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Summary

Recommended

Book Description:
Not available.

This is the companion volume to Why I Am Not a Calvinist, and it deserves credit for not being one of those screaming, "you're robbing God of His glory and going to hell for it" volumes. On the other hand, it is also not full of user-friendly discourse; Peterson and Williams keep the stiff upper lip that the companion volume discarded (you don't see them call themselves "Bob and Mike", for example!).

In terms of content, however, it shares something else with its companion volume: a lakc of knowledge of some of the social science background that could aid in deciding who in this debate has the goods. You'll find plenty of useful historical background on things like the Pelagian heresy (practically of no use to our view of original sin, though), but no hint of knowledge of the collectivist nature of the ancient mind (which would have some effect on the view that election is corporate rather than individual), as well as what "grace" meant to the contemporaries of the NT (which is far closer to the Arminian model of prevenient grace). One will also find the standard, worn arguments here; for example, that John 10:27-30 forbids any possibility of apostasy since "no one" includes one's self (though one's self would not "snatch" one's self from Jesus' hand; one would jump from it, or ask to be let off!). Nevertheless, the reader will find this to be a readable and exegetically careful (aside from contextual considerations of the sort noted above, which no amount of exegesis with the text alone will reveal) case for Calvinism.