He argues that if God could save everyone, but chose only to save some, He is immoral and unjust, just as someone who could save a drowning man, but chose not to, would be immoral (pp. Hunt’s main gripe with Calvinism is its view that God is not totally loving toward every person. Thus no one can boast in his salvation, but only in the Lord (1 Cor. His choice of us is the causative reason that we choose to believe. Our salvation rests on the foundation of God’s sovereign choice of us. Several families have left my church over this issue, because I teach what Scripture plainly affirms, that God sovereignly chooses to save some, but not all. LaHaye even states, “Calvinism … comes perilously close to blasphemy” (ellipsis in the quote). On the back cover of the book are glowing endorsements from Chuck Smith, Elmer Towns, Tim LaHaye, and others. I have had to deal with the book because a former elder is giving it to some of my elders and others, telling them that it is a balanced critique of Reformed theology.
But if you want to grow in your knowledge of the living God, I advise you to leave this tabloid theology on the shelf. It will give you the same sort of sensational slander as the tabloids, only it is presented as if it were biblically and historically based. If you rely on the supermarket tabloids as your reliable source of news, you’ll probably find Hunt satisfying for your theology. The resulting book is a first magnitude theological and spiritual disaster. But sadly, he stubbornly ignored our corrections and went full steam ahead. I know that his misrepresentation is deliberate because many Calvinists, including myself, wrote repeatedly to Hunt as the book was being written, pointing out his errors and asking him to stop misrepresenting what we believe. I was angry because Hunt deliberately misrepresents and slanders both Calvin and Calvinism, and in the process grossly misrepresents God Himself. I was sad because many unsuspecting and uneducated Christians will believe that Hunt is accurate and thereby miss out on one of the richest spiritual gold mines available, namely, the life and writings of John Calvin and his heirs in the faith. As I read Dave Hunt’s latest book, What Love is This? subtitled, “Calvinism’s Misrepresentation of God,” I felt both profound sadness and righteous anger.
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