There's nothing empty about it. It simply means that I derive my doctrine from a systematic, contextual understanding of the Scripture in its entirety, rather than pulling a few verses out of context and fitting them into a pre-molded man-made theological system.
Ultimately, Calvinism was a product of the spirit of its philosophical age. In Catholicism, Malebranche was rising as the singular proponent of occasionalism, which is (when applied to the field of theology) really nothing more than an extreme form of calvinistic theopraxy. In Islam, al-Ashari's school of thought was resurging, also extremely similar to both Malebranche's and Calvin's doctrines. All three evince the same trends in thought, because all three were the result of the evolution of manmade philosophy, and hence should be avoided (Col. 2:8).