Probably not much good at all. As Calvin said, if God has not given a man ears to hear and eyes to see, then the words of Scripture are just ink on a page and not "spirit and life."
But do you know what's in a man's heart? I don't. And I don't know what will be in his heart tomorrow, either. So we are commanded to preach to all men, while remaining confident that those men in whom the word becomes more than ink will, at a time of God's choosing, repent, obey, believe and confidently know their salvation has been won for them by Christ risen from the cross.
"So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." -- Isaiah 55:11
I was simply inquiring into the Calvinist theology, not biblical veracity.
One and the same. Scripture is the truth; Calvinism is a systematic understanding of that truth.
Tangential to this is the reason why I admire Calvin. As B.B. Warfield wrote in his great essay, JOHN CALVIN THE THEOLOGICAN, Calvin understood the work and purpose of the Holy Spirit, particularly in making the words of God come alive in us.
It has been common to say that Calvin's entire theological work may be summed up in this--that he emancipated the soul from the tyranny of human authority and delivered it from the uncertainties of human intermediation in religious things: that he brought the soul into the immediate presence of God and cast it for its spiritual health upon the free grace of God alone. Where the Romanist placed the Church, it is said, Calvin set the Deity. The saying is true, and perhaps, when rightly understood and filled with its appropriate content, it may sufficiently characterise the effect of his theological teaching. But it is expressed too generally to be adequate. What Calvin did was, specifically, to replace the doctrine of the Church as sole source of assured knowledge of God and sole institute of salvation, by the Holy Spirit. Previously, men had looked to the Church for all the trustworthy knowledge of God obtainable, and as well for all the communications of grace accessible. Calvin taught them that neither function has been committed to the Church, but God the Holy Spirit has retained both in His own hands and confers both knowledge of God and communion with God on whom He will..." Now of course, a theology which commits everything to the operations of that Spirit of God who "worketh when and where and how He pleases," hangs everything on the sovereign good pleasure of God. Calvin's theology is therefore, predestination to the core, and he does not fail, in faithfulness to the teachings of Scripture and with clear-eyed systematizing genius, to develop its predestinarianism with fullness and with emphasis; to see in all that comes to pass the will of God fulfilling itself, and to vindicate to God the glory that is His due as the Lord and disposer of all things. But this is not the peculiarity of his theology. Augustine had taught all this a thousand years before him. Luther and Zwingli and Martin Butzer, his own teacher in these high mysteries, were teaching it all while he was learning it. The whole body of the leaders of the Reformation movement were teaching it along with him. What is special to himself is the clearness and emphasis of his reference of all that God brings to pass, especially in the processes of the new creation, to God the Holy Spirit, and the development from this point of view of a rich and full doctrine of the work of the Holy Spirit...""...It is probable however that Calvin's greatest contribution to theological science lies in the rich development which he gives--and which he was the first to give--to the doctrine of the work of the Holy Spirit. No doubt, from the origin of Christianity, everyone who has been even slightly imbued with the Christian spirit has believed in the Holy Spirit as the author and giver of life, and has attributed all that is good in the world, and particularly in himself, to His holy offices. And, of course, in treating of grace, Augustine worked out the doctrine of salvation as a subjective experience with great vividness and in great detail, and the whole course of this salvation was fully understood, no doubt, to be the work of the Holy Spirit. But in the same sense in which we may say that the doctrine of sin and grace dates from Augustine, the doctrine of satisfaction from Anselm, the doctrine of justification by faith from Luther,--we must say that the doctrine of the work of the Holy Spirit is a gift from Calvin to the Church. It was he who first related the whole experience of salvation specifically to the working of the Holy Spirit, worked it out into its details, and contemplated its several steps and stages in orderly progress as the product of the Holy Spirit's specific work in applying salvation to the soul. Thus he gave systematic and adequate expression to the whole doctrine of the Holy Spirit and made it the assured possession of the Church of God.
And since the Holy Spirit is a spirit and thus invisible, we must look with new eyes on the very real and tangible fruits of the Holy Spirit.
And we either see those fruits, or we don't.
"...the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God" -- Ephesians 6:17
Not to change the subject or anything, but there is a certain internal inconsistency to the Calvinist theology. Admittedly there is internal inconsistency in Arminian theology as well, probably even more so than Calvinism, but nevertheless both systems suffer from a degree of internal inconsistency.
Arminians seem to make the claim that they save themselves by their choices while at the same time denying that they really have anything to do with their salvation. Calvinists, OTOH, make the claim that while their salvation was determined at the foundation of the earth entirely independent of anything the person does or thinks during their lifetime, that their destiny is not the result of fatalistic determinism.
Just saying.
Proof please.
Calvin understood [sic] the work and purpose of the Holy Spirit
Wow!
And since the Holy Spirit is a spirit and thus invisible
Proof please.