Calvinism
Anyone who has been to a Bible study that I teach knows that I’m not big on teaching theology…at least not all the terms and systematic stuff. While I certainly see the value of theology, I find that it’s better to teach a new Christian how to get on their face and seek God before you teach the subtleties of supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism. That is, if you wait for people to nail every bit of doctrine before they doing anything, then they’ve already missed out on a lot of opportunities to do stuff!
But I appreciate that those at the top have to know their stuff and make the decisions about what they believe, because that provides the foundation for what they’ll teach. For example, whether you believe in man’s ability to choose salvation or not affects how you present the Gospel to him.
It is with this in mind that I step into the Christianese ring for the first time and give an overview of the doctrine called Calvinism. Next week I’ll look at Arminianism. These two doctrines have been around for about as long as Protestantism has existed, and the debate remains vigorous even to this day. These two schools of thought discuss another Christianese term called “soteriology” - the study of salvation. That is, what is the state of man? Can we choose God or does God choose us? Can we lose our salvation?
Calvinism and Arminianism aren’t the only schools of soteriology; Lutheranism contains elements of both views, and Catholicism, though much closer to Arminians than the Calvinists, is different enough to be its own thing. I don’t know as much about these two so, unless I learn really fast, I won’t talk about them; I’d hate to misrepresent. So I’ll stick to what I know.
Calvinism
You might have heard of Calvinism being called the Reformed tradition, and if you want to match denominations to it, you’ll find that most Presbyterians and Congregationalists adhere to its views as well as some Particular Baptists and the United Church of Christ. The doctrine gets its name from John Calvin, a French theologian who lived in the first half of the 16th century and was alive at the same time as Martin Luther (just as a reference point). Influenced by Augustine and other theologians throughout the Middle Ages, Calvin placed a high level of importance on the sovereignty of God. Out of his work and the work of other Reformers came five major points that became the basis for Calvinism. These points have since been placed into a cool acronym for the English language - TULIP - which makes them way easier to remember than what Arminius gave us.
The points are as follows:
Total depravity. While Calvinists would accuse Arminians of believing otherwise, this is the one that just about anyone who is takes the name Protestant has in common these days. Depravity, at least in Christian theological terms, means “the innate corruptness of human nature, due to original sin” (Oxford American Dictionary). The idea here is that because of the fall of Adam, mankind has become so corrupt that he is completely unable to do any good. This doesn’t mean that every person walking is one step away from Satan; it simply means that even the good that people do is somehow misguided or misplaced.
If you’re having trouble with this idea, remember that how one defines “good” is important here. I know of atheists that do more good for the world than your average Christian! But this is good in a temporal sense, not in a spiritual sense. While I might be overstepping a bit here, I think that when we talk about man not being able to do good, we are defining thisfrom God’s eyes. A wealthy non-believer may donate millions of dollars to a worthy cause, but if this is not done for the glory of God, God’s going to have a problem with it.
There’s tons of Scripture to back up total depravity, but let’s just go with a biggie or two.
Psalm 51:5
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Romans 3:10-11
None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.
1 Corinthians 2:14
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
So! Man is dead in his sins. That’s how he’s born and that’s how he’ll die, unless God steps in.
Unconditional election. This is the first point of divergence from the Arminians, and it’s the first introduction to the idea of predestination. In short, unconditional election means that, with the emphasis of God’s sovereignty in mind, God chooses who He wants to be saved. If God picks you to be saved, then you will be saved. Because of man’s state of total depravity, he is unable to do anything good; choosing God would certainly be seen as a good thing in the eyes of God. Therefore, it is God who must reach out and enable a person’s heart to accept Him. That’s why it’s called unconditional - nothing you do merits your salvation.
Calvinists draw Scriptural support from quite a few places. Here are a couple references.
Deuteronomy 7:6-8a
6 For you are a people hold to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples,
8 but it is because the Lord loves you…
John 15:16a
You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide…
Ephesians 1:4-5
4 …even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love
5 he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will…
But if God picks us and we don’t pick Him, then this next point of Calvinism will make sense.
Limited atonement. This is a fancy phrase which simply states that not everyone gets to be saved. Some Calvinists prefer the term “definite atonement” because the term ‘limited’ seems restrictive (Calvinists are all about the sovereignty of God, remember?). To those who don’t know about Calvin’s theology, this one is often the most shocking and difficult to accept, but hear out the logic. The idea here is that when Jesus died, it wasn’t for everyone’s sins. After all, why would Jesus atone for man’s sins (that is, reconcile man to God) on the cross, and then punish man for these sins later if they didn’t accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior? This all hinges on how one defines atonement, which is beyond the scope of this article.
But let’s go to Scripture, where we take three passages in a row and make an argument out of it.
John 10:14-15
14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own knows me,
15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.
John 10:27-28
27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
Matthew 7:13-14
13 Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.
14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
The first passage says that Jesus is a shepherd who knows His flock, and His flock knows Him. The second passage says that Jesus gives His flock eternal life, and the third passage says that not everyone gets eternal life. Therefore, either Jesus is letting sheep get away without His knowledge (hmm), or Jesus only died for His flock.
Irresistible grace. Realize that when this stuff was conceived, it wasn’t written in English. So when whoever came up with the TULIP acronym, the terms were shifted around a bit. I’m not sure what the original order was, but I think this one should probably slot in at number three, because it builds on the ideas of unconditional election and predestination. If unconditional election establishes that God chooses you, irresistible grace says that when God chooses you, He’s gonna choose you. This keeps the sovereignty of God firmly in the picture.
This one carries a lot of negative connotations. After all, humans don’t like to be forced to do anything. But Calvin noted that this isn’t as violent as we can make it out to be. It’s irresistible, but it’s not mean. Think of it as the difference between a guy raping a girl and a guy showering a woman with affection until he won her over to have his way with her. The doctrine of irresistible grace is much more like the latter. Picture that guy being so good at wooing women that he got every woman he wanted, every time. The woman really has no choice! The analogy might be a bit crude, and people still might not like this portrayal of God, but I hope that clears some of the more negative connotations.
Anyways…Scripture! Gotta have some.
Deuteronomy 30:6
And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God will all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.
Psalm 65:4a
Blessed is the one you choose and bring near…
John 6:44
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.
When the Arminianism view is presented, you’ll see the last verse used to justify their opposing view, called “prevenient grace,” because there’s a lot of debate about the word rendered “draw” and what it means and how it applies here. Again, that’s not my place; I’m just giving the overview.
Perseverance of the Saints. Here’s the final main point of Calvinism, one that, though maybe not as tightly intertwined with the other points, is formed logically out of them. If God is supremely powerful (did you get that God is sovereign yet?), and if He selects a certain amount of people to be saved, and if, when He draws those to salvation, He does so completely, then it would make sense that He doesn’t let them go. God isn’t going to let people or the devil or anything else cause one of His sheep to go astray. Another term for this point is “eternal security,” and if it’s true, and if you’re truly saved, then you never have to question your salvation.
It’s important to note here that the traditional Calvinist doesn’t accept what’s called apostasy - that’s a fancy word for falling away from the faith. There are those who will use the term “once saved, always saved” just like the Calvinists (look up Free Grace theology), but they’ll say that even if someone falls away, they’re okay as long as they’ve accepted Christ at some point in their past. A Calvinist would say that if someone claimed to accept Christ and fell away, then he or she was probably not saved in the first place.
There are plenty of verses to support this view. Three has been a good number, so let’s stick to it.
John 10:27-28
27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
Romans 8:1
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Romans 11:29
For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
Though these verses and many more seem to point to eternal security, it has been said that Calvin himself was more ambivalent about this issue than any other, and it seems like out of all five points, there seems to be more debate and more viewpoints on it than any other point. That being said, it does fit really well into the Calvinist system, and there is a certain level of comfort that come from knowing that one is saved.
Conclusion
I was raised in a Methodist church, a church founded on the Arminian views that stand pretty much in direct opposition to each part of TULIP. While I don’t stick to Methodism dogmatically, spending my entire developmental life there obviously gave me a better sense of how free will works. I do hope that, in my survey of Calvinism, you didn’t detect that. But, just because I was raised one way doesn’t mean I have to believe everything they taught. I’m not telling you what I think about Calvinism’s parts or its whole, at least not yet. An article defining Arminianism will come first, so that a balanced and (hopefully) unbiased survey of these two views can be given first.
This article is, at its core, knowledge for the sake of knowing. Sometimes it’s tough to make this stuff practical, which is something I like to do. I think there are ways to take the knowledge you’ve gained here and with the upcoming article on Arminianism and gain a lot of cool perspectives. But that will come later.
For now, I hope that this opens your eyes to ways that Christians think and challenges you to figure out what you believe!
Grace and peace,
Brendan
