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Calvinism: Salvation
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Not being able to convince the ardent skeptic that Calvinism is biblical Christianity, the Calvinist must retreat to the argument about there being only two plausible systems of Christian doctrine. In most cases this entails anything but a retrogression; it is usually more of an enhancement. But to silence the cynic and drive him into the Calvinistic camp, the Calvinist goes so far as to insinuate that anything but his position is illogical, untenable, inconceivable, and completely anti-scriptural. Boettner starts the Calvinistic chorus: "The future of Christianity is bound up with that system of theology historically called Calvinism. ', 24 The Baptist Mell repeats the party line: "The doctrines of Calvinism, if believed, are a sovereign remedy against the two great heresies in the so-called Christian world, viz: ritualism, or sacramental salvation, on the one hand, and rationalism, on the other; the one the offspring of superstition, the other, the product of infidelity." 25 Others unpretentiously inform us that anti-Calvinistic teachings are "heretical doctrines." 26 Warfield insists that "only the Calvinist is the consistent supernaturalist." 27 Talbot and Crampton caution us that "any compromise of Calvinism is a step towards humanism." 28 In order to determine if one has digressed toward humanism, one Calvinist has a simple test: "If the theology of Paul in Romans 9 and Ephesians I in any way disturbs a person, then there are traces of autonomous (humanist) man still left in his thinking." 29 But perhaps the Calvinist should take a test of his own: if you get nervous when reading Revelation 22:17, I Corinthians 4:15, and Acts 7:51, then there are traces of a Bible-rejecting heretic in your thinking. Boettner doesn't stop with humanism: "There is no consistent stopping place between Calvinism and Atheism." 30 Warfield closes this section with an astounding statement: "Calvinism ... emerges to our sight as nothing more or less than the hope of the world." 31 But if Calvinism is true, then it could not be the hope of the world, for the world and everything in it as it stands right now is perfectly conformed to the will of God, for as they say: "God decrees all things that will ever come to pass." 32
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The substance of Calvinism is total dependence on God. Every good thing any person has is there because of God's unmerited grace, and salvation is particularly dependent on grace. Calvinism is intentionally such that all credit, for everything, must go directly to God; humans are but miserable sinners. The "solas" exist to keep all the credit where it belongs, and to exclude any illicit additions such as those the Reformers claimed Catholics had made. They were the summary of Calvinism, indeed of the Reformation, before the Framing of TULIP. The Solas are:
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Calvinism arose in Europe centuries ago in part as a reaction to Roman Catholicism’s heavy emphasis on priestly authority and on salvation through acts of penance. One of the classic works of sociology, Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, links the rise of Calvinism to the needs of budding capitalists to judge their own economic success as a sign of their preordained salvation. The rising popularity of Calvinism coincided with the consolidation of the capitalist economic system. Calvinists justified their accumulation of wealth, even at the expense of others, on the grounds that they were somehow destined to prosper. It is no surprise that such notions still find resonance within the Christian Right which champions capitalism and all its attendant inequalities.
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The Free Will teachings of Armininius recognizes the free will of man as in opposition to Calvinism that teaches that man does not have a free will. Free Will teachings teach that just as man has a free will to choose salvation, he ... has a free will to choose to walk away from his salvation. This sounds reasonable on the surface but it really isn't a simple matter of someone waking up one morning and deciding he no longer desires to have his salvation and he simply chooses to walk away. This "Free Will" of "choosing to walk away" is rooted in the belief that a person who "willingly" sins is willingly walking away from his salvation and therefore, it is an act of his own free will. In other words, salvation is not dependent upon being declared righteous through the righteousness of Christ that has been imputed to those who believe but that man must retain his salvation through perfect obedience that translates into sinlessness.
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A theological and political movement which grew in opposition to Calvinism, now called "Arminianism", was founded by Dutch theologian Jacob Arminius and revised and pursued by the Remonstrants. Arminius rejected several tenets of the Calvinist doctrines of salvation — namely, the latter four of what would later be known as the five points of Calvinism — while the Remonstrants ... rejected one other point, namely, total depravity. The term "Arminianism" today often serves as an umbrella term for both Arminius's doctrine and the Remonstrants', but Arminius's followers sometimes distinguish themselves as "Reformed Arminians."
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Calvinism is often further reduced in the popular mind to one or another of the five points of TULIP. The doctrine of Unconditional election is sometimes made to stand for all Reformed doctrine, sometimes even by its adherents, as the chief article of Reformed Christianity. However, according to the doctrinal statements of these churches it is not a balanced view to single out this doctrine to stand on its own as representative of all that is taught. The doctrine of unconditional election, and its corollary in the doctrine of predestination are never properly taught, according to Calvinists, except as an assurance to those who seek forgiveness and salvation through Christ, that their faith is not in vain, because God is able to bring to completion all of His intentions to save. Nevertheless, non-Calvinist Christians strongly object that these doctrines are false and offensive, and that they discourage the world from seeking salvation.
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