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 ...
So God lied when he said there were NONE RIGHTEOUS in Sodom?
God's grace saves sinners. All men are sinners, regardless of their age.
The Arminian has no answer for why God saves infants if infants are too young to make a "free will choice to believe."
Grace saves infants and grace saves adults. It's the same grace, given by the same God, for the same reason.
Beyond that, we just don't know.
This is why, IMO, the Presbyterian/Methodist/Anglican/Congregational/Lutheran approach to baptism is more Scriptural. A believing mother and father have a reasonable assurance their child has been redeemed by Christ because it is God who has given this child to them in the first place, and made that child a member of a covenant family. Therefore we believe Paul when he assures us "all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."
"All things."
"For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the LORD our God shall call." -- Acts 2:39
Are some infants not redeemed? We have the evidence of the evil fruit of some adults who most likely have not been redeemed. With infants (who are just as fallen as any old geezer) the evidence for or against is lacking. But whatever happens, we know it is right and good because "all things" consist by Christ, for Christ, through Christ (Colossians 1:16-17.)
"All things."
I don't worry. Christ will lose none of those whom the Father has given Him to bring home.
"Be not afraid; only believe." -- Mark 5:36
I would hope it's the same way as in an Arminian construct.
Prior to your redemption, the flesh and Satan quietly possessed your greatest affections, and like the rest, you were Satan’s slave, his vassal. And since he thus reigned over your heart (and was much stronger than you) how did this transformation to Christ take place? There is no doubt that Satan would have never willingly relinquished his reign of power over you. And you, being under the bondage of your own corrupt nature and Satan’s dominion over you, would not have been willing to simply renounce, nor able to resist the Devil's binding power, since he had taken you captive to do his will (2 Tim 2:26). For the flesh, the world and the Devil were enemies too powerful for you – they were greater and had vast superiority over your base affections. You were their plaything and that, most willingly. You could not untangle yourself nor did you want to, for you loved darkness (John 3:19 ) and most willingly suppressed the truth in unrighteousness (Rom 1:18 ). Mere exterior persuasion did not scratch the surface of your heart. That Christ now reigns, then, must be the end result of Christ’s own resurrection victory over those enemies which enslaved you. Did Christ rescue you out of the clutches of Satan (who was marching you toward hell) and out of the bondage of your own lusts in the same way He rescued the Israelites out of Egypt? Do you have no hope save Christ in alone, no merit saves that which Christ grants, no strength save that which Christ imparts, no nourishment save that which Christ feeds, no boast save in the cross of Jesus Christ alone? Through the preaching of the gospel did you hear God calling you as He once called Saul, blinding you to your own corrupt understanding, tearing down the rotten edifice you had built, building a new one in its place, stirring up your heart and affections toward Christ, opening your ears to His voice who knew his own shepherd …you who once thought well of yourself? Did God use these outward means and instruments to tame your wild heart so you might most willingly follow after Christ? Did Christ break your chains of ignorance, blindness, idiocy and darkness and shine His light in your heart that you might see? Did you have the power and desire to do this yourself, or did Christ lovingly grant you even these so that you recognized that you had no hope in the world save in Christ’s mercy alone … that you might ascribe all glory to Him alone and none to your own? Can a government be overthrown in a nation by a foreign nation and a populace not be aware of it? If your soul casts out once prince and another takes his place (in the seat of the affections), would it be possible for there was no resistance to the laying down of arms before Christ entered? The Spirit may work quietly at first but when He makes His way in, there is no question that a change of power has occurred since once you only saw darkness but now sees most clearly. Did you not, who once had a heart of stone, now notice that your heart was softened and yields willingly to the words of the new Master? Did you do that yourself, or was it that He gave you this new heart? And now as David, do you say, “Behold, here am I, do to me as seemeth good unto him.”? (2 Sam 15:26).
Have you have faced God's majesty in the Word of God such that your self-complacency is shattered and you self-righteousness is renounced? Has the Holy Spirit convicted you of your woeful, guilty, and lost condition which justly deserves the wrath of God save in Christ's mercy?. Is Christ sufficient to fully save apart from anything else to maintain your just standing before God? Do you now have a new affection for God (an impossible supposition for the unregenerate) which desires to obey Him? Does sin trouble you? Do you hate it? If these signs accompany your salvation then God has indeed done a work of grace in you. If your faith is in Jesus Christ alone, then based on the promises of God in Scripture, your sins are forgiven.If you claim Christ is your king and you His subject, how is it that He came to occupy the highest place of your affections, that throne atop your heart?
Do you believe you have no hope in the world save in Christ alone?
Amen.
Why do you agree to it?
Because scripture commands believers to spread the Gospel via the Great Commission. We know that the Great Commission does NOT apply only to clerics of a certain faith because sharing the Good News is a form of loving one's neighbor. Certainly it cannot be argued that this commandment does not apply to all believers.
What use is the Gospel to the Reformed? If the elect are predestined for salvation, what effect does the Gospel have for them?
The Gospel informs us of what our faith is in. Merely believing that there is some kind of God out there does not constitute saving faith. Since this knowledge is needed, in the normal course the elect are predestined to have it.
If the reprobate are predestined for hell, what effect does the Gospel have for them?
Well, for sure it does not have saving effect, but that is not to say no positive effect at all. The Gospel message along with the stories surrounding the Gospel serve as excellent moral guides of benefit to both the elect and reprobate. On average, even the reprobate will lead better and happier lives if they are more moral.
FK: However, the Bible is clear that not all people are God's children.
No; those are the Jews. The Gentiles are able to be grafted into the true vine.
God's children are those who have been given faith:
The reprobate are the children of someone else:
Therefore, my statement stands that the Bible is clear that not all are the children of God.
FK: 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.
Negative. I'm surprised after your extended talks with Kolo that you would say this. God love and mercy are unlimited. His atonement extends to all men. There is no earning; but there is Judgement.
But your Judgment is based on your works, making God's mercy limited to your choice of works. If you don't do enough works, then you don't get the mercy. That is not unlimited mercy, it is conditional mercy with the condition being what is earned through works. If you don't like the word "earned" I am fine with using "merited" if you like, but it is all the same. Under your view of the parable of the talents, the first two certainly did WORK the money given to them, and they EARNED a return on that money which resulted in "salvation", so there is no getting around the Catholic position on this. :)
FK: 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.
Negative. The Reformed theology calls for limited atonement, limited mercy and limited salvation. The Catholic theology calls for this to apply to all men; the preaching of the Gospel is to convert all men to God, not merely a mechanical exercise.
So under Catholic theology atonement applies to all men, mercy applies to all men, and salvation applies to all men???? That can't be right. I've never heard Catholics argue for universal salvation before.
1)Calvinism...is exactly the polar opposite of the idea that any man can be assured of his salvation
On the contrary, God election MEANS man is assured of his salvation. The ability for man to choose MEANS that man has not assurance of salvation because man can choose at any time whether he wants to be in or out of Christ.
2)... no matter what kind of life he leads, or what his outward spiritual life has been or what decisions he has made.
Nope. This is exactly the argument that Paul anticipated in Romans 6, ("Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound"). When we become Christians we become new creatures and our lives are evidence of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. So why would you say that a Christian could lead any type of live he pleases?
3) In the Calvinistic world how a man lives his life is ultimately irrelevant to his standing before God.
In part you're right. Our standing before God has NOTHING to do with our lives. It has everything to do with Christ's life. God looks to Christ who is the perfection and doesn't see our sin. Now how do we want to live our lives on earth in the knowledge of this truth and guided by the indwelling Holy Spirit?
4) If he is elect
Well you just tossed out a number of bible verses including where Christ says:
So your saying that one can save themselves? That's your alternative.
6) Therefore no man can state that he is saved,
Wrong. Paul stated on a number of occasions that he was saved. In fact, Paul pointed back to his Damascus Road experience in his great testimony in Acts. Yet Paul stated in Gal 1 that God chose him while he was yet in his mother's womb. Salvation is a point in time. Election is eternally predefined. I would suggest you're confusing the two.
7) ...nor can anyone pass judgment on whether or not some person...is headed for eternal reward or eternal punishment.
Exactly correct. You cannot pass judgment on whether someone else is a Christian. You may have a pretty good idea but you really don't know. You can only look to yourself to see if you are in the faith. That is why we are to be diligent in our preaching because God may grant us the reward of being His instrument in salvation.
8) If you reject the formula that "all those who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved," then there is no assurance of Salvation.
No one is saying that "all those who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved" is wrong. We're just saying that you cannot come to repentance and faith unless God grants it. You cannot call upon the name of the Lord unless He ordains it. You are assured that you are saved because you have called upon the name of the Lord. This is evidence that God has opened your eyes and ears.
9) While it is clearly an axiom that we are all at the mercy of the Lord, what promise can you point to in the Calvinist theology wherein you can be assured of your salvation?
See number 8. But while you raise the question, if you have the choice as to whether you wish to be saved, then don't you have the choice to say that you don't wish to be saved any more? Can't YOU walk away from your salvation?
Reformers rest upon the promises that Father knows best and he will keep us in the faith even though we may throw tantrums now and again. We can never do anything that is so grievous that God will not help us through. God understand our nature and is working very hard to change it.
Yet you suggested that because God allows you to choose, you can always chose. If tomorrow you decide that you want to chuck your Christian life; hey, that's your decision and God will simply abide by that decision. How then do you have any assurance? What's to say in 3 years you won't chose to become a Buddhist?
To me, the Arminian choice is no choice. None of this matches with what we are taught in the scriptures.
HE HE HE...
PM, the reprobate will never DESIRE the God of the scriptures, they like the god they have built in their head or not having any god..
Having been a participant on these pages for many years, I cannot fully affirm your comment above. Many Catholics clearly to not see Mary as a co-redemptrix.
Much of my father's family is Catholic, and I know from conversation with them that they do not accept Mary as part of the Godhead, nor as a co-redemptrix.
In the final analysis, though, Mariology is my most insurmountable difficulty with the Catholic denomination. There is a lot my military-trained mind likes about the Catholic Church, though. I especially like what we in the military would call "unity of effort."
I do, however, consider anyone who has believed in the Jesus of the Gospels to be saved, despite the mistaken doctrines, a few of which seem to be held by each of the various denominations....including my own.
When people can’t even understand what the word “consistently” means, there’s little hope they’ll get the difficult concepts correct
What I said was that God is capable of being sovereign without those acts in a universe of free wills. Calvinism says otherwise.
The Catholic Church has NEVER suggested that the Blessed Virgin Mary was part of the Godhead. Any claim that the Church has is patently FALSE. Have individual Catholics believed that she was? Possibly, but that's not Church teaching.
The idea of co-redemptrix is somewhat blown out of proportion. Keep in mind that the word "redemptrix" DOES NOT APPEAR in the English dictionary, it is a Latin word. In the Latin term co-redemptrix the "co" does not mean equal as it would in English, rather it means "with". The Blessed Mother was WITH our Lord when He was conceived, at His Nativity, when He began His ministry and at the Crucifixion, so she was WITH Him as HE redeemed our sins, nobody is suggesting that she redeemed anything.
Finally, keep in mind that the Church HAS NOT dogmatically declared that she is co-redemptrix; IF that ever happens the declaration would certainly define what the term actually means. The absurd notion that Catholics put Mary "on the Cross with Jesus" is a total falsehood perpetuated by a handful of bigots.
In the final analysis, though, Mariology is my most insurmountable difficulty with the Catholic denomination.
Have you ever wondered why the Reformers never took issue with it? While not yet defined, the Immaculate Conception and Assumption were certainly not unheard of in their time. Many Marian beliefs were specifically recognized by the Reformers and Luther's 95 Theses actually uses the phrase mother of God.
Everything is great. I am just asking hard questions, the kind that many lurkers would ask but hesitate to do so.
The Arminian has no answer for why God saves infants if infants are too young to make a "free will choice to believe."
That is why I am not an Arminian. The problem with both Arminianism and Calvinism is that their constructs are too rigid. Calvinism denies God's foreknowledge in the application of Grace and Arminianism denies the unconditional application of God's grace.
Calvinism's rigid application of such verses as "and Esau I have hated" paints a God who hates infants and who either sends infants to Hell for his pleasure, or (if we assume that all infants who die are saved) kills them because he loves them too much to allow them to continue in life.
God surely hated Esau from the foundation of the Earth, but I, for one, do not believe that he hated Esau without reason, and if it was not simply because he chose to hate Esau because he chose to hate Esau, then it was because of his Foreknowledge of the MAN, His Foreknowledge of the WHOLE MAN and the life that he would ultimately lead.
The idea that God would hate Esau without consideration of his entire life would mean that God would hate infants and would be more than willing to caste infants who died into the same Hell that he would toss Esau. If not, why not? If it is not the man whom God hates, the sum total of his life, what God has both foreknown and foreseen about that man, then why would God not hate everyone? Are some men better than others, as Calvinism rejects categorically? Or is God's grace truly random, as Arminians and Catholics accuse Calvinists of believing?
False assumption, I am not a Roman Catholic.
And how can you know if the Calvinist is desiring the God of the scriptures or the God of the Calvinist construct? The Calvinist categorically rejects the plain meaning of several key verses in the Bible and must resort to redefining the words in those verses to fit God into their construct. John 3:16 is the most obvious, where the word "world" is defined as "the elect".
To the Calvinist a God who loved the whole world and sent his son to die for the sins of the whole world is inconsistent with the idea of Limited Atonement and thus it could be argued that the Calvinist does not desire the God of the scriptures, but a God they have built in their head.
The fact is that since Calvinism categorically rejects any condition for being numbered among the elect, the Calvinist can never know whether or not he is saved, as his outward holiness may be nothing more than his reprobate heart seeking to save himself from a Hell to which he was doomed from all eternity or seeking a Heaven which he was not chosen from all eternity to enter.
I won't argue with you there. Arminiansim suffers from the same problems with a rigid construct as Calvinism does.
So, "All" means "all" here?
But not in John or Titus?
***How in the Calvinistic construct can any man say with assurance that he is saved?***
Because Scripture teaches what it is to be saved. If we repent and believe, we are saved. Those are the elect.
Those who don’t arent.
It’s really not hard.
Hey doc,
You know what the official flower of the Arminians is?
< drumroll>
The daisy.
< pause>
He loves me, He loves me not.
A sad yet accurate metaphor.
A lifetime of picking up a new daisy with each altar call.
I'm not sure what you are stating here. I'm sure we'd both agree that God is sovereign and is always sovereign over His creation. And from your statement we both agree that God interacts with men. The real question is whether man has the God-given ability to stop God's purpose or not? There are really only two scenarios in answer to this question:
Scenario #1-Arminian View
If it is God's intention to save everyone equally, then God has given every man everywhere the same rights and abilities to make a rational choice. If man so chooses at some point in time and just say no to the gospel, then is that's the end of it? Does God just say, "Well, that's that." and walk away? In the matter of salvation, God doesn't give up His sovereignty but He doesn't exercise any extra divine will to help an individual to see the truth. That would be unfair. Every man has the same God-given right to say that he wants to go to heaven or hell, and the same level of activity is equally applied to everyone.
Of course, there are exceptions to this salvation rule depending on how young a person might be or how infirm. Those are special cases that God handles on a case by case basis. Then there are the cases where God directly calls an individual like John the Baptist or Paul. Those are unique. But the bottom line is that there is no need to pray for the salvation of someone's soul simply because they are already afforded the same "free will" to make their choice that everyone else has.
As far as works, man has been given instructions and is free to carry out those orders. Works rest entirely with the free will of man to be obedient to doing "the things of God". God may or may not intervene in the process. If man rejects being obedient, then he is certainly poorer for it and loses his rewards. But God just changes His plan to effect His outcome without an individual's help. Man may experience indirect chastisement by not being in God's will, but there's no need for God's direct chastisement because this is man's free will.
Depending on how much you buy into this view, man is capable at any time of saying they have had enough and leave the fold. That is what free choice is all about. One persumes that you don't lose your free will when you become a Christian. But, they could by their own choice, lose their salvation.
Scenario #2-Reformed View
In the Reformed scenario, man is hopelessly trapped in sin. He can't do anything to rescue himself. But worst, he is bent to do those things that are opposed to God, either overtly or covertly.
God understands man's predicament and exercises His grace and mercy to turn individuals to Himself. This is not an easy process from a worldly perspective. But nothing too difficult for our God. It requires God giving us knowledge of the truth, bringing us to repentance, changing our hearts, giving us the faith to cry out to Him.
Even after salvation, we continue to rebel but true believers hearts are soften and are more responsive to God. God is patient and loving, even giving us His Spirit to slowly work in our hearts to perfect us. He's not in any hurry.
This change of heart makes us more willing to do His will. The fruit of our labors are sprinkled along our sanctification path handed out by God, even though we may not see them. We simply rest in His promise that we will bear fruit*. If we go astray, God prods us back into place with His rod and staff to do His will like a loving father guiding his son. Those who know the Father don't mind being chastised because it perfects them in knowing what they've done wrong. We learn by the fruit God gives us and the chastisements we experience. Everything works together for our good.
To those who are called, we will never lose our salvation because God will not allow it. He has spent too much time working and nuturing us to allow it to happen. We will never stray too far off that path that God will not guide us back.
It remains unclear why God has chosen some and not others. Those who are called pray that God would grant other people the same ability to have their eyes opened. It is possible that God has planned to honor those prayers by granting the eyes and ears of others to be opened. This again may be one of those fruit of our labor sprinkled along our paths. But whether or not God will honor our prayers for the direct intervention of salvation of others, we know that God is sovereign and knows what He's doing.
Everyone justly deserves hell. What is difficult to explain is mercy.
*It is my view (not Reformed), when we get to heaven we will all throw down our crowns at our Lord's feet because He did it all.
How does one know that he believes what is necessary to believe or that he has truly repented?
How do you know that your belief is not false or that your repentance is not based out of fear of hell or hope of heaven instead of a changed heart?
Much is made here about the importance of having correct doctrine and how there are "false conversions". The Arminian says that God chooses those who choose him, and the Calvinist claims that men only choose God because God has chosen them. In a sense I think it can be argued that both are right. Both you and Dr. E seem to be arguing that repentance and belief are evidence of salvation and that we can rest on that repentance and belief. I believe that too.
But then there are many who proclaim both belief and repentance who have doctrines which are diametrically opposed to what you or I believe and they are as sincere in their beliefs as you or I and are as contrite in their repentance as you or I. How can they be assured that their belief and repentance is evidence of their election if their beliefs are not exactly on point with yours? How can they know that their belief is not a product of their reprobate minds deceiving them or a product of a renewed heart given to them in order to make them repent and believe?
It is hard Gamecock. It's not just as simple as you say. If Calvinism is true to the core, then there are millions upon millions of people who have repented and believe (as they understand those terms) who were never intended to either repent or believe (as you understand those terms).
Is there a simple answer? Is there a "test" to determine if you are elect or if you are merely deceived?
And if you are deceived, is there a remedy, or are you hopelessly and forever lost?
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