Calvinists define their distorted, misunderstood doctrine of twisted Predestination, Election and Foreordination with an acronym of the five letters TULIP. These letters represent the five points of Calvinism, which are, Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace and Perseverance Of The Saints. Let's look at these five points ....
Total Depravity - Yes, we are totally depraved in our natural, human, fleshly state, and unable to save ourselves. But we are not as depraved as Satan and his fallen angels. They are lost forever, without hope and beyond salvation because they were already inhabitants of heaven, in the very presence of God and knew Him as their Creator, but willfully rejected Him by their individual free-will choice. And though depraved, we also have a free-will to choose to accept God's plan of salvation for us or to reject it. Our sinful depravity is the very reason God provided a means of forgiveness and salvation for us. The angels were not originally depraved but also had a free will and willfully chose to side with Lucifer and turn against their God; so there is no salvation for them from their willful, chosen depravity. In our case, we were born in sin and grow up with a sinful nature which will condemn us if we do not come to Christ for God's salvation from our guilt.
Unconditional Election - Yes, we are elected and "saved by grace, through faith and not of works", but, though God's grace and faith are unconditionally available to all sinners, all sinners do not accept that free grace gift of God as their own because it is "conditioned" on repentance of our sins and willingly accepting Jesus as our Savior. Repenting is not something God forces on us sinners, and accepting Jesus through faith is not a work of the flesh but our spirit's response to an offered spiritual gift. Election hinges on God's foreknowledge or our believing or not believing, not the opposite. "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience ...." 1 Peter 1:2. God's "foreknowledge" pre-dates everything. Every birth, death, word, thought, belief, unbelief or action is predated by God's foreknowledge. That absolute foreknowledge IS predestination/election. So Salvation/Election is "conditional" on which way your free will carries you as it was with the fallen angels. God told Lucifer that his prideful problem and depraved ruin was his own free-will compunction to follow his own self-will rather than God's perfect will for him. God did not create Lucifer and the fallen angels with a pre-determined desire to cast them all into hell though He knew what they would do. Nor did He do so to us. Ridiculous! Read Lucifer's sin problem in Isa.14:12-14. He said, "I will" 5 times.
Limited Atonement - The "Atonement" (Jesus dying for us) is only limited by the fact that only those who willingly repent and believe in Christ's death for their sins will be saved. It is not limited to a tiny percentage of the world's sinners, who alone, were pre-desired, pre-forgiven, pre-saved and pre-destined ... based on the presumption that God wanted just those sinners and not one more. It is understood that our all knowing God "foreknew" who would repent and believe and who would not.
To contradict the clear meaning of Jesus' promise in John 3:16 is heresy.
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life." Jn.3:16.
Irresistible Grace - There is no rational explanation for this heresy. To say that God "pre-favored" some sinners, who were pre-wanted, pre-assigned and pre-saved before they ever took a breath or sinned, who cannot refuse, cannot say "no" or ignore God's grace and cannot resist being saved, is, again, heresy. Even Lucifer and a third of the angels had a free will and chose to resist God's grace even though God was right there in their presence, in all His glory and power. They knew He was God, and that compounded their sin... "...The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen...so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened." Rom.1:18-21.
Perseverance Of The Saints - It is all too obvious that not all saints (Christians) persevere very well.
If our salvation depended on our persevering start to finish ... we would all go to hell, and so would the Apostles Peter, Paul, Thomas and ... you ... and I. No, our salvation is totally based on Jesus' finished work on the cross and resurrection from the dead ... not our weak, wavering, human, self -perseverance. This last point of Calvinism is a contradiction of points one and two. How do WE persevere when we are Totally depraved and our "election" is Unconditional.
Here is the Calvinist version of John 3:16 .... "For God so loved a small percentage of the world's population, that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever, of those chosen few, who cannot resist believing on him, should not perish but have everlasting life ... and all the others are not allowed to believe and are eternally doomed to hell by God's perfect will." Ridiculous !
Since all men are so totally depraved as to be unable to make any correct personal decisions, God chose only a small, superior percentage of the world's population of preferred sinners, before time began, solely because He wanted those few sinners and did not want all of the billions of other sinners. He therefore knowingly created the masses of humankind for no other purpose than to personally cast them all into hell with no possibility of salvation whether they want to believe in Jesus and be saved or not. This He determined to do before time began. Scripture and common sense brand this false doctrine as abhorrent. RB
The title, "Calvinist" does not reflect Biblical inerrancy, creationism, the Deity of Christ, his atoning death, his literal resurrection, his church's authority, ordinances, great commission or rapture. Neither does it speak to the reality of heaven or hell. It speaks to the single doctrine of predestination, which it twists to make God's eternal foreknowledge, of people's choices, spring from predestination rather than predestination from His eternal foreknowledge. RB
