Monergistic Calvinism: Christian or Cult?
I. Defining a Cult
Christians, and especially Christian leaders, are called to use discernment regarding what those who claim to be Christians are publically teaching. We are living in the time when the apostle Paul warned about false teachers and apostasy from the truth of Scripture, and we need to carefully evaluate what is being taught and how it aligns with Scripture and the character of God.
Throughout history theologians have used the creeds to evaluate whether or not a group is ‘christian’ or ‘cult’ and in general, anyone who can tick off the basic doctrines has been considered orthodox in their beliefs, and those who deny the basics considered a cult, and of course there are other cults unrelated to Christianity.
When a group claiming to be Christian denies the divinity of Christ, or the Triune nature of God, the virgin birth or resurrection of Christ, either whole or in part, they are automatically labeled as a cult, and rightly so. Such cults are easily recognized, especially if they have a founder who claims new divine revelation which contradicts the fundamentals of the Christian creeds.
But the creeds do not give instructions for evaluating extremist groups which may adhere to the basics, but teach systems of theology which contradict Scripture and propose exclusivity for themselves. Please note that I am not speaking about some differences in non-essential doctrines here, but entire systems of theology which undermine the gospel message, defame the character of God revealed in Christ, misrepresent the person of Jesus Christ, his sacrificial atonement, offer of salvation, and contradict the clear teaching of Scripture on essential doctrine.
In this article I want to examine the system of Reformed theology as taught by Calvinists such as R.C Sproul, Gordon Clark, John MacArthur, John Piper and others, and show that they have a very specific monergistic system of theology which is far removed from both the Scriptures and earliest Christian theologians, and ask if this system should be labeled as a cult, rather than ‘christian’.
My argument is simply this: Monergistic Calvinism is the absolute antithesis of the gospel message, a system which does everything it can to discourage people from finding Christ. I understand that to claim Calvinism is a cult is a very serious claim, therefore this article will be longer than others as I use the teachings of Calvinists, the Westminster Confessions and Canons of Dort to argue that Calvinism should be put into that category.
I have posted several videos on YouTube channel and articles on this website refuting the individual doctrines of TULIP, so this video will not repeat that material, but should be viewed as an overall conclusion of monergistic Calvinism. My YouTube channel can be found here.
https://www.youtube.com/@stevecopland6001
But first a brief definition: Christianity is monotheistic, we believe in one God. However, monergism is the view that only one party, God, plays any part in salvation, that human beings are ‘completely passive’, to use a Calvinist term, and God regenerates them regardless of their co-operation. In my view, monergism is the exact antithesis of Biblical Christianity.
II. Augustine’s New Revelation
Calvinism stands on a very specific foundation. The acrostic TULIP starts with the ‘t’ of total depravity, also known as ‘total inability’. This doctrine has its roots in Augustine of Hippo who introduced his idea that all human beings inherited the sin and guilt of Adam. This was a ‘new revelation’ by an individual and a radical departure from the teachings handed down from the earliest Christian theologians.
Augustine introduced his teaching around 396AD at a time when Christianity had already joined the Roman Empire. The implications of the doctrine are incredibly serious and the fruit of this doctrine totally unbiblical and heretical. Here, I will give just a very brief summary of the issues, but they are covered in depth in my Practical Systematic Theology which also clearly outlines the teachings of the early Church with over 70 relevant quotes.
https://stevecopland.com/practical-systematic-theology-book
The Roman Catholic Church embraced Augustine’s inherited sin revelation, but rejected his monergistic views. Calvin, and his contemporaries, adopted both false doctrines. But first, to the doctrine of inherited sin.
1. If all humans are conceived with inherited sin, how did Jesus escape this ‘original sin’? Augustine promoted the idea that this sin was only passed through the male seed and, as Jesus had no human Father, He escaped it. However, Scripture contradicts this idea completely. Romans 1:3 states that Jesus was of the ‘genome’ (genes) and ‘spermatos’ (seed) of David ‘according to the flesh’ and there are 15 verses which state that Jesus had the same ‘sarx’ (flesh) as every other human being.
Keep in mind that Augustine was not a Greek scholar but used only a Latin version of the Bible. Ironically, the sole verse of Scripture used to prove that a child is conceived as a sinner, Psalm 51:5, was written by David. Whatever David inherited from his parents, so did Jesus from his mother, as David’s genes were passed down to Mary making Jesus a true descendent of David. In fact, Psalm 55:1 says absolutely nothing about inherited sin, but simply states that David’s parents were sinners.
2. The essential issue of atonement. Hebrews 2:17 states that Jesus was ‘made in every way like His brothers so that he could make atonement for sin’. The early Church fathers such as Irenaeus, Justin and others, taught that Jesus was born with the same ‘nature of corruption’ as every other human. The corruption was not an inherited sin, but inherited mortality, the corruption of death. These theologians received their teachings from those who personally knew the apostle John, such as Polycarp. They go to great lengths to clearly teach that Jesus took on our corruption of mortality in order to free us from that corruption through His death and resurrection. Consider these quotes from Justin and Irenaeus:
Man having been thus made, and immediately looking towards transgression, naturally became subject to corruption. Corruption then becoming inherent in nature, it was necessary that He who wished to save should be one who destroyed the efficient cause of corruption. And this could not otherwise be done than by the life which is according to nature being united to that which had received the corruption, and so destroying the corruption, while preserving as immortal for the future that which had received it. It was therefore necessary that the Word should become possessed of a body, that He might deliver us from the death of natural corruption.
Justin Martyr (Fragments of the Lost Work of Justin)
Please note the following:
1. Firstly Justin tells us that this corruption (mortality/death) became inherent in our nature.
2. Christ was united with those who had received the corruption, destroyed the corruption (through His resurrection) and preserved us as immortal for the future.
3. The Word (Logos) possessed a body to deliver us from the ‘death of natural corruption’.
And Irenaeus;
For it was for this end that the Word of God was made man, and He who was the Son of God became the Son of man, that man, having been taken into the Word, and receiving the adoption, might become the sons of God. For by no other means could we have attained to incorruptibility and immortality, unless we had been united to incorruptibility and immortality.
But how could we be joined to incorruptibility and immortality, unless, first, incorruptibility and immortality had become that which we also are, so that the corruptible might be swallowed up by incorruptibility, and the mortal by immortality, that we might receive the adoption of sons?
Irenaeus, Against Heresies Book Three, Chapter 19.
Irenaeus’ argument is very clear, an argument that Gregory Nazianzus used later in the debate against those who had adopted Augustine's views. If Christ, who is incorruptible and immortal had not joined Himself to those who are both corrupted and mortal, then we could not be joined to Him. When Irenaeus uses the words 'become that which we also are' he is referring to Jesus becoming like us in our corrupted nature, our mortality. Through Christ, the corruptible was swallowed up by the incorruptible (Christ) so that we might receive adoption as sons of God.
By taking upon Himself a corrupted mortal body, Christ did not become a 'sinner', rather, He maintained His sinlessness through obedience to the Father, 'even unto death', and destroyed the corruption that caused death. Notice here that both Justin and Irenaeus connect the issue of corruption with the consequence of mortality, of death, and not with an idea of inherited sin or guilt.
This also explains the Hebrews passages that Jesus was ‘perfected through His suffering and death’. Through His obedience, death and resurrection, Christ perfected that which had been corrupted (Hebrews 2). The issue is this: If Jesus was not ‘made like us in every way’ as Hebrews 2:17 states, He cannot be a perfect substitute for our sins, and nor can He be a faithful High Priest who has been tempted in all things as we are. Those who teach inherited sin/guilt always end up teaching a Docetist Christ who cannot be a substitute for sinners.
3. Augustine’s doctrine completely ignored the issue of atonement and focused on trying to prove Jesus escaped this inherited sin. The answer for them was in introducing the idea that Jesus’ mother had also escaped original sin, and so the heresy of the ‘immaculate conception’ was introduced. This doctrine claims that by God’s grace, Mary was exempt from original sin in order to prepare her to conceive Jesus. The logical fruit of this teaching is that Mary is sinless, in the same way Jesus is sinless, and therefore, worthy of adoration, veneration and worship as the ‘Queen of Heaven’, ‘Mother of God’, etc. According to tradition, she remained a virgin and can receive the prayers of people to intercede for them. According to the Scriptures, she had at least six children and accompanied her natural sons to take Jesus back to Nazareth because she thought He was ‘out of His mind’ (Mark 3:21, 31).
Augustine’s early writings show a man who taught against the monergistic Manichaean Gnosticism he had left for Christianity. Like the theologians before him, he taught that salvation was synergistic, that humans played a role in their salvation, however, his views changed radically and he is attributed to being the first theologian to introduce monergism, that humans play no role in salvation, a doctrine which is at the very heart of Calvinism.
Augustine’s influence on John Calvin is indisputable, indeed, in his own words:
Augustine is so much at one with me that, if I wished to write a confession of my faith, it would abundantly satisfy me to quote wholesale from his writings.
(Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, p63)
Calvin quotes Augustine over 1700 times in his writings. In this regard, one might claim that Augustine was the Joseph Smith of monergistic Calvinism, an individual with new revelation that departed from orthodox interpretations of Scripture and lay the foundations of TULIP.
Augustine’s radical change from synergism to monergism is clearly demonstrated. For example, prior to 396 Augustine taught that all men have free will. He writes,
We must not believe that God gave us a free will so that we might sin, just because sin is committed through freewill. It is sufficient for our question, why free will should have been given to man, to know that without it man cannot live rightly. That it was given for this reason can be understood from the following: if anyone uses free will for sinning, he incurs divine punishment. This would be unjust if free will had been given not only that man live rightly, but also that he might sin.
(Augustine, On the Free Choice of the Will )
This statement adheres to the earliest Christian theologians such as Justin and Irenaeus who also tied their belief in free will to the essential doctrine of divine justice. But later in his monergistic ‘Grace and Free Will’ Augustine states;
The Almighty sets in motion even in the innermost hearts of men the movement of their will, so that He does through their agency whatsoever He wishes to perform through them. (GFW XL.1.114)
Augustine introduced the notion that no creature can usurp the will of God, and like those who followed his teachings, ends up making God responsible for sin. When it comes to explaining the suffering of the innocent, Augustine writes in the ‘City of God’,
Whereas suffering is punishment for bad persons, it helps good ones prove their perfections or correct their imperfections (CG.1.9). For example, when virgins are raped this helps destroy their pride, actual or potential (CG.1.8). Furthermore, the good people in a community, as well as the bad, love this present life, and thus deserve punishment (CG.1.9).
Augustine’s monergism lay the foundations of the doctrine that God wills, ordains and decrees every sinful act committed. Luther, an Augustinian monk, claimed that human beings have no free-will and are simply puppets ridden like beasts of burden by either God or Satan, an analogy Calvin also used.
Thus the human will is like a beast of burden. If God rides it, it wills and goes whence God wills…If Satan rides, it wills and goes where Satan wills. Nor may it choose to which rider it will run, nor which it will seek. But the riders themselves contend who shall have and hold it. (Martin Luther, Bondage of the Will)
Luther’s Augustinian view of God’s Sovereignty ends up with the following conclusion:
He does not will the good because, while he wills that we all should be bound to his commandments, he yet does not will that all obey them.
III. The Logical Progression of Monergistic Calvinism
Any theological system, which has monergism as its foundational teachings, will follow a specific logical progression in points of how salvation is understood.
Point 1. That, if no human being can ever act outside of God’s will, then God is responsible for every action of human beings. If a person cannot freely respond, then neither can they be responsible. Regarding God’s sovereignty, John Piper claims that;
He is sovereign over every single human decision. We have all kinds of thinking that we do, but in the end, the Lord decides...about God’s sovereignty...it is unstoppable power and authority over all things, including the human will.
John Piper (https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/what-is-the-sovereignty-of-god)
The implications of the above statement are horrendous. God, for Piper, does not allow every single human decision, but actively wills every human decision. The difference in these statements is defined by stating that humans have no freedom to choose, in which case, God wills the rapist, the murderer, the child molester, the drunk driver, the holocaust, the terrorist, adulterer, fornicator, etc., if we believe as Piper claims, 'in the end the Lord decides'. Calvinist theologian, Gordon Clark, taking this doctrine to its logical conclusions, stated that, ‘if a man gets drunk and murders his wife and children, it was God’s will that he committed these acts’.
Clark, Pink, Piper and company, make God complicit in murder, a doctrine more in line with the Church of Satan than biblical Christianity. And if you thought those mentioned were not conforming to the stated doctrines of Calvinists, you would be in error. Regarding the Fall and consequent sin, The Westminster Confessions state;
Our first parents were led astray by the cunning temptation of Satan and sinned in eating the forbidden fruit. It pleased God to allow them to sin, because in his wisdom and holiness he planned to order their sin to his own glory. (WCF 6.1)
And
God’s providence reveals his almighty power, unknowable wisdom, and infinite goodness. His providence extends even to the fall and to all other sins of angels and men. These sins are not simply allowed by God, but are bound, ordered, and governed by him in the fullness of his wisdom and power so that they fulfill his own holy purposes. However, the sinfulness still belongs to the creature and does not proceed from God, whose holy righteousness does not and cannot cause or approve sin. (WCF 5.4)
The Westminster Confessions insist that sins are not simply allowed, but rather bound, ordered and governed by God. Furthermore, God was pleased to allow the sin of Adam and Eve because he ‘planned to order it’. In this sense, Satan just helped God to carry out His plan.
According to these statements, the holy righteous God can, plan sin, order sin, govern sin and bind human beings to sin, but cannot cause or approve sin. At the very least, this is a schizophrenic deity, and at worst a deceitful and malevolent being who creates mindless, yet sentient puppets and orders them to commit sin, and then blames them so that he can enjoy tormenting them. This is not the God revealed in Scripture and through the person of Jesus Christ.
It is an absolute contradiction that ‘the sinfulness still belongs to the creature and does not proceed from God’. Of course there is no explanation of how the creature can be responsible, given that they have no free will, just a statement. Making a statement which totally contradicts your theology in order to absolve yourself from utterly defaming the character of God, does not absolve you from the defamation.
This is typical of how cult leaders control people. They present a thesis which is utterly contradictory, throw the gullible follower into confusion, and imply that if the person was as wise and spiritual as them, they would understand. The gullible accept the contradiction and submit to the leader in awe rather than confronting them for fear of being embarrassed as a fool or ostracized for failure to submit.
To conclude point one. From Genesis to Revelation, the main theme of Scripture is that human beings, by their own choice, willfully rebel against God, or obey Him according to His commands. God has provided the means of atonement and stated the conditions upon which He judges the righteous from the wicked. If human beings cannot freely choose, then neither is there any real justice, and God can never be unjust. Furthermore, the Calvinist view of God’s sovereignty makes a farce of God commanding people to obey when He has planned, ordered and bound them to disobedience. This is not the God of Scripture, but a human invention, therefore must we conclude that monergistic Calvinists do not worship the God of Christianity?
Point 2. The second step in this system is in trying to establish why human beings can never obey God, apart from the claim that He has planned and ordered their sinful actions. This is the foundational doctrine of ‘total depravity’ or ‘total inability’, the ‘T’ in TULIP. John MacArthur states;
Because of human depravity, there is nothing in a fallen, reprobate sinner that desires God or is capable of responding in faith.
(John MacArthur, Faith Works p62)
Consider the following.
1. I consider Islam to be a cultic religion, founded by an individual who claimed angelic revelation (as did Joseph Smith) and devoid of biblical salvation in Christ. However, millions of Muslims believe that Jehovah and Allah are the same God (I do not) and desire to live devout lives, even to death. One could even claim that the desire for God displayed by devout Muslims exceeds that of many who profess to be Christians. Therefore, to claim that no sinner can desire God, is both totally ignorant and false.
2. MacArthur’s claim rests on a false interpretation of Romans 3 where Paul quotes a Psalm about atheists and that ‘no one seeks God’. Paul has already stated in the previous chapter that Gentiles seek God and show that ‘the requirements of the law are written on their hearts’.
God’s command to ‘seek with all your hearts’, His promise that those who seek diligently will be rewarded (Hebrews 11:6), the bible’s claim that ‘God has set eternity in the hearts of men’ (Ecclesiastes 3:11), that general revelation renders all men ‘without excuse’ (Romans 1:18-19) and that men ‘refused to retain the knowledge of God’ (Romans 1:28) are all simply ignored as irrelevant because men are all ‘totally depraved’. The unspoken message of Calvinists is; there is no point telling anyone to seek as it is impossible for people to seek.
Point 3. The false doctrine that regeneration precedes faith is the next logical step in this system. If a person is so ‘dead in sin’ that they cannot desire God or respond in faith in any way, then God must make the person alive first. Logically then, any person of any denomination who voluntarily enters a church building, or goes to a Christian meeting, must be regenerated because without it, they cannot ‘desire God or respond in faith’. Calvinists should have a sign above their Church entrance reading, ‘all who enter here are regenerated, but not necessarily saved’ if they are still merely seeking.
If a person is conceived ‘dead in sin’, as Calvin claimed, they were never ‘alive’ in the first place. Regeneration means to be alive, to die and be REgenerated, made alive again. In Reformed/Calvinist theology no person was ever initially alive, so Regeneration cannot apply. More importantly, their doctrine is contradicted in Scripture. In the parable of the prodigal son, two times the Father uses the expression, my son was dead and is alive AGAIN (Luke 15:24, 31) and Paul states that ‘once he was alive and died’ (Romans 7:9).
The truth is that most Calvinists have no idea what regeneration is. Wayne Grudem, in his Systematic Theology (p769), claims that Peter was ‘born again’ when he stated that Jesus was the Christ. Jesus told Peter this was ‘revealed’ to him, a ‘revelation’, but Grudem claims it was ‘some kind of regeneration’. Minutes later, Peter rebukes Jesus for stating He would be killed and rise again, and Jesus reply was ‘get behind me Satan’. This same ‘regenerated’ Peter denied he knew Christ three times and refused to believe Jesus was resurrected (Mark 16:14).
Calvinists such as Albert Mohler and Robert Godfrey of Ligonier Ministries claim that ‘God regenerated people in the Old Testament just the same as in the new’ and that every person listed in Hebrews 11 was born again by the Holy Spirit. In making such a claim they simply prove they have never experienced regeneration. The last verses of Hebrews 11 state categorically than none of the OT saints received the promised indwelling Spirit, a point Peter made in his first sermon at Pentecost. My video regarding regeneration preceding faith refutes this Calvinist absurdity.
According to the Westminster Confession a person is ‘completely passive’ regarding salvation. This statement is the foundation of monergism as Calvinists adamantly deny that a person can play any role in the salvific process.
The message here is; you are totally dead and completely passive, it is impossible for you to desire God or exercise faith, so continue to do nothing and if you wake up one day desiring God, this means you are already born again…if not, you were never intended to be. Could Satan himself come up with a better system to stop people seeking and finding Christ?
Furthermore, if you teach that a person must be born again before they can even begin to seek God, then if they are regenerated as you claim, there is no need to seek to be born again. You have effectively halted the very process that God has given for regeneration to occur. Also, if they are told they are already born again, then they must have been forgiven, so repentance is unnecessary, seeking is unnecessary, confession is unnecessary as these are only necessary for the unregenerate. You have effectively implemented a demonic scheme to stop a person ever having an existential encounter of new birth with the living Christ! Is this ‘Christian’ or ‘cultic’?
Point 4. The Canons of Dort (article 9) state that faith is a gift from God, but is not offered by God for people to choose. It is also not given to people for them to potentially believe through the act of believing by human choice, but rather God alone ‘produces both the will to believe and the belief itself’. This doctrine is absolutely refuted in Scripture and, again, defames the character of God. I discuss this in my video entitled Irresistible Grace which points out that God can never rebuke or judge people for not exercising faith in Christ if He refuses to give them the faith required.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaYPi1AlhQA
When Jesus rebukes someone with the words ‘you of little faith, why did you doubt’ the obvious reply would be, ‘because you refused to give me the faith to believe’. This doctrine, like all of Calvinism, insists on portraying God as a deceitful and hate-filled tyrant playing with human beings as a cat plays with a mouse. The message here is; if God didn’t give you the faith to be justified, it’s because He hates you as He hated Esau and predetermined you to hell. Bad luck! Or in Calvin’s words,
By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen with regard to every man. 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 predestined to life or to death.
John Calvin, Institutes, Book III, 21. 5 ( Edinburgh: Edinburgh Printing Co, 1845)
Point 5. Calvinists are so committed to proving God uses a form of random choice, that they are willing to deny any Scripture which contradicts them regarding God’s foreknowledge. The Westminster Confession states that:
By His eternal and unchangeable plan, and hidden purpose, God chose in Christ those who are predestined to life. This choice was completely independent of his foreknowledge of how His created beings would be or act. Neither their faith, nor good works, nor perseverance had any part in influencing his selection.
Westminster Confession (chapter 3.5)
This statement displays Calvinists contempt for any Scripture which clearly contradicts them. 1 Peter 1:1-2 states categorically that the ‘elect are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God’, and Romans 8:29 that those God foreknew He also predestined. Deceitful Calvinists deny these verses and claim that anyone who uses them to contradict their theology, just doesn’t understand predestination.
IV. The Malevolent Deity of Calvinists
Calvinists insist on portraying God as the most malevolent, unjust, demonic being in existence. His eternal plan is ‘unchangable’, his plan ‘hidden’, but somehow they know better than Peter and Paul. The criteria for being chosen is never stated in the Westminster Confession, yet Calvinists think they can dictate to God that He cannot use His foreknowledge of the faith, works, or perseverance of those He has called to faith. The ONLY criteria they offer for salvation is luck, and once the dice has been rolled, there is nothing any human can do. This is basically a doctrine of sola lucktora: by luck alone!
The message here is this. If the elect are predetermined prior to creation, as Calvinists claim, the whole of salvation history is a farce. God’s commands are a farce, His love for all the world is a lie, the cross was a farce, indeed none of it was necessary. God commanded Adam and Eve to be ‘fruitful and multiply’ and gave people powerful sexual desires in order to create as many victims as possible to watch them scream in hell for all eternity, and there is absolutely nothing any individual can do to change their predetermined fate. This is not simply a cult, but a satanic cult, determined to defame the character of God at every opportunity.
V. Calvinism Denies the Purpose of Creation
And finally, any form of monergism denies the entire purpose of creation. We were created to be in an eternal relationship with God grounded in holy love. The greatest commandment is to love the Lord with our entire being and this theme is from Genesis to Revelation. Love, agape, is always a free act and anything less is no love at all. There is no existential relationship in monergism, for only one party can act freely.
In Calvinism, one party is ‘completely passive’ and must be pre-programmed, conditioned and forced to love. Humans are depicted as dead automatons, incapable of desiring God in any way, and actually created this way through His total control of their every desire. But somehow, this deity can satisfy His commands to be loved by over-riding a few of the creature’s wills and programming the automaton to say ‘thank you for programming me to love you rather than leaving me dead like all those you hate’.
Is this the God we see revealed in the person of Jesus Christ who poured out His love on every person who came to Him humbly for help? Had the pre-incarnate Logos not already chosen to hate the majority before the foundation of the world as monergists claim? Calvinism portrays Jesus Christ as a deceiving liar, healing, feeding and delivering every individual in the crowds who came to Him, even those He knew would reject Him, because He had already rejected them! This is, as Paul stated, a ‘different Jesus’ than the one he preached.
Jesus began His ministry by preaching, ‘the kingdom of God is here, repent and believe the good news’. But there is no ‘good news’ in monergistic Calvinism as this ‘gospel’ is only for those predetermined to salvation. For the rest, according to Calvinists, the vast majority of people will be tormented in an everlasting fire by virtue of having the misfortune of being conceived. No hope, no chance, no gospel for the masses. It is, as Paul stated ‘another gospel which is no gospel at all’ and deserves the proclamation, Anathema!
V. Is Monergistic Calvinism a Cult?
In my opinion, Monergistic Calvinism, as defined in the doctrines of the acronym TULIP, is a cult which utterly contradicts biblical Christianity. It began with a ‘new revelation’ by an individual, Augustine, a revelation that contradicted all before him, namely, his idea of inherited sin and guilt. This revelation became the ground of ‘total depravity’, the fruit of which is rotten to the core. Augustine was the father of monergism just as Joseph Smith was the father of Mormonism.
Calvinism lays the existence, ordering, controlling, decreeing and ordaining of sin at God’s feet. This article could have included dozens of quotes from Calvinist theologians who insist that every foul act of murder, rape, child abuse, and genocide was determined and willed by God, statements which defame Jesus Christ even more than He is defamed by Satanists.
Calvinism portrays human beings as automatons ridden by this ‘god’ or Satan in a divine game, automatons who are ‘completely passive’ in regards to salvation, fundamentally denying every Scripture which commands people to recognize God in creation (Romans 1:18-20) and seek Him with all their hearts. It deprives the vast majority of humanity any possibility of salvation, claiming that God only calls and chooses the ‘elect’, yet preaches to unbelievers as if they actually have a choice and opportunity to seek, repent and be saved. This behavior is deceitful in the extreme. If salvation is pre-determined, if unbelievers are ‘completely passive’, if no one can seek or desire God unless regenerate, then evangelism is a deceitful farce which utterly contradicts the very foundations of their theology.
Monergistic Calvinism contradicts its own teaching to confuse its gullible followers into believing it is biblical. Furthermore, Calvinists, such as John Calvin and the authors of the Westminster Confessions, refuse to quote or explain verses such as 1 Peter 1-2 and Romans 8:29 which speak of God’s foreknowledge as they are fully aware that these passages utterly contradict them. Like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Calvinists have their handful of cherry picked verses which they interpret apart from the clear teaching of Scripture and refuse to be corrected.
All of the above, and more, are the hallmarks of a cult.
Steve Copland