12 Tips on How to Think Critically about Calvinism
[Updated and shortened, kind of]
Here are 12 [updated to 14] tips, from my own experience (for the average Christian, not necessarily seminary theologians), on how to study critically, to read Scripture critically, and to think critically about Calvinism, to see that Calvinism does not fit with Scripture (ignore the highlighting, I can't undo it):
1. Before you start researching, pray. Sincerely pray and ask God to open your eyes to the truth about what the Bible says, about what Calvinism teaches, about if Calvinism accurately reflects the Word and God's character, or not.
Even ask God to examine your heart, to reveal to you if you are willing to see the Truth or not, if you are willing to be corrected or not. If you are not willing to be corrected and simply want to believe what you want to believe, then don't expect God to answer you or to show you the Truth.
But if you really do want God's truth and are willing to admit you might have been wrong all along, ask Him to show it to you, to make it clear to you, and to surround you with His heavenly angels to keep evil away, to protect you from being misled.
There is one dogmatic Calvinist whom I've challenged to give God permission in prayer to correct his theology if he's wrong. And he refuses to do it. Instead, he constantly replies with "I ask for wisdom. And that obviously includes correction."
My reply is that even Satan has and gives "wisdom." The Pharisees had wisdom, and look how far from the truth they were. It's entirely possible to be getting "wisdom" from the WRONG source, especially if you've been unwittingly listening to the wrong voice all along.
If Calvinists are so sure that Calvinism is biblical, then there should be no worry about praying for correction if you're wrong. Seriously, what do you have to lose? [The fact that the dogmatic Calvinist was unwilling to ask God to correct him if he's wrong is telling.]
2. When you research a verse or passage, only use a Bible and a good concordance. That's basically the way I did it. DO NOT look up what theologians say (particularly Calvinist theologians), at least not until after you first do your own research.
As I set about to research Calvinism and to find out what the Bible really says, I did it first and foremost by studying the Bible for myself, without looking up what others said about the verses I was studying. I heard the wrong/questionable things my Calvinist pastor was preaching, wrote them down, and then went right to Scripture and a concordance to see what God said. I wanted to know what God said about it first, before I sought out what others thought.
3. Trust yourself when you sense a "red flag" in what someone is preaching. (You might be surprised at how many "red flags" you let slip by, how many questionable things you excused or rationalized, before you started to realize something is very wrong and that you need to face it.)
If a Calvinist preacher says something that doesn't sit right, if you're not absolutely sure it squares with Scripture, don't just brush it off, assuming that you must just be missing something or that you're not smart enough to understand the lofty "truths" they're teaching. Write down the "red flags," look them up in the Bible, and see what God says about it, plainly and clearly.
It's all-too-easy to be swayed by someone else's ideas, to read the verse the way they tell you to – especially if you read their ideas before you study God's Word and before you fully understand what God is saying. (Calvinist pastors do this all time. They first tell you what Calvinist “truths” you’ll find in the Bible, then they lead you to the out-of-context verses that supposedly teach those “truths,” letting you “discover” the Calvinism that’s supposedly in the Bible, convincing you that they were right all along.)
And don't ask a Calvinist to show you how those "red flags" fit with Scripture. Don't accept their offer to take you through a study of something like Systematic Theology (Wayne Grudem, see here for a bit about his theology) to help you "understand it better." May as well ask a fox to guard the hen house or trust the snake-oil salesman to tell you if his product really works. [See also "What's the best way to make people agree with your Calvinist views?"]
My theory is that Calvinism needs Calvinists to find Calvinism in the Bible. Because without Calvinists telling you how to interpret God's Word (telling you what God supposedly meant to say when He wrote what He did), you wouldn't find Calvinism in the Bible.
So no referencing Calvinist authors or theologians or pastors to see what they say or how they interpret a verse. Study this issue thoroughly at first using only prayer, the Bible, and a concordance.
(FYI, Be very careful about researching Calvinism online. Almost all the top search results are Calvinist websites. And you will not get unbiased information about Calvinism from a Calvinist website. And be careful of the wording you use in a search. Typing something like "Is Calvinism true" will come up with a lot more pro-Calvinist sites than "Why is Calvinism wrong" or "Calvinism is heresy". Do searches with several different phrases, worded in different ways. And get to know which websites are Calvinist. See "Avoiding Calvinist Websites" for a list of some of the more popular Calvinist websites you'll stumble across.)
4. When you're faced with the dilemma of choosing to believe what God plainly and clearly said OR choosing to believe the Calvinist's "deeper understanding" of what God supposedly meant to say ... choose the clear, plain truths of Scripture, as God wrote them.
I believe that He said what He meant and meant what He said. And that's why we can trust His Word!
But Calvinism has "double layers" for verses and biblical concepts: a surface layer that we can all agree with, that says what the Bible says ... and then a deeper, secondary layer that alters/contradicts/changes the surface layer (but they hide this second layer for as long as possible, to reel you in with the surface layer).
Note: They have these double layers because of the trouble they have of meshing their preconceptions of God and theology with what the Bible actually says. They start with their own ideas (and refuse to give them up), and then they have to twist what the Bible says to fit it, breaking up biblical truths into "two different types of...", something the Bible itself doesn't support.
How can you trust a theology like that?
If you listen to Calvinists closely, you'll notice that when it comes to every easily-understood Bible verse/concept, they say "Yes ... but ..." And these are BIG buts:
"Yes, the Bible says God loves all people ... but He meant all kinds of people, not all individual people. And, sure, He loves all men, but He has two different kinds of love: a save-your-soul one for the elect and a gives-you-food-and-sunshine one for the non-elect." [My note: Find me the verse that clearly says this!]
"Yes, the Bible says God calls to all people ... but He has two different kinds of calls: one for the elect that they have to respond to and one for the non-elect that they can never respond to." [Find me the verse that clearly says this!]
"Yes, the Bible says Jesus died for all sins and all people ... but it means the sins of all kinds of people, from all races. The elect! Because Jesus wouldn't die for those who are predestined to reject Him. That would be a waste of His blood and make His death ineffectual." [Find me the verse that clearly says this!]
"Yes, God tells us to seek Him, to repent ... but He didn't mean we can seek Him or repent on our own. He only makes it possible for the elect to seek Him and to repent. But the non-elect can never seek Him nor repent. But God still commands them to so that they would be guilty for not doing it, for rejecting Him, so that He has reason to send them to hell, just like He predestined. For His glory. We can't understand it; we just have to accept it." [Find me the verse that clearly says this!]
"Yes, the Bible says that anyone who wants to can come to Jesus and believe in Him ... but only the elect can/will want to come to Him and believe in Him because God regenerates only their hearts, giving them – and only them – the desire/ability to come to Jesus.” [Find me the verse that clearly says this!]
"Yes, the Bible says God wants all men to be saved, that He wants no one to perish ... but God has two different wills, you see: a revealed one where He says He wants everyone to be saved and no one to perish, and a secret one which contradicts His revealed one where He really does want most people to go to hell." [Find me the verse that clearly says this!]
"Yes, the Bible says God never causes sin ... but He does 'ordain' our sins, for His glory. ('Ordains,' in Calvinism, means "preplans, orchestrates, controls,' which is simply 'causes' in disguise.) God doesn't 'cause' or force the non-elect to sin. He simply prevents them from being able to not sin. He prevents them from being able to obey Him by not regenerating them. And this leaves them, by default, as hell-bound sinners who can only always want to sin and choose to sin. Just like He predestined." [Find me the verse that clearly says this! FYI: Calvinists think that by simply saying "We don't SAY that God causes sin," they can convince people that Calvinism does not teach that God causes sin, which will stop people from being alarmed or from looking into it deeper. But anyone who really examines Calvinist beliefs and their inevitable conclusions will realize that Calvinism does indeed undeniably teach that God is the cause/author of sin, in spite of their denial.]
If God is really like this, if His Word really teaches what Calvinists say it does, then how can you believe anything He says, when everything He says means something else, when there's a secret layer of meaning that contradicts/negates what He actually said!?!
The alarming, dangerous thing is that Calvinist replace what God clearly, plainly, repeatedly said with their ideas of what He meant to say, things that He didn’t clearly and plainly say anywhere.
So which one are you going to trust? What God clearly, plainly said, in the commonsense way He meant it? Or the secret “deeper understanding” that Calvinists have about what God supposedly meant to say, even though He did not clearly say those things anywhere?
(Also be suspicious and discerning when Calvinists reinterpret clear, easily-understood verses/biblical ideas in light of “poetic” verses, such as when they use Psalms or Proverbs as their basis for determining what supposedly God meant in other verses. Such as, Calvinists use Proverbs 21:1, a verse about God turning the king’s heart wherever He wishes, to say that God controls our thoughts and actions, to deny the clear biblical teaching that people make real choices. But remember that Proverbs is a book of "wise sayings" and generalizations. It’s not meant to be hard-core, bottom-line, doctrinal theology. Besides, if it was, then we could argue that God only controls the heart of the king referred to in that Proverb, because that’s all that’s mentioned. Who are we to apply it to other people, if God said only “the king”? Read this post for more about that: "God has no problems with these 'truths,' but we do")
A good exercise: See if you can find the bottom-line, deeper-level Calvinist beliefs written in Scripture anywhere, clearly and plainly. If you can’t, if you have to take verses out of context and mash them with other verses and redefine words to make the verse fit Calvinism, then something’s wrong.
You see, I believe the gospel is clear, easily-understood, makes sense, and is for all people. God doesn’t hide His Truth under layers of contradictions and double word-meanings and word games. When read plainly and simply, the Bible clearly says that Jesus died for all, that we are all sinners, that salvation is available to all, that we can believe in Him, and that we are responsible for whether we accept Jesus as Lord and Savior or not.
But it’s the Calvinists who do all sorts of Scripture-twisting, smoke-and-mirrors, double-layering, song-and-dances, running-in-theological-circles in order to make the Bible fit their theology, to make it say the opposite of what the Bible clearly says.
[Shouldn't it be telling that the book of John explains the gospel in a few verses in one chapter (John 3) but that it takes John Calvin and modern-day Calvinist theologians hundreds and hundreds of pages to explain the Calvinist gospel? Does that not raise some red flags in you?]
Calvinists cannot find verses that clearly say what they believe, such as “God does not love all sinners equally” … “Jesus died only for the elect” … “God has two Wills that contradict each other, one that wants all to be saved and one that predestines most people for hell” … “God has two different kinds of love for people, one that saves some people and one that just gives food and sunshine to the rest” … “God has two different kinds of calls He gives people, one that is irresistible and one that is resistible” … “God causes people to sin but punishes them for it,” etc.
They can’t find verses that clearly teach their theology. (Try and look for them.) And so they have to take verses out of context, apply multiple layers to verses, mash other verses together, change the meanings of words, shame and manipulate people into not questioning them, and make up truths based on what a verse doesn’t say (such as if a verse says Jesus died for His sheep, they say it must mean that He didn’t die for anyone else but His sheep, just like if I said I liked chocolate ice cream, they would interpret it to mean that I must not like any other flavor because all I mentioned specifically was chocolate), etc.
Calvinism does not take Scripture at face value. And this should be evident in the fact that it takes months of study with Calvinist pastors and Calvinist indoctrination books to figure out what God supposedly meant to say underneath what He actually said (and in contradiction to what He actually said). And even then, at the end of it all, Calvinists have to resort to things like “who are you to question God?” and “We can’t understand it, so we just have to accept it” to try to explain away the contradictions they cannot resolve.
Be wary of any theology system that works like that! That is far more cult-like than biblical.
5. Use a "word for word" translation of the Bible, preferably the KJV, which I believe is the most accurate and which is the version Strong's concordance references.
But if you don’t want to use just the KJV, use a couple different versions for cross-referencing because each version has its own "issues" - such as where the NIV says "elect" in one verse (sounding Calvinistic), the RSV says "exiles" (sounding like it's talking about the Jewish exiles at that time). Big difference!
DO NOT use one of those recent, conversational-style Bibles like The Message or The Living Bible or The New Living Translation. The way they write, you won't be able to look up words in the concordance. Those translations were not trying to be true to the original words; they are simply trying to get across the general thoughts of the Bible verses. It makes it hard to do a serious study.
[See my post: "... Is the ESV a Calvinist Bible?"]
6. Read each verse you look up IN CONTEXT. Calvinism dies when verses are read in context. (Such as in John 15:16, Jesus says “You did not choose me, but I chose you...” Calvinists read this verse and say “See! God chooses who gets saved.” But in context, Jesus is talking to the disciples, saying that He chose them to spread His message to the world. It has nothing to do with choosing individual people for salvation.)
Read the entire section, not just the supposed "Calvinist" verse. Who is speaking? Who are they speaking to? Are they talking to Jews or Gentiles, about Jews or Gentiles, about all believers, about mankind in general, about the people of only that day, etc.? What is the message they are trying to get across to the people they are speaking to, in their time period? (And only after this should you try to figure out what it means for us today. Keeping things in context pretty much destroys a Calvinist interpretation of Romans 9, which is clearly about God dealing with nations, with Israel and the Gentiles, not about God choosing some specific individual people for salvation and the others for damnation.)
(Watch just about any anti-Calvinism video from Kevin Thompson at Beyond the Fundamentals to see how Calvinists constantly misinterpret Scripture and take it out of context.)
7. Read more of the book in the Bible (or read the whole book) that the verse is from. See what else the author says about the issue you are studying. This gives a fuller picture of what the author is really trying to say.
It is so important to take whatever verses a Calvinist uses to "support" their views and to look them up in context and to see what else the author has to say in the rest of the book. Never let a Calvinist trap you with a piece of a verse taken out of context. What a horrible way to formulate a theology!
Never let a Calvinist (or anyone else) think for you!
8. Look up words, especially those that supposedly confirm Calvinism, in the concordance (once again, I prefer Strong's concordance with Vine's Expository Dictionary), even words you assume you know the meaning of.
For example, as I said at the beginning of this post, one version will say "elect," but another says "exiles." But the Calvinists take the word "elect" and run with it, building their theology around their own misunderstanding of "elect." But when you look up the word that's in the concordance, it's talking about strangers who are wandering in a strange land. And metaphorically it's about Christians, whose true home is in heaven, being residents on this earth. In the world, but not of the world. It says nothing of being "chosen/elected" for salvation.
Same with "predestination." Calvinists see that word, assume what it means, and then build their theology around their wrong view of it. So don't let them trap you with the whole "See, predestination is in the Bible, so you have to believe what I'm saying" tactic. Do some research to find out exactly what has been predestined. See "Predestined For Salvation? Or For Something Else?" and “A quick study of Calvinism's favorite words”.
Another example is 2 Thess. 2:13 which says that we were chosen to be "saved," which could sound very much like predestination. But when you look up "saved" in the concordance with Vine’s Expository Dictionary, it's not talking about eternal salvation in the "heaven or hell" sense, but it's basically about God promising to spare believers from the end-times wrath He will pour out on staunch unbelievers. Sometimes "saved" and "salvation" in the Bible isn't even about eternal salvation.
How about the word "hardens," which Calvinists love to use to "prove" their belief that God hardens people's hearts, arbitrarily deciding whom to make unbelievers? Look that word up and see that it says that "hardens" is a retributive hardening. It's punishment for first hardening your own heart, even after God has been patient and long-suffering with you. And this is completely opposite the Calvinist idea of God choosing whom to harden, whom to create as unbelievers, without any influence from us.
We need to read the Bible more carefully and critically, in order to know what it's really teaching. (And hint: It's not teaching Calvinism! It's just not!)
Do not just assume that you know what a verse is saying. Do not let Calvinists tell you how to understand verses and words. Look up the words in the concordance! Doing that has been truly eye-opening for me. And the more I looked up words in the concordance, the more Calvinism died. (See the post "According to the concordance, it's NOT predestination" for more on that.)
9. In the concordance, find other verses that have the same word (the same number assigned to them) so that you can cross-reference the verse you are researching with others that use the same word.
When I did this, the “whosoever” in John 3:16 couldn't possibly mean "just the elect" or "the believers," as Calvinists like to say. Because the use of that same word in other verses can't mean "the believers." (See near the bottom of the "According to the concordance..." post, linked above, for more on that.)
10. If you have to, as I said earlier, look up other people's interpretations of the verses only after you've come to your conclusion or if you are truly stumped. But do not put too much weight on them. It's just what others think the verse means. But it might shed some light on a verse, especially when you simply can't understand it.
And don't think that just because someone is highly educated then they must be understanding the Word correctly. There are smart, educated people on both sides of this issue.
(You know who else was highly educated? The Pharisees. And look how far from the truth they were. They missed the Truth, even when He was standing right in front of them, talking to them. Too blinded by their own "wisdom" and "knowledge.")
And check out several opinions on a verse to see what ideas are out there, but be careful to note which ones are coming from Calvinists. (See "How to Tell if a Church, Pastor, or Website is Calvinist.")
11. Always ask yourself if there is anything about the verse that you are assuming, if you are reading it with some sort of presumption or preconceived interpretation (of your own or from someone else, like a Calvinist theologian).
And then reread the verse (and the whole passage) AS IF you are reading it for the first time, as if you have no previous understanding of what it means, as if you were in the audience while the author was preaching it for the first time. How would you interpret it if you had no previous ideas of what it supposedly "should" mean?
Also ask yourself if you are making a "negative inference" about what a verse says. (I learned this from Kevin at Beyond the Fundamentals. See "Calvinist Tactics Exposed" - a must watch video! - for an excellent look at how Calvinists go wrong and how they mislead people.)
This is a huge mistake Calvinists make.
They read a verse like (hypothetical example) "God loves those who obey." And then they make a negative inference, inferring that the opposite must also be true, that if God says He loves the obedient then it MUST MEAN He doesn't love the disobedient.
But that's not what the verse says. Does saying "I love chocolate ice cream" necessarily mean that I hate vanilla ice cream?
They read a verse that says something like (hypothetical example) "Jesus came to save those who believe," and then they would assume that it MUST MEAN that Jesus ONLY came to save those who believe, that He didn't come for those who don't believe, that He ONLY died for the believers (the "elect," in their theology) but not for anyone else.
But is that what the verse says? If I tell you that I went to the store and bought carrots does that necessarily mean that I ONLY bought carrots or that I didn't also buy potatoes?
But Calvinists assume certain things MUST BE true based on what they think the verse is implying about something it doesn't talk about. And this is a dangerous way to formulate your theology.
(And can you see how easy it is to manipulate people about what verses are saying? Sometimes all they have to do is tell you how they read it and then - abracadabra - suddenly you see it that way too, even though you never read it that way before.)
Another example are verses about God opening someone's eyes or enlightening someone. Calvinists hear this and infer that if God opens someone's eyes then it MUST MEAN that He blinds everyone else or that He blinded that person until He opened their eyes.
But is that what the verse says?
In particular, they do this with the verse about Lydia: "One of those listening was a woman named Lydia ... The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message." (Acts 16:14)
Calvinists use this as a key verse to "prove" their idea that God gives people faith so that we can believe. HOWEVER ... they are inferring a few things here. And it's detrimental to their theology.
They infer that "opening hearts" is "God causing someone to have faith/believe." They infer that if He doesn't open your heart then you can never believe (that Lydia COULD NOT believe until God opened her heart). And they infer that Paul's message was a "how to be saved" message. They infer that Paul preached the salvation message to her, that God "caused" her to believe, and that she became saved because of it.
But this is not what the verse says. It simply says God opened her heart to respond to Paul's message. And it is entirely possible that the message she responded to was the need for a believer to be baptized, because the next thing she does is get baptized.
Also, God "opening her heart" may not have had anything to do with "giving her faith to believe," because the part of the verse I left out (the "...", which is the same part the Calvinist always leaves out) calls Lydia a "worshipper of God."
God didn't open her heart to believe in Him ... because it's evident that she already believed in Him.
Nor is there any support for the idea that God "opening her heart" means that you're out of luck if God doesn't open yours. That's a negative inference. Maybe "opening hearts" is what God does to those whose hearts are already sensitive to Him and seeking Him. He helps those who are truly, willingly seeking the Truth to find it!
This isn't about God opening the heart of a non-believer (forcing faith on an unbeliever) to cause them to believe the Gospel message, as the Calvinist infers. I believe it's about God helping a believer to see the next step they should take, and in her case that would be baptism. [See this post for more on Lydia.]
Be very careful about the inferences you make about Scripture!
When Calvinists tell you what they think a verse is teaching, always ask yourself "Is that what the verse actually, clearly, plainly says?" Do not go beyond what Scripture says!
So many times we read the Word through some kind of theological glasses we put on first. Calvinists, especially, read the Bible while wearing their super-special "Calvinist glasses," always trying to figure out how it fits into Calvinism, never really questioning if it actually does fit with Calvinism. And they need to take off the glasses before they can read Scripture as it is written, if they want to understand what God is really saying. (We all do, in fact.)
12. Likewise, when reading Calvinist writings from Calvinist theologians, authors, or pastors, look for the things that they are assuming. Always ask yourself, "What verse confirms this?"
Such as, Calvinists say that when Adam ate the fruit, mankind became "totally depraved," which, to Calvinists, means that humans can't possibly think about God, seek God, want God, or believe in God on their own, unless God makes them do it. They compare spiritual death to physical death, saying that a spiritually-dead person is as dead as a dead body, and that since a dead body can't do anything but helplessly lay there all dead then God has to be the one to cause the dead person to seek Him and believe in Him. Because "dead bodies" can't do anything on their own. And since He is "sovereign," God is in control of who gets saved and who doesn't, and everything that happens is the way God planned it to happen and caused it to happen. Because a "sovereign God" HAS TO control everything ... or else He's not God.
Where is this in the Bible? Where is the verse which says that losing the ability to make decisions was a consequence of the Fall? Where is the verse that confirms their definitions of "depraved" and "spiritually dead" and "sovereign"? (They will find verses here and there to support their views, but always look at the verse in context, look up words in the concordance, find the assumptions/presumptions they are basing their interpretation on, and ask yourself "Is this what the verse really, clearly, plainly says?")
If Calvinists can convince you to agree to their definitions of "depraved" and "dead" and "sovereign" - if you don't question it - then they've already got you beat!
Never let a Calvinist define the terms or convince you of their definitions of things. He who defines the terms dominates the conversation!
(Check out some of my “Exposing Calvinism” posts to see Calvinism in action.)
You MUST question every term a Calvinist uses, look for the "hidden layers" that are underneath what they say, compare it to what the Bible plainly says, and take Calvinist teachings to their logical and natural conclusions to see how wrong they are (which Calvinists themselves refuse to do, expect for hyper-Calvinists who are, I believe, are simply “honest” Calvinists), to see how damaging Calvinism is to Truth and to God's character.
(But Calvinists will try to stop you from looking into it more deeply by accusing you of questioning God or the Bible, of talking back to God, of being unhumble, of worshipping free-will, of wanting to be in control over God, etc. They are very cult-like in their attempts to manipulate and control you! They just don't think of what they are doing as manipulation; they think of it as standing up for biblical truth and honoring God and His Word. This is one reason I call Calvinism "satanically brilliant.")
Such as, a Calvinist will use the word "ordains" to say something like "God ordains everything that happens in your life." Many of us will hear that and think it simply means that God knew what would happen and chose to allow it, even if it was a bad thing.
But what a Calvinist really means by "ordains" is "preplanned and causes," that He preplans and causes everything to happen the way it does. (But they will cover up the word "cause" as much as they can, hiding it under layers and layers of other words/ideas until it doesn't look like "cause" anymore.)
God even "ordains" any childhood abuse you went through, for His glory and for your good and to keep you humble.
This is what my Calvinist pastor preached one day. This is Calvinist theology!
Now carry all that out to its logical, natural conclusions - the idea that God actively causes a parent to abuse a child, that He causes the sin He commands us not to do (and that He will eventually punish us for), and that He does all this for your good and, apparently, because child abuse glorifies Him. (See "Does God Cause Childhood Abuse?")
Can you see how damaging this is to God's character, to our faith, to truth, to our ability to trust Him and His Word!?!
And yet they hide all this behind the easily-overlooked, often-misunderstood word “ordains.”
And it's not just "ordains." Whenever a Calvinist uses these words or phrases about God, what they're really saying is that "God preplans and causes everything that happens": ordains, decrees, foreknowledge, foresight, plans, wills/willed, omnipotence, omniscience, sovereign, sovereignty, controls, God "agrees" to it, God "allows" it, God "knew" it would happen, God "understood" what would happen, God is "in control," etc.
Everything always comes back to "God preplans/causes everything that happens," even if they're trying to make it sound like they're saying that God simply "allows" what happens.
They never mean that He just "allows" something to happen (because then He wouldn't fit their view of "sovereign," which is "He has to actively control all things or else He's not God.").
They always mean that He predestined it to happen and caused it to happen exactly the way it happened, and that nothing different could have happened.
But, be forewarned, they will deny this and they will hide this idea (their belief that God causes sin) even deeper, such as by saying that there are two causes of sin, that God is the proximate/ultimate source of sin but that we are the remote/secondary source of sin, that we willingly choose to carry out the sin that God ordains for us. Therefore, they conclude, we are really responsible for it ... even though Calvi-god preplanned it that way and we couldn't have done it any differently. And therefore, they say, it's totally just for God to punish us for our sin. "We don't have to know how it all works out, but we have to believe it because the Bible teaches both God's sovereignty and mankind's responsibility." This is how my Calvinist pastor put it. (And yet no one stopped to question his definition of “sovereignty” and “responsibility”.)
They go to great lengths to hide the fact that Calvi-god causes sin, to make it sound like he's not really responsible for our sin when he really is, because they know they can't accuse God of sin. And so they come up with all sorts of convoluted ways to put the blame on us and not on Him, even though (in Calvinism) everything we do has been preplanned/caused/controlled by Calvi-god, and we couldn’t do anything differently.
(You could sit under a Calvinist pastor for years and not really know it. Because they are so good as disguising their beliefs and appearing to back up everything they say with Scripture. And they are usually powerful, dynamic, bold speakers who sway the congregation with their zeal and knowledge and confidence. Once again, "How to Tell if a Church, Pastor, or Website is Calvinist.")
Calvinism is nothing less than a slippery, slithery, evil theology!
[Also see "How can Calvinists say "God causes ALL things, but He's not the cause of sin?" and "Confronting Calvinism's Deceptiveness" and "Do Calvinists really believe God causes sin? Let them speak for themselves!" for more on that.]
It's exhausting. It really is.
But you have to realize that talking with dogmatic, educated Calvinists is like talking with pathological liars (who don’t know they’re liars) who spin everything they say, who never really mean what they say or say what they mean, who know how to tell you what you want to hear to suck you in more and make you believe them, who have many different tactics to manipulate you, who are really good at the old "bait and switch" routine to get you to bite onto one small truth so that you swallow whole the enormous lie hidden inside, who can backpedal out of almost any jam, and who know how to skillfully weave together bits of Scripture (always taken out of context) to "support" their views, etc.
This is why I say DO NOT go to a Calvinist for answers to your concerns about Calvinism. If you are not prepared with your own research into Scripture and if you are not aware of their tactics, you WILL come out the other end a Calvinist!
[See "When Calvinism's 'Bad Logic' Traps Good Christians"]
Another critical example of their assumptions: Calvinists believe that God’s love and Jesus’s death necessarily and inevitably ends in someone’s salvation. If God loves you, you will be saved. If Jesus died for you, you will be saved. Therefore, if someone is not saved, then God didn’t really love them and Jesus didn’t really die for them.
[This is what's behind Calvinism's “two different types of God’s love” and why they say Jesus’s death was “sufficient for all but only efficient for the elect,” meaning that His death was enough to cover all men’s sins but that He only really applied it to the elect, in the same way that I could have sufficient money to feed all my kids but yet I only pay to feed one kid. They need to make it sound like they are saying that God loves all people and that Jesus died for all people (because that's what the Bible says), even though they really aren't teaching that.]
But ... where is any of this clearly stated in the Bible? Which verses teach any of this nonsense? It's all based on their own assumptions of what God's love is and how He shows it, which is based on their wrong definitions of sovereignty and election and predestination. They start with their wrong definitions and ideas, and then they philosophize - based on their wrong views - about what God must be like and what He must mean when He says certain things in the Bible (things that are quite clear on their own and don't need any further explaining).
But if you go to the Bible, you'll see that God's love sent Jesus to the cross to pay for all men's sins. God's love is what made salvation available and possible for all men. But it's up to us to accept or reject that gift of salvation. God's love doesn't mean you WILL BE saved; it means we all have the opportunity to be saved because all our sins were paid for on the cross, because God loves us all and wants us all with Him in heaven. But He will not force it on us. We must decide for ourselves if we want to accept Him or reject Him.
This is what God's love did for us, according to the Bible!
But according to the Calvinist, His love is only for the elect and Jesus's sacrifice was only for the elect. And Calvi-god decides who's elect and who not elect, and there's nothing we can do about it. And we have no part in "having faith" or "believing in Jesus"; it's something done to us, by him.
[And so, when we non-Calvinists say that God loves all people, that Jesus died for all people, Calvinists accuse us of being universalists, of saying that all people will be saved. Because their theology cannot allow for the idea of people making their own choices, of God giving us the ability to accept or reject His love and Jesus’s sacrificial death in our place.]
This is why I say that Calvinism is a whole different Gospel than what the Bible teaches. Calvi-god, Calvi-Jesus, Calvi-Holy-Spirit, and that Calvinist way to salvation are VERY DIFFERENT than what the Bible teaches.
Calvinism isn't just a deeper way to understand the Bible, as they want you to think it is; it's a completely different, false way of understanding the Bible!
The true gospel is good news to all people, to help save the lost from hell. But Calvinism's gospel doesn’t save anyone from hell; it’s simply to help the elect realize that they are elect, that they are on their way to heaven, without any decision on their part.
Does that sound like the biblical gospel to you?
Pay careful attention to the assumptions, presumptions, and misconceptions that Calvinists start with, that they build their whole theology on. This, I believe, is the essence of Calvinism. It's not a biblical theology. It's a philosophical belief system built on their own ideas. And then they find and twist Bible verses to "support" their views.
13. Also pay close attention to the contradictions in their theology. They will downplay these, but you need to examine them closely. (Is our God schizophrenic? Chaotic? Illogical? Contradictory? No? Then why would we believe that it’s okay for our theological beliefs to be these things?)
Calvinists will say one thing in one sentence, but then say the complete opposite several sentences later. They quality every simple, biblical statement, to the point that it says something completely different. So NEVER trust a quote from a Calvinist that sounds like they believe in free-will or that God does not cause sin or something like that. Because they will say something else later that will reverse what they said.
And DO NOT allow them to convince you that these contradictions are not real, that they don't matter, or that you are "talking back to God" or "disagreeing with the Bible" if you question them on it. These contradictions turn God into an illogical, untrustworthy, unjust, unloving monster. And so we had better question them!
Calvinism's contradictions can't be brushed away so easily (or even at all). And they cannot be meshed into one seamless, reliable, logical theology. Do not accept these contradictions and the Calvinist's twisted efforts to weasel out of them. If something doesn't make sense and doesn't seem to fit with God's character and with the rest of the Bible, research it more deeply until you find a way to read it that does fit, that keeps everything in harmony.
The Bible makes sense and God's character makes sense and it's all consistent ... when you throw out the Calvinism!
14. Also, when reading or listening to Calvinist theologians, authors, and pastors, take careful notice of the ways they try to manipulate you into agreeing with them, into not questioning them, into feeling unhumble if you dig too deeply into this issue or if you disagree with it. See "Predestination Manipulation" for more of this.
Don't let them manipulate you into agreeing with their errant views when they tell you "Truth is truth, even if you don't like it. You don't have to be afraid of truth; you just have to accept it, even if you can't understand it. It's a wonderful thing to learn more about God's sovereignty and His perfect Will, and to learn to humbly submit yourself to Him. Humble people have no problem accepting that God is God and that He can do what He wants. It's only proud, unhumble people who fight against this because they want to be their own master instead of submitting to God."
(Question: Yes, truth is truth, but what if what you're being told isn't truth? And yet you're letting someone convince you that it is? And … How can we choose to "humbly submit" to God anyway if He controls our choices for us? Are we really “fighting against Him” or “talking back to Him” if He’s causing us to do it?)
Our pastor would repeatedly say "You don't have to like the idea of [Calvinist] predestination; you just have to accept it. Because it's truth. It's what the Bible says!"
Doesn't leave much room for feeling like you can disagree with him, does it!
And for the record, I understand why it's hard for someone to consider that their pastor might be wrong. I understand what's at stake. If you start researching your pastor's theology and you find out he's teaching unbiblical things, then you might end up realizing that you can't be there anymore. You might have to confront your leadership, your friends, yourself. And you could end up losing your church, your friends, your ministry positions, respect, all the things that have grown to mean so much to you.
I understand ... because it’s what happened to us too.
And so I know why someone would not even want to consider that their pastor might be wrong or look into it too deeply, and why they'd rather just "trust" their pastor to lead them right. Because they fear that looking into it too deeply could lead to all their carefully-stacked dominoes being knocked over.
But ... would that excuse hold up before God? Can you image Him going, "Oh, that's okay. I can see why you allowed lies to overtake your church and your life, why you didn't even stop to question it. You had too much to lose. It's so much better that you simply tolerated it, compromised, and that you just let the pastor convince you he's right."?
I doubt that excuse will hold up.
Calvinism destroys the Gospel that Jesus Christ died for. And if there's anything worth looking into deeply, if there's anything worth losing all those things over, it's the truth of the Gospel! Take this seriously. Because I believe that if you haven't faced Calvinism in your church yet, you will. Someday.
But don't let Calvinists bully you into agreeing with them, into making you feel like a "less than" Christian because you disagree with them or want to look into it more. The Bible itself calls us to carefully study the Word so that we can handle it correctly.
Be a Berean!
"Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." (Acts 17:11)
"Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth." (2 Timothy 2:15)
These are just a few ways to critically research this issue and read the Bible. If you do this, it will open your eyes in ways you didn't even know they needed to be opened. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free ... from the contradictory, nonsensical prison of Calvinism.
You do not need Calvinist theologians to tell you what God meant to say in His Word. Let God tell you what He says, right from His Word!
So, which will it be? The blue pill or the red pill?
Are you going to take the blue pill, continuing to live in blissful ignorance about what Calvinism really is? Not really know what you believe or why you believe it? Trusting that the Calvinist theologians have correctly taught you what the Bible really says?
Or are you going to take the red pill? To really study for yourself what the Bible teaches, in context, to see if it really does support Calvinism? To deeply study the Calvinism you say you believe in, so that you can figure out if you really do believe it?
Don't just let someone else – your pastor, Calvinist theologians, or even me - tell you what to believe about the Bible, about God's character, about the Gospel Message, about Jesus's sacrifice! Find out for yourself!
And don't just say "I'm a Calvinist" ... unless you really understand what it is and can defend it!
I am challenging you right now to take the red pill, even if it makes you feel sick to your stomach at first! Let God open your eyes to the truth of what Calvinism teaches and what the Bible really teaches, and see if you can really reconcile the two!
