History of Calvinism

Welcome to the Rep Report. I'm your host Andrew Rappaport, and on this edition what we're gonna be doing is my sermon that I gave at the Open Air Theology Conference on Why Calvinism? My topic was a history of Calvinism.

Whether you agree with Calvinism or not, we can still look at the history of it and give an honest evaluation of the history of Calvinism. That's what I attempted to do. Hopefully I did that well. So the audio quality may not be the best because it was in an auditorium where the folks from Open Air Theology didn't have complete control over the sound.

But I do think that this is something that will be helpful. If you want to read the notes, my sermon notes are all in the link that's in the show notes on strivingfortory .org under history of Calvinism.

So hope you enjoy this and now on to the podcast.

Program Introduction and Conference Context

Welcome to the Rep Report with your host Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian podcast community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church,.

Go to strivingforeternity .org. I was glad when I looked at the the lineup and realized, do you guys have your outline? I looked at this and the first thing I looked for I said, Oh good, I'm before Claude Ramsey.

I do not want to follow Claude Ramsey. If you have not heard him preach, get ready. It's a pretty good day. You know, I know that Brother Keith Fossey, he already told me he's gonna be paying attention to my message only because I'm gonna cover the Calvinism of Lutheran.

So he wants to know what he needs to, what I've stole from him. But let's just start with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we come before you and we are. The psalmist asks the question that we all ask.

What is man? Lord, I probably speak for everyone ill, inadequate, present to them, for those who are coming from, feel that we could speak. Lord, I ask that you would give a boldness to communicate your Word, your people, so that every one of us would be amazed what you have, love God, Christ.

Amen. Well, I have been tasked with the topic of the history of Calvinism. Let me start by saying a little bit of a story. I was doing a message addressing the issue of sinless perfectionism. And as I like to do, I don't want to misrepresent anyone's position.

I reached out to a very well-known sinless perfectionist, and I had asked him if I would be able to run my notes by him so that I know that I'm not misrepresenting the position he holds. He ended up, before, you know, agreeing to talk to me.

We were texting back and forth. He went to our website, and he concluded from our website that I was a Calvinist, and stated that I, as a Calvinist, would not call him a brother in Christ. I informed him I have never actually spoken to him before, and I've never heard his testimony, and don't actually know specifically what he believes, to say whether he is or isn't a brother in Christ.

And I also kind of informed him I don't know if he knows this, but I'm not the Holy Spirit, and I don't actually know who is and isn't. I just have to look at people's testimony and time look for fruit.

And so we started a dialogue, and that dialogue never got to the issue of sinless perfectionism, because he was too hung up on attacking Calvinism. It was hard for him to discuss a topic he's an expert in, where I'm contacting him to specifically discuss, because he had a stumbling block called Calvinism.

He couldn't discuss this topic. So in an attempt to move the conversation forward, I asked him why he thinks that I'm a Calvinist, since I don't state that anywhere in our doctrinal statement, and many know that I actually don't typically use that label, because I don't know what you mean by a Calvinist.

I may agree that you're a Calvinist, that I'm a Calvinist by your definition. I may not. Matt Slick once had me, the first time he had me on his radio program, he asked me, he says, so are you a Calvinist?

I said, well, all I know is that many people have told me I'm a heretic because I'm a Calvinist. Many people have told me I'm a heretic because I'm not a Calvinist. The only thing everyone agrees on is I'm a heretic.

You invited me to preach, brother, you may not want to admit that. So let me get back to our friend with a sinless perfection a little bit later. You know, the issue with Calvinism is if I get 10 different people from 10 different backgrounds and churches to discuss what Calvinism is, I will probably come up with 12 different definitions.

So the first thing we need to discuss is what is Calvinism? It's a topic that is most difficult for many because, well, they are too busy addressing something that Calvinism is not. I find that Calvinism is under attack most often based on something that is not the proper definition.

So if we're going to discuss why Calvinism, the first thing we need to do in looking at a history of it is discuss what it is. It's far easier for people to attack a straw man argument. A straw man argument is where you give a different definition than the proper one because it's easy to knock over.

And that's what we end up seeing in the online debates of Calvinism today. There's a very well-known evangelist who told me that I am not saved because I'm a Calvinist. Now, he defined me being a Calvinist as I preach on stage with other Calvinists.

And I had to remind him, you have been on stage with men like Paul Washer. Every chapter of your book starts with a quote from Charles Haddon Spurgeon. But he studied this topic for a whopping three months, only reading the works of Dave Hunt.

And concluded he did not need to read anything from any Calvinist because he knew it was heresy. And he continues to write books being a watchman against the heresy of Calvinism. And in a phone conversation I had with him, what I did was I decided to ask him just five questions.

I didn't use the labels people usually use. I discovered, to his demise, that he's actually a Calvinist. If you want to see this in action, you can go to our YouTube channel, Striving for Fairness YouTube channel.

You can watch a debate I had with R .A. Fuentes. The topic that he wanted to debate me, he's a man from the Philippines, was Calvinism is useless and dangerous. I was interested to see what he was going to say.

It was a very interesting thing because as this man debates Calvinism, what I ended up arguing is that not only is Calvinism necessary, I actually argued it's necessary for the gospel. But, oh thanks, I had one hidden underneath, but I appreciate it.

That's a master of ceremonies. What I ended up doing was discovering in this debate, in my first round of cross-examination, what I did was I just sat there and asked him five questions that I'm going to get to in a moment.

I just asked him basically the definition of Calvinism at a very quick level, and do you know that this man who wants to debate Calvinism is a Calvinist? I knew that all the Calvinists that were watching in chat were getting it because as I'm getting to point number five, they're going, checkmate, boom, gotcha, and he's not getting it.

Second round of cross-examination, I asked him, I said, can you define these five terms one after another? Total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints.

He managed to misdefine every one of those. Some of you already know what those are referenced to, that is the acronym TULIP. Some of you, maybe this is the first time that you're hearing that. Maybe you came here because you don't actually know what Calvinism is.

Good, you're the people that should be here. If you're not a Calvinist here, first off, I reward you or commend you for coming into the lion's den. No, to coming to where you're going to hear. Maybe it's going to challenge you.

It's good that we're challenged. But in short, what I asked in the first round of cross-examination, I asked Mr. Fuentes, I said, do you believe that the curse of sin affected not only our thinking and emotion, but also our will?

He said, yes, that's total depravity. I said, do you believe that God's choosing of us, that he saved us, had anything to do with us, or was it all from what God chose to do? And he said, well, the God.

Hmm, okay. That's election, unconditional election. I said, okay, do you believe that, actually, I just asked, do you believe anyone's in hell? He said, yes. Okay, so he right there off the bat believes that the atonement's limited in some way.

Now we can discuss how much, but the atonement of Christ's death is limited to that of believers. He agreed to that. I said, do you believe that the grace of God is completely a work of God and not of man's acceptance of it?

He said, yes. Okay, that's irresistible grace. Do you believe that the nature of salvation is such that once God saves a person, they can't lose it? He said, yes.

He's a Calvinist.

But so many people don't know that because they don't look at the proper definitions. And so let us start with the common argument that we get accused of. As Calvinists, we worship who? Help me out. How many of you have ever worshiped Calvin as Calvinists?

What is the origin of Calvinism? Remember that conversation I had with the Sinless Perfectionist? How did he conclude I was a Calvinist? Well, he told me that he saw this in my doctrinal statement. You ready for it?

This is what proves I'm a Calvinist. He said that I cited Ephesians 4 .1 .4, which says, just as he chose us from before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him in love.

Excuse me.

Wait.

Just the citation of that verse, which says we've been elected before the foundation of the world means I'm a Calvinist? He said, yes. I said, I hate to inform you, but do you know that Paul wrote that under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit?

I guess Paul, and even more so, God is a Calvinist then. We never did get to the Sinless Perfection discussion. Why do we call this Calvinism then? If we can find it rooted in the Bible, why call it Calvin?

Calvinism. Well, it's really due, and we'll get to this, to the great work that John Calvin did in systematizing a lot of doctrines that went before him. The doctrines were not original with him. However, actually, though he did a lot of the systematizing, it may surprise you that the five points of Calvin didn't come from Calvin.

We will get to that. The five points of Calvin though are, or Calvinism, are founded and rooted deeply within Scripture. We already saw that election, that we were elected before the foundation of the world.

That's God's way of stating as clearly as possible that you and I had absolutely nothing to do with our salvation. It's not saying that God somehow is working in time.

He's eternal.

When you start trying to do as many who hate Calvinism do with this passage, they start to try to explain this somehow, and they make a mistake of changing the character of God. Because all of a sudden, they start saying God is a creature bound by time.

God is saying this not because He is bound by time, but because we are bound by time. There's no clearer way to say that you had nothing to do with your salvation than the fact that God selected you not just before you were born, but before the world was in existence.

Many want to deny the clear reading of that text. Now the people who want to attack this fall into two camps. One camp is the corporal camp. They ignore the individual language that's spoken of election, and they say it's just a corporate body.

So Israel was elect. The church was elect.

This is a way to avoid the clear reading of Scripture. The other ditch that people get into, and I actually think the more serious one, is the one where they say, well, see, what God did was, because humans have this free will, God looked down the tunnels of time, He saw who was going to choose Him, and then based on their choice, He elected them.

You have a different God than the God of the Bible, because you no longer have a God that's omniscient. You have a God that doesn't know everything, and He's bound by time. The God of the Bible knows everything.

He doesn't learn anything. He doesn't need to see what choices you're going to make to know what choices you're going to make. He knows every choice you're going to make tomorrow. You don't. I don't. And He knows it absolutely.

God of the Bible is also eternal. He's not bound by time. It's all the same now to Him, in a sense. But one of the biggest struggles for non-Calvinists, for people who, let me rephrase and say, I don't call them Arminian, but I'm going to call them non-Calvinists or anti-Calvinists, because that's really what they are.

They're against Calvinism, or what they think is Calvinism. And the reason is because experientially, they chose God. They just got to get past that to the theologically God chose them. I mean, they think about what they experienced.

And I used to debate this with a friend of mine. And then I was preaching through Philippians 1, and I got to Philippians 1 .29. Now, I know some of you like to argue, you know, Ephesians 2 .8 and 9. Ditch that one and come to this, because there's no way around this one.

For it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe, but also to suffer for His sake. So your suffering has been granted by God, just like your belief was. So Calvinism didn't start with Calvin.

It originated in the Scriptures. However, the teachings of Calvinism, we see throughout Scripture and throughout history. Let's start with the early church. And I know that being first, I get to steal all of the material from the other speakers.

That's finally the advantage of going first. I don't have to steal from Brayden like I did last year, even though he preached before me. And I just claimed I had it before him. But fortunately, I haven't seen anyone else's notes.

So if I do steal anything, it was just good material. And we both thought the same thing. But as we look into the Calvinism of Augustine, or Augustine, however you want to pronounce. I want to make sure James White doesn't correct me on it.

So I'll use both. The one thing you don't want to be doing is being corrected by James White, right? So we look at the five points. Let's just look quickly. I'm going to try to look at this. But we look at total depravity.

In seminal work of confessions, Augustine reflected on the inherent fallen nature of humanity, asserting that all individuals had an inherited sinful disposition since Adam. He says this, For in thy sight there is none free from sin, not even the infant who has lived, but a day upon the earth.

This echoes the idea of total depravity. That we are utterly depraved. Meaning not just our thinking and our emotions, but our will.

And he includes even an infant.

When it comes to unconditional election, Augustine emphasizes God's sovereignty and the role of salvation in his work on the grace and free will. He contends that humans are assisted by God's grace. That they become willing if they're unwilling.

And he's basing this on the selection that God has done. So we end up seeing that Augustine would have a view that we would hold to today of unconditional election. When it comes to limited atonement, Augustine did not specifically address the issue of limited atonement the way that Calvinists would understand it today.

However, he did believe very clearly in his writings in the efficiency of Christ's atonement for the elect. He expresses it and you can see this in his work on the predestination of the saint. We see the idea of irresistible grace from Augustine in his works where he talks about the fact that the emphasizing God's grace works in individuals on the will and the act of faith.

He reasons that the way we would understand the irresistibility that he would refer to efficacy, but that it is for election that God does the first work. Clearly, I think the easiest one that is attacked the least is perseverance of the saints.

But again, in predestination of the saints, Augustine asserts that those predestined by God's will preserved in righteousness and God's work to ensure them to the ultimate glorification. And so the issue is that he would hold to these things, but they weren't really defined.

But why do we look to Augustine when it comes to an understanding of Calvinism? It is because of another man. Some of you know his name. You use it as a derogatory term maybe in your home. Pelagius. Augustine's teachings led to a conflict with a man by the name of Pelagian.

Pelagius. And Pelagius was very upset because he heard Augustine like in prayer just asking God to help him with something he's incapable of doing. And Pelagian came to the conclusion that if God commanded us to do something like be holy, then we must have the ability to do that.

So that hearing of that from Augustine just rubbed him. He said, no, God must give us this ability. And therefore, he felt that Augustine was wrong there. And so that created this conflict. So in case you're new to the teachings of Calvinism, maybe you don't know who these people are.

So let me give you a quick, quick background because I don't know why I'm the one teaching the history lesson. Yeah, okay. Talk about being nervous. You got, you know, if I say something wrong, he's going to correct me.

Augustine died in 430. He was from a North African bishop. Profoundly affected Western thinking. And if you're not familiar with Pelagian, Pelagius, he was a British monk who emphasized the free will and human responsibility.

He rejected the notion of original sin and argued for the capacity of humans to choose good without an absolute necessity of divine grace. Now, this created three areas of contention. First, original sin.

Where Augustine asserted that the doctrine of original sin contended that all humans were inherently sinful and had a guilt and corrupt nature resulting from Adam and Eve's disobedience. Humanity, according to Augustine, is morally and spiritually damaged and individuals cannot choose good without God's grace.

Where Pelagius argued that he denied the notion of original sin and argued that he believed humans were born morally neutral. Having an ability to choose good or evil without having any kind of predisposition to sin.

He argued that Adam's sin only set a bad example and did not transmit guilt to subsequent generations. This actually is a view that's very common amongst all man-made religions. In my background Judaism, we would refer to this as an evil impulse.

You don't have a sin nature, you just have an evil impulse. By the way, complete side note, but it's one of my favorite passages in the Talmud. In the Talmud, talking about the evil impulse, it says if you're going to give yourself over to the evil impulse, go to a different country where no one knows who you are.

I wonder if the writers of the Talmud realized that God is omniscient and everywhere present.

Just saying.

The second area is grace and free will. Augustine clearly argued for divine grace for salvation. Where Pelagian felt that the human free will could choose God on their own. Pelagius downplayed the idea of an irresistible, what we would think of as an irresistible grace, and asserted that God gives commandments to humans because they have the ability to fulfill them.

Therefore, he would argue that if God commands us to repent, we actually have naturally an ability to do just that without God doing any work. The third area of contention that they had was predestination.

Where Augustine clearly held to a view of predestination, wrote a whole book on it, he argues that God sovereignly chose individuals for salvation and Pelagian rejected this concept. And he believed that God's foreknowledge is based on foreseeing individual choices and actions that they would choose and then he decreed based upon that.

Not based on some unilateral divine decree. That's not the God of the Bible. That led to several councils that we have. The Council of Corinth back in 1416, 1418. Where what ended up happening was that they condemned Pelagianism as heresy.

And so the legacy that we have from Augustine is the fact that his writings, this controversy, it was one of the most significant controversies to shape the trajectory of Western Christianity. The thought and it continues to influence even today in the areas specifically with the nature of humanity, sin, grace.

So what is the fruit of Pelagianism? Orthodox doctrine has always been born. I tend to want to just like avoid all heresy. Heresy does have its purpose in God's plan. Pelagian served a purpose. There was fruit of Pelagianism.

The fruit of Pelagianism is that we have the works of Augustine that so defines the necessity to combat this heresy with clarity and truth that he basically gave a death knell to Pelagianism. That when they had the councils, it ended this for some time.

Pelagianism caused men to stand up and define the truth clearer. We're going to see that pattern throughout history. The result was that Pelagianism was pretty much dead. How do we know that? Because people came up with a way of trying to still hold to their Pelagianism but realizing there's no way they can.

So they came up with this thing called semi-Pelagianism. Something kind of in between Augustus and Pelagian because they knew they couldn't say they're Pelagian anymore but they didn't want to hold to what Augustine believed.

So what do you do?

You come up with a middle ground. That's kind of like standing on a fence.

Pick a side.

And so Augustine provided a death blow to the heretical doctrines of Pelagianism. So let's talk about the Calvinism of Luther. But it is fitting with it. Now we will hear a further discussion on this after lunch.

So you'll definitely want to make sure that you don't overpay attention. I know he's paying attention to see what... But we cannot talk about the impact of Martin Luther though without talking about one of the most important inventions.

The printing press is something that allowed for widespread information in a rapid pace all over the world. It prevented and hindered the Roman Catholic Church's ability to censor the truth which they had a good handle on for years, right?

You don't agree with them, they just kill you. That's a pretty good... But the printing press allowed for theological discussions to be had with the common people not just in the ivory towers. You see this most clearly with the 95 Theses which was one of the first things that was printed on the printing press and it spread like wildfire which is what many people credit with the Reformation.

And so because of the printing press the works of Martin Luther started to spread far and wide. And when it comes to the teaching of Calvinism we have to understand that Luther had a pivotal role because just like Augustine had a man Pelagius Martin Luther had someone Erasmus.

And we have to understand the debate between Luther and Erasmus especially with their books The Bondage of the Will and The Freedom of the Will respectively. Now if you have read... How many folks here have read Bondage of the Will?

How many people have read Freedom of the Will? Yeah, two hands are up. Okay, three, I'll put mine up. So many people say, Oh, Luther decimated Erasmus in Bondage of the Will. You cannot say that if you have not read Erasmus.

You know why?

Erasmus spends about the first 75 pages going, You know, I don't know what the big deal is with this subject. All my friends want me to address this guy Luther and I don't see what the big deal is. You know who destroyed Erasmus?

Erasmus.

He basically just right from the get-go goes, You know, I really don't know what to say about this. I don't see what the big deal is. And he served himself up on a platter for Luther to just tear down.

So it was very easy for him. But there was fruit from the Luther and Erasmus. There's a lot more that we could talk about and you're going to hear that after lunch. But the fruit of Erasmus was the clear biblical doctrines of predestination and the bondage of the human will.

Luther's work was essential to understand. Had we not had Erasmus's weak arguments on the freedom of the will, we might never have had the clear and definitive teaching from Luther on the bondage of the will.

This leads us to another formidable teaching that would influence following generations to those who would eventually call themselves Calvinists. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Those who have gone before us.

Luther is taking the works of Augustine, which is taking it from Paul, taking it from Scripture, and making the arguments and just having to clarify the arguments because the heretics are continuing in their false attacks of it.

So as they continue with that, what happens? The truth has to be more clarified. And that's what Luther ends up doing. We stand on the shoulders of those who go before us. That is why we would say reformed and keep reforming.

We learn from those who came before us and take what they taught and refine it and improve it. So let us get to the main appetite of our discussion for this history lesson, and that is the Calvinism of John Calvin.

John Calvin, who by the way died in 1564, that's going to be important, but he died in 1564, is considered to be one of the most important theologians in church. He was a prominent French theologian of the second generation of reformers.

I would actually say that because before Luther by a hundred, there was a man named... We wouldn't have the teachings of Luther without Huss.

Well, where did we get Huss from?

Well, Huss was paid to translate. He was translating another man, John Wycliffe.

You can't...

Like the mistake of history is you can't just take history and say, let me take this one sliver. History doesn't work this way. It works as it's... Because all of our doctrine is built in history. I remember I had a seminary professor, I asked him to preach at a conference that I was organizing, and he's great in theology, great in history.

I said, can you do a history of theology? Because he always in his history classes, theology classes, he always showed how they intertwine. It actually intrigued him so much. He actually wrote an entire class that was a full 14 week class on that, which I took.

But you can't divide your theology from understanding how it developed in history. Don't think because the early church fathers said something that they have it right. Let me quote Matt Slick. I know he couldn't make it here because of the situation with his wife, but he'll always say, my church father can beat up your church father.

The church fathers can get used for everything. I'll get myself in trouble. I'm sure it's going to come up in the Q &A anyway. I'm a premillennialist, and I can show that I can root it in Augustine. And the millennials are going, no, we have Augustine.

You see, Augustine wasn't so clear. He believed in a literal thousand years. He just thought he was in it. So we both can claim it. Because he didn't have to clarify those doctrines yet. They came over time.

What was the first doctrine historically had to be clarified?

Deity of Christ.

That's important. In times, that could wait down the road. That didn't need to be clarified. The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology states this,.

Quote,.

Although Calvin was the systematizer of Reformed theology,.

Since his day,.

Those who have accepted his structure of theology have continued to develop many of his ideas. During his own lifetime, he himself developed his thought in the successive editions of the Institutes of Christian Religion.

With the writing on various Christian confessions, such as the Heidelberg Catechism, the canons of the Senate of Dort, the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, additions to further developments in theology thought have appeared.

Various theologians during the successive years have also elaborated various points which Calvin had raised but had not fully examined. End quote. Calvin died before Calvinism was born. How could we worship Calvin?

Is it original with him? Actually, no. Depending how you define Calvinism, if you define it by its teachings, it's original with scripture. If you define it by the acronym TULIP, it didn't exist yet. By the way, it wouldn't have existed because Calvin wouldn't have spoken.

People forget that. Like TULIP is an English acronym, just saying. Just like we had Augustine and Pelagius, we had Luther and Erasmus, many people argue we had Calvin and Arminius. It's actually not the case.

It was really more Calvin's followers and Arminius. We cannot say Calvin versus Arminian because at the time of Calvin's death, Arminius was only four years old. I don't think Arminius was that good of a theologian that at four years old, he was giving it to Calvin, okay?

No.

Jacob Arminius, the Remonstrants, and the Five Points of Arminianism

So let's look at the Calvinism of Jacob Arminius. Yes, I said that right. The Calvinism of Jacob Arminius. The other speaker saw my outline. They were like, oh, I want to see what he's going to say on this.

Let me start with giving you a little background on Jacob Arminius. Jacob Arminius studied at the University in Geneva, where he studied under Calvin's successor, Theodore Biza. He served as a pastor in Amsterdam until 1603 and was a professor of theology at the same school in Geneva where he remained until his death.

He had an issue that he saw Biza teaching, which some would argue they call it high Calvinism. I think we have a different definition of that today. But he argued that he had issues with what Biza and others were teaching.

And we have to remember that the idea of what we define as Calvinism hadn't been fully developed yet. And so what we end up seeing, and much of this I'm going to give you that sparked me on this thought, is a book from R .C. Sproul, Willing to Believe.

And in there, Sproul makes the case and others that it may well be the case that Jacob Arminius thought in his mind in the early years that he is saving Calvin's teachings from his followers. So in other words, Arminius may have thought he was saving Calvinism from the Calvinists.

After the life of John Calvin, his followers continued to expand on his teachings and his work and the teachings that we know of as Calvinism. And so Sproul says this,. James Arminius was emphatic in his rejection of Pelagianism, particularly with respect to the fall of Adam.

The fall leaves man in a ruined state under the dominion of sin. Arminius declares, in this state, the free will of man towards the true God is not only wounded, maimed, infirmed, bent, and weakened, but it is also imprisoned, destroyed, and lost.

And its powers are not only deliberated and useless unless they be assisted by grace, but it has no powers whatever except such are excited by divine grace. Sproul further goes on to say this,. As a Calvinist, I frequently hear criticisms of Calvinistic thought that I would heartily agree with if they indeed represented Calvinism.

So I am sure that the disciples of Arminius suffered the same fate and became equally frustrated. Arminius himself came from a Calvinistic framework and embraced many tenets of historic Calvinism. He frequently complained with a mild spirit of manifold ways in which he was misrepresented.

He loved the works of Augustine and in many respects earnestly sought to champion Augustine's cause.". So Sproul is arguing that it sure seems that Arminius is trying to restore Calvin's teachings. He ends up saying this,.

Sproul says this,. He gives some citations of Arminius' works and says,. These citations demonstrate how seriously he regards the depth of the fall. He is not satisfied to declare that man's will merely wounded or weakened.

He insisted that imprisoned, destroyed, and lost. The language of Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin is scarcely stronger than that of Arminius.". Arminius not only affirmed the bondage of the will, but insisted that man is spiritually dead in his sin in a state that is incapable of choosing God in a natural state.

That sounds very Calvinistic of him. However, what ends up happening, and Sproul addresses this, is that over the years, had Arminius died at a young age, we probably would have referred to him as a Calvinist.

But you know, nobody wakes up and goes, You know, I think today I'm going to become a false teacher. That's not how false teachers happen. It usually happens because they get something that either they quote-unquote discover, or some teaching that rubs them the wrong way, and they hyper-focus on that.

They start seeing it everywhere. They start to look for it and find ways that Scripture will support what they're teaching. And they start twisting Scripture, not even recognizing it. It happens slowly.

What you end up having is, as someone who, I think what happened with Jacob Arminius, is as he's trying to rebut the followers of Calvin, he's having to try to distinguish himself and distinguish his teaching, but that leads him in a different way, going down a different path.

And very slowly, as you have a seed planted in the ground, and it starts to root and then bloom, we end up getting false teachers that bloom into full, as the flower blooms, they come into full heresy.

That's what happened with Jacob Arminius. As he just went down this path, he ends up getting into a case where he may have wanted to initially save Calvinism from these dreaded followers of Calvin, but he ends up taking it a different path.

And his followers, as we look at the fruit of Arminianism, there was fruit of Arminianism, and as we've seen throughout this talk, that history is replete with the person who's going to give the heresy, and then it needs to be clarified.

Well, where Calvin had his followers, and what Arminius really didn't like is teachings such as double predestination and things like this, that's what started him on a path going against Biza. Well, then Arminius' followers take it too far as well.