A Summary of Calvinism
A sovereign, all-powerful God in eternity before time planned how he would create a being almost as smart and powerful as himself, for the purpose of overthrowing him to prove God greater.
To ensure this, he willed and caused this being to rebel against his authority, to deliberately entice God’s favourite and particular creation to also rebel and reject God’s favour, beginning a struggle that would span all time, and end with an eternity of men in perpetual, relentless torment as the condemnation for their rebellion. He purposed and caused not only the rebellion of the first being, but also that of his particular creation, man, and the concurrent destructive effect on both the function and character of all the rest of his creation.
To show himself merciful and gracious, he would not leave all creation doomed to destruction, nor all men to eternal torment. He also planned from the beginning a means of saving some men from this eternal fate, by which means they would also love him for saving them. They would recognize his mercy and grace not only because he took them from the inevitable doom of hell to which all their fellows remained consigned, but he would show himself loving by making personal sacrifice in order to satisfy his will that men must be punished for their sins by death. He would make a body for himself to inhabit, demonstrate that in his power, flesh can live sinlessly, tell men that he wants them to do so, trusting him to save them, and then allow his flesh to be put to death with no mercy, as a substitute for the eternal death of those men he would save.
To ensure the outcome, he chose certain men down through the generations, whom he would cause to meet and know him, and divinely cause them to choose to respond to his demonstration of mercy by trusting him to save them from death, being made to recognize and acknowledge themselves to be hopeless sinners, condemned to hell by their total inability to do otherwise for themselves. He would call this response “faith”, and would cause these ones to live a life of actions that reflect that they are different because he chose them, and to reflect their recognition of his love as demonstrated by his favour toward them in saving them from hell, which favour is no response to any attribute of their own, but a certain random application of his grace to each of them particularly.
When every generation he has appointed thus to live has passed, he will ultimately exercise his condemnation on both the original powerful being, and all men not chosen to be saved. As he predetermined from eternity before time, he will count them guilty for their rebellion and failure to recognize his sovereignty and godhead, as well as their failure to live according to his standard of goodness. He will resurrect all men, rewarding those he chose with a wonderful eternity of paradise in his company, in a new heavens and new earth, created this time without the presence or consequences of sin. All others, along with the being and his companions, will be confined to burning torment for all eternity, to reward them for their sins.
Like the men of all previous generations were created incapable of righteousness, the chosen will be resurrected incapable of sin. They will recognize and receive the benignant favour of this God in saving them from his wrath and preserving them safe in his eternal presence.
All of this is his express will, ensured by his causation, to work his particular purpose of demonstrating his own attributes from the beginning.
“And God saw every thing that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” Gen 1:31
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