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

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 - Calvinists' 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)

1. R.C. Sproul Jr. (Almighty Over All): “God wills all things that come to pass"

2. Ligonier Ministries ("How is God's sovereignty compatible with man's responsibility?"): "We have to understand that God is sovereign over all.  He orchestrates all things.  He foreordains all things that come to pass."

3. J.I. Packer ("Predestination: God has a purpose"): "Predestination is a word often used to signify God’s foreordaining of all the events of world history, past, present, and future."

4. John Calvin (Institutes, book 3, chapter 23): "... it is impossible to deny that God foreknew what the end of man was to be before he made him, and foreknew, because he so ordained by his decree."

5. Gordan H. Clark (Predestination): “[Some people] do not wish to extend God’s power over evil things, and particularly over moral evils… [But] the Bible therefore explicitly teaches that God creates sin.”

6. A.W. Pink in Doctrine of Election: "Man is a moral agent, acting according to the desires and dictates of his nature: he is at the same time a creature, fully controlled and determined by his Creator."  [In Calvinism, the desires of man's nature were determined by God, and man cannot change his nature but must act out those desires.  This is how Calvinists can deceptively say "Man 'chooses' what he 'wants' to do, man 'willingly' sins because he 'wants' to sin," even though Calvi-god predetermined, caused, orchestrated it all.]

7. John MacArthur ("Doctrine of Election, part 1"): "You’re guilty.  You’re culpable.  You did it.  You did it with your own will.  But God had predetermined it would be done.  It was set in his predetermined plan and foreknowledge.  That is to predetermine, to foreknow, is not simply to have information about what’s going to happen, but to predetermine it."

8. Edwin Palmer (The Five Points of Calvinism): “All things that happen in all the world at any time and in all history… come to pass because God ordained them.  Even sin– the fall of the devil from heaven, the fall of Adam, and every evil thought, word, and deed in all of history… Foreordination means God’s sovereign plan, whereby He decides all that is to happen in the entire universe… He decides and causes all things to happen that do happen... He has foreordained everything… even sin...”

9. John MacArthur (Divine Providence: The Supreme Comfort of a Sovereign God): "Well of course; [God] controls everything.  He’s in complete control of evil.  The devil is God’s devil; he’s totally controlled by God.  The world is controlled by God.  Every single movement, as R.C. said, of every molecule is controlled by God, and a whole lot of it is evil." 

10. From my ex-pastor's November 2019 sermon about Job (he started this sermon with a true-life story of a young father who died early of cancer): "God is in full control of His universe, including suffering and tragedy... God allows and appoints suffering for His own good reasons... God allows-slash-appoints tragic disasters.  These are really two sides of one coin.  Saying 'God allowed it' is too soft.  God clearly is orchestrating what is going on here [Job's tragedies]... and He ordains suffering for His own good reasons... God is running the universe, and He knows what He's doing, even if we're absolutely confused and grieving at the moment... God ultimately allowed and orchestrated these disasters... [and] in the end [Satan] will find out he did exactly as God sovereignly decreed, under God's sovereign decree."  [In Calvinism, God first preplanned it, and then He "allows" it.  That's not true "allows."]

11. John Calvin (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God): “... how foolish and frail [it is to suggest] that evils come to be, not by His will but by His permission... It is a quite frivolous refuge to say that God otiosely permits them, when Scripture shows Him not only willing, but the author of them... Again it is quite clear from the evidence of Scripture that God works in the hearts of men to incline their wills just as he will, whether to good for his mercy's sake, or to evil according to their merits... Of all the things which happen, the first cause is to be understood to be His will, because He so governs the natures created by Him, as to determine all the counsels and the actions of men to the end decreed by Him..."

12. John Calvin (Institutes of the Christian Religion, book 1, chapters 16-17): 

"everything done in the world is according to His decree"

... “the counsels and wills of men are so governed as to move exactly in the course which he has destined"

... "the devil, and the whole train of the ungodly, are, in all directions, held in by the hand of God as with a bridle, so that they can neither conceive any mischief, nor plan what they have conceived, nor how much soever they may have planned, move a single finger to perpetrate, unless in so far as [God] permits - nay, unless in so far as he commands"

... "...God claims for himself the right of governing the world... [his will is] the most perfect cause of all things..."  

13. Parsons, Ligonier Ministries ("How is God's sovereignty compatible with man's responsibility?"): "We have to understand that God is sovereign over all.  He orchestrates all things.  He foreordains all things that come to pass... God ordains the ends of all things as well as the means of those ends... He ordains our works, our deeds, what we do, what we say, what we believe, and the ends of those things... God is ultimately the One orchestrating all things.  He is permitting, but He is permitting 'not by a bare permission' as the Westminster Confession states... Does God sovereignly, in some mysterious way, permit us to sin (though not by a bare permission)?  Absolutely."  ["Not by bare permission" means that God doesn't just allow us to make truly free-will choices.  He doesn't merely foreknow and allow what we will choose.  But it's that He only "permits" us to do what He first decreed/ordained us to do.  This is why it's not "bare permission," mere permission, but "permission" of only that which He pre-planned and orchestrates.] 

14. Erwin Lutzer (this quote was found at Examining Calvinism): "Calvinists pointedly admit that God ordains evil... we can say that God permitted evil, as long as we understand that he thereby willed that the evil happen... In a word, what God permits, he ordains." (The Doctrines That Divide, pg. 210)

15. Tom Hicks (Founders Ministries, "The Nature of God's Eternal Decree"): "God knows the future because He decrees the future."

16. From my ex-pastor's April 22, 2018 sermon: "Nothing is operating outside of His sovereign decree.  That means that nothing happens in the universe, not even in the origin of sin and evil, without God not only allowing it but ordaining it."

17. From my ex-pastor's July 2023 sermon on Hosea: "[The minor prophets emphasize] God's sovereignty, His absolute reign and jurisdiction, His ordaining of all things that come to pass, for His glory, over the nations, over rulers, over world events, and over our lives, that God foreordains anything that comes to pass..."

18. Jeff Durbin, talking to a woman about evils like gang rape (see clips of it in this review: The Madness of Calvinism, and the full video here: Jeff Durbin Answering 'The Problem of Evil'.): “God actually has a morally sufficient reason for all the evil He plans… nothing happens in the universe apart from His will… He actually decrees all things."

19. Theodore Zachariades (as seen in this clip from Soteriology 101): "God works all things after the counsel of His will, even keeping those kings who want to commit adultery from committing so... and when He wants to, He orders those to commit adultery when HE WANTS TO!"

20. Gordan H. Clark (Religion, Reason, and Revelation): “I wish very frankly and pointedly to assert that if a man gets drunk and shoots his family, it was the will of God that he should do it… Let it be unequivocally said that this view certainly makes God the cause of sin. God is the sole ultimate cause of everything…”

21. James White, in answer to the question: “When a child is raped, is God responsible and did He decree that rape?”, says "... Yes, [He decreed it] because if not, then it's meaningless and purposeless..."     

22. Vincent Cheung (The Problem of Evil): "Scripture teaches that God's will determines everything.  Nothing exists or happens without God, not merely permitting, but actively willing it to exist or happen … God controls not only natural events, but he also controls all human affairs and decisions… God controls everything that is and everything that happens.  There is not one thing that happens that he has not actively decreed – not even a single thought in the mind of man.  Since this is true, it follows that God has decreed the existence of evil, he has not merely permitted it, as if anything can originate and happen apart from his will and power."

23. John Calvin said this in Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God: "... God may be free of guilt in doing the very thing that He condemns in Satan and the reprobate and which is to be condemned by men... For what man wickedly perpetrates, incited by ambition or avarice or lust or some other depraved motive, since God does it by His hand with a righteous though perhaps hidden purpose - this cannot be equated with the term sin.  Sin in man is made by perfidy, cruelty, pride, intemperance, envy, blind love of self, any kind of depraved lust.  Nothing like this is to be found in God." [Translation: "Our motives and natures determine if it's sin or not.  And so what's sin for man and Satan is not sin for God because He doesn't have our sin nature and because the evils He ordains flow from His good character and pure motives, which makes it okay for Him, but not for us."  What kind of bull-dung is this!?!  I mean, seriously!?!]

24. From a Soteriology 101 post called "Frustrated by the state of the world?", non-Calvinist Fromoverhere asked: "But in Calvinism, yesterday's abortion was what God wanted or it would not have happened.  Simple question to you Calvinists: Were yesterday's abortions in your city what God wanted?"

The Calvinist Filemon responded with “The answer is Yes... Now using the negative logic, I ask you, ‘If God hadn’t wanted this abortion to happen, do you think it would ever have happened?’  And as evil as it is, the abortion was no more evil than the death of Jesus, which was the worst sin ever committed on earth.  And I ask you, ‘Who did plan this death and who controlled everything and everybody to fulfil His plan?’"  [Hmm, sounds to me like he's admitting God causes sin.  And notice that he calls what Calvinism's god wanted "evil," and so what does that say about Calvinism's god?  And for the record, God can work our self-made decisions into His plans without preplanning/causing/controlling our decisions.  Only in Calvinism does He have to control our decisions in order to make His plans work out.]

Rhutchin (another Calvinist) affirms Filemon: “Even Fromoverhere knows that God is always present at every abortion and has the power to stop any abortion at any time.  It is God’s choice to have the abortion continue, and because God chooses for the abortion to continue, we say that the abortion was God’s will.  Calvinists say that God made this decision before He created the world so that it was part of His decree to create.”  [A false inference Calvinists make: that because God didn't stop an evil, it means He wanted it and planned it.  It's bad theology built on their bad presuppositions and incorrect definitions of things like sovereignty, God's Will, etc.]

25. From my ex-pastor's August 2022 sermon on suffering and God's love: "[Atheists] argue that the sheer amount of suffering, brutality, carnage, violence, and misery on our planet rule out a loving God... [But] what is the Bible's perspective on God and suffering?... God is all-wise, all-knowing, and all-powerful, and He doesn't owe us any explanations... [God's] providence means He's all-powerful, all-wise, and He governs all things... But providence is more than God just having advanced knowledge... God's providence means His sovereign, wise leading and active directing of all things for His glory, and of all events, everything, the good, the bad, and the ugly." 

26. Mark Talbot/John Piper (from Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, page 42-44): “God brings about all things in accordance with his will.  It isn’t just that God manages to turn the evil aspects of our world to good for those that love him; it is rather that he himself brings about these evil aspects… This includes God’s having even brought about the Nazi’s brutality at Birkenau and Auschwitz as well as the terrible killings of Dennis Nadar and even the sexual abuse of a young child... God speaks and then brings his word to pass; he purposes and then does what he has planned.  Nothing that exists falls outside of God's ordaining will.  Nothing, including no evil person or thing or event or deed.  God's foreordination is the ultimate reason why everything comes about, including the existence of all evil persons and things and the occurrence of any evil acts or events.  And so it is not inappropriate to take God to be the creator, the sender, the permitter, and sometimes even the instigator of evil.”

27. From my ex-pastor's August 2015 sermon about God "ordaining" suffering: "[Some people] say that evil and suffering are the result of [free-will choices]... [But] God is in full control of every detail of the universe, including the suffering, evil, and tragedy in our lives.  [When Calvinists say "God is in control of everything," they mean "God controls everything," which is very different.]

... [We] rush to get God off the hook for human suffering [by saying things like] 'Well, this is not what He really intended; this is not really Plan A.'...  And every time we do that, God puts Himself back on the hook and says, 'I am in charge, thank you, and I will run the universe as I see fit, and I don't owe you an explanation.'

... Are you trusting God in the midst of your past, present, and future in whatever He has ordained and appointed for you as far as suffering, tragedy, abuse, or trials or difficulties or illness or disease or betrayal?... Or are you murmuring against Him?

... You may get an answer someday about why you were abused or why you lost a child or why a spouse walked away.  ["You may get answer why" is another way of saying "God might tell you why He deliberately did it to you."]

... Do you perhaps need to repent of your murmuring and the chip on your shoulder against God, and surrender today and say 'Lord, I don't understand the way You run the universe, and I don't necessarily like it, but You're God and You're good.'... Find refuge and hope in a good and holy God who says 'I have all things under My control.  Everything that's going on in your life, or has gone on in your life, or will, I know about and have ordained for you.  And you can find comfort and hope and trust Me.'"  [Brilliant manipulative-shaming!  So first he tells people that God preplanned and caused them to be abused or cheated on, and then he shames them for being upset about it, accusing them of sinning against God.]  

28. From my ex-pastor's October 2019 sermon on forgiveness: "How you handle and respond to mistreatment, when someone has hurt you, wounded you, lied about you, betrayed you, abused you... directly reflects what [you] really believe about God deep down inside... The Bible teaches that God sometimes strategically uses sinful people in our lives to refine us and humble us, to do His good work in our lives... One of the things the Puritans got really, really well was God's providence, God's sovereignty, God's authority... They understood that God sovereignly chooses to use evil people and sinful people in our lives as believers - if we know Christ - ON PURPOSE to humble us and teach us dependence on Him.  ["Using" evil people is one thing, but controlling evil people is another, and that's exactly what Calvinism teaches.]... God is orchestrating events and He's still sovereign over the process... Biblical forgiveness is an affirmation that God is good and that He has A RIGHT to use ANYBODY in our lives for His purpose, His glory, and for our good... Sometimes He will use evil, sinful people to get us where He wants to get us."  [Translation: "So your tragedies - even childhood abuse - were deliberately orchestrated by God on purpose, for His glory, for your good, and to humble you, so that you can become the person God wants you to be."  Hogwash!]

29. From my ex-pastor's September 13, 2020 sermon on God being in control:"[The doctrine of God's providence] is a huge source of comfort to the people of God because it is a regular reminder that whatever's going on in our lives, even if it's painful, it is being directed by an all-knowing, good and loving and wise heavenly Father, who does everything for His children out of His love.

["Good" - as in "He's a good God" - loses all meaning when it looks and acts just like evil.]

... [But] God will punish those who do the evil to us.  God will punish them.  The Bible serves us notice that no matter what God's Will might be for the decisions and choices of others and how those choices impact our lives [Translation: "no matter what God preplanned, orchestrates, directs, causes others to do to you..."], that in the end, all human beings are accountable for their moral choices and what they do to other people... In other words, there are times when God will seem to will things in one direction...but then it 'appears' God wills something in the exact opposite direction simultaneously.  Here we come to something that theologians throughout history call 'the two wills of God' [unbiblical!]...meaning that when God wills something on one level, He will appear to will its opposite on another level at the same exact time.  [And yet Calvinists trust a dishonest, double-minded, self-opposing god like this!?!]... Do you find it strangely comforting that God's ways are mysterious?"

30. And let's see what Calvinist John Piper's "brilliant" advice is about how we should respond to the evil things that God "ordains" (from this article): "How can we hate what is evil if God has ordained it to happen?  You hate what God wills to happen if he wills that you hate what he wills to happen.  God might will something precisely so that you would hate it... We must be careful not to oversimplify things to where we can't hate something and be thankful for it at the same time.  You can hate something and consider it evil and yet still see it as an expression of God's will."  

31. And some more garbage from John Piper ("What is the will of God and how do we know it?"): "... God is sovereign over all things and yet disapproves of many things.  Which means that God disapproves of some of what he ordains to happen.  That is, he forbids some of the things he brings about.  And he commands some of the things he hinders.  [And yet Calvinists trust a god like that!?!]  Or to put it most paradoxically: God wills some events in one sense that he does not will in another sense.... That’s the first meaning of the will of God: It is God’s sovereign control of all things.  We will call this his 'sovereign will' or his 'will of decree.'  It cannot be broken.  It always comes to pass. ... For example, if you were badly abused as a child, and someone asks you, 'Do you think that was the will of God?' you now have a way to make some biblical sense out of this, and give an answer that doesn’t contradict the Bible.  You may say, 'No it was not God’s will; because he commands that humans not be abusive, but love each other.  The abuse broke his commandment and therefore moved his heart with anger and grief.  But, in another sense, yes, it was God’s will (his sovereign will), because there are a hundred ways he could have stopped it.  But for reasons I don’t yet fully understand, he didn’t.'... But in fact we should not approve of sin or do it, even though it is part of God’s sovereign will."

32. Ligonier Ministries ("Vessels of destruction"): "As Christians in the Reformed tradition, we affirm the biblical view of providence that affirms the world is governed by God’s sovereign ordination... The length of our lives, the color of our hair, your reading of this magazine, and everything else that ever happens was decreed by God."

33. R.C. Sproul in "Discerning God's will: The three wills of God: "[In Calvinism/reformed theology] Whatever God 'permits' He sovereignly and efficaciously wills to permit... He will only permit me to do my worst if my worst coincides with His perfect providential plan."

34. Wayne Grudem (Systematic Theology, pg. 331): "... we confess that we do not understand how it is that God can ordain that we carry out evil deeds and yet hold us accountable for them and not be blamed himself.... Scripture does not tell us."  [They can't understand it because their theology is garbage!]

35. J.I. Packer (Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God): “[God] orders and controls all things, human actions among them…He [also] holds every man responsible for the choices he makes and the courses of action he pursues… Man is a responsible moral agent, though he is also divinely controlled... To our finite minds, of course, the thing is inexplicable.”

36. John Piper ("Has God Predetermined Every Tiny Detail in the Universe, Including Sin?"): “Has God predetermined every tiny detail in the universe, such as dust particles in the air and all of our besetting sins? Yes… Yes, every horrible thing and every sinful thing is ultimately governed by God… He controls everything, and he does it for his glory and our good.”

No wonder there are so many atheists out there!  What do you expect when people are taught that this is what God's really like!?!

37. Jonathan Edwards ("Remarks on Important Theological Controversies, Chapter III"): "It cannot be any injustice in God to determine who is certainly to sin, and so certainly to be damned... God has decreed every action of men, yea, every action that is sinful, and every circumstance of those actions... It can be made evident by reason, that nothing can come to pass, but what it is the will and pleasure of God should come to pass... It is a contradiction to say, he wills it, and yet does not choose it..."  [If you read this work of Edwards, you'll see it's a bunch of philosophical ramblings, one bad idea leading to another.  And yet Calvinists claim that Calvinism is all right from the Bible and that they don't use philosophy or "human logic" to determine truth.  (Hahaha, good joke!)]  

38. From my ex-pastor's March 2014 sermon about finding hope in hard times: “God is on the throne!  Random evil doesn’t just happen to people... God is in control of each aspect of every detail... We’ve had people betray, lie, steal, vilify, slander, and do unspeakable things to us.  Some of us have undergone horrific abuse at the hands of parents or aunts or uncles or brothers.  God is sovereign over those who seek to harm us... That means, friends, that there is no such thing as random evil or random acts of tragedy.... John Flavel in The Mystery of God’s Providence says '… In all the sad and afflictive providences that befall you, eye God as the author.  Set before you the sovereignty of God…'  Amen!?!”  [No!  Not Amen!  Not with the way Calvinists define sovereignty.]

39. John MacArthur again, in "Why does God allow so much suffering?": "He's absolutely in charge of everything.  Everything.  He controls everything... He is governing history in every minute detail.  There's not one molecule in the universe that's out of line with His purposes.... So, while liberal theology and assorted other so-called evangelicals [hear the insult, discrediting those who don't see it his way] feel desperately the need to rescue God from [being the cause of evil and suffering], God is quite content to make it clear that He is, in fact, unhesitatingly sovereign over everything that exists, without a hint of reluctance.  He's not asking to be rescued from bad press that's fallen upon Him because He's been blamed for all the bad things that are in the world... He's content to leave the responsibility for evil's existence and even its action, with Himself... God wills evil to exist.... Again, and again, God takes full responsibility for the existence of evil unfolding in this world.... The reason God ordained evil is for His glory.  We praise Him because of what He has done to overcome evil."  [Uhh, so we praise Him for "overcoming" the evil that He Himself planned and caused (isn't that a little schizophrenic, duplicitous, and self-defeating?), the evil He preplanned us to do, but then commanded us not to do, but then causes us to do, and then punishes us for!?!]

... You either believe in the God who is in complete control of evil, or you believe evil is in control of God, and He's reacting to it the best He can.  [First of all, he means that God controls evil, not just is "in control" of evil, which is very different.  And second of all, it's a false dichotomy to say that God must control evil or else evil would control Him, as if those are the only two possible options.] 

40. And finally, from my ex-pastor's June 2022 sermon about Joseph and forgiveness: "Today we are going to be talking about one of the hardest things a human being can be called on to do, and that is to forgive someone who's abused them.  Some of you have been horrifically abused and treated horribly by somebody.  All of us have been betrayed at some point in our life, intentionally targeted, treated unjustly, someone has been cruel to us.  And the question is 'How do you forgive them?'... And here's the key: My choice at that point - how I choose to respond to someone who has abused me - shows what I really think about God... All of our bitterness is ultimately traceable to resentment of God.  Why?  Because it was God who brought these circumstances into our lives in the first place, painful as they may be... And if I'm going to say 'I will not forgive this person. I'm going to hold it over their head,' then what I'm saying is 'No matter what You decided, Lord, no matter how You arranged this, You're the one that's guilty.  And I am bitter and resentful towards God.'... God is fully sovereign and in control, and He is good," [Calvinists have a very weird definition of "good"!]

I mean, seriously, what's there to misunderstand here!?!

In Calvinism, God "ordained, foreordained, predetermined, determines, orchestrates, directs, controls, creates, wills, wants, instigates, arranges, plans, carries out" all sin and evil. 

All of these other words are to say "God is the author and causer of sin and evil" without actually having to say "God is the author and causer of sin and evil."

Imagine a man saying "Well, I routinely pick up a baseball bat and whack my wife in the head with it until she passes out all black-and-blue."  But when you say, "Oh, so you abuse your wife," he replies "No, I never said I abuse her.  You're putting words in my mouth."  

So yes, Calvinists are telling the truth: They usually don't say that God causes sin and evil.  The more honest ones do, but most are smart enough to not come right out and say it because they know it will alarm people and invite resistance and pushback.  And so they teach it in other less-obvious, less-alarming ways, using every other word they can think of, hoping that we'll believe that they're not teaching what they really are.  

As the Calvinist's beloved Westminster Confession of Faith says: "God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin."  

But merely claiming that your theology doesn't make God the author/causer of sin doesn't mean your theology really doesn't make God the author/causer of sin, any more than a man claiming he's not abusing his wife while hitting her with a baseball bat means he's really not abusing his wife.  It's hogwash!  Deceptive hogwash.  (And it's lawyer tricks, which is right up John Calvin's alley.)  

Sadly, most Christians in the church don't know to be alarmed by or on alert for (or how to identify) the Calvinism that's seeping into their church, often deceptively and strategically, through stealth Calvinist pastors who say one thing but mean another.  

And because it takes too much time and effort for us to double-check what our pastors are teaching us... and because they sound so educated and confident and forceful... and because they went to seminary and visited Israel and can understand Greek and have giant theology books on their shelves... and because they call themselves "biblical" and claim to have a "high view of Scripture" and "a God-centered theology" and to be preaching "right from the Bible"... and because we're unaware of their bad definitions and twisted use of Scripture and their secondary layers underneath the surface layers... and because we don't want to be a "biblically-ignorant, unhumble, God-dishonoring, glory-stealing, divisive troublemaker" like those "bad Christians" who disagree with their Calvinist pastors... we just nod our heads and say "Sounds good" and go along with it.  (Which is exactly what they want.)

Calvinist pastors and theologians must think we're idiots, easily-manipulated idiots who will easily accept whatever contradictions they come up with and their claims of "But we're not saying that!  You don't understand!"  (However, seeing as how effectively Calvinism has taken over many good, well-meaning Christians and churches... hmm, I wonder😏.) 

In fact, I think the deceptive tactics of Calvinism are so strong and effective that Calvinists have even tricked themselves into thinking that they're not teaching what they really are.  So they're not necessarily trying to be deceptive for deception's sake.  They truly believe it because they've handed their sense-making skills over to a persuasive Calvinist and allowed themselves to be spoon-fed garbage.

And now they're spoon-feeding it to others - shaming other trusting Christians into ignoring our red flags and alarm bells, gaslighting us into distrusting our judgment and our ability to understand the Bible, manipulating us into reading the Bible through Calvinist lenses, tricking us into thinking that Calvinism's contradictions are really just "mysteries we can't understand on this side of eternity anyways, so don't question it or try to understand it," and bullying us into being silent and falling in line with everyone else by convincing us that "good, God-honoring, humble Christians don't pushback against what they're being taught but simply accept it, even if they can't understand it and think it sounds bad."  

And many of us have fallen for it and swallowed Calvinism's deceptive, disgusting, destructive theology hook, line, and sinker, without pushback, which is why it's taken over so many churches.  

(Do you understand how cults work?  See my "9 Marks of a Calvinist Cult."

I mean, seriously, Calvinists.  Do you not wonder how you got to the point where you can - with a straight face - affirm that God foreordains, predetermines, plans, orchestrates, decrees, directs, wills, causes all sin, evil, abuse, suffering, etc.?  Does that not alarm you just a little bit and make you wonder if you're missing something or got something severely wrong?  Think seriously about this because someday you'll have to stand before God and defend those views and what you taught others about Him.)