Calvinism and Abortion

[Bible Highlighter]

*Edit*: This post is not meant to accuse or insult calvinists, this is just a question I had. I am also not saying all calvinists are west-borrow. I attend a reformed church myself! Please stop being so sensitive!

As I was thinking on total depravity and the west-borrow baptist church(calvinist extremists), I had this thought about calvinism taken to its logical end. What are your thoughts on this?

A calvinist would say that God hates sin and the sinner(hence Limited Atonement):

“The LORD tests the righteous, But the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates.”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭11:5‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

And we glorify God in His holiness and judgement of sin. So lets take this to its logical extreme:

“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭51:5‬ ‭NKJV‬‬


So how does a calvinist take issue with abortion? If an infant has sinful nature at conception, and dies in the womb, shouldnt the calvinist glorify God for punishing the sinner? Shouldnt calvinists glorify abortion because God is judging sinners?

""We may rest assured that God would never have suffered any infants to be slain except those who were already damned and predestined for eternal death." - John Calvin, Harmony of the Law, Vol 2, "Judicial Supplements", Comments on Deut ch 13.

First, my apologies for taking your thread off topic involving John 6:45-45. My intention was to briefly refute Calvinism's use of this passage as a prooftext for Calvinism, but it got out of hand.

Second, I was not aware that the Westboro Baptist Church supported Calvinism. I double confirmed this truth via Wikipedia. So thank you for sharing that tid bit of info.

Three, there are Calvinists who have a varying degree of different beliefs on the destiny of babies who die.

1. Some believe they all go to hell.
2. Some believe that some are elect and are saved, and others are elected to damnation.
3. Some believe that all babies go to Heaven.

The Scriptures say that GOD takes no pleasure in the destruction of the wicked (See: Ezekiel 33:11).
If we see a Calvinist (or any believer for that matter) rejoicing over the death of baby, we would should rebuke them with this verse.

Anyways, I hope that what I said helps;
And may God's good ways be upon you today.

 

[Humble_Disciple]

So how does a calvinist take issue with abortion? If an infant has sinful nature at conception, and dies in the womb, shouldnt the calvinist glorify God for punishing the sinner? Shouldnt calvinists glorify abortion because God is judging sinners?

John Calvin was vehemently opposed to abortion:

“The fetus,” Calvin wrote in a commentary on Exodus 21:22, “though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being, and it is almost a monstrous crime to rob it of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy.

“If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man’s house is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light,” Calvin wrote.

In commenting on Psalm 139:16, Calvin spoke of “God’s having known” the “embryo” when “he was yet a shapeless mass” in the womb…

Luther apparently never addressed abortion directly, but he “reportedly maintained that a rational soul animated the fetus right from conception,” Muller wrote. That view “enjoyed great popularity among the Lutherans.”
Reformers' pro-life views recounted | Baptist Press

 

[Zachm531]

John Calvin was vehemently opposed to abortion:

Thanks for your response. To say “John Calvin was vehemently opposed to abortion” does not answer the question posed. The question was about the logical consistency of the position.

 

[Mark Quayle]

*Edit*: This post is not meant to accuse or insult calvinists, this is just a question I had. I am also not saying all calvinists are west-borrow. I attend a reformed church myself! Please stop being so sensitive!

As I was thinking on total depravity and the west-borrow baptist church(calvinist extremists), I had this thought about calvinism taken to its logical end. What are your thoughts on this?

A calvinist would say that God hates sin and the sinner(hence Limited Atonement):

“The LORD tests the righteous, But the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates.”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭11:5‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

And we glorify God in His holiness and judgement of sin. So lets take this to its logical extreme:

“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭51:5‬ ‭NKJV‬‬


So how does a calvinist take issue with abortion? If an infant has sinful nature at conception, and dies in the womb, shouldnt the calvinist glorify God for punishing the sinner? Shouldnt calvinists glorify abortion because God is judging sinners?

""We may rest assured that God would never have suffered any infants to be slain except those who were already damned and predestined for eternal death." - John Calvin, Harmony of the Law, Vol 2, "Judicial Supplements", Comments on Deut ch 13.

Pardon my incredulity! Are you serious, that that is the logical extreme?

You may as well say we should sin, so that grace may abound. 1st, it does not follow that glorifying God for punishing the sinner is equivalent to, or even leads to, glorifying the sin. 2nd, it is not in our scope of authority to cause that sin occur. Why not suppose that Calvinists should kill all the people they can, since God has predestined all to one place or the other? Such is madness.

 

[zoidar]

Pardon my incredulity! Are you serious, that that is the logical extreme?

You may as well say we should sin, so that grace may abound. 1st, it does not follow that glorifying God for punishing the sinner is equivalent to, or even leads to, glorifying the sin. 2nd, it is not in our scope of authority to cause that sin occur. Why not suppose that Calvinists should kill all the people they can, since God has predestined all to one place or the other? Such is madness.

Agree with you even I'm not Reformed. It's a bit like it would be good to kill infants since they are going to heaven, since letting them live could compromise their salvation. Wrong and dangerous thinking!

 

[Humble_Disciple]

Thanks for your response. To say “John Calvin was vehemently opposed to abortion” does not answer the question posed. The question was about the logical consistency of the position.

Do you consider Calvin's statements on abortion to be logically consistent?

A lot of people are misinformed as to what total depravity means. It doesn't mean that you are born as evil as can possibly be. What it does mean is that, due to original sin, we are unable to believe the Gospel without God's intervention of irresistible grace.

There's no way of predicting whether an unborn baby will believe or disbelieve the Gospel, so it makes no sense to kill an unborn baby on that basis, let alone the fact that abortion in general is morally reprehensible.

Furthermore, total depravity wasn't invented by John Calvin. It was originally taught by Augustine, in response to the heresy of Pelagius.

This is from Martin Luther's 97 Theses, which he wrote before his 97 Theses:

29. The best and infallible preparation for grace and the sole disposition toward grace is the eternal election and predestination of God.
30. On the part of man, however, nothing precedes grace except indisposition and even rebellion against grace.
Contend Earnestly: Luther's 97 Theses: Disputation Against Scholastic Theology

 

[StillGods]

Calvinism says God creates/chooses some people specifically to go to hell, so what if God only allows the babies He hasnt chosen to be aborted then Calvinism would support abortion.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Calvinism says God creates/chooses some people specifically to go to hell, so what if God only allows the babies He hasnt chosen to be aborted then Calvinism would support abortion.

Seems like I remember the Bible saying something about vain speculations...

 

[Humble_Disciple]

Calvinism says God creates/chooses some people specifically to go to hell, so what if God only allows the babies He hasnt chosen to be aborted then Calvinism would support abortion.

That is ridiculous on its face and not at all what the doctrine of predestination teaches. God doesn't will that any child be aborted.

As Martin Luther explains, we have some measure of free will in all the choices we make, except for the decision to believe the Gospel and come to Christ:

Luther argued that the human will is bound, that there is no free will—at least not in things above, that is, in things pertaining to salvation. While people recoil at this, because we want to be free, because we want to play some role in our salvation, there is real freedom in recognizing our bondage and in receiving our salvation entirely as gift, by promise, as dead men and women brought to life like Lazarus in the tomb. We can’t mess it up. It doesn’t depend on us. We don’t live under a yoke or burden any longer—anxious, busy, fearful, desperate to even out the scales of justice. No, we’re set free to live as those loved, redeemed, and given a world back as gift, to be enjoyed and used for our neighbor.

Luther does grant we have freedom in things below. We can choose a Ford or Chevy, a Big Mac or a Whopper, Apple or Microsoft, apples or oranges. When it comes to our salvation, though, our freedom comes from Christ’s free will, from the fact that He freely chose to become Man, to suffer, die, and rise for us to live and move and have our being in Him, by grace, with joy and peace, even in suffering. Trying to work our way back into our salvation, therefore, is to undermine and under-appreciate Christ’s work. Serving so that He will love us is to insult His love, which already is ours, was ours even when we were His enemies. To seek freedom in slavery, slavery to sin, our natural human condition, where we freely choose how to sin, perhaps, but nevertheless can only sin, even with our best works, or to seek it in naturally human religion, which knows only the ways of the law and fallen reason, is to fail to understand and embrace the true freedom Christ was bound, beaten, nailed to a tree, and died to give us.
https://www.1517.org/articles/luthers-bondage-of-the-will-an-uncompromising-gospel

If we are saved by grace alone, then faith is entirely a gift received by Christ, rather than the result of our own effort to believe. Even if we wanted to believe in the Gospel without the Holy Spirit’s help, we wouldn’t be able to do so, due to our fallen state.

On the other hand, those who are not among God’s elect are deserving of hell, because it was their free-willed choice to sin. Rather than complaining that God has chosen to save some and not others, we should be thankful that God has chosen to save anyone at all.

Unborn babies haven't had the opportunity to sin, so the idea that they are deserving of hell is absurd.

 

[StillGods]

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That is ridiculous on its face and not at all what the doctrine of predestination teaches. God doesn't will that any child be aborted.

As Martin Luther explains, we have some measure of free will in all the choices we make, except for the decision to believe the Gospel and come to Christ:

So you think He doesnt will that any person be aborted (which i agree with) but you are fine that He wills some people to go to hell without having any choice to not go (according to Calvinism)... much like babies that are aborted have no say in that either.

 

[StillGods]

Seems like I remember the Bible saying something about vain speculations...

just thinking out loud about possibilities... much like Calvinists speculate that they know the Bible better than everyone else

 

[Mark Quayle]

.


So you think He doesnt will that any person be aborted (which i agree with) but you are fine that He wills some people to go to hell without having any choice to not go (according to Calvinism)... much like babies that are aborted have no say in that either.

Calvinism does not say that those who go to hell have no choice to not go. It only says they will to not choose God, and thus cannot, unless God changes them. They always, continuously, choose against God. To you, that might mean the same thing, but not to the Calvinists; therefore, your summation is not what they teach.

I also can claim that the weak god of Arminianianism kisses the rosy rear end of the freewill of his creatures, and must wait for their action before he can react, and has no control over the future, but only experiments to see what will happen, flying by the seat of his pants; he is very clever, however, since we can count on it that he can somehow keep his promises in the face of his inability to do everything he sets out to do. These are some of my logical outworkings of the teaching of Arminianism. They are not the teaching of Arminianism.

 

[Mark Quayle]

just thinking out loud about possibilities... much like Calvinists speculate that they know the Bible better than everyone else

Yes, I can see that construction would be your idea of logic.

 

[StillGods]

Calvinism does not say that those who go to hell have no choice to not go. It only says they will to not choose God, and thus cannot, unless God changes them. They always, continuously, choose against God. To you, that might mean the same thing, but not to the Calvinists; therefore, your summation is not what they teach.

I also can claim that the weak god of Arminianianism kisses the rosy rear end of the freewill of his creatures, and must wait for their action before he can react, and has no control over the future, but only experiments to see what will happen, flying by the seat of his pants; he is very clever, however, since we can count on it that he can somehow keep his promises in the face of his inability to do everything he sets out to do. These are some of my logical outworkings of the teaching of Arminianism. They are not the teaching of Arminianism.

I am not Arminian so I am not sure why you mention your thoughts about Arminianism.

to me Calvinism does say people have no choice in whether they go to hell or not. it says God moves on the heart of some people not others so just be glad God chose to move yours! because you had nothing to do with it. You may want to choose God but if God hasnt decided you are one of the elect then oh well it is hell for you.
there are some things about the way God is seem by Calvinists that is really wrong somehow. I have spent time in many different denominations over the years including a reformed church based on Calvinism and many people in the one I went to had an underlying lack of assurance of salvation which I had never come across before, perhaps because they never chose God for themselves but believed they had nothing to do with it so maybe God hadnt chosen them after all. they could never really be sure apart from looking at the outward works they were performing as 'evidence' they were elect which I found odd because anyone can fake those. but it could just have been that Calvin fearing church though.

 

[zoidar]

Calvinism does not say that those who go to hell have no choice to not go. It only says they will to not choose God, and thus cannot, unless God changes them. They always, continuously, choose against God. To you, that might mean the same thing, but not to the Calvinists; therefore, your summation is not what they teach.

I also can claim that the weak god of Arminianianism kisses the rosy rear end of the freewill of his creatures, and must wait for their action before he can react, and has no control over the future, but only experiments to see what will happen, flying by the seat of his pants; he is very clever, however, since we can count on it that he can somehow keep his promises in the face of his inability to do everything he sets out to do. These are some of my logical outworkings of the teaching of Arminianism. They are not the teaching of Arminianism.

I don't think Arminians would agree with your representation of Arminianism. I would even say it's a strawman. Be careful that you don't speak against God. You seem to really hate Arminianism...

 

[StillGods]

Yes, I can see that construction would be your idea of logic.

am I not allowed to think outloud about possible scenarios and put forward those thoughts? no matter how flawed you may find them. a lot of what I've said is just to stir the pot.
I used to live with a chap who was studying philosophy and logic at university and honestly he was too intellectual for his own good. like you he would break down everyone's conversation because of the logic paper he was studying - it got tired after a while. poor guy ended up leaving God and going into Eastern religion. but you have a big brain that's great hopefully that is not a stumbling block to faith

 

[Mark Quayle]

I don't think Arminians would agree with your representation of Arminianism. I would even say it's a strawman. Be careful that you don't speak against God. You seem to really hate Arminianism...

I get a little carried away some times. I know many people who claim to not be Arminian in their doctrine or thinking, by simple virtue of the fact they think it includes the notion that grace is not altogether the work of God, yet they reject 1 or more points of TULIP, and not by misunderstanding the point(s) they reject. They cling to freewill, and there is the contention.

Most —including the one with whom currently I have been conversing at length— I think, believe that Calvinism denies the actuality of choice. I have yet to hear a reasoned response from them concerning cause-and-effect, just to hear them claim something along the lines that it does not apply to choice. They like to suppose there is some kind of smaller sovereignty, or actual spontaneity, that God gave us, then backed away or something. They think in terms of uncaused choice, as though God is hands-off. It still pleases me, after all these years, when I hear them pray otherwise. I do count them among my brothers and sisters. I do not hate them. Arminianism, (not the people), I have a hatred for, in that it does not give God full credit for the working of the Gospel.

I do give them credit in one regard, that they insist on personal responsibility —good for them— and those so-called 'OSAS' Calvinistic 'believers' who seem to think the elect believer need not do anything, need not obey, need not work, and that it is all automatically going to happen, I despise their thinking, and can hardly call them believers, nevermind 'Calvinists'. That is nonsense, and their thinking is not Calvinism.

 

[Mark Quayle]

am I not allowed to think outloud about possible scenarios and put forward those thoughts? no matter how flawed you may find them. a lot of what I've said is just to stir the pot.
I used to live with a chap who was studying philosophy and logic at university and honestly he was too intellectual for his own good. like you he would break down everyone's conversation because of the logic paper he was studying - it got tired after a while. poor guy ended up leaving God and going into Eastern religion. but you have a big brain that's great hopefully that is not a stumbling block to faith

Thanks. No, my biggest stumbling block is my block-headed old nature, the "old man", still refusing to leave me alone.

 

[zoidar]

I get a little carried away some times. I know many people who claim to not be Arminian in their doctrine or thinking, by simple virtue of the fact they think it includes the notion that grace is not altogether the work of God, yet they reject 1 or more points of TULIP, and not by misunderstanding the point(s) they reject. They cling to freewill, and there is the contention.

Most —including the one with whom currently I have been conversing at length— I think, believe that Calvinism denies the actuality of choice. I have yet to hear a reasoned response from them concerning cause-and-effect, just to hear them claim something along the lines that it does not apply to choice. They like to suppose there is some kind of smaller sovereignty, or actual spontaneity, that God gave us, then backed away or something. They think in terms of uncaused choice, as though God is hands-off. It still pleases me, after all these years, when I hear them pray otherwise. I do count them among my brothers and sisters. I do not hate them. Arminianism, (not the people), I have a hatred for, in that it does not give God full credit for the working of the Gospel.

I do give them credit in one regard, that they insist on personal responsibility —good for them— and those so-called 'OSAS' Calvinistic 'believers' who seem to think the elect believer need not do anything, need not obey, need not work, and that it is all automatically going to happen, I despise their thinking, and can hardly call them believers, nevermind 'Calvinists'. That is nonsense, and their thinking is not Calvinism.

I know there is a heated debate going on. What often seems to happen is misrepresentation of each other. When I first heard of Calvinism I didn't get the thinking at all. I had my view and then put the Calvinist doctrine on top of that, instead of seeing the full picture. Hopefully I'm not as easily provoked now and less provoking myself. But it's natural that important matters stir up emotions.

 

[Humble_Disciple]

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So you think He doesnt will that any person be aborted (which i agree with) but you are fine that He wills some people to go to hell without having any choice to not go (according to Calvinism)... much like babies that are aborted have no say in that either.

I don't think you quite understand what election means. If you desire in your heart to be saved, that is a sign of your election. No one who cries out to Jesus for salvation will be turned away.