Posted on 02/28/2010 8:30:39 AM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
John Calvin's 16th century reply to medieval Catholicism's buy-your-way-out-of-purgatory excesses is Evangelicalism's latest success story, complete with an utterly sovereign and micromanaging deity, sinful and puny humanity, and the combination's logical consequence, predestination: the belief that before time's dawn, God decided whom he would save (or not), unaffected by any subsequent human action or decision.
Calvinism, cousin to the Reformation's other pillar, Lutheranism, is a bit less dour than its critics claim: it offers a rock-steady deity who orchestrates absolutely everything, including illness (or home foreclosure!), by a logic we may not understand but don't have to second-guess. Our satisfaction — and our purpose — is fulfilled simply by "glorifying" him. In the 1700s, Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards invested Calvinism with a rapturous near mysticism. Yet it was soon overtaken in the U.S. by movements like Methodism that were more impressed with human will. Calvinist-descended liberal bodies like the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) discovered other emphases, while Evangelicalism's loss of appetite for rigid doctrine — and the triumph of that friendly, fuzzy Jesus — seemed to relegate hard-core Reformed preaching (Reformed operates as a loose synonym for Calvinist) to a few crotchety Southern churches.
No more. Neo-Calvinist ministers and authors don't operate quite on a Rick Warren scale. But, notes Ted Olsen, a managing editor at Christianity Today, "everyone knows where the energy and the passion are in the Evangelical world" — with the pioneering new-Calvinist John Piper of Minneapolis, Seattle's pugnacious Mark Driscoll and Albert Mohler, head of the Southern Seminary of the huge Southern Baptist Convention. The Calvinist-flavored ESV Study Bible sold out its first printing, and Reformed blogs like Between Two Worlds are among cyber-Christendom's hottest links.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
Yep. And Calvinism believes it's a real choice. Just because someone never will submit does not mean they don't have all of the equipment making it possible to do it the other way. Those who always resisted the Holy Spirit had every piece of equipment necessary in order to submit. They simply did not WILL to do so.
This makes no sense, coming from you. Doesn't everyone do His will, for His glory? Even people like Hitler, Stalin, and Dahmer? Doesn't He control every action, belief, and desire of every person on the planet?
Why thank God for making you into a robot--just like everyone else in the world?
Amen & amen!!
And what a wonderful truth that has been sown into our hearts. I can trust Him no matter what happens.
Ephesians
1:22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church,
:23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
2:1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
:2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—
:3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
:5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
:6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
:7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
:9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
God made man in His own image.
God did NOT make SOME men in His own image--He made ALL men in His own image. This fact alone refutes the double-predestination concept with men having no say in the matter. All men have the ability to make the correct choice.
Some don't--using the free will we were given by the Creator.
Some won't.
Based on the prophecy of God.
"The wicked SHALL BE cast into hell, and all the nations that forget God."
God already knows who they are, and He knew when they were born. Either He is omniscient or He isn't. We don't get it both ways. In fact, we don't want it both ways.
Interesting. The excerpt you posted had only references to Ephesians 1 and Romans 9. I think that it is a very nice take on Calvin's theology, and the very limited and misinterpreted Scripture that it is based upon.
Mark 16: 14 (But) later, as the eleven were at table, he appeared to them and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had been raised. 15 He said to them, "Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages. 18 They will pick up serpents (with their hands), and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover." 19 So then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God. 20 But they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.) 3
Every creature, everywhere; the entire world. The Reformed God does not demonstrate great love, only limited love and limited mercy.
I would think of election this way: before you were saved, you were a slave to sin following the desires and passions of this world. The Son set you free to be led by His Spirit because of His calling. His rod and His staff, they guide you.
good points; with the possible addition of there’s “need to be” and “completely unequipped to be”
A very snide tone all the way through.
“ I don’t mean to be rude but your an idiot”.....
Typical of Calvinists. But in all honesty, it does
make perfect sense since theirs is not to go out
and make disciples of all nations. No point.
You quote Calvin with the same attitude that you abhor
in those who use the teachings of the Roman Catholic
Church. He was just a man yet your attitude manifests
a reverence that only Holy Scripture deserves.
Your comment is disingenuous and the use of the quotation marks makes it seem as if that is a quote by me. It is not.
And your slam against Calvinists is again misplaced. Some of the greatest missionaries were Calvinists. Calvinists fervently believe in the Great Commission. We are commanded by God to preach the Gospel to all men and nations, confident that those whom He gives ears to hear will know their salvation has been won for them by Christ risen from the cross.
But then, you do not think you need to be winsome or funny or charming or anything other than what you are
"Winsome?" lol. Is "winsome" a requirement for salvation?
But you're right. I do not "need to be winsome or funny or charming" to be saved. I only need to receive God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
If you don't have it, pray for it. God is gracious to those who ask with a humble heart.
"Be not afraid; only believe." -- Mark 5:36
"Be not afraid; only believe." -- Mark 5:36
AMEN! Gratitude and trust. The ingredients for a happy life.
"For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." -- Philippians 2:13
A belief in man's free will is a remnant of the fallen ego. It isn't real. It's an illusion. We are living the thoughts of God one step behind Him.
No one says that's an easy concept to grasp since it goes against what we've been taught from pre-school. But logically as well as Scripturally, whatever exits does so because God has willed it into being and sustains it by His eternal purpose which He declared from before the foundation of the world.
It's a perspective that truly gives all glory to God.
UPON the whole, it is evident that the doctrine of God's eternal and unchangeable predestination should neither be wholly suppressed and laid aside, nor yet be confined to the disquisition of the learned and speculative only; but likewise should be publicly taught from the pulpit and the press, that even the meanest of the people may not be ignorant of a truth which reflects such glory on God, and is the very foundation of happiness to man. Let it, however, be preached with judgment and discretion, 1:e., delivered by the preacher as it is delivered in Scripture, and no otherwise. By which means, it can neither be abused to licentiousness nor misapprehended to despair, but will eminently conduce to the knowledge, establishment, improvement and comfort of them that hear. That predestination ought to be preached, I thus prove:-
We agree that the Gospel should be preached everywhere to everyone. No one disputes that here. God shows His great love by choosing to save even ONE of us since none of us can merit Heaven. There is no Biblical rule saying that God can only have great love if He loves all people equally. That rule was invented by men. The truth is that God does indeed have great love for His children. However, the Bible is clear that not all people are God's children.
And when you criticize "limited love" and "limited mercy" don't forget that your own versions of God's love and mercy are VERY limited too in that you require acts of men to get (or earn) that love and mercy. Our view limits grace and mercy to God's sovereign will in choosing His elect (your view does not), and the Catholic view limits them to man's decisions to comply with requirements using their free wills (our view does not). So, if you see limitations on God's grace and mercy as being a bad thing, then the Catholic God is in the same boat as the Reformed God.
You must be confusing me with someone else. I don't abhor those who use the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. I disagree with some of the teachings, particularly those about Mary, but I don't abhor Catholics at all. Ask Wagglebee, a good Catholic.
Next, I am not a Calvinist. At the same time, I believe Calvin to have been an excellent teacher and a thoroughly dedicated student of the bible. At this point in time, I do believe that it is not possible for God to "restrain" His foresight. If you are conversant with the issues, then you understand what I just said. And it should indicate to you that most Calvinists would not number me among them.
Are you saying that we are no longer in God's image?
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