Do Calvinists not read the works of their name sake? Do they not think about what has been said, how it contradicts various passages of Scripture, and precisely what that means and what it says about God? How does it make any sense to believe that God is merely determining to clean up His own mess (His other determinations)? Are we to believe that God determined to redeem His own determinations? That God is seeking to redeem those evil intentions and actions that He Himself supposedly brought to pass by meticulous determinism? Do Calvinists not realize that they are engaging in the blatant fallacy of 'A = Not A'? They would do well to read, think about, and meditate on James 1:13: "When tempted, no one should say, 'God is tempting me.' For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone." In other words, God does not preordain, predestine, determine, or decree that we should commit evil acts. We do that on our own.
Let us see what John Calvin had to teach, shall we?
"Creatures are so governed by the secret counsel of God, that nothing happens but what He knowingly and willingly decreed" (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 16, Paragraph 3)
So, according to Calvinism, a person rapes and murders a three-year-old child because God knowingly and willingly decreed for it to happen.
"...thieves and murderers, and other evildoers, are instruments of divine providence, being employed by the Lord Himself to execute judgments which He has resolved to inflict" (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 17, Paragraph 5)
So, according to Calvinism, a person rapes and murders a three-year-old child because God has resolved to inflict such evil.
"We hold that God is the disposer and ruler of all things, -that from the remotest eternity, according to His own wisdom, He decreed what He was to do, and now by His power executes what He decreed. Hence we maintain, that by His providence, not heaven and earth and inanimate creatures only, but also the counsels and wills of men are so governed as to move exactly in the course which He has destined" (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 16, Paragraph 8)
So, according to Calvinism, a person's will who rapes and murders a three-year-old child is so governed by God to move exactly in the course God destined.
"The devil, and the whole train of the ungodly are in all directions, held in by the hand of God as with a bridle, so that they can neither conceive any mischief, nor plan what they have conceived, nor how muchsoever they may have planned, move a single finger to perpetrate, unless in so far as He permits, nay unless in so far as He commands, that they are not only bound by His fetters but are even forced to do Him service" (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 17, Paragraph 11)
So, according to Calvinism, a person rapes and murders a three-year-old child because God permitted, nay commanded, the person to do so, even forced to do so.
"Many professing a desire to defend the Deity from an individual charge admit the doctrine of election, but deny that any one is reprobated. This they do ignorantly and childishly, since there could be no election without its opposite, reprobation" (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 23, Paragraph 1)
There is no election, nor is there reprobation; at least according to the Calvinistic systematic. If you look up the words "predestined" and "elect" and all else, and pay attention to what is said in their immediate context, the words mean nothing that the Calvinists interpret them to mean.
"...it is utterly inconsistent to transfer the preparation for destruction to anything but God's secret plan... God's secret plan is the cause of hardening"(John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 2, Chapter 23, Paragraph 1)
Okay...
"I admit that in this miserable condition wherein men are now bound, all of Adam's children have fallen by God's will" (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 23, Paragraph 4)
So, according to Calvinism, God preordained, predestined, determined, and decreed that man would fall. All in spite of His own words where He tells Adam not to eat of a single tree. So God forced Adam to fall. Funny how that is not the message that Scripture tells us.
"With Augustine I say: the Lord has created those whom He unquestionably foreknew would go to destruction. This has happened because He has willed" (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 23, Paragraph 5)
Augustine corrupted the Christian faith, embracing the teachings of the Gnostics that were rejected as heresy by the early Christians, and John Calvin agrees with his errors.
"...individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death, and are to glorify Him by their destruction" (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 23, Paragraph 6)
And this in spite of God's own words: “‘As surely as I live,’ declares the LORD, ‘ I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?’” Ezek. 33:11
"...it is vain to debate about prescience, which it is clear that all events take place by His sovereign-appointment" (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 23, Paragraph 6)
Calvinists really need to pick up a dictionary and educate themselves as to the meaning of 'sovereign' and 'sovereignty.'
"But since He foresees future events only by reason of the fact that He decreed that they take place, they vainly raise a quarrel over foreknowledge, when it is clear that all things take place rather by His determination and bidding" (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 23, Paragraph 6)
So, according to Calvinism, the person who rapes and murders a three-year-old child did so by God's determination and bidding. How do self-professing Calvinists not see the damage they are inflicting upon God's eternal character, especially His love? God’s freedom was in the freedom to create or not. He did not have to create. Once He creates, as a necessarily good and loving Being, He takes on an obligation to love His creation. Love is not an option with God. There is no question of whether God chooses to love or not. It is Who He is. God’s eternal nature is love. That means that at its very core His love is self-sacrificial. It is not an option for God to not love His creation. All of it! Including the “reprobates.” God cannot fail to be perfectly loving any more than He can lie.
"Again I ask: whence does it happen that Adam's fall irremediably involved so many peoples, together with their infant offspring, in eternal death unless because it so pleased God? The decree is dreadful indeed, I confess. Yet no one can deny that God foreknew what end man was to have before He created him, and consequently foreknew because He so ordained by His decree. And it ought not to seem absurd for me to say that God not only foresaw the fall of the first man, and in him the ruin of his descendants, but also meted it out in accordance with His own decision" (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 23, Paragraph 7)
So, according to Calvinism, it pleased God that Adam and his offspring would fall and end up in Hell. But according to Scripture, God says otherwise: “‘As surely as I live,’ declares the LORD, ‘ I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?’” Ezek. 33:11
"The first man fell because the Lord deemed it meet that He should" (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3 Chapter 23, Paragraph 8)
So, according to Calvinism, God preordained all our sins. God determined that we would fall here, here, and here. God decreed for us to desire to sin and disobey Him. Our sins are God's fault! Why would God's plan involve us being outside of His will? Why would God's plan involve us disobeying Him? That makes zero sense and violates numerous passages of Scripture.
There are many brothers and sisters of the faith within Calvinism, and I love them dearly, but the system itself is a cult with a bankrupt system of theology. It is no better than or different from Catholicism, Pentecostalism, Seventh-Day Adventism, Dispensationalism, or extreme cults like the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses. A cult is a cult is a cult. Some are more cultish than others, but a cult is still a cult. All denominations are cults to one degree or another, and yet all believe their system to be infallibly true.
If you are not willing to see the errors in your own system, then you are already in trouble. Your errors can be shown to you with an abundance of evidence, and you will reject the evidence in favour of your error out of sheer intellectual dishonesty.