---
title: 'Robert P. Kerr on the Strength of the Calvinistic System'
type: post
author: 'R. Andrew Myers'
date: 2024-02-24
url: https://confessional.org/blog/2024-robert-p-kerr-on-the-strength-of-the-calvinistic-system
---

# Robert P. Kerr on the Strength of the Calvinistic System

“The distinctive features of this system of theology \[Calvinism\] are three — viz.:

(1) The supremacy of God in all things;
(2) The total depravity of man;
(3) God’s election of the saved.

While this system exalts God, it humbles man. It has been the object of many fierce attacks. It has never been popular with the world, yet it has inspired the grandest struggles ever made for the truth and for human liberty. Strong doctrine is required to make strong characters, and strong characters are necessary in the great warfare against sin. What would the Reformation have been without Calvin in Switzerland and Knox in Scotland? In contending for the doctrines called Calvinistic they worked out the conditions of a civilization grander than any other the world has seen. These doctrines have been called hard, but God made them, and for the salvation of men. We must be brought to feel a sense of our own helplessness; man’s proud spirit must be humbled, and then he is ready to cry out for mercy. The tendency of Calvinistic theology is also to promote the comfort of Christians. When Christians plant their feet upon God’s eternal decree, they may set the world, the flesh and the devil at defiance.” — [**Robert P. Kerr**](/authors/robert-polluck-kerr), *Presbyterianism For the People* (1883), pp. 67-68