Featured The two major shortcomings of Calvinism

While much of what Calvinism teaches is biblically sound and true according to God's word, there is, I've decided, a major problem with it, and that is the balance it displays – or rather, I should say, a lack of balance. When half the truth is held up for emphasis, without thought or attention to the other half of truth that provides the proper balance, error results. That is where I view today's Calvinists. I say "today's" because such was not always the case. Calvin himself was well aware of the balance required for his views to be theologically sound. Those who espouse Calvinism today are out of balance with Calvin, and the Bible.

For example, Calvinists emphasize election from eternity past as unconditional. That is absolutely true. But they are careless in providing biblical balance by ignoring what is also true, that salvation in the temporal world is conditional. Only through saving, justifying, regenerating, sanctifying, life-giving union in Christ does salvation come, but that is only God's blessing for those who end their open rebellion against God, humble themselves, and come in genuine, repentant, fully surrendered faith. Calvinists will be quick to point out that such is the gift of God, and that is also true. However, it is just as sound and true biblically that faith is the requirement of God for salvation.

God is sovereign, as Calvinists often repeat, much as Buddhists repeat unintelligible mantras. But man is also responsible, and that is a sticking point for most of them. They don’t believe man is capable at all, to the point that God must reach into the cesspool of humanity and pull out, like a floundering catfish, the depraved individual He chooses to save today. The Calvinist view is unbalanced, and disregards much of biblical truth, that part of it which inconveniently contradicts what they want to believe. It is not about what we want to believer, but it is about what God reveals about Himself, and His plan for salvation.

We would anticipate that, if such biblical balance were not the case, we would see this Calvinist half-truth revealed in God’s word. Election would be the only essential of salvation discussed. That is not the case. Throughout Scripture, we read that faith, the Greek pisteuo, a word used in the New Testament of the conviction and trust to which a man is impelled by a certain inner and higher prerogative and law of soul to adopt, trusting in Jesus as God and believing Him to be able to aid either in obtaining salvation or in doing something that is pivotal to salvation. It is this faith, or it’s lack, that is pivotal by which salvation or destruction are decided.

Calvinist thought in the modern age would lead one to expect John 3:16 to read: “ … that whoever was not going to perish but was going to have eternal life would believe in Him.” Obviously it does not, but instead says, “ … that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have eternal life.” The subtle difference between those two readings is that, despite God’s absolute sovereignty, there is also the specific implication in the second reading that we are responsible for our belief, not God, as Calvinists would have us believe. Though only God is capable of supplying faith, we are responsible for receiving faith from Him. We are capable of rejecting it, as clearly indicated by “whosoever believes.” Nothing the Calvinist can say will be able to refute that, though they certainly try.

Throughout Scripture, belief is pivotal to salvation. That is why we preach to men – to implore them to believe. No less than Charles Haddon Spurgeon, a “Calvinist hero,” himself said that very thing. Belief results in justification and forgiveness, it results in reconciliation with God and the life-giving, regenerating indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Belief results in adoption, spiritual rebirth into God’s family, and inheritance of His riches in glory. On the other hand, unbelief results in a man dying in his sins, it results in the wrath of God, it results in eternal destruction. Belief cannot be simply one of the fruits of the Spirit given in some uninvited regenerational indwelling, else it would not have been given such an ostensibly pivotal role in whether a man goes to heaven or to hell. As I said, the invitation that man is responsible for answering comes from God, and man is empowered by God to answer positively. But man can reject both the invitation and the empowerment, leaving him lost in his sins.

Calvinist imbalance in interpretation of the Scriptures produces two errors. First, it results in an overly supreme view of how God works with men to accomplish His plan. Calvinists portray sinners as being locked behind obstacles to faith that are impossible to overcome, and God is seen as regenerating men without any regard to their own will in the matter. What I’m trying to get you to see is that such a one-sided, transcendent scheme is unnecessary – that there is a more Biblical and more essential way to understand biblical salvation.

Unbelief is never mere ignorance of the truth but is always rebellion against the God of that truth. That is why the opposite – faith – is so pivotal to understanding how God works. Belief itself never mere mental assent to the truth but must always be a repentant submission to the God of that truth. It is not necessary to an unconditional election that the responses of men be irrelevant. If God implores all men to come, and only saves those who do come, it fits perfectly with election if God is responsible for whether or not a man is ultimately persuaded to come, which He obviously is, as Scripture declares. It is one-sided, unbalanced, half the truth, to believe man is incapable and must be lifted, floundering, out of the stream of sin whether he will accept the “hook” or not. God knows all men completely, and knows exactly how much persuasion would be needed to bring any man to his knees in repentant faith, and God is in charge of all circumstances, including length of life.

The second error is the unbiblical and hidden assumption of an indifference in God toward the non-elect. Calvinists appear to assume that if God had any desire toward saving the non-elect, then He would have elected them. It is an overly simplistic view of God that fails to consider that the demands of the justice in God’s nature may have required Him to accept what is repugnant to Him, the perishing of so many, for the greater purpose of accomplishing His plan for His glory. They see God can simply doing whatever He wants without giving thought to His first basic characteristic, that of being the embodiment of pure, unconditional love. Their view paints God as capable of going against His own sense of justice, which would be to go against Himself. God cannot, God will not do that. It is impossible for Him. Therefore, the basic tenet of Calvinism is also impossible.

The fact is that if Adam had not sinned, then all men would have been elect. In order for God’s plan to include the sin of mankind in Adam, it would have to include the tragic results of that sin. Sin must have results, and the sin of the race in Adam has the necessary result of only a remnant being saved in the end, not because God allows the sinful to die, but because they allow themselves to die.

Ezekiel 33, NASB
11 "Say to them, 'As I live !' declares the Lord GOD, 'I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?' “

2 Peter 3
9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

The difference between these two views of God is reflected in how God relates to the non-elect. If God is seen as having indifferently passed over so many for election, then He is seen as having little to no compassion toward the non-elect regarding any offer of salvation or any desire for their salvation. But if God is seen as a God who truly loves all, and who did not pass over so many out of any lack of love toward them, but only as a necessary judgment on the race as a whole, then God can indeed have compassion toward the non-elect and can indeed make salvation available in such a way as to make their destruction a matter of their own refusal and not merely a matter of God refusing to offer to save all who would be willing to come.

Though the thoughts are mine, and most of the words are mine, much inspiration and some copy for this thread comes from the following Internet articles.

Calvinism critiqued by a former Calvinist
The Calvinistic TULIP
A primer on hyper-Calvinism
Got Questions? Calvinism vs. Arminianism, which view is correct?
Missing balance in Calvinism

 

Unlike your assessment of it, right? :laugh:

I never pretended it was anything but a personal critique.

Exactly. So what?

I'm more than familiar with it, ascribe to it, and defend it regularly. Your first question is the crux of your paragraph. Who is careless? That was stated in the quote you snipped for your post. Most of the modern Calvinists, if not all of them, hold to a doctrine of election that is unbiblical, and though many deny they would not preach the gospel, allegedly because they don't know who are the "elect" and therefore they must, to be sure none are missed, the view nonetheless holds to an exclusion of man's responsibility, and if you want a Spurgeon quote, here it is, speaking of the concepts of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility:

Then you shouldn't be. You should be a gospel preacher.

Then you are exceptions, not the rule.

Sheesh, and just when I thought maybe you understood election. You don't. Election does not determine who is saved. Election determines who is justified, "conformed to the image of His Son."

I don't know. This one seems to have raised your hackles some.