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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Can you be a Christian and a Calvinist?
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
"Free" choice, outside the circumstances of life (over which we have no control) is a fiction.
Then so is morality and this life is a puppet show.
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
I have never been called a Liberal before. How novel.
'Liberal' in the sense of being open to more ideas than your own. Not 'liberal' in the sense of being sceptical about belief/tradition/authority.
quote:
What is the difference between "knowing what someone will do, knowing it will lead them to Hell, being in control of the cirumstances that lead them making such a choice, and not doing anything to stop them" and "choosing that they will go to Hell"? Not very much I submit.
None at all, if circumstance determines choice.
There are, however, at least four other possibilities -
1) That circumstance influences choice, but does not determine it.
Then God gives different people unequal, but non-zero, opportunities to accept his gospel. He does not predestine me to be a Christian by giving me a Bible, literacy, Christian parents, good teachers, excessive credulity, whatever, but does make it very easy. He does not predestine someone else not to be a believer by making them ignorant of the gospel, with a damaging upbringing, and a sceptical nature, but he does make it difficult.
That is a view not without problems, but it seems to me not unbiblical, and much less unjust than strict predestination. I'd rather have some chance than no chance.
2) The choice that God cares about is neither influenced, nor determined, by circumstance.
Our acceptance of God depends on our response to whatever grace He offered us. I have it easy to come to faith, but much will be asked of me for that reason. Someone else, without my chances, might be saved for something so small as having once refrained from sneering at the gospel for the sake of charity.
There seems to me to be some Biblical support for this idea, and I've known several Catholics to express themselves in a similar way. No issue of God's justice arises, though the idea of a particular form of faith being necessary to salvation is challenged.
3) Some form of second chance to make the important choice.
Reincarnation, the chance of escape from Hell, some ideas of Purgatory - uncovenanted mercies generally.
No question of justice here, either, because eventually everyone has the same chance. Not particularly Biblical.
4)Universalism. Choice is irrelevant.
Same problems for freedom as Calvinism, much nicer to believe about God, (slightly) less defensible from scripture (by which I mean, it is more consistent with God's revealed character, but has fewer handy prooftexts).
It seems to me that a strict Bible-believing Christian could consistently accept (1) or (2) and a liberal Christian, any of the above.
The point of my argument is not which of these I believe to be true (2 is probably closest, but that's beside the point), nor that Calvinism is untrue (although I don't conceal the fact that I think it false and detestable) it is that anyone who accepts Jesus under any of these systems is a Christian. And if Christianity has saving grace, then they are all saved.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
would you feel upset to find Universalism was true? I'd be positively gleeful.
If belief always followed desire, I'd be a Universalist. I think God wants Universalism to be true.
God will be much more forbearing, merciful, forgiving and loving than I could ever be or even imagine, but I don't think he forces us to love him. So I can't believe that all will certainly be saved.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
For a being outside time, free will and omniscience are no more incompatable than free will and a video recorder.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
1) That circumstance influences choice, but does not determine it <snip> and much less unjust than strict predestination
I don't see how it is "much less unjust" - you merely assert that some chance is better than no chance. The shades of grey are neverending - and all of them influenced by factors over which only God, and not I, exercises any control. If one goes down this line, one eventually ends up with a form of Calvinism, even if it is not strict 5 points. Maybe it's my new "liberal" form. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
And anyway - I think "free will" without taking into account the many complex factors that effect all of our decision making is a fiction. I've said that already. But it does suggest to me that God isn't as fussed about free will as Arminians make out - or he'd make sure free will could actually be exercised in the same way by everyone.
quote:
2) The choice that God cares about is neither influenced, nor determined, by circumstance.
<snip>though the idea of a particular form of faith being necessary to salvation is challenged.
as are many other ideas which could debate till kingsom come - original sin, the necessity of proclaiming the Gospel, the nature of truth.
This is the best defence IMNSHO - although scarcely compatible with Wesleyan Arminianism.
quote:
3) Some form of second chance to make the important choice.
<snip> Not particularly Biblical.
Indeed.
quote:
4)Universalism.
Well yes - although pretty much Biblically indefensible, I was saying that to me universalism is a good deal more intellectually defensible than Arminianism.
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Scholar Gypsy
Shipmate
# 7210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
1) That circumstance influences choice, but does not determine it <snip> and much less unjust than strict predestination
I don't see how it is "much less unjust" - you merely assert that some chance is better than no chance. The shades of grey are neverending - and all of them influenced by factors over which only God, and not I, exercises any control. If one goes down this line, one eventually ends up with a form of Calvinism, even if it is not strict 5 points. Maybe it's my new "liberal" form.
There does seem to me to be a difference though, between claiming that God judges me on how I respond to circumstances (that are beyond my control) - this is a 'slim' chance of salvation, perhaps - and claming that all illusion of my responding of my own accord is in fact false, and that it won't make much difference anyway because God decided before I was born whether I'd be one of the elect.
In the former, I at least have a very slight measure of control - I can choose to reject God or accept him, to the best of my inborn abilities and in response to my circumstances, but there is still some element of 'my' choosing.
In the latter scenario, God has already chosen, and my life here is essentially meaningless, since nothing I do will affect my final salvation or lack thereof.
Apologies if I have misunderstood your position,
xSx
Posts: 822 | From: Oxford | Registered: May 2004
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leonato
Shipmate
# 5124
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
And anyway - I think "free will" without taking into account the many complex factors that effect all of our decision making is a fiction. I've said that already. But it does suggest to me that God isn't as fussed about free will as Arminians make out - or he'd make sure free will could actually be exercised in the same way by everyone.
I think your view of free will is different from mine. Free will is not the ability to make absolutely any choice - you can't become a Christian if you never hear of Christ, for example. Free will is the ability to appreciate a range of options when you have to make a decision, and making a choice of one of them. Those options may be limited by circumstance, and experience may colour your decision; that doesn't affect free will.
Consider the good Samaritan - did he choose to help the man in need, and was that action good? Can any one of us be a good Samaritan? He did not have the advantages of the Jews that passed by on the other side, his free will was certainly limited, but that didn't stop him from being the one who freely chose to help.
What is the Calvinist view of this parable? If the Samaritan was only good because made him so: he was predestined to that good action, then of what value are faith and charity, if they are merely predestined into us by God?
[ 04. May 2005, 15:13: Message edited by: leonato ]
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leonato... Much Ado
Posts: 892 | From: Stage left | Registered: Oct 2003
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leonato:
Those options may be limited by circumstance, and experience may colour your decision; that doesn't affect free will.
So in your view, free will need not actually be free (as in unencumbered) but it is exercising any choice over anything, even if that choice is basically engineered by a higher power who knew what you would do before you did it, and created the circumstances in which you would do it?
The thing is I have noe problem with Arminianism in this sense really, because if God engineers the choice then he is still in control of who becomes a Christian and who does not. Whether you say "I chose" or "God chose" in this situation, I think it basically amounts to the same thing. Anyway, I've said that a few times, and I think I must not be making myself clear. Grey Face summed up my position correctly at the bottom of the last page - better than I could say it.
quote:
What is the Calvinist view of this parable? If the Samaritan was only good because made him so: he was predestined to that good action, then of what value are faith and charity, if they are merely predestined into us by God?
I'm not sure what you are asking here. The whole point of evangelical Calvinism IS to say that our works are of no value, and that the good works that we do are "prepared in advance for us to do". That doesn't make them any less "good" but they are not a means to an end in proving that we are good.
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
I don't see how it is "much less unjust" - you merely assert that some chance is better than no chance.
What I mean is this:
There are two ideals which are referred to as 'justice': Fair treatment and equal treatment.
Neither predestined 'choice' nor circumstance-influenced choice are equal. People are treated differently regardless of their individual merit. In that sense the two systems are equally unjust. However I'm not sure that God is committed to equal treatment as a principle of his justice (for example, The parable of the workers in the vineyard, or the Prodigal Son), provided he is fair in every individual case - fair objectively not by comparison with other cases.
For God to save a person on the basis of either their acceptance or his election is a free gift - grace. As such it is more than fair. Both systems are equally just here.
However for God to damn someone for their condition, which they could neither help nor avoid, and without the possibility of salvation ever being extended to that person - an eternal decree of reprobation that precedes even their existence - is (if the word has any meaning) most unjust. For God to damn someone for the same condition, but to offer an arbitrary and small opportunity for salvation, so that many are lost, but none necessarily so, may also be unjust in the same way, but not to the same extent. No one can say to God "You never gave me a chance".
Calvinism generally (though not your liberal version of it)is also more unjust than the alternative as it creates the tendency to say that God hates the reprobate, never desires (on any level) their salvation, deceives and hardens them into error, creates them and gives them any grace they have purely for the purpose of increasing their destruction, and does all this to the end that he may increase his glory (that is, as my primary school teachers would have put it, "to show off").
I know you would not say all those things, but londonderry's minister certainly preaches this, describes this poisonous doctrine as 'God's glory', and argues (convincingly, as it happens) that this is, historically, biblically, and logically, true Calvinism.
[ 04. May 2005, 17:04: Message edited by: Eliab ]
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Scholar Gypsy
Shipmate
# 7210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
quote:
What is the Calvinist view of this parable? If the Samaritan was only good because made him so: he was predestined to that good action, then of what value are faith and charity, if they are merely predestined into us by God?
I'm not sure what you are asking here. The whole point of evangelical Calvinism IS to say that our works are of no value, and that the good works that we do are "prepared in advance for us to do". That doesn't make them any less "good" but they are not a means to an end in proving that we are good.
Can I ask you a question, Leprechaun?
If all my good works are 'prepared in advance for me to do', is there any real sense in which I should try to be good/do the right thing? Obviously, I am not suggesting here that I should try to earn salvation, but it seems to me that a belief in the predestination of some to salvation removes any motivation for morality.
Why should I do any good things, if God has already decided I am irredeemably corrupt and wicked? At present, I seek to follow God's will, because he is good and loved me enough to send his son to die for me. If he has already decided I am not saved, Jesus did not die for me, and there is no real motivation for me to please God.
Why should I do any good things, if God has decided I'm saved whatever I do?
Posts: 822 | From: Oxford | Registered: May 2004
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londonderrry
Apprentice
# 9158
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Posted
Eliab: (sorry for taking so long to respond)
quote:
I think I now understand your points about the involvement of the will in salvation - when we are saved our wills respond to God by his grace, not by our choice. Our wills are not free to accept God without his call, nor are they free to refuse Him if he calls us. Please correct me if I misinterpret you.
Yes, God 'bends' our will so that our will (most willingly) conforms to God's will. He makes us willing. The Reformed Confessions teach that:
"But as man by the fall did not cease to be a creature, endowed with understanding and will, nor did sin which pervaded the whole race of mankind, deprive him of the human nature, but brought upon him depravity and spiritual death; so also this grace of regeneration does not treat men as senseless stocks and blocks, nor take away their will and its properties, neither does violence thereto; but spiritually quickens, heals, corrects, and at the same time sweetly and powerfully bends it; that where carnal rebellion and resistance formerly prevailed, a ready and sincere spiritual obedience begins to reign; in which the true and spiritual restoration and freedom of our will consist. Wherefore unless the admirable author of every good work wrought in us, man could have no hope of recovering from his fall by his own free will, by the abuse of which, in a state of innocence, he plunged himself into ruin." (Canons of Dordrecht: Third & Fourth Head of Doctrine, Article 16).
quote:
I then understand you to be saying that any theology which does not agree to this, and grants to man the free will to refuse the call of God is not a Christian theology at all but rather a damnable heresy in which no man can be saved.
Any gospel that conditions salvation on the 'free will' of man is not the Truth and therefore the lie. The gospel is salvation conditioned only on the life and blood of Jesus Christ. Any 'gospel' that credits man with part of the glory is stealing God's glory and promoting the lie of human sovereignty. The reformers were not shy to say with Paul in Galatians 1:8 that "though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." The greatest ecumenical (in the good sense of the word) assembly of the Reformation charged arminians with bringing "again out of hell the Pelagian error." Pelagianism in all it's forms is a damnable heresy.
quote:
Thus no Arminian protestant (or Catholic, or Orthodox, or any derivative thereof) is really a Christian and they are all (unless God has predestined them to repentance) lost.
Unless they repent of the false gospels taught within their respective churches, they will surely perish. I am saying this as one who was raised in the Roman Church and who spent 12 years in Catholic education. If God had not granted me repentance from that false gospel, I would have perished.
Reformed only in Him,
Sean, N. Ireland
www.cprf.co.uk
Posts: 26 | From: Northern Ireland | Registered: Mar 2005
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Custard
Shipmate
# 5402
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by xSx:
Can I ask you a question, Leprechaun?
If all my good works are 'prepared in advance for me to do', is there any real sense in which I should try to be good/do the right thing? Obviously, I am not suggesting here that I should try to earn salvation, but it seems to me that a belief in the predestination of some to salvation removes any motivation for morality.
Why should I do any good things, if God has already decided I am irredeemably corrupt and wicked? At present, I seek to follow God's will, because he is good and loved me enough to send his son to die for me. If he has already decided I am not saved, Jesus did not die for me, and there is no real motivation for me to please God.
Why should I do any good things, if God has decided I'm saved whatever I do?
I'm aware I'm not Lep, but I generally agree with him and I'll have a go at answering, if I may.
We should seek to do good for exactly the reasons you outline, because of what God has done for us. Good works are a necessary outworking and sign of God's regenerating grace in the hearts of those who have been predestined to be saved.
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blog
Adam's likeness, Lord, efface;
Stamp thine image in its place.
Posts: 4523 | From: Snot's Place | Registered: Jan 2004
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Gordon Cheng
a child on sydney harbour
# 8895
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Posted
Just to be another non-Lep adding to the Lep reply: also we seek to do good because we call Jesus "Lord". If we don't seek to do good, then we don't really believe he is Lord. If he isn't our Lord, he hasn't died for us. If he hasn't died for us, we're not saved.
[ 08. May 2005, 08:33: Message edited by: Gordon Cheng ]
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Latest on blog: those were the days...; throwing up; clerical abuse; biddulph on child care
Posts: 4392 | From: Sydney, Australia | Registered: Dec 2004
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Gordon Cheng
a child on sydney harbour
# 8895
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Posted
quote:
originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
[me:] I wonder if the divine simplicity consists in God's desire for his own glory—expressed when he is seen as being true to his own revealed word— rather than (our versions of) what justice and mercy must look like.
I don't see this. If God's glory is unsurpassable, how can He seek glory by any other means than simply being Who He is?
I'm not sure what you mean by "seen as being true to his own revealed word" either. Surely His own revealed word should be true to Him, not the other way round?
I suppose I am assuming an identity between God and his Word. If this is true I think it solves the problems you raise. Essential to being who he is will be keeping his own Word. His Word will be true to him, and he will be true to his Word.
I am assuming in this that the only source of knowledge of God’s Word is scripture. But then I would, wouldn’t I? ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Latest on blog: those were the days...; throwing up; clerical abuse; biddulph on child care
Posts: 4392 | From: Sydney, Australia | Registered: Dec 2004
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by londonderrry:
Any gospel that conditions salvation on the 'free will' of man is not the Truth and therefore the lie. [...] Unless they repent of the false gospels taught within their respective churches, they will surely perish.
Prove this to me in scripture.
I don't mean:
1) I want you to prove that Calvinism (any variety) is TRUE. You may assume this to be the case.
2) That 'salvation by works' is heresy or damnable. I accept that it is heresy (damnable or not I leave to God), but I don't equate belief in free will with salvation by works.
3) That heresy is a bad thing. I am fully in accord with you that any denial of the truth is serious.
What I mean is - show me where it says, clearly and beyond dispute, in the canon of scripture, that those who believe in free will necessarily perish.
If you can't (because it isn't there), then please explain at what date, and by which other competent authority, God first gave this doctrine or interpretation. Again, I don't mean, "when was it first said that we don't have free will?", but "when it was it first a doctrine of the church that those who believe in free will necessarily perish?".
By 'free will' here I mean freedom to reject God's salvation (not free will in any broader sense), and in 'necessarily perish' I include 'saving that they repent'.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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londonderrry
Apprentice
# 9158
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Posted
Eliab:
I could quote the entire book of Galatians for starters. Did Paul treat the Judaizers (who incidently believed in the divinity of Jesus Christ) as brothers? Why not? What was their principle error?
Reformed in Him,
Sean, N. Ireland
www.cprf.co.uk
Posts: 26 | From: Northern Ireland | Registered: Mar 2005
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Carys
Ship's Celticist
# 78
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
I am assuming in this that the only source of knowledge of God?s Word is scripture. But then I would, wouldn?t I?
The prime source of knowledge of God's Word is the Word made flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, scripture is a prime source of knowledge about him, but so is the Church. We encounter the risen Lord in worship, in the liturgy of the Word and the Eucharist.
Carys
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O Lord, you have searched me and know me
You know when I sit and when I rise
Posts: 6896 | From: Bryste mwy na thebyg | Registered: May 2001
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by londonderrry:
I could quote the entire book of Galatians for starters. Did Paul treat the Judaizers (who incidently believed in the divinity of Jesus Christ) as brothers?
Well, he's scathing about their errors, just as he is about the errors of Peter and Barnabas. And he condemns anyone who "preaches" a different gospel. The body of the church, many of whom believed this error are referred to variously as "the churches of Galatia", "O foolish Galatians!" and "brethren".
So, on balance, a qualified yes. Paul may have made an exception for the teachers of a false gospel (assuming 'accursed' to mean 'damned', which it may not) but broadly, the erring Galatians who thought they really had better get circumcised and avoid pork were Paul's brethren.
And I note that St Peter was condemned for avoiding the uncircumcised brothers, not (and this is absolutely crucial) for not avoiding the Judaizers.
quote:
What was their principle error?
They thought being a Christian meant keeping the Jewish law (of which the test observance was circumcision). Paul points out that they can either try to please God through perfect law keeping (impossible) or accept His grace by faith.
The whole point of the letter seems to me to be predicated on the fact that this was a real (ie, free) choice for the Galatians, but that aside, it has no bearing at all on the point in issue between us, because belief in free will is not a 'work of the law'.
We can't tell from the letter whether the Galatians believed in free will or not. Sure, if you assume that a theoretical belief in free will is an exact parallel to legalistic belief in circumcision, you can draw the conclusion that free will is contrary to the gospel. But that's a game anyone can play. If I assert (which I don't) that belief in Calvinism is 'a different gospel' Galatians supports my position just as well as yours.
What I've asked you to show me, and which I believe does not exist, is scriptural support for the proposition that no one who believes in free will can be saved.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Luigi
Shipmate
# 4031
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Posted
As far as I can see according to londonderry, God chooses who he wants to save, and seeing as all those who believe in free will won't be saved, God therefore chooses that most of the human race will believe an error. What a foolish God! Most bizarre.
Certainly those londonderry is arguing with cannot be held responsible for what they think, it was God's decision after all!!
Luigi
Posts: 752 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
Gordon,
quote:
I suppose I am assuming an identity between God and his Word. If this is true I think it solves the problems you raise. Essential to being who he is will be keeping his own Word. His Word will be true to him, and he will be true to his Word.
How do you have an identity between God and the Bible? As I understand it, the Word of John 1 refers to something in Jewish Wisdom literature, about which I know little.
The Word as Scripture is a separate matter. Unless you're going to make Scripture into the fourth Person of the Trinity, the Scriptures (even from a con-evo position) must be caused by and subordinate to the Godhead. Hence, the Bible must reflect the nature of God, not the other way round, and you still have to explain the conflict within His nature.
quote:
I am assuming in this that the only source of knowledge of God’s Word is scripture. But then I would, wouldn’t I?
Wot Carys said. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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londonderrry
Apprentice
# 9158
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Posted
Eliab:
quote:
Well, he's scathing about their errors, just as he is about the errors of Peter and Barnabas. And he condemns anyone who "preaches" a different gospel.
Yes, he is scathing because it is a "different gospel" and there is only one gospel that is the power of God unto salvation (Rom 1:16).
quote:
The body of the church, many of whom believed this error are referred to variously as "the churches of Galatia", "O foolish Galatians!" and "brethren".
Paul here is labouring with the Galatians and imploring them to put away this false gospel and speaking to them organically. Yet he is extremely clear that those who will be led away with this "other gospel" are "accursed" (Gal 1:8) and "false brethren" (Gal 2:4). If someone who is a member of the church (like Peter) persisted in their damnable error (be it denying the Lord or conditioning salvation on works) than such a person (after being confronted: Matt 18:15-17) should be "cut off" (Gal 5:12) and excommunicated by the church. This is exactly what the Reformed Synod of Dordrecht did with the Arminians. They were confronted with their error (in love) and disciplined accordingly when they persisted in their heresy.
quote:
So, on balance, a qualified yes. Paul may have made an exception for the teachers of a false gospel (assuming 'accursed' to mean 'damned', which it may not) but broadly, the erring Galatians who thought they really had better get circumcised and avoid pork were Paul's brethren.
Those brethren who persisted in their error were not Paul's brothers. He makes this very clear over and over again. "Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing" (Gal 5:2). Paul is not merely speaking about those who were already circumcized... but those who were trusting that their circumcision (works) would aid in their salvation. There can be no doubt that "whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace" (Gal 5:4).
quote:
And I note that St Peter was condemned for avoiding the uncircumcised brothers, not (and this is absolutely crucial) for not avoiding the Judaizers.
"And that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage" (Gal 2:4). Paul is speaking of the Judaizers in clear terms. The Judaizers were aliens to the gospel and came as a spy from a foreign land would come with the intent to enslave the church and bring it into ruin.
quote:
The whole point of the letter seems to me to be predicated on the fact that this was a real (ie, free) choice for the Galatians, but that aside, it has no bearing at all on the point in issue between us, because belief in free will is not a 'work of the law'.
Anything that a man does is a work of that man. The sin of the Judaizers is the same sin (in principle) of requiring water baptism to be saved or that I say "boo boo ba" three times in my head in honor of the Trinity in order to be saved. Salvation cannot be conditioned on a work of man. Our repentance and belief is a gift... but not our gift to God, but God's gift to us. It also is a work... of God.
"Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent" (John 6:29).
quote:
We can't tell from the letter whether the Galatians believed in free will or not.
What we can quite clearly see in Galatians is that the concept of a conditional gospel is "another gospel." When we condition salvation on man, we put man on the throne and rob God of His glory in salvation. Heidelberg Catechism 30 speaks of such people:
Question 30:
Do such then believe in Jesus the only Saviour who seek their salvation and happiness in saints, in themselves, or anywhere else?
Answer:
They do not; for though they boast of him in words yet in deeds they deny Jesus the only deliverer and Saviour: for one of these two things must be true that either Jesus is not a complete Saviour or that they who by a true faith receive this Saviour must find all things in him necessary to their salvation."
quote:
What I've asked you to show me, and which I believe does not exist, is scriptural support for the proposition that no one who believes in free will can be saved.
Scripture is very clear on the point.
"For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them" (Gal 3:10).
Reformed in Him,
Sean, N. Ireland
www.cprf.co.uk
Posts: 26 | From: Northern Ireland | Registered: Mar 2005
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Gordon Cheng
a child on sydney harbour
# 8895
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Gordon,
quote:
I suppose I am assuming an identity between God and his Word. If this is true I think it solves the problems you raise. Essential to being who he is will be keeping his own Word. His Word will be true to him, and he will be true to his Word.
How do you have an identity between God and the Bible? As I understand it, the Word of John 1 refers to something in Jewish Wisdom literature, about which I know little.
No. I'm not arguing that God and Scripture are to be identified — at least, not without several qualifying intermediary steps that remove the possibility of absurd misinterpretations of that statement.
I am, as you picked up, alluding to John 1 and yes, probably Proverbs 8. But the Jewish wisdom literature background can't I think alter the unqualified identification that the passage itself makes between Jesus and the Word.
quote:
The Word as Scripture is a separate matter. Unless you're going to make Scripture into the fourth Person of the Trinity, the Scriptures (even from a con-evo position) must be caused by and subordinate to the Godhead. Hence, the Bible must reflect the nature of God, not the other way round, and you still have to explain the conflict within His nature.
As for the connection between the Word of God incarnate, the Word of God spoken and the word of God enscripturated; the identification is not absolute. But the connection is very tight indeed, and the puzzle created for the reader by John's use of "logos" (the word) in John 1 (and the associated "logos/logoi" vocabulary of the entire gospel) is surely intentional on John's part. The Word/word perfectly expresses the being of God: there is no part of this expression which is inadequate, misleading, or surplus to requirements. The expression of the Father's will in his word perfectly and exhaustively expresses his inexhaustible and inexpressible glory, life, love, grace, truth, justice and mercy.
Therefore for God to be bound by what his word says is in reality no binding or subordination but simply his expression of his divine freedom to pursue his own glory— that is to say, he gains glory for himself by being true to his free and perfect self-expression.
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Latest on blog: those were the days...; throwing up; clerical abuse; biddulph on child care
Posts: 4392 | From: Sydney, Australia | Registered: Dec 2004
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
To the rest of you,
This will be a fairly long post ending in a very simple question - feel free to skip to the end. In fact, since it'll end in the same question I've already asked twice without a clear answer, feel free to skip the whole thing unless you are labouring under the delusion that londonderry is right.
To londonderry,
quote:
londonderry:
...If someone who is a member of the church (like Peter) persisted in their damnable error (be it denying the Lord or conditioning salvation on works) than such a person (after being confronted: Matt 18:15-17) should be "cut off" (Gal 5:12) and excommunicated by the church.
This is a red herring. I'm not talking about church discipline, but salvation. I'll answer this on another thread if you think it important and care to kick it off.
quote:
Those brethren who persisted in their error were not Paul's brothers. He makes this very clear over and over again.
And yet he calls them brethren <pause for skim read of the epistle> at least nine times. There are two other passages in which he expands on their status as sons of God (thus implicitly brothers of all other sons of God), and he also addresses them as ‘my little children' (4.19) and refers to ‘the household of faith' (6.10). Every one of those affectionate references is to the whole church (explicitly so, in 3.26). I'm prepared to allow you an implicit exception in the case of preachers (not believers) of the legalist error, but no more.
If I can attempt to summarise the letter in one sentence it would be "You are all sons of God whom he has set free, and you are all in danger of falling away by going back to the old law - stop it". If you can get from the actual text that Paul is referring separately to two groups of Galatians, you are reading it with your eyes closed.
quote:
"And that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage" (Gal 2:4). Paul is speaking of the Judaizers in clear terms.
No he isn't. Read the verse in context. The false brethren aren't the ones troubling the Galatians, in fact they aren't in Galatia at all.
The 'false brethren' are infiltrators into the church at Jerusalem who had challenged Paul years previously, causing him to give an account of his message to some of the apostles. They are mentioned because the result of their challenge supports Paul's argument that his message has the sanction of the apostles - it is the true gospel. The 'false brethren' may not even have been Judaizers (though I think they probably were, given the context), they could have been pagans, gnostics, deniers of the resurrection, or supporters of any other error.
quote:
Our [...] belief [...] is a work of God. "Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent" (John 6:29).
Nice. The power of out-of context quotation has never been so clearly demonstrated. Here's what it really means:
Jesus tells the crowd to "labour...for the food which endures to eternal life". They want to know what work he requires and ask "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?". The quotation gives the Lord's answer. ‘Works of God' here plainly mean ‘works appertaining to' God, not ‘work which God does'.
But since I do agree (and, indeed, assert) that there is a sense in which our faith is God's gift to us, and not our work, I don't press the point too strongly. What is in issue, and what John 6.29 does not address, so cannot resolve either way, is whether the gift of faith is one we can reject, or one which God forces on us.
quote:
quote:
Eliab:
What I've asked you to show me, and which I believe does not exist, is scriptural support for the proposition that no one who believes in free will can be saved.
Scripture is very clear on the point.
That's what I've challenged you to show. Since the letter to the Galatians does not mention free will, or a belief in it, at all, it won't do.
Your arguments all require an identification between ‘works of the law' and ‘belief in free will'. It was not, as far as I remember, commanded by Moses that "Thou shalt believe in free will", thus that is not, in the literal sense, a work of the law.
Is it at all parallel to Judaising legalism? Well, firstly there is no reason to conclude (as Paul does in the case of circumcision) that accepting free will requires a man to obey the whole of the law, a principal part of his argument. Indeed, Paul's real objection to ‘works of the law' is that they oppose the idea of Christian freedom. To Paul, a man under law is in bondage, a slave and the son of a slave, compared to whom the Christian is a freeborn son and heir. By definition belief in free will does not have the effect of removing freedom.
Nor is there any sense in which belief in free will (in itself) involves the idea that salvation is earned or merited. I believe as strongly as you or St Paul that the gospel is grace, a free gift, undeserved and unconditional. I differ from you (not, I think, from the saint) in thinking it is an unconditional gift which we are free to refuse.
I do not think that there is anything in scripture which states CLEARLY that belief in free will (that is, expressly belief in free will, not some other error which you hold is similar, but expressly belief in free will) is damnable. Can you prove me wrong on this point?
And the supplemental: If you can't - if scripture is in fact silent on the point - aren't you closer than I am to the Galatians' error of adding an additional requirement to the gospel - in their case obedience to Jewish law, in your case, disbelief in free will?
[ 09. May 2005, 14:30: Message edited by: Eliab ]
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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londonderrry
Apprentice
# 9158
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Posted
Eliab:
quote:
This is a red herring. I'm not talking about church discipline, but salvation. I'll answer this on another thread if you think it important and care to kick it off.
No. The reason the Judaizers were disciplined and “cut off” was because they were preaching “another gospel” (Gal 1:6) and were to be put out from the church unless God granted them repentance. The conditional “gospel” is a works gospel that cannot save, for exactly the reason Paul explained in Galatians. “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified” (Gal 2:16).
quote:
And yet he calls them brethren <pause for skim read of the epistle> at least nine times.
Paul is speaking to the “churches of Galatia” (Gal 1:2) organically and more specifically to those whom Christ gave himself for (1:4). He speaks to the Galatians as brethren in the context of the gospel that he preached to them and which they received (Gal 3:2). He is not suggesting that the Judaizers or those unrepentantly carried away with their error are brothers. Paul in fact makes it clear that those who make their works a basis for their salvation are “children of the bondwoman” (Gal 4:31) and not the spiritual children of Jerusalem (4:26). They glory in their flesh and not in Christ (Gal 6:13-14). Those who glory in themselves and not in God manifest themselves as bastards and not the true children of God. Arminianism (Free Will) is entirely about glorying in the work of man. It is all about who gets the glory in salvation… God or man. Does God receive the glory for initiating my salvation or does man?
quote:
No he isn't. Read the verse in context. The false brethren aren't the ones troubling the Galatians, in fact they aren't in Galatia at all.
Yes context. Paul is writing to the Galatians churches that are being plagued with the very same heresy dealt with at the Jerusalem Council. Paul is bringing the point up in Galatians because it is the very same heresy and the very same infiltration that is infecting the church like a plague. Just as Sarah implored Abraham to “cast out the bondwoman and her son” (Gal 4:31), so too the Galatians were to cast out those who would seek to entangle the church with the “yoke of bondage” (Gal 5:1).
quote:
And yet he calls them brethren...
You are clouding the issue. Paul addresses them as “brethren” as he is speaking to the church organically. Anyone preaching or believing “any other gospel… than that which we have preached unto you” was “accursed” (Gal 1:8). There were most clearly two groups in the Galatian churches… those in the spirit and those in the flesh (Gal 3:3). Those in the spirit were to “cut off” (Gal 5:12) those who trusted in the flesh, whether they were false preachers or false brethren.
quote:
Nice. The power of out-of context quotation has never been so clearly demonstrated. Here's what it really means:
What is the context? The crowd is coming to Christ to ask “what shall we do, that we might work the works of God?” Jesus is reminding them of the work of faith which is a greater miracle than the feeding of the multitudes and it is a “work of God.” The command to “labour” and to “repent and believe” are the obligations of men to their creator… but the gift of faith is a work of God that is given graciously. It is only through this gift of faith that our works are acceptable in the sight of God.
quote:
That's what I've challenged you to show. Since the letter to the Galatians does not mention free will, or a belief in it, at all, it won't do.
This is because you fail to understand the message of Galatians. It is not merely a warning to the Galatians and us today about the error of circumcision (as if this would have any relevance today), but that when one conditions salvation on an act of man, be it circumcision, baptism or free will, it is a gospel that cannot save as it is requiring the works of the law which can never save.
quote:
Is it at all parallel to Judaising legalism? Well, firstly there is no reason to conclude (as Paul does in the case of circumcision) that accepting free will requires a man to obey the whole of the law, a principal part of his argument.
When we condition salvation and oblige others (as a condition) to exercise their “free will” (as if the natural will is free at all) than we are in effect making our fulfillment of the law (instead of Christ) the means by which we are made righteous in God’s site. To condition salvation on any part of the law is to put a man under the entire yoke of it. “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Gal 3:10).
quote:
Indeed, Paul's real objection to ‘works of the law' is that they oppose the idea of Christian freedom.
Yes, Freedom in Jesus Christ. Only in Christ are we truly free and not as a result of our own works and labours. Conditioning salvation on our own works and labours is bondage to the unrighteous nature of those works. It stands in opposition to the freedom that we have in the finished work of Christ on the cross, because it shows that we are not resting in Christ and trusting in Him alone, but upon ourselves.
quote:
To Paul, a man under law is in bondage, a slave and the son of a slave, compared to whom the Christian is a freeborn son and heir. By definition belief in free will does not have the effect of removing freedom.
No. Free will denies what the Scriptures teach about the natural man, that he is spiritually dead and unable and unwilling to come to God of himself. To claim that my faith is my own gift to God is to make me a thief and a liar. I am stealing the credit for what only God can do and asserting the righteous nature of my will to make a righteous decision. It only indicates that such a person has not been humbled before God… or why else would they fight so hard to claim the credit for initiating salvation, rather than giving all the glory to God? Does God or man get the glory for initiating salvation? If God gets the glory than what is the purpose in insisting on an alleged “free will”?
quote:
Nor is there any sense in which belief in free will (in itself) involves the idea that salvation is earned or merited. I believe as strongly as you or St Paul that the gospel is grace, a free gift, undeserved and unconditional. I differ from you (not, I think, from the saint) in thinking it is an unconditional gift which we are free to refuse.
No. To suggest that I can initiate my own salvation, makes “my choice” the deciding factor in whether God can save me or not. It makes God a beggar who stands outside the heart of man, begging to be allowed to come in. God is not on his knees before man but sovereignly ruling on his throne over all things. A work is anything that a man does and by claiming that my baptism or supposed righteous (free) “will” is the condition of my salvation credits me with something that is unique (as opposed to my unbelieving neighbor down the street.) Arminianism is nothing more than a modification of Pelagianism.
quote:
And the supplemental: If you can't - if scripture is in fact silent on the point - aren't you closer than I am to the Galatians' error of adding an additional requirement to the gospel - in their case obedience to Jewish law, in your case, disbelief in free will?
I have already given you many verses to prove the point, but you are unwilling to see that everything a man does is a work. A work is something that we do… whether it’s walking down the street, thinking or believing. Galatians is clear that “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse” (Galatians 3:10). When God commands us to believe and we make “our” work of belief the condition of salvation, we are putting ourselves under the curse of the law. God cannot be our sovereign king when we reject his sovereignty.
Reformed only in Christ,
Sean, N. Ireland
www.cprf.co.uk
"The Sovereignty of God is the stumbling block on which thousands fall and perish; and if we go contending with God about His sovereignty it will be our eternal ruin. It is absolutely necessary that we should submit to God as an absolute sovereign, and the sovereign of our souls; as one who may have mercy on whom He will have mercy and harden whom He will." Jonathan Edwards
Posts: 26 | From: Northern Ireland | Registered: Mar 2005
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
Londonderry,
quote:
Those in the spirit were to "cut off" (Gal 5:12) those who trusted in the flesh, whether they were false preachers or false brethren.
KJV: 'I would they were even cut off which trouble you.'
The RSV has 'mutilate themselves', the NIV 'emasculate' themselves.
It seems to me that more modern reading of the text is that Paul is making a grim joke (cf. Joseph Heller, God Knows, "We want you to kill them, not convert them. We don't care if you bring back the whole prick", IIRC) rather than making a judgment on salvation.
I'm not sure that this text supports all you want it to say, and is in any case limited to false (and, from 6.12-13, insincere) preachers, not their misled (and sincere) followers.
quote:
you fail to understand the message of Galatians. It is not merely a warning to the Galatians and us today about the error of circumcision (as if this would have any relevance today), but that when one conditions salvation on an act of man, be it circumcision, baptism or free will, it is a gospel that cannot save as it is requiring the works of the law which can never save.
Can we agree that there is no scripture that EXPRESSLY deals with the heresy of belief in free will?
I'll concede that you can read this into Galatians, on the basis that theirs was an error of a conditional gospel, but you have to concede that I can just as easily read into the same text a condemnation of your exclusivist gospel on the basis that it is adding a requirement of salvation. We are both doing this on the basis of theology we believe on other grounds and are bringing to the text of Galatians - we aren't getting our theology from that text.
The reason I believe your interpretation is flawed is that you have set out a caricature of 'Arminian' belief which I simply do not recognise as being relevant to anyone I know. You say:
quote:
Those who glory in themselves and not in God manifest themselves as bastards and not the true children of God. Arminianism (Free Will) is entirely about glorying in the work of man. It is all about who gets the glory in salvation… God or man. Does God receive the glory for initiating my salvation or does man?
and:
quote:
I [as the hypothetical Arminian] am stealing the credit for what only God can do and asserting the righteous nature of my will to make a righteous decision. It only indicates that such a person has not been humbled before God… or why else would they fight so hard to claim the credit for initiating salvation, rather than giving all the glory to God? Does God or man get the glory for initiating salvation?
And in this you are wrong, not about theology, but about fact. I've believed in free will, and worshipped in churches that teach it, all my life, and never have I thought that the man initiates salvation, or gains the glory of it, or exercises the righteous nature of his will to make a righteous decision, or refused to give any of the glory of the gospel to God. I don't think, as a Christian, I am for that reason one whit better than any non-believer, I don't think I deserve any credit for believing, and I don't see my salvation as anything other than God's free gift. You may not see how I can believe in this, but the fact is, I do, and so do all other (Arminian-esque) Christians that I know. Arminianism is not (whether by intention, logical necessity or psychological reality) a denial of God's glory.
quote:
If God gets the glory than what is the purpose in insisting on an alleged "free will"?
I don't insist on free will. Belief in free will is not part of the gospel. You don't believe it, and you are saved. I think free will is true, that belief in it underpins all moral reasoning, that disbelief in it challenges God's justice (and therefore his goodness and glory) and that it is my daily psychological experience, but I don't insist that you have to agree with me to be a Christian.
quote:
Free will denies what the Scriptures teach about the natural man, that he is spiritually dead and unable and unwilling to come to God of himself.
Free will doesn't deny the teaching that 'the natural man, that he is spiritually dead and unable and unwilling to come to God of himself' because I accept that teaching. Three examples:
1) St Peter had no power to free himself from jail. Only God could break his fetters and spring the prison door. However once God did this, St Peter was free - and he could have stayed inside.
2) Lazarus had no power to raise himself from the dead. When the Lord called him, he was free to stay in the tomb or to stumble towards the light.
3) I have a happy marriage. I don't claim any credit for that. I know very well what a mess I would have made of things without God's grace and my wife's tolerance of my faults. I am not in the slightest a better person than many others whose marriages have failed. I couldn't be where I am on my own strength, but I do nonetheless have the power to screw the relationship up if I want to. All I have to do is reject the love offered to me and leave.
That is what I mean by free will - not that I'm good or wise, nor that I have any power to accomplish the smallest part of my salvation in my own strength. I simply mean that I could have said 'no' to God and he would not have forced me to love him.
quote:
It makes God a beggar who stands outside the heart of man, begging to be allowed to come in. God is not on his knees before man but sovereignly ruling on his throne over all things.
What a sublime and beautiful image! God is on his knees before man.
God on his knees:
God on his knees as he washes his disciples' feet from all uncleanness.
God on his knees at prayer in the garden, awaiting his arrest.
God on his knees as he stumbles under the weight of the cross.
God on his knees as he woos the Church, his holy bride.
Why do you think that God's awesome humility does anything other than exalt his glory over all creation?
Can't you see that the Kneeling God has more majesty than the Master of Puppets?
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Custard.:
We should seek to do good for exactly the reasons you outline, because of what God has done for us. Good works are a necessary outworking and sign of God's regenerating grace in the hearts of those who have been predestined to be saved.
1) How can they be "necessary" if one is Saved regardless?
2) If I have no desire in my heart to do such things, should I still do them based on my having read the Bible, or should I accept that I'm not (and never going to be) Saved and just live how I want?
3) Basically, if I'm NOT Saved, why should I do good?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
Gordon,
Since the exam period is coming up for me, I think that after this post I'm going to have to bow out of this discussion. Thanks very much for your responses though.
quote:
I am, as you picked up, alluding to John 1 and yes, probably Proverbs 8. But the Jewish wisdom literature background can't I think alter the unqualified identification that the passage itself makes between Jesus and the Word.
Clarication: I don't dispute that Jesus is the Logos. However, I understand the word logos to refer to two separate concepts - I'm not sure that you can necessarily intertwine the two as closely as you are doing. Admittedly this is an area where my knowledge is very shaky.
quote:
Therefore for God to be bound by what his word says is in reality no binding or subordination but simply his expression of his divine freedom to pursue his own glory— that is to say, he gains glory for himself by being true to his free and perfect self-expression.
I would have thought that the expression is essentially subordinate to the thing being expressed. Unless I'm missing something.
To clarify: I am arguing that an apparent contradiction in God's nature violates His simplicity. You replied that the alleged tension in His nature is because what I am identifying as His justice and mercy are subordinate to His seeking glory.
But if God is unsurpassably glorious, then to seek glory He can't do anything other than be Himself - if He had to do something "special", that would imply that He was not inherently sufficiently glorious already. Hence you are thrown back to the contradiction in His nature.
Similarly, as I say, ISTM God's self-expression in the Bible is determined by His nature.
You are also assuming that the Bible unequivocally teaches Calvinism. I would say that it is ambiguous on the matter. The alternative is surely to say that the entire Catholic and Orthodox churches, alongside a good proportion of Protestants, are either intellectually dishonest or unable to read for comprehension.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
What a sublime and beautiful image! God is on his knees before man.
God on his knees:
God on his knees as he washes his disciples' feet from all uncleanness.
God on his knees at prayer in the garden, awaiting his arrest.
God on his knees as he stumbles under the weight of the cross.
God on his knees as he woos the Church, his holy bride.
Can't you see that the Kneeling God has more majesty than the Master of Puppets?
Indeed. It is a beautiful image. But can't you see that it's beauty dervies from the fact that God isn't under compulsion to kneel at our feet, driven to it as a last desperate and mostly ineffective measure, but chose this way of rescuing his people?
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Gordon Cheng
a child on sydney harbour
# 8895
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Gordon,
Since the exam period is coming up for me, I think that after this post I'm going to have to bow out of this discussion. Thanks very much for your responses though.
That's fine, I've been enjoying it a great deal and all the best for your exams!
quote:
I would have thought that the expression is essentially subordinate to the thing being expressed. Unless I'm missing something.
Functionally subordinate but not ontologically, I think. In the same way as the Son is not ontologically subordinate to the Father. Or is the shine subordinate to the sun from which it issues, to borrow from Athanasius?
quote:
You are also assuming that the Bible unequivocally teaches Calvinism. I would say that it is ambiguous on the matter. The alternative is surely to say that the entire Catholic and Orthodox churches, alongside a good proportion of Protestants, are either intellectually dishonest or unable to read for comprehension.
A pity the Orthodox didn't have much time for Augustine. And that Aquinas chappie has a lot to answer for! ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Still, let's not get too carried away with the differences, shall we? Calvin and the other Reformers proposed no change whatsoever in the doctrine of God, Christology, creation, incarnation, and quite a lot more besides. In the area of soteriology and anthropology they were proposing a return to Augustine and attempting to demonstrate that the church had obscured some key understandings that had been present in one way or another since the beginning. And as for the predestination thingy, pace Londonderry, it wasn't a belief held by Calvin as necessary to salvation per se.
Study hard and do well!
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Latest on blog: those were the days...; throwing up; clerical abuse; biddulph on child care
Posts: 4392 | From: Sydney, Australia | Registered: Dec 2004
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Scholar Gypsy
Shipmate
# 7210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
Just to be another non-Lep adding to the Lep reply: also we seek to do good because we call Jesus "Lord". If we don't seek to do good, then we don't really believe he is Lord. If he isn't our Lord, he hasn't died for us. If he hasn't died for us, we're not saved.
Sorry to take so long to get back to this.
Thanks for your reply, Gordon, but I don't understand.
I don't see why I can't seek to good, believing Jesus is Lord and then find out 'oops, you're not one of the Elect'. Then what was the point in me being good, denying myself for my whole life?
Either, Jesus did die for me because he died for everyone and that is an act worthy of all praise and worship and obedience, or he did not die for me (or I cannot know whether he did or did not) in which case, what do I do?
I also think that you've got your order mixed up, in the bit I've quoted above. I'm not saved because I call Jesus 'Lord', but I can call Jesus 'Lord' because he saved me.
Posts: 822 | From: Oxford | Registered: May 2004
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Custard
Shipmate
# 5402
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Custard.:
We should seek to do good for exactly the reasons you outline, because of what God has done for us. Good works are a necessary outworking and sign of God's regenerating grace in the hearts of those who have been predestined to be saved.
1) How can they be "necessary" if one is Saved regardless?
"necessary" in the logical sense i.e. that it is part of the character of saving faith to produce good works.
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2) If I have no desire in my heart to do such things, should I still do them based on my having read the Bible, or should I accept that I'm not (and never going to be) Saved and just live how I want?
We cannot know that we aren't saved - our response should be to repent and throw ourselves on God's mercy (which would therefore demonstrate the Spirit working in our heart).
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3) Basically, if I'm NOT Saved, why should I do good?
If someone does not have the Holy Spirit, there are things that might motivate them to appear to do good.
However, anything that does not come from faith is sin, so if you are not saved, you are incapable of doing good.
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Stamp thine image in its place.
Posts: 4523 | From: Snot's Place | Registered: Jan 2004
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by xSx:
I don't see why I can't seek to good, believing Jesus is Lord and then find out 'oops, you're not one of the Elect'. Then what was the point in me being good, denying myself for my whole life?
Can I answer, even though I'm not a Calvinist?
The question doesn't apply, because the view is that all grace comes from God. If you seek to do good because that is God's will* then that is because God has given you the gift of the ability and desire so to do. If you believe Jesus is Lord, then that is because God has given you the gift of that belief, and to step outside Calvinism and into one stream of Catholic thought for a moment, if through good works you come into ever-closer union with God, that is because God gave you the ability and desire to do good works.
* Note that this is open to multiple interpretations. It could in my humble opinion mean that a non-Christian can do good out of such faith in Christ as has been given to him, for example, if he recognises that God is good.
I've another question, this time for my fellow believers in free will. It seems to me that the free will approach in Christian thought is not that our decisions are at root random events but rather that in making a decision we chose according to our innermost nature, hence free will rather than will. When we make a free decision we are uninfluenced by whatever power prevents us from choosing God.
If this is the case then is it not true that in order to be lost we must reject God in our innermost nature, and yet as God made us... does this collapse to double predestination or does it in fact support an argument I once saw, that the contradiction between God's universal salvific will and the possibility of damnation, is inherent in Creation, that the only way God can make blessed creatures is to make a universe of some sort in which some creatures will be lost?
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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Custard
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# 5402
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Posted
I'm officially agnostic on free will.
But how do people who believe in it explain how it works? What part of the brain doesn't follow the (deterministic / probablistic) laws of physics? Is there a pineal gland?
[ 10. May 2005, 15:47: Message edited by: Custard. ]
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Adam's likeness, Lord, efface;
Stamp thine image in its place.
Posts: 4523 | From: Snot's Place | Registered: Jan 2004
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Custard: quote:
I'm officially agnostic on free will.
That's what you think...
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
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londonderrry
Apprentice
# 9158
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Posted
Eliab:
quote:
The RSV has 'mutilate themselves', the NIV 'emasculate' themselves… I'm not sure that this text supports all you want it to say, and is in any case limited to false preachers.
The traditional translation of the text is entirely fitting and proper. Paul writes in Gal 5:9 that ‘A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.’ It is time to cut out the leaven that is troubling you, so that you are not led astray from the Truth. With regards to your suggestion that this is limited solely to false preachers. Where does the text say this? The idea that Paul would allow the church to tolerate heretical members, but not heretical preachers runs contrary to his whole message. If what is being preached by the Judaizers (Gal 1:8-9) is “another gospel” than their followers are guilty of believing and propagating “another gospel” and not the Truth. They need to be confronted in love and told to repent. If after labouring with them, they do not repent; the church needs to exercise the third mark of the true church (discipline.) They need to be “cut off” from the fellowship and communion of the church so that they realize the serious nature of their heresy. What good would Paul’s instructions be if he was going to allow the Judaizers to be full members of church in spite of the fact that they were in the “yoke of bondage” (Gal 5:1)?
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Can we agree that there is no scripture that EXPRESSLY deals with the heresy of belief in free will?
No. Because Galatians is speaking about works gospels and it is just as relevant as us talking about “vegtables” but than saying that this has nothing to do with broccoli, carrots or peas. Galatians has little relevancy or purpose today if it is merely speaking about the sin of requiring circumcision. Where does such error even exist in the world today?
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I can just as easily read into the same text a condemnation of your exclusivist gospel on the basis that it is adding a requirement of salvation.
Believing that salvation is entirely of God’s grace is not the cause or condition of my regeneration, but the fruit that is manifest by those who have been born again. I do not believe in order to be born again, but I believe because I have been born again. How could a dead man think or stand up unless he has first been granted life?
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We aren't getting our theology from that text.
I grant that no Scripture should be taken in a vacuum, but that the message of Galatians with it’s dire warning to those holding a conditional gospel is echoed in many, many other places in Scripture.
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The reason I believe your interpretation is flawed is that you have set out a caricature of 'Arminian' belief which I simply do not recognise as being relevant to anyone I know.
Does a Roman Catholic walk around and say “I’m an Idolater”? No… that would be silly to suggest. Of course an Arminian does not walk around saying or even thinking in his head “I’m going to glory in my flesh and not in Christ.” But when he believes that salvation hinges on his work of faith than that is in effect what he is doing… whether he will admit that or not.
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And in this you are wrong, not about theology, but about fact. I've believed in free will, and worshipped in churches that teach it, all my life…
Again, I would suggest that Arminians would be the first to say that “salvation is all of God’s grace”… but what they give with one hand, they take with the other. Inevitably they will condition that sentence with the word “but”…. “but YOU have to believe” or “but YOU have to accept Jesus into your heart”. By doing so they are claiming that man can do something righteous. If their “belief” is not righteous than of necessity it must be unrighteous and offensive to God. If the arminian is not concerned about personal credit than why do they not attribute God as the sole giver of every good gift… including their faith and belief… and the choice to exercise that faith and belief? Why do they fight so hard for an act of “their” will as opposed to giving God due credit? You suggest that arminians do not try to take away God’s glory, but who do they give glory to with reference to the specific act of “choice”? Is it God’s choice or my choice? If it’s mine than why should God (outside of a false piety) be given the glory for something that I created of myself? Scripture teaches that Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2) and there can only be one author who is credited.
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I don't insist on free will...
Apologies, I wasn’t very clear. I understand that you are not insisting that I must be an arminian to be saved. But you are fighting tenaciously that man be given the credit for something that is good (again… faith must be good or else it would be repugnant sin to God). Does it not strike you as strange why you are fighting so hard for your own glory (regarding this one specific act), instead of God’s glory. Pink once pointed out in his volume of total depravity that there is nothing that can be said that is too harsh, regarding the wicked nature of the natural man. Why than are we arguing over “what man can do” when Scripture is clear that man can do nothing (Romans 3:11)?
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Free will doesn't deny the teaching that 'the natural man, that he is spiritually dead and unable and unwilling to come to God of himself…
It most certainly does. By suggesting that a mere creature is able to frustrate and defeat the will of the creator, you are teaching that man is not entirely dead at all. Man still has life within himself to analyze his situation and decide whether or not to “accept” God’s grace. How could a man make such a determination and decision if he was entirely captive to sin? With regards to your examples… your spin on them amounts to this. God gives us a cheque, but we have to decide whether or not to cash it. Again, this makes man the judge and arbitrator of whether or not he is going to become saved. This judgment that ultimately leads to his salvation and not his neighbors… leaves room for boasting. Why am I saved and not my neighbor? If God died for us both, desired our salvation equally and poured out his grace in equal measure, than what exactly led to my being saved, while my neighbor remains in the bonds of iniquity? Ultimately it comes down to “my” decision and therein lies my conditional salvation of works.
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What a sublime and beautiful image! God is on his knees before man.
Jesus was on his knees washing the disciples feet as the suffering servant and it was only on the judicial basis of what He was going to do on the cross that He showed compassion and mercy to those whom He chose. In other words the basis of God’s mercy is Himself and can only be Himself. Arminianism presents God as a beggar to man on the basis of that man’s individual worth and righteous ability to decide whom to follow. Jesus was on his knees to perform an act of kindness for some, but it was an act of humility and not one of subjection. Free will makes God captive to man’s decision and makes man his very own “little god”…. or as you may prefer to say “his very own little puppet master of himself.” Man was brought into existence without his consent… man was born in a specific place without his consent… man was born in a specific time and era without his consent. The lesson to be learned in this is that (in the words of the Heidelberg Catechism) we are not our own, but belong unto our our faithful savior. The chief end of man is not his own pleasure but the glory of God. Arminianism presents a very small and limited god that is subject to man’s will. Such worship of the human will can be nothing less than idolatry as it substitutes God’s efficacious grace and desire with “what I decide to do.” "Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing" (Gal 5:2).
Reformed only in Him,
Sean, N. Ireland
www.cprf.co.uk
Posts: 26 | From: Northern Ireland | Registered: Mar 2005
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
Leprechaun,
quote:
Indeed. It is a beautiful image. But can't you see that it's beauty dervies from the fact that God isn't under compulsion to kneel at our feet, driven to it as a last desperate and mostly ineffective measure, but chose this way of rescuing his people?
With all my heart, yes. What makes God’s humility such an unanswerable challenge to human pride is that it is absolutely unnecessary. He can achieve anything by mere power, but chooses to conquer through love.
GreyFace,
quote:
I've another question, this time for my fellow believers in free will. It seems to me that the free will approach in Christian thought is not that our decisions are at root random events …
I think I agree – at least, I would deny any identification between ‘free’ and ‘random’. God’s actions are free but not random. A lunatic’s actions are random but not free.
quote:
… If this is the case then is it not true that […] the only way God can make blessed creatures is to make a universe of some sort in which some creatures will be lost?
I’m not sure if it is the only way, but I think it is the way he has chosen with us. If God wants creatures to freely choose to love him, it is unavoidable that there is a risk that they will not. Of course, I hope that his love, patience and self-giving will in the end result in the complete triumph of God and that even the most stubborn and self-willed soul in hell will bow the knee and call him Lord in love and repentance. I do not say that this will happen – but I hope for it.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
Londonderry,
quote:
With regards to your suggestion that this is limited solely to false preachers. Where does the text say this?
This is how I understand ‘they … which trouble you’. You don’t (by this text) get cut off for believing in circumcision, but for unsettling your brother by telling him to be circumcised. I don’t say Paul would tolerate error in any church member, just that this particular verse is not authority for saying that anyone holding the error is damned.
quote:
Because Galatians is speaking about works gospels and it is just as relevant as us talking about “vegtables” but than saying that this has nothing to do with broccoli, carrots or peas.
It’s more that Galatians is talking about carrots (=circumcision) - you apply the teaching to all salad vegetables (=conditions) and I apply it to all root vegetables (=additions) - you think courgettes (=Arminianism) are included, and I don’t, because I don’t think they are meant, and I don’t put courgettes in salads (=think Arminianism is ‘conditional’ in your sense) anyway.
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How could a dead man think or stand up unless he has first been granted life?
No chance at all. But a live man can choose to stay down. We’re fully agreed that no one has free will to save themselves, we differ only on whether anyone has free will to refuse to be saved.
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Does a Roman Catholic walk around and say “I’m an Idolater”?
You will not, I’m sure, be surprised to learn that while I am not a Catholic, and probably share many of your misgivings about Catholicism, I think that Catholics can and will be saved. The question of Catholic error is a can of worms I’m going to open, except to say that a Catholic is a good witness of what it is Catholics actually do and believe. You can call what they do ‘idolatry’ if you like, but I think you have to inform that judgment with Catholic testimony on their own beliefs.
quote:
Of course an Arminian does not walk around saying or even thinking in his head “I’m going to glory in my flesh and not in Christ.” But when he believes that salvation hinges on his work of faith than that is in effect what he is doing… Again, I would suggest that Arminians would be the first to say that “salvation is all of God’s grace”… but what they give with one hand, they take with the other.
I can only give my own testimony that it is not so. I do believe salvation is entirely a work of God. I have never believed that it was anything else.
Believe me, I know precisely how little credit I deserve for being Christian (that is, none at all).
quote:
If the arminian is not concerned about personal credit than why do they not attribute God as the sole giver of every good gift… including their faith and belief… and the choice to exercise that faith and belief? Why do they fight so hard for an act of “their” will as opposed to giving God due credit?
For myself, not to glorify any man, but to glorify God. You see, I really do believe that it reflects better on God that the lost were given a chance to accept him, than that they were created for eternal punishment. If it was simply a matter of giving God credit, I would surrender immediately, but it isn’t. I believe in free will as a corollary of my first, fundamental, principle that God is good.
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With regards to your examples… your spin on them amounts to this. God gives us a cheque, but we have to decide whether or not to cash it.
Yes. As someone who often forgets to cash cheques, that’ll do very well as an illustration of what I mean. The question is, is the cheque for wages, or is it a gift? I say it’s a gift. If I forget to cash it, my forgetfulness does not diminish the giver’s generosity. If I remember to cash it, I can claim none of that generosity as my own. The glory is God’s all the way.
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Again, this makes man the judge and arbitrator of whether or not he is going to become saved. This judgment that ultimately leads to his salvation and not his neighbors… leaves room for boasting.
Maybe, but that’s a perversion of what I believe. I could say that God’s election gives you reason to boast because you must have been special – which would be a perversion of what you believe. Either of us could boast, but we would both have to reject the truth to do it.
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Arminianism presents a very small and limited god that is subject to man’s will.
A question – if God, in the exercise of his sovereign will, wanted to give you a free choice to accept him or not, who would stop him?
Obviously, no one can stop God doing this. He can do it even if (especially if) he is all powerful.
I think he does do this, because I think that a God who did not give the lost any opportunity for salvation would be less good than a God who did, and I will not at any price believe that God is less than perfectly good.
You think he does not, because you think that if he did he would be untrue to his word and you will not at any price believe God to be untrue.
There must be a way in which we are, fundamentally, both right. God is both good and true.
Now since we believe that, since we both believe God’s promises, since we both love Jesus and accept (willingly or not) his gift of salvation, since we both declare that it is by his grace, and no work of ours, that we were saved, since we could, I am sure, both attest to the presence of God’s Holy Spirit in our lives - aren’t we both Christians?
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I’m not sure if it is the only way, but I think it is the way he has chosen with us. If God wants creatures to freely choose to love him, it is unavoidable that there is a risk that they will not. Of course, I hope that his love, patience and self-giving will in the end result in the complete triumph of God and that even the most stubborn and self-willed soul in hell will bow the knee and call him Lord in love and repentance. I do not say that this will happen – but I hope for it.
I think there's a problem with this, though, and I think I'm going to end up supporting Calvinism in a limited fashion here. I'll open by agreeing with everything you wrote.
What is it that chooses? Freedom to choose implies an absence of coercion. If God can affect what happens in our lives, then this implies that God will remove anything that gets in the way of our making an uncoerced choice, even if that happens after death.
However, are we not left with some part of us choosing that is at the core of our being, our innermost selves if you like, what we would prefer? Here's the difficulty - who made that innermost self? There's only one Creator. I'm almost in Calvinism now but I see a problem there too.
Can omnipotent God not change that innermost core from hatred of God to love of God? This is where the logical impossibility lies, perhaps, in that changing the innermost core of a person might make them no longer that same person. I've always believed that if you swapped the brains of two people, the identity would go with the brain rather than the rest of the body. Maybe something like this goes with this innermost core at a spiritual level.
If this is true then we're back in the same position as St Paul, wondering why God would make anyone destined for destruction, if any are. I think I can attempt an answer - that it is better for someone to exist and be lost than never to exist at all, more loving for God to create the potential person than not to bother. I don't like the answer but it's better than the alternative.
Have I given up free will to get this far? I don't think so. Free will becomes actually chosing what we want according to our natures - which we don't choose. But I do think a lot of the gulf between Calvinism and not-Calvinism is reconciled if we consider that if God made someone knowing they would never freely choose him, it was still done out of love. Where Calvinism and I part company sharply is in the assertion that grace is not offered freely to all, that Christ's sacrifice was not for all, and so on.
I hope for Universalism to be true, but if it's not the case, this is a worldview I can cope with.
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
I'm not sure if this observation will help, since much of the fascinating discussion about this has been at a detailed, logical level. Theologies derived from scripture may be classified, I think, as "open" or "closed".
Open theologies recognise an element of mystery, of unknown, of "seeing through a glass darkly", as an inevitable part of the human condition. In other words, scriptural revelation may be sufficient, but it does not answer all questions. Closed theologies strive to extract a complete revelation from scripture and will push the logic of argumentation to extremes in order to achieve this degree of completion.
I find deep in myself an attraction for an open theology, because it seems to be consistent with my calling as a disciple (i.e. a learner). Learners never arrive at complete understanding in this life. It seems consistent with following Jesus to accept this "always learning" position. So I have this huge discomfort when reading some of the Calvinist contributions to this thread - which seems to exclude any value in my learning. God is "Father" to me, and a good Father. In my own fathering, I have always taken delight in my children's learning. I have always wanted the best for them. But not to deny them the privilege and joy, the darkness and tragedy, of living life to the full. I am open to their success and their failure and want to be there for them whatever.
Are such analogies naive? The Jesus I follow calls Father Abba. Daddy. I do not see "Daddy" in the picture of God the Calvinists have painted from scripture. Yet I do see God as "Daddy" in the picture of God my Saviour brings to me. Does "Daddy" play games with us - telling us that salvation in Jesus is open to all, when it is in some way already a closed book? I find that to be a horrible thought.
And if logic pushes you to this sort of conclusion, I want to ask a simple question. Is it not pushing you too far? Too far away from "open". Too far towards "closed".
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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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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
GreyFace,
I think a full answer to all your points is (1) beyond my powers and (2) deserving of its own thread.
Here are my first steps (a non-Calvinist viewpoint is assumed here, not argued for) -
The idea of the 'innermost core' of a person is crucial in your analysis. I'm not sure how useful or necessary that idea is. We never meet anyone's innermost core, not even our own. I can't say for certain how much of my personality is 'innermost', and how much is due to external environmental, genetic and spiritual influences. Assuming an innermost core, what must be included are the very deepest of our values. The core being the thing that chooses, it must contain the mechanism of choice, and that is value.
I think you assume the innermost core must be immutable. I'm not sure. I think we can change. That this makes us 'no longer the same people' I do not think is a strong objection. I think that in Heaven I will look back on myself now with a similar sort of affectionate horror as I now get when looking at photographs of me when I was five. "It's me, but how could I have been like that?" Continuity over these changes is maintained if we see moral development and degeneration as God bringing to fruition a particular work that he has started, or alternatively, a corruption of such a work. God made me with a particular nature, but it's a error to call that nature good or bad - it can become either. Our essential character is like a great piece of music that is beautiful if well played, and excruciating if played poorly.
Our everyday moral choices affect not only what we do, but also what we value, and thus the choices we will make in future, so influence the values we hold, but consistently with the development or the corruption of a given personality. The Christian assumption is that through our own sin (as well as, in most traditions, some sort of original sin or total depravity affecting our starting condition) we have learned to be poor players, and our values have therefore been distorted.
Salvation, the acceptance of God's grace to change, is a higher order choice. It does not depend on a particular set of values, or on our having a particular nature, it is a choice of what sort of nature (pure or corrupt) we will have. Those who reject God's grace are not compelled to reject it by any inherent flaw (that is not to say they have no such flaws - they do, but so do the saved) but because even when given the grace to see something of what they are and what they might be they still choose darkness rather than light. God could over-ride their will, and make them prefer the light, but the model assumes that God wants us to choose, not merely to adopt his choices.
In trying to describe what criteria we use to make that choice, I fail. Our souls are the courts in which God argues the case for his goodness, and our judgment for him is triumph. What we use to make the judgment, I can't say. There is, on my hypothesis, nothing else that we do that is remotely comparable.
Could God have chosen only to create those souls that would make the right choice? Of course. It is, of course, possible that he did so choose and that all those who were created will make that choice in the end - but we have no scriptural warrant for it. Assuming that some will remain stubborn for all time, my answer (no more than a guess) would be that those souls are still unique and precious works of God which he would, if only they would let him, lead into a particular sort of perfect goodness that no other finite being could reach. And that God, having conceived such goodness, is bound by his nature to attempt to realise it. But I don't know. I hope all will be saved.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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londonderrry
Apprentice
# 9158
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Posted
Eliab:
quote:
You don’t (by this text) get cut off for believing in circumcision, but for unsettling your brother by telling him to be circumcised.
I am not suggesting that anyone who believes in circumcision is not saved, but that anyone who believes it is a condition for salvation is not saved. I'm sure there are Christians who practise circumcision for medical/cultural reasons. There is no difference (with reference to the heretical error) between a preacher who is a Judaizer (except his responsibility is greater) and a layperson who is a Judaizer. They both believe the very same conditional gospel and Paul's admonition would apply to them both.
quote:
I don’t put courgettes in salads (=think Arminianism is ‘conditional’ in your sense) anyway.
I hope that you do not, yet Arminians answer the question "What must I DO to be born again" with their own effort of faith. We do not believe in order to be born again (as if we could differentiate ourself before God), but because God in His sovereign mercy has already made us born again. Again, if Colossians is merely talking about conditional circumcision, the book has very little relevance for us in the 21st century. Such an interpretation dulls the blade of God's word so that it's essentially meaningless for us today.
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we differ only on whether anyone has free will to refuse to be saved.
Is the will of the Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth ever frustrated by puny man? God created ten thousand universes with a word and yet man is going to stop God's desire right in it's tracks? Either God is sovereign over everything or man stands on an equal footing with God in this respect.
"Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?" Romans 9:21
"But he is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth." Job 23:13
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I think that Catholics can and will be saved.
The gospel of Rome is essential arminian, so arminians generally cannot see the damnable nature of the Roman Catholic gospel.
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You can call what they do ‘idolatry’ if you like, but I think you have to inform that judgment with Catholic testimony on their own beliefs
It's not merely me that says that Scripture condemns Roman Catholicism as idolatry. So do all the Reformed Creeds.
"the mass, as bottom, is nothing else than a [e] denial of the one sacrifice and sufferings of Jesus Christ, and an accursed idolatry." (Heidelberg Catechism Question 80)
"And, therefore, such as profess the true reformed religion should not marry with infidels, Papists, or other idolaters."
(Westminster Confession of Faith CHAPTER XXIV).
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I can only give my own testimony that it is not so. I do believe salvation is entirely a work of God.
If one believes that God is unable to save them, without their consent than they are in fact worshipping their own will and also guilty of idolatry.
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I believe in free will as a corollary of my first, fundamental, principle that God is good.
Man in Adam made his choice in Eden. While Adam was Righteous and Holy... we are not. By nature we are the children of our father the devil and in bondage to sin. You are letting your own presuppositions determine who God must be. The Scriptures reveal God and He is the Divine Potter.
"Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?" Romans 9:18-21
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The question is, is the cheque for wages, or is it a gift? I say it’s a gift. If I forget to cash it, my forgetfulness does not diminish the giver’s generosity. If I remember to cash it, I can claim none of that generosity as my own. The glory is God’s all the way.
A cheque is not actually anything other than a worthless piece of paper with a PROMISE of payment. Christ not only makes the elect the heirs of the promise (and all things with Him) but bestows a new will which conforms to the will of God and will not refuse God's gift. What is the purpose in God desiring to bestow something good on someone (salvation) when he does not bestow the means (conforming our will) of the bestowal. What exactly makes me different from a reprobate somewhere else in the world who will never desire salvation? Scripturally, nothing but the grace of God.... but according to Arminianism... my wise choice.
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I could say that God’s election gives you reason to boast because you must have been special...
You could say anything, but it doesn't mean there is truth in your words. What you said would only be true if the Reformed Faith taught in it's confessions that we were chosen because "we were special". The Confessions teach total depravity and the grace of God in salvation. There is nothing to boast about except God's grace in Jesus Christ. Arminianism on the other hand denies the total depravity of man, because he believes there is something good in the natural man. Is that not an accurate description of the difference?
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A question – if God, in the exercise of his sovereign will, wanted to give you a free choice to accept him or not, who would stop him?
The idea that God wills to change Himself makes God's changeable. Scripture teaches that God does not change.
"For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed." Malachi 3:6
What you are proposing must necessitate a change in God as you are suggesting that God provides man with freedom that he has no sovereignty over, but accepts and RESPONDS accordingly. In responding to man, God must change accordingly.
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Obviously, no one can stop God doing this. He can do it even if (especially if) he is all powerful.
No. Because Scripture teaches that God cannot deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13). God is All Powerful in the proper sense that He can do everything that His righteous will desires to do. God does not will to change or give others sovereignty over his plans and desires. That would be surrendering something of who God is and remove God from His throne and control over all things. How can we say God is in control when not all things are really in His control?
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I think he does do this, because I think that a God who did not give the lost any opportunity for salvation would be less good than a God who did, and I will not at any price believe that God is less than perfectly good.
Does all of mankind deserve eternal damnation in hell for original sin or not? Why is God obliged to give anyone "any opportunity for salvation"? Is God in some way indebted to the natural sons of Adam who joined Satan in His rebellion? The denial of total depravity leads to such a conclusion because the goodness of man must lead to God's obligation to man. Jesus said that "Ye must be born again" and this happens through the Word of God. Do all have an opportunity to hear the Word of God or are you going to suggest that those without the Word will all be saved (or judged on the basis of their good works?... as if man could merit anything with God through works.)
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There must be a way in which we are, fundamentally, both right. God is both good and true.
No. I believe you are in serious error. Arminianism is not a petty theological difference or else it would merely be a show of pride and arrogance. There can only be one true gospel that saves and Scripture teaches that "as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse" (Gal 3:10). The arminian gospel teaches that man has to just believe and obey one command of God to be saved: "Believe". Scripture teaches that man cannot obey even this small command because he is in bondage to sin (Rom 3:11).
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Now since we believe that, since we both believe God’s promises, since we both love Jesus and accept (willingly or not) his gift of salvation, since we both declare that it is by his grace, and no work of ours, that we were saved, since we could, I am sure, both attest to the presence of God’s Holy Spirit in our lives - aren’t we both Christians?
God's promise includes the unilateral nature of the covenant where God walks alone (Abraham sleeping) in making an obligation based solely on Himself (Genesis 15:12-21). When we deny that man is sleeping and assert that man is walking with God in the midst of the carcases, we are obliging our own destruction when we disobey God (which we do everyday). Man cannot gain God's favor by obeying the least of God's commandments as man is a debtor to the whole law of God... and when man makes his keeping of the law the judicial basis for his own salvation, he is condemning himself to destruction. I have no desire to consign anyone to hell (as if that was my place at all.) But Scripture condemns arminianism as I have pointed out as it condemns all conditional gospels... where man "must do this or that". Salvation is either free or a partial obligation on the part of God.
Reformed in Christ,
Sean, N. Ireland
www.cprf.co.uk
John Owen: "Neither let any deceive your wisdoms, by affirming that they are differences of an inferior nature that are at this day agitated between the Arminians and the orthodox divines of the reformed church ... you will find them hewing at the very root of Christianity ... one church cannot wrap in her communion [Augustine] and Pelagius, Calvin and Arminius ... The sacred bond of peace compasseth only the unity of that Spirit which leadeth into all truth. We must not offer the right hand of fellowship, bur rather proclaim ... ‘a holy war,’ to such enemies of God’s providence, Christ’s merit, and the powerful operation of the Holy Spirit" ("A Display of Arminianism," Works, vol. 10, p. 7).
Posts: 26 | From: Northern Ireland | Registered: Mar 2005
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
Some good points there - and there's also Custard's last question which deserves an answer. However at the moment I do not have sufficient time or sleep to do either (see 'shipmates expecting' in All Saints for explanation ![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif) ), but I'll be back after a few days.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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leonato
Shipmate
# 5124
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by londonderrry:
... yet Arminians answer the question "What must I DO to be born again" with their own effort of faith.
No, they don't. you seem to be attacking a straw man version of Arminianism. It does not say that salvation is attained by our choice: salvation remains the free gift of grace. Arminianism says that it may be possible to refuse that grace. If God forces us to conform to his will and to accept grace then of what worth is that grace?
To me, God's grace is meaningless if it is limited to an unconditionally predestined elect. Why should God choose some to be saved and some damned purely on the toss of coin, which is what unconditional election amounts to?
Arminianism questions this idea of unconditional election. It simply says that God has a reason for saving some and not others. This must be based on some acceptance or rejection of God, or on the merits of our faith and/or actions, or something else. Arminianism doesn't say what the conditions are, merely that they exist.
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leonato... Much Ado
Posts: 892 | From: Stage left | Registered: Oct 2003
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
Custard,
quote:
Originally posted by Custard:
I'm officially agnostic on free will.
But how do people who believe in it explain how it works? What part of the brain doesn't follow the (deterministic / probablistic) laws of physics? Is there a pineal gland?
I take this means ‘free will’ in a broader sense - all our decisions, not just the acceptance of God's grace?
I’m not sure that science can conceive any model that is not at base either deterministic or probabilistic (how could physics of sub-atomic events, which is what I assume you are talking about, provide a test for free will?), but of the two only determinism is a problem for free-willers. A probabilistic model presents no difficulty at all – if sub-atomic events do not follow fixed, mechanical laws, then there is scope for an independent will which is not deterministic influencing them. I’m not arguing that a probabilistic theory proves free-will (of course it does not), but the door is at least open to it. If basic reality is probabilistic, free will can be exercised with no violation of the ‘laws’ of physics. My understanding is that the determinist alternative (a ‘billiard balls’ model of reality) is not what scientists currently believe. I certainly don’t believe it.
I don’t account for free will by supposing that there is necessarily a part of the brain that ignores the laws of physics, rather I believe that the laws of physics (in their current formulation by scientists or in the best possible scientific formulation that might in future be conceived) are not violated by the exercise of free will. However if science does advance to the point where that belief is refuted, I would have no hesitation in believing that free will still exists by the miraculous intervention of God.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
Londonderry,
Am I right in supposing that your take on Calvinism implies a determinist philosophy generally, not just that our ‘decision’ to have faith is determined? I say that firstly because you had earlier accepted that a Christian (St Peter) might fall away but would be predestined to repent, and that you believe in a very narrow (compared to me at least) set of beliefs which is compatible with saving faith. Thus our spiritual acts and opinions would seem to need a fairly high degree of micromanagement for predestination to work.
Also, the argument from God’s sovereignty seems to me to be just as valid for every event whatever as it is for the decision of faith. If I cannot refuse God’s grace (because that would deny his sovereignty) it must follow that I cannot do anything against God’s will at all. Adam’s fall, Satan’s rebellion, and all the sins of history were therefore intended by God.
I think it is quite possible for some Calvinists to hold a view that our eternal destiny is immutable, but where not inconsistent with that, our actions are free, however your logic would seem to exclude this. Am I right?
quote:
Originally posted by Londonderry:
Is the will of the Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth ever frustrated by puny man? God created ten thousand universes with a word and yet man is going to stop God's desire right in it's tracks? Either God is sovereign over everything or man stands on an equal footing with God in this respect. […] "But he is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth." Job 23:13
This is the central question, and my answer is ‘yes’. I think that I (and any other person) can frustrate the eternal purpose of God by refusing salvation. I don’t think this implies any lack of power for God (it is he who allows me the choice) nor that it gives me grounds for saying I earn salvation (I don’t, it is a gift) or that God is changeable (he isn’t).
I’m not persuaded by the proof text. If there is one book of the Bible that cannot be safely used for proof texts it is Job. The book is a debate between five human participants, none of whom are in possession of the fundamental facts which provoke the debate. The writer of the book does not (I think) intend us to take any of the human parts of the discourse as an expression of settled doctrine, rather as the closest that each of the participants is able (or wishes) to approach the truth from a position of basic ignorance. Job’s attitude (and it is Job speaking in your quote) as a whole is both approved by God (42.7), but also repudiated by Job once God has answered him (42.3). Unfortunately, we are nowhere told precisely what specific statements are approved, and what repudiated – probably because it is not doctrine as such that is in issue, but rather faith in God’s essential goodness. The lesson is in the whole debate, and God’s answer to it, not in select quotations.
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If one believes that God is unable to save them, without their consent than they are in fact worshipping their own will and also guilty of idolatry.
This statement seems to me to be in the same class as ‘Calvinists believe that God is evil’ or ‘Atheists do not believe in moral values’. It may be arguable that these are the logical ends of Arminianism, Calvinism and atheism, but as a matter of fact all are untrue – adherents of these faith positions do not generally draw those conclusions, however compelling they may seem to an outsider. I think Calvinists believe things about God that (if true) make him evil, but I fully accept that you do not consciously worship an evil God. You manage to persuade yourself that he is good. I don’t know how you can possibly do that, but I accept you do it in good faith. Please return the courtesy by accepting that even if you can’t see how I manage it, I believe that salvation can be refused without thereby worshipping or glorying in my own will.
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quote:
Eliab:
I could say that God’s election gives you reason to boast because you must have been special...
You could say anything, but it doesn't mean there is truth in your words. What you said would only be true if the Reformed Faith taught in it's confessions that we were chosen because "we were special". The Confessions teach total depravity and the grace of God in salvation.
That was my point. I know very well that orthodox Calvinists (the oxymoron is intended) do not think this. It would be a false caricature of Calvinism. Similarly, the ‘Arminian’ position that boasts of man’s contribution to salvation is a caricature. I don’t believe in it, nor does anyone I know.
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"Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?" Romans 9:18-21
This is unquestionably your strongest point, and I confess at once that this is for me one of the hardest passages in scripture. Clearly it is true, a potter has exactly that power, and so, by analogy, does God. But to me it is unsatisfying – the rest of the Bible and my own experience compel me to believe that God is better than that and thinks more of man (however little he deserves it) than as some sort of sentient pisspot.
I’ll summarise my understanding of the chapter:
Paul is wrestling with an issue of enormous personal importance and difficulty – Why, if God’s promise was to Israel, has salvation come not primarily to the Jews, but to the Gentiles? Is God unjust to exclude from faith the people to whom he promised to send salvation?
He works through a number of arguments, but I don’t think he finds any of them entirely satisfactory (intellectually, perhaps, but emotionally his difficulty remains). He argues that the promise is to the children of faith, not of the flesh. He points out that the choice of Jacob (Israel) was not based on works. He asserts that God is not unjust, but ‘even if’ God were exactly as Paul fears he might be, that is, the capricious potter, even then man would have no right to find fault. I don’t think Paul believed that God was in fact so capricious, and I think chapter 11 supports that. The reason, Paul says, that Israel (that is, the physical descendants) have not yet accepted Christ's salvation is for the good of the gentiles (vv.19-20), the acceptance of the gentiles is for the good of the Jews (v.11), the eventual acceptance of the Jews will be still more to the gentiles' good (v.12) and the final end that God has purposed is “that he may have mercy upon all” (v.32).
It’s also worth noticing that Paul’s problem is (strange though it seems to me) that salvation has proved not to be the simple matter of election that many Jewish believers of both covenants thought it was (Jews, and some righteous gentiles – IN; the rest - OUT). And he specifically rejects the suggestion – which I think your logic must assert – that the unbelieving Jews have fallen away because God has in some way ceased to love them (vv.11 & 29-31).
I am by no means convinced I have a complete understanding of the letter to the Romans, but I do think it is significant that every example I can think of ‘hardening’ in scripture is for the explicit purpose of furthering God’s plans for salvation of others, it is nowhere, I think, a simple rejection to the injury of the one hardened. I do believe God might do this. If God can lead you into truth because of my errors, then by all means let him harden me so that you may be saved. I trust that his desire and purpose will be to save us both (if we accept him), and that “God shows no partiality” (Rom 2.11) in giving us that opportunity.
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Does all of mankind deserve eternal damnation in hell for original sin or not?
That is a very good question. But as I don’t actually think I’m called to have an opinion on what ‘all of mankind’ deserves and I don’t know what exactly you mean by original sin, I can’t give you a good answer. I do think that my inherent sinful nature (‘original sin’?) makes me absolutely and eternally unfit for heaven (unless God sanctifies me) and that my actual and deliberate sins are deserving of punishment and rejection by God (unless he forgives me). The same applies to any other person in my position. So I suppose the answer to your question is a qualified ‘yes’.
However I can only agree to this from an Arminian perspective. It is just for God to reject me because of my inherent sinfulness if I had his offer of grace and rejected him. It is just for God to punish me for my sins if I chose to do them, and might have done otherwise.
If instead of that, your version of Calvinism is right, God predisposed me to sin, and by his sovereign will chose the sins for me to commit, so that I could not have acted differently, and has denied me any opportunity for saving grace – then by what measure of justice could I possibly deserve damnation? It would have been God, and not I, who made all the decisions which he condemns as sinful.
I understand that you think the Arminian view is wrong, and I’m not really concerned to prove it right in fact – now we see through a glass darkly – Calvinism may be as close to God as you are currently able to approach, Arminianism may be that for me, and the full knowledge of the Lord that awaits us will likely bring us both to deep regret for our mistakes, and then to infinite joy. What worries me is that you see my error (and that of most of the visible Church) as damnable, and thereby deny God’s love to the overwhelming majority of those whom God himself has accepted and saved. You thereby cut yourself from a vast amount of Christian truth and brotherhood which may well be of tremendous value to you. I can’t help thinking that this is very unfortunate.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
Londonderry,
(snip)
I understand that you think the Arminian view is wrong, and I’m not really concerned to prove it right in fact – now we see through a glass darkly – Calvinism may be as close to God as you are currently able to approach, Arminianism may be that for me, and the full knowledge of the Lord that awaits us will likely bring us both to deep regret for our mistakes, and then to infinite joy. What worries me is that you see my error (and that of most of the visible Church) as damnable, and thereby deny God’s love to the overwhelming majority of those whom God himself has accepted and saved. You thereby cut yourself from a vast amount of Christian truth and brotherhood which may well be of tremendous value to you. I can’t help thinking that this is very unfortunate.
Amen. The consequences of self-enclosing ideologies are very unfortunate, though the sincerity of their adherents is unquestionable.
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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 londonderrry:
Is the will of the Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth ever frustrated by puny man?
Yes, quite often. Every time we sin.
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Either God is sovereign over everything or man stands on an equal footing with God in this respect.
False dichotomy. Man can be sovereign over a little bit while God is sovereign over a lot. There is no need to suppose, nor any good reason I can see to suppose, that God's voluntarily limiting Her own sovereignty must imply that Man is equal.
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It's not merely me that says that Scripture condemns Roman Catholicism as idolatry. So do all the Reformed Creeds.
And they are binding on Roman Catholics why? They are the writings of schismatics from schismatics (from my POV) and have no more weight to me than the Quran or the Book of Mormon.
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If one believes that God is unable to save them, without their consent than they are in fact worshipping their own will and also guilty of idolatry.
I don't see the connection. Can you explain how you get from the one to the other? There seems to be a great number of missing logical links here.
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Man in Adam made his choice in Eden.
You mean Adam defied God's will? You just said nobody did. Adam made no decision at all if your position is correct. God made him do it, because God is sovereign.
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What you are proposing must necessitate a change in God
Only if you're right to begin with, which you're not.
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Because Scripture teaches that God cannot deny Himself
But He can deny your theology. And, I believe, He does.
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Does all of mankind deserve eternal damnation in hell for original sin or not?
No.
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Arminianism is not a petty theological difference or else it would merely be a show of pride and arrogance.
This simply slays me. "You disagree with my interpretation of Scripture so you are proud and arrogant." Listen to yourself!
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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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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I’m not sure that science can conceive any model that is not at base either deterministic or probabilistic (how could physics of sub-atomic events, which is what I assume you are talking about, provide a test for free will?), but of the two only determinism is a problem for free-willers. A probabilistic model presents no difficulty at all – if sub-atomic events do not follow fixed, mechanical laws, then there is scope for an independent will which is not deterministic influencing them. I’m not arguing that a probabilistic theory proves free-will (of course it does not), but the door is at least open to it. If basic reality is probabilistic, free will can be exercised with no violation of the ‘laws’ of physics. My understanding is that the determinist alternative (a ‘billiard balls’ model of reality) is not what scientists currently believe. I certainly don’t believe it.
John Polkinghorne is interesting on this subject. He's more interested in how God can interact with the Universe when not in direct miracle mode if you like, but it seems to me this applies to the action of any free entity to a certain extent.
The gist of it is, if I understand correctly, that if multiple states can arise from starting conditions without violating physical laws, then it may be the case that God influences the path that is taken through information input. To me, this implies that choice is not deterministic for God, and perhaps not for us either.
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
What happened to Londonderry?
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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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