I don’t get Calvinism. At all. There are several things that just don’t seem to make sense at all to me, if we assume that the Calvinist view of predestination is correct. My understanding of “Calvinism” (by which most people mean predestination, though I there’s more to John Calvin’s teaching than this) is that God made everyone, but he actively chooses who will be able to go to Heaven. His disposition to everyone else is debated: either God lets them go to Hell by default, or He actively chooses who goes to Hell (often called “double predestination”). Either way, some people are going to Heaven and the rest to Hell, and there’s nothing they can do with that. I have several problems with that.
My biggest complaint is that I don’t think it squares with scripture. For example, John 3:16 says “For God so love the world…” and Romans 5:6 says that “.For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” In neither of those examples, or others I’ve looked at, is the idea of “the world” or “the ungodly” encumbered with the idea of only part of the world or some of the ungodly. In fact, the Greek word in John 3:16 is the masculine accusative singular noun ton kosmon, a word meaning “world, universe, or mankind.” I’m not a koine Greek expert, but that term seems pretty all-encompassing. Somehow, though, and I’ve yet to see a convincing argument presented defending this, Calvinists construe that to mean “world in the sense of those He’s chosen.”
Furthermore, they say that grace is is irresistible (the “I” in “TULIP”). If God has chosen you, you will accept it. If that’s so, then how does the Calvinist handle Matthew 23:37:
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.
or Acts 7:51:
You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did.
It seems to me that the nation of Israel was God’s chosen people (and still are, according to some), so if He chose them, how can they resist? I’ve had some Calvinists hide behind the idea of God’s “sovereign will” and his “permissive will” (if I have the terms right). Apparently, it’s God’s sovereign will that is irresistible and not necessarily known to us, and it is by this will that the elect are sealed. His permissive will, on the other, is what he has made known to us and is open to negotiation, something akin to “Here’s what I really want, but if you want to reject it, well, it’s your neck.” According to one Calvinist I talked to, the passages above refer to God’s permissive will, so Israel was free to reject the offer of salvation.
Here’s my problem with that: if God says on one hand, salvation for all, as this Calvinist apologist suggested, but then, according to his sovereign will, says, “Not really. Just these people over here,” doesn’t that make God a charlatan? While saying one thing, he knows and means something else? If that’s the case, can we trust anything God has said? It wouldn’t seem so.
I have a logical problem with Calvinism too: If someone is not free to choose one thing or another, how can he be held accountable for the “choice” he does “make?” For example, if I give one of my sons only one option (i.e., to disobey me), and then he disobeys me, am I justified in punishing him? I don’t see how. The theological terms “libertarian freedom” and “combatibilistic freedom” come to play here. Libertarian freedom says that man is free to choose or to choose otherwise. The compatibilistic view of freedom holds that a person is still free even if his choices are limited to only one thing, so long as that one thing is the thing that person would freely choose if given an alternative. So, if you would freely choose chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream (and who wouldn’t?) if you were standing in a Braum’s, then your freedom is in no way limited if you’re given only that option. To me, that view just doesn’t make sense at all, but Calvinism seems to be predicated up on it. “Well that guy would choose to reject God anyway, so there’s really no need to give him a choice.” According to Romans 1:18-20, though, God has revealed Himself to us through creation so that we are “without excuse,” with Romans 2:15 telling us that “the work of the Law [is] written in [our] hearts.”
From another perspective, if God’s grace is truly irresistible, then what’s the point in evangelism and missions? If God’s will is inevitable, then why the need for human agency in the spreading of the Gospel. If God has chosen Billy in Oklahoma City or Shambel in Ethiopia for salvation, it’s going to happen, right? No need to waste time and energy trying to find them, possibly losing our lives in the process, right? God’s will will be done, regardless of human choices, so humans become irrelevant it would seem. From what I hear, Calvinists theologians like John MacArthur get quite agitated at such assertions, but I’ve yet to see a adequate rebuttal.
I’d like to say that, ultimately, who is right and who is wrong doesn’t really matter — that it’s just pedantic theological wrangling, but that’s not completely accurate. In terms of personal salvation, that’s probably true. I stand convinced that the Spirit of the Living God resides in my heart, securing my soul to Him so that I will stand — by His grace alone — on that terrible day of judgment. Whether God chose me to be saved or just knew that I would (two alternate ways of interpreting the idea of predestination, of which I hold to the latter) is mostly immaterial: I stand righteous before God through the blood of His Son. In a more general sense, though, the Calvinist view does affect one’s view of the world. I’ve heard of Calvinist Believers taking umbrage at a church teaching their children the song “Jesus Loves Me” because, in their view, they’re “not sure” He does. Additionally, it taints your view of how church should be “done.” I’ve heard Calvinists lampoon and lament, basically, the inclusion of, for lack of a better word, the arts in a worship service, as they view it as the intrusion of the world into church in order to “trick” someone into salvation, as if man has any sort of hand in that (believing is, after all, act, and Ephesians 2:78 precludes that).
So this isn’t a dry, dusty, and ultimately pointless discussion and pursuit. It deepens our understanding of who God is, and helps us flesh out other doctrines and theological stances, and that’s never a bad thing.
Ultimately, though, the road each of us walks comes to an end. For some, it’s at a ripe old age, where time has taken its toll on our bodies, which eventually give out. For others, that end is much earlier. This was the case for my Dad. It’s quite possible, and, again, I think probable, that the Lord, for reasons we don’t understand, decided to let this awful thing we call cancer touch my Dad’s body as one final test, either of him or for us. As Christians, we contend that, once we accept the gift of salvation, the rest of our lives are spent trying to become more and more Christ-like. Life’s trials are often the tools the Lord uses to affect that change. It may be that this was one last stroke of the chisel, once last brush with the polishing cloth, that my Dad needed before he was ready.