Volumes of books, articles, and commentaries have been written over hundreds of years relating to Calvinism and Arminianism.  The details of both ascend to higher layers of  monergism and synergism  and also descend into many sub layers of topics which introduce more questions that need to be answered. For instance:

  • The means by which God’s purposes are accomplished: secondary causes or secondary means
  • election ambiguity: appropriate only after one is saved by Christ  or applies at all time regarding divine nature or decrees

It is practically impossible to grasp and maintain the knowledge of all the details associated with predestination and election.  Only the most eager and ambitious of intellectual thinkers attempt to climb this mountain of complex, inter-related parts.  No one ever reaches the top, though some will think they have, deceiving themselves in the process.

Isaiah 55:8-9:
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

It ends up being a slippery slope reserved for the proud and arrogant because they will not accept their own limitations and thus formulate human reasonings about the intentions of God not expressed in the Scriptures.  This quest is doomed since they proceed without the help of the Holy Ghost Who has finished the revelation of God by exposing the “deep things of God” through the Scriptures to believers:

1 Corinthians 2:10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.

No matter, men have a fleshly propensity to hear what they want to hear when the Scriptures are not sufficient for them anymore and their faith deviates from the Truth.

2 Timothy 4:3 For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear.

Here is an incomplete list of the questions that these man-made doctrines (Calvinism, Arminianism) introduce:

  1. Who gets saved and who gets damned?
  2. Did Christ die for everyone or just the ones that get saved?
  3. Can a true believer lose his salvation if he turns away from God?
  4. Do we need to live a holy life to get to heaven?
  5. Who is responsible for our final destination: God, man, or man cooperating with God?
  6. What part do the covenants of God play into determining our final destination?
  7. Does man have free will?
  8. How does God’s foreknowledge of man’s destiny work with the events and circumstances and natures of men throughout history?
  9. Who created sin or who is the author of sin?
  10. Does God permit evil or does He create evil?

The problem is that we are asking questions that we should not be asking.  We are not content with not knowing some of the deep things of God that have not been revealed through the Scriptures.  And we resist the instruction of God in this matter:

Romans 10: 6-10
6 But the righteousness which is of faith speaks like this, Say not in your heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:)
7 Or, Who shall descend into the hell? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)
8 But what does it say? The word is close to you, even in your mouth, and in your heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;
9 That if you shall confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and shall believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.
10 For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
11 For the scripture says, Whosoever believes on him shall not be ashamed.

The salvation experience is a mystery of the Spirit.

John 3:8  The wind blows where it will, and you hear the sound of it, but you cannot tell from where it comes and where it goes: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.