Why is Calvinism so dangerous? #6 (Veil lifted when?)

[In this series, I'm breaking the long post "Why is Calvinism so dangerous?" into bite-sized pieces.]



6.  
The Bible says ... Satan blinds eyes, but Jesus takes the veil away when we turn to Him.  And "receive" and "believe" (in the concordance) are active, not passive.  We do them.  "Receive" means to reach out and grab ahold of what is being offered to you (salvation).  And "believe" is to let yourself be persuaded by something (the truth) and to commit to it.


But Calvinism says ... God blinds eyes (prevents the non-elect from believing in Him) and opens eyes (causes the elect to believe in Him).  Faith is something done to us, not by us.

2 Corinthians 4:4:  "The god of this age had blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God."  [Calvinist version: Calvi-god causes Satan to blind the non-elect so that they can never see the Truth, so that they go to hell for Calvi-god's glory.  Question: If the non-elect are already born without the ability to believe, why the need to blind them?  If he didn't blind them, would they somehow believe, contrary to what he predestined?  NOTE: "The minds of unbelievers" is a mistranslation.  It should be "minds of them which believe not" (KJV).  The first is a noun, making it sound like it's who we are, that people are created to be unbelievers.  But the second is a verb: "believing" is something we choose to do or not do.  This is not about blinding non-elect people so that they can't believe in Jesus; it's about Satan blinding those who choose to not believe, who choose to resist Jesus, so that they cannot understand spiritual truths.  See "A random verse that destroys Calvinism (and Is the ESV a Calvinist Bible?)"]
  
2 Corinthians 3:16:  "But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away."  [In Calvinism, "anyone" means "the elect."  And keep in mind that Calvinism actually reverses this verse.  This verse says that first we turn to the Lord and then the veil is taken away.  But in Calvinism, the veil has to be taken away from the elect first, by the Holy Spirit, so that they can turn to the Lord.  Note: This passage in Corinthians is actually specifically about the veil over the Jewish people because they put their faith in keeping the Law.  If they insist on believing that keeping the Law earns them salvation, there will always be a veil over the truth that salvation is found only in Jesus.]

Romans ...   
1:5:  "Through him and for his name's sake, we received grace and apostleship..."  (In the concordance, "received" is active, not passive - the person reaches out and grabs what is offered to them.  It's not forced on them or instilled in them while they wait passively, as happens to the elect in Calvinism.)

5:11:  "... but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation" (We actively grab onto the reconciliation that Jesus makes possible.)

5:17:  "... how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness" (active, not passive, reach out and grab it)

8:15:  "... but you received the Spirit of sonship ..."  (active, not passive)

10:4:  "... Christ is the end of the law, so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes."  (In the concordance, "believes" is to let yourself be persuaded by something and, consequently, to commit to it.  It's NOT "to have someone else [God] cause you to believe.")

Ephesians 1:13:  "... Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit."  (Having let yourself be convinced of the truth and choosing to commit to it, you were saved and received the Holy Spirit.)

John 1:12:  "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God"  (All those who reach out and grab onto Him and the salvation He offers, who allow themselves to be persuaded that He is the way, the truth, and the life, who choose to commit to Him - these are the people who become children of God.  For more on what the concordance says, see "According to the concordance, it's NOT predestination".)


Calvinists believe that "faith" is a gift that Calvi-god has to give and that he only gives it to the elect.  And they base this, in part, on Ephesians 2:8-9:  "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this not of yourselves but it is the gift of God, so that no one can boast."

I used to think faith was the "gift" in this verse too.  Until I dug deeper.  And now I believe that "salvation" is the gift spoken of in this verse, not faith.  (Once again, see "Is Faith A Gift God Gives (forces on) Us?")  And it's offered to everyone.

But Calvinists believe that the gift is faith, and that God "forces" it on the elect but withholds it from everyone else.  And so if He doesn't give you faith, you can never believe in Him.  

And they also use verses like Acts 16:14 and Luke 24:45 to support their view that God "forces" the elect to see/believe the Truth, that He gives certain select people the "gift of faith."  

Acts 16:14 talks about God opening Lydia's heart to believe Paul's message.  Calvinists say this means God caused her to believe in Jesus.  But - big mistake - they assume that the message she heard was the Gospel and that God opened her eyes to believe it and be saved.  But this isn't in the text.  The text simply says that her eyes were opened to the message Paul gave.  And I believe that it very well could be that his message was about the need for believers to be baptized (the same message he gave to some disciples in Acts 19, a few chapters over), because the very next thing she does is get her family baptized.  Besides, if you look at the verses before, you'll see that she was already a worshipper of God, a believer.  So this is most likely a case of God helping a believer take the next step, and not one of God causing a non-believer to believe.  

After I pointed this out to my ex-pastor who loves using the Lydia example as "proof" of Calvinist predestination/election, he made sure to add something like this to his next sermon about it: "Yeah, it says here that Lydia was a worshipper of God, but she wasn't really saved.  Not until God opened her eyes."  

Really, you don't say!?!  Tell me more, O Wise One, about things that aren't in the Bible! 
 


And Calvinists will point to Luke 24:45, about God opening the minds of the disciples to understand the Scriptures.  But once again, this isn't causing unbelievers to believe.  It's opening the minds of those who already believe to help them grow in their wisdom and faith.

The thing is, Calvinists read into verses things that aren't there.  So if a verse talks about something like God opening someone's eyes, they think it must mean that He caused them to believe, that they couldn't believe before that, that He didn't open other people's eyes, and that if He doesn't open your eyes then you can't believe.  But all of that is reading into the Bible things that aren't there.  It may simply be that God helps us learn and grow and take the next step on our faith journey, a journey that He invites all people to take, a journey that anyone can join if they want to.  It may just be that all the information we need to know is right in front of us, but that God tries to help us see it if we have a hard time seeing it ourselves.

Have you ever met someone that you know you met before, but you can't remember who they are or where you know them from, but then someone says something that suddenly makes you remember everything?  Was the information you needed withheld from you before that?  Were you being deliberately kept in the dark by some mysterious force?  Or did you have all the details you needed somewhere in your head to figure out who it was, but you just weren't able to figure it out without a little help?  

Just because a verse says that God prompts someone or "opens their minds" to help them understand something doesn't mean that He kept them blind before opening their minds or that not opening your mind means He prevents you from seeing the truth.  It might just be that God gives us a little help sometimes to see the things we should be able to see but that we have a hard time seeing for some reason or other.    



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