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That is one of the problems with dealing with even labelled Protestants. Since each one self-determines his own theology, it is difficult to carry on a conversation about theology, since the labels differ, meanings differ, and definitions differ.

I am not saying that your definitions differ over time; you appear to me to be quite constant. I am saying that it is difficult coming from a mindset of constant definitions - A means A - to debate with a mixture of people with a mixture of definitions. And many of them have relative definitions which do fluctuate according to time, the weather, or simply their theological whim.

To the heresies?

Protestants, for the most part, give all sorts of different definitions on theology. It baffles me at times when I hear Protestants arguing the sides of Catholics. They have simply lost their roots. If they were to go back and read the Westminster Confession of Faith or the London Baptist Confession of 1644 there would be less confusion. Many Protestants simply don't agree anymore with these confessions-at least not in the area of election.

There is evidence that this confusion is symptomatic of the synergistic view of theology (e.g. God want man to co-operate, come to Him in faith, etc.). Any time synergism has been introduced, people deviate from the word of God to varying degrees, abandoning the word of God for feelings and experiences. Protestants introduced synergism 150 years after Calvin and, while there were various disagreements, it was nothing like to confusion of today-even within the same denomination.

Please don't take what I'm going to say that I'm a bitter and disappointed man, but as an objective analyst looking at history. (I've been label a pessimistic Calvinist.) To me Christianity has become nothing more than a socialized gospel. For non-believers God loves everyone, begging them to come to Him. For Christians He wants to rain His blessings upon us. We have totally lost the granduer of a God who calls, elects, protects and guide His people through His divine Holy Spirit. I think we are making a big mistake but I can only conclude this is happening according to God's will for some divine purpose.

You will find most Reformers, apart from the minor theological disagreements, do tend to be very consistent on most things clearly outline in the confessions. If we are inconsistent it is 1) we forgot what the confession tells us, or 2) the confession is silent and we are deviating. That is not necessarily a bad thing as long as we know we are in unclear waters.

Prior to becoming a Calvinist I did not studied the confessions which I believe would have given me a tainted, one-sided view. Instead I went back to the original church fathers and traced the history of church development. I haven’t read all the fathers but I’ve read enough. The Confessions only summarized the true monergistic Christian faith of the early fathers.

I believe the reason the Orthodox tend to be so solid in their beliefs is because they hold a strong synergistic view. The reason Reformers are consistent is because we hold a strong monergistic view. I happen to think that the Orthodox with their minimization of the inspired scripture is the wrong view. Everyone else, including Catholics, are all over the page because they hold to synergistism but cling to parts of monergistism to varying degrees. That is where confusion of definitions come into being.