The Errors of Calvin

The five points of traditional Calvinism, although mainly directed against Arminians, form the foundational basis of their (Calvinist's) entire concept of justification and the answer to the ancient question: "what must I do to be saved?". Their answer, though, besides being a new doctrine developed 1500 years after Jesus' Revelation to his Church, also directly contradicts much of what is written in Scripture. 

Article 1. First of all, Calvin believed in Total Depravity (the T of TULIP). What does this mean? "There never yet was any work of a religious man which, examined by God's severe standard would not be condemnable" (Inst. III, 14,11). In other words, everything we do, even righteous works, is sin, and God commanded impossibilities when He commanded us not to sin. Our free will is not free, for it cannot desire good. Again, “Man, by his fall Into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation…" (Westminster Confession IX, 3). These three words, wholly, all, and any, in this statement leave absolutely no room for any movement of our will toward life or goodness. But is this what the Bible teaches?

     "Consider that I have set before thee this day life and good, and on the other hand death and evil." - Deut 30:15

     "If you be willing, and will hearken to me, you shall eat the good things from the land." - Is 1:19

     "And to this people thou shalt say: Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I set before you the way of life, and the way of            death." - Jer 21:8

    "I will shew thee, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requireth of thee: Verily, to do judgment, and to love mercy, and to walk solicitous with thy God." - Micah 6:8

    "Who said: Cornelius, a centurion, a just man, and one that feareth God , and having good testimony from all the nations of the Jews…" - Acts 10:22  (A just, God fearing man, who was neither Jewish, nor had heard of Jesus)

    "For when the Gentiles, who do not have the Law, do by nature those things that are of the Law; these having not    the Law are a law to themselves: who shew the work of the Law written in their hearts." - Ro 2 14-15

    "The time is accomplished, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent, and believe the Gospel." - Mar 1:15

The entire Revelation of God is utterly worthless if we are without any power of our will to hear, receive, or assent to Truth. It is a waste of time. Preaching is worthless, for we cannot repent. Repentance is worthless, for we cannot will anything good. Futility.

What is true about original sin? 

"Although it is proper to each individual, original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence". Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ's grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle." - Catechism of the Catholic Church, para 405

Article 2: Unconditional Election - In a nutshell, everyone is either elect from all eternity, based on nothing more than a decree of God, or doomed from all eternity, brought into existence by God for the sole purpose of being punished forever. Nothing we can do can effect this in any way. So what are we arguing about? Let's all just go home and shoot ourselves.

"All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is pleased, in his appointed and accepted  time, effectually to call, by his Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ…" - Westminster Confession Ch X, par 1

"This effectual call is of God's free and special grace alone, not from any thing at all foreseen in man, who is altogether passive therein…" WC, Ch X, par 2

"Others, not elected, although they may be called by the ministry of the Word, and may have some common operations of the Spirit, yet they never truly come to Christ, and therefore can not be saved…" WC, Ch X par 4

The key takeaway from this phrasing is that the unelect "CAN NOT BE SAVED". Everything depends entirely on God's eternal decree, and nothing else. Preaching does not effect this, our own will does not effect this, nothing. We do not cooperate whatsoever with God. We are "altogether passive".

This point is rather clearly false biblically:

1. God takes no pleasure in the death or damnation of anyone, even the wicked.

     "Is it my will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live?" - Ezek 18:23

     "As surely as I live, saith the Lord God, I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way, and live." - Ezek 33:11 (God here swears by Himself, the greatest of all oaths)

     "…God our Savior, who will have that all men should be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the Truth." - 1   Tim 2:4

     "The Lord delayeth not his promise, as some imagine, but dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance." - 2 Pt 3:9

2. Unconditional Reprobation means that God predestines the reprobate to Hell unconditionally, that is, for no other reason than His own pleasure.

3. For God to do this would be contrary to His nature as He revealed it (see point 1).

     "God is not a man, that He should lie, nor as a son of man, that he should change…" - Num 23:19

     "For I am the Lord, and I change not…" - Mal 3:6

Article 3: Limited Atonement. It was meditating on this article that really prompted me to write against Calvin's errors today, because this one especially makes a lie out of the Gospel. This article claims that Christ died only for the sins of the eternally elect and no one else. "Wherefore, they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by His Spirit working in due season, are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by His power, through faith, unto salvation.Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only." WC, Ch III, par 6. In other words, if you are not among the elect Christ did not die for your sins. That is the core of why this doctrine is offense to the Gospel. We are commanded to proclaim the good news! We are to proclaim to all that Jesus loves them and died for their sins. For a Calvinist, such a proclamation is a lie, at least some of the time. Coupled with the previous doctrine of Unconditional Election, it becomes a futile lie. This the Calvinist Gospel: "Hey, Jesus might have died for your sins! If he did, that's great, because it means you're elect! You are already saved from all eternity no matter what you do! If not, too bad. You cannot receive grace, and you are doomed. Have a nice day!" All italics are mine:

    "Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who taketh away the sin of the world." - Jn 1:29

     "For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting." - Jn 3:16

     "And God indeed having winked at the times of this ignorance, now declareth unto men, that all should everywhere do penance." - Acts 17:30

     "And Christ died for all; that they also who live, may not now live to themselves, but unto him who died for them, and rose again." - 2 Cor 5:15

     "For therefore we labor and are reviled, because we hope in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of the faithful." - 1 Tim 4:10

     "But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there shall be among you lying teachers, who shall bring in sects of perdition, and deny the Lord who bought them: bringing upon themselves swift destruction." 2 Pt 2:1

     "And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world." - 1 Jn 2:2

On account of the length of this post, I will save Irresistible Grace and Perserverence of the Saints for another day. The main point is that if just one of these articles are false, then all of them are false. And all of them are clearly innovations, being introduced 1500 years too late to be God-given, and clearly contradict Scripture at many points, besides demeaning the nature of God. Yet Calvin, the inventor of these novelties, had the audacity to burn 58 people to death at the stake in a four year period for "being heretics", i.e. disagreeing with his made-up doctrines that were themselves heresy. This is in a town of 16,000 people. By contrast, if the Catholic Church had executed a comparable percentage of their Church (estimating an approximate European population of 50 million), that would be 170,000 people burned for heresy in four years, to say nothing of torture, imprisonment, flogging, public humiliation and other Genevan punishments for infractions such as playing cards or not attending public sermons or singing lewd songs. Way to go, Calvin...

The Foundation Stone

When Christ said to St Peter, "You are Rock, and on this Rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it", he was not merely referring to something strong and unshakeable as a foundation. It is that, but it is much more. He was making reference to the Foundation Rock on which the old Temple was built. Just as the old Temple was built on a special Rock, so the new Church will be established forever on a better Rock foundation. Just what was the old Foundation Rock?

    If you have ever heard of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, you have heard of the Foundation Rock. It is the same Rock. The Moslems built a shrine over it in the 7th century. It is actually a huge slab of exposed bedrock, upon which the Temple of Solomon was originally built. There is a great deal of Jewish tradition about this Rock, though, that is very pertinent to the words of Jesus. The Apostles were certainly familiar with these traditions, although the significance is mostly lost on Christians nowadays.

    In Hebrew tradition, the Temple was built on this bedrock slab, called Even ha-shetiya in Hebrew. This Foundation Stone, which is what the Hebrew words mean, was the floor of the Holy of Holies in the Temple, and the Ark of the Covenant stood upon it. Before it was the Temple, though, it was the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, which King David purchased from him and built an altar upon it. It was on this altar where he made the sacrifice that stemmed the slaughter of Jerusalem by the Angel of the Lord (2 Sam 24:16-24). It is also the site of the altar where Abraham prepared to sacrifice Isaac (Gen 22:1-19). According to Jewish rabbis and the Zohar, this Foundation Stone was originally part of Yahweh's throne, which He detached and hurled to earth when He had finished Creation, where it plugged up the abyss of chaos and the realm of the underworld. Underneath the Rock, there is a cave with a shaft cut into it, which is called the Well of the Souls, or Bir el Arweh in Arabic. According to ancient Hebrew legend, this shaft leads to the underworld and the abode of the dead, and the Foundation Stone on which the Temple was built acts as a plug or capstone, to prevent the chaos of the abyss from welling out into this world. Echoes of this theme may be found in several places in the Old Testament, such as Job 38:4-11. It is this shaft to the Abyss, the chaos of the underworld, that is referenced in Rev 9:1. 

     In this light, the words of Christ to the Jewish Apostles in Matt 16, take on fuller meaning. "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it". Christ's promise to his Church echoes the familiar legend of the ancient Foundation Rock. Yet his words are no legend; they are Truth itself, and they speak of a better Rock, a more sure foundation, which will keep the forces of evil and chaos at bay until the end of time. It is his holy Church, unshakeable, founded on Peter and preserved by his successors as solid Rock, which Christ, the true Wise Man, built his house upon.