Calvinism and Arminianism:
Myths & Realities
Calvinist CARM member, beloved57, states: “Abortion is according to Gods sovereign will.”
Calvinist CARM member, 4calvinism, explains: “God has His reasons for allowing abortion. I would rather believe that than believe in a God who could stop abortion anytime he wanted but chooses not to. Or a God who is simply incapable of stopping it. Which do you choose?”
Calvinist CARM member, Big Bus, also explains: “Of course it brings glory. In what way, we have no idea. All things bring glory to God....even punishing the evil people who commit abortions. What a sad and pathetic god you have that has the power to prevent these MURDERS but just will not because of violating man’s will.... You see, we C’s actually have an answer for things like this that are biblical....God’s GLORY and RIGHTEOUS PURPOSE. All you guys got is the imaginary ‘God won’t violate their free will’ defense...or something even stranger, like ‘God lets these phases of time just play out’. Yeah, sounds good. I think I’ll go turn off all the streetlights and just let things play out FOR NO REASON AT ALLLLL! Good stuff.”
Calvinists believe that everything is eternally prescripted, including all sin, such as abortion, and thus Calvinists must harmonize such sin of abortion within the overall [alleged] decree of God.
One member of The Society of Evangelical Arminians: “Calvinism gets really bizarre if you keep in mind that they believe that God predetermined every single event. So God predetermined that some become Christians, and then live sinful and rebellious lives, but stay saved and go to Heaven, while others He predetermined that they would and could never be saved, He makes them into non-Christians, who live very moral lives (i.e. Mormons), and then go to Hell to be eternally punished! Or what about the ‘Lord, Lord’ people of Matt. 7 who mistakenly believe they are believers, and yet He says at the Judgment Day they will find out the reality that they never knew him (so God predetermined that they would be self-deceived for years, believing themselves to be saved, when they never were saved!), then giving them the surprise at the final Judgment Day, and then sending them to Hell for eternal punishment. And this same God who supposedly predetermines everything, decides that most of the human race will be ‘reprobates’ who are Hell-bound, and this decision is made independent of anything they do or do not do, anything that happens in their life, God just reprobates them from eternity (isn’t this sort of like aborting a baby that has done nothing, no matter what this baby would have done had it lived, the baby is simply aborted?). And yet the same God who does these ‘spiritual abortions’ on the reprobates before they ever live, supposedly then turns around and says abortion is wrong? What a mess exhaustive Determinism leads to!”
He adds: “...some nonbelievers can be very moral folks, sometimes even more moral than some professing Christians (Mormons are a good example) and yet if exhaustive determinism is true, then God predetermined their allegiance to false doctrine and made them into reprobates who are very nice people but hell bound before they were born, never having any chance to be saved.”
There are also Calvinists who share a reservation against arbitrary predestination:
Calvinist, D. James Kennedy: “Again and again we see that people are predestined (elected) to salvation--but nowhere do we see that anyone is ever predestined to condemnation of Hell. When we think of God as unfairly, arbitrarily electing people to Heaven or Hell, it is as if we have a mental picture of a row of people sitting on a fence, and God passes down the line and points at each one, ‘It’s Hell for you, Heaven for you, Hell, Hell, Hell, Heaven, Hell...’ Now, that would be unfair--and absolutely capricious! But that’s not the kind of God we love and serve.” (Solving Bible Mysteries, p.29, emphasis mine)
But now consider the logical implications of Calvinism, as argued by George Whitefield:
Calvinist, George Whitefield: “For, without doubt, the doctrine of election and reprobation must stand or fall together.” (Whitefield’s Letter to Wesley, Bethesda in Georgia, Dec. 24, 1740, emphasis mine)
“Double Predestination” is “Unconditional Reprobation” while “Single Predestination” is “Preterition,” that is, being left out of the plan of God. Not all Calvinists prescribe to the Hard Deterministic system of Double Predestination. However, to the Arminian, the difference is microscopic. Does God create people to go to Hell, or does He merely abandon them to Hell? What’s the difference?
George Whitefield: “I believe the doctrine of reprobation, in this view, that God intends to give saving grace, through Jesus Christ, only to a certain number, and that the rest of mankind, after the fall of Adam, being justly left of God to continue in sin, will at last suffer that eternal death which is its proper wages.” (Whitefield’s Letter to Wesley, Bethesda in Georgia, Dec. 24, 1740, emphasis mine)
This doctrine of being “justly left” is called Pass-By Calvinism. Stated another way, it is the Calvinist Doctrine of Divine Abortion whereby God allegedly, terminates the unborn souls of the vast majority of mankind, whether purposely or by omission, so that at the appointed time, they are discarded into the eternal dumpster of Hell. This is easily the most controversial doctrine in all of Calvinism, and has drawn the most criticism since Calvinism has been around.
Arminian Charge: Calvinism is equivalent to the Doctrine of Divine Abortion.
Myth or Reality: This refers to the Calvinist doctrine of Unconditional Reprobation, and is an inflammatory way to reference it, but even some Calvinists admit that abortion is the will of God, at least to the extent that it is according to the secret will of God.
