Editing Predestination in Calvinism (section)

===Equal ultimacy===
{{See also|Free will in theology#Calvinism}}
The Westminster Confession of Faith, uses different words for the act of God's election and reprobation: "predestinated" and "foreordained" respectively. This suggests that the two do not operate in the same way. The term "equal ultimacy" is sometimes used of the view that the two decrees are symmetrical: God works equally to keep the elect in heaven and the reprobate out of heaven. This view is sometimes erroneously referred to as "double predestination", on which see above. [[R. C. Sproul]] argues against this position on the basis that it implies God "actively intervenes to work sin" in the lives of the reprobate.<ref>{{Cite web |title="Double" Predestination by R.C. Sproul |url=http://www.the-highway.com/DoublePredestination_Sproul.html |access-date=2023-04-27 |website=www.the-highway.com}}</ref> [[Robert L. Reymond]], however, insists on equal ultimacy of election and reprobation in the divine decree, though he suggests that "we must not speak of an exact identity of divine causality behind both."<ref>[[Robert L. Reymond]], ''A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith'' (2nd ed., Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 1998), p. 360.</ref>

Calvinists hold that even if their scheme is characterized as a form of determinism, it is one which insists upon the free agency and moral responsibility of the individual. Additionally, they hold that the will is in bondage to sin and therefore unable to actualize its true freedom. Hence, an individual whose will is enslaved to sin cannot choose to serve God. Since Calvinists further hold that salvation is by grace apart from good works (''[[sola gratia]]'') and since they view making a choice to trust God as an action or work, they maintain that the act of choosing cannot be the difference between salvation and damnation, as in the [[Arminianism|Arminian]] scheme. Rather, God must first free the individual from his enslavement to sin to a greater degree than in Arminianism, and then the [[regeneration (theology)|regenerated]] heart naturally chooses the good. This work by God is sometimes called [[irresistible grace|irresistible]], in the sense that grace enables a person to freely cooperate, being set free from the desire to do the opposite, so that cooperation is not the cause of salvation but the other way around.