Posted on 02/25/2002 11:01:41 PM PST by fortheDeclaration
I don't want that you should believe anything in regard to your calvinism.
Where's the scripture that PROVES that ALL INFANTS WHO DIE AT BIRTH are ELECTED TO SALVATION RATHER THAN TO DAMNATION?
These definitions are all either offered by calvinists on this thread or are condensations of definitions on this site recommended by JerryM: Calvinist Tulip Definition Site recommended by Jerry
T - - Total Depravity means that Natural Man is totally sinful and does not ever WANT in his own spirit to know Christ.
U - - Unconditional Election means that God has elected for His own glory, in accordance with His own will and without regard for the merit of those elected, some for salvation and some to be left in their sins.
L - - Limited Atonement means that Christ died specifically and only for the sins of those who would ever truly believe in Him.
I - - Irresistible Grace means that the elect are incapable of resisting the Holy Spirit's inward call to repentance and salvation.
P - - Perseverance of the Saints means that all those who are truly saved will certainly be brought to heaven and to glorification and will never be lost.
These Arminian definitions are found in the Wycliffe Dictionary of Theology and are condensed in that work by a Calvinist, Roger Nicole(Gordon Divinity School). I will take some liberties with them for the sake of clarification. They are the views of Jacob Hermann (Armin) a former student of Calvin who came to doubt Calvin's theology.
1. - - God elects only on the basis of foreseen faith and condemns only on the basis of resistance to grace.
2. - - Christ provided a universal opportunity by dying for all men and for every man such that ALL those who turn to him as true repentant believers are saved.
3. - - Man is so depraved that foreplanned divine intervention and preceding divine grace are necessary to bring about faith or any good deed.
4. - - According to the foreplanning of God, man was created with the ability to resist Divine Grace.
5. - - It is not certain that all who are truly regenerate will necessarily persevere in the faith.
I don't believe that there is a single scripture which proves it, per se.
I believe, instead, that there are a number of Scriptures which evidence it.
GOOD NEWS FROM THE REDEEMER
JUNE 28, 1997 RADIO MESSAGE #171
Are persons who die in infancy saved? Holy Scriptures do not directly address this subject. But various indirect declarations give us every reason to rest assured that they are indeed saved.
The goodness of God suggests the salvation of those who die in infancy. We read in Job 38:41 that He provides food for newborn ravens when they cry unto Him. Surely He will not turn a deaf ear to the cries of infants and permit them to be cast from His presence! We read in Psalm 145:15f that He provides food for "every living thing," even the most loathsome of creatures. Surely He will provide salvation for those made in His own image who die in infancy!
In various passages, the number of the redeemed in glory is so large as to suggest the salvation of those persons who died in infancy. For example, they are described in Revelation 7:9 as "a great multitude which no man could number." It is thought by many theologians that the number of souls in glory will be greater than that of the souls in the regions of the damned on the grounds that Christ must have the preeminence. This certainly will be true if the number of the redeemed in glory will include all those who died in infancy and childhood, which was a vast part of humanity in former times when a great percentage of children did not live long enough to reach adulthood. This number would also include the untold millions who today are snatched from their mothers' wombs and sacrificed by abortionists.
In Ezekiel 16:21, God called the children sacrificed to heathen gods "My children": "you have slain My children and offered them up to them by causing them to pass through the fire." God's children are received in glory, not consigned to hell.
In Jonah 4:11, we read that God had great pity on the citizens of Nineveh, especially upon its "more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left." Such pity suggests these infants would be received into glory if they died in infancy.
In Mark 10:14, Jesus Christ said, "Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven." He then admonished adults in the next verse, "Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it."
In 2 Samuel 12:23, David expressed his own assurance that his own departed infant was received into heaven, and that he himself would later be forever reunited with him there: "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me."
The great question before us not is not whether persons dying in infancy are saved and received into glory. Holy Scriptures would seem to assure us that they indeed are. Rather, the question before us should be whether the parents and loved ones of those who die in infancy will be reunited with them in glory.
Calvinists know that God has Elected to Himself, whomever He has seen fit. David, in 2 Samuel 12:23, stated with confidence that He would join his infant son in Heaven -- and this confidence was recorded as theological fact, in infallible Scripture.
How was David confident that his son, who died in infancy, was Saved... unless he was confident that those who die in infancy are Saved?? If He were not confident of this, He could not have made the statement. And if his confidence were not correct, God would not have permitted it to be recorded as infallible Scripture.
But I will freely admit that this is inferential reasoning, not explicit. If there were a specific verse which stated that "All who die in infancy are saved", Calvinists would be as quick to cite it as Arminians.
Historically, the only group of which I am aware who taught the opposite -- that infants who died in infancy were Damned -- are the Free-Will Petrobrussians.
Any response to #769?
Any response to #777?
Thanks.
So are we all allowed to not have a scripture that PROVES what we say; as in, for example, Jesus considering infants to be innocent? You, however, INSIST on a scripture where Jesus says specifically "Infants are considered to be innocent?"
Now I can just "theologize with scriptures that evidence it." Is that correct? Is sauce for the goose also sauce for the gander?
I did answer your 777. Even mentioned it by name.
I'm doing the sleep thing now, though. Goodnight.
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?
Oh, I do, that is why I believe that God sent His Son to die for all men, that whosoever believeth may be saved.
That is the context!
As as Moses lifted up the serpent in th ewilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life...For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world may have through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned, but the believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the begotten Son of God (Jn.3:14-15,17)Now, what context did I miss?
Says who? This is what you say when you do not have an answer to my post.
Free will, God-given, properly defined, and as commonly understood, is not that hard a concept to grasp, Woody. It is interwoven all through the Bible. But the theological debates you conduct are divorced so much from common sense and your everyday experience that apparently you must be led by the hand to re-experience the world you live in.
When was the last time you purchased something at a store? Was it cash, credit card, or debit card? You had a choice, Woody. You could choose the right and pay for it, or choose evil and attempt to shoplift it. All shoplifters will be held accountable before the bar of God, if not before an earthly judge.
But think, Woody, how many of those you unjustly consider unregenerate and going to hell make the right choice every day and pay for the things they shop for! They can choose to do the right thing, and you can stand in the checkout area and watch them! You see them blessing the lives of others, praying for others, making Christ the center of their lives, seeking to do His will, accepting Him as their Savior!
Yet you figure out some way to consider them unsaved and going to hell, substituting your own reqirements for salvation for the Biblical ones. That reflects more on you than on them.
Think of all the righteous choices all around you that you must ignore to consider them Totally Depraved and incapable of righteous Wants, choosing only evil continually. You have to blind yourself to your daily experience.
There are people who are steeped in evil. The Bible talks about them. Yet even these can turn and repent and begin to look to God and live. See Jeremiah 18. See the book of Jonah.
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.
Unconditional Election is similarly a denial of all free-will efforts to repent and improve by those who are not yet born again. The god you propose ignores all such efforts, or is in denial that there are any such efforts.
Limited Atonement also denies free will. If you have not been "chosen" you cannot repent and must unavoidably go to hell. This is false. Our Savior has redeemed all from the Fall of Adam, including little children, and has redeemed us from individual sins on condition of repentance.
Irresistible Grace also denies free will, the freedom to refuse God's grace. The grace to repent, or ability to repent, is extended by God to all, but many refuse because they love their sins more than God.
Perserverance of the Saints also denies free will, claiming that once born again you cannot return like the sow to her wallowing in the mire. The apostles were speaking out against apostasy throughout the New Testament.
Calvinist predestination denies free will the most blatantly, claiming that the god you propose predetermined all choices, both good and bad, denying free will to everyone, and becoming the author of both good and evil. This is false. God is not the author of evil. God has given us all the freedom to choose between good and evil, and holds us accountable for our choices in our stewardship here on earth.
Free will, properly understood, and a proper understanding of the nature of God, is the antidote for all these false doctrines.
I have. You are invited to do so as well.
Our Savior has redeemed all from the Fall of Adam, including little children, and has redeemed us from individual sins on condition of repentance, so the not very grammatical answer is: sins that are repented of, and all have the ability to repent.
Wow, you really have it tough (referring to the whole post). Totally undeserved. 8=)
People talking about me behind my back, huh? I have not been enlisted. I was flagged a time or two, but I can figure out what the current thread is.
I post independently, without collaboration with others, and I state views that everyone posting here disagrees with. But free will, properly defined, is such an important Bible truth that there are many who will rise to its defense.
How much FReepMail passes among you Calvinists? Hmmmmm?
You know that every single argument can be seen in the context of calvinist theologians wanting to avoid the implications of their own theology.....some saved, some damned (L in the above Calvinist Construct.) You want a concession that these scriptures could mean that "infants are all elect." There are no scriptures that say that, but I will agree with that kind of leeway in interpreting scripture is acceptable.
You also realize that the scripture above, if I'm allowed to use/interpret scripture the same way as they use it above, is also legitimate support for the belief that Christ sees infants/children as innocent.
The question is posed incorrectly. It should ask if the sacrifice of the Son is sufficient to cover the sins of all humanity.
The answer is yes. It is sufficient to cover the sins of all humanity. Why doesn't everyone come to the Lord?
Because they choose not to, given that 2. - - Christ provided a universal opportunity by dying for all men and for every man such that ALL those who turn to him as true repentant believers are saved. (See Arminian construct above)
Let us discuss the four aspects of atonement.
In case you forgot, they are:
Substitution
Redemption
Reconciliation
Propitiation
I'm sure as soon as I begin to present the various theories of atonement, most of you will become bored. No way anybody is interested in discusing medieval (or commercial) of atonement (according to Anselm), nor ideas promulgated by Abelard. Certainly there is no interest in anything Socinus during the Reformation period might say, and exceedingly dubious is any interest in Schleirmacher, Bushnell, Ritscl in the modern period.
Without doubt Grotius, Luther, Calvin modifications to Anselm's theories are most prevailing and are only tempered with views according to Arminius.
Let us not forget that the issue is a lack of sufficiency of attonement to secure salvation (i.e. after Augustine, the Reformers of RCC and all advocates of limited atonement have agreed that Christ's death is sufficient for all, but efficient for the elect only). This would mean that it is possible to apply the benefits of atonement to any man God chooses it to be applied to. Whether atonement is automatically applied to all men apart from personal appropriation could now be considered universalism. Whether atonement is automatically applied to all men apart from personal appropriation - that being universalism - fundamentally becomes the issue (particularists aren't concerned whether attonement is offered for all men indiscriminately or objectively offered to all).
I'd not worry about it, after all my incisor marks on your left teat have been pre-ordained and otherwise foreknown before the beginning of all universes.
Of course I'm going to bite you its foreknown, foreordainded and an integral part of creation.
Nope. You can use them for the belief that those who die in infancy, are going to heaven.
David and his infant son were both heaven-bound, but David's infant son was no more "innocent" of Sin than was David. (Scripture nowhere teaches that either was "innocent" of sin).
Death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. The fact that all are born mortal, is juridically founded upon the fact that all have sinned. If Infants have not Sinned, they would not be born mortal. If the were not sinners, they could not die in infancy. Death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.
Now that I know that I am perceived as "the enemy" I will know how to conduct myself. (Anyway, this only validates my original point that pious non-Calvinists think that it is OK to trash Calvinists, but then have the unmitigated gall to say "How does this please the Master?". Hypocritical, if you ask me.
If xzins is correct, and infants don't sin, then wouldn't we be better off slaughtering all the innocent little ones before they sin, thus assuring their salvation?
If xzins is correct, then the most loving thing I could have done for my twin grandsons would have been to kill them at birth. That way, they don't have the oportunity to say "no" to Christ and decide themselves into hell.
However, I know that God has chosen, on the basis of His good pleasure, to save all those who are His. As a result, I can trust in His heart, knowing that He does all things well.
You got any infants. Tell me the sin they committed as an infant.
I'm perfectly content to let you argue that infants sin. It's so obviously an inane argument that's out of touch with adequate scriptural interpretation.
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