What do You Think of Calvinists?

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drstevej:
Just curious to know what folks here think about Calvinists…
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Personally I love the one Calvinist I am married to. As to the rest of his Calvinist Family, we all get along just fine. In the more than 40 years I have been married into this family, we have managed to overcome the nonsense of their mistaken ideas of what Catholicism is. We agree to disagree and the rest is history. We respect and love one another. Thank you very much for asking though. 🙂

TIWJWD

That is what Jesus would do.
 
My daughter attends Calvin College, so we like Calvinists enough to give them about $20,000/year of our money!

My younger daughter will be attending St. Louis University (Jesuit), so we got it right the second time! Now they will get about $20,000/year of our money.

Anyway, if you go to the Prince Center at Calvin College, you will see a wall mural about the History of Calvinism. At the very beginning of the mural is a lovely picture of St. Augustine, with commentary that John Calvin got most of his ideas from Augustine.

And since I love St. Augustine and consider him the greatest Christian teacher in history, I can’t help but like much about Calvinism!

What I like most about the teaching is the place it gives God. God is Sovereign. He is in charge. I’ve heard Catholic teachers say that if God wanted to, He could snap His Fingers and the entire universe would cease to exist. Calvinists recognize this, and recognize that it is God Who has made us and not we ourselves. From what I’ve seen so far, Catholics have no argument with God’s Sovereignty, and give God His rightful place. (Many other Protestant denominations and theologies do not give God His place as Sovereign.)

My family background on my father’s side is Reformed (Calvinist). One of my uncles was a Reformed Minister. For two years, we attended a Reformed Church (Reformed Church in America, as opposed to the Christian Reformed Church, another Reformed denomination, which is what Calvin College is.)

My biggest problem with Calvinism is that it doesn’t work in everyday life.

Supposedly, a Calvinist will serve God and not sin “out of a thankful heart, grateful for God’s redeeming work.”

Baloney.

The Reformed Church seems to be full of leaders who can’t decide whether abortion is a sin or a regrettable choice, who can’t decide whether homosexuality is a sin, or just the act of homosexual sex is a sin, or whether the worse sin of all is condemning homosexuality as a sin…

It’s a mess, and it’s no wonder that this denomination has decreased in numbers steadily for years. No one wants wishy-washiness.

My daughter at Calvin does not attend a Reformed Church. She doesn’t attend any church except the Carmelite Convent outside of town, where she goes once a week to just sit in silence. She said once that the Reformed Church service is like “a pageant of the real thing, Catholicism.” I pray that she will someday come home to the real thing.
 
Can there be Roman Catholic Calvinists?

I know that there are “Charasmatic” Catholics, but is there also a faction of “Calvinist Catholics”??

My gosh. This is just irritating.

I need some Francis de Sales to battle this Geneva hallaucination.
 
Jimmy Akin’s “Salvation Controversy” is a must read for Catholics on the TULIP topics. I was unaware that Catholic theology allowed such a wide range of opinion on the subject. Where opinions run afoul of Church teaching is also brought up in this book.

WWCD?

Whatever God predestined him to do.
 
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pnewton:
Jimmy Akin’s “Salvation Controversy” is a must read for Catholics on the TULIP topics. I was unaware that Catholic theology allowed such a wide range of opinion on the subject. Where opinions run afoul of Church teaching is also brought up in this book…
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A better book is Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange’s book, “Predestination” (and it’s companion, “Providence”). It’s the best history of catholic predestination out there, though admittedly the author tends to interpret the world in what seems to be a slightly unrealistic Thomistic cast (It seems to me that he stretches quite a bit to read things in a pro-Thomist fashion, but I could be just reading his intentions wrong…)

ken
 
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Katholikos:
If the Apostles had taught Calvinist principles, the Catholic Church would be teaching them.

The Apostles didn’t teach them, so neither does the Church. The Church teaches what the Apostles taught before, during, and after the NT was written. Period.

Calvinism is a 16th century interpretation of the NT that was never seen by any Christian before him.

All Protestant denominations result from a different interpretation of the same, 66-book cut version of the Bible. Calvinism is no exception.

The Catholic Church did not come out of the Bible; rather, the Bible came out of the Church. Any Bible-based church is not the one Christ founded. The Church founded by Christ wrote the NT and formed the Bible when she was nearly 400 years old. The New Testament is based on the Church.

Peace be to all who post at Catholic Answers.
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Katholikos,

With all due respect you are both right and wrong - mostly wrong. You are right that the Church canonized the already existing books of the New Testament used thoughout the Church already. But the Apostles and their companions wrote the New Testament and the Old Testament Canon already existed. You make it seem as if the Bible was written in the 3rd century and as if the OT did not exist and was not widely used. The church took the books that were widely used in the churches for three centuires and officially recognized them. But the NT was the apostolic teaching that pre-existed the canonization process. All you have to do is read the early church fathers to see them quoting heavily from the Epistles and the Gospels. Read the Didache and you will see it using scripture early on as authoritative.

Mel
 
I love Calvinists. I don’t always agree with them but they have some of the best Biblical scholars ever. I challenge anyone to find me any Christians with a more comprehensive and thorough understanding and use for the Old Testament than Calvinists. They ahve recovered Covenant theology which Scott Hahn has brought over to Catholicsm, much to the benefit of those who choose to follow it.

I think Calvinsim relies a bit to heavily on reason to make sense out of Biblical parodoxes. But over all they are the ones who are willing to not explain away all those troubling passages that prove predestination like Romans 9. I have yet to hear someone explain that passage better than the Calvinsist. Of course I think they take their conclusions to far. But those Catholics of the Thomist and Augustinian traditions are, IMO, far better Biblical scholars than those who play fast and loose with the predestination passages. The God looking down through the corridor of time to see what we would do is not Biblically derived. It is in some sense a mirror explanation of some of the Calvinists more logically but not biblically based arguments, like limited atonement, instead of leaving it a mystery rather than trying to explain the unknowable.

Finally the best aspect of Calvinsim that I will always embrace is God’s Sovereignty. They get that everything is not about us but first about God and His glory. And all of God’s plans will perfectly come to pass for the individual and the cosmos. Calvinists theology is outside themselves and is all about God not the individual. I think the rest of Christendom is too concerned with what is God doing for me. This goes for myown Lutheran tradition too. As if God exists for the sake of humanity. No humanity exists for the sake of God and His good pleasure. Calvinists really get this. And it is very liberating because it allows you to truly rely on God for all things.

So I think the Calvinists have recovered the Hebrew view of the early church in some areas. We all would do well to adopt some of their principles while avoiding their rationalistic excesses.

BTW, focusing on TULIP is not a good way to discuss Calvinism. It was a reaction to the points of the Arminians and nothing more. It was a specific synopsis of the Reformed view of soteriology. It was never meant as a comprehensive explanation of Reformed Theology. Calvinism is nmore about God’s sovereignty and Covenant Theology than it is about TULIP.

Mel
 
_Christopher_:
I tend to think that they accept irresistable grace and eternal security because they are scared of Hell and don’t like personal freedom and responsibility, but that is probably just my own ignorant perspective that is terribly generalized.
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Both views stem from their belief in the Soveriegnty of God. Grace, in their view, is irresistable because it cuases regeneration and when someone is regenerate they will believe. And if God saves us then He also sustains us in the faith. Worked out practically by faith working in love. When I was a Calvinist it was the only time I was not afraid of Hell because I was so confident in God’s love and mercyy towards. Me and I still feel that way though it is clear in the Bible that apostacy can and does happen.

Mel
 
I think Calivinsts are reverent, logical, and good Christinas. I also think they are mistaken about, well, about 5 points. 😉
 
Katholikos said:
Calvinism is a 16th century interpretation of the NT that was never seen by any Christian before him.
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To give credit where credit is due, Calvin actually got his doctrine, at least the predestination stuff, straight from Luther.

JSA
 
drstevej said:
In response to Akin’s Thomistic Tulip, I (as an Amyrauldian – four Point Calvinist) submit the Amyraldian version as stated by my Calvinist friend, FReeper Orthodox Presbyterian…

Amyrauldian Calvinism

Total Depravity
Unrestricted Atonement
Limited Election
Irresistible Grace
Preservation of the Saints
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Is there any reason one can’t be a five-point Catholic ?​

ISTM that all of TULIP can be given a Catholic sense, without any alteration of meaning.

Catholicism ought to adopt monergism as well.

Then Calvinists would have to find a different way of expressing Reformed doctrine 😛 ##
 
I’m a 5 poitn Arminian. Calvinists only got their 5 points cause they didn’t like the Arminin ones and felt the need to refute them… They only got more recognition for it cause they have a cute little TULIP acrynomn.
 
_Christopher said:
I tend to think that they accept irresistable grace and eternal security because they are scared of Hell and don’t like personal freedom and responsibility, but that is probably just my own ignorant perspective that is terribly generalized.
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Irresistible grace is not the same as vandalistic grace - grace can be irresistible, and be gentle. It has to be irresistible, gentle or not, because otherwise no one would ever be converted to Christ.​

Eternal security is based on nothing more shocking than believing that, when Christ says that none of His sheep shall be taken from Him, He means it. An Almighty Saviour isn’t capable, just possibly, perhaps, of preserving His elect for whom He has died - He cannot fail to do so, because He is absolutely faithful. When He makes a promise, He means it. “He is not a man, that He should lie…” - He is God-with-us, Mighty to save - it is the gods of the heathen “that have eyes, but cannot see; feet, but cannot walk; ears, but cannot hear”, that are so weak & wretched that they cannot save - this God is different, He is the Living God, and He cannot be thwarted or foiled; His word “does not return to Him empty”, but accomplishes all that He Wills - why should Jesus Christ be less powerful, or less efficacious ?

It is man who is faithless, weak, untrustworthy, changing, inconstant, powerless, who reneges on his word - never God. God is all the excellent things that we are not - He is wholly to be trusted; He has left Himself with no “wiggle-room” whatever. He has committed Himself to us so thoroughly by taking our nature upon Him & sharing with all that is His, that either we believe Him, or treat Him as a perjurer.

When God promises something, it honours Him that we believe what He promises. ##
 
II_Paradox_II said:
I think we’re great! 😃

Just to be fair, however, I have great respect for virtually anyone who holds to election ante praevisa merita (that means “before foreseen merits”… essentially anyone who believes God elects of people not on the basis of their foreseen decisions or beliefs).

And, along with Edwin, I would agree that there is more to Calvinism than predestination, but since most of you are probably only thinking of his predestinarian views, that’s all I bring up.

ken
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I wish someone would explain how election ante praevisa merita is still election - how can God elect, if foreknowledge of merits is even remotely involved ?​

Election is referred to God’s counsel & good pleasure & foreknowledge, not to the merits of creatures. Election by God’s counsel allows it to remain absolutely gratuitous. It depends wholly on God - not in the slightest on man. Make election dependent on man, even in the least degree, & it becomes gratuitous only in name. Election is an article by which the Church stands or falls; because a non-gratuitous election means a non-gratuitous redemption, a non-gratuitous justification, a non-gratuitous salvation, a salvation that not is a salvation by Christ & Christ alone. 😦 😦 😦 ##
 
Syele said:
I think Calivinsts are reverent, logical, and good Christinas. I also think they are mistaken about, well, about 5 points. 😉
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I agree. I think Calvinists are also mistaken about the Bible. God wants all to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4), not just a few that He has chosen. I listened to a radio program called “Grace to You” hosted by a minister named the Rev. John MacArthur, who tried to explain the doctrine of election. After listening to the program, I felt that Rev. MacArthur did not have any Biblical explanation for his views, and I was more confused than before listening to the program. Rev. MacArthur said that certain things are “a mystery” which to me meant that there is no Scriptural basis for Calvinism (which, by the way, is also believed by some Catholics, based on some of the teachings of St. Thomas Acquinas.).
 
Syele said:
I’m a 5 poitn Arminian. Calvinists only got their 5 points cause they didn’t like the Arminin ones and felt the need to refute them… They only got more recognition for it cause they have a cute little TULIP acrynomn.
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Arminianism to me has more in common with Catholicism. God doesn’t force anyone to believe in Him and obey His commands. It is clear from the Bible that is it possible to resist the Holy Spirit and to reject God’s gift of grace. It is also clear from the Bible that it is possible to lose one’s salvation by choosing to reject God and commit sin.
 
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