Calvinism as Controversy:
I am a Southern Baptist. Few topics are more controversial in Southern Baptist circles than the topic of Calvinism. This phenomenon has always been interesting, to me, since Calvinism's chief historic rival, Arminianism, is technically against the standards of the Southern Baptist Confession. (By Arminianism, here, I mean Arminianism proper, such as it is laid out in the Five Articles of Remonstrace and the writings of Jacob Arminius, himself. (By the way, many more Calvinists should read Arminius. All in all, he was an excellent scholar.) These writings contrast the Baptist Faith and Message, which clearly teaches that no one can lose his salvation. Classic Arminianism teaches that a person can in fact lose their salvation, so, what we see in Southern Baptist circles is not really Arminianism, but a sort of synergistic evolution of historic Baptist life. The Baptist Faith and Message was based on the Calvinistic New Hampshire Confession, a personal favorite of this author, and it kept the Calvinistic teaching of 'Perseverance of the Saints'. I have always found synergism and this teaching to be an odd pairing, but such is life as a Southern Baptist, you really do see all kinds.
So, I guess the best way to sum up the point of this post is this: I am not trying to convince you to be Calvinist, I am simply trying to persuade you that Calvinists are not all the horrible ghouls we often get made out to be.
Free Will and the Author of Sin
Calvinists have often been accused of believing that man does not have free will in the decisions that he makes. However, this is contrary to historical Reformed teaching. Consider the following from the Calvinistic Second London Baptist Confession of Faith: (emphasis added)
This confession is in perfect agreement with the teachings of other Calvinistic confessions, like the Westminster Confession of Faith as well as the teachings of John Calvin, himself, who said:CHAPTER 3; OF GOD’S DECREEParagraph 1. God hath decreed in himself, from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably, all things, whatsoever comes to pass;1 yet so as thereby is God neither the author of sin nor hath fellowship with any therein;2 nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established;3 in which appears His wisdom in disposing all things, and power and faithfulness in accomplishing His decree.4
What often gets missed, when Calvinists are accused of believing that man has no free will, is that there is significant debate to be had as to how free will is defined. When a synergist says that man has free will, he means something different from what a Calvinist means when he says that man has free will.Whence, then comes this wickedness to man, that he should fall away from his God? Lest we should think it comes from creation, God had put His stamp of approval on what had come forth from himself. By his own evil intention, then, man corrupted the pure nature he had received from the Lord; and by his fall drew all his posterity with him into destruction. Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3:23:8
Calvinists believe that man has what is called 'Compatibilistic Freedom' and what that means is that we believe that man's freedom is completely compatible with God's decree of all things that would ever happen. God is in complete control, yet we still act freely. How, you may ask? Well, in compatibilistic freedom, man is free so long as he can do what he most desires. Let me give an example. Say that I have to be at work at six o'clock in the morning for a twelve hour shift. If I get up and go to work, I did so as a free act. But, you may argue, of course you did not want to get up that early! And, who wants to work a twelve hour shift? Surely, this disproves the Calvinist notion of what freedom is...
But, on the contrary, I did do what I wanted most. Let me explain: when my alarm clock goes off so that I can get up and go to work, a significant part of me certainly does not want to get out of bed. However, greater than my desire to continue sleeping is my desire to continue to pay the bills and put food on the table and gas in my car. So, because my greater desire in that instance means I go to work, I get up and I go to work. My going to work is now, as Calvinism defines it, a free act.
The same would of course go for acts of mine that are sinful. In the moment that I make that decision, my desire to disobey God is greater than my desire to honor God with my life, and I fall into sin. However, none of this contradicts God's overall plan and decree for the universe. As Joseph told his brothers:
Genesis 50:20 "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it
for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they
are today."
Joseph's brothers were responsible for sin and God was responsible for the good that came out of the situation, anyway.
Joseph's brothers were responsible for sin and God was responsible for the good that came out of the situation, anyway.
That leads to the other half of this misconception. Because people believe that Calvinists teach that man has no free will, they are led to believe that Calvinists believe that God is the author of sin. Take a moment, if you will, and scroll back up to where we quoted the London Baptist Confession. Notice, it explicitly says that God is not the author of sin. If a person tells you that God is the author of sin, he is not a Calvinist, he is a fatalist, and his view is just as heretical as are the extremes of synergism: Open Theism and Pelagianism. Calvinists are wrong if they try to put all synergists in those two categories (a blog post for another time, consider it forthcoming) and synergists are wrong if they group Calvinists in with those who think our Holy and Righteous God is the author of sin.
Some helpful links
RC Sproul on God's sovereignty and human freedom (video)
Jonathan Edwards on the nature of man's freedom
Excerpt from John Frame's Doctrine of God about whether God is the author of sin
Conclusion
All I ask from my synergistic brothers and sisters in Christ is that if you are going to disagree with us, please do two rather simple things. First, I ask that you represent our views fairly, as they have been explained, above. (And I promise that in the next few days I will produce an explanation of certain points of synergism that demand the same from our Calvinist brothers and sisters) and second, let us live and work to fulfill the Gospel together. Do not vilify the Calvinists around you or try to have them thrown out of your churches, embrace them with unity as we work to serve the same Lord and spread the same Gospel. God bless.