Calvinists distinguish themselves from other Christians by calling themselves “Reformed.”* This is due in part to Calvinists envisioning themselves as the living legacy of the Protestant Reformation. They also see “Calvinism” as the true gospel, which is needed to reform the Christian church. Many church splits occur because Calvinists seek such reformation to convert non-Calvinist churches into Calvinist churches. In doing this, Calvinists believe that they are serving God. However, if Calvinism is wrong, then what are they actually doing?
One of the reasons why Calvinism is appealing to many, aside from (a) the philosophical appeal of divine “sovereignty” (though which arguably is more or less just a form of Christianized fatalism) and (b) the Scriptural appeal in which adherents truly believe that Calvinism is biblical (which I would argue is owed to presuppositional Confirmation Bias), is the peer pressure from the selling point that the best and brightest minds of Church history were Calvinists. Often Calvinists will refer to the “Princeton scholars,” the “Westminster divines” and a host of other famous Calvinists, both modern and historical, denoted with the lofty label of “Reformers.” Calvinists draw confidence from these men, depicting charts contrasting historical Calvinists with historical non-Calvinists so as to imply that if one wishes to be orthodox and on the side of the best and brightest minds throughout Church history, one must be a Calvinist. However, one can’t help but notice the similarity to Evolutionists who likewise draw confidence in men, pointing to the vast majority of the scientific community who support the theory of Evolution.
The Christian who opposes Calvinism on biblical grounds is thus met with the accusation that due to mere emotionalism, they oppose the Protestant Reformation and are on the side of Roman Catholicism, defending “a system that stands shoulder to shoulder with Rome on the issue of the will of man and the idea that grace, while necessary, is not sufficient without the cooperation of man….”484
The looming question is why does Christianity even need “Reformation”? After all, we already have the Bible, so why is further development needed? Does the work of the apostles need to be developed? But that’s exactly what TULIP Calvinism does. It adds or edits the Bible to supposedly develop Christianity further. Of course, Calvinists believe that they are merely bringing to life the foundation that the apostles had already laid, but are they really? Let’s look into this claim.
What do Calvinists believe?
R.C. Sproul: “In the New Testament itself we see a conflict concerning tradition. Jesus was frequently locked in controversy with the Pharisees and scribes over the tradition of the rabbis. Jesus did not regard the rabbinic tradition as inviolate. On the contrary he rebuked the Pharisees for elevating this human tradition to the level of divine authority, which compromised the latter. Because of this stern rebuke of human tradition, we tend to miss the positive effects of tradition articulated in the New Testament. The term tradition here refers to that which is ‘given over.’ Paul speaks warmly of the gospel tradition in which he worked. It is the duty of every generation of Christians to pass on a tradition. Just as Israel was called to pass on to their children the traditions instituted by God, so the church is to pass on the apostolic tradition to each successive generation. In this process, however, there is always the danger of adding accretions to the apostolic tradition that are contrary to the original. That is why the Reformers insisted that their work of reformation was not complete. The church is called to be semper reformanda, ‘always reforming.’ Every Christian community creates its own subculture of customs and traditions.” What is Reformed Theology?485
R.C. Sproul: “The Reformers took church history very seriously, and we should do the same today.”486
Our reply:
Yes, there surely is a “danger of adding.” Are Calvinists claiming for themselves a license for “apostolic” authority to reform Christianity? And what have Calvinists done with their supposed apostolic license to reform? They’ve gone way beyond the apostles. That’s what they’ve done. They’ve added “Irresistible Grace,” and “Limited Atonement,” including the whole TULIP chain, as well as rebuking belief in the biblical term “free-will” as human “boasting” and “self-saviors”—rhetoric that the apostles never once used, as well as enshrouding Christianity within philosophical determinism, enshrined by the Calvinist’s “Westminster Confession of Faith.” We’ve seen Synods, Creeds and Confessions all “reforming” by those claiming a license to reform. After all, says R.C. Sproul, it’s their “duty” in as much as Israel had a duty to pass on their history. However, passing on what was written is not the same thing as reforming or editing it. The practice of the Jewish rabbinic code did exactly that, and Jesus rebuked it.
The “Reformers” had no business claiming an apostolic authority to reform Christianity. Their Synods, Creeds and Confessions are now, effectively, held on par with Scripture, just like how the Orthodox Jews held the Jewish Rabbinic Code on par with Scripture, and even above it, because the Oral Rabbinic Code helped explain what the Scriptures allegedly meant. As such, people are encouraged not to “lean on their own understanding,” but to trust the Rabbis.
Calvinism is not faithful to Scripture. Rather, it treats Scriptures as some type of relay race, in which the apostles merely ran the first lap, as Augustine took the next lap, and John Calvin after him, and Spurgeon after him, and John Piper after him, etc., and that is the “church history” that Calvinists want for us to take “very seriously,” as if it held any weight. Where does Scripture afford Calvinists a license to “reform” Christianity?
Galatians 1:6-9: “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!”
That doesn’t seem to encourage a license to “reform.” Paul’s letter indicates a grave concern regarding an encroaching Judaism upon Christianity, trying to force the Gentiles to live like Jews in order to truly be Christians. Perhaps the Judaizers felt that they were just “reforming.” You know, “Semper Reformanda,” ever reforming. Calvinists should take this more seriously. If the apostles didn’t teach it, then Calvinists should tread extremely cautiously, but they don’t. Instead, they’ve overhauled the Bible to teach Calvinism.
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454 Debating Calvinism (Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, Inc. 2004), 239.
485 What is Reformed Theology? (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1997), 29, emphasis mine.
486 Ibid, emphasis mine.
[This post has been excerpted with permission from Richard Coords, Calvinism Answered Verse by Verse and Subject by Subject, © 2024.]
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