Why I am a Calvinist

Some years ago now, two friends of mine got married and I was invited to help in the wedding.
Although I do not play professionally, my first degree is a BMus in trombone performance. At the time, I had two trombones in my cupboard. One trombone is made of silver and had a smaller diameter bore than the other, which is made of rose brass. The differences make for significant differences in the way the instruments sound. The smaller, silver trombone has a hard, bright, and clear sound, a soloist’s sound - the ideal of the jazz world. The bigger rose brass trombone has a softer, darker, and heavier sound which classical composers and orchestra conductors tend to prefer.

So when I was asked to play at the wedding I had to decide which of the two horns I would use. Upon seeing the proposed music, I realized that the sound of the bigger horn would be a more fitting accompaniment to the chosen hymns. And so, it was the bigger trombone that I took to the church.

This decision involved a choice between instruments and the choice was determined because I had a particular end in mind; a more fitting sound to glorify God, and to better help my friends and their guests worship him. Although I foreknew the sound I wanted, I had to decide between alternatives to get the desired result.

In 1 Cor. 1: 26-30 we read this:

"For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised. God has chosen the things that are not, that he might nullify the things that are, that no man should boast before God. But by his doing you are in Christ Jesus…"

God had desired results in view when he chose who would receive “the calling”. He wanted to shame the wise, the strong, and the things that are. And all these goals were themselves means to an ultimate goal; which was that no man should boast before God.

Now if God has only foreknown who will come to faith, Paul could not have written that “God has chosen…to shame…” or “God has chosen…to nullify…” or “…that no man should boast before God...” because such foreknowledge can never be in a cause and effect relationship with particular goals. Instead mere foreknowledge must accept whatever comes to pass. But God chooses “the called” order to achieve particular ends. Thus, this passage makes it impossible to translate the word “chosen” merely as “foreknew” as Arminianism requires.

And that is one reason why I am a Calvinist.

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In Christ's love and service

Mr. Tim Cunningham, Dip. CS (Regent College)
Member, First Baptist Church
Vancouver, BC

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"The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar of 1500-year-old, 200 proof grace—a bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the gospel—after all these centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your own bootstraps—suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home-free before they started. Grace was to be drunk neat: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale." – Robert Farrar Capon