The Calvinistic Framework of TULIP

The Calvinistic Framework of TULIP

The Calvinistic beliefs are built upon this foundation:

(1) A wrong understanding of God’s nature, attributes, glory, immutability, and self-sufficiency. Instead of starting with the nature of God revealed to us through Jesus Christ to get their theology, they start with their presuppositional understanding of how they read the Old Testament and how it appears to them that God is all about His self-exaltation and since they see that as first, people were created to be expendable. However, looking at Jesus, He expended Himself for the sake of His creation by emptying Himself and dying on a cross. God is revealed as selfless and humble. This understanding completely changes how we view God’s glory. God’s wrath and justice are simply reflections and outflows from His love rather than something pitted against His love.

(2) A wrong understanding of God’s sovereignty. They think that God can only be sovereign if He deterministically controls everything. Some may even say that if a single atom is not under His control, then He is not really in control and is not God. But that is a faulty understanding because a king is still sovereign even while giving the subjects of his kingdom freedom to move around and choose things for themselves. A grand master chess player can also beat his opponent without moving pieces on the other side of the board. The Calvinist’s beliefs on determinism underlie his or her beliefs regarding how controlling God operates when it comes to salvation. Therefore, before addressing the doctrine of salvation, it is important to address deterministic beliefs first.

(3) Because the above two subjects are the way they are, Calvinists do not have a good Theodicy. It can be hard for them to defend the blamelessness of God if they do not hold to contra-causal free-will. But they do not realize that this is the trade-off that they are making by exalting God’s sovereignty as so deterministically high that it negates any true responsibility of mankind because they are not response-able, or truly able to respond. On the contrary, we hold to contra-causal free-will—not because we love to exalt mankind, but because we love to exalt God’s love, compassion, and blameless character, and without free-will, God cannot truly be blameless (logically speaking). So while they think God is most glorified in His power so that mankind does not have contra-causal free-will, we believe that God’s love and blamelessness is more important to Him.

(4) The Calvinist who is a Compatibilist holds to logically contradictory beliefs. They may believe that God determines all things while at the same time believing that man truly has a free-will and is truly responsible. They will admit that they don’t know how it works and at that point just appeal to mystery and say, “only God knows.” As a result, they can only suppress their troublesome thoughts which cause some of them much cognitive dissonance. They are not aware of it though that this makes their mind unstable and their faith in God shaky. Their mind can’t help their faith and so their faith has to stand alone by the Word of God to trust Him that He is good. But because their mind is not fully aligned with faith, doubts creep in and sometimes gets the best of them. As a result, some may veer towards more hyper-Calvinist ideas to be consistent with a logical mind, or they may develop a bad theodicy and come to the conclusion that God just does not care about them, or they might blame God for their situation and develop a grudge against Him and bitterness, or they may come to the conclusion that they are not one of the “elect,” since they cannot reconcile their suffering or situation with a “good” and “loving” God. As a result, some apostatize. Those are the dangers of the Calvinistic framework which they themselves are not aware of and why appealing to mystery is like putting a band-aid on a large bleeding laceration. It hinders their faith and keeps their faith from growing. The mind needs to unite with faith, not be divorced from it because of “mystery.” But the Calvinistic framework has no good solution for this.

(5) The next step of the framework is built upon their view of Original Sin and Total Depravity and their incorrect understanding of what it means to be spiritually dead. They do not realize that their presuppositions and imaginations are interpreting the text to define terms rather than having the text itself define those terms. As a result, their minds exaggerate the definition of what it means to be dead in sin, going beyond the Bible’s definition or situational context of the passage. They approach Scripture with their theological paradigm and see everything through those lenses. It is so engrained into the way they think that it is very difficult for them to think otherwise. But if Total Depravity falls, the rest of the framework has no good reason to stand anymore. Though, it is still possible to be an Arminian while still holding onto Total Depravity since they believe in Prevenient Grace. This should be presented as an option as all five points of TULIP are not a requirement in order to have a rational framework of salvation.

(6) The order of salvation and definition of faith is the next thing that should be understood. Calvinists believe that regeneration precedes faith and that one is born again in order to believe and cannot believe apart from God regenerating the heart. However, we believe that faith precedes regeneration and that faith is about receiving God’s gift of salvation and it is not a work, even as Paul always contrasts faith against works and does not put them in the same category. But this is a stumbling block for many Calvinists because they desire that God should receive all the glory and so they falsely assume that to receive a gift is some kind of work and a way to boast. They need to explain how salvation was achieved before the day of Pentecost and for Old Testament people since they did not have the regeneration of the Holy Spirit and His indwelling presence in order to make people believe. Their irrational arguments about boasting should be contradicted through Scripture and rational stories/examples which make their claims to appear as ridiculous as they are. The proof of the totality of Scripture’s order of salvation and abundance of Bible verses should be accepted over the few proof-texts they may use to support how they see the order.

(7) If a Calvinist is also a strong proponent of Lordship Salvation doctrine, that may be a stumbling block for them to accepting that faith precedes regeneration. But if that is the case, why did I put this logically after deconstructing the order of salvation rather than before? Because it is easier to accept the order of salvation biblically understood than it is to deconstruct Lordship Salvation. For this reason, accepting the possibility of faith preceding regeneration will make Lordship Salvation easier to deconstruct. But these two subjects are really intertwined because if the Calvinist believes or holds to any kind of wording that would suggest that turning from sin precedes faith, then of course, that is impossible to effectively do apart from new life in God. But if turning from sin prior to faith and new life is something they presuppositionally insert into this debate, then there will be problems with understanding each other and coming into agreement with what exactly precedes regeneration. Though, the Calvinist technically believes that God grants all of these all at once in a miraculous way. Which, to simplify it is basically God zapping a person all at once with faith, repentance, turning from sin, and giving them new life.

(8) Limited Atonement can be the next to go and Provisional Atonement needs to be provided as an alternative way of conceptualizing the atonement. If the Calvinist has deconstructed the other ones up to this point, Provisional Atonement may sound much more reasonable. Many non-Calvinists like to start with this one first to argue against but I would encourage them not to because the systematic framework would still be too strong for them to be convinced otherwise and Limited Atonement is only really there because of the other things that underpin it. But even at this point of deconstructing the things prior, I do not expect the Calvinist to accept Provisional Atonement just yet. But it is here in this order to prep the mind for deconstructing Unconditional Election but once that one is no longer held, then Provisional Atonement can easily be grabbed hold of. But regardless of that, a proper understanding of God’s character mostly needs to precede the acceptance of Provisional Atonement.

(9) If the previous doctrines of Total Depravity and the Order of Salvation have been deconstructed at this point, Irresistible Grace has no reason to be there. But this one is harder to deconstruct than the Order of Salvation and so that is why it is here on the list. There are a whole host of Bible verses and teachings that may be engrained into the mind when it comes to Irresistible Grace and so many things will have to be unlearned.

(10) Unconditional Election is last on the list because it is the hardest to deconstruct out of them all. It is built upon years and years of reading the Bible a certain way and of learning certain Calvinistic lingo and their specific definitions of “chosen,” “elect,” “predestination,” “call,” etc. There is a whole worldview inserted into every word with rational and emotional connections to every text that uses them. In addition, the texts that the Calvinists use to define their doctrine are so numerous because those words are everywhere throughout the Bible. Some of those texts are also very challenging to exegetically interpret and may require extensive biblical background knowledge to make sense of. It is something that requires rigorous disciple to study. To deconstruct the U of TULIP, it is helpful to understand all the various views about what election is first. Then develop an Old Testament understanding of election through diligent study. Then study the varying words that are used in the Greek. Then study how these certain words are used in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Then after this, approach some of the easier texts in the New Testament letters, and then once this whole theology is developed, interpret the more difficult texts.

(11) Deconstruction suggestions. Ask yourself: Who is chosen? An individual or a group of people? How are they chosen? What does it mean to be chosen? What are they chosen to? What purpose? To what end? Is it salvation? Service? Sanctification? Were they chosen before they were saved or after or corporately? How does the Bible define “salvation” and “adoption as sons”? Do not assume anything. Study. Study. Study. Read books and listen to audio regarding different views from source material so that you can free your mind from biased programming and patterns of thought that you have built up over all the years. This will help you to think more clearly and objectively. Next, do what you can to redefine certain words like, “chosen.” Make your own paraphrased new definition or several definition options and insert that definition in every time you see that word. If you don’t, your mind is going to get stuck on that word “chosen” because of your previous programming and you will not be able to think of it differently than how you have learned about it your whole life. It would be similar to seeing the sky as blue your whole life and calling it “blue.” But then you come to learn the sky is actually red and it has always been red but you just have never seen it that way. But in the next conversation you have with someone, you’re not going to say the sky is red because the sky is blue because that is the only thing you can see in your mind. Of course, I’m not actually saying the sky is red. That is just a theoretical example about taking the red pill.