The Folly of Calvinism

"The difference is that Calvinism recognizes a dimension of the saving love of God which Arminianism misses, namely God's sovereignty in bringing to faith and keeping in faith all who are actually saved. Arminianism gives Christians much to thank God for, and Calvinism gives them more."

www.lgmarshall.org/Arminianism/packer_arminianisms.html

I disagree. Arminianism gives Christians a reason to make moral choices, a reason to fight evil, a reason to have a conscience, and a reason for Christ's atonement. Calvinism presupposes something that the Bible never states-- that God's sovereignty voids man's ability to recognize and choose good from evil, salvation from damnation, and thusly gives Christians much less.

My chief objection to Calvanism is that it is morally evasive. If the Devil made me do it or God made me do it, why should I be blamed or rewarded accordingly? If God is sovereign over all, what is the point of the tree in the Garden of Eden—or indeed the tree from which Our Lord was crucified? If He is the potter and we are the clay, if He is the chess master and we are the pawns, then where is our responsibility for anything including even our existence? If God predetermines everyone for either hell or heaven, why waste time, money, and effort on churches and missions? How does God’s creation of a single human being who will inevitably go to Hell glorify God? From the Garden or Eden on, man has been presented with choices, and it is entirely up to us as to whether we make the right or the wrong choice. If those choices are removed, sin cannot exist, and there is no need for a redeemer as God has made the choice already. Calvinism also insists that nothing passes on this earth, indeed in all of creation, without His ‘permission’. It must make God minimally a co-conspirator in every evil that befalls man, from last week’s jay-walk to the holocaust, a premise that can only be acceptable if we posit that God is evil. I think we can affirm that God is King of kings and Lord of all-- and absolutely sovereign-- so long as we insist that God's sovereignty must never curtail human responsibility in any way, including repentance in sin and faith in Jesus.

As I see it, all references to election and predestination are indications of divine intentionality. When my boys were six months old, I started to read to them. The purpose was to predestine a love of reading in them when they got older. But there is no assurance that they would love to read. That is entirely up to them. That’s the way I see it here. God predestrines us to life through His creation and salvation through Christ. But it is entirely up to us to make the key moral choices that follow in consequence: “Choose you this day whom you will serve.”