The Calvinism Debate - Way of Life Literature

objective grace and subjective grace, natural ability and moralability, mediate vs. immediate imputation of Adam’s sin,supralapsarianism, sublapsarianism, infralapsarianism,desiderative vs. decretive will, and antecedent hypotheticalwill.I believe that Calvinism is more akin to philosophy than tosound Bible theology and that it has le the simplicity that isin Christ.2. e Calvinist system tries to reconcile things that cannotbe reconciled in this world.Consider Acts 13:48 and Acts 13:46Verse 48 is a pet Calvinist verse: “And when the Gentilesheard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord:and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.”e Calvinist says, “See, here is a plain statement that thosewho believe are those who are sovereignly ordained tobelieve.” e problem is that the word “sovereignly” is addedto what this verse actually states and Calvinist doctrine isread into the verse to make it say, “...as many as weresovereignly and arbitrarily elected believed.” Any possibilitythat God’s foreknowledge could allow for the exercise ofhuman will is entirely discounted, but there is nothing in theverse itself to require such an interpretation.Also, in verse 46 we see a different story. “en Paul andBarnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that theword of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeingye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy ofeverlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.”Here we see that salvation is associated with man’s responseto the gospel. According to the plain teaching of this verse,these Jews did not go to Hell because they were not part ofthe elect or because they were sovereignly elected toreprobation, but simply because they refused to believe. eyreprobated themselves. Paul told them that God wanted togive them everlasting life and they rejected it.14