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"To charge the intellect with perpetual blindness, so as to leave it no intelligence of any description whatever, is repugnant not only to the Word of God, but to common experience. We see that there has been implanted in the human mind a certain desire of investigating truth, to which it never would aspire unless some relish for truth antecedently existed. There is, therefore, now, in the human mind, discernment to this extent, that it is naturally influenced by the love of truth, the neglect of which in the lower animals is a proof of their gross and irrational nature....

In reference to Divine Grace, I believe, 1. It is a gratuitous affection by which God is kindly affected towards a miserable sinner, and according to which he, in the first place, gives his Son, "that whosoever believers in him might have eternal life," and, afterwards, he justifies him in Christ Jesus and for his sake, and adopts him into the right of sons, unto salvation. 2. It is an infusion (both into the human understanding and into the will and affections,) of all those gifts of the Holy Spirit which appertain to the regeneration and renewing of man...

THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD.....is present with, and presides over, all things; and all things, according to their essences, quantities, qualities, relations, actions, passions, places, times, stations and habits, are subject to its governance, conservation, and direction. I except neither particular, sublunary, vile, nor contingent things, not even the free wills of men or of angels, either good or evil: And, what is still more, I do not take away from the government of the divine providence even sins themselves, whether we take into our consideration their commencement, their progress, or their termination.

This caucus of moderate Calvinists, i.e., "Calvinists in the Tradition of Arminius" is called to order ONLY FOR CTA's or their FRIENDS in regard to this question. What is position of us CTA's on the Tulip.... Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and Perseverence of the Saints? Two answers have been forthcoming to date. P-Marlowe has offered one, and I have offered another. INITIAL Suggestion From P-Marlowe: The TULIP was developed as a reaction to the Remonstrants and belief in the petals of the Tulip was not necessary in order to be a Calvinist at the time...

Why I am A Calvinist An Oversimplified exhortation to Sovereign Grace Theology by Dr. C. Matthew McMahon There are a variety of theological persuasions in the world. One might say there are too many of them. We may go from denomination after denomination and find a great variety of beliefs and doctrines concerning things about God, things about Christ, things about man and so on (to the utter detriment of the church's power in the world). Yet these ideologies are but ripples from the great stone of the Gospel which was plunged into the lake of humanity. All theological persuasions...

Were the Remonstrants Faithful to Arminius? For the past four hundred years, the doctrinal battle between Arminians and Calvinists has raged on. This battle had its formal beginning with the issuance of the Canons of the Synod of Dordecht in 1619. These canons were the result of a national synod held in Dordrecht by the Dutch Reformed Church, and attended by delegates from Reformed churches throughout all of Europe, for the purpose of addressing the Five Articles of Remonstrance issued by followers of Jacobius Arminius in 1610, one year after Arminius’ death. The articles addressed point on which the Remonstrants...

A seminary student tells this story about the first day of a class. The professor was the well known Reformed theologian and Presbyterian pastor R.C. Sproul. Sproul stormed into class on the first day, slammed his Bible on the desk and said, "You are all very very bad and God is very very mad!" I plan on telling that to my children before they go to sleep every night. There's a movement growing in young protestants in America over the past decade or so. It's called Calvinism and there are pastors around who would kill all the babies of this...

REFORMATION SUNDAY by Pastor John Samson The last Sunday in October is traditionally known as “Reformation Sunday,” in Protestant Churches, drawing from the date of October 31, 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his “95 Theses” to the door of the Wittenberg Church in Germany, sparking the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther in Germany heralded the Biblical doctrine of justification through faith alone; salvation is by God’s grace alone, received through faith in Christ alone. Good works play no part in a person’s salvation (Rom. 3:21 - 4:5; 5:1; Gal. 2:16; Eph. 2:8, 9; Phil. 3:9) but are merely the by-product,...

CALVISM DEFINED ByRichard Watson CALVINISM, that scheme of doctrine on predestination and grace, which was taught by Calvin, the celebrated reformer, in the early part of the sixteenth century. His opinions are largely opened in the third book of his "Institutes:" "Predestination we call the eternal decree of God; by which he hath determined in himself what he would have to become of every individual of mankind. For they are not all created with similar destiny; but eternal life is foreordained for some, and eternal damnation for others. Every man, therefore, being created for one or other of these ends,...

I was assisting in a history class one day shortly after my conversion. I was wearing a crucifix and the history teacher, who happened to be a Baptist, commented that crucifixes always bother her. She asked me why we Catholics kept Jesus on the cross when he was risen from the dead. She expressed her offense at the sight of Jesus hanging there 2000 years after the fact. Prompted, I believe, by the Holy Spirit, I broke into a chorus of an old hymn traditionally familiar to Baptists:Lest I forget Gethsemane, Lest I forget thine agony, Lest I forget...

The following selection by John Calvin was taken from book 2, chapter 2 parts 18-21 of The Institutes of The Christian Religion, translated by by Henry Beveridge, Esq. A must read for all Christians who aspire to better understand the Bible's teaching on man's spiritual impotence prior to the regeneration of the Holy Spirit. 18. The limits of our understanding We must now explain what the power of human reason is, in regard to the kingdom of God, and spiritual discernments which consists chiefly of three things - the knowledge of God, the knowledge of his paternal favour towards us,...

COLORADO SPRINGS — Big names and big surprises converged before a nationwide audience at the 2006 Pastors Draft on April 27. "I've been waiting a long time for this," said Alvin DeWalt, 26, of Fuller Seminary, pacing his apartment in Pasadena and watching the draft on the Daystar network. His wife had made guacamole, and thirty friends were on hand to see which church picked DeWalt, one of this year's top ranked prospects. In the first round, Geoff Parsons and Rick Benson, of Westminster and Calvin seminaries respectively, went first, as scouts had predicted they would. Parsons heads to a...

Presbyterians Adopt New Trinity Wording by UPI Wire Jun 30, 2006 BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - June 30, 2006 (UPI) -- Leaders of the Presbyterian Church (USA), meeting in Alabama, have come up with 12 new phrases to describe the Christian doctrine of God in three entities. Instead of "Father, Son and Holy Spirit," worshippers may substitute "Compassionate Mother, Beloved Child and Life-giving Womb" or "Rock, Cornerstone and Temple," the Los Angeles Times reported Friday. Delegates to the group's 217th General Assembly voted 282-212 to "receive" those substitutions and 10 others written by a panel of pastors and theologians who felt the...

Just yesterday I was talking about this issue with one of my chickens. We were trying to figure out the nature of evil - where evil lies in the hearts of NAIS and men. On the one hand we have the beef exporters who push NAIS so they can reach foreign markets like Japan. This was the origin of what has become known as the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) which is the USDA's proposed plan for tracing the birth to death movement of every animal in the United States. I point out that Sam Sarpy, a rancher in Montana,...

  Why Calvin Is Cool  An Infomercial for Calvinismby Michael SpencerI know that's Calvin Coolidge, but if I put a picture of John Calvin up there, most people won't read the column. The hostility towards Calvinism is growing here in Bibleland. Note the intrepid Dave Hunt's attempt to vanquish the Calvinistic dragon with his new book, What Love Is This?, perhaps more aptly titled, What Research Is This? Norman Geisler unsuccessfully sought to forge a via media in Chosen, But Free and Gregory Boyd and the Openness Boys (great name for a band) have been blasting away for several years...

Tales continue to circulate about how the Catholic Church opposed translating the Bible into the vernacular. But the Church has never opposed that. After all, the Vulgate was originally translated by St. Jerome to make the Bible available in the vernacular of the day, Latin, which continued to be the lingua franca of educated Europe up to the late 18th century and beyond. Nor were the Reformers the first to translate the Bible into more modern European languages. The Catholic Church approved of Gutenberg's German Bible in 1455. The first printed Flemish edition came out in 1477. Two Italian...

Russia Returns Christian War Booty To Hungary Sunday, 26 February 2006 By BosNewsLife News Center in Budapest   BUDAPEST, HUNGARY (BosNewsLife)-- Priceless Christian books seized from Hungary by Russian troops as a Second World War trophy, were in the country Sunday, February 26, after Moscow returned them.   On Wednesday, March 1, visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin was to inaugurate the exhibition of the 136 mostly Protestant theological works, some dating back to the 15th century, which are considered as a "national treasury" here.       

The Nature of Fallen Humanity This chapter explores whether the Wesleyan concept of prevenient grace can be supported from the Scriptures. Before examining this question, I want to emphasize that there is a significant area of common ground between Wesleyans and Calvinists. The disagreements that we have in some areas can cause us to overlook the extent to which we agree on major doctrines. In one arena of theology, namely, anthropology, the harmony between Wesleyans and Calvinists is of the utmost importance and our harmony in this area should be celebrated. Both camps acknowledge that fallen human beings are born...

In his first speech as pope, Benedict XVI declared, “The current Successor assumes as his primary commitment that of working tirelessly towards the reconstitution of the full and visible unity of all Christ’s followers.”1 Before he took the name Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger had already established a name for himself as the “Vatican’s doctrinal watch-dog,” head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. In that capacity, Cardinal Ratzinger was the guiding hand in John Paul II’s famous encyclicals, such as Dominus Iesus, which continued to regard the theology of the Reformation as “gravely deficient.” Yet he...

Michael Servetus Biography Abstract Michael Servetus is in more than one respect one of the most remarkable men of the sixteenth century; while the tragic death which he suffered made him the first and most conspicuous martyr to the faith whose history we are following. Records of the life of Servetus are scanty and inconsistent, and the gaps in them have often been filled up by conjectures which have later proved to be mistaken. Servetus, Michael, in Spanish, Miguel Serveto (1511-1553), Spanish physician and theologian, who was executed for his beliefs by the Calvinist government of Geneva. He was born...