How is a Person Saved? Arminian vs. Calvinist

"The Arminian believes that a person can become a Christian and then fall away. The Calvinist believes that once a person is truly saved, he is always saved, for he is kept in faith by God.

The Arminian believes that God knocks on the door to man’s heart and man decides to answer or not. The Calvinist believes that anyone whom the Holy Spirit regenerates is saved. This is because God’s grace works effectually only on the elect. He never wastes His effort or is frustrated in His design. If you are one of God’s elect, He will bring you to Himself sometime in your life. His desire for you will never be quenched until you are one of His.

The Arminian believes that Christ died for everyone. The Calvinist believes that Christ died only for the elect. Since we know from the Bible that there are people in hell, if Christ did die for everyone, Christ is a failure. As Loraine Boettner has written, the atonement in the Calvinist view “is like a narrow bridge which goes all the way across the stream; for the Arminian it is like a great wide bridge that goes only half-way across.” In other words, Calvinism teaches that salvation is complete for some rather than partial for all.

The Arminian believes that God’s choice is based on man’s action. The Calvinist, on the other hand, believes that God’s choice is based on His divine will.

In summary, the Arminian believes that man is born sick in sin, but still has enough good in him to choose God. The Calvinist believes that man is born corrupt (dead in his sin), so he must be made alive spiritually before he can do anything of a spiritual nature. Under the Calvinistic doctrinal system, man’s depravity is total in extent (though not in degree). In other words, all of man’s nature is corrupted by sin, but he is not as evil as he could be. 

~ Craig R. Brown, The Five Dilemmas of Calvinism