Calvinism and Arminianism:
Myths & Realities
To a Calvinist, Calvinism is the Gospel behind the Gospel:
Calvinist, Paul Washer: “The Bible calls all men haters of God and enemies of God. You say, ‘but I’ve loved God ever since I was little.’ No, you loved an image of God that you created with your own mind and you loved what you made, but if someone would have come to you and pointed out the God of Scripture, you would have said, ‘I could never love a God like that.’ So many times I’ll go to people and they’ll say, ‘Well I’ve loved God all my life’ and I say, ‘Could I sit down with you for a half an hour and just explain from Scripture some of the historical Christian beliefs about God?’ and after a half an hour, a good churchman will say, ‘That’s not my God.’ I have to say, ‘of course it’s not, but it is the God of Scripture.’” (Total Depravity/Gospel, emphasis mine)
What you will find out is that “some of the historical Christian beliefs” are actually the Calvinist historical beliefs, in which Calvinism is superimposed upon Scripture, in being presented as the gospel behind the gospel, and so when “a good churchman” rejects the imposition of Calvinism upon Scripture, he is told that he has rejected the “God of Scripture.”
If you refuse to bow down to the sacred cow
of Calvinism, which is Calvinism’s own
Golden Calf, and worship it as the gospel behind
the gospel, then you will promptly be told that
you do not worship the “God of Scripture,” with
the result that the ordinary John 3:16 churchman
who rejects it, will sometimes be treated with
contempt just like how the Evolutionists treat
Creationists with contempt, and that’s part of
the cultic charge that is levied against
Calvinism.
Calvinist, Charles Spurgeon: “...there is no doctrine more hated by worldlings, no truth of which they have made such a football, as; the great, stupendous, but yet most certain doctrine of the Sovereignty of the infinite Jehovah. Men will allow God to be everywhere except upon His throne.” (Divine Sovereignty)
...and you will be called a “worldling.”
John Calvin: “No one can disprove the doctrine I have expounded except he who pretends to be wiser than the Spirit of God.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, p.161, emphasis mine)
...and you will be told that you think that you are “wiser than the Spirit of God.”
One Calvinists relates: “My transition to Calvinism was somewhat reluctant, but the inevitable result of Christian maturity....” (Sovereign Grace Church, emphasis mine)
...and you will be told that you are spiritually immature and un-enlightened, ect.
If becoming a Calvinist is the “inevitable result of Christian maturity,” as a type of “salvation within salvation,” or even more so, a “truth essential to salvation,” which is opposed only by “worldlings,” it’s not hard to see how this has become a fracture between Christians. After all, these are no small claims!
One Calvinist explains: “A wonderful friend of our family once commented that coming to understand the Doctrines of Grace was akin to a type of salvation within salvation.” (oldtruth.com, emphasis mine)
Sovereign Grace Church explains: “Because God’s election and God’s grace cannot be separated, to believe in God’s grace in the biblical sense is to believe in the ‘doctrine of election’. If ‘the doctrine of election’ is not ‘truth essential to salvation’, then the ‘doctrine of grace’ is not truth essential to salvation.” (Sovereign Grace Church, emphasis mine)
...and in some cases, you will be told that you are unsaved, if you do not accept Calvinism.
One member of The Society of Evangelic Arminians: “Calvinists appear to be engaging in a very subtle form of idolatry: they worship the Calvinistic system and use it as their standard of spirituality. That is not the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit revealed Christ to people before Augustine came along, for hundreds of years. He was revealing Christ to people. He continued to reveal Christ to people through the reformation and throughout church history up until the present day.”
Another member of The Society of Evangelic Arminians: “The lack of love and grace is for me a very, very big concern. The more I study and consider Calvinism, the more it seems like a ‘Christian cult’ within Christianity. It is acceptable because, supposedly, they do not deny essential doctrine as non-Christian cults do. But their actual practices are exactly what the cults do. They take believers who start out as Arminians and literally convert them away from the truth. They have a system of theology that denies essential Christian doctrines (including God’s very plan of salvation, God’s desire to save the world, God’s provision of Jesus for the world, salvation through faith when a person freely chooses to trust in Christ, etc. etc.). They become like cultists with a severe case of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ dynamics with some even declaring the ‘them’ (non-Calvinists to be unsaved and not Christians). They follow gurus, like Piper, MacArthur, etc. The teachings of the group/cult take priority over everything, including of course the Bible and Christian tradition. They attack outsiders in extremely hateful ways. They become very hateful individuals who love to attack, love to argue, love to twist Scripture, and love to support the teachings of the cult/group. It is all there, just like a cult. But it is acceptable, since they hold to some Christian doctrines. Am I claiming they are all unsaved? Of course not. I am, however, claiming that Calvinism is like a cult within the Christian church, a cult that twists the scripture as much as any cult, that divides brothers and sisters, that twists the Gospel to equate it with Calvinism, etc., etc. What we are seeing on Blogs and Message Boards, from what I thought were respectable Christian leaders, is nothing different than exactly what you see with cults. Cultists tend to love their own, but hate all others. How is Calvinism any different? And when you actually look at the founders, i.e. Augustine, look at how much false teaching he brought into the church? Calvin and Luther and the Dortians (you don’t see godly character and faith and love that marks true Christians. You see people who hated and despised others, who had people killed for not believing as they did. It is not Christianity. It is like a Trojan horse that entered the church and has been causing havoc ever since.”
The context of this statement came from an encounter with a group of strident, Internet Calvinists, which is turning into a bit of a phenomenon. Even Calvinist, John Piper, addresses this growing trend:
Calvinist, John Piper, on Why are Calvinists so Negative?
Dave Hunt: “The historical evidence, however, is impeccable for Calvin’s use of the state to enforce godliness, his abusive language, and his endorsement of the death penalty for heretics (‘One should...burn them cruelly.’), ‘barbarous... imprisonment, torture, the stake,’ and floggings, quartering and hanging body part in strategic sites as a warning.” (Debating Calvinism, p.247, emphasis mine)
Of course! If you read John Calvin’s book, Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, his tone and treatment of others is blatantly abusive. So it’s not just a new phenomenon among Internet tough-guys otherwise known as “The Founders” types, and James White. This is the same tone that has been perpetuated since Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar and Elihu came to comfort Job.
Consider another aspect of Calvinism, involving an alleged, Secret Will:
John Calvin: “For the man who honestly and soberly reflects on these things, there can be no doubt that the will of God is the chief and principal cause of all things. It is fitting to restrain our minds by this knowledge, lest we pursue our investigation beyond what is lawful.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, pp.177-178, emphasis mine)
Another member of The Society of Evangelic Arminians: “You know, I have often thought that Calvinism inadvertently ends up being its own kind gnosticism. God’s got a ‘secret will’ that the initiates are taught about only after they have already committed themselves to the core tenets of Christianity. Upon learning these secretive parts of God’s will, they are told not to talk about the secrets and to pretend in public as if Calvinism is only focused on ‘God’s sovereignty’ or ‘making a big deal about God’ (to paraphrase John Piper). They, then, perpetuate this secret-keeping by only sharing these things with the initiates. This ethos of clandestine information-sharing is one of the things that has consistently turned me off to Calvinism.”
As a perfect example, consider this exchange between a hardline Calvinist and one member of the Society of Evangelical Arminians:
Calvinist: “You are right that carnal people can, of their accord, respond to and accept the gospel you profess and teach. They make their decisions, pray their sinners’ prayers, walk the church aisles and accept this other Jesus. Nothing to it, really. But I am right that they cannot and will not believe in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the gospel I proclaim in this forum, unless God the Holy Spirit does a mighty work to quicken them and remove their enmity against the God of the bible. The dialogue in the forum is the evidence of this fact.”
Arminian: “And of course, when he mentions ‘the dialogue in this forum’ he is referring to me and him. I worship another Jesus, according to him, I don’t believe in ‘the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ’ and am hostile to ‘the God of the bible.’ I am sure this type of quasi-cultish arrogance is familiar to most of us.”
Calvinist: “To a person that’s never been born of God, when this assertion about salvation truth is brought before him he is offended by it and cannot accept it (just like he can’t accept the doctrine of unconditional election). That’s because God has never made to known to him his own nature. God has never caused him to see the depths of his own depravity so he can’t imagine he needs more than an opportunity to do something of himself. Like Nicodemus, He doesn’t understand the New Birth because he’s never experienced it, and it can only be understood by experience. He may talk about it, but he talks in prideful ignorance. Not so with a man who is born of God.”
Arminian: However, one is not saved because God “made to known to him his own nature,” or because he has been brought to “see the depths of his own depravity,” or because he has been brought to “understand the new birth.” The apostle Paul told the Jailer that one is saved by this: “believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.” (Acts 16:30) One is not saved by attaining the right theology, but saved by trusting in the right Savior.
Yes, it is. However, to be fair, some Calvinists absolutely reject this kind of arrogant and cultic attitude, and those kinds of Calvinists are often disparaged by the hardliners as being “not truly Reformed,” and I haven’t even mentioned the treatment towards 4-Point Calvinists, as they are hit with the label of Amyraldism. However, what also needs to be pointed out, is that it’s not just a phenomenon within Calvinism, as I have witnessed this same kind of cultic attitude displayed by the hardliners who espouse Baptismal Regeneration, insomuch that unless you are rebaptized (by a member of their denomination), you cannot be saved. These kinds of pet doctrines seem to create cultists. Arminianism, however, seems to be immune to these types of problems, because it does not insist that one must be baptized to be saved, or to be a member of a certain denomination to be saved, or to speak in tongues to be saved, or to perform certain sacraments to be saved, or to go door to door to be saved, but only to trust in Jesus to be saved. Cultists seem to find no home within an Arminian denomination, perhaps because it wields no power to say, “you must belong to us,” or “you must worship like us,” to be saved. To a cultist, what good is such a denomination, if it offers no means of control?
Arminian Charge: Calvinists are cultic in behavior.
Myth or Reality: Calvinism is not a cult, but there are valid comparisons.
