A convinced, staunch, aggressive, and arrogant (by his own admission) was at work to convince his Christian friend to trust the TULIP. Harvey's efforts to secure his friend's conversion were repetitive, yet unproductive. After a while the Harvey threw in the towel, finding his efforts were futile. No use trying any longer.
Shortly after that, Harvey remembered something his debate coach taught him: always know both sides of an argument. He realized that he hadn't read or studied anything the non-Calvinists had written, but had contented himself with what his TULIP teachers said that they said. So, he began to read and study those scholars who disagreed with Calvin and found they were not saying what he had been told they were saying.
The more he studied the issues, the more the various letters in Tulip (Total Depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, and the Perseverance of the saints) began to fall away. Limited atonement was the first to go and one-by-one, the others followed. He realized that his mentors hadn't read the non-Calvinist authors and weren't representing their position honestly.
When all five letters dropped away, one of the first things Harvey did was to go back to his friend and tell him of his cutting the TULIP. During the conversation, Harvey asked, "Why didn't I convince you? What kept you resisting my efforts?" Harvey asked him that question because he usually had success in converting people to the Calvinist system.
The answer came quickly and honestly. His friend said that Calvinism made him ashamed of God. (!) That was a startling answer, so Harvey asked him, "How so?"
His friend answered, "Because, according to the Calvinist system, God created billions and billions of people who, at the last judgment could say to God, "You hated me and billions of others before we were ever born. Before I and billions of others were ever born, You consigned me and them to hell. Before I and billions and billions of others were ever born, we had no chance to go to heaven, none at all. I would be ashamed of a God who would do that."
Harvey knew that was what he had told his friend as he tried to convert him--that Christ didn't die for the unbeliever, that God's choice of those who would go to heaven and that those who would go to hell was purely arbitrary by God's eternal decree. He knew that by God's arbitrally choosing those who would go to heaven, He was at the same time making an arbitrary choice of those who would go to hell.
Calvin said it this way: "“All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to
eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has
been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been
predestinated to life or to death.” And: "Therefore, those whom God passes over, he
condemns, and this he does for no other reason than that he wills
to exclude them from the inheritance which he predestines for his
own children."
Did Harvey know that what he had been telling his friend as he sought to convert him has been called "the dreadful decree?" And just who called it that? John Calvin. Such teaching is indeed dreadful.
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