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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Why Calvinism makes sense
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
I think Calvinism is one of the silliest versions of Christianity. Calvinists apparently believe that God created many of us expressly for damnation. That you haven't a hope in hell of ending up any way other than God has already decided.
But some of my best friends are Calvinists. Well, to be honest, no one who is a good friend yet, but some people who I think could be good friends. There are Calvinists I respect.
How come? Is it possible that hatless is missing a trick here? I've been wrong before, so prove me wrong about Calvinism.
[ 01. February 2004, 17:24: Message edited by: Alan Cresswell ]
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I think Calvinism is one of the silliest versions of Christianity.
Oh wonderful. A single sentence dismissal of the beliefs of several Shipmates ... maybe you should reaquaint yourself with our 3rd Commandment.
Alan
Purgatory host
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
No, I'm not dismissing anyone's opinion. If you read on you'll see that I think my opinion is questionable. So let's have the discussion.
This is where I start from. Calvinism does seem silly to me, but I know that many Calvinists are far from silly. So enlighten me!
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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duchess
Ship's Blue Blooded Lady
# 2764
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Posted
Alan, may I please write BITE ME?
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♬♭ We're setting sail to the place on the map from which nobody has ever returned ♫♪♮
Ship of Fools-World Party
Posts: 11197 | From: Do you know the way? | Registered: May 2002
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Nunc Dimittis
Seamstress of Sound
# 848
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Posted
This strikes me as more appropriate for Hell...
![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
Posts: 9515 | From: Delta Quadrant | Registered: Jul 2001
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sharkshooter
Not your average shark
# 1589
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I think Calvinism is one of the silliest versions of Christianity.
...
There are Calvinists I respect.
Funny way to show respect.
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
How come? Is it possible that hatless is missing a trick here? I've been wrong before, so prove me wrong about Calvinism.
It's been done before. Perhaps you would like to lay your theology out and let us pick holes in it.
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Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. [Psalm 19:14]
Posts: 7772 | From: Canada; Washington DC; Phoenix; it's complicated | Registered: Oct 2001
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Halcyon Sailor
Shipmate
# 5270
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Posted
Come on, guys, give Hatless a break. If it offends you Calvinists out there, rest assured that you were destined to be offended anyway, so there's nothing Hatless, you, nor anyone can do about it. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Posts: 67 | From: Indiana, USA | Registered: Dec 2003
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Orb
Eye eye Cap'n!
# 3256
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I think Calvinism is one of the silliest versions of Christianity.
...
There are Calvinists I respect.
Funny way to show respect.
Because you can't respect someone as a person and think their beliefs are a load of crap now?! ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
I live with someone who believes the world was created in 6 days, I think this is daft and tell him so. I still respect him as a person because, well, because he's a person...
[ 16. December 2003, 01:39: Message edited by: Singleton ]
Posts: 5032 | From: Easton, Bristol | Registered: Aug 2002
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Papio
Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
Oooo, yes please. I agree with duchess in that I think a hell thread on Calvinism would be a jolly good idea.
More seriously, I don't find it easy to agree with the Calvinistic beliefs I was brought up with. But if people can change my mind I will listen.
A question: how can anybody believe that God pre-elects to hell AND that God is worthy to be worshopped? ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
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Infinite Penguins.
My "Readit, Swapit" page
My "LibraryThing" page
Posts: 12176 | From: a zoo in England. | Registered: Mar 2003
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Orb
Eye eye Cap'n!
# 3256
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
Oooo, yes please. I agree with duchess in that I think a hell thread on Calvinism would be a jolly good idea.
More seriously, I don't find it easy to agree with the Calvinistic beliefs I was brought up with. But if people can change my mind I will listen.
A question: how can anybody believe that God pre-elects to hell AND that God is worthy to be worshopped?
Usually because they think the world was created in 6 days which pretty much necessitated a literal fall. And also (in a more modern sense) because they can't actually live with the humility and agnosticism that is a necessary part of the Christian FAITH. Oh and they like to evangelise VEHEMENTLY - it just FEELS GOOD...
Evangelism = love for fellow human beings. That is the true good news which Christians should distinctively bring to the world. Let's get that right first (I know I'm a long way from even doing that properly).
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“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.” Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
Posts: 5032 | From: Easton, Bristol | Registered: Aug 2002
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duchess
Ship's Blue Blooded Lady
# 2764
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Posted
Rest assured I will not come to hell with this thread. Shark got it right, basically on SoF this is how it goes for a Calvinist to "discuss" TULIP (especially the L part, everybody's favorite portion).
Fat Spice: "Let's start with the basics. T means blah blah, U means blah blah...and so on and some of the verses I feel support this are as follows [a b c KJV]."
Whine&Cheez: "Well, I just don't LIKE your theology. I can't tell you why except how I FEEL about it, so I think I will take this pin and poke you with it. I don't need to have any verses or theology, except that you are poo-poo meanie. See, I can swear! Woo-hoo, look at my butt in this underwear!"
Fat Spice: "More on argument.."
Moronspice: "Well I am pro-this-and-that and since you are not 100%, I hate you! I spit on you fat girl! It is obvious you hate "certain" people beetch! [insert divisive jerk name famous here]is YOUR BEST FRIEND, isn't he/she?
Fat Spice: "Some of my friends are gay speech..."
ID10T: "Well, gosh golly, look at how the Fat Spice just goes off on a tangent, she don't wanna discuss this cuz she already LOST!"
WesleyJrRational: "Well, Once long ago dear I was a Caliviist but then I threw out that theology cuz I read the bible and it blah blah. [another verbage ladded with 10 verses and 6 camps of theology, with 2 authors cited outside the Holy Bible presented]."
-----Silence as lonely Fat Spice spends spinster Friday night looking up all verses by HERSELF as NONE OF THE OTHER 3 Calvinists on the ship freaking LIFT A FINGER, She blows off visiting family...blows off Karokee...THIS, THIS HERE IS MORE IMPORTANT TO HER-------------------
WeselyJrRational: "Gee, Fat Spice has not posted for a few days, guess I won that one! Confident she will find a new beginning for herself, so sad to see her believe that crap. I win! Join us!"
FINALLY a post from FatSpice...
This is the kind of crap. You get numerous idiots who just slam you for NO PARTICULAR REASON cited. Then you get a few drawing incorrect slanderous conclusions about you....then you get a few real good thoughtful posts against your side and you SO WANT TO research them...but that take TIME. And on your side? People who are too busy/burnt out/whatever to lift a finger and start posting away. You are expected to keep on every post, every thought that comes your way.
After more than a few time of this...this groundhog day gets to you and you just sit there on you nice comfortable chair and drink apple martinis.
SO THERE. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
[edited out one cotton-picking thing]
[ 16. December 2003, 03:42: Message edited by: duchess ]
Posts: 11197 | From: Do you know the way? | Registered: May 2002
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
Well, poo! ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
I shoulda known. I started a lovely -and respectful- thread on Calvinism a few months ago and it got pruned. Westminster Confession anyone?
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Though, Calvinism: Can It Be Rehabilitated? was saved in Limbo.
PS: Hatless, with the benefit of a nights sleep, I was wrong to highlight that first sentence. It was more the tone of the whole post that struck me as likely to be seen as offensive to Calvinists - admitting you didn't understand Calvinism yet still willingly to state that you considered it silly.
Alan
Purgatory host
[ 16. December 2003, 07:28: Message edited by: Alan Cresswell ]
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Hi, Hatless. All these guys seem to be talking mongst themselves. So maybe I can start with your proposition: quote:
I think Calvinism is one of the silliest versions of Christianity.
And from a position somewhere within the tradition, let me agree with you. I think that there is an inherent silliness to all Christian positions pressed to the point of logical closure, and Calvinism pressed that far is particularly silly becuase it works so well. That's also what makes it so dangerous.
That's also why I worry about people who embrace it joyfully, rather than being, as I am, stuck with it. Partly by inheritance, partly by my not being able to get up the escape velocity necessary to break free. But partly also because - and I think this is what you're after - there is something at the heart of the tradition that's absolutely indispensable.
And the tradition is one that stretches back from Calvin through Augustine to St. Paul. Let's leave Gottschalk out of this; he was a sad, bullied wee soul, who seems to have done his Augustinianism for all the wrong reasons, like the certainty of a hideous doom for people who had hurt him so badly. Or actually, let's not leave him out - because isn't it close to the truth that the repugnant thing about Calvinism for many people is the inexorable damnation of the reprobate? The second half of election, viz. reprobation?
I think that reprobation is a monstrous doctrine. I think that people who glory in it are likewise to a degree monstrous. When Augustine says that the contemplation of the suffering of the damned increases the bliss of the saved, he's speaking for a deeply sick corner of himself, and not for me. And if I ever found myself in a state of bliss contemplating someone else's pain - I'd know that I was in some sort of hell, not in heaven.
And then, of course, because undeniably people are drawn to religious traditions - and into their ministries - because they resonate with aspects of the tradition (what Max Weber calls 'elective affinity') you get the parody in the pew, and even in the pulpit. (10 out of 10 for alliteration, by the way! Did you see that?!?) And you get the tweaking of the stereotype in a crueller direction.
And you also get the eclipsing of something profoundly important which is actually far more at the heart of the tradition. The sense that God's love is absolutely unconditional, not tied to anything that you do, or achieve, or make of yourself. The sense that whatever you are, however much your life has totalled out, however much you find it impossible to accept aspects of yourself, to live with things that you've done, that none of these things are obstacles to God. In other words, Carl Rogers' unconditional positive regard raised to the nth power, and infused with the warmth of real, suffering love.
But the other thing about classical Calvinism that's very striking is its very cerebrality. God may love us, the elect (I'll come back in a second to the shock that way of putting it generates!) but our response is not gauged with an emotional thermometer. In other words, the issue of 'cold faith' which tends to plague just about any other version of Christianity with the exception of Calvinism's close religious relative (!!!!) ex opere operato Catholic sacramentalism is neither here nor there to Calvinism. Everything is predicated on God's love and grace, nothing on our response. God saves us. And from the lofty heights of sola gratia, everything else is left looking like God's providing us - richly, indeed - with the means to save ourselves.
Now Max Weber's sociological question is very pertinent here. Why is it that an outlook like this doesn't lead straight to fatalism? Like the taxi drivers in Delhi that MArk Tully spoke about on the BBC, who drive madly without caring about traffic lights, because of karma. If it's your day to get it today, then you'll get it, however carefully you drive. And if not, you're OK... Psychologically, Calvinism seems not to have worked like that.
My suggestion is that most practitioners of any belief-syste work only with certain components of that system. Only theologians try to work with it all simultabneously, and they distinguish among more and less important elements. (And a lot of them - us - are nuts anyway ![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif) ) My suggestion is that Calvinism for many of its adherents isn't fatalistic predestination, but lived unconditional acceptance. And if you're accepted unconditionally, then by definition the way you live afterwards isn't a fulfilling of conditions, but a loving response. And not eros - controversial suggestion coming up, but I believe more and more that emotional forms of religion are to some degree erotized - and I don't mean that disparagingly . But a grateful, loved, accepted, productive living for God as a response to God's sufferring, liberating, enfolding agape is also itself agape.
And lastly - that bit about "we the elect". I think that that must remain as a genuine scandal if we believe that we can know who is elect and who not. And Calvin explicitly condemns that hubris. The tradition I was brought up in, Welsh Independency, specifically condemned a restriction of the elect to within the boundaries of the visble church. God only knows who is saved.
But again - and I don't want to seem like a troll for my postmodern aporetic Calvinism - I believe you really have to go further than that, to expunge electon from human speculation, not by refusing to look at it, but by seeing it everywhere. With Barth and more importantly Paul, I believe that Jesus Christ on the Cross is God's 'Yes!' to the whole of humanity. In other words, I do believe that we ahve to make sense of the faith by believing three statements of which you can only hold two without (human) contradiction:
1) God is omnipotent
2) God is love
3) Loss of salvation is an awful possibility
As I've said before, I'm not a universalist - though it's actually Calvinism that's driven a lot of people that way, and it might be worth discussing the difference between non-Calvinist and (post)-Calvinist universalism on this thread! I believe that we have to juggle these three propositions, and that far too many people relinquish the first too easily. But if one had to go, I know for me it would be the third.
So yes, maybe quote:
Calvinism is one of the silliest versions of Christianity.
Excepting all the others.
No, no, no!!!! Only joking.
The trick, surely, is to be a Christian first, and a whatever-ist second.
But I do think you have to be a something-ist second. Whether you want to or not. Generic Cristianity is a myth. To quote Principal Tulloch:
"We have to stand somewhere. We stand here..."
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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)
Posts: 5433 | From: pOsTmOdErN dYsToPiA | Registered: Feb 2002
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Alan - I hope it's clear that we cross-posted,a nd no host-directed disrespect was intended. (I didn't intend any disrespect to anyone else either, of course...) ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) ![[Axe murder]](graemlins/lovedrops.gif)
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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)
Posts: 5433 | From: pOsTmOdErN dYsToPiA | Registered: Feb 2002
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Jacques More
Shipmate
# 5157
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Posted
Hi Hatless & all up to Psyduck,
I would like to comment from one of Psyduck's (and many Calvinist's) assumptions:
quote:
the tradition is one that stretches back from Calvin through Augustine to St. Paul.
Actually, no.
Prior to Augustine there is no record of a doctrine of unconditional election to salvation for individuals. The early Church Fathers thinking before Auggie can be encapsulated as,
"conditional predestination is the doctrine inculcated by the Greek Fathers." taken from HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE page
165 by George Park Fisher DD LLD. T&T Clark
I borrow the quote from my article The early Church Fathers and predestination. In the next sentence I state,
"Inculcated means it was the teaching urged or impressed persistently by the early Church Fathers. Conditional means in God's desire for you, if you work with Him it will happen; if you don't want Him, it cannot happen. Which, of course, is true due to His Self control Galatians 5:23)."
So, Psyduck if you have a true desire (latent somewhere) to reach 'escape velocity necessary to break free from' that tradition, then look afresh for fuel in the pages of scripture explained wholly without reference to an allusion of 'Calvinism'.
Regards,
Jacques
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A text out of context is a pretext
Posts: 59 | From: Croydon, UK | Registered: Nov 2003
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Hatless, with the benefit of a nights sleep, I was wrong to highlight that first sentence. It was more the tone of the whole post that struck me as likely to be seen as offensive to Calvinists - admitting you didn't understand Calvinism yet still willingly to state that you considered it silly.
I was trying to be flippant. Hence "some of my best friends are Calvinists," and my invitation to prove me wrong. I thought a provocative first sentence, contrasting with the thread title, would get us off to a good start.
In fact it hasn't. It's led to this discussion about the way I've tried to start the discussion. I didn't want this, or to cause offense. I just want to talk about Calvinism and ask some serious and real questions.
The posts so far seem fairly light hearted, which is good, but I do apologise to anyone who is feeling offended.
Thank you, psyduck, for your response. Just what I wanted. I can see that you value the Calvinist tradition for reasons that are good and humane and obviously Christian. The grace and gift of salvation, and the point about cold feelings not mattering. Our contribution to our salvation is not only unnecessary (and impossible) but can be overridden.
I suppose my question would be why you have to be Calvinist to emphasise grace? You mentioned sacramental Catholicism as similarly not needing us to feel saved. Don't theologies that emphasise our incorporation into the Body also offer a way out of the trap? We are saved because we belong.
Another question is, isn't it more loving in the end for God to create a less one-sided relationship with us? Isn't it bigger of God to let us co-operate with grace?
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Hatless: off the cuff (therefore maybe more unguarded and heuristically useful!!!!)
I suppose my question would be why you have to be Calvinist to emphasise grace? You mentioned sacramental Catholicism as similarly not needing us to feel saved.
The problem I have with this is what it does to "extra ecclesiam nulla salus". I recognize within contemporary Catholic theology a truly healthy urge to make the scope of salvation, which is potentially universal, as wide as possible, but the boundaries of the church are still humanly plottable to a degree that worries me. And of course there is the tendencty to identify the visible institution of the church as defining of salvation, which in hypersacramentalism seems to me to take over. One thing about the doctrine of the Church Invisible - yes, its usual use is to suggest that there are those in the Visible Church who are not saved. But it can equally well suggest that there are those outside the Visible Church who are. I can't but see the Church as the true Sign of Salvation, not as Salvation itself - just as it's a sign of the Kingdom, and not the Kingdom itself. And it may be the sign of a salvation that is coextensive with the whole of Creation. God only knows.
quote:
Don't theologies that emphasise our incorporation into the Body also offer a way out of the trap? We are saved because we belong.
I'd classify Calvinism as just such a theology! Maybe because I'm such a wayward Calvinist. Like Calvin... And this makes of the Visible Church the collection of people who know they belong. I think it's only in this way that I can make sense of that line in many Anglican intercessions "and those whose faith is known only to God" - i.e. even they themselves don't know that they have faith. Only God does.
quote:
Another question is, isn't it more loving in the end for God to create a less one-sided relationship with us? Isn't it bigger of God to let us co-operate with grace?
But what if we don't? What if we can't? What if we are immobilized by what life has made of us, or we have made of ourselves?
Actually, I'd say that God does indeed create a less one-sided relationship with us - but only after he's saved us. (By which I don't mean at a point of conversion in our own personal lives, but once for all, 2,000 years ago and in an eternal act that stretches backwards and forwards in time.) It seems to me that the Doctrine of Sanctification, the outworking of our salvation in our lives by the powere of the Holy Spirit, is precisely that. It's just that our salvation isn't conditional on that - quite the reverse. We aren't Christians so that we shall be saved. We are Christians because we (know that we) have been.
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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)
Posts: 5433 | From: pOsTmOdErN dYsToPiA | Registered: Feb 2002
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Wood
The Milkman of Human Kindness
# 7
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Posted
FYI
Please check out the old Calvinism thread in Limbo for previous treatments of the discussion; I'm sure there's much to add, but it's best to avoid retreading things too much.
Wood
Purgatory Host
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Narcissism.
Posts: 7842 | From: Wood Towers | Registered: Apr 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Singleton:
Usually because they think the world was created in 6 days which pretty much necessitated a literal fall.
Historical nonsense. The complete opposite of the truth.
The only North American or European denominations that insisted on a literal 6-day creation as an essential point of doctrine for most of modern history were some of the Lutherans, & the Seventh Day Adventists. And the REoman Catholics vaccillated about it.
The Swiss, German, Dutch & Scots Presbyterians (the largest organised Calvinist denomminations) & the Anglicans (whose evangelical wing was more or less Calvinist at least in the 18th & 19th century) were the denominations most strongly associated with the rise of modern science. In fact, along with the Jews, they could be said to have invented modern science.
Nowadays literal 7-dayism is most popular amongst Pentecostal & charismatic churches, whose theology tend to vome from a Methodist/Holiness tradition and be specifically anti-Calvinist.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Calvinists apparently believe that God created many of us expressly for damnation. That you haven't a hope in hell of ending up any way other than God has already decided.
Two very obvious questions.
1) If anyone at all is damned, and if God is omnipotent, then surely you have to be able to say in some sense that God created that person knowing they were damned.
Any other answer is dodging the question.
Athanasios (who may have been a closet universalist, or near-universalist) got round it by arguing, roughly, that as God loves everybody, and as it is better to exist than not to exist, God loves everyone by creating them. So if there is such a person as someone who cannot exist without being damned God will still create them because God loves them.
(I have a vague idea that he might have used the devil as an example but I'm not sure - I can't remember exacgtly which book I read this argument in)
2) If God is eternal than God knows what your final end is even if God doesn't choose that end but defers to your choice. Again an old question - people as diverse as Boethius in the early middle ages, or the founders of the Southern Baptists in the 19th century (as someone showed on the other thread) have believed in BOTH predestination and free will.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
quote:
If God is eternal than God knows what your final end is even if God doesn't choose that end but defers to your choice.
Ooh Ken - a bit of a cop out there, surely... eliding omnipotence and omniscience... and it was all going so well... (Actually I think it could be expressed in different terms while conserving the same truth. In fact I think that's basically what Barth does. You're right, though, something like this is the only third way between Repobation and Universalism.)
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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)
Posts: 5433 | From: pOsTmOdErN dYsToPiA | Registered: Feb 2002
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by psyduck:
We aren't Christians so that we shall be saved. We are Christians because we (know that we) have been.
I think it's amusing and appropriate that Calvinism should be defended on pastoral grounds, because the alternatives are too brutal! I share your reasons and motives for wanting to affirm that God's salvation is there even for the literally hopeless, and those outside the Church, and those with an destructively overactive sense of guilt.
So why can't we be strong on grace and leave it at that? Why press the logic home? It's the speculation about God creating people for damnation, before or after the Fall, that becomes so unpleasant. Why not say we won't go there? Is it not possible to say that salvation is a bit of a mystery. I believe that it's all been done already by Christ, yet it's also something that is happening even now as I learn to walk in faith, and it remains a future hope, too; my final salvation depends on the completion and gathering up of all creation. Yes, this is a bit muddly, but what the heck? It would be impertinent to try to cross every t and dot every i - we'll leave it to God to sort the details.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
That's actually more or less where I am. There's a mystery here. I can trace the shape of it a long way in the contours of the very liberal Reformed faith I was brought up in, and still hold. And forms, shapes and patterns are very important to me - I'm something of a classicist in these matters. (That's the principall reason I don't class myself as Liberal).
I think if you press any tradition to its limits, you reduce it to its absurdities. But you have to start somewhere, and with Calvinism you have the advantage of starting with what is almost unquestionably the modern neurosis - I don't know myself (am I good or am I bad), I don't know God, I can't do what I want but wind up ensnared by what I don't want. I think Calvinism is the key to film noir, and culturally inescapable. I think it's where modernity ends up - but it might just be the place from which the postmodern can take off. And at least it has the beauty of acknowledging its own uglinesses! In so many ways, the 'nicer' versions of Christianity are much more dangerous for being so nice.
Man, do I need therapy! But then again, Calvinism is so easy to square with Freud - and I'm probably drawn to the one for the same reason I'm drawn to the other.
By the way, I'm posting so much because I'm stuck in the house with tracheitis. It was meant to be...
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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)
Posts: 5433 | From: pOsTmOdErN dYsToPiA | Registered: Feb 2002
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Hatless:
Perhaps you should read what has been thousands of peoples introduction to Calvinism which is The Westminster Shorter Catechism .
You will notice a surprising absense of teaching on sending people to hell. We are worthy of Hell but that is something different.
In my opinion Arminianism is equally bad for it makes the slightest slip in faith just before you die worthy of damning you to Hell.
The only option is Universalism and that is a form of Predestinarianism.
I have a suspicion that all three are wrong.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
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Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
1) If anyone at all is damned, and if God is omnipotent, then surely you have to be able to say in some sense that God created that person knowing they were damned.
Any other answer is dodging the question.
What's wrong with dodging questions? Seriously, I think there's a problem created by being too precise about things. Is 'eternal' something we really understand? To talk of God's purposes in creating people for salvation or damnation presumes too much. Can we really think of God as an agent, outside of the universe, deciding if and how to make it? Are omniscience and omnipotence coherent terms? (They certainly open up paradoxes.) Do we know what salvation is?
In some sense God must be responsible for it all. Forget salvation as some putative outside of time happy ending, the question is whether the universe, seen and unseen, is worth the candle. There are some horribly damned lives around, and many of us have to face times when we wish we'd never been born.
One verdict says it isn't worth it, and God is a monster - or in practice, there is no God. The other verdict says it is, or it just might be worth it. There could be a God behind and ahead of it all, and it's worth trying to draw near to this God. But stop there! Don't go on to assert why or when this God made the world.
We're really considering the problem of evil, to which there is no answer, but in the face of which faith is still a possible response.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Jengie: quote:
In my opinion Arminianism is equally bad for it makes the slightest slip in faith just before you die worthy of damning you to Hell.
I think that makes it worse!
quote:
The only option is Universalism and that is a form of Predestinarianism.
I have a suspicion that all three are wrong.
Aporia! Wonderful! You're as silly (to quote the OP) as the rest of us! ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif) Which is the highest praise... I must find out what's in these pills the doctor gave me...
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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)
Posts: 5433 | From: pOsTmOdErN dYsToPiA | Registered: Feb 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
quote:
Originally posted by psyduck:
We aren't Christians so that we shall be saved. We are Christians because we (know that we) have been.
I think it's amusing and appropriate that Calvinism should be defended on pastoral grounds, because the alternatives are too brutal!
But the alternatives are too brutal. A God
who cnnot be trusted to effectively save? A reliance on our own state of mind, or the strength of our faith?
quote:
So why can't we be strong on grace and leave it at that?
Which, in practice, is what people calling themselves Calvinists have done. Who wrote Amazing Grace?
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
quote:
Who wrote Amazing Grace?
Easy! Sir Isaac Newton! I must find out what's in these pills... er...
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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)
Posts: 5433 | From: pOsTmOdErN dYsToPiA | Registered: Feb 2002
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Papio
Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
Good points Psyduck. When people have studied the scriptures and come to the conclusion that Calvin was right about such things than that is fair enough. Although I don't share such beliefs, they clearly can't be total nonsense (at least in a literal sense of that word) since many people who are both cleverer and more spiritual than I am believe in them.
I suppose my reservations about Calvinism circle around my contention that Calvin's God is and was a fairly unpleasent sort of God and I can understand why some people's opposition to Christianity is based partly on the same sort of sentiment. Of course, the fact that people oppose an idea doesn't make the idea untrue, I am just saying that I don't like what I take the belief to be saying about God.
I am glad that Psyduck disowned this even more unpleasent piece of theology:
quote:
I think that reprobation is a monstrous doctrine. I think that people who glory in it are likewise to a degree monstrous. When Augustine says that the contemplation of the suffering of the damned increases the bliss of the saved, he's speaking for a deeply sick corner of himself, and not for me. And if I ever found myself in a state of bliss contemplating someone else's pain - I'd know that I was in some sort of hell, not in heaven.
the idea that, in heaven, the blessed will behold the suffering of the non-elect and rejoice over their agony..... well let's just say (as this is purg) that my reaction is more or less the same as Psyduck's and that teaching was one of the reasons that I began to move away from the type of Christianity that some members of my family espouse and that the church I was attending at that time also tended to espouse.
It would be a monsterous libel to equate such beliefs with Calvinism. I am less sure that the doctrine of double-election is seperable from Calvinism. What sort of a Father is it who decides in advance that some of His creatures are not going to get a chance to do anything other than suffer in torment for all eternity?
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Infinite Penguins.
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Posts: 12176 | From: a zoo in England. | Registered: Mar 2003
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Dear Hatless
I'll try again ... I am presently on a slow and erratic computer!
The key issue really is ...
quote:
Why press the logic home?
You could say the same about a Thomist wrestling with "how can this be bread and now the Body of Christ?" and coming up with transubstantiation via Aristotle.
There is something in the western tradition, both Catholic and Protestant, that is uncomfortable with imprecision, hanging questions and mystery. It also reveals itself in a nervousness about mysticism and the reaction against rationalism into quietism.
Calvin was just being consistent, left-brained, linear, logical ... dare I say "male"? (He was a lawyer after all).
I warm to Psyduck's evaulation that you don't have to press to resolution, closure, choice, words. You have to hold everything together without going too far.
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
Posts: 15099 | From: Manchester, UK | Registered: May 2001
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Papio
Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
quote:
originally posted by Ken
1) If anyone at all is damned, and if God is omnipotent, then surely you have to be able to say in some sense that God created that person knowing they were damned.
Any other answer is dodging the question
I agree with this.
moving on from Ken's statement so that the below is not a direct response to Ken:
I have no quarrel with the belief that, sadly, some people, perhaps some people I have known, cared about, respected etc will in the end find themselves in hell. Indeed, I think it is true. I just don't want to think that it is true.
If they in some sense choose to go there than perhaps it is slightly less unacceptable than if they have no choice in the matter and are damned no matter what they may wish. The doctrine of double-election makes me cringe I'm afraid.
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Infinite Penguins.
My "Readit, Swapit" page
My "LibraryThing" page
Posts: 12176 | From: a zoo in England. | Registered: Mar 2003
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Papio: quote:
I have no quarrel with the belief that, sadly, some people, perhaps some people I have known, cared about, respected etc will in the end find themselves in hell. Indeed, I think it is true. I just don't want to think that it is true.
Whenever my mind moves in these difficult areas, I identify very closely with Abraham in the 'Dutch auction' scene in the second half of Genesis 18. You push and push, but there comes a point... But note, too, that God allows himself to be pushed a long, long way.
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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)
Posts: 5433 | From: pOsTmOdErN dYsToPiA | Registered: Feb 2002
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Papio
Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by psyduck:
Papio: quote:
I have no quarrel with the belief that, sadly, some people, perhaps some people I have known, cared about, respected etc will in the end find themselves in hell. Indeed, I think it is true. I just don't want to think that it is true.
Whenever my mind moves in these difficult areas, I identify very closely with Abraham in the 'Dutch auction' scene in the second half of Genesis 18. You push and push, but there comes a point... But note, too, that God allows himself to be pushed a long, long way.
Sorry to be thick, but I am uncertain of your meaning here. Would you mind explaining a bit more?
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Infinite Penguins.
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Posts: 12176 | From: a zoo in England. | Registered: Mar 2003
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
I have no quarrel with the belief that, sadly, some people, perhaps some people I have known, cared about, respected etc will in the end find themselves in hell.
I do. I think its a horrible idea.
I have no quarrel with the belief that in the end God will find a way to save everybody. However the Bible seems to. (not to mention the traditions of the Church)
So I end up not able or willing to say "this is Christianity, this is the teaching of the Church" but sort of hoping that God makes it come out that way in the end.
The "non-Calvinist" view of God, which in my mind tends inexorably to deism or agnosticism, simply doesn't allow for that. It puts the burden on our weakness, not God's power.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Papio - I meant that my instinct is to argue down the necessary punishment of evil as far as it can possibly go. But like Abraham in the passage, I seem to reach a point at which what's left is so evil that I really haven't a leg to stand on. At that point, like Abraham, I have to fall silent. In other words, if God's punishment - hell - is connected with real evil, and not just with not believing what good Christians believe, the I have to concede that there is such evil in the world as might well merit hell. And that there are people who do such evil. But what I take from the story of Abraham arguing with God in Genesis 18 is the basic Biblical pattern that with God, too, the requirement to punish evil is as minimal as it possibly can be.
Put another way - I believe that if there are people in hell, there are as few as possibly can be, because this is God's way. I don't dare to go absolutely all the way and say that there is no-one in hell, because there is real hellish evil abroad in the world, and for me to absolve it by my theology would be an arrogance. That's why I can't be a universalist. But of course the real question is - is God a universalist? How does God square love and law, justice and mercy? That's why I can't possibly rule out a universalist actuality.
This is a slightly different approach to the question to the one Jengie validly raised a few posts ago. She said that universalism is predestinarian - which of course is true. How much of a problem would that be to people? And - why?
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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)
Posts: 5433 | From: pOsTmOdErN dYsToPiA | Registered: Feb 2002
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sharkshooter
Not your average shark
# 1589
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by duchess:
-----Silence as lonely Fat Spice spends spinster Friday night looking up all verses by HERSELF as NONE OF THE OTHER 3 Calvinists on the ship freaking LIFT A FINGER, ...
Sorry, duchess.
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A proper disucssion of Calvinism is not something that can be done in a bb thread. Books have been written on the theology. Selected points introduced here are not going to be helpful - they certainly will not be conclusive. If someone really wants to learn about Calvinism, this isn't the forum - a proper study should be undertaken.
If the OP wants specific questions answered, as he has indicated, let the questions be asked - not just a general attack on a whole theological system as being "silly". Read the other thread, and then come with some questions if they haven't been answered there.
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Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. [Psalm 19:14]
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Jacques More
Shipmate
# 5157
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Posted
Papio said,
quote:
Universalism is a very nice idea for which there is no evidence whatsoever.
I agree.
But would equally say,
Calvinism is a very bad idea for which there is no evidence whatsoever.
Except out of context of course (and mis-translated)...
Regards,
Jacques
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A text out of context is a pretext
Posts: 59 | From: Croydon, UK | Registered: Nov 2003
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strathclydezero
# 180
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Posted
If there was any real evidence for any theological standpoint there would be no place for debating it.
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All religions will pass, but this will remain:
simply sitting in a chair and looking in the distance.
V V Rozanov
Posts: 3276 | From: The Near East | Registered: May 2001
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Jacques More
Shipmate
# 5157
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Posted
I am of course referring to biblical evidence for it.
Jacques
P.S. I didn't vote for your avatar...
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A text out of context is a pretext
Posts: 59 | From: Croydon, UK | Registered: Nov 2003
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:
If the OP wants specific questions answered, as he has indicated, let the questions be asked - not just a general attack on a whole theological system as being "silly". Read the other thread, and then come with some questions if they haven't been answered there.
No, I'm not after specific answers, but a discussion about what it feels like to be a Calvinist. What are the reasons and motives behind such a strange position? This has to be done live. It's going quite nicely now.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:
Dear Ken
Calvinism, deism and agnosticism being the only options? ![[Confused]](confused.gif) ![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif) You can't be serious!
Did I say that?
"Calvinism" is here a shorthand for a whole bunch of theological traditions, going way back before Calvin, that take the eternity, omniscience, and omnipotence of God seriously.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Believing such things I would rather not be tagged "Calvinist" thank you. It leaves too much unsaid .... and too much disagreed or on a completely different basis. As a return favour, I promise not to call you "Orthodox," (uppercase).
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
Posts: 15099 | From: Manchester, UK | Registered: May 2001
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
And it was all going so well...
![[Waterworks]](graemlins/bawling.gif)
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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)
Posts: 5433 | From: pOsTmOdErN dYsToPiA | Registered: Feb 2002
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Jacques More
Shipmate
# 5157
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Posted
Hi Ken,
quote:
"Calvinism" is here a shorthand for a whole bunch of theological traditions, going way back before Calvin, that take the eternity, omniscience, and omnipotence of God seriously.
It's all very well having these ideas or beliefs about God, but if the bible is a revelation to us of what He is like by His clear inspiration then, sorry I do not read Him in the bible as living outside of time (eternal in that sense), having total knowledge of future events (omniscience which is more than what is knowable) nor do I see His will carried out everywhere (omnipotence such that sin is in His will).
if He would have made Saul king over Israel forever is true, then He did not know the severety of Saul's rebellion ahead of it (1 Samuel 13:13).
Regards,
Jacques
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A text out of context is a pretext
Posts: 59 | From: Croydon, UK | Registered: Nov 2003
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Ah shucks Fr Gregory and I was just going to encourage you to think of the URC as the ONLY church that has further unity of the body of Christ as part of its reason for existence.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
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