You will want to read this. It’s a smoking gun.
Where did John Calvin derive his damnable heresies (which he and his followers disingenuously and slanderously label as “doctrines of grace”) of God planning and executing a desire to damn the vast majority of mankind to eternal hell—purposefully—and that this decision was made by him before the foundation of the world because his atonement was limited to a very select few, and that he was somehow glorified in creating men for the single purpose of casting them into eternal hell fire, and that his elect have no choice in the matter either since his grace is allegedly irresistible?
These foundational errors of Calvinism have their origins fully and without question in the faulty and heretical theology of Augustine.
But from whence did Augustine derive these errors, since in Scripture they are not found?
Did you know Augustine was steeped in pagan and gnostic religion?
Calvinism’s very roots, it’s very foundation, is not in Scripture, but in Augustines pagan religion of Manichaean Gnosticism and Stoicism, from whence the TULIP error flows.
To the shock of many Calvinists and Covenant Theologians, the roots of their doctrine have recently been traced and exposed as being of pagan and gnostic origins through the writings of the Surgeon, Dr. Ken Wilson's smoking-gun, The Foundation of Augustinian-Calvinism, which summarizes Dr. Wilson's "ground-breaking" doctoral thesis at the University of Oxford which was published by Mohr Siebeck in 2018, titled “Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to 'Non-free Free Will': A Comprehensive Methodology.” It is “ground-breaking” because he is the first to have pioneered Augustines' writings and theology in a finely-tuned chronological order. Wilson explores in his book, which is very technical in terms of its historical trajectory, a curious split between Augustine's early and later writings and shows how the ideas presented in Augustine's later writings became the foundation for modern Calvinist (Reformed) theology, also known as Augustinian-Calvinism, which happen to be the ideas of Manichaeism Gnosticism. He reveals how Augustine went from being a Manichean to a professing “Christian” and then reverting back to Manicheanism.
As sort of a disclaimer, I do not agree with everything that Wilson writes, and in particular I do not endorse or embrace any neo-evangelicalism he may embrace, or “church father” he may promote, but do believe, with strong evidence for my position [such as here, point #4], that many of them were heretics, like Augustine was, only of a different flavour with different errord. But that doesn’t mean they got absolutely everything wrong, just like Augustine didn’t get everything wrong — yes, false teachers get some things right as well.
Though that may come as a shock to Calvinists, it came as no shock to this writer. Why not? Because Calvinism is throughly and pathetically heretical, an ancient heresy that creeps into the collective minds of those looking for some new philosophy, and a latent eisegetical time bomb with massive corruption of God’s doctrine of salvation, and these heresies had to derive from some extraBiblical source. We also know that John Calvin was not original in his heresies — he learned everything he espoused from the horribly heretical Augustine of Hippo (345-430 A.D.), who having reached a place of great influence in the now official state church, almost seems to have behaved like an activated diabolical sleeper suddenly dumping (pun intended) a whole schema of teachings and practices that have done untold damage.
Who was Augustine?
Augustine was one of Roman Catholicism's original four "Doctors of the Church" (Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 2nd ed, s.v. "Augustine," p. 414). The Catholic Church during the Medieval period built its system of eschatology on Augustinian amillennialism, where Christ rules the earth spiritually through his triumphant church (Bloomberg 2006, p. 519), rather than the plain and clear scriptural teaching of a literal 1000-year earthly reign of Jesus Christ on earth (e.g. Rev 20:1-7).
Augustine's theology is heretical because it is based on three pagan deterministic philosophies: Gnosticism, Stoicism and Manicheanism. The Reformed/Calvinistic view does not go any further back within Christianity than Augustine, who took it from paganistic, gnostic false religion and philosophies which don't honour the God of the Bible but are syncretistic and nothing more. There are at least 50 or more early professing Christian’s who's writing still exist and can be accessed who taught the free will of man and not what Augustine taught in his later years. Much more importantly, none of the apostles, or prophets, or God the Son Himself taught Augustine’s heresy.
It comes thus as no surprise that Augustines teachings were littered with error, false doctrine and false practices. For instance, on top of what has already been mentioned, Augustine invented the heresy of ranking doctrine into “essentials and non essentials” which Calvinists/Reformers today practice religiously; Augustine propagated the heretical universal invisible church doctrine (rebutted here and here) which view was a way for the Protestants to explain how they could be saved but be outside of the Catholic denomination, which teachings Augustine used to combat the Baptists of his day (the Donatists, appearing as the Anabaptists/Baptists of his era), whom Augustine wanted numbered because they contended for a regenerate church membership which opposed his practice of allowing obviously ungodly, immoral, and unregenerate members within the Catholic fold; Augustine held that outside of the visible church there was no salvation; Augustine believed that the sacraments are the means of saving grace, that the Eucharist is necessary for salvation and that the sacrament of communion was a means of saving grace; Augustine “baptized” infants because baptism takes away their sin he claimed, a heretical false teaching that he was a father of; Augustine believed in an ancient heresy called Ransom Theory of Atonement, which heresy originated with Origen; Augustine was a ravening anti-semite, likening the Jewish people to Cain who murdered his own brother, writing that Jews were a “wicked sect” who should be subjected to permanent exile because of their evil ways (so no need to surmise where Luther learned his wicked anti-semitism); Augustine was a persecutor and the father of the doctrine of persecution in the Catholic Church, laying the foundation for the inquisition; Augustine was the father of amillennialism; Augustine taught that the Catholic Church is the supreme authority and the kingdom of God, and the new Israel (i.e. Replacement Theology); Augustine taught that Mary was sinless, that she did not commit sin, and promoted her “veneration” — that we would do well to worship her and pray to her or through her, believing that Mary plays a vital role in salvation; Augustine believed and promoted the utter Satanic myth of purgatory; Augustine embraced prayers for the dead; Augustine exalted the authority of the church and church tradition above the Bible; Augustine believed that the true interpretation of Scripture is derived from the declaration of church councils; Augustine interpreted the early chapters of Genesis figuratively; Augustine believed that God commands impossibilities (e.g. God requesting man to completely stop sinning, i.e. sinless perfectionism, which man obviously cannot do); Augustine accepted the doctrine of celibacy for “priests” on the basis that marital sexual intimacy is sinful; Augustine believed that the Apocrypha was inspired of God and thus to be included in the Scriptures (and where Calvinists and reformers today derive this heresy from); Augustine was the individual responsible for giving Catholics the official “saint” title; Augustine believed in the veneration of relics; Augustine taught the heresy of apostolic succession from Peter; Augustine taught “proxy salvation” in that someone else’s faith can save you (Wilson, p. 78); etc. More can be read on Augustine here.
Augustine’s determinism—continued on by Calvin—was widely known in the ancient world (Pagan beliefs of Stoicism, Neo-Platonism, Gnosticism, Manichaeism). Augustine had been deeply shaped by Stoicism, Neo-Platonism and had been a member of the Manichaean Gnostic cult for ten years before his alleged “conversion” and then later like the dog and pig (2 Pet 2:22), reverted back to his Gnostic roots and revised many of his earlier beliefs and writings, seemingly the result of his rivalrous battle with Pelagius and winning that battle at any cost (Wilson, The Foundation of Augustinian-Calvinism, p. 57). The Gnostics were early heretics in the church who attempted to combine Christianity with paganism, and that is from whence Augustine learned his determinism.
Augustines “Christian” ideas are founded upon "pagan sand,” and not only because of this heresy on determinism but also for all the other reasons mentioned above.
Below we will see where Augustine learned this heresy, and it wasn’t from the Word of God!
Augustine’s Syncretism of Christianity with Paganism and Gnosticism
Instead of battling against the heresies of Stoicism, Manichaeism, Neoplatonism and Gnosticism as many were in that day, Augustine synchronized them with Christianity. He formed one out of two, committing some serious spiritual adultery in the process, putting no “difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean;” (Lev 10:10), which is the product of unsaved heretics (Jam 4:4) and apostates (2 Pet 2:1).
Like many earlier theologians, Augustine held to a “libertarian free will” and a free choice in salvation in his earlier writings, which then later reverted to a pagan, “non-free Free Will,” or, as Wilson calls it, “divine unilateral determinism of eternal destinies.” (Wilson, The Foundation of Augustinian-Calvinism, p. 1). Augustine was a very confused heretic, not only because of his later beliefs and writings, but also prior to his belief in free will and free choice, he embraced a works gospel. Augustines progression in “salvation” is noted p. 91, of Wilson’s book. First, in the years 386-394 A.D. Augustine’s accepted “foreseen merit of works,” as his faith, and then second, during the years 395-411 A.D. Augustine’s affirmed “no foreseen merit of works but only God’s foreknowledge of faith alone,” and then third, during the years 412-430 A.D. Augustine would embrace his final systematic theology of “Divine unilateral predetermination of individual eternal destinies.”
Only one of these three positions is right or close to being true, the middle one, yet, in spite of the absolutely massive differences there was never at any point during these years a clear conversion testimony. It was all just a purely mental and intellectual assent of the natural man (1 Cor 2:14) who didn’t know the difference between clean and unclean, who was largely void of any true spiritual discernment (cf. 1 Cor 2:14-16).
Augustine reverted to his earlier “non-free Free Will” (p. 58) views in 412 A.D. noted in his conflict with Pelagius, and maybe because of it (ibid, p. 57). Augustines argument with Pelagius was based around infant baptism, something Augustine embraced and defended and something Pelagius challenged him on. Augustine concluded that infants were baptized “because of their inherent guilt (reatus) from Adam’s first sin.” (ibid, p. 58). Augustine admittedly relied upon the Manichaean concept of “total inability” in infants because of their inherent guilt, needing God’s unilateral choice for true freedom of the will (ibid, p. 59). Wilson quotes Ballock (1998), remarking that “Augustine admitted he had abandoned the centuries-old Christian doctrine of human free-choice” and then concludes, “Augustine now teaches, ‘God foreordains human wills . . . God gives the gift of perseverance to only a few baptized infants’” (ibid, p. 63). Augustine at this point now holds that “only those elect who believed in Christ had their sins forgiven” and not that Christ had died for everyone, as he earlier held (ibid, p. 66). Augustines had reverted back to a Manichaean interpretation of Scriptures, included the belief that “personal faith was no longer required” (ibid, p. 71). Other elements of Calvinism’s heretical TULIP noted in Augustines Manichaean interpretation of Scriptures included his belief that babies are born “with no ability to respond to God as grown adults.” (ibid, p. 77).
Augustinian-Calvinism is not a Biblical deduction, but rather formulated by an influence of “pagan syncretism.” (ibid, p. 2). The scholar Henry Chadwick observed that Augustine's contemporaries accused him of this Manichean influence:
“Julian bishop of Eclanum expressed that Augustine was causing trouble because he 'brought his Manichee ways of thinking into the church . . . and was denying St Paul's clear teaching that God wills all men to be saved’” (“The Early Christian Church,” p. 233).
To help understand the unBiblical nature of what Augustine held, it helps to understand the Pagan/Humanistic philosophies that he married to Christianity:
Stoicism is an ancient Greek school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century, which taught that virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge; the wise live in harmony with the divine Reason (also identified with Fate and Providence) that governs nature, and are indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune and to pleasure and pain. For Stoics, there was assumed freedom that was ultimately “hidden within a mere façade of free will.” (ibid, p. 7). An essential element of Stoicism is that “souls have neither free will” and “we are free to choose only what our corrupt will determines.” (ibid., pp. 82-83).
Neoplatonism is a strand of Platonic philosophical and religious system that emerged in the 3rd century A.D. and developed by the followers of Plotinus, against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a chain of thinkers though there are some ideas that are common to it, such as the monistic idea that all of reality can be derived from a single principle, "the One.” This philosophy held to the theory that numbers or other abstract objects are objective, timeless entities, independent of the physical world and of the symbols used to represent them. For Neoplatonists, a free choice meant that there is a need for the restoration “by divine infusion to restore the will.” (ibid., p. 9). For Platonists, “providence controls every minuscule cosmic detail; nevertheless, the One (God) provides limited freedom for some events and persons.” (ibid., pp. 83-84).
Gnosticism is a prominent heretical movement of the 2nd century, mixing Christianity and paganism. Gnostic doctrine taught that the world was created and ruled by a lesser divinity, the demiurge, and that Christ was an emissary of the remote supreme divine being, esoteric knowledge (gnosis) of whom enabled the redemption of the human spirit. For Gnostics, “all works are predestined, discipline and abstinence effect nothing, and the elect are saved by knowing that they are saved” (ibid, p. 12).
Manichaeism is a dualistic religious system with Christian, Gnostic, and pagan elements, founded in Persia in the 3rd century by Manes (c. 216–c. 276). The system was based on a supposed primeval conflict between light and darkness. It spread widely in the Roman Empire and in Asia, and survived in eastern Turkestan (Xinjiang) until the 13th century. For Manicheans, man’s “‘enslaved will’ cannot choose – it is damned until unilaterally released” by God’s own initiative only (ibid, p. 14).
Wilson writes, “Augustine’s later theology incorporated all of these pagan ideas” (ibid., p. 84). Wilson summarized all these pagan philosophies “requires the divine being to unilaterally awaken a ‘dead soul’ who then only can respond to the divine person” (ibid., p. 16), and they all “teach humanities ‘free will’ was destroyed or died,” and that all these presuppositions “micromanaging providence” merits those who are “elect and divine.” (ibid, pp. 17-18).
The Manichaeans had been highly influenced by a Gnostic named Valentinus. What did this man believe?
“Valentinus said saving faith comes from your spirit, if you are one of the chosen (men are born saved),[ xvi] and some are not predestined to be saved but are predestined for hell. The rest might be saved through works.[xvii] Only those whose spirits are an emanation from Sophia are predestined to be saved. All others are predestined to hell (double predestination),[xviii] and those predestined for salvation do not need to practice good works.[xix] . . . About AD 252, Manes formed a sect called the Manicheans. They mixed Christianity with Valentinian Gnosticism and other Persian elements. He stated his teaching came from Christ and the Persian Magi. Mani taught that there are two gods, one evil and one good.[xx] He taught Jesus came to reconcile man to Satan, the dark god,[ xxi] but Jesus did not undergo punishment on the cross.[ xxii] He said Satan is the god of Moses and the prophets.[xxiii] Man does not have free will,[ xxiv] and some are born with their nature totally depraved,[ xxv] while others are born nearly perfect.[xxvi] Mani said he was the Comforter (Paraclete) and also the “that which is perfect” of 1 Corinthians 13: 3. Mani taught that vegetarianism, marriage, and having children are sins, [xxvii] and that there was a purgatory for purifying souls.[ xxviii] The church listened to Manes and concluded that he was a heretic. Since Manes denied the Scriptural teaching of the free will of man, he could not be sinless and therefore not an emanation from God.” (Ken Johnson, The Gnostic Origins Of Calvinism, 198-228, Kindle Edition)
This is the very foundation of Manichaean Gnosticism, which happens to be the very foundation of Augustine’s determinism, which became the very foundation of Calvinism. You could say in Calvinism the Manichaean Gnosticism continues on. Since Augustine reverted back to this gnostic heresy, and thereafter penned his doctrines of determinism and anti-free will, the Manichean gnostic cult has entrenched its deadliest TULIP roots into Christianity itself to entwine and strangle true faith and true conversions, even though Manichaeism has formally disappeared as a cult.
The idiosyncratic concepts one finds in Calvinist arguments today are explicitly used by Stoics, Neo-Platonistists, Gnostics and Manichees:
“Free will” and determinism are internally consistent (various expressions of compatibilism).
“Regeneration” precedes any expression of repentant faith and conversion.
God does not love everyone, only His elect.
God is good even though he ordains and choreographs every expression of evil simply because God is good and cannot do evil (the implication being that God's ‘goodness’ is wholly other than human goodness).
Election is understood as God’s unilateral selection of a subset of humanity for salvation such that it is impossible for any of the non-elect to respond to God in a salvific way.
Monism: God unilaterally writes the script of how all creature reality will be expressed.
Whenever there are misrepresentations of God there are serious consequences — i.e., false doctrine (leaven leavening the whole lump) and multitudes misled to hell.
Predestination, that is the removal of the human dignity of eternal choices, should be cast into the sea whether from gnostic paganism, Islam, or Calvinism! The defence of a god who created people for the express purpose of dispatching them to hell "for his glory" must be disowned and discredited. Wilson’s work makes a great contribution to that end.
For an important read on this subject, see A Rebuttal of an Article on Calvinism's Doctrine of Election and Free Will - Part 1.
There is a general assumption by some Calvinist scholars that the TULIP system was evident in times pre-Augustine (90-400 A.D.) especially from notable scholar John Gill, but with Wilsons closer scrutiny of these earlier writers this assumption appears to falter (The scope of this report will not look at the merits of these supposed deduced concepts). And no early churches had any sort of unconditional predestination as a creed.
It has become plainly evident that Augustine did not derive his doctrines of determinism (election and predestination and anti-free will) from the Word of God, anyone that has any Biblical sense about them can see that, but from Paganism: Stoicism, Neo-Platonism, Gnosticism, and Manichaeism. Though there is plenty more of other heresies in their beliefs and practices, Luther and Calvin mistakenly believed that Augustine was reaffirming the determinism of Christian theologians before him when in reality he was introducing a pagan and—to that point at least—heretical construct into Christian theology (I suppose that one could argue that pagan philosophers and Gnostic and Manichaean heretics understood what no orthodox Christian did before Augustine in 412 A.D., which is that God had structured reality along monistic/ deterministic lines).
It was spiritual/demonic deception, as well as human ambition and scheming, that led Augustine to invent or imbibe or resurrect this “doctrines of devils” (1 Tim 4:1 — there's no other way to present it) called determinism, or predestination. The demonic influence explains the evil caricature of the god they present and the power they have to make intelligent people swallow incredible contradictions of the whole counsel of God, and seriously twisted or perverted interpretations of Scripture.
John Calvin’s Doctrines and Theology Originated with Augustine
Yes Calvinism began long before John Calvin showed up on the scene, and its origins can be traced right back to Augustine who held some very strange and gnostic theological views.
"John Calvin was part of a long line of thinkers who based their doctrine of predestination on the Augustinian interpretation of St. Paul" (Richard A. Muller, Christ and the Decree, p. 22)
John Calvin was one of Augustine's spiritual successors. Luther was another one. Both were thoroughly tainted by Augustine's poison. Calvin exclusively based his reformed theology on the deterministic heretical teachings of Augustine that led to a complete break with historic Christianity and Biblical Christianity and early Christian teachings on humanity's free will and how God predestined his elect via His foreknowledge without ever violating humanity's free choice and volition. Even the Calvinist scholar Richard W. Muller wrote in the article "Chance and providence in earliest Christianity,"
“In the tradition prior to Augustine’s letter to Simplician, Christian writers grounded God’s Sovereignty in God’s foreknowledge.”
Calvin learned this heresy from his great role model and mentor, Augustine. Most importantly, the teachings broke completely with what the Word of God so clearly teaches. Calvin so fully embraced Augustine and his teachings, that when asked about his absence of personal testimony, Calvin respond the only testimony he could’ve had was what he copied from Augustine:
“Augustine is so wholly with me, that if I wished to write a confession of my faith, I would do so with all fullness and satisfaction to myself out of his writings” (Calvin, “The Eternal Predestination of God").
By his own admission, Calvin in the 16th century derived his TULIP theology on the “sovereignty of God” from Augustine. Calvin said:
“If I were inclined to compile a whole volume from Augustine, I could easily show my readers, that I need no words but his” (Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book III, chap. 22).
It is thus unsurprising that majority Calvinists and those holding to Reformed theology have some very strange and un-biblical views when it comes to soteriology and eschatology and I fully believe that this is all the evidence one needs to understand their mostly unregenerate nature, though there is plenty more.
Read here for more…
Conclusion
The most prominent reasons for Augustine's modification of theology to ardent determinism, points to three key elements: “infant baptism, Stoicism, and Manicheanism.” (Wilson, p. 97).
The idea that Augustine adopted ideas from various pagan philosophies is nothing new.
L.H. Hackstaff in his introduction to “Saint Augustine: On Free Choice of the Will” writes:
“Indeed, it is not too great an exaggeration to say that Neo-Platonism provided Augustine and the Christian Platonists who followed him with the theoretical substructure on which their theology was built. It seems that Augustine never abandoned the Platonistic matrix of his Christian theology.”
No, Augustine had not matured and grown in his understanding of scripture when he started pushing determinism, for none of his beliefs on this subject are found in Scripture. They. Are. Absent. He regressed, not progressed. To reach Augustine’s conclusions, the Calvinists and Reformed Theologian must twist and wrest a lot of Scripture and interpret them privately, and then falsely divide the word of truth. Essentially he must bend the scriptures (or change the words or meaning of words) to say what he wants them to say, to support the heresies that he has embraced through Calvin and Augustines teachings. This is not only heresy, but its evil and an “error of the wicked” (2 Pet 3:16-17). But this is a trade they have learned well from their Master Calvin who learned it from his Master Augustine. For instance, concerning 1 Tim 2:4, Augustine changed the word God “will” to “provide an opportunity,” or as Wilson notes, God provides “different (unequal) opportunities" (p. 75). Augustine perverted the meanings of Jn 14:6 and 6:65, using “the Manichaean interpretations to prove his new total inability/incapability for human faith” (p. 76).
This report simply adds to all the other details on the “doctrines of devils” (1 Tim 4:1) within Calvinism and Reformed Theology, exposing more of the foundation for those heresies, and on its own wasn’t even required to verify that this is the case indeed. The evidence however is objective and compelling for the foundational errors of Calvinism having its origins in the heretical theology of Augustine, which was grounded in paganism. It was blatant heresy and paganism that prejudiced Augustine’s definitions and theology about God’s Sovereignty and his meaning of predestination, moving away from what the Bible clearly teaches. This report proves beyond any measure of doubt that Augustine was an unsaved heretic, an apostate, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and absolutely no truly born again believer would even for a second consider embracing this man and his heresies. Yet that is precisely what we see world-wide with the Reformed-Calvinists and that speaks volumes to the dead faith, lies and heresies they have embraced.
I believe Ken Wilson’s book is another important text that signals the death knell of Calvinism since any recalcitrant Calvinistic holdouts after reading this book (though clear rebuttals of the TULIP like here, should be more than sufficient) would have to be quite fanatical with likely unChristian behaviours resulting. I believe it is tragically sad that all Calvinists must come to realize they have been duped (or as Wilson says they have been "DUPIED," that is, they have been exposed to “Divine Unilateral Predestination of Individuals' Eternal Destinies” [p. 5]), though they wouldn’t have to be, if they would only cease to embrace man’s philosophies that contradict scripture, and they would cease being simple-minded (Pr 1:20-32; Rom 16:18) and love the truth of scripture (2 Th 2:10) so they might be converted (2 Th 2:13-14; Ac 20:21).
All the poor dupied Reformed Calvinists out there who are trying to keep their system going or discredit Wilson’s book (such as the utterly wicked heretic James White, who immediately went on the attack against Wilson's work), a scholar who is educated in Patristics and has a credible academic background from Oxford and Cambridge, and has done significant research for his thesis —because it undermines the Reformed view very conclusively, only rant from personal opinions and worldly philosophies (Col 2:8). But that is certainly not out of the ordinary, for this is how they practice their Hermeneutics on a regular basis, not actually believing or paying attention to what the Word of God says but instead reading their own preconceived and opinionated beliefs into the Scriptures—eisegesis—, together with learning their theology from an echo chamber, whereby they wittingly or unwittingly buttress the paganistic Manichaean, Gnosticism and Stoicism deterministic beliefs of Augustine.
Obviously I’m not claiming that every Calvinist/ Augustinian is a Gnostic, Stoic, or even Manichaean, nor is Wilson making any such claim in his book, and anyone pushing that argument is committing a logical fallacy, a red herring and straw man — but rather, showing the unBiblical, extraBiblical, Paganistic Neo-Platonic, Gnostic foundation of Augustines beliefs and systematic theology, and then the influence of Augustine on Calvinism and Reformed Theology, particularly on the TULIP theology, which is what every Calvinist/ Augustinian embraces. It is clear misrepresentation of plain facts when people attempt to show that there is a disparity between Augustine and Calvinism, something they attempt to do by looking at the earlier espoused ideas of this heretic. Many writers have done the opposite, that John Calvin was definitely influenced by Augustine’s later ideas. Of course the latter is obviously right.
Going into self-justification and denial mode won’t fare well for you. Don’t make it worse than what it already is. Repent and reject the heresy of Calvinism and embrace Biblical truth. This whole stream of teaching in Calvinism/ Covenant Theology has been granted far too much respect and credibility in my opinion, especially in light of this ground breaking concrete information, and its proponents are often quite, or extremely, slanderous, malicious and vicious in their condemnation of those opposing there heresies and perversion of Scripture. They also learned that behaviour from their spiritual mentors, Calvin and Luther, who had no qualms about murdering their opponents. Honestly, any objective assessment of its polluted and poisonous waters makes a clear case for including it under the banner of cults, and labelling it as apostasy, since that is precisely what occurred with Augustine and then Calvin kept the apostasy breathing.
“And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.” (Eph 5:11)
Those who truly love the truth and want to be conformed to the truth, considering that the saved are guided into all truth by the Spirit of God (Jn 16:13), will be open to correction of their false doctrine and error, and will not fight against the truth while frothing at the lips. They will forgo their pride and turn from it and humble themselves before Almighty God of truth Whom they profess to exalt with their “doctrines of grace” and repent sorrowfully to Him of promoting false doctrine and heresies concerning His character and His words and His doctrines (including His grace), followed by repentance before man, even publicly. Such evidence (2 Cor 7:11) will indicate that true repentance (2 Cor 7:10) actually took place:
“For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter.” (2 Cor 7:10-11)
Fin.