Does Calivinism “Turn People Into Puppets/Robots?”

From time to time, the Non-Calvinist/Anti-Calvinist Echo Chamber will allege that “Calvinism turns people into puppets.”  This strikes me as an ill-thought analogy.  


  1. Puppets do not speak with their own voices.   When a puppet speaks, the audience hears the voice of the Puppeteer in a literal sense. 
  2. Unlike people & animals, puppets do not have souls.
  3. Unlike people, puppets, because they, like robots, have no souls cannot & do not love.
  4. In other words, the puppet/robot analogy fails because it does not comport with the ontology of people vs. the ontology of puppets.    Puppets do not have free agency.  They do not form & follow their own desires into sin condemnation & death or righteousness, blessedness, & life.  


O LORD, make us all better theologians! O LORD, hear our prayer(s). 

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