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Calvinism is incompatible with biblical doctrine
Many people might wonder why I am apparently so opposed to calvinism, declaring it to be heresy. Once upon a time I was like most non-calvinist Christians, accepting calvinism as an alternative view of Christianity that I couldn’t agree with, while still regarding them as Christians. However, it was the calvinist-influenced aggressive takeover of one of our local fundamentalist churches that made me start seeing it in a totally different light altogether.
I now label calvinism (especially neo or new calvinism) a demonic heresy full of lies, for the more I study it, the more I see that it is absolutely incompatible with what I understand to be biblical Christianity. Either they are right (and therefore I am wrong) or I am right (and therefore they are wrong). Of course, we could both be wrong, but it is certain that calvinism and non-calvinism cannot both be right! The two doctrines are incompatible.
For example:
(a) Calvinists refuse to accept the free will of man, especially in matters of salvation. In all matters of choice, especially in salvation, God alone chooses. You don’t choose God; He chooses you! They teach that lost man is absolutely incapable of seeking God in any way because lost man is dead in sins and trespasses. Man in this dead state can neither hear nor respond to the gospel. You must be spiritually alive to respond to God in any way. Therefore you must be born again (calvinists call it “regenerated”) before you can hear the gospel, believe in it and be saved by Christ. You cannot do this before you are born again, only after! In calvinism, being born again is not the same as being saved. This means that while the Bible teaches that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, calvinists must teach that you have to be given life (born again by the Spirit) before you can believe in and respond to Jesus and be saved and receive eternal life. That is, you must be born again before you can believe in or have faith in Christ, according to the calvinist interpretation of John 3:3.
By denying the free will of man in salvation, calvinists have to teach another gospel, one that is incompatible with the biblical gospel.
(b) This calvinist lack of free will leads directly to a serious problem between calvinists and non-calvinists. Calvinists cannot accept any notion at all of free will in your salvation. If you claim to be a Christian because of any decision of your will to repent and be saved, or pray the sinners’ prayer, or ask Jesus into your life as Lord and Saviour, or anything else that relates to choosing today whom you will serve, then calvinists have to reject your testimony as invalid. “You do not choose God; God chooses you!” is their catchy-cry. If your claim to salvation is based in any way upon some sort of free will decision you made to be saved, then calvinists cannot accept it, telling you that your free will input is a work of yours that renders your salvation imperfect and thus you cannot really be saved.
If they are being honest, they will inform you that it is the life you live, not the words that you say, that determines your eternal destiny. Therefore, to be a Christian acceptable to calvinists, you have to demonstrate that you have forsaken all your sin, and are now living a life worthy of a good puritan. Otherwise they cannot truthfully accept you as a Christian brother or sister. It’s the puritan life that determines the saved status of the calvinist elect of God. (Do some research today to check this one out if you doubt what I say!)
(c) Another incompatibility caused by the calvinist insistence on no free will for man is that God’s will must be the only will in the universe. No other will may exist in opposition to the calvinist God’s will. Thus Calvin’s statement: But the objection is not yet resolved, that if all things are done by the will of God, and men contrive nothing except by His will and ordination, then God is the author of all evils. (“Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God” P 179) Calvinists have no way of explaining sin and evil without making God the only cause or origin of sin and evil. For if Adam had no free will to choose concerning sin, then God must have chosen it for him. This is a huge dilemma for calvinists. And utterly incompatible with the God of the Bible who is so holy that He cannot even look upon sin, let alone decree or ordain it.
(d) Calvinists believe that Jesus died for the sins of only the few that their God selected to go to heaven. To do this they must reword verses such as 1 John 2:2 (“the whole world” means only those who believe), Hebrews 2:9 (“taste death for every man” was only for those who believe), 1 Timothy 2:4 (“who will have all men to be saved” is described as God’s will of desire but not His will of command, or else “all” means only the Christians), John 3:16 (“the world” is reworded as “the elect”), John 12:32 (“will draw all [men] unto me” becomes “will draw all believers unto me”), and so on. Calvinists refuse to accept Jesus as the Saviour of the world (inclusive of all men), teaching that Jesus did not die for the sins of any who have not been chosen by God go to heaven. Calvinists have to teach limited atonement (by Jesus on the cross) because without free will of man, only those chosen by God may go to heaven, and therefore why would the calvinist Jesus bother to die for those whom God had decided to send to hell anyway.
But Jesus died for the sins of all mankind without exception. All mankind must choose to either accept or reject this sacrifice made for them. The calvinist and non-calvinist teachings here are incompatible with each other.
(e) Calvinists make a big deal about the election or predestination of God’s elect to salvation. For example, Ephesians 1:5 – Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will
They say that this proves the predestination of God’s elect to salvation. Well, yes, that is not disputed, anyway, is it? What is really disputed is how God chooses His elect. You see, every passage that calvinists claim to support their doctrine of unconditional election can also just as easily (and more biblically, too) support an election conditional upon God’s foreknowledge. It’s not whether there is an election, but how God chooses His elect people. Without free will, calvinists have to teach that God chose them (without any condition at all) from the beginning of the world. But, if man has free will, then God may choose His elect according to His foreknowledge of what decision they will make with that free will. That is, an election conditional upon the foreknowledge of God. In fact, this is what 1 Peter 1:2 says! Romans 8:29 also makes it clear that the predestining of Christians to conform to the image of Christ is dependent upon God’s foreknowledge.
Foreknowledge depends upon the free will decisions of man to foreknow. Therefore without free will of man, foreknowledge becomes irrelevant. What’s the point of foreknowing decisions that could never be made? For calvinism, man’s free will and the foreknowledge of God stand or fall together. Foreknowledge demands that there be decisions to be foreknown.
Once again, though, it’s that denial of the free will of man in salvation that makes calvinism again incompatible.
(f) Because calvinists cannot teach that man can believe (or have faith) in Christ unless they have firstly been born again (regenerated), they are forced to make alterations to a number of verses or else be seen as liars. These altered verses include (i) altering “opened” to “opened and caused to believe” (Acts 16:14) – That is, belief is something God gives to you (avoiding the free will explanation!), and (ii) “see” becomes “believe in” or “have faith in” (John 3:3) – In this way they attempt to “prove” that faith comes after being born again, yet still fits in with the requirement to believe before being saved. Of course, this means that, to a calvinist, “being born again” cannot be the same as “being saved”!
In all these examples and many others, calvinists desperately try to show that man cannot have free will especially unto salvation, and therefore God’s foreknowledge cannot have anything to do with God’s perfect knowledge of future free will decisions to be saved, if no such decisions exist. In all calvinist doctrine, if you add in the free will of man unto salvation and consequently God’s foreknowledge to know such free will decisions, then calvinism ceases to exist.
If calvinists could show that God’s foreknowledge is not His perfect knowledge of the future, then they could demonstrate that God could not know any future free will decisions, thus rendering free will unworkable. Calvinists therefore redefine God’s foreknowledge as the special loving relationship God places upon his elect people. But this then introduces another big problem: such foreknowledge may only apply to God’s elect people. Therefore the actions of the non-elect must be completely foreordained or else God wouldn’t be able to control them. They also claim God is totally sovereign, so therefore the calvinist God would have to write the complete script for the lives of all non-elect people from beginning to end. In fact, Calvin taught that God (from the foundations of the world) wrote the complete script of actions for all mankind from the beginning to the end.
Calvinists would like the foreknowledge of God to be redefined as the fore-ordination of God. That is, it would be very useful for calvinists if they could show that God’s foreknowledge was foreordained. That would remove foreknowledge from having to be God’s perfect knowledge of the future. That is why some calvinists make impossible claims such as the “determinate counsel” and the “foreknowledge” of God (Acts 2:23) being synonyms (having the same meaning). That is, what God foreordained became God’s foreknowledge. They misuse a little-known rule of Greek (the Granville Sharp rule) to bend the truth to their lie here.
Calvin had another angle on the problem of foreknowledge. He said that discussion of foreknowledge was irrelevant (futile) because God had already foreordained everything anyway.
Each defence of their doctrines introduces more and more twists and turns to cover up the non-biblical nature of calvinism. Ultimately, because their doctrines are incompatible with biblical doctrines, then either calvinists are lying, or the Bible is lying. And, if the Bible is truth, then there’s only one alternative remaining: that calvinists are liars. And, because all lies ultimately stem from the devil as the father of lies, and because calvinism is full of lies, therefore it is full of the devil’s doctrines. And therefore I as a biblical Christian, after testing all things calvinist, must reject it as a doctrine of devils.
Many calvinists claim that non-calvinists are either lesser Christians or not Christians at all. They reason that if a person is a Christian, then he’d believe in the calvinist election. They see a conflict in being a Christian yet not being calvinist. You should be both calvinist and Christian, or else neither calvinist nor Christian! In fact, this is how Calvin saw it. You agreed with him, or else you were lost. Those who disagreed were either thrown out of the city, thrown into prison, or executed. Calvin ruled!
The major area of incompatibility is in the proclamation of the gospel. The Bible tells man to call upon the name of the Lord to be saved, while calvinism says that no-one may be saved unless and until after God first calls them to be born again. Calvinists teach that man cannot choose to accept salvation in Christ Jesus unless he has already been born again by the Spirit. The Bible teaches that God has given a gift of salvation to all men, and that man must accept it by faith to partake of it. “No free will” versus “free will” of man. One or the other. Either by your free will you choose or reject salvation in Christ, or by God’s will alone you will or will not be chosen for salvation in Christ. For one it is your responsibility to choose this day whom you will serve, and for the other God will choose and you will have absolutely no say in the matter of your eternal destiny. These two doctrines cannot exist together. Each doctrine denies the other. They cannot both be right! They are absolutely incompatible!
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If you wish to read other documents on the heresies of calvinism, please use this link.
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Oh how the calvinists twist and pervert the Bible!
I happened to read a post on www.bereanbiblechurch.org and immediately noticed that they are far from being like the Bereans of Acts 17:11 who were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
These modern “Bereans” are giving those noble Bereans of Paul’s day a bad name! I will be quoting excerpts from https://www.bereanbiblechurch.org/transcripts/acts/salvation_by_choice.htm unless otherwise noted.
Using Acts 16:13-14, they proceed to “prove” that God gives faith to enable sinners to believe the gospel. However, this is a blatant example of the twisted verbal gymnastics that so many calvinists go through in order to “prove” their lies, especially the lie that free will in salvation does not exist. It’s impossible for them to prove the lack of free will, so they are forced to use confused “interpretations” in order to demonstrate their lies to be truth. And this example here is no exception to that rule!
“Acts 16:13-14 (NKJV) “And on the Sabbath day we went out of the city to the riverside, where prayer was customarily made; and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there. 14 Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul.”
This is the only place in the New Testament that uses the phrase “opened heart,” and the Bible gives the whole credit for this “opening” to God’s power and not to man’s will.”
Well, you say, what’s wrong with that? Nothing so far. It is certainly true that God (and not man’s will) must take the credit for this opening of Lydia’s heart. (“opened” should be seen as causing her to understand what is being said. This is what the original Greek word means.)
“Obviously, “the things spoken” by Paul were the gospel facts concerning the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. …. God also brought the message of His provision to Lydia. He sent a preacher to tell her about this great plan of salvation. God went to a lot of trouble to provide such a gospel-He gave His only begotten Son up to death. He went to great ends to provide such a preacher as Paul.”
Yes, this is still exactly what the Bible has to be teaching. Paul had clearly been preaching the gospel to Lydia (and the other women as well – Acts 16:13). So far the truth is still clearly taught. But see where we get to next in this document. (It doesn’t take long before calvinists are forced to add lies to the equation or admit that they are wrong.) The opening of Lydia’s heart now means she is made to believe!
“God must open Lydia’s heart (or give her faith) so she will be able to believe.”
Yes, God must certainly be given all credit for the opening of Lydia’s heart, but nowhere does the verse even imply that God gave her faith so that she would be able to believe. Absolutely nowhere! This is the beginning of the addition of extra non-truth information in order to ultimately present their blatant lie. They have equated the opening of Lydia’s heart with being able to believe. The Greek word translated “opened” means “to cause to understand a thing”. But they have now turned “understanding” into “believing”, a meaning not permitted by the original Greek word. This is a false (and apparently deliberate) effort to prove a lie to be the truth. It is impossible to translate opening her heart as believing in what Paul said. To attempt to state such is ridiculous!
Clearly I can understand something without committing myself to believing in it. I can have understanding yet disagree. Understanding (without extra qualification) can never imply agreement, and therefore understanding does not automatically assume belief in that which is understood. I may understand the other person’s point of view yet remain unable to agree and believe in it.
Let’s look more carefully at Acts 16:14 – And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard [us]: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.
“opened” should be seen as causing her to understand what is being said, and the word translated “attended unto” means to turn her mind to or to get her attention. The gospel is preached, God uses the preaching of the gospel to give her understanding of His salvation, and consequently she heeds or pays attention to that preaching of the gospel. God uses Paul’s preaching of the gospel to get her attention to what’s being said and to understand what it means. This is the power of the gospel unto salvation as per Romans 1:6 – For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
bereanbiblechurch.org also add “Notice that the Bible explicitly gives God alone the credit for Lydia’s heart being opened. It is impossible not see that in this text, unless you simply refuse to accept what God clearly says.” They now revert to the actual truth to make it look more convincing. After having already stated the lie that God also caused her to believe, they now challenge the reader to accept the truth, yet leave out the believing. This mixing of lies with truth is often done by calvinists when they have little truth to play with: present the truth but add the lie to the truth to somehow give some credibility to the lie. But, it only takes the addition of just one lie to turn the whole truth into a lie! (For example, take the truth of the election of God, and add the lie that it is unconditional. But the election is actually conditional upon God’s foreknowledge – 1 Peter 1:2.)
Then the document now quotes the lie (that man has no free will here) as the concluding truth. If you disagree with their statements here, you are consciously corrupting the Word of God. In fact, this whole document appears to be an ineffectual effort to try to demonstrate the lack of free will of man for salvation. The following accusation is based on their clam that God caused Lydia to believe, but that claim can only be valid if she had no free will to choose for herself, yet they claim that this verse somehow demonstrates the lack of free will. Think carefully: this is circular logic, using the non-existence of free will to prove the lack of free will!
“Look at the words carefully: ….whose heart the LORD OPENED… If you try to deny that the one single reason that Lydia understood and believed the gospel was because God deliberately opened her heart and enabled her to believe, you are fighting God’s Word. If you try to get man’s “free will” as the one determining factor into this text, you are consciously corrupting the Word of God.”
While it is clear that God opened Lydia’s heart to understand the gospel, where does that even imply that God deliberately enabled her to believe? Yes, the gospel is certainly the means by which God got Lydia’s attention. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16) and God’s power is working through Paul’s faithful preaching of His gospel. When the gospel is preached faithfully according to God’s word, things will happen, for that preaching is God’s power unto salvation for all who believe in it (Romans 1:16). That power breaks open the blindness that satan places upon man’s thinking (2 Corinthians 4:3-4), and it is that power that caused Lydia to understand and pay attention to what Paul was preaching.
It is because of this power of the gospel unto salvation, that satan blinds the minds of the world so that the light of that gospel will be hid from those who need to hear it.
2 Corinthians 4:3-4 – 3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: 4In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
Just think on this: why does satan blind the minds of man from hearing the gospel if God’s elect are made to believe in it? Why would satan waste his time and energy if God just overruled satan in all His elect? Satan could then effectively blind the eyes of only those who could never be saved anyway! If there is no free will unto salvation, why does satan oppose the gospel so much?
But satan’s deceptions cannot prevent the access of the gospel into the minds of man. Satan cannot prevent the gospel from getting the attention of all to whom it is preached. Not all will believe the gospel, but it will certainly get their attention, whether they believe or not. Man is surely incapable of responding favourably to God unless God should intervene, to seek and to save that which is lost. And the gospel is exactly that: God’s intervention that opens the hearts (the understanding) of people and gets their attention focused upon their need for God’s salvation. Romans 10:17 – So then faith [cometh] by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Paul’s preaching of the gospel to Lydia certainly got her attention, and God also gave her understanding of that gospel, but it was still up to Lydia to respond to it. God uses the gospel to override satan’s blinding, to get our attention, and He gives understanding with it. But God never forces man’s hand at any time to have to believe. It is possible for God to make the gospel so powerful that it is difficult to reject even (note Paul on the way to Damascus), but He will never force a person to accept it against his will (Paul still had to respond favourably).
MacArthur tries to teach the lie that Paul was forced to become a Christian.
He’s a good one to look at for this kind of call because when the call of God came on the life of the apostle Paul, it was a sovereign, divine, gracious, and irresistible summons. He was slammed in to the dirt on the road to Damascus with nothing to do but respond. He is called as an apostle. …..
Paul understood that he was just grabbed by the neck by God and awakened to the glory of Christ and saved and made an apostle.
(The doctrine of God’s effectual call)
Yet where does the Bible actually say this? This is fanciful thinking at best, blatant lies at worst. Just another example of emotive twaddle!
So all who read this, just study the relevant passages from the Bible and decide for yourselves just what God is actually saying in His word. If the Bible doesn’t actually say it, then how can it be truth? See for yourselves that these self-proclaimed Bereans of today have used a lot more than just poetic license to twist biblical meaning so much. Read what the Bible says without all the extra added lies. Just read the clear truth that the Bible presents; let the Bible define the truth for itself, and therefore everything that is not truth (as per the Bible) has to be a lie.
And those who declare themselves to be Bereans should be more respectful of the legacy left by those Bereans of Paul’s day who searched the scriptures daily to determine the truth for themselves.
Acts 17:11 – These (Bereans) were were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
List of all my posts on this site.
If you wish to read other documents on the heresies of calvinism, please use this link.
Please feel free to comment. However, my replies won’t be on this page. Comments and replies are recorded on the Comments page.