![[Smile]](smile.gif)
).I think it was Beza.
1. Total Depravity: Can anything God has created become totally depraved? I'm not sure about this. I think it's recognising something that's true - that rescue is ultimate on the divine initiative, yet it fails to take into account the innate desire for rescue and the "ability" to recognise God. And yet, if God is sovereign, then even the ability to rescue him must be gift also? Mmmmm. Dunno.
2. Unconditional Election: Is that "election" in the sense of "we've got God on our side, we're all going to heaven and you're not" or in the true, Israelite sense of election to a priestly and serving role?
3. Limited Atonement: ...pass. Sounds like a cushy way of getting out of having to do anything because you've got your place booked to me.
4. Irresistible Grace: Not quite irresistable. Nearly, but not quite.
5. Perseverance of the Saints: See 3 above.
As for calvinism - it paints a God who is an ogre, a compassionless and even sadistic figure who creates people just to torment them. Some God. Count me in with the rebel angels if He's really like that.
) hears my voice and opens the door, I will go in and eat with him and he with me'. (sorry if I remembered them wrong). Along with Karl and Seasick it sounds like good fun being a calvinist.Another verse
'For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous to bring you to God.'
There is too much about anybody being able to be saved that I can't take calvin seriously. PLus it eliminates the need for evangelism. After all why bother telling everybody about God when they might not be in his plan, and if God is sovereign, according to this his plans can't be scuppered. So God doesn't choose according just to his own critera he chooses according to my laziness as well.
Actually, I found it all wonderfully comforting as a new christian, knowing that because I was surely saved, God was going to ensure that I walked uprightly.
Then it was terribly worrying when I failed to walk uprightly.
Then I realised that I had to get out and push.
Ok sometimes when I look around the world I think that Total Depravity is the most eaisly proved of the 5, but then as has been said can anything that God made be totally not good?
Although I am satisfied in myself that Calvinism is wrong, it is not totally wrong. I think that there are 2 main things to learn from it.
1) The emphasis on God's Grace, sometimes we get 2 hung up on what we should do to please God. The calvinist would say that we can do nothing. God loves us even though we can do nothing to please Him. This is a lovely thought to me. It's wonderful that nothing can separate me from the love of God.
2) The enduring nature of God's love for me. Point 5, Perserverence of the Saints, I think is true. Once we are in Christ and sealed with the Holy Spirit we are there for all eternity. God does not let go of us.
"Even if I descend into the depths Thou art with me"
However generally I have found Calvinists have the same certainty and doubts about whether or not they are part of the elect, as no calvinists have about whether they are accepted by God.
Got any biographical links?
Besides, I know it should matter, but often the question of whether a person was a nice guy or not doesn't have any bearing on their being made into saints of some kind or another. I mean, If Cyril of Alexandria could be canonised, Calvin can be a hero of the Reformed church, surely?
Seriously, though. Calvin doesn't actually come into this discussion, since the fivce points are not found explicitly in his works, and - I am given to understand on the information of a friend who actually sat down and read the Institutes - Limited Atonement is arguably not there at all.
[/tangent]
quote:
Originally posted by seasick:
It must be quite good fun being a Calvinist. You're either saved or you're not, and there's nothing you can do about it. So go and have fun . . . faith and Christian living becomes irrelevant.
I'm not sure your average Calvinist would believe it to be that simple - basically, if you're truly regenerate, they would argue, then you will exhibit all the aspects of Christian living.
The main thing that bothers me (apart from all the other main things) is the denial of Free Will, which fails on a philosophical point (after all, the Free Will Defence is the only thing that solves the Problem of Evil so beloved of so many part-time philosophy students).
Is there anyone on this board who would want to defend the Calvinist position?
I could feel the light draining out of the universe.
On the other hand, the shadows can be lightened by reading Holy Willie's Prayer
quote:
Originally posted by simon 2:
PLus it eliminates the need for evangelism. After all why bother telling everybody about God when they might not be in his plan, and if God is sovereign, according to this his plans can't be scuppered. So God doesn't choose according just to his own critera he chooses according to my laziness as well.
Apparently not. Calvinists I have known would argue that it is our evangelism which is the vehicle through which God makes His sovereign will known. IE we are given the duty to evangelise, which God knew we were going to do anyway.
How do you know that God didn't ordain that you were going to be lazy? :P
Of course, again that's a problem, since, as Karl pointed out, it paints God as capricious to say the least. It is, however, interesting, to note just how strenuous many Calvinists are as evangelists.
unconditional election? nope. i just can't believe that "exclusive" is a good word to use about God.
limited atonement? nope. "Jesus died for me, but not for osama bin laden doesn't sound too 'graceful' to me.
irresistable grace? like to believe it, but can't. if it's true, then our free will goes down the pan. also suggests that whatever happens to us christians (and perhaps everyone?) is God's will.
perserverance of the saints again, would be nice, but smacks a bit of fatalism to me.
boo to calvinism. boo, boo, boooo.
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
I can remember looking at a particular work of calvinistic theology (probably pub. Banner of Truth or somesuch).
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Bryntirion's Banner of Truth Press hold the torch for Calvinist literature in Britain, keeping many puritan and reformed works in print (any publisher that can seriously call one of its imprints 'Puritan Paperbacks' and not see how lame that is really deserves my admiration ).
I have respect for them, in much the same way that I've observed a lot of the MW A/C types here seem to hold for Great Torrington church - they're a bit bonkers and undeniable extremists... but they're our extremists.
As someone from strongly Arminian stock I actually find all of them really difficult, and wonder that I can be in as good fellowship as I am with members of teh three above churches if these are really the basis from which their current theology has developed.
Calvinsim (ISTM) gives a nice neat system for saying who's in and who's out - or at least why some people are out, but I think that it reduces Christianity and God in doing this. Yes Limited Atonement is a logically coherent answer to the question why is Christ's death not effective to save everyone? (or something along those lines) but so is universalism (which I see as making most sense within the Calvinistic context if Divine grace is irrestible and God is loving surely everyone will be saved), but neither seem to me to fit with the breadth and diversity found in the Bible. The Gospels seem to me to emphasis what we have to do, Jesus' answer to the rich young man's question 'What shall I do to inherent eternal life?' isn't the standard evangelical one of believe in me and pray this prayer but 'Go and sell
everything'. How does this fit within Calvinsim?
Salvation cannot be reduced to 5 points, it rests on God's overwhelming love for his creation - despite us turning our back on him he reaches out to us and longs to draw us back. This seems absent from Calvinism where God seems quite happy to condemn the majority to Hell. I suppose it comes back to Total depravity or God's image in us being marred.
Oh and a nice quote from Arminius 'Calvinism makes God the author of sin'. (IIRC, A Level History was a long time ago, well 4 and a half years at least)
Carys
quote:
Originally posted by Weslian:
I'd like to know how real those five points of Calvinism are for those mainstream churches that have Calvinistic roots, namely ... Presbyterian Church of Wales,
Very little in the Welsh from memory. Never heard my dad preach on them or allude to them, and fabbest presby minister in the last 25 years Gwilym Ceiriog Evans had little time for them. I was in on a conversation between him and a visiting minister from Burma/Myanmar, and it seems Calvinism simply isn't on the radar of many M.C.'s anymore.
This may not be as true within the "Eastern Connexion" (the assocation of prebyters from the English-language churches in the PCW), as that tends to be more self-consciously Calvinist.
Also what sort of love is it when you decide who will love you? My wife loves me out of choice and also because I am big and muscly and very very clever
She was raised in the Roman Catholic Church and taught that if she died after she committed a mortal sin and before she confessed it, she would go to hell. The nuns taught her that many of her childish misbehaviors were mortal sins, so she spent most of her childhood trying to avoid hell.
As an adult she embraced Calvinism with great relief. If her salvation was a free gift from God and not something she had to earn, she could relax a little. The God who offered her a free gift seemed kinder than one who would send her to hell for a momentary lapse committed at the wrong time.
I wish she were here to discuss this.
Moo
quote:
1. Total Depravity: The idea that human beings are contaminated by Original Sin and cannot get into a right relationship with God through their own effort.
to which Stooberry added:
quote:
nope. "God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good."
Yes, God made it good, and then Satan messed it up.
quote:
2. Unconditional Election: God chooses those He will save, and furthermorem chooses them by His own criteria.
Who's criteria would be better?
Stooberry added:
quote:
nope. i just can't believe that "exclusive" is a good word to use about God.
There are many things I can't believe, but that doesn't have any bearing on the reality of those things.
quote:
3. Limited Atonement: Since God has chosen those He will save, it follows that Jesus only died for those God has chosen to save.4. Irresistible Grace: That since God is sovereign, those He chooses to save have no choice.
5. Perseverance of the Saints: That since God is sovereign and has chosen those He will save, and since they have no choice in the matter, those whom God has saved will remain saved.
And, Stooberry's comments:
quote:
limited atonement? nope. "Jesus died for me, but not for osama bin laden doesn't sound too 'graceful' to me.irresistable grace? like to believe it, but can't. if it's true, then our free will goes down the pan. also suggests that whatever happens to us christians (and perhaps everyone?) is God's will.
perserverance of the saints again, would be nice, but smacks a bit of fatalism to me.
Do you really want to lump yourself in with Osama? Jesus only said to one thief "Today you be with me in Heaven".
Please explain, with references, why you so strongly believe in free will, and what it means to you.
quote:
boo to calvinism. boo, boo, boooo.
Sorry, I can't think of an adequate reply to this one
quote:
Originally posted by Dyfrig:
This may not be as true within the "Eastern Connexion" (the assocation of prebyters from the English-language churches in the PCW), as that tends to be more self-consciously Calvinist.
And, of course, the Evangelical Movement of Wales tends to be very calvinist indeed.
Unconditional Election: As I understand this, it means that God does not choose us on the basis of anything that we do (i.e. God chose Abrahm rather than, say, Socrates, for his own mysterious reasons). As near as I can tell, this is simply a matter of spelling out what is implicit in the notion of God as a gracious creator. After all, is it really grace if God is waiting for us to do something before he chooses to give us grace?
Free will: I think the modern notion of free will is perhaps the most dangerous heresy around today. We want to think that "freedon" is a zero-sum game: the more freedom God has the less I have as a human being. So if I am to be genuinely free, then God must be in some sense unfree. God must be somehow waiting on my decision before he can save me. But if that is the case, then ultimately I am the cause of my own salvation (which puts me in the place of God). One of the things that begins to disappear around the beginning of the 14th century is the understanding that divine freedom and human freedom are not in competition; rather, God's freedom is the ground of human freedom. Grace does not make us less free, but more free, by saving us from our bondage to sin. Apart from grace, we are like the alcoholic who "freely" decides to have just one more drink.
But as far as limited atonement goes. . . boo, boo, boo!
FCB
Historically I believe that Beza was a pupil of Calvin and really put what is known a Calvinism together and then Arminius was a pupil of Beza who put together his 5 points to show how far Beza had gone wrong.
Limited Atonement is also known as Particular Redemption, and until the end of the 19th century and the formation of the Baptist Union, there were (at least) two Baptist churches in England the Particular Baptists who origianally were Congrgationalists who decided to go for Believers Baptism and were in theory Calvinist (mambers include John Bunyan and C. H. Spurgeon (until he left 'cos they became less particulr)) and General Baptists who originated out of the Anabaptists and were believed in General Atonement (members include John Milton and Thomas Cook).
quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
And, of course, the Evangelical Movement of Wales tends to be very calvinist indeed.
It hadn't struck me that the English-language bit of the PCW was desperately Calvanistic, nor the CofS for that matter.
The most Calvanistic people that I have met are the Free Church of Scotland and the Free Preby Church of Scotland, along with the Evangelical Movement of Wales.
It seems to me that the more Calvanistic a person, the more they seem to internatise any expression of joy. I have been to Christmas and Easter services that have been more 'Lenten' than celebratory. It got me very confused!
bb
after all:
'For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast.'
But then was it the faith or the grace that is the gift of God? If God gives the faith then it appears quite Calvanistic in the light of our present discussion and if it the grace he gave then thats great and all we have to do is believe that it is there for us? the not calvanistic option.
depending on the case of "this" (and this is not from yourselves), it'll refer to either the grace or the faith which is God's gift.
moo, or wood?
quote:
Originally posted by Stooberry:
depending on the case of "this" (and this is not from yourselves), it'll refer to either the grace or the faith which is God's gift.
Unfortunately, "this" does not occur in the Greek. Ephesians 2:8-9 literally says,
For by grace you are saved through faith; and this not of yourselves ; God's gift; not of works, that not anyone might boast.
Moo
I don't know what I was thinking of when I posted that. Of course the word "this" is there.
However, it does not refer to either faith or grace. Both these words are feminine, and "this" is neuter. I assume it refers to the situation as a whole.
Moo
However, the problem I have is that God has created someone who he would not redeem and would therefore be eternally condemned. The arbitrariness of this is certainly not fair. Paul, in Romans 9, doesn't even bother dealing with this point - he simply says "Who are you, a man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder: 'Why have you made me thus?'"
Both Calvinists and Arminians would say that there is something more important for God than saving everyone, since God wants to save everyone and unfortunately won't. Calvinists would say that this thing is God's glory, while Arminians would say that it is the preservation of man's free will.
Wayne Grudem ends by saying that "it seems that the [Calvinist] position has more explicit biblical support than the Arminian".
So there you have it, I guess. For me, like (I would think) most people, the whole thing of election and reprobation seems really difficult to swallow and hard to reconcile with out view of God. Perhaps our view of God is wrong.
quote:
He points out that people saying "Election is unfair" have to understand that it would be perfectly fair for God not to save anyone. The fact that he chooses to save some "is a demonstration of grace that goes far beyond the requirements of fairness and justice".
Yep, that's the answer I've got from Calvinists in the past. But I just don't buy it, I can't. It might be perfectly fair and just of him to leave us all to rot - but it doesn't fit with his character as revealed in the Bible. He searches for the lost - even at the expense of the saved. Think of the parables of the lost sheep, coin and son.
quote:
For me, like (I would think) most people, the whole thing of election and reprobation seems really difficult to swallow and hard to reconcile with out view of God. Perhaps our view of God is wrong.
Well, if the choice is between my view of God and a view of God that is reconcilable with Calvinism, I'll stick with my view even if that means I'm damned. I don't like the God Calvinism seems to require.
Carys
and in a way, it makes god less to think of him so.... i mean, i'm not so unjust, and i'm a faliable, flawed human. is god less just than i am???
1. 'Total depravity' does not mean that everything (or anything) is as evil or corrupt as it can possibly be. It merely means that everything every person does, thinks, or says is imperfect and tainted by sin (since the Fall, of course).
Think of the best action ever done by a fallen human. Was it perfectly free from mixed motives? "Non," says Calvin.
2. 'Unconditional election' means that God chooses to save someone just coz he's nice that way, not because they deserve it. If you accept that there's nothing we can do to earn or achieve our salvation, then this follows on pretty naturally.
3. 'Limited Atonement' - that Christ on the cross paid the debts not for all people, but only for those predestined to salvation. This is just economy: why suffer for those you foreknow will not accept your sacrifice.
(We're on thin ice here. The Bible really is against it, and it's just what you get from believing in both predestination and penal substitution, if you'll pardon the jargon.)
4. 'Irresistable Grace' means that God is the infallible wooer - if chooses to unleash his charms on a person, they'd never be so coldhearted as to turn him away. It's just the same as saying, 'If only everyone knew the whole truth about God, heaven and hell etc, they'd choose God.'
5. 'Perseverence of the saints' is simply predestination looked at another way: if you're one of the chosen you'll keep going to the end, one way or another; if you fall (and don't get up again), you weren't one of the chosen.
6. Prooftexting isn't going to achieve much. Different bits of the Bible support the opposite sides, and the fact that you can quote the ones that agree with you doesn't prove anything.
7. Calvin the Bastard. I have long had an intense and profound antipathy towards Calvin, created above all by Calvin nuts among my friends, perversely enough. So it has been a hard pill to swallow to study the facts of his life and come to terms with the truth that this antipathy utterly groundless. Karl, your sources are not just. Calvin must be one of the most unfairly misrepresented figures in church history.
Total depravity This is based on an understanding of the fall that comes ultimately from Augustine: that man fell totally and completely, and nothing good remained in him of the original "deposit" of good that God endowed him with at creation. When you point out somebody who is, in fact, doing good and yet who is not a Christian (say, Ghandi), the TULIP calvinist must either redefine good so that it's only good when Christians do it, or must drag in bad things about the person (as if no Christian who did good works ever had bad characteristics), or simply deny that the person is, in fact, doing good.
Ultimately most Calvinists in my experience will back down from "total depravity" and say limply that we cannot "save ourselves." But there is a world of turf between "totally depraved" and "unable to save oneself." The Orthodox Church accepts the latter. It categorically rejects the former.
Unconditional election In other words, God's decision of who gets saved is 100% totally arbitrary -- there are no conditions that make one person more likely to be saved than another. Let's call a spade a spade: this makes God into a dice-rolling ogre. In contrast to clear scriptural teaching that God is not a respecter of persons (Acts 10:34), this would have us believe that God plays favorites, like a neurotic mother who can't help but give more love and attention to some of her children than others. It is blasphemous.
Limited atonement This is flatly contradicted in Scripture. For example, "And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." (1 Jn 2:2). There is no way to fit this verse into a "limited atonement" worldview. Just as there is no way to fit a "limited atonement" worldview into the New Testament.
Irresistable grace Not only does God choose whom He will save, he forces himself on them. This is in clear contradistinction to oodles of Scripture verses urging us to choose to follow God. Surely a waste of breath, if we have no choice in the matter? Here the TULIP Calvinist tries to pull a fast one on us: he says that from God's point of view we have no choice, but it looks from our point of view as if we do. I assume we can be forgiven if we find this as inscrutable as the man on Monty Python whose name is SPELLED "Luxury Yacht" but PRONOUNCED "Throat-warbler Mangrove."
"Come, let us reason together" says the Lord through Isaiah. "Reason schmeason," says the Calvinist, "we do what he forces us to do, however it may look to us."
Bad theologian. No biscuit.
Perserverance of the saints again What then do we make of the innumerable passages in the NT exhorting us to persevere to the end? If there is no chance of not persevering, again God is a great Waster of Ink. Here again the Calvinist must perform amazing feats of mental gymnastics to save the appearances. Anyone who has been a churchgoing Christian for a long enough time will know somebody who seemed to be a very strong Christian at one time, and then fell away, turned his/her back on Christ and the church. "Well they were never saved in the first place," the Calvinist says. Then how can you know if anyone, even yourself is saved now, if someone can be NOT saved, despite all appearances?
All they have done is change the meaning of the word "saved" so that you're only saved in retrospect. You can only be sure someone is a "saint" if they do, in fact, persevere. Those who do not were never "saints" in the first place.
In such a case "perseverence of the saints" becomes a harmless tautology: "Anybody who perseveres to the end will, in fact, persevere to the end."
Either that or it is, as all the admonitions to keep running the race suggest and the writers of Hebrews and the Revelation explicitly state*, possible to fall away from saving grace. (As the Orthodox Church has always taught.)
In which case grace isn't irresistable after all, and thus election isn't a fiat of God and hence unconditional, and thus the atonement isn't limited to the elect (for one can't be saved and then be, and remain, unsaved, if salvation and atonement are inextricably linked). And the whole thing tumbles down like the (blasphemous) house of cards that it is.
Reader Alexis
*Hebrews 6:4-6 (It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance); Rev 22:19 (And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book).
I have been to many Calvinistic Churches, and have found one thing unites them all, Joylessness, and I really can not understand why this is so, If they are so sure of their salvation, why the long faces?
Like Wood I have flirted with calvinism, but not been satisfied with all of it, but the same can be said of Arminianism, i now fall somewhere in the middle, or perhaps I actually fall outside the debate all together!
Neil
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH:
Amen again.
Well, Paul and Nicole, we make quite an unexpected troika!
The only TULIP I want anything to do with is from the Netherlands, and I do NOT mean the Dutch Reformed Church!
Reader Alexis
Starbelly is right in saying that Calvinist places and people are on the whole joyless. And woe be to you if you dare to have joy!
Although Paul, I think all branches of Christianity have been and have the potential to be used abusively. It comes from people feeling the need to be theologically "right" where others are "liberal", or "wrong". It comes from a need to create security for ourselves.
And SteveTom, your understanding of how Calivnists view Total Depravity might be right in theory , but in practice most Calvinists hold that we are totally vile, and that the image of God is so ruined in us as to be non-existent; ie the "image of God" was something pre-Fall. My aunt harangued me for 3 hours in this way.
I do not agree with Total Depravity when I am in a good mood, for the reason that we may have marred the image of God, but it is still there in us, and capable of restoration.
However, I don't think I will ever be rid of Calvinism, much as I hate the way I was bound by it, and its influence on me during my developmental years.
Last night, the news focussed on fresh violence breaking out in Northern Ireland, and on the overrunning of Gaza Strip by Israeli forces. Later, I watched a documentary on the early stages of Hitler's Pogrom against the Jews, and how heartlessly both the German soldiers (or more, their generals who could have stopped it - many soldiers have been emotionally wounded for life through the actions they had to take) and the local police in the places they overran mowed down human beings.
I was reflecting too, on the twisted sexual abberration and hypocrisy in my family. While my Dad was growing up, he was physically and emotionally abused with Calvinism by my Opa. At the same time, this self-righteous father was off having a string of affairs, openly, with a number of women from the church . My Dad is still Calvinist, and it was deeply engraved on me too, though without the physical abuse. And I suspect my Dad's been promiscuous too - all the while my Mum has slaved and slaved on his behalf and been impeccably faithful in all things.
These church people, those who make themselves out to have their theology down pat, and "everyone else is wrong", who present good-little-X (insert denomination) masks to the world
- are a pack of liars. I include myself in that, because I too am a good-little-churchperson and I am afraid of the beast I keep chained within. And what extents we go to to cover up the reality that crouches within!
Anyhow, in this black frame of mind last night, I wrote the following reflection.
quote:
Who are you God? And why do you allow violence? It seems my eyes have been blind for longer than I remember, that I have never seen the sickening truth, the sickening reality that this world is. War, stupid petty religious war between Catholic and Protestant, who no longer know why they are fighting, or what they really believe, or why they believe it and how and why it is so much better than that of the “Others” that it is worth killing for. And War of another kind, fostered by a Superpower who took on the role of God, and by a Fading Kingdom wanting to be rid of an “ethic” problem – to the result that the innocent are murdered in their beds while the tanks role in, all because one group of people believe they have an ancestral right to territory long forfeited…War never changes, it is always the same. The same crimes are committed, the same inhumanities, the same failure to see another person, regardless of racial, sexual, or religious identity, as a human being with feelings, thoughts and dreams. One wonders what crimes the “goodies” are covering, and only a rumour is heard, a rustle of autumn leaves, of the rapes, murders and crimes they have committed in putting down the enemy. How can this be condoned? And does responsibility remain with the perpetrators, or are they somehow absolved of their crimes through being the victors, or a world Power?Because it seems to me that evil prospers all round the world, in all its peoples, in each individual member of each nation on earth. We are twisted and corrupt, deformed and crooked, and our eyes glow with malice against the innocent. Yet who are the innocent? Do we not deserve our suffering? For none of us is innocent. We all have buried deep within us the malice that informs the behaviour of the worst among us, and that latent power crouches as a beast within each of us, ready to pounce, to crush and devour, if let loose, if we fail to control it and it gets out. Like werewolves we are; we travel the world in a veil of human flesh: but all it hides is the reality of ugliness within, the raging beast governed by primal urges to feed its pride.
Foul we are, like fetid water in tyre-track puddles, breeding nought but flies. It seems no human is capable of doing one self-less deed, for all our motives are mixed to the point of even our good intentions being a travesty of good, and all our good deeds (even those inspired by divine grace) are mockeries of love.
There is no such thing as self-less love between human beings. There is no such thing as love, which remains the preserve of only the divine nature, and wholly unattainable by ordinary mortals, no matter how sanctified and progressed in the life of grace they are. Because we are too crippled to love, we cannot, dare not, should not trust another human being, lest they cripple us still more through our vulnerability. For afterall, each human being is so self-centred as to be unable to see beyond their own interests, even the interests of their soul. And so, if we open ourselves to others, we will be hurt, just as we hurt others who have opened to us.
And above all, God cannot be trusted. He is not evil, but holy. And so there is no recourse for anyone unfortunate enough to be born into this world. He was made incarnate, supposedly suffered the worst deal life can serve up, was sinless and died to save the world, rising to usher in a new life for all who trust him – if any can. Look at the world! It is still dark, and all humans are still foul cesspits seething with bodily and spiritual desires! Yet we cannot even shout at him, cannot even call him, and when we have and do, thinking he will heal and aid us in our need, he doesn’t listen, but sends instead more and worse suffering, promising Paradise to those who endure. Faugh! Some Paradise! All he needs to do is say the word, and we would be healed, healed of our deformities of mind and spirit, body and soul. But no, instead he withholds his power, instructing useless servants to be his delegates. And who are these delegates, but the foulest of foul, most broken-not-healed among us? Those whose masks are more spectacular and even better maintained than anyone else’s? As if they are capable of anything good, even under grace.
No, the world is graceless, and God withholds his grace until a distant future, a mere golden promise, a dream. He shuts his ears to the cries of earthly despair, for if he didn’t, one assumes his pity would be roused, as it was in the days he walked the earth, and then the distant promise would have to be squandered on the swine in the mud at this point in time, swine who are incapable of understanding, incapable of being raised to anything other than what they are. We have proved this afterall, have we not?
So eager are we to escape dismal reality that we convince ourselves that he cares for us each individually in each moment of our lives. We use our imaginations, and so strong are our own powers of self-hypnosis, we believe we are loved, treasured, valued and cleaned-up, healed and sent forth by God. We even are able to give ourselves “experiences” of God, of being loved, of being inspired to be something we can never be. We have “religious” experiences, and supposedly meet this loving Christ. Some say in doing this we merely commune with our own souls, and so again escape the reality of our sickness, suffering and pain. They say, God is within, or the Kingdom of God is within. Well of course it is! Going within is the only way we can convince ourselves that there is any light, warmth or love in the world. Yet this too is a mere manifestation of pride, and wanting to escape from reality. And it does nothing to truly heal us of the effects of pride and selfcentredness.
We cannot heal ourselves. God is unwilling to do it.
See and despair!
(About the 1st paragraph: It was more the fact of senseless war in Ireland and Palestine than the facts surrounding the conflicts that riled me - so don't shoot me down for incorrect details. Fact is, both wars are stupid and have been the cause of massive displays of inhumanity, as also was the case in so many other conflicts and senseless displays of power - I am thinking of the Balkans war...)
While the theological position is often married to a particular kind of church, this is by no means always the case.
[QUOTE]Dyfrig said: What Moo said about Presleyterian's experience is fascinating - it reminds us that theologies are actually organic beasties which exist in relation (and often in competition) to other theologies. Calvinism, in that particular case, was a balm for an injured soul.
[QUOTE]
I so miss Presleyterian. She's an absolute star (if you're reading this, Lesley, I wish you well in everything you do).
But you see, a theological position which offers an insight to God and which offers, as Dyfrig put it, 'balm to a wounded soul' - well, that's not a 'horrible, blasphemous lie'. That's a different perspective.
My own conversion experience has a lot to do with the Calvinist viewpoint. Were it not for a particularly Calvinist bloke of my acquaintance and his words to me, I would never have become a Christian in the first place.
At the time, I needed to be told that if I was a child of God, I was safe in His hand. That transformed the way I saw myself, the way I saw God. At the time, it was balm to my soul too.
FCB
Serioulsy, tho', I think to blame John Calvin for the failings of a 20th century institution and the sexual hypocrisy of some of its members is pushing it a bit far, nunc, however hurtful this has been for you.
It's a bit like saying that Innocent III's despotic actions against the Cathars destroys the value of anything written or said by a Roman Catholic, or that Cyril of Alexandria's tyranny invalidates Orthodox understanding
Perhaps we should engage with Calvin and not the Calvinisms we have encountered? Otherwise we're just doing what those rioters in Belfast were doing - hating something because we've grown up hating it.
Someone used to have a sig. quote (from whom, I don't recall) along the lines of: the heresies which we most hate are the ones we've left behind. Me, it took me a long while to realise that evangelicalism wasn't all dominant personalities and cliques.
My view is that out of Calvinism and Classical Arminianism, Calvinism is the "stronger" system. However I also think that Christian theology has been unduly influenced by greek philosophy. The distant God many of you complain about in Calvinism is the God of Plato, not the Bible, and has found his way into the christian faith through Augustine and others since him. Classical Arminianism is really only a tweaking of Calvinism,it leaves to many oditities about the nature of God.
Neo Arminianism seems a more coherent system, and the Openness theology is a natural outworking of that. Some however consider it to have gone outside the bounds of Evangelical Orthodoxy. Many of the things that make one "Evangelical" are actually symptoms of Calvinism, as standard Evangelical statements of faith demonstrate.
The Openness theology however suffers from being new in its approach. Although the church fathers seem to be mainly free-will theists it is clear that they didn't think about things the way Pinnock et al do
My view is that we need to read Moltmann, Tillich and Pinnock and explore in that direction moving away from the Greek philosophical ideas that have dominated theology since Augustine. We don't have to abandon orthodoxy (although sadly Radical-Orthodoxy of which I generally approve seems to be infatuated with Plato) but we may need to re-evaluate it.
quote:
Originally posted by sacredthree:
My view is that we need to read ... Pinnock
Really, Edward? Can you tell me where I can get hold of some of Pinnock's work? 
quote:
Originally posted by Dyfrig:
It's a bit like saying that Innocent III's despotic actions against the Cathars destroys the value of anything written or said by a Roman Catholic, or that Cyril of Alexandria's tyranny invalidates Orthodox understanding.
Actually, it's more like saying, "Since I've met [for example] a Franciscan who wasn't a very nice person, I must conclude that all Franciscans are bad people and Saint Francis mnust have been a bad person too."
I use an extreme example, but the logic is, I think, the same, that because the views of those members of a group whom you have met are not so inspiring, you therefore assume not only that all members of this group are bad, but that its originator was also bad.
Now this may be true; eg. you meet a member of the Aryan Nation church, you're on to a winner if you imagine them to be all nutters - but bear in mind that the Aryan Nation is a group founded on hate for the propagation of hate.
On the other hand, Calvin's doctrine was the attempt of a man to address how he saw the world, in both a political and spiritual sense. Calvin, according to SteveTom (and trust me, Tomkins does know what he's talking about) was not a bad man.
Shall we, as Dyfrig said, rather than engage in an anti-Calvinist hate-fest, engage with the ideas and offer a critique which doesn't just say, 'it's crap'. We may well conclude it's crap, but let's give it the benefit, mm?
I don't think it's fair to call something held dear by a large number of decent and genuine believers a 'hideous blasphemy'.
quote:
Someone used to have a sig. quote (from whom, I don't recall) along the lines of: the heresies which we most hate are the ones we've left behind. Me, it took me a long while to realise that evangelicalism wasn't all dominant personalities and cliques.
Not that evangelicalism is a heresy, of course. RIGHT, DYFRIG?
quote:
Originally posted by sacredthree:
New Frontiers, the largest house church group in the UK is strongly Calvinist, both as a doctrinal position and as a spirituality.
Re: accusations of Calvinist church meetings as 'joyless'. Whatever you may think of NFI's theology (and I can take it or leave it... well, leave it, mostly), you cannot accuse their meetings of being 'joyless'.
quote:
However I also think that Christian theology has been unduly influenced by greek philosophy.
You are, of course, right. Augustine of Hippo was a classic culprit.
quote:
Originally posted by Dyfrig:
Really, Edward? Can you tell me where I can get hold of some of Pinnock's work?
Why! At the Shop of Fools of course.
What a silly question
I mean Pinnock must be good, I'm not know nowerdays for my strong Evangeliclical leanings.
quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
Not that evangelicalism is a heresy, of course. RIGHT, DYFRIG?
True, Woodford.
.... But you are
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
I am not now, nor have I ever been a Calvinist. TULIP calvinism is a horrible, blasphemous lie which makes God out to be an ogre, and humans his helpless pawns (who are nevertheless blamed for doing what he forces them to do!).
I suggest you should represent people's opinions more accurately before you denounce them as blasphemous lies.
Total depravity When you point out somebody who is, in fact, doing good and yet who is not a Christian (say, Ghandi), the TULIP calvinist must either redefine good so that it's only good when Christians do it, or must drag in bad things about the person (as if no Christian who did good works ever had bad characteristics), or simply deny that the person is, in fact, doing good.
No. Calvin addressed that specific issue in the Institutes and says that when the unregenerate do good it is by the special grace of God (but no such act is perfectly good or springs form perfect motives, neither can it atone for other bad things done).
(And of course Christians have 'bad characteristics'. That's why for Calvin salvation is a matter of grace and forgiveness, not achieved by holiness.)
Unconditional election In other words, God's decision of who gets saved is 100% totally arbitrary -- there are no conditions that make one person more likely to be saved than another. Let's call a spade a spade: this makes God into a dice-rolling ogre.
Well, Calvin also rejects the idea that God's choice is arbitrary: God has his reasons, good and sufficient reasons, but they are hidden from us.
And anyway, if no one can save themselves, then either God could save everyone, or no one, or some of them. Most Christians believe he took the last option. So what precisely is the difference?
Limited atonement This is flatly contradicted in Scripture. For example, "And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." (1 Jn 2:2). There is no way to fit this verse into a "limited atonement" worldview.
Well there is, because the writer is addressing a particular readership, and could be saying that that Christ also died for all other Christians across the world. (There's no way to fit "Do not make graven images" into an Orthdox or Catholic worldview, but most people seem to manage OK.)
Anyway, Calvin never taught this himself, it was later disciples tidying things up, so it's quite possible to be a Calvinist without believing it. It has never had the assent of all Calvinists.
Irresistable grace Not only does God choose whom He will save, he forces himself on them.
No. The doctrine is that God does not override the will, but evokes a willing reponse.
Take something perfectly good and wonderful. If I don't want it, it can only be because I don't properly appreciate what it is. If you can perfectly reveal to me how good it is, I will find it irresistible. No forcing, no ogres.
This is in clear contradistinction to oodles of Scripture verses urging us to choose to follow God.
No it isn't. These exhortations are one of the things God uses to open our eyes.
Here the TULIP Calvinist tries to pull a fast one on us: he says that from God's point of view we have no choice, but it looks from our point of view as if we do.
This TULIP Calvinist is a bit of a duffer, isn't he?
"Come, let us reason together" says the Lord through Isaiah. "Reason schmeason," says the Calvinist, "we do what he forces us to do, however it may look to us."
It is by his perfect reasoning that the offer becomes irresistible.
Perserverance of the saints again What then do we make of the innumerable passages in the NT exhorting us to persevere to the end? If there is no chance of not persevering, again God is a great Waster of Ink.
God ensures that his chosen persevere to the end by, among other things, exhorting them to do so.
Here again the Calvinist must perform amazing feats of mental gymnastics to save the appearances. Anyone who has been a churchgoing Christian for a long enough time will know somebody who seemed to be a very strong Christian at one time, and then fell away, turned his/her back on Christ and the church. "Well they were never saved in the first place," the Calvinist says.
No, the mental exercise involved here is utterly simple: those who are not chosen can become Christians, and those who are chosen may fall from the faith. But God will always bring the chosen back, and he will not give the reprobate sufficient strength to continue to the end.
Then how can you know if anyone, even yourself is saved now, if someone can be NOT saved, despite all appearances?
You can't. Other people's salvation is not your business, your business to keep on going in hope and perseverence.
All they have done is change the meaning of the word "saved" so that you're only saved in retrospect.
Not so.
You can only be sure someone is a "saint" if they do, in fact, persevere. Those who do not were never "saints" in the first place.
Calvinist theology is not about looking into other people's souls.
Either that or it is, as all the admonitions to keep running the race suggest and the writers of Hebrews and the Revelation explicitly state, possible to fall away from saving grace. (As the Orthodox Church has always taught.)
Well, Calvin would answer you with a barrage of texts from John, Romans, 1 John, Revelation and Matthew, giving assurance that those who have been chosen will continue to the end. And then go back down the whole blasphemous house of cards giving remarkably solid and extensive biblical support for every part of it.
At one time I could have told you quite a lot about Calvinism. I remember sufficient to say it had more profundity and coherence as a doctrinal system that some posts have given it credit for.
But I also have to say that the worldview which which necessarily derived from it was one which contained elements I found irreconcilible with my profoundest, instinctual feelings about things.
The choice seemed to be either to designate these repugnances as the rebellions of a fallen nature against the demands of holiness, or move out.
My touchstone principle since has been: if there is a set of beliefs, and a community of believers, and you fantasise (as you do) about living up to those beliefs, and/or being accepted by that community and you realise that to do that you would have to be something you are essentially and fundamentally NOT,and never can be - leave it.
Reminds me of Stephen Sykes (former bp of Ely)'s comment that the gospel should be found worked out in the structures and attiutudes of our institutions as well as on an individual level.
But after going over a bit of history as written by F Heer (an Austrian Catholic) he has a bit to say in Calvins favour. Along the lines of, Calvin saw the church as a continuation of the synagogue, the Catholic view on this is that the temple of Jesus is something completely new. He therefore postulates that perhaps it is the refusal of Calvinism to deny it's Jewish roots that has kept Calvinistic countries free from the bloody persecution of the Jews.
The idea of a close personal God, not as mentioned before the Greek distant God, appeals to me a lot.
Roast heretic anyone?
The notion that Christianity got "Hellenized" in the 3rd and 4th centuries is a load of nonsense that was invented by 19th century German liberal protestants and was lapped up by everybody, despite it's obvious lack of historical foundation. It is clear that the entire Mediterranean world in the 1st century was thoroughly "Hellenized" -- you need only read Philo or a late deuterocanonical book like the Wisdom of Solomon to see that. So-called "hellenistic" thought was not an alien imposition on some originally pure "hebraic" Christianity (indeed, the very categories reek of orientalism), rather there was a common easter mediterranian intellectual milieu in which jews, greeks, syrians, egyptians etc. all shared.
I am also astonished at the claim that Augustine somehow sees God as "distant." Isn't he the one who said that God is more interior to me than I am to myself? In fact, I can't really think of a single passage in Augustine that conveys the idea that God is somehow "distant." Did Augustine find Platonism helpful in understanding God? Sure, because it helped him conceive of a being that is not composed of matter. But the idea that God is spiritu and not matter is hardly a peculiarly greek notion.
And as far as the need to read Moltmann and (gag) Tillich goes: as a friend of mine once said: "Athens may be a long way from Jerusalem, but it's a hell of a lot closer than Prussia."
FCB
So it's a bit unfair to dump it all on Calvin.
quote:
And anyway, if no one can save themselves, then either God could save everyone, or no one, or some of them. Most Christians believe he took the last option. So what precisely is the difference?
The difference is that I believe that God has offered salvation to all and that we can respond to him or reject him, thus he does not chooose or damn people but longs for all to come to him. Don't know if this is the majority view of Christians but it's what I believe.
quote:
No, the mental exercise involved here is utterly simple: those who are not chosen can become Christians, and those who are chosen may fall from the faith. But God will always bring the chosen back, and he will not give the reprobate sufficient strength to continue to the end.
Well that might be a simple mental exercise but I'm not at all sure I like the conclusion. So we can choose to respond to him, but if God has not chosen us our response to him doesn't matter?
Carys
And single-predestination, which says that some people are pre-destined for heaven and says nothing about the rest. I found it difficult to distinguish between the two after all in single predestination those not pre-destined to heaven must go somewhere else.
However I think the difference is that double-predestination nothing can change, while a believer in single pre-destination could pray
"Lord, save your elect and then elect some some more"
-------------------
Actually you have to look at Calvinism in the context of beliefs at the time. There was a lot of selling of indulgences to help you have an easier time after death. SO the richer you were the more indulgences you could buy and the the more indulgences you could buy the easier you could get to heaven.
In that context Calvinism gives a lot more hope to the poor. All are equal in God's sight. I suspect that it is no accident that the first modern societies to move towards democracy (Switzerland, Netherlands, Scotland, England and the English Colonies) all were strongly influenced by Calvinism. Whereas societies where calvinism never took root had to wait much longer for the common people to get any say.
Also it was the Calvinists in England and the Netherlands who were to first to allow Jews to settle freely in their countries (and perhaps more impotantly in their North American Colonies) and come out of the ghettos of the Middle Ages.
Further the Scottish Calvinists were amoung the first to want to extend education to the common people, trying to put a school in every parish.
quote:
Originally posted by FCB:
The notion that Christianity got "Hellenized" in the 3rd and 4th centuries is a load of nonsense that was invented by 19th century German liberal protestants
I agree that there would have been substantial Hellenistic influence on Christianity before Augustine, but on the issue of free will Augustine does offer a new theology. He himself accepted the orthodoxy of true free will (rather than the compatibilist version Calvinists suggest) but later changed his mind (Predestination of the Saints 8 & 16). He completed the deterministic takeover of christian theism, which suited the state church that followed it.
I agree that in the sense "God orders everything" God is near rather than distant, but I for one find that nearness distant if God cannot change, grow, learn ... so burn me.
I am not suggesting that the early church felt this way, but that Christianity is at root a free will theism. The development of that theism was somewhat derailed by the influence of Plato and others.
quote:
Originally posted by SteveTom:
giving assurance that those who have been chosen will continue to the end. And then go back down the whole blasphemous house of cards giving remarkably solid and extensive biblical support for every part of it.
As I too said, Calvinism is a secure system.
What concerns me most in your description of Calvinism is how individualistic it is. It is focussed on the election, predestination and perseverance of a person.
The neo-arminian approach is to say that those are all corporate actions.
This piece by Clark Pinnock is jolly interesting:
Sorry its in such and odd place, I think that RevivalTheology.com got jumpy.
quote:
Originally posted by FCB:
What is it with this thread? First it starts off with caricatures of Calvin and then moves on to caricatures of Augustine.
Augustine himself admits in the Confessions that he got a lot of his theology from Plotinus and Porphyry.
quote:
By Firenze: My touchstone principle since has been: if there is a set of beliefs, and a community of believers, and you fantasise (as you do) about living up to those beliefs, and/or being accepted by that community and you realise that to do that you would have to be something you are essentially and fundamentally NOT,and never can be - leave it.
What, you mean like Christianity?
The Calvinist God is a capricious ogre. A theology which makes God out to be an ogre is blasphemous. It doesn't matter how many people believe in it, nor how sincere they are.
Sure, Calvin can come up with Scriptures to back up his point, but so can the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons and the Christian Scientists. Calvin's teachings do not accord with the earliest and oldest teachings of the universal church. Therefore I must reject them. I am not saying that anybody else need reject them; not everybody thinks the early church knew what it was doing (although they will sometimes warrant they knew which books to reject and which to keep, at least of the New Testament canon).
Reader Alexis
So you say. But if 'Calvinism' makes God bad because he could save more than he did, then your alternative makes God feeble, because he simply hasn't got it in him to convince, persuade, or rescue any more than he does. Why should I find that any less risible than Calvinism?
Sure, Calvin can come up with Scriptures to back up his point, but so can the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons and the Christian Scientists.
So proof texts can prove your points but nobody else's?
Calvin's teachings do not accord with the earliest and oldest teachings of the universal church.
Well, there are Ss Paul, John, Ambrose, Hilary, Victorinus, and Augustine all in the first 4 centuries. They may not all have The Orthodox Church's™ seal of approval, but personally that doessn't make a great deal of difference to me.
Therefore I must reject them. I am not saying that anybody else need reject them...;
No? Then what are you saying? That we don't need to reject blasphemous lies? Why not?
not everybody thinks the early church knew what it was doing
No, but Calvin certainly did. He spent half his life trying to demonstrate in detail how his theology was returning to the truths of the early church lost by medieval Catholicism. Maybe he should have saved his effort.
quote:
Originally posted by SteveTom:
But if 'Calvinism' makes God bad because he could save more than he did, then your alternative makes God feeble, because he simply hasn't got it in him to convince, persuade, or rescue any more than he does.
Not at all. It postulates that God respects our free will, even if it be our choice to reject him. That's not "feeble" by any definition I'm familiar with.
quote:
So proof texts can prove your points but nobody else's?
The question is not the proof texts. It's who decides how they are interpreted: the Church, or an upstart Frenchman.
quote:
Calvin's teachings do not accord with the earliest and oldest teachings of the universal church.Well, there are Ss Paul, John, Ambrose, Hilary, Victorinus, and Augustine all in the first 4 centuries. They may not all have The Orthodox Church's™ seal of approval, but personally that doessn't make a great deal of difference to me.
Fair enough. Although I begrudge your use of Ss Paul and John, for I believe that you can only wring Calvinism out of them by standing them on their heads.
quote:
I am not saying that anybody else need reject them...;No? Then what are you saying? That we don't need to reject blasphemous lies? Why not?
Well, obviously you do not believe them to be blasphemous lies. We shall have to agree to disagree.
quote:
not everybody thinks the early church knew what it was doingNo, but Calvin certainly did. He spent half his life trying to demonstrate in detail how his theology was returning to the truths of the early church lost by medieval Catholicism. Maybe he should have saved his effort.
The world would be a happier place.
Rdr Alexis
I thought you Orthodox had a 'plague on both your houses' view of the Western Church in general and regard Protestantism and Catholicism as two sides of the same coin.
I respect Orthodoxy and can understand its reservations about Calvinistic soteriology. I recognise that as a Protestant I am more culturally and ideologically inclined to give Calvin at least the benefit of the doubt rather than regard him as an 'upstart Frenchman' - Athanasius would have been seen as an upstart what-ever nationality he was by some at the time. That said, and caveats aside, I still think you're being a bit harsh by accusing Calvinists of blasphemy. The only reason I don't go round accusing you Orthodox of idolatry for kissing icons and the like is because I've visited your churches, seen you do it, discussed it with your people and come to some kind of understanding of what you are trying to express by this action. OK, so I might not want to do it, or feel comfortable doing it myself, but at least I think I can see what you mean by it.
I fluctuate a bit on the Calvinist issue ... properly understood I can see what it's trying to assert and protect - the sovereign 'crown rights' of God. Misapplied and misunderstood it can end up a heinous system. So can any Christian system. It's a fine line between Calvinism and Antinominianism just as there could be a fine line between venerating the Saints and out and out idolatry. It cuts both ways don't you think?
Phil Williams
Calvin's 'theocratic rule of Geneva' is a myth.
Geneva was an independent city state ruled by an elected council.
Calvin as minister was never on the council and had no authority over it.
On the contrary, he spent most of his years there struggling to gain the church's freedom from the council.
His only authority over the state was that those in power who respected his pronouncements as minister would try to enforce them; so when the government was pro-Calvin it would often (but by no means always) ban things he disapproved of, when it wasn't, it wouldn't.
He did get many things banned that would seem ludicrous to us - like dancing and those fashionable Tudor slashed breeches - but in both cases this was simply a matter of enforcing existing (Catholic) legislation that had fallen into disuse, so the morality is not specifically Calvin's.
He couldn't even publish his books without them being vetted by the council.
And a large part of the myth of his tyranny comes from the fact that he demanded that these laws were enforced on the ruling class, not just the plebs.
Nothing could be further from the truth than that Calvin was a megalomaniac.
He utterly hated the responsibility and the politics of his job.
All he ever wanted was to sit in a room somewhere and write theology.
The sole reason he took the job in the first place is that Farel, the reformer who implored him to come and help, put a curse on his studies if he didn't.
Even then he only stuck it two years before running off to Basle.
Three years later the Genevan council entreated him to return.
"I would prefer 100 deaths to that cross on which I should have to die 1000 times a day," but he was persuaded that it was his duty.
Which leaves us with 'roast heretic'.
This idea rests on a single grossly misrepresented incident.
Michael Servetus was a writer who, among other crimes, denied the Trinity.
He had evaded arrest in Spain and been imprisoned in Vienna (both Catholic), where he was sentenced to death, shortly after he had escaped, and burned in effigy.
His heresies were well-known to Calvin who had tried fruitlessly to dissuade him from them in a long correspondence.
He then turned up in Geneva, where not surprisingly he was arrested. They gave him the choice of being tried there or returned to Vienna, and he begged not to be sent back.
In the trial, Calvin acted as expert witness for the prosecution.
The Council of Geneva, in order not to act merely on it own wisdom, wrote to all the major Reformed cities of Europe to ask their opinion. Inevitably, they unanimously condemned him.
And so, equally inevitably, the Council sentenced him to death.
Calvin petitioned that he should be beheaded rather than burned, as an act of mercy. The Council rejected it.
No other religious leader of the time (except Anabaptists) - or throughout the whole Middle Ages - would have let Servetus live.
Luther, Zwingli, Cranmer, Elizabeth, Thomas More, Paul IV, all had far more blood on their hands than Calvin.
So what's the deal.
A "god" who decides to let some people go to Hell when he COULD have saved them is not the God revealed by Jesus Christ.
One assumes that not all people are saved.
That suggests two possibilities:
God could have saved all people, but he chose not to.
God could not have saved all people, even if he wanted to.
You deny the first, that leaves you with the second.
Calvin chose the blasphemous lie of making God an ogre; you choose the orthodox truth of making him feeble.
Invoking free will doesn't make any difference to the basic choice: the only alternative to a God who can save all but doesn't, is a God who can't.
quote:
Originally posted by Phil Williams:
Do you really believe the world would be a happier place if the Protestant Reformation had not occurred, Mousethief?
Do you really think the Reformation wouldn't have happened without Calvin?
quote:
I thought you Orthodox had a 'plague on both your houses' view of the Western Church in general and regard Protestantism and Catholicism as two sides of the same coin.
We don't invoke plagues on anybody, and pray for the salvation of all men -- even Protestant ones. But yes, they are very similar in a lot of areas in which both are different from Orthodoxy.
quote:
I still think you're being a bit harsh by accusing Calvinists of blasphemy.
I haven't accused anybody of blasphemy. I have said a particular system of thought, viz. TULIP Calvinism, is blasphemous. I have pointed out exactly at which point I think it is blasphemous, and explained WHY I think it is blasphemous at that particular point. I imagine that most people who hold to TULIP Calvinism are doing the best they know, and don't intend in the least to blaspheme God. I probably could stand to learn a great deal from them about how to love God with all my heart and soul and mind and strength. I'm sure they will sit above the salt, and I below it, at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. Nevertheless, cuss that I am, I believe that this thing they believe -- that God chooses to save some and not to save others -- is blasphemous.
quote:
The only reason I don't go round accusing you Orthodox of idolatry for kissing icons and the like is because I've visited your churches, seen you do it, discussed it with your people and come to some kind of understanding of what you are trying to express by this action. OK, so I might not want to do it, or feel comfortable doing it myself, but at least I think I can see what you mean by it.
Fair enough.
quote:
I fluctuate a bit on the Calvinist issue ... properly understood I can see what it's trying to assert and protect - the sovereign 'crown rights' of God.
They are trying to assert and protect something that God himself does not assert and protect. The Son humbled himself, and we are told he doesn't do anything he didn't see the Father do first.
quote:
It's a fine line between Calvinism and Antinominianism just as there could be a fine line between venerating the Saints and out and out idolatry. It cuts both ways don't you think?
Doubtless. If I knew what "antinomianism" meant I might have more to say, however.
Rdr Alexis
"Another beer" --Al Stewart
quote:
Originally posted by SteveTom:
One assumes that not all people are saved.
You may. I prefer to leave open the possibility (and it has no small Scriptural witness) that all will in the end choose to repent and accept the gift of salvation. But for the sake of argument I will waive this point.
quote:
That suggests two possibilities:God could have saved all people, but he chose not to.
God could not have saved all people, even if he wanted to.
You deny the first, that leaves you with the second.
Yep. I'm with you so far.
quote:
Calvin chose the blasphemous lie of making God an ogre; you choose the orthodox truth of making him feeble.
I don't see how you drag "feeble" into it. You're saying that God laying down his sovereign right to override man's will and allowing man to freely choose is feeble. You must then think that Christ laying aside his heavenly crown to become incarnate as a tiny baby is feeble, too, then. The latter is but an instance of the sort of thing the former is. And Christ never did anything He didn't see His Father do first (unless he was lying when he said that?).
Fine. Have it your way. God chooses to enfeeble Himself so that Man can freely choose. I mean truly free, not the free-but-not-free of Calvinism.
quote:
Invoking free will doesn't make any difference to the basic choice: the only alternative to a God who can save all but doesn't, is a God who can't.
Absolutely. God "could" "save" us by making us something we're not: automatons. But if He is to allow us to have free will, then He must allow the possibility that some might not choose Him. As St. Clive says, there are 2 kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done" and those to whom God says, "Fine. Thy will be done." That's the risk God took when He decided to make freely-choosing agents.
Let me ask you this: if we are not free, then is God the author of evil? Why not?
Reader Alexis
"I will choose free will" --Neil Peart
--------------------------------
Do you really think the Reformation wouldn't have happened without Calvin?
This is odd. You say the world would have been a happier place without Calvin, but not without the Protestant Reformation in general.
So what is it that so distinguishes Calvin? Presumably the blasphemous idea 'that God chooses to save some and not to save others'. No?
And yet this is exactly the teaching of all three strands of the Protestant Reformation - Reformed, Lutheran and Anglican - from the start.
So what is it exactly that makes you so vitriolic about Calvin? Because it doesn't seem to be reason.
quote:
Originally posted by SteveTom:
This is odd. You say the world would have been a happier place without Calvin, but not without the Protestant Reformation in general.
I said nothing of the kind. I was pointing out a flaw in another person's assumption.
quote:
So what is it that so distinguishes Calvin? Presumably the blasphemous idea 'that God chooses to save some and not to save others'. No?
Well, as you say that is held in common by all the Reformers, as well as by the Catholics they were protesting against. It's a thread at least as old as Anselm.
I'm not big on any of the reformers, granted. I think the Catholic church would very likely have come back around on the indulgences thing, and that the splintering of the church in the West was a great (and unnecessary) evil.
But you're right. My feelings about Calvin are largely emotions and not the conclusions of arguments.
And there's probably no small bit of blaming Calvin for the things that have been done consequently in his name, which is monstrously unfair.
But Calvin's brand of Protestantism has tended to engender a lot of joylessness, as has been noted above, whether or not this is Calvin's fault. So i think that it is not entirely without reason to say that the world would be a happier place without Calvin.
Rdr Alexis
I too, but as you say that's beside the point.
You're saying that God laying down his sovereign right to override man's will and allowing man to freely choose is feeble.
I most certainly am not. I'm saying that God being unable to save is feeble.
I don't see how I can make this any clearer.
If not all are saved, either God is unable or unwilling.
You denounce as a blasphemous lie the idea that God is unwilling. Therefore he is unable. Therefore he is feeble.
Your answer to this is that God willingly laid down his right to override our will, that he could have saved us by making us automatons, but chose not to.
But by doing so you have turned from God being unable to save to God being unwilling; instead of God feebly letting us be damned because he is powerless to prevent it, you have God letting us be damned because he chooses not to override our freewill.
God could have saved us by making us automatons, but he decides not to.
Your God 'decides to let some people go to Hell when he COULD have saved them', and is therefore not the God revealed by Jesus Christ.
Which by your own reasoning makes Orthodoxy, I'm sure you'll agree, a blasphemous lie.
as i see it, god could force himself upon us... but he choses not to distort our free will in that way. Why is a god who willingly lays some of his power aside enfeebled? personally i don't believe that anyone will be left unsaved eventually, i DO believe that eventually all will return to god, even satan, if he exists, which i'm sort of undecided on. but god will allow us to do it in our own time, in our own way... and i don't see how that lessens god. i think it makes him more... more than a tyranical bully who choses to force us to love him, as if we were puppets....
Is deciding to save the world equal to the act of saving the world? I don't think so, but even if it were, what God decided was to offer salvation to the world. He also chose to respect our decision regarding that offer. What's the problem?
quote:
Originally posted by nicolemrw:
Why is a god who willingly lays some of his power aside enfeebled?
HE ISN'T!
Like Mousethief, you've got what I said completely the wrong way round.
A God who willingly lays some of his power aside, who could force himself upon us but chooses not to, is not feeble (willing to save but unable); he is able to save us but unwilling to do what it takes.
No one considers this choice to be feeble.
The question is whether it makes God cruel and merciless.
quote:
Originally posted by SteveTom:
A God who willingly lays some of his power aside, who could force himself upon us but chooses not to, is not feeble (willing to save but unable); he is able to save us but unwilling to do what it takes.No one considers this choice to be feeble.
The question is whether it makes God cruel and merciless.
SteveTom,
It took me a while to see your point, but I think I've got it now. And a good point it is, methinks. There are two different ways in which God might be "unwilling" to save some: one out of respect for their freedom and the other out of some mysterious determination to which we humans have no access. In both ways God is equally unwilling, but some seem to find the first more acceptable, because it seems less arbitrary (but, I think, only seems so). I tend toward the second view, since it seems truer to my experience that in these matters of who gets saved and why we humans are largely in the dark and probably shouldn't worry ourselves too much about it.
As to Edward's earlier comment about a god who can "change, grow, learn"-- I tend to see such a god as an anthropomorphic projection. Why would I worship a god that might change its mind? And there is nothing particularly "greek" about this.
FCB
quote:
Originally posted by Erin:
What God decided was to offer salvation to the world. He also chose to respect our decision regarding that offer. What's the problem?
Look, Erin, Light of My Day and Star of My Night, at it this way:
Child wants to experiment with heroin/play in motorway/jump off tall building like Superman.
Parent says, "I really don't thank that's a good idea, because you will die a horrible death and I'll go to prison. But I'm big enough to let you have your individual freedom whatever the cost. I advise you not to do it, but I will respect your decision."
The point is that God, in deciding to give free rein to our self-destructive will, is deciding to let us be damned. Respecting our decision to damn ourselves means deciding not to do all wiithin his power to save us.
He wouldn't even have to override our free will to save more than he does. Think what what a (literal) hell of a lot of people there are who don't believe the gospel because they don't believe in God, and would believe in God if he demonstrated his existence.
But he doesn't. So, assuming he could do if he wanted to, it follows that he lets us stay in ignorance and error and that that is his choice.
Thus you too, my dear, like the rest of us, are a blasphemous liar.
quote:
Originally posted by FCB:
As to Edward's earlier comment about a god who can "change, grow, learn"-- I tend to see such a god as an anthropomorphic projection. Why would I worship a god that might change its mind? And there is nothing particularly "greek" about this.
God is said to change his mind in the Old Testament. However the deeper issue is far more Philosophical and cannot be deduced sola scripture.
I have another question for you all.
Calvinism is a Big issue for Evangelicals. Does anybody else care?
quote:
Originally posted by SteveTom:
Well, as neither Mousethief nor I are evangelicals, the answer would appear to be yes.
And neither am I, and I too care about it. But having moved away from Evangelical churches I find that it is not an issue amongst those who talk about theology.
Is that because most Calvinists are Evangelicals?
quote:
Originally posted by sacredthree:
Is that because most Calvinists are Evangelicals?
Most Calvinists are Evangelical, but only a small proportion of Evangelicals nowadays are Calvinist.
quote:
Wood remarked:
Most Calvinists are Evangelical, but only a small proportion of Evangelicals nowadays are Calvinist.
But is that the case? Edward has told us that New Frontiers are strongly Calvinist. And I would have thought that they are fairly typical of mainstream UK Evangelicalism in terms of theology these days. The Evangelical Anglicanism I have had the good fortune to be caught up in these last four years is certainly Calvinist.
OK, it's not the (I think they call it) 'hyper-Calvinism' as caricatured by one or two of the earlier posters, but it's still Calvinism. Isn't it?
dave
A quick search of the net brings up plenty of groups who are wholly or partially calvinist in approach.
NFI, Assemblies of God, Elim, Baptists, FIEC, and even a few individual Vineyard churches.
In Exeter i stuggle to think of many Evangelical churches who are out and out Calvinistic, the two or three I can think of are very small (and yes, Wood, very joyless!)
Neil
quote:
The point is that God, in deciding to give free rein to our
self-destructive will, is deciding to let us be damned. Respecting
our decision to damn ourselves means deciding not to do all wiithin
his power to save us.
but stevetom, you are missing a vital point. i, and a lot of other people, do not believe that anyone is going to be eternally damned... we will all eventually come to him... for some it'll just take longer, thats all.
that being the case, allowing us to take our own time and do it our own way is the kindest, most loving thing god could possibly do for us.
look, i've said her before, i'm a member of alanon, the organization for friends and family of alcoholics. one of the hardest things that we in alanon have to learn is to stop enabling the alcoholics we love... stop taking care of them, jumping in to make everything right, allowing them to make their own decisions, and suffer the consiquences of their own actions. it sounds cruel, but its not. because only when they suffer the results of their decisions do they have a chance of hitting bottom, and seeking help for themselves.
its the same thing for god. just as i dearly love the alcoholic in my life, god dearly loves us. just as i had to learn to stop enabling my alcoholic, so god does not enable us. and just as my alcoholic eventually found sobriety, through the grace of god and aa, so we eventually will all come to god. one way or another.
now whats cruel about that????
quote:
Originally posted by sacredthree:
God is said to change his mind in the Old Testament. However the deeper issue is far more Philosophical and cannot be deduced sola scripture.
God is also said to have a strong right arm, but we don't usually take that to mean that God has arms.
But I agree that the issue isn't one that can be settled sola scriptura. My reasons for saying that God does not change are based on my understanding of the grammar of "perfection" (and the perfection of God is, I think, a biblical notion).
I think some of the best recent work on divine impassibility has been done by Thomas Weinandy, but if you're looking for someone earlier and more English, take a look at Julian of Norwich. It is little realized today, but divine impassibility is absolutely crucial to her theology.
FCB
quote:
Originally posted by FCB:
God is also said to have a strong right arm, but we don't usually take that to mean that God has arms.
Did the writers believe that God had an arm. Probably not. Did they believe that God has actually changed his mind, or wondered about the outcome of future events? I say yes.
quote:
Originally posted by starbelly:
New Frontiers and other Charismatic groupings are not as large as you may hirst think, but their influence with Conferences and publishing do make them appear larger than the actually are in numbers.
Quite big enough however, and they betray the general sway of Evangelical theology, which is still Baptist and Reformed. Many years ago David Pawson (I think it was) suggested that a Christian could lose their salvation. He was practically lynched.
quote:
Originally posted by starbelly:
A quick search of the net brings up plenty of groups who are wholly or partially calvinist in approach.NFI, Assemblies of God, Elim, Baptists, FIEC, and even a few individual Vineyard churches.
Erm, AoG and Elim are the last time I checked classically Arminian at a fairly national level.
quote:
Originally posted by starbelly:
In Exeter i stuggle to think of many Evangelical churches who are out and out Calvinistic, the two or three I can think of are very small (and yes, Wood, very joyless!)
.
Certainly when I was at College I would say that the majority of young evangelical Christians were aggressively Calvinistic, coming from mainly Baptist traditions. Wayne Grudem was the preferred theologian; Arminians were looked down upon as generally being those who were untheological, uneducated and ran off feelings rather than fact or reason. I was frequently challenged to give up my resistance to what they perceived as Evangelical Orthodoxy, and reminded that most, if not all, Theologians were Calvinists.
I even remember at open air events people praying that God would show us who was elect!
Of course when I moved to Cambridge I went to an Arminian Church and discovered them to be untheological, uneducated and running off feelings.
quote:
Child wants to experiment with heroin/play in motorway/jump off tall building like Superman.
Parent says, "I really don't thank that's a good idea, because you will die a horrible death and I'll go to prison. But I'm big enough to let you have your individual freedom whatever the cost. I advise you not to do it, but I will respect your decision."
But then perhaps he's just mastered expressing his theology in a way that suits the individualism of the post-modern generation
There was once a theologian who struggled with the problem that those who had appeared to have God's blessing were not assenting to it as he understood it. Although he recongised that they had been given promises, prophecies and we're very religious, he found it odd that they weren't, apparently, enjoying God's favour.
And he thought about it this way:
God's decisions are God's business - a matter of God's choice.
God chose to bless Abraham through Isaac, the child of the promise not of the human will. GOd then chose Jacob over Esau before either had done anything good or bad.
And this theologian realised that God did this all the time - he noted that in the story of the Exodus it is God who hardens Pharoah's heart. So this theologian concludes that, however mysterious, the choice is not really his [the theologians], the outwardly relgious people's or indeed anyone else's, but it is [I]God's[/]. And if we ever ask why God chooses in a particular way or offer the opinon that God is being a little unfair in this matter, the theologian says, "That's none of your business."
The theologian's name was Paul. He seems to have written quite a substantial part of the work that forms the beginning of the Christian tradition.
quote:
Originally posted by Erin:
I think y'all are making this way more complicated than it needs to be.Is deciding to save the world equal to the act of saving the world? I don't think so, but even if it were, what God decided was to offer salvation to the world. He also chose to respect our decision regarding that offer. What's the problem?
Erin,
Maybe part of the problem lies in whether or not we can take God at His word.
Here's a parable:
The Mouse Family has four people in it. The Mouse House catches on fire one night and the fire department has only one fireman to send to try and rescue the Mouse Family from the conflagration. The fireman arrives on the scene, and is told that there are four people in the burning house. The fireman axes in a door, runs in the house and through the smoke and flames hears someone screaming, finds them, and carries them outside to safety. The fireman rushes back into the house and hears more screaming, finds another member of the Mouse Family and carries them outside too. The fireman knows there are still two members of the Mouse Family left in the burning building but he doesn't go back in to rescue them. The house burns to the ground and two members of the Mouse Family die in the fire. The fireman is lauded as a hero for saving two people out of the burning house. But you can't say that the fireman is the saviour of the whole Mouse Family because he didn't save all of the Mouse Family.
1 Timothy 4.10 says, "For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, Who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe."
If He only saves those who "choose" to be saved then He isn't the Saviour of all.
Mouse
_____
quote:
Originally posted by FCB:
The notion that Christianity got "Hellenized" in the 3rd and 4th centuries is a load of nonsense that was invented by 19th century German liberal protestants and was lapped up by everybody, despite it's obvious lack of historical foundation.
I don't know about the historical evidence. What I do know is that the mode of thought of the Creeds and writings of the Fathers seems to come from a different culture from that of the NT, in particular the Synoptic Gospels.
The mode of thought in the synoptic gospels is contrete, short sayings, stories and poetry. Often talking of things allusively, rather than directly. In the Creeds it is abstract, phiolosophical doctrinal statement. John's gospel is more philosophical than the synoptics, but even that seems to represent a different way of thinking than the creeds.
I have to say, that I am more at home with the stories, sayings and poetry of the synoptics, than the doctrinal statements of the creeds.
A tangential thought about Calvinism: As pointed out in the Methodist-Anglican Conversations thread on MW: the report suggests that the Anglican belief in Irresistable Grace, may be a problem for us unregenerated Arminian Methodists.
I DO think we need to get clear what is being talked about.
1) The historical question: did Calvin himself state then 'five points'? It seems he did not. So these are a later systematisation of Calvin's own systematic thought. Good or bad, they are not to be laid at Calvin's door.
2) The question of whether this kind of systematising is a legitimate approach to theology and salvation. Centuries of Christian practice indicate that, generally, Christians are comfortable with this. Most will say somewhere that it's good to try and understand what can be understood, but that there are limits to what can be known of God (variously understood).
3) The question of what Calvin as an historical figure achieved in his own day: I remember reading a book by Bouwsma which persuaded me that Calvin opened the door to the liberal thinking of the enlightenment for the church as well as setting out his systematic Institutes - it was the bringing of a certain mode of reasoning to bear on the Christian faith that was so valued, and remains of value today (even in postmodern cultures).
4. Only the most authoritarian kind of church would ever make the five points non-negotiable. But even if one disagrees with them at every point, one has to say they do stimulate thinking about some core issues for Christians.
5. My own view is that Calvin himself is always worth taking seriously, for he has a great intellect and a subtle udnerstanding. The five points, even though not from Calvin himself, are good jumping-off points and they raise questions Christians often grapple with.
6. Those who misuse Christian teaching, and those who have misused Calvin's teaching and its developments in an abusive and oppressive way, are guilty of serious wrongdoing. But that doesn't make Calvin ghuilty of other people's crimes!
7. As an evangelist, I find it more profitable to work within a more Calvinistic framework than an Arminian one, although I think all evangelists have a little bit of Arminianism about them!
God bless this discussion!
In the beginning God made a perfect world and put a perfect being into the world and told the being not to do something or he would die.
Then He decided to play a little craps. He threw a spanner into the works by sending a being of pure evil into the world who planted a seed of doubt in the perfect being's mind by telling him that God was lying. The perfect being took the bait and sided with pure evil. This condemned the being and all his children to death.
Then God decided He would try to salvage something out of the mess the now imperfect being had made of things by making a way to save the beings back, and decided to make Himself the sacrifice that would buy back the beings, and made the condition for their salvation their acceptance of His sacrifice. God wanted to find out which of the beings were worth saving. The ones who would accept His offer would be worth saving because they are humble enough to realise what a mess they are and believe that love is the way to live, and the ones who wouldn't accept His offer would not be worth saving because they keep siding with pure evil.
Here Calvinism says that God knew which of the beings would choose to accept His offer of salvation and which ones would not, sent messengers to preach the good news that they could choose to accept or reject His offer of salvation, and made sure that the ones He knew would accept His offer succeeded . Arminianism, on the other hand, says that God decided to leave it up to each being to decide for themselves whether they would choose His offer. Those who believe are not condemned, and those who don't believe are condemned.
And since God knew the beginning from the end, Calvinism says God knew He wouldn't get 100% back, but Arminianism says God wished He could get 100% back though He knew some wouldn't choose Him, but He wouldn't know how many He'd lose to the lake of fire and outer darkness until the end.
So its either a matter of God knowing all along which of the beings He'd be saving, or finding out which ones He'd be saving as they decided to accept or reject Him.
Whatever way you look at it, its gambling with sentient beings, either choosing their destiny for them or letting them choose their destiny for themselves. If you know that there's a chance that even one of them will turn into pure evil and you can't/won't fix them, is it right to let them come into being? Someone at some time in some place gave birth to that person, might even have loved them, maybe very much. And they will be left without that loved one for all eternity. It just doesn't seem right to gamble that way, to make someone that you won't fix just because they won't let you.
Sure God didn't want automatons. He wanted thinking, feeling, changing, learning children. Who would learn what love is and what love is not. But there's a big difference between finding out which ones out of the billions will find their way to choosing love and letting the hardened and evil ones drop into an eternity of separation or oblivion, and being the remedy that heals and fixes every one of them from the most easily entreated to the hardest of hearts. It is those hardest hearts that need love the most.
But I suppose God has a reasonable explanation. And I suppose the holes left in humanity won't matter in the long run.
Can the clay say to the Potter, Why have you made me thus? No, the Potter is responsible for the clay.
Mouse, who obviously doesn't understand the ways of the Potter.
_____
What does hardened mean. It was pharoh that hardened his heart against God in the first place. Where the OT said God hardened Pharohs heart the suggestion is that God strengthened Pharoh to work out a choice he had already made.
Mouse:
Nice sketch but I am not convinced God is aware of the future.
I believe that when God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" He was making a declaration of where He intended to take mankind, not a statement of where He began.
In this way God knew the end from the beginning.
God looked at His creation and said it was "good" and "very good", He didn't say it was "perfect". The Hebrew words for good and perfect are different.
The First Adam wasn't perfect and couldn't make himself perfect. The Law couldn't perfect mankind either. The Second Adam became the way for perfecting mankind, for completing the process He had begun in Eden, the way for God to realise the desire of His heart that He had declared from the very beginning.
Mouse
_____
If you don't see "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" as God's desired end result, then you will read all the rest of scripture without that end result in view. Perspective makes all the difference.
Mouse
_____
quote:
Originally posted by Mouse:
I believe that when God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" He was making a declaration of where He intended to take mankind, not a statement of where He began.
<snip>
God looked at His creation and said it was "good" and "very good", He didn't say it was "perfect". The Hebrew words for good and perfect are different.
Now I'm going to be thinking through the implications of that during church this morning rather than listening to the sermon
Alan
quote:
Originally posted by Dyfrig:
Mulling this through over a pastrami sandwich (admittedly, the nature of the sandwich is not strictly relevant) I think I've changed my mind and that I have contradicted. Emotional and psychological response to the institutional outworkings of a particular system is as valid as anything else (cf. my comments on Zwingli et al above). So, nunc, I have no problems with your comments about your experiences. (Tho' SteveTom is right to point out the historical and analytical inaccuracy of much that is being said contra Calvin here.)Reminds me of Stephen Sykes (former bp of Ely)'s comment that the gospel should be found worked out in the structures and attiutudes of our institutions as well as on an individual level.
Thankyou for allowing the comments on my experiences to stand, Dyfrig. (I was wondering whether you were being a tad condescending...)
You are debating here the merits/or not of Calvinism as a system. I actually think it right that in such a debate personal experiences and vitriole should stand right out of the way. I am sorry again whining on about stuff.
In my case, though, I truly think the Calvinism in which I was brought up has damaged (?irreparably?) areas of my relationship with God.
In this, and in debate like this, I think it is fair to at least raise the issue of how a system of theology and its accompanying spirituality (if any) is worked out by adherents. There is a great deal to be said, and a debate to be had, about whether one should define the particular theological frame-work by the founder's writings, or more to the point, by the way his followers live out his teachings (sound familiar?).
Many many people in the past have latched onto Calvinism, precisely because it defines things so closely, in such an integrated web-system that you really cannot have one part without the other. People like the sense of security a hard-and-fast system gives them. The same would be true (eg) of a Thomist Roman Catholic.
And I do think the danger in such systems as Calvinism, is precisely that people get lost in the web, and fail to relate to the spider (oh dear, bad bad picture of God there... You get the idea though - can't see the forest for the trees and all that).
And while modern evangelicalism might be again adopting Calvinism in some form as its standard and manages to express joy, all historical forms I have experienced across a broad range of Reformed churches are singluarly joyless...
Another real issue I have, is however hellenism crept into Christian theology, Protestantism, and especially Calvinism, have tended to deny artistic expression within worship, colour, and have a singular problem with mystery and the nature of religious symbolism. Many Protestant denominations who have not been historically drenched through in Calvinism have produced creative artists who are world renowned. One only has to think of Bach (Lutheran), and the dozens of composers through the centuries of Anglican liturgy to see this.
Calvinism historically was latched onto by groups of very dour people - it was very strong in the north of Holland (constantly in conflict with the Catholic South), and of course in Geneva. It has produced very few artists.
Look again at the traditional architecture of many Calvinist places. On the whole, square boxes, set up deliberately with singular lack of imagination, so that one's thoughts wouldn't stray from the sermon.
Calvinism is a "spirituality" (I hardly am able to call it that) of the written and spoken word. Calvin may have been more balanced in his treatment of the Sacraments, but on the whole practice across the Calvinist spectrum (I am here including the Anglican church pre-Oxford Movt, and in certain pockets since), word has dominated to the diminishment of Sacraments. I would suggest that this is because of the lack of ability to deal with the concept and embodiment of mystery, inherent in the systematic theology itself.
At this point I think I'll just go elsewhere. Although I was bashed over the head as a child with Calvin's Commentaries and his precious Institutes, I have not read them since, and have no intention of doing so. As I said before, this means I really am not qualified to comment, as I am only going on observation and experience. In serious theological debate, neither have any weight.
Calvinism has made me miserable. I have no intention of wallowing further into it to become more miserable. I'm going back to MW!!
quote:
Originally posted by Weslian:
The mode of thought in the synoptic gospels is contrete, short sayings, stories and poetry. Often talking of things allusively, rather than directly. In the Creeds it is abstract, phiolosophical doctrinal statement. John's gospel is more philosophical than the synoptics, but even that seems to represent a different way of thinking than the creeds.
I suppose this takes us pretty far from Calvinism, but...
I agree that the creeds are quite different from the Gospel, but I don't think that this is because they are "hellenistic" and the Gospels are not. They simply are different genres: a gospel is a story and a creed is like a grammar book to help those who are having trouble figuring out the story. I would say that the grammar is not much use without the story, but that doesn't mean that it isn't useful (and even necessary) to help most of us understand the story. Also, a creed is a profession of faith in a way that a story is not. Creeds originated not to tell the story of Jesus, but to indicate one's acceptance of that story.
FCB
Tedward - I don't think we can get around this point by saying God strengthened an already hardened Pharonic heart. It's perfectly clear from Exodus, and made explicit in Romans 9 by Paul, that this process of hardening was instigated by God in order to prove God's glory - thus making Pharoah something of an unwilling participant in YHWH's game. A fall guy, if you will. Paul then goes on to quote psalms and prophets shwoing that hardness and blindness of heart is God's chosen state for some people, in order that he can be shown to be so glorious to others. Now, I'm not saying this is right or worng (I think it's wrong, but that's not the point here). What is clear that to dismiss certain streams of thought one has to start dismissing quite foundational parts of Christian tradition.
Let’s take the depravity and perserverence petals together. They are a bit like two sides of the same coin. We can do nothing to earn eternal life and once we have it (since it is eternal) we can do nothing either to keep it or lose it. As SteveTom points out “total depravity” is not a statement about the moral condition of individuals. It is a description of the spiritual condition of the human race. “Let the dead bury their dead” said The Lord. “ You were dead in your tresspasses and sins.” said his apostle. This does of course have a huge implication for every individual. The christian message is NOT that we need to do better or that we should be good. The christian message is that we are dead and need to receive life. Regeneration is the issue not reform.
The election and the grace petals also go together. Both hinge on the fact of God’s sovereignty and both squeak on the fact of human free-will. Are there really christians out there who seriously believe either, that God is not sovereign or, that we are not responsible for the decisions we take? If there are those who find that these two truths put together disorientate tidy but oh so fallible and limited human reasoning, tough! Neither can be broken.
Mousethief your assertion that election and grace petals of the tulip of necessity imply that God’s decisions on who is saved are arbitrary and that the choice an individual may make is not in fact a choice at all, is well below your usual standard of debate. Why arbitrary? God is always sovereign never arbitrary. He may well pressure us even hound us but in the end the individual exercises choice without in anyway nullifying the inevitability of that choice.
Ok lastly “limited atonement”. This is a bit of a puzzle to me. Until someone, some years ago, explained this to me I had always assumed that the potency of Christ’s sacrifice was such that nothing (except refusal) and no-one was beyond its scope. I haven’t up to now changed that view. But the puzzle is, I can’t see what real difference it would make if I did. The point seems completely academic without (unlike the other four points) any application or outcome for the here and now. Am I missing something? Some how it would be more satisfying to wave a complete tulip rather than an incomplete one.
><>
I see that many have posted since I last looked. So apologize for any repetition.
quote:
Originally posted by afish:
Are there really christians out there who seriously believe either, that God is not sovereign or, that we are not responsible for the decisions we take? If there are those who find that these two truths put together disorientate tidy but oh so fallible and limited human reasoning, tough! Neither can be broken.
now, see... there is my problem.
i can handle God being three beings as well as one. i can handle the resurrection and miracles. i can even handle the foolishness of the supreme being wanting to hang out with me, and wanting me to hang out with him.
i cannot handle two mutually exclusive statements. (taking these two statements about God's absolute, unwaiving sovereignty and our responibility to their (IMO justified) extremes)
either one or both of these statements are wrong, or our entire system of understanding is wrong.
it makes no sense for me to throw out my system of understanding, as it will get me nowhere. without it, i could not function. i have to conclude that these mutually exclusive statements must be in err.
or have i just got the wrong end of the stick? is God just a-little-bit-sovereign? are we only responsible for our actions in name?
i can only see it as God, being sovereign, suspending his sovereignty. he is not in control; stuff doesn't happen as he wants it to, because he feels something is more important: IMO, our free-will.
i've said before, i'm no professional theologian, not even studied it really, so i apologise if this is all elementary chapter one stuff. if it is, please let me know, and i'll shut up!
The nature of God is that he often has seemingly conflicting natures!
Not that I am defending Calvinism, I just dont see that as a problem myself.
Neil
not a brilliant example, but it helps me understand. that's the sort of thing i need here, i think. some form of illustration of how God can be FULLY in control, but when we do stuff wrong, it's our fault. p'raps if i can picture that, then i'll get it.
The Biblical God is portrayed as being omnipotent and omnipresent, but also as being involved in his creation and as carrying on genuine conversations with people that influenced his decisions (Moses, Abraham). He is portrayed as having emotions and of being a God whose anger is only for a moment but whose love is for a lifetime.
In contrast the God conceived of by the greeks and notably Plato is not realy a person at all. Their God was conceived by imagining infinity and perfection in all directions. God was conceived as being omnipotent and omnipresent. He also learned nothing, because he had to know everything, remembered nothing because he did not forget, thought nothing serially because that would mean he had not thought of something yet and therefore holds all of his knowledge in a conscious "now".
God is also portrayed as passionless, of living in continuous peace.
Early Christian theologians sought to prove that the God of the Bible was the true God, by using these concepts. They dismissed Bible stories where God changes his mind or emotions as anthropomorphisms. Instead they found scriptures that speak of God not changing his mind and built a theology of the ineffable God not found in scripture.
One of the implications is that if God is static, then so is his creation. However linear we find the universe, to God the past, present and future are held simultaneously. All decisions are known and are ordained.
This is my imperfect summary of the argument found in "The Openness of God" by Clark Pinnock and others.
There is to my mind, a clear discrepancy between the God of the Bible and the God of classical theology. I am very glad to be able to read my Bible taking some statements at face value that I used to dismiss. In particular when I am distressed about the state of the world, I think of God before the flood saying, "I am sorry that I have made man". I am glad to have a God who resonds in a way that I understand and yet has the resources to tackle the problem.
If God is to be the creator of all, He must be above all emotions such as rage and revenge, and He must be omnipotent and onmiscient. I think the Jewish concept of God evolved between the Sinai revelation and the time of Jesus from a wrathful potentate to a loving father.
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH:
While I much prefer the Jewish to the Hellenistic influences on Christianity, I think its fair to say that the OT Jewish concept of God is too anthrpomorphic.If God is to be the creator of all, He must be above all emotions such as rage and revenge, and He must be omnipotent and onmiscient. I think the Jewish concept of God evolved between the Sinai revelation and the time of Jesus from a wrathful potentate to a loving father.
And I agree in part. Is the jewish conception of God too anthropomorphic? It was Jesus who encouraged us to see God as a personal father.
For God to be the creator of all he does not have to be omniscient or omnipotent, he merely has to have sufficient wisdom and power to do the task. However, he does declare himself as all-powerful. The open view of God does not deny God's omniscience, but it does limit what that can mean. God knows everything that can be known at a particular time. He usually knows what will happen, but he is sometimes surprised. In the same way his power is limited by logical impossibilities. He cannot make a triangular square, for instance.
When you say that God must be above all emotions such as rage and revenge, are you allowing him to feel such emotions as delight and joy. Is God genuinely a party to the rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents? If so, you either have to accept that God has changing emotions about things, and is therefore not classically ineffable, or possibly believe that our relationship with God is real to us, but not for God.
Someone up the thread asked, Did God create evil? If He is sovereign then nothing is, or happens, without his permission and foreknowledge. In Isaiah 45:7 it is put even more strongly, “I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I The Lord do all these things.”
Now there are many who won’t accept this believing that it compromises a God whose very nature is love. Not at all! That God has permitted evil to exist and operate in his creation does not mean that He Himself is in anyway, also evil. If He has decided that it should be that way He has made it that way for good reason and for ultimate good. Is it difficult for us to understand? Sure, maybe even impossible, but these thoughts help me;
First, how could the love, mercy, grace, holiness, etc, etc of God be really known except by contrast?
Secondly, concerning free-will, love that is forced is not love and love that never has to choose whether to love or not is not love. Maybe then the exercise of free-will when confronted by evil is like a sieve separating love from not love? Remember God can not deny Himself or compromise his own nature therefore no-one can be united to Him who is not in agreement with Him however much He (God) does not want any to perish.
Stooberry (and Mousethief) I think your “system of understanding” IS wrong. Why exactly are the sovereignty of God and human free-will mutually exclusive?
Look:
1. If God wasn’t sovereign, omniscient, omnipotent, etc He wouldn’t be God would He?
2. If we could not exercise free-will and were not responsible for decisions we take we wouldn’t be human beings made in the image of God would we?
The fact that God knows what choice I will make before I do does not in any way take away from the freedom I have in making that choice. Neither does the fact that my destiny is predestined in any way take away my responsibility for what I do with my life.
Love, smiles and tulips to you all!
><>
I think how God and Pharaoh interacted is a useful study. The three roots translated as Harden are Qalah, Kabed, and Chazaq.
Qalah refers to stubbornness, and is used to speak of the whole process.
quote:
EX 7:3 But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt,
Kabed refers to heaviness, immovable. The Plagues sent by God were Kabed, as was Pharaoh's heart.
Chazaq refers to strength, but can mean encourage or repair.
What is important (and one could go into a longer word study over what was used when) is that the hardening was not a "making evil", but a strengthening in a chosen course, to fulfil God purposes.
So what of Romans 9. Reading it with the question in mind "Does God determine all" it may seem a strong defence, especially if that is the way one has been taught to read it, but that is not the question Paul is addressing, the question is "Is God Unjust".
quote:
Originally posted by afish:
1. If God wasn’t sovereign, omniscient, omnipotent, etc He wouldn’t be God would He?
why not?
I'm with Stoo; Christ being fully man and fully God isn't a contradiction. A paradox, perhaps, but not a contradiction. Saying God does everything and yet man has free will is like saying 1 is not equal to 1. And why believe the impossible if it's not necessary?
Lastly, the dichotomy between irresistable grace and works salvation is a false dichotomy. Grace can be resistable, and yet grace. Just because it's resistable doesn't mean that grace becomes works. Saying that only irresistible grace is grace is rather stacking the deck -- or arguing in a circle, if you prefer that figure of speech. I believe in salvation by (resistible) grace, not salvation by works. (Although I believe grace is appropriated and made manifest in the believer's life by the things the believer does -- but that's an argument for another thread, surely.)
Rdr Alexis
[left out a preposition that rather changed the meaning of what i was saying]
[ 14 January 2002: Message edited by: Mousethief ]
quote:
RO 8:29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
With
quote:
RO 11:2 God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don't you know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah--how he appealed to God against Israel:
The action is corporate referring to an undefined group of people, rather than specific individuals.
The greek word, foreknowledge, carries the sense of prognosis rather than an exhasutive awareness of all future events. God's foreknowledge is based on his huge resources and wisdom in the present. The bible constantly speaks of God acting in time, not outside it. I see no reason to make God timeless: it only introduces philosophical tensions.
If God is not, as Scripture and Reason suggest, timeless that leaves us some options, either:
a:/ God is within time as it stands as part of the natural universe, and is therefore far more part of the universe than we often think.
b/: Time, an experience of a succession of moments, is part of Gods being that God has shared with us.
c:/ God created a Universe that was bound in time and therefore bound himself by the same limitation when working in that universe.
All three allow room for the growth of God, if only with Gods dealings with man. c:/ also helps us understand free will. If one is playing a game of chess and one changed the rules it would no longer be a game of Chess. God created a universe where time and freewill were important. It is not that this limits God, rather that this is the Game that God is playing. The other (determinist) option is that God created a universe where it looks like Time and Freewill are important but actually both are irrelevant as God has planned it all out already.
Wesley's problem with Calvinism was that he thought it could be seen to limit God's salvation to the few, whereas it was fundamental to Wesley that the offer was for all.
As I have read this thread, I have come to realise that one of my favourite Charles Wesley hymns is in fact a polemic in favour of Arminianism. I don't think it negates the good points of Calvinism, and includes a reference to the sovereignty of grace. But look how many times there are words like all, or general, or the world:
Father of everlasting love
Thy only Son for sinners gave
Whose grace to all did freely ove,
And sent him down the world to save.
Help us thy mercy to extol
Immense, unfathomed, unconfined,
To praise the Lamb who died for all,
The general Saviour of mankind.
Thy undistinguishing regard
Was cast on Adam's fallen race
For all thou hast in Christ preprared
Sufficient, sovereign, saving grace.
The world he suffered to redeem
For all he has the atonement made
For those that will not come to him
The ransom of his life was paid.
Arise, O God, maintain thy cause!
The fullness of the nations call;
Lift up the standard of thy cross,
And all shall own thou diedst for all.
I wonder if a key couplet is:
For those that will not come to him
The ransom of his life was paid.
Christ died not for the elect, but for the ungodly; he reached out for those who wouldn't come to him.
I suppose there is nothing to stop the elect being the ungodly, but in practice this belief fuelled the Wesley's mission to those beyond the usual orbit of the faith.
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH:
While I much prefer the Jewish to the Hellenistic influences on Christianity, I think its fair to say that the OT Jewish concept of God is too anthrpomorphic.
I would agree with this if the word "too" were eliminated. I'd prefer to say that the OT -- and the NT as well -- offers anthropomorphic images of God, period. I'm not sure something can be "too" anthropomorphic: it either is or it isn't. But the Bible (both OT and NT) also contain anti-anthropomorphic statements (e.g. Hosea 11:9 -- "I am God and no mortal"; Isa 55:9 -- "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts"; the entire conclusion of the book of Job). So even within scripture there is a dialectic between anthropomorphism and anti-anthropomorphism. For early christians, some Greek notions about God helped them articulate an essentially biblical anthropomorphism. I can't really see the problem.
To get back to Calvinism: perhaps part of the difficultly with the notion of unconditional election is that we tend to have too anthropomorphic an idea of what it means for God to "choose." Certainly if you think that God does not exist within the contraints of time and space you need to radically revise what you think "choosing" means in the case of God.
FCB
quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
What, you mean like Christianity?
If push comes to shove... Certainly that Calvinist congregation first brought it home to me that I was the Wrong Gender. (Odd, really, to be so keen on election and predestination, and so discontented with the fact that God's Chosen tended to be women of mature years). And I don't think that is just Calvinists. If I can't make Pope, I'm not playing.
Another contra-indication has already been very well expressed by Nunc - that it posits a world without imagination or creativity (or rather the ambiguity, uncertainty and continual possibility which are their basis).
--------------------------------------------
quote:
Originally posted by FCB:
To get back to Calvinism: perhaps part of the difficulty with the notion of unconditional election is that we tend to have too anthropomorphic an idea of what it means for God to "choose." Certainly if you think that God does not exist within the contraints of time and space you need to radically revise what you think "choosing" means in the case of God.
The great irony of "Calvinism" is that, in seeking to remove limitations on the sovreignty of God, it ends up removing all choice from God and making him and us a closed system drifting immovable in spacetime.
As I stated before, the implications of greek thought as applied to God, meant that God was ineffable (i.e. he could not change in any way) for the purely spurious "reason" that if God changed, he would no longer be perfect. This piece of nonsense is actually the main foundation of a lot of theology!
An example of this static view of God can be found in "The knowledge of the Holy" by AW Tozer where he speaks about what actually happens when the sinner repents. I haven't read this book for 20 years so I cannot be too accurate, but the analogy Tozer uses is of God as a mountain. On one side of the mountain is God's angry face, on the other side God is happy. When the sinner repents God does not move at all, but the sinner walks round the mountain to bask in God's pleasure...
which has nothing to do with him at all!
Once God was turned into stone it was only a matter of time before the same thing happened to his creation, and all relationships became illusions.
Yuck!
quote:
Originally posted by Stowaway:
When the sinner repents God does not move at all, but the sinner walks round the mountain to bask in God's pleasure...which has nothing to do with him at all!
Once God was turned into stone it was only a matter of time before the same thing happened to his creation, and all relationships became illusions.
Yuck!
Interesting. You would no doubt be horrified to know that I take it as axiomatic that salvation only involves a change on our part, not a change on God's part (since I don't think that God can change, no more than I think that God can sin or have a toothache).
But I don't think God is "static." If you imagine a point that moves through space at an infinite velocity (I know, Einstein says that infinite velocity is impossible, but this is just a thought experiment; besides, since God is not physical there is no particular reason why we should conceive of God's being as having to obey the laws of physics), then it is simultanously everywhere along the path of its movement, so the point's position never undergoes any change, not because it is static, but because it is infinitely fast.
This is more or less what Aquinas means when he speaks of God as "pure act."
I accept that we must inevitable speak of God in anthropomorphic terms that involve such things as change and location and emotion. But I also think that we have to recognize the limitations of those anthropomorphisms.
FCB
quote:
Originally posted by Dyfrig:
To be fair to the Greeks, Stowaway, have you considered that the problem may not be translation in Greek but rather into Latin, which had yet another semantic field for the words it use? McGrath (Iustitia Dei) suggests that the development of "Justification" theory via Augustine is affected quite deeply because of using a Latin Bible that used a word that imperfectly translated the Greek Septuagint's slightly better translation of the Hebrew. Could the same not be true of predestination, given that it's more a western concern than an eastern one?
I don't have anywhere near enough scholarship to be able to track how this happened. The greek thought on God was developed completely outside the judeo-christian tradition and then grafted together.
Part of the process seems to have happened amongst the jews and the major part with christian scholars who engaged with the culture around them in communicating the gospel, as we all do, and picked up these concepts along the way.
I don't really think that this particular concept of God is found in the Bible, though, like everything, it can be read into it through proof texts even when the overall emphasis of the Bible is different.
However, a translation is always an interpretation, and it may be that the latin translator put this view into the Vulgate, which would certainly cement the problem.
Someone much cleverer than I would have to analyse why this theology became strong where it did. I would suspect that the reformation came at the point where rationalism was being exalted and therefore a theological "Theory of Everything" appealed.
Of course, there were good political reaons to have a theology that eliminated the legitamacy of the authority claimed by the RC church, but the theology continued after the political goals were completed, so it appealed at the time.
It's good to think of this as just a western concern, when for some traditions, this is the whole point.
quote:
Originally posted by FCB:
But I don't think God is "static." If you imagine a point that moves through space at an infinite velocity (I know, Einstein says that infinite velocity is impossible, but this is just a thought experiment; besides, since God is not physical there is no particular reason why we should conceive of God's being as having to obey the laws of physics), then it is simultanously everywhere along the path of its movement, so the point's position never undergoes any change, not because it is static, but because it is infinitely fast
So you are saying that from our point of view God is static, but from his point of view he is dynamic. This is the wrong way round isn't it?
To some extent it helps me the think that God is much greater than we can imagine. So He can be totally sovereign and at the same time create autonimus free thinking creatures. That is beyond our finite selves, but possible to an infinate triune God.
I am surprised earlier in this thread to be defending Calvinism I am usually arguing the other way. Spending time in Baptist churches which in the UK at least are are merger between the arminium General Baptist (where I am) amd the Calvinistic Particular Baptists we have learnt to get on, and I can ususlly see where the other side are coming from.
The one point I do accept is Perseverence of the Saints and I had firgured that one out for myself reading the Bible before I had ever heard of the 5 points of Calvinism and thought that pre-destination was a bad joke.
I have heard that the god of Islam is also considered sovereign and thus pre-destines those who are going to paradise. However I don't how wide spread this belief is, but it shows that this sovereignty versus Free Will is not just a Christian problem.
When I spent a few months with the FIEC I enjoyed them socially but disliked their Calvinism. Now I seem to be deviding my time between the Baptists and the Anglicans I wonder how non-Calvinist Anglicans take the "irrestsable grace" in their 39 articles or are the 39 articles ignored these days?
The Jews were God's chosen people for that purpose, to be a nation of priests to mediate their knowledge of God to the rest of humanity, but in many ways they failed in that task. When Jesus came into the world, He fullfilled the task the Jews were elected for and since then they have been an inward looking exclusive people, not totally surprising after 2000 years of persecution. For each sentient creature who turns to God, the universe is uplifted that bit more, the ultimate aim being the resurrection of all corruptible matter to spirituality as presaged in the resurrection of Our Lord.
quote:
Originally posted by sacredthree:
If God is not, as Scripture and Reason suggest, timeless that leaves us some options, either:a:/ God is within time as it stands as part of the natural universe, and is therefore far more part of the universe than we often think.
b/: Time, an experience of a succession of moments, is part of Gods being that God has shared with us.
c:/ God created a Universe that was bound in time and therefore bound himself by the same limitation when working in that universe.
All three allow room for the growth of God, if only with Gods dealings with man. c:/ also helps us understand free will. If one is playing a game of chess and one changed the rules it would no longer be a game of Chess. God created a universe where time and freewill were important. It is not that this limits God, rather that this is the Game that God is playing. The other (determinist) option is that God created a universe where it looks like Time and Freewill are important but actually both are irrelevant as God has planned it all out already.
A bit off topic perhaps,but I'm not sure about this at all.Does this suggest that God is to be identified with the Universe?If God is within time then in what sense is he creator?Surely a Creator-God has to be beyond time and space,yet of his own volition concerned with the Universe,his Creation.
If one identifies the Universe with God (pantheism) one has a host of imponderables such as existence not only of suffering but also of quite violent events which are the run-of-the-mill in the Universe.
I would not like to cut God off completely from the Universe though (deism),although I am probably more drawn to deism than pantheism.I think both are wrong and deism can lead to atheism
I think - but am not sure (!)- that (c) is the most likely.....but perhaps this belongs on another thread!However I think that God is only bound when working in this universe.He doesn't have to be but this is proba\bly the way that He chooses.......
Originally posted by afish:
1. If God wasn’t sovereign, omniscient, omnipotent, etc He wouldn’t be God would He?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
why not?
He Himself claims to be all these things so if He isn’t that makes Him a liar which would further disqualify Him from the job.
God without sovereignty equals headless chicken.
Also if God did not have all these atributes then people really would have reason to go stomping on tulips.
What do you think God needs to be to be God? Any minimum requirements?
Mousethief
You say,
“I believe God chooses to limit his omnipotence in such a way that man is free to act -- and to act freely. In deciding to create free agents, God voluntarily limits his power. Why is this so hard to accept?”
Because it’s not true. Giving us humans free will doesn’t make God any less omnipotent than He was before our creation. God in His sovereign free will decides whether when and how He exercises his power. But the power is always there constant and unchanging.
You also say,
“God does everything and yet man has free will is like saying 1 is not equal to 1. And why believe the impossible if it's not necessary?”
Sorry mate you’ve lost me there. Who says God does everything? What everything? Why is it like saying 1is not equal to 1? But I do agree one shouldn’t believe the impossible, even if it is necessary.”
Stowaway
You say,
“The great irony of "Calvinism" is that, in seeking to remove limitations on the sovreignty of God, it ends up removing all choice from God and making him and us a closed system drifting immovable in spacetime.”
Er how does it do that?
><>
quote:
Originally posted by afish:
Stooberry
Originally posted by afish:
1. If God wasn’t sovereign, omniscient, omnipotent, etc He wouldn’t be God would He?
---------------------------------------------
why not?He Himself claims to be all these things so if He isn’t that makes Him a liar which would further disqualify Him from the job.
God without sovereignty equals headless chicken.
Also if God did not have all these atributes then people really would have reason to go stomping on tulips.
What do you think God needs to be to be God? Any minimum requirements?
i don't know that he does claim omnipotence, omnipresence or omniscience though. (but that's a different thread)
my minimum requirements for God? a being with more capabilities than humans, more powerful, more knowing and more wise. involved somehow (at some point) with this world and its workings. possessing the ability to do what we call miracles.
that's not what i would like to reduce God to, but that'd be what a being needs to qualify for the position, i think.
quote:
afish said:
Mousethief your assertion that election and grace petals of the tulip of necessity imply that God’s decisions on who is saved are arbitrary and that the choice an individual may make is not in fact a choice at all, is well below your usual standard of debate.
Thank you for the back-handed compliment!
quote:
Why arbitrary? God is always sovereign never arbitrary.
Exactly my point. Hence the falseness of "U" (Unconditional Election).
quote:
He may well pressure us even hound us but in the end the individual exercises choice without in anyway nullifying the inevitability of that choice.
If a choice is inevitable, it isn't a choice. That's what "choice" means. Freedom from inevitability. If you tell your kid, "Do you want mashed potatoes or mashed potatoes?" (because no matter what they say, you're going to give them mashed potatoes), you haven't given them a choice. Complaining that you have, in fact, given them a choice (after you scoop the mashed potatoes onto their plate) doesn't cut it with the kids, and it doesn't cut it with adults to say that "you have a choice" but "what you chose was inevitable." It's the same sleight-of-hand both times; and in neither time does it change the fact that there was, in fact, no real CHOICE. If the outcome of my "choice" is inevitable, then I do not have free will.
quote:
Weslian said:
Wesley's problem with Calvinism was that he thought it could be seen to limit God's salvation to the few, whereas it was fundamental to Wesley that the offer was for all.
Hear, hear! This is also the view of Orthodoxy: God's gracious offer of salvation is open to all. To claim otherwise requires the entire New Testament to be stood on its head. You have to go through with a red pencil and make emendations to passages, so that "the world" means "the elect" and "all mankind" means "the elect" -- and you have to do this over and over.
quote:
afish again:
Giving us humans free will doesn’t make God any less omnipotent than He was before our creation. God in His sovereign free will decides whether when and how He exercises his power. But the power is always there constant and unchanging.
I'll bet we're meaning different things by "omnipotent." But anyway, I wasn't the one who claimed giving humans free will made God less than omnipotent; it was SteveTom. I just agreed for the sake of argument.
SteveTom claimed that if the offer of salvation is indeed open to all, then God must be unable to save all.
My counterclaim is that although God COULD save all (if he overrode our free will), he chooses NOT to override our free will. Thus any who reject Him are allowed to, and are thereby not saved. For some reason this to SteveTom makes God seem feeble. I don't see it, so maybe you should ask him how exactly he reaches that conclusion.
Anyway, it really boils down to either (a) God could save all but chooses not to; based on some (unknown to us) criterion of His own, and those He chooses to save He saves willy-nilly, and those He chooses to damn He damns willy-nilly; OR (b) God could save all but chooses not to force the unwilling to be saved; God does not damn anyone, but if they choose to be damned He does not stop them. (A) is the Calvinist position; (B) the Orthodox.
My claim, as always, is that the "god" of (a) is not the God of Abraham, Jacob, Isaac, and Jesus Christ. For a "god" that would damn people for no fault of their own, and against their will, is -- hold onto your hats -- an ogre.
quote:
God does everything and yet man has free will is like saying 1 is not equal to 1. And why believe the impossible if it's not necessary?Sorry mate you’ve lost me there. Who says God does everything? What everything? Why is it like saying 1 is not equal to 1? But I do agree one shouldn’t believe the impossible, even if it is necessary.
Okay, I think I may have overstated my claim. I apologize.
Let's get back to the real issue on the omnipotence thing, which is irresistable grace. I was assuming that irresistable grace meant that God's grace cannot be resisted by us. But it is believed by the Orthodox that God's grace can, in fact, be resisted, because man has truly free will. Further I want to claim that "free will" (for men) and "irresistable grace" are incompatible. If we truly have free will, then that must mean that our will is free and not forced. But if anything is "irresistable" then we have no choice, and hence (in that area, anyway) no freedom. You need to either re-define "irresistable" or "free" in such a way that they no longer mean what they have always meant, in order to overcome this contradiction. Because claiming both -- that God's grace is irresistable and man's will is free -- is like claiming 1<>1. It's not just a paradox. It's impossible. It's meaningless. It's gibberish. And as (I think) St. Clive points out, nonsense is still nonsense, even if predicated of God.
Lastly: what are my requirements for God? The only self-existing (uncreated) being; capable of doing anything (anything not self-contradictory, I mean) he chooses, if he chooses; personal (i.e. not just a "force"); one in essence and three in person (as per the Nicene Creed); the creator of all things which exist but are not Himself. (That'll do for a start; I'm sure I left something out.)
Note: If I've failed to respond to anybody who expected a response, I'm sorry; PM me and point out the post you want me to respond to (to avoid cluttering the thread), and I'll do so (in the thread).
Reader Alexis
[ 15 January 2002: Message edited by: Mousethief ]
quote:
Originally posted by Stowaway:
So you are saying that from our point of view God is static, but from his point of view he is dynamic. This is the wrong way round isn't it?
I suppose what I'm trying to say is that our language speaks about God as either static or changing, when in fact God transcends this distinction. In a similar way, we must speak about God either as a particular being ("God") or an abstract concept ("divinity"), even though what God is is not distinct from the fact that God is.
FCB
quote:
Originally posted by Stooberry:
my minimum requirements for God? a being with more capabilities than humans, more powerful, more knowing and more wise. involved somehow (at some point) with this world and its workings. possessing the ability to do what we call miracles.that's not what i would like to reduce God to, but that'd be what a being needs to qualify for the position, i think.
Then Santa Claus qualifies, or a slightly more advanced space alien.
FCB
I agree that all biblical language and all theological language is anthropomorphic, as is the philosophical language of Plato and Aristotle. Ultimately many (Calvinists and Arminains) accept a philosophical definition, that God is an "Unmoved Mover" and reject the language of the bible. That "Unmoved Mover" was the highest theological ideal amongst many in the first centuries of the church, and If the Christian God was God then that is how he had to be.
The Bible, which has to my mind is has quite a developed and valid theism of its own, is seemingly ignored in this area by many who espouse the strongest forms of biblical inerrancy and literalism. The Anthropomorphisms are ignored for the sake of some other big idea, isolated texts are used to discard reams of others. If the Bible says God is a changing relational being working within time 10 times, but then suggests a different picture once the only reason to take that once over the others is because of that some other big idea. I agree that Paul can be read in light of that Big Idea. Maybe he was a determinist, but somehow, if he was truly writing under inspiration, I would hope that he was writing in the light of open Hebraic theism. Although the church fathers certainly were greatly effected by Greek philosophical thought Human Free Will was early orthodoxy.
I for one feel that it is time that this other big idea was retired. Suggesting that the Christian God was compatible with Plato and Aristotle may have aided the spread of the Gospel, it may have helped maintain doctrinal stability after the Roman Empire collapsed, it may have even resonated with modernism, both liberal and conservative, but it does not resonate with scripture or with post-modern culture.
Plato, as the Orthodox have demonstrated, We do not need you. You are the weakest Link. Goodbye.
So what of the perfections of God? My God is Omni-changing, Omni-Growing, Omni-Learning, Omni-Creative, he is far greater than the "Unmoved Mover", he is, in the words of Pinnock, the "Most Moved Mover".
Can Calvinism be rehabilitated. No.
If God is spatiotemporal, then where is he located? I think we are back with Santa Claus: in other words, whatever the intentions of Clark Pinnock, et al., the god they propose is what I call an idol.
And I must disagree that philosophical language is "anthropomorphic." True, it is human language, but it does not speak of God as if God were a human being (which is, strictly speaking, the meaning of anthropomorphic).
I'm someone who hates being told that I should go read something, but the essay that really changed my mind on these questions was "The Involvement of God" by the late Herbert McCabe, in his book God Matters. I spent several years trying to figure out why McCabe (and Augustine and Aquinas and Anselm and Basil and Gregory of Nyssa and Athansius and Julian of Norwich and Catherine of Siena and -- dare I say it -- Paul) was wrong, but I finally gave in. So here I stand, I can do no other.
FCB
quote:
Originally posted by FCB:
Gosh, hate to break up this love fest, but I would like to point out that if God is inside time, then God is inside space, since, as Einstein showed (though Aristotle and Aquinas claimed it long before),the two are inseparable.
I am sorry I just can't accept that argument. You are mistaking time as a physical property of the universe with time as a experience of a succession of moments. The two are very different. I am neither a Quantum or Macro physicist but the models and theories used to describe what happens to the physical universe are not an acceptable source for the creation of theology.
quote:
Originally posted by FCB:
If God is spatiotemporal, then where is he located? I think we are back with Santa Claus: in other words, whatever the intentions of Clark Pinnock, et al., the god they propose is what I call an idol.
So I worship an Idol and you worship a Metaphysical Iceberg. Where is this getting us?
quote:
Originally posted by FCB:
And I must disagree that philosophical language is "anthropomorphic." True, it is human language, but it does not speak of God as if God were a human being (which is, strictly speaking, the meaning of anthropomorphic).
But the idea of "unchanging = perfection" is, ultimately, a projection of our own fear of change, onto God.
quote:
Originally posted by FCB:
I spent several years trying to figure out why McCabe (and Augustine and Aquinas and Anselm and Basil and Gregory of Nyssa and Athansius and Julian of Norwich and Catherine of Siena and -- dare I say it -- Paul) was wrong, but I finally gave in. So here I stand, I can do no other.
I am happy that you have found a theological model which you find helpful. I do not think the "you'll grow out of it" approach is ever a good method of debate.
FCB
FCB
This is all rather exciting, we started with Calvinism and we end up with a Thomist and and a Process Theist arguing over an Evangelical Theologians work.
FCB
quote:
Originally posted by afish:
Because it’s not true. Giving us humans free will doesn’t make God any less omnipotent than He was before our creation. God in His sovereign free will decides whether when and how He exercises his power. But the power is always there constant and unchanging.
Oh my goodness - this thread. hope i haven't missed this particular point in someone else's post. i raised this on another thread a couple of months ago on, i think, free will. can't still find the thread, but this is the gist of it; and the answer i received was almost the same as the above quote i've snagged from afish.
if God is not always in control (or all powerful and always able to exercise His control and power) and if we have "free-will", then how can we depend on all the promises of God that He has revealed in His Word? Could not man, with evil intent, unravel the divine purposes of God?
How can we be so sure, for example, that "all thingswill work together for good to those that love God, to them who are the called, according to His purpose" (Rom 8:28) Might not, if God isn;t in control......i give this verse as just one example, so i won't be just generalizing here...
quote:
Originally posted by bessie rosebride:
if God is not always in control (or all powerful and always able to exercise His control and power) and if we have "free-will", then how can we depend on all the promises of God that He has revealed in His Word? Could not man, with evil intent, unravel the divine purposes of God?
It is possible that God can fail. Exciting isn't it! I have Faith that God is resourceful enough to overcome the opposistion, which is why I am a Christian.
well, that's true, also - because God's ways are higher than ours, and He is also omniscient and quite wise. that is
exciting...i had leaned toward the Calvinistic side, just for this one reason - i needed the safety of God's steadfast control of all things, because, frankly, my world is quite chaotic! i am, after reading this thread, mulling over my position. God can be still be trusted to prevail, even if we have freedom to thwart Him.
quote:
Originally posted by sacredthree:
It is possible that God can fail. Exciting isn't it! I have Faith that God is resourceful enough to overcome the opposistion, which is why I am a Christian.
It is not possible that God can fail. We simply come to a new understanding of what He wanted all along. Which is why I am a Christian.
that seems to me to be a lot of what spiritual warfare involves - we (and God) seem to be continually fighting off the arch-enemy, who is "out to cause God to fail"; again, at least for the time being...til God can resourcefully overcome it..
It should come as no surprise that I think the idea of God "failing" is wrong. Indeed, while I can appreciate that someone might feel intellectually compelled to hold such a view, I am genuinely baffled as to how anyone could find it exciting or consoling. Of course, as a good Thomist, I also think that it is true to say "God died on the cross" because the divine and human natures of Christ share a single subject of predication (i.e. the divine person of the Word). But, just to confuse things further, while I think you can (and must) say that "God died on the cross" (and "God was born of the Virgin Mary") you can't say that the divine nature died on the cross (or was born of Mary).
Well, I've got to go off to Rome for a week to consult with the Pope, so when I get back the number of posts on this thread should be in the quadruple digits.
FCB
quote:
Originally posted by afish:
Stowaway
You say,
“The great irony of "Calvinism" is that, in seeking to remove limitations on the sovreignty of God, it ends up removing all choice from God and making him and us a closed system drifting immovable in spacetime.”Er how does it do that?
Because if God is ineffable (and please don't make me have to go through what that means again!) then the creation that he made was the only creation that he ever could have made. The best of all possible worlds indeed, if you can believe it.
And this creation is determined by the sovreignty of God in all it's dimensions, especially time and it is therefore as frozen as God.
Take Calvinism to its logical conclusion and this is where you get. As far from a straight reading of scripture as it is possible to get.
Sorry! I think that is as clear as I can get!
Which is a wonderful aspect of God...unless you are a calvinist, in which case it's an anthropomorphism.
When I ask concerning God’s electing,
“Why arbitrary? God is always sovereign never arbitrary.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You say,
“Exactly my point. Hence the falseness of "U" (Unconditional Election)”
Come on WHY exactly does (for you) unconditional = arbitrary?
Further on you yourself say that unconditional election means;
“ (a) God could save all but chooses not to; based on some (unknown to us) criterion of His own, and those He chooses to save He saves willy-nilly, and those He chooses to damn He damns willy-nilly;”
Exactly, “based on … criterion of His own”. What other criterion should He use? But WHY the “willy-nilly”? Why for you (and other tulip bashers) does, God’s own criterion = willy-nilly = arbitrary?
Now about those poor kids and the mashed potatoes (reminded me of a landlady I once had).
The choice that the elect make is not God or God. It is a real choice, God or NotGod. But the choice they make is, in the end, the choice, they were always going to make and God knew what it was before it was made. None of which (however much people huff and puff) changes the fact that it was/is a real choice. The elect accept salvation always because (in the end) they want it never because they are forced.
Which of course brings us to this,
Mousethief says,
“My counterclaim is that although God COULD save all (if he overrode our free will), he chooses NOT to override our free will.”
Now this raises something which I think is quite crucial. Could, in reality, God save all? I think not. Do I still believe Him to be omnipotent? I do. There are quite a few things that God cannot do. He cannot lie. He cannot sin. He cannot deny Himself. None of which means that He is not omnipotent. I believe that in the matter of salvation/election God CANNOT over-ride the free-will He has given us. Now, of course God CAN and does over-ride freewill. He can and does force us to do things (or not to) . BUT in the matter of whether we choose Him or reject Him, no He cannot over-ride because being willing (not just pretending) is part (maybe even the crucial part?) of the whole deal. Does any of this compromise or diminish God’s omnipotence? Not at all. If God “forced” people into heaven (maybe locking them into the rooms He had prepared for them) that wouldn’t demonstrate his omnipotence it would just be a demonstration of nonsense.
Ok that’s quite enough for tonight, I will resist irresistible grace until another time.
love, peace and er antirrhinums
><>
Thanks Stowaway for your expansion on why tulip = frozen God. Expect a response eventually. Phew this thread. Its all your fault Wood.
Rdr Alexis
I was using "willy nilly" not to mean "arbitrarily" but rather "regardless of the desires/wishes of the person involved."
It is true, that if God has His reasons, however inscrutable, then it is not strictly speaking arbitrary. But it is irreducibly arbitrary from our point of view, and that is how I was speaking. At any rate it is far more arbitrary than the criterion I believe is used: namely, the response of the individual to the offer of salvation by God.
If you are interested, look at St. John Chrysostom's commentary on the 9th chapter of Romans in his Sermons on Romans. Verrrry interesting.
Rdr Alexis (with apologies for double post)
The passage does not strictly say this. It says that we are saved by the grace of God on the basis of saving faith which he also gives us. It does not say that we did not choose to be saved, or that we did not seek God. It merely says that we cannot boast about our salvation because it is God's gift.
Think of a beggar who goes to the local shopping centre and puts down his hat. He may receive, but at the end of the day, he cannot say that he earned his money. Or rather, he can say it but he would be wrong. And that is the point of the passage.
"Save yourselves from this corrupt generation" - St Peter.
On reflection, I think the whole problem is one of trying to make God fit into human conceptions. Mousethief is right - you can't pretend to give people a choice when you haven't really. But an illustration from physics follows.
Light is a particle. It is also a wave. Or, rather, its behaviour is best explained in some situations by it being a particle, and in others a wave. Of course, these are contradictory models. But both are true after a fashion. The problem is that what light really "is" has no direct analogies in our normal experience, and therefore we do not have the mental models to really get to grips with it (although we can invent mathematics to do so, like with 4D space...)
So both God choosing us and us freely choosing Him are 'true' after a fashion, inasmuch as neither of them is really completely 'true' in the same what that "my cat is black and white" is completely true.
Any help?
Practical theology demands that we assume free will, or personal choice, for the unsaved. We can not tell people that they need to make a choice to repent and have faith in Christ whilst assuming that they have no choice. However, once saved, if we look back, what do we see? The Spirit of God quickening our soul and our having nothing to do with our salvation.
On limited atonement, I do not believe, as Mouse does, that God plays craps. Sorry Mouse. When Christ was crucified, he did not give his life on the off chance that sinful men and women might happen to trust in his death for their salvation. Christ died knowing who he was dying for and that he would quicken their soul at just the right time.
That’s my humble thru’pence ha’penny’s worth.
John Wesley’s sermon in response to accusations by Calvinist James Hervey that he was an ‘Arminian’ perhaps best sums up this debate. Wesley may be rightly accused of ducking the issue, but he has a point.
quote:
’How dreadful and how innumerable are the contests which have arisen about religion! And not only among the children of the world…but even among the children of God, those who have experienced “the Kingdom of God within them”, who had tasted of “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost”. How many of these in all ages, instead of joining together against the common enemy, have turned their weapons against each other, and so not only wasted their precious time but hurt one another’s spirits, weakened each other’s hands, and so hindered the great work of their common Master!”
Neil
I like your post about light. If we have so much problem understanding light how much more difficult is it to understand the creator of light.
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
She was raised in the Roman Catholic Church and taught that if she died after she committed a mortal sin and before she confessed it, she would go to hell. The nuns taught her that many of her childish misbehaviors were mortal sins, so she spent most of her childhood trying to avoid hell.
Just for the sake of completeness: this is not at all correct Roman Catholic doctrine. (I'll not set forth what is here, unless anyone is interested.) It's very unfortunate that she was exposed to such rot! (And that salvation is a free gift of God was not only scriptural but a statement of the Council of Orange in 529.)
Calvin in no ways attracts me, so I cannot add much to this discussion of a theological viewpoint which I find dismal. However, judging from the liturgy which Calvin formulated - the excommunications as well - it is understandable why Calvin's hopes of introducing frequent communion did not work very well. He had the most pessimistic, miserable view of humanity I have ever seen - and the doctrine of double predestination is not especially comforting.
Somehow, even consideration of the Incarnation makes one wince when Calvin, in referring to babies in the womb (which I would have thought about as tender and beautiful an image as one could have), sees then as trapped with their own excrement. He seemed to have total repugnance with human nature and physicality.
quote:
Originally posted by Newman's Own:
Just for the sake of completeness: this is not at all correct Roman Catholic doctrine. (I'll not set forth what is here, unless anyone is interested.) It's very unfortunate that she was exposed to such rot!
Unfortunately, this was widely taught in Roman Catholic elementary schools in America as recently as twenty years ago. Maybe it still is.
I'm sure the reason for this teaching was an attempt to make the children behave. Some Sunday School teachers in other denominations do the same kind of thing.
I started a thread last summer about abusive religious education of children. I take seriously what Jesus said about offending one of the little ones.
End of tangent.
Moo
I would be very wary of arguing against such people's Calvinism because it might appear that I was arguing that God does not love them as much as they think He does, or drive them from a gospel of grace to one of works.
I suspect many such people as they grow closer to God grow out of the need to believe that they are pre-destined, but I cannot push them into that position.
Maybe it's time to stop criticising Calvinism and start promoting the wonders of a more open view of God, if we can agree what that is. But building is harder than breaking down.
And the openness of God is a wonderful concept, far more related to my experience.
quote:
Originally posted by Neil Robbie:
On limited atonement, I do not believe, as Mouse does, that God plays craps. Sorry Mouse.
There is a person on the boards called Mouse so I'm not sure if you mean her, or me.
I don't believe God plays dice. I thought I had made that clear. This is one thing that turns me off about Calvinism: the seeming randomness of God's choice.
I think Astro has said something very sensible, about people using Calvinism as a sort of crutch until they grow into understanding our freedom in Christ.
Stowaway, I agree that we cannot boast -- if we are saved, it is because God saves us. It would be like a person who has been hauled up out of a well or mine just before it caved in, by a rope being let down and then hauled up. It would be madness for such a person to claim he had "saved himself" because he tied the rope around himself. This is how the Orthodox see salvation: God saves us (lets down the rope and hauls it back up again), but we must accept and appropriate that salvation (tie the rope around our waist*). Salvation takes both, but there is nothing to boast about in the part that we contribute, which is only to voluntarily grab hold of that which God so freely offers.
Reader Alexis
*and, to torment the metaphor even further, God explicitly tells us how to tie the rope and what knot to use, and walks us through tying it until we get it right.
[ 17 January 2002: Message edited by: Mousethief ]
Thanks for that. I will use it in future.
quote:
Originally posted by Stowaway:
Thanks for that. I will use it in future.
With my compliments.
Rdr Alexis
quote:
Originally posted by Karl:
Light is a particle. It is also a wave. Or, rather, its behaviour is best explained in some situations by it being a particle, and in others a wave.....
So both God choosing us and us freely choosing Him are 'true' after a fashion, inasmuch as neither of them is really completely 'true' in the same what that "my cat is black and white" is completely true.
I am happy with paradox, but not with a logical inconsistency. God is/is not the only decision maker in the universe is not a conclusion that should stand in a systematic theology that is, after all, only a logical construct.
Calvinism is not based on the Bible as much as on a few assumptions. The main assumption is that God must be as big as we can conceive him: in sovreignty, in knowledge, in power, in perfection. In blowing him up as big as possible, Calvinism eliminates mankind as we understand it.
If I try to imagine a God who would be willing to give some of his sovreignty away by giving a will to mankind (in his image, remember), and willing to interact with his creation even if his will did not always come first, I think I would find myself looking at Jesus.
The faith to believe that leads to salvation is something that you make inside yourself.
That's why Jesus could say to those He healed, "Your faith has saved you."
Ephesians 2.8 says, "For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God." Grace and salvation are God's gift, but faith isn't a gift from God. The faith to believe and accept God's gift of grace has to come from you.
God has many gifts to give, but the faith to believe isn't one of them. God didn't give Abraham faith to believe in Him. Abraham made faith inside himself of his own free will. That's what we're all expected to do, and if we don't God can't save us.
God is looking for people who make that faith of their own free will. Those are the ones who are worthy to be given grace and to spend eternity with Him. As Mousethief says, You have to grab the rope and tie it around your waist if you're going to be saved. That's your faith, its not a gift from God.
Only those who are humble enough to grab the rope can be saved. The saviour can't save you unless you first grab the rope.
Having faith is what we're responsible for. Those of us who have the faith to believe can take credit for that. Calvin wanted God to have all the credit. He wanted God to have the credit for giving us the faith to believe. But he was wrong. We are responsible for our faith, for making the decision to have faith of our own free will. That is the condition God places on us for grace and salvation.
The faith to believe is not a gift from God. The faith to believe is what we do, and without our faith, faith that comes solely from inside of us, God can't save us. God can't know until the very last moment how many will make the faith to believe.
Calvin got it wrong.
Mouse
_____
quote:
Originally posted by Mouse:
Faith is not a gift from God.The faith to believe that leads to salvation is something that you make inside yourself.
Well, is this strictly true? The wide range of evidence from the scriptures (not just Paul, who actually listed "faith" among the gifts of the Spirit) shows an understanding that the power and the will of a person to follow God's ways is itself a gift from God (cp. especially Psalm 119 which is a plea for God to put the speaker on the right path ) It is God who ultimately quickens us, opens our hearts, enlightens us, guides us in the right way.
This debate tends to set two ideas off against each other, whereas the scriptural understanding was always one of creative tension - both/and not either/or. It's an approach which allows you to have Job in the canon without destroying its integrity. And this idea is present in prayers of the church since then - you can see it in BCP collects.
A lot is being said here in response to the phrase "Total Depravity". Now, SteveTom has pointed out that this doesn't mean "every thing is icky and disgusting" but rather a recognition that every thing we do as human beings, no matter how hard we try, has a certain element of the Fall within it. This is exactly what Augustine said. Unlike Aquinas, who thought that human reason had escaped stain, Augustine recognised that even the human ability to choose, however well-intentioned, still has that "something" which taints all human action - which is actually quite a reasonable position to take. After all, why should our decision-making processes be immune from what affects the rest of us?
Sorry, but it has nothing to do with believing that you are pre-destined. God's word says you are - Romans 8:30
quote:
Originally posted by calvin's granny:
Sorry, but it has nothing to do with believing that you are pre-destined. God's word says you are - Romans 8:30[/QB]
There are others who keep to it and work out some form of Calvinism that satisfies them. To those people I say fine, but I am also prepared to argue with them in that my understanding of the bible leads me to believe that Christ died for all, that salvation is offered to all, and that we are able to resist God.
I think Alexis was a bit strong in interpreting what I wrote as Calvinism being a "crutch" because I can see that feeling that you are specially choosen by God is sweet.
quote:
Originally posted by Mouse:
Faith is not a gift from God.<snips>
Having faith is what we're responsible for.
that belief will more than likely sustain you quite well until you are in one pickle of a crisis and need desperately to have God intervene on your behalf....(life-threatening illness, imminent loss of a loved one, being thrown out in the streets penniless, and so forth.)
and then you pray, and you pray, and
think that you have created enough faith within yourself, so that God will surely do something to rescue you
....and what if He doesn't ?
then do you blame yourself? because your faith wasn't enough? even if you hought it was? and how can we measure our own faith, anyway? how would we know we have made enough to guarantee our salvation?
paul clearly talks about the gift of faith. i think this is something different than our "saving faith". this gift of faith is (IMHO) a belief that despite circumstances, things will work out - it is this gift that God chooses gives (or chooses not to give) when we are in those circumstances that you describe, bessie.
the faith that (i think) mouse is talking about is that "saving faith" when we choose to follow God. more of a decision than a belief.
btw... i meant to say, thankyou stevetom for explaining tulip calvinism... i almost agreed with some of its points after reading your explanation! (almost, but not quite!!!)
quote:
Originally posted by bessie rosebride:
how would we know we have made enough (faith) to guarantee our salvation?
Well, I think that it is, and I don't think that that means that I have to swallow Calvinism. God can enlighten us, but it is up to us whether we decide to go with that enlightenment. The parable of the sower is a good illustration here.
Salvation is the work of God, because the power comes from him. Our part is to accept and receive that grace, and to work (did he say work?) out our salvation.
We are in agreement Mousethief . This is wonderful! Ok let’s continue.
I said earlier that irresistible grace and unconditional election make a pair. If God elects some then obviously those elected will, in the end, not be able to evade that election. BUT, once again, this will still involve them making a real freewill decision. As we saw without that heaven would be a nonsense. Now it therefore seems obvious to me that to those who are not elected (who reject God by real free will choice) God does not extend irresistible grace, *grace yes* but not to the extent that it is irresistible.
The problem that people have, istm, is in muddling up things which must be either/or and things which can be both/and. The sovereignty of God is an either/or. Either He is sovereign or He is not. Even with human rulers and states though sovereignty has geographic and time limits within those borders and that period of time there is either overall rule (ie sovereignty) or there isn’t. The notion of “limited “ cannot be applied to the notion of “sovereignty” itself without nullifying it.
But concerning God’s sovereignty and mans free will this is not either/or but both/and. God does not stop being sovereign when man chooses to disobey Him or even when man chooses to reject Him totally.
Stowaway
quote – “Because if God is ineffable (and please don't make me have to go through what that means again!) then the creation that he made was the only creation that he ever could have made. …
And this creation is determined by the sovreignty of God in all it's dimensions, especially time and it is therefore as frozen as God.
Take Calvinism to its logical conclusion and this is where you get. …
Sorry! I think that is as clear as I can get!”
Mmm not very clear though. If in another thread you have previously given an explanation of what ineffable means, can you point me to it? In my dictionary it means unutterable. Not at all sure what it has to do with the tulip.
I can see no reasons, logical or theological, why God could not make as many creations as He wants to. Are there any?
Why does the fact that God “determines dimensions” (set limits) imply that He and the creation is frozen? I believe at least 4 of these 5 points which are supposed to encapsulate Calvinism are in accord with what I read in The Bible. I just don’t see this logic which you say leads to a frozen God/creation?
Does Calvin anywhere actually deny that we have free will?
quote – “God is/is not the only decision maker in the universe is not a conclusion that should stand in a systematic theology ..."
Again does Calvin actually claim that ONLY God makes decisions?
quote – “Calvinism is not based on the Bible as much as on a few assumptions. The main assumption is that God must be as big as we can conceive him: in sovreignty, in knowledge, in power, in perfection. In blowing him up as big as possible, Calvinism eliminates mankind as we understand it.”
Wow! I’d like to be around when you and the Frenchman meet up.
What God has revealed to me in The Bible is that He is, among many other things, The Eternal, without beginning or end, The Almighty, sovereign, Lord of all. He also reveals that He has given mankind a lot of unfrozen freedom to choose what they do with their lives and how they respond to Him personally.
love, smiles and snowdrops,
><>
And of course, Calvin was a lawyer as his master below... That was propably the main reason why calvinism turned out the way it did
Rehibitate Calvinism? No, I don´t think so... Lets speed it on it´s way out instead!
quote:
Originally posted by afish:
If God elects some then obviously those elected will, in the end, not be able to evade that election. BUT, once again, this will still involve them making a real freewill decision.
They can't evade it, but their decision is free. How can these be reconciled? They are mutually exclusive. This is nonsense. God forces them to make a freewill decision in his favour? Then what do YOU mean by freewill? Because it's certainly not what the English language means by it, namely, that it ISN'T FORCED.
Reader Alexis
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH:
Astro said that Calvinism gives a person the assurance of salvation. That's fine for the tiny fraction of humanity it considers to be saved. The 99%+ who are the canon fodder for the Lake of Fire should feel very bleak indeed knowing they aren't predestined for salvation.
And that is the JOY that Jesus kept before Him as He endured the cross!
Mouse
_____
Still there are manu Calvinists that I can have a robust arguement with, it's one area that you can spend ages exchanging proof verses.
Aghhh! Good Lord give me strength!
Mousethief beloved brother, you are the one who inserts the word “force” not me. WHY ?
The fact that the God knows our hearts, our days, our decisions before we do is in no way irreconcilable with the fact that the freewill decisions that we make are exactly that. We are not pre-programmed but the whole programme is already know by God. It seems evident to me that when the decision, “Let us create man in our own image”, was taken that God was not gambling. He foresaw all the consequences of that decision and went ahead in that knowledge. If He had not we would not be here now FREELY discussing and FREELY living out the INEVITABLE consequences of that SOVERIEGN decision.
[B]PaulTH[B/]
You say concerning predestination,
“That's fine for the tiny fraction of humanity it considers to be saved. The 99%+ who are the canon fodder for the Lake of Fire should feel very bleak indeed knowing they aren't predestined for salvation.”
How do they know?
I think that, for now, I’ve given this just about all that I’ve got. I’ve found the debate stretching and helpful. Thanks to all involved.
I strongly recommend the link given earlier by Sacred ThreeFrom Augustine to Arminus
(Just incase, the original link is on page 2 of this thread)
but be warned it prints out at 16 sides.
Love, smiles and buckets of tulips,
><>
quote:
Originally posted by frater-frag:
And of course, Calvin was a lawyer as his master below...
Saying that Calvin was wrong is one thing.
Suggesting that Calvin was in the service of Satan is entirely another, an assertion which is a) damaging, b) has the implication that all those who hold to a calvinist theological position are equally in Satan's employ.
I respectfully ask you to retract this statement, MDiv or no MDiv.
According to Christian theology God did become Man and died for our sins etc.
Now, since calvinism states that all humans are allready predestined to either Heaven or Hell, my conclusion is that the Incarnation was un-nescessary, ie, that Christ and his actions didn´t have any impact on the future for human souls. 
I could have used up more space, trying to explain what I mean, but, it´s more of a challenge to make it short
And, to call the Laywer beneath for Calvins master was a bit to much... Sorry about that Wood, I withdraw that comment!
Allthough I still think that the fact that Calvin was a Laywer, made him come up with a version of christianity that was as rigid as it is!
Thanks.
quote:
Originally posted by afish:
The problem that people have, istm, is in muddling up things which must be either/or and things which can be both/and. The sovereignty of God is an either/or. Either He is sovereign or He is notBut concerning God’s sovereignty and mans free will this is not either/or but both/and. God does not stop being sovereign when man chooses to disobey Him or even when man chooses to reject Him totally.
I'm afraid we completely disagree. God does not have to determine all things to be a sovreign. Sovreignty is a both/and. On the other hand God's sovreignty(as defined in Calvinism) and man's free will is an either/or.
quote:
If in another thread you have previously given an explanation of what ineffable means, can you point me to it? ... I just don’t see this logic which you say leads to a frozen God/creation?
Read my other posts on this thread.
quote:
Does Calvin anywhere actually deny that we have free will?
We are talking about Calvinism rather than Calvin. But then Calvinism does not always deny free will, as you say. However it contains a logical impossibility - God ordained all things and each individual is responsible for his own actions. A theology that claims to be a logical construct should not contain mutually exclusive statements.
quote:
quote – “God is/is not the only decision maker in the universe is not a conclusion that should stand in a systematic theology ..."Again does Calvin actually claim that ONLY God makes decisions?
Is this not the Calvinist definition of Sovreignty?
quote:
Wow! I’d like to be around when you and the Frenchman meet up.
If some theologies are correct, Calvin has had a few hundred years to observe his creation. I am sure he is not so hot on it now.
quote:
What God has revealed to me in The Bible is that He is, among many other things, The Eternal, without beginning or end, The Almighty, sovereign, Lord of all.
And what your subsequent reading in theology has done is to define those terms for you. I have no problem with any of what you have said there, but it does not inevitably lead to Calvinism.
I said earlier that I think that the culture of Calvin's time influenced the theology. To me that is a given, but I may get some dissenters.
If I remember rightly, the model for the universe in Calvin's time was the clock, and I think that you can see that in Calvinism.
Determinism has ruled in world views until last century when quantum theory arose and it was shown that the underlying nature of the universe was non-determinist and probablistic.
In the light of current world views Calvinism seems to me to be hopelessly out of date and culture-bound.
quote:
Originally posted by afish:
Mousethief beloved brother, you are the one who inserts the word “force” not me. WHY ?
Because you say they cannot evade it. If that's not forced, I'm a rabbit.
Reader Alexis
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH:
Astro said that Calvinism gives a person the assurance of salvation. That's fine for the tiny fraction of humanity it considers to be saved. The 99%+ who are the canon fodder for the Lake of Fire should feel very bleak indeed knowing they aren't predestined for salvation.
no, i think according to Calvinism, the ones who are not predestined for salvation, have not been given the desire to be saved
(or the grace) and therefore they are happy in their non-belief and not the least bit interested in salvation. If you have even the desire to be saved and serve God, that desire came from God. If He hasn't given you the desire for Him, then you won't be in despair over not being "chosen".
quote:
Originally posted by bessie rosebride:
If you have even the desire to be saved and serve God, that desire came from God. If He hasn't given you the desire for Him, then you won't be in despair over not being "chosen".
This is very comfy-cosy, but what about those who have loved ones who are destined for perdition? It would break my heart if my mother (who is not a Christian) or my daughter (who is) were destined for perdition. Is my heart more spacious than God's? Does He not desire their salvation even more than I do? If not, he is an ogre and I would almost rather be damned than bend the knee to such an evil tyrant.
Reader Alexis
I, myself, have been praying for several years for my former in-laws and my former husband (all of them quite cold towards things of Christianity)...but I dearly want to have them in Heaven and not see them consigned to a horrible eternity...So far, their hearts have not softened, but I continue to pray...
Are our hearts more spacious than God's? At one point when my father-in-law was getting delirious I asked God if I should stop praying for him....immediately I was impressed with the thought of what Jesus said - that none should perish.
I just don't have answers for the seemingly contradictory sides of God. Just as there seem to be contradictory sides to all of Christianity.... 
Just consider all the threads with all the debates occuring. Nothing, nothing, nothing seems clearcut.
I am very comforted by the sentence, which is repeated over and over in our prayers, that says (in myriad ways all being a variation on the same theme) "You are a good God and you love mankind."
God loves us. All of us. This is the heart of Christ's message. This is the heart of Paul's gospel. This is why I think that any "system" which requires one to think that God hates any man, woman, or child -- let alone a huge plurality if not majority of them -- does a great disservice to God, and that's why I used the word "blasphemy." Ascribing hatred of humans to God, who is in point of fact all-loving. This is what's wrong with Calvinism, and the Anselmianism it's based on.
Reader Alexis
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
Is my heart more spacious than God's? Does He not desire their salvation even more than I do? If not, he is an ogre and I would almost rather be damned than bend the knee to such an evil tyrant.
Or He is God, and gave us all a "free will" to accept eternal live or death. Those who choose death will not be with us in Heaven.
That is why we are instructed to "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all the creation" (Mark 16:15). If everyone is going to Heaven anyway, why do we need to preach to them?
God could have saved everyone, but instead He decided to use us to bring the Word to the world. We should be diligent so that we do not fail Him.
quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:
God could have saved everyone, but instead He decided to use us to bring the Word to the world. We should be diligent so that we do not fail Him.
I have problems with this, Sharkshooter. This would imply God didn't do all He could to save the world -- that He picked a plan that had less than maximum efficacy. Which is cruel and hard-hearted.
Rdr Alexis
My opinion is that, being God, He can pick any plan He wants, and like it or not, we have (had) no say in it. All we can do is follow the plan to its end.
You said,
“God is/is not the only decision maker in the universe is not a conclusion that should stand in a systematic theology ..."
I asked,
“Again does Calvin actually claim that ONLY God makes decisions?”
You replied,
“Is this not the Calvinist definition of Sovreignty?”
I should be extremely surprised if it was. We all making decisions all the time. Are you telling me that there are a certain group of theologians who deny this? God is of course the final decision maker.
You say,
“In the light of current world views Calvinism seems to me to be hopelessly out of date and culture-bound.”
This I think says what and where the problem really is. You need to use a different sort of light.
Mousethief
In reply to my asking why you used the word “forced” when I talked about “inevitability”, you said,
“Because you say they cannot evade it. If that's not forced, I'm a rabbit.”
Reluctantly, on your own premiss, I have to agree with you. You’re a rabbit (in love beloved brother.
“Inevitable” and “forced” are two different words with two different meanings. If you freely decide something and God already knew what you would decide, where does force come into it??? To say that our choices are inevitable does NOT negate the fact that they are real choices which we personally make. God does not make them for us but He does know what they will be. Given any unique individual with their unique situations and circumstances the choices made(by them)in the end always be the ones they were going to make. In that sense they are inevitable.
Now there are those who would misrepresent this as fatalism. Not at all!
Fatalism says “What will be will be so why bother.”
Christian faith says “What will be will be but except for the bits that God has told me about I don’t know what will be so I need to live life to the best of my ability to the glory of God who gives me lots of freedom to decide how I should do that.
Ok enough for now.
><>
But then you need to come up with another word for "could not have done otherwise" besides inevitable.
I don't think God's foreknowledge (because it's not foreknowledge at all, God being outside of Time) makes our choices "inevitable," which according to Merriam-Webster's online (www.m-w.com) means "incapable of being avoided or evaded." God knows what we do, because He sees us do it. His knowledge does not cause what happens; just the opposite; what happens causes his knowledge. Our choices are quite free, and not in the least "inevitable" according to the definition. If I had wanted, I could have worn the striped shirt. God knows (eternally) that I would wear the plaid shirt today, because I chose to, and God observes both my choice and its result.
I know this is bordering on that heresy that says God can be acted upon (I forget the name). I'm afraid I can't make sense of the universe without it, however, so if you need to stone me, please use large stones and aim for the head, thus to get it all over more quickly.
Reader Alexis
quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:
If everyone is going to Heaven anyway, why do we need to preach to them?
God could have saved everyone, but instead He decided to use us to bring the Word to the world. We should be diligent so that we do not fail Him.
The good news is more than just a route to heaven. It's a source of joy and strength on earth.
I don't believe God will send some people to hell because others failed to bring the Word to them.
Moo
quote:
Originally posted by afish:
Was going to stand back from this. I was honestly. But cannot rest unless I deal with the following:
frater-frag
You say,
“Now, since calvinism states that all humans are allready predestined to either Heaven or Hell, my conclusion is that the Incarnation was un-nescessary, ie, that Christ and his actions didn´t have any impact on the future for human souls.”
Why is that your conclusion?
People like me who believe that all things are predestined also believe that without Christ’s sacrificial death there would be no remission from sin. That is, ALL would be separated from God for eternity. Where is the conflict in those beliefs?
Hmm... Okey how about this?
Without free will, no-one can be hold responsible for their actions/lifes, in fact, without free-will, humans are nothing but pre-programmed automatons, acting according to their sub-routins!
Note: I don´t say that humans can overcome Sin by free-will alone. The Free-will of every being must accept Christ as God and Saviour etc, if they are to be saved. To use a bad methaphor; Its like allowing the Surgeon to go ahead with his stuff, in order to make us whole and healty again.
To sum it up, since Christ died for our sins, we must have fallen as a race first.
In order to do that, free-will is nescessary!
Without free-will, we wouldn´t have fallen at all. But, since we did fall, we must possess a free will! However, due to the fall of creation etc, that free will is no longer perfect, but heavily reduced and mostly corrupted. But, it is still there, and that gives God somewhere to begin...
From God´s point of wiev, everything must look predestined, ie, he has the complete files in his hand allready. That, is due to his existance outside the time/space continiium(hope I spelled it right , but whe are stuck inside, and therefore, from our point of wiev, most things are not decided yet!
Note, I prefer to put all theories to the extreme, I think thats the only way to find out where the sink-holes are!
[UBB fixed]
[ 23 January 2002: Message edited by: Alan Cresswell ]
quote:
Originally posted by afish:
The problem is that you haven’t shown that the two statements are mutually exclusive. If God has ordained that that each individual is responsible for his own actions, it seems obvious to me that one statement is included in the other.
A = Not A is a logical impossibility QED
quote:
In the light of current world views Calvinism seems to me to be hopelessly out of date and culture-bound.”
This I think says what and where the problem really is. You need to use a different sort of light.
And what light would you suggest I use?
I guess you would say "the light of scripture", but Calvinism is not the Bible.
It has no more inherent validity than other theologies, but it had a power because it was appropriate for its time. Calvinism was accepted into the modern era because it remained acceptable to modernist thought. In the post modern era, its cultural limitations are clear. We can go earlier for inspiration for a new theology, but in the end we have no chance of a "view from nowhere". Our theology will also be culture bound.
But we have to keep moving or be irrelevant .. as Calvinism is today.
frater-frag
I’m almost sure that I agree with every thing you said in your last post. I think one needs to be careful though when one speaks of God being outside the space time continuum not to give the idea that He is outside looking in. God is and there is nowhere where He isn’t. Though as a Master of Divinity no doubt you‘ll know more about the finer details of omnipresence than I do.
sharkshooter
You said, “God could have saved everyone … ” How?
Just think about it. A great deal has been said on this point in this thread.
God cannot lie - He has give us freewill - He says choose between life and death - many choose death - if then God says no to that choice - He has lied about giving us freewill.
Why should we preach the gospel? Because God has asked us to, because we share his compassion for the lost and because when it has been preached to all nations this present age will come to an end and there will be a new beginning.
><>
ah no Stoway won't do.
"God has ordained that we have freewill.", is a perfectly logical statement. To say that it is the same as saying, "A is not A.", is just sophistry.
[UBB fixed]
[ 24 January 2002: Message edited by: Alan Cresswell ]
quote:
Originally posted by afish:
Hopefully we are both a bit clearer about what the other really believes than when we started?
I'm sure I'm not any clearer. I knew you believed in predestination, and that it wasn't inconsistent with free will, and I still know that. As to how you manage to wrap your mind around such a contradiction, I am still befogged.
quote:
I’ve done my best to show that belief in predestination, freewill, and the other parts of the tulip that we have discussed poses no problems of logicality or inconsistency and in no way require God to be an ogre.
And I remain unconvinced. Ah well, another day in Purgatory.
quote:
These beliefs are mind stretching, mind boggling.
...Wrong...
quote:
But far from being blasphemous they in fact show us how glorious and gracious God is.
Gracious enough to damn people he could have saved? That doesn't rate as "gracious" in my Funk and Wagnall's.
Reader Alexis
quote:
Originally posted by afish:
"God has ordained that we have freewill.", is a perfectly logical statement.
indeed it is.
however, to say that "God has ordained that we have free will. God is in complete control of everything." is not a perfectly logical statement.
this is, if i understand it correctly, a central tennant of calvinism.
i am reminded of henry ford's quote: "you can have any colour, as long as it's black".
quote:
Originally posted by afish:
[QB
sharkshooter
You said, “God could have saved everyone … ” How?
Just think about it. A great deal has been said on this point in this thread.
God cannot lie - He has give us freewill - He says choose between life and death - many choose death - if then God says no to that choice - He has lied about giving us freewill.
Why should we preach the gospel? Because God has asked us to, because we share his compassion for the lost and because when it has been preached to all nations this present age will come to an end and there will be a new beginning.[/QB]
How could God have saved everyone? Any way He wanted to - He is omnipotent after all. For example, He could have said " They are so bad, I will take away their free will."
or
"They make so many bad choices, I will override their free will on this one issue", (even Mousethief, on another thread, said God can and does override free will)
Stooberry said:
quote:
however, to say that "God has ordained that we have free will. God is in complete control of everything." is not a perfectly logical statement
Then, if God is omnipotent, He did not give us free will. I'm sorry, I'll take the omnipotent God over free will any day (that is, if I have to choose one or the other - which I was beginning to believe I don't have to do). I will not worship a God who is not omnipotent.
1)TOTAL DEPRAVITY: Calvinism is unclear on this point. Of course no one can be saved without the grace of God, however, does that mean that there is no effort, at least towards faith on the part of the redeemed? I don't think that is consistent with the Bible at all. Even the worriesome bit in Romans 8 & 9. In Italy we have a saying, "A spoonful of sewage in a barrel of wine makes the whole barrel sewage." I think that accurately describes humanity, from a biblical standpoint as well as a humanistic one. We might be sewage(totally depraved), but even the "non-believer" can taste like a damn fine Pinot Gris sometimes. Call me a humanist, but I believe EVERYONE has the power of choice. When God speaks to Cain (before he murdered his brother), He says, "Sin is crouching at your door, but you may overcome it." I see Christ as the path to overcoming sin, but man as the one who may do the overcoming, through His sacrifice.
2)UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION: OK, breach in reasoning. If God chooses some and not others, either it is because of some merit-even if the merit is distinguishable only to Him-of the chosen that the not chosen lacks, OR it is because God is an arbitrary bastard and in general a tyrant Who has no idea why He decided why He wanted Francis of Assisi and not Ghandi. If you choose the first option (I highly recommend it over the second), it leads you straight away from Calvinism, and towards the merits of the chosen. I conclude from this that God does choose who He wants to save, see John 3:16 "that ALL might live."
3)LIMITED ATONEMENT: See John 3:16 again, as well as the rest of the Gospel content. This is bunk, no matter which way you cut it. I think it is a near-heretical cheapening of the sacrifice God made on the cross.
4)IRRESISTIBLE GRACE: Interesting. But I already denied myself the possibility of entertaining this idea since I accepted that Christ died for the whole world. Obviously the whole world is not saved.
5)PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS: This is really an interesting argument. I believe the Bible does speak in favor of this, but not quite enough to support the full argument. Christ does intercede for us, and we are told (in other terms) that everyone up there is rooting for us. But I don't think that means that it is secure. While princes and principalities and life and death may not seperate us from the love of God, I do believe that choice can. I have known several friends who not only throughly convinced me of their own faith, but helped me along in their own who have now totally renounced God.
IN CONCLUSION: I believe that Romans does very clearly outline the principles of Calvinism, however I also believe that the rest of the Bible speaks out against them, as well as our own natural sense of justice. While logic does appear to fail with these contrasting ideas, I have to conclude that logic is not the answer to this puzzle. God is in complete control of whom He saves and whom He does not. Nevertheless, we are obviously responsible for whether or not we choose God, so how much power does our choice have?
Christ loved the young rich ruler and, presumably, wanted him to be saved, but in the end the choice fell upon the young man. Christ was saddened, but did He credit the young ruler's lack of faith to God or to his own love of wealth?
"God helps the rower, but the rower must still row."
Recently too much emphasis has been put on what we must do, rather than God's grace. So I must finally conclude that a little revival of Calvinism(flawed though it is), might bring the attention back to God and away from the rower. I resent this recent egotistical trend(both secular and religious) of focusing on me, I, us, people, instead of God, the only I(AM) that really matters. So if a little poor logic is all it takes to shift our sights back on God, so be it. But you can count me out, I'll find another way to stay focused.
Sorry, while I understand much of the complaints against calvinism, I cannot understand why this characterization is necessary.
If I enter a football fantasy league, and choose arbitrarily choose my team, does that make me a bastard for choosing that way? Maybe a poor analagy, but oply given to help try to explain my failure to understand.
If anything proves that western Christianity is still in tortured denial, internal contradiction and spiritual deformity this Calvinist, anti-Calvinist, post-Calvinist thread does.
Why not start again and paint a different picture. This begins to look more and more like "The Scream."
Banging the door on my way out .... 
quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:
Why does "arbitrary" have to mean "bastard" or "ogre"?Sorry, while I understand much of the complaints against calvinism, I cannot understand why this characterization is necessary.
If I enter a football fantasy league, and choose arbitrarily choose my team, does that make me a bastard for choosing that way? Maybe a poor analagy, but oply given to help try to explain my failure to understand.
Maybe because when you play god your fantasy footbal team doesn't face eternal damnation because of your choice?!
Sorry, I guess we are getting nowhere fast.
quote:
Originally posted by Atticus:
[QB]God is in complete control of whom He saves and whom He does not. Nevertheless, we are obviously responsible for whether or not we choose God, so how much power does our choice have?
Christ loved the young rich ruler and, presumably, wanted him to be saved, but in the end the choice fell upon the young man. Christ was saddened, but did He credit the young ruler's lack of faith to God or to his own love of wealth?[QB]
I liked reading your take on the five points.
However, I think the young man you spoke of above needs to be put in context. This person came to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good should I do that I may have eternal life?" Jesus replied, "If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments." Then Jesus listed some of the commandments, and the young man said, "I have kept all these, what do I still lack?" And Jesus told him to go and sell his many possessions and follow Him. And the young man was sorrowful and went away.
This young man believed that keeping the law would save him. Jesus knew that, and used that belief to let the young man see that he had a problem with coveting possessions.
Jesus had the opportunity to preach the gospel to this young man, "Believe on Me if you want life!" But he didn't.
Mouse
quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:
Why does "arbitrary" have to mean "bastard" or "ogre"?If I enter a football fantasy league, and choose arbitrarily choose my team, does that make me a bastard for choosing that way? Maybe a poor analagy, but oply given to help try to explain my failure to understand.
Nobody is going to roast in Hell because of your choices in a football fantasy league. Arbitrarily choosing some people to roast in Hell (regardless of their desires or merit) is a bastardly thing to do.
Reader Alexis
quote:
Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:
I forced myself to take a peep into this thread and no doubt I'll beat a hasty retreat once I have lobbed in the hand grenade.If anything proves that western Christianity is still in tortured denial, internal contradiction and spiritual deformity this Calvinist, anti-Calvinist, post-Calvinist thread does.
Why not start again and paint a different picture. This begins to look more and more like "The Scream."
Banging the door on my way out ....
just wondering, here....is this what is meant by a "hit and run" ???
...........................................
When it comes to God standing outside time and space, the answer is both yes and no!
He is outside in the same sense that an artist is outside his creations!
But, on the other hand His body is inside!
Since Christ is God, and the Church(divided but still here on earth!) is His body, and we the christians are members of that body, logic implies that the Creator is also inside his work!
And finally, having a degree in divinity does not make you understand omnipotence better, however, having that knowledge makes is easier to learn more, and to use ones wits more efficient. But, I do admit that a good part of my "finer details" are a result of reading a certain CS Lewis
Hmm... wasn´t this reply to comment on calvinism... 
This young man believed that keeping the law would save him. Jesus knew that, and used that belief to let the young man see that he had a problem with coveting possessions.
Jesus had the opportunity to preach the gospel to this young man, "Believe on Me if you want life!" But he didn't.
---------------------
Yes, sorry that bit was hastily added without enough attention on my part.
I will say that though Christ could have said, "Believe in me with all your heart, soul and mind and you will have eternal life." You know the straight old Gospel message, but in a sense He was really asking of him exactly that kind of faith. By telling the young man what He did, Christ was asking of him his complete trust, even at the loss of his most prized possessions. It takes faith to take a man at his word and give up your house, your bank account, your car. While I stand by Christ's love for the man and His yearning for the man's salvation, I acknowledge that the passage is not nearly as neatly in favor of my argument as I had presented.
Thanks for calling me on that Mouse.
As for why arbitrary means bastardly, I think Mouse and Mousethief said it best.
I know some Calvinists I love and a few I respect, so I hope I wasn't too offensive, but I do feel very strongly on this issue, I almost quit when I was in senior high because of my frustration with this very issue. I spent a lot of time thinking on those five pints(Freudian slip) before I could even say I believed in Christ.
Off the subject, why does arbitrary mean random and all? doesn't it share the same root as the word arbitrate, which is to decide fairly in a situation of discord?
Atticus
Where and when in all this does God actually “loose” control? He can close down the whole shamoozle however and whenever He wants. He could “intervene” and start “controlling” people and events like a puppet master. Is that what we want to be, puppets? God is not standing in a corner scratching his head thinking “err umm, O dear where’s it all leading to? How’s it going to end?” He knows. He knew already before He said, “Let us make man in our own image.”
sharkshooter you say,
“How could God have saved everyone? Any way He wanted to - He is omnipotent after all. For example, He could have said " They are so bad, I will take away their free will."
or "They make so many bad choices, I will override their free will on this one issue" …”
It’s exactly “on this one issue”, as I’ve explained above, that God will not/cannot override. It is a nonsensical fallacy that God (omnipotent though He is) can force people into heaven. Even if we wanted to be to be puppets (which of course we don’t) the question always has to be what does God want? I’m convinced that He wants sons and daughters, made in his own image, freely giving back the love they have recieved, even though achieving this has cost Him so much pain and suffering. Love cannot be imposed on or forced out. It cannot be puppeted, if it is not from choice it is not love.
><>
If anyone sees Fr. Gregory around tell him please not to slam doors. It doesn’t help clear thinking and it ain’t becoming for a man of the cloth. Also tell him that, I for one am not painting pictures just trying to understand the one that has already been painted.
quote:
Originally posted by afish:
Stooberry you say,
“to say that "God has ordained that we have free will. God is in complete control of everything." is not a perfectly logical statement. … I am reminded of henry ford's quote: "you can have any colour, as long as it's black". “
Why is not logical Stoo me old berry? It isn’t, “any colour you want as long as it is black” (more sophistry). It’s, “choose between life and death , between obedience and disobedience, between The Living God and Baal.” The choice is real/free. Some choose life, some choose death. God doesn’t make our choice for us (even though He knew before we did what it would be), it is not forced. God accepts the decisions (even though it is NOT his will that any should perish). If He did not He would be going back on his word and making a nonsense of freewill. We have already seen that there are things that God cannot do. Do you believe that, because God cannot lie He is not Omnipotent or because God does not act nonsensically (making freewill=not freewill) therefore He is not in control?
ok... let me put it in simple terms.
'john smith' is not a christian. he has thought about it all, but decided that it's all a load of crap.
it comes down to two possibilities:
2. john chose not to believe of his own free choice. God may (have attempted to) influence his decision, but did not have the final word.
if 1 is true, then john had no real choice. God decided for him.
if 2 is true, then it is john, and not God who was ultimately in control of that particular situation.
i don't think there's any other alternative. it doesn't matter a pig's trotter whether God knew what john was going to choose or not. either God was in control of it, or he wasn't. therefore, to say that john has freewill in his decision of whether to choose God or not, and that God has already decided what the outcome of john's decision will be, is complete crap, to pardon my french. God cannot be in complete control if we have free will to make our own decisions.
and yes, i believe that because God cannot lie, he is not omnipotent. off the top of my head, i don't see anywhere in the bible that God says he is. if there is evidence of his omnipotence in the bible, then please let me know... but pm me, don't let me derail this thread!
quote:
Originally posted by afish:
God doesn’t make our choice for us (even though He knew before we did what it would be), it is not forced. God accepts the decisions (even though it is NOT his will that any should perish). If He did not He would be going back on his word and making a nonsense of freewill.
Well, I've jumped to conclusions before but it looks as if you are not defending Calvinism at all with this. You are proposing simple foreknowledge.
Maybe we have been talking at cross-purposes here. To be a Calvinist surely you have to believe that every decision ever made was ultimately ordained by God. To be precise, if I decide to have Cornflakes for breakfast, a Calvinist believes that what I decided was ordained by God. Do you believe that afish? If not, I don't think you can call yourself a Calvinist.
The position you seem to be taking is a much more sensible position, though it has its problems.
quote:
Originally posted by Stooberry:
and yes, i believe that because God cannot lie, he is not omnipotent. off the top of my head, i don't see anywhere in the bible that God says he is. if there is evidence of his omnipotence in the bible, then please let me know... but pm me, don't let me derail this thread!
oops... need to qualify, or even (shock horror) retract!
having posted, i've since remembered (d'uh) that God is the "almighty God". I think, then, basically, we need to redefine what power/might actually is... it is after all illogical to say that a being able to do all things cannot do x. p'raps it is as simple as God can do x, but he choses not to.
[tangent over]
i still stand by my other view; even though God is almighty, he is not in complete control.
“'john smith' is not a christian. he has thought about it all, but decided that it's all a load of crap.
it comes down to two possibilities:
1. john chose not to believe because God ordained that he would not believe.
2. john chose not to believe of his own free choice. God may (have attempted to) influence his decision, but did not have the final word.
if 1 is true, then john had no real choice. God decided for him.
if 2 is true, then it is john, and not God who was ultimately in control of that particular situation”
Lets go with 2., except that God did have the final word, after john said “It’s all a load of crap.” God said , “As you will.” And no, God was (and always is) in ultimate control. He gave the choice, He gave john the freedom to make that choice and He chooses how and when his (God’s) just judgement of that choice is implemented.
stowaway you say,
“ Maybe we have been talking at cross-purposes here. To be a Calvinist surely you have to believe that every decision ever made was ultimately ordained by God. To be precise, if I decide to have Cornflakes for breakfast, a Calvinist believes that what I decided was ordained by God. Do you believe that afish? If not, I don't think you can call yourself a Calvinist.”
No it was me who chose (Weetabix with a sprinkle of muesli actually) but God knew already. Was my choice “ordained” by God? Well there is a sense in which we could allow that word. I choose but God decides (ordains?) whether or not to allow (ordain?) my choice. Now concerning my eating preferences I believe God could, when ever He wants , impose his will over mine. He could force me to eat Chocpics if He chose to BUT concerning salvation, as already explained, He can not impose or force without becoming a liar and acting nonsensically. Would I accept the word “ordained” in the sense of, we are just puppets in a puppet show? No of course not. Are there “Calvinists” who really believe that is what ordained (or predestined) means? I’ve never met any. Have you?
Am I a Calvinist? I believe the first two and the last two points of the tulip as presented by Wood, SteveTom and some others at the beginning of this thread are completely in accord with the revelation of God found in The Bible.
><>
quote:
. Are there “Calvinists” who really believe that is what ordained (or predestined) means? I’ve never met any. Have you?
Psalm 139:15,16 (NIV)
"My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."
I still take comfort in knowing that God is in control. That He knows what is going to happen. That He is not an ogre or a bastard.
I am not "joyless", and some people actually like me. I am not an "infant" Christian who needs to mature in my faith to come to a more mature belief.
As I indicated earlier, I can accept that ordination (predestination) allows that in most cases God lets us decide, but that He, at the very least, intervenes sometimes. Just that He knows, in advance, what decisions we will make.
I know there are precious few who agree with what I am saying, but David and Paul both referred to it in the Bible and some people think they knew what they were talking about. So I have to believe there is something in it.
I have been reading this thread since it started, and was tired of it being so anti-Calvinist. We don't have to believe in it 100% - I think everyone makes their own conclusions on the issues. That just makes sense.
Just my, humble, opinion.
And I thought the religion with the 72 virgins was sick. If these are the type of people that are in heaven, how much worse can hell be?
Rdr Alexis
I gave up the debate in my early twenties. Two reasons, firstly the arminians need to understand that my father requires that all options should be open to a person not just some! If options are not equally weighted or some are off limit are you sure that there is not really only one option available it just feels like you have choice? Secondly like others on the list I began to understand the problems of viewing God as subject to the rules of time!
That said I recently had a metaphor which gets about as close as I can to this. Consider a reader reading a book. The question is who determines the meaning? The author or the reader? While the author has the creative origin the reader is not passive in this task.
If you think of God as the author and you living your life as something akin to the reader reading a book.
I know it does not quite work but it is the best picture I have found yet.
quote:
I will not worship a God who is not omnipotent.
You (or J.C., actually) start with one apparently self-evident first principle (omnipotence) and reason from that to a God that defies our sense of justice which we have always believed was given us by God.
But what it really comes down to, for me, is that Calvinism requires us to believe that God created some people solely for the purpose of damning them to eternal torment. I used to think Calvin just didn't grasp the implications of his convoluted logic, until I was copyediting a book of essays on his work and ran across a quotation in which he said (paraphrasing from memory, but with no doubt about the intended meaning): "If God wants to damn you, he will make sure you do something to deserve it." This is not a God of love.
One might suspect that Calvinism was an atheist plot, a kind of mirror image of Anselm's ontological proof, designed to prove the nonexistence of God by showing that an omnipotent, omniscient, onmibenevolent being is inherently contradictory...
Timothy
quote:
perversea God that defies our sense of justice
God created some people solely for the purpose of damning them to eternal torment
Calvinism was an atheist plot
Please, can we stop the Calvinist-bashing? (I think the "discussion" ended a while ago.)
Remember, some of us have feelings, too.
Thank you
Peace,
Timothy
Anyway, Father Ted says that Timothy has got a good point. What else would you expect from a medieval French lawyer?
From the thrower of occasional grenades ....
- Calvin's parting shot.
quote:
She was raised in the Roman Catholic Church and taught that if she died after she committed a mortal sin and before she confessed it, she would go to hell.
Yes, it's true (hard though it may be for those of you who haven't been exposed). I was taught the same thing by nuns in Southern California.
quote:
The nuns taught her that many of her childish misbehaviors were mortal sins, so she spent most of her childhood trying to avoid hell.
I don't remember this. I was taught that missing Mass on Sunday was a mortal sin. I was quite blessed in that i didn't believe what the nuns or priests told me. I didn't like or respect them and to me they seemed like puny people.
Of course, this is off topic; but maybe i can get back on topic by saying that as bad as was the Catholicism i was exposed to, I don't see anything spiritually nourishing about Calvinism.
---also leaving in a big hurry,
This is a general statement explaining what is commonly called "calvinism".
God is revealed in his word, in nature, in man, in Christ, in the eternal covenant with man in Christ, in the cross & resurrection of Christ, and ultimately in a glorious New Heaven & New Earth.
It is common to "refute" calvinism by a simple process of non-Scriptural negative logic such as:
"Man can do nothing but sin & be damned, unless God shooses to save him, if he is elect. Even our behaviour has nothing to do with salvation. If we're elect nothing we can do can lose our salvation. If we're not elect, there is no way we can be saved."
Reformed Theology (aka Calvinism) is positive. We are concerned with the living God, the God whose name is Love, who created a good universe, and sustains that universe by a caring providence. He created man in his image, for fellowship with himself, and gave him woman as an intimate & loving companion. (Gen. 1-2)
We are concerned with a God who hates sin, and condemns those who reject him. Yet he loves, and does not destroy without providing a way to life. More than that, our God has provided for the complete and perfect restoration of the fallen world, and a people to live there with him for a glorious eternity. (Gen. 3, Rev. 21)
God has provided an everlasting covenant with man in Christ, whereby rebel sinners become the people of God. A covenant which cannot be broken, because it is between God and man in Christ. A covenant sealed with the blood of Christ.
God is a God of love, who in his love for his people sent his Son to save them. (Mat. 1:21)
The so-called 5 points of Calvinism are only part of a comprehensive system of Bible understanding.
1. We are all born with a fallen nature, with all our faculties corrupt, totally depraved, therefore we are all born lost and condemned so there is nothing any of us can do to be earn salvation. We are sinners by nature and by practice. Dead in trespasses & sins. (Eph. 2:1)
Total depravity does not mean "absolutely evil from birth" for we are all capable of acting according to an imperfect reflection of our being "in the image of God" for we love our parents, our wife, our husband, our children, and act in kindness to our fellow humans. We act as stewards of creation, in husbandry & land & animal management. Some are more wicked than others, but all are sinners.
Absolute evil is what we see before the flood, in the Amorite practices, and in the final rejection of Christ by the Jewish leaders. Verses which speak of the fulness of iniquity. (e.g. Gen. 6:5, 15:16, Mat. 23:32)
2. God loves his creation, and will restore it, to be inhabited by redeemed and restored people, his people. However, all are lost and condemned.
God elected a vast number of people to be saved, chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. (Eph. 1:4) This election is unconditional with respect to the goodness, faith, etc of the elect, for all are sinners, and all are lost & guilty in God's sight.
3. The people are to be redeemed, by Christ himself dying for our sins, receiving in himself their condemnation, their death for sin. This is a particular redemption, God's people are no longer their own, they are bought with a price, the precious blood of Christ. (1 Peter 1:19)
4. Salvation of the elect has to be achieved in time, and God has a gospel of salvation: "repent and turn to God and do works meet for repentance." (Mark 1:15, Acts 26:20) The state of spiritual death (Eph. 2:1) must be reversed. The Holy Spirit enters the spirit of the sinner giving spiritual life, so that he is born again, born of the Spirit, passed from death to life. (John 1:12-13, 3:3ff, 5:21, 24ff.) The sinner who once rejected Christ and the Gospel sees his sin, and repents, and trusts Christ alone and his saving work as the only basis for his salvation. His will is transformed, so that now he delights in God and God's commandments. This "new creature" is seen in new life, spiritual life, by godly living.
5. Those God loves and saves are saved completely, and are secure in Christ. God will not leave hold of his people, not can they lose that new spiritual life, for they have a new spiritual nature. Nor will they return to sin, or continue in sin, claiming "once saved always saved." (Rom. 6)
While the elect, & only the elect will be saved, and saved completely, the Gospel itself is not limited to the elect. There is the universal command to repent and turn to God. (Is. 45:22, Acts 17:30, 26:20, Rev. 14:6-7) No-one is lost because they are not elect, but because of sin. When Christ is preached, he is preached freely to all. The command to repent & believe is the means of calling the elect. (1 Cor. 1:21ff.) Those who reject that command are rejecting their only way of salvation. THe fact that all are dead in trespasses & sins means that God has to do more than proclaim forgiveness through Christ to save them. He has to regenerate them, give them life.
Calvinism is seen to be hard & anti-evangelical when it is taken out of its place in Scripture.
In its rightful place in Scripture, centred on Christ, it is the Gospel of the grace of God, the Gospel of Love, for God is Love.
Remember that these "doctrines of grace" are Christ-centred & based on a belief in Scripture alone as the revelation of God's truth. Logical arguments against what is called "calvinism" have no force unless they are themselves based on Scripture.
