Calvinism has implied in its very definitional doctrine of divine predestination a Catch-22 which affords the Calvinist a logically unassailably (meaning intrinsically illogical).
According to Calvinism, a person is Christian because God made them to be so.
In implication, a person isn’t Christian because God didn’t make them to be Christian.
Thus, a person isn’t Christian not because of the inability of the Calvinist to argue in support of Christianity, but because the person hasn’t been made to be Christian by God.
In a recent discussion which rather angered me, I was able to point this out in a more specific way to my Calvinist opponent;
According to my opponent, the reason I wasn’t Calvinist was because I remain inherently sinful. I would be Calvinist if God made me. However, I didn’t choose to be Calvinist.
To the Calvinist, this is taken not as evidence of their inability to argue in support of Calvinism, but just as evidence that I haven’t been suitably “enlightened.”
Since my objection against Calvinism was on the grounds of free will and love (and alternately God’s traditional maximal perfections), my “idol” was free will; I held up my own conception of “free will” before God (thus it is my idol).
This is, again, another Catch-22. That the Calvinist is unable to explain why my arguments were based on false premises or produced invalid conclusions (invalidating my arguments against Calvinist) is not a burden to the Calvinist; they are able to simply ignore everything I’ve said and retreat to their castle of “You disagree with me because you haven’t been enlightened by God.”
To respond in kind to my Calvinist friend, I will be listing my arguments against Calvinism. While my arguments do not prevent my Calvinist friend from retreating from my logic, I offer them on behalf of others who are willing to engage with reason instead of assuming that God chose them to be right and let everyone else who would use reason be wrong.
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