Paul Helm, who has died aged 85, was the leading philosophical defender of Calvinism in the UK over the past 50 years.
Paul was personally as far removed from the caricature of the Calvinist as one could wish: his steely intellect was concealed by a genial manner, and he enjoyed company over a pint in the pub as much as he did reading weighty Puritan works.
Paul was born in Blackpool in 1940, where his parents attended the Baptist Tabernacle, and where he met his first wife, Judith, with whom he had four children.
