Calvinism vs. Anti-Calvinism: My Reply to an Email I Received

I got an email not too long ago from someone who wanted to challenge me on my anti-Calvinist stance.  To sum up what she said:  

In a polite, gentle way, she essentially said that we find more peace resting in God's sovereign hand than in our own (My note: The Calvinist view of sovereignty is "God preplans, causes, controls everything that happens, including sin and evil," though they won't admit it this way.)...

that Calvinism is more humbling because it’s admitting that we did nothing to save ourselves because God did it all (My note: Well, if God did it all to save some people then He also did it all to damn the rest.)...

that Calvinism becomes beautiful as you see God's amazing love (My note: Amazing love for whom, I wonder?  For the non-elect whom He predestined for hell, whom He causes to sin and to reject Him but then He punishes them eternally for it, all for His glory?  Yep, really beautiful!  If that's "amazing love," then that's horrifying.)... 

and that Calvinism is more glorifying to God.  (My note: Calvinism: A theology where God is glorified by evil and sin and unbelief, where He preplans and causes evil and sin and unbelief for His glory, and where He predestines people to eternal hell for the evil and sin and unbelief that He preplanned and caused!  Horrifying!  And I wonder, how then is Calvinism's god any different from Satan?  And if Calvinism is "more glorifying" to God … and if Calvi-god is all about getting more glory for himself … then why does he cause most people to be anti-Calvinists, thereby robbing himself of glory?  And if I may also ask: If God is really a God who preplans, causes, and controls all sin and evil - if that's what it means to have a "sovereign" God - then how can anyone really find peace in resting in that kind of a hand?  Who could you go to for true help, comfort, healing, security, or justice if God Himself is the one who preplanned and caused the evils done to you by other people, if He was "glorified" by that kind of wickedness?  It's sick that a Calvinist would find "peace" in that kind of "sovereignty," that kind of god.  But, thankfully, Calvi-god is NOT the God of the Bible!)



Anyway, here is my reply to her, just because I want to share it:

Thank you, ***, for your email.  You sound like you have a really good heart, a real desire to glorify God, like some of my favorite Calvinist friends, some of the nicest people I know (which made it hard to tell them we disagree with them).  Don’t get me wrong: I, too, rest in God’s sovereign hand for salvation.  I believe He made it all possible: He created the idea of salvation, paid the price for our salvation, calls to our hearts to make us aware of our need for salvation, etc.  I trust that if I do what He said I need to do (repent and believe) then He will do what He said He would do (give me eternal life).

The difference, though, between my view and the Calvinist's view is that I believe salvation is available for all people, that the Holy Spirit calls to all people, that all people have the chance to believe and be saved.  God made salvation possible for all of us, and all we have to do is accept it.  (Accepting a free gift someone offers us is in no way working for it or earning it.)  But Calvinists think that God only truly calls a few people (the elect), that salvation is only for those few people, and that the Holy Spirit only helps those few people believe, repent, and be saved.  And everyone else is out of luck, hopelessly and helplessly on their way to hell.  Because in Calvinism, Jesus never died for the non-elect anyway.

Personally, knowing that God offers salvation to all people (even to those who would reject the offer) humbles me even more before Him, knowing that the Creator of the universe loves all of us so much that He would sacrifice Himself for us even though He knew many people would reject Him.  That is some amazing love!  And it makes me more in awe of Him and more trusting of Him … much more so than thinking (as Calvinists do) that God only really loves a few people while saying in His Word that He loves the world, that Jesus only died to save those few people while saying in His Word that Jesus died for all sins of all people, and that God deliberately created everyone else for hell because it brings Him glory somehow while saying in His Word that He wants no one to perish and that “whoever” wants to can come to Him and be saved.  (Not to mention that, in Calvinism, God is ultimately responsible for men’s sins and unbelief, but then He punishes us for it.)

What’s at stake here is not really how much glory God gets for our salvation, but what’s at stake is His character, the Gospel, the blood of Jesus.  Calvinists add a second layer to everything the Bible says about salvation, and this second layer actually contradicts the plain, clear reading of Scripture, what God said [*see note at bottom].  Can God be taken at His Word?  Does He mean what He says and say what He means?  Or is there a secret layer (Calvinism) that we have to discover, which contradicts what He plainly said?  If I have to choose between believing that God meant what He said the way He said it or believing that Calvinists have found a secret “higher” way of understanding what God said (which changes and contradicts what God actually said), then I’m going with the first.  It’s the only way to keep God’s character and the truth of the Gospel intact.

[And anti-Calvinists like myself believe in God’s sovereignty too, but we define it differently.  Calvinists think that being sovereign – all-powerful – means God has to use His power all the time to control everything, or else He can’t be God.  They basically tell God how He has to act in order to be God.  But sovereignty is about the position of power someone holds, not about how they have to use their power.  I believe God is sovereign over all, which means He gets to decide how to use His power and control in any situation.  And in His sovereignty, God has chosen to give people the choice to accept or reject Him.  And to correct something you said (that I am basically claiming that I have the ability to see my need for redemption but others don’t, which means I am claiming to be humbler or wiser than others - a classic Calvinist tactic): Everyone has the ability because God made it so, but if someone chooses to not accept the offer of salvation it’s because they didn’t want it, didn’t respond to God’s call on their hearts.  Calvinists wrongly assume that if someone doesn’t believe, it’s because they couldn’t believe, that God made it impossible for them to believe because He predestined them to hell.]

Thank you again for your very polite email.  I hope I have come across equally polite, even in trying to explain my problems with Calvinism.  God bless!  

- Heather


[Not in my reply to her: I just realized something I said that could totally be agreed with - but twisted - by Calvinists.  I said that "all people have the chance to believe and be saved."  And this is the kind of thing Calvinists would agree with.  But if they did, what they would really mean is "All people do not have the ability to believe and be saved, but ... All people have the chance to have their names picked in the 'salvation lottery,' the chance to be chosen by God to be one of the elect whom He will cause to believe and be saved."  

Can you see it?  In Calvinism, it's "All people have the chance ... to believe and be saved."  But this is far different than the commonsense way we understand "All people have the chance to believe and be saved."    

Always remember that with Calvinists, it's not what they say that's the problem; it's what they don't say, what they hide, what they leave out or cover up.  It's the "..." that changes it all.  There is always a deeper, hidden meaning to what they say, one that they don't want you to know about for as long as possible.  They want you to think they are saying one thing, when they are really saying something else which contradicts what they said and the commonsense meaning of what they said.     

Another phrase they will use is "Anyone can believe and be saved."  But, once again, they don't mean that all people have the ability to believe and be saved or that it's possible for all people to believe and be saved.  They just mean that God can pick anyone He wants to to become one of the elect, that anyone could have had their name chosen.  "Anyone can believe and be saved, if God wants them to be and elects them."  But once the names are chosen - and in Calvinism, God decided who gets heaven and who doesn't before time began - then only the lucky "elected" ones have the ability to believe and be saved, but the unlucky "non-elect" ones can never believe or be saved because God made it impossible for them to believe and be saved.

They'll agree that "the Holy Spirit calls to all people and salvation is offered to all people," but they don't mean that it's possible for all people to respond to the call or to accept salvation.  They just mean that even though the Spirit calls to all and salvation is offered to all, only the elect can/will respond to the call and accept the offer of salvation, but the non-elect can never do it because they are predestined to reject the call and the offer.  And yet Calvinists still call that "a real call, a real offer," even though the non-elect have no ability to accept it.

"For God so loved the world ..." doesn't mean, in Calvinism, that God loves all individual people.  Just that God loves mankind, people - the elect people - from all over the world.  (And if they agree that He does love the non-elect, they just mean that He cares about them enough to give them food and sunshine while they are alive, before sending them to eternal hell, just like He predestined for them.  Sick, sick, sick!  If that's love, then what's hate look like?)   

And so if a Calvinist ever says anything like "Anyone can believe.  All people have the chance to be saved.  God calls to all and offers salvation to all," they don't mean that it's possible for every individual to believe and be saved, just that God could have picked anyone to be one of the elected ones (we can't tell and don't know who's elect and who's not) and that only the elect ones can/will believe and be saved.  (It's funny and strange how adamant they are that they are not deceptive with their wording!  Or is it demonic?)]  


*Note: Here’s an example from the comment section of a post at Lighthouse Trails Research about how Calvinism’s twisting of verses (to fit their Calvinism) contradicts what God plainly said in His Word:

One guy (Matt) said that the idea of “God chose me, I did not choose Him” (Calvinism) is in the Bible.  And he quoted John 3:8 to “prove” it: “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so [it] is [with] everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

I replied: “You really have to read into John 3:8 to make it say that we don’t choose God but He chooses us.  Because it doesn’t say that.  It just talks about the Spirit working in unseen, invisible ways.  Because He is Spirit, not a physical body.  [John 3:6 even shows that it is contrasting physical birth to spiritual birth.  It’s about the difference between physical vs. spiritual, not about God choosing who gets saved and causing them to be believe.]  You are demonstrating Calvinism’s error from the beginning: they read what they want into verses to make it fit their theological views, even when it contradicts what the Bible plainly, clearly says: “Choose this day whom you will serve…” (Joshua 24:15)

Most Popular Posts Of The Month:

List of Calvinist Preachers, Authors, Theologians, Websites, etc.

I  found a lot more names to add to my list of known Calvinists (found in my various "How to Tell if a Church, Pastor, or Website is Calvinist" posts).  [FYI: I added a note at the bottom of this post on May 5, 2021.]    And so here it is, a "master list" of known Calvinists to help you be careful and discerning about who you listen to and where you get your theology from.  There are plenty more Calvinists out there, but these are just the names that I ran across the most.   These are either definite, self-professed Calvinists or "most likely Calvinists," in my estimation.  (I haven't heard of most of them, but it's good to know their theology before I do.)   After finding these names in various places online, I looked up each person to see if they are Calvinist.  If they did not self-identify as a Calvinist, I tried to figure it out based on the statements of faith of the groups/churches they belong to, the books they write, the t...
Read more

Is The ESV (English Standard Version) a Calvinist Bible?

Just in case anyone missed this post (the longer title made it easy to miss the "ESV" part) ... "A Random Verse That Destroys Calvinism (And "Is The ESV a Calvinist Bible?") In that post, I write about a bunch of verses that I believe were intentionally translated to be more Calvinistic or based on manuscripts that were too corrupt to be trusted (click on it to see the verses).   And why would I think that the translators of this Bible version would do that? (From that post...) The ESV and ESV Study Bible are majorly preferred by Calvinists.  In fact, it's often considered "The Calvinist Bible."   Why?  And why would translators of a Bible make these kinds of Calvinist tweaks to Scripture? Wayne Grudem and J.I. Packer were editors on the  ESV Study Bible   (this is for the ESV Global Study Bible).  Grudem and Packer are both popular, strong, dogmatic Calvinists.  Very Big Names in the world of Calvinism.  Grudem in the General E...
Read more

Why Is Calvinism So Dangerous? (re-updated)

Image
Because it  appears  to teach biblical truth while actually teaching  the opposite  - while using  manipulation and cult-like tactics to suck you in!  And it's spreading.  Stealthily, fast, aggressively. (We watched it happen firsthand in our church, which is why I wrote this blog.  See  "What's the best way to make people agree with your Calvinist views?"    Sadly, we ended up  leaving that church , a place we attended almost 20 years.) [ I updated this November 2022 to try to shorten it.  I failed.  But I hope it's more readable and streamlined at least.   If you only read one anti-Calvinism post of mine, I think it should be this one.  But I'm warning you, this post is long.  Very long.  So pack a lunch and bring a sleeping bag.  But it has to be long because Calvinism is so deceptively convoluted that it takes time to peel off the layers so that you can see it for what it really is.  ...
Read more

When Calvinists say "But predestination!" (shorter, basic version)

Image
[Finally, the much-shorter version - I said shorter, not short😉 - of my "But predestination!" series.  The longer version - full of many more Calvinist comments, my Calvinist ex-pastor's sermons, and my replies to them - can be found by  starting here .  But in this simplified version, I'm simply sharing the basics.  And I'll do a tiny version soon too, cutting out almost all quotes and memes.  But, oh, they add so much that it's hard to cut them out. ] At the heart of Calvinism is predestination and God's sovereignty (among other things, like "total depravity"), which according to Calvinism essentially amounts to: "God preplans and controls everything, even sin and evil and all our decisions, and so He pre-picks who goes to heaven and who goes to hell.  He causes the 'elect' to believe in Him and be saved, but He made sure the 'non-elect' have no chance or ability to believe and be saved because He predetermined they'd ...
Read more

"But Calvinists don't say God causes sin and evil!"

Image
If you point out to Calvinists that Calvinism's view of sovereignty - that God fore-ordains and orchestrates everything that happens and we had no ability to do anything differently - makes God the cause (and truly the only  voluntary cause) of all sin and evil, they'll probably respond with something like "That's not what we're saying.  You're putting words in our mouths.  And you don't understand Calvinism."   When they do that, show them a few of these quotes -  Ca lvinists' own words about their beliefs of God's sovereignty and how He preplans, will, ordains, orchestrates, directs (code words for "causes")  everything  that happens.  And then ask them if they still think you're really misunderstanding them.  (Bold emphasis added) [And before reading the quotes, here's a great, satirical 4-minute video that I think everyone should see:  Hitler and Calvinism .  Awesome!] 1. R.C. Sproul Jr.  ( Almighty Over All) :  ...
Read more

A Random Verse That Destroys Calvinism (And "Is The ESV a Calvinist Bible?")

(For just the "Is the ESV a Calvinist Bible" part of this post, click here .) In my normal Bible reading today, I came across a verse about "singleness vs. marriage" that destroys Calvinism in a few short words: "But the man who has settled the matter in his own mind, who is under no compulsion but who has control over his own will, and who has made up his mind not to marry the virgin - this man also does the right thing."   ( 1 Corinthians 7:37, NIV ) When you get past all the layers Calvinism wraps itself in to disguise the bad parts, it ultimately teaches - at the heart of it all - that God causes/controls  everything , even controlling our wills and causing our sins.  (But He then punishes  us  for the things He caused us to do, which would make Him unjust, no matter how much Calvinists try to deny it and cover it up.  See  this post  for some links about that.)  Calvinism ultimately teaches that everything we do is because God p...
Read more

How to Tell if a Church, Pastor, or Website is Calvinist (simplified version)

(For the extended version of this post, which I recommend, click here .  It is loaded with lots more information.  This simplified one is just the highlights.  And feel free to copy this and share it with others, to help them learn to identify Calvinism when they see it.  Just make sure to share the link to this blog so that they can find the original post.  Thank you.  New : For the super-short version, click here .  And FYI: I found a couple times when the Calvinist author of an article I linked to changed their article after I linked to it.  So if their article doesn't seem to match what I said about it, it may be because they altered it. ) We just left our church of almost 20 years because of the dogmatic Calvinist pastor who recently came on board.  ( Read my "Letter to Our Elders Regarding Calvinism Growing in Our Church" here.)   And I was thinking about what precautions I might take to make sure we didn't end up in another...
Read more

When Calvinism Infiltrates Your Church

A note I recently added to my posts on "How to tell if a Church, Pastor, or Website is Calvinist" : On a personal note : After having seen firsthand how Calvinism stealthily infiltrates and takes over a church, I want to share with you something that Kevin from Beyond the Fundamentals said in the video   "Stealth Calvinism in Oklahoma"  (my paraphrase): "By the time you realize what's going on and start looking up information about Calvinism online, it's too late."   Calvinist pastors who set out to take over non-Calvinist churches are banking on the fact that most people don't know what Calvinism is, giving the pastors plenty of time to weave in Calvinism in sneaky, subtle, tricksy ways before people catch on to (and research) the red flags.  (*See note at bottom about deceptive pastors.)  By that time, too many people in the church have been suckered into Calvinism (without realizing it's called Calvinism), believing that they're just...
Read more

Leaving Calvinism: Comments from Ex-Calvinists #11

Here is the last of the ex-Calvinist testimonies.  The first one is from this post:  X-Calvinist Corner .   (It's an Arminian website, but I am not Arminian.)  I am going to highlight some of the comments that stood out to me the most.  If you want to read everything that everyone said, click on the link above: Dana Steele writes: I grew up in a Calvinistic Baptist church from age 11.  The 5-points of Calvinism (TULIP) were taught regularly with great enthusiasm ... But it wasn’t until college that I began to understand and embrace the “Doctrines of Grace” and TULIP more fully....  I also learned to love the doctrine of election because it meant that God loved me personally and specifically in a unique way.  Though it made me a little embarrassed to think that God did not love everyone this way, I was content to leave this as a mystery.  Who am I to question God?  I was just glad I was one of the lucky (I mean chosen) ones. ... [As ...
Read more

The Cult of Calvinism

Here are links to a few posts that reveal the cult-like side of Calvinism: "Why Calvinism is a Cult" "Calvinism is a Counterfeit Christian Cult" "Calvinism, Cults, and Control" I left a comment at Hoppers Crossing Christian Church about their post "Calvinism, Cults, and Control."  I will also print my comment here for your information: I was reading your post "Calvinism, Cults, and Control" (2/02/20) and so much of what you said fits the Calvinist church we recently left.  Here are some of the cult-like things that happened after a Calvinist pastor took over our non-Calvinist church: 1.   From the beginning, he started laying the groundwork that disagreement with him (about his Calvinist view of predestination and God's sovereignty, in particular) was not allowed and that anyone who did disagree with him was unhumble and disagreeing with God.   Things like (paraphrases): "Humble people have no problem with God's sovereignty...
Read more