Charge: Calvinism complicates the Gospel.
Arminian Complaint: Calvinism complicates the Gospel.
Calvinism complicates the simplicity of the Gospel; which is a message so easy a child can understand it. However, Calvinism not naturally understood from simply reading the Scriptures. One must be taught it as a system. In missionary environments where Calvinism is taught, Calvinism is believed. Conversely, in missionary environments where Calvinism is not taught, it is not believed. Now why is that? Is it the fault of the converts in their fallen state, or is Calvinism simply not a natural reading of Scripture? You could say the same thing of cults as well, in which an indoctrination training period is necessary.
Laurence Vance writes: “All Calvinists, whether they be Presbyterian or Reformed, Primitive Baptist or Sovereign Grace Baptist; all Calvinists, whether they be premillennial or amillennial, dispensational or covenant theologist; all Calvinists, whether they go by that name or not; all Calvinists have one thing in common: God, by a sovereign, eternal decree, has determined before the foundation of the world who shall be saved and who shall be lost. To obscure the real issue, a vocabulary has been invented to confuse and confound the Christian. The arguments about supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism, total depravity and total inability, reprobation and preterition, synergism and monergism, free will and free agency, common grace and special grace, general calling and effectual calling, perseverance and preservation, and the sovereignty of God are all immaterial. The stumbling block for the Calvinists is the simplicity of salvation, so upon rejecting this, a system has to be construed whereby salvation is made a mysterious, arcane, incomprehensible, decree of God.” (The Other Side of Calvinism, p.35, emphasis mine)
One member of The Society of Evangelical Arminians states: “Calvinists seem to give elongated explanations of what the Gospel is all about.” (SEA)
Another member of The Society of Evangelical Arminians adds: “Religion in general is about complicating the simplicity of the Gospel; a message so easy a child can understand it. This is but one more reason I am very suspicious of Calvinism and its adherents.” (SEA)
