To the editor:

I am amazed at how Rachel Laurn continues to jump to hasty conclusions on the basis of insufficient knowledge.

In her May 27, 2014, letter, she identifies me with Calvinism because of my rejection of her doctrine of free will.

She is evidently oblivious to the historical fact that the early reformers all rejected free will as a false doctrine of the Papacy.

Martin Luther, in fact, wrote a book entitled The Bondage of the Will, in which he refuted Erasmus’ defense of free will. Following Rachel Laurn’s defective method of reasoning, I could identify her and other modern Protestants with the Roman Catholic Church, since they share the Catholic doctrine of free will, and then begin to rant against them.

I, in fact, abhor the Calvinist doctrine of “limited atonement.”

I cannot find it anywhere in the Bible or in the works of Luther, or, surprisingly, even in Calvin’s own grand opus,

The Institutes of the Christian Religion. Nothing is made clearer in the Bible than the fact that Christ died for all (II Corinthians 5:15), that God is now reconciled with the world (II Corinthians 5:19) and that the “free gift” of righteousness has come “upon all men” (Romans 5:17,18).

Those who believe this good news of the full and universal atonement of fallen mankind will find themselves among the elect of God on the Last Day, but those who reject the Gospel, which is “the power of God unto salvation” (Romans 1:16), in favor of their own self-chosen method of salvation, will hear these terrible words from Christ’s own mouth:”I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:23).

Warren Hepokoski

Hancock