Clarifying
Calvinism
By Phil
Johnson
Adapted from a
transcript of a seminar from a recent Shepherds’
Conference, titled “Closet Calvinists.”
Taken from: http://www.sfpulpit.com/
Part I: Is
Arminianism Damnable
Heresy?
I love the doctrines of grace
and don’t shy away from the label “Calvinist.” I believe
in the sovereignty of God. I’m convinced Scripture
teaches that God is completely sovereign not only in
salvation (effectually calling and granting faith to
those whom He chooses); but also in every detail of the
outworking of Providence. “Whom He predestined, these He
also called; whom He called, these He also justified;
and whom He justified, these He also glorified” (Romans
8:30). And He makes “all things work together for good
to those who love God, [i.e.,] to those who are the
called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). Quite
simply, He “works all things according to the counsel of
His will” (Ephesians
1:11).
That’s what people commonly mean
when they speak of “Calvinism.” When I accept that
label, I am not pledging allegiance to the man John
Calvin. I am not affirming everything he taught, and I’m
not condoning everything he did. I’m convinced Calvin
was a godly man and one of the finest biblical
expositors and theological minds ever, but he wasn’t
always right. As a matter of fact,
my own convictions are baptistic, so I am by no means
one of Calvin’s devoted followers. In other words, when
I accept the label “Calvinist,” it’s only for
convenience’s sake. I’m not saying “I am of Calvin” in
the Corinthian
sense.
Furthermore, I’m not one of
those who wears Calvinism like a big chip on his
shoulder, daring people to fight with me about it. It’s
true that I can get feisty about certain points of
doctrine—especially when someone attacks a principle
that goes to the heart of the gospel, like
substitutionary atonement, or original sin, or
justification by faith and the principle of imputed
righteousness. When one of those principles is
challenged, I’m ready to fight. (And I also don’t mind
beating up on whatever happens to be the latest
evangelical fad.)
But Calvinism isn’t one of those issues I
get worked up and angry about. I’ll discuss it with you,
but if you are spoiling for a fight about it, you are
likely to find me hard to provoke. I spent too many
years as an Arminian myself to pretend that the truth on
these issues is easy and
obvious.
Now, don’t get the wrong idea. I
do think the truth of God’s
sovereignty is clear and ultimately inescapable in
Scripture. But it is a difficult truth to come to grips
with, so I am sympathetic with those who struggle with
it. I’m Calvinistic enough to believe that God has
ordained (at least for the time being) that some of my
brethren should hold Arminian opinions.
Over the years I have probably
written at least twice as much material trying to tone
down angry hyper Calvinists as I have arguing with
Arminians. That’s not because I think hyper Calvinism is
a more serious error than Arminianism. As a matter of
fact, I would say the two errors are strikingly similar.
But I don’t hear very many voices of caution being
raised against the dangers of hyper Calvinism, and there
are armies of Calvinists out there already challenging
the Arminians, so I’ve tried to speak out as much as
possible against the tendencies of the hypers.
That’s why I’m probably a whole
lot less militant than you might expect when it comes to
attacking the errors of Arminianism. Besides, I have
gotten much further answering Arminian objections with
patient teaching and dispassionate, reasonable, biblical
instruction—instead of angry arguments and instant
anathemas.
Why not take a more passive,
lenient, brotherly, approach to all
theological disagreements? Because I firmly believe
there are some theological errors that do
deserve a firm and decisive anathema. That’s Paul’s
point in Galatians 1:8-9; and it’s the same point the
apostle John makes in 2 John, verses 7-11. When someone
is teaching an error that fatally corrupts the truth of
the gospel, “let him be
anathema.”
But let me be plain here: Simple Arminianism doesn’t fall in that
category. It’s not fair to pin the label of rank heresy
on Arminianism, the way some of my more zealous
Calvinist brethren seem prone to do. I’m talking
about historic, evangelical Arminianism, of the classic
and Wesleyan varieties — Arminianism, not
Pelagianism, or open theism, or whatever heresy Clark
Pinnock has invented this week — but true evangelical
Arminianism. Arminianism is certainly wrong; and I would
argue that it’s inconsistent with itself. But in my
judgment, standard, garden variety Arminianism is not so
fatally wrong that we need to consign our Arminian
brethren to the eternal flames or even automatically
refuse them fellowship in our pastors’
fraternals.
If you think I’m beginning to
sound like an apologist for Arminianism, I’m definitely
not that. I do think Arminianism
is a profound error. Its tendencies can be
truly sinister, and when it is allowed to go to seed, it
does lead people into rank heresy. But what I’m
saying here is that mere Arminianism itself
isn’t damnable heresy. It’s just grossly inconsistent
with the core gospel doctrines that Arminians themselves
believe and
affirm.
But as long as I’m sounding like a defender of Arminianism,
let also me say this: There are plenty of ignorant and
inconsistent Calvinists out there, too. With the rise of
the Internet it’s easier than ever for self taught lay
people to engage in theological dialogue and debate
through internet forums. I think that’s mostly good, and
I encourage it. But the Internet makes it easy for like
minded but ignorant people to clump together and
endlessly reinforce one another’s ignorance. And I fear
that happens a
lot.
Hyper Calvinists seem especially
susceptible to that tendency, and there are nests of
them here and there—especially on the Internet. And more
and more frequently these days I encounter people, who
have been influenced by extremism on the Internet,
touting hyper Calvinist ideas and insisting that if
someone is an Arminian, that person is not really a
Christian at all. They equate Arminianism with sheer
works salvation. They suggest that Arminianism
implicitly denies the atonement. Or they insist that the
God worshiped by Arminians is a totally different God
from the God of
Scripture.
That’s really over-the-top
rhetoric—totally unnecessary—and rooted in historical
ignorance. A couple of years ago, when I started my
weblog, I mentioned that tendency in the first entry I
posted, which was titled “Quick and Dirty Calvinism.” At
the end of that post, I said this: My advice to young
Calvinists is to learn theology from the historic
mainstream Calvinist authors, not from blogs and
discussion forums on the Internet. Some of the forums
may be helpful because they direct you to more important
resources. But if you think of the Internet as a
surrogate for seminary, you run a very high risk of
becoming
unbalanced.
Read mainstream Calvinist
authors, however, and you’ll have trouble finding even
one who regarded Arminianism per se as damnable heresy.
There’s a reason for that: It’s because while
Arminianism is bafflingly inconsistent, it is not
necessarily damnably erroneous. Most Arminians
themselves—and I’m still speaking here of the classic
and Wesleyan varieties, not Pelagianism masquerading as
Arminianism—most Arminians themselves emphatically
affirm gospel truth that is actually rooted in
Calvinistic presuppositions.
. .
.and why every Christian is a Calvinist of
sorts.
Part II:
Spurgeon: “Calvinism IS the
Gospel”
There are, these days,
quite a few self-styled Calvinists who disagree with my
assessment of Arminianism and insist that Arminianism
entails an absolute denial of certain fundamental gospel
truths. Those wishing to make that argument will
invariably quote a famous statement by Spurgeon, taken
from the chapter in his autobiography titled
“A Defence of
Calvinism” in which Spurgeon said
this:
I have my own private opinion
that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him
crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called
Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism;
Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not
believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach
justification by faith, without works; nor unless we
preach the sovereignty of God in His dispensation of
grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable,
eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor do I
think we can preach the gospel, unless we base it upon
the special and particular redemption of His elect and
chosen people which Christ wrought out upon the cross;
nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall
away after they are called, and suffers the children of
God to be burned in the fires of damnation after having
once believed in Jesus. Such a gospel I abhor.
I absolutely agree with
what Spurgeon says there, in the sense that he meant it. And the context of that
statement explains clearly what he meant. He was
pointing out that the principle at the heart of all
gospel truth is the same principle that drives
Calvinism: “Salvation is of the Lord.”
Salvation is God’s work; it’s not something we
do for ourselves. That’s the truth he was
defending.
Spurgeon was not saying
that we ought to use the five points of Calvinism the
way Campus crusade people use the “Four Spiritual Laws.”
He wasn’t saying that all you ever talk about is the
doctrines of election and reprobation you are faithfully
preaching the gospel and the whole counsel of God.
Unfortunately, I think that’s what a lot of careless
Calvinists think Spurgeon meant
when he said “Calvinism is the
gospel.”
But if you read Spurgeon’s whole
article on Calvinism, he makes very clear what he meant.
In fact at the beginning of that very same paragraph—as
his preface to remarking that “Calvinism is the
gospel”—he wrote
this:
“Salvation is of the Lord.”
[Jonah 2:9.] That is just an epitome of
Calvinism; it is the sum and substance of it. If
anyone should ask me what I mean by a Calvinist, I
should reply, “He is one who says, Salvation is of the
Lord.” I cannot find in Scripture any other doctrine
than this. It is the essence of the Bible. “He only is
my rock and my salvation.” Tell me anything contrary to
this truth, and it will be a heresy; tell me a heresy,
and I shall find its essence here, that it has departed
from this great, this fundamental, this rock truth, “God
is my rock and my
salvation.”
Did Spurgeon believe
Arminianism was in error? Absolutely. So do I.
Did he believe it was damnable error? Absolutely not,
and he made that clear,
too.
At the peak of the
Downgrade Controversy, some of Spurgeon’s critics
accused him of being driven by a doctrinaire Calvinist
agenda. It’s not really Modernism that
Spurgeon hates, they said. It’s anything that
departs from his old fashioned Calvinism. This whole
controversy is a furtive campaign against Arminianism.
That’s what really has Spurgeon bugged. He thinks modern
Christians aren’t Calvinistic enough.
Spurgeon replied in The Sword and the Trowel with a
paragraph that said
this:
Certain antagonists have tried
to represent the Down Grade controversy as a revival of
the old feud between Calvinists and Arminians. It is
nothing of the kind. Many evangelical Arminians are as
earnestly on our side as men can be. We do not conceal
our own Calvinism in the least; but this conflict is for
truths which are common to all
believers.
In another place, he was even
more explicit:
We care far more for the central
evangelical truths than we do for Calvinism as a system;
but we believe that Calvinism has in it a conservative
force which helps to hold men to the vital truth, and
therefore we are sorry to see any quitting it who have
once accepted it.
So he had a bone to pick with
people who once affirmed the doctrines of grace and had
now abandoned Calvinism in favor of new ideas that
smacked of Socinianism. But he regarded evangelical
Arminians as his true brethren and fellow soldiers—as
long as they affirmed the doctrine of justification by
faith, the principle of sola fide,
the absolute authority of Scripture, the penal aspect of
Christ’s atonement, and other essential gospel
truths.
Speaking of Arminians in
particular, he
said:
Those who hold the eternal
verities of salvation, and yet do not see all that we
believe and embrace, are by no means the objects of our
opposition: our warfare is with men who are giving up
the atoning sacrifice, denying the inspiration of Holy
Scripture, and casting slurs upon justification by
faith. The present struggle is not a debate upon the
question of Calvinism or Arminianism, but of the truth
of God versus the inventions of men. All who believe the
gospel should unite against that “modern thought” which
is its deadly
enemy.
So Spurgeon did not
regard Arminians as hell bound heretics. He regarded
them as brethren. Did he think they were in error? Yes?
Were they guilty of gross inconsistency in their own
theology? He would have answered emphatically, yes. Was their main error significant?
Spurgeon did not shrink from referring to it as
“heresy”—meaning unorthodox doctrine, heterodoxy,
serious error. But he was very careful to make clear
that he did not regard Arminianism per se as
damnable heresy or utter apostasy from essential
Christianity. Virtually all mainstream Calvinists from
the time of the Synod of Dort until now would agree with
him on every
count.
For example, Gordon Clark, one
of the highest of high Calvinists, said this with regard
to whether Arminians are authentic Christians or
not:
An Arminian may be a truly
regenerate Christian; in fact, if he is truly an
Arminian and not a Pelagian who happens to belong to an
Arminian church, he must be a saved man. But he is not
usually, and cannot consistently be assured of his salvation. The places in
which his creed differs from our Confession confuse the
mind, dilute the Gospel, and impair its
proclamation.”
Which is to say that
Arminianism is inherently inconsistent. Arminians
technically affirm the fundamental, essential truths of
the gospel. Then they try to build a theology on top of
that which is totally inconsistent with the solid
foundation they have
affirmed.
I agree with that
assessment of Arminianism. It’s an attempt to reconcile
the sovereignty of God with human responsibility—and the
Arminian method of reconciling those two truths involves
a view of human free will that is inherently
inconsistent with certain gospel truths every Arminian
actually affirms.
In some posts yet to come, I
will explain further why I believe that is the
case.
