Calvinism’s standard position is exhaustive divine determinism, that God unconditionally decreed all things, including sin and evil, every sin, every evil act, every thought, motive, desire, mood, decision, everything. One standard criticism of Calvinism is that this makes God the author of sin. But sometimes, we run across somebody who claims to be a Calvinist but that exhaustive divine determinism is not the standard Calvinist position. That is very unhelpful because it misrepresents Calvinism and gives the impression that it is better than it is (that is not to say that there are no Calvinists who reject determinism; we are talking about mainstream Calvinism and its creeds such as the Westminsiter Confession of Faith). Misinformation ruins such discussion right out of the gate. In these two posts, Calvinist scholar James Anderson documents that both the Westminster Confession of Faith (contrary to the claim of Oliver Crisp) and the London Baptist Confession of Faith demand exhaustive determinism. Please click on the links to view:
