Chalcedon has kindly invited me to write a short series on the Calvinist understanding of salvation. I am not an expert on the matter and am not a Calvinist myself – though I have spent some time reading material written by Calvinists. As a good starting-point, I would recommend visiting http://triablogue.blogspot.co.uk/ and https://hipandthigh.wordpress.com/ , where you will find good resources on a variety of apologetics topics. But a word of warning: Catholics will find sturdy opposition to many of their core beliefs.
I will also say up front that in the early years after my “conversion” I used to frequent Jack Kelley’s site, https://gracethrufaith.com/ . He believed in “once saved, always saved”, (OSAS), and gave a defence of his belief.
I have written a few posts of my own on this topic that will provide some background to my own intellectual journey.
https://jessicahof.wordpress.com/2015/03/05/t-u-l-i-p/
https://jessicahof.wordpress.com/2015/05/21/the-sovereignty-of-god-and-his-election/#more-17800
https://jessicahof.wordpress.com/2015/04/29/the-unpopular-doctrine/
https://jessicahof.wordpress.com/2015/04/10/good-and-evil/
Please do not assume that my opinions are still consistent with professions I made in those earlier posts. I generally shy away from salvation talk. A foray I made in the past on AATW was in defence of Jess, who had been very honest at the time and was facing some nasty comments.
Salvation is a complex concept, which may be approached from a number of angles. The Calvinist “position”, like others is a result of synthesis, the bringing together of various concepts, arguments, and verses according to certain governing presuppositions. It is beyond the scope of these posts to cover everything that might be relevant to this discussion: that would require several books.
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Before proceeding with in-depth discussion, I wish to present a few arguments to help us understand (my perception of) Calvinist reasoning. I apologize if this seems cold and inappropriate for theology, but I believe this would best serve the purpose I have been asked to pursue. Hopefully these posts will also help you to navigate the rhetoric and the emotive source and power of Calvinism as well as its argumentation.
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P1: God is omnipotent.
P2: Being omnipotent means that if God chooses to do X, X will happen.
P3: God has chosen S for salvation.
C: Therefore S will be saved, come what may.
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P1: God is sovereign.
P2: This means that God has the right to do as He pleases with his own things.
P3: We belong to God.
C1: Therefore, God has the right to do as He pleases with us.
P4: If Calvinism is true, then God has chosen some for salvation and others for damnation.
C2: Therefore, God has the right to send some people to Heaven and others to Hell.
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P1: God is supremely good.
C1: Therefore, every decision that God makes is good and there is no alternative decision that would be better than God’s.
P2: If Calvinism is true, then God has chosen some for salvation and others for damnation.
C2: Therefore, God is morally justified (if this expression isn’t a tautology or contradiction) in sending some to Heaven and others to Hell.
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P1: God is superior in every way to human beings.
P2: This means that humans do not have “rights” in relation to God unless God first extends those rights to humans.
P3: The Scriptures teach that we do not have the right to question God (Rom. 9:20) – at least in respect to certain things.
C: Therefore, we do not have the right to ask God (or do not have the right to an answer as to) why He (appears to) save some and not others.
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These arguments will continue in this series, but I hope that they will be of use in helping people to understand the piety and perspective that drives certain examples of Calvinist apologetics.
All Along the Watchtower 
“But a word of warning: Catholics will find sturdy opposition to many of their core beliefs.”
One can also find sturdy opposition to catholic beliefs in the Holy Bible. One after another. Don’t worry, they will wish it into the cornfield.
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Well, let’s see, thus far it is you who keep denying the words of Jesus and Paul, not the Catholics here.
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P4: If Calvinism is true, then God has chosen some for salvation and others for damnation.
C2: Therefore, God has the right to send some people to Heaven and others to
That’s a wrong way to word it. But it comes out the same. People don’t open the door to Christ and never get to know him personally….that means being born again. Its not gods choice who goes to hell….its your choice, or rather your inactivity that lands you there. God wishes all men come to repentance. Where this line or reasoning came from was the fact that god knew in advance who will make it and who wont. Every person can make it. But most people wont make it. God is just. If you wind up in hell, you earned it.
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I’m not disagreeing, but the wording is correct in respect to Calvinism. (Which is one of the reasons why I am not a Calvinist). Calvinism has the doctrines of “unconditional election” and “irresistible grace”.
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Are there any calvanists? Wait….I think I heard calvanism was still alive in Switzerland. Is that rite? I mean their ideas are sorta correct, except the Lords voice is not in their doctrine. Its a religion in the truest since.
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Calvin was based in Switzerland, the church he founded was there, so yes, there are echoes of him still there. He was actually French, but he had to flee to Switzerland when the Catholics were purging Protestants. You might want to consider reading his magnum opus, “Institutes of the Christian Religion”. While you will disagree with parts of it, you should also find it intellectually provocative and it might be useful for apologetics. You might also want to read Cornelius van Til.
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Well, ill look into skiming them over. Anyway, I don’t have any apologetics. My message is the same. Jesus stands at the door and knocks. Interspersed in that message I expose religions for the hellbound trick of the Devil that they are. Satan hates me. When ever I can, I take a feather from his pillow.
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Well, bear in mind the Scripture also says: “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behaviour in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.” (1 Peter 3) If you want people to follow Jesus, you need to show them how He has won your heart. Show them the love of Jesus, not just His righteousness and power.
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Wasn’t good brother Calvin a catholic bishop or something? He must got tired of that satanic cult of personality. I can applaud him for that.
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How does that fit with your own experience? You were not looking for God, but He found you. If God had not chosen you, then it would be God’s fault you went to hell, because God did not choose you as one of the elect.
This is the problem with your religion Bosco. You say that God knows in advance who will be saved and who won’t. Fine, but in that case, what is the point of repenting and trying to come to God if you are not ‘elected’? How can ‘every person make it’ if in order to make it, is is necessary for God to come to you as he did to you? What of all those good people who look and do not get the sort of experience you had?
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i ask that same question. the father delivers whom he will. Thanks to you having me read Corinthians, Paul says, thru the HS, that the high and might and the lofty and important people aren’t called much or at all. If I was god id let almost everyone in.
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PS, Jesus already said most people are on the road to destruction. So, that’s just how it is. Just make sure you aren’t one of those.
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He does, but I am still baffled as to what the rest of us are meant to do when we ask and nothing happens.
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How do you know nothing happens when you ask Jesus in. Is it just by an assessment of feelings or lack of. Rather apply faith, believe and become assured that what Jesus promise he has done.
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A lack, I think. Good advice though, Rob.
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Keep asking. That should be an easy question. But its not. The alternative is eternity in the lake of fire, something im trying to get people to avoid. Maybe good brother Calvin is rite. maybe the elect are set and the doomed are set and we cant do anything about it. Bosco is just a messenger. Try asking the Lord himself.
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C: Therefore, we do not have the right to ask God (or do not have the right to an answer as to) why He (appears to) save some and not others.
If this is what calvanists teach and believe, they are dead wrong. That subject is coverd in scripture.
Where are these calvanist churches? Ive never seen any. And if there are any, ill bet $500 that not any of them are born again.
Well, Bosco, are you repeating yourself? I told you to leave the cheap booze alone. You already know religions are manned by the unsaved.
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Calvinists are found in a variety of denominations (e.g. some Anglicans), but churches that call themselves Reformed are technically Calvinist, even if a lot of their members have moved away from those positions. E.g. United Reformed Church, Presbyterian churches, Church of Scotland, and certain groups within the Baptists.
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How about the Dutch Refomed church. Now theres a bunch of prejudice bigoted ol bastards. I had my dealings with them.
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The truth is, He shall lead his flock like a Shepherd. And He shall gather them in His bosom and gentility lead those that are with young.
This is not the god of the Calvinists.
Calvinists.
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Nicholas, I ‘ve had an open mind regarding Calvinism. Your sensitive and profound posts are both illuminating and helpful. In one of your links you say –
” Like it or not, there is no easy escape from the questions posed by Calvin. Nor should we forget, Calvin could have said nothing without S. Paul and S. Augustine.”
Reared up on the Book of Common Prayer I’ve always known that there are Calvinist doctrines especially in the 39 Articles of Religion.
Good Queen Bess (Elizabeth 1st) wanted to include as many theological opinions in her church as was possible. The C of E as it is still basically to-day Elizabeth’s Church.
The same inclusive lines still exist. Although I’m of the Anglo Catholic or High Church wing, I nevertheless have to live with many who think very differently from myself.
Some of my Anglican friends are basically Calvinists. We exist in a holy tension.
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I’m glad to hear that, and that is one of the reasons why I love the Church of England. My home church here is Baptist (but not Calvinist), but during my university days I attended a charismatic evangelical Anglican church and occasionally went to my college chapel which was High Church. I was surprised as anyone to discover the Calvinist side to the Westminster Confession. I think the Anglican Church is a great model of how Christians of different stripes can co-exist.
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Church of England: Article XVII. OF PREDESTINATION AND ELECTION
PREDESTINATION to Life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour. Wherefore, they which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God be called according to God’s purpose by his Spirit working in due season: they through Grace obey the calling: they be justified freely: they be made sons of God by adoption: they be made like the image of his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ: they walk religiously in good works, and at length, by God’s mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity.
As the godly consideration of Predestination, and our Election in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh, and their earthly members, and drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things, as well because it doth greatly establish and confirm their faith of eternal Salvation to be enjoyed through Christ, as because it doth fervently kindle their love towards God: So, for curious and carnal persons, lacking the Spirit of Christ, to have continually before their eyes the sentence of God’s Predestination, is a most dangerous downfal, whereby the Devil doth thrust them either into desperation, or into wretchlessness of most unclean living, no less perilous than desperation.
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I’ve often wondered if one of the ways predestination became so widespread isn’t related to the fact that God is outside time. If he is, as we believe, so, then it is logical that He does know who is going to make it and who is not. But that doesn’t mean that He makes the decision in advance, merely that He knows how we each will decide.
Or maybe, I need more coffee!
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This is well put: there is conceptually a difference between knowing what a person will do and making their decision for them. The former does not entail the latter unless other conditions are added: e.g. a closed system, etc.
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Indeed so, even if does, in a sense, reduce Jesus to a feedback loop, but it undoubtedly an open system. I’m quite sure that God wants us all to be saved.
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Yes, and the verses that are clear on the matter act as the “control rod” if you like which should shape how we grapple with the ones that look like the Calvinist position.
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And that too, is nicely put. Sometimes we get so dense (or out in the weeds) that we become incomprehensible. But we do that in technology often as well, and should guard against it there, as well.
Parenthetically, I grew up in the Evangelical and Reformed Church, that mish-mash of Lutheranism and Calvinism that was the Prussian state church, to me a while to get over some of that.
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You have my sympathy. I was fortunate: I met Calvinism at university, by which point I had some opportunity to take time and sort things out for myself.
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Luckily, for me, my local church, while affiliated there, was one of those where the settlers couldn’t get along, and wanted something other than the local Missouri Synod church. It was more Evangelical than Reformed, but my sister’s church in Pennsylvania, in the same (UCC) basket, was more Reformed than Evangelical, but then its history was the Dutch Reformed Church. Funny how American churches history’s run.
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Yes, I have only a passing familiarity with American church history, but then Britain’s isn’t much simpler.
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True enough, it’s tangled enough there too to be nearly incomprehensible. One thing that the E & R taught me is to have a good bit of sympathy for the CofE. Not easy being (or trying to be) everybody’s church, at least if one wants to have actual doctrine.
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And that hits the nail on the head. I always had a lot of sympathy for Jess because she couldn’t please anybody. I don’t know how she put up with some of the guff she went through.
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From what she told me, it took a toll on her, may be part of the reason she retired. It’s rather like the old joke, if you play on the centerline of the road, you’ll get run over by traffic – in both directions.
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Poor sister Jess. females cant take severe heat for very long. On the other hand, I enjoy being chewed out by the unsaved. I have an open invitation for all, small and great, to come to my chewy on the inside and crunchy on the outside site and give me a piece of your extra small mind. No censorship.
cherrybombcoutour.blogspot.com
Sign in and become a member. Kick your feet up and rest awhile. Find comfort for your soul.
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A little honest doubt regarding our theological opinions and certainties goes a long way. It;s why I remain an Anglican. I haven’t got everything tidied up, sorted out or cut and dried. There is a fluidity about belief that is healthy and life enhancing.
I’m on a journey and as yet the end isn’t in sight.
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Ain’t that the truth. I’m almost certain to be wrong if I’m sure of almost anything. Haven’t been sure of much since my college days, when Dad got smart. I’m on that same journey, I think it’s called life, age and history help, as you’ll know.
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I love that line in the Thomas a Becket film, “We are all God’s fools.”
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Yep. And so we are.
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