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 ...
To me, if there is to be a "proof" of the existence of God, it can only come from the actual experiences of individuals in communion with Him.
Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dearest sister in Christ!
LOLOL!
Your limericks are simplistic.
The order of salvation is that first God must give eyes to see, ears to hear, a heart of flesh to love and a renewed mind to understand the truth of Christ risen in the Scriptures and then and only then will a man believe to the saving of his soul.
Does God give all men these gifts?
I give no ground whatsoever to atheists or agnostics' presupposition by simply declaring my testimony: God is not a hypothesis. He lives. His Name is I AM. I've known Him for a half century and counting.
The claim that One I have known so long and so well is a hypothesis is absurd on the face. So I let them know, the conversation will not "go there."
Thereafter, I simply convey the words of God which speak for themselves. The power is in His words, not mine.
If my correspondent has "ears to hear" he will. And if he doesn't, he won't believe anyway.
AMEN!!!
Even the atheist approaches the discussion from his own set of presuppositions whether he realizes that or not.
And those presuppositions must include some ultimate, absolute, invariant law of logic and morality which they are unable to articulate except for God.
But that was too easy. Who came up with the definition? The definition of faith as a leap beyond reason makes sense in terms of the atheist worldview because in that view an Absolute Mind is denied, making the world ultimately non-rational. The ultimate mind in the universe is the finite human mind (or maybe a finite alien mind); thus anything beyond the finite human mind is beyond reason. This means that the argument above for atheism begs the question of atheism. When Freud characterizes religion as a leap beyond reason, he is describing the irrationalism that is inherent in the atheist worldview because irrationalism is ultimate in the atheist worldview. Faith that is a leap beyond reason is atheist spirituality, not Christian spirituality! Freud assumes the materialistic evolutionary worldview when he describes primitive human consciousness emerging through purely non-conscious, non-rational, materialistic evolutionary forces. He assumes rather than proves that human minds thinking about God and the forces beyond their control are thinking about the non-rational realm from which their minds emerged, and thus are only self-delusionally God-dependant. The Christian faith in things beyond human reason is not an appeal to the non-rational but to the absolutely rational. The Christian trusts in God, who is absolutely rational and is sovereign over all that exists. Humans are created in the image of God; thus they originally exist in personal relationship with God, not inventing the idea of God to make up for their ignorance. Christianity represents the dominion of the Logos (John 1:1), the Word, the Reason. With this understanding, the tables are turned on the atheist. The debate between atheism versus Christianity is not a matter of reason versus faith. As Cornelius Van Til points out in the quote above, the debate is between a worldview in which the non-rational is ultimate (atheism) and a worldview in which the rational is ultimate (Christianity). There is a formal similarity between the two worldviews. Both include an appeal to faith, mystery and spirituality; but these similar words hide a substantial difference between the two—that the atheist is expressing belief in an ultimately non-rational universe when he uses these words, and the Christian is expressing belief in an ultimately rational universe. With the atheist view that the finite mind of man is the ultimate mind in the universe, the universe becomes philosophically anthropocentric (and geocentric, since humans live on earth). As Copernicus overturned the geocentric view with the heliocentric view, Van Til has overturned the atheist view that man's mind is autonomous with the view that God's mind is autonomous. The universe is theocentric rather than anthropocentric. ""Agnosticism is epistemologically self-contradictory on its own assumptions because its claim to make no assertion about ultimate reality rests upon a most comprehensive assertion about ultimate reality." -- Cornelius Van Til
(because I like Van Til and I really like visual aids)...Framed in such a manner, the issue of the truth of Christianity versus atheism is a simple one. Atheism is the rational belief and Christianity is devoid of rationality, because reason has been defined to exclude faith. End of discussion.
“The order of salvation is that first God must give eyes to see, ears to hear, a heart of flesh to love and a renewed mind to understand the truth of Christ risen in the Scriptures and then and only then will a man believe to the saving of his soul.”
Yes, God needs to reach out to us, but does he cause us to be born again by a secret act of his will, which in turn leads us to irresistibly coming to faith, or does his revelation and grace to men include sufficient ability to repent and believe, which then results in their being born again and becoming spiritually alive in Christ?
In short, does God regenerate, and then give the gift of faith to man, or does man respond to God in faith, and be given life?
What does Jesus say?
“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”
“WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM MAY HAVE ETERNAL LIFE”
Not, whoever has been given life may believe. It helps to take Jesus at face value, and not turn his words inside out.
Of course, if Jesus really meant what he said, then Calvin’s doctrine is blown out of the water, for whoever then means whoever, and believes means believes, and may have life means many have life - and the whole Divine Lottery disappears.
And when Jesus rebuked the religious leaders, he said, “...you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” Not, you don’t have life so you cannot come, but YOU REFUSE [their will] TO COME [repent and believe] that YOU MAY HAVE LIFE [which follows].
But I’m a simplistic fellow, not a trained theologian, so I figure Jesus said what he meant to say.
...
With the atheist view that the finite mind of man is the ultimate mind in the universe, the universe becomes philosophically anthropocentric (and geocentric, since humans live on earth). As Copernicus overturned the geocentric view with the heliocentric view, Van Til has overturned the atheist view that man's mind is autonomous with the view that God's mind is autonomous. The universe is theocentric rather than anthropocentric.
By the way, the rise of autonomy in living systems (whether bacteria, mushrooms, men, etc.) is one of the great unanswered questions of science. Equally mysterious are the non-locally autonomous but mutually necessary behaviors among living things, e.g. army ants, bees, penguins, biosphere.
At this point I could go into my long spiel about information theory (Shannon, successful communications) and molecular biology (Rosen, relational biology) - but it would probably end in crickets, as usual.
Suffice it to say, that we Christians are keenly aware that we are members of the body of Christ.
For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also [is] Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether [we be] Jews or Gentiles, whether [we be] bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. - I Cor 12:12-13
But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. – Matt 4:4
I am that bread of life. – John 6:48
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life. - John 6:63
INDEED.
INDEED.
Amen, and thanks for the kind words.
"Sufficient ability?" Do all men have "sufficient ability?" Who made men to differ?
Creation fell, my FRiend. The Arminian just doesn't understand the depths of the falling, nor what it takes to re-establish the connection between God and men. It takes the free, merciful, unearned gift of the new birth by the Holy Spirit which, in turn, changes men from their natural fallen state into spiritual beings who are then, and only then, capable and willing to know the things of God.
"In that day, saith the LORD of hosts, will I take thee, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel, saith the LORD, and will make thee as a signet: for I have chosen thee, saith the LORD of hosts." -- Haggai 2:23
"Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father." -- John 6:65" And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ." -- 2 Thessalonians 3:5
The Arminian "kicks against the pricks," giving fallen man too much credit, thus depriving God of His due. Salvation is all mercy, and not debt.
“WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM MAY HAVE ETERNAL LIFE” But I’m a simplistic fellow, not a trained theologian, so I figure Jesus said what he meant to say.
Yes, I see you can quote Jesus, but you are also adept at setting up straw men and knocking them down. You offer Scripture no one is arguing against as some kind of proof.
OF COURSE "whosever believes in Him WILL have eternal life."
Yeesh. No wonder the Arminian has so little sense of security. Not only do they depend on their own ability (with a nudge from the Holy Spirit) they also believe Christ's cleansing of them is speculative, rather than ALREADY ACCOMPLISHED and evident by their true faith in Christ and the good fruits of the Holy Spirit in their lives.
"As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH on him shall not be ashamed." -- Romans 9:33
"For the scripture saith, WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH on him shall not be ashamed." -- Romans 10:11
"WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him." -- 1 John 5:1
"That WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." -- John 3:15-16
"I am come a light into the world, that WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH on me should not abide in darkness." -- John 12:46 "To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH in him shall receive remission of sins." -- Acts 10:43
THIS ‘debate’ will NEVER be solved, for there are verses that cover BOTH sides of it!
Yes you have, to the extent that if you didn't grab the rope, you would have died. You would deserve credit to the extent you were smarter than the 0.000001% of the people who would not have grabbed the rope. This is why I do not think this comparison comes close to your actual salvation model. In your example, virtually everyone would grab the rope so you make it look like no credit is deserved and God is doing all the work. However, in real life by your salvation model, far far fewer people choose to "grab the rope" (narrow is the road). Therefore, there really is something that separates you from the many who do not choose by free will to "grab the rope". We have asked you many times what that special something is, but have not gotten an answer to my memory (or I have not seen it).
[Re: John 3:16 et seq.] Whoever believes, and whoever does not. Jesus does NOT say, “Whoever is on my list will be given life and believe”. All I’m doing is paying attention to what Jesus says.
Jesus does not need to phrase things to your preference to mean what He means. God, speaking in the context of Himself (i.e., other scripture) is talking about the love He has for His children. It is they who will have eternal life and it is they who will believe. They are the "whosoever", whom He has chosen from the foundations. All I'm doing is paying attention to what God says in the totality of His written revelation to us.
OK, glad to hear it. Thanks.
Ahhh...so Jesus meant “Whosoever is elect WILL believe and WILL be saved.” Or maybe he meant, “Those I love will believe and will be saved.”
But that isn’t what he said.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”
Guess he ought to go to seminary to learn more about God...
Actually, I have answered some reasons why some believe and others don’t. The prostitutes, for example, were aware of their need, while the Pharisees thought they already were righteous.
In another verse, Jesus says of the religious leaders that they cared more for the opinion of man than the opinion of God.
In another verse Jesus says wealth and love of the world can tie a man’s soul to the present, so he neglects eternity.
But what he NEVER says is that it is because their names weren’t on his ‘Happy List of the Elect’ from before creation...or because he hates them and wants them to burn in hell for his glory.
If, however one preaches that same gospel to a 30 year old and that persons, ‘hears’ the Word, understands that Word, assents to that understanding, and claims faith in that more sure Promise of the Word, they are Christian (orthodox, Christian). Are those ‘acts’, works?
The ability to “hear” the word is given by God. The unbeliever cannot hear the word, (1Cr 2:14) “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned”. Jesus says in Matt. 13:14, “So they make Isaiah’s prophecy (Isa. 6:9) come true: ‘You will hear clearly but never understand. You will see clearly but never comprehend.” The unbeliever is not able on his own to come to a saving knowledge so how can he exercise the “faith” that accesses salvation. 2Ti 3:7, “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Faith is part and parcel of the gracious gift of salvation. It is a works salvation to say that the unbeliever of his own “free will” can exercise unregenerate faith to access salvation.
“”Sufficient ability?” Do all men have “sufficient ability?” Who made men to differ?”
When Jesus said, “Repent, and believe the Gospel”, was he mocking our inability?
When God spoke to Cain in Genesis 4, did Cain hear him, and answer?
Did God commend Cornelius, and send an angel to him, prior to his salvation?
When God sent Isaiah to say:
18”Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD:though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.
19 If you are willing and obedient,
you shall eat the good of the land;
20but if you refuse and rebel,
you shall be eaten by the sword;
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
was He mocking Israel?
“Salvation is all mercy, and not debt. “
Finally we agree on something...
“You offer Scripture no one is arguing against as some kind of proof.”
I offer scripture that you reverse, as proof. When Jesus says you refuse to come, that you might have life, the coming is before the life. When it says he gave those who believed in his name the right to become children of God, born of God’s will, the new birth follows the believing.
And there are tons like it.
Nor do I know why you claim I believe God’s cleansing is speculative. I’ve never said such a thing, and have often argued that it is the new birth that makes it possible for us to please God, not the reverse. Arminians who reject eternal security do so on the basis that gross apostasy would make it possible, not a failure to be good enough.
“When Jesus said, “Repent, and believe the Gospel”, was he mocking our inability?”
Well, when God gave Israel the Law and told them to obey it, was He mocking their inability to keep it?
The unbeliever cannot hear the word, (1Cr 2:14) “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned”. Jesus says in Matt. 13:14, “So they make Isaiah’s prophecy (Isa. 6:9) come true: ‘You will hear clearly but never understand. You will see clearly but never comprehend.” The unbeliever is not able on his own to come to a saving knowledge so how can he exercise the “faith” that accesses salvation. 2Ti 3:7, “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
The unbeliever is separated from God, dead spiritually, just as Jesus was dead physically, and the exceeding great power that raised Jesus from the dead also quickens the unbeliever so that they can exercise the faith to be saved that was included in the abounding grace of God
I have no doubt that humans need good hearts in order to hear and know and love the word of God.
The question in my mind is "when" and "how" did they get these "good hearts." (good soil)
1st, the verse clearly indicates that the seed grew because they ALREADY had this good soil (good hearts).
If, as Jeremiah says, the heart is "deceitful above all things", then this good soil happened at some point after their conception and before their conversion.
The only alternative I can see is that they had some kind of "latent good soil" that they were born with.
“The unbeliever cannot hear the word, (1Cr 2:14) “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned”.”
Odd, isn’t it, that Cornelius received an angel of the Lord with a message before he was saved. He was even commended. And a centurion was commended for his “great faith” - even odder, since faith is a gift, and not something the centurion could have had... < /sarcasm >.
And in Acts 2, were they cut to the quick before or after they believed and were baptized?
Yes, that is God working in the lives of men - and doing so effectively - BEFORE they are born again...at least, if being born again is what it is described as in John.
“The unbeliever is not able on his own to come to a saving knowledge so how can he exercise the “faith” that accesses salvation.”
The unbeliever ISN’T on his own, not in most cases. There are times God abandons someone and lets them go on apart from his grace - but it isn’t often. Even the heathen (or Gentiles) have the law in some form written in their hearts.
Read the Abolition of Man (CS Lewis). IIRC, he discusses the knowledge found in nearly universal thought in societies.
Can any man reason his way to God? No. I’ve had folks tell me they won’t believe unless they can ‘prove’ God. I always tell them any God they could think their way to would be a god too small and imperfect to be the Creator of the Universe.
“Well, when God gave Israel the Law and told them to obey it, was He mocking their inability to keep it?”
He gave them other options, didn’t he. Not only sacrifices, but salvation was ALWAYS about faith in God - from Genesis 15 on. David wasn’t a man after God’s heart because of his perfection, but his faith.
The Law, from the beginning, was our teacher. It was never our means of coming to God. Matthew 5 isn’t about what we must do to be saved, but about what we cannot do, so we need a Savior.
Luther’s Introduction to Romans has a great discussion of this, which I heartily recommend:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/luther/romans/files/romans.html
Even if you hate everything I’ve written, if you haven’t read what Luther wrote, please do so - you will be blessed. You can think I’m a horse’s butt and still love reading that introduction.
“The unbeliever is separated from God, dead spiritually, just as Jesus was dead physically, and the exceeding great power that raised Jesus from the dead also quickens the unbeliever so that they can exercise the faith to be saved that was included in the abounding grace of God”
Actually, that is wrong. Unless and until God abandons us, we are never described as so dead we cannot repent. Remember the Prodigal Son? He was dead, but he repented without his father’s kidnapping him.
There actually aren’t all that many passages talking about us as ‘dead’ prior to conversion. Most passages talk about us being lost, or slaves, or rebels, or disobedient, or sinners.
And there isn’t a single verse where God says he regenerates those whose names are on his list, and gives them faith. That seems kind of odd, if that is God’s plan of salvation.
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