Calvinism and Arminianism:
Myths & Realities
John MacArthur emphatically declares: “You and I are saved and know the Lord Jesus Christ because God chose us before the world ever began.” (Understanding Election, emphasis mine)
MacArthur states: “We are chosen unto salvation. We are chosen to belong to Him. When you look at your salvation, then thank God. Thank God! Because you are a Christian because He chose you. I don’t understand the mystery of that. That’s just what the word of God teaches. That is the most humbling doctrine in all of Scripture. I take no credit, not even credit for my faith. It all came from Him. He chose me. He selected people to be made holy in order to be with Him forever. Why he selected me, I will never know. I’m no better than anyone else. I’m worse than many. But He chose me.” (Understanding Election, emphasis mine)
MacArthur asks: “To whom do you owe your salvation? You owe it to the God who chose you. You owe it to the God who predestined you. You owe it to the God who redeemed you, the God who forgave you, the God who wanted you to be His own because He wanted you to be His own. It doesn’t give any other reason, even though we are so unworthy, so unworthy.” (Understanding Election, emphasis mine)
One member of The Society of Evangelical Arminians states: “If Determinism is true, then God never responds to anything that we do. This does not fit the Bible at all since in Scripture, God constantly says that He responds to what people do or don’t do. The logical implication of Determinism is that all of our actions simply becomes a matter of luck. If Determinism is true, then God decides what our every action will be, and we never have any choice to act differently (so we do not have free will as ordinarily understood). But there is a dark implication of Determinism, in that if we do not choose our actions for ourselves, they are all chosen for us by God, decided for us beforehand by God. If I do something right or good, it is mere luck. I was lucky that God decided that I would do that right or good thing. If I do something sinful, it was mere bad luck. Again, I was unlucky that God decided that I would commit that particular sin. If I am a mature Christian, then I got lucky that God made me a mature Christian (and the claim that God wants us to be mature or consistent Christians is just a sham, because if He wanted that then He would determine for all of us to be mature, but not all are, so He must want only some to be mature, many to be immature, some to be fakes, etc.). If I am a hypocrite and engage in really gross sins then I was unlucky. Nothing is really determined by me, but all is determined by God. Since He controls everyone in exactly the same way, our fates, our eternal destinies, our individual actions, are all a matter of good or bad luck. If I commit sin, that is just the sin that God wants for me to commit. If you keep thinking this through, you can only conclude that everything is just about being lucky or unlucky.” (SEA, emphasis mine)
Question: Could a person then describe themselves as “lucky”?
Answer: The logic is inescapable. If you are saved and don’t exactly know why, and “don’t understand the mystery of that,” but only that God picked you and choose you to see saved, over and above many others on the wide road to destruction, then how could you not describe yourself as “lucky”? The problem, though, is that this would turn the gospel into a matter of luck, insomuch that these are the “lucky” ones, the lucky winners of grace. The rest are unlucky.
Arminian Charge: Calvinism involves Luck.
Myth or Reality: Calvinists wouldn’t want to think of it this way, but if a person was secretly Elect, then they would be fortunate, by any definition.
