SSTeacher;5528598:
Amen. And there is much I agree with. But does the evangelical believe that they can never lose their salvation? I understand that not all evangelicals subscribe to “once saved always saved”. I also understand that OSAS is not as simple as most people think that it is. I have a tertiary understanding of the Calvinistic “doctrine” of T.U.L.I.P.
Please excuse this sinner’s ignorance. But your perspective is fascinating to me.
Blessings,
Mickey
Hello again, Mickey,
It seems to me you’ve pretty much got the hang of it. The rather complex system of thought known as Calvinism is built upon the doctrine of election or predestination and its main tenets can be assimilated without too much trouble via the acronym,
TULIP, which summarizes the “five points” of Calvinism:
Total Depravity,
Unconditional Election;
Limited Atonement;
Irresistible Grace, and
Perseverance or (sometimes)
Preservation of the Saints (that last point is sometimes referred to as “eternal security,” or “once saved, always saved”). I think most Evangelicals approach these Calvinistic ideas having embraced the belief that salvation is an event and not a process and with the presupposition that the penal–substitution theory of the Atonement is fact.
Total Depravity:
The initial assertion is that because of the fall, we are helpless. We are sinners and we are deaf, blind, and dead to the things of God. Our hearts are deceitful and corrupt. Our will is
not free. It is in bondage to our evil nature and therefore we will not – indeed we cannot – choose good over evil in the spiritual realm.
Unconditional Election:
Next it is proposed that God in His sovereign grace has chosen to rescue certain specific fallen sinners from their helpless condition while leaving the rest of humanity to perish eternally. It’s important to note that God’s choice of whom to save is not determined by or conditioned upon any virtuous quality or act seen in the sinner. It is
unconditional. It is just God’s sovereign will.
Limited Atonement:
This means that Christ died only for the elect persons whom God has chosen unconditionally to save. Christ’s death covers all the sins of the elect and is therefore effective to save all persons for whom he died. If He had died for all, then all would actually be saved. But all are not saved, are they? Therefore His atonement must be limited to the elect.
Irresistible Grace:
This is the fourth step in this well thought out and elegantly threaded sequence. If God unconditionally elects who will be saved as a matter of His sovereign will, and if the atonement of Christ is effective in that it ensures the salvation of all persons for whom Christ died, then it surely follows that the elect will not be able to resist God’s sovereign choice to save them. The elect cannot fail to respond to God’s grace.
Perseverance of the Saints:
Lastly, if election is unconditional and the death of Christ is necessarily effective to save all persons for whom he died, and if saving grace cannot be resisted by these persons, it follows that those who are chosen will necessarily persist in faith because God in his sovereignty will sustain them in faith and accomplish the final salvation for which He elected them. The elect cannot do otherwise but be saved.
There are two primary reactions to Calvinism: Universalism and Arminianism.
Universalism is the belief in the salvation of
everyone. It’s the belief in universal redemption. There may be a punishment for the wicked in the afterlife – but it isn’t
eternal punishment.
Arminianism, which takes its name from Jacobus Arminius, is a “theological adjustment” to Calvinism. Its thrust is to limit the significance of the doctrine of predestination. So Arminians propose that Christ died not just for the elect but for all and that divine grace is not irresistible since Christians can fall from grace through a free–will choice (or choices) and be lost.
Even a brief overview such as this clearly reveals that Calvinism is not only unassailably logical but also highly complex. The theological ideas it examines and embraces are profound. And so there is an inevitable conclusion: all this has to be
learned. It isn’t something that can be “picked up” by reading the Bible.
Armed with the foregoing awareness one may look inside the American Evangelical arena and perhaps find it a little easier to understand. Some Calvinists accept the five points of Calvinism and some find difficulty with one or more of those five points. So it’s possible to encounter Evangelicals that describe themselves as
Five–point Calvinists, others may be
Four–point Calvinists, perhaps there will be
Three–point Calvinists, and even
Two–point Calvinists. So, Calvinists do not necessarily agree with each other. Everything depends upon which points are accepted and upon how those points are defined. And some Evangelicals will try to back away from any association with Calvinism whatsoever by identifying themselves as Arminians because they endorse Arminian theology – for example, Methodists, Wesleyans, and members of the Church of the Nazarene. I daresay that if one were to ask a
Three–point Calvinist to contrast his or her beliefs about the nature of God and salvation with the respective beliefs of an Arminian, they might find themselves in absolute agreement. Nevertheless, I doubt that either would be coaxed into abandoning the nomenclature with which he or she had grown comfortable.
Authentic Evangelicals who are able to describe their conversion experience will naturally also declare themselves to be saved since they are looking back upon something that happened in the past. So there might be two Evangelicals who can both describe the past event of their salvation. One may insist that he or she will never “lose” his or her salvation whereas the other may decline to make that assertion. Their respective positions can be explained by the differing theologies each presupposes to be correct.
As you asserted, this is not as simple as people think it is, and since it is complicated and as during my Evangelical sojourn I never was a Calvinist, anyway, I’ll happily defer to anybody who perceives any waywardness in my submission. I notice Contarini has posted on this thread. He’s very good with this stuff and he may see fit to comment.
Fraternally,
Mick
