Charge: Calvinism is Abortion
Arminian Complaint: Calvinism is Abortion
One member of The Society of Evangelical Arminians comments: “Calvinism gets really bizarre if you keep in mind that they believe that God predetermined every single event. So God predetermined that some become Christians, and then live sinful and rebellious lives, but stay saved and go to Heaven, while others He predetermined that they would and could never be saved, He makes them into non-Christians, who live very moral lives (i.e. Mormons), and then go to Hell to be eternally punished! Or what about the ‘Lord, Lord’ people of Matt. 7 who mistakenly believe they are believers, and yet He says at the Judgment Day they will find out the reality that they never knew him (so God predetermined that they would be self-deceived for years, believing themselves to be saved, when they never were saved!), then giving them the surprise at the final Judgment Day, and then sending them to Hell for eternal punishment. And this same God who supposedly predetermines everything, decides that most of the human race will be ‘reprobates’ who are Hell-bound, and this decision is made independent of anything they do or do not do, anything that happens in their life, God just reprobates them from eternity (isn’t this sort of like aborting a baby that has done nothing, no matter what this baby would have done had it lived, the baby is simply aborted?). And yet the same God who does these ‘spiritual abortions’ on the reprobates before they ever live, supposedly then turns around and says abortion is wrong? What a mess exhaustive Determinism leads to!” (SEA, emphasis mine)
Bob adds: “...some nonbelievers can be very moral folks, sometimes even more moral than some professing Christians (Mormons are a good example) and yet if exhaustive determinism is true, then God predetermined their allegiance to false doctrine and made them into reprobates who are very nice people but hell bound before they were born, never having any chance to be saved.”
There are also Calvinists who share a reservation against arbitrary predestination:
Calvinist, D. James Kennedy, writes: “Again and again we see that people are predestined (elected) to salvation--but nowhere do we see that anyone is ever predestined to condemnation of Hell. When we think of God as unfairly, arbitrarily electing people to Heaven or Hell, it is as if we have a mental picture of a row of people sitting on a fence, and God passes down the line and points at each one, ‘It’s Hell for you, Heaven for you, Hell, Hell, Hell, Heaven, Hell...’ Now, that would be unfair--and absolutely capricious! But that’s not the kind of God we love and serve.” (Solving Bible Mysteries, p.29, emphasis mine)
But now consider the logical implications of Calvinism, as argued by George Whitefield:
Calvinist, George Whitefield, writes: “For, without doubt, the doctrine of election and reprobation must stand or fall together.” (Whitefield’s Letter to Wesley, Bethesda in Georgia, Dec. 24, 1740)
Double Predestination involves Unconditional Reprobation while Single Predestination involves Preterition, that is, being left out of the plan of God. Not all Calvinists prescribe to the Hard Deterministic system of Double Predestination. However, to the Arminian, the difference is microscopic. Does God create people to go to Hell, or does He merely abandon them to Hell? What’s the difference?
Whitefield adds: “I believe the doctrine of reprobation, in this view, that God intends to give saving grace, through Jesus Christ, only to a certain number, and that the rest of mankind, after the fall of Adam, being justly left of God to continue in sin, will at last suffer that eternal death which is its proper wages.” (Whitefield’s Letter to Wesley, Bethesda in Georgia, Dec. 24, 1740, emphasis mine)
This doctrine of being “justly left” is called Pass-By Calvinism. Stated another way, it is the Calvinist Doctrine of Divine Abortion whereby God allegedly, terminates the unborn souls of the vast majority of mankind, whether purposely or by omission, so that at the appointed time, they are discarded into the eternal dumpster of Hell. This is easily the most controversial doctrine in all of Calvinism, and has drawn the most criticism since Calvinism has been around.
