Calvinism
Reprinted from The Spiritual Sword
David R. Pharr

Though he drew much from the works of others (Augustine especially), the16^th Century Swiss reformer John Calvin developed and championed a system of theology which continues to influence almost all denominations.  The several denominations of the so-called “Reformed” tradition are heirs of Calvin, including those which have “Reformed” in their name, as well as Presbyterians and most Baptist groups.  While there have been modifications and softening of some of the more extreme positions (e.g., absolute predestination), many seminaries continue to teach elements of Calvinism.  It is also widespread in denominational publications.  This becomes a threat to the church as ungrounded or unwary brethren pursue degrees at such institutions and as they rely too confidently on denominational commentaries and related works.

No issue is more critical than the means by which men are saved.  Our biblical convictions continue to hold firm to the gospel requirements of faith, repentance, confession, baptism and faithfulness (John 8:24; Acts 17:30; 2:38; Mark 16:16; Rev. 2:10; et al).  While recognizing that the offer and means of redemption is altogether by divine grace (Eph. 2:8-9), we have rightly taught that each person, as a free moral agent,  must make his own personal response to the required steps of obedience (Rev. 22:17).  Calvinism is a threat because every component in its fundamental tenets is contrary to every step in the gospel plan.

The five cardinal doctrines of historic Calvinism are commonly outlined by an acrostic which spells the word “TULIP.”  Of course there is no connection with the flower, the letters only serving as a memory device.  Here is a summary, briefly defined and scripturally rejected.

Total Depravity (hereditary)

This is the view that the sin of Adam has been passed on to every generation so corrupting human nature that no one is capable of any effective move toward pleasing God.  This means that no person can serve God of his own free choice.  The “Canons of Dort,” which in 1619 defined and codified Calvin’s teaching, declared:

Three errors are immediately evident.  First, there is no biblical evidence that the guilt of sin is passed from parent to child.  Instead, “The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son” (Ezek. 18:20).  Sin occurs in one’s life when he commits transgression (I Jn.3:4; Jas. 1:14-15), not by inheritance.

Secondly, the doctrine demands infant damnation, that a child is born a sinner.  If a child dies unregenerated he or she is forever doomed.  While many denominations have shifted their emphasis more to the idea of dedicating the child, the doctrinal foundation of infant baptism developed out of this error.^[ii]  We find, though, that rather than condemning them as sinners, Jesus commended little ones as examples of the innocence which characterizes the forgiven ones in his kingdom (Matt. 18:3; 19:14).  The apostles knew nothing of hereditary depravity and never practiced infant baptism.

In the third place, the idea of total depravity contradicts the free moral agency of man.  To every living man the Lord extends his invitation and each makes his own choice to accept or reject it (Matt. 11:28; Matt. 13:15; Acts 2:40; John 7:17; et al).

Unconditional Election

According to Calvin, God predestinated the salvation or damnation of every person without regard to any action, good or evil, on their part.  It is “unconditional” in that nothing a person does or desires has any bearing whatsoever on his salvation.  If God predestined to save one, his salvation is certain without regard to the person’s actions.  If God predestined one to hell, his damnation is likewise unavoidable.  In his Denominational Doctrines class at Freed-Hardeman College, the lamented G. K. Wallace exposed the folly of this error by reducing it to the following: “Someone on the outside can’t do anything to get in and someone on the inside can’t do anything to get out."^[iii]  This doctrine makes every command, every admonition, every warning and every exhortation completely useless.  If election is unconditional, what value is there in teaching and urging compliance with Heaven’s requirements?

We must count it no less than blasphemy to teach that God arbitrarily condemns people to hell before they are even born.  God’s sovereignty (Rom. 9:15f) has not predestined certain individuals, but a certain class of men to be saved and foreordained a plan by which their salvation would be accomplished (Rom. 8:28-30).  God has predetermined “us in him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4) when we are “the faithful in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 1:3).  The “elect according to the foreknowledge of God” (I Pet. 1:2) are those who in God’s grace are called by the gospel to be “conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom. 8:29f;  II Thess. 2:14).  Rather than capriciously predestining men’s destinies, God foreordained that the offer of salvation is available for everyone and that each must choose for himself whether to accept or reject it (Acts 10:34f; Rev. 22:17; Mark 16:15f) and whether to continue in it (II Pet. 1:10).  Though God has predetermined certain events (Acts 1:7; 17:31), it has never been in such a way as to negate human responsibility (see Jon. 3:4ff).  His goodness and severity are never arbitrary (Rom. 11:20-23).

Limited Atonement

Each point in the Calvinistic system is gross error, but this doctrine is especially despicable because it denies the universal love of God and limits the power of the blood of Jesus.  Inasmuch as Calvinism teaches that only certain ones have been elected to salvation, consistency demands that the sacrifice of Christ can neither be offered nor applied to any others.  This means that when John 3:16 says “God so loved the world,” that it really means only part of the world.  It means that when John 3:16 says “whosoever,” it applies only to the predestined whosoevers.  This has to be one of the most, if not the most, hateful of all sectarian errors.  How thankful we are that God “will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth (I Tim. 2:4), and that God “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (II Pet. 3:9), and that Christ “is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world (I Jn. 2:2).

Irresistible Grace

If a man who is totally depraved and incapable of doing right is predestined to be saved, how can his conversion be accomplished?  Calvinism’s answer is that it is by a direct operation of the Holy Spirit that the heart is regenerated.  One whose heart has been in total darkness thereby has “divine illumination” placed within him.  This is a miraculous operation in which man has no part except as a recipient.  It is irresistible in that God has absolutely predestined it.  According to Calvinism, it takes a direct and miraculous intervention  of the Spirit to produce faith and repentance.^[iv]  Logically, if this were true, there would be no purpose in preaching, in evangelism, in missionary work.

Most evangelicals no longer emphasize the irresistible aspect.  Their preaching more readily calls for response on the part of individuals.  Neither would many be willing to agree with more extreme Calvinists to say that a person can be regenerated (saved) before he believes, that one is incapable of believing until the Spirit has made him a new person.  Left over, however, is the idea of some kind of direct inner working of the Spirit.  Conversion comes about, not in believing and obeying, but by allowing the Spirit to come into the heart and change it.  To come to salvation by merely doing what God requires is too clinical; they think they need an “experience.”

For those who hold that faith must be imparted, or at least empowered, by a direct work of the Spirit, it is an easy step to the doctrine of “faith only.”  Faith that to any degree involves a direct action of the Holy Spirit must surely be adequate to save!

In contradiction, the Bible plainly teaches that faith comes by hearing the word of God (John 20:30-31; Acts 15:7; Rom. 10:17; John 6:44f).  Those who believe will repent as they decide for themselves whether they will obey God.  This is demonstrated in in Acts 2, when three thousand were converted under the preaching of the apostles.  The Bible does not say they “gladly received” the Spirit and had an “experience.”  It says they “gladly received the word” and were baptized (Acts 2:36-41; cf. Acts 18:8).  Faith is neither imparted nor empowered by a miracle, but by the simple and natural process of accepting the truth and determining to act accordingly.  It is the word of God “which effectually worketh also in you that believe” (I Thess. 2:13).

Perseverance of the Saints

This is commonly stated as “once saved, always saved,” “the impossibility of apostasy” or “the eternal security of the believer.”  It is the one proposition of the TULIP that is most jealously guarded in several present-day denominations.  In the above quotation from G. K. Wallace, this was the point that “someone on the inside can’t do anything to get out.”  Yet no error is more plainly refuted in the sacred word (Luke 8:13; I Cor. 10:12; II Pet. 2:20-22; Heb. 10:26-27).

A Broken Down System

A whimsical poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes tells the story of  the “Wonderful ‘One-Hoss Shay.’”

The verses explain that a shay (buggy) breaks down when one of its parts (“hub, tire, felloe,” etc.) fails.  A certain deacon’s plan, however, was to make a shay out of the best of all materials, fashioning each part so perfectly sound that the weakest part was “as strong as the rest.”  Neither “panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill” would ever fail.  So, it ran without a problem for “a hundred years and a day,” until every part wore out at once and the whole thing collapsed and turned to dust.

The poem is a sharp satire against Calvinism,^[v]  the point being that each of Calvin’s five cardinal points is so intricately related to the other four that each is a necessary result of the others.  As with the parts of the  “one hoss shay,” each part seems unfailingly to support the system.  Consider the logic:  If Total Depravity can be sustained, it would have to follow that no man could meet any conditions, thus Unconditional Election.  Further, if only certain ones are predestined to salvation, the blood of Christ is not available to all, thus Limited Atonement.  In that totally depraved men can do nothing toward prevailing themselves of the atonement, the only means for their conversion is in the Holy Spirit acting on them with Irresistible Grace.  Those who are so predestined and changed, through no desire or action on their own, must certainly Persevere without fail.  To grant any one of the five points calls for the  acceptance of the other four.

However, the same logical necessities which seem to hold Calvinism together is that which destroys it.  When it is found that the system fails in any one of its parts, every other part fails with it.  Holmes’ poem has the preacher comfortably riding in the shay when it finally disintegrates and leaves him “sitting upon a rock.”  Preachers for “a hundred years and a day”(and more) have enjoyed their ride on Calvin’s logic, but when the Bible and common sense show the weakness of any of its points, the whole buggy turns to dust!

It is ironic that many continue to hold so fondly to the doctrine of impossibility of apostasy when its underpinning comes, not from scripture, but from the TULIP’s other petals.  Few Missionary Baptist preachers for example, would accept “unconditional election,” or “limited atonement.”  Yet it was Calvin’s logic bound to the other tenets that produced “preservation of the saints.”  Our Baptist friends would do well to get completely out of the deacon’s old buggy!

Some among us have such an unbalanced view of grace that they are teaching that man has no part at all in his salvation.  They say it is “100% grace” and make such assertions as, “Dead men do not climb ladders.”  Any position that negates human participation in redemption has obvious kinship with Calvin’s unconditional election.  To say “Dead men do not climb ladders,” with the implication that there is nothing one must or can do to save himself, fits quite comfortably with total depravity.  Calvinism in denominationalism will continue to threaten the church from without.  We must also guard against its influence from within.

Endnotes:
i. Quoted by Dr. John Hobbs, Firm Foundation, August 2000.

ii. In 1911 Methodists formally rejected Total Depravity.  They continue, though, with infant baptism even though its original justification was in the idea of children needing regeneration.

iii. From memory.  Brother Wallace’s knowledge and skill of presentation were unsurpassed in showing the unscriptural folly of denominational teaching.

iv. Charles Chrochan and the late Paul Kidwell debated two old line Calvinists at the Eastridge Church of Christ in Chattanooga, in which I served as moderator.  During a question period, I asked the Calvinists, “Which occurs first, faith or regeneration?”  Pressed for an answer, they admitted to holding that regeneration occurs before faith.  It was the only consistent position they could take because Calvinism holds that an unregenerated person cannot have faith and that it takes a miracle of the Holy Spirit to make him a believer.

v. “A Logical Story—The Deacon’s Masterpiece, or the Wonderful ‘One-Hoss Shay.’” Oliver  Wendell Holmes, Sr., (father of the famous Supreme Court Justice) was an outspoken critic of Calvinism.
 

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