I'm so grateful for this teaching. Calvinism has hurt, abused and stunted me for almost a decade and I'm coming out of that impotent and numb fog. Please pray for me, Saints. I want to experience my union with Christ and the joy of my salvation again! 🤍
I used to think "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" was the epitome of Christian sermons. I was a HARD CORE Calvinist. I've come to realize that to have an angry Father and need the Son to appease him paints the Father and Son as having different agendas and they're no longer coherent. Jesus said "I and the Father are ONE" and "if you've seen Me, you've seen the Father". God is only ever angry with the religious hypocrites and those who considered themselves "elect" and excluded others because of their sin.
Never heard of George MacDonald until now when I started reading 'The Curate's Awakening' and especially chaptr 30! 'The only perfect idea of life is God, the only one. That a man should complete himself by taking into himself that origin and with his whole being commit himself to will the will of God in himself- that is the highest possible condition of a man. Then he has completed his cycle.' Truly Spiritually inspired stuff! ♡
I have being reading 'Consuming Fire' as a daily devotional for the last several months ( it is based upon his Unspoken Sermons ) and I am also currently reading a book titled 'The Theology of George MacDonald' . He is an interesting guy !
It’s all very difficult to understand. My experience of becoming a Christian was that God came to me rather than me going to God. I was an atheist and had no conception of God. God was active, not me.
I had a similar experience, except I was raised in a Christian home. After 19 years of playing the part of a proper, pious pilgrim, God surprised me with joy. He grabbed me almost physically. I've never been the same.
"From all copies of Jonathan Edwards's portrait of God, however faded by time, however softened by the use of less glaring pigments, I turn with loathing. Not such a God is he concerning whom was the message John heard from Jesus, that he is light, and in him is no darkness at all" (from "Justice" by George Macdonald)
It is Piper and Keller who are not Christians. But forgives them and will save them through purgation in spite of their blindness. God will burn away the hardened muck from their eyes and hearts.
What draws the line between thise who are Christians but are simply amd innocently wrong about certain abstract ideas and those who aren't Christians at all? For me, personally, I think it's hard to say, but I think something as simple as the apostles creed was good enough for them, it ought to be good enough for us. Beyond that, I'd only say that they have to be trinitarian. It's not that I don't value theology and proper doctrine, but a lot of what Christians bicker and condemn each other over in terms of doctrine is a lot of high-minded, abstract stuff. At the end of the day, we're finite minds grasping at the infinite that is completely beyond our full comprehensiok and always will be to one extent or another, even in eternity. I can't help but imagine that although there are absolutely important things that we have to believe, no negotiation, God cares far more about how we actually live than the ideas that we mentally assent to abstractly, and that when we are finally judged, God will correct us accordingly, but there's plenty of room within God's grace to forgive innocent errors in our feeble understanding and fallible logic. I greatly disagree with the likes of Piper and Keller, but I hesitate to dare accuse them of not being genuine in their faith and desire to follow Christ as best they understand him.
I found George MacDonald sermon on Justice to be very good. I have been looking at the view Christus Victor. It is new to me. Would any one have any recommendation for my learning? I have Gustaf Aulen's book.
Absolutely loved this vid will be checking out the others thank you for telling about the dangers and poison of Calvinistic legalism . Growing up in the south it’s everywhere . People should be able to have spiritual and social discourse without control or hatred of others .
I wonder if there were High Church Anglican influences on MacD. I say this because there was a revival of the Fathers, both Latin and Greek in the second half of the C.19th. Perhaps this was from Maurice. I don't know what the library at Aberdeen contain, nor on MacD's reading. Still, it would be a good anchor for his subsequent theological development. Any ideas?
As I understand the traditional Calvinist view, it is that God only rejects those who reject him. If a writer creates a villain is his story, and hates and kills that character through his writing, and has a hero who he exults and glorifies is he unjust?
+Rhyme And Space a writer who foreordained the villainy, sins and damnation of a story's characters may be a good writer of fiction, but would be a damnably unloving God of living people. Calvin proclaimed that 'God governs every evil; nay, he commands it.' This is why I renounced my 5 point Calvinism. And for this reason, Wesley said 'The God of Calvin is worse than the devil.' The God the fathers preached was Love alone; the rest were attributes of that love.
+Brad Jersak But as Hebrews says, God is the Author and finisher of our faith. May a character judge his author on the same level as a character? In Job, God asks Job rhetorically to tell Him where he was when he laid the foundations of the Earth, and even Jesus himself warned others of the devastating wrath of God, and at the same time preaching that he is the way, truth, and light.
+Joshua David Ling The problem is that Calvinism is based on a defective Christology. Monergism is a repackaging of ancient heresies of Monotheletism and Monoenergism. It places determinism in the Incarnation itself. You must ask if Christ has free human will. If so, where did he get it? If not, then he does not freely save us as man but only as God. If there is only one will and one natural energy/activity operating in Christ (the divine) you have destroyed the Incarnation, yet in Gethsemane we see both wills operating freely. This is why Calvinism has such strong Nestorian tendencies, as even the Lutheran's have long charged. An example is Sproul's inability to affirm God died on the cross, but only that the human nature died. This is also why evangelicals can rarely affirm that Mary is the Mother of God. It is a confusion of Person and Nature. In Calvinism, the pedophile will perform his act tonight at 10:30 and he will have no other option or choice available to him because of God's decree. It's not that he has decided to act, but his every biological impulse, every atomic movement, every synaptic transmission was unchangeably decreed from before the foundation of the creation, so the Reformed attempt to hide God behind secondary causes is a sham. And as Piper confesses, this occurs necessarily, otherwise the full effulgence of the glory of the attribute of wrath would not be revealed. So Piper affirms even God is under necessity (to create and damn). The Ecumenical church dealt with these ideas and rejected them based on their destruction of Trinitarian and Christological truth. I turned from my 5 point, 5 Sola, supralapsarian Calvinism after discovering the direct attack it was on Christ our God. Pax.
The disagreements on these matters are usually expressed in terms that show a lack of comprehension of both Calvinist theology and MacDonald's beliefs. It is fundamental to understand that 1) God loves everyone he has made and 2) That means that he also "respects the choice to reject himself" for everyone he has made No Calvinist can predict that any particular person will be 'damned'. No Anti-Calvinist can take away the right of any particular person to 'reject God'. Often the mutual incomprehension of the two groups is related to neither really getting what "eternity" means. It is not sufficient to say that God unlovingly condemns those he has created but not chosen. God is love. It is also not sufficient to say that no rational and free person could ever truly reject God. Without choice, love is meaningless. One thing for sure, even the greatest theologian who claims to have sorted out the problem of evil to the intellectual satisfaction of all is living in cloud-cuckoo land. I am happy with the traditional doctrine of salvation by Faith through Grace and the sacrifice of Christ alone for repentant sinners. I am also a Universalist - but I am an Agnostic Universalist when it comes to "how God will manage it"!
@@brianbachinger6357 good point. The necessity for an 'eternal rejection ' is hard. It can be argued that the right to reject God is essential to any concept of free will. But someone may say 'nobody can really understand what they are doing in rejecting God, because its too big a consequence' - thus putting the onus on God to prevent the person doing something they don't comprehend. What parent would not prevent a child from exercising free will and running across a road? The trouble with that is that treats us as children in this matter. It does place the decision to reject God in a category of 'you can't do that - it's too dangerous '. It opens the possibility of heaven being full of people who are there against their will. I'm not saying I can understand it, but there is a mystery in God creating a 'separate being '. There us an interface between God and the being which is to some extent determined by the being - not God. Does this contradict 'sovereignty '? Not in my view. God knows what he is doing in creation, and limits his/her own sovereignty as part of the creative act.
@@brianbachinger6357 God inevitably saving all in Christ and the possibility of someone eternally rejection of God and Christ can be reconciled by the fact that just because it might be hypothetically possible for someone to reject God forever does not mean that they will because "forever" is obviously a really, really, really long time. In a way, it's almost a matter of God waiting out the human will to resist him because man's will is not greater than God's. Just because man is free to reject God forever does not mean that he will.
CalvanISM LutheranISM more doctrines of men being gatekeepers if Jesus was clearer and Christianity was more joyful and freeing we wouldn’t need such controlling shit! I’m going through my own “deconstruction” . Maybe what God said to Carlton Pearson IS the actual Gospel, read his book The Gospel of Inclusion.
So I guess MacDonald and Maurice failed to read much of Calvin or Edwards. Edwards on Beauty? Election and predestination are not the heart of either The Institutes or Calvin's commentaries and sermons. And both men were pastors, not just MacDonald.
No Christian view that accepts: 1. eternal damnation and 2. God’s Omniscience and 3. Human freedom and 4. Divine Providence over all creation can avoid the questions about eschatology to which Calvin gave answers. Lewis was in origin an Ulster Protestant. Sometimes this is forgotten.
My question for those who hold an Arminian (or simply non-Calvinist) is, “Where did you get your personality? Why do you make the decisions that you make?” The answer eventually ties back to that God gives us our personalities. If God gives us our personalities, even if he is not presenting us in the traditional Calvinist view, he is predestining is by giving us a certain personality. Those are my views at least
I got my personality from my environment and my DNA. God obviously isn't always decent or fair by the best human standards. In fact most worship God totally out of fear in the same way and for the same reasons a slave bows before the slave master. Why would anyone actually love a creator who basically says Love me or else I'll burn you in hell? It took me a lifetime to face my fear, overcome it and then reject the old testament god.
john miller I see your point, and actually agree with you. Those who see loving God as merely “a get out Hell free card” do not understand what true love for God means. In the words of John Piper, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him”. We love God, because he first loved us. I am going to guess you are an atheist, judging by the hostile tone in your comment. And actually, I understand that view point. When God is seen as some evil tyrant, sitting on his thrown waiting for people to die so that he can send them to Hell, then it’s hard to even believers exists. But when God is seen as the loving Father that he is, our eyes can be opened to the evidence that is ever before us. However, we subconsciously suppress them because we do not want to believe.
But the god of Calvinism is not a loving Father, and hence I can understand why that doctrine leads many to atheism or to madness. If God simply gives us some predetermined, unalterable personality then Piper's quote about God being glorified in us is nonsense, and is directly contradicted by what follows it in your comment. It wouldn't be "We love God, because he first loved us", but "we love God, because he makes us love him", which in fact is not love at all, because love must be truly reciprocal, and therefore volitional.
David Jack I think I understand your argument and that was something I struggled with before I became a Calvinist. For quite a long time I fought against Calvinism, because subconsciously, I didn’t want to believe it. I watched many of Jerry Walls videos, “What’s wrong with Calvinism” trying to be able to build a strong stance for Arminianism. Although, Many strong points were made (such as his reinterpretation of Romans 9), I was not convinced. And actually all of my research into it eventually led me to become a Calvinist. One argument I have against Arminianism is, if true libertarian free will exists (as Arminianism is built on), How is God able to predict the many things that he did through old/new testament prophecies? Tying this back to the video, Johnathan Edward’s book “Freedom of the Will” (although hard to understand at times because of his incredible vocabulary) gives strong arguments for why Calvinism must be true. Ultimately, though no matter which view people hold, the people who will be saved are those who believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the Living God and that he died on the cross for their sins.
I agree with your concluding statement, but true belief, like true love, has to be volitional, so even that undermines Calvinism. We could have the kind of belief that the devils have, and tremble, but genuine faith is something in which we have to participate, though of course like all good things the ultimate source is God. Jerry Walls has some good things to say, particularly about John Piper's/Calvinism's inability to evade the necessity of free will, but it doesn't really matter whether he convinces you of Arminianism or not, because though much closer to the truth than Calvinism, it is still simply a man made system invented 1500 years after Christ, and no "ism" is the gospel (despite what Spurgeon claimed.) Calvinism only "must be true" in the minds of Calvinists (though the deterministic language is fitting, I suppose) but if you remember any of Edward's arguments, by all means feel free to share them.
I am so thankful to have been introduced to George MacDonald Sermons. It helped me to know Christ's love in a much deeper, deeper way.
I'm so grateful for this teaching. Calvinism has hurt, abused and stunted me for almost a decade and I'm coming out of that impotent and numb fog. Please pray for me, Saints. I want to experience my union with Christ and the joy of my salvation again! 🤍
I've learned to worship Jesus. Not John Piper or Tim Keller.
John Piper and Tim Keller wouldn't want you to worship them.
? If anyone came away thinking either John Piper or Tim Keller wanted worship, they need a miraculous healing applied to their ears.
I used to think "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" was the epitome of Christian sermons. I was a HARD CORE Calvinist. I've come to realize that to have an angry Father and need the Son to appease him paints the Father and Son as having different agendas and they're no longer coherent.
Jesus said "I and the Father are ONE" and "if you've seen Me, you've seen the Father".
God is only ever angry with the religious hypocrites and those who considered themselves "elect" and excluded others because of their sin.
Calvinism is basically just Gnosticism painting itself as an intelligent theology.
That’s a very good point.
Never heard of George MacDonald until now when I started reading 'The Curate's Awakening' and especially chaptr 30! 'The only perfect idea of life is God, the only one. That a man should complete himself by taking into himself that origin and with his whole being commit himself to will the will of God in himself- that is the highest possible condition of a man. Then he has completed his cycle.'
Truly Spiritually inspired stuff! ♡
I have being reading 'Consuming Fire' as a daily devotional for the last several months ( it is based upon his Unspoken Sermons ) and I am also currently reading a book titled 'The Theology of George MacDonald' . He is an interesting guy !
John Piper and Timothy Keller disliked this video.
Their loss.
It’s all very difficult to understand. My experience of becoming a Christian was that God came to me rather than me going to God. I was an atheist and had no conception of God. God was active, not me.
I had a similar experience, except I was raised in a Christian home. After 19 years of playing the part of a proper, pious pilgrim, God surprised me with joy. He grabbed me almost physically. I've never been the same.
"From all copies of Jonathan Edwards's portrait of God, however faded by time, however softened by the use of less glaring pigments, I turn with loathing. Not such a God is he concerning whom was the message John heard from Jesus, that he is light, and in him is no darkness at all" (from "Justice" by George Macdonald)
im so angry at the false religionists who were trying to yoke me as hard as they could for 15 years, it basically ruined the best years of my life
I'm angry too. 10 years for me. Those closest to me. I was thriving in my faith before Calvinism entered the picture.
@@AngelissimaASMR im glad you are free!
@@LarryLarpwell I'm happy for you as well, Brother!
This was remarkable and articulated in a way that I could easily understand. Thank you
It is Piper and Keller who are not Christians. But forgives them and will save them through purgation in spite of their blindness. God will burn away the hardened muck from their eyes and hearts.
What draws the line between thise who are Christians but are simply amd innocently wrong about certain abstract ideas and those who aren't Christians at all? For me, personally, I think it's hard to say, but I think something as simple as the apostles creed was good enough for them, it ought to be good enough for us. Beyond that, I'd only say that they have to be trinitarian. It's not that I don't value theology and proper doctrine, but a lot of what Christians bicker and condemn each other over in terms of doctrine is a lot of high-minded, abstract stuff. At the end of the day, we're finite minds grasping at the infinite that is completely beyond our full comprehensiok and always will be to one extent or another, even in eternity. I can't help but imagine that although there are absolutely important things that we have to believe, no negotiation, God cares far more about how we actually live than the ideas that we mentally assent to abstractly, and that when we are finally judged, God will correct us accordingly, but there's plenty of room within God's grace to forgive innocent errors in our feeble understanding and fallible logic. I greatly disagree with the likes of Piper and Keller, but I hesitate to dare accuse them of not being genuine in their faith and desire to follow Christ as best they understand him.
Let God be God, and all is well. Praise Father,Son,and Holy Ghost.
I was so glad I managed to get hold of F.D. Maurice’s books!
Regards to all of you from sout-west of Germany. You are a very lonesome man here when you believe what is written
So ist es. Grüße aus Schwäbisch Hall.
I found George MacDonald sermon on Justice to be very good. I have been looking at the view Christus Victor. It is new to me. Would any one have any recommendation for my learning? I have Gustaf Aulen's book.
Andrew Hopkins start with Chrysostom's "Paschal Homily" online.
Read Gregory of Nyssa: Life of Moses and On the Soul and Resurrection.
JesusWordsOnly.com
Why not?!
the first sermon in Getting to know Jesus.
@@kandyesmeralda2832 Thanks just downloaded it. I saw it was a free download on audible books with a prime membership.
Absolutely loved this vid will be checking out the others thank you for telling about the dangers and poison of Calvinistic legalism . Growing up in the south it’s everywhere . People should be able to have spiritual and social discourse without control or hatred of others .
I wonder if there were High Church Anglican influences on MacD. I say this because there was a revival of the Fathers, both Latin and Greek in the second half of the C.19th. Perhaps this was from Maurice. I don't know what the library at Aberdeen contain, nor on MacD's reading. Still, it would be a good anchor for his subsequent theological development. Any ideas?
What is the name of the person speaking? Got it. Hadn't checked the description.
Well stated.
Excellent explanation
As I understand the traditional Calvinist view, it is that God only rejects those who reject him. If a writer creates a villain is his story, and hates and kills that character through his writing, and has a hero who he exults and glorifies is he unjust?
Calvin taught that God foreordains their rejection of God.
+Brad Jersak And so may a writer fore-ordain his villain's sins?
+Rhyme And Space a writer who foreordained the villainy, sins and damnation of a story's characters may be a good writer of fiction, but would be a damnably unloving God of living people. Calvin proclaimed that 'God governs every evil; nay, he commands it.' This is why I renounced my 5 point Calvinism. And for this reason, Wesley said 'The God of Calvin is worse than the devil.' The God the fathers preached was Love alone; the rest were attributes of that love.
+Brad Jersak But as Hebrews says, God is the Author and finisher of our faith. May a character judge his author on the same level as a character? In Job, God asks Job rhetorically to tell Him where he was when he laid the foundations of the Earth, and even Jesus himself warned others of the devastating wrath of God, and at the same time preaching that he is the way, truth, and light.
+Joshua David Ling The problem is that Calvinism is based on a defective Christology. Monergism is a repackaging of ancient heresies of Monotheletism and Monoenergism. It places determinism in the Incarnation itself. You must ask if Christ has free human will. If so, where did he get it? If not, then he does not freely save us as man but only as God. If there is only one will and one natural energy/activity operating in Christ (the divine) you have destroyed the Incarnation, yet in Gethsemane we see both wills operating freely.
This is why Calvinism has such strong Nestorian tendencies, as even the Lutheran's have long charged. An example is Sproul's inability to affirm God died on the cross, but only that the human nature died. This is also why evangelicals can rarely affirm that Mary is the Mother of God. It is a confusion of Person and Nature.
In Calvinism, the pedophile will perform his act tonight at 10:30 and he will have no other option or choice available to him because of God's decree. It's not that he has decided to act, but his every biological impulse, every atomic movement, every synaptic transmission was unchangeably decreed from before the foundation of the creation, so the Reformed attempt to hide God behind secondary causes is a sham. And as Piper confesses, this occurs necessarily, otherwise the full effulgence of the glory of the attribute of wrath would not be revealed. So Piper affirms even God is under necessity (to create and damn).
The Ecumenical church dealt with these ideas and rejected them based on their destruction of Trinitarian and Christological truth.
I turned from my 5 point, 5 Sola, supralapsarian Calvinism after discovering the direct attack it was on Christ our God.
Pax.
The disagreements on these matters are usually expressed in terms that show a lack of comprehension of both Calvinist theology and MacDonald's beliefs.
It is fundamental to understand that
1) God loves everyone he has made and
2) That means that he also "respects the choice to reject himself" for everyone he has made
No Calvinist can predict that any particular person will be 'damned'.
No Anti-Calvinist can take away the right of any particular person to 'reject God'.
Often the mutual incomprehension of the two groups is related to neither really getting what "eternity" means.
It is not sufficient to say that God unlovingly condemns those he has created but not chosen. God is love.
It is also not sufficient to say that no rational and free person could ever truly reject God. Without choice, love is meaningless.
One thing for sure, even the greatest theologian who claims to have sorted out the problem of evil to the intellectual satisfaction of all is living in cloud-cuckoo land. I am happy with the traditional doctrine of salvation by Faith through Grace and the sacrifice of Christ alone for repentant sinners. I am also a Universalist - but I am an Agnostic Universalist when it comes to "how God will manage it"!
@@brianbachinger6357 good point. The necessity for an 'eternal rejection ' is hard. It can be argued that the right to reject God is essential to any concept of free will. But someone may say 'nobody can really understand what they are doing in rejecting God, because its too big a consequence' - thus putting the onus on God to prevent the person doing something they don't comprehend. What parent would not prevent a child from exercising free will and running across a road? The trouble with that is that treats us as children in this matter. It does place the decision to reject God in a category of 'you can't do that - it's too dangerous '. It opens the possibility of heaven being full of people who are there against their will. I'm not saying I can understand it, but there is a mystery in God creating a 'separate being '. There us an interface between God and the being which is to some extent determined by the being - not God. Does this contradict 'sovereignty '? Not in my view. God knows what he is doing in creation, and limits his/her own sovereignty as part of the creative act.
My friend salvation by Grace thru faith. That's the whole difference
@@brianbachinger6357 God inevitably saving all in Christ and the possibility of someone eternally rejection of God and Christ can be reconciled by the fact that just because it might be hypothetically possible for someone to reject God forever does not mean that they will because "forever" is obviously a really, really, really long time. In a way, it's almost a matter of God waiting out the human will to resist him because man's will is not greater than God's. Just because man is free to reject God forever does not mean that he will.
CalvanISM LutheranISM more doctrines of men being gatekeepers if Jesus was clearer and Christianity was more joyful and freeing we wouldn’t need such controlling shit! I’m going through my own “deconstruction” . Maybe what God said to Carlton Pearson IS the actual Gospel, read his book The Gospel of Inclusion.
Look into early church fathers who preached Universal reconciliation,. St Gregory of Nyssa is a great example.
So I guess MacDonald and Maurice failed to read much of Calvin or Edwards. Edwards on Beauty? Election and predestination are not the heart of either The Institutes or Calvin's commentaries and sermons. And both men were pastors, not just MacDonald.
No Christian view that accepts:
1. eternal damnation
and
2. God’s Omniscience
and
3. Human freedom
and
4. Divine Providence over all creation
can avoid the questions about eschatology to which Calvin gave answers.
Lewis was in origin an Ulster Protestant. Sometimes this is forgotten.
My question for those who hold an Arminian (or simply non-Calvinist) is, “Where did you get your personality? Why do you make the decisions that you make?”
The answer eventually ties back to that God gives us our personalities. If God gives us our personalities, even if he is not presenting us in the traditional Calvinist view, he is predestining is by giving us a certain personality.
Those are my views at least
I got my personality from my environment and my DNA. God obviously isn't always decent or fair by the best human standards. In fact most worship God totally out of fear in the same way and for the same reasons a slave bows before the slave master. Why would anyone actually love a creator who basically says Love me or else I'll burn you in hell? It took me a lifetime to face my fear, overcome it and then reject the old testament god.
john miller I see your point, and actually agree with you. Those who see loving God as merely “a get out Hell free card” do not understand what true love for God means. In the words of John Piper, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him”. We love God, because he first loved us.
I am going to guess you are an atheist, judging by the hostile tone in your comment. And actually, I understand that view point. When God is seen as some evil tyrant, sitting on his thrown waiting for people to die so that he can send them to Hell, then it’s hard to even believers exists. But when God is seen as the loving Father that he is, our eyes can be opened to the evidence that is ever before us. However, we subconsciously suppress them because we do not want to believe.
But the god of Calvinism is not a loving Father, and hence I can understand why that doctrine leads many to atheism or to madness. If God simply gives us some predetermined, unalterable personality then Piper's quote about God being glorified in us is nonsense, and is directly contradicted by what follows it in your comment. It wouldn't be "We love God, because he first loved us", but "we love God, because he makes us love him", which in fact is not love at all, because love must be truly reciprocal, and therefore volitional.
David Jack I think I understand your argument and that was something I struggled with before I became a Calvinist. For quite a long time I fought against Calvinism, because subconsciously, I didn’t want to believe it. I watched many of Jerry Walls videos, “What’s wrong with Calvinism” trying to be able to build a strong stance for Arminianism. Although, Many strong points were made (such as his reinterpretation of Romans 9), I was not convinced. And actually all of my research into it eventually led me to become a Calvinist.
One argument I have against Arminianism is, if true libertarian free will exists (as Arminianism is built on), How is God able to predict the many things that he did through old/new testament prophecies?
Tying this back to the video, Johnathan Edward’s book “Freedom of the Will” (although hard to understand at times because of his incredible vocabulary) gives strong arguments for why Calvinism must be true.
Ultimately, though no matter which view people hold, the people who will be saved are those who believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the Living God and that he died on the cross for their sins.
I agree with your concluding statement, but true belief, like true love, has to be volitional, so even that undermines Calvinism. We could have the kind of belief that the devils have, and tremble, but genuine faith is something in which we have to participate, though of course like all good things the ultimate source is God. Jerry Walls has some good things to say, particularly about John Piper's/Calvinism's inability to evade the necessity of free will, but it doesn't really matter whether he convinces you of Arminianism or not, because though much closer to the truth than Calvinism, it is still simply a man made system invented 1500 years after Christ, and no "ism" is the gospel (despite what Spurgeon claimed.) Calvinism only "must be true" in the minds of Calvinists (though the deterministic language is fitting, I suppose) but if you remember any of Edward's arguments, by all means feel free to share them.