Thing My Calvinist Pastor Said #3: Even Babies are Wicked
(This "Things My Calvinist Pastor Said" series is a breakdown on this much longer post: "We Left Our Church Because of Calvinism," which was written last year but updated July 2020. They are almost exact quotes. All memes were created with imgflip.)
3. "We all, even babies and small children, are depraved and wicked to the core, deserving of death, and we can never come to God on our own."
Calvinists love to remind us of how wicked even babies are. For some twisted reason, it makes them feel intellectually-superior and ultra-humble to embrace this "evil baby" idea! "Look how smart and humble we are to embrace such distasteful teachings! So much better than those of you who question it because you can't handle it or understand it!" (Of course they don't say this out loud; it's just my characterization of them.)
And as I pointed out in #2 above, Christians agree with the idea of depravity, that mankind is fallen and rebellious and sinful and separated from God. But Calvinists don't just mean "depraved." They mean that we are so totally depraved that there is no part of us that can do or think or want anything good. No part of us that can even want or think about God. And so God has to cause His chosen ones to want Him, seek Him, choose Him, because we couldn't do it on our own, being as depraved as we are.
I think Calvinists don't even realize how much it appeals to their pride to claim that they are "so totally depraved that they can't even think about God on their own." It's the kind of pride that comes with thinking you are so humble. Like if it's humble to admit you are sinful, then it must be so totally humble to admit that you are so totally sinful that you can't do any good unless God makes you do it.
But the Bible does not support this view of depravity. It's going above and beyond the Bible's view of depravity. (Just like a Calvinist's view of sovereignty does.) Find me one verse that clearly spells out that man cannot think about, want, or seek God on his own, that God has to cause it to happen. Just one.
And Genesis 6:5 doesn't count: "And the Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time." Calvinists use this to support total depravity. But when you read it in context, you see that it's talking about the people of Noah's day, a mixed human-demon hybrid of people who were so wicked that God had to flood the earth to start over. That is a verse about the people of that day, not all people in general.
And Romans 3:11 doesn't count either ("There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God") because it doesn't say that no one can seek God. Romans 3 is not about an inability to seek God. It's about the general nature of mankind, that we are self-focused instead of God-focused. It's about how no one can earn heaven just by following some law or by being born into a certain bloodline. It's about how we are all fallen, and we all need a Savior. That's what this passage is about, not about being totally unable to think about, want, or seek God unless He makes us do it.
Besides, that Romans passage is referencing Psalm 14, which isn't about mankind being unable to come to God. It's about wicked men being wicked, refusing to call on Him. It's about the stupidity of rejecting the Lord, not about the inability to accept Him on your own.
But this Romans 3:11 verse is one of the biggest traps Calvinists use to ensnare Christians, convincing them that "See, no one can seek God unless God makes them do it." Once again, show me the verse that clearly says this exact thing, not a half-verse taken out of context and twisted to say something it doesn't say ... and then maybe I'll start believing you! (Here is a good post on Romans 3 from Soteriology 101: "No One Can Do Good?")
The thing is, Calvinists do not take what the Bible says at face value. They do not believe that God commanding men to seek Him means that men can actually seek Him. They change it to be that only the elect can seek Him because God causes them to seek Him and that the non-elect can never seek Him on their own because they are as "dead as a dead body" and God won't bring them to life because He didn't choose them and Jesus didn't die for them. Because God predestined them for hell.
But a simple, plain reading of the Word shows that God made it possible for all people to seek Him, that He gives all of us evidence that He is real, that Jesus died for all of our sins, that salvation is available for everyone and God wants all of us to be saved and God calls to all of our hearts ... and that's why God can command all men to seek Him. Because He wants us all to seek Him, to find salvation. And because He knows we can.
[But to Calvinists, that's too simple. A simple, easily-understood, for-everyone Gospel is too easy. It has to be harder than that. And so they create mysterious, complicated, convoluted, paradoxical theological ideas by twisting what the Bible clearly, plainly says. Mysteries that they then have to "solve" in all sorts of twisted, round-about, unclear ways. Then they get to be super-theological-geniuses who can understand the so-called "deep mysteries" of the Bible, and they get to be "super humble" when they accept the difficult, distasteful, contradictory teachings that they don't fully understand. "We just humbly accept God's sovereignty and His right to do whatever He wants, such as 'ordaining' our sins but then punishing us for them, even if we can't understand how it all works out."
How nice for them! To create the theological conundrums that only someone with their theological brilliance can solve!
When all along, God wrote the Bible for the common-man, for everyone, to be understood plainly and simply.
Oh, Calvinism makes me mad! It's not much different than the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law who complicated the Scriptures and turned them into something they aren't, but who were "so educated" that they missed the Truth when He was standing right in front of them. Blinded by their own brilliance!
The thing is, you'll find barely any support for Calvinism if you read the Bible alone (and the little you do find will be far outweighed by the support for free-will, for mankind's responsibility to make real choices). You have to be taught to find Calvinism in the Bible. You have to put on Calvinist glasses first to see Calvinism in the Bible. And that should be alarming!
[Speaking of free-will, my ex-pastor once said that the Bible never teaches free-will (Really!?! Then what's a "free-will offering" in Numbers 15:3 and Ezra 7:16 and other verses?), but that it teaches that man has a fallen will that makes real choices.
Okay, I can agree with the "fallen will" part, if he meant that our wills are now tainted by evil and sin. But that's not what Calvinists mean when they say this. When they say we make "real choices," they mean we make real choices according to our nature. And this is a huge difference!
Because there are only two natures, according to Calvinism: the unregenerated/sinner one that the non-elect get and the regenerated/repentant one that God gives the elect. And if you get the unregenerated one (or if you're elected but haven't been regenerated yet), it comes only with the desire to sin and reject God, and so you can/will only and always want to sin and reject God, and so you can/will only and always choose to sin and reject God. The unregenerated person can only desire/choose sin and can never desire/choose to do good or right or to be obedient to God, because it's not in their nature. This is what Calvinism's "according to their nature" means. But Calvinists still call this "making real choices," even though fallen, unregenerated people can only desire/choose evil.
How in the world can they sincerely call this "making real choices"?
They call it "real choices" because they say that the unregenerated person wanted to make those sinful choices, which means they are really responsible for their sinful choices and can be held accountable for them, even though their sinful desires and choices were determined by the nature Calvi-god gave them and it was impossible to choose anything else.
Insane!!!]
Anyway, back to the Bible's view of depravity. Biblically, depravity is more along the lines of being fallen, sinful, unable to save ourselves. But the Calvinist's over-extend it to mean that we are "totally depraved" (the "T" in their TULIP theology, look at this post under the heading of "Some Refutations of TULIP" for more on this), that we are so fallen that there's nothing good in us and nothing in us that makes us want to do good or seek God. And so God has to be the one to make us (well, the elect only) want Him and seek Him and to regenerate our hearts so that we can do good.
But let's look at one example to see what the Bible says. Look at Matthew 19:16-26, about the rich, young ruler. (Read it yourself, never trust anyone else to tell you how to read it. Calvinists will tell you what they think the Bible "teaches." But you tell them, "No, I want to know what the Bible actually says," and ask for the verses they are using and look them up yourself.)
In this passage, a rich, young ruler comes to Jesus and asks, "What good must I do to have eternal life?" And Jesus tells him to keep the commandments. And the man says he has kept all these. Then Jesus tells him he lacks one thing, giving away everything he owns to follow Him. And the man goes away sad because he doesn't want to give up his wealth. And then Jesus utters that famous line about how it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into heaven.
I don't think Jesus is saying we can earn our way into heaven by doing good things, but He is pointing out that sometimes earthly things keep us from Him, that sometimes we choose other things over Him. And Jesus was getting to the heart of what was keeping this man from salvation, that he wanted his wealth more than eternal life.
But my point here is that this man missed out on eternal life because of his wealth. He wasn't saved. And yet this man had kept the commandments. And what did Jesus say about keeping the commandments? That it was "good." This unsaved man was doing "good things," keeping God's commandments, according to Jesus.
And yet Calvinists insist that unsaved people cannot think/want/do anything good or be obedient to God unless God has chosen them and regenerates their hearts first.
Yet this unsaved man did good and kept commandments. (This did not "earn" him heaven, of course, because getting to heaven is a "heart thing." But it's still an unregenerated person doing good, seeking God, trying to obey Him.)
This story alone blasts the "T" (totally depravity) right out of the water. And if the "T" falls then the whole Calvinist theology falls, because it's all built on the "T," on their wrong definition of depravity.
[In fact, the Bible also contradicts Calvinism's "total depravity" in Romans 2:14-16 (emphasis is mine): "Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them." This clearly says that we can - by nature - do the good things the law requires of us, that our consciences and thoughts guide us, convicting us or defending us. And we do this because God wrote the law on our hearts, on the hearts of sinful, fallen men. Where is the "total depravity" in that!?! That is the opposite of Calvinism's "total depravity"!]
If man is not so totally depraved that he can't think about/want/seek God unless God makes him do it ... then man does indeed have the ability, on his own, to think good things, do good things (not to earn salvation, but to at least do things we and God consider good), to think about/want/seek God ... and so then man doesn't need God to regenerate him first before he can find God (that destroys the "I" in TULIP, Irresistible Grace, that God has to draw the elect to Him, that He has to regenerate them first so they can want/seek Him).
And if we can want/seek God on our own then it's part of being human and anyone can do it, so that means that anyone can find God and be saved, which means that there are no specially-chosen "elect" people that God causes to believe in Him (that destroys the "U," Unconditional Election, that God chose a group of people to save, the elect).
And if there's no specially-chosen group of people - if anyone can be saved - that destroys the "L", Limited Atonement, which says that Jesus died only for the elect. If there are no elect people, then Jesus died for all people.
And of course, if there are no elect people then there are no elect people for God to cause to "persevere," which destroys the "P," Perseverance of the Saints, which says that God causes the elect to be faithful till the end. (For the record, I do agree with Calvinists that we can't lose our salvation, but just not in the way they believe it.)
And just to warn you, Calvinists have many verses to "back up" their theology. They will verse-bomb you with verse after verse to support their views, making it seem like they must really know what they are talking about and so they must really be right. But always go back to the original verse and read it in context to see what it says. Read the chapter it's in, to see what it's about, who it's for, etc. They do not have as much support as they think they do, when you keep the verses in context.
Here is a post I wrote - "12 Tips on How to Think Critically About Calvinism" - to help people be discerning about Calvinist theology and what the Bible says.
Calvinists love to remind us of how wicked even babies are. For some twisted reason, it makes them feel intellectually-superior and ultra-humble to embrace this "evil baby" idea! "Look how smart and humble we are to embrace such distasteful teachings! So much better than those of you who question it because you can't handle it or understand it!" (Of course they don't say this out loud; it's just my characterization of them.)
I think Calvinists don't even realize how much it appeals to their pride to claim that they are "so totally depraved that they can't even think about God on their own." It's the kind of pride that comes with thinking you are so humble. Like if it's humble to admit you are sinful, then it must be so totally humble to admit that you are so totally sinful that you can't do any good unless God makes you do it.
But the Bible does not support this view of depravity. It's going above and beyond the Bible's view of depravity. (Just like a Calvinist's view of sovereignty does.) Find me one verse that clearly spells out that man cannot think about, want, or seek God on his own, that God has to cause it to happen. Just one.
And Genesis 6:5 doesn't count: "And the Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time." Calvinists use this to support total depravity. But when you read it in context, you see that it's talking about the people of Noah's day, a mixed human-demon hybrid of people who were so wicked that God had to flood the earth to start over. That is a verse about the people of that day, not all people in general.
And Romans 3:11 doesn't count either ("There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God") because it doesn't say that no one can seek God. Romans 3 is not about an inability to seek God. It's about the general nature of mankind, that we are self-focused instead of God-focused. It's about how no one can earn heaven just by following some law or by being born into a certain bloodline. It's about how we are all fallen, and we all need a Savior. That's what this passage is about, not about being totally unable to think about, want, or seek God unless He makes us do it.
Besides, that Romans passage is referencing Psalm 14, which isn't about mankind being unable to come to God. It's about wicked men being wicked, refusing to call on Him. It's about the stupidity of rejecting the Lord, not about the inability to accept Him on your own.
But this Romans 3:11 verse is one of the biggest traps Calvinists use to ensnare Christians, convincing them that "See, no one can seek God unless God makes them do it." Once again, show me the verse that clearly says this exact thing, not a half-verse taken out of context and twisted to say something it doesn't say ... and then maybe I'll start believing you! (Here is a good post on Romans 3 from Soteriology 101: "No One Can Do Good?")
The thing is, Calvinists do not take what the Bible says at face value. They do not believe that God commanding men to seek Him means that men can actually seek Him. They change it to be that only the elect can seek Him because God causes them to seek Him and that the non-elect can never seek Him on their own because they are as "dead as a dead body" and God won't bring them to life because He didn't choose them and Jesus didn't die for them. Because God predestined them for hell.
But a simple, plain reading of the Word shows that God made it possible for all people to seek Him, that He gives all of us evidence that He is real, that Jesus died for all of our sins, that salvation is available for everyone and God wants all of us to be saved and God calls to all of our hearts ... and that's why God can command all men to seek Him. Because He wants us all to seek Him, to find salvation. And because He knows we can.
[But to Calvinists, that's too simple. A simple, easily-understood, for-everyone Gospel is too easy. It has to be harder than that. And so they create mysterious, complicated, convoluted, paradoxical theological ideas by twisting what the Bible clearly, plainly says. Mysteries that they then have to "solve" in all sorts of twisted, round-about, unclear ways. Then they get to be super-theological-geniuses who can understand the so-called "deep mysteries" of the Bible, and they get to be "super humble" when they accept the difficult, distasteful, contradictory teachings that they don't fully understand. "We just humbly accept God's sovereignty and His right to do whatever He wants, such as 'ordaining' our sins but then punishing us for them, even if we can't understand how it all works out."
How nice for them! To create the theological conundrums that only someone with their theological brilliance can solve!
When all along, God wrote the Bible for the common-man, for everyone, to be understood plainly and simply.
Oh, Calvinism makes me mad! It's not much different than the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law who complicated the Scriptures and turned them into something they aren't, but who were "so educated" that they missed the Truth when He was standing right in front of them. Blinded by their own brilliance!
The thing is, you'll find barely any support for Calvinism if you read the Bible alone (and the little you do find will be far outweighed by the support for free-will, for mankind's responsibility to make real choices). You have to be taught to find Calvinism in the Bible. You have to put on Calvinist glasses first to see Calvinism in the Bible. And that should be alarming!
[Speaking of free-will, my ex-pastor once said that the Bible never teaches free-will (Really!?! Then what's a "free-will offering" in Numbers 15:3 and Ezra 7:16 and other verses?), but that it teaches that man has a fallen will that makes real choices.
Okay, I can agree with the "fallen will" part, if he meant that our wills are now tainted by evil and sin. But that's not what Calvinists mean when they say this. When they say we make "real choices," they mean we make real choices according to our nature. And this is a huge difference!
Because there are only two natures, according to Calvinism: the unregenerated/sinner one that the non-elect get and the regenerated/repentant one that God gives the elect. And if you get the unregenerated one (or if you're elected but haven't been regenerated yet), it comes only with the desire to sin and reject God, and so you can/will only and always want to sin and reject God, and so you can/will only and always choose to sin and reject God. The unregenerated person can only desire/choose sin and can never desire/choose to do good or right or to be obedient to God, because it's not in their nature. This is what Calvinism's "according to their nature" means. But Calvinists still call this "making real choices," even though fallen, unregenerated people can only desire/choose evil.
How in the world can they sincerely call this "making real choices"?
They call it "real choices" because they say that the unregenerated person wanted to make those sinful choices, which means they are really responsible for their sinful choices and can be held accountable for them, even though their sinful desires and choices were determined by the nature Calvi-god gave them and it was impossible to choose anything else.
Insane!!!]
Anyway, back to the Bible's view of depravity. Biblically, depravity is more along the lines of being fallen, sinful, unable to save ourselves. But the Calvinist's over-extend it to mean that we are "totally depraved" (the "T" in their TULIP theology, look at this post under the heading of "Some Refutations of TULIP" for more on this), that we are so fallen that there's nothing good in us and nothing in us that makes us want to do good or seek God. And so God has to be the one to make us (well, the elect only) want Him and seek Him and to regenerate our hearts so that we can do good.
But let's look at one example to see what the Bible says. Look at Matthew 19:16-26, about the rich, young ruler. (Read it yourself, never trust anyone else to tell you how to read it. Calvinists will tell you what they think the Bible "teaches." But you tell them, "No, I want to know what the Bible actually says," and ask for the verses they are using and look them up yourself.)
In this passage, a rich, young ruler comes to Jesus and asks, "What good must I do to have eternal life?" And Jesus tells him to keep the commandments. And the man says he has kept all these. Then Jesus tells him he lacks one thing, giving away everything he owns to follow Him. And the man goes away sad because he doesn't want to give up his wealth. And then Jesus utters that famous line about how it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into heaven.
I don't think Jesus is saying we can earn our way into heaven by doing good things, but He is pointing out that sometimes earthly things keep us from Him, that sometimes we choose other things over Him. And Jesus was getting to the heart of what was keeping this man from salvation, that he wanted his wealth more than eternal life.
But my point here is that this man missed out on eternal life because of his wealth. He wasn't saved. And yet this man had kept the commandments. And what did Jesus say about keeping the commandments? That it was "good." This unsaved man was doing "good things," keeping God's commandments, according to Jesus.
And yet Calvinists insist that unsaved people cannot think/want/do anything good or be obedient to God unless God has chosen them and regenerates their hearts first.
Yet this unsaved man did good and kept commandments. (This did not "earn" him heaven, of course, because getting to heaven is a "heart thing." But it's still an unregenerated person doing good, seeking God, trying to obey Him.)
This story alone blasts the "T" (totally depravity) right out of the water. And if the "T" falls then the whole Calvinist theology falls, because it's all built on the "T," on their wrong definition of depravity.
[In fact, the Bible also contradicts Calvinism's "total depravity" in Romans 2:14-16 (emphasis is mine): "Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them." This clearly says that we can - by nature - do the good things the law requires of us, that our consciences and thoughts guide us, convicting us or defending us. And we do this because God wrote the law on our hearts, on the hearts of sinful, fallen men. Where is the "total depravity" in that!?! That is the opposite of Calvinism's "total depravity"!]
And if we can want/seek God on our own then it's part of being human and anyone can do it, so that means that anyone can find God and be saved, which means that there are no specially-chosen "elect" people that God causes to believe in Him (that destroys the "U," Unconditional Election, that God chose a group of people to save, the elect).
And if there's no specially-chosen group of people - if anyone can be saved - that destroys the "L", Limited Atonement, which says that Jesus died only for the elect. If there are no elect people, then Jesus died for all people.
And of course, if there are no elect people then there are no elect people for God to cause to "persevere," which destroys the "P," Perseverance of the Saints, which says that God causes the elect to be faithful till the end. (For the record, I do agree with Calvinists that we can't lose our salvation, but just not in the way they believe it.)
And just to warn you, Calvinists have many verses to "back up" their theology. They will verse-bomb you with verse after verse to support their views, making it seem like they must really know what they are talking about and so they must really be right. But always go back to the original verse and read it in context to see what it says. Read the chapter it's in, to see what it's about, who it's for, etc. They do not have as much support as they think they do, when you keep the verses in context.
And to get back to the "babies are wicked" thing, to give you a correct idea of how God views children, look for a moment at Jeremiah 19:4: "For they have forsaken me and made this a place of foreign gods; they have burned sacrifices in it to gods ... and have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. They have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as an offering to Baal - something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind."
Calvinists call children "wicked, morally-depraved, in rebellion against God, and completely cut off from Him," meaning that if they die too early then they die as wicked sinners who are cut off from God. They call babies "vipers in diapers," saying that if babies had the chance, they'd kill their parents in their sleep.
But what does God call them?
Innocent.
(Yes, this video is cute and funny, but don't overlook the theology he's teaching here, that children are depraved "born sinners" who deserve hell.)
Even though we are all born sinners and even though babies "naturally" develop sinful attitudes and behaviors, God does NOT hold this against those who are too young to know better. God does not count our sins against us until we are old enough to know right from wrong, to choose the truth and reject the lies, to accept Jesus or reject Him.
Deuteronomy 1:39 makes a distinction between those who know better and "children who do not yet know good from bad."
Isaiah 7:16 refers to an age when a child is old enough to "reject the wrong and choose the right."
In 2 Samuel 12:23, King David said that when he dies, he will go to where his deceased baby is. And unless you want to claim David went to hell, then you have to say he went to heaven, which would mean his baby also went to heaven after he died.
And God calls those who died too early "innocent."
Yet Calvinists insist on defining babies as "totally depraved, wicked-to-the-core sinners who are in rebellion against God and hopelessly lost unless they repent," meaning that if they die then they were predestined to die separated from God, as wicked, unrepentant, hell-bound sinners.
And so I ask, who is right? God or Calvinists?
[Update: Calvinists quote verses like these from the Psalms to prove that babies are as wicked as everyone else: "Even from birth the wicked go astray; from the womb they are wayward, spreading lies" (Psalm 58:3) and "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me" (Psalm 51:5). David wrote the first one against unjust men and the second one after Nathan confronted him about his affair with Bathsheba. Neither are necessarily meant to be a theological point that "babies are wicked." But Calvinists use these to "prove" their idea of total depravity, that even babies are wicked, unrepentant, rebellious-against-God sinners.
But the interesting thing is that I just found a verse that shares what God - not David - says about this: "... for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth ..." (Genesis 8:21, KJV). God doesn't say that people are wicked from birth, but from their "youth." And "youth" doesn't necessarily mean "infancy/childhood" because this word is also used in Psalm 127:4 which talks about "children of the youth," children from one's youth. Babies and small children cannot have children. Grown people have children. Therefore, "youth" in these verses is more about being older, grown, beyond adolescence.
My point is that God says not that we are wicked from birth, as Calvinists say, but from our youth. (He doesn't hold sins against infants and children, those He calls "innocent." His grace covers them before they are old enough to know right from wrong, to consciously decide between right and wrong.)
In addition, the KJV - the more reliable translation, see this post - translates Psalm 51:5 differently: "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." It does not say that David was sinful from birth but that he was conceived in sin. It is not a comment about the depravity of babies but about the sin-filled world that babies are born into or about David's mother's sin which led to his conception (or at least his belief that she sinned). Big difference!
God Himself repeatedly contradicts Calvinism's idea of total depravity and wicked babies.
I'm just sayin'.
(My husband read of an old belief people used to have back in the day, which was that people were born on the same day of the week that they were conceived. And so if a baby was born on the Sabbath, it meant the parents conceived the baby on a Sabbath, which meant they would have violated Sabbath rules about not having sex on the Sabbath. Who knows, but maybe David is referring to a "sin" along those lines. It's an interesting thought.)]
Here is a post I wrote - "12 Tips on How to Think Critically About Calvinism" - to help people be discerning about Calvinist theology and what the Bible says.
(Ah, I crack myself up!)
