The one argument against Calvinism that I can't refute is that Calvin was [Music] French. Hey guys, welcome back to KingdomCraft, where we build churches in Minecraft while talking about Christianity. And oh, there's a skeleton horse over there.
So, right now I'm in one of the Calvinist countries on this Christian Minecraft server, which makes sense because we're going to be talking about Calvinism and Calvinism before Calvin. I'm in Durlon, the Dutch reformed country, even though I'm Presbyterian. Presbyterians and the Dutch reformed are both under the Calvinist umbrella.
Now, most people define Calvinist wrongly. Most people these days think Calvinism is when you believe in predestination or maybe the five points of Calvinism which is a horrible summary of Calvin's views because it only touches on Calvin's views of predestination and not all the other things Calvin believed in. Um but historically Calvinism was not defined as a set of beliefs at all.
It was defined as a denomination the same way Catholicism or Lutheranism is a denomination. So, you can't be a Calvinist just because you believe in tulip or whatever. Just the same way I can't be a Catholic just because I believe in purgatory and indulgences.
I don't. But let's say I started believing in that. That wouldn't automatically make me a Catholic.
I would have to actually join the Catholic Church. Likewise, I couldn't become Lutheran just because I believe baptism saves. I would have to actually join a Lutheran church.
Likewise, you can't be Calvinist just because you believe in the five points of Calvinism or whatever. you have to actually join a Calvinist church. And the only churches that are actually Calvinist are the ones that actually come from the Calvinist Reformation, which are Presbyterians and the Dutch Reformed and maybe the Puritan Congregationalists, but definitely not any Baptists or non-denominationals.
Uh Calvin saw himself as closer to Catholicism than to Baptists or non-denominationals. So, you cannot be a Calvinist if you're Baptist or non-denominational. So, I kind of lied in the beginning of this video.
I'm not going to be talking about Calvinism itself exactly, but I'm going to be talking about what most people think Calvinism is. Most people define Calvinism as Calvin's views about predestination, as the five points of Calvinism or Tulip or whatever, which is not a good summary of even Calvin's views of predestination because it oversimplifies some things. There's a nice reformed church here.
Lots of new things are getting built in this city. uh but I will be talking about people before Calvin who agreed with Calvin on predestination. So people way before Calvin ever since the beginning have always agreed with Calvin that God chooses some to be saved and not others unconditionally.
So let's talk about what Calvin's views of predestination actually are. A lot of people straw man Calvin and a lot of people hate Calvinism because they really just hate predestination not realizing that many people before Calvin taught the same thing. A lot of lay Catholics will say this and I'm not talking about like actual educated Catholic scholars or even apologists.
I'm talking about your average lay Catholic. I hear a lot of lay Catholics saying, "Oh, Calvinism is evil. " And I'm like, "Why is that?
" And they say, "Oh, well, because uh Calvin believed that uh God chooses who's going to be saved and who's not going to be saved. " And what I say is many many Catholic saints also taught that. Augustine taught it.
Thomas Aquinus taught it. Don Scottas taught it. And they'll say, "Oh no, they only taught single predestination.
Calvin taught double predestination. " And as soon as someone tells me that, I stop talking to them because it's very clear they don't know what they're talking about. So let me define everything here.
Let me define what Calvin believed about predestination. Let me define what double predestination actually is. So a lot of people think that double predestination is equal ultimacy.
A lot of people think double predestination is where God actively creates some to be saved and actively creates others to be damned. That is heresy. Calvin did not teach that.
Nobody in the reformed tradition taught that. No reputable Christian theologians have ever taught that. Even the strictest Calvinists teach that God only sends people to hell because of their own sins that they committed with their own free will.
Yes, Calvinism does believe in free will. That's why a lot of people will say like, "Oh, Augustine didn't believe in Calvin's version of predestination. " And I'll be like, "Why?
" And they'll be like, "Because because Augustine believed in free will. " And it's like, "Dude, so did Calvin. So does the Westminster Confession of Faith, which is the official confession for Presbyterians.
It's just like a lot of evangelicals have really lame, bad straw man arguments against Catholicism. They say, "Oh, Catholics worship Mary and believe they can earn their salvation. " Like, no, they don't.
That's a straw man of Catholicism. Likewise, I see a lot of Catholics and other non-Calvinists horribly straw man Calvinism. Um to be like, "Oh, Calvinism is when there's no free will and God creates people for the sake of damning them.
" That's not what Calvinism is either. So double predestination is not where God creates people for the sake of damning them. All that double predestination means is that God chooses some people and not others.
And that this choosing is unconditional. So it's not like God simply knows who is going to believe in him and chooses people based on that. That's Armenianism.
If it's conditional election, election just means choosing. If it's conditional election, that's Armenianism. But if it's unconditional election, then that's the classic western doctrine of predestination that existed way before John Calvin.
So John Calvin did have some somewhat new ideas like he was iconoclasted and some of his ideas about covenant theology were kind of new. So there are legitimate things that Catholics could criticize Calvin on, but predestination is not one of them. Calvin was saying the exact same thing that Augustine and Thomas Aquinus said about predestination.
And one of my favorite Catholic YouTubers who explains this very well is Christian Bwagner or Scholastic Answers. He explains that, you know, he doesn't agree with Calvin. Of course, he's Roman Catholic, but he shows that no, Thomas Aquinus believed basically the same thing that Calvin did with predestination.
So, nobody has ever taught that God creates people just for the sake of damning them. Even if you believe in double predestination, that still means God saves some from their own sins and passes over the rest. Meaning he lets the rest or the non-elect simply damn themselves to hell because of their own sins.
But every tradition, whether Catholic or Calvinist or whatever, teaches that, you know, God only condemns people based on the sins that they have committed with their own free will. God does not condemn people just because he predestined them to go to hell. Even the super lapsyian Calvinists will still say that no, God only condemns people based on their own sin.
Even if we super lapsyian Calvinists believe that repribation is unconditional. Repribation is the decree to not give saving grace. Repribation is just non-election.
Even if repbation is conditional, damnation is always conditional. God never dams someone except on the basis of what they have done with their own free will. Because God is just.
We do not believe that God is unjust in any of this. So some people say, "Oh, well, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas believed in single predestination, and John Calvin believed in double predestination. " Now, no, it's a bit of a semantics game trying to determine what's the difference between single and double predestination.
The way I see it, I think Thomas Aquinus and Augustine both believed in double predestination because they both clearly say there are the categories of the elect and the non-elect or the reprobate. That's double predestination. Um, they didn't believe that it was symmetrical.
They didn't believe that God elects people in the same way that he reprobates people, but neither did any of the Calvinist theologians. I'll admit there are some sloppy statements in Calvin's institutes where he seems to almost be saying that. But then he clarifies in his other works that that's not what he's saying at all.
Um Calvin very clearly says that God does not condemn us based on anything except our own unbelief. So it's not that God just condemned us because of something he forced us to do. That's not what Calvin ever believed.
So Thomas Aquinus and Augustine and tons of other western theologians, it was really the dominant position in the entire western church for all of church history. They all believe in double predestination. Some people are like, "Okay, what's single predestination?
" The only people who really believe in single predestination are the Lutheran because single predestination is a contradiction and the only ones who are willing to affirm such a blatant contradiction are the Lutheran. Both Calvinism and Catholicism are very intellectual and they don't want to affirm anything that's a blatant contradiction. Lutheranism on the other hand is a lot more open to mystery and in this kind of thing.
So Lutheranism is more comfortable with the contradiction. And every you know intelligent educated Lutheran I've talked to on this issue like Dr Jordan B. Cooper will say that yeah this is a at least an inconsistency.
They'll say it's a mystery. They won't say it's a contradiction. They'll say it's a mystery.
But no, a mystery is like if you say I don't know what's in this box. A contradiction is if you say there is a cat in this box and there's also not a cat in this box. But you know that's sort of like the Schroinger's cat thing and Schroinger was German and Lutheran are German.
I guess Germans like contradictions. What do you know? Um what will Lutheran say with single predestination is that God predestines some to be saved and everyone God predestines to be saved is going to be saved.
Um but not everyone is saved. So it's a mystery why some aren't saved. Lutheran refuse to say that there is a category of people that are not elect.
They say God elects some people and everyone he elects is going to be saved and not everyone is saved. So the logical implication of that, the direct implication is that some people are therefore not elect. But Lutheran just aren't willing to admit that.
They say no, it's not because they're not elect. The only reason that such people aren't saved is because they freely resisted God's grace or whatever. And they don't explain how that works logically.
And they don't think they have to. and I can respect that. Okay, this island gives me PTSD.
The last time I was here, I got stuck in cobwebs and sent to jail. Long story. Anyway, um, okay, there's some juice here.
This is This is a fun little place. And there's a really pretty uh reform church that was just built here. This is Hinrich.
I think this is Hinrich Bullinger uh reform church. Yeah, this is what traditional Calvinist aesthetics look like. John MacArthur's megaurch.
Yeah, John MacArthur is not a Calvinist. He is a notorian Baptist and uh his church is not what traditional Calvinist churches look like. But yeah, uh traditional Calvinist churches have these elevated pulpits so that the preacher can really ring out and have his voice heard really well because Calvinist churches have always emphasized the preaching of God's word.
And that's where we find the doctrine of predestination. Um, if you ask me what's the first example of someone teaching predestination, I would say the clearest and earliest example is the Apostle Paul. You know, when I first heard that Calvinists believe in predestination, I really hated that doctrine.
I wanted nothing to do with it. Um, and just by sheer coincidence, this is, I think, like a sign of God's providence in my life. I was against Calvinism, but I had never actually read the Bible.
So, I was going to talk to my mentor at my PCUSA church later that day about my objections to Calvinism. So, I figured I should read a little bit of scripture before talking to my mentor that evening. So, I picked up my Bible.
I turned to a random page. Guess where I turned? Romans 9.
And once I read it, I was like, "This is totally teaching Calvinism. " And I hate it. I But I had to admit it was teaching Calvin's views of predestination.
Romans 9 absolutely does teach unconditional election. And I tried to object to it by saying, "Oh, well, um, why does God still condemn us? " Because who can resist his will?
But that's literally the objection that Paul anticipates. Um, if God's election was based on his foreseen fornowledge of our free will choices, then Paul would have said that. Paul would have said that when he anticipates that same objection that all non-calvinists or I don't want to say non-calvinists, all non-predestinarians have because there are lots of non-calvinists who believe in predestination.
Like uh reformed Baptists are not reformed and not Calvinist but they do believe in predestination. Um most historic Catholic intellectuals before the reformation at least believed in predestination like Thomas Aquinus and Duncotus. So I would say the first earliest example of predestination is in St.
Paul. But a lot of people are just not going to interpret St. Paul that way.
I don't know how you can interpret Paul any other way than teaching that. But since people are going to cope and see about that, I'm going to give some other examples of major figures in church history who affirmed the same type of predestination that Calvin did. Okay, this island doesn't seem to be claimed by anyone at the moment.
I know that over here, like this island is claimed by Derlon, and this is the Anglican country of Genesis, but maybe I'll Nice little pig here. I'm going to name this pig uh Calvin Jr. Uh maybe I'll make this place into my new little little settlement here.
Okay. And there's some nice carrots. So, the first most obvious example is Augustine.
There are early examples of people who I think taught predestination like the apostolic fathers. I think Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch very clearly taught the same type of predestination as Calvin and Augustine and St. Paul.
But because the apostolic fathers are very hotly debated, not everyone is going to grant that. So I'm going to list people that everyone grants actually did teach uh double predestination. So the first most obvious example is St.
Augustine. Um and I think honestly the Eastern Orthodox are more willing to admit that St. Augustine taught the same type of predestination as Calvin than Catholics are because there are some Catholics, not Catholic intellectuals, mainly like layop Catholic apologists who try and be revisionists and try and act like every single Catholic was always like a a molanist Armenian.
Uh but basically everyone who is actually intellectual and actually has the qualifications to study this stuff is going to admit that Augustine taught unconditional double predestination. Augustine taught that there is the elect. There is the elect and there's the reprobate.
And God's reasoning for choosing the elect or the reprobate is based on his will alone and not based on any foreseen free will choice in the elect or the reprobate. And uh like later cath medieval Catholic scholastics that I have read which most people who are arguing with me about this have not read later Catholic medieval scholastics will say like oh what if predestination is just based on God knowing what we're going to do and choosing us based on that. And they are like well no it can't mean that because St.
Augustine said that it was completely unconditional. So we have to affirm that as well. So it wasn't just Augustine.
Some people say that like all of western philosophy since Plato has just been commentary on Plato because Plato was just so important. That's absolutely true. And I think we can clearly say the same about Augustine for Western theology.
Augustine was such an influential figure in the western church that everything theological in the west since Augustine has literally just been commentaries on Augustine. I see a lot of cope in Eastern and Oriental Orthodox spaces uh that try to really downplay the influence that Augustine had on the church. They say like, "Oh, no.
Augustine was just speculating about things, bro. Um he's just a saint because of his his devotional writings and his personal piety. " No, no, no, no.
He was seen as the theological top dog in the Western church from his own time up until the present day. So his disciples namely Fulgentius and Prosper of Aquitane taught the exact same version of predestination that he did and even went farther. Both Fulgentius and Prosper of Aquitane have very clear writings affirming even a limited atonement.
I think Prosper of Aquitane took that back towards the end of his life. But I don't think Fulgentius ever took it back. Now a limited atonement does not mean Christ didn't die for everyone.
It just means that Christ died for the elect alone in one sense and for everyone in a different sense. Even if you reject hypothetical universalism like I do, you can still say that Christ died for everyone in like a metaphysical sense because Christ assumed a universal human nature and he made salvation metaphysically possible to everyone. But I think he made salvation only legally possible for the elect alone.
Okay, this is going to be my little my little uh vacation home here in in uh Durlon. Okay. Uh I'm going to make some doors here.
I'm going to make a sign that says um Zoomer's uh private island in Durlon. And let's just say Hail Calvin just for the And this is uh John Calvin Jr. And I'm going to say that this chicken is Augustine Jr.
These Oh, there's two chickens. Everyone always floods my church with chickens. So, once people discover this island Oh, yeah.
This this chicken's nodding. Uh, this chicken is going to be uh Fulgentius Jr. and I'm totally able to tell them apart.
Uh, the way I can tell them apart is that Fulgentius Jr. uh looks white and Augustine Jr. has like a yellow beak.
So you can very easily tell them apart because they look completely different. Um and they they seem to like my house already as I say as they just left it. Anyway, so there's Fulgentius and Prosper of Aquitane.
And then you get into the 9th century. So for whatever reason there's like not much theology happening in the west in the 8th century or the 10th century. I mean the 10th century was literally called the pornocracy when the pope was having like gay orgies in the Vatican and bishops were hiring prostitutes.
So I understand why there wasn't much theology in the west during the 10th century. It's worth pointing out that even during that time nobody thought they had to leave the church. Like these days people are like oh my pastor said one woke thing.
I'm never going back to this church. back when bishops were pimps. Basically, people still were loyal to the church.
And Martin Luther and the reformers never wanted to leave the Catholic Church either. Uh they were kicked out. Uh but they always wanted to stay and reform the church.
Anyway, that's a total tangent. Um what was I even talking about? Yeah, the 9th century had a lot of theology even though the 8th and 10th centuries really didn't have much theology in the west.
And one of the big theological controversies was about this one guy named Gotchock of Orbase. Gotchock wrote this confession of faith which is a beautiful confession. I highly recommend you read it.
For some reason I have read like mountains and mountains of obscure 9th century theology and I've barely read like any Martin Luther. But yeah, Godshock wrote a confession of faith where he very very clearly teaches a strict double predestination, a strict limited atonement, strict salvation by grace alone. It is so clear that not a single soul on the planet denies that he was teaching that.
What they'll say is he was condemned as a heretic by the Catholic Church. Now, he was condemned by this guy Hink Moore of Reigns um for his teachings, but then there were other councils that said Hinkmar of Reigns was wrong to condemn him. So whether or not he was actually condemned by the church is a bit up in the air.
Now, I've personally read Hankmar of Reigns' condemnation of him and it's very clear that Hankmar of Reigns completely misunderstands Augustine. Hankmar of Reigns has the same view of Augustine that a lot of, you know, lay Catholics on Twitter think where they thought Augustine's version of predestination where God is where God just foresees your free will choice. But everyone who's actually studied this admits that that's not the case.
So, I think that Gotchock was a very good example of somebody in the early medieval church, not the early church exactly because we're getting into the 800s, but the early medieval church who I think was even stronger than most Calvinists on the doctrine of predestination. So, uh for the next few hundred years, we don't see that much discussion of predestination. But then in the medieval scholastic era which was a flourishing of theology, we're talking like the 1200s and the 1300s.
Uh you see Thomas Aquinus and Duncotus both reflecting on Augustine's doctrine of predestination and both basically teaching the same thing by the way. Uh so there is a bit of a difference between um Thomas Aquinus and Duncotus because Thomas Aquinus is infrolapserian where he thinks that predestination is because of the fall and Scotas is super lapserian where he thinks that the fall is because of predestination because Scotas thinks the whole world was made for Christ. And I agree with Scotas on this issue but both of them believed in predestination.
Um, some people will begrudgingly admit that Augustine taught predestination, but they will see and have a brain aneurysm when I try and tell them that um, Thomas Aquinus affirmed the same type of predestination as Calvin. But it's literally what he says. Like I've read Thomas Aquinus's suma controentace.
He says that the reason God repates some people has no reason except the divine will itself. Thomas Aquinus makes very clear statements about this. Thomas Aquinas did believe in unconditional double predestination.
And they'll say, "Oh, but but Thomas Aquinus believed we have free will. " Yeah, so did Calvin. So does every Christian theologian ever.
There's not a single Christian theologian you'll find who says, "Oh, we don't have free will. " Uh maybe John Frame said something like that, but every PCA and OPC theologian is kind of trash to be honest. But yeah.
Uh so Thomas Aquinus, Duncotus, Bonaventure, all the medieval Catholic scholastics affirmed double predestination as well. So why are so many people today against the doctrine if it was basically the universal teaching in the western church up until the reformation? Well, it's because of two groups really, the Jesuits and the Armenians.
I'm not I'm actually not going to put a cross on this because this is not a church. Not going to make a Presbyterian church in Dutch reformed land. This is just my personal house.
But yeah, it's because of Jesuits and Armenians. So the Jesuits were founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola as sort of an anti-calvinist group.
It was meant to counter the Calvinist Reformation. So they reacted hard against Calvinism and that's where Mullanism popped up. Now Mullenism is still not Armenianism.
Armenianism is where election is based on a foreseen free will choice. Mullenism is kind of in between Calvinism and Armenianism. uh where God simply actualizes the best possible world or whatever and the different worlds are based on different free will choices and not every Jesuit scholastic affirm the same thing like I think uh Suarez for example who's another Jesuit scholastic his position was even closer to Calvin but the Jesuits were basically reactionaries against Calvinism and the Jesuits started accusing all the traditional tomists who followed Thomas Aquinas of being Calvinist so after 400 years of Jesuit influence Most lay Catholics and a lot of Catholic priests even have become hostile to the doctrine of predestination that used to be affirmed by the majority of their saints.
Um the other influence in the Protestant church has been the influence of Armenianism. Now Arminius was a Calvinist. Arminius was a lot more Calvinist than like John MacArthur for example because Arminius actually was part of a Calvinist church and he agreed with Calvin's views of the sacraments and most other issues.
Uh but the one thing that Arminius he didn't even consciously disagree with Calvin on. He was just he thought he was clarifying Calvin. He wasn't actually doing that but he thought he was Arminius tried to clarify Calvin's doctrine of predestination and he ended up reinterpreting it in a very you know Arminian way cuz he's Arminius.
So when Calvin says, "Oh, God predestin us. " Arminius was like, "Oh, what what Calvin actually means is, you know, God just chooses us based on a foreseen free will choice. " Of course, that's not what Calvin meant.
But that's what Arminius thought Calvin meant. And then Arminius's followers became a lot more extreme than Arminius. This is what you see with a lot of people, by the way.
Usually, the followers of an important figure are like more extreme than that figure themselves. So, the Armenians ended up denying like tons of historic, not just Calvinist doctrines, but historic Christian doctrines. That's why Samuel Rutherford, who's the greatest Presbyterian scholastic, wrote a great treatise against the Armenians.
It's called his examination of Armenianism. And it functions as a systematic theology because the Armenians were basically wrong about everything. So Samuel Rutherford tells us the right view of basically everything to counter them.
Okay, they're having a baby and this is going to be called uh Godshock Jr. Uh, I I like how all the uh Minecraft animals are basically genderless and you have them breeding with each other right and left and uh I can't remember which one is which. I I admit.
But yeah, the Minecraft sexual ethics are not the best, let me be honest. Anyway, what was I talking about? Calvinism.
So, yeah, those are examples of lots of people in church history who who affirmed Calvinism or at least who affirmed what most people think Calvinism is. So next time if you're uh if you're like a Catholic or just a random person who does not like Calvinism that much, maybe consider the fact that Calvin was not the first person to teach the thing that you don't like Calvinism for. So thank you guys for watching this video and I will see you all later.
God bless.
