The Anti-Calvinist Rant

This is point #6 from "Problems in John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion" : Chapter 17 and Chapter 18 (Institutes, Book 1) are about Calvin trying to make sense out of how God can be the "cause" of evil yet not be held accountable for evil, how we are "controlled" by God yet can be held accountable for what we do.   In Chapter 17, section 5 , Calvin addresses the dilemma of "If God controls us and we do the evil He wills us to do, why is He not accountable for it?  Why are we?"  As I said before, Calvin's problem is his view of sovereignty and God's control.  Calvin causes his own theological problems by assuming that God causes all things - even sin - and so he has to then try to explain how we can be held accountable for the things God causes and how God cannot be held accountable for the sin/evil/unbelief He causes. But you can't make sense out of nonsense!  So it's just ends up being a bunch of ra...

This is point #5 from "Problems in John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion" : Calvin manipulates people into agreeing with him in subtle ways: reminding us of how small our minds are, how incapable we are of comprehending God and how God works (after, of course, teaching us all about his own grand, inspired ideas of who God is and how God works), and telling us that if we resist believing what he says, it's because we are rebellious or small-minded. Calvinists do this same kind of thing today.  They get you to agree with them (or at least to shut up if you disagree) by convincing you that you simply don't - can't - understand what the Bible really says and so you just have to trust them, that you are questioning God if you question them, that you are being proud and unhumble if you disagree with them, etc.  (See " Predestination Manipulation" and "What's The Best Way To Make People Agree With Your Calvinist Views" an...

This is a section from my post "Problems in John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion."   I wanted to break that long post up into smaller sections long ago, but I never got around to it, until now. This is Point #4 from the original post: Calvin adds things that aren't in the Bible (at least not in our translations of the Bible). Such as (these are just a couple examples), in Book 1, Chapter 16, section 5, he refers to Matthew 10:29 by saying, "Not a sparrow falls to the ground without the will of his Father."   However, he basically added the word "will," which makes it sound more like God willed the sparrow to die, that every time anything happens it's because God actively willed it to happen.  But there is only one translation I can find that has the word "Father's will" in it, the World English translation.  Every other one just says something like "apart from the Father" or "the ...