Picking just one point

From the page quoted below.

5. "P" = PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS - The Calvinists believed that salvation is entirely the work of the Lord, and that man has absolutely nothing to do with the process. The saints will persevere because God will see to it that He will finish the work He has begun. (Smith's pamphlet)

The Bible teaches this...

We might get the impression that we can lose our salvation (fall from grace) when looking at the following isolated verse:

Galatians 5:4 "Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace."

But then when we look at the verse that immediately follows, we get additional information regarding what Paul was talking about:

Galatians 5:5 "For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith"

Paul is saying here in Galatians that salvation (i.e. Christ's righteousness) is received by faith, not by the works of the law. His point is not that we can fall from grace. He is telling the Galatians that they are missing the whole meaning of grace if they think they are justified by the law. In fact, this point is the main reason for him writing the epistle to the Galatians. The Greek word for 'fallen' is 'ekpipto' which means "to be driven out of one's course". So the Galatians were falling off course with respect to their understanding of the Gospel of grace. So was Paul telling the Galatians they were in danger of losing their salvation? Not in view of 2 Timothy 1:9, Jude 1:24, and other verses mentioned above, and we are not at liberty to ignore these other verses.

Once again, the author of the page does not deny the characterization by Smith of what Calvinists believe. He provides proof texts and arguments to back up the position. As much as it pains me to write this, it appears that Smith does not misrepresent Calvinism and that he has a valid critique. There are a lot of ways of going at this point.

Let's try and follow the Galatians 5 argument though and see if the critic makes the point he is trying to make.

Smith lists Gal 5:4 as evidence that someone can fall from grace. The author of the paper accuses Smith of ignoring the following verse which asserts that righteousness comes from faith. But exactly what bearing does that have on Paul's (or Smith's) point? Paul appears to be talking about someone who has ceased to be in faith and as a result lost their salvation. Smith's paradigm takes this into account. The Calvinist's paradigm can't deal with this as anything other than an impossible scenario. Hence, all of these sorts of warnings on Scripture are all hypothetical but empty threats since a person given the gift of faith can never lose that gift (according to the Calvinist).

But, that's nothing more than begging the question that they seek to prove. For the Calvinist, there can be no proof texts of losing salvation since salvation can't be lost. Once again Calvinism shows itself to be completely circular. The five points cohere together logically but only in relation to each other. At every Scriptural test they falter.

In this case it is because to a Calvinist faith is not something we possess but something that is itself completely foreign to us and completely a gift of God without any part of our own. God is loving God through us since, to the Calvinist, we are completely incapable of loving God on our own. Ignoring the narcissistic aspects of that sort of love, it completely empties a human person of any of the image of God which to the Calvinist has to be completely obliterated in God's creation. God is incapable, in Calvinism, of creating beings who are capable of loving Him on their own so they have to be altered individually by God to love God. Being born again takes on a radical meaning in such a system.

Now that's an interesting system, and it is certainly internally consistent, but it makes a mockery of God's creative skills and reduces Him to not much more than a playground bully who always wins by force.