Calvinism and Arminianism:
Myths & Realities
Lloyd Acree explains: “I did not understand how could God possibly leave my friends out of His plan of salvation, because salvation is kind of like a lottery. If you are not picked by God, and there’s absolutely no explanation [that is] ever going to be given for that, according to the Calvinists. So I’m here to tell you different. I don’t understand how people can tolerate it, because it is extremely depressing if you actually care about other people. It is extremely atrocious that they would be left to their own sins with no hope, and that God could atone for the entire world on the Cross, with the blood of Jesus (and did atone for the world, as it says in Isaiah). It’s atrocious to think that God would just leave His own people, separated from that atonement, for absolutely no explicable reason.”
Often in defense, Calvinists will suggest that what plagues Calvinism, does so to Arminianism as well, and therefore Arminians should just shut up. However, that is not the case, with regard to the problem of evil.
Arminian Charge: Calvinism leads to Depression.
Myth or Reality: If we get our spiritual world-view from God, and we later learn that God is not entirely good, insomuch as being uncaring (through the sovereign exercise of power in Preterition, for purely selfish and vain reasons), then either the convert will accept such a selfish perspective for themselves, and let themselves become hardened in it, or grow despondent, in the loss of one’s joy in God.
