Posted on 01/27/2003 10:05:20 AM PST by ksen
Corin ,God is clearly visible to all men ..every man has to make a choice..but the unregenerate spiritual man will never choose God.. He will stand before God without an excuse..He will choose the world over God every time..He is an enemy of God
Jam 4:4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
Do not confuse the natural man with the spiritual man..Just as Adam and eve did not die physically the moment they ate the fruit..they still looked alive..they still knew what God looked like and who He was..but they no longer ran to Him ..they ran from Him..because they were spiritually dead.. ...they did die spiritually immediately...and they ran from God..no repentance just excuses
1Cr 1:18 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
Man makes his choice..
Well, exactly. Adam and Eve chose to run.
What is a good thing?
Being obsequious or that I am not so?
It is only a virtue when one is obsequious to the truth and not to the opinions of men.
The Roman Catholic Church did not think John Huss or Martin Luther obsequious either!
All they asked for was that the Roman Church prove their views from (gasp!) Scripture
Section 1: The character of this natural endowment
That there exists in the human minds and indeed by natural instinct, some sense of Deity, we hold to be beyond dispute, since God himself, to prevent any man from pretending ignorance, has endued all men with some idea of his Godhead, the memory of which he constantly renews and occasionally enlarges, that all to a man being aware that there is a God, and that he is their Maker, may be condemned by their own conscience when they neither worship him nor consecrate their lives to his service. Certainly, if there is any quarter where it may be supposed that God is unknown, the most likely for such an instance to exist is among the dullest tribes farthest removed from civilisation. But, as a heathen tells us, there is no nation so barbarous, no race so brutish, as not to be imbued with the conviction that there is a God. Even those who, in other respects, seem to differ least from the lower animals, constantly retain some sense of religion; so thoroughly has this common conviction possessed the mind, so firmly is it stamped on the breasts of all men. Since, then, there never has been, from the very first, any quarter of the globe, any city, any household even, without religion, this amounts to a tacit confession, that a sense of Deity is inscribed on every heart.
I know this is looking ahead, but based on this text, it seems that the Calvinism of Calvin is not the Calvinism of some of the Calvinists here at FR.
As I have said in the past, some of the Calvinists here try to out Calvin Calvin. Reminds me of the story about Charlie Chaplin upon entering a Charlie Chaplin look-a-like contest only to place third.
I think this is a very dangerous presumption.
When you finish your 'sinning spree' come back and give a clear definition of hyper-Calvinism.
THEN I will be glad to comment on Palmer's quote. The ball in in your court.
51 posted on 06/30/2003 8:12 PM CDT by drstevej
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I certainly hope that you would consider Phillip R. Johnson to be an acceptable source regarding hyper-Calvinism.
Based on what Phillip Johnson writes, it would be very fair to say that Edwin Palmer was a hyper-Calvinist.
In practical terms, the hyper-Calvinist "gospel" often reduces to the message that God simply and single-mindedly hates those whom He has chosen to damn, and there is nothing whatsoever they can do about it.
Don't tell me this isn't exactly what some of the Calvinists here at FR claim, especially Jean Chauvin, and CC Woody.
[1] Is this your definition as well? YES or NO.
[2] If statements of this nature wewre found in Calvin's writings would you label Calvin a hyper Calvinist? YES or NO
[3] Provide quotes in Palmer that clearly express the view stated above.
I think this is a very fair statement. What do you think?
I can identify with this statement based on my experience in litigation. Whenever an attorney cites a statute or case, I always read the entire case or citation myself and almost always find they have taken what they claim to be the law out of context and wha the law actually states supports my position, and not theirs.
I posted the following last week while you were out of town:
I quote from Palmer's The Five Points of Calvinism:
Foreordination means God's sovereign plan, whereby He decides all that is to happen in the entire universe. Nothing in this world happens by chance. God is in back of everything. He decides and causes all things to happen that do happen. He is not sitting on the sidelins wondering and perhaps fearing what is going to happen next. No, He has foreordained everything "after the counsel of his will" (Eph 1:11): the moving of a finger, the beating of a heart, the laughter of a girl, the mistake of a typist - even sin. (See Gen 45:5-8;Acts 4:27-28; and chap. 6 of this book. pages 24-25
As I said in an earlier post today. I don't really have a problem with Calvinism as explained by Phillip Johnson. In addition to that, I think I have been VERY CLEAR that I have serious issues with hyper-Calvinism. I am not saying hyper-Calvinists are not Christians, nor that they are being dishonest in their beliefs; I just disagree with some of their positions.
As you can see from the direct quote above, Palmer most certainly did state that God foreordained sin. You have said you have a copy of his book so you can confirm it for yourself. I think part of the communication problem may be indirectly related to the fact that you did not grow up in a hyper-Calvinist environment and may simply not been exposed to the unBiblical principles it espouses. This is, of course, no fault of your own.
For many years during my marriage, I attempted to discover why my ex never seemed to experience the joy and happiness that should be associated with being a Christian, including doing a lot of reading and study. This included the reading of Palmer's book. It explained a lot to me. As you can see from Johnson's article, he even mentions the CRC as being hyper-Calvinistic, in general. Certainly that does not mean that all congregations within that denomination were taught or preached hyper-Calvinism. Certainly some Congreations and ministeres got it right, but for Jean to say that there is not nor has been an element of hyper-Calvinism is clearly and effectively controverted by Johnson.
As a highly esteemed Christian apologist, and an admitted 5-point Calvinist, Dr. Phillip Johnson's writings cannot be easily dismissed. I think there can be reasonable disagreement regarding his fifth (least extreme) level and maybe even a bit into the fourth level, but it is clearly fair to say that a Calvinist who espouses levels 1, 2, or 3 is certainly a hyper-Calvinist.
Steve, I have in no way been trying to toy you, although I would have to be honest and say I have with some others. I have honestly tried to explain from a reasonable and logical basis why I think SOME Calvinists have so distorted what Calvin both wrote and intended that even knowledgable Calvinists recognize it as being unBiblical. Please don't by any stretch of the imagination think that I am defending the Arminian view point, especially the ones presented by extreme Arminians any more so that what I think can fairly be stated as misrepresentations of Arminianism by SOME Calvinists.
This whole debate, aside from being an interesting intellectual exercise does little to spread the Gospel. Jesus never spoke in such abstract and obstruse language, and I think as Christians, we should keep that foremost in our mind.
As simple-minded as Arminian theology may seem to be at times, the message is plain enough that anyone who hears the Gospel devoid of the Calvinism-Arminianism disputed can come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Isn't that the most important thing?
Look at the bright side, you can consider me to be a Philip Johnson five-point Calvinist, even though I prefer to go by the name 'Christian'.
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