Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not rubbishing penal substitution. But there are other options that have been advocated by Reformed thinkers of the past.

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

The confessions don't speak with one voice. They are more like a cluster of closely-related but distinct voices - a kind of choir, if you like.

[ Jonathan] Edwards is the person who really made theological determinism a serious option for Reformed thinkers, and the influence his views had in nineteenth century Reformed thought, in the USA and the UK in particular, is enormous.

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.

Reading [John] Calvin is a breath of fresh air.

Jonathan Edwards developed a Calvinistic strand of the doctrine.