The relation of divine sovereignty to human responsibility is one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith. It is plain from Scripture in any case that both are real and that both are important. Calvinistic theology is known for its emphasis on divine sovereignty – for its view that God “works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will” (Eph. 1:11). But in Calvinism there is at least an equal emphasis upon human responsibility. (John Frame, Apologetics to the Glory of God, p. 14)

I open with this quote because, first, John Frame is a well-known Calvinist, and second, because he accurately describes here the mysterious interaction between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility in salvation. Recently, I placed as the tenth on my list of things I wish would change among Independent Baptists, “overstated anti-Calvinism.” In my explanation of that objection, I said that quite often, in their haste to refute Calvinists, many Independent Baptists caricature Calvinism. In response to that article, some friends asked me to explain my objections to Calvinism, which resulted in an initial post in which I objected to the way Calvinists tend to blur the paradox between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility in their presentation of the gospel. Now, I want to raise before you the primary proof that in Calvinism, this paradox is either blurred or ignored.

The TULIP does not account for man’s responsibility at all. Period. It gives no consideration to man’s responsibility, and nothing in it would give anyone the idea that man is responsible before God to repent and believe the gospel. If a person learning the TULIP were to take that as the summary of Christian doctrine, they would conclude that man has no part in God’s plan for our salvation other than to wait and hope that God might save him. The TULIP is an effective mnemonic device, for sure. But as far as a summary of Christian doctrine, it falls woefully short. One could argue that the TULIP only gives one side of the coin – later, I will contend that it also goes beyond Scripture in its attempt to describe God’s sovereignty in salvation. But supposing that the TULIP does give one half of the truth, half the truth is not the truth.

Consider what the TULIP essentially declares – you can find a more thorough comparison of the five points of Calvinism and Arminianism here. The “T” stands for “Total Depravity” (or Total Inability) and declares that man is totally incapable of coming to faith in Christ unless God brings the dead sinner to life. The “U” stands for “Unconditional Election,” declaring that God chooses men for salvation based on His own free grace without considering man’s foreseen response or obedience to the gospel. The “L” stands for “Limited Atonement” (some prefer “particular redemption”), which says that Christ’s blood was shed only for the elect. The “I” stands for “Irresistible Grace” and states that the internal call to salvation is issued only to the elect and always results in conversion. The “P” stands for “Perseverance of the saints” and declares that “All who are chosen by God, redeemed by Christ, and given faith by the Spirit are eternally saved. They are kept in faith by the power of Almighty God and thus persevere to the end.”

In the past fifty to one hundred years, the TULIP has become Calvinism in the minds of many – including many of the fad-Calvinists of our day. I have already mentioned that my purpose in these articles is not to dig into all the nuances of Calvinism but instead, to deal with what I see as “pop” Calvinism – the kind of Calvinism that the cool kids are embracing all over the evangelical world and that Charles Spurgeon might have preached a sermon against, had he witnessed it.

For pop Calvinism, the TULIP is Calvinism. It shouldn’t be. In this article, Kenneth Stewart has done a stellar job laying out the history of the use of the TULIP and has demonstrated that this is a fairly recent phenomenon. As Kenneth Stewart points out in the article cited above,

Late twentieth and early twenty-first century advocates of five-point Calvinism – whether of the ‘sovereign grace’ or ‘apologetic’ school – have been wedded to the TULIP formula since at least 1932 in a way uncharacteristic of Calvinists of any earlier era. Even those who have felt that the acronym could be improved upon have done their fine-tuning of it wearing ‘kid gloves’ as it were, so anxious were they to avoid the appearance of violating a time-honored and venerable formula. As the acronym is apparently no older than the early twentieth century, we must ask ourselves what the pervasive use of this acronym says about those who utilize it. At very least, this use suggests that they have not understood their own past very well. At worst, it may mean that they have willingly consented to take a very loose rendering of the theology of Dordt in place of the actuality.

In fact, Stewart speaks out boldly against this very problem a few paragraphs later.

To be fair, we have not often enough heeded the cautions of those twentieth-century writers who, while embracing or alluding to the TULIP framework, have themselves cautioned us not to equate the acronym – or even the doctrines summarized by the acronym – with the Reformed theology itself. Boettner himself judiciously warned, early in the twentieth century against ‘a too close identification of the Five Points and the Calvinist system’. Palmer, in 1972, made essentially the same point when he began by writing, ‘Calvinism does not have five points and neither is Calvin the author of the five points’. Packer, while not endorsing the acronym, gave out similar cautions in 1959: ‘It would not be correct simply to equate Calvinism with the five points’, and ‘the five points present Calvinistic soteriology in a negative and polemical form’. Our failure to heed such cautions and our still-current tendency to revel in this acronym (however fine-tuned) may indicate that the Calvinism of our age has a vehement, belligerent streak in it. Earlier ages than our own were capable of distinguishing between a Calvinism that was sound and Calvinism that was vulgar, between a Calvinism that was sober-minded and one which was extravagant. Spurgeon, for example, insisted that with regard to the hyper-Calvinists of his day, he ‘differed from them in what they do not believe’. He maintained that distinctions between distinguishable Calvinist emphases were necessary. Just as a navigational compass, in addition to having North, South, East and West also had ‘a Northeast and a Northwest’, so there were expressions of Calvinism which had shifted from its true bearings. If such a readiness to make doctrinal distinctions has been lost, the modern Calvinist movement is the poorer for it.

I agree with Stewart and others who insist the TULIP itself is too breezy about the gospel while being held too rigidly by those who profess Calvinism. The TULIP doesn’t give a fair or accurate summary of the gospel or of Christian doctrine but is often treated as if it were the gospel. The TULIP doesn’t even accurately represent Calvinism. So, I want to argue against the overreliance on the TULIP common amongst Calvinists, against the commonly uncritical embrace of the TULIP, and (in a later post) against the incompleteness and mischaracterization of the gospel as summarized in the TULIP.

Many have an overreliance on the TULIP.

I mean this both as an expression of Calvinism, which goes far beyond the subject matter dealt with in the TULIP, and as an adequate summary of the gospel. As I said in an earlier post, I don’t believe we have any debate with Calvinists about the nature and attributes of God or the substance of the gospel (as established by Paul in I Corinthians 15:3-4). The Calvinist/Arminian debate is over the application of the gospel to the sinner. And in that sense, the TULIP does a gross disservice to the work of evangelism. It seems to minimize man’s responsibility so much that many who see the TULIP as Calvinism proper are confused into thinking there is nothing for man to do. I see this as the primary reason many Independent Baptists conflate hyper-Calvinism with Calvinism and why many believe that Calvinism teaches against evangelism. One must look outside the TULIP to learn what a Calvinist believes about man’s responsibility.

For this reason alone, Calvinists should be a little more reluctant to proclaim it as if it were the summary of the gospel. I suppose that a part of my objection here is to the sometimes smug reliance on the TULIP as if it captured all that the Bible says about how men come to faith in Christ. It certainly does not. Does it effectively express God’s sovereignty in saving sinners? I would argue that the TULIP is like looking through a straw. It certainly narrows one’s focus, but it doesn’t help you to see the big picture. And the Bible gives the big picture – the whole picture – in its emphasis on man’s response to the gospel.

The TULIP is often embraced uncritically.

I might be unusual, especially amongst Independent Baptists, in that I see a great value in the historic church’s councils, creeds, and confessions. They give us a record of the orthodox faith and help us know that what we believe isn’t untethered from historic Christianity while providing us with standards for Christian doctrine. But I would also argue against an uncritical embrace of any historic creed or confession. To embrace any of these uncritically is to place them on the same level as Scripture.  

And yet, it is hard to find any critical interaction with the TULIP from Calvinists. Sure, some of the more popular Calvinists have offered modifications of the major points. RC Sproul in his book Chosen By God recommends changing the “T” to “R” as in “Radical Corruption,” The “U” to “S” as in “Sovereign Election,” keeps the “L” (though he mentions Roger Nicole’s Definite Atonement, the “I” to “E” as in “Effectual Grace,” and change the “P” from “Perseverance” to “Preservation of the Saints.” Douglas Wilson, who might be the most effective evangelist for Calvinism in the past 100 years, modifies a little less than Sproul. In his book Easy Chairs Hard Words, Wilson changes “Total Depravity” to “Total Inability,” doesn’t modify “Unconditional Election” at all, changes “Limited Atonement” to “Definite Atonement,” doesn’t seem to modify “Irresistible Grace,” and, like Sproul, prefers “Preservation” to “Perseverance of the Saints.” At the least, I’m glad these men don’t treat the TULIP as if it were canon.

In these two popular apologists for Calvinism, there is a willingness to acknowledge the imperfections in the TULIP itself. And both Wilson and Sproul give something much closer to a full-throated presentation of Calvinist doctrine. They thoroughly treat man’s responsibility in salvation. But I don’t see either of them pointing out what is obviously lacking in the TULIP itself, which is the way it breezes past man’s responsibility to repent and believe without so much as an honorable mention. In other words, they are fine with making slight modifications to the acronym but ignore the most serious failure of the TULIP.

And the problem is much worse when discussing Calvinism with many rank-and-file Calvinists. There almost seems to be an idea that (as I have argued already) the TULIP perfectly encapsulates Christian doctrine. Personally, I would be happy to see this acrostic fade into oblivion. I believe it has resulted in laziness on both sides of this debate. On the side of Calvinists, this laziness shows up in an uncritical embrace of the TULIP as if it were the gospel. On the anti-Calvinist side, there is an unwillingness to look beyond the TULIP to understand what Calvinism actually teaches. Instead of championing the TULIP, I would love to see more focus on the work of presenting a thoroughly Scriptural doctrine of how a person comes to faith in Christ – which, ultimately, is the heart of this debate.

In my next installment, I will attempt to point out what I see as a mischaracterization of the gospel in the TULIP itself.