What is Calvinism to you?

Question

PLEASE don't cut and paste from elsewhere. I know what it is. I want to know what it is TO YOU.

Answer 1

KAIT; Here is my response to your objection on the Limited Atonement.

Christ's redeeming work was intended to render complete satisfaction for the elect and it actually secured full salvation (reconciliation, justification and sanctification) for the Elect and for no one else.

If Christ supposedly died for all men, it is evident that He could not save all men since more men have died in unbelief than have gone to glory through faith in Christ. This of course would mean that God is not Omnipotent and that Christ gained only a partial victory at the cross. Therefore the view of Universal atonement is not tenable.

Christ's Atonement would have saved every member of the human race, if God has so willed. But He came into the world to represent and save those given to Him by the Father.

"She will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus for He will save His people from their sins." (Matt. 1:21)
Also, see John 6:35-40, 10:24-29

Answer 2

Calvinism, as I see it around me (the Netherlands is pretty much dominated by Calvinism still) is like a Christian Socratism. "I'm better than you because I know I'm going to hell", something like that. It's masochistic and sad, because they have a negative worldview which they're not even sure about, but the argument for it is like "If we're wrong it means we're not God's chosen ones, in which case we'll go to hell no matter what we do." I think secretly most Calvinists actually believe they are in fact part of the elect, but they keep telling each other not to believe that.

Answer 3

A mistaken theology unheard of for the first 1400 years of the Christian Faith.

Besides...even John Calvin himself would not recognize modern "Calvinism". Whatever happened to THIS Calvinism?? A quote from the man himself:

The French reformer John Calvin (1509-1564) also held that Mary was the Mother of God.

It cannot be denied that God in choosing and destining Mary to be the Mother of his Son, granted her the highest honor. ... Elizabeth called Mary Mother of the Lord, because the unity of the person in the two natures of Christ was such that she could have said that the mortal man engendered in the womb of Mary as at the same time the eternal God. (Calvini Opera, Corpus Reformatorum, Braunschweig-Berlin, 1863-1900, v. 45, p. 348, 35.)

Calvin also up held the perpetual virginity of Mary, as did the Swiss reformer, Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531), who wrote:

I firmly believe that Mary, according to the words of the gospel as a pure Virgin brought forth for us the Son of God and in childbirth and after childbirth forever remained a pure, intact Virgin. (Zwingli Opera, Corpus Reformatorum, Berlin, 1905, v. 1, p. 424.)

Answer 4

God saves sinners monergistically in Calvinist theology. I believe that this is exactly what the Scriptures teach.

Calvinism is just a nickname for the theology of Paul and Jesus Christ.

Calvinistic soteriology is distinguished by it's famous "Five Points:

(T)otal depravity
(U)nconditional election
(L)imited atonement
(I)rresistible grace
(P)erseverance of the saints

These doctrines were developed from Scripture at the Synod of Dort in the early 1600s in response to the teachings promulgated by the disciples of a Dutch theology professor named Jacobus Arminius.

Arminians enthrone the doctrine of man's "free will" in the matter of eternal salvation. They believe that man cooperates with the Holy Spirit in the salvation of sinners. This is the error of synergism.

Answer 5

I do not believe that Limited Atonement is correct. Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, not just for the sins of the elect. “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). Other verses in opposition to limited atonement are John 1:29; 3:16; 1 Timothy 2:6; 2 Peter 2:1.

Answer 6

Calvinism is a made made system to try and explain God and how he works within our world.

This system helps increase the faith of some, and for others it is a hindrance.

Answer 7

It takes an otherwise healthy respect for God's sovereignty, and then puts it on steroids.

Answer 8

The truth.

Answer 9

Words that come to mind:

TULIP
Fundamentalist
Rigid

And, like any other Christian sect, just as wrong as everyone else.

Answer 10

Baptist. It errs in that once-saved always saved is not true.