Andy Naselli

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Irresistible Grace

by

Kenneth J. Stewart, Ten Myths About Calvinism: Recovering the Breadth of the Reformed Tradition (Downers Grove: IVP, 2011):

[T]he I in TULIP was actually a caricature of the position championed in the Synod of Dordt. Those who derided the Reformed idea of effectual calling or prevailing grace branded it “irresistible.”[n53] This is the kind of inside information that needs circulating. It should change popular Calvinism’s use of TULIP.

[n53] The “I” of the acronym T-U-L-I-P, far from encapsulating Dordt’s intended emphasis, actually relays the protest of the Dutch Remonstrants against early seventeenth-century Calvinism in a way dependent on Jesuit writers of that time. How is it possible that irresistible, a term intended to besmirch and caricature the concept of a grace that eventually prevails over all opposition, has been taken up and championed by those it was meant to portray unfavorably? See Anthony Hoekema, Saved by Grace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), pp. 104–5.

“Irresistible” is not an unredeemable term (I love singing “Grace irresistible drew me“!), but it’s not my first choice because it is so easily misunderstood.

Some contemporary Calvinist theologians suggest better labels to communicate the doctrine of “irresistible grace.” For example, R. C. Sproul calls it “the Spirit’s effective call” (ch. 9 in Grace Unknown: The Heart of Reformed Theology).

Related: Here’s the table of contents for Stewart’s informative book:

 

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Comments

  1. I’m starting to champion replacing TULIP with SUPER
    Systemic Depravity
    Unconditional Election
    Particular Redemption
    Effectual Calling
    Perseverance of the Saints.

    Thanks for the book recommendation.

  2. Andy,

    Thank you for drawing attention to this chapter of my Ten Myths. Perhaps of all the book’s chapters, this is the one that requires most urgent attention by conservative Calvinists, who like me have been misled for a very long time into thinking that the TULIP acronym is as old as the Synod of Dordt from which it is alleged to have sprung.

    I see two problems with trying to improve it or to rescue it.

    1. Few who utilize it (unrevised or revised) belong to churches that actually hold the Canons of Dordt as an official standard. So the imposition of TULIP as a standard of orthodoxy goes well beyond what most of our churches actually hold. This ought to have curtailed its use long ago.

    2. A comparison of TULIP with the actual Canons of Dordt will show that with the exception of ‘P’ there is no actual correspondence between the themes of the Dordt Canons and the order of the letters of TULIP. TULIP is a mishmash.

    The themes of Dordt’s Canons, as Dordt ordered them are actually 4 in number:
    1. Divine Election and Reprobation
    2. Christ’s Death and Human Redemption
    3-4. Human Corruption and Conversion to God (the two are combined)
    5. Perseverance

    See the text in modern translation.

    So, my advice is this: if we really want to summarize Dordt (and most of our churches take no stand whatsoever on Dordt’s utterances), we ought at very least to take it from the actual source.

    Please note that the appendix at the end of the book traces the TULIP acronym as far back (in print) as it seems possible to do. The trail gets cold earlier than 1913.

    Ken Stewart