Calvinism has somehow became cool and somewhat popular in Christian influenced circles. I honestly doubt the majority of those who now profess to be Calvinist even know what the term fully means but I digress. Below is a slightly edited response I did on revelife.

I prepose two questions for anyone who reads this. Have you read Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion or any of his sermons particularly those on Romans and Ephesians? If not I think your understanding of Calvinism comes from a caricature of Calvinism and not what Calvin wrote, preached, or professed.

Let me sum up Calvinism for you. “God saves sinners not of themselves but it is totally the grace of God.” Salvation is God’s work totally and not is about what mankind does or does not do. Calvin understands all of scripture through the paradigm of the doctrine of monergism (God alone is responsible for salvation) as opposed to synergism (that salvation is partially God and partially man’s responsibility). Synergism was the Roman Catholic view. God offers salvation man must be baptized and take communion along with the other sacraments to stay in God’s grace and to be saved. Calvin rejected this view as heresy as did Martin Luther. That is why their views on salvation are called the Reformed view because they wanted to reform the understanding of how salvation works.

According to Calvin’s understanding of scripture, mankind is in a terrible situation. All of us have fallen short of God’s glory. Our sin separates us from God and for that reason when we die we go to hell. Jesus told us that we should be concerned with God because he is the one entity that can either save us into heaven or condemn us to hell. Matthew 10:28 “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” Jesus also said the standard for the entrance into the kingdom of heaven is perfection not just any perfection but perfection which is a reflection of the very nature of God’s perfection. The words of Jesus as recorded in Matthew 5:48 in context of how to be a part of the Kingdom of Heaven. “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

The Bible of Jesus (which we Christians call the Old Testament) affirms that God is perfect. I will include just a few verses to give context to what informed the view of Jesus on the perfection of God.

Moses said in Deuteronomy 32:4 “The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.

King David said in 2 Samuel 22:31 This God—his way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.

Elihu (a prophet) said in Job 37:16 Do you know the balancing of the clouds, the wondrous works of him who is perfect in knowledge?

The Pslamist (probably King David) said in Psalm 18:30 This God—his way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.

Since known of us are perfect we are all in trouble. Paul writes in Romans 3:10-11 quoting the prophet Isaiah who is quoting God. “No one is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.” Paul tells plainly that the penalty for this is spiritual death. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). This death is eternal separation from God. Let me make this very clear. All of us myself included, my one year old daughter, my wife, everyone I know or ever have known deserves hell because we all have fallen short of the glory of God. Everyone is totally screwed up. No one including babies, invalids, uneducated people, educated people, good or bad people (by our human standards) or any person ever born apart from Christ is good enough to meet God’s standard of perfection. This is how Calvin viewed humanity. We are all lost. But here is the good news. “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8)!

The gospel is this according to Calvin, by the amazing work and person of Christ, God has saved a remnant of humanity through the sufficient work of Christ on the cross.

THE HALLMARK OF CALVINISM IS THIS: GOD SAVES SINNERS IN CHRIST APART FROM THEMSELVES BECAUSE IT BRINGS HIM GLORY. see 1 Chronicles 16:35, Psalm 106:47, 2 Cor. 4, Eph. 1

As a side note, many people struggle over the issue of the salvation of children and I think we can safely include those born mentally indigent from birth/childhood and are in that condition throughout their life in to the child category of this sensitive issue of the eternal state of children that die. People want to know does God send these people to hell. The scripture does not have a verse that says yes or no to this issue. The reason it doesn’t is because the scripture is written to inform us adult people on who God is and who we are, what God demands of us, and what He offers us. Regarding children who do not yet know good or evil we can assume by the nature of God that they are covered by the work of Christ not of anything that they have done but by the grace of God. There is no definitive verse on this but Jesus teaching on children seems to indicate that his mercy redeems even them because his arms are open to them. Some of Jesus disciples wanted to send children away from Jesus but Jesus got ticked at these disciples and commanded that the children be allowed to come to him. “But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.” (Mark 10:14, Luke 18:16).

The flip side to that coin of monergism is the doctrine of reprobation. That is God allows sinners to live lives of sin and moral evil but he will eventually judge them and rightly send them to Hell. This judgment includes all those morally capable of understanding (be it the vast majority of humanity). The majority chooses to willingly follow anything other than God and stand condemned because they have either tacitly or implicitly rejected God (be they knowledgeably doing so by blaspheming God directly or indirectly through their actions). We can biblically assert that God in some way reveals himself to all humanity even though they reject however God reveals himself. God reveals himself in nature (Romans 1:18-23), dreams (Job 33:12-18), illnesses (Job 33:19-26), joy (Ecclesiastes 2:24) and through prophetic voices (look at all the prophets in the OT from Jonah to the Ninevehites (those outside of the Hebrew covenant) to Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah to the Hebrews of the Covenant). Each of these attempts at reaching people is the work of God most likely the Holy Spirit at work either directly or indirectly through people or events (John 16:8-12).

This is the Apostle’s Paul’s argument in Romans 1 and 2. When we worship (that which we give our attention too and focus on) anything other than God we are practicing idolatry (be it worshiping a stone statue, the cute guy/girl at work/school/wherever, or our own selfish desire). Paul goes on to say that God will judge this idolatry and punish it eternally. He as the Creator and as God has the right to do so. Since God is good because he is perfect when he judges them he does so fairly and accurately every time.

The teaching of the five points of Calvinism (TULIP) comes not directly from Calvin himself but his disciples trying to summarize his work against Arminism which tried to reinterpret Calvin’s teaching to make them more palatable to human rationality and to make it possible to make man responsible in some way for his salvation.

T: Total Depravity: All of us humans are corrupted. (Total not in the sense that we are all as corrupt as we could be but that we are all corrupt to some extent.) This was formulated against the Arminian position that we are basically all morally neutral before God. They denied the view that when Adam fell it screwed us all up. See Romans 5:12-14

U: Unconditional Election: God saves a remnant before the foundation of the world, not of ourselves (ie anything we would/will do) but completely out of his grace. See Romans 9, Ephesians 1. This also directly implies that God knew the fall was going to happen and had predetermined how he was going to deal with it. Evil is not a problem for God. He always had a solution for it which is judgment for the reprobate and Salvation for the elect. See Romans 9

L: Limited Atonement: God saves the elect. There is btw some debate if Calvin believed that Jesus death was just for the elect or for all humanity. The Institutes of the Christian Religion point toward just the Elect, some of his sermons seem to point towards Jesus death was meant for everyone. Calvin would likely say it like this “Christ death on the cross was universally sufficient for everyone’s sins (fulfilling God’s covenant with Adam and Noah) but it was particularly efficient only for the elect (the covenant given to Abraham and the New Covenant given through Christ). If the later view is correct then everyone who goes to hell does so not only for their sins but also for rejecting God’s Son and God’s Holy Spirit (Luke 12:10). See Romans 9 again particularly verse 13, Galatians 3:29

I: Irresistible Grace: No matter how rotten or hardhearted the sinner if God has chosen to save them he will save them. This may be done through breaking them but God can and will save the elect. See Romans 8, particularly 28-32.

P: Perseverance of the Saints: The true saint of God will not fall away because God has sealed them until the day of Christ Jesus. See 1 Cor. 1:4-8 Others have added a slightly different articulation for English. The P is perseverance (our part of working out what God has worked in, see Phil 2:12-13) and the preserve-ence (God’s part of preserving/keeping us by grace). There are also false believers who are not true saints and are metaphorically goats and not sheep (Mat. 25:32-33).

So why do I write all of this. You said “Those people he talked about are not choosing against God freely. According to Calvinism, God is forcing them to choose against them and then punishing them for what He made them do.” God made them with the ability to overcome sin, they freely chose to not do so. Cain was told he could overcome sin or it could overcome him. See Genesis 4:6-7. Cain chose to sin and killed his brother. Just because he didn’t know the penalty of his sin didn’t mean that he wasn’t warned. No one forced Esau to sell his birthright for a quick lunch. He may not have known the consequences but it was his choice to sin and sell it. See Genesis 25:29-33. Every sinner is made by God with the free will to sin. They may not fully understand the penalty of that sin but God warns them. See the verses I included above about the work of God the Holy Spirit. Calvinism defends the free will of man to choose good or evil, but it states that man because of his fallen nature is inclined to sin and more often than not he will indeed sin consequences be damned or more accurately put even if it damns them. God has every right to send us all to hell. We all deserve it first through Adam’s fall that caused our world to be cursed and for us all to die. Granted that sucks, but reality is that if we make a foolish decision in can have disastrous consequence even for parties innocent of our actions. Example drunk driver creams into a pregnant soccer mom and kills her and all her kids. His sin caused her death even though she didn’t sin. Adam’s sin caused all of us to be born into a fallen sin filled world with a nature to sin. Left unchecked sin gets progressively worst. See Genesis 4-6 particularly verse 6:5. Besides Adam’s sins all of us intentionally sin all the time and deserve death (Rom. 3:23, 7:15-24).

As stated above God is just. All humanity are sinners. The natural progression of sin is death then hell. The supernatural work of Christ and his death is that many will be saved and not of themselves but by God’s grace alone. Those who go to hell go there because God rightly sends them. According to Jesus in Mat. 10:28 the only thing people should fear is God, they should fear him because he is just. Yet amazingly he also loves the world and those in it and offers redemption through his Son to all who believe (John 3:16-18). Long ago a man said that ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding’” (Job 28:28). Those who believe are the elect, those who do not are the reprobate. Belief is a sign of salvation and election and faith in what only God can do in the wonderful person of God the Son our Savior the Lord Jesus the Christ (John 1:9-18).

If election (the declared state of being right with God) and therefore salvation (the acts by which God saves) is based off of foreknowledge of our action it presents two huge problems. First, God the Son is not the ultimate author/founder and finisher/perfecter of our faith (Phil. 1:6, Heb. 12:2-3). If God started and we finished it then it simply invalidates the assertion that our salvation is all about what Jesus has done by leading the way and is doing on our way to the finish line. It would also give us grounds on which to boast on our part in salvation, this clearly contradicts the heart of Paul’s message in Galatians 6:14 and Ephesians 2:9. It would seem as if Scripture was invalidated on this point if salvation is about what we do in any way. Second, Jesus, John, and Paul assert that salvation is not about what we do it is about what God is doing in Jesus and they would all be wrong in their assertions.

Jesus: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. – John 14:6-7 Jesus response to his disciple Thomas that he was the way to God.

John the Apostle: “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” John 1:12-13, John declares absolutely that their statement of faith is a affirmation that they are saved, not what saves them.

Not of blood: They are not saved by their heredity, i.e. being born a Jew in the first century or a Presbyerian/Catholic/Baptist/Non-denom/whatever in the 21st . Heredity from Godly parents does not save anyone. No body is God’s grandkid.

Not of the will of the flesh: The will of the flesh is our bodily desire, our bodily desire cannot save us.

Nor of the will of man: No one can will through their spirit or soul can will that they be saved.

But who are they saved? BY GOD through Christ. Receiving Jesus is the pivotal sign that God has saved us. Faith is evidence of election not a prerequisite for election.

Paul: The whole argument of Paul in Romans is that man is saved not of themselves but by God alone. Romans 8 is speaking of one part of election namely that the elect are predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ. How Awesome is that! Yet that is far from all it is. Paul in Ephesians 1 clearly states that we are saved before we are even born and that it is all part of God’s master plan for his glory.
BTW 1 Peter 1:2 the foreknowledge is not regarding or describing their election but their location. Peter is greeting them and letting these exiles (who have fled from Jerusalem and Rome do to persecution) that these elect saints in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia are there by the Triune God’s will. He foreknew they would be there so they should be comforted that God foreknew their exile was going to happen, that the Holy Spirit will be sanctifying them as he already was because of their move to those regions, and that they went ultimately in obedience to Christ will for them to be there. Notice the end of verse 2 he adds a petition that grace and peace be multiplied unto them because of where they are.

To quote a post on revelife.

“The Calvinist belief boils down to this. God has purposely created millions of people that he will judge with eternal punishment with absolutely no chance of ever repenting because he doesn’t love them enough to choose to save them.”

My response:

I know of no Calvanist (I’m sure there are some but I don’t know them) and more importantly nowhere in Calvin’s copious writings (check out ccel.org and you can read his works for yourself) that states his teachings teach a view of some unjust unrighteous God that willy nilly sends people to hell.

First, the assertion is flawed in that it makes a straw man caricature out of Calvin’s view of God.

Let’s be clear Calvin and I believe most of us if we are biblically literate and honest agree that all of us deserve hell according to scripture.

Second, God was not bound to save anyone before he declared that he would save some. If God wanted to damn every person to hell except for a scum bag serial murder such as Ted Bundy then if he only elected Ted then the rest of us still deserve hell. We deserve hell not by the standards by which we judge a person should go, whatever I standard of good enough is or our self made view of moral perfection but God’s standard of perfection.

Calvinism is at the heart an evangelistic attempt to explain the wonderful love of God for sinners and how those sinners should respond to his offer of salvation. Abram was pagan worshiper of a sex goddess before his calling, Moses was a murderer, David was a adulterer and murderer after his calling, the children of Israel sinned countless times after their professions of faith in God, Peter denied and rebuked Jesus after he confessed him as Lord and Christ, and the Corinthians were letting people shack up with their mother-in-laws and still be part of the service after Paul had explained to them who God was!

Calvinism is about a God that saves rotten sinner including ones like me! Thank God for John Calvin. John Calvin thank you for helping me see the glory of God.

One other thing I noted in the group was the question of double predestination. To quote the original post.

“Double-predestination is a heresy and not taught by Calvinists, they may claim to be but they are not! God does not predestine people for Hell. “Whosover shall believe”, the call goes out to all souls and those who choose not to believe, choose Hell. (John 3: 16-20)”

Not being glib but I think John Calvin is a Calvinist. Please read the Institutes. In it Calvin says:

In conformity, therefore, to the clear doctrine of the Scripture, we assert, that by an eternal and immutable counsel, God has once for all determined, both whom he would admit
to salvation, and whom he would condemn to destruction. We affirm that this counsel, as far as concerns the elect, is founded on his gratuitous mercy, totally irrespective of
human merit; but that to those whom he devotes to condemnation, the gate of life is closed by a just and irreprehensible, but incomprehensible, judgment. In the elect, we consider calling as an evidence of election, and justification as another token of its manifestation, till they arrive in glory, which constitutes its completion. As God seals
his elect by vocation and justification, so by excluding the reprobate from the knowledge of his name and the sanctification of his Spirit, he affords an indication of the
judgment that awaits them.

Found at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/calvin-predestin2.html

Modern Calvinist such as John Piper believe this view as well. Please reference these two articles (on double predestination and seven point Calvanism and on the eternal destination of those who reject salvation) by John Piper.

I agree with those who say we don’t fully know everything about God! I would say that scripture, when rightly divided, indeed does let us know the will of the Sovereign God on salvation. When it comes to salvation and election I think we make gray what the Lord has made black and white on the pages of scripture.

I think so who argue against this assertion may be arguing against a extreme form of Hyper-Calvinism that states because of the doctrine of reprobation then Christians should not witness. To paraphrase the father of Baptist missions William Carry “we aren’t God and he said to go the uttermost ends of the world therefore we should go.”

To be honest I think most people who argue against the doctrine of reprobation due so because they don’t like to view their life as missionaries. That certainly isn’t the case for everyone but it was my case for many years.