WHY I'M NOT A CALVINIST PART II

 Now...he [God] arranges all things by his sovereign counsel, in such a way that individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death, and are to glorify him by their destruction. So wrote John Calvin. 

Meagan Phelps trusted Christ as her savior. She moved among a circle of Christian friends.

 That's when it happened: she came into contact with Calvinism through Romans 9:11-13: "For though the twins [Jacob and Esau] were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, “The older will serve the younger.” Just as it is written: “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.”

Those verses, as Calvinism taught her to view them, ignited a fire storm of doubt in her heart as well as an intellectual battle which was leading her to overturn her concept of God's loving the world according to John 3:16. If she didn't find some answers to the questions her racing mind was producing, the results would be catstrophic.

"How could God hate someone before they were ever born." "How could God create human beings for the purpose of torturing them in hell forever and ever?" Those questions needed answering.

Let's let Meagan relate what it was like back in those days of her spiritual crisis. She said of Calvinism, "This is why I'm not a Christian anymore. What Calvinism is telling me is that God created some people as vessels of His wrath who were made for the express purpose of destruction, being in hell forever."

She continues, "I was told that whatever you do is foreordained by God and He is the cause of it all that you do and that you can't resist His will. Therefore, whatever you do that's wrong, God is the cause of it and then He turns around and punishes you for doing what He's foreordained for you to do. This is evil."

Another author echoed the same sentiments: "Calvinists say that God punishes man for what man can’t help and that God supposedly commands men to do something men can’t do and then turns around and judges those men for what they can’t do."

She relates that she was in a desperate situation and that she began to ask questions. Then, in amazement and disappointment, she said, "I was told, 'You can't ask that question. Who are you to question God?'" 

That's one of the stock answers of the Calvinists when they run into a Meagan Phelps--"You can't question God." But Meagan wasn't questioning God; she was questioning Calvinism's viewpoint on Romans 9.

She said, "There was no explanation that made any sense to me. My questions and how I felt didn't matter to them."

Where is Meagan today? She's left Christianity, telling people, "I'm not a Christian any more." But she goes farther, saying, "I'm an atheist." 

She's not alone in her departure. The singer, Derek Webb, who once wrote songs promoting Calvinism is now an atheist and to one who was trying to persuade him to come back into the fold, he used Calvinism against him, telling him, "I don’t need your persuasion because if God has predetermined me to be a reprobate there’s nothing that you can do to change that."

Tim Stratten states his experience in evangelism, "What I discovered was that many of the atheists I was talking to had been raised in the church and had been taught Calvinism. 

"Moreover, they held to a view called, 'theological determinism.' Simply stated it means: God causally determines and controls all things. This led so many to see God as the author of evil. If God was even slightly evil, then He was not perfectly good, and if God is not perfectly good, then He is not worthy of worship. Since God, by definition, is worthy of worship, they concluded that God does not exist at all."

One author expounded on Meagan's dilemma: "Calvin believed that God's absolute decree to predestine an individual to eternal death was not a wonderful or glorious thing, instead Calvin confessed that it was a dreadful and horrible decree. Is it not a horrible decree that God would create something for eternal perdition? And it is dreadful and horrible indeed! How could we respond in any other way than to say such a final ends (sic) is horrible and dreadful! The possibility that God would create any person for eternal death calls into question the goodness of God. The best Calvinists scholars who affirm Calvin's doctrine of double predestination admit that is a "mystery" how God may make such an absolute decree and predestine anyone to hell." Is it a mystery or a contradiction? It's no mystery once we see that God created man with free will.

Calvinism doesn't necessarily lead to atheism for everyone, but it presents a dreadful and horrible picture of God, a picture that has led many a Meagan into making shipwreck of the faith.