Calvinism's Incoherent Hypersensitivity Part II - Who Get's Credit?

Hypersensitivity is being overly sensitive about an issue.  It is being irrational and even incoherent over a topic.  That is exactly what Calvinism does on some issues that are vigorously tied to their doctrines.  Part 1 was about Calvinism's strange view regarding the Sovereignty of God and Part II has to do with God getting all the credit and man getting none.

#2: God Getting All The Credit and Man Getting None

Calvinists are ultra-hyper about man getting any credit at all when it comes to salvation. That man would receive credit for anything really bothers Calvinists.  Their strange idea that if man believes God he earns credit for his salvation seems to come out of nowhere. Calvinists maintain that if men are able to believe on their own then they have something to do with their own salvation.

The traditional Biblical view is that man does believe unto salvation but this does not give man any credit whatsoever.  Calvinists vehemently insist that man can get no credit whatsoever for salvation and if man could believe on his own, then man could boast that he had something to do with his salvation.

This is faulty thinking on many levels.  First, where does this concern come from because it is clearly not a stated issue in scripture?  I cannot think of a verse that addresses this except that man should boast only in the cross.  Apparently it is not a problem for God because scripture shows no sensitivity to it.  God is not in heaven fretting that he gets 100% of the credit.  God is simply not a narcissist but you might not know that if you believe in Calvinism.

I have been told by Calvinists that even if man's involvement is just .0001%, it is too much and that God just can't have that!  I find this ludicrous on many accounts.  First, what if God wanted man to get a little credit?  I am not saying that God does want man to have credit but what if he did? Apparently Calvinists don't believe that God can do what he desires if it disagrees with their premises.

The other problem is the whole notion that man can get credit for believing in God in the first place. I don't understand the Calvinist reasoning that man's believing in Christ would give him credit.  The whole idea that this is a problem is ridiculous and is simply foreign to scripture.      

Who Get's It?

Scripture does not state that man gets credit for believing in Christ and his completed work of salvation.  Nor does it state that if man could believe on his own, then he could take credit for his salvation.  Why should he? How anyone can conjure up the idea that man believing in God would somehow make him worthy of praise is silly.  The Bible does not assert this idea at all.  The source of this sensitivity is simply what I refer to as "reformed philosophy" springing from the Reformation's fathers, Martin Luther and John Calvin.

But even as philosophy, it is remarkably incoherent.  Does anyone who believes in anything get credit for earning something simply by believing?  Imagine a fan taking credit because he believed his team won the super bowl after they won it.  Would that fan get any kind of credit because he believed his favorite team won the Super Bowl? Would he be able to boast he won the game by believing his team had won?  Of course not. What a ridiculous notion!  The actual players on the team that won would get all the credit.

Or consider a man being notified that he has inherited a fortune from a rich uncle.  Does his act of going to the bank to sign some papers to receive the fortune allow him to boast that he earned it?  Of course not!  He did nothing to earn it and no person observing his windfall would give him praise for simply receiving what was now his by no effort of his own. Receiving the inheritance doesn't allow him to boast in anything.  What does believing in anything have to do with getting praise for believing in the thing in the first place?
                                                                                                                                     

The only thing man does is receive the gift of salvation and eternal life.
Does receiving a gift that was fully earned mean that one gets praise for it? No.

Consider a man who takes a trip in his boat into the ocean and falls overboard.  Then a fellow boater comes along and throws him a line that will save him and the man grabs it.  Does grabbing the life-saving device allow the man to brag he saved himself? Certainly not!  The man who threw the life-saving device gets all the credit because he did the work of saving.  Would anyone ever give credit to the guy who fell in?  Of course not.  Yet, this is what Calvinism often teaches about man believing in God.                            

The Bible does not ever convey the idea that having faith brings undue credit to the one who displayed faith.  The fact is that Jesus acknowledged faith when he saw it and he was always pleased with it. The fact is that  Hebrews 11 commends many for doing things by faith.  While the Bible shows no apprehension about man getting credit for believing, it does communicate that it pleases God when men do believe.  If God is pleased by man believing, why would anyone worry if it is a work or not?

It should be noted that there is a difference between work unto salvation and salvation by works. This is a major distinction that causes Calvinists much confusion.   Jesus actually told the crowd in John 6 to work for salvation by believing:

Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.  John 6:26-27

However Romans 4:1-3 compares Abraham's faith with obtaining salvation by the performing works of the law:

What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, discovered in this matter? If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

The passage above clearly states that Abraham's believing was not considered works because it contrasts being justified by the works of the law with believing.  Believing God is not considered "works".  Abraham did not get credit for believing but his believing God was credited to him as righteousness.

It is troublesome that Calvinism's hyper-sensitivity regarding man getting any credit actually seems to equate Christ's work at the cross with the simple God-given call to believe in Jesus?  They diminish Christ's work at the cross by insisting that man's believing is somehow equal to Christ's work.

If one really believed that Jesus completed the work of salvation then what could man ever do to get credit if it is already done.  Did Jesus complete his finished work of salvation for man?  Yes.  Then how could man ever add to that work?  He can't!  To say that man can do something to add to  

Only He Could Do This Work!

Christ's completed work is a horrendous notion and is straight from hell.              

Jesus did the work and our only part is believing. Does believing substantiate any equality with Christ's completed work?  NO!  To equate man having faith in Jesus with Christ's completed work is actually a work of cheapening Christ's completed work and yet Calvinism infers this very idea.  Believing is a RESPONSE, not a work.

How could anyone say that receiving the gift of salvation is equal to Christ taking on our sin and punishment? Who can say that faith in Christ is equal of Christ rising from the grave?  They can't!  I get a bit offended when I hear the way Calvinists demean Christ's completed work by saying that if man can believe on his own, he gets some kind of credit for his salvation simply by his believing. This is a ludicrous accusation with no merit in either reason or scripture.

Lastly, what intrigues me most about this issue is the absolute hypocrisy of this hypersensitivity by Calvinists.  While men do believe, I have never heard anyone in any setting boast that they should get credit, praise or validation by simply believing in God. In forty plus years of walking as a Christian I have never heard anyone actually bragging that they believed in God.  The fact is that God wants us to confess with our mouth what God did and that we do believe in his offer of salvation.  This pleases God and gives him glory!

The Calvinist hypocrisy is that Calvinists openly brag and boast that they are "chosen" by God.  It goes something like this:

"I am so blessed because God chose me to be saved." or "I am so happy that I was chosen by God."

In fact, the only kind of boasting I ever hear is this kind of boasting.
I have heard Calvinists boasting profusely in their so-called election to salvation.  One Calvinist tweeted to me that he "was God's favorite" because he was "chosen".  Talk about boasting! The Bible does caution us against boasting in anything but the cross. The only boasting I ever hear comes from Calvinists bragging about how they are the "chosen" ones.

There is no reason for Calvinists to be so hyper about the things I described above except that they may do so out of desperation to give their doctrines some kind of traction.  We should all be concerned about hyper Calvinism and its extreme claims. Let's not be afraid to expose it!

Darrell Brantingham

(Check out my pithy tweets on my Twitter account @confrontcalvin)