>> A Calvinist could make the same sort of argument and assumptions about a Catholic who sins, confesses, repeats the sin, confesses, repeats the sin, confesses. <<
Oh, that’s certainly true. But I do believe that God repeatedly forgives the sinner, providing he has the “intention of amendment.” That’s a Catholic doctrine that says confession is only valid if the sinner truly desires to avoid the sin. The Hollywood stereotype of the confessing gangster is load of horse maneure not because the priest wouldn’t offer absolution, but because the gangster knows full well it won’t do him a lick of good. But even the alcoholic whose ashamed of his drunkenness behavior, confesses, and then goes right back to the bottle is forgiven.
As for my mindreading Calvinists, it may not be fair, but it’s correct enough I think more FReeping Calvinists need to face that fact. They write off the Calvist denominations which permit all manner of sin as if they aren’t really Calvinist, but that’s just denial. The flip side of “if you’re truly saved, you won’t commit grave sin” is the notion that “if you do commit sin, and you’re truly saved, then the sin must not be grave.” And that’s why the largest Presbyterian denominations were the first to become helplessly tolerant of all manners of sinfulness: the PCUSA, the UCC, the Disciples of Christ, etc.
Calvinists are largely accurate when they describe many Southern Baptists as Calvinistic. But a key difference between Southern Baptists and Presbyterians, for instance, is that the Southern Baptists aren’t rigidly Calvinist. enough to make syllogisms that differ from conventional wisdom. (Here, of course, I mean conventional among Christians, not worldly sense.)