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In James White’s first essay in which he explained and defended the second point of Calvinism (i.e., unconditional election), he said he would “discuss the issues relating to man’s deadness in sin, the nature of faith, and its relationship to regeneration” in his second essay.
“MAN’S DEADNESS IN SIN”

According to the doctrine of unconditional election and other matters related to the Calvinist doctrine of salvation, many, if not most, preregenerate men not only are spiritually dead but must also remain so for all eternity with no remedy for their spiritual deadness. God never has, nor ever will have, any redemptive interest in them. That is why they say Christ did not die for much, if not most, of the world. Calvin believed God “arranges all things by his sovereign counsel, in such a way that individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death.”1
According to Calvinism, those who will be doomed for all eternity were really doomed from all eternity. The damnation of the nonelect is just as much God’s doing as is the salvation of the elect in the Calvinist scheme of things. Calvin wrote: “By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which He determined with Himself whatever He wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of those ends, we say that he has been predestined to life or death.”2
Calvin speaks of the logical contradiction of affirming an unconditional election to salvation without also admitting an unconditional election to damnation: “Many professing a desire to defend the Deity from an invidious charge admit the doctrine of election, but deny that any one is reprobated….This they do ignorantly and childishly, since there could be no election without its opposite reprobation….Those therefore whom God passes by He reprobates, and that for no other cause than he is pleased to exclude them….”3 Alister McGrath explains that “for Calvin, logical rigor demands that God actively chooses to redeem or to damn. God cannot be thought of as doing something by default. He is active and sovereign in His actions. Therefore God actively wills the salvation of those who will be saved and the damnation of those who will not be saved.”4
“THE NATURE OF FAITH”

What about the Calvinist doctrine of sola fide (faith alone in Christ alone)? In Calvinism, faith is not a factor in the salvation of the saved and unbelief is not a factor in the damnation of the damned. Calvin makes these doctrinal assertions without explanation why some are saved and others are damned except that this is what God wants. Calvin reasoned, “If we cannot assign any reason for [God] bestowing mercy on his people, but just that it so pleases him, neither can we have any reason for his reprobating others but his will. When God is said to visit in mercy or harden whom he will, men are reminded that they are not to seek for any cause beyond his will.”5 We see, therefore, that no matter how important a Calvinist may say faith in Christ is, Calvinism has reduced it to nothing more than a theological mantra, which makes no real difference.
When the theological fog lifts, it becomes clear that Calvinism affirms that from all eternity to all eternity you belong to an eternally condemned group called “the reprobate” or to an eternally saved group called “the elect.” Whatever caste or class of people you begin in, you will always be in. There is no escape from condemnation for the reprobate as there can be no one ultimately lost who was elected from all eternity to be saved for all eternity.
Calvinists nevertheless say they accept the must-believe passages relative to salvation. For example, a Calvinist would not consciously or deliberately contradict the Apostle Paul and his ministry companion, Silas, when they answered the Philippian jailor’s question, “What must I do to be saved?” Without hesitation they answered him, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved…” (Acts. 16:31). On the other hand, Calvinists insist that election is unconditional and that election is directed to salvation. Nevertheless, an election that is to salvation cannot be unconditional if the salvation to which one is elected is conditioned on faith. It would appear that there is (in their minds) a disconnect between election and the salvation to which one is elected; but this can be only in their minds.
Allow me to explain: If I were to ask you for some red, you would be justified by responding some red what? Red, of course, could be descriptive of many things (apples, cars, tomatoes etc.), but it always has to be descriptive of something. So it is with election. You cannot simply be elect. You must be elect to something. Since it is to salvation that the Calvinist says a person is elected, whatever is required for election is required for salvation. If a person is required to believe to be saved, therefore, the election to that salvation cannot be unconditional.
The Calvinist then says, if you do not believe in an unconditional election to salvation, you must believe in a conditional election to salvation. Such a view assumes (and I believe wrongly) that there is an election to salvation, unconditional or conditional. There is an election in salvation because there is an election in Christ. There is, however, no biblical basis for an election to salvation, at least nothing even remotely related to the Calvinist doctrine of salvation. The whole notion is simply foreign to Scripture. According to Scripture, salvation is graciously provided (i.e., the cross of Christ, 1 John 2:2) and graciously offered (the gospel of Christ, Eph. 1:13) to all without distinction. Also, according to Scripture, salvation, which is graciously provided and graciously offered, is graciously applied to those (and only those) who believe in Christ (John 3:16–17; Rom. 1:16). Faith is therefore the sole, sufficient, and necessary condition for salvation.
In Calvinism, the news, which is unconditionally good for some, is unconditionally bad for others. How it could be considered a gospel proclamation to the nonelect is difficult for me to imagine. Nevertheless, like Mr. White and all Calvinists, I believe all men, except our Lord Jesus Christ, are born spiritually dead. Like Mr. White and all Calvinists, I do not believe they are born partially dead; rather they are entirely dead. Like Mr. White and all Calvinists, I believe Scripture teaches that the only remedy for spiritual deadness is a spiritual resurrection. Along with Mr. White and all Calvinists, I believe regeneration or spiritual birth is a spiritual resurrection. Unless and until a spiritually dead person is born of the Spirit, he or she remains spiritually dead. Once again, however, Calvinism teaches that not even God has a remedy for the plight of many, if not most, of the people who have lived or will populate this planet. As R. C. Sproul, a contemporary champion of Calvinism, admits, it is “the non-elect that are the problem. If some people are not elected unto salvation then it would seem that God is not all that loving toward them. For them it seems that it would have been more loving of God not to have allowed them to be born. That may indeed be the case.”6
“Not all that loving” is an attempt to sugar-coat a very bitter pill that the Calvinist is asking people to swallow. Calvin evidently saw no need to help this awful “truth” go down easier. He simply said:
I again ask how it is that the fall of Adam involves so many nations with their infant children in eternal death without remedy unless that it so seemed meet to God?…The decree, I admit, is dread-ful; and yet it is impossible to deny that God foreknew what the end of man was to be before He made him, and foreknew, because He had so ordained by His decree….God not only foresaw the fall of the first man, and in him the ruin of his posterity; but also at His own pleasure arranged it.7
THE RELATIONSHIP OF FAITH TO REGENERATION

Unlike Mr. White and all Calvinists, I believe the spiritual life offered in a proclamation of the gospel to all spiritually dead people is available to, and provided for, all people on the condition of faith alone in Christ alone (John 3:16–17). Although Mr. White (and most Calvinists) give lip service to the biblical truth that the offer of eternal life is a bona fide, valid (i.e., sincere, meaningful, and legitimate) offer requiring nothing more than faith in Christ on the part of the receiver, the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional election and other related Calvinist doctrines say otherwise. The Apostle John said the signs (miracles) performed by Jesus were recorded “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that by believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:31, NASB). John also tells us that “as many as received [Jesus], to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name: who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12–13, NASB).
The Calvinist seems to fear that if he allows faith to be first (i.e., before regeneration), then he is making faith foremost. Just because a man must believe in Christ to be born again, however, does not suggest that there is regenerating power in a man’s faith, not even in a man’s faith in Christ. Only God can and does regenerate the spiritually dead, but He does so only (and always) for those who first put their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. The choice is between John Calvin and the Apostle John. What is true of regeneration in particular is true of salvation in general; thus, Paul could say, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God for salvation to every one who believes” (Rom. 1:16).
Faith in Christ is not incidental, as Calvinists claim; it is essential, as Scripture everywhere affirms. Believing is not a consequence of an unconditional election as Calvinism insists, but is rather the sole, sufficient, and necessary condition for receiving the salvation so freely offered to all without distinction as Scripture so clearly teaches. A person is not made a believer in regeneration as Calvinism contends, but a believer is made a child of God by regeneration as Scripture says.
Notes

“Doomed from the Womb”? Calvinist vs. Biblical Views of Election, Regeneration, and Faith

1. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993 reprint), 206.
2. Ibid., 231.
3. Ibid.
4. Alister McGrath, Reformation Thought, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1993), 125.
5. Calvin, 224.
6. R. C. Sproul, Chosen by God (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1986), 51.
7. Calvin, 232.