REASON AND CALVINISM

Calvinist Christianity teaches that man can do nothing to approach God for man is good for nothing but sin and God has to predestine some people to salvation. God does all the work of converting them so salvation is based on what God wants alone. Your good works don't count for your works are not really good. Any good you do after God saves you is really down to God not you. Few like this teaching for it suggests that if God destines you for eternal torment in Hell there is nothing you can do about it.

What should we think of those who teach that one person is unconditionally chosen by God for salvation and others are unconditionally chosen for eternal destruction or reprobation?  They are self-righteous hypocrites for you can be sure they count themselves among the chosen.  Any suggestion that you are unconditionally chosen for salvation while others choose damnation conditionally makes no sense.  To choose you without conditions means rejecting others without conditions.

Anti-Calvinists accuse Calvinists of being more influenced by reason than scripture. But are Calvinists really that logical?

Plus we cannot read the Bible without using logic so logic in that sense comes first. If Calvinism and God logically go together then God has to go.
 
The answer is that if you believe in God then Calvinism is true. The two beliefs go together.

* If God exists then predestination is true. All the freedom we need to be responsible is a choice between two things so God can control our thoughts and feelings so that we will choose what he wants. Our thoughts and feelings are manipulated anyway. Whatever we do is predestined by God. It is not true that God cannot save us because free will gets in the way. Whoever is not saved is chosen to be lost for God cannot choose some for salvation without automatically choosing the rest for damnation.

God is not trying to save all he can for missionaries do not live to be a thousand years of age and many die young. Why can’t he kill babies who will probably grow up in unbelief in infancy to get them into Heaven? Why can’t angels come to the world and teach the people we are too lazy to teach? The answer is that God is not out to save all. Moreover, if he was and failed he would not be much of a God.
 
* If God exists only believers will be saved.  Suppose you need to do good works to be saved.  God would have no reason to keep the truth from those who are saved by their goodness for it is best for them to have the truth. He would enable and cause the saved to believe. As for the lost, it does not matter if they know the gospel or not.

* If God exists he will cause the saved to do good works and little else. Calvinism says that if you are truly born again or forgiven by God you will be very holy.

* If God exists the unsaved cannot do good works for God does not care what they are like inside.

* If God exists then salvation by obedience is not possible for God wants the best and we won’t give perfect obedience and he won’t let us give it. Rome says that we cannot go to Heaven or do a genuine good work if we have mortal sin. Murder is one mortal sin. It is a mortal sin to do anything that leads to the death of another. The biggest sins we commit are sins of omission. For example, we spend money on comforts that should be spent on those who need it more, whose lives depend on it. We have no excuse for God has promised to take care of all who make great sacrifices for the poor (Matthew 6:31-34). He would be malign if he did not. So we are all murderers. Rome’s approval of our negligence is hypocrisy and is the kind of doctrine that makes murderers. The honest Catholic will have a mental breakdown and despairingly see salvation as impossible if one has to avoid mortal sin to obtain it.

If God were good he would choose believers for salvation and make them earn that salvation by perfect obedience.

* If God exists then God ordains evil as Calvinism states. The alternative is to say that God does not ordain evil but tolerates it for the sake of a greater good. If God ordains evil for a greater good then he is tolerating it. So Calvinists and Arminians believe the same thing about this issue for even Calvinists deny that God is to blame for sin. They say he causes it for a purpose that justifies him doing so. Arminians and Romanists deny that God ordains or causes evil and maintain that he just let it happen which is the same thing as ordaining or causing it.

* If God exists then you are saved forever the moment you are saved for he is unlikely to destine somebody to be saved and then destine them to lose that salvation.

* Christians believe in unending and everlasting punishment in Hell. The Bible says that Hell is painful and the fire in it shows just how bad it is. Now that means that when you sin you not only intend to offend God infinitely you also commit a separate sin of willing to insult everybody forever by being away from them in Hell and then another one of pulling everlasting agony on yourself. Hell trebles sin so only a God who predestines people to rot there could reveal it. The infinity of the offence and the separation stuff make it sinful enough but the pain makes it worse. So God causes needless sin when we sin by putting pain in Hell. He is certainly capable of what Calvin said he was.

The Bible speaks of God’s patience towards sinners. How could he be patient if he causes us to sin for it is his own fault? You are always patient for a reason so God can be forced to cause your sin for some reason and have to patiently bear with it.

Arminianism argues that a good God who is worth worshipping would not make people in order to send them to Hell forever. But their God kills people who can only go to Hell so what difference does it make? And if God had a mysterious plan he could be good and make people for eternal reprobation.

Arminians and Catholics plot to make the God of Jesus Christ seem to be a wonderful person. Their PR cannot be proved from the Bible which is a Calvinist’s Charter. They are in reality no better or worse than Calvinists for their own teachings logically lead to Calvinism.