Vol. 3, Issue 3

Summer 2009

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Portrait of John Calvin (1509-1564)
by Ary Scheffer

Calvinism: Introduction

Part 1:
Total Depravity

Part 2:
Unconditional Election

Part 3:
Irresistible Grace

Part 4:
Perseverance of the Saints

Part 5:
Limited Atonement

Names, Part II

Primum Mobile is a quarterly web magazine. This issue and all its contents are © Copyright 2004-2009 by the editors. All rights reserved.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.

Calvinism

by Paul Lytle

Can I explain something before we begin? I could not have chosen this life for myself. I was so self-absorbed, so proud, so stuck in myself that I could never have looked outside myself long enough to choose God without some outside help.

Somehow, along the way, I became a Christian, grew in Christ, started taking a look around outside myself, began trying to learn and teach about Him, and became very much unlike the way I was before.

Who did that?

In a very real way, I did it. I remember very clearly praying on a highway in Stafford, Texas, in repentance for Christ to save me. I prayed that prayer, and I meant it. Whenever I pick up the Bible or a Christian book to learn more, it is me picking it up. Whenever I talk to someone about Jesus, or I write about Jesus, it is me doing these things. In a real way, it is me doing it.

But in a real way, it is not me at all. I did something that was impossible for me to do. How can I account for this? I account for it by saying that there was Another who was doing it with me.

I cannot recall ever meeting a Christian (at least a Christian who had been Christian for any significant period of time) who claimed credit for saving himself. Maybe I have, but I do not recall it. Even those who fight so fiercely against Calvinism will back down on this subject. You begin to ask them how it was that they were smart enough, enlightened enough, and wise enough to choose God when so many others — even Nobel Prize winners, insightful philosophers, brilliant scientists, devoted historians, and wise men from all nations — missed it, and they will back down. Deep down, they know that they could not have done it themselves, just like I could not have done it.

Like C. S. Lewis, they were dragged kicking and screaming into the Kingdom.

The particular beliefs I will discuss in this issue of the magazine are collectively known as “Calvinism,” after John Calvin, the amazing 16th century Reformer and Theologian. The ideas are much older than he, but he articulated them very well.

These beliefs have brought about a lot of criticism. Some say that Calvinism makes God into a tyrant, that it takes away the freedom of man. That it suggests that God damns people to hell.

In truth, I think that people who make these accusations have a much too small understanding of God. They think of God too much like a man. If one person does something, they claim, another cannot have done it also. Well, there are things that are true with man that are not so true with God. Two men cannot be the father of a person, but in a very real sense can a man be the father and God be the Father of the same person. A man cannot be both man and another thing at once, but Jesus can be both God and man.

As you read these interconnected essays, I just ask that you have an open mind to the largeness of our God. Do not judge Him by our constraints, because they do not exist for Him. This vision of God is something very large, very majestic, and very much impossible for a man. But then, God is not a man, and is not limited in the same ways.

As you read them, and I do hope that you do, be aware of the urging of your heart to be bigger and more important. Be aware of that tugging that tells you not to believe this because this doctrine focuses too much on God and too little on you. Be aware of that, because it is that very tugging that will keep you from becoming completely transformed by Him. Come to these essays in humility, and I believe you will find a God big and wonderful and powerful and very much worthy to be called God.

But it must be in humility that you come, because these ideas will ask you to think of yourself as very small, and of God as very large. That is ultimately the point of Calvinism — that the glory, all of it, should be God’s. And if you object to these things, please ask yourself if your objections give glory to God or to yourself. If those objections are made for God’s glory, then we can talk. If they are made to give man more glory, then you have another problem we need to deal with.

As you read them, please test them against the Word of God. I will attempt to support every point with Scripture to make that testing a little easier on you, but it is your job to test everything. Besides which, it is only by looking at the Word that you will be convinced one way or another. If my words can sway you so easily, then you need to examine your relationship with your Bible.

A great many people over the centuries have misunderstood these doctrines. For some who come across them, they are terrible and haunting. For most of us though, I believe that they are freeing, hopeful, and wondrous. Because of them, I look to my Lord with more awe, more reverence, more love, and more humility.

If that is the desire of your heart, then let’s begin.

There are five points of Calvinism:

Total Depravity
Unconditional Election
Limited Atonement
Irresistible Grace
Perseverance of the Saints

What follows are five essays, meant to be read in connection with the others, that describe these points. I will attempt to show some Scripture from which we get these ideas and answer some objections that people have historically had with them.

Objections

Speaking of objections, we should probably look at a couple right away.

Should we really be designating ourselves as followers of Calvin? Shouldn’t our beliefs come from the Bible rather than a later theologian?

We do not call it Calvinism because Calvin thought all of this up. We do not call ourselves Calvinist because we are followers of Calvin. Paul warns us against following anyone except Christ, and the point is a very good one. Actually, we call it “Calvinism” because Calvin was really good at explaining this truth he found in the Bible.

The designation of “Calvinism” is unfortunate, since even those who will deny that it is biblical will confess that it goes back much farther than John Calvin. But I am not a follow of Calvin. The sources I will quote in these articles do not come from Calvin, but from the Bible. Calvin did not even introduce me to this doctrine, and if I did not find them in Scripture, I would not be writing this now. In fact, the doctrine does not even call attention to Calvin, but to God.

If the name of the thing bothers you, let us call these points “Reformed theology” or “the Doctrines of Grace.” If you take John Calvin out of it completely, the truths remain the same.

Which I think was the point Paul was making in the first place, not that we do not listen to teachers, but that we follow Christ. If there were no Paul, Christ would be the same. If there were no Calvin, I believe these doctrines would stand.

Why are we even talking about this? Shouldn’t we be keeping things to the basics of Christianity rather than going off into theology?

I cannot tell you how many Christians cringe at the mention of the word “theology,” as though it were something to fear. Theology simply means your beliefs about God. Everyone has a theology, because everyone thinks something about God.

But it bothers me that so many Christians don’t want to delve deeper into who God is. You claim to love Him; why don’t you want to learn about Him? What if I said that I knew my wife’s hair color and height, but I really didn’t need to know anything else about her? Do I really know anything else? I mean, I have the basics down, right?

Hopefully, you’d scold me soundly if I said something like this. I love my wife, so I should, by the very fact that I love her, want to know more about her. It shouldn’t be a chore at all! It should be something I want to do.

Why is it any different with God? If I claim to love Him, then I should want to learn more of Him.

The writer of Hebrews had the same problem:

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

-Hebrews 5:12-14

So we are doing this to learn about Him. In doing so, we’re going to be delving into some solid food. I do not think this journey will be boring or dull. It’s not for me. But more than that, we are doing it to give Him glory, which is rather the point anyway.

The Doctrines of Grace reveal to us a little of God’s awesome power, sovereignty, and love. They focus us on Him rather than ourselves. The more we point to Him, the more glory He receives, and that is exactly what we should be doing in this magazine and in every day.

These Doctrines will challenge you to see Him in His astonishing power. They will ask you to surrender yourself to Him in every way. They will bid you come and follow the God of Creation.