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 ...
Thank you for your excellent, Biblical posts. Glad to hear about the possible new church. You’ll know it’s “home” if it is. :o)
For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day." -- John 5:37-40"All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
But that faith is not blind. It is predicated on the evidence of the good fruit of the Holy Spirit.
And it is measured according to the word of God.
That's why sola Scriptura is so important and so true. If we were just to accept faith without thought or substantiation, then we would be people simply going through the motions because we would have given over our mind and conscience to other men who presume a higher authority. And as we know, men vary. Men lie. Men scheme. Men make mistakes.
Or we would be a denomination of one where anything we "felt" would become what we were. But as we all know, the heart is deceitful above all else. And a lot of what we "feel" is not good or true or even real.
All unlike the word of God which is "pure;" "eternal;" "given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness."
So we have this constancy left to us which we can order our lives by and learn from and prosper through. Thus faith becomes more than hope. It becomes evidence of God's love for us by Christ, through Christ, for Christ.
To say that what BD says is "scripturally and logically coherent" is simply false. When I first read it, I thought to say God is making an offer that he knows is not valid, is so circular in its reasoning I had to read it three times to figure out what the point might be. "He knows that only certain ones will believe" - Okay, true. He is not bound by a time dimension, he knew all things before there were "things", that is what foreknowledge means, I think he even knows the "what ifs". But, "therefore they are the ones to whom the offer is directed" is straight out of Calvinism's playbook. God offers eternal life to 'whosoever believes'. The fact that he know who they are ahead of time, doesn't negate that it is still an open offer. What really is puzzling, is to say the offer is "useless to those God knows will not believe." Useless to whom? Will a condemned man be able to say to God, "You never really meant the offer to be for me! I didn't have a chance!". The offer becomes of no effect to one who dies in unbelief, but the offer was still completely valid. What do you think God is, a con artist?
Sorry, but just because y'all think the statement is true based on some scriptures that can be read different ways, does not make your way "true" and MrR's "false". He doesn't need twisting of the hundreds of scriptures he posts that you do of the few you think should or can only be read one way.
The most important issue of all is what must we do to have eternal life? Jesus answered, "Believe on him whom he has sent." That sure sounds like a pretty valid answer for an open offer.
Agree with this post completely!
What? Jesus chose and appointed his disciples? Duh!
Double DUH! Do you mean "His apostles?" (Which is the EXACT same threadbare argument the Romanists give us time and again for supporting the papal priesthood.)
I am a disciples of Jesus Christ. Aren't you?
And yes, He appointed me to that position. Just as He appointed you, whether you acknowledge that fact or claim it for your own.
"Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father." -- John 6:65
"No man." Not just the apostles, the disciples or those Christ doesn't pray for.
You often call Calvinists "Pharisees." You seem to harbor a lot of animosity against the doctrines of grace and those who hold them dear.
Your loss.
For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul." -- Hebrews 10:35-39"Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward.
"The just shall live by faith."
We are justified first by Christ's shed blood from the cross, made known to us by the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit; and then we believe, according to the will and purpose of God alone.
It's not possible.
Therefore God does not offer the Gospel equally to all men because He does not call all men to Him through Christ. He calls His family, and He gives them new ears and new eyes and a heart of flesh and a renewed mind to know the things of God, and those men will believe by the free gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
We've all fallen for the Hallmark version of Scripture, but that's not the full story. The truth glorifies God and His choice. The revisions glorify men and their choice.
Christ explicitly tells us He prays not for the entire world, but only for those whom God has given to Him to bring home for they are His (John 17.)
The world conspires to keep Christians ignorant of this fact. Don't buy into the hype. It's not faithful to the word of God.
No one disagrees with the hundreds of verses he posts. Continually. Over and over, as if we don't believe them.
Of course all who believe are saved. Of course God answers every prayer. Of course Christ came to save the lost. Of course God saves sinners.
But first God must enable the natural man to know, desire and love the things of God and that is ONLY by the FREE, unmerited, unearned gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Men do not merit salvation. Salvation is ALL mercy and not debt.
Ninety-nine percent of the Calvinists on this board were once where you are now. And we kept thinking and reading Scripture and we found a reason for the hope that is in us. It isn't anything of us. It is all the free gift of Christ.
Easy.
A plain reading of this text would be that God loves all of us, even though we are rebels, and that he offers us salvation if we believe. And if we believe, we will receive life. Nothing in that verse or hundreds of others suggests God makes those decisions for us, or that he secretly gives us life without our knowing or believing.
OK, thank you for answering. I believe you are the first Arminian who has admitted to me that not only does God leave some things to chance, but that He leaves the most important thing of all to chance, the salvation and eternal destiny of those He loves. If true, I think this view would tell us volumes about the true character and nature of our God. In His beautiful, loving, and omnipotent hands He holds and sustains our very lives, His creations, and yet with His love for us that is far beyond our wildest imaginations He leaves whether we will spend forever with Him or forever apart from Him to chance? I just don't see this God described anywhere in the Bible. If God's love is to have any real truth and power, then it takes no chances. There is no need.
[From the passage quoted:] “According to this verse, the basis of our being predestined is not something that we do or will do, but is based solely on the will of God for His own pleasure.”
True. Now define ‘predestined’. Election would be a better word anyways, but is it corporate (effective in Christ) or individual?
Many people use predestine and election interchangeably, but I consider predestining to be bigger. That is, I believe God's entire plan is predestined, and a part of that plan includes electing those He so chooses. I believe that corporate election necessarily entails random results, as discussed above, and would also show that God's preference is to have only a corporate relationship with us rather than a personal one. Given His unused omnipotence, in a corporate relationship God would not care whether I chose Him AS OPPOSED to any other choosing Him. The "whosoever" could wind up being any number, however it works out (granting that God would already know).
Again, I do not see this God described in the scriptures. Rather, I see a God who wants a PERSONAL relationship with each of His individual children. I see a God who wants to have intimate communication with ME, His beloved child, whom He chose to save, by name, from the foundations, for reasons having nothing to do with my merit, and known only to Him. In the way God has changed my life and continues to bless me and keep me I KNOW that I am not simply one in the batch who chose Him. I am one whom HE went out of His way to choose and love. And yes, He chose me and not the next guy. I don't know why, as I know I have ZERO claim to be chosen. All I can do is be awestruck, and thankful, and loving, and obedient, and sanctified, again all by Him.
And even though this is easy for me to say, I am not worried at all that this is not fair. If I got "fair" then I will be rotting in hell. That would be fair for everyone. All we believers can do is be thankful that our merciful God did not give us fair.
As written, those verses could support either. However, corporate election makes all the verses about our believing and receiving life make sense in the plain text.
And my contention is that reading grates against the nature and love of God that we are told of in scriptures. Just try to imagine the person you would be if all you could say is that you chose to love your own children corporately. Sure, you might equally not want misfortune to befall any of them, but your relationships with them would all be different and all also in love, i.e. not corporate. So it is with God and His children. Yes He loves all of us, but in a personal way, not in a corporate way. He leads us differently, He communicates with us differently, He sanctifies us differently, He blesses us differently, He challenges us differently, etc. The list goes on and on. All of these differences are revealed in scripture. They show the love of a Personal God.
Jesus also said, “...you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” Jesus, as God, knew full well who would or would not believe (foreknowledge). However, he also made it clear that ANYONE who comes will receive life, and those who refuse will remain in death.
This is all true. He was explaining to them and us what the playing out of the rules looked like and what a Christian looked like.
I’m still waiting to hear the verse that says, “I gave you life that you might believe” instead of “these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
Well, in the way I "think" you are using it, "life" is not the same as regeneration. Even though election is a "package deal" and so this is all academic, the technical order would be regeneration first, then belief, then awarding of eternal life.
Calvinism says we are given life first, and then given belief as a gift. John wrote, “by believing you may have life”.
This could be a matter of semantics, which would not be surprising given that it's all within the guaranteed package deal. If you have a specific quote I would be happy to respond to it.
Calvinism says the only ones who will believe are the ones God irresistibly calls, while Jesus said, “Whosoever believeth”.
Yes, both are true and do not conflict. Given that we all agree that God already knows the names of all the whosoever(s), Calvinism explains WHY the whosoever ARE the whosoever. Jesus simply does not address that issue in verses like John 3:16. Rather, God discusses that issue in the verses we have been giving you.
Those who believe are incorporate in Christ:
Yes, we are set apart from those who are not in Christ, but this does not mean that God deals with us identically on the basis of being in the one group. All of our walks with Christ are different because He saves us and deals with us as individuals, on a personal (and wonderful) basis. At a given time are not my needs different from those of my brothers and sisters in Christ? Of course, and God deals with all of our needs, again, on an individual basis.
No, I’m not holding my breath waiting for Forest Keeper or blue-duncan to join the Society of Evangelical Arminians! I’d be glad if you did, but somethings must be left with God. And when we see him face to face, I doubt predestination vs free will is going to be on our minds or lips!
Oh, when there's a break, I'll want to know. LOL!
My Calvinist former Sunday School teacher and I went hiking & looking for rattlesnakes last week. And we are both praying for each other...not about PD/FW, but about the trials of life.
I am very happy to hear there don't appear to be any hard feelings on either side about what happened. Sadly, I have seen hard feelings from some who have left our church for this or that reason not related to moving. I continue to wish you all the best in your search. Sounds like that old guy had a John the Baptist style to him. Jesus approved so it sounds good to me. :)
snip: kosta50 keeps insisting that we prove God to him.
Spirited: It is sheer hypocrisy and the folly of pride for kosta to insist that God be proven to him when kosta cannot even prove the existence of his own dreams. That he dreams is self-evidently true.
He knows he dreams,we know he dreams, yet kosta cannot prove by way of his senses that he does in fact dream.
That said, should kosta attempt to convince us that he dreams, we could ‘do unto him as he does unto us’ by donning the armor of doubt, dishonesty, denial, and mockery. We could dishonestly claim, as all agnostic-atheist doubting-Thomases do, that we know nothing about dreams and that unless he presents sensory evidence of his dreams he is just ‘imagining’ them.
We could say as Scrooge said, “It was just a bit of bad meat,” the implication being that kosta is crazy while we, the dishonest mockers, are sane.
This brings us to another issue: While we, the defenders of the living God hold ourselves to transcendent moral standards, the deniers-of-God do not, for with ‘God’s death,’ came the death of immutable truth, objective standards of right and wrong, sex norms, and yes-—of man’s God-endowed individual soul and mind. The point being that while we strive to speak truth, deniers-of-God have licensed themselves to equivocate, deceive, double-speak, and tell outright lies.
And to you it's not?
But it is not always possible
In that case we have to settle for what we have, an open question and not a fact. That would be intellectually honest, right?
Take, for instance, the case of the Italian Franciscan priest Padre Pio...And they could verify that Padre Pio did, in fact, have these wounds, and that they bled out daily. But they could not verify the cause of these wounds...
I will not go into the unresolved controversy regarding Padre Pio because it would deflect from the debate. Let's just say that he did bleed and that we don't know why, and leave it at that.
the fact that he suffered them and still lived to a ripe old age (81) was a complete mystery to them
His bleeding is a controversial issue. Obviously some believe it to be the "sign" of "holiness." To others it smacks of fraud which can be caused by the use of carbonic acid (which also, conveniently) prevents infection.
I am not sure what point you are trying to make. Not knowing what causes something doesn't mean it's from God.
Well, if it is a "fact' than it should be provable. Otherwise it's not a fact, but a hypothesis, or at best a theory.
Yet those of us who have been born again know God personally. Proof is absurd to us
I think tha's obvious. You will claim it's real but having to prove it is dismissed as "absurd." That's rich.
God cannot be subjected to the scientific method. He cannot be put under a microscope, observed with a telescope or fathomed by the mind of mere mortals.
This is all hypothetical. By the way, neither are my pink unicorns on Jupiter.
And signs and miracles will not convince a person who does not have “ears to hear."
That's odd. I thought signs and miracles are something that are seen and not 'heard.' Be it as it may, so who are the signs and miracles for? The 'earless' will not be convinced, and the believers don't need a proof (because it's 'absurd,' remember?)!
So, God determined who will hear and who will not? Yet those who don't will be 'punished?' For what?
The point is that man is condemned already
For what? Not having 'ears' which God didn't want to give him? This is like saying that all men will be punished for not being able to fly like the birds because God didn't want to give them wings! So, he condemned them for being wingless. In other words, you are 'condemned' for no reason whatsoever except that God made you 'deficient.' Nice. Really nice.
Obviously. God who is (get this) impartial and who would "like all men to be saved," gives his passes out only to those he favors! The rest of the humanity he created is just 'earless' junk. Way to go.
LOL! Alarm for what? Like the 'earless' will hear it? God wants you to talk to the 'deaf' who have no ears or you will be held 'accountable?' I love it! Quick, sound the alarm!
So, you believe your alarm will make unchanging God change his mind and give 'ears' the the wretched 'earless' masses whom God rejected? Fascinating.
Dreams represent detectable elctrical brain activity and eye movemments. So, yes, we can detect dreams.
We could dishonestly claim, as all agnostic-atheist doubting-Thomases do, that we know nothing about dreams and that unless he presents sensory evidence of his dreams he is just ‘imagining’ them
You compare God to dreams? I agree, SI. While dreams do exist, what we dream is not rea. They are confined brain acitivies. In other words a subjective illusion of reality.
Yet, for some reason your hypothetical contructs are somehow 'honest' but doubting Thomases' are not? The believers are 'good' people and those who don't buy into hypothetical beliefs are not? They are 'dishonest?' Can you prove that?
We could dishonestly claim, as all agnostic-atheist doubting-Thomases do, that we know nothing about dreams and that unless he presents sensory evidence of his dreams he is just ‘imagining’ them.
The difference is that there is no human being on earth who claims he or she doens't dream. The difference is that we can describe dreams, we can even detect them electronically. So, your analogy doesn't hold.
Can you describe God? I have asked on many an occasion what is God and I have yet to get an answer. Because no one can say what is God, what is divine. And if you don't know what is God how can you know it is God that you are experiencing? Even the Bible tells you that it could be Satan.
A better analogy would be to say "I dream" but not being able to say what is a dream, but that you "know" it is, yet you don't know what it is! So far I have bene told that God is undefinable and undetectable experence in some but not all.
Oh yes, the defenders of the living [sic] God (is there any other kind?) have demonstrated their high moral standards on numerous occasions; their ruefulness and honesty too; their lack of pride and arrogance; they never tell a lie. That's about as believable as the very thing they are defending. And about as honest too. Hypocrisy rules.
I don’t have much time right now, and will reply better later, but this stuck out:
“I believe you are the first Arminian who has admitted to me that not only does God leave some things to chance, but that He leaves the most important thing of all to chance, the salvation and eternal destiny of those He loves.”
I said choice, not chance. God deliberately gives us that choice, rather than making it for us.
Yes, this means we are not chosen for salvation before creation, although the end result is known before creation. And this makes all those verses about needing to believe, and about our receiving life by believing, and about entering into the grace on which we stand by faith meaningful verses.
If we have no choice in it, then the only critical link in our salvation is election. If elect, according to Calvin, we are predestined to salvation no matter what, and the verses about belief are a lie - for we don’t receive life by believing, but by being elect. We enter into grace, not by faith, but by election. We are saved by grace thru election, not thru faith.
More later.
Thank you very much, Dr. E. That is honest and down to the point.
But that faith is not blind. It is predicated on the evidence of the good fruit of the Holy Spirit. And it is measured according to the word of God
Which is accepted on faith and faith alone, sola fide.
That's why sola Scriptura is so important and so true
"That's why sola Scriptura is so important and believed so true"
But I think the Calvinists would say that faith is given by election. You you are saved by election; your faith is only evidence of your election, i.e. those who believe also 'know' they are saved (elect) through their faith.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.