Posted on 05/26/2007 4:32:30 PM PDT by Titanites
Fair enough.
Don't you?
Not in those terms. I don't pray that I won life's lottery.
Or would you rather not be one of the elect?
Assuming eternity has a lottery, I would prefer to win it.
BTW, what have you done to earn your salvation?
Well, I must confess that I am in a period of flux, religiously speaking, but I would answer with "accepted Christ as my saviour".
I can not find any websites about why he left the Catholic Church. But if the Rodney Beason mentioned in this St. Phillip’s Episcopal Church is the one under discussion he left Catholicism for the Episcopal Church. Now if he had gone back to be Calvinist I would say he simply rexamined the doctrines and decided that he did not believe what the Church taught and that the Reformers were correct. But usually when someone leaves Catholicism it is because they are looking for a more liberal Church. Especially in matters of sexuality. Just a hunch.
This man is now one more sheep for Christ to bring back into the sheep fold.
I forgot to supply the link http://www.stphilipsnashville.org/schedulesvsMay07.html
Saint Phillips Episcopal Church Nashville
Schedule of Services for May 2007
FLOWER CHART Paul Cost Gayle Rodney Beason
Susan Skinner
(Romans 9:15 KJV) For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
Who determines whether or not you will enter into the Kingdom of God?
You?
Well, I must confess that I am in a period of flux, religiously speaking, but I would answer with "accepted Christ as my saviour".
You EARNED your salvation by accepting Christ????
Or did you simply confirm your salvation (and your status as one of the elect) when you received Christ?
As opposed to the intellectual maturity of such a ridiculous comment?
Please. There's a distinction between something being intellectually stimulating and something requiring mental gymnastics. Calvinism has no shortage of the former. Your posts seem to stem from the latter.
When you're ready to stop chucking batteries from the sidelines and get in the game, feel free to grab a helmet and take the field (unless of course you're the non-helmet type).
That doesn't mean that he decided to have mercy on you before you were born, and that nothing you do in the meantime can change it.
Who determines whether or not you will enter into the Kingdom of God?
God.
You?
no
You EARNED your salvation by accepting Christ????
Need to think about it more, but earned is probably not the right word.
Or did you simply confirm your salvation (and your status as one of the elect) when you received Christ?
Not sure... but, I see, and understand the logic and the scripture behind Calvinism. But, I also see scripture and the entire theme of the New Testament that accepting Christ is a choice for you to freely make.
How to reconcile the all knowing God with Free Will? I, and others, reconcile it by not reconciling it i.e. it is a mystery.
Calvinists reconcile it by just saying there is no free will, which I think much of the new testament, as well as human experience, suggests is false. This gets back to an earlier poster who described Calvinism as lazy i.e. rather than accept that something is complex it just crosses out a major theme of the bible.
Congratulations. You have a firm mastery of a distorted charicature of Calvinism that bears little resemblence to what the Reformed faith actually believes and teaches.
Please accept this complimentary participation gift:
Please, Calvinism is for the weak-minded.
Whereas uninformed inflammatory comments bely an incredible deftness when it comes to civil conversation.
Seems to be a reasonable point to me. If everyone is already pre-elected, why evanglize? Please explain why it is wrong. Thanks.
It's not a lottery. But the cards were all dealt at the begginning of creation. Your fate was sealed before you ever took a breath.
earned is probably not the right word.
No kidding. It is a GIFT! You don't earn a gift.
But, I also see scripture and the entire theme of the New Testament that accepting Christ is a choice for you to freely make.
Indeed and if you freely make that choice then you were chosen by God from before the foundation of the earth. If you fail to make that choice, then you have exercised your free will to your own destruction.
Free will is not a great blessing to men. It is a curse. You're only hope lies in having God make you willing, and no one, in the exercise of their own free will, is willing to allow that.
This gets back to an earlier poster who described Calvinism as lazy i.e. rather than accept that something is complex it just crosses out a major theme of the bible.
My experience is that few people work as hard at "confirming their election" as committed Calvinists. Not because they feel that they need to, but because they have a burning desire to do so. It is my experience that many non-Calvinists feel a need to do good works to "secure their salvation." The Calvinist knows that his fate is entirely in the hands of God. As a non-Calvinist, I also believe that my fate is entirely in the hands of God. I wouldn't have it any other way.
On the contrary, the Reformed faith embraces the mystery of God's sovereignty and man's free will with open arms. The freedom of will which unregenerate man does not possess is not that by which one is able to choose that which he desires. The Reformed would most readily agree that man has such volitional freedom.
The trouble, friend, is with the heart of man. It is there that man is lost, enslaved in sin. Man freely chooses that which he desires, but that which he desires is in opposition to his Creator to the extent that man's will is in effect in slavery to sin and incapable of doing anything truly good. Even his most superficially pure and noble deeds are born of a selfish desire to accomplish a self-serving end.
It is the Word of God which bears this out in laying forth the universal truth that the heart of unregenerate man is dead in trespasses and sins, wicked and depraved. But for the restraining grace of God manifest in diverse ways this world would self-destruct at the hands of the evil in the stony human heart. Were He not to intervene by breathing new life into the heart of a man and quickening within him a desire which produces the gift of faith unto salvation, man would persist without fail in his rejection of the very One by whose grace he even exists.
No, friend...the Reformed faith is neither lazy nor ignorant of what the Word says about the will of man. It works diligently to hold fast to the difficult truth the Word proclaims...that by the grace of God we are what we are.
Because God in His wisdom and grace has chosen the preaching of the Gospel by men to be the instrumental means by which He accomplishes the salvation of His people. As Scripture says, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!" We do not know who God's elect are, but we know what God has set forth as His means of bringing them to faith and so with joy we preach the Gospel to all men entrusting the bounty of the harvest to Him who gives the increase (1 Cor 3:7).
As I have often said, the primary focus of evangelism is to be faithful, not convincing. Just as the primary focus of our works is to be faithful, not to earn something.
The proper response of man to the understanding of the sovereignty of God is not mere resignation and disinterest but rather peace, joy, thankfulness and devotion. Could He bring the elect to faith without our participation? Most assuredly so! But He has ordained the preaching of men as the "foolishness" by which He will bring His people to faith and salvation.
And so we go and make disciples of all nations.
Ah, you must be a Calvinist after the style of this author. Otherwise you would never have made such a statement.
Incredible. What out-and-out Pelagianism. In the 4th century you would have been branded a heretic and tossed out of the Church. Today you're accepted as one of the crowd. My, how times have changed. I guess this is progress.
Many Calvinists that I know are intellectually rigorous in their theology and deeply sincere in their faith. I have found, however, that many of them have simply not been exposed to catholic (Orthodox, Roman Catholic or Anglo-Catholic) theology but instead have been fed only a caricature of the same. I have seen a number of them move away from reformed theology several years after their reading lists have been expanded. I expect the same will occur for a subset of the reformed theology gang on FR who sincerely debate on these threads.
That said, I stand very firmly grounded in the doctrines of the Reformed faith and it is equally irritating when I see others condemn something they clearly do not have a firm grasp of. Such is the case with some of the comments in the original article and in some of the responses following.
I like your tag, Fru. Amen.
"And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed." -- Acts 13:48
Most Calvinists would understand your skepticism. We, too, thought God's sovereignty ended where our human will began. But a closer look at Scripture tells us God gives faith to whom He chooses, and that choice was made before the foundation of the world.
Part of the reason for that is so that men can't boast they were smart enough or pious enough to come to faith. Instead, God determined their paths and at a time of God's choosing, their ears and eyes are opened to the truth and they understand.
And thus, most importantly, our salvation is due to Christ's work on the cross, Christ's righteousness, Christ's obedience, and not our own.
It's all of Him and none of us.
"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh." -- Ezekiel 36:26
That reference holds little relevance, AM.
Less frequent visiting does not equate to permanent departure.
This is where Calvinists goes off into imaginative LaLa Land. To say that believing is "a work" is ridiculous because the entire New Testament differentiates between the two. Paul in Romans 4:5 writes:
"But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness".
---worketh not, but believeth ---
Believing is not a work ---- nor is receiving ---- either scripturally or in the real world.
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