Clarifying Calvinism, and Introductory Materials

“Why do Calvinists continually insist on calling me an Armenian? Are they really that poorly read that they don’t know that pretty much all of Christianity holds to the Biblical notion that man does in fact have libertarian freedom except for Calvinism?”

This was posted today after this mornings debate invitation. The “Calvinists” in this paragraph was directed at me from the post “Is salvation available for all men?”

My initial thought-reaction was obviously, “Excuse me sir, but are you so poorly read so as not to realize that ‘Arminian’ is spelled with an i and not an e?” But, perhaps I should give grace since this is a common mistake by newcomers to the Calvinist-Arminian debate.

I remember being as offended as Wes when I first heard about Calvinism, and I resisted believing it as long as possible. But finally, months of exegetical and historical studies convinced me that Calvinism is the most God-honoring, biblical, and logically consistent soteriology human beings know of, even though we might hate it at first. (Of course, I realized that once the absurd misrepresentations and stereotypes are removed, Calvinism is actually a beautiful understanding of salvation – grace in its true form – and not all the horror everyone said it was).

I also quickly learned that the height of resistance to this biblical and God-honoring theology is extra-biblical philosophies centered around an artificial construction of “freewill,” which almost always take the form of “middle” positions between Calvinism and Arminianism (see Olson’s Beyond Calvinism and Arminianism, Finck’s The Power of God Unto Salvation, Geisler’s Chosen But Free, etc.) such as “3-point Calvinists” and so forth, or, take the form of outright denials manifested in molinism and open-theism (i.e. Bill Craig, etc.). Wes has not yet identified which path of anti-Calvinism he’s going to take since he viciously defended molinism on public airwaves, denied the label “Arminian,” and yet insisted that God gives everyone, without exception, the ability to believe. But, given church history and the current direction of correspondence, I doubt his choice will be original.

“Pretty much all of Christianity” is meaningless in and of itself, first of all because it’s virtually impossible to gain substantial information regarding the global Body of Christ’s perspective of limited atonement, total depravity, unconditional election, etc., (it’s as hard to prove as it is to disprove, and therefore constitutes a poor argument). It’s unhelpful second of all because the “all of Christianity” today is a whole lot different than the “all of Christianity,” of say, two hundred years ago. To what “all of Christianity” does Wes refer? We’re not told.

Whatever the case, I’d be happy to answer Wes’s question – mainly the second one about being “poorly read.”

My short answer is “no.” I am not not “poorly read,” at least when it comes to Reformed theology and Calvinism in church history.

In fact, besides knowing the spelling of “Arminian,” I am well enough “read” to realize Arminianism was not as near as popular two centuries ago in the West (and perhaps in general) as it is today. Marsden talks a great deal about this “Great Reversal” in Fundamentalism and Evangelical Culture, Understanding Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism, and any introductory church history book such as Gonzalez’ 1 volume The Story of Christianity, Shelly’s Church History in Plain Language, etc. will reveal that fact. More serious studies in the history of dogmatics and systematics (see Bavinck’s 4-volume Reformed Dogmatics, esp. Prolegomena, Jaroslav Pelikan’s The Christian Tradition 6 volume series, Richard Muller’s Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics 4-volume series, etc., most of which are under the RealApologetics.org recommended reading), and perhaps even topical lightweights like Reformed Theology in America (essays) and more scholarly analysis like Ward’s The Protestant Evangelical Awakening, is going to make it very clear that the philosophical concept of libertarian freewill publicly identified by Wes has been on the rise in Western evangelicalism only in relatively recent times, and has by no means been the norm for the church for all ages. Wes would be more accurate to say “The biblical notion of freedom” than “the biblical notion of libertarian freewill,” for the Bible teaches nothing of the philosophical concept of libertarian freewill (do read what I’ve written on this specific subject from several months ago). The Bible teaches, as does human experience, that choices are “genuine” or “real” in the sense that A) they occur, and B) we do not feel constraint. God’s sovereignty and foreordination do not remove the genuine nature of human choices. Indeed, we might summarize as saying people freely choose what God foreordains.  Refer to my article on libertarian free will for more on this subject.

Of course, if we’re talking about specifically spiritual choices and not everyday choices, the picture changes substantially, because man is a slave to sin. The will is in bondage, as Martin Luther taught. Only the discriminatory and regenerating grace of God can bring a sinner to spiritual life so they can overcome sin and make choices that will please God.

For more reading on Calvinism, this is a partial bibliography that I included in my first published book, The Saving Grace of God: A Defense of the Reformation and a Rebuttal of Joel Finck’s The Power of God Unto Salvation (second edition in progress):

James White

The Sovereign Grace of God (Reformation Press, 2003)

The Potter’s Freedom (Calvary Press, 2000)

Drawn by the Father (Reformation Press, 1999)

James White and Dave Hunt

Debating Calvinism (Multnomah, 2004)

R.C. Sproul

The Holiness of God (Tyndale House, 2000)

Defending the Faith (Crossway, 2003)

Chosen by God (Tyndale House, 1994)

Martin Luther

The Bondage of the Will (Revell, reprint, 1990)

John Calvin

The Institutes of the Christian Religion (Westminster John Knox Press; 1559 translation edition, June, 1960)

John MacArthur

Hard to Believe (Nelson Books, 2003)

David and Randall Basinger

Predestination and Freewill: Four views of Divine Sovereignty (InterVarsity, 1985)

Phillip Ryken and/or James Montgomery Boyce

Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace? (Crossway, 2001)

The Doctrines of Grace (Crossway, 2002)

David Steele, Curtis Thomas, and S. Lance Quinn

The Five Points of Calvinism: Defined, Defended, Documented (P & R Publishing, 2^nd Edition, 2004)

These are also a few helpful materials from the bibliography of my second book Light Up the Darkness: Christianity, Calvinism, and Coherence in the Film I Am Legend:

Newbigin, Lesslie. The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1989.

Noll, Mark. The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. Grand Rapids, Mich.:  Eerdmans, 1994.

Piper, John, Justin Taylor, and Paul K. Helseth, eds. Beyond the

Bounds. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2003.

Kuyper, Abraham. Lectures on Calvinism. Grand Rapids Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1953.

This is by no means exhaustive, and not even what I would consider “well read” if we are to take Christian scholarship seriously. But it may serve as a decent beginner’s introduction to the subject of Calvinism and Arminianism. I would recommend Wes to take the time in informing himself about a theological system before critiquing it haphazardly. That being the case, the debate invitation still stands.