If Calvinism causes us to worship God better, then why wouldn’t God elect for all Christians to be Calvinists? In other words, if it really was all about giving God glory and honor, then why would He sovereignly and unchangeably elect for non-Calvinist Christians to reject Calvinism? The common Calvinist response is to conclude something like this:
“Well, God just hasn’t revealed it to them yet.”
So, then, for the Calvinist, it’s not about our independent choice to freely accept or reject Calvinism, but about hidden, irresistible deterministic forces at play. The only logical option for the consistent Calvinist is to then conclude that non-Calvinist Christians were decreed by God to reject Calvinism for the maximum manifestation of God’s glory, and even potentially to serve as vessels prepared for destruction. . . .
Philippians 2:9-11: “For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
So, why would God, according to the Calvinist worldview, create people to reject Him—and certainly not to worship Him—only to force them in eternity to worship Him? Calvinism causes these kind of odd theological quandaries. As humans, God commands all men everywhere to love Him and to worship Him, only to make certain that that’s something that doesn’t happen, by decreeing a world where it is impossible for a certain class of “non-elect” to have that ability. Additionally, we are required to love our neighbor, even though God (according to Calvinism) might have created them as “non-elect” and doesn’t love them as we are commanded to love them. The theological quandaries created by Calvinism seems virtually endless.
[This post has been excerpted with permission from Richard Coords, Calvinism Answered Verse by Verse and Subject by Subject, © 2024.]
