by Anthony Buzzard

I’m not a lover of Calvin because it seems to me that Calvin at his worst allows no free will for us, and that I think is patently wrong.

Quite clearly there is a cooperative effort between God and man. God is very thrilled with his creation. The potential of man is used; man is supposedly the image of God, functioning as co-workers for God, uniquely using his talents to bless others and to be blessed. But having said that, the element of choice is quite clearly there. To say that God has predestined all this would really negate our part, our choice.

I’m thinking of the text in John where Jesus said that if any man desires to know, then he will find out whether he (Jesus) is speaking the truth. But there’s always that “if.” There’s always the cooperative effort. We ought to work out our own salvation because God is at work in us—that’s a beautiful text. Otherwise we become simply pawns in God’s hand. That is not a good idea.

So the double predestination by which God has determined before the foundation of the world that certain people are going to be lost, and in their system tortured forever, I find unspeakably awful. And some Calvinists don’t believe in all the five points of Calvinism.

Clearly Jesus said that if you persist to the end you’re going to be saved; if you don’t, you won’t be saved. So the “once saved, always saved” idea is false to the form of the writings. We are “being saved” in the New Testament. Salvation had a beginning when we embarked on the race, but you don’t win the race until you get to the gold medal at the end. So “once saved, always saved” is not going to work at all as a doctrine.

The idea that you accepted Jesus in some vague way and it wouldn’t matter what you did the rest of your life—you’d still be saved—that’s just nonsense. It really destroys, I think, the whole exciting tension.

That’s not to say we should go around deploring every day. We should have a positive view of salvation, yet not to the point of thinking that we could not go wrong. In fact, Paul himself said that he worked on himself so that lest he might become a castaway—a very appropriate verse indeed. That sounds like extinction: burned up. And even Babylon the city will be burned up; although that process is described as a “torment,” it actually is burned up in a single day. So the extinguishing of life is the result of persistent rebellion against God. The incorrigibly wicked do not survive; they are not torture forever. So it’s not unconditional. It’s always conditional. The whole passage actually has a lot of “ifs.” It goes on to say, “If you obey my commandments,” absolutely you will remain in my love.

Salvation is now closer to us—Paul said, than when we first believed. That’s interesting. Salvation is very often and largely a future event for us, and we are being saved.

That’s most important.