One of the most common attacks on Calvinism I have seen is the insinuation that “Calvinists are Sneaky” when they evangelize. Since Calvinists claim that God died only for the “elect”, and since they don’t know exactly who the “elect” are, then Calvinists would be dishonest to evangelize the Gospel by saying “Jesus died for your sins”.
The anti-Calvinists have a lot of fun with this, imagining the contortions that a true Calvinist would have to go through in order to share the Gospel honestly:
- “Jesus died for my sins, and he might have died for yours, too!”
- “Jesus died for my sins, but you have no hope unless you are one of the elect like me!”
- “Jesus died for the sins of a small group of people, which sadly might not include you”.
After I first started dating, I dated a number of girls over a number of years without ever falling in love. I sensed that it would be very wrong to lie to someone about loving them, so when girls tried to raise the subject, I learned to be very sneaky. I learned to change the subject, or even to preempt the question with statements like “I love how you make me feel”, or “I love hanging out with you”.
Since then, I’ve fallen in love and married, but this experience taught me a thing or two about sneakiness, and I can understand why anti-Calvinists find the sneakiness to be funny. But I think that the anti-Calvinists are completely wrong on this point.
The typical Arminian will evangelize the gospel by saying, “Jesus died for your sins”. But they know as well as the Calvinist that some of the people they approach will NOT be saved. The Arminian and Calvinist would agree 100% with the honesty of an evangelical introduction, “Jesus died for the sins of the world, but I have no idea whether or not you will be saved”.
Both Calvinist and Arminian would agree that such a statement is true. The only difference is that the Arminian chooses to obfuscate the truth (and even mocks the Calvinist for hesitating to obfuscate). The Arminian argues that it’s best to present a half-truth at first, and only share the full truth after the convert has been "snookered”, so to speak.
This would be identical to my telling my youthful dating partners, “Sure, I love you honey!”, and then, later, having to qualify that earlier affirmation with, “Well, when I said ‘love’, it didn’t necessarily mean ‘love’”. Or worse, “Well, when I said ‘love’, that was before you proved yourself to be unlovable”.
So I conclude that if the Calvinists are sneaky, the Arminians are worse than sneaky on this particular point. The Arminians want to be able to say exactly what you want to hear, in order to get what they want out of you, and therefore they are willing to obfuscate and twist the truth – the truth that not everyone will be saved. The truth that some will perish.
I will stop short of claiming that the Arminians are apostate. But both camps clearly place a different sense of gravity on truthfulness with the unconverted. Arminians seem to think that the end justifies the means, while Calvinists seem to think that you must be respectful and avoid manipulation when talking to the unconverted.
The Arminians want so badly to be able to say “I love you”, and so desperate to avoid saying “I love how you make me feel”; that they change the definition of love. Which is sneakier?
I like your treatment of the “L-term” here.
I found your blog through a comment you made on Don Johnson’s blog. How do you deal with Paul writing that “Christ died for our sins” (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). This is “the Gospel,” Paul said, “which I preached unto you, which also ye have received” (v. 1). He preached this Gospel, these very words, “Christ died for our sins,” to the Corinthians before they received the words, before he knew if they would believe it, while they were yet sinners belonging to the unbelieving world. How could Paul preach that Christ died for their sins if, in fact, he did not know that?
Thanks Kent,
In this post, I was dealing narrowly with the claim made by Arminians that “Calvinists are sneaky”. I don’t really feel qualified yet to comment on all of the claims made by Arminians (or Calvinists, for that matter). I will be reading Olson’s “Arminian Theology” over the next two weeks, though, and should be able to post my thoughts about your question at that time.
For what it’s worth, I’m inclined to assume that Paul meant exactly what he said. I have seen people do gymnastics around verses like this, claiming, for example, that the word “world” in John chapter 3 really is greek secret code for “the elect”. I am deeply suspicious of such gymnastics.
Thanks for you reply, Joshua. I don’t know that someone who denies limited atonement, as I do, should be labeled an Arminian. I appreciate your openness to scripture, however.
Good catch; limited atonement is just one of the 5 points. I meant to say that I haven’t yet fully understood the positions of the various camps on limited atonement, so I don’t have a well-formed belief.
I strongly believe that:
1) Christ died as propitiation for sin
2) Christ’s sacrifice was great enough to cover ALL sin
3) Not everyone will be saved as a result of Christ’s sacrifice (thus, claim #2 will never be tested, and therefore claims #1 and #3 are sufficient)
As far as I can tell, neither camp would disagree with these beliefs, and the discussion over “limited atonement” is dealing with a completely different issue. So I am having a really hard time understanding what the point is, or why anyone would take a position on “limited atonment” (other than to assume that scriptures mean what they say)? MacArthur had some vague argument about “double jeapordy”, but I really don’t see the point (yet; I am trying). What are the practical implications of one theory versus another?
noncalvinists teach that Christ died for the sins of those who remain unrepentant (i.e. every single person in the world). perfect atonement and propitiation was made and God’s wrath was placed on Jesus and not on them.
“double jeopardy” is the notion that if Jesus suffered for their sins already, then God would be unjust to judge them and cause them to suffer on the basis of those same sins.
the questions primarily revolve around what was really accomplished at the cross. Did Jesus save anyone or merely allow for the possibility of salvation? What does “atonement” mean?
definitely take your time and stick with the bible regardless of what you conclude.
Chalee, thanks very much for the comment. Now I understand what was meant by the “double jeapordy” comment, and I think I can now see why someone would be motivated to use that explanation.
In answer to the question about “what was accomplished on the cross?”, it seems that both camps would say “those who believe were saved”.
So it feels as if the debate around limited atonement is primarily about characterizing God’s nature and intentions; emphasizing either mercy or justice. At least, that’s the best I can ascertain so far.
In any case, I’ve started on Olson’s book, and he is making a strong point that much of what the Calvinists rail against is pelagianism or semi-pelagianism, and not Arminianism. http://examiningcalvinism.blogspot.com/2009/07/book-study-at-sea.html