Deliverance from Calvinism

[Angelo]

Calvinism is a centuries-old human philosophy that historically has had periodic waves of influence in the Christian faith. Each time, it fades back again due to its inherent logical and biblical inconsistencies. It is currently surging in popularity, especially affecting people and churches in the United States.

The goal of this thread is help believers leave Calvinism and help insure other believers never become Calvinists. There are several other threads here at BAM that are along this same topic but with your help I would like to dig-deeper into the dangers of Calvinism.

I believe there are many who are hoping to convince someone they care about to leave behind their Calvinistic beliefs or not get caught up in them in the first place. i do understand how very difficult it is to leave a long held theological perspective and how impossible it is to convince another. But it does happen, ask @civic as he has been their done that.

Some of the ways to guide someone away from Calvinism are, focus on biblical reinterpretation, emphasizing God's character, and highlighting alternative theological views like Arminianism. Present arguments based on scriptural interpretation that challenge Calvin's five points, such as limited atonement and total inability, and illustrate how Calvinism can seem to present a cruel or unloving God, in contrast to the compassion revealed in Jesus Christ.
This is a good one to use.

So if Calvinism is true then the elect people are better than everyone else. So therefore the bible is wrong when it says that all men are equal in Gods eyes? Or that WHOSOEVER believe on him can be saved? So if we tell someone they can be saved through Jesus Christ and they are not one of the elect then the bible lied to that person. If someone who is not the elect reads John 3:16, that person was lied to by God because he is not the elect. That is not the God of the bible it’s is unbiblical.

Calvinism is codified into the acronym TULIP or TULIPS:

1. Total Depravity (meaning Total Inability): all people are so spiritually dead that they can’t hear God calling or respond to God’s love unless He first supernaturally regenerates them. While Bible-believing Christians agree that people are naturally depraved and sinful, the Bible teaches that God's initiatives through general revelation (Romans 1:20), conscience, the Holy Spirit, and Scripture, are sufficient for people to respond positively. The responsibility for rejecting these and ending up in hell is on each person, not God. The concept of Total Inability is rooted in Gnostic philosophy.
2. Unconditional Election: God’s mysterious and apparently arbitrary predestination of people from the beginning of time, literally programming each person for either heaven or hell, with no opportunity for a person to choose otherwise.
3. Limited Atonement: Christ only died for the preselected Elect, not for all people.
4. Irresistible Grace: God ultimately controls people to answer His call and follow Him; they cannot resist or choose otherwise.
5.Perseverance of the Saints: God manipulates people to follow His pre-determined script all the way through their life to reach heaven. This is different from a traditional view held by many Christians referred to as the ‘eternal security of the believer’.
6. Sovereign Decree: God has pre-planned and scripted every detail of the universe and each person’s life from beginning to end. To be clear, in this view God has scripted not only the life of every Christian, but also every detail of the broken life of every murderer, and the life of the every murdered child.

Calvinism culturally portrays itself as a return to conservatism and formality, especially filling a void with some young adults today. Calvinists focus on people disillusioned by the shallow, self-indulgent ‘prosperity gospel’ but insert their own philosophical slant as its antidote instead of the depth of traditional Christian teaching going back to the time of New Testament church.

Many hardline Calvinists sneer at other denominations or practices of the Christian faith as inferior - even strongly biblical, faithful churches – because they don’t adhere to Calvinist ideology and culture.

Lets expose Calvinism for what it really is.

​

 

[Waylon]

I lost my faith in Calvinism a few years ago. Since that time, I have grown to abhor the Calvinistic teachings as the view is not only logically incoherent, but unbiblical as well! This is primarily due to the “I” in TULIP and the belief that humans are not genuinely responsible for our thoughts, beliefs, and actions.

That is to say, a consistent Calvinist denies that humanity possesses libertarian free will to choose or do anything and that includes the freedom to resist the grace of God.

Calvinists typically affirm that God creates all humanity with a spiritually dead nature — we are not responsible for this — and only God can change our nature to be spiritually alive — we are not responsible for this either.

 

[Scott]

Calvinism denies all humans possess libertarian free will and are responsible for making genuine choices.

Speaking of choices, consider Deuteronomy 30:11-19.

30:11–20 The choice facing the Israelites is clear: They can choose life and prosperity or death and exile. There is no middle ground.

30:11Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach.

30:12 Who will go up for us to the heavens and get it for us and cause us to hear it, so that we may do it? The next several verses employ a rhetoric of exaggeration and, to some extent, sarcasm.

30:14 so that you may do it The alternatives are completely within their comprehension and ability.

30:15 life and prosperity and death and disaster These polar oppositions illustrate the clarity of the choice.

30:16 by keeping his commandments According to 4:13 and 5:2–22, the content of the Horeb (Sinai) covenant was the Decalogue—the Ten Commandments—which Moses reiterated in ch. 5. Yahweh gave the later laws to Moses in private, and Moses then revealed them to Israel in his lengthy address in 4:44–28:68.

30:17 you bow down to other gods Moses links the blessing of living in the land to exclusive loyalty to Yahweh.

30:18 you will not extend your time on the land Death and exile from the promised land result from failure to be loyal to Yahweh, which was the focus of the curses in Deut 28:15–68. See note on v. 17.

30:19 life and death I have set before you, blessing and curse

Most of the Israelites seemed to be unregenerate yet they were all commanded “to love Yahweh your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees, and laws.” Then God made it clear: “Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach….it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it….This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live”

This text sure seems to affirm that even the unregenerate have the ability to choose spiritual life or death and that requires freedom of the libertarian variety.

 

[Theophilus]

This thread is right up my alley. I also left Calvinism along with @civic when we were at CARM. After 12 years of being a hard core Calvinist with @civic help I saw Calvinism didn't align with God's nature and character.

I can relate to this from Dr. Leighton Flowers who also left Calvinism after many years of teaching it.

Calvinists teach that “the natural man is blind and deaf to the message of the gospel,” but I learned that is the condition of a judicially hardened man, not a natural condition from birth (Acts 28:27-28; John 12:39-41; Mark 4:11-12; Rom. 11). Instead, God’s gracious revelation and powerful gospel appeal is the means He has chosen to draw, or enable, whosoever hears it to come. Thus, anyone who does hear or see His truth may respond to that truth, which is why they are held response-able (able-to-respond). The Potter's Promise: A Biblical Defense of Traditional Soteriology

I have learned quite a few things that put Calvinism in a bad light. Take TULIP for instance.

There’s a reason why the “I” follows the T, the U, and the L in TULIP, and it’s not just because that’s how the flower is spelled. For Calvinists, irresistible grace, which many prefer to call “effectual grace,” is both biblical and logically necessary because of total depravity, unconditional election, and limited atonement.

For biblical support they usually point to John 6:44: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them.” They interpret “draws” as “compels” but without the connotation of external force against the person’s will. In other words, God bends the elect person’s will so that he or she wants to come to Jesus with repentance and faith.

As for logic, the argument is that because people are totally depraved and dead in trespasses and sins, unless God elects him or her, the person will never respond to the internal calling of the Holy Spirit. So, the Holy Spirit has to change the person inwardly in an effectual manner, which is regeneration. Then the born again person desires to come to Christ, in which case he or she is given repentance and faith (conversion) and justification (forgiveness and imputation of Christ’s righteousness). This process is called “monergistic grace” or just “monergism.”

It goes on and on and this thread of @Angelo should be very helpful if you know anyone that needs help getting out of Calvinism.

 

[civic]

This thread is right up my alley. I also left Calvinism along with @civic when we were at CARM. After 12 years of being a hard core Calvinist with @civic help I saw Calvinism didn't align with God's nature and character.

I can relate to this from Dr. Leighton Flowers who also left Calvinism after many years of teaching it.



I have learned quite a few things that put Calvinism in a bad light. Take TULIP for instance.

There’s a reason why the “I” follows the T, the U, and the L in TULIP, and it’s not just because that’s how the flower is spelled. For Calvinists, irresistible grace, which many prefer to call “effectual grace,” is both biblical and logically necessary because of total depravity, unconditional election, and limited atonement.

For biblical support they usually point to John 6:44: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them.” They interpret “draws” as “compels” but without the connotation of external force against the person’s will. In other words, God bends the elect person’s will so that he or she wants to come to Jesus with repentance and faith.

As for logic, the argument is that because people are totally depraved and dead in trespasses and sins, unless God elects him or her, the person will never respond to the internal calling of the Holy Spirit. So, the Holy Spirit has to change the person inwardly in an effectual manner, which is regeneration. Then the born again person desires to come to Christ, in which case he or she is given repentance and faith (conversion) and justification (forgiveness and imputation of Christ’s righteousness). This process is called “monergistic grace” or just “monergism.”

It goes on and on and this thread of @Angelo should be very helpful if you know anyone that needs help getting out of Calvinism.

Yes PTL

 

[Speculator]

I had someone asking questions to the group at our church home group and I wanted to say something but just didn't know where to start. So I will be working on that and maybe I'll be more helpful next week. This thread looks like it will help. Thanks for posting it.

 

[Presby02]

And I left Arminianism like 24 years ago. What does any of this prove?

You were right then, but now you were wrong then and are right now?