Calvinist (Bad Logic) Comment #6: The Role of Faith and the Gospel

6.  A Calvinist says:  

"In the absence of faith, any exhortation to believe the Gospel would be fruitless.  In the presence of faith, the preaching of the Gospel results in salvation."


[My note: Calvinism teaches that the "elect" can only respond to the Gospel because God first gives them the faith to believe, that the Holy Spirit indwells them before they hear the Gospel in order to wake them up to spiritual things so that they can understand the Gospel, and all because they were "chosen" for salvation before time began.  Therefore, faith and "being saved" and getting the Holy Spirit all come before hearing and responding to the Gospel.  But then Calvinists will try to say that the Gospel is necessary for and leads to faith and salvation.  Think about this for a moment.  Seriously.]


Someone (Aiden) then asks him:  "If faith in the gospel can only come by hearing the gospel, how pray tell, do you [Calvinists] have faith coming before a person even hears the gospel?"


My reply to the Calvinist:  

"The Calvinist said: 'In the absence of faith, any exhortation to believe the gospel would be fruitless. In the presence of faith, the preaching of the gospel results in salvation.'

Interesting!  Because Calvinists believe that faith is given to elected people because they were predestined to be saved before time began.  Election/salvation came first.

So basically, the elect are saved first, but then they are supposedly given faith to believe the Gospel so that they can be saved!?!  Even though they were already counted as saved before time began!?!

Yep, that totally makes sense!

So then, what good is the Gospel?  If the non-elect CANNOT respond to it because they aren’t given the faith to believe and if the elect have the faith to believe only because they were already saved before they ever heard the Gospel?  

[My note:  They will have ways to try to weasel out of this conundrum, to try to make it sound logical.  But all it does is muddy the waters and make your head spin until you give up and fall in line with them.

But they can't get away from the fact that, according to their own theology, faith (given to the elect from Calvi-god) is required first, in order to understand and respond to the Gospel.

The "elect" are supposedly chosen/saved first, then given the faith to understand the Gospel when the Holy Spirit wakes them up and indwells them (regenerates them), and only then can they understand the Gospel and respond to it.

So then, what good is the Gospel in leading people to faith and bringing about salvation if the "elected" person was already given faith and already saved before hearing the Gospel?  (FYI: Calvinists totally misunderstand who the "elect" are, and it screws up their theology from the very beginning.)

(Also, to further complicate it, this Calvinist has also said that all people, even the elect, are born as reprobates.  So ... the elect are saved in eternity past, then they lose their salvation at birth so that they can be born as reprobates, then they are given the faith to believe the Gospel, then they hear the Gospel, and then they believe and become "saved" again!?!  Interesting.)

But then, Calvinists go and talk like "The Gospel is crucial because it's how people get saved.  People come to faith through hearing the Gospel," even though they say that faith was required beforehand, to be able to understand and respond to the Gospel.  

It's nonsense.  

It's a satanically-brilliant way to make it sound like you are upholding the importance of the Gospel while actually making the Gospel completely unneccessary and ineffectual!  

And it's satanically-brilliant to put the responsibility for our faith/belief on someone else (on God), instead of on us.  I mean, seriously, think about the implications of this!  Think about the consequences of believing that faith just happens to you, that you don't have to do anything about it.  That you can't and shouldn't do anything about it.  It's brilliant!  Especially when they convince you that you are honoring God and His sovereignty by believing this garbage!

But they will try to trap you with things like "It takes faith to believe in spiritual things, doesn't it?  Faith is a spiritual thing, and we are born dead to spiritual things.  So how can we create faith in ourselves?  Do you think you can save yourself?  Are you taking credit for your salvation?  Faith has to come from God.  And He only gives it to those He's chosen to save because faith means nothing to those on their way to hell, to those who will never believe.  They don't believe because God never gave them the faith to understand spiritual things.  Because if God wanted them to believe, they would.  Etc."


And they'll try to make it sound like they believe that "everyone has the chance to hear/respond to the Gospel."  But what they really believe is that the only ones who can respond to the Gospel are the elected ones to whom God gives the faith to believe.  Everyone else is out of luck.

Here's is the muddled reasoning of one Calvinist commenter, taken from various comments of his [with my notes in brackets]:

"Calvinists conclude that no one can have faith until they hear the word of God (primarily the gospel) ... God saves us by the gospel ... We get faith by hearing the gospel and then exercise that faith to respond to the gospel."

[Okay, so it sounds fine so far, like he believes the Gospel is crucial to leading people to faith in God, that we come to faith by hearing the Gospel and choosing to believe because of it, and that we have some sort of influence over "exercising" our faith.  But then in different comments ...]

... "A person must be born again (regenerated) in order to see and enter the kingdom of heaven.  When a person is enabled [by Calvi-god, who regenerates them and gives them faith!] to see and enter the kingdom of God, he then is able to hear the gospel, the good news about the kingdom."  

[So first he says that "we get faith by hearing the Gospel," but now he says that we get faith in order to hear the Gospel.  See how they change "people are saved when they hear the Gospel and put their faith in it" into "you can only hear the Gospel if Calvi-god first enables you to, by giving you faith before you can hear/respond to/believe in the Gospel."  

And so I ask, how necessary is the Gospel if the elect are given faith (saved, regenerated, filled with the Spirit) before they can even understand the Gospel ... if they have to be given faith in order to understand the Gospel and respond to it ... and if the only ones who can respond to it are the elect, those prechosen for salvation and apparently "saved" before they ever heard the Gospel?]  

And then he goes on to say ... 

... "Not everyone who physically hears the gospel preached responds to that gospel in faith.  [Of course not everyone responds, but what they really mean is not everyone is able to respond.]  Why not?  Because faith is a gift of God and God chooses (or elects) those to whom He gives faith."  

[And so there you have it!  Calvi-god decides whom to give faith to and whom to withhold it from, and only those who get faith can hear/respond to the Gospel!  (Never listen to the first layer of what Calvinists say.  The things that sound clear-cut and scriptural.  There is always a deeper layer that muddies up and contradicts the clear-cut, scriptural layer.)   

And yet, even though only the elect are given the ability (faith) to respond to the Gospel, Calvinists will still try to act like the Gospel and salvation is legitimately offered to all people, as if Calvinism believes that all people could respond to it.  

And how do they try to rationalize this?  By saying that all people really could respond to it, if they wanted to.  But of course, the non-elect won't want to and can't want to ... because Calvi-god gave them the "sinner/unrepentant nature" that can only want to sin and rebel against him.  It's like a magic spell in a fairy tale that causes a person to "desire" to do something.  But because they "desired" to sin/reject the Gospel (even though they could ONLY want to sin/reject), Calvinists say that the unelected person "deserves" the punishment they get.  

Some choice, huh!?!  Being forced to desire only one thing, then getting punished for choosing to do that one thing, and then having people try to convince you that you deserved your punishment because you "wanted" to do that one thing, even though you were created to only want that one thing.  Oh, don't get me started!!!]

If Calvinists can trap you into their idea of faith and where it comes from and how we get it and when we get it and who gets it, then you are lost already.

But they are simply philosophizing about faith.  About what it is and about the how, when, and who of it.  (And for those who want to say, "But doesn't Ephesians 2:8-9 say that faith is a gift that God gives us?", read this.)

But the Bible (and the concordance) shows us that faith is the conviction of truth.  It's believing that something is true and choosing to put our trust in it.  It's not something that God plants in us, like some sort of computer chip that causes us to think and do certain things.  It's an act of the will, being convicted that something is true and choosing to commit to it.

Just wondering, but if faith is given by God only to the elect (who are saved because God gave them the faith to believe in Him), why would believers be told to "Stand firm in the faith" (1 Corinthians 16:13), if we have no control over the faith we have, according to Calvinists?  This word is the same Greek word used in other "faith" verses in the New Testament.  So if Calvinism is right and we have no control over having faith or not, why would this verse make it sound like we do?

Contrary to Calvinism, the Bible doesn't say that we are saved before we believe or that we are saved because God forced faith on us.  It says that we are saved when we choose to believe that the Word is true and to commit to it.

"But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."  (John 21:31)

Why tell us that we need to believe in Jesus to be saved if God has predestined who will be saved before we ever had the chance to hear about Jesus?  If it doesn't matter what we think or do because it's all been predestined for us anyway?

And biblically, the Holy Spirit comes to us after we believe, not before in order to make us believers.

"And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.  Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit ..."  (Ephesians 1:13.  Question: How can anyone "also be included" after hearing/believing the truth, if all the elect are chosen for salvation at the same time, before time began?  And does this sound like the Holy Spirit comes to people first, in order to cause them to believe?)

I wonder how many Calvinists are truly saved if they "came to faith" by simply believing that God "elected" them, without them deciding to put their faith in Him, to commit to Him, to consciously choose Jesus as their Lord and Savior?  If they believe faith/salvation happens to them, that they don't have to do anything to get it, how many are deceived into thinking they are saved when they aren't?  Because they haven't done anything and haven't taken any responsibility for their choice to believe.]


(For all the posts in this series, see the "Intro ..."  Or look for "'Calvinist Bad Logic' Series" in the labels on the side-bar.  Or find the whole series in one post, "When Calvinism's 'Bad Logic ' Traps Good Christians.")