Calvinism Was Founded By John Calvin Religion Essay

Calvinism Was Founded By John Calvin Religion Essay Calvinism was founded by a man named John Calvin (Theopedia, par. 1). John Calvin was born on July 10, 1509 in France and died on May 27, 1564 at the age of 54 (Rieske, par. 1). John Calvin was brought up Roman Catholic by his mother, Jeanne Le Franc (Rieske, par. 1). John Calvin’s father, Gerard, was an attorney, raised by seafaring men (Rieske, par. 1). At the age of eighteen, John’s education process was complete (Rieske, par. 2). After John Calvin’s education and studies were complete, John became a humanist and a reformer, instead of following Roman Catholicism (Rieske, par. 2). To know about a religion or a denomination, one should study also about the founder and the background to his or her life, so that we can know where they came from and where the process of their doctrine beliefs came from. The five main points to Calvinism are: Total Depravity, Unconditional Election (Predestination), Limited Atonement, Irrisistable Grace, and also the Perseverance of the Saints (Humphreys, par. 13). The First of the five points of Calvinism is Total Depravity (Calvinism, par. 4). Every man deserves Hell and is worthless without the presence of God in their lives (Calvinism, par. 4). Adam and Eve and everyone after them were censured by a just God because of original sin (Calvinism, par. 4). The second point is Unconditional Election or Predestination (Humphreys, par. 13). God felt sorry for mankind and sent Jesus to save some sinners, but not all (Calvinism, par. 5). These are known as the Elect and their fate was decided by God before they were born (Calvinism, par. 5). This is not a matter of choice, for the person, but a decision of God (Calvinism, par. 5). Calvinist seem to determine among themselves who is likely to be elected by a persons behavior (Calvinism, par. 6). The points of Limited Atonement and Irrisistable Grace fall with this as well (Humphreys, par. 14-18). The point of Perseverance of the Saints means that once God saves so meone, they will always be saved (Humphreys, par. 19). Calvinism teaches that believers don’t need priests (Calvinism, par. 8). Calvinists observe both communion and baptism (Calvinism, par. 8). Our God does not need to check the time for anything because He knows when, where, and how everything will happen (Theopedia, par. 5). God keeps himself hidden from non-believers but reveals Himself to those who already know Him, or will know Him (Theopedia, par.5). In the later history of Calvinism, people have modified John Calvin’s teachings to serve their own purposes and the beliefs of the Reformed Tradition of Protestant Christianity, which Calvinism was the most prominent in (Theopedia, par. 5). When Calvinism first started it suddenly became very popular all around the world (Calvinism, par. 3). John Calvin and many more of his co-pastors were originally from France but left because of their religion, so they moved to Geneva which became a trading city of about 10,000 p eople (Grell, par. 8). The Old Testament is mainly where Calvin got his inspirations from (Grell, par. 10). Calvinism is not comprehensible without remembering the persecution of Christians (Grell, par. 10). Some people thought that the idea of Predestination produced anxiety from asceticism and capitalism (German, par. 11).