Paul writes that God "predestined us for adoption" (Ephesians 1:5), but adoption meant something different in Paul's world than it does in ours. In Roman law it concerned heirship and inheritance, and that changes how we read what believers are predestined for.

Scripture uses "call" for naming, inviting, choosing, and commissioning, and the context decides which is meant. Where we part ways with Calvinism is the idea of an inward, "effectual" call given only to the elect that always produces faith.

A carnal Christian has genuinely trusted Christ but still lives by the flesh rather than the Spirit, like the Corinthians Paul called "infants in Christ" (1 Corinthians 3:1). We hold that such a believer remains saved, which is where our view of security differs from the Calvinist doctrine of Perseverance of the Saints.

Scripture describes our fallen state as being "dead in our trespasses" (Ephesians 2:5), alongside pictures of being lost, sick, enslaved, and blind. Calvinists read deadness as a total inability to respond until God regenerates the heart; we read it as separation from God, not a corpse's inability to hear His call.

All Christians should affirm some definition of election as it is a Biblical word; the question is, what does election mean? Where we part ways with Calvinism is in rejecting the idea that election means: "Before the foundation of the world, God unconditionally chose some individuals for eternal life and consigned others to eternal condemnation."

Free will is not a superpower: it doesn't let us choose to be saved on our own or stop being sinners. It is the ability to make meaningful choices among real options, within our limits, including the choice to respond when God calls.

Scripture says plainly that God hardens hearts, as He did with Pharaoh (Romans 9:18). But God does not harden people into rejection; He hardens them in their rejection, as a judgment on persistent rebellion rather than a fate decreed before they ever chose.

Predestination is a biblical word, so the question is not whether God predestines but who is predestined to what. We part ways with Calvinism over the idea that God's eternal decree chose particular individuals for salvation and ensures that they will believe.

Many regard "regeneration precedes faith" as the backbone of Calvinist soteriology: God must give a person new life before they can believe. We hold the opposite order, that faith is the response to God's call through which He gives new life.

Most believers agree that God is sovereign; the debate is over what sovereignty means. We reject the idea that it requires God to determine every event and choice, and understand it as God's ultimate authority and rule, within which people make real choices.