Posted by
ValiantForTruth on Saturday, October 02, 2010 9:17:32 AM
Given that Calvinism was the consensus theology of colonial America, should we not look at it from a historical and theological perspective and to try to remove the prejudices that surround it? Why is it caricatured unless men are quick to believe a lie?
First, it should be noted that the “five points of Calvinism” are the answer given by the Reformed churches to a five-point manifesto put out by the “semi-Pelagians” in the early seventeenth century. The theology which it contained is known as Arminianism and stems from two philosophical principles:
- Divine sovereignty is not compatible with human freedom, nor therefore with human responsibility
- Ability limits obligation.
The charge of semi-Pelagianism is fully justified. From these principles, the Arminians drew two deductions:
- Since the Bible regards faith as a free and responsible human act, it cannot be caused by God, but is exercised independently of Him
- Since the Bible regards faith as obligatory on the part of all who hear the gospel, ability to believe must be universal.
Hence, they maintained that Scripture must be interpreted as teaching the following positions:
1. Man is never so completely corrupted by sin that he cannot savingly believe the gospel when it is put before him.
2. Man is ever so completely controlled by God that he cannot reject it.
3. God’s election of those who shall be saved is prompted by His foreseeing that they will of their own accord believe.
4. Christ’s death did not ensure the salvation of anyone, for it did not secure the gift of faith to anyone; what it did was rather to create a possibility of salvation for everyone if they believe.
5. It rests with believers to keep themselves in a state of grace by keeping up their faith; those who fail here fall away and are lost.
Thus, Arminianism made man’s salvation depend ultimately on man himself, saving faith was not the gift of God [Ephesians 2:8], but viewed as man’s own work and not the work of God in him ‘to will and to do according to His good pleasure’ [Philippians 2:13].
The Reformed churches responded with what are called the Doctrines of Grace. They stem from a very different principle that “salvation is of the Lord” [Jonah 2:9]. They may be summarized thus:
1. Fallen man in his natural state lacks all power to believe the gospel, just as he lacks all power to believe the law, despite all external inducements that may be extended to him.
2. God’s election is a free, sovereign, unconditional choice of sinners, as sinners, to be redeemed by Christ, given faith and brought to glory.
3. The redeeming work of Christ had as its end and goal the salvation of the elect.
4. The work of the Holy Spirit in bringing men to faith never fails to achieve its object.
5. Believers are kept in faith and grace by the unconquerable power of God till they come to glory.
These five points are conveniently denoted by the mnemonic TULIP: Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, Preservation of the saints.
Now, here are two coherent interpretations of the biblical gospel, which stand in evident opposition to each other. The difference between them is not primarily one of emphasis, but of content. One proclaims a God who saves; the other speaks of a God Who enables man to save himself. One view presents the three great acts of the Holy Trinity for the recovering of lost mankind—election by the Father, redemption by the Son, calling by the Spirit—as directed towards the same persons, and as securing their salvation infallibly. The other view gives each act a different reference (the objects of redemption being all mankind, of calling, those who hear the gospel, and of election, those hearers who respond), and denies that any man’s salvation is secured by any of them.
The two theologies thus conceive the plan of salvation in quite different terms. One makes salvation depend on the work of God, the other on a work of man; one regards faith as part of God’s gift of salvation, the other as man’s own contribution to salvation; one gives all the glory of saving believers to God, the other divides the praise between God, Who, so to speak, built the machinery of salvation, and man, who by believing operated it. Plainly, these differences are important, and the permanent value of the Doctrines of Grace as a summary of Calvinism, is that they make clear the points at which, and the extent to which, these two conceptions are at variance.
Autonomy has entered the church in the doctrines of Arminianism and with it the world view that came to light in Christ’s New Covenant Church and was reborn at the Reformation has been lost again.
[edited from J I Packer’s Essay on Death of Death in the Death of Christ]http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/packer_intro.html
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Calvinism and the Reformed World View