The following was taken from www.ephesians3-9.com    Used by permission.

Doublethink

George Orwell's novel 1984 is an fascinating, frightening book that gets more and more timely all the time. If you've read it, you'll recall the term doublethink. Orwell's characters were expected, under threat of torture and death, to believe whatever the totalitarian Party government told them to believe, even if it meant accepting as true things that were obviously false. If the Party said 2+2=5, then every Party member was expected not only to swallow that as a fact, but to genuinely believe that 2+2 had always been five and never four. If the Party said to believe two mutually exclusive truth claims -- no matter how absurd the contradiction -- each was expected to accept both as true even if a child could see one of them had to be false. Performing the absurd mental gymnastics required by the Party was known simply as doublethink.

Many people today are capable of such rational contortions, and it is not unfair to point out that followers of Calvin often have their own peculiar brand of doublethink.

Each pair of the following quotes consists of two mutually exclusive truths which are set forth as equally valid. Many such examples from Calvinistic writings can be cited, but here are just two (underline added for emphasis):

J.I. Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God:

"We should not be held back by the thought that if [men] are not elect, they will not believe us and our efforts to convert them will fail. That is true; but it is none of our business, and should make no difference to our action" (pp. 98-99).

But later Packer wrote,

"The belief that God is sovereign in grace [electing some and reprobating the rest] does not affect the responsibility of the sinner. Whatever we may believe about election, the fact remains that a man who rejects Christ threreby becomes the cause of his own condemnation. Unbelief in the Bible is a guilty thing, and unbelievers cannot excuse themselves on the grounds that they were not elect. The unbeliever was really offered life in the gospel, and could have it if he would; he, and no-one but he, is responsible for the fact that he rejected it and must now endure the consequences for rejecting it" (pp. 104-105).

Notice the problem? Packer admits that those God did not elect will not believe the salvation message, therefore all efforts to see them converted must fail. Now that's logically consistent, as far as it goes. But when we ask the Calvinist, "WHY must evangelization fail? WHY will they not believe?" the Calvinist's position rapidly comes unglued.

Do unbelievers fail to believe because they choose not to? According to Calvinism, yes...and no. Yes, they refuse to believe. That much is obvious from Scripture. However, their unbelief is only the assured result of God's having reprobated [damned] them in eternity past. Despite this, Packer maintains that those who will not believe are somehow still responsible for their unbelief as if the salvation offered them was genuine!

A genuine offer? How can it be genuine when the unbeliever's rejection of it is nothing less than the fulfillment of God's sovereign reprobative will for that person? If one is predestined to be an unbeliever long before his birth (as Calvinism teaches), and if hearing and believing the Gospel of the Grace of God cannot change one's reprobation to the Lake of Fire, can the offer of salvation be truthful? Can this be the work of a perfectly just and righteous God? No. To defend it requires an act of doublethink.

An even worse example, this from Duane Edward Spencer's TULIP: The Five Points of Calvinism in the Light of Scripture:

"Christ died to save particular persons who were given Him by the Father in eternity past. His death was, therefore, a one hundred percent success, in that all for whom He died ['the elect'] will be saved, and all for whom He did not die will receive justice from God when they are cast into hell" (p. 12).

Then Spencer writes,

"The God of Scripture makes no apologies for the fact that He determined [in eternity past] to let most men spend eternity under His wrath, giving them exactly what they deserve. . .It stands, therefore, that the one man 'believes' because such was the will of God, and the other rejects because that, too, was the will of God." (p. 17, 22).

The contradiction is even clearer here, and I believe it reveals the secretly blasphemous character of Calvinism.

Calvinism teaches that God's elective/reprobative process took place before creation, as Spencer says. But if that is true, how then can someone "earn" anything, much less condemnation, before he was even born - before he even existed? It simply is not possible.

Moreover, we are told by Calvinists that God did not look forward in time to see who would and would not believe the Gospel and base His elective/reprobative decision upon that. Instead, we are told that God's decision on who to save, and who not to save, was based on something else...Calvinists speculate on precisely what that was, but they insist it has nothing to do with yet-future human will and actions.*

How, then, can condemnation be "earned" and "just" when one's eternal fate was forever sealed in eternity past?! How could an offer of salvation out of predestined, unavoidable condemation possibly be sincere? Such an offer is INSINCERE and such condemnation is UNJUST.

Calvinism reduces not only the Gospel BUT THE ENTIRE BIBLE to a baffling, unreliable sham, and the only way around it is to use doublethink.

* The reasoning goes, "If man's decision/will/choice has anything to do with salvation, God's sovereignty is diminished and He becomes less than God. Therefore, EVERYTHING involved with salvation must be the result of God's will with man playing no part whatsoever." Okay, let's look at both sides of that dime. If God's sovereignty determines everything, including faith unto salvation, then unbelief unto damnation is just as much the result of God's will! If Joe takes NO part in his getting into Heaven, then to be consistent the Calvinist must admit that Bob has NO part in his ending up in the Lake of Fire. God's choice determined BOTH.