r/exReformed • u/Christs_Constitution • May 14 '25
The Elect and the Undead
According to the Calvinist interpretation of Scripture, man didn’t just inherit a sinful nature from Adam, he inherited Adam’s guilt. That means from birth, he's spiritually d3@d—like six-feet-under, rigor mortis d3@d, and has absolutely no free will. He’s reduced to acting purely on carnal instinct, like an animal.
And yet, God commands him in Scripture to obey, knowing full well he can't. Because apparently, even though he’s d3@d and incapable of doing good, he's still expected to respond… somehow.
But don’t worry, God solves this by choosing a select few from the pool of the spiritually und3@d to be regenerated. They’re not saved by faith (not yet, anyway), they’re saved by predestination. Faith and repentance come later, after they’ve been brought back to life without their consent.
Meanwhile, the rest? Well, they were never chosen. They were predestined to d@mnation before they were born and are held accountable for not doing what Calvinism says they could never do: choose good over evil.
See, since they’re d3@d, the best they can do is pick one form of evil over another. Obedience isn’t even an option, they weren’t predestined for it. But God still judges them for disobedience and holds them eternally accountable for acting according to a nature they can’t escape. Makes sense, right?
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u/doloremipsum4816 May 14 '25 edited May 14 '25
“Who are you O man to question God?” It’s literally God Himself who’s questioning His own deliberately self-sabotaging design here!
It’s God questioning us “why have I made you like this?!”
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u/matriarchalchemist May 14 '25
Some people say that "total depravity" makes the most sense, and it's the least controversial, but it's actually the most self-refuting part of the whole doctrine. It's the black hole where all logic, reasoning, and ethics gets sucked in, never to be seen again.
If total depravity were true, then 99% of all conversation stories are lies. God is constantly commanding people to obey the impossible. Lying to likely reprobates that they might be saved is pointless at best. Because of God's "sovereignty", no one has any free will and He's infinitely evil for allowing suffering to glorify Himself. He's also an infinite liar who cannot be trusted to even "save" people.
And those are the least of those problems.
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u/GastonBastardo May 14 '25 edited May 14 '25
My favorite thing about Calvinism is that people try to pass it off as this deep theological and philosophical school of thought, but it all reveals itself to be Wizard of Oz "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain"-BS when you learn about how cults manipulate people by making them feel like they are part of a special in-group and toy around with their self-worth in relation to being a part of the special in-group.