Posted on 06/21/2012 8:24:00 AM PDT by fishtank
As Baptists Prepare to Meet, Calvinism Debate Shifts to Heresy Accusation Hundreds, including seminary presidents, have signed a statement on salvation criticized by both Reformed and Arminian theologians. Weston Gentry [ posted 6/18/2012 ] A statement by a non-Calvinist faction of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has launched infighting within the nation's largest Protestant denomination, and tensions are expected to escalate Tuesday as church leaders descend on New Orleans.
(Excerpt) Read more at christianitytoday.com ...
Not that they were dead, and God chose not to regenerate them so they could understand, but “although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him...”
"And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, - Ephesians 2:1
"When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins," - Colossians 2:13
Saving faith is something that YOU do. It is not something God gives, nor does it follow regeneration. It is the cause of regeneration,
" . No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. . . For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me, unless it has been granted him from the Father.' - John 6:44, 65
Cordially,
John 6:43-51
“43 Jesus therefore answered and said to them, “Do not murmur among yourselves. 44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’[e] Therefore everyone who has heard and learned[f] from the Father comes to Me. 46 Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father. 47 Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me[g] has everlasting life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. 50 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”
Romans 1:16-17
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,[a] for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”[b]
Romans 10:17
17 “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
John 16:12-14
12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. 14 He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.”
“”And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, - Ephesians 2:1”
Yes, dead is ONE of the words used to describe our state. But remember, the Prodigal Son was ALSO described as “dead” by the father.
Other words used include slave, blind, children, walking in darkness, sick, captive, and oppressed. All of those words indicate we can recognize our plight and hope for release. The Good News is not that God chose a few to save irresistibly while choosing to destroy all the rest for his pleasure, but that the blind can receive sight, the sick be healed, the captives set free.
“And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
And yes, God takes the initiative in reaching out to us. We do not seek Him. he seeks us. He searches for the lost sheep, and rejoices when they are found.
But Calvinism suggests there are a lot of lost sheep that God laughs at, knowing they are lost and will soon starve or be eaten. There is no hint in Calvinism of God lamenting over those who are lost - since, after all, Calvin says they are lost because God wants them to be lost.
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”
““How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?
If you turn at my reproof,
behold, I will pour out my spirit to you;
I will make my words known to you...”
“At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort, 2 a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God. 3 About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, “Cornelius.” 4 And he stared at him in terror and said, “What is it, Lord?” And he said to him, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. 5 And now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who is called Peter...”
This was before Cornelius received the Holy Spirit...
And the evidence to support of that allegation is...what?
Cordially,
I only vaguely remembered the parable from earlier years :O)
The following passage is sometimes erroneously used to support the idea that the will of man can overcome the will of God with respect to individual salvation:
Matt 23:37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!”
However, as with all Scripture, there must be context before there can be understanding. One of the most important contextual cues is who the speaker is addressing. Here, Christ is addressing himself, not to all those in Israel who were hearing his message, but to the leadership:
Matt 23:29-30 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’”
These are the ones whom Jesus accuses of resisting him, not the “children.” And in fact once the Holy Spirit arrives on the scene in force at Pentecost, many thousands of these “children” of Jerusalem would in fact be added to the church, and by the Lord Himself:
Acts 2:46-47 “So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.”
Furthermore, it should be noted that Jesus designates the Father, not Himself, as the one who draws people to Christ:
John 6:44 “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.”
This is significant because Christ, who was equal to the Father, emptied Himself to become one of us, to become our Savior. See Philippians 2:5-8. One of the consequences of that emptying was that Jesus did not have any knowledge of the divine plan apart from what the Father revealed to Him. Jesus might know that some individuals were chosen and some were not, but again, only as God revealed it to Him. And He would handle this knowledge, or lack of it, as any righteous, sinless man would handle it. For example, in the case of the Second Coming, His own event, he claimed only the Father knew.
Likewise, when He was in the Garden on the night He was betrayed, He did not pray as one who knew God’s entire plan, but as a righteous man who prayed to have the bitter cup removed from him if the Father could find some way for Him to avoid it.
Thus here, even if we reject the context and assume he was talking the individual, spiritual salvation of everybody in Jerusalem, we still have this same Christ, speaking as a righteous man with limited knowledge, telling those to whom he brought his message that they were resisting him, which of course was true, and that their rejection of him as Messiah would have drastic consequences to their nation, also painfully true.
That’s as Calvinistic as it gets. Because despite all the caricatures to the contrary, real, “practicing” Calvinists follow the model of Christ in this respect, in that they accept that God does not tell us all his plans, and we are therefore to bring the message to all those to whom he has sent us to preach. We are not better than our master.
And to address your other major line of reasoning, what is the message we preach? So-called Calvinists are just Christians whom some have tried to libel by associating the doctrine with a flawed historical figure. But all historical figures, except for Christ, are flawed, aren’t they? It’s Alynski before there was Alynski: Personalize, freeze, isolate.
But we are not “Calvinites.” We are Christians, and we bring the same Gospel message that all theologically orthodox Christians have ever brought, that Christ was the Son of God, and very God, who loved us and came in the flesh to die for us, and rose again, so that any who believe in him will not die, but will live forever in blessing with Him. We call on sinners to repent of their sins, lest they feel the eternal wrath of God. We call on those who mourn over their sin to look to Jesus for their light, their escape, their redemption.
Perhaps you see these pleadings with the lost as inconsistent with the belief in election. If I may speak the truth in love, this is not our place. God has revealed what he has revealed, and commanded what He has commanded. We are to preach what He has given us to preach. Yet some of it is the hardest material ever contemplated by the human mind. No Calvinist I know believes you have to be perfectly theologically adept or even accurate to be saved. Else who could be saved? We are all sinners, all imperfect. God’s grace surely extends to our imperfect theologies. Else our theology becomes a work, and grace is no more grace.
That’s not to say there aren’t certain things all believers will ultimately believe. The Holy Spirit leads us into truth, but sometimes, like the blind man he healed in two stages, it doesn’t come clear all at once.
“The plan was going to happen whatever choice Mary made. The angel starts by saying God was with with her (even though she was troubled He was still with her). Then He tells her she is going to be with child and give birth to the Son of the Most High.
I don’t see God leaving the plan up to her choice.
She then believed the message and said she had been blessed by Him.”
~ ~ ~
God has given everyone free will, Mary too. Your love for
Him, your choice for Him would be nothing if it wasn’t freely given. Mary could of said no.
The false teaching of “faith alone” messes up things in
every area of faith. People professing God does it all,
no. With the help of His grace and our free will choices,
our cooperation with His grace.
“+ + Predestination is not a willing of God to assign someone to heaven or hell, rather it is a FOREKNOWLEDGE where God KNOWS from all eternity which people will CHOOSE Him and which will not. He has predestined heaven for those who accept Him and hell for those who reject. BUT MAN IS FREE to choose good or evil. + +
How this foreknowledge and man’s free will are compatible is a mystery. We can speculate and grab on to some notions of how this is possible, but in the end it is a mystery hidden in God.
An imperfect analogy might be an old married couple, married for 50 years. They know each other so well that they can “know” what the other will do in advance of them doing it. This foreknowledge does not force the husband, for example, to do what he does, he does it out of free choice; it is just that the wife “knows” he will do it.
Such foreknowledge does not interfere with free will, it just knows what choice the husband will make.”
~ ~ ~
God doesn’t take away our free will, He knows what our free will choices are going to be.
“I do not believe God “willed” the horror of Hitler or Stalin, or “willed” the AIDS epidemic or the like in any way. Hitler, Stalin, AIDS, hunger, war, etc. are all products of human sin. Thus we punish ourselves, God doesn’t have to zap us, we zap ourselves.”
~ ~ ~
I think the writer was stating God is incapable of sin.
God’s perfect justice happens because of mankind’s evil
choices. And...
We know God can actually bring about a good from sin.
The heresies, two of them..”faith alone” and “man is completely depraved.” Not true!
It might help to remember we have revelation after the Old Testament. If we wish to know God in human terms, we have God Incarnate, Christ.
Orthodox Christians view the Old Testament through the New, and God through Christ.
If you think Christ caused the wickedness of Hitler and Stalin, et al, so that we may ‘return to Him,’ well, perhaps you can understand why non-Calvinist would see your view of Him as heresy, if not blasphemy.
"Tends"? You're tending to leave Calvinism when you stray from totally depraved.
People here keep saying man has "free will" yet they fail to explain WHY they don't follow Christ completely.
Because we are not perfect. We can grow towards it as Christ teaches us. We are finite, subject to the imperfections and constant change of all things finite. We begin life as a mass of instincts, but being human we grow to more than this. We fail, we learn, we struggle, we grow, we fail again. We choose: love or hate; God or evil. Then we much choose again...
But because we are not perfect does not mean we do not have free will. (Neither does not being able to flap wings and fly if we choose to.)
And not being perfect does not mean we are totally depraved. Calvinism is full of non sequiturs.
Even as a Christian I do the things I don't want to do and the very things I should do, I don't do them. This is the nature of our hearts.
Not your heart Harley. A little lower. :)
God is in our heart - He is our being. Our hearts do not rest until they rest in Him. God created humans in His image. Calvinism tries to reduce man back to animal, instinctual only, incapable of choosing his heart - and returning God's love.
But then why would anyone love a God that 'raises up' a Hitler to kill millions to teach us a lesson?
Calvinism has an capricious and injust god; it's portrayal of man more closely resembles a base animal.
Religion, in general terms, concerns who God is, who man is, and the relationship between them. When Calvinism gets the first wrong, and the second wrong - the third becomes error compounded.
Pardon the second post, but you raised some other issues, some her, some in earlier posts, which I would like to try and address.
For example, you have asked for textual evidence that faith is a gift. I offer the following:
John 6:64-66 “But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him. And He said, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.” From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.”
No doubt you will point out to me that in “coming to Christ” there is no mention of the word “faith,” “pistos” in Greek. True. Does there need to be? The Trinity is evident from the totality of the evidence, but the word is never used at all.
But even more to the point, look at the context? What is Christ addressing? The fact that some who are hearing his message do not believe. And what is the Greek root for “believe.?” “Pistos.” Faith.
Thus “faith” is described above pictorially as coming to Christ, and such coming to Christ must be granted by the Father, with the clear inference that those without such a grant will not believe, i.e., have faith. Same root word. As it is clear from the doctrines of sin and grace that God owes us no special grant of mercy, what else can this be but a gift?
But there is other proof. I know you believe you have discredited Ephesians 2:8-9, but I’d like you to reconsider. You state, correctly, that there is a gender mismatch between the neuter “that (touto)” in “that not of yourselves,” and the earlier noun “pistos,” “faith,” which is feminine. Well and good. Were you aware that “charis (grace)” is also feminine, and “sodzo (save)” is masculine? So where does that leave “touto?” If faith is not the referent, what is? Based on your theory of gender mismatch, it can’t refer to any of the preceding components of salvation.
Most authorities I have found believe it is something Paul does elsewhere, use a neuter pronoun to package an entire concept, a metaclass, if you will. Thus, if this is correct, he is referring to all the constituent parts as a gift or as the components of a gift. As faith is one of those constituents, it is a fair exegesis to understand Paul is saying that grace, the basis, faith, the means, and salvation, the result, are all the gift of God, so that a saved man has nothing to boast about. Nothing. And that, after all, is his point, isn’t it? Why would he mention anything that didn’t buttress his main conclusion?
But if that is not enough for you, there is more.
Php 1:29 “For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, ...”
Do you know what word that is hiding under “to believe?” Yes, it is the verbal form of “pistos,” faith. And how did these believers come into this “faith-ing?” It was granted to them. And as we learned from John 6:65, the Grantor is none other than the Father Himself, of who James says:
Jas 1:17 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.”
Catechsim of the Catholic Church
Paragraph 600 To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When therefore he establishes his eternal plan of “predestination”, he includes in it each person’s free response to his grace: “In this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.”395 For the sake of accomplishing his plan of salvation, God permitted the acts that flowed from their blindness.396
395 Acts 4:27-28; cf. Ps 2:1-2.
396 Cf. Mt 26:54; Jn 18:36; 19:11; Acts 3:17-18.
It is correct that we cannot convert anyone to Christ. I was speaking about converting one’s soteriology to Calvinism, which I would not consider exactly the same. But yes—the Holy Spirit clearly must draw those called by the Father to repentance and the need for a Savior.
The baby would be born to Mary whatever she said/did. This was not up to her.
One cannot choose or un-choose God's will.
The irresistable grace worked on her will.
The angel told Mary the baby would be born to her. That was not in question.
So Mary's choice was meaningless.
One cannot choose or un-choose God's will.
And I'm guessing that in the Calvinist way you intend this, 'one' means everyone; and everyone's choices are meaningless.
This, I believe would comport with my initial: You describe a cosmos where human life and decisions are meaningless. Rather than, your reply: "A desired goal of many christians is to exercise our will in conjunction with God's." which doesn't square with your last reply.
So, yes, I think your positions here are at odds with each other.
To clarify, meaning in this use states that it matters, there is a difference if we choose one way over the other. This of course presupposes we can choose differently.
I don’t believe this is true in the Calvinist view.
Leaving aside the fact that an omniscient God would know what decision Mary's freewill would produce, is your point is that the Holy Spirit is a rapist? Can you explain how that squares with Mark 3:29?
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