Product Description

What's wrong with Calvinism?Since the Reformation, Calvinism has dominated much of evangelical thought. It has been so well established that many Christians simply assume it to be the truest expres

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Product Details

Publisher	IVP Books
ISBN	0830832491
Format	Paperback
Author	Jerry L. Walls,Joseph Dongell
EAN	9780830832491
Label	IVP Books
Dewey Decimal Number	230.42
Studio	IVP Books
Number Of Pages	240
Title	Why I Am Not a Calvinist
Publication Date	2004-05
Manufacturer	IVP Books

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Customer Reviews

Good reading

Review by S. Jasin, 2010-07-27

The best thing about this book is that the author never use any dirty trick of labeling and trying to caricature the other side, which are very often found in both camps. The readers may not agree with the author's conclusion. But, this is a good reading. Highly recommended for those wanting to understand Arminian view.

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Interesting read

Review by Shawn J. Doniger, 2010-03-09

Good read. Makes you think. Does it really matter? As long as eternity with G-d is where I am going, it really does not matter what you think.

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Standard humanistic philosophy. Whats new?

Review by 5pointbaptist, 2010-01-14

Why, oh why, do I bother! However, it is important to read the works of those you disagree with. you do not want to be accused of not having given the other side a chance to speak. Of course this is also biblical as we read in Provebs 18:17; "The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him." It is important to understand both sides because there are "two sides to every story." But I must admit, I don't know why I bother reading anything that attempts to discredit Calvinism. It's the same thing over and over. I think these folks just pass around an original set of notes drawn up by some moron many years ago.

Actualy, at first, I was quite surprised. It started off well in that this would be the first time I had ever heard or read a non Calvinist accurately describe what we believe. 99% of the time the strawmen and caricatures abound. Rarely do any of these folks present the truth. They either despise our doctines so much that they purposely distort or they are simply ignorant of our views. This was indeed, refreshing. I cannot say though, that the entire book was void of error, there were some things that were not totaly accurate, but comparatively speaking it did a good job.

Like all non Calvinist, it was not long before the humanism became apparent and their true heremeutic exposed. While attempting to prove that man has a free will, they appealed not to scripture, but to REASON. While reading these peoples works, one must be atuned to certain words or phases that will alert the reader to their hermeneutical pressupositions. Words and phrases like, "it's only reasonable that," "common sense tells us," "it's self evident," "it's not rational," "it's universaly understood, " these are the signs that this person is a humanist.

What is a humanist? A person who believes that man, starting from himself, and from within himself, without the aid of outside revelation, can come up with truth, justice, morals, meaning, and beauty. This person relies, not on the bible, but on REASON. You might be thinking, "whats wrong with reason." Nothing, in and of itself; the problem is when you use REASON as the standard and arbiter of truth and not Gods word. When the scriptures teach a concept that a humanist does not agree with, they resort to their humanistic approach as justification to dismiss or accept such and such a doctrine. In this case, free will.

The author did not demonstrate from the scritures that our will was free, but rather he appealed to common sense and intuition. This, my friends, is wrong. I begin where the bible begins, "in the beggining, GOD." To be fair, I have even heard Calvinist use these types of arguments. R.C. Sproul is one. I would "condemn" them just as quickly for this as I would any other person. If not for Gods revelation to man via His Holy Word, we would all be lost in the sea of ignorance. Thankfully, God is not silent.

The next problem was the drive-by versing. This is when someone simply quotes a verse without first exegetically establishing the meaning of the verse in an attempt to prove their doctrine. When they do this they are depending upon the individual and collective ignorance of their audience. They hope that those reading or listening are not aware of their opponents understanding of the verse in question. In this book we are quoted several verses that they assume proves that not only does God love everybody, but that Christ also died for everybody. John 3:16 and 1 Timothy 2:4 were quoted; not exegeted. This is not only common for anti Calvinist works, but is the standard method of apologetics for these individuals. They dare not give the Calvinist understanding of these verses because to do so they would have to explain the context and other meaningful interpretive principles, and this would backfire on them. If one looks at the contexts of theses verse it is rather easy to see why we Calvinist disagree with the Arminian understanding. For them to give a rebuttal to our exegesis of the verses they would have to reveal our exegesis and this would create more Calvinist. I honestly do not know if I have ever heard these persons explain our understanding, they simply refuse to deal with our sound argument. This is rather ironic considering that the author claims to be an exegetical theologian.

This brings me to my last point. As I said above, the author makes the claim to be an exegete, and yet most, if not all, of the book was philosophical in nature. He went on and on giving analogies that didn't acurately reflect the scriptures. He would give the Calvinist view on a particular issue and show that not all Calvinist agree and are therefore inconsistent. Yes, there is not 100% agreement on each and every detail among us Calvinist, but that is the case with every single biblical doctrine derived from scripture since the begining of time.

Not too sure if I would recommend this book. I would probally find another that is much shorter. They all seem to say the same thing and avoid all the meaningful arguments given by Calvinist. If you've heard one Arminian, you've heard them all. I will now read it's opposite, "Why I Am Not An Arminian." I am sure this will be good and I will give a review when done.

Thanks for reading.

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Scholarly and Understandable Work

Review by WhiteLilyCat, 2009-07-27

I am currently studying Calvinistic theology and found this book to be an interesting rebuttal to what is being taught. I mentioned to one of my instructors that I was reading it and he said he had two copies--he didn't say whether he'd read it or not.
There are some disturbing aspects to Calvinism which are not easliy addressed or reconciled and I can't say that I've embraced everything presented in class. I wanted more of a balanced look at the scriptures and this title provided that.

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preference

Review by J. W. Majors, 2009-03-16

Arminians prefer the freedom and rights of Hitler,Stalin,Richard Dawkins,Judas,Herod,perverts,serial killers,and other amoral freaks to claim grace over against the freedom and rights of Christ to give grace. This view is popular since it gives the sinful little pots control over the Potter's work of salvation.

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