Calvinists are often
accused of being fatalists
...a more common charge is, that we hold clear
fatalism. Now, there may be Calvinists who are fatalists, but
Calvinism and fatalism are two distinct things. Do not most
Christians hold the doctrine of the providence of God? Do not
all Christians, do not all Believers in God hold the doctrine of
His foreknowledge? All the difficulties which are laid
against the doctrine of predestination might, with equal force,
be laid against that of Divine foreknowledge. We believe that
God hath predestinated all things from the beginning, but there
is a difference between the predestination of an intelligent,
all wise, all bounteous God, and that: blind fatalism which
simply says, “It is because it is to be.” Between the
predestination of Scripture and the fate of the Koran, every
sensible man must perceive a difference of the most essential
character. We do not deny that the thing is so ordained that it
must be, but why is it to be, but that the Father, God, whose
name is love, ordained it; not because of any necessity in
circumstances that such and such a thing should take place.
Though the wheels of providence revolve with rigid exactness,
yet not without purpose and wisdom. The wheels are full of eyes,
and everything ordained is so ordained that it shall conduce to
the grandest of all ends, the glory of God, and next to that the
good of His creatures.
- Charles H.
Spurgeon, Sermons on Sovereignty
