Quiz Answers, Question 4

The plan is for this to be the last of the the answers for this quiz. Here is question 4:

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.

The correct answer is e. It is the natural opposition toward God that everyone is born with, along with their natural blindness, that keeps them from seeing the true value of the gospel message when they hear it, and repenting and believing in response to it. From the Canons of Dort, Third and Fourth Main Points of Doctrine, Article 1:

Man was originally created in the image of God and was furnished in his mind with a true and salutary knowledge of his Creator and things spiritual, in his will and heart with righteousness, and in all his emotions with purity; indeed, the whole man was holy. However, rebelling against God at the devil's instigation and by his own free will, he deprived himself of these outstanding gifts. Rather, in their place he brought upon himself blindness, terrible darkness, futility, and distortion of judgment in his mind; perversity, defiance, and hardness in his heart and will; and finally impurity in all his emotions.

Adam plunged himself, and then his offspring into a state that made them all naturally opposed to God and the things of God, and stubbornly and intransigently so:

Man brought forth children of the same nature as himself after the fall. That is to say, being corrupt he brought forth corrupt children. The corruption spread, by God's just judgment, from Adam to all his descendants-- except for Christ alone--.....by way of the propagation of his perverted nature. (Third and Fourth Main Points, Article 2)

As a result, we all

are conceived in sin and are born children of wrath, unfit for any saving good, inclined to evil, dead in their sins, and slaves to sin; without the grace of the regenerating Holy Spirit they are neither willing nor able to return to God, to reform their distorted nature, or even to dispose themselves to such reform. (Third and Fourth Main Point, Article 3)

So refusal to believe the gospel comes from the distorted nature that we all have as a result of the fall, a nature that distorts our judgment (the gospel seems foolish) and causes us to be perverse and defiant (opposed to God), among other things. The two wrong answers would make God the cause of unbelief, something the Canons of Dort denies.

The cause or blame for this unbelief, as well as for all other sins, is not at all in God, but in man. (First Main Point of Doctrine, Article 5)

The last two questions have no really right or wrong answers. The fifth question was just to find out what personal views on election were represented in the group taking the quiz, so whichever one represents your view is the right answer for you. I tried to include all of the variations of opinions that I had heard, so that everyone taking the quiz would have a little dot to click on.

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.

If you are curious as to which one of these is the Calvinistic response, that would be "a. Election to salvation is unconditional." That means that the person elected is not elected because they have met certain conditions for being elected, but rather, election is grounded in God's purpose. It doesn't mean that God has no reason for the choices he makes--after all, his purpose is a reason--but that those choices are not made because the elect meet some sort of requirement to be elected.

Question 6 was just to be silly.

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.

The first response (a) was because of a recent accusation made that Calvinists follow John Calvin instead of Christ. The second one (b) was an exaggeration of some goofy statements made by Dave Hunt in his book.

[If you like these quizzes, here's a link to another one, from Colin Maxwell at Cork Free Presbyterian Church. There is one question on that one I'd have to quibble with. I guess that just shows how hard these quizzes are to do.]