Every biblical passage that mentions predestination/election will be searched in vain for any reference to anyone being predestined to damnation. by Dave Hunt

Dave Hunt

Every biblical passage that mentions predestination/election will be searched in vain for any reference to anyone being predestined to damnation. How, then, does the Calvinist support such a doctrine? By implication only. Those whom God did not elect have been just as surely damned by His eternal decree. Calvin said it is “childish” to deny this, “since there could be no election without its opposite reprobation.”[Calvinist Lorraine] Boettner declares: “The doctrine of absolute Predestination of course logically holds that some are foreordained to death as truly as others are foreordained to life. The very terms “elect” and “election” imply the terms “non-elect” and “reprobation”…. We believe that from all eternity God has intended to leave some of Adam’s posterity in their sins, and that the decisive factor…is to be found only in God’s will.”What a misrepresentation of God! We search the writings of Calvinists in vain to find some hint of regret or sympathy for those hopelessly doomed by God’s eternal decree. How could the God who damns multitudes then profess His love for them—or regret His sovereign decrees? Love and compassion—where shall we find these greatest of all virtues in Calvinism?Calvinists propose various theories to make it seem that God really does love those He predestines to eternal torment. One of the most callous theories comes from Michael Horton in a book with a foreword by J. I. Packer. He argues, “This view intensifies God’s love, by limiting it only to those who believe. That sure beats the indiscriminate, general benevolence we seem to be hearing much about today.”For God to love all mankind would be a despicable “indiscriminate, general benevolence”? Limiting God’s love to a select group intensifies God’s love? What madness!John Piper and his pastoral staff published a booklet titled “TULIP: What We Believe about the Five Points of Calvinism.” Like Calvin’s Institutes, it glorifies God’s sovereignty (as we have already seen), but nowhere in its pages is there even a mention of God’s love for sinners. John Calvin is presented as “the famous theologian and pastor of Geneva,” with not a word about the floggings, imprisonments, tortures, banishments, and burnings at the stake that he encouraged there. Piper also praises Augustine, but without a hint that he was the father of modern Roman Catholicism and held to numerous doctrines that evangelicals find repugnant. Is it honest to withhold vital facts in order to promote Calvinism?Five times in the New Testament, Christ commands us, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 19:19, etc.). Paul twice, and James once, reiterate this command that one must love one’s neighbor as oneself (Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14; James 2:8). Christ makes it clear that everyone who is in need is one’s neighbor (Luke 10:29–37). Surely none are in greater need than the lost. Yet Calvinism tells us that the God who “is love,” and who “so loved the world” and sent His Son “that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:17)—even though He could save all—damns billions for His “good pleasure” and to prove His justice. Aghast at such doctrine, one can only repeat in astonishment, “What Love Is This?” Dave Hunt