TULIP: Calvinism vs Arminianism

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Shalom, Grace and peace.

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In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

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My name is Daniel Miller and this is the Notes I Leave Podcast.

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Hello and welcome.

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Today I have a fascinating topic that I want to discuss with you.

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It's abbreviated as the tulip and I'll describe what that means.

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But essentially to give you a little bit more insight, if you

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don't recognize that term, we're going to be talking about Calvinism and Arminianism.

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We come from different churches that have preached and taught

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different things and we've learned a lot in this regard.

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Continuing with the theme of the podcast title, the Notes I Leave,

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I want to leave notes for my children, for my students, for myself,

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for my friends and for my family that teach and convey things

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that I've learned over the years.

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And Calvinism and Arminianism are two things that I've learned

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over the years and what they exactly mean, how they contradict,

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how they don't contradict, and certainly my opinion on the subject matter.

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As we get into the second segment, the members only segment, which

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I encourage you to join, you can go to our website and find out

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details how to get access to that.

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I'm going to detail our story in terms of churches that we've

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gone to that have taught different things to give some application.

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But in this first half, what I really want to do is kind of just

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teach what they are and what the tulip stands for and how we can

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utilize it to apply it to our lives and understand God's word,

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hopefully a little bit better.

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And so I thank you for joining me today.

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I'm excited to record this with you.

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Very blessed where we're at to be able to record this and share

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this message with you as we move along.

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I'm learning that my episodes are becoming longer than I would

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have liked them to be.

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And so I will try and tone down the small talk a little bit and

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get into the meat and potatoes of it.

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So here we go.

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Calvinism, Arminianism, what is the T, U, L, I, P?

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What does that tulip stand for?

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Let's go over that first and then we'll go into a little bit more

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depth on what each side disagrees and perhaps agrees without even

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realizing they agree on it.

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So the T stands for total depravity.

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I'll talk about that in a minute.

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The U stands for unconditional election.

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The L stands for limited atonement.

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The I stands for irresistible grace, and the P stands for perseverance

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of the saints.

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Okay, now there's a few other things that I'll include in here

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that I think are worth including, although they don't fit into

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this acronym of tulip.

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But one is salvation, whether that's unconditional or conditional,

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and another one is the cessation of the gifts or continuation

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of the gifts.

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And that one is near and dear to our hearts.

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So I'll expound upon that more in the members only segment.

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All right, let's start at the top with total depravity, kind of

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going in with translations of the Bible.

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These are things that I would have loved to have known earlier

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on in my journey.

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God had different plan for me.

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And part of the plan is to produce this podcast that has this

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so that you can learn it a little bit earlier or perhaps be refreshed on it.

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So total depravity.

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The tea Calvinism believes that we are totally depraved, that

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every aspect of human being is corrupt from the initial sin, which

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occurred through Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

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And Arminianism would believe that it's a partial depravity.

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So they'd state something like every aspect of humanity is tainted

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by sin to the extent that human beings are unable to place faith

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in their own accord, but that we are not totally corruptive, that

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we're not totally depraved.

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So stating it that way, there doesn't seem to be too big of a difference.

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Certainly in none of these points, I think there's a big enough

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difference where we need to actually divide a church over or divide

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and call people brother or not brother over.

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But you can see how when we're talking about our human nature,

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salvation, who God is, you can see how things can get contentious quickly.

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And by the way, these were part of the Reformation.

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So these were 15, 16, hundreds, where these ideas, these theological

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ideas started to come into place.

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But that doesn't mean that they're new in the sense that the New

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Testament was written in the first century.

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It doesn't mean that there are new ideas compared to that.

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I'll give you some quotes later that talk about these issues that

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people wrestled with.

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It was really just these two people that came up with these theologies,

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if you will, or these set of ideas that later became Calvinism

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and in Arminianism, the names for the individuals.

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John Calvin is responsible for Calvinism, although I've read a

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number of his quotes, I'm not sure he intended Calvinism to look

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like what Calvinism looks today, nor do I think he really wanted

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anything to be named after him.

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And then the Arminianism comes from Jacob, or I believe the translation

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is Jacobus Arminianum.

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And the same thing.

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I would say the same things.

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I'm not sure that he intended for Arminianism to look like it

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does today or anything to be named after him.

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And hopefully that's the case with any of these isms that we see

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throughout church history with like Lutheranism or anything like that.

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Hopefully they come from people, Martin Luther, in that case,

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that are people that are close to God and didn't really set out

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to have a subset of Christianity named after them.

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Because if that's the case, we run into issues where people are

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celebrating what happens at their church and not at God's church.

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From two points.

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A local setting versus a global setting and a local setting that's not theirs.

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It's turned over to the Lord.

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So any church that you attend, it needs to be for God and run

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by God, not run by man, as hard as that is for man to do, to step

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out of the way, get out of the way.

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All right, then we get to the you unconditional election.

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The difference here on the Calvinism side would be it's unconditional

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election that God elects people, individuals to salvation based

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on his will and his will alone.

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And there's not anything inherently worthy of the specific individual.

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Again, we're totally depraved.

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Goes along those lines of thinking in this segment.

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By the way, I ask for your grace also, as I read through these

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definitions, not stating what I believe necessarily, and I will

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add that as we go along, but stating what these doctrines or these

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theologies are about.

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So, you know, anytime you put yourself out there on a podcast

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or YouTube video or anything, it's very easy to snippet one section

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where you're educating and say, oh, this person believes this.

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That's not the.

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That's not the case.

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You need to listen to the entire video and the entire podcast.

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On the Arminianism side, it's conditional election.

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So rather than unconditional, they would believe that God elects

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individuals to salvation based on his faith foreknowledge.

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So it's still stating that he knew beforehand into salvation,

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but the condition is that the individual has the capacity to accept

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God, which gets into some other things down this list as well.

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But big thing here is that if you believe in total depravity,

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as the Calvinist does, you're not able to do anything on your

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own free will, that you are predestined because he chose you from

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his will, not from yours.

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Whereas we see on The Arminianism side, it's very different in

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the sense that yes, God did have a foreknowledge and he knows

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all this stuff to occur, but there's still the capacity and free

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will for us to make our own choice.

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And this is probably the first big, big point that divides when

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we talk about predestination versus free will.

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I'm going to go ahead and jump into it a little bit so that I'm

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not delaying all my thought towards the end.

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But I, I would state this.

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We can use a simple three letter word to solve all this, I believe,

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and I have some quotes that'll support this later on.

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But that three letter word is and did God know beforehand his foreknowledge?

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Did he know who was going to be saved and who wasn't?

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Yes, he did.

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He knows everything.

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Past tense, future tense, current tense, everything. He foreknew.

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The Bible talks about that a lot.

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Do we have that also, that same ability?

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No, we don't.

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And to be fair, I don't think either side of the argument here

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is stating that people know everything and both are stating that

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God knows everything.

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So again, I don't think it's really worth dividing over because

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from God's perspective He knows everything.

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He knows who will be saved.

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And from our perspective, we don't.

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We are preached the gospel, it is our job to accept the gospel,

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to repent and turn to Him.

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So it's difficult because we're thinking about it from a human

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brain perspective and that's not comparable to God's capacity.

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So many of these points I state and not or and I think that would

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be helpful for all of us to think in that way.

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And there have been people for thousands of years that have thought

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that way, as I will dictate in some quotes that I have a little

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bit later on.

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Then we get to the L, which stands for limited atonement in Tulip.

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And the limited part is the Calvinist side where they believe

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that Jesus only died for the elect.

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This is where things can get really heated.

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And I'll state right now that I do not believe in a limited atonement.

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But if you talk to a compassionate Calvinist they would tell you

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that the way that it's written is not exactly what they are trying

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to get across either.

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But this is a big dividing point.

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So then we have unlimited atonement on the Arminianism side, which

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is where I tend to gather.

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And it says that Jesus died for all, but that his death is not

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effectual until a person Recognizes and sex accepts him as is

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his Lord and Savior through faith. Okay.

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By the way, when you go look some of this stuff online, which

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I encourage you to do, be careful of what you find because you

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might find something that's written from a Calvinist point of view.

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So it's not going to say something simple like Jesus died for

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only the elect.

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It's going to provide some extra context there to kind of defend

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the Calvinistic point of view.

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And then the same could be true for the Armenianism side of the view.

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So just be cautious when you're looking at this because it's kind

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of like watching.

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I hate to bring politics into this podcast at all, but it's kind

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of like watching CNN News versus Fox News.

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You know the angle that you're gonna get to kind of defend from

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that side and you know the angle that you're not going to get

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to attack the other side.

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And unfortunately, we as humans are divisive creatures by nature

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and so watch out for that because it can, it can happen.

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I'm actually trying to expound more on the Armenian ism side because

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I come from more of a Calvinism background and my faith and my

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theology is very much evolving, to use another cringe worthy term.

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All right, then we get to the eye in tulip and that would be irresistible grace.

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A Calvinist would believe that God's great, God's grace is irresistible

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to us, to the elect, and that whether it happens when they're

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20 or 5 or 70, it's inevitable that that person, if they're elect,

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are coming to salvation at some point in time.

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We as people don't know who the elect are, but God knows who the elect are.

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And so that's an irresistible grace point of view.

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The Arminianism view would be that grace is resistible.

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It would state that God calls all to salvation, which I believe

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is supported by a plethora of verses in scripture, but that many

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people resist and reject this call.

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I don't know what your experience is, but I've seen this.

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And now a Calvinist would argue that that person's not the elect

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and so that's why they're resisting.

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And so in this instance, we're kind of splitting hairs here, but

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I think we can see, based on our own personal experience, times

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where both these sides can be talking about the same thing.

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Certainly from the Armenian point of view, I've seen people resist

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and reject the calling to salvation.

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And I do believe that God calls all to salvation.

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All right, that we then get to the p which stands for perseverance

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of the saints.

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This is the belief that God again with the elect, is preserving

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the elect, where so the Calvinistic side is there and then the

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Armenian side is that again, because we have free will, God is

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preserving all people as much as possible and sort of chasing

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the 1 sheep, leaving the 99 as often as possible to save a soul.

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And so again, there's some nuance there to free will versus predestination.

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And you can see in this acronym some of these things are overlapping.

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Some of these things are talking about the same point.

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The big dividers here are that predestination versus free will

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and then the.

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For me, probably the biggest one is that atonement, the limited

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atonement versus the unlimited atonement.

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I'm going to take a moment here to talk about one last sort of step.

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Well, actually two.

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We have salvation and then we have

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the gifts, whether they've ceased or not.

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And those for my family's experience have been really strong in

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churches that we've been and have given us quite a experience.

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I'll say that in terms of where we fall on that line.

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So we'll talk about salvation first and then after we talk about

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the gifts, we'll read Romans 8, 28, 30.

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So from for salvation, the Calvinist Calvinism would believe it's

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unconditional, that a person who is elect by God will preserve

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the faith and will not permanently deny Christ or turn away from him.

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So that again ties in with that, that pea and tulip, that preservation

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of the saints, that sort of idea. If somebody.

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There's some nuance to this too.

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If somebody you have experienced that's came into church, everybody

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believed they were saved, they were baptized, and all of a sudden

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they turn away from the faith.

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A Calvinist would say that person was never saved to begin with.

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And a Calvinist would also say that once you're truly saved, you're always saved.

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This is a point of division as well, but from my experience, not

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as much as the predestination versus the free will and the level

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of atonement, unlimited versus limited.

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Then the Arminianism side would say that salvation is conditional,

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that a believer can and is of their own free will to turn away

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from Christ and lose their salvation.

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For me, this is probably the biggest one against Arminianism where

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I personally believe you can't lose your salvation.

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And I would tie more to the Calvinist side and say that that person

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was never of the faith to begin with.

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And I believe there's plenty of scripture to Back that up.

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And I also believe that for me personally through my prayer life

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and the life that God guides me through, that he sets my steps

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for along my path, that I've got a lot of experience on a changed

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heart and I can't imagine ever walking away from that.

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But your experience might be different and so you might see it

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a little bit differently.

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The big thing here before I talk about gifts, is that in this

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we shouldn't be dividing churches.

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In this we shouldn't be calling someone no longer a brother.

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A pastor that I was recently under talked about this in terms of hills.

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Like we've all probably heard your hill to die on.

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What's a non negotiable for you and for us as Christians that

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should be pretty simple.

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That God is God, that Jesus is His Son who died on the cross for our sins.

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That the only way to the Father is through the Son in acceptance

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on what he did for us on the cross, in acceptance of him as Lord and Savior.

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From that we should be proclaiming that stuff.

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And through his grace he's provided his spirit in us so that we

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may walk a different walk, empowered by God, the Holy Spirit.

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And so those are.

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That's that hill to die on, right?

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Those are non negotiables.

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If you don't believe that, if you believe that

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we can become gods, if you believe that there are many gods, those

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are things that are non negotiables.

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That's a hill to die on and certainly evangelize that person.

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But that's, that's very much a hill to die on.

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Then we have hills to disagree on.

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And these are things that shouldn't lead to division of the church.

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I might see the Calvinist side, you might see the Arminianism side.

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We still need to love each other as brothers.

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And if we talk kindly enough, we might just find that we're kind

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of saying the same thing.

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In a lot of instances it's just framed a little differently.

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And we should all have the humility that when the truth is exposed

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to our hearts, that we accept the truth, whether that be directly

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through God's word or that be from God himself.

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None of us should be arrogant enough to say that we have it all

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figured out and everybody else needs to bow to what we know.

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Very, very dangerous set of circumstances there.

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And then we have the hill to divide on.

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This is still a hill where we aren't calling someone no longer a brother.

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But it may be better for them to worship in a Pentecostal church

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and for us to worship in A Presbyterian church for example, or

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perhaps a Baptist church versus a Calvary church.

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Those sorts of things.

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We shouldn't say they're not brothers or sisters in Christ.

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But for being around like minded individuals to best replicate

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what Acts shows us was the early church.

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There's nothing wrong with congregating with like minded individuals.

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So so long is we're not saying we're the only church and everybody

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else does it incorrectly.

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Now in terms of the gifts, a Calvinist would generally believe

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that the gifts have ceased, that there's no speaking in tongues

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anymore, that there's no healing anymore, or any of that stuff.

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This is kind of a spectrum though.

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So a lot of Calvinists will believe that the gifts are active

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in the sense that for instance, I'm called to be a teacher and

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that gift is evident in my work that I do on a daily basis.

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A Calvinist is very unlikely to go as far as healing in tongues

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and those sorts of things, even, even prophecy to an extent an

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Arminianist or an Arminianism that theology would believe or state

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that the gifts are active and that we are harnessing them for

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the betterment of God's church.

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As Ephesians 4:11 speaks to.

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Again, there's sort of a spectrum there where on one end you'll

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have the Pentecostal belief that is kind of a far stretch of that,

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that there is healing and that is actually done in church and

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that there is tongues and that is actually done in church.

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Personally for me that's getting to a point where I think that

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we're not understanding God's Word completely.

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We're not reading God's Word completely and we're not fully understanding

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what, when Paul talks about the tongues or healing, what the circumstances

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were or how that should be done with an interpreter for tongues

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and those sorts of things.

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But they're going to absolutely be all four fruits of the Spirit

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and those sorts of gifts.

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The big antagonistic attack towards Calvinists in this regard,

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especially five point Calvinists, and I'll talk about the points

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in just a moment, is that they're worshiping Father, Son and Holy

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Bible as opposed to Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

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So it makes sense since the Holy Spirit is the, is God in the,

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the Trinity that we know least amount about through Scripture,

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that he would be the one that we would disagree upon most.

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I think that makes sense.

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And even a Calvinist is likely going to disregard that and say

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certainly it's not Father, Son and Holy Bible, it's Father, Son

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and Holy Spirit.

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And but they would proclaim that the Bible is God's inerrant holy

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word that we must live by.

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So again, I recommend talking to individuals on both sides of

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the fence so that you can see again how many times this is an.

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And in so much we have lost in translation here and just all,

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all of this ugliness.

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If you find an extreme Arminianist or an extreme Calvinist, yeah,

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you're probably going to have some things that just don't add up completely.

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But like we often find in life, there's balance in the middle.

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And provided that we're glorifying God first and foremost, generally

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that and that balance statement is, is where we need to be.

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So hopefully that makes a little bit more sense.

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On the acronym TULIP and what separates a Calvinist versus an Arminist.

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Let me read for you.

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Romans 8, verses 28 through 30.

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This is out of the New American Standard Bible 1995, verse 28.

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And we know that God causes all things to work together for good

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to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.

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For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to become conformed

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to the image of His Son so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren.

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And these whom he predestined he also called.

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And these whom he called he also justified.

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And these whom he justified he also glorified.

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I think that's a beautiful set of verses.

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Obviously I think the entire Bible is beautiful and inerrant even

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if it doesn't appear beautiful to human perspective.

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It's God's Word and therefore it is beautiful.

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And there's always meaning that we can pull from it.

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And these three verses are generally going to be more on a Calvinistic

-: 25:11

side when they are arguing these points.

-: 25:16

But I think that we can see the Arminianism in it as well.

-: 25:20

As we look at the and statements.

-: 25:24

Let me give you some application and I'm going to share with you

-: 25:26

a series of quotes and then we're going to transition to the members

-: 25:30

only segment where I'm going to talk more about our church experience

-: 25:33

and I'm going to go back through the tulip and, and show you where

-: 25:35

I land on each of these.

-: 25:40

And before we do that though I almost forgot, let's talk about

-: 25:42

the points of Calvinism and Arminianism.

-: 25:47

Basically there's five letters right in tulip.

-: 25:50

So with those five letters, however many you agree upon is how

-: 25:52

many points points you are.

-: 25:55

So a five point Calvinist would be an extreme Calvinist that believes

-: 26:00

all five of those from the Calvinistic point of view, four would

-: 26:04

be obviously four points, three would be three and then the Arminianism

-: 26:07

view would be five, four point, three point, those sorts of things.

-: 26:10

You generally, you're not going to say a two point or a one point

-: 26:14

because if you're just on this spectrum here, then that would

-: 26:18

throw you into a 3 or a 4 or 5 point of the other side.

-: 26:21

So generally you're not going to hear somebody say oh, I'm a one

-: 26:24

point Calvinist or I'm a two point Calvinist because that would

-: 26:28

mean that they're either a three point Armenianist or a four point Arminianist.

-: 26:35

And it's tough to be that simplistic because there are other views as well.

-: 26:42

But these are two prominent views that have disagreed for hundreds of years.

-: 26:48

So again my application the word and that has been placed on my

-: 26:52

heart that we think about and when we think about the tulip as

-: 26:53

opposed to or.

-: 27:01

I'm going to share with you some quotes and I have four of them for you.

-: 27:05

I want to look at the first and I've actually listed these in

-: 27:07

order of when they were written.

-: 27:10

The first quote is from Augustine.

-: 27:16

It states in the divine foreknowledge all is certain, but in our

-: 27:18

own will all is free.

-: 27:24

For God knows our willings before they are, but we do not will

-: 27:26

them until they are.

-: 27:33

About a thousand years later, Martin Luther wrote, it is not a

-: 27:38

matter of mere speculation, but of practical experience that God

-: 27:44

foreknew everything or foreknows everything, and yet we do everything

-: 27:46

freely without compulsion.

-: 27:50

This is the great mystery of Providence.

-: 27:55

A couple hundred years later, Charles Spurgeon wrote, I believe

-: 28:00

in predestination, yes, as strongly as any man, yet I believe

-: 28:03

in man's responsibility as much as any other.

-: 28:08

If I were asked to reconcile the two, I would answer that they

-: 28:12

never need reconciliation, for they never fell out.

-: 28:18

They are two parallel lines that meet in eternity.

-: 28:23

The last quote is from this last century. J.J. parker.

-: 28:29

What the Arminian says about man's responsibility is true.

-: 28:33

What the Calvinist says about God's sovereignty is also true.

-: 28:36

And they are friends, not enemies.

-: 28:43

In the Bible the antinomy lies in our minds, not in reality.

-: 28:48

Those are beautiful quotes and I think you can see the and in

-: 28:49

all of those.

-: 28:55

And by the way, you can find quotes from sort of the authors of

-: 28:58

these theologies and find and in their statements also, which

-: 28:58

is is really cool.

-: 29:01

So my question is simple to you.

-: 29:03

Why can't the answer be. And

-: 29:12

as we conclude here, I want to remind you that we are funded by our members.

-: 29:13

It's $12 a month.

-: 29:18

You can go to biblicalanatomyacademy.com, click on podcast and

-: 29:21

click on the image that says support the podcast and you can go

-: 29:25

through and sign up for $12 a month to have the second half of

-: 29:26

these episodes and without.

-: 29:31

With that being said, I'm going to wish you the best and we'll

-: 29:34

transition here to the members only segment. God Bless.

-: 29:40

Until next time.

-: 29:42

May the peace of Christ dwell richly in you.

-: 29:48

And may I also express Maranantha, which is an Aramaic word translating

-: 30:44

to Come, Lord Jesus.