Questioning My Faith

Most of us, I believe, "remain in the condition in which we were called," so to speak. If we were raised to be Baptists, we remain Baptists. If our first involvement with Christianity was in Pentecostalism, we'll remain a Pentecostal. Few, it seems, break away from those beginnings. This, in fact, causes the skeptic to be, well, skeptical. "You only believe because you were taught to believe. If you were taught to believe something else like Islam or atheism, that's what you'd be." Maybe for some. Not likely for me.

You see, I am not what I started out. I was raised a 4-point Arminian. I thought I was a Calvinist because I believed in "Eternal Security," but I was in all other aspects a classic Arminian. We were, indeed, sinners by birth, but that didn't mean we didn't have the capacity, on our own, to come to Christ in faith. God didn't simply call people to Himself; He called those who came. The atonement wasn't limited in any sense; it was universal. (I mean, seriously, who would place a limit on the shed blood of Christ?) Could we resist God's calling? How could anyone even ask that? Of course we could. (Frankly, even at the point that I "agreed" with Calvinism's "Perseverance of the Saints" I was off the mark, leaning more toward "Once Saved, Always Saved." I've rejected OSAS since.) Today, of course, I don't believe any of that. I find that I was mistaken in those beliefs.

Now, often in the debate between Arminians (who generally dislike that term) and Calvinists (who often don't care much for that term either), the Arminian will say, "Here is why the Calvinist is wrong" and the Calvinist will retort, "Here is why the Arminian is wrong." I'm not going to do that. I'm going to offer the problems I came to with the beliefs I grew up with and see if you can understand my dilemma -- why I "converted" to the Reformed side. And understand, first and foremost, that my problems were built on Scriptural violations of my cherished perspectives. I didn't read Calvin. I didn't consume Luther. My problems arose when the Bible said things that didn't line up with what I believed and I was forced to change what I believe so that it lined up with the Bible. Someone once asked my pastor, "How did Stan come to believe this stuff?" My pastor answered, "If you read the books that Stan read, you would, too." The books that I read were in the Bible, and the Bible convinced me I needed to change my thinking.

I believed that human beings were fallen. They were lost, separated from God by their sin. The only hope for each person is to come to Christ in faith, repenting and choosing to follow Him. God, of course, wouldn't violate my free will to make me come. Besides, God wants love based on our free choice, not on some coercion. So He provides all the information we need -- the Gospel -- and the urging of the Holy Spirit, and we're able to choose Him ... or not. Then I ran into Scripture. Ephesians 2:1 didn't say we were spiritually lost -- it said we were dead. Romans 8 didn't say we were just fallen -- it said we were natural born enemies of God. First Corinthians 2 didn't say that it was difficult for us to comprehend the message of God -- it said we could not. And I was faced with a problem. If human beings were spiritually dead (not merely lost), hostile to God (instead of seeking Him like I thought), and incapable of comprehending (rather than fully able), then how could I get humans from that condition to "faith, repenting and choosing to follow" Christ? What is the mechanism I could offer that would move from "dead" to being able to accomplish every single thing necessary to meet God's requirements to save us? And what would be the differentiator that makes one person do all that on their own and another refuse? I was stuck. It seemed that the Bible was telling me that the basic approach I had to salvation was actually an impossibility.

I believed that those who were saved were "elect", called by God. But, of course, by that I meant that God had looked down the corridors of time, figured out what external influences would bring that individual to Him, and carried it out. If no such external influences would work, they weren't "called." Simple. The "elect" were elect by virtue of God's foreseeing their choice of Him. And then I read John 1 and saw that we were born into the family of God "not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God." Now, wait ... surely our will played a part! And Paul said otherwise. "It depends not on human will or effort, but on God, who has mercy" (Rom. 9:16). Now, I always held that, while it started with God's will, it did depend on human will. And here I have the Bible contradicting my beliefs.

My problem with the atonement was a logical one. I believed that all sin was paid for, but you had to claim the payment. You know, it was like a bank account in your name. You didn't get to withdraw from it until you claimed it. But everyone had such an account -- a "payment for sin" account. It wasn't limited in any sense, except by our choice to access it. Then I realized a problem with that. If all sin was paid for, then on what grounds could any further payment be exacted? I mean, if it is an account, not applied until accessed, then it could not be said that the payment was made; it was only a potential payment. The only actual payment would be the ones that were accessed. And no matter how I worded it, that wasn't "unlimited atonement". The best I could call it was "unlimited potential atonement." I never asked what Christ's intent on the cross was. Did He plan to save everyone and fail, or did He plan to save some and succeed? When that question came up, my problems with my beliefs kept building and building.

There was more. Jesus said that human beings lacked the capacity to even come to Him unless the Father drew them. When questioned about why some people didn't believe in Him, He answered that no one had the capacity to even believe unless the Father gave it to them. Jesus said that every single one that the Father planned to give Him would certainly come (which was problematic for my belief that we were the final choice on that matter -- we could ultimately resist His calling). I was faced with the dilemma of God's sovereignty that was surrendered to Man's Free Will. I was faced with the argument that it was God's will that everyone be saved ... and He apparently failed. I was faced with the problem of "lest any man should boast" while it appeared that, if we were so integral to being saved, we would have much to boast about.

There were two options for me. The skeptic, faced with a pile of contradictions like that, might jettison it all. I didn't. I tried to find answers that correlated rather than splintered Scripture. What I ended up with was what I later came to know as "Reformed theology" or "Calvinism" if you wish, but it was Scripture that drove me there. I didn't find satisfying answers to my problems in my original places. I had to find them elsewhere. I did find answers that satisfied, but it resulted in a change in perspective and, in the end, a changed life. Doctrine, you see, has consequences after all.