GCC and Dan Kellogg have either maliciously or through ignorance misrepresented the Reformed doctrines of grace, what he labels as "5 point Calvinism", referring to it on his church website as "a fatalistic Calvinistic view that leaves no room for free will" in an effort to dismiss sound doctrine by creating a straw man.
I had been thinking about this church and this man for some time and finally had an opportunity to confront him about it yesterday. I suggested that misrepresenting Calvinism was negative, unkind and unloving to an entire segment of Christian brothers. I assured him that Calvinism does have a place for free will in that it holds man (and not God) morally responsible for sinning with the free will granted him. While God foreordains all things, this does not preclude the freedom of man, rather it establishes it.
As the Westminster Confession chapter 3.1 says "God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established."
When I asked him if he would take the inaccurate info off his website, he said probably not and dismissed me by saying that was just my personal brand of Calvinism before walking away.
Well, let me just assure you that belief in free will is not just a distinct trait of my own personal brand of Calvinism.
The five points of Calvinism we know today are an English acrostic (TULIP) intended to summarize the Canons of Dort wherein the five points of the Arminian remonstrants were refuted in 1619. So, if anything ought to indicate what "5 pt. Calvinists" believe about free will, this would be it.
And I quote from the 3rd and 4th head article 1:
"Man was originally formed after the image of God. His understanding was adorned with a true and saving knowledge of his Creator, and of spiritual things; his heart and will were upright, all his affections pure, and the whole man was holy. But, revolting from God by the instigation of the devil and by his own free will, he forfeited these excellent gifts; and an in the place thereof became involved in blindness of mind, horrible darkness, vanity, and perverseness of judgment; became wicked, rebellious, and obdurate in heart and will, and impure in his affections."
So, you see Calvinists have always believed that man was given free will, the difference is that Calvinists teach (rightly) that because man chose to sin with the free will given him, we are now enslaved to sin in such a way that all that we can freely will apart from divine grace intervening is sin.
"2. Man after the fall begat children in his own likeness. A corrupt stock produced a corrupt offspring. Hence all the posterity of Adam, Christ only excepted, have derived corruption from their original parent, not by limitation, as the Pelagians of old asserted, but by the propagation of a vicious nature, in consequence of the just judgment of God.
3. Therefore all men are conceived in sin, and are by nature children of wrath, incapable of saving good, prone to evil, dead in sin, and in bondage thereto; and without the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit, they are neither able nor willing to return to God, to reform the depravity of their nature, or to dispose themselves to reformation."
This is what makes the doctrines of grace so gracious, truly amazing grace that saved a wretch like me!
If you were to visit this pastors church (as I have several times) you are not likely to hear about the wrath of God revealed against sinners who are incapable in themselves of obeying God followed by the announcement of good news through the substitutionary death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to atone for guilty sinners and bring them from spiritual death to life. You won't likely hear any good news at all, but you will hear a lot of well intended good advice about how to be a better person.
This is because this pastor teaches an old heresy known as pelagianism (referred to in the Canons of Dort) which asserts that all men are fully capable in themselves of doing what God requires. It turns our need for good news into a need for mere good advice. Do better, try harder, and God will help you achieve your life goals.
This is not the Christian gospel, friends. Sadly, it is all too common to see these sorts of of misrepresentations in the most popular and largest churches coming from charismatic leaders who put forward lies with a winning smile, as the apostle Paul warned, "For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths." 1 Timothy 4:3-4 read more
