This Week in Calvinism - July 18, 2008

Gage Browning has some concerns about the "new" Calvinism.

If misrepresentations and lies aren't enough to refute Calvinism, you might as well resort to numerology:

In dealing with the Five Points of Calvinism, it is certainly fitting that five is the number of death, so the Five Points of Calvinism will kill anything near it. Just as it takes no keen intellect to see that five is the biblical number of death, so no insight is necessary, other than an ability to read the Bible, to see the flagrant perversion that the Five Points of Calvinism make of Holy Scripture. Satan, the angel of death is the fifth cherub (Ezek 28:14) and has the power of death (Heb 2:14). The first man dies in Genesis 5:5. In Acts 5:5, Ananias dies after being asked five questions about his sin ("The wages of sin is death" [Rom 6:23]). Paul was whipped five times (2 Cor 11:24). Jesus Christ had five wounds. In Revelation chapter five, we see the Lamb that was slain (Rev 5). During the Tribulation, locusts will torment men for five months (Rev 9:5) until they seek death (Rev 9:6). When the fifth seal was opened, John saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain (Rev 6:9). There were five men stoned in the Bible that died. The "sin unto death" is in First John chapter five. The greatest chapter in the Bible on death, describing two men whose deaths affected billions of people, is Romans chapter five.

No wonder this guy blogs anonymously.

One who is spiritually dead (Ephesians 2:5, Colossians 2:13) is incapable of choosing eternal life, just as one who is physically dead cannot choose to breathe. The only way around the clear meaning of scripture is to redefine what it means to be dead: "A dead spirit is only 'dead' in the sense that God has departed from it, but that does not mean it is unable to make decisions freely including the decision to accept God..." So, does that same principle apply to the "second death" (Revelation 2:11, 20:6, 20:14, 21:8)? Are the "dead" souls in Hell able to freely choose salvation?

Jolly Blogger reviews Roger E. Olson's book Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities. He recommends it, believing "the greatest benefit for Calvinists is that in this book you get the chance to hear an articulate Arminian speak for himself. For most Calvinists, we get our knowledge of Arminianism from our fellow Calvinists and we tend to spin things in the worst possible way when it comes to Arminianism."

Many Calvinists on paper are hyper-Calvinists in practice.