Introduction to "What is Calvinism?"

https://www.amazon.com/What-Calvinism-Arthur-Pink-ebook/dp/B076KK8LFX/

I discovered “Calvinism” through a friend many years ago. He never used the words Calvinism, John Calvin, or even Reformed in our conversation. What he did say was something regarding election. I don’t even remember exactly what he said. All I do remember is that I disagreed with him.

I possessed some familiarity of the reformed doctrine of unconditional election, and this doctrine offended me. I had been taught that God chooses us based on his foreknowledge of our choice of him. God chose those whom he saw had a “heart for him”. This version of election made sense. Bill Mooney’s version did not. God chooses his people freely, and without any influence on our part. We had this conversation in the Christian bookstore where I was working at the time, and as Providence would so arrange things, I had access to all the reformed theology I could get my twenty-two-year-old hands on.

I completed my 45^th year only two days ago. The past twenty-three years, among other things, have been an intense theological journey. Actually, the journey to Calvinism was a brief one. I was immediately convinced of its validity after reading John Piper’s The Pleasures of God, and upon a thorough reevaluation of the Scriptures I had read since I was a child. My true journey has been toward the construction of this particular book you now read.

I have written and re-written a “Calvinism Primer” over and over and over, again and again and again for the past twenty-three years. I have studied John Calvin’s Institutes. I have read Luther’s Bondage of the Will. I have read the Puritans and I have read Edwards and Spurgeon. I have discussed with friends and I have “debated” online. I have questioned not only Calvinism, but my very belief in God many times over the past two decades. My opinion on the branch of Protestant theology known as Calvinism has not changed. What I have learned is that the branch that is not Calvinism is plainly not the Gospel. If I were to contrast Calvinism with everything in popular, current Christian “doctrine”, it would look something like this:

Calvinism Man is a sinner, completely and utterly enslaved to sin, wicked, and depraved, an enemy of God to his dying breath.	Not Calvinism Man is a sinner, yet somehow enough of a saint to choose what is the highest and greatest possible good: to trust in God.
God sovereignly, without respect to man, to his desires, his sinful character, his selfishness, or his hostility to God, chooses to save some of humanity.	God submits himself to the whims of man and chooses those whom he foresees will choose him.
In spite of our frailty, our fickleness, our sin, and our pride, God keeps in his care those he has chosen for all eternity.	In spite of their weakness, selfishness, and inability to continue in grace without his assistance, God allows those he has chosen to perish for eternity after passing some threshold of unrighteousness unknown to them.

This is obviously a slanted simplification, but it is not an oversimplification. There are other issues. Not-Calvinism answers many questions that Calvinism raises:

·        Why does God choose some and not others?

·        Does God love everyone?

·        Why evangelize if God is completely sovereign?

·        Why pray if God will only do what he wants regardless?

The problem with these questions, and any of the questions that non-Calvinism answers, is that they are entirely anthropocentric. These questions are not concerned with God’s glory (which is what the Bible is concerned with, by the way), but instead are concerned with satisfying the concerns and dilemmas of a person who refuses to trust in the God as revealed in the Bible.

This brings me to my main concern: we do not accept what is known as Calvinism because we do not accept the God of Scripture. Frankly, he is offensive to our pride. He does what he wants and not what we want. He condemns us as soon as we are conceived. He does not rescue all of us from our sin. He uses us for his purposes and does not treat us as the free-thinking, sentient, sovereign, agents of human glory that we believe we are. But we are not, according to Scripture.

I will not likely complete my “Calvinism Primer”. Much wiser men have done so, far before I was even conceived. I have done my best to present their words here to explain Calvinism, or rather what I have come to know as the Gospel of the Glory of God.

Alejandro Gonzaga

October 13, 2017