What is Calvinism?

[Sonoftheday]

This is a question that is asked of me often by my friends and family. Most of them are theologically ignorant so I try to find a way of explaining my beliefs in a way that they can easily comprehend.

This is the answer I typically give:

I believe before God created anything He not only knew everything that was going to happen, Because He's all knowing, but he also planned every minute detail of everything that will ever happen, because He is soveriegn and all powerful. He did not only know who would go to heaven and who would go to hell before creating anyone, but he planned who would go where, and His Son chose to die to purchase the salvation of all who enter heaven. Everything happens according to his plan, 911, Hurricane Katrina, and every abortion happen according to his good and perfect plan.

This is how I respond when asked, what Calvinism teaches, and surprisingly enough most people who ask say they agree 100%, even my friend who is some form of pentacostal said he agreed.

How do you respond when asked by those who dont study theology what you believe, or what Calvinism is?

 

[Semper Fidelis]

The belief that God justifies the ungodly.

 

[turmeric]

Calvinism is a nickname for the Gospel according to Spurgeon.

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

Calvinism is a nickname for the Gospel according to Spurgeon.

C.H. Spurgeon, A Defense of Calvinism:

The late lamented Mr. Denham has put, at the foot of his portrait, a most admirable text, "Salvation is of the Lord." That is just an epitome of Calvinism; it is the sum and substance of it. If anyone should ask me what I mean by a Calvinist, I should reply, "He is one who says, Salvation is of the Lord." I cannot find in Scripture any other doctrine than this. It is the essence of the Bible. "He only is my rock and my salvation." Tell me anything contrary to this truth, and it will be a heresy; tell me a heresy, and I shall find its essence here, that it has departed from this great, this fundamental, this rock-truth, "God is my rock and my salvation." What is the heresy of Rome, but the addition of something to the perfect merits of Jesus Christ—the bringing in of the works of the flesh, to assist in our justification? And what is the heresy of Arminianism but the addition of something to the work of the Redeemer? Every heresy, if brought to the touchstone, will discover itself here. I have my own private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith, without works; nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God in His dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor do I think we can preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the special and particular redemption of His elect and chosen people which Christ wrought out upon the cross; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation after having once believed in Jesus. Such a gospel I abhor.

"If ever it should come to pass,
That sheep of Christ might fall away,
My fickle, feeble soul, alas!
Would fall a thousand times a day."

 

[bookslover]

It's a theological system cooked up by some French dude who was living in Switzerland because the food was better there. He also looked great in aviator shades.

 

[MeanieCalvinist]

It's a theological system cooked up by some French dude who was living in Switzerland because the food was better there. He also looked great in aviator shades.

That is basically what I tell em

 

[Pergamum]

Calvinism is where God says you, but not you, you, but not you in the vast cosmic lotto and some of us lucky ones are labeled with the name Elect (we hit the lucky jackpot of the Capricious God). This God of Robots then assigns us all to our respective places after death...... Some are dragged kicking and screaming into heaven and other good people who never had a chance are left to suffer in hell because God predestinated them there.

--At least that is what some people have told me!

 

[jawyman]

Believe it or not, I have recommended Richard Mouw's "Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport" to people unfamiliar with the Reformed Faith. It is a good read and really speak to people outside the Reformed Faith.

 

[ReformedChapin]

Calvinism: salvation by Grace through Faith so that no one may boast

 

[Miller]

This is how I respond when asked, what Calvinism teaches, and surprisingly enough most people who ask say they agree 100%, even my friend who is some form of pentacostal said he agreed.

How do you respond when asked by those who dont study theology what you believe, or what Calvinism is?

I go over the 5 points. An older lady I worked with asked me and agreed that I was right, yet she went to a Campbellite congregation. It's funny how people agree but don't really GET what you just said.

 

[Herald]

What is Calvinism?

It's divisive.

It's unifying.

It's controversial.

It's comforting.

It's polarizing.

It's liberating.

It's misunderstood.

It's clear truth.

It's inflammatory.

It's peaceable.

It's biblical!

 

[JohnV]

I am careful now about using the name "Calvinism". It wouldn't be easy for anyone to sway me from my staunch Calvinism, but there are far, far too many misrepresentations of it that are meant by that term than the one I would use; and trying to sway me from my Calvinism is usually an attempt to sway me from something that I don't believe in the first place.

For example, I was once part of round-table group that believed that Calvininism denied free will altogether, when in reality it denies the Arminian definition of free will, which even for many Calvinists means denying free will. They're right to the degree that free will is most commonly defined by Arminian theology, and is commonly understood to mean that: it is right to deny that there is that kind of free will. But that does not mean that Calvinism denies free will in its proper sense. The other men of the round-table group took this to mean that Calvinism denies that men are responsible beings, and this in turn made one of the five tulip points impossible for them to grasp. They agreed with unconditional electing grace, they agreed with total depravity, they agreed with irresistible grace, they agreed with perseverance of the saints, but they could not come to agree on the point of limited atonement.

There was nothing I could do about that no matter how well I could put the Canons of Dort into everyday language for them, or argue the finer points for them. It seemed to them that I was redefining Calvinism into something that they had never heard of before, and their interest was in critiquing the Calvinism that they had in mind.

It was not the Calvinism that I had been taught and which I believed in.

Since that time, almost twenty years now, I have run into various forms of Calvinism which I will have nothing to do with. I do not regard them as submissive to Scripture, which I think is what really defines Calvinism. These are teaching submission to their presuppositions, and then to Scripture; and that to me is anti-Calvinist. If Calvinism doesn't teach me submission to God and His Word then it doesn't teach me anything. That, to me, is the central focus of it. The Five Points are expressed results of that submission, confessing what the Word teaches on those points of doctrine.

But someone who does not yet understand them and yet is deliberately and devotedly submissive to the Word because it is God's Word, because he fears God, will come to understand these eventually as he grows in his faith and understanding. In other words, Calvinism is not defined by the mature in faith alone, but also and even by those yet striving for maturity. It is the course of those who seek to mature in the Christian faith. It is a proper and rightful tool, and not the name of some pet theology. Calvinism outside the desire to serve God with all the heart and soul and mind is a shallow system; Calvinism used for self-serving purposes is the same as anti-Calvinism, no matter how much it may claim to champion Calvinism.

And this latter sort is the most common expression of Calvinism in our day. No matter who I talk to about Calvinism, I can pretty well count on it that they have stuck in their minds a version of it that is nothing more than a misrepresentation of it. And this is primarily due to what has been foisted upon them in the name of Calvinism. They are mostly reacting against what they've seen and heard, along with what they've read. They do not merely quote from dubious sources, they also recount past experiences.

My method of defending the truth of the Christian faith is to agree with them about these various wrongs and wrong theologies. I do agree with them, for these are wrong theologies, even if they stand under the name of Calvinism for them. But these same people also usually know that I am a Calvinist, and are usually prone to ask why I would agree with them seeing what I am. And to this the answer is very simple: those wrong theologies are not Calvinism.

Just show me where Calvinism teaches these things. It doesn't. What they're referring to most often is the spin that is put on the proofs that they are usually so ready to place before me. But the plain and simple language of these very proofs does not say these things. It's what people have made of these, not what these are in themselves. They are accumulated reinterpretations, but not the original meanings.

I think the most common is the one about limited atonement, or more commonly called predestined election and reprobation. But close behind it, I think, is the misunderstanding about baptism. There are others in our day as well, which are making waves. It won't do to define them here, because I think that this misses the issue. We're really right back at the fundamental point: Calvinism properly defined is theological obedience to God and His Word. And unless we have a desire for that, because we fear God, it does no good to argue about what Calvinism is or isn't.