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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: The background of Calvinism
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GreyFace
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# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
Ken, are you still a Universalist?
I hope for universal salvation but can't hold it definitely because the Church has never taught it and it is not clear from the Bible.
I agree with that, for what little that's worth.
Can I try to pin you down on something here? Because this is the main point of contention. If any turn out to be lost, in your opinion will it be because God refused to give them faith when he had the power so to do, and refused on criteria entirely unrelated to anything they could have changed?
That's what I understand hard-line Calvinism to be saying, and more, that there actually was no reason, that the choice of who to damn - and let's face it, we mean damn here, if it's Heaven or Hell and nothing in between - was totally arbitrary.
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Matt Black
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# 2210
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Posted
Permit me to throw another soterioligical hand-grenade into the pre-existing milieu: going back to the Protestant idea that Adam's sin and its consequences are imputed to all regardless of actual sin and that righteousness is imputed through the substitutionary crucifixion of Jesus, if the condemnation is imputed to all regardless of action why isn't the righteousness likewise imputed to all regardless of action?
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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mdijon
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# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Protestant idea that Adam's sin and its consequences are imputed to all regardless of actual sin
Maybe that isn't true. Some of the consequences - fallen earth etc. - might be shared, but not all of them. Wouldn't Jesus have been in the same boat otherwise as the second Adam?
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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Matt Black
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# 2210
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Posted
That's kind of what I'm questioning: if the righteousness from Jesus isn't imputed to all, then why is it just to have Adam's sin imputed to all? I appreciate this cuts across quite a bit of both Romans and Western hamartiology (sp?) but there you are...
[ 22. September 2006, 09:28: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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daronmedway
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# 3012
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Posted
Mudfrog,
Here is my answer to yout question. sorry it took so long. And sorry it's not as good as it should be.
I'd like to outline what I consider to be the essential difference between Calvinist and Arminian understandings of grace in regeneration.
My basic understanding regarding of Arminianism is this: by grace a person's free-will is restored. Their will - by grace - is restored to what is essentially a neutral position regarding the desirability of Jesus Christ for salvation. The person is then - on the basis of their free-will - able to choose one of two things: to beleive or not to beleive. The person is able to resist or to submit to God in Christ, to repent of their sins and proclaim Christ as their Lord.
Basically, the Arminian approach, like Calvinism, maintains that grace is essential for conversion. Humanity is incapable of choosing Christ without God's gracious assistance.
Where Calvinism and Arminianism differ is this: Calvinism acknowledges that it is indeed possible to resist God's overtures of intimacy but in addition to this also holds that God can - and indeed does - intentionally overcome our resistance to him. Calvinism holds that God does suffer himself to be resisted; in fact sometimes God will suffer himself to be resisted by some people for their entire lives. However, Calvinism also holds that God also intentionally restores a persons will to the point at which they make the positive decsion that Christ would stimulate in any unfallen heart. Calvinists see this as a restoration of free will, while at the same time acknowledging that any genuinely free decsion concerning Christ would be a positive one.
In a sense irresistible grace is this: it is a degree of grace given by God that makes Christ irresistible, not by suppressing the human will but by empowering the human will.
Christ is resistable only by fallen people (we know this!), therefore Christ simply would not be resisted by an unfallen (i.e. completely free) person. Calvinism simply asserts that God restores the human will - by grace (not in actuality) - to the point where it makes the right decision, where it makes the decison that it really would make if it were not hostile to God because of the sinful nature.
So, with regard to reprobation: God allows some people to resist him for a lifetime.
And with regard to election: God restores (and overcomes) the resistance of the sinful nature (regeneration) thus empowering the will to make a positive decsion (a decison that any unfallen soul would make) with regard to Christ.
This is what Calvinists mean when we say that God can make us make a free will decision. We mean that God regenerates us (monergism) so that we can convert (free will). However, the conversion itself is predestined because the degree to which God restores the will makes Christ irresistible: the person will choose Christ. And this is not because their free-will has been weakened regarding Christ but because the will has been empowered to the point at which it can make a genuinely wise decision.
This the best I can do for the time being. Hope it helps.
[ 22. September 2006, 10:25: Message edited by: m.t-tomb ]
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daronmedway
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# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by m.t-tomb:
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
I can just imagine you raping a 12-year old schoolgirl.
Just a friendly jibe there.
I'm not buying it.
Well if you want to take offence then so be it. I'd be sad if you did though.
Excellent way to absolve yourself of responsibility for what you say. I shall have to remember this.
If it's good enough for Benedict it's good enough for me. I'm sorry about the reaction that my comment has caused.
[ 22. September 2006, 10:31: Message edited by: m.t-tomb ]
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daronmedway
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# 3012
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Posted
anteater said: quote:
f you are prepared to state that according to the tenets of your version of Calvinism, it is inconceivable that any member of your own church is reprobate, then you are right in stating that your strand of Calvinism is different from what I know (which was straight Banner of Truth, so not extreme).
If you accept the possibility that members of your church could be reprobate, I think that contradicts your view that the non-elect give no thought to Christ.
Well, I think it's possible that people come to church for whole host of reasons and that some of those reasons have noting to do with Christ. I know I do. I also think it's possible that some people come to church without any thought for Christ at all. They may well go through service after service after service without ever giving Christ a thought in a genuinely Christian sense. However, that does not mean that a person can come to church genuinely seeking Christ but in fact turn out not to be on God's list. I say this because Jesus said that no-one can come to him unless the father has drawn him. I do think that there is a difference between coming to Christ and going to church.
[ 22. September 2006, 10:39: Message edited by: m.t-tomb ]
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daronmedway
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# 3012
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Posted
Myrrh asserts that: quote:
The doctrine of total depravity, estranged from God, unable to do good is a lie.
You do not understand the doctrine of total depravity; you need to read up on it before we continue our discussion.
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Permit me to throw another soterioligical hand-grenade into the pre-existing milieu: going back to the Protestant idea that Adam's sin and its consequences are imputed to all regardless of actual sin and that righteousness is imputed through the substitutionary crucifixion of Jesus, if the condemnation is imputed to all regardless of action why isn't the righteousness likewise imputed to all regardless of action?
Hence my concerns regarding Romans 5.18 which seems to suggest exactly that. ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
[ 22. September 2006, 10:47: Message edited by: m.t-tomb ]
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
m.t-tomb
The lateral thought which has occurred to me is this. While I've read quoted extracts from Calvin's writings and debated TULIP 'til I'm sick of it, I've never actually read Calvin's "Institutions" all the way through. It's Friday morning confession time. Anyway, I have discovered this morning that "Institutions" is available online. IME I've discovered that reading what authors say very often gives a much richer and more complex understanding of their thought than these summaries. So I'm going to use this resource first and look at it in some depth. Might buy the book if it seems a better way. I really don't "get" Calvinism but recognised that my opinions were more based on second hand digestion than original reading. The words "Limited Atonement" stick in my craw - and I think that is highly unlikely to change. But a lot of this may be "description of ideas" stuff, not the inwardness of the ideas. Anyway, I'm going to give it a go.
The Ship seems to have elected you as its current "Gordon Cheng" of all things Calvinist. I'm pretty sure this is not a role you auditioned for by giving your opinions and it is not a role I envy, about Calvinism or anything else But I rather liked your answer to Mudfrog. I'm giving it further thought. BTW I'm not getting into the Pope Benedict dimension but defend your right to be misunderstood (!).
ATB mate, may your present IRL busyness be fruitful.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
What a tosspot! INSTITUTES. At least it showed my ignorance was real. Here's the link.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
What a tosspot! INSTITUTES. At least it showed my ignorance was real. Here's the link.
![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
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Matt Black
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# 2210
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Posted
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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CrookedCucumber
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# 10792
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by m.t-tomb:
Where Calvinism and Arminianism differ is this: Calvinism acknowledges that it is indeed possible to resist God's overtures of intimacy but in addition to this also holds that God can - and indeed does - intentionally overcome our resistance to him.
But doesn't Calvinism just substitute the theological problems of Arminianism for different ones?
As I understand it, for the Calvinist, the problem with the Arminian position is that it does allow that there are differences in individual `worth'. God's grace is freely and universally offered, but there will be some who respond to it, and some who don't. So people are different. The `unworthy' will reject their own salvation. (I appreciate that this is a crude formulation).
This raises the question why God has created a state of affairs in which seemingly arbitrary and unpredictable differences between people are the key to their salvation, or otherwise. I can see why this is problematic.
For the Calvinist, IIUC, everybody is equal in his or her lack of merit. Without election, nobody is capable of responding to God. We are all equal in our depravity. This, I guess, is more egalitarian, but leaves God's motives equally inscrutable.
The Arminian has to answer the question ``Why did God create this odd state of affairs, where people could freely damn themselves?''; the Calvinist has the question: ``Why did God not just elect everybody?''.
These, I submit, are both very difficult questions. The Arminian can at least fall back on the free will defense: God would rather have free agents who are capable of choosing damnation, than puppets. But the Calvinist really has no answer to his question, beyond ``God's ways are not our ways''.
quote:
Calvinism holds that God does suffer himself to be resisted; in fact sometimes God will suffer himself to be resisted by some people for their entire lives.
But why? The Arminian is at least able to claim that our resistance to God is our own fault; it isn't God's doing. That isn't a wholely satisfactory answer for a whole heap of reasons, but I submit that it's a better answer than that God predestines people to resist him.
quote:
So, with regard to reprobation: God allows some people to resist him for a lifetime.
Is `allows' the right word here? By not `electing' these people, surely he mandates their life-long resistance?
quote:
This is what Calvinists mean when we say that God can make us make a free will decision. We mean that God regenerates us (monergism) so that we can convert (free will).
As I've tried to say before, this is a highly technical use of the phrase `free will'. I understand that a stage hypnotist cannot command a person to strip his clothes on stage, but can implant the idea in the `victim's' mind that it is as hot as a sauna, thus stripping is a sensible thing to do. I don't think I would ordinarily use the phrase `free will' to describe this kind of response. Surely to bring about a particular action in a person by playing with his head is just as much a violation of free will as a direct instruction would be?
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Callan
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# 525
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Posted
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
Permit me to throw another soterioligical hand-grenade into the pre-existing milieu: going back to the Protestant idea that Adam's sin and its consequences are imputed to all regardless of actual sin and that righteousness is imputed through the substitutionary crucifixion of Jesus, if the condemnation is imputed to all regardless of action why isn't the righteousness likewise imputed to all regardless of action?
That is really one of the two killer arguments. As I understand it sin has no positive ontology, which is to say when we sin we don't add something positive to a situation called sin, we take something away. For example, adultery isn't sinful because it involves sex, adultery is sinful because the act is deficient in justice. If we apply that to the Fall then what we are saying is that in sinning, Adam became less human rather than adding an extra component called sin to human nature. Now the Resurrection, AFAICS, is the reversal of that act, a restoration of the image of God which was damaged by the Fall. By making the Resurrection less efficacious than the Fall (i.e. everyone is damned in Adam but only the elect are saved in Christ) one is effectively saying that evil is more efficacious than good. The only way out is to say that God arbitrarily limits His goodness. Which strongly implies that God's goodness is not perfect.
The other objection which I think is crucial is that of Karl Barth, to wit predestination separates salvation from what is done on the cross, making it a consequence of an arbitrary and occult decision in eternity. The Incarnation is not, therefore, the pivot on which history turns but an epiphenomenon of the decision to elect or condemn made in eternity.
So I object to Calvinism on the grounds that it undermines either God's sovereignty or his goodness and doesn't take the cross seriously. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
I was trying to be tongue in cheek. I'm not good at humour in this medium, sorry Barnabas62!. I really should explain myself a bit more clearly.
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
Posted by Callan: quote:
The other objection which I think is crucial is that of Karl Barth, to wit predestination separates salvation from what is done on the cross, making it a consequence of an arbitrary and occult decision in eternity. The Incarnation is not, therefore, the pivot on which history turns but an epiphenomenon of the decision to elect or condemn made in eternity.
This is probably the best objection to the double-predestination by decree that I've come across. Food for thought...
...although Calvinists would say that the crucifixion is the pivot of history, not the incarnation.
[ 22. September 2006, 12:32: Message edited by: m.t-tomb ]
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
The central problem that both theologies are trying to deal with is "Why isn't everyone saved?".
The Arminian says, because they didn't choose to be. Which, as MB observes, leaves one with the difficult problem of why God would create such a situation. The Calvinist would also add the charge that it leaves God as less than soverign, and would probably add that if God is really God, and Jesus really Jesus, what sane soul with a free choice would actually reject salvation.
The Calvinist says, because God predestined it. To which the Arminian (and just about everyone who isn't a Calvinist, it seems) says, what kind of God is that.
But I'm starting to warm to the idea that these are not too dissimilar problems.
How can a sane, normal human being choose damnation? Only if they are out of their mind with depravity... or don't understand what they are choosing (eg the sheep "choosing" eternal life by helping the poor - and the goats presumably rejecting it by not doing the same)... which hardly seems fair or just either. Rather like a parent asking their child whether they want to help their younger brother or not, then suddenly revealing that it was a test... and the child who helped gets to watch TV tonight, the one who didn't get's an early night and a smack.
So one can argue that if it is a choice, it's not a very fair one.
The more I think about it, the more universalism appeals. A Calvinist Universalism, that is.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
The crucifixion, surely, is an incident within the Incarnation?
Can we agree that the life-death-Resurrection-and-Ascenscion are said pivot?
(Cross-posted with mdijon)
[ 22. September 2006, 12:43: Message edited by: Callan ]
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
The crucifixion, surely, is an incident within the Incarnation?
Can we agree that the life-death-Resurrection-and-Ascenscion are said pivot?
(Cross-posted with mdijon)
Weeell, alright then.
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
No probs, m.t-tomb! At least not with you. for Calvin!
My evangelical roots to give me this unfortunate tendency to proof-text; Matt Black and Callan remind me very much of this.
quote:
1 Corinthians 15:22 (New International Version)
For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
The interpretative issue for this puts all non-Universalists (which includes me) into the same boat. It depends how you read the "all" and what will we be made alive "for". I'd like to be a Universalist but it doesn't really seem up to me to proclaim it, given that it has to do with the Just Judge. So on first principles, Matt B, the lifting of the "curse of physical death", which might be seen as one (but not the only one) of the fruits of the resurrection, must indeed apply to all. That's very good news! But I cannot rule out that it might turn out to be exceedingly bad news for some others.
"Oh Great, I'm alive, yippeee!!"
"Oh &&***, what is that Big Dude saying?"
However, that may be all a bit simplistic. I've already revealed my ignorance twice today on this thread so I'm going confidently for the hat-trick! Apparently the Orthodox say that Heaven will be eternal Hell for the eternally rebellious - I think that's got quite a lot going for it.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
Which is what RT Kendall say in his book Out of the Comfort Zone: Is your God too Nice?. Basically he affirms the doctirne particular redemption (election anf reprobation) but says that he wishes it wasn't like that. Essentially, that's what he says...
[cross posted: intended for mdijon]
[ 22. September 2006, 12:52: Message edited by: m.t-tomb ]
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
Honestly, I post a reply to Mudfrog and can he be bothered to read it? ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
[ 22. September 2006, 12:54: Message edited by: m.t-tomb ]
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
Dear All,
Please may I post this link to a great website (if you're of the Reformed persuasion) of free mp3's. Registration is necessary to download, but it is free and there is no spam.
The specific link I'm putting up is for a series of lectures by John Piper (a Calvinist) on five point Calvinism. Here it is: TULIP.
You don't have to agree with him! But he does offer a pretty good explanation.
[ 22. September 2006, 13:09: Message edited by: m.t-tomb ]
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
I've only read extracts of Calvin
, too, an I think you're bloody brave, Barnabas, to try to get to grips withthe whole thing.
But getting back to Moo's original query, I cannot help wondering if the background to Calvin's predestination thing may be more to do with his internal mental obsessions than with anything going on outside around him at the time. Though both he and his mentor Farel were given the bum's rush at first from Geneva.
I wish someone like Psyduck could tell us what sort of mind can conceive of mankind as being totally concupiscent? Which is not the tangent it may at first sound, since this leads on to the idea that EVERYONE is basically destined, if not predestined, to hell.
One thing that chilled me was his assertion that mere foreknowledge on God's part was a cop-out by the wimpish. God actually desired that some should fry!
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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John Spears
Shipmate
# 11694
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Posted
Both issues stem from accountability.
For both the Arminian and Calvinist - to justify God sending someone to hell they must first be accountable for their Sin - this necessitates some kind of free will (though granted - not neccesarily the freedom to 'choose' God).
What puzzles me is Calvinism's insistance that God is responsible for everything, therefore undercutting mans free will and resposibility. It occurred to me that it may well be the case that humans could have freedom and be responsible for their actions - but God still only chose a remnant of them - and regardless of what they did - he saved them anyway.
It is a big problem for Calvinists - the issue of responsibility, it seems plain as day to me that (given a Calvinist understanding of scripture) God is responsible for evil - not humans - and any talk of humans 'deserving' hell was blatantly nonsense.
However, among Universalist Calvinists there is a different understanding of accountability - or really that humans aren't accountable - rather this is God's grand play and as painful as it is, this pain is necessary for something much greater - namely, the whole universe being conformed into the image of Christ.
I'm not 100% sure I believe that, I find Talbotts arguments for freedom from a universalist perspective quite powerful. We have no control over our eternal destiny, that is God work and Gods choice - but during this life we have a choice whether to step into that Salvation today or not. I think that more or less sums up his ideas.
But I have read some interesting things from a universalist Calvinist point of view - my friend wrote this .
"I believe that God has elected all human beings to be saved. All human beings are of the elect when it comes to final salvation. Only a few are elected to be Christian in this life. Just because God has elected all people to be saved this does not dilute the specialness of being saved. Salvation is not an Olympic event in which only three awards are given out. Salvation is more like the Special Olympics where everyone is a winner.
I think that the idea of moral responsibility for sin comes from Roman pagan jurisprudence. Roman justice depended on the philosophical doctrine of moral responsibility. The Bible, to me, seems to reject this concept. First of all, somewhere in the OT, God commands that sacrifices for unknown sins be offered. According to the Bible a human being can be accountable for sins that he never imagined were sinful. Take what's-his-face who grabbed at the ark to keep it from falling to the ground. God whacked him even though he thought he was doing something good. Also, punishment in the OT is administered corporately, not individually. Both Moses and Daniel accepted responsibility for sins that they did not personally commit. They accepted responsibility for the sins of the people. Many innocent people besides Daniel must have been punished by death or deportation on account of the sins of others. I believe that all of us human beings are in this together. We all will be saved or none of us will be saved. When Israel sinned, everyone was punished. I'm sure that there were some Egyptians who were kind to the Israelite slaves. But they were punished along with those who weren't. When Europe was punished for its sins in WWI and WWII the innocent along with the guilty suffered greatly. Except for the law courts, neither the Bible nor human history appear to support the theory that moral responsibility is a necessary ingredient for the exercise of divine punishment.
This apparent injustice tells me that divine punishment is for the purpose of creating a new man in each of us, guilty sinners or not. We all are being built up in Christ, the New Adam. We are held accountable for sin, even unknown sin and even the sins of others, because of our own brokenness. Because of who we are: children of the rebel Adam. I don't think that we can understand sin if we try to explain life as taking place in a giant courtroom. We are not in a courtroom. We're in a construction zone. And if we are broken we need to be fixed whether we recognize our brokenness or not. Whether we are personally responsible for our brokenness or not.
I believe that God's judgment of us at the Last Judgment will be along the lines of being judged at the Olympic Games, not like being judged in a court of law. Our whole lives will be judged on the basis of God's perfection in order to teach us about God and about ourselves. An Olympic contestant learns a lot about herself if she loses badly. She realizes that she did not grasp the essentials of the sport. She can compare herself with the gold medal winner and see where she went wrong. Sinners will realize that they failed to understand what life is all about. They will be able to see in the light of God's love and holiness where they went wrong. Judgment will be a learning process. What we accomplished with our lives may end up as a heap of ashes, but we ourselves will be saved. We ourselves are loved by God with an infinite love.
Finally, there are two types of sin. One is in the singular and is capitalized: Sin. The other is plural and with a small "s": sins. John the Baptist introduced Jesus as the Lamb of God who would take away the Sin of the world. Sin is singular here, not plural. What is Sin? Sin is grasping at being God. Sin is pride. Sin is being indifferent to God and neighbor. Sin is the inability to love. My conclusion from reading the Bible is that sins are among God's main weapons in His war against Sin. Our sins sometimes do more to cure us of our Sin than anything else. Our sins humble us, humiliate us, like nothing else. The sins connected with alcoholism, for example, shame its victim, shame him who is enslaved by these sins. It is hard to believe that one is better than anyone else, that one is a veritable god, when one has lost everything because of the bottle. Homosexuals are attempting to get public approval of their particular sin because they are so shamed by it. The sin of sodomy will not be punished as this sin IS the punishment. Punishment for Sin. It is meant to heal the person of Sin. This is what Paul says in Romans: "Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen (Romans 1:2-25)." Here, God is said to inflict shameful sexual sins as punishment for idolatry, the main evil of Sin. God doesn't cause these people to commit sins. He simply lets gravity take its natural course. Through the shame of these sins, the sinner will learn humility and his Sin will be revealed to him. This may not happen on this side of the grave, but it will happen. And Jesus says that these big time sinners will be the most grateful for what God has done for them. They will love God with more passion than we who may be forgiven little. Jesus told us that the woman who washed his feet with her tears was a great sinner but because she was forgiven much she loved all the more. The first will be last and the last will be first. So, yes, our sins are God's way of destroying Sin in us, are God's way of healing us. He makes us accountable out of love, not because of some philosophical theory of moral responsibility.
Jesus on the Cross was paying a penalty for our Sin, not so much for our sins. Jesus and his Father were not engaged in some sort of court drama as Jesus was dying on the Cross. The Cross was not planted in a courtroom but in a construction zone. He was engaged in a new Creation, the creation of a New Adam capable of great love and obedience. This creation took 6 hours as opposed to the old creation that took 6 days. When we are fully in Christ we will fully share this new creation. The creation of the old Adam was good, but not perfect. We must be perfect in love as God is perfect in love. Being in Christ gives us this power.
I've been trying to explain a mystery here. The mystery of God's sovereignty and how it relates to His human creatures. I've tried to show that the mystery about this relationship is about creation, not jurisprudence. Sin, judgment, God's sovereignty, human choice are mysteries of creation, not law. "
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chemincreux:
I wish someone like Psyduck could tell us what sort of mind can conceive of mankind as being totally concupiscent? Which is not the tangent it may at first sound, since this leads on to the idea that EVERYONE is basically destined, if not predestined, to hell.
I didn't think it necessary at the time... but could I just clarify that when I said Universalism seemed the only sensible way out, I was talking about universal salvation...
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by m.t-tomb:
Honestly, I post a reply to Mudfrog and can he be bothered to read it?
You wrote your reply at 11.23.
You complained at me not reading it - presumambly you mean not replying - at 13.54.
It is now 14.17.
I am trying to write a sermon before tea time and you want me to put Job to one side to reply immediately. It was an off chance I read this board this afternoon anyway and the likelihood is that I shan't reply soon anyway.
It's not a chat room y'nar pet.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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John Spears
Shipmate
# 11694
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Posted
quote:
Which is what RT Kendall say in his book Out of the Comfort Zone: Is your God too Nice?. Basically he affirms the doctirne particular redemption (election anf reprobation) but says that he wishes it wasn't like that. Essentially, that's what he says...
And that is just what J I Packer says in his essay on Universalism, in fact I've heard many people express similar sentiments.
But in it lies a problem in itself - if we don't worship God for his character - what do we worship him for?
Talbott said "Suppose that Calvin's interpretation of the texts upon which he rests his doctrine of reprobation were exegetically correct. Would that not merely prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that these texts are something less than an infallible revelation from God? I fully appreciate how scandalous some contemporary Calvinists are apt to find such a suggestion. But why should anyone accept the authority of the Bible, or of some text within it, regardless of what the text teaches? Why should I accept the authority of Jesus or Paul, for example, regardless of what they say? If I exhibit such slavish devotion as that, then I ultimately demean the very authority I am seeking to honor; I say in effect that I would believe the Bible even if it were filled with bald faced lies. Many who accept the Bible as a religious authority do so because, as they see it, they have found within it something worthy of human belief; something that inspires the soul and elevates the mind; something that, though it may shatter their preconceptions on occasion, always does so in the lofty way Jesus does when he teaches that we must love our enemies as well as our friends (see Matthew 5:44). If Christians are entitled to regard a text as authoritative for such reasons as these, do they not also have a responsibility to question a text whose teaching seems morally repugnant or unworthy of human belief? Such questioning need not, of course, imply an outright rejection of the text in question. But it will rest upon an implicit disjuction: Either we have misunderstood the text in question, or its teaching is not an infallible revelation from God.
Lest some Christians should consider such questioning impious, I would also point out that certain texts in the New Testament itself seem to endorse this very kind of questioning. In I John 4:1 we read: "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world." The injunction here seems to apply far beyond the immediate context in which it appears; it seems to apply to every spirit, every supposed prophet, every sacred text, and even to the letter of I John itself. Must we not test all of these things, with whatever reason is available to us, to see whether they really are from God?"
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
I think this was also an attempt at humour, Mudfrog. I'm learning to spot the signs.
No need to accuse him of raping 12 year olds in return, or anything...
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
I can't help thinking it's from the sublime to the ridiculous the chatroom and JS's rather lengthy contributions....
any chance of a happy medium?
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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Matt Black
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# 2210
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Posted
Barnabas, thanks for that, it makes a lot more sense to me! So, do we now have a battle of the Pauline proof-texts: Rom 5:17 vs. I Cor 15:22?
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
Possibly they did use bonfires
Bonfires, guns, Cossacks, strarvation, the rack...
quote:
but I was thinking more of the systematic doctrine generated violence; the `burning of witches, the RCC two swords and Unam Sanctam, the Inquisition and so on where bonfires, forced conversion and the slaughter of heretics is mandated.
And I was thinking of the the systematic doctrine-generated violence deployed by the Russian Orthodox church, and by the Tsarist government (which were two sides of the same coin) against millions who dared to either leave it or question it
quote:
The general development from Augustine of the just war doctrine, not that you won't hear Orthodox arguing for it now.
quote:
As for the Old Believers and anti-Semitism, well a lot of that did come in with ideas from the West, as did serfdom.
No, not the anti-semitism of the Old Believers (which some of them certainly had) but the persecution of the Old Believers by the mainstream Orthodox Church.
Nothing to do with the west, or with Protestantism. Mostly doctrinal differences over the authority of the Patriarch over the Bishops. Led to undergoround secret churches soem of which lasted two hundred years, in which Old Belivers met and worshipped without the knowledge And a whole inquisition-like apparatus of Orthodox priests smoking out the heretics. Really very little different from the sort of stuff that went on in the west.
Oh, and the East burned witches too. Though nowhere near as many as the Romans did, it is true. But then England hardly ever burned them either, it wasn't particularly either an east-west thing or a Protestant-Catholic thing
quote:
as did serfdom
Serfdom in Russia was all the fault of the Roman Catholics? ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
quote:
Initially I think Russia became more populated with Jews the worse things got for them in the West and then hate against them was generated in the East too.
So anti-semitism in Russia is all the fault of the Roman Catholics as well?
quote:
Jews feel very much at home in Russian temples -
For once, I think I am speechless.
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Back to predestination v free will?
No, because the "Augustine" you have been criticising is a fictional character. A piece of Orthodox propaganda. A nasty made-up story to persuade the gullible that there is no point in paying any attention to the strange beliefs of those scary Papists or dour Prods.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
(verging towards the ridiculous, mdijon)
Matt Black
Oh I do hope not! I hate proof-text fights, they always degenerate into pissing competitions. (And I hold the school record anyway ...)
Serious point which I picked up from John Spears' posts. Both court and Olympic Games are metaphors for Divine Judgment and probably mirror our hopes and our fears to some degree. Somehow or other we have to make sense of, deal with, the revelation and the tradition. I do it by trusting that the Judge of all the Earth will do Right. Leaving it to Him. He's not Safe, but He is Good. Of course I speak anthropomorphically and by analogy, using my own understandings of Judge, and Right, and Safe, and Good. Hopefully changed and deepened by my 30 year meanderings with God. From a personal POV that's the sort of option we seem to me to be stuck with.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Myrrh
Shipmate
# 11483
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
The forced conversion of unbelievers pre-dates Augustine. There was this little thing called the Edict of Theodosius in the year 380, enthusiastically cheered on by the Orthodox Bishops.
At this time there wasn't the distinction between 'Orthodox' and 'Roman Catholic' so you're talking about the 'undivided Church' of East and West, our common bloody history from the time of Constantine's takeover.
quote:
Between the death of Constantine and the rise of the Dutch Republic there are virtually no examples of Christian polities which tolerated unbelievers. East or West.
As far as I know Orthodox countries like Georgia, which became Christian around the time of Constantine, didn't have any anti-semitism in their history until introduced by the tsars later on. I don't know of any forced conversion in Kievan-Rus as there was by the Roman Catholics in Lithuania, (who fought for nearly a hundred years to keep their freedom) nor have I heard of any antisemitic ideas in those first centuries of Russia's conversion. Until the beginning of the tsars the people were free but as this concept developed by creating a sub-class of 'barons' on the Western model with land given in return for support this later included ownership of the people on these lands.
Influences from the West were coming into the Church even before Peter the Great who is credited with bringing in Latin ideas when he took control of the Church by incorporating it into his governmental system and antisemitism seems to have come in around those centuries too, the rise of the tsars on the Western model.
quote:
Which leads me to suspect that Augustine may not be solely to blame for this.
The same applies to anti-Semitism which can be found in spades in the writings of St. John Chrysostom. Who predates Augustine and appears not to have been got at by the nasty Latins.
So, it appears Chrysostom's virulent antisemitism didn't have the same effect in the East as Augustine's did in the West.
quote:
As to the argument that a backward, despotic and agrarian state needed the influence of the west to introduce serfdom, well that's just fatuous.
Before the tsars Kievan-Rus was a mix of agrarian society and city states, the rulers were chosen by the people so not despotic, and in the IX-Xth centuries there was a great amount of export to Europe. Hardly a backward country any more than many countries in the West. The rise of serfdom comes with the rise of the tsar concept which as I said was modelled on the European system of a single ruler over a 'baron' elite and the subsequent creation of a serf class to service them. The kind of system that the Normans brought into Britain for example.
quote:
Does it ever occur to you Myrrh that there may be evils in the world which are not attributable to the ever fertile pen of St. Augustine?
But it's doctrine we're discussing here, the history is something you can check out for yourself, but there is without a doubt a causal effect from Augustine's doctrines which affected the West in a way which simply did not happen in the East. I'm not interested in discussing the history. I am interested in discussing the doctrine which came from Augustine which was not part of the mind of the Church in the East. I'm sorry, but we are different and there is a reason for the difference. We didn't have Augustine's Original Sin doctrine, we don't see humanity as depraved since Adam and Eve.
How that view of humanity affected the West is not what being discussed here except where it's relevant to mention as example. Take your gripe to an Orthodox board if you want to argue about this.
Myrrh
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Myrrh
Shipmate
# 11483
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Permit me to throw another soterioligical hand-grenade into the pre-existing milieu: going back to the Protestant idea that Adam's sin and its consequences are imputed to all regardless of actual sin and that righteousness is imputed through the substitutionary crucifixion of Jesus, if the condemnation is imputed to all regardless of action why isn't the righteousness likewise imputed to all regardless of action?
As Pelagius argued against the illogical concept of Original Sin.
Myrrh
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and thanks for all the fish
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
The first Jews in Western Georgia arrived in the 6th century when the region was ruled by the Byzantine Empire. Approximately 3,000 of these Jews then fled to Eastern Georgia, controlled by the Persians, to escape severe persecution by the Byzantines...
[ 22. September 2006, 16:49: Message edited by: mdijon ]
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Can we please move the discussion of the evils of Orthodoxy to another thread? Pretty please? I promise I'll pop in there and you can beat me up.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
It's only exaggerated claims to the contrary that draw such a discussion from me, MT. I've ordinarily no desire for such a discussion.
But we were here for Calvinism.... so are the Orthodox Calvinist or Arminian then? My google searches seems to link Armenians with Orthodoxy...
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
mdijon
Looks like a slow long hop to me ......
"The Orthodox are orthodox; the Calvinist/Arminian long-running row is simply a sign that if you misunderstand an Augustinian misunderstanding and transfer it to the Tulgy Wood of protestantism, well, what would you expect? Clarity?"
(Not saying that's my POV BTW, but ...)
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
It's only exaggerated claims to the contrary that draw such a discussion from me, MT. I've ordinarily no desire for such a discussion.
Everybody who derails a thread would say no less.
I'm not sure I quite understand what "Arminian" means so I am not sure if I come down on that particular side or not. As with so many western (if you'll excuse the term) dichotomies, sometimes they line up on either side of a question that just doesn't arise in Orthodoxy because of different presuppositions further back.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by m.t-tomb:
My basic understanding regarding of Arminianism is this: by grace a person's free-will is restored. Their will - by grace - is restored to what is essentially a neutral position regarding the desirability of Jesus Christ for salvation. The person is then - on the basis of their free-will - able to choose one of two things: to beleive or not to beleive. The person is able to resist or to submit to God in Christ, to repent of their sins and proclaim Christ as their Lord.
MUDFROG HERE: No, I disagree. There is no neutral position. Prevenient Grace is more positive than this - it is 'designed' to encourage the person to choose salvation wholeheartedly, not to bring them to a plateau where they then make a rational choice - that would really be salvation by my own choice (works). While prevenient grace is working, the person can choose to follow the leadings and promptings of the Spirit wich will lead to saving grace being given, or they can choose to remain as they were, in unbelief. Unbelief is not a choice, it's the default position.
Basically, the Arminian approach, like Calvinism, maintains that grace is essential for conversion. Humanity is incapable of choosing Christ without God's gracious assistance.
MUDFROG HERE: Agreed; as long as you can make the distincyion between prevenient grace and saving grace. Prevenient grace cannot regenerate anyone. It merely leads to the point where the person repents and 'takes hold' of the grace that is being offered.
Where Calvinism and Arminianism differ is this: Calvinism acknowledges that it is indeed possible to resist God's overtures of intimacy but in addition to this also holds that God can - and indeed does - intentionally overcome our resistance to him. Calvinism holds that God does suffer himself to be resisted; in fact sometimes God will suffer himself to be resisted by some people for their entire lives. However, Calvinism also holds that God also intentionally restores a persons will to the point at which they make the positive decsion that Christ would stimulate in any unfallen heart. Calvinists see this as a restoration of free will, while at the same time acknowledging that any genuinely free decsion concerning Christ would be a positive one.
In a sense irresistible grace is this: it is a degree of grace given by God that makes Christ irresistible, not by suppressing the human will but by empowering the human will.
MUDFROG HERE: So this is the basic question that I and others are asking : why not everyone?
Christ is resistable only by fallen people (we know this!), therefore Christ simply would not be resisted by an unfallen (i.e. completely free) person. Calvinism simply asserts that God restores the human will - by grace (not in actuality) - to the point where it makes the right decision, where it makes the decison that it really would make if it were not hostile to God because of the sinful nature.
So, with regard to reprobation: God allows some people to resist him for a lifetime.
MUDFROG HERE: This is just torture. Giving someone the potential for choice and belief, and yet deliberately leaving them without the ability to make the choice is just cruel. It's like unlocking the prison door but not telling the prisoner to push. I can't see Jesus behaving like this. His mission was to release the captives and open the eyes of the blind. There is nothing about keeping people in blindness so they cannot choose.
And with regard to election: God restores (and overcomes) the resistance of the sinful nature (regeneration) thus empowering the will to make a positive decsion (a decison that any unfallen soul would make) with regard to Christ.
This is what Calvinists mean when we say that God can make us make a free will decision. We mean that God regenerates us (monergism) so that we can convert (free will). However, the conversion itself is predestined because the degree to which God restores the will makes Christ irresistible: the person will choose Christ. And this is not because their free-will has been weakened regarding Christ but because the will has been empowered to the point at which it can make a genuinely wise decision.
This the best I can do for the time being. Hope it helps.
Thanks for your reply.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Myrrh
Shipmate
# 11483
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
The first Jews in Western Georgia arrived in the 6th century when the region was ruled by the Byzantine Empire. Approximately 3,000 of these Jews then fled to Eastern Georgia, controlled by the Persians, to escape severe persecution by the Byzantines...
So Chrysostom did have an effect in the East? The picture is a bit more complicated I think because antisemitism goes back pre-Christianity in the Roman Empire so the Tertullians onward are those who have been happy to be influenced by this, there was a persecution of Jews in Alexandria around 38BC and they were confined to one area of the city, beginning of the ghetto idea?; Tiberius expelled them from Rome and Italy in 16AD and again in Alexandria there was mass slaughter of them in 66AD, 50,000 killed.
http://www.zionism-israel.com/dic/Anti-Semitism.htm
Tertullian was African as was Augustine, Chrysostom lived in the second largest city of the Roman East, Antioch, under the antisemitism influence already in existence during those centuries. Chrysostom I think particularly at fault for his efforts to divide the community by attacking those Christians who also followed Jewish customs. But again, this began much earlier as the Pope Victor (also African) demand that the Jewish calendar traditions from St John be replaced with the system in Rome indicate, but those arguments have me reeling..
Must look up Paul again, I wonder if there was more to his 'in Christ there is no', a political statement perhaps since also at this time the patriarchal system was fully in place among the Jews, Greeks and Romans and Christ promoted the equality of women.
But back to Georgia. The page linked here says there was persecution of the Jews in the mid fifth century in Persia (Babylonia)
quote:
438 Theodosius II, Roman emperor of the East, legalizes the civil inferiority of the Jews.
468 Persecutions of the Jews in Persia (Babylonia).
c. 470 Jews persecuted in Persia (Babylonia) by Firuz, the exilarch, and many Jews killed and their children given to Mazdeans.
So it appears that the Jews weren't secure under any particular government, but at the whim of whoever was ruling in that government at the time?
But the next time antisemitism is mentioned in Georgia is when the feudal system was introduced in the middle ages so perhaps this is what I remembered, that for some centuries there weren't persecutions. And I'm still not sure of this 'Byzantine' persecution, I thought that Georgia had its own monarchy when it became Christian.
Myrrh
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and thanks for all the fish
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Originally posted by Mousethief:
quote:
Can we please move the discussion of the evils of Orthodoxy to another thread? Pretty please? I promise I'll pop in there and you can beat me up.
Mousethief, I have no desire to beat you up. But whilst your co-religionists insist on posting a version of history where everything east of the Landstrasse is sweetness and light and everything in the west demonstrates the malign influence of St Augustine - what one might call, in honour of the Tsarist Russia's most celebrated contribution to Christian-Jewish understanding, the Protocols of the Elders of Hippo version of history - it's hardly surprising that those of us from the west are going to want to post some small corrections and amendations to the thesis.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Myrrh!
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Myrrh
Shipmate
# 11483
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
Myrrh!
![[Cool]](cool.gif)
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and thanks for all the fish
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
But we were here for Calvinism.... so are the Orthodox Calvinist or Arminian then?
Meaningless question. Calvinism in this sense, (i.e. the TULIP Calvinism of the Synod of Dort) and Arminianism are different parties within the Reformed tradition ("Calvinism" in the wider sense). Asking whether the Orthodox are Cavlinist or Arminian is like asking a Chinese person whether they are French or German.
But the wider point is that the distinctive doctrinal elements of those flavours of Calvinism - predestination, the eternity and omnipotence of God, surety of salvation, original sin, prevenient grace & so on - all existed in other forms in the church before Calvin, though maybe the elements were put together differently.
The Reformation didn't invent this theology from scratch, it just took sides in a whole load of disputes that already existed. And in its attempts to suppress the Reformation, Rome found itself taking the opposite side in many of those disputes.
quote:
My google searches seems to link Armenians with Orthodoxy...
The Armenians are a quite separate bunch of people ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
Thanks, Ken
Myrrh - you appear to have convinced me over the last week that
- the Orthodox church is heterodox
- predestination is an invention (perhaps by St. Paul?)
- Orthodoxy has no conception of the Fall
- Pelagius was a sort of ascetic Friar Tuck
- Zionism is fabbo
all of which is great fun, but I really would like to try and understand where Calvinism is coming from. Any chance of that?
Cheers
Ian
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
The Armenians are a quite separate bunch of people
Well at least someone "got it".
Sigh...
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
Myrrh!
Exactly my point too. But I shall desist from further derailing, lest I continue to say what anyone would say.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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