Calvinism and Southern Baptists: Another Perspective

by John Harris                                                                                                                                             Vol. XXIII, No. 3, March 2010

[Editor’s Note: This is the fourth article in a series on Calvinism which began with Dr. Elmer Towns’ article that appeared in the March 2009 Baptist Banner. And there is another in my computer anxiously awaiting a chance to be printed. If you want to review the previous articles in the series, go to the Banner website, click Articles from Past Issues, click Theology, and then look down to March, May, and/or August 2009. TCP]

I read with interest the articles by Elmer Towns and Eric Greene on Calvinism in the Southern Baptist Convention. I would like to respond because I believe the issues in this topic are of paramount importance.

I am not a professional theologian, but I come with the perspective of an informed layman with three college degrees and who includes 67 years, out of a total of 78, as a believer. I have always been active in Christian ministry and have zealously studied the Bible. For about forty years of my adult life I was a member of an independent Baptist church in Richmond; however, for the last fourteen years I have been a member of an SBC church. I felt it wise to leave the independent Baptist church because a new pastor was an advocate of Lordship Salvation, which in reality is a derivative of Calvinism.

My theological position is dispensationalism, with a strong emphasis on grace, faith, doctrine, and the whole counsel of God. I follow no man, and I want no followers.

The most important question in the Bible is found in Acts 16:30: “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Paul and Silas responded “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.” It is amazing how often that simple answer is maligned, and it was so in biblical times. In Acts 15 Jewish legalizers taught that you must be circumcised in addition to believing in order to be saved.

I first bumped into faith plus in Wiesbaden, Germany, in 1952 while serving in the USAF. At a mid-week Bible study a chaplain stated that you must be baptized in addition to faith in order to be saved. I could not let that go unchallenged and responded with the position of faith alone.

In 1989 I responded to John MacArthur and his book The Gospel According to Jesus with a 17-page letter because I believed his position represented a faith plus position. That same year I began a serious study of Calvinism that has lasted for the past twenty years.

My study of Calvinism has brought me to the conclusion that all five points of TULIP Calvinism are flawed. I wish to deal briefly with four points and then go into the fifth point in more detail.

The “T” stands for total depravity. I strongly believe in the depravity of man, but the Calvinists explain depravity by saying that depravity is such that God must regenerate man before man can believe. I believe the Bible teaches faith produces regeneration.

The “U” stands for unconditional election. I believe the Bible teaches election and for many years I have hung my view of election on I Peter 1:2 “elect according to the foreknowledge of God.” Thiessen describes it this way: “By election we mean the sovereign act of God in grace whereby He chose in Christ Jesus for salvation all those He foreknew would accept Him.” In contrast Calvinist theologian Berkhof describes election this way: “...that eternal act of God whereby He, in His sovereign good pleasure and on account of no foreseen merit in them, chooses a certain number of men to be the recipients of special grace and eternal salvation.” I believe the Bible teaches that God does not prefer one person over another (see II Samuel 14:14, II Chronicles 19:7, Romans 2:11, Ephesians 6:9, Colossians 3:25, and I Peter 1:17). The Calvinist concept of election would seem to violate that biblical principle. Furthermore, Calvinists hold two positions on the non-elect in that some feel God simply passes over the non-elect while others hold that God actually reprobates the non-elect to a Christless eternity. Either way in Calvinist theology the non-elect spend a Christless eternity because God passed over them or reprobated them to this destiny. Some theologians opt for corporate election, which gets you around some problems, but you must be careful to exclude the concept of universalism in corporate election.

The “I” stands for irresistible grace, which mens God calls only the elect to salvation and those persons cannot resist God’s call.

The “P” stands for perseverance, which means, according to the Calvinist, all saved persons will live a highly successful lifestyle after conversion. The Bible and human history tell a different story. It is important to note that perseverance and eternal security (once saved, always saved) are two different theological concepts.

The key issue of TULIP is limited atonement. In other words, for whom did Jesus die? Great controversy has raged for centuries about this question. Advocates of limited atonement say Christ died only for the elect, and they base their argument primarily on two lines of thought.

One line of thought is based on the sovereignty of God. These advocates say that God’s will cannot be frustrated or God is not sovereign; therefore, Christ did not die for all nor does He wish to save all. I believe TULIP advocates fail to distinguish between God’s permissive will (that which He allows) and God’s perfect will (that which He decrees).

The second line of thought appeals to John 10:11 which states “the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.” To the Calvinist this means He died only for the elect. However, John 10:11 must be balanced against Galatians 2:20 where it is stated that Christ died for Paul, and John 11:51 where it is stated that Christ died for the nation Israel. In addition, John 12:32, I Timothy 2:4-6 and 4:10, Hebrews 2:9, II Peter 2"1, I John 2:2, and 4:14, and the many “whosoever will” passages make it crystal clear to me that Christ died for all. Also, II Corinthians 5:14 states clearly that Christ died for all that are dead (everyone), and Romans 5:6 states that Christ died for the ungodly (everyone). Theologian L. S. Chafer wrote this statement: “How, it may be urged, can a universal gospel be preached if there is no universal provision? To say on one hand that Christ died only for the elect and on the other hand that His death is the ground on which salvation is offered to all men is perilously near contradiction.”

The sovereignty of God is another concept deeply embedded in the theology of Calvinism although it is not specifically expressed in TULIP. The Bible clearly teaches the sovereignty of God and no one believes more in the sovereignty of God than I do, and I think the issue is correctly stated by Humphreys and Robertson in their book God So Loved the World: Traditional Baptists and Calvinism. “NO, the question is not whether God is sovereign; God is. The question is, How does God exercise sovereignty? What has God sovereignly decided to do in the world?”

There are numerous books available that discuss the issues in each of the five points of TULIP, but I wish to refer you to just one, John Gerstner’s book Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth: A Critique of Dispensationalism and to Chapter 7 entitled “Spurious Calvinism”. In this chapter of more than 40 pages Gerstner describes the differences between true Calvinism and dispensational Calvinism, culminating in a chart on page 147 juxtaposing the two positions on TULIP. I share this with you to illustrate the specific point that Calvinism and dispensationalism are two entirely different systems of theology and cannot be merged. In Chapter 13 on the Lordship Controversy Gerstner states, “We have shown by this survey of history, past and present, that Dispensationalism is another gospel.” For this reason I am mystified why Towns and Norman Geisler, Chosen but Free: A Balanced View of Divine Election, and some other dispensationalists describe themselves as moderate Calvinists. Also, most five-point Calvinists say you are not a Calvinist unless you embrace all five points with their specific definitions.

Some writers on the Internet take the position that you are not a Christian believer unless you are a Calvinist. One writer even wrote that a Calvinist is not a believer if he believes a non-Calvinist is a true believer. Such rhetoric is not helpful. I believe the statement of J. Gresham Machen in his book What Is Faith? Is appropriate. “How much, then, of the gospel, it may be asked, does a man need to accept in order that he may be saved; what ... are the minimal doctrinal requirements in order that a man may be a Christian? That is, a question which, in one form or another, I am often asked; but it is also a question which I have never answered, and which I have not the slightest intention of answering now. Indeed it is a question which I think no human being can answer... This is one of the things which must surely be left to God.”

Charles Ryrie in his book So Great Salvation: What It Means to Believe in Jesus Christ has some helpful thoughts on the identification of Christians. “Every Christian will bear spiritual fruit. Somewhere, sometime, somehow. Otherwise that person is not a believer. Every born-again individual will be fruitful. Not to be fruitful is to be faithless, without faith, and therefore without salvation. Having said that, some caveats are in order. One, this does not mean that a believer will always be fruitful... Two, this does not mean that a person’s fruit will necessarily be outwardly evident... Three, my understanding of what fruit is and therefore what I expect others to bear may be faulty and/or incomplete... So likely it can truly be said that every believer will bear fruit somewhere (in earth and/or heaven), sometime (regularly and or irregularly during life), somehow (publically and/or privately). The evidence may be strong or weak, erratic or regular, visible or not. But a saving, living faith works.

My understanding of the Trinity is that God the Father desires the salvation of all people, God the Son died for the sins of all people, and God the Holy Spirit draws all people for salvation. Sadly, many people do not appropriate the provision that has been made for their salvation.

I cannot march to the Calvinist cadence because I believe Calvinism, at least partially, distorts God’s sovereignty, diminishes God’s love, denies God’s grace, dilutes God’s assurance, and depresses God’s Great Commission. Furthermore, I say to all Calvinists that I am not an Arminian, or a Pelagian, or an antinomian, which are three labels that Calvinists hurl with abandon at all non-Calvinists. I do acknowledge that I am a dispensationalist, but I prefer to be called a Bible believing Christian who believes all of God’s inerrant Word with an emphasis on the grace and love of God to all mankind. I believe that faith alone, appropriated correctly, is the basis of a right relationship with the Lord. It seems to me that the differences between Calvinists and non-Calvinists will continue to provoke a rocky relationship between the two. Time and energy spent steadying the rocky relationship could be spent better “saving sinners and sanctifying saints.”