A Dilemma for Calvinists

‘Are Calvinists Unloving? Does Calvinism Hurt Evangelism?

I once talked to a girl at a Festival in Nashville TN. She heard my open air preaching, saw me rebuking sin, and she didn’t think that my open air preaching was loving.

But after talking to her I found out she was a Calvinist. So I asked her, “Do you want everyone to repent, believe, and saved?” She didn’t know how to answer, since Calvinism teaches that God does not want everyone to repent, believe, and be saved. I pressed her and she finally answered, “I want everyone to be saved that God wants to be saved.”

I said, “So you don’t want everyone to repent, believe, and saved. See, you are not loving your neighbor as yourself. Obviously you want yourself to be saved, but this you do not want for everyone else. And yet you say that I am not loving?? At least I am preaching because I want everyone to be saved! I am urging everyone to repentance and I am preaching that Jesus Christ died for all men. You are the one that is not loving, not I.

This shows the dilemma that Calvinists are in. On the one hand, the Bible says that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. On the other hand, the Bible says that we are to be imitators of God. Well, if we do the one we cannot do the other, granted Calvinism. If we imitate God, we cannot want everyone to be saved. But if we love our neighbors as ourselves, we will want everyone to be saved. So if we fulfill our one obligation we necessarily violate the other, if Calvinism were true.’

source: Jesse Morrell, “A Dilemma for Calvinists” (biblicaltruthresources).