A Little Quiz

Sometime last year I made this little quiz (in poll form) to post on the Baptist Board, and I thought you might enjoy it, too. Shortly before I posted this quiz, several participants on the board had read Dave Hunt's book What Love Is This? Calvinism's Misrepresentation of God, so they had come prepared to trounce the Calvinists. The only problem was that thanks to the misinformation in that book, what they thought Calvinists believed wasn't what any of the Calvinists on the Baptist Board actually believed, and wasn't what any Calvinists I've ever known actually believed.

Most of the discussions had a similar progression, and I use the word progression lightly here. An argument against what was thought to be Calvinism, but was really a sort of pseudocalvinism would be put forward. Several Calvinists would respond and claim that they didn't actually believe what it was that was being argued against. Then the Dave Hunt readers would claim that then these Calvinists weren't real Calvinists, and the Calvinist would claim that they were indeed real Calvinists, and they ought to know. Several pages of "No, you're not!" and then "Yes, I am!" would follow. You get the picture.

This quiz was just my little attempt to dispel some of the misconceptions about what Calvinists believe. The purpose of it wasn't to change minds but to clarify what the Calvinist stance actually was so that the silly "You believe this!", "No I don't!" dialogue might stop. Most of the wrong answers come directly from the misconceptions about Calvinism being put forth at that time, but some are just misconceptions I'd seen at some point over the years. A few of the wrong answers might be things that a few Calvinists believe to be true, but the majority would reject.

The fifth question was to sort through what the quiz takers actually believed on the subject of election, so it's a poll type question with no right or wrong answers. The last question was intended to inject a little silliness into a forum that had become more than a little strained, although the first two answers didn't arise out of thin air, but are exaggerations of accusations that had already been made. And if I remember things right, I had to cut question 6 from the quiz when I posted it, because the answers were too long. The actual thread seems to have been purged from the BB archives, so I can't check.

With that longer-than-intended introduction out of the way, here's the quiz. Have fun.

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Second Quiz on Calvinism

Do you have misconceptions about what it is Calvinists believe? Take this short quiz, and in a week you can find out how accurate your understanding of Calvinism is. Choose the answer that you feel best represents the Calvinistic answer to each question below. Okay, ready?

1. Calvinists believe people are sent to hell because

• a. God delights in the death of the wicked.
• b. God is just.
• c. God didn't love them.
• d. God didn't choose them for salvation.
• e. b, c, and d.
• f. none of the above.

2. Calvinists believe that the Holy Spirit

• a. is always irresistible.
• b. can sometimes move people to sin.
• c. is always irresistible for the elect.
• d. is the only being doing any work at all in the sanctification of the elect.
• e. b, c, and d.
• f. none of the above.

3. Concerning the foreknowledge of God: Calvinists believe

• a. it has intentional will behind it.
• b. it is exactly the same thing as foresight.
• c. it is inconsistent with real human choice.
• d. it means God can't really interact with us in time.
• e. a and c.
• f. none of the above.

4. Calvinist believe that in their natural state, people are unable to repent and believe because

• a. they are opposed to God.
• b. God works within them to keep them from repenting and believing.
• c. they are just puppets doing what God programmed them to do.
• d. the gospel seems foolish to them.
• e. a and d.
• f. all of the above.

5. I consider this statement to be accurate concerning my own personal view of election to salvation:

• a. Election to salvation is unconditional.
• b. Election to salvation is conditioned on foreseen faith.
• c. People are elected to salvation after they believe.
• d. There is no such thing as election to salvation.
• e. I have not yet decided what my personal view of election is.
• f. I would love to answer this question, but I have no idea what any of those statements mean.

6. I consider myself to be

• a. someone who believes everything John Calvin wrote because it isn't just coincidence that his initials are JC.
• b. someone who looks with distrust upon anything John Calvin wrote because it's clear to me that he was an undercover agent for the Roman Catholic Church.
• c. a sceptic, so I don't believe anything anyone wrote.
• d. someone who has just as good a sense of humour as anyone, but these are serious issues and joviality is inappropriate.
• e. someone who thinks humour is more properly spelled humor.
• f. someone who knows that the word humour is really, truly, positively spelled with two U's, and Webster was a rebellious twit bucking the rightful authority of the British spelling police.

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If you've got questions about which answers are correct, let me know and I'll post answers. Someplace I've got an answer key that has quotes from various Calvinistic confessions, canons, etc. as evidence of the correctness of the answer key. Perhaps I can find that, too.