-predestination” in favor of God simply “passing over” the non-elect, but even they must admit that the result is the same: since God did not give them the desire to be saved “they are condemned to eternal misery.”[43]

NOTES

  1. Hanegraaff, “What Are Some Common Marks of a Cult?”
  2. Bryson, The Dark Side of Calvinism, 352.
  3. (This link was dead, so I tracked down the article and PDF’ed it.)
  4. McDowell, Handbook of Today’s Religions, 22-23.
  5. Calvin, Commentary, 1 Timothy 2:3–4, also noted in, [online] accessed 2 February 2010; available from Internet Link.
  6. Hunt, in Debating Calvinism, 316.
  7. Ibid., 317.
  8. Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults, 31.
  9. Bryson, The Dark Side of Calvinism, 28.
  10. Sproul, What Is Reformed Theology?
  11. Ibid., 225.
  12. Ibid., 143.
  13. MacCulloch, The Reformation, 244.
  14. John Calvin, Institutes, vol. 2, ed. John Thomas McNeill (Westminster Press, Louisville Kentucky, 1960, Reprinted in 2006), p. 929.
  15. Steele, Thomas, and Quinn, The Five Points of Calvinism
  16. Bryson, The Dark Side of Calvinism, 28-30.
  17. Sproul, What Is Reformed Theology?
  18. Mouw, Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport, 18–19.
  19. Vance, The Other Side of Calvinism, 407.
  20. Rieske, “Calvinism.”
  21. Duane E. Spencer, Duane E., TULIP, The Five Points of Calvinism in the Light of Scripture (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1979), 46.
  22. Vance, The Other Side of Calvinism, 435.
  23. W. Pink, Exposition of the Gospel of John, Volume One, John 1–7, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1945), 59.
  24. Ibid., 225.
  25. Arthur W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God (I. C. Herenedeen, 1930; Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1984), 259.
  26. Ibid., 325.
  27. Vance, The Other Side of Calvinism, 435.
  28. Dave Hunt, Conversation on Calvinism (Bend, OR: The Berean Call, 2002) [CD-ROM].
  29. Ibid.
  30. Ibid.
  31. Bryson, The Dark Side of Calvinism, 26.
  32. Hunt, Conversation on Calvinism.
  33. Ibid.
  34. Geisler, Chosen but Free, p. 262–63.
  35. ,Ibid. 210; Footnote 19: Cited by Murray, Spurgeon v. Hyper-Calvinism, 150–151.
  36. Ibid., 211.
  37. Hanegraaff, Hank, The Apocalypse Code (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Nashville, 2007), 72.
  38. Ibid., 72.
  39. Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults, 31.
  40. Bryson, The Dark Side of Calvinism, 21–22.
  41. Vance, The Other Side of Calvinism, 278.

Section Introduction — “The Calvinist Redefinition of Biblical Language”

This section brings together the terminology Coate examines throughout The Cultish Side of Calvinism and presents it in a more systematic way. Rather than focusing on a single disputed passage, the comparison looks at a broad range of biblical terms and theological concepts—including all, world, whosoever, love, sovereignty, grace, call, election, foreknew, predestination, regeneration, faith, repentance, free will, atonement, propitiation, perseverance, warning, monergism, synergism, common grace, effectual grace, gospel, and exegesis. The purpose is to show how the same biblical vocabulary can take on substantially different meanings within competing theological systems.

The chart is intentionally framed as “Biblical Term / Concept,” “Calvinistic Change / Redefinition as Characterized by the Sources,” and “Biblical / Traditional Reading.” It therefore does not claim that every Calvinist uses every term in exactly the same way. Rather, it identifies recurring definitions, distinctions, and theological usages presented in the sources and contrasts them with the readings argued for by the non-Calvinist sources.

One of the most important patterns is that the issue is not limited to individual words such as “all” or “world.” The same interpretive question extends into larger theological concepts: sovereignty and determinism, grace and regeneration, calling and effectual calling, election and individual selection, foreknowledge and forelove, faith and regeneration, atonement and particular redemption, and perseverance and the interpretation of apostasy warnings.

The chart should therefore be read as a comparative theological vocabulary guide, not as a claim that the English words themselves have only one possible meaning. Context matters. The central question is whether a particular meaning is being drawn from the biblical text and its context—or supplied by a theological system and then brought back to the text.

In short:

  • before debating a doctrine, we need to make sure we are using the same dictionary.
BIBLICAL TERM / CONCEPT CALVINISTIC CHANGE / REDEFINITION AS CHARACTERIZED BY THE SOURCES BIBLICAL / TRADITIONAL READING
All “All” may be restricted to all kinds, classes, or races of people, or to all of the elect, rather than every person under discussion. All means the whole of the group or persons specified by the context. The word itself does not inherently mean “all kinds” or “the elect.”
World “World” can mean the world of the elect, believing Gentiles, or people from every nation rather than humanity generally. World ordinarily refers to the world, humanity, or created order. Its precise scope is determined by context; it does not inherently mean “the elect.”
Whosoever “Whosoever” can effectively become whoever among the elect believes. Whosoever means whoever responds to the stated condition—such as whoever believes. The invitation is genuinely open to anyone who responds.
Love God does not love all people in the same way. His saving love is particularly directed toward the elect; whatever love, mercy, or benevolence He shows toward the non-elect does not entail an intention to save them. God’s love is genuine, benevolent, and not inherently restricted to the elect. Scripture presents God as loving the world, showing mercy and kindness broadly, and desiring the salvation of all rather than limiting His saving concern to a predetermined few.
Sovereignty God’s sovereignty is understood as exhaustive determinism: God has decreed everything that comes to pass, including human decisions and sinful actions. Sovereignty means God’s supreme authority, kingship, and rule. God is sovereign without the word itself meaning that He determines every human choice.
Grace Grace is narrowed into effectual / regenerating grace—God’s sovereign action toward the elect that regenerates them and guarantees their salvation. Grace is God’s unmerited favor and gracious provision. It is proclaimed through the gospel and genuinely offered to humanity.
Call A distinction is made between an external / general call and an internal / effectual call, with only the latter actually bringing the elect to salvation. Call is God’s summons through the gospel, genuinely extended to those who hear it and calling them to respond.
Election Election becomes unconditional individual selection: God chooses particular individuals for salvation before they believe and passes over others. Election means God’s choosing. Scripture speaks of God choosing people and peoples for particular purposes—including Israel and the church. The context determines whether a passage concerns individuals, a people, or a purpose.
Foreknew “Foreknew” is understood essentially as “foreloved”—God’s prior choice or love of particular individuals whom He marks out for salvation. Foreknew means to know beforehand or previously know. Its theological implications must be determined by the passage rather than automatically equating foreknowledge with predestination.
Predestination Predestination becomes God’s eternal determination of the individual destinies of the elect and, in many formulations, the corresponding reprobation of others. Predestination means determining beforehand. Scripture associates it particularly with the destiny and purpose of believers in Christ, such as conformity to Christ and adoption.
Regeneration The new birth is placed before faith, becoming the divine act that makes faith possible. Regeneration / new birth is the spiritual rebirth associated with conversion to Christ. The sources argue that Scripture does not require an unconscious regeneration to occur before a person can believe.
Faith Faith becomes a special supernatural gift given to the elect after regeneration, rather than the human response of believing the gospel. Faith is believing or trusting in Christ and the gospel—the human response to what God has revealed and offered.
Repentance Repentance is understood as a grace or gift irresistibly produced in the elect as the result of regeneration. Repentance is a genuine turning from sin toward God. Scripture commands people to repent and presents repentance as a genuine response to God’s summons.
Sin Sin is understood as an inherited condition so comprehensive that humanity is unable to respond positively to God apart from prior regeneration. Sin is rebellion, disobedience, and transgression against God—something human beings actually commit and for which they are morally responsible.
Dead / Dead in sin “Dead in sin” is interpreted as absolute spiritual inability: the sinner cannot respond to God in faith unless first regenerated. “Dead in sin” describes profound spiritual alienation and enslavement to sin; the term does not by itself establish absolute inability to respond to God’s gracious initiative.
Free Will Human libertarian freedom is rejected; human choices are understood as determined by God’s decree while remaining morally responsible. Free will / choice means that human beings genuinely make choices and are accountable for those choices. Genuine choice does not mean that humans save themselves by works.
Works “Works salvation” may be applied to any doctrine in which a human response or choice has a meaningful role in receiving salvation. Works are human deeds. Salvation is not earned by works, but a response of faith is therefore not automatically equivalent to earning salvation.
Salvation Salvation is narrowed to the elect and organized through a system of justification, regeneration, and sanctification in which the decisive saving act occurs before faith. Salvation is God’s rescue and reconciliation of sinners through Christ, received through faith.
Atonement Christ’s atonement becomes limited / definite / particular / effectual, with its saving intention specifically directed toward securing salvation for the elect. Atonement is Christ’s sacrificial provision for sin. The sources argue that Scripture presents Christ’s provision as extending to all humanity, with its saving benefits received through faith.
Propitiation Passages saying Christ is the propitiation for the “whole world” are restricted to the elect throughout the world. Propitiation refers to Christ’s sacrifice dealing with sin and satisfying God’s righteous judgment. “Whole world” should not automatically be converted into “the elect.”
Righteousness Imputed righteousness is understood as Christ’s righteousness being credited to the believer as the basis of justification. Righteousness concerns conformity to what is right before God. Justification involves God declaring the believer righteous on the basis of Christ.
Sanctification Sanctification is understood as an inevitable progressive work in the elect, with continuing sin expected throughout the Christian life. Sanctification is being set apart to God and growing in holiness through obedience to Him.
Holiness Holiness is understood as compatible with the continuing presence and inevitability of sin in the believer. Holiness means separation from sin and dedication to God; believers are repeatedly commanded to pursue it.
Perseverance “Perseverance of the saints” means that everyone truly regenerated will inevitably persevere to the end; ultimate apostasy demonstrates that a person was never genuinely saved. Perseverance describes continuing faithfully in Christ. Biblical warnings concerning falling away are treated as genuine warnings rather than automatically hypothetical descriptions.
Fall Away / Depart from the Faith Passages describing falling away or departing from the faith are interpreted to mean that the person was never truly saved. “Fall away,” “depart,” and similar expressions should be understood according to their immediate context rather than automatically supplied with “was never saved.”
If Biblical conditional statements may be interpreted as hypothetical descriptions rather than genuine conditions or possibilities. If ordinarily introduces a condition or possibility; its precise force is determined by context.
Warning Biblical warnings to believers can be understood as means God uses to preserve the elect rather than as genuine warnings concerning the danger they describe. Warning is a genuine admonition to avoid a stated danger; the warning should not be emptied of its apparent force.
Justice Divine justice is understood as compatible with God determining a person’s actions and eternal destiny while still holding that person responsible for those actions. Justice means judging rightly and impartially according to what a person does and is responsible for.
Reprobation Reprobation is a theological category describing God’s eternal decision to pass over some individuals and consign them to condemnation. Scripture clearly speaks of judgment and condemnation; whether Scripture teaches an eternal individual decree of reprobation in the specifically Calvinistic sense is a separate theological question.
Double Predestination God eternally determines both the salvation of the elect and the condemnation of the non-elect. The Bible teaches predestination, election, judgment, and condemnation; whether these constitute the Calvinistic doctrine of symmetrical “double predestination” is a separate theological question.
Monergism Salvation is understood as God alone acting, with the human response contributing nothing to the saving process, even as a genuine response. Salvation is entirely dependent upon God’s grace, while Scripture nevertheless calls people to believe, repent, receive Christ, and respond to the gospel.
Synergism Human cooperation with God is treated as compromising divine sovereignty or turning salvation into human works. Cooperation does not necessarily mean earning salvation. Scripture can command a genuine human response while salvation remains entirely dependent upon God’s grace.
Sovereign “Sovereign” becomes virtually synonymous with deterministic control of every event and human decision. Sovereign means supreme ruler—one who possesses supreme authority and the right to govern.
Common Grace “Common grace” becomes a special theological category explaining God’s goodness toward all people while reserving saving / regenerating grace for the elect. Scripture speaks of God’s goodness and grace toward humanity. Whether “common grace” and “saving grace” constitute fundamentally different kinds of grace is a theological distinction rather than a definition inherent in the word “grace.”
Effectual / Irresistible Grace Grace becomes God’s irresistible regeneration of the elect, guaranteeing their response and salvation. Grace is God’s unmerited favor. The gospel calls people to respond, and the sources argue that Scripture portrays people as capable of resisting God’s gracious appeal.
Gospel The gospel invitation can function primarily as the means by which those already determined to be elect are brought to faith rather than as a genuine offer of salvation to everyone who hears. The gospel is the good news of Christ’s death and resurrection and the means by which people are called to believe and be saved.
Evangelism Evangelism becomes the means by which the already-determined elect are brought to faith, while the evangelist does not know who those elect are. Evangelism is genuinely proclaiming the gospel so that people may hear, believe, repent, and be saved.
Context Context can be invoked within a theological system to interpret difficult passages in accordance with established Calvinistic conclusions. Context means interpreting a word or passage according to its surrounding literary, historical, grammatical, and theological setting.
Exegesis Exegesis can become the process of extracting a predetermined Calvinistic conclusion from the biblical text rather than allowing the text to determine the conclusion. Exegesis means drawing the meaning out of the text rather than importing a theological conclusion into it.
Hermeneutics A theological system can establish interpretive principles that consistently produce Calvinistic readings of disputed passages. Hermeneutics is the principles and practice used to interpret Scripture.
Pelagian The term can be used broadly as a label for those who reject Calvinistic doctrines of human inability, unconditional election, or irresistible grace. Pelagian properly refers to the specific theological position associated with Pelagius. Rejecting Calvinism does not automatically make someone Pelagian.
Calvinism Calvinism may be presented as synonymous with biblical Christianity or the gospel itself. Calvinism is a particular historical theological system within Christianity; it is not itself a synonym for Christianity or the gospel.
Reformed “Reformed” can function as a broader theological designation for the Calvinistic system. Reformed is a historical designation associated with the Protestant Reformation and a family of theological traditions; it is not itself a biblical synonym for “Christian.”

Resources for the above

  • Walter Martin — The Kingdom of the Cults, 6th ed.
  • Micah Coate — A Cultish Side of Calvinism
  • Leighton Flowers — The Potter’s Promise: A Biblical Defense of Traditional Soteriology
  • Leighton Flowers — Drawn by Jesus: A Biblical Defense of God’s Provision for All
  • “Language and Calvinism” — supplied PDF/article
  • Kerrigan Skelly — The Calvinism Dictionary (Official)
  • Brian’s Notebook — The Code Words of Calvinism
  • “Calvinism is Stupid: Redefining Words — Exposing the Calvinist Playbook — Part #1” — YouTube video/transcript
  • “War of the Words: How Calvinism Quietly Redefines Theological Terms” — YouTube video/transcript

Does Calvinism Leave Room For Genuine Choice (video added)

Published by Papa Giorgio

IS “PASSING OVER” AN ACTIVE CHOICE BY GOD?

Within the Calvinist system itself:

It is a sovereign decision that is part of God’s eternal decree, but Reformed theologians deliberately describe it as passive / negative rather than active in the same way election is active.

ELECTION
Equels
God positively acts (chooses, regenerates, grants faith).

PASSING OVER / REPROBATION
Equels
God withholds that positive action and leaves the person in their fallen state.

So Calvinists say it is not “as active” as election.

I disagree, under exhaustive sovereignty, the decision not to elect is still a deliberate, decisive choice by God. Calling it “passing over” changes the verb but does not remove the determination. In that sense, yes — it is still an active choice of the decree, even if executed by omission.

IS COMPATIBILISM DETERMINISTIC?

Yes.

Compatibilism is a form of determinism (specifically soft determinism). It affirms that every event, including every human choice, is determined by prior causes (ultimately God’s decree). It simply defines “freedom” as acting according to one’s own desires/nature without external coercion. John Hendryx’s statement is accurate: compatibilism is no less deterministic than hard determinism; the difference lies only in whether that determinism is considered compatible with moral responsibility.

Bottom line in the MacArthur / Reformed framework:

  • God’s decree determines both the salvation of the elect and the non-salvation of the reprobate. The elect are saved by God’s active, effectual intervention; the non-elect are left in their sin by God’s sovereign decision to pass them over. Compatibilism is the philosophical tool that allows Calvinists to call both outcomes determined while still affirming that people make real, responsible choices according to their natures.

“Does calvinism leave room for genuine choice?” but “If exhaustive divine determinism determines our beliefs and reasoning, what grounds do we have for trusting the theological conclusions we reach—including Calvinism itself?”

JOHNNY MAC’s TRANSCRIPT

You say, well, in a world of multiple religions, how can there only be two choices? Because you either choose the way that leads to heaven or you choose a way that does not. And while there may be varieties of that, it’s the same thing. It ends up in the same place. There really are only two religions in the world. There is the religion of human achievement, and that’s all religion in the world that offers heaven for good works, morality, religious ceremonies, rituals. On the other hand, there’s the religion of divine accomplishment which offers heaven to those who admit there is nothing they can do to earn it. One comes the way of works and flesh and merit and ceremony and ritual and ends up in hell, whatever its label. And the true way is by faith and grace and the Holy Spirit. The first way involves what we do and the true way involves what God did.

The Free-Thinking Argument is especially useful here because it explicitly applies the problem to exhaustive divine determinism. (PDF)

MacArthur’s distinction between the “religion of human achievement” and the “religion of divine accomplishment” sounds compelling, but it creates a problem for his own theology. No one who believes salvation is by grace through faith is claiming that a person’s decision to trust Christ is a meritorious contribution to Christ’s saving work.

  • Faith does not compete with divine accomplishment.
  • Christ accomplishes salvation;
  • faith receives what Christ has accomplished.

The person who trusts Christ is not saying, “I helped save myself.” He is saying, “I could not save myself; I am trusting the One who did.” To equate the exercise of faith with “human achievement” is therefore a category error. The disagreement is not over whether salvation is God’s accomplishment. It is over whether God must first determine the individual’s response in order for that response to be genuine faith.

The deeper problem arises when MacArthur’s “two religions” argument is placed alongside his Calvinistic doctrine of sovereign determination. If God unconditionally determines who will be saved, and effectually gives the elect the faith and repentance necessary for salvation, then the elect do not independently determine that outcome. Their faith is the result of God’s prior determination, not the cause of it. But the same logic necessarily applies to those who remain lost. If God sovereignly chooses not to give them that saving grace—what Calvinists call “passing over”—then their unbelief and eventual condemnation are likewise the inevitable result of God’s sovereign decision.

Calling one side “active election” and the other “passive passing over” does not remove the divine determination from the second side. It changes the description of how God brings about the two outcomes, but it does not change the fact that both outcomes are ultimately grounded in God’s decree. As George Bryson documents, even the Reformed distinction between a “positive” decree and a “negative” decree leaves reprobation ultimately connected to the divine decree.

This makes MacArthur’s “Make your choice” language particularly difficult. The issue is not whether people make choices—they obviously do. The issue is whether they ultimately determine which choice they will make. Calvinistic compatibilism answers that the person makes a real choice, but that choice is itself determined by God’s sovereign decree and the person’s God-determined nature and desires. That may be called “freedom” within a compatibilist framework, but it is not self-determination in the ordinary sense. And this is where MacArthur’s own argument about evil becomes relevant. MacArthur has argued that if God is the primary cause and human beings are merely secondary causes “moved by the primary cause,” then people are not free and God would be responsible for their actions. Yet in his soteriology, God’s sovereign determination of the human will is precisely what guarantees the saving response of the elect.

If divine determination of the will destroys meaningful freedom when explaining evil, why does that same determination preserve meaningful freedom when explaining salvation?

There is an even deeper epistemological problem. If exhaustive divine determinism means that God determines not merely what we choose, but our desires, thoughts, evaluations, judgments, and beliefs, then the problem extends beyond salvation and free will to our ability to know that our beliefs are true in the first place. Timothy Stratton and J. P. Moreland’s “Free-Thinking Argument” specifically defines exhaustive divine determinism as the view that God necessitates all events, including human “desires, thoughts, intuitions, beliefs, actions, behaviors, evaluations, and judgments.”

They argue that if our beliefs are exhaustively determined, and we know that human beings sometimes believe false things, then we have a serious epistemic problem: if something or someone else determines us to affirm a falsehood, what gives us confidence that we could have arrived at a better or true belief in the same circumstances?

That raises a devastating question for theological determinism: If God determines every belief, including false theological beliefs held by Christians, how do I know that my belief that Calvinism is true is not simply another belief God has determined me to hold? I cannot appeal to my reasoning process as an independent check if God also determined the reasoning process, the premises I find persuasive, the conclusions I draw, and even my confidence that I have reasoned correctly.

The Free-Thinking Argument presses precisely this concern: under exhaustive determinism, if something or someone else determines our thoughts, there is no obvious basis for claiming epistemic responsibility for those thoughts; and if our cognitive faculties are not reliably aimed at truth, our conclusions—including our conclusions about determinism—are themselves subject to rational doubt.

Under Calvinistic determinism, the problem extends beyond our choices to our theological beliefs themselves. If God exhaustively determines every thought, desire, judgment, and belief, then He necessarily determines not only true theological beliefs but also the false theological beliefs people hold. A Calvinist who rejects the Trinity, misunderstands Scripture, embraces Islam, or simply arrives at a false interpretation of a biblical passage does so because God sovereignly determined the cognitive circumstances and beliefs that led him there.

The obvious epistemological question follows: if God determines both true and false beliefs, what makes my belief that Calvinism is true trustworthy? I may sincerely believe that I have arrived at Calvinism through careful exegesis and sound reasoning—but if God also determined my reasoning, premises, intuitions, and conclusion, sincerity and rational confidence cannot by themselves demonstrate that my conclusion is actually true. The problem is not that truth ceases to exist; it is that exhaustive determinism seems to undermine our ability to know that our determined beliefs correspond to it.

This is the concern I have explored elsewhere in “If God Determines Every Belief, Why Trust Yours?”: exhaustive divine determinism does not necessarily deny that objective truth exists, but it raises the question of how a determined creature can reliably distinguish truth from divinely determined error.

That brings us back to MacArthur’s “two religions.” Within his system, the elect are sovereignly determined to receive divine accomplishment, while the reprobate are sovereignly determined to remain without it. One person believes because God sovereignly grants the necessary grace; another remains unbelieving because God sovereignly passes him over. And if God also determines the beliefs and reasoning processes by which we arrive at our theological conclusions, then even the Calvinist who concludes, “Calvinism is true because Scripture teaches it,” must acknowledge that his interpretation of Scripture is itself the product of the same divine determination.

The question therefore becomes unavoidable: What makes his conclusion a genuine discovery of truth rather than simply the belief God determined him to hold?

This is why the issue cannot be dismissed by saying, “But people still make choices.” Of course they do. A determined person can experience deliberation, make choices, form beliefs, and sincerely believe he has reasoned correctly. The question is whether he is the ultimate rational agent directing that process or merely the endpoint of a causal chain he did not originate. Stratton and Moreland describe the alternatives starkly: are we genuinely responsible agents “steering the ship,” or are we passive passengers waiting to see where the antecedent causal chain takes us?

If MacArthur wants to insist that human beings possess genuine self-determination because otherwise God becomes responsible for their evil, then he needs to explain why that same self-determination disappears when discussing salvation, while the resulting determination of beliefs and choices somehow remains sufficient for genuine epistemic responsibility.

So the problem with MacArthur’s two-religion illustration is not that it distinguishes works from grace. We [non-Calvinists] agree with that distinction. The problem is that his illustration presents salvation as though two genuinely available alternatives stand before the individual—“human achievement” or “divine accomplishment”—while his theological determinism ultimately makes the individual’s choice itself the product of God’s prior determination. The non-Calvinist does not believe that trusting Christ earns salvation, contributes merit to the cross, or makes Christ’s accomplishment possible.

We believe Christ accomplished salvation and that the sinner is genuinely called to trust Him. Faith receives; it does not merit. And unlike exhaustive determinism, this preserves something essential not only to moral responsibility but to rational responsibility: the human being is an active agent capable of responding to reasons, evaluating evidence, rejecting error, and genuinely trusting the truth rather than merely being determined to believe whatever God has decreed him to believe.

BOTTOM LINE:

MacArthur says there are “two religions,” but exhaustive Calvinistic determinism ultimately leaves us with only one determining power: God. There may be two religious outcomes, two paths, and two destinations, but there are not two ultimately autonomous alternatives. God determines who believes, what they believe, which path they take, and where they finally arrive. The apparent dualism disappears. There aren’t two competing religions ultimately determining human destiny. There is one sovereign decree determining two outcomes.

JOHNNY MAC’s TRANSCRIPT 2.0

You say, “In a world of multiple religions, how can there only be two choices?” Because ultimately there are only two destinations: heaven or hell. There may be thousands of religious labels and countless variations, but every person will end up on one of those two paths.

There really are only two religions in the world. There is the religion of human achievement—every system that looks to works, morality, religious ceremonies, rituals, merit, or human effort as the basis for acceptance with God. That is the way of the flesh, and it ends in condemnation, whatever name the religion bears.

On the other hand, there is the religion of divine accomplishment. Salvation is entirely God’s work. The elect do not contribute anything to their salvation; God chose them before the foundation of the world, regenerated them, granted them faith and repentance, and brought them irresistibly to Christ. Their believing is not what ultimately distinguishes them from the unbelieving; God’s sovereign choice does. Their faith is the result of God’s saving determination, not the determining cause of it.

And that means the two paths are not ultimately two independently available choices that determine one’s eternal destiny. The elect believe because God sovereignly determined to save them and effectually gave them the grace to believe. The non-elect do not believe because God did not choose to give them that saving grace. He “passes them over,” leaving them in their fallen condition. Thus, one person arrives at heaven because God sovereignly determined to give him saving grace, while another arrives at hell because God sovereignly determined not to give him that grace.

So the first way involves what God has determined to leave the sinner to, while the true way involves what God has sovereignly determined to accomplish. The decisive difference is not ultimately the sinner’s choice; it is God’s decree. The sinner certainly chooses, but even that choice is the result of the nature, desires, and grace God sovereignly determined for him.

Therefore, when I say, “Make your choice,” I do not mean that the sinner possesses an autonomous ability to determine which eternal destiny he will choose. I mean that God has sovereignly ordained both the destination and the means by which each person will arrive there. The elect will choose Christ because God determined to give them the grace to choose Christ; the reprobate will reject Christ because God determined to pass them over.

There are therefore two roads—but within exhaustive divine determinism, God ultimately determines who walks each road.

If God determines the belief, the reasoning, and the moral judgment by which I conclude that God is good, what makes that conclusion trustworthy?

In putting together this post the CS LEWIS illumination from his The Problem of Pain and my posts on it

CS Lewis: Our White Being God’s Black

Lewis’s point becomes especially relevant when applied to exhaustive theological determinism. If God determines not only what we choose, but also what we believe, how we reason, what we judge, and even what we call “good,” then God necessarily determines both true and false theological conclusions. If our moral and rational faculties are sufficiently corrupted that we cannot trust them, while God simultaneously determines the beliefs we arrive at through those faculties, what independent basis do we have for knowing that our conception of God’s goodness is actually good—or that our theology is actually true? We don’t need human judgment to be infallible, but we do need it to be sufficiently connected to truth that we can recognize when we are wrong.

This is where Lewis’s argument cuts against the claim that God’s morality can simply be “beyond” ours. If “God is good” could mean that God calls good what we rightly recognize as evil, then the statement “God is good” becomes practically meaningless; we could just as easily obey an omnipotent fiend. Lewis is not arguing for human moral autonomy—he allows that our moral judgments can be corrected and brought into greater conformity with God’s. His point is that God’s goodness transcends our moral understanding without becoming its opposite or becoming unintelligible. Likewise, if Calvinistic determinism makes God the ultimate determiner of our reasoning, beliefs, and moral judgments, then the Calvinist needs to explain what makes his determined conclusion about God’s goodness—and his theology generally—trustworthy. Otherwise, both “God is good” and “Calvinism is true” risk becoming assertions without a meaningful epistemic standard by which we can know either one is actually true.

Frank Turek Rightly Notes Calvinism’s “Islam god Problem”

Published by Papa Giorgio
  • “The main problem in my view of the five point Calvinist view is that it makes God more like Allah than Yahweh.” – Frank Turek

Yep. See my:

The “Connective Tissue” Between Islam and Calvinism

Did they go too FAR?

In this panel discussion, Frank Turek, Allen Parr, Michael Jones (Inspiring Philosophy), and Braxton Hunter engage in a thoughtful conversation surrounding Calvinism, divine sovereignty, and Romans 9.

At the center of the discussion is the tension many Christians feel when reading Romans 9 – how to understand election, God’s sovereignty, and human responsibility without flattening the text into a system. Is Paul teaching determinism? Is he speaking about corporate election and historical purposes? Or is there a deeper synthesis that holds both divine sovereignty and genuine human response together?

Whether you are Reformed, non-Reformed, or simply trying to understand Romans 9 more clearly, this discussion highlights the key issues that continue to shape evangelical theology today.

Calvinism Undermines the Gospel

Published by Papa Giorgio

It is almost demonic. How do you say that Calvary, Christ’s finished work, the Word of God, and the Gospel shared with people is useless, non effective…. without saying it? This is how:

  • Calvinism assumes that without the intervention of God no one will ever want Christ. Left to themselves, no one will ever choose Christ.

— R.C. Sproul (Chosen By God, p. 34)

Leaving Calvinism By God’s Decree (Memevangelsit)

Published by Papa Giorgio

[BTW, I love this post because it show just how “off” Calvinism is, and how it undermines any Biblical commands and categories.]

Here is the original (to the left) with an edit by whom I assume are Calvinistic in their leaning (to the right). I say this because they are saying that Satan is driving out solid Biblical teaching via that Calvinist teachers:

Which got me thinking. The person did not realize it, but they undercut their own argument.

How?

This is how [I created a larger cartoon – click to enlarge]:

Satan’s ultimate ambition is to usurp God’s position (Isaiah 14:13-15, 2 Thes. 2:3,4).

Right?

However, John Calvin notes:

  • “[W]e infer that God was the author of that trial of which Satan and wicked robbers were merely the instruments.”
  • “Therefore, whatever men or Satan himself devise, God holds the helm, and makes all their efforts contribute to the execution of His judgments”
  • “That 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, is proved by numberless clear passages of Scripture”
  • “That 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, is proved by numberless clear passages of Scripture”
  • “not that He intends to teach wicked and obstinate man to obey spontaneously, but because He bends them to execute His judgments, just as if they carried their orders engraven on their minds. And hence it appears that they are impelled by the sure appointment of God.”

Etc, etc. (Institutes 1.18.1. and 1.18.2.).

  • … 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.

— John Calvin, “The Eternal Predestination of God,” 10:11

  • …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…

— John Piper and Justin Taylor, eds., Suffering and the Sovereignty of God

  •  “Therefore, whatever men or Satan himself devise,” argues Calvin, “God holds the helm, and makes all their efforts contribute to the execution of his judgments.” (Calvin, 1.18.1.)

Satan is said to blind the minds of those who believe not (2 Cor. 4:4). So, you note that the “blinding by Satan” is by spitting out the ingested Calvinist acolytes. However, Satan is ultimately irrelevant since the elect still get saved and the non-elect still go to the lake of fire for eternity. The Devil is God’s Devil (to summarize Martin Luther) and never operates outside the Lord’s decree (Sproul). The Devil is God’s servant (Piper, MacArthur).

So, the change in the cartoon is really a defeater. It undercuts any point trying to be made.

In other words, you are saying God put Calvinism into the person. And God took Calvinism out of the person.

To circle back: God would be usurping Himself.