Calvinism teaches a compatible freedom. This means that a person is free to follow a predetermined choosing without making a choice between two accessible options. That is to say, no real choice exists in compatibilism because man can only choose an act or belief that is the result of predetermined antecedents. This means that Adam and Eve chose to sin, or man chooses to accept the gospel because God has predetermined that he will do so, and those that reject ultimately do so for the same reason. This is the simple unadorned truth of Calvinism.
Unfortunately, because of an array of sophisticated rhetoric, many Calvinists and non-Calvinists alike, are unfamiliar with how deterministic Calvinism is. According to Compatibilism (the view of freedom held by Calvinists who understand Calvinism), you are reading this article and believing what you believe about it, not because of the ability to decide to read it or not or to agree or disagree, but rather to simply do and conclude what has been determined by determinative antecedents. Any sense of choosing between two accessible options is an allusion. Compatibilism claims that determinism and responsibility are compatible, but of course neither the Scripture nor real life portrays such. To wit, compatibilists (determinists) neither live nor talk like determinism is true.
This simply means that choice is a property of libertarian freedom, and predetermined choosing without choice is the property of compatible freedom. Therefore, when one dispenses with all of the confusing rhetoric, it leaves the actual truth that the amount of real choice in compatibilism is analogous to the real choices that result from the deliberations of a convention of turtle shells.
“If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15).
