Happy 500th birthday, John Calvin!

By Allen Yeh
Scriptorium Daily

Five hundred years ago today (July 10, 1509) was the birthday of one of the two greatest Protestant Reformers, John Calvin (French birth name: Jean Cauvin). Just a month and a half ago (from May 24-27), there was a huge international quicentenary conference in Geneva, Switzerland, called “Calvin and his influence, 1509-2009.”

Although I was not able to attend that conference and present a paper, I’d like to honor Calvin, on a much smaller scale, with an essay based on a lecture I recently gave at Biola entitled, “Why I Am a Calvinist.”

Actually, that title is not totally accurate. I trace my theological heritage from St. Augustine to John Calvin to Jonathan Edwards to John Piper to me. Not that I’m worthy to stand in that line of great theologians, mind you! But if I had to follow the direct line of theological influences on my life, that would be it.

So I guess I’m not just a Calvinist! I could just as well be called an Augustinian, an Edwardsian, or a Piperian! However, as far as a coherent theological framework goes, none has the organized systemization of Calvin, not even Augustine.

(On another note, I’ve been to the graves of Augustine and Edwards [see my blog on cemeteries here] though Calvin insisted on being buried in an unmarked grave so that he would not inspire a following. Haha, probably just as well, since I’m one of those devotees that Calvin would have abhorred. And John Piper is still alive and well, just FYI! You can hear his sermons online)

Other people I admire who are Calvinists theologically are Charles Spurgeon (the “Prince of Preachers”), William Carey (the “Father of Modern Missions”), Andrew Fuller (the missiologist who inspired Carey), Charles Simeon (one of the greatest British pastors of all time), and J.I. Packer (possibly the greatest evangelical systematic theologian alive today). But to be fair, there are plenty of Arminians I admire too, like John Wesley, Billy Graham, and the new President of Asbury Seminary, Tim Tennent.

All this being said, I won’t lie—I find Calvinists some of the most annoying people in the world. In fact, I think if I ever met John Calvin himself, I wouldn’t like him because he was known to be a prickly personality. (My colleague Dr. Fred Sanders, who stands in the Wesleyan tradition, said that the difference between Calvinists and Arminians is that when the latter get annoying, they just become liberal and disappear from the evangelical scene; whereas, if the former get annoying, they tend to stick around forever and never leave! I happen to agree with his assessment). However, I do consider myself a Calvinist, because though I don’t always like Calvinists, I think Calvinism is a beautiful, true, and right theology. It’s kind of like how non-Christians hate Christians because of the Crusades. Well, just because there are some annoying people who adhere to a particular worldview, it doesn’t mean that that worldview is necessarily wrong! Bad Christians do not make Christianity bad. And bad Calvinists do not make Calvinism wrong. My problem with some Calvinists is their dogmatism. I hate the militancy of it. This is ironic, because one of the principles of Calvinism is the emphasis on grace, and yet Calvinists are often graceless in their unyielding attitude. But I think you can be a Calvinist without being uncharitable, and here’s my attempt at this.

[As an aside, speaking of dogmatism and Calvin, I’m going to buy a dog named Calvin today (yes, that was a pun—but I’m actually being serious about the dog). One of my friends is a dog breeder, and in honor of John Calvin’s 500th birthday, I’m going to select a St Bernard puppy and name him Calvin—after all, St Bernards are from Switzerland as was the great theologian himself! How could I name him anything else but “Calvin,” today being what it is!]

I’m going to frame this essay in the context of the Calvinism vs. Arminianism debate. Why? Because it seems like this is the one thing that seems to cause cognitive dissonance amongst non-Calvinists more than anything. It is also one of the topics that continually crops up in the classes that I teach in the Torrey Honors Institute. For some reason, it seems to endlessly fascinate us, and is one of the favorite topics among my students. No matter what we book we might be studying—The Iliad, City of God, Pride and Prejudice, you name it—the Calvinism vs. Arminianism debate will inevitably creep into the conversation!

I’m also going to use TULIP as a theological framework. I realize that Calvin himself didn’t come up with this; his followers did. Nevertheless, it is a helpful way to discuss Calvinism as it has been handed down to us today.

First, as an evangelical, let me appeal to the authority of Scripture.

• “T” stands for “Total depravity,” the fact that everyone, without exception, is fallen and has no capacity to come to God of their own accord. Ephesians 2:1-3 says: “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.”
• “U” stands for “Unconditional election,” that God chooses us regardless of what we have or haven’t done. There is nothing in and of ourselves that causes God to choose us above others, it is purely His own decision, otherwise it would be works righteousness. Romans 9:20-21 says: “But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?”
• “L” stands for “Limited atonement,” that Christ died for some (the Elect) but not for all. This is probably the one part of Calvinism that people find most problematic. Thus, some people call themselves four-point Calvinists and leave out the “L”. I would put myself in this category. Yet, many five-point Calvinists would say that if you leave out the “L”, the whole system falls apart. Be that as it may, here is a verse that seems to support limited atonement Acts 13:48: “when the Gentiles heard this [the offer of salvation], they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.”
• “I” and “P” stand for “Irresistible grace,” that if God draws you to Himself you cannot help but come, and “Perseverance of the saints,” that once you are saved, you cannot fall away from your faith. John 6:37,39 seems to imply both: “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away… And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.”

Here is even more Scriptural support for Calvinism:

• John 6:44—“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.” [irresistible grace]
• John 15:16—“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last.” [unconditional election]
• Rom. 9:15-16—“For he says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’ It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.” [unconditional election and limited atonement]
• Rom. 3:9-11—“As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.’” [total depravity]
• Eph. 1:4-5—“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.”

Looking at the above, it seems that (though this is an anachronistic statement) that John and Paul were Calvinists! I think we’d be hard-pressed to argue against both the disciple closest to Jesus, and the greatest missionary in Christian history who wrote half the New Testament!

Now, to be fair, I must also cite Scripture that Arminians use to support their case. I’ll do my best here, though being a Calvinist, it’s hard to extricate myself from my theological lenses!

• 2 Peter 3:9—“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” [this seems to refute limited atonement]
• 1 Tim. 2:3-4—“This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” [this also seems to go against limited atonement]
• Acts 17:30—“In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.” [this seems to suggest that we have a choice in the matter]
• Matt. 11:28—“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” [this is an invitation, not an irresistible command]

I admit that some aspects of Calvinism are hard to swallow. These seem to be the main objections to Calvinism:

• Doesn’t it preclude free will? Don’t we just become robots or puppets?
• Doesn’t Calvinism make God arbitrary or unfair, or the author of evil?
• Doesn’t God desire for all people to be saved? The only explanation seems to be that He is either unable to save everyone (mitigating against his omnipotence) or unwilling to save everyone (mitigating against His goodness).
• What’s the point of ethics, or missions, if everything is predetermined?

However, let me also lay out what I see as the main objections to Arminianism:

• Doesn’t it detract either from God’s sovereignty (if you’re the one who gets to decide which path you go down) or His foreknowledge (if He doesn’t yet know what you will choose)?
• Isn’t the Arminianism dangerously close to Deism? Deism is the idea that God created everything, sat back, and let the world just run without His interference.
• Doesn’t Arminianism make your salvation dependent on you? Because, after all, you choose God (and thus salvation), God doesn’t choose you!
• -How in the world do you choose God if you have absolutely no natural inclination toward Him in your sinful nature?

“Total depravity” is probably the one aspect of Calvinism that even Arminians can assent to, if they are evangelical. In light of Scripture clearly teaching that depraved humans can’t choose God, Arminians have to resort to a concept called prevenient grace (which nullifies the noetic effects of sin), so that humans can have a “technical loophole” which allows them to choose God of their own accord—but the concept of prevenient grace is found nowhere in Scripture! And really, if you closely examine the idea of prevenient grace, it really might just be considered another form of Calvinism; after all, God has to choose certain people to receive prevenient grace, and aren’t those people the “Elect”?

Let me respond to some of the objections to Calvinism:

• Calvinism doesn’t mean we are robots/puppets. It is a fallacy to think that Calvinism precludes free will; however, it doesn’t see free will in the same way that Arminians do. One of the main differences is that there is a Calvinist recognition that there is no such thing as free will in a vacuum. We are all influenced by original sin. God is not the author of evil; Satan is, and we do evil when we follow the Devil. The story of Joseph and his brothers in Genesis 50 is, I think, a good illustration of this fact. Joseph said (regarding the fact that his brothers sold him into slavery): “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” In terms of the minor things in life, God gives us freedom to act as we choose (but how free are we, really, when our sinful nature has such sway on our lives?). But in the major things, God always gets His way in the end. We may choose to rock the boat, we may even cause it to go off course temporarily, but the boat will get to the final destination that God has intended!

• Calvinism does not mean we do not do missions or evangelism. I’m a missiologist, and a Calvinist! William Carey, the Father of Modern Missions, was Calvinist! John Wesley was Arminian, but Jonathan Edwards was Calvinist, and they were good friends and they were two of the three most important people who kicked off the evangelical revival known as the Great Awakening (the other was George Whitefield). Also, Calvin believed that the world was not going to end anytime soon. He believed that we were going to be around for a while, so we needed to settle down and help transform society. This is very different from premill pretrib people who believed that the end of the world is imminent so they tend to have a more “on their toes” and “ready at all times” mentality and less focus on, say, social justice.

• Calvinism is not just about predestination; that is a caricature. It is about God’s sovereignty and providence. Calvin hardly talks about predestination in his writings. It was in a famous 1551 debate with Jerome Bolsec that predestination was put on the table as a topic for discussion, but this got a lot more attention than warranted, and his followers took up this mantle. It’s similar to how Jonathan Edwards is caricatured by his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” but really “Heaven Is a World of Love” is a more typical sermon of him.

• Arminianism seems, at face value, to be more hopeful than Calvinism (after all, isn’t it better to think that God lets us choose, rather than us being consigned to hell?). But that’s predicated upon an optimistic view of human nature. We recognize that Communism doesn’t work because we are inherently evil. Why, then, do we think that Arminianism works, and that we will most likely choose the good? Blaise Pascal said it well in his Pensees (680): “We’re so focused on justice toward the damned that we forget that mercy toward the elect should be far more shocking!”

• Calvinism puts both God and us in our rightful places. We call God “Lord” for a reason. He’s in control. But “total depravity” means that, left to our own devices, we have no inclination toward God. It doesn’t mean we can’t do any good. Even non-Christians can do good!

So, why am I a Calvinist? I feel like it is the only system that truly honors God’s omnipotence. If I had to choose between God being all-powerful and potentially the author of evil, vs. God being less than almighty but exonerating Him from responsibility for evil, I’d actually pick the former! Fortunately I don’t have to choose between the two. I think there’s a middle ground, and that’s called compatibilism (as opposed to determinism). True Calvinism is compatibilist, which believes that human responsibility can be held in tension with God’s sovereignty; but if there is ever a question of which one wins out in the final analysis, it would definitely be God’s sovereignty. It’s not even a contest (think: an elephant vs. an ant—but on an even greater scale)! Determinism (aka hyper-Calvinism) is the stereotype that people have of Calvinism: that we are all robots and have no choice in anything. Only determinists would say that we shouldn’t do missions or evangelism. Also, I’d rather err on the side of God’s sovereignty, and just trust that He knows what He’s doing, than err on the side of human free will and give us too much credit. If, before I was born, I had the choice of either putting my eternal destiny in God’s hands and let Him decide (in which case I may have a good chance of getting into heaven), or on the other hand to put my eternal destiny into my own hands and hope that I make the right choice, I think I’d go for the former! The latter just seems like a pretty dicey deal to me. I’d be more scared having me in the driver’s seat than God in the driver’s seat!

Let’s talk about John Calvin’s legacy for a minute.

• First of all, from a historical perspective, if you go to Geneva today (where Calvin lived), they now have a Reformation Park where you can see a wall and monuments dedicated to Calvin, Guillaume Farel, Theodore Beza, and John Knox, with other reformers’ names like Zwingli and Luther written alongside. This was sculpted by the Polish-French sculptor Paul Landowski who also did the famous Christ Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro.
• Secondly, from a pop culture perspective, the name “Calvinism” conjures up all sorts of ideas, not all of which are good. It is still used in New England (where the Puritans spread Calvinism) to mean fatalistic determinism, such as the fact that, before 2004, the pessimistic view that a World Series Championship is doomed from the start was deeply ingrained in the thinking of all Boston Red Sox fans! John Calvin (and Thomas Hobbes) were figures employed by cartoonist Bill Watterson for his “Calvin & Hobbes” comic strip because he believed that America was built on the theology of John Calvin and the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. Characteristics like “a Calvinist work ethic” are seen to be, in part, what made America so successful from its founding.
• Thirdly, in terms of theological influences, not only did Calvin inform the minds of people like Jonathan Edwards and John Piper, but the greatest 20th century Protestant theologian, Karl Barth, saw himself as a Calvinist.
• Fourthly, Calvinism is capturing the attention of young people these days—it’s not just for crotchety old people like the Pilgrims! You would think that young people would be all about freedom and dislike anything that seems to bind them (like predestination), but it just goes to show it’s God’s sovereignty, not predestination, that is catching their attention and passionately taking a hold of them. In the September 2006 issue of Christianity Today, the cover story shows a picture of Jonathan Edwards with the title: “Young, Restless, Reformed: How Calvinism Is Making a Comeback—And Shaking Up the Church.” Youth these days are obsessed with God’s Lordship, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing! Calvinism is even sweeping the Southern Baptist Convention, which is generally more associated with dispensationalism than Reformed theology.
• Finally, Calvin is considered one of the five greatest Christian systematic theologians of all time—the others being Augustine, Aquinas, Schleiermacher, and Barth [see Fred Sander’s blog on Barth for an explanation]

I hope that I was able to present Calvinism without being too dogmatic. However, if I have not been convincing, let me allow J.I. Packer and Charles Simeon, who are far more qualified than I to take on this topic, speak for a moment. In Packer’s book Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, pp. 13-14, he recounts a historical conversation between Charles Simeon, a British pastor from Cambridge who was a staunch Calvinist, and John Wesley, who was probably the most famous proponent of Arminianism. They had this conversation on Dec 20, 1784, where Simeon presents a compatibilist view:

CS: Sir, I understand that you are called an Arminian; and I have been sometimes called a Calvinist; and therefore I suppose we are to draw daggers. But before I consent to begin the combat, with your permission I will ask you a few questions… Pray, Sir, do you feel yourself a depraved creature, so depraved that you would never have thought of turning to God, if God had not first put it into your heart?
JW: Yes, I do indeed.
CS: And do you utterly despair of recommending yourself to God by anything you can do; and look for salvation solely through the blood and righteousness of Christ?
JW: Yes, solely through Christ.
CS: But, Sir, supposing you were at first saved by Christ, are you not somehow or other to save yourself afterwards by your own works?
JW: No, I must be saved by Christ from first to last.
CS: Allowing, then, that you were first turned by the grace of God, are you not in some way or other to keep yourself by your own power?
JW: No.
CS: What, then, are you to be upheld every hour and every moment by God, as much as an infant in its mother’s arms?
JW: Yes, altogether.
CS: And is all your hope in the grace and mercy of God to preserve you unto His heavenly kingdom?
JW: Yes, I have no hope but in Him.
CS: Then, Sir, with your leave I will put up my dagger again; for this is all my Calvinism; this is my election, my justification by faith, my final perseverance: it is in substance all that I hold, and as I hold it; and therefore, if you please, instead of searching out terms and phrases to be a ground of contention between us, we will cordially unite in those things wherein we agree.

In conclusion, let me just say that I don’t think that Arminianism is stupid; I think, as I’ve shown, that there are some pretty good arguments for it. It’s just that I think that there are even better arguments for Calvinism. Both systems seem to have flaws; Calvinism just seems to have fewer flaws, to me, than Arminianism. Do I believe in human free will and hope for it? Yes. But do I believe in God’s sovereignty and omnipotence? Even more so.

Calvinism is appealing to those who know and understand their depravity. If you have nothing, absolutely nothing, you will rely on God. Arminianism is appealing to those who have some confidence in themselves, because if you are fighting for free will, you are assuming that you will make the right choice. If you think that humans are totally wicked, there is no way you would argue for free will because then we’re all doomed!

Just as Calvin inherited Augustine’s mantle, Arminianism is the child of Pelagianism. Pelagius was a fourth-century monk who debated Augustine, denying that original sin existed and therefore we can (through effort) live sinless lives and get to heaven. I don’t say that Arminianism is the same as Pelagianism—that would be unfair, because clearly Arminians (if they are evangelical!) would not deny original sin or, as I mentioned earlier, total depravity. But the convenient excuse of “prevenient grace” seems to be “Pelagianism lite.” Pelagius was condemned as a heretic; Arminius was not. However, there is a clear theological derivation of one from the other, and that makes me uncomfortable.

If these ideas of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility were mutually exclusive, and I had to choose between the two, I’d go for God’s sovereignty to trump human free will, simple as that. Although thinking of God as one who gives us no choice doesn’t sit well with me, thinking of God as limited or not being the one in charge of everything sits even less well with me. In the final analysis, Arminianism gives humans the last word. Calvinism gives God the last word. That is why I am a Calvinist.