Why I Am A Calvinist

Why am I a Calvinist? Many people would assume that I am a Calvinist as a product of bad teaching or poor upbringing. This would be a mistake in my case. I was raised in a good, standard, Dispensationalist, "Arminian" home. I put "Arminian" in quotes because I never thought of myself as an Arminian. I believed I was a Calvinist because those rotten Arminians believed you could lose your salvation, and I didn't. As it turned out, I was a 1-point Calvinist and a 4-point Arminian ... as I suspect a lot of you are. (And even that one point wasn't accurate.) So it wasn't upbringing or early teaching that got me here. No, it was much worse. Truth be told, I am a Calvinist for two reasons. First, I was dragged away from my original upbringing, kicking and screaming, by Scripture and evident reason. What could I do? But, second, I found that, once here, I didn't want to leave.

What Scripture and evident reason pushed me into this perspective? The easiest, clearest, first, and least surmountable was the declaration that Man is evil at his core. So insurmountable is this that most "Arminian" (I'm trying not to use the term in an insulting sense, but just as a denominator, so to speak.) statements of faith include it. It doesn't take a Calvinist to see that "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23). Fine. We're all in agreement. The problem, unfortunately, is that we aren't. As I looked into this condition of Man, I found that very few viewpoints were taking it into account. I believed like most of you that the Holy Spirit "woos" unbelievers, "calls" to them, tries to win them over. I believed like most of you that we had to first place our faith in Christ ("Accept Him as your Savior" was the phrase) and then we would be born again. This faith was something that we came to, something that we found once we had received sufficient enlightenment to recognize our need and His sufficiency. Nice. But none of this took into account what the Bible had to say about our natural condition.

The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually (Gen. 6:5).

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it (Jer. 17:9)?

What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one" (Rom. 3:9-12).

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God (Rom. 8:5-8).

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned (1 Cor. 2:14).

You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience -- among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind (Eph. 2:1-3).

And this is only a partial list. Let's face it, folks, the Bible paints a pretty bleak picture of Man in his natural condition. And yet, when I started looking into what I believed, I found that none of what I had been told took this condition into account. If the idea was that I could eventually become enlightened enough to the truth and place my faith in Him, how did that take into account that the only intention of my heart was evil, that my heart was deceitful and sick, that no one seeks for God or does good (Isn't accepting Jesus "doing good"?), that the flesh has no capacity to do anything that might please God, that natural man cannot understand spiritual matters? And, of course, there was the worst condition -- dead. I asked people. "What does Paul mean by 'dead'?" They told me, "Oh, that means spiritually dead." So, if we are, because of our sin, spiritually dead, by nature haters of God, what must occur to make us willing to lay down our arms against God and receive His gift of His Son?

"Oh," they told me, "'dead' doesn't mean 'dead-dead'." (Seriously ... that's what they told me.) "Just because you're dead in sin doesn't mean that there's anything actually dead." Yes, that's what I was told, and that's what I believed for a long time, but it became impossible to hold this bizarre position ("The Bible says 'dead' and we believe 'dead', but it doesn't mean 'dead'."). So I was forced to surrender to the weight of Scripture and conclude that natural Man is dead in sin, inclined only to evil, and completely without hope unless God first installs a new, living, spiritual nature in him.

Of course, the "evident reason" that went to work was that if the first point -- "the Total Depravity of Man" -- was as true as the Bible seems to say, then the rest must follow. God wouldn't choose to save dead people for any conditions in them; He must do it for His own good purposes (AKA Unconditional Election). He would insure that Christ's death actually accomplished the salvation of those whom He chose to save (AKA Limited Atonement). When God chose to save someone, there would be nothing that could withstand His decision (AKA Irresistible Grace). And those whom He chose to save and paid for in full would certainly be maintained to the end (AKA Perseverance of the Saints). I found that the logic was unavoidable, and that Scripture seemed to hold it up. So, I was convinced by Scripture and by evident reason to be a Calvinist against the "norm" and against my upbringing. I was dragged into this kicking and screaming, so to speak.

Then I found that I didn't want to leave. You see, nowhere in Christianity is the grace and sovereignty of God more emphasized than here. If Man is as bad as Scripture says he is and as much without hope as we believe he is, leaving him only with the option of being transformed to new life apart from any choice or any merit within himself, that is grace of a magnitude that I didn't previously comprehend or appreciate. And if it is God's choice, not Man's, that is a sovereignty I didn't see before. It is this grace and this sovereignty that I don't want to leave. To me, it's a scary world if we are the deciders. So many Christians see God as a "hands off" kind of God, letting us choose what we will and hoping (and, to be fair, working so) that we will come to Him. He's a "gentleman", almost but not quite a hostage to the sin that has beset His creation. He has a plan to overcome it in the end, but so few people are cooperating. Eventually He'll just end it all. That God terrifies me. I prefer the God who "works all things after the counsel of His will" (Eph. 1:11), who accomplishes everything He intends (Job 42:2) -- the Absolute Sovereign. That's where I find my comfort in times of difficulty and doubt.

Why am I a Calvinist? I am a Calvinist because it's what I see in the Bible. I'm a Calvinist because it makes sense. I'm a Calvinist, finally, because it provides me with a bigger image of God, a smaller image of me, and the highest comfort in tough times. So ... what have you to offer?