White Mountain may be a Mormon, and I will confront him over that when we deal with Mormonism. At least he does understand the God rejecting nature of the Calvinistic system. What is your excuse?
806 posted on 3/1/02 12:24 AM Pacific by fortheDeclaration
I am increasingly convinced that those defenders of the construct do much more damage to the cause of Christ than the papists or the mormons could ever hope to do.
1002 posted on 3/1/02 2:46 PM Pacific by winstonchurchill
White Mountain doesn’t understand the God rejecting nature of anything he believes. Want proof? He is a Mormon! Now, you are perfectly free to align yourself with him in any discussion, but I must wonder at the strange bedfellows you keep. What fellowship has light with darkness? But, this really shouldn’t bother you much as you don’t understand the God rejecting nature of what you believe FTD.
As for you, WC, I have a suspicion that you have been in contact with Don recently. Maybe not; you may not have been that close. It must really bother you, though, that our fellowship of Reformed believers is growing. I know it bothers WM and FTD.To agree to a doctrine like Total Depravity one must believe that all people before they are born again are so evil that they cannot choose the right, cannot seek or ask of God, or exercise faith in Christ. That is contradicted by your everyday experience, and causes me to wonder if you have been born again, since you apparently cannot see the obvious. The mistake of Calvinism as presented here is in making your own private Biblical interpretation, not having authority, and then driving it to extremes.
808 posted on 3/1/02 3:00 AM Pacific by White Mountain
Yes, one must believe that the blood of Christ [must] purge your conscience from dead works; that our hearts [must be] sprinkled from an evil conscience. And one must believe when in the Bible says that there is no one who calls on Your name, who stirs himself up to take hold of You. And one must believe when the Bible says that I was found by those who did not seek me.
The reason that this is contradicted by your everyday experience is because you are still looking at the world with your natural eyes. So, obviously you will see what you perceive as the natural goodness of man. And you will see the same goodness reflected in your "church" and you will conclude that the Calvinist has to be wrong. His reading of scripture must be flawed.
After all, all of us have a "child of light’ in us. We were one with God in some way in eternity past; or so the LDS teach.
But the Calvinist simply laughs. He knows that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. He knows that until you experience being born of God and meet the Lord for the first time that you will never see man for exactly what the Bible says he is. The Calvinist knows that the natural man does not know these things because they are spiritually discerned.
The Calvinist knows that these people, whose minds the god of this age has blinded… lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ… should shine on them, are utterly at the mercy of God. The Calvinist knows that it is God who commanded light to shine out of darkness who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
So, it is obvious that I don’t see as you see. I have something that you need, desperately! I have a specific authority and a calling. And while I explore the wonderful things that God has ordained for me with His calling, I can assure you that you have never tasted my Jesus. And for this, I am sorry for you. You need to repent of all of Mormonism and you need to burn those books.
Until you do, you are not even equipped for the discussion. You are merely an outsider offering your natural man’s insight into a Spiritual affair. And I would urge all my brethren to not engage him in any other way than other to call him to repent and believe. But, I imagine that will fall on deaf ears for some.
As I told Rnmomof7, White Mountain is not the issue of these threads. Why don't the Calvinists deal with their own God-dishonoring system! Since you cannot deal with the evidence that your system is reduced to making God the author of every evil that has ever occured in history, you now want to change the issue to the fact that Mormons are not saved. We are now dealing with your heresy not the Mormons. If you want to deal with the Mormons start a thread.
As for you, WC, I have a suspicion that you have been in contact with Don recently. Maybe not; you may not have been that close. It must really bother you, though, that our fellowship of Reformed believers is growing. I know it bothers WM and FTD. To agree to a doctrine like Total Depravity one must believe that all people before they are born again are so evil that they cannot choose the right, cannot seek or ask of God, or exercise faith in Christ. That is contradicted by your everyday experience, and causes me to wonder if you have been born again, since you apparently cannot see the obvious. The mistake of Calvinism as presented here is in making your own private Biblical interpretation, not having authority, and then driving it to extremes. 808 posted on 3/1/02 3:00 AM Pacific by White Mountain Yes, one must believe that the blood of Christ [must] purge your conscience from dead works; that our hearts [must be] sprinkled from an evil conscience. And one must believe when in the Bible says that there is no one who calls on Your name, who stirs himself up to take hold of You. And one must believe when the Bible says that I was found by those who did not seek me. The reason that this is contradicted by your everyday experience is because you are still looking at the world with your natural eyes. So, obviously you will see what you perceive as the natural goodness of man. And you will see the same goodness reflected in your "church" and you will conclude that the Calvinist has to be wrong. His reading of scripture must be flawed. After all, all of us have a "child of light’ in us. We were one with God in some way in eternity past; or so the LDS teach. But the Calvinist simply laughs. He knows that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. He knows that until you experience being born of God and meet the Lord for the first time that you will never see man for exactly what the Bible says he is. The Calvinist knows that the natural man does not know these things because they are spiritually discerned.
If that is the case then why bother White Mountain? He can't help it if he hasn't believed, God hasn't chosen him!
The Calvinist knows that these people, whose minds the god of this age has blinded… lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ… should shine on them, are utterly at the mercy of God. The Calvinist knows that it is God who commanded light to shine out of darkness who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So, it is obvious that I don’t see as you see. I have something that you need, desperately! I have a specific authority and a calling. And while I explore the wonderful things that God has ordained for me with His calling, I can assure you that you have never tasted my Jesus. And for this, I am sorry for you. You need to repent of all of Mormonism and you need to burn those books.
You keep talking like White Mountain has a choice which according to your system he doesn't! See how Calvinism has to adopt Arminianism verbage to sound scriptural. What a Calvinist should say is
Hey, WhiteMountain, to bad you were not chosen to be one of the elect. I know that God has forordained you to be a Mormon and to go to hell so I will not bother you anymore. I will say that you are a godless wretch that deserves to go to Hell, and it is the secret councils of God that you go and not me! Ha, Ha!-Glory to God! (Lk 18:10-14)
Until you do, you are not even equipped for the discussion. You are merely an outsider offering your natural man’s insight into a Spiritual affair. And I would urge all my brethren to not engage him in any other way than other to call him to repent and believe. But, I imagine that will fall on deaf ears for some.
What does the natural man vs the spiritual man have to do with the logical and philosphical nature of Calvinism? If all the Calvinists can do is fall back onto the 'secret councils' even an unbeliever can see the nonsense of that! Calvin's Institutes are not scripture.
Once again Woody, you have no answer to my posts, so you try to change the subject and make my religion the issue. The subject has been changed the whole day long. You are just admitting you have no good answer.
You try to tell the other free-will supporters that they must become Calvinists because otherwise you would associate them with me. Their responses show how absurd that tactic is. I post independently. Yet still you soldier on. You bring out the big guns. You appeal to ignorance and prejudice with the quote above, hoping to find some prejudice out there that you can exploit, in the name of "defending the faith".
We have been talking about Hitler lately. Do you condemn Hitler's appeals to ignorance and prejudice regarding the Jews, as a people and as a faith, which proved to be quite deadly? Do you see the hypocrisy in making a similar appeal yourself to the non-Calvinists here? Should the people of your community have fair warning should you ever run for an office of public trust?
You write: The reason that this is contradicted by your everyday experience is because you are still looking at the world with your natural eyes.
I said your beliefs are contradicted by your everyday experience. See if you can get it straight.
But clearly in your post you are claiming once again that I am unregenerate. You bear false witness in a very serious matter, for I am regenerate. You owe me yet another apology. These owed apologies will be neatly stacked at the bar of God, waiting for you. If you never take care of them, God will say, "Why do ye call Me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say?" Perhaps you will reply, "But I had this great conversion experience, and felt full of love towards God and my neighbor." Jesus will then give you the appropriate response, which may be, "Why did you not continue as you commenced?"
Think for a minute, if you can. Looking at the world through your supposedly spiritual eyes, when you see people paying for their purchases instead of shoplifting, is that evil? In your opinion, do natural eyes see righteous acts for what they are, but spiritual eyes see only evil instead? You are showing me that you do not know what it is to be born again, or what spiritual eyes are, despite all the impressive-sounding conversion stories you may tell. Your behavior towards those you disagree with, including me, and your attitude toward those you deem unregenerate, calls into question your own claimed regeneration.
When you are converted, Woody, strengthen the brethren.