The theology of Calvinism has been summed up by my priest as the following: "Calvinism is what happens when you let lawyers do theology." While I may not agree with the use of the phrase, it started to let me realize that there was much more to Calvinism these days. If you don't know, I wrote an article a while back on how I am no longer a Calvinist due to some issues I had with the theology after studying church history, becoming part of the Episcopal Church and getting more in touch with the Bible. I do not forget nor am I unthankful for my time as a Calvinist, but I must be aware of the issues that do arise from this theology that make me no longer adhere to this system.
My issue of the critique is not necessarily just with the system of Calvinism itself, but also the church members who have now grown to become some of the well spoken representatives of it today. This includes people such as James R. White, Steven Lawson, Voddie Baucham, Joel Webbon, Jeff Durbin and others who have helped to become not just merely Calvinists, but also the representatives of Calvinism. My issue is that these gentlemen and the people they have influenced have become moreso a danger not just to Christianity, but also to become a danger to Calvinism as well. I think if we didn't get their current popularity and attitude, Calvinism might be at a much better place in the history of the Church.
Another point I will make is that the issue deals also with their handling and understanding of subjects that also brings about people like The Idol Killer and Provisionist Perspective that have attempted to not just engage in historical revisionism of the church, but also to engage in sinful acts without repentance that have caused them to appeal to the Calvinists as a justification of their doctrine. Let us begin the criticism of Calvinism
1. Limited Atonement
Limited Atonement is probably one of the most controversial of the doctrines even among other Calvinists such as Norman Geisler. Limited Atonement is easily defined as the doctrine in which God has not died for the whole world, but only for the elect of God. This has led the Canons of Dort to define as an error those who "teach that God the Father appointed his Son to death on the cross without a fixed and definite plan to save anyone by name, so that the necessity, usefulness, and worth of what Christ’s death obtained could have stood intact and altogether perfect, complete and whole, even if the redemption that was obtained had never in actual fact been applied to any individual."
My problem is not necessarily with the elements of Christ dying for a limited case, since I at least appeal that Christ died for the Church, in which the members of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church are of the elect, which puts it into a perspective of a corporate election. However, the problem with Limited Atonement may be seen in trying to engage with some apologetic responses to some passages. We can affirm John 3:16 which teaches the following: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life." The issue with this passage is in the emphasis on Calvinists also quoting Romans 9 and others to refer to some like Esau being hated or that God hates sinners (Psalm 5:5). The problem here is that if one wishes to use this to show that God hates, then it falls into a logical inconsistency with John 3:16. Some respond that God loving the world or "god loves the world in this way" refers to God loving all kinds of people by ethnicity and gender. The problem is that this means there is elect among the world, but then there is still some that God would "hate" based on their argument.
Another issue comes from an interpretation usually adopted by some of the cage stage Calvinists, a set of Calvinists who are so new to it and will fight tooth and nail to defend Calvinism as the ultimate Christian doctrine. A. W. Pink, a Calvinist Bible teacher, once wrote the following on his interpretation of John 3:16's use of the word "world": "In 2 Peter 2:5, we read of "the world of the ungodly." If then, there is a world of the ungodly; there must also be a world of the godly." The problem with this is that this is not found in Thayer's Greek Lexicon or many of the other recent lexicons of the word "kosmos" in the Koine Greek text. Luckily, many Calvinists have done their best to abandon this argument, but an "elect" few have decided to keep to using this very dated and debunked argument.
Limited Atonement has, in my opinion, a stumbling block for the open air preacher personally. I will say that I do not see Limited Atonement as a false gospel or a means to suggest an inconsistency in preaching to everybody. The Canons of Dort do state that "it is the promise of the gospel that whoever believes in Christ crucified shall not perish but have eternal life. This promise, together with the command to repent and believe, ought to be announced and declared without differentiation or discrimination to all nations and people, to whom God in his good pleasure sends the gospel." However, my one complaint is on how the preacher must then word the Gospel. When I street preached, I didn't really struggle that much, but I did have to be careful of saying "Christ died for you" because I didn't know that for sure under the Limited Atonement theory. I think this can be even more problematic if somebody needing comfort needs to know this as a way to come to Christ.
Limited Atonement finds itself in a situation where while it can be found among some early church fathers (Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Irenaeus, Tertullian and Lactantius for example), there are also other fathers who did not ascribe to this particular doctrine. Which leads me to my next point.
2. Consistent Historical Attestation
When it comes to the doctrines of Calvinism, there isn't much affirmation of the five points of Calvinism consistently and this is something I struggled with when beginning my inquiry to the early church fathers. One could find areas of Total Depravity and Perseverance of the Saints in Clement of Rome, but not much on Irresistible Grace or Unconditional Election. The same can be applied for the doctrine of Limited Atonement lacking in Athanasius of Alexandria, while he still adhered to certain elements of Calvinistic predestination and Total Depravity. However, the issue is that there is no consistent pattern of full blown five point Calvinism of the key doctrines.
I will point out that even Augustine, who many like to claim is the inventor of Calvinism, is not even really a Calvinist. If one reads Augustine truly, they will see that he affirmed free will theology that seems contrary to Total Depravity as well as he does not seem to affirm Limited Atonement. It truly does boggle my mind how many want to pin him as one, including the Anti-Calvinists who paint him as such because I guess it seems easier? Really unsure of what kind of points they are trying to score here.
Furthermore, this is what has helped to become a big issue for me in determining what my particular soteriology should be? I like to consider my view to be a unique blending and mixing of both Arminianism and Calvinism since you can find a mix of both in the writings of the early church fathers (including Augustine). I cannot say the same for Molinism since there was no discussion of the topic of Middle Knowledge as a concept or a particular doctrine until around the time of Molina. Same thing for Open Theism since the doctrines of Open Theism admit themselves to being focused on being newer innovations rooted in being opposed to Classical Theism. Some have suggested Open Theism may have doctrines similar to Gnosticism or polytheism, but I am not going to make any accusations or inquiries on that yet.
Calvinists might raise an objection to this and go "Calvinism can be found partially in all of the early fathers which means the five points are proven to be orthodox in history." That might be correct, but the same is for Arminianism too. Hence, my issue would be in the idea of Calvinism being unable to prove itself consistently. Which is why I do not think four point Calvinism or even a hypothetical lower point holding of Calvinism is inconsistent or problematic anymore. I would hence just simply call my soteriology Anglican or Episcopalian, especially the latter due to the flexibility of doctrinal affirmations.
Another go to argument would be "who cares about the church fathers since it's scripture that matters." While I do affirm Sola Scriptura, we need to be considering tradition as the early reformers did since that was the purpose of the Reformation, not just to be consistent with scripture, but also tradition. In fact, even the Westminster of Confession's first chapter says that "all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined." We are to test these things with scripture, but we should be familiar with them and examine them. Furthermore, to disregard the early church fathers is to be comfortable with the idea that our doctrine is a brand new invention and interpretation when the idea of the reformers is to suggest it isn't an invention, but a historic doctrine.
3. Permitting Heresy
This is a really serious issue since the problem of rejecting many discussions on Mary or statements on her in the confessions and creeds of Calvinism have led there to be several Calvinist teachers to be espousing heresy. Not that Calvinism itself is a heresy, but that there is heresy among many of it's strongest advocates due to the lack of doctrinal binding in the creeds and confessions of the Calvinists exclusively. Certain examples of this include the idea of Nestorianism and especially Iconoclasm. We discussed Iconoclasm in the previous article, but Nestorianism is the rejection of Mary as the Theotokos (Mother of God) because Mary did not give birth to the divine. Iconoclasm is something which is really important in this case since John Calvin (although not the founder of Calvinism, is very significant to it's theology) had made it clear that he rejected the use of icons. Luckily, several small voices in the Calvinist ranks are calling for a renunciation of this heresy among their ranks.
For Nestorianism, we look no further than with John MacArthur, a popular Calvinist bible teacher and pastor. In one sermon entitled "The Blood of Christ," we read that he says the following: "One pastor said to me, “He had the blood of God.” I said, “What is the blood of God?” He said, “Divine blood.” I said, “God is a spirit, that was the blood of Christ, that was the blood of a man, He was one hundred percent man.” It’s heretical to call the blood of Jesus Christ the blood of God, and it demonstrates a failure to understand what theologians have called the hypostatic union, that is the God-man union in Christ." What John MacArthur is doing is an actual failure to understand the hypostatic union because Nestorious made a similar claim and was opposed to the hypostatic union by making an extreme distinction of Christ into two persons of Christ, not two natures. Furthermore, we have the following in "Exposing the Idolatry of Mary Worship" where we read: "In fact, Roman Catholics refer to her as Theotokos, God-bearer. They say she gave birth to God and thus is to be elevated and adored. She gave birth to God. That is a terrible misconception. She gave birth to Jesus in his humanity. She did not give birth to God. God was never born." This goes contrary to not just the Bible with the deity of Christ, but even goes contrary to the doctrine of the Trinity as laid out in the Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed and Chalcedonian Definition. Favoring, instead, the heresy condemned at the Council of Ephesus.
Calvinism also has a strong room for permission for a classical heresy known as Iconoclasm. In fact, John Calvin was very much in favor of Iconoclasm and didn't just want there to be no icons, but even the lack of any Christian art and symbols were to be removed. This to me shows that there is a reason why there is not much on the doctrines of iconography or Christian art found in the Calvinist writings since it does not want to have to affirm officially the statement of heresy condemned at the Second Council of Nicaea. The fact that we can just permit this to go by as if it isn't heresy while still permitting the accusation of Pelagianism just baffles my mind. Speaking of, this leads to my next problem.
4. Misunderstanding Actual Heresy
I remember the days where we just literally threw the accusation of Pelagianism towards anything teaching synergism or free will just because that was what we were taught on what was actually Pelagianism. Pelagianism is moreso dealing with a heresy of teaching sinless perfectionism where people were born sinless and can therefore live a life of sinless living without ever committing any sins (despite him admitting nobody during his time was sinless, including himself). While I plan to do an article refuting Pelagianism, I will hold my critiques for this heresy and the heretic who taught it for now.
However, because of this constant false alarm being called by several Calvinists from the old to the new, we now see the rise of a very Anti-Calvinist movement of historical revisionism by people like Idol Killer and Provisionist Perspective as well as Leighton Flowers who even uses the accusation of the Boogeyman Fallacy on the modern accusation of Pelagianism (despite the Boogeyman Fallacy not even being an actual fallacy). While it is a shame that these people have tried to go towards a historical revisionist route, I have to put the blame on the Calvinists too for also getting history wrong with Pelagianism.
It shows how Calvinism has a historical literacy problem where we aren't familiar with church history enough that we just make blatant accusations in the same way that people will throw around the n*zi term without any understanding of what the actual context of that term is. I find it problematic that Calvinists are going to have an issue with people citing early church fathers, while yet they cite early church fathers and traditions to condemn others of Pelagianism while clearly not having actually studied what this is.
Pelagianism is certainly heresy because Pelagius taught that everybody is born without a sinful nature and thus everybody is born sinless and we can live without sin. This not only is heresy by the sense of the tradition, but it also goes contrary to what 1 John teaches in the first two chapters, especially when it says if "we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." This is an issue that we clearly must deal with. While this is a key issue, Calvinists do not focus on this point as much.
5. Calvinism Is Represented By Bad Faces
This is moreso a personal issue where it gets Calvinism a bad light in our current time. We have several popular faces who are making not only bad arguments for their view of Christianity, but they will be trying to divide the body of Christ unnecessarily in the same level that the Anti-Calvinists do. They bring about mere polemics and even worldly ways of behaving and speaking to address their points instead of sound biblical arguments or even properly defining words. I cannot tell you how bad it is that I hear the word sovereign and hear Calvinists act like they have a monopoly on the term. Similar to how Roman Catholics try to have a monopoly over the term "catholic." I will address a few of these people right now.
The first one is one who had a big impact on me and that would be James R. White. I was inspired by his approach towards New Testament Textual Criticism and his debates where he was very biblical in his approach. However, the thing I was unaware of was the eventual change and growth to the polemical nature of his ministry that mirrored that of his previous opposition in discussions or debates like with Steven Anderson and Bob Wilkins. Even worse, White started to critique Classical Theism proponents as "Reformed Thomists" and even start to promote ideas of the Trinity and the Incarnation that come across as possibly heretical such as accusations of affirming kenosis. He also would fall in line with others like Doug Wilson in trying to promote a biblically inconsistent view of Christian Nationalism as if it is either Christian Nationalism or "you are for the world and against Christ." It just leads to a bad representation of Calvinism by adopting things outside of Calvinism and claiming it to be part of Calvinistic core beliefs.
Steven Lawson is somebody who has been very much interesting to hear from in the past, but has gotten a bit more cocky with attacking free will as something that it isn't. He is known for having said that free will is a pagan goddess that the Church has worshipped for far too long. This is just sad, especially since he does admit free will is at least a concept in Calvinism and I agree with that. However, just because one adhered to a system of free will theology in their beliefs, it doesn't mean they are automatically worshipping a false god. This is on the same level as Charles Spurgeon's notorious "Calvinism is the Gospel" quote. It just divides the church up and leaves the impression that Calvinism alone is Christianity while others aren't. Anybody justifying the quote to excuse it to mean "not that serious" is on the same level of dishonesty as Warren McGrew of Idol Killer with their claims on Calvinists.
Jeff Durbin has been one who has helped introduce a sort of applied street level version of Presuppositional Apologetics which has been a great way to introduce it to the layman, but I take issue with the his emphasis on theonomy lately. Theonomy is a Calvinist originated doctrine which doesn't fall with every Calvinist, but this person along with others have tried to apply theonomy (and Christian Nationalism as a whole) into the mandatory way of belief into being a Christian. Even choosing to employ a false dichotomy that I mentioned in my critique of James White. It also doesn't help that he has fallen into the problem of critiquing the "He Gets Us" ad for just nitpicky and assumed issues that aren't even being addressed in the ad. It's a sign of Jeff and others like him growing from being rooted in the Bible to eventually being rooted in the culture. Plus I find it that he has issues with people washing feet despite I have encountered people handing out his tracts and material offering to wash the feet of folks outside places of sin.
Joel Webbon is somebody who is guilty, again, of the Christian Nationalism adoption that folks are trying to adhere to. However, he seems to address trying to focus on what he might define as biblical manhood by suggesting things that aren't taught in scripture and are explicitly cultural things. I cover this phenomena in another article I wrote a while back. However, that isn't the main issue as well. There also seems to be a form of sectarianism found among his videos when it comes to Calvinism, especially when it comes to Presbyterianism vs Reformed Baptists. It just really baffles me on how some will try to leave room for a possibility of a theological civil war.
Voddie Baucham I think would fit among the most controversial for his own reasons. Voddie will try to downplay any non-Presuppositional Apologetics as forsaking the Bible and becoming non-Christian, viewing Classical and Evidential Apologetics as being things which are non-Christian ultimately. Another issue is trying to accuse the depiction of Jesus in The Chosen and other Christian media as breaking the 2nd commandment, despite this is just him not understanding what the 2nd Commandment is and just engaging in the heresy of Iconoclasm. Furthermore, there is some speculation on his "Fault Lines" book containing plagiarism, which is a pretty bad thing especially from an atheist named James Lindsey. If we go by the logic of Voddie's critique of non-Christian means of apologetics, this would be a case of hypocrisy from the pastor.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
When it comes to the situation, I do believe that Calvinists need much more better out there. Scholastic theology needs to be more out there and the actual understanding of the Reformation must be defended. Luckily there are good Calvinists out there like Gavin Ortlund, John M. Frame, Matthew Barrett and various others who adhere to a very consistent, patient and yet gentle approach to Calvinism. However, I do not think this deals with the other objections, but it would be a great start. I furthermore think that we need to allow the Church to be more interested in Church History as part of the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, instead of relying and the faulty interpretation known as Solo Scriptura or Biblicism that the Roman Catholics like to accuse the Protestants of.
I also think we need to have more dialogues than we do debates to focus on inner ecumenical conversations with other denominations within the Protestant spectrum. Maybe eventually it can lead to a good dialogue between Roman Catholics and even Eastern Orthodox (which I think will be beneficial for the Calvinists considering some similar beliefs). While I find the debates can be helpful, the Calvinist online culture has now decided to treat debates as this superior or only means of proper communication and dialogue with those outside of their tradition. This really needs to change.
I also feel that the other Calvinists need to be held accountable by their peers so that they do not turn into people like James White and Voddie Baucham. It will also allow us to be able to catch people who begin to make false accusations against Calvinism as well as our Calvinist brethren who defend the Christian faith with passion and zeal along with their gentle Christian spirit. May we hope to strive and get this life of unity among the Church. Amen.
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