Posted on February 4, 2012 by rogereolson

Some Thoughts about My Conversation with Michael Horton

I spoke about why I am “Against Calvinism” for about 15 minutes focusing on the goodness of God and how classical, “high Calvinism” is inconsistent with any meaning of “good” and “love” known to us. Then Mike spoke for about 15 minutes focusing on humanity’s depravity and God’s mercy in electing some to salvation. In other words, he also said that God is good even if not in terms of our “fairness” (because he doesn’t save everyone).

Eric Holmberg is a convinced and serious Calvinist who produced the Calvinist documentary "Amazing Grace." In this article, he corrects Calvinists who write Arminians "off as necessarily ill-informed, stupid, deceived, heretical - or worse unredeemed." Readers should be wary of Holmberg's affirmations of Calvinist theology.

Theological fatalists posit that God's foreknowledge of future events mean that it is not possible for anything other than what happens to happen. Since God knows every event that will happen, then aren't those events necessary?

This mode of thinking works out like this:

1) Necessarily, if God foreknows x will happen, then x will happen
2) God foreknows x will happen
3) Therefore, necessarily x will happen

which would take the form:

□ P -> Q
P
___
□ Q

But this is a non sequitur. All that would actually follow from the premises displayed is Q. In terms of God's foreknowledge, all that would follow is that x will happen, not that necessarily x will happen.

Theological fatalists have tried to remedy this by positing that the second premise is also necessary. So the argument would go:

1) Necessarily, if God foreknows x will happen, then x will happen
2') Necessarily, God foreknows x will happen
3) Therefore, necessarily x will happen

Some Calvinists wisely warn other Calvinists about making Calvinism into another gospel. In one particular dialogue, the following conversation took place. Unfortunately, the entirety of the dialogue has been lost since the webhost had taken down his website entirely. I had merely quoted what I felt were the most interesting segments of the discussion, and here they are:

Calvinist: “People who make election a test of fellowship, or suggest that belief in election is necessary for salvation, introduce a new kind of ‘Galatianism’ into the church-- they add to the gospel an extra requirement to simple faith, and thus people like this are even-- dare I say it-- bordering on cultic for making some teaching of the Bible in addition to the gospel an acid test for true Christian belief.”

Now this person certainly was a Calvinist, as they declared: “My transition to Calvinism was somewhat reluctant, but the inevitable result of Christian maturity....”