“Most of those today, including evangelical leaders, who hold Calvin in great esteem, are not aware that they have been captivated by the writings of a devout Roman Catholic newly converted to Luther’s Protestantism only two years previously (in the early part of 1533). Oddly, in spite of its paramount importance and his voluminous writings, we have no clear testimony in Calvin’s own words concerning his salvation. He refers only to ‘a sudden conversion’ which subdued his ‘over-much hardened’ heart, but gives no description of how or what happened. … By any standard, this young man, though unusually bright, was far from mature in the Christian faith. … Unquestionably, his Institutes could not possibly have come from a deep and fully developed evangelical understanding of Scripture. Instead, they came from the energetic enthusiasm of a recent law graduate and fervent student of philosophy and religion, a young genius devoted to Augustine and a newly adopted cause. … At the time of writing his Institutes Calvin, far from being an apostle like Paul, was a brand-new convert to the faith who had scarcely begun to walk with the Lord. Therefore, it could not have been spiritual maturity under the guidance of the Holy Spirit that brought forth the Institutes, but the power of Calvin’s brilliant legal mind.” (pp. 38, 39, 40)
“Calvin’s almost complete agreement with Augustine is nothing short of astounding. Calvin called himself ‘an Augustinian theologian.’ Of Augustine he said, ‘whom we quote frequently, as being the best and most faithful witness of all antiquity.’ It is Calvinists themselves who insist upon the connection between Calvin and Augustine. McGrath writes, ‘Above all, Calvin regarded his thought as a faithful exposition of the leading ideas of Augustine of Hippo.’ … How could one of the principal leaders of the Reformation embrace so fully the doctrines of one who has been called ‘the first real Roman Catholic’ and the ‘principal theological creator of the Latin-Catholic system as distinct from … evangelical Protestantism…’?” (p. 51)
“Calvinism offers a special definition of human depravity: that depravity equals inability -- and this special definition necessitates both Unconditional Election and Irresistible Grace. … There is not a verse in the Bible, however, which presents Calvinism’s radical idea that the sinner is incapable of believing the very gospel which offers him forgiveness and salvation and yet he is condemned by God for failing to believe. … To say that God commands men to do what they cannot do without His grace, then withholds the grace they need and punishes them eternally for failing to obey, is to make a mockery of God’s Word, of His mercy and love, and is to libel His character.” (pp. 93, 94, 96)
“Why does God waste His time and effort and the time and effort of His many prophets pleading with those who, allegedly, cannot hear Him and who, even if they could, being totally depraved, would never respond to His appeal by believing and obeying Him? Why create this elaborate fiction of mourning and weeping over multitudes who God knows will not only refuse to repent but who, unless He regenerates them, cannot repent because of their total inability to do so?” (p. 107)
“Take a human understanding of ‘dead,’ mix it together with the young John Calvin’s immature understanding of God’s Word, tainted by Augustinian philosophy, stir it up and out comes the theory of Total Depravity.” (p. 119)
“Yes, man is totally unable to contribute one iota to his salvation. It does not then follow, however, that he therefore cannot receive the salvation freely offered in Christ.” (p. 121)
“It is clear that Calvinism rests upon a mistaken view of what it means for God to be sovereign. … The basic problem for the Calvinist is a failure to see that God could sovereignly give to man the power of genuine choice. … Giving man the power to make a genuine, independent choice need not diminish God’s control over His universe. Being omnipotent and omniscient, God can so arrange circumstances as to keep man’s rebellion from frustrating His purposes. In fact, God can and even does use man’s free will to help fulfill His own plans and thus be even more glorified.” (pp. 128, 129)
“Suggesting that God would be lacking in ‘power’ (and thus His sovereignty would be denied) if He made a genuine offer of salvation, and some rejected it, is to frame the proposition wrongly. Power has no relationship to grace and love, which provide salvation. In fact, as we shall see, there are many things which God cannot do, and a lack of ‘power’ is not the reason for any of them, nor is His sovereignty mitigated in the least.” (p. 136)
“There is no escaping the fact that in Calvin’s entire Institutes of the Christian Religion there is not one mention of God’s love for the lost!” (p. 151)
“So once again, rather than looking to men, no matter how great their reputations, we are driven to come to our own conclusions on the basis of Scripture alone.” (p. 162)
“Of course salvation is not our doing; but that we cannot earn salvation does not prove that we cannot freely choose to receive salvation as a gift of God’s love.” (p. 182)
“The Calvinist insists, however, that salvation cannot be conditioned upon any act or belief on man’s part … This declaration is made repeatedly: ‘To reject [Calvinistic] election is to reject salvation by grace and promote salvation by works.’ Yet if anything is clear in Scripture it is the undisputable fact that faith is not work but its very antithesis. ‘By grace are ye saved, through faith … not of works’ (Ephesians 2:8-9). Nothing could be clearer than the fact that, by believing, one is doing no work. In fact, faith and work are contrasted.” (pp. 190, 191)
“… in contrast to the literally hundreds of places where God’s love is clearly expressed for all of Israel (most of whom rejected Him) and for the whole world (most of whom also reject Him), nowhere does the Bible declare that God doesn’t love and desire the salvation of all.” (p. 206)
“God’s sovereignty would no more be undermined if some accepted the offer of salvation and others rejected it than for billions of humans continually to disobey the Ten Commandments.” (p. 206)
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