I don’t understand Reformed theology. I’ve considered it, but I don’t understand it. For one thing, it contains contradictory premises. It teaches that God does not coerce Man’s will, and thus Man has free will—yet it also teaches that Man is unable to choose to believe in Christ; rather, God must first claim a man for Himself before that man may choose Him.

As I understand from Reformed articles I’ve read, and Reformed people I’ve talked to, this contradiction is explained away as being one of those things we’ll just never understand. Thus I find in one article, side-by-side, the statements:

GOD never forces men to act against their wills.

and

When by the Spirit a mind understands essential truths, by the same Spirit the will must trust Christ. [emphasis mine]

If Man is unable to choose God before God chooses him, then why does Jesus lament:

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings and you would not !'” [italics mine] ?

If Man can’t come to God unless God calls him, then why Jesus’ cry? Apparently He chose not to call Jerusalem, and that’s all there was to it.

Yet this article uses these verses as an example of Man’s refusal to come to Christ. How can anyone respond if he is not called? And how can God complain of Man not coming if He will not call him?

The doctrine of Irresistible Grace is at odds with such passages as the above.

Another necessary corollary of Reformed theology is that God solely determines who will go to heaven, and who to Hell. Since He alone can “quicken” Man’s heart so that Man must (not may) choose God, He therefore chooses to save some people, and chooses to condemn others to Hell—and where they end up is not contingent on their choice at all, insofar as they may only choose what He has already chosen for them—hardly an exercise of will at all, unless it be “programmed” and not “free” will.

Calvin himself said "Predestination we call the eternal decree of God, by which He has determined in Himself, what would have to become of every individual of mankind. For they are not all created with a similar destiny; but eternal life is foreordained for some and eternal death for others. Every man, therefore, being created for one or the other of these ends, we say he is predestinated either to life or to death."

If Man is “predestined either to life or to death”, then surely Reformed theologians cannot speak of “free will”! There is no free will where Man’s destiny is determined at his very creation.

Rather than believe Calvin’s interpretation of scripture, or Luther’s, or anyone else’s, I choose to go to the Bible itself, which states clearly

“God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

If God is not willing that any should perish (and the word “any” in Greek literally means “any”, just as the word “world” in “For God so loved the world” means “everyone”), then He did not create some for eternal life and some for eternal death. Likewise, if God is not willing that any perish (i.e. He doesn't want anyone to end up in Hell), and yet some people will end up there, then it is of their own volition, not God's.

So whom do you want to believe? God or Calvin?