Does God Love Everyone?: The Heart of What's Wrong with Calvinism

Jerry L. Walls

Jul 2016 · Wipf and Stock Publishers

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Does God truly love all persons? Most Christians think the obvious answer to this question is, "Yes, of course he does!" Indeed, many Christians would agree that the very heart of the gospel is that God so loved the whole world that he gave his Son to make salvation available for every single person. This book shows that one of the most popular and resurgent theological movements in the contemporary evangelical church--namely, Calvinism--cannot coherently and consistently affirm this vital claim about the love of God. While some Calvinists forthrightly deny that God loves everyone, more commonly Calvinists attempt to affirm the love of God for all persons in terms that are compatible with their doctrines that Christ died only for the elect--those persons God has unconditionally chosen to save. This book shows that the Calvinist attempts to affirm God's love for all persons are fraught with severe philosophical and theological difficulties. Calvinism, then, should be rejected in favor of a theology that can forthrightly and consistently affirm the love of God for all persons. Nothing less is at stake than the very heart of the gospel.

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Jerry L. Walls is Scholar in Residence and Professor of Philosophy at Houston Baptist University. Among his books is a trilogy on the afterlife and, more recently, a popular synthesis of the trilogy entitled Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory: Rethinking the Things that Matter Most. He is also the co-author (with Joseph R. Dongell) of Why I Am Not a Calvinist.