Grace's Lesser Glory - The Diminished Grace of Calvinism

This blog post title is a play on words from Bruce Ware’s book, God’s Lesser Glory: The Diminished God of Open Theism.

Calvinist’s talk about Grace as if they invented the term or at least have exclusive theological rights to its use.  Sadly Calvinism's concept of Grace is truly a diminished one that ironically reflects poorly on the Glory of God they claim to uphold.

To them, grace is irresistible. Once God extends it, no one can reject it.  They can’t reject it initially, and they can’t reject it once they are born again and regenerated.  It is rather controlling.

To them, grace is exclusive.  God doesn’t extend it to everyone (that in spite of the dozens and dozens of Biblical passages that teach otherwise).  It is discriminating.

To an Arminian, this Calvinist understanding of the nature of grace is NOT Amazing Grace.  It doesn’t have a sweet sound as the hymn extols.

The Glorious God of the Scriptures has extended a far more glorious Grace.  A grace that enables but doesn’t force.  A grace that empowers but doesn’t overpower.  This is the nature of the Grace of a Loving God.  Love doesn’t force itself – because that would be a violation of the very nature of love.  God IS love. It is the center of His very essence.  And any grace that He extends by definition must be an expression of His matchless love.  His grace is also universal.  There is no one that God has created that He doesn’t extend His grace to.  There is a mystery here because there are those who never hear about the salvation God offers through His Son.  They never hear the message of His grace.  I don’t know how His grace is extended to them. I simply know that God’s love is the same for every one of His creatures.  And I know that He extends His grace universally to all.  Since not all are saved, or will be saved, this grace cannot be irresistible because if it were, then no one would be lost.