What are the implications of Calvinism? Fatalism? Evangelism? Free will? - Podcast Episode 194

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sort of like in physics when we talk about atoms. We sometimes teach physics students to think of atoms with dots with rings around them.

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Well, it's not even close to what an atom actually looks like, but for the purposes of understanding it, it's not a bad system.

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It's a good way to sort of categorize it and grasp it. Welcome to the Got Questions podcast.

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Joining me today is Jeff, the managing editor of BibleRef .com, and Kevin, the managing editor of GotQuestions .org.

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And this is episode seven in our series of What is Calvinism? And you may ask, how do you do seven episodes on Calvinism when there's only five points?

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Well, episode one was kind of introduction of what is Calvinism in general, and then we discussed the five points.

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And here we are at episode seven where we're going to be discussing some of the implications. So not maybe directly related to any of the specific five points, but how there's some misconceptions about Calvinism or even some implications of Calvinism that if you follow this to its logical conclusion, it seems to teach this.

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So that's what we're going to be discussing today, just kind of as a conclusion of the series in the sense of, okay, yes, here's the five points.

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Here's the degrees to which we agree or disagree with each of the points. And that's going to be different between Kevin, Jeff, and I, but we want you to even understand some of the other questions we get about Calvinism.

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I hope this conversation as usual will be both interesting, educational, informative for you as it has been for us as we've researched the issues and discussed them, and over 20 years of answering questions related to Calvinism.

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So Jeff, why don't you start us off? What are some of the implications of Calvinism that you've come across?

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Maybe let's start off with in a positive sense. How does Calvinism help us to understand certain things about God and salvation?

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Some of the positive things that we see about Calvinism, probably the most positive is the way it puts an emphasis on grace and God's sovereignty.

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And both of those are really important to our understanding of the gospel. Grace being that idea that everything that happens to us that's positive is because God is simply choosing to do what he doesn't have to do.

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It also emphasizes his sovereignty, the idea that he's completely in control. It puts all of the credit for our salvation on God and none of the credit for it on us.

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Those pretty much across the board I would say are biblically inarguable.

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Those are things that are not only things you cannot argue against in any sense, but they are really important. It also provides a framework.

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Sometimes it's handy just to have a system to be able to talk about something and to understand it, even if you know in the background that parts of that system are not exactly perfectly right on the money.

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It's sort of in physics when we talk about atoms. We sometimes teach physics students to think of atoms with dots with rings around them.

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Well, it's not even close to what an atom actually looks like, but for the purposes of understanding it, it's not a bad system.

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It's a good way to sort of categorize it and grasp it. It provides confidence in evangelism because it gives a person the chance to say, hey,

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I know that ultimately this is not really about me. And I think it also encourages people to dig deeper into faith.

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It gives them material and an attitude that says, I can and should deeply understand these things.

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So even though a person like myself doesn't identify necessarily as a

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Calvinist, there is a lot of value in what Calvinism brings. That doesn't mean everything about it is fantastic or that there are no potential drawbacks or problems, but clearly history has shown that Calvinism and the way it approaches things has a lot of practical and theological value.

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Those are good thoughts, Jeff, and I would concur that the sovereignty of God and the grace of God being emphasized in Calvinism are both very positive aspects of that framework.

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Myself being a four -point Calvinist, I guess, kind of a partial

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Calvinist, I find great comfort in some of these points of Calvinism.

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I preach every Sunday, and I have that privilege. My partial

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Calvinism really gives me comfort as I preach because, like you said, Jeff, it's not about me.

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Salvation belongs to the Lord. It's His business to change hearts. So my responsibility is to present the

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Word as plainly as I can, to make it clear and understandable for people, make it accessible to people, and then

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God does the work. It's His Holy Spirit that has to change hearts. We see this in Acts 16, as Paul is preaching to the women there gathered at the river in Philippi, and Scripture says that God opened

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Lydia's heart to receive the message of Paul. She was saved, baptized right then and there, but it was the

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Lord's work in her heart. So I take that into every Sunday morning when I stand in the pulpit.

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This has got to be God's work, and I'm just here as a conduit for the message.

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I'm here to open up the Word and let the Holy Spirit do His work from there. My partial

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Calvinism also prevents me from trying to control people, knowing, again, that I can't change people's hearts.

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That's God's business. So I pray for people. I present the truth. I pray for them. I love them.

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I show them the love of Christ. I try to model Christ for them, but I don't have to try to manipulate them.

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I don't have to wheedle or nag. I just leave it up to the Lord to be changing hearts.

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Then Calvinism humbles me to think that a sinner such as I would be the recipient of God's mercy and His love to the extent that Jesus Christ, His own

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Son, would die for me. That is amazing grace.

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Just the thought of that keeps me looking to the author and finisher of my faith.

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It's all about Jesus and glorifying Him. Kevin, Jeff, I agree.

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Me also being a partial Calvinist, I joke that depending on how you define the terms,

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I can be anywhere between a one -point and a four -and -a -half -point Calvinist. But if you will go back and watch the previous episodes,

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I have issues with every point of Calvinism in terms of how specifically most

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Calvinists define the terms and describe them. I don't disagree entirely with the theology behind it.

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I'm just not sure, is that the only biblically plausible way to interpret those things?

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For me, the one thing I would add to what you guys have shared is how

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Calvinism really focuses on what the Bible teaches. I already know the non -Calvinists, the anti -Calvinists, you just heard me say that.

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Calvinism isn't biblical at all. You can argue that all you want, but Calvinism behind each of the points, there's a ton of scriptures who seem to argue for each of those truths.

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They can be debated as other ways of interpreting it, but Calvinism truly strives to build their theology on the clear teachings of scripture.

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I think that's a really good attitude for us. No matter where we come down on the issues of God's sovereignty and human responsibility, we have to do it on what the

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Bible teaches. That's the whole goal of Got Questions. Every question we answer, we want to answer biblically.

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Here's what the Bible teaches. It's our slogans and our mission statements. It's everywhere.

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Why is Got Questions all about promoting Calvinism? We're not, but we're going to seek to interpret the

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Bible. If the Bible seems to point in a more Calvinistic direction than a more Arminian direction, that's the direction we're going to go.

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Not because it's Calvinism, but because we think that's actually the best interpretation of the Bible. For me, Calvinism, in addition to giving

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God all the glory, focusing on God's grace and keeping us humble and also reminding us that it's not up to us, the biblical focus of Calvinism is a powerful positive for me.

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Yes. I just want to throw in here, too, that my five -point friends, of which

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I have several, they are serious students of the Word. They dig deep.

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They know their stuff. They know why they believe what they believe. When I am in discussions with my friends who are

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Calvinists, I have to really be on my toes. I have to know my stuff, too. It drives me into the

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Word. This is a good thing. This is an indirect blessing of Calvinism in my life.

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It makes me steady harder. It makes me steady longer. I guess what

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Scriptures say, iron sharpens iron. It's that type of thing. It is good when iron sharpens iron, as long as they're bumping into each other to sharpen each other and not trying to beat each other up.

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That, again, can become something that is not necessarily a criticism of Calvinism in and of itself, but sometimes the practical outworkings.

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Before we started, I know we were talking about the question of holding all the points, because now we're getting into talking about being a one -point, two -point, three -point, four -and -a -half, five -point, and so on and so forth.

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There are people I know who ask the question, do you have to accept all five or reject them?

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If you have a chance to go through and listen to the other discussions that we've had about this, we try to make the point that the points do interlock.

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They do interrelate to each other. What that really means is that what you believe about each of them affects what you believe about the others.

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So, in a sort of a shallow sense, you can say that if you believe in five -point

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Calvinism, then you would believe that you either have to accept them all or you have to reject them all, just because of the way five -point

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Calvinism itself interprets those different ideas. However, theologically, if you're a four -point, three -point, whatever point, you are going to have a slightly different perspective on what the different doctrines mean, and in that sense, you would not necessarily see some of those as necessary.

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All that just to say that Calvinism is not supposed to be a doctrinal shibboleth.

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It's not supposed to be something that's a litmus test for legitimate faith. It's not an all -or -nothing, on -or -off kind of a thing.

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It's an idea. It's a concept, and it's got its good points and its bad points. So, there's no reason that a person says, well, if I'm going to accept one,

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I have to accept them all, or if I'm going to reject one, I have to reject them all. Excellent point,

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Jeff. Since you mentioned it, the bad points, just to be fair to our non -Calvinist brothers and sisters in Christ, there are some aspects to Calvinism that can result in negative attitudes, negative behaviors, even sinful patterns of thought.

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This is probably where you get the most questions about. Very rarely do we get a question like, what are some of the positive aspects of Calvinism?

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It's usually like, okay, if Calvinism is true, then what about this? I think the most frequent one we receive is, if Calvinism is true, then there is no motivation for evangelism.

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If people are saved, they have to be regenerated before they even have faith, if God elects and only the elects have any true opportunity to come to salvation, and they are inevitably going to come anyways, then what's the point of us sharing the gospel?

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Literally, I had a five -point Calvinist tell me once that, just using a

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Billy Graham, probably the most famous evangelist in the past few centuries, if Billy Graham had never shared the gospel once, the exact same number of people would be in heaven, is what he was saying.

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And I was like, I get that that's true according to Calvinism, but that also doesn't make any sense from what the

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Bible talks about, the urgency of evangelism. So many commands, but making disciples, proclaiming the gospel to the whole world, all of those things.

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I know God wouldn't be instructing us to do those things if they were pointless, if the exact same thing was going to happen whether we did them or not, similar to prayer.

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Some people get these ads about prayer that, why even bother praying if God's in control and already knows what's gonna happen? Well, because God commanded us to, and he wouldn't have commanded us to if it was pointless.

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So the accusation against Calvinists is typically, there's no motivation to evangelize, and yet there are truly some

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Calvinists who don't. But that's not been my experience at all with the vast majority of Calvinists I've met.

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I've met many who fully embrace all five points of Calvinism and yet are extremely bold in sharing the faith, and trying to witness to people who can go in that direction.

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You're right, but it's not something that every five -point Calvinist is going to necessarily get to. Yeah, totally.

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So if you go into Calvinism so much that you're all just totally focused on the sovereignty of God, yeah,

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I could see how that could lead you to question, why bother sharing the gospel with this person if he or she is elect, he or she will believe.

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If he or she is not elect, they won't. But again, the

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Bible tells us, share the gospel, make disciples, proclaim the gospel to the whole world, always be ready to give an answer, all those things which tell us we are to be actively sharing our faith.

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So yes, God is sovereign in salvation, but humanity is also responsible.

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This takes us back to, you don't have to understand perfectly how it works in order to follow

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God's command. So yes, there are some Calvinists who don't share the gospel, who don't really believe it's important, but the vast majority, even full

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Calvinists, are very active in sharing their faith and proclaiming the gospel. Why? Because Christ commanded us to do so, and it's part of following Him, and proclaiming the gospel, and trusting that God will bring about the results that He desires in the hearts of the people whom we're sharing the gospel with.

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My thought on that is that I think that hyper -Calvinism is what we refer to that as, where people say there's no point in evangelism.

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I don't think that that's a fair interpretation of certainly what not the vast majority of identified

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Calvinists believe. I don't think it's a fair representation of what Calvin himself would have undertaken, because it's just not, that doesn't make any sense.

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On the flip side, I do think that there is an inversion of that that is sort of a sticky wicket for Calvinism, and that's the other side of evangelism.

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If everything in Five -Point Calvinism is true, as commonly and traditionally understood, it is possible for me, if I'm a non -believer, and you're evangelizing to me, and for whatever reason, part of your evangelism is to explain those points,

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I'm sort of logically in a good spot to look at you and say, then I'm just going to walk away, because what you're me is that I can't do anything to make myself want

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God. I'm only going to want God if God makes me want God, and nothing I say, do, or think is going to change that, so why should

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I worry about it right now? Thank you for your time. Some people, I'm sure, will dispute that and disagree with it, and I'm not saying that that's a reason that Calvinists cannot or should not evangelize, but it is one of those things that sort of creeps in there that we have to just be aware of in the we handle what are probably supposed to be in -house debates, behind -the -curtain kind of discussions.

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We have two very profound theological truths. One is the sovereignty of God, and the other is the free will of man, this gift of God to us as creations in His image, where we have the ability to choose and to make moral decisions, and so how those two things work together is kind of what

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Calvinism is trying to explain, and it's also what Arminianism is trying to explain, and I think what we have to come to grips with is that there is a holy tension in Scripture between the two.

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It's meant to be this way. There is no contradiction. There is no contradiction between God's sovereignty and mankind's responsibility, but in trying to avoid a seeming contradiction, we have these two camps that have been set up.

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So full Calvinism, full Arminianism, I think both of them are trying to explain something that doesn't really need to be explained, just accepted by faith, and to accept this holy tension, this divine tension that we have in Scripture.

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In 1 Corinthians chapter 4, in the Paul versus Apollos debate, as the

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Corinthians were kind of dividing into factions, I am with Apollos, I am with Paul, and Paul says, no, no, no, that's not the way the body of Christ is supposed to be working, but Paul says this to them, that he wants them to learn from us the meaning of the saying, do not go beyond what is written.

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Then he goes on to say, then you won't get puffed up, you won't get proud about what you know and all that.

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To be a follower of one of us is not what it's all about, be a follower of Christ.

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And so, in order to maintain proper humility, Paul says it is best to not go beyond what is written.

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If we could apply that to this whole debate of Calvinism and Arminianism, we're dealing with some of the mysteries of God, and we need to be careful not to go beyond what is actually written in Scripture, bringing in logical constructs and saying, well, this makes sense to me if we can make it all work this way.

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We just have to be careful. I think we need to just take the cautious route and say, you know,

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Scripture's not real clear on some of the details here, and that's okay. I'm going to look to Christ and let him be the author and finisher of my faith.

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So, excellent point, Kevin, and I'd love the do not go beyond what is written, not just in this issue, but in so many other issues where it can be fascinating, it can be fun to debate, and in our desire to try to figure it out, to try to be able to explain it fully, we end up inserting our own logic and making up theology, all of which is possible.

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This could be actually the right explanation, but once we go beyond what is written, it no longer has the inerrancy of God's Word, the inspiration of Scripture by the

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Holy Spirit behind it. So, that's when it gets dangerous. So, thank you for pointing that out.

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That's a good reminder. Jeff, let me ask you this next question, because you are the most philosophically bent of the three of us.

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What is... Bent is the way I've been described. Go ahead. What is fatalism, and how does it relate to Calvinism?

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Fatalism is the idea that everything that's going to happen is just going to happen, and nothing you do makes a difference, which is sort of a cynical way of talking about God's sovereignty.

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Cynical being different than skeptical. A skeptic is somebody who's not sure and wants more evidence. A cynic is somebody who's just already made up their mind, and that's the end of it.

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So, the cynical view that God is sovereign is to say He's already decided, He already knows, and that means that nothing

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I say or do makes any difference whatsoever, so I'm not even going to bother to try to think about it or consider it, or I'm just going to do whatever

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I want to do, or I'm going to spend my whole life in terror because I'm not sure if what

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I'm experiencing is just my feeble human mind confusing me. That's fatalism, and it's not just a theological thing.

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There are people who are fatalists in other senses, too. I don't think that's a good explanation for exactly how

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Calvinism goes at it. There is sometimes an issue with Calvinism that the emphasis on God's sovereignty sometimes can become so unbalanced that we forget that, like Kevin said, there are more things said in scripture than just God's sovereignty.

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Those other things don't contradict God's sovereignty, but God does say things like, choose, and you know, you refuse to come to me, and you need to hear, and you need to respond.

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Somewhere in there is that tension in between them, and if you focus too much on God's sovereignty, then you do start to run into questions where you get questions about sort of a fatalistic attitude, which is to say, well, if God is so sovereign, then if anything, anything is about human decision, then what does that mean about things like sin?

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How does that mean that God is not responsible for sin? If literally everything is entirely subject to God's sovereignty, and he is the one who decides, how is he not responsible for sin?

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Yes, I know, keyboard warriors, thank you, that there are explanations that Calvinists have for that, and probably the most concerning of those is the jump to mystery.

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We've used that term, and I think it's fair in a lot of cases, but there are times where we will jump to saying, well, it's a mystery, which sometimes just means it's a contradiction that I can't explain, but I'm just going to go with it.

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There's a difference between something that's beyond our understanding and something that just doesn't make sense, so fatalism brings up those ideas.

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I don't think that even five -point Calvinism fairly understood implies fatalism, implies that nothing matters.

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That's where hyper -Calvinism comes in, is what difference does it make? But it is something that one has to be careful of, like we say about going beyond what is written.

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If we start to emphasize something in a human framework beyond what Scripture actually says, then we wind up getting into exactly those kinds of problems.

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So if I were to pinpoint maybe the—and Jeff, you've already hinted at this, but it is a major issue for Calvinism in the sense that it makes

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God the author of evil. Even on the episode we most recently published, one of the comments on YouTube was,

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I reject Calvinism because it makes God the author of evil. Well, depending on what you mean by the author of evil, there are some

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Calvinists that say, yes, God does ordain evil to happen, because He has ordained absolutely everything that's ever happened in the history of the universe.

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And there's others who would use the term more like, no, God allows evil to occur according to His plan, but there are other scriptures that clearly say

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God does not commit evil, God does not tempt anyone to evil, God does not force anyone to evil, those sorts of things.

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So this is a difficult balance, but related to the sovereignty aspect, if you go too far into it, focus on it alone, you start really thinking, well, did

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God create evil? Which is, again, a whole nother episode, but those some who reject

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Calvinism do so because of this issue, because in their mind, if God is absolutely sovereign in everything, then that means

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God actually actively brought evil into existence and ordains evil acts to occur, which

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I don't know how you come to that view without believing that God actually is evil. I have a little nugget to sort of put in with that.

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I think that one of the things that's helpful is to remind people who do have a strong view of God's that God's sovereignty, if it means anything, it also has to include the ability to not exert

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His power when He so chooses. If I have a little glass cup on my desk and there's an ant in it,

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I am perfectly capable of crushing the ant. There's nothing it can do to get out, there's nothing it can do to resist me,

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I can just reach in there with my thumb and squish it. But that fact does not, therefore, compel me to squish the ant.

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Nobody's going to argue that I couldn't do it if I wanted to, but I actually have power, which means I don't have to.

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So sometimes sovereignty gets used in a sense where we say, as soon as we assume that God is not actively making a choice in something, that we're somehow violating

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His sovereignty, we're not. And that's a concern that both professed Calvinists and non -Calvinists can get into.

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But I think that's one of the reasons I don't think that Calvinism really implies fatalism, is because if God is truly sovereign, then that means

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He can choose when to intervene, when not to intervene, when to allow, which is a great word, and when not to.

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So I think that's sort of a helpful way to get people past that, is just to remember if God is really sovereign, that doesn't mean

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He has to do everything He can do. Well said. Sovereignty does not mean, yes,

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God has the power to do anything that is in accordance with His will, with His attributes, that does not mean that everything that happens is something

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He actively did. Kevin, let me ask you this next question, because it relates to something that you said earlier, and it's something that I saw a question about the other day, someone actually responding to our podcast on Calvinism.

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The question was, I believe like a Calvinist, but I preach like an

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Arminian. Kevin, what do you think of that mindset? Yeah, to a certain extent, that's kind of what

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I do, I suppose. I've kind of phrased it this way, though, sometimes when

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I'm explaining things to people. I'm going to say, I'm going to present the gospel to you as if it were all up to you.

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You need to believe, you need to repent, you need to turn to Christ in faith, but I'm going to pray like it's all up to God, and it is

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God who changes the heart and all the rest. So, both are true.

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I'm going to present the gospel, and I'm going to ask for a response, and then

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I'm going to leave the results up to God. And sometimes I've kind of even put it this way, that your responsibility—or

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I'll just make it personal—my responsibility is to believe. God's responsibility is to save and to preserve.

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And so, I'm going to take care of what I'm supposed to take care of, which is believing, and then I'm going to let God handle the rest.

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And I know that probably drives both sides crazy when I say things like that, but that's kind of how

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I look at it sometimes. So, Kevin, Jeff, thank you for joining me through this entire series.

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Just because we've already gotten some questions about it, yes, our series on Calvinism concludes with this, but we're actually going to do probably two more episodes that are closely related.

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We're going to do an episode on Arminianism, and then

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I think we'll do one more on some of the other alternatives to Calvinism and Arminianism besides just describing yourself.

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I'm a two -and -a -third point Calvinist. There are other ways to look at this. Such as?

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Jeff, would you like to introduce the term? Just to make people angry, sure,

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Molinism, the one that really gets everybody going. But you're right, there are alternatives. It's good if we talk about some of those other ideas.

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Molinism in particular is one of the bigger ones, but there are others. Yes. So, while the

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Calvinism series is over, we're going to continue, at least for another couple episodes, on this theme of helping to understand the views that are out there.

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And again, our heart is to focus on what does God's word teach, even on these really difficult issues that it's really difficult for us to put into a nice little box like we'd like to, but focus on what does scripture teach, how does that impact what

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I believe, and how I live out my life. So, hope you detected that heart throughout these episodes, because that's truly our goal in this.

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So again, Kevin, Jeff, thanks for joining me today. This has been the Got Questions podcast on what are the implications, both positive and negative, of Calvinism.