Calvinism just the drug for human viewpoint lovers

According to Barna Research, roughly three out of 10 Protestant leaders describe their church as “Calvinist or Reformed.”

“I am often asked why Calvinism would be attractive to people who have heretofore been in non-Reformed churches,” writes Dr. Keith Stanglin in an article posted last month to Austin Graduate School of Theology’s website. “The ones who ask me this question are usually, like me, people who have never been personally attracted to the distinctive doctrines of Reformed theology.  Although I have never felt that personal attraction, I do feel qualified to venture some answers.  After all, I have talked to many Calvinist converts about this over the years, I did spend four years on my PhD in residence at Calvin Theological Seminary (and am a proud alumnus), and I have many Calvinist friends.  (‘Some of my best friends are Calvinists….’)

Stanglin lists “intellectual depth” as reason No. 1. He writes, “Popular evangelicalism can be characterized as a mile wide and an inch deep.  How many young people in such churches have been discouraged and dismissed when they asked the hard theological and philosophical questions?  Calvinism, by contrast, does encourage a certain level of theological depth, in part perhaps because the paradoxes can be difficult to maintain simplistically.  To its credit, Calvinism doesn’t avoid the tough, perennial questions of theology.”

Stanglin’s reason No. 2 is Tradition. He writes, “Reformed thought has a meaningful history that, compared with other American churches, seems ancient.  Creeds and confessions of faith give shape to this tradition, as do the impressive array of talented and deep thinkers, from John Calvin to Cornelis Elleboogius to Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Kuyper to Karl Barth, to name a select few.  This way of thinking and way of life is larger than I and the moment.”

*****

In an old study, Preacher Richard Jordan says, “America thinking is so dominated by the theology of the Dutch Reformers Calvinism and Armenianism that it’s hard sometime just to break free of that stuff. The grace movement as a movement is so dominated by Calvinism that it’s hard to even breathe sometime, certainly to get any light, because of the oppression of their systems.

“But those systems have nothing to do with the Bible. They are philosophical systems developed by theologians who like to hear themselves talk, and who develop their systems to try to defend the integrity and honor of Almighty God, when they didn’t need to do that; God can take care of Himself.

“Just remember that all that stuff is a bunch of Dutch theologians sitting around over there arguing among themselves about who’s right and it’s just like the thing about how many angels dance on the head of a pin. It doesn’t make any difference because neither one of them are anywhere even in the game!

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Explaining the resurgence in popularity of Calvinism, Stanglin reveals, “In 1993, when Al Mohler became president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, he cleaned house of all faculty who did not share a strict interpretation of biblical inerrancy and all who resisted his five-point Calvinism.  In subsequent years, Southern Seminary has attracted a faculty sympathetic to Calvinism.  And now that Southern Seminary is the largest seminary in the Southern Baptist Convention, you can imagine how its graduates have now changed the character of the denomination and of evangelicalism more broadly.”

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One of the great passages in the Bible on the dangers of man-made education is in Proverbs 18: [1] Through desire a man, having separated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom.
[2] A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself.

“A guy’s got something on his mind; he’s got a desire,” explains Jordan of Proverbs 18. “When I got out of high school they said, ‘You gotta get your education. You gotta go to college.’

“Here’s a guy and he’s going to try and find wisdom. He’s going out and having communion and concourse with wisdom. He’s looking at philosophy and he’s loving it. Why is he doing that? What’s the desire he has?

“The desire in verse 1 is explained in verse 2. The desire is not that he can have understanding; the desire is that his heart my discover itself. This guy’s studying and intermeddling with all wisdom for one reason. He wants an alibi to do what he wants to do. That’s the reason. And you know, your old man’s just that way, isn’t he? Always looking for an excuse.

“Loving your own human viewpoint instead of divine viewpoint is what Romans 1 is all about. ‘Professing themselves to be wise they became fools.’ Why’d they do that? Because there’s a desire in their heart to get around being accountable to God and to do it their own way. Their heart wants to do its own thing.

“You know what Satan wants to do? You get saved and you’ve trusted the gospel and he says, ‘Okay, now I want to take you over here and cause you not to trust that final authority anymore but begin to trust human viewpoint and go back to it.’

“As Paul warns in Colossians 2 about how it happens Believers don’t 'hold the head' the way they ought to hold Him, in their personal regard, and let Him do the thinking for them, the first thing that happens is they’re ‘spoiled through philosophy; lovers of human viewpoint.’ That’s even put before the vain, deceitful use of the Word of God.

“Because, folks, you aren’t going to be tricked into a deceitful use of the Word of God for very long if that Book is your absolute final authority.

“You know what I’ve discovered over the years? You can show people the truth of the Word of God ‘rightly divided’ if the Word is the only authority in their life. I’ve discovered you can show people the truth of grace and of ‘the mystery’ if they are willing to come to the Book and say, ‘Lord, you speak, and no matter who or what you contradict, I’ll believe what you say,’ but it’s few and far between that you find anybody who steps out on that limb.”

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In a study last Sunday on Calvinism, Preacher Alex Kurz explained, “The sequence taught in Calvinism is you have to be ‘born again’ before you have faith to believe.

“The Bible shatters that philosophical approach to the things of God. Faith is not something man contributes to salvation, but is itself a part of God’s gift of salvation. It is God’s gift to the sinner, not the sinner’s gift to God.”

(to be continued tomorrow)