The term Hyper-Calvinism has become something of a phantom, eluding definition and substance; as if the creature is essentially extinct, and not clomping about in modern day Reformedom. It is easy to think this way, so long as one pulls the right definitional levers to suite their theological tastes.
“Simply preach to all men and you’ll be safe and sound,” says the man clutching Calvin’s Institutes. “Don’t restrict gospel preaching to only those who show signs of conviction. That is the essence of Hyper-Calvinism!”
I get it. People don’t go around with a glinting smile, saying, “Ah, yes, I am a Hyper-Calvinist.” Ding! But is that really where we should draw the line- at the practical extremes of Hyper-Calvinism? Or might it be better to trace the mental steps preceding such dire conclusions and regard those as problematic?
Surely the latter is critical to the enterprise.
It is with this concern that I venture to say a word or two about Hyper-Calvinism, and how many today, while, perhaps, not card carrying Hyper-Calvinists, are nevertheless sitting at the end of the dock with their feet in the water.
“Reasonable” Hyper-Calvinism
The road to a truncated gospel offer is paved with reductionistic Calvinism. In order to get there, all that needs to happen is for someone to uphold unconditional election in a way that maintains a logically strict bifurcation in the face of complimentary biblical evidence, such that everything is flattened to accommodate the narrow paradigm.
Here’s how it works:
Step One: Affirm the following: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
Step Two: Make this truth the absolute, controlling element whereby all seemingly contrary evidence is brought into submission to this fundamental point- since said evidence must entail contradiction or absurdity.
Step Three: Work the logic out consistently across the board.
That’s the essence. It operates under the assumption that since God elected some and not others, then it would be absurd to say that God desires the salvation of the non-elect in some sense, or that He seriously loves them, or that He would send Christ for them, or that there really is a gospel available for such dead sinners, etc.
Let’s take a moment to briefly reflect on how this plays out:
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The Love of God. Here’s the basic logic, as stated by Martyn McGeown of the PRC: “If the omnipotent God loves someone, He saves him. How could He not? What kind of love permits one’s beloved to perish, when it is in his power to save him?”1
- It doesn’t make sense for us to talk about God loving the non-elect, since we know that God really only loves the elect. After all, if He really loved them, then He would save them. Thus, when we come to a passage like John 3:16, for example, we know that the term “world” cannot include within its scope the non-elect. Therefore, we have to look for a way of understanding the passage that doesn’t step on the logic of our system, nor force us to nuance our view.
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God’s Desires. Since we know that God is absolutely sovereign and has only chosen the elect unto salvation, it is absurd for us to say that God desires the salvation of the reprobate. Therefore, 1 Timothy 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9, Isaiah 65:2, Matthew 23:37, etc, cannot reference the non-elect. We must look for interpretive strategies to read these in a different light.
- It simply doesn’t make sense for us to speak of God as having a twofold will. His purposes are clear and undivided. To teach otherwise is to make God unstable, or double-minded, or less than sovereign.
- Since we deny that God desires the salvation of the non-elect, we know the converse is true: He doesn’t desire their salvation. Thus, God’s disposition is not one of yearning or sincere pleading or positive, but it has to be wrathful and ill-disposed and unfavorable.
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A Call, Not an Offer! It is absurd to think that God offers the Gospel to the non-elect, since “an offer is an expression of readiness to do or give something to someone; or it assumes a kind of desire that someone accept it. Moreover, an offer implies some kind of receptivity and ability in the one to whom the offer is made- one does not offer a cup of coffee to a corpse!”2
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After all, since God did not elect the reprobate, and has no intention of saving the reprobate, nor desires to save the reprobate, nor has sent Christ for the reprobate, nor died in any sense for the reprobate, then there is, properly speaking, no good news for that sinner.
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However, since we don’t know who is elect and who is not, we obey God’s command to preach unto all, without appealing to an offer. We preach indiscriminately, but do not offer.
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The Move Toward Greater Extremes
With these general ways of thinking in place, the move towards a denial of duty-faith (on the part of some Hypers-Calvinists), and by extension, a truncation of the gospel call’s universality (on the part of some), and a denial of common grace (on the part of some), is not a grand logical leap. It is an intentional and systematic continuation of a few key assumptions.
Here’s the progression:
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Since God harbors no true goodwill toward the non-elect, it is absurd to talk about common grace. God might preserve the reprobate and allow them to persist in order to accomplish His purposes, but this should not be confused with grace. They are objects of wrath whose hearts God will harden.
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If sinners are incapable of faith apart from God’s enabling grace, then the gospel would not call them to faith. Therefore the gospel cannot really mean that faith is the sinner’s duty to evangelistically believe.
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And finally, quoting the Gospel Standard Articles of Faith:
ARTICLE 24, GOSPEL INVITATIONS: We believe that the invitations of the Gospel, being spirit and life, are intended only for those who have been made by the blessed Spirit to feel their lost state as sinners and their need of Christ as their Saviour, and to repent of and forsake their sins.
Article 26: Duty Faith and Duty Repentance Denied: We deny duty faith and duty repentance – these terms signifying that it is every man’s duty to spiritually and savingly repent and believe. We deny also that there is any capability in man by nature to any spiritual good whatever. So that we reject the doctrine that men in a state of nature should be exhorted to believe in or turn to God.
Article 33: PREACHING TO THE UNCONVERTED: Therefore, that for ministers in the present day to address unconverted persons, or indiscriminately all in a mixed congregation, calling upon them to savingly repent, believe, and receive Christ, or perform any other acts dependent upon the new creative power of the Holy Ghost, is, on the one hand, to imply creature power, and, on the other, to deny the doctrine of special redemption.
This is how you move from reductionistic Calvinism to full throttle Hyper-Calvinism.
But Note Again The Road Thus Traveled!
The fundamental problem in all of this stems from an unwillingness to allow Biblical data to nuance the flattening effect of the logically strict bifurcation, and as such, allow for a greater breadth of paradox and mystery.
It really is that simple.
Hyper-Calvinism is, if nothing else, reductionistic and rationalistic. It begins with certain fundamental tenets and seeks to be consistent at the expense of other controlling data points. In this respect, it fails to recognize, at root, the fundamental divide between the Creator and creature, and by extension, archetypal and ectypeal theology, a crucial biblical teaching in Reformed theology.
Another way of saying this is to ask: What is acceptable mystery, dear Christian, and what is not acceptable mystery, and why?
In the case of the Arminian, he cannot accept the idea that God chooses some and not others. This (it is thought) inevitably undermines human responsibility and makes God a monster. But as hard as the truth of unconditional election might appear to us, the Scriptures are surprisingly clear on the point. We must uphold it while also affirming God’s deep goodness and love, along with genuine human freedom. Conversely, if a person determines a priori that God cannot desire the salvation of the non-elect in a real sense, in spite of clear Scriptural revelation, saying that it cannot exist alongside election, then they are traveling the same road as the Arminian, but in merely another direction.
In order to escape this impasse, we have to hold together seemingly competing truths, allowing each to speak with clarity and force. If we aren’t going to be controlled by our own subjective presuppositions, and if we are going to humbly accept divine realities that stretch beyond our limited understanding, this is the path we have to take.
So What Is Hyper-Calvinism?
It’s a mindset. And to the degree that the mindset controls countervailing data, and to the degree that the mindset effects one’s personal actions, to that same degree the bulb of Hyper-Calvinism will glow all the brighter.
Let it be said then that Hyper-Calvinism exists along a continuum.
So in many ways it is a matter of consistency, or perceived consistency. How far will a person go before they think the Scriptures call them to a halt? There are plenty in the Reformed camp who are theologically constrained by the same reductionism undergirding Hyper-Calvinism. This is to say that the strict bifurcation is alive and well in their thinking, and it functions as a deep control on the data of Scripture, even though it does not often bleed down to the practical extremes. In their case, the spirit of Hyper-Calvinism is bumping about, though not in full form.
In all of this, Hyper-Calvinism is a tricky term. No one welcomes the appellation because it is a dirty word amongst the Reformed. And rightly so! But if we are going to honestly recognize extremes, especially as it appears in the controlling element energizing the whole program, then we must surely be ready to cast a dubious eye toward those who handle the “problematic texts” like a Hyper-Calvinist, argue like a Hyper-Calvinist, and harbor those modes of thought that comport nicely with the substructure of the view.
In the end, if we don’t call people sitting on the cliff’s edge Hyper-Calvinists, so be it. But we should be prepared to say that a person who denies God’s universal saving desire, or balks at the word “offer,” or is afraid to say to the unconverted that God loves them, is wading out into the unbiblical waters of reductionistic Calvinism. And they should stop doing so. It carries the notable scent of Hyper-Calvinism.
1A Response to “The Free Offer of the Gospel,” Martyn McGeown, Protestant Reformed Theological Journal, 51, Number 2, April 2018.
2Ibid.
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