We believe in the ongoing work of the Spirit in the life of the believer. We believe in the mystical (spiritual) union and communion between the believer and Christ. We say that it is but we cannot say how it is so. This quick list certain refutes the claim that Calvinism is arid, rationalist, sterile, and cold.

Mark Dever sent me a note the other day about Edward Taylor (1642–1729). Mea culpa but I’m not familiar with his work so I did did an online search and, of course, the first result was Wikipedia. On my way to the references to edited, published works I ran across this gem:

“To modern eyes,” noted Donald E. Stanford, the editor of Taylor’s major writings, “Calvinism is a grim theology, and partly because of its grimness, partly because of its internal inconsistencies (man cannot save himself yet should exert every effort to lead a good life and achieve saving faith), the kind of Calvinism in which Taylor believed gradually broke down.” ( Donald E. Stanford, The Poems of Edward Taylor (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1960), p. l.)

The caricature is the claim Calvinism teaches “man cannot save himself yet should exert every effort to lead a good life and achieve saving faith.” The first problem is how this writer is defining “Calvinism.” Like “puritan” and “evangelical” the definition sometimes seems remarkably elastic. If, however, we define “Calvinism” to mean “the system of theology taught by John Calvin and his orthodox successors” then the picture is a little clearer. Let’s assume that is what Stanford meant by Calvinism. Which Calvinist writer taught that the elect must “achieve saving faith”?

Now, it is true that Calvinism has always taught that man cannot save himself. It has always taught that God is sovereign and elects and reprobates in eternity. Most of the time it has taught that election is considered with the fall in view (infralapsarianism) and that, in reprobation, God leaves the reprobate in their freely chosen, fallen state. In infralapsarianism the decrees of election and reprobation are not strictly parallel. Election is unconditional and reprobation is conditioned by the fall.

Calvinism teaches that fallen sinners are quite unable to save themselves and that, apart from the unconditional, sovereign grace of God, they would remain dead in sin. It teaches that God freely gives new life (regenerates) those who are unable to raise themselves from the dead. It also teaches that faith is a free gift bestowed in or as a consequence of regeneration (awakening from spiritual death to spiritual life). In every version of Calvinism with which I am familiar, faith is said to be a gift, a grace not an achievement, not the result of human effort.

There were two ways for Stanford to have learned what Calvinism in the 16th and 17th centuries taught about faith as a gift.

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