I'll start by saying that there is a lot of good teaching in Calvinism. I don't think anyone should completely reject the teachings usually associated with it. Many great Christian minds have come to be Calvinists through a careful study of the Scriptures, many of them are heroes of the faith to me. However, I do think that some elements of Calvinism unnecessarily cause confusion and lead people away from trusting the Bible. I want to address those areas in a few posts. I will not address every verse and every argument, I am not writing a book. But I will briefly address what I think are the central issues.
How does Calvinism lead people away from trusting the Bible? Calvinism in popular usage refers to a collection of doctrines related to God's sovereign role in salvation. It is a theological system, defined by five points forming the acronym "Tulip": Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and Perseverance of the Saints. It claims that a person has no ability to believe in the Gospel and be saved unless God first gives them the "new life" or "new heart" that the Bible associates with salvation. God has predestined a select group for salvation and everyone in that group will believe and be saved. Everyone else will be lost.
This system creates a tension with a number of Bible verses. If you embrace this system as a whole, it is difficult to explain why the Bible says, "God so loved the world..." (John 3:16), or that God "desires all people to be saved" (1 Timothy 2:4). Usually, Calvinists respond that, for various reasons, the words "world," or "all people" in these verses refer only to the ones God chose to save, not all the people in the world. In my opinion, if a theological system leads you to make such a strained interpretation of a straightforward verse, there is something off with that system. It is a kind of lack of trust in the Bible.
So why would someone be a Calvinist? First, some passages in the Bible do teach that God chose to save some and not others. One of the clearest examples is Romans 9:22-24:
"What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath-- prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory-- even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?"
I say some because I think the quantity of these kinds of verses is overstated by Calvinists. Romans 8:29 mentions "predestination" but it is not talking about predestination to believe and be saved, but rather that God has predestined believer in Jesus to be sanctified. There are many examples of Calvinists using the words "predestine" and "chose" in the New Testament to support their system, but in only a few cases are the words actually referring to salvation. However, one verse is all that is needed to say a doctrine is supported by the Bible. The issue is not whether or not God has chosen to save some and not others, but the way in which God goes about accomplishing his purposes.
In many other instances, Calvinists reach their conclusions based on assumptions about what they believe a text implies. This is where problems with biblical interpretation begin. In the rest of this article, I will specifically address how this happens when it comes to "Total Depravity." I will address other aspects in future posts.
First, what is Total Depravity? Calvinists use the term to mean that sin has impacted every aspect of a person. We are all born in slavery to sin and our intellect, emotions, spirit, -everything about us is depraved. This does not mean that every person is as sinful as they could be, or that a sinner always does the worst thing possible in every situation. Rather, our fallen state means that it is impossible for us to act and think in a way that is truly pleasing to God (Romans 8:8). The result is that we are spiritually "dead." So far, so good. Paul writes, "And you were dead in your trespasses and sins," (Ephesians 2:1).
But what does it mean to be spiritually dead? Calvinists believe the phrase implies that a person is incapable of responding to the gospel message and believing in Jesus. Because someone who is physically dead cannot do anything in the physical realm, they reason, so someone spiritually dead cannot do anything in the spiritual realm, like believing in Jesus. They then build an order of salvation around this assumption. Someone must first be "regenerated," or given spiritual life by God. Then they can (and will) believe the gospel. The sinner has nothing to do with God's act of regeneration. God does this for a specific group he has chosen from the very beginning. If God did not choose you, then it is impossible for you to respond to the gospel and be saved.
But all of these conclusions rest on the assumption that those who are spiritually dead cannot respond to the gospel, an assumption that I do not think the Bible supports. For starters, even Calvinists must admit that spiritually dead people can do some things. For instance, they will face God in the judgment. So to say that spiritual death is equal to physical death in that you cannot do anything at all is to press the metaphor too far. So what does the Bible mean by spiritual death? Let's look to the Bible to find out, not our own assumptions. Here are two key passages:
"And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses." -Colossians 2:13
"I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life." -John 5:24
In both cases, going from death to life has to do with having your sins forgiven. You are spiritually dead if you are guilty before God. You are heading to judgment where you will be condemned. You have no hope of doing anything to make yourself right before him. You are doomed to eternal separation from God. But when God forgives you, then you are spiritually alive. Thus the Bible uses the term to refer to hopelessness in your own ability to secure salvation apart from the gospel, not hopelessness to respond to the gospel apart from God first making you alive.
See also John 3:36: "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."
Again, eternal life is contrasted with not having God's wrath on you. Also, note that someone who believes has eternal life. The verse does not say that the one who has eternal life believes, as the Calvinist supposes. In fact, many verses contradict the order of salvation in the Calvinist system. In Acts 16:31 we read, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved!" Paul does not say, "Be saved, and you will believe in the Lord Jesus!"
The Calvinist may also argue that someone who is not saved cannot put faith in Jesus because that would be a good work, and we are not saved by works (Ephesians 2:8-9). Again, that is an assumption that the biblical text does not support. When the Bible says we are saved by grace and not works, it does not mean that unbelievers can never do anything good. It means that no good work can justify us before God. We cannot get any closer to salvation through our works. Faith in Jesus is the same way. Faith does not make us justified before God. I cannot say that my faith in Jesus makes me any closer to being righteous before God. My choosing to stop rejecting Jesus is not a good work that earns a reward from God. That would be like saying that "Because I chose not to murder someone I was angry with yesterday, God owes me salvation!" No, that doesn't earn me anything from God. Rather, I am saved through faith. God chooses to give salvation to those who have faith. Salvation is entirely his work. Paul also goes to great lengths to demonstrate that faith is not a good work in Romans 4.
In Part 2, I will discuss Irresistible Grace and get to what I think is a more biblical understanding of Romans 9:22-24. Click here to go to Part 2.
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