To: so_real; RnMomof7; P-Marlowe; Corin Stormhands; rwfromkansas; drstevej; JesseShurun
Calvinists believe in the totality of God's power, awareness and reach.
Since God knows everything, He knows who will sit with Him in heaven and who will not. Yet, as RnMom is pointing out to Marlowe, He creates all sorts of people anyway -- those who are saved and those who are damned. Those who receive faith through God's grace will be saved. Those who don't, won't. It's God's choice to number the Elect, not ours.
As human beings, we can only be certain about our own salvation. The hearts of other men are often unknown to us. From this perspective, that is "predestination" -- God in charge of everything, including all men's "destiny."
397 posted on
04/28/2003 11:21:17 AM PDT by
Dr. Eckleburg
(There are very few shades of gray.)
To: Dr. Eckleburg
Calvinists believe in the totality of God's power, awareness and reach. Do you believe in a God that is so powerful that he is able to accomplish his perfect will in all things even if he grants unto man absolute free-will in all matters including the choice to accept or reject the offer of God's grace unto salvation?
Is God that awesome? Or is he limited to accomplishing his will only by turning his creation into cosmic robots.
To: Dr. Eckleburg; RnMomof7; P-Marlowe; Corin Stormhands; rwfromkansas; drstevej; JesseShurun
Calvinists believe in the totality of God's power, awareness and reach.
Then I might just be a Calvanist :-) Seriously, I was called a Calvinist before I knew what that meant. So I did my research and, though I have utmost respect for Calvanism, I do have issue with concept of the "elect".
Exod. 32:33: "And the LORD said to Moses, "Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book."
Rev.3:5: "He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels."
II Peter 3:9 "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."
It sounds to me like *all* of our names were written in the Book of Life before day "one". Thanks to the gift of the Christ, God assumes every one of us throughout history, present, and future will be with Him -- He wants nothing less. Furthermore, He calls all of us to repentence that *none* should perish. Only those who refuse Him will He blot out of the Book. In the verse from Exodus, the verb tense indicates (in my translation of course) that the "sin" is in the past and the "blotting" is in the future. I'm just not sure I can agree that God has pre-determed who will be saved. Perhaps, He assumes we will all be saved and allows us to weed ourselves out.
I do, however, agree that God is omniscient and omnipotent -- aka, the totality of God's power, awareness, and reach. Thus the paradox -- how can God be all knowing and still provide us a non-predestined "free will". The only answer to the paradox my human mind could fathom was that God chooses what He knows and when He knows it.
Before time itself, He knew our names, the number of hairs on our heads, when we would live and die, and more. And surely on Judgement Day our hearts will be opened and He will peer into them to judge our every living thought, word, and action with infinite justice. But my thought is that He has purposefully chosen not to be aware of certain things for that period of time between our birth and our death. In a sense, He keeps His hands out of our mess except where we call upon Him or He has to act to keep His promises. In that way, we have free will and He can enjoy interaction with us.
So what do you think, Doc, would I qualify as a Calvinist :-) ?
420 posted on
04/28/2003 1:36:28 PM PDT by
so_real
(It's all about sharing the Weather)
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