The Use of Means in Regeneration
One of the great benefits of the Internet is that nothing stays hidden within a single community very long. When false statements are made and bandied about, the likelihood of them being exposed for what they are is much more likely than when there was no Internet and teachers could speak to their flock in a closed bubble community.
This week I ran into this meme online posted by someone who obviously did not think very highly of Calvinism.
It says Calvinism [teaches that] "how shall they believe if they have not been regenerated" while Christianity teaches "How they shall believe if they have not heard?"
The man who posted this meme made it quite easy for his followers to disprove a strawmen version of "Calvinism" since it gives the very misleading impression that people who embrace a Calvinist view of God's sovereign grace don't believe in the necessity of preaching the gospel. Talk about false dichotomies. I have yet to meet any classical Calvinists who think people can be saved without hearing someone preach the gospel to them. But I have, upon occasion, heard some Arminians teach that many of those who never hear the gospel in their lifetime will still have an opportunity to repent after they die. No, the fact is that Reformed believers are adamant for the need to preach the gospel to every creature, or they won't be saved. The problem with the meme is that it sees this as a stark either/or choice. Either you are teaching 1) that you must be regenerated to be saved or 2) you are teaching that someone must hear the gospel and respond to it to be saved. But you can't be teaching both. That is a false dichotomy The Bible teaches that it is both: