What about with regard to pastoral care? What if a young Christian, struggling with assurance of salvation, walked into a pastor’s office and began pouring out all of their doubts. Serious doubts. Doubts that keep you up at night. What does pastoral care look like from a consistent Calvinist perspective? The whole issue hangs on how the question is framed. From the Calvinist perspective, it all depends on election, doesn’t it? The worry becomes, “am I truly elect? Has God chosen to save me? What if I don’t love God? What if I don’t believe in Jesus? Am I damned and there’s nothing I can do about it?” That seems to be the reality of Reformed soteriology. I often hear from Reformed believers that the fifth point of Calvinism, perseverance of the saints (the “P” in TULIP), is a great comfort to them. It means that it’s impossible for an elect believer to fall from God’s grace and lose his or her salvation. Though, again, so much depends on the framing of the issue. Instead of struggling with losing one’s salvation, a Calvinist in doubt would probably worry about their elect status. If they weren’t elect (which they have no control over, it’s a decision made by God alone), then they will fall away from the faith.
To set this next part up, classical Calvinism would say election is God’s domain. We play no part. If you are, in fact, elect, when God pours out His grace on you, it’s irresistible. You will be unable to resist or decline it. You will be saved, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Then I read this from Calvin:
Besides this there is a special call which, for the most part, God bestows on believers only, when by the internal illumination of the Spirit he causes the word preached to take deep root in their hearts. Sometimes, however, he communicates it also to those whom he enlightens only for a time, and whom afterward, in just punishment for their ingratitude, he abandons and smites with greater blindness. (Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.24.8)This is confusing, especially when read with classical Calvinism’s doctrine of irresistible grace and the efficiency of God’s special calling (which is 100% effective according to classical Calvinism) in mind. Calvin isn’t referring to God’s universal call, but the special call that goes out to the elect. In this passage, Calvin describes God opening someone’s heart, calling them with His special calling and giving them grace, only to smite them with even greater blindness because they didn’t respond to Him with gratitude. To borrow some words from Dr. Jerry Walls, that kind of sounds like they could’ve responded (in the Arminian sense) to God’s call, doesn’t it? Based on my understanding of irresistible grace, Calvin’s statement doesn’t add up. God’s special call went out, grace was given, and grace was rejected with ingratitude. Was irresistible grace resisted? How does this fit within Calvinism’s soteriology? To borrow some more words from Dr. Walls, can someone explain that to me in Calvinist terms?
Can a Calvinist truly say to the man on the street, “God loves you”, when in truth, it’s unknown if God truly loves them? I think it’s a valid question. How we answer could impact how we do evangelism and missions. How does the Calvinist counsel the doubting Christian? Can he honestly tell them of God’s love and desire for their salvation, knowing all along that if they aren’t elect they are eternally damned? Temporal blessings don’t amount to much at that point. What does a man profit if he gains the world but loses his soul? And finally, what do we do with problem passages from Calvin like the one above? It seems to be inconsistent with classical Calvinism’s doctrine of irresistible grace.
I’ll end by saying this: God loves you, and His desire is for your salvation.
In coming posts, I’ll discuss prevenient grace, unlimited atonement,
Arminianism’s high view of God’s character and sovereignty, and more
from the other side of the debate. Maybe I should recruit a solid
Calvinist to post some rebuttals…
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