The alternative of hypothetical universalism, according to which Christ's work is sufficient for all but efficient only for the elect, was alive and well in early Reformed thought. Moreover - and importantly for our purposes - this view was not regarded as an aberration but as a legitimate position that could be taken within the confessional bounds of Reformed thought. But that means that the Five Points aren't the non-negotiable conceptual core of Calvinism after all.

One of the things we in the Reformed tradition are very good at is writing doctrinal theology!

[Jonathan Edwards] he has to be engaged with on this issue if you're writing about Calvinism as I am in this book.

There is no such thing as a stationary tradition. Traditions are always developing, living things.

How many people in the pews know that [ Jonathan Edwards] is both a founder of evangelicalism and, say, an idealist who denied that the material world exists?

We may think that our tradition is exactly the same as it has always been, but that is an illusion.

That is the great contribution of Reformed thinking to the Christian church: theology for a life well-lived.