Calvinism/Extensivism

According to Calvinism, God voluntarily predetermined for some of the human race to experience salvation in order to display His mercy, while concomitantly and voluntarily predetermining to pass over most of the human race, thereby inviolably destining them to perish in hell. The former are known as the unconditionally elected and the latter are known…

In a previous article I explored Calvinism’s view of the origin of sin and salvation through the lens of their belief in compatible freedom and the “mysteries” that such a view generates. To read it, just search “Calvinism’s View of the Origin of Sin and God’s Offer of Salvation” (posted on October 31, 2016). This…

Paul Helm demonstrates an error common among Calvinists, which is to evaluate the cogency of Extensivist’s understanding of God’s salvation plan that includes man being endowed with libertarian freedom through the grid that compatibilism is prima facie true.[1] Rather than evaluating whether Extensivism provides a comprehensive, coherent, and biblically consistent perspective. In contrast, one of…

Recognizing that the simple and straightforward message of Scripture is that God loves everyone and truly desires for everyone to hear the gospel and be saved by faith in Christ leads some Calvinists like John Piper to postulate that God has a secret will in which He does not desire everyone to be saved. That…

Calvinists believe that man is free to choose according to his greatest desire. For example, Jonathan Edwards believed in what he called “strength of motive.”[1] He said concerning such, “I suppose the will is always determined by the strongest motive.”[2] Therefore, Edwards argued that one freely chooses to act according to his “strongest motive.” Regarding…

At times, I post actual interactions that I have with Calvinists in order to allow others to consider both sides of an issue. This is what I have done in this article. The following is a response that I interacted with regarding my article, “Why Some Non-Calvinists Identify as Calvinist” that appeared on SBC Today.…

A Comparison of Calvinism’s compatible view of moral freedom and Extensivism’s libertarian freedom In order to understand the actual contrast between Calvinism’s view of the nature of God, His sovereign rule over His creation, and His salvation plan, with that of Extensivism’s view of the same, one must understand the two position’s vastly different views…

I use the term Extensivism to encapsulate my soteriological (salvational) understanding. I gave considerable thought in choosing the term. Although only used by me (hence, the need to continuously define for others), it does seem to be free of negative connotations and appears to me to be a suitable parallel for discussing soteriology within this…

I was a Calvinist for over thirty-three years and was unabashedly so for the first twenty. I spent the last thirteen years questioning and evaluating the harmony between Calvinism and Scripture and only doffed the label Calvinist in the final months of that journey. A respondent to one of my blogs on SBC Today commented…

Calvinists take solace in the claim that they believe salvation is totally a work of God (unconditional election, man’s passiveness until selective regeneration, regeneration prompting faith, etc.), while oftentimes either implying or explicitly accusing those who make salvation conditioned upon man exercising faith (exercising faith in response to hearing the gospel prior to regeneration or…