Calvinism and Arminianism:
Myths & Realities
One member of the Society of Evangelical Arminians “Calvinists cannot accept the idea of anything in eternity being conditioned upon them, since their actions are uncertain and they fear that they would be (or would have been) doomed to failure if they weren’t irresistibly pulled along. Everything has to be very tidy and just-so, or they panic. Everything has to be all completely God’s will and doing, or it must all just be meaningless, randomness and chaos. Such ‘all-or-nothing’ thinking explains the way many Calvinists view free will (e.g. their repeated assertions that it must be ‘random’ if it isn’t predetermined).”
To a Calvinist, if anything is undetermined and left for man to decide, literally anything, then the entirety of existence is in complete chaos. Thankfully, Calvinism makes everything simple: God did it. This way, the Calvinist can sleep at night.
Here is the candid testimony of a convert to Calvinism: “Short version, I was raised ‘Arminian’ although I believed myself to be ‘Calvinist’ because I believed in Eternal Security. Later in life - after becoming an adult - someone suggested that ‘regeneration precedes faith’. I knew that to be false, so I went to bat for the truth. Every time I stepped up to knock down these heresies, I got a face full of Scriptures that seemed, for the life of me, to say that Man is depraved at his core, that God chooses who He will save based on His own purposes, not the ones being saved, and that when God moves, no one can stop Him. I kept swinging, but after awhile I realized I had lost the battle. Overcome with Scripture and unable to disagree with the logic, I found myself engulfed by a sense of awe that grace could be so large, and a sense of awe that God could be so sovereign. Never before had these two features loomed so large.” (Studylight.org, emphasis mine)
Doubt: man is too depraved to open the door to Christ.
Continuing: “I gave up the fight. I won’t do battle anymore, but I am pretty well ‘snared’ by the ‘Scripture and evident reason’ that has forced me against my desires to acquiesce to God’s sovereignty and finally made me comfortable enough to allow myself to be called ‘a Calvinist’ (although I still despise the term). In the course of my battle, my mother was swept along as well, and she has surrendered, too, but my father, raised a Presbyterian, is still a ‘one pointer’. We, however, never do battle over it.”
Simple answer: God is behind everything.
Continuing: “Considering my life and my circumstances and my biblical conclusions, you are offering to move me from a rational theology, a confident hope, an assurance that God is absolutely in control when the world around me looks out of control, and an assurance that God can and will save a wretch like me, to the certainty that I am forever damned and, well, too bad, He tried but I wouldn’t let Him.”
More doubt: doom & gloom apart from fatalism.
Concluding: “I’m sorry. The whole of Arminian theology, in my mind, elevates Man, denigrates God, and leaves me with a mortally wounded sovereign who fell victim to His creation when He surrendered to their wills. In a world where terrorists fly aircraft into buildings, where Christians are divorcing as often as non-Christians, where I live imperfectly myself, I cannot afford a God who is not sovereign, nor can I afford an elevated view of Man. I couldn’t continue the conversation in good conscience because 1) I have been forced by the biblical logic of it, and 2) having arrived here, I like it
... a lot. You ask me to surrender my mind and my God, and I cannot.”
The part about, “I like...a lot,” is very telling. Free Will is frightening to a Calvinist.
Arminian Charge: Calvinism is driven by Fear.
Myth or Reality: Calvinists often describe their conversion to Calvinism as one in which had given them comfort. In a world spinning out of control, it brings them comfort to know that God is causing it all, and directing the outcome.
