Hyper-Calvinistic charges Calvinism with being Arminianism

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fralo4truth

Puritan Board Freshman
Hi friends,

I would like to get your responses on something. Some very extreme hyper-calvinists I have to deal with equate Calvinism with Arminianism. They basically assert that if anything whatsoever is done by the sinner (even believing, repenting, confessing) that this is a "work" and and must not be necessary for salvation. Here are some quotes recently sent to me. I'm interested in how you all would respond to some of these charges, and the best way to refute them.

• The “work” of the Calvinist is “believing” the gospel message

• The Calvinist system is: Grace plus Works for Salvation and Grace plus Works to Persevere to the end

• They could use the phrase “saved by grace” but the rules must be kept (with God’s help) in order to obtain and keep eternal salvation. It is a mixture of grace
and works!

• Calvinism is based on commandment keeping (works) but it is coated with grace. By keeping a commandment i.e. believing in Jesus Christ, (even with God’s
gracious help) we obtain or gain eternal life

• Jesus said that believing on Him is a work in John 6: 28, 29. But faith is a work and works and grace are mutually exclusive! Romans 11:6

As you can tell, to these extremists, salvation by grace means that the sinner remains completely motionless in salvation. If he even "looks to Christ", "inclines his ear", etc,...why this is a work, they say!!!! They completely eliminate the human responsibility side of the equation in salvation altogether!

The premise they follow in their eisegesis is basically this:

If they see a verb in scripture, they automatically conclude it to be a work, and therefore not necessary for salvation.
 
Tell them:

That yes we must show our faith by our works! But we acknowledge that the works we do are but gifts that our Heavenly Father has prepared for us to do! Our works are God's works workng in and through us to acomplish God's purposes which He decreed that we would do before there was ever a creation!
 
These folks are wrongly understanding what the Calvinist believes to be the ordo saludis attributing to us a semi-Pelagian one. We believe God works monergistically; that His work makes us alive while we were dead. No human work involved there. They are misguided; enjoying the building of straw men only to burn them.....
 
Hi friends,

I would like to get your responses on something. Some very extreme hyper-calvinists I have to deal with equate Calvinism with Arminianism. They basically assert that if anything whatsoever is done by the sinner (even believing, repenting, confessing) that this is a "work" and and must not be necessary for salvation. Here are some quotes recently sent to me. I'm interested in how you all would respond to some of these charges, and the best way to refute them.

• The “work” of the Calvinist is “believing” the gospel message

• The Calvinist system is: Grace plus Works for Salvation and Grace plus Works to Persevere to the end

• They could use the phrase “saved by grace” but the rules must be kept (with God’s help) in order to obtain and keep eternal salvation. It is a mixture of grace
and works!

• Calvinism is based on commandment keeping (works) but it is coated with grace. By keeping a commandment i.e. believing in Jesus Christ, (even with God’s
gracious help) we obtain or gain eternal life

• Jesus said that believing on Him is a work in John 6: 28, 29. But faith is a work and works and grace are mutually exclusive! Romans 11:6

As you can tell, to these extremists, salvation by grace means that the sinner remains completely motionless in salvation. If he even "looks to Christ", "inclines his ear", etc,...why this is a work, they say!!!! They completely eliminate the human responsibility side of the equation in salvation altogether!

The premise they follow in their eisegesis is basically this:

If they see a verb in scripture, they automatically conclude it to be a work, and therefore not necessary for salvation.

I would just politely tell them historically Calvinists are compatibilists, not hard determinists, and if God is sovereign and man responsible, why is it so hard to believe in monergistic salvation and synergistic sanctification? Sure sanctification is a part of salvation, but sanctification didn't cause salvation, it's the other way around, and confusion of the two is a fallacy of equivocation.

 
From John 6:28-29:

Then they said unto [Jesus], What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
 
• The “work” of the Calvinist is “believing” the gospel message

There are many, many mistakes in what they say. One is that they assume that God must work without means in order for it to be his work. Another is that they assume that it is possible for living nature to be quite quiescent. But I think what Lawrence said above gives the key to unraveling the whole idea.
Anything done in order to obtain salvation, on their system, is a work, and thus damnable insolence.
Believing the gospel is a work, and thus damnable insolence.
But then, in order to obtain salvation it is necessary not to believe. Now this obviously runs counter to Scripture; but it also runs counter to itself, because I must now engage in the work of not believing in order to be saved.
If working is excluded, then only resting is allowed; but then resting is what must be done, and what must be done as requisite to obtain salvation is a work. So either God saves people who are trying to save themselves by various means, no one is saved, or their ideas about how working is to be excluded must be jettisoned.
 
Just for everyone's information. If any of you have followed some of my threads in the past, you might know where such "doctrine" is coming from.

These statements are the beliefs of many of those within the Primitive Baptists. Be warned!
 
There are things we must do in order to be saved. One is repent, the other is believe. If a person wants to call those things "works," then so be it. But what is important is that, even though we MUST do them, there is no merit in our works. All the merit is in Christ. What makes their charge ineffectual is that we don't believe in our works having any merit with God regarding our salvation. They are works, yes, but they are non-meritorious works.

---------- Post added at 10:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:27 PM ----------

We are not saved BY doing these things, but neither are we saved WITHOUT doing these things.
 
To add to the critiques above:

The verbs in Scripture are not works "we do", but commands of God we must obey – or disobey / not obey at our peril.

As per the Scriptures above from John 6:28-29, obeying these "verbs" are the works of God in us by His Holy Spirit ("Christ liveth in me" – Gal 2:20), and

"...Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach, warning...teaching . . . Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily" (Col 1:27-29).

To obey the verbs commanded us is not our works at all, it is the Spirit of God working in us, we obediently cooperating. Come . . . repent . . . believe . . . rest . . . rejoice . . . love . . . resist . . . pray . . . give – all these our Savior directly commands us to do, and by His Spirit working in us enables us to do. "This is the work of God, that ye believe [ / repent / come / pray / rejoice / etc]".

"Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham." (John 8:39) Because we are joined to the Vine, the life of the Vine works through us.

These hyperCalvinists err, not knowing the power of God in us.
 
Some Calvinists historically may very well have swung the pendulum far enough to appear nearly synergistic in their salvation. Not everyone in the camp comes across with the same degree of emphasis on the sovereignty of God in that regard. Much has to do with the circumstances of their times that they are having to defend the gospel against.

It is true that we are saved by grace, and not by works. He declares us justified while we are ungodly, and he reconciles himself to his enemies through the cross while they are his enemies. We then believe in that reconciliation of himself towards us, that he is favorable to us in Christ. Yet, to Christ we must run; to the city of refuge we must go; and to the snake on the pole we must look.

I gather they equate any activity on our part as a work. It is not a work, but an instrument of communication. They seem to leave no room for an instrument in their thinking.

Blessings!
 
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I think that we want to be careful not to denominate saving faith as a work on our part. Yes, John 6 speaks of it as "the work of God," and it is we who must believe: God does not believe for us, but gives us faith to lay hold of Christ, instrumentally. But we want to be clear that faith is the alone instrument of justification and not speak of it in a way that confuses it with repentance or good works.

We must not only exercise faith but repent as well and produce good works (which we do in exercising saving faith truly). Faith is to be clearly distinguished, however, from repentance and good works. WLC 73 keeps this all in good order for us:

Q. 73. How doth faith justify a sinner in the sight of God?
A. Faith justifies a sinner in the sight of God, not because of those other graces which do always accompany it, or of good works that are the fruits of it, nor as if the grace of faith, or any act thereof, were imputed to him for his justification; but only as it is an instrument by which he receiveth and applieth Christ and his righteousness.

Notice that other graces accompany faith (like repentance) and good works are its fruit. No small part of the problem with FV is the tendency to collapse the other graces and good works into saving faith. Saving faith must not be overdrawn so as to include in its essence its accompaniments and fruits (or, on the other side, to emaciate it so that it is reduced to assent and does not involve the three classic elements of knowledge, assent, and trust).

God does use means and we are called to be active in our pursuit of Him, though it is He who alone enables it all. Just as we want to be careful in our response to Arminians not to come off as hyper-Calvinists, we want to be careful in our response to hyper-Calvinists to not come off as Arminians. The Westminster Standards, as a formulation of doctrine, strike the balance more carefully, and beautifully, than anything I know.

Peace,
Alan
 
There are things we must do in order to be saved. One is repent, the other is believe. If a person wants to call those things "works," then so be it. But what is important is that, even though we MUST do them, there is no merit in our works. All the merit is in Christ. What makes their charge ineffectual is that we don't believe in our works having any merit with God regarding our salvation. They are works, yes, but they are non-meritorious works.

---------- Post added at 10:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:27 PM ----------

We are not saved BY doing these things, but neither are we saved WITHOUT doing these things.

Wouldn't it be fair to say that repentance and progressive sanctification are RESULTS of saving faith, and not the causes?
 
Wouldn't it be fair to say that repentance and progressive sanctification are RESULTS of saving faith, and not the causes?

Yes, and I agree. But suppose we were to look at from the perspective of final salvation and not regeneration. They would reply that we must "work" to achieve final salvation from the understanding that sanctification is synergistic.
 
There are things we must do in order to be saved.

Sola Gratia, there is nothing we can do in order to be saved, salvation is by grace through faith, and without monergistic regeneration, our works are as filthy rags.


One is repent, the other is believe.

Neither of these actually save us. We believe because Christ authored faith in us, because God created saving faith in us, replaced our heart of stone with a heart of flesh, resurrected us from a dead faith to a living faith. Our repentance is but a response to what God has done and it is only because of what God has done that we repent. When a sinner has been transformed from spiritual death to spiritual life, repentance will happen as a result, a good tree produces good fruit, that's just the way it is. Using the same metaphor, we should not confuse the fruit with the tree, in the same manner repentance with salvation.


If a person wants to call those things "works," then so be it. But what is important is that, even though we MUST do them, there is no merit in our works. All the merit is in Christ. What makes their charge ineffectual is that we don't believe in our works having any merit with God regarding our salvation. They are works, yes, but they are non-meritorious works.


But those works do not happen without monergistic regeneration. The Ordo Saltius resolves the issue.

We are not saved BY doing these things, but neither are we saved WITHOUT doing these things.

God's chosen infants whom die in infancy cannot repent. Salvation belongs to the Lord. It is only because God seals us with His Spirit and gives us life that we do anything pleasing to Him. God has made it such that we cannot take credit for anything nor boast, except in Him alone. Soli Deo Gloria
 
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