Paul spends much of the book of Romans¹ answering objections to his message. In some cases he was answering specific charges as to what he was alleged to have taught. In other cases he responded to the anticipated logical conclusions some might draw from his teaching.

Those who went beyond what Paul actually said, and put into his mouth things he did not teach, were guilty of falsehood (Romans 3:8). It is falsehood to say that someone believes something which they do not, in fact, affirm. It is wrong to put words into people's mouths, and attribute beliefs to them which they do not hold. It is incorrect to draw conclusions or inferences from what a person does believe and insist that they in fact believe what you consider to be the logical conclusion of whatever it is that they do believe. Such are false charges, false accusations, or, to use Paul's word, calumniation. 

For example, believers in free will do not, in fact, believe that they save themselves. They would never say that. They do not teach that. But that is the inference, the logical conclusion, which the believer in God's absolute sovereignty draws. He may feel justified to draw that conclusion, and press the point that it is a logical conclusion of the teaching that believing the evangel is a condition which humans are freely capable of doing. But when the believer in Sovereignty puts that conclusion into the mouth of the believer in free will, then he is engaging in deliberate falsehood. He is making a false charge, intended to make the belief of his opponent seem glaringly untrue and particularly aggregious. It is simply calumniation, slander. 

Believers are those who believe the evangel, "that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that He was entombed, and that He has been roused the third day according to the scriptures." All who affirm that are believers. I am not free to calumniate them, i.e. slanderously charge them with unbelief by declaring that, since they believe some other doctrine, whatever it might be, they do not, in fact, believe that Jesus died, or was buried, or rose on the third day, unless such denial is explicitly stated as part of their doctrine. [see my article, Equivocation].

Calumniation is the work of the Adversary. He put words in the mouth of God, which God did not speak, as he tempted Eve in Eden. He put words into the mouth of  God, by taking His words out of their proper context, as he tempted the Lord. He ever levels false charges against the elect to God Himself. And those ensnared by him do the same today against those who hold to the truth of the Scriptures. Whether it is the orthodox, who anathematize those who do not hold to their creed, or other sectarians defending their doctrines by defaming their opponents, calumniation abounds in this era of apostasy, as the god of this eon holds sway. It is unseemly, then, for those who claim to be the very elect of God to resort to leveling false charges against their opponents, by claiming that they believe things which they do not. The truth ought to be adequate to it's own defense, without resorting to false charges, or other forms of fallacious reasoning. 

Herald the word. Stand by it, opportunely, inopportunely, expose, rebuke, entreat, with all patience and teaching. For the era will be when they will not tolerate sound teaching, but, their hearing being tickled, they will heap up for themselves teachers in accord with their own desires, and, indeed, they will be turning their hearing away from the truth, yet will be turned aside to myths (2 Timothy 4:2-4).

Richard C. Condon          

¹Romans 3:1 What, then, is the prerogative of the Jew, or what the benefit of circumcision? 3:2 Much in every manner. For first, indeed, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God. 3:3 For what if some disbelieve? Will not their unbelief nullify the faithfulness of God? 3:4 May it not be coming to that! Now let God be true, yet every man a liar, even as it is written: "That so Thou shouldst be justified in Thy sayings, And shalt be conquering when Thou art being judged." 3:5 Now if our injustice is commending God's righteousness, what shall we declare? Not that God Who is bringing on indignation is unjust! (As a man am I saying it.) 3:6 May it not be coming to that! Else how shall God be judging the world? 3:7 Yet if the truth of God superabounds in my lie, for His glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner, 3:8 and why not say, according as we are calumniated and according as some are averring that we are saying, that "We should be doing evil that good may be coming"? -- whose judgment is fair.

3:27 Where, then, is boasting? It is debarred! Through what law? 3:28 Of works? No! But through faith's law. For we are reckoning a man to be justified by faith apart from works of law. 3:29 Or is He the god of the Jews only? Is He not of the nations also? 3:30 Yes, of the nations also, if so be that God is One, Who will be justifying the Circumcision out of faith and the Uncircumcision through faith. 3:31 Are we, then, nullifying law through faith? May it not be coming to that! Nay, we are sustaining law.

6:1 What, then, shall we declare? That we may be persisting in sin that grace should be increasing? 6:2 May it not be coming to that! We, who died to sin, how shall we still be living in it? 6:3 Or are you ignorant that whoever are baptized into Christ Jesus, are baptized into His death? 6:4 We, then, were entombed together with Him through baptism into death, that, even as Christ was roused from among the dead through the glory of the Father, thus we also should be walking in newness of life.

6:12 Let not Sin, then, be reigning in your mortal body, for you to be obeying its lusts. 6:13 Nor yet be presenting your members, as implements of injustice, to Sin, but present yourselves to God as if alive from among the dead, and your members as implements of righteousness to God. 6:14 For Sin shall not be lording it over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. 6:15 What then? Should we be sinning, seeing that we are not under law, but under grace? May it not be coming to that! 6:16 Are you not aware that to whom you are presenting yourselves as slaves for obedience, his slaves you are, whom you are obeying, whether of Sin for death, or of Obedience for righteousness? 6:17 Now thanks be to God that you were slaves of Sin, yet you obey from the heart the type of teaching to which you were given over. 6:18 Now, being freed from Sin, you are enslaved to Righteousness. 6:19 As a man am I saying this, because of the infirmity of your flesh. For even as you present your members as slaves to Uncleanness and to Lawlessness for lawlessness, thus now present your members as slaves to Righteousness for holiness. 6:20 For when you were slaves of Sin, you were free as to Righteousness. 6:21 What fruit, then, had you then? -- of which you are now ashamed, for, indeed, the consummation of those things is death. 6:22 Yet, now, being freed from Sin, yet enslaved to God, you have your fruit for holiness. Now the consummation is life eonian. 6:23 For the ration of Sin is death, yet the gracious gift of God is life eonian, in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

7:1 Or are you ignorant, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know law), that the law is lording it over a man for as much time as he is living? 7:2 For a woman in wedlock is bound to a living man by law. Yet if the man should be dying, she is exempt from the law of the man. 7:3 Consequently, then, while the man is living, she will be styled an adulteress if she should be becoming another man's, yet, if the man should be dying, she is free from the law, being no adulteress on becoming another man's. 7:4 So that, my brethren, you also were put to death to the law through the body of Christ, for you to become Another's, Who is roused from among the dead, that we should be bearing fruit to God. 7:5 For, when we were in the flesh, the passions of sins, which were through the law, operated in our members to be bearing fruit to Death. 7:6 Yet now we were exempted from the law, dying in that in which we were retained, so that it is for us to be slaving in newness of spirit and not in oldness of letter. 7:7 What, then, shall we declare? That the law is sin? May it not be coming to that! But sin I knew not except through law. For besides, I had not been aware of coveting except the law said, "You shall not be coveting." 7:8 Now Sin, getting an incentive through the precept, produces in me all manner of coveting. For apart from law Sin is dead. 7:9 Now I lived, apart from law, once, yet at the coming of the precept Sin revives. Yet I died, 7:10 and it was found that, to me, the precept for life, this is for death. 7:11 For Sin, getting an incentive through the precept, deludes me, and through it, kills me. 7:12 So that the law, indeed, is holy, and the precept holy and just and good. 7:13 Became good, then, death to me? May it not be coming to that! But Sin, that it may be appearing Sin, is producing death to me through good, that Sin may become an inordinate sinner through the precept. 7:14 For we are aware that the law is spiritual, yet I am fleshly, having been disposed of under Sin. 7:15 For what I am effecting I know not, for not what I will, this I am putting into practice, but what I am hating, this I am doing. 7:16 Now if what I am not willing, this I am doing, I am conceding that the law is ideal.

9:14 What, then, shall we be declaring? Not that there is injustice with God? May it not be coming to that! 9:15 For to Moses He is saying, "I shall be merciful to whomever I may be merciful, and I shall be pitying whomever I may be pitying." 9:16 Consequently, then, it is not of him who is willing, nor of him who is racing, but of God, the Merciful. 9:17 For the scripture is saying to Pharaoh that "For this selfsame thing I rouse you up, so that I should be displaying in you My power, and so that My name should be published in the entire earth." 9:18 Consequently, then, to whom He will, He is merciful, yet whom He will, He is hardening.

11:1 I am saying, then, Does not God thrust away His people? May it not be coming to that! For I also am an Israelite, out of Abraham's seed, Benjamin's tribe. 11:2 God does not thrust away His people whom He foreknew. Or have you not perceived in Elijah what the scripture is saying, as he is pleading with God against Israel?  11:3 Lord, Thy prophets they kill, Thine altars they dig down, and I was left alone, and they are seeking my soul. 11:4 But what is that which apprises saying to him? I left for Myself seven thousand men who do not bow the knee to the image of Baal. 11:5 Thus, then, in the current era also, there has come to be a remnant according to the choice of grace. 11:6 Now if it is in grace, it is no longer out of works, else the grace is coming to be no longer grace. Now, if it is out of works, it is no longer grace, else the work is no longer work. 11:7 What then? What Israel is seeking for, this she did not encounter, yet the chosen encountered it. Now the rest were calloused, 11:8 even as it is written, God gives them a spirit of stupor, eyes not to be observing, and ears not to be hearing, till this very day. 11:9 And David is saying, Let their table become a trap and a mesh, And a snare and a repayment to them: 11:10 Darkened be their eyes, not to be observing, And their backs bow together continually. 11:11 I am saying, then, Do they not trip that they should be falling? May it not be coming to that! But in their offense is salvation to the nations, to provoke them to jealousy. 11:12 Now if their offense is the world's riches and their discomfiture the nations' riches, how much rather that which fills them! 11:13 Now to you am I saying, to the nations, in as much as, indeed, then, I am the apostle of the nations, I am glorifying my dispensation, 11:14 if somehow I should be provoking those of my flesh to jealousy and should be saving some of them. 11:15 For if their casting away is the conciliation of the world, what will the taking back be if not life from among the dead?