God’s Analogy
Marriage disproves Calvinism because marriage requires the consent of both parties. When the bridegroom asks the bride if she will marry him, the bride can say no. Therefore, since the Church is the Bride of Christ, the Church must of its own free will choose Christ.
But according to the Calvinist doctrine of Irresistible Grace, we cannot, in fact, resist the grace of God. Grace, which is supposed to be (and is, because Calvinism is false) a free gift, becomes instead something forced on the recipient - an offer they can’t refuse.
In marriage both the bride and the bridegroom must freely choose each other. By contrast, in Calvinism man’s will is not simply put in subjection to God’s will, but instead counts for nothing and is completely overriden by God’s will.
But that’s not how marriage works, and therefore not how God’s grace works because he has told us that He is the Bridegroom and we are the Bride,1 and that Heaven is a wedding feast.2
Marriage and Grace
Like in marriage, it is God who acts first, just like in marriage it is the man who (should) act first.
Like in marriage, it’s God who should be in charge, just as the man should be.3
Like in marriage, we must accept and consent to God’s offer of salvation and cooperate with His grace, just as a woman must consent to a man’s offer of marriage and submit to his leadership.
Therefore, like in marriage, we can resist and even ultimately say no to God’s grace.
Marriage disproves Calvinism.
Matthew 9:15; Matthew 25:1-13; John 3:29; Ephesians 5:22-33
Revelation 19:6-9
See e.g. Ephesians 5:22, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord,” Ephesians 5:24, “Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands,” and 1 Peter 3:1-6, “Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord.”
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