quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel
But in its cold, calculating logic there is something Spock-like about it, I would suggest, the Alan Turing of the Protestant spectrum. Turing, as those familiar with his pioneering work on artificial intelligence will know, was very 'literal' in his approach and struggled with metaphor and so on.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd)
Jean Cauvin (John Calvin) was both French and a lawyer. There is a certain remorseless logic to his position.

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And further to what I wrote above... I don't think Calvinism is consistent with justice, so what kind of "lawyer" Calvin was beats me.
 

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Posted by Lord Jestocost (# 12909) on :
 
Asperger's is a medical condition which I don't believe anyone chooses (though with varying degrees it can be possible to choose their response to it).

The "cold logic" position is a very definite choice, which I would ascribe not necessarily to Calvinism (don't know enough about it) but to any denomination that voluntarily suppresses the instinct of human love and forgiveness in the face of doctrine about God's inability to tolerate sin, the inevitability of Hell for the unsaved, etc. etc.
 

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Posted by Niminypiminy (# 15489) on :
 
I don't like this metaphor, because it depends on such a parodic, false and unfair characterisation of people with Asperger Syndrome.

I could write an essay, but here are just a few things that are wrong:

People with Asperger Syndrome are not cold. They have intense feelings -- as we all do -- but they may not communicate them in the same way.

People with Asperger Syndrome can be highly creative and imaginative.

People with Asperger Syndrome can find patterns, numbers, plans, maps and so on fascinating and sympathetic. But not necessarily.

I could go on, but I won't. There's an interesting debate to be had about the emotional temper of Calvinism and its underpinning sensibility. But I think it's really wrong to characterise it in this way.

[ 17. July 2012, 09:08: Message edited by: Niminypiminy ]
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Like all analogies, it will only stretch so far. I didn't intend to offend.

I have friends with Asperger's Syndrome and yes, they are very warm and very creative.

I also have very Calvinistic friends too, and the same applies to them.

I'm not doling out a diagnosis, just suggesting that there might be analogies that we can draw (without pushing them too far) - in that extreme Calvinism can be overly literal in a similar way to the effects of Asperger's are said to incline that way. I'm making no value judgement on people with Asperger's Syndrome.

Etymological Evangelical has raised an interesting point about skewed logic. I hadn't thought of that, but I think he's right that if you take hyper-Calvinism to its logical conclusion you do step out of the bounds of logic altogether ...

Arminianism has equal and opposite tendencies.

Which is why I would argue for some kind of more 'mystical' approach and why I'm increasingly attracted to the Orthodox 'take' rather than Western approaches to this issue - whilst acknowledging that all of us will only have a partial appreciation at best ...

@Sir Pellinore - agreed. Back in the day I was very impressed by a Dutch Reformed anti-apartheid campaigner who came to speak at our very charismatic church ...

I am by no means out to diss the contribution of individual Calvinists nor to diss the Reformed tradition in general. It's the extreme end of it that bothers me.
 

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Posted by Balaam (# 4543) on :
 
I find myself drawn towards Calvinism, but then in the dim distant past of schooldays I was drawn towards the sciences, particularly mathematics, and away from the humanities. There is a beauty (scientifically speaking) in the logic of Calvin which I find to resist.

That saying there are things that horrify me too. But I find that on balance I'm a fan.

What I don't like about Calvinism is it's tendency to attack Arminianism. In scripture we are warned against taking sides behind people: The Corinthians sided with Paul, Apollos or Peter. We are doing the same thing when we side with Calvin, Armin or Aquinas.
 

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Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 
Cold? Its the opposite! The emotional basis for finding Calvinism comfortable - which is not of course a good reason to believe it it but people being people must be of some influence - is confidence in God, trust. All those arguments young evangelicals have over the late-night coffee or at the Bible study on Hebrews about "falling away" and "perseverence" and "once saved always saved" and "surety of salvation"

The semi-Pelagian range of views about God that resurfaced in Arminianism and counter-Reformation Catholicism imply that its possible for a saved person to become dammed by falling into sin/ You sometimes see presentations of Christianity that explicitly talk about being dammed forever if you commit a mortal sin and die before you can confess it. As if your relationship with God didn't depend on God's eternity, or even on the whole span and general character of your life, but on the accidental circumstances of when you happen to die.

That's a fearful view of God; stressing anger, destruction, and apparently arbitrary rules rather than love, creativity, and providence. Churches should not be preaching that. God is not an angry policeman standing at the corner of the street waiting for someone to commit some sin or crime so that they can be punished.

We call God "Our Father". What sort of father is it that rejects his children whenever they disobey him? What sort of childhood is it to be living under continual fear that if you make a wrong step its all over and you are out on your own? If God is like the best sort of human father (and surely he is not like the worst) then he is like the sort of father who sticks with his children whatever they do, wherever they go.


And what's wrong with logic? Logic, rational thought, is just another name for thinking done right. The idea of God as eternal, outside time, makes sense. It is believable, credible, in a way that the wordl-bound gods of Mormonism or process theology are not. (Obviously, being credible doesn't make it true any more than being comfortable does, though it does mean it could be true). The traditional small-o-orthodox idea of God as eternal and outside the world means we get both sorts of religion, country and western, sorry I mean immanent and transcendent. The Incarnation makes the transcendent, eternal God, immanent, localised, timebound, present, in Jesus. God, eternal, surely knows who God saves, just as God knows who God creates. The end of the story is visible from the begining - the worlds story of time as well as each of our individual stories. To usm, inside the universe, part of the world of time and space, there is a process, a succession of events, an actual choice to turn to God, moments of redemption and falling away, of conversion and backsliding. But that can't be the case from an eternal point of view any more than the plot of a novel depends on where you start reading it.
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 
Yes. No. Maybe. Perhaps in the recasting of Calvin by Beza this is more true - the Institutes themselves order things more or less around the structure of the book of Romans.

But then, all theologies use logic at certain points - they just vary in the extent to which and the areas over which they are willing to entertain contradictions/mystery.
 

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Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
Yes, but the flip side to your Calvinist coin, Ken, is what is says about those who aren't 'saved': "er...sorry, but God doesn't like you very much [with apologies to Not the Nine o'Clock News] ...and there's bugger all you can do about it!"
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I agree on the 'comfortable' aspects of Calvinism, Ken, and don't forget I was pretty Calvinistically inclined at one time ... I still am to a certain extent ...

But it's the corollary of it that is rather cold and chilling ...

I think Balaam's onto something with his analysis of his own attraction towards Calvinism - there is a logic about it and that is, in itself, an attractive feature - like mathematics and other 'patterns'.

Islam is very deterministic and I suggest that there is no accident in its preferred form of artistic expression being highly geometric.

I'd probably be over-emphasising the point, though, if I suggested that Calvinism does appeal to mathematics, IT people, lawyers, accountants and various geeks of that ilk than it does to poets, painters and so on ... as I'm sure you could find people on both sides of the debate who are artistically inclined.


 

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Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
Calvinism is a strange character, it seems to me to be a centrifugal tradition that seems to push people to extremes (yes the biggest liberals also tend to be Calvinists). It has a strong reputation for division yet the tradition really starts with synthesis, that of Calvin's Genevan tradition with the post Zwingli Zurich and Berne. Many Calvinist for instance take their Eucharist theology from Zwingli, Calvin was NOT a memorialist.

The tradition is rigourous, it values highly carefully thought out positions but it also has mystery at its centre, it knows it only ever talks of God by analogy. Yet there is the passion the great love of God, a tradition that quite often turns to Song of Songs to find its expression of love for God.

A tradition that at once has the doctrine that Salvation is up to God, yet has probably had the most missionary effort of any. The command to go and make disciples was taken despite the theology.

The strong metaphor for God in the Reformed tradition is "Other". That is normally taken to be more than human but there is the sense in which that also takes on the sociological aspect of "Other" which is that which we tend to want to exclude. A classic of this would be the refugee, but then what do you expect from a traditions whose founder served in a city as a resident alien and was never naturalised. John Calvin was never a Genevan.

Calvin is a master writer, and yes used all his lawyer brains, but just like a lawyer in court his writing is to persuade you he is right, not to produce a systematic theology. The clarity is partly illusion of a skilled performer. His language is smooth, in a way that few later Reformed theologians have produced since, but in its smoothness you miss the complexities that are often there. When people try and sort it into a totally logical approach they end up having to twist what is there.

Remember Calvin held the world was the theatre of God's creation, which is hardly the doctrine of someone who thought the world was going to Hell in an hand basket.

Jengie
 

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Posted by MSHB (# 9228) on :
 
I'm a Protestant.

I have Asperger's Syndrome.

And I am not a Calvinist.

So, I would be inclined to say "No".

PS: I don't think equating psychological conditions and theological viewpoints is very helpful. There is a saying in the autistic community: "If you have met one autistic person, then you have met one autistic person". People on the autism spectrum vary considerably, and many do not really resemble the oversimplified characterisations of autism and Asperger's syndrome that non-autistic people often imagine. Associating Asperger's and Calvinism oversimplifies and misrepresents both "isms" (Calvinism and autism). It also makes us Aspies wonder what is really being implied here ... I mean, why pick on us?

Anyway, based on my own experience, I might say that Aspies are inclined towards contemplative prayer, because it lets us be on our own in beautiful peace and quiet. But then, I am only one Aspie.
 

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Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Niminypiminy:
I don't like this metaphor, because it depends on such a parodic, false and unfair characterisation of people with Asperger Syndrome.

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quote:

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Originally posted by MSHB:
PS: I don't think equating psychological conditions and theological viewpoints is very helpful. There is a saying in the autistic community: "If you have met one autistic person, then you have met one autistic person". People on the autism spectrum vary considerably, and many do not really resemble the oversimplified characterisations of autism and Asperger's syndrome that non-autistic people often imagine. Associating Asperger's and Calvinism oversimplifies and misrepresents both "isms" (Calvinism and autism). It also makes us Aspies wonder what is really being implied here ... I mean, why pick on us?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd):
I think there might, just might, be a simpler answer, Gamaliel.

Jean Cauvin (John Calvin) was both French and a lawyer. There is a certain remorseless logic to his position. He took the most extreme stance from the RCC of his time it would be possible to.

A very strange man. Certainly not my cup of hemlock. But great Christians have come out of the Calvinist tradition: you only have to look at Bayers Naude, one of the genuine heroes of the anti-apartheid movement.

Many Christian "positions", especially to those who don't hold them, might seem strange. I think you have to apply the "by their fruits test" in each particular instance, if important enough to you and then march on.

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quote:

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Originally posted by CL:

quote:

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Originally posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd):
I think there might, just might, be a simpler answer, Gamaliel.

Jean Cauvin (John Calvin) was both French and a lawyer. There is a certain remorseless logic to his position. He took the most extreme stance from the RCC of his time it would be possible to.

A very strange man. Certainly not my cup of hemlock. But great Christians have come out of the Calvinist tradition: you only have to look at Bayers Naude, one of the genuine heroes of the anti-apartheid movement.

Many Christian "positions", especially to those who don't hold them, might seem strange. I think you have to apply the "by their fruits test" in each particular instance, if important enough to you and then march on.

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Huldrych Zwingli surely?

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quote:

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Even though humanity is dead to sin, God offers his salvation for free. Really that is Calvin in one sentence

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quote:

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Originally posted by Matt Black:
Yes, but the flip side to your Calvinist coin, Ken, is what is says about those who aren't 'saved': "er...sorry, but God doesn't like you very much [with apologies to Not the Nine o'Clock News] ...and there's bugger all you can do about it!"

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quote:

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Originally posted by Robert Armin:
Zach:

quote:

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Even though humanity is dead to sin, God offers his salvation for free. Really that is Calvin in one sentence

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Sounds like Christianity in one sentence to me. If that was all that Calvinism is about, it wouldn't be a separate movement, and so many Christians wouldn't find it offensive.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Matt Black:
Yes, but with any soteriological system other than Calvinism you haev at least some degree of personal responsibility on the part of the human being; with Calvinism you don't.

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quote:

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Indeed. I wonder how often people say 'I am a Calvinist and I believe that I am irredeemably damned'?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Zach82:
People say they believe God's offer of salvation is unconditional, but actually make it conditional on a person's decision to accept it. Which is a condition if there ever was one.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:
That's not a condition. It is stretching language beyond breaking point to call it a condition. That somebody has to decide to accept it is what makes it an offer.

Besides, you're getting your Calvinism wrong. Calvinism says that humans do have to decide to accept salvation. It's just it says that that God's prior grace is both a necessary and a sufficient cause of them making that decision.

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quote:

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Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:

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Originally posted by Matt Black:
Yes, but with any soteriological system other than Calvinism you haev at least some degree of personal responsibility on the part of the human being; with Calvinism you don't.

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Which usually only pushes the problem back by one step.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Zach82:
"If you choose salvation, God gives it to you" is a conditional statement. It's not stretching the meaning "conditional," it is the very definition of conditional.

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quote:

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Originally posted by ken:

quote:

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Originally posted by Zach82:
"If you choose salvation, God gives it to you" is a conditional statement. It's not stretching the meaning "conditional," it is the very definition of conditional.

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A full-on tulip-head would surely put it the other way round: "If God gives you salvation than you will choose it".

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quote:

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Originally posted by Matt Black:
Yes, but with any soteriological system other than Calvinism you haev at least some degree of personal responsibility on the part of the human being; with Calvinism you don't.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:
And I've only ever heard "aspie" used in a borderline abusive way before, although that may be my limited horizons.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Matt Black:

quote:

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Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:

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Originally posted by Matt Black:
Yes, but with any soteriological system other than Calvinism you haev at least some degree of personal responsibility on the part of the human being; with Calvinism you don't.

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Which usually only pushes the problem back by one step.

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An important step nevertheless.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Matt Black:
Yes, but the flip side to your Calvinist coin, Ken, is what is says about those who aren't 'saved': "er...sorry, but God doesn't like you very much [with apologies to Not the Nine o'Clock News] ...and there's bugger all you can do about it!"

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quote:

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Originally posted by Zach82:
"If you choose salvation, God gives it to you" is a conditional statement. It's not stretching the meaning "conditional," it is the very definition of conditional.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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Originally posted by Zach82:
"If you choose salvation, God gives it to you" is a conditional statement. It's not stretching the meaning "conditional," it is the very definition of conditional.

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Merely because you can express what happens in a conditional statement does not make the offer a conditional offer nor offered upon conditions.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Zach82:
Jesus showed us what it's like if we really be saved, and all I can say is that isn't me. I have not loved God with my whole heart, I have not loved my neighbor as myself. I have failed to be obedient. So I can only conclude that, on some deep level, I don't really accept God's grace.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Zach82:
I am not going to go on guessing what you imagine "conditional" to mean. I can only account for the real meaning.

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quote:

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Besides, if 'if you accept God's offer then you are saved' makes God's offer conditional, then 'if God offers you salvation then you are saved' equally makes God's offer conditional.

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No, it means one is still conditional and the other is a tautology.

For Calvin they are both tautologies, actually, but that has nothing to do with your confusing arguments here.

[ 17. July 2012, 20:46: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
 

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Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Zach82:

quote:

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Originally posted by Robert Armin:
Zach:

quote:

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Even though humanity is dead to sin, God offers his salvation for free. Really that is Calvin in one sentence

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Sounds like Christianity in one sentence to me. If that was all that Calvinism is about, it wouldn't be a separate movement, and so many Christians wouldn't find it offensive.

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Not really. People say they believe God's offer of salvation is unconditional, but actually make it conditional on a person's decision to accept it. Which is a condition if there ever was one.

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quote:

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Originally posted by anteater:
Gemaliel: You are probably aware of the work of Simon Bar Cohen (Ali G's uncle I believe) in this area. He developed the concept of the typical male brain, as being very much attuned to systems, and being rather black and white. He believes this almost imperceptibly lead to the autistic spectrum. I'm certainly like that.

Now if this is true, would it not be less contentious to ask whether Calvinism appeals to the typically male brain? From very unscientific samples, I would say mathematicians and other people with a strong logic bent are drawn to Calvinism, as indeed I am, albeit in its liberal form.

It is very easily misunderstood, since what is rests on is the radical inexplicability of God, which lots of christians talk loudly about and then slag off calvinists for being non-logical, not illogical.

They would, therefore, along with Calvin, refuse to try and elucidate the paradox or contradiction involved in believing both that God desires all men to be saved, and that those who are saved are saved through the effective sovereign action of God. They believe, rightly in my view, that both are taught in scripture, and there is no way to reconcile them. I would now say that this is one strand of NT teaching, but not the only one, meaning that anyone who insists on getting a consistent message will to a fair bit of scripture twisting.

There's no paradox in the fact that strong logical thinkers arrive at an inexplicable solution. It happens all the time, and obviously it means that we do not and can not understand reality at all fully.

Alongside that you have to reckon that every religion will decay in its own way. Some are more likely to degenerate into superstition, others into materialism. Calvinism can easily degenerate into a self-satisfaction, like the (probably apocryphal) story of the woman to said to Thomas Goodwin "Isn't God wonderful. He's condemned practically the whole human race, but saved me!" Always told as a joke BTW in reformed circles.

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I am the flip side of that theory then. I am drawn to history, music and the arts in general and not surprisingly I am just about as Lutheran as it is possible for an Anglican to get. I have the same problem with Calvinism as I do with Tridentine Catholicism - bth are way too tightly drawn for comfort.

Now me and my old buddy Martin are going to have another bucket of Bock, sing a few songs, and stock up on the chalk for when the Swiss boys get here.

PD

[ 17. July 2012, 23:34: Message edited by: PD ]
 

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Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
Is a Christian a snow-covered dunghill, PD?
 

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Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :
 
I don't have ASD, but your use of it here is offensive, insensitive, and ill-considered.


 

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Posted by PD (# 12436) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Zach82:
Is a Christian a snow-covered dunghill, PD?

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quote:

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Originally posted by PD:
I am not an optimist when it comes to human nature. Our hope of salvation ultimately lies in what God has done for us in Jesus Christ, not on any merit of our own. I may not use some of Luther's more colourful phrases, but I agree with the sentiment.

PD

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Glad to hear it. I don't share Luther's particularly Germanic fixations either, but when he's right he's right.
 

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Posted by no_prophet (# 15560) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Golden Key:
I don't have ASD, but your use of it here is offensive, insensitive, and ill-considered.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

quote:

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:
And I've only ever heard "aspie" used in a borderline abusive way before, although that may be my limited horizons.

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At least on this side of the pond, "Aspie" is a colloquialism used by many people with Asperger's and their families. It is, at least in my experience, generally viewed as a friendlier term than, say, "person with Asperger's," though I know there are some who prefer not to be referred to as an Aspie. The other self-describing term I hear from time to time is Aspergian (or Aspergerian).

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quote:

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Originally posted by Albertus:
Indeed. I wonder how often people say 'I am a Calvinist and I believe that I am irredeemably damned'?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

Many of the problems being thrown around can be obviated by the Arminian concept of prevenient grace, by which God - who loves all people, provided salvation for all in Christ, invites all to be saved, and genuinely wants them to be saved - graciously enables fallen sinners to exercise their free will to receive or reject salvation.

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quote:

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Originally posted by anteater:

We are driven by what we desire, and we cannot will ourselves into desiring what we hate. People reject christianity because it does not give them what they want.

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quote:

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We are more like the alcoholic who can choose what he wants to drink, but who can't choose sobriety.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Zach82:

quote:

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Besides, if 'if you accept God's offer then you are saved' makes God's offer conditional, then 'if God offers you salvation then you are saved' equally makes God's offer conditional.

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No, it means one is still conditional and the other is a tautology.

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A tautology is a piece of language. A conditional statement is likewise a piece of language. Neither of the above statements is a tautology, true by definition; both are conditional statements.

You are confusing traits of the pieces of language that you're using to talk with with the traits of the things you're talking about. Hence your claim that a conditional statement about an offer must be about a conditional offer.

As if you claimed that ducks are waterbirds that are spelled with four letters, or that the word 'duck' has webbed feet.

If Judas is not offered salvation and Peter is offered salvation, then the offer is conditional on being Peter and on not being Judas.
If the offer is not made equally to both Peter and Judas then the offer is conditional.

And you might think that is a clinching argument, but here in unconfused world it merely emphasises that your arguments are fatuous bluster.

quote:

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For Calvin they are both tautologies, actually, but that has nothing to do with your confusing arguments here.

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quote:

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Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:

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Originally posted by anteater:

We are driven by what we desire, and we cannot will ourselves into desiring what we hate. People reject christianity because it does not give them what they want.

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I think Luthers terminology of the bound-will is a good one to use.

We are more like the alcoholic who can choose what he wants to drink, but who can't choose sobriety.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yerevan:

quote:

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Indeed. I wonder how often people say 'I am a Calvinist and I believe that I am irredeemably damned'?

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I've known a couple. They generally exit either calvinism or Christianity at great speed.

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That is probably the pithiest and wittiest comment on thread as well as Zen like.
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Matt Black:
But it still throws the moral responsibility for soteriology back on God ie: He can cure everyone of alcoholism if He wants to but chooses to cure only some.

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Yes, it's a problem we all have - essentially the problem of Theodicy as it applies to salvation.

You only 'solve' it via universalism or open theism.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Is it though?

I'd like to hear some Orthodox perspectives on this thread. They do seem to incline towards universalism but from what I can understand don't make this a dogmatic requirement. Are Orthodox open theists? I've heard some of them denounce the idea that God doesn't 'know the future'.

Is it a straight-forward choice between Calvinism, Arminianism on the one hand and forms of universalism and open theism on the other?

Surely there are other alternatives.

Such as mine: 'I don't know ...'
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:

Is it a straight-forward choice between Calvinism, Arminianism on the one hand and forms of universalism and open theism on the other?

Surely there are other alternatives.

Such as mine: 'I don't know ...'

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
One of the things that has intrigued me, though, looking at the way that Zach82 has vigorously defended Calvinism and the way that Kaplan Corday has attacked it just as vigorously, is that SOME - but by no means all posters don't seem able to appreciate that there ARE alternatives.

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quote:

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Hear what comfortable words our Saviour Christ saith unto all that truly turn to him.

"Come unto me all that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you."

"So God loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Hear also what Saint Paul saith.

"This is a true saying, and worthy of all men to be received, That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."

Hear also what Saint John saith.

"If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins."

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Who is putting forward a Pelagian position, Zach82? I'm not?

I'm beginning to think that my OP (despite its unfortunate use of Asperger's Syndrome) was along the right lines when it identified the very literal, black-and-white nature of much (contemporary?) Calvinism.

It seems to me that you hold that if one isn't a Calvinist then one must automatically be a Pelagian.

I'm suggesting it's not as binary and clear-cut as that.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but Ken and your good self seem to be acting as if there are only two clear-cut alternatives ie. be a Calvinist like me or else you're a Pelagian heretic ...


 

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Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
I do see it as a binary matter. Either grace is sufficient or it isn't.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 


Zach82 doesn't see it as a binary matter - then posts something so completely binary as to make me rest my case:

'Either grace is sufficient or it isn't'



That's EXACTLY what I'm getting at.

No-one here is saying that grace is insufficient.

Of course, the Orthodox and RCs would say that it's grace+ ... ie. not grace alone through faith alone as the standard Protestant formulary has it - but does that imply that grace isn't sufficient?

All Christian traditions believe in grace. They would all consider the 'My grace is sufficient for you ...' thing ...

The Orthodox and RCs believe in salvation through grace - for all their differences with the Protestant system of soteriology they don't argue for a works-righteousness (although ill-taught people in both communions can come across that way).

There is a Reformed saying which I would say is worthy of all acceptation - 'the grace that saves is never alone.'

How that works out in practice is the rub, though ...

But to posit binary and bipolar 'takes' on this strikes me as to miss the point.

By a wide margin.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Sorry - I messed that up - Zach82 DOES see it as a binary matter. I was so busy laughing that I messed up my post.

That is exactly my point, clumsy as my reference to Asperger's was.

Calvinism appeals to the kind of binary mindset that people like Zach82 entertain because they haven't the wit or the nuance to hold things in tension or see shades of grey.

Sorry, but I rest my case.

I'm going to get some flak now.
 

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Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
"Grace plus choice" is not "Grace is sufficient," though I've been finding that certain people use unfamiliar definitions of common words on threads like this. Do you have your own imaginative definition of "sufficient" that I am unfamiliar with? Because according to my dictionary "Grace needs something else to effect salvation" is pretty much the definition of "Grace is insufficient."

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Calvinism appeals to the kind of binary mindset that people like Zach82 entertain because they haven't the wit or the nuance to hold things in tension or see shades of grey.

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Ah, we need to take account of human situations. "Can God save me, pastor?" "Maybe my child, it's really grey and nuanced. You can pray and hope for the best though. The more prayers the better, one would think. Would you like to buy some indulgences just to make sure?"

You can have your grey. I will trust the promises of Holy Scriptures.

[ 18. July 2012, 17:18: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
You are so easy to wind up, Zach82. It's like shooting fish in a barrel ...

Of course grace is sufficient. Where have I said otherwise? Pelagius was an heretick because he apparently believed that we could save ourselves without recourse to divine grace. I don't see any Christian tradition teaching that, not the RCs, not the Orthodox, not the Arminian end of the Protestant spectrum ...

My point is that the kind of outraged, hoity-toity stance you appear to be taking is demonstrative of the kind of attitude I've been driving at - an overly black-and-white approach. It's the computer-geek approach to theology rather than the poetic one. Sure, we need computer geeks - otherwise I couldn't be typing this, but we need a heck of a lot more than that ...

Heck. You're pretty sacramentalist in your approach. You believe in the sacraments as 'means of grace'. Does that mean that you believe that grace is insufficient because it 'needs' the vehicle of the sacraments to work through ...?

Or whatever else we may wish to subsitute for sacraments?

Of course not.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
'You can have your grey. I will trust the promises of Holy Scriptures.'



Read that again and then tell me I'm wrong for taking a pop at your pomposity.

We all trust the promises of Holy Scripture. Some people happen to believe that the scriptures aren't always so black-and-white on these issues and that it's possible to hold things in tension - at one and the same time. Like the whole Romans/James thing which you'll be thoroughly aware of.
 

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Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 

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Of course grace is sufficient. Where have I said otherwise? Pelagius was an heretick because he apparently believed that we could save ourselves without recourse to divine grace. I don't see any Christian tradition teaching that, not the RCs, not the Orthodox, not the Arminian end of the Protestant spectrum ...

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My point is that the kind of outraged, hoity-toity stance you appear to be taking is demonstrative of the kind of attitude I've been driving at - an overly black-and-white approach. It's the computer-geek approach to theology rather than the poetic one. Sure, we need computer geeks - otherwise I couldn't be typing this, but we need a heck of a lot more than that ...

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Heck. You're pretty sacramentalist in your approach. You believe in the sacraments as 'means of grace'. Does that mean that you believe that grace is insufficient because it 'needs' the vehicle of the sacraments to work through ...?

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Read that again and then tell me I'm wrong for taking a pop at your pomposity.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Some people happen to believe that the scriptures aren't always so black-and-white on these issues and that it's possible to hold things in tension - at one and the same time.

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Originally posted by Zach82
People say they believe God's offer of salvation is unconditional, but actually make it conditional on a person's decision to accept it. Which is a condition if there ever was one.

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You are confusing two different things: free will and works. The willingness to accept something given as a gift is hardly the same as the work undertaken to earn it.

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Originally posted by Anyuta:
but to accept something IS an act. I think you are confusing "work" with the idea of doing a good deed or something.. but most of us who believe that faith alone is not sufficient see the "work" as an antonym of "sin". in other words, if you are attempting to move away from sin, then you are doing the "work" that God expects of you. so, if God offers you an escape from sin, and you "work" to escape from sin, isn't that exactly the same thing as "accepting" the gift?

What does it mean to "accept the gift"? does it necessarily mean acknowledging the giver of the gift? or even knowing ho the giver is? Does it mean specifically stating that you accept, or can one simply take a gift and start "using" it and that be acceptance? does a freely given gift require acknowledgement and thanks in order to have been accepted?

oh, and... what sin is it that needs freeing from as of conception? can someone sin before birth?

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Originally posted by Anyuta
oh, and... what sin is it that needs freeing from as of conception? can someone sin before birth?

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oh, and I think you are confused about love and rape. SEX which is forced is rape. love can exist without the other person having anything to do with it. love may result in some impact on the one being loved, but the act of love itself does not require anything from the loved one. unrequited love may break the lovers heart, but it is certainly not rape.

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Talk about "plus ca change..."!

Posters pretending that Arminianism is the same as Pelagianism, and that choosing the free gift of salvation constitutes a "work" - takes me back years.

Old Calvinists never die, they just become more and more casuistical.

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I'm beginning to think that my OP (despite its unfortunate use of Asperger's Syndrome) was along the right lines when it identified the very literal, black-and-white nature of much (contemporary?) Calvinism.

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Originally posted by Robert Armin:
Then again, the Ship has a healthy number of gracious, loving Calvinists, such as Grits - strangely absent from this thread - who put me to shame with their Christian lives, and show that it is possible to combine the two after all.)

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As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:

Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:

Their feet are swift to shed blood:

Destruction and misery are in their ways:

And the way of peace have they not known:

There is no fear of God before their eyes.

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Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Next time it's the Orthodox' turn. How dare they have beards!

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Originally posted by Arminian:
I think Calvinism is the root problem of much of western Christianity. Total crap formulated by a madman who had no real love or morality. A wolf in sheep's clothes. His lifestyle and murderous activities are enough for me to discount anything he had to say about God. Not Baptized in the spirit I don't believe he even knew Jesus very well if at all.

I don't buy the rather pathetic argument, 'well they were all violent in the middle ages so we can ignore how he behaved' argument. The cruelty he displayed in dispatching Michael Servatus with a slow and agonizing death shows me this man was a murderer.

His theology twists a simple faith in Jesus as God revealed into something else entirely. Cold, unloving, devoid of scriptural truth, entirely in error and just plain wrong on so many levels.

How can a man who put people in prison for laughing in his sermons, drowned a woman for adultery, killed Michael Servatus by making sure it took longer to burn him, voted to kill many others for 'sin', know anything about Jesus at all ? He can't.

WOLF ! Ignore him.

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Originally posted by Zach82:
Anyone saying that one must accept grace to actually obtain salvation is making human choice a condition of salvation, and therefore saying that grace is NOT sufficient.

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But it still throws the moral responsibility for soteriology back on God ie: He can cure everyone of alcoholism if He wants to but chooses to cure only some.

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Originally posted by Yerevan:
I've known a couple. They generally exit either calvinism or Christianity at great speed.

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So does that mean that God's grace has already effected our salvation and anyone who doesn't want that salvation must discard it or reject it or undo it in some way? (Just trying to make sure I understand the point you are making.)

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Originally posted by Zach82:
and no one here has mentioned a word of any concept of the perseverance of the saints.

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Then why did you bring it up? Why did you talk about "am I accepting grace now" if no-one suggested there was a need to persevere in accepting grace?

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Originally posted by Zach82:
I would be astonished if anyone did play your line, since the conclusions are as I pointed out- God taking away free choice the moment one decided to accept grace.

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Originally posted by Zach82:
So whether or not one accepts grace is NOT a matter of certainty. There we are again, at that fearful Gospel. Have I really accepted? How can I know? I thought I accepted in the past, but I am not sure now...

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I completely fail to see why that's the conclusion...

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Whether or not God has granted grace, apart from any choice or acceptance, isn't a matter of certainty either! There we are again, with fear. Did God really pick me? How can I know? I thought I was one of the elect, but I am not sure now...

In other words, your theology suffers from the EXACT same "fear flaw", merely with a different set of questions - about whether God chose, rather than the individual.

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Originally posted by Zach82:
What is sin? Is it not, in the very least, a rejection of God's grace?

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Um, no. It's a violation of God's law. The definition you just put forward doesn't make the slightest sense.

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Originally posted by Zach82:

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Um, no. It's a violation of God's law. The definition you just put forward doesn't make the slightest sense.

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Yeah, that's been your first and only judgment against every thing I have ever said in our every interaction.

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Originally posted by PaulTH*:
It beggers belief that a religion claiming to be "good news" could perpetuate an arguement that God creates sentient creatures for the purpose of daming them to eternal torment, which is a logical outcome of the downside of Calvinism.

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Originally posted by orfeo:

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Originally posted by Zach82:

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Um, no. It's a violation of God's law. The definition you just put forward doesn't make the slightest sense.

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Yeah, that's been your first and only judgment against every thing I have ever said in our every interaction.

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Fine. Ask anyone else if your definition makes sense. It simply doesn't. You've basically just said "What is guilt? Isn't it the rejection of a pardon?", so I think I'm entitled to say that it's nonsense.

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it makes perfect sense to me. what does NOT make sense to me is the idea of equating sin with guilt. sin is a state of being. it's not a legal determination. you may be entitled to say that you think something nonsense or disagree with it, but there are certainly others who do not find it nonsensical.

I don't personally think that sin is best defined as a rejection of grace, but it makes more sense to me than simply a legalistic definition of "sin is a violation of God's laws". THAT definition seems extremely limited and self evidently wrong.

I believe that grace exists the way God's love exists.. and we are all constantly in it. you don't "reject it" to make it go away. it's still there. "hell" is simply living in God's love when you don't want to.
 

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Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
You propose, Orfeo, the possibility of a person who accepts God's grace but refuses His Law. Which is rather self evidently false to me. But you accuse me of irrationality so often (and never of simply being wrong but rational) that I would be quite a bad case if only half of these accusations were true. So maybe what is self-evident to me is not much to take account of.

How do I know your constant accusations aren't true? For all I know, this could all be an illusion. I could be posting from a prison for the criminally insane right now. If I am so irrational, I just have no way of knowing.
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 

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Originally posted by Zach82:
You propose, Orfeo, the possibility of a person who accepts God's grace but refuses His Law.

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How do I know your constant accusations aren't true? For all I know, this could all be an illusion. I could be posting from a prison for the criminally insane right now. If I am so irrational, I just have no way of knowing.

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Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:

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Originally posted by PaulTH*:
It beggers belief that a religion claiming to be "good news" could perpetuate an arguement that God creates sentient creatures for the purpose of daming them to eternal torment, which is a logical outcome of the downside of Calvinism.

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Yes, this is also my fundamental problem with Calvinism. How do we square 'God is love', 'God so loved the world...' etc. with what I understand to be the Calvinistic position, that some people have been selected by God for salvation and others for (eternal conscious torment) damnation?

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Originally posted by PD:
I have general come to the conclusion that Predestination is best treated as a doctrine which may be of 'sweet, pleasant and unspeakable comfort to godly persons' (Art. 17 of the 39) it really is not a matter for free for all speculation because sooner or later someone is going to be dopey enough to conclude they are predestined to damnation the 'Devil thereby thrusting them into desparation.' (Ibid)

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Originally posted by Zach82:
First you insist there is such a great division between sin and rejecting grace, and now you are going to play dumb when I start working out the conclusions of the premises you have proposed. This is why arguing with you is generally so frustrating, Orfeo.

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Originally posted by orfeo:
Correction: to avoid that particular conflict, let me redefine a Christian as "a sinner who has benefited from God's grace". Let's leave accepted out of it.

The point remains, though, that if a person is not a sinner, a person does not require grace. Jesus Christ was not in need of God's grace.

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Originally posted by Zach82:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
Correction: to avoid that particular conflict, let me redefine a Christian as "a sinner who has benefited from God's grace". Let's leave accepted out of it.

The point remains, though, that if a person is not a sinner, a person does not require grace. Jesus Christ was not in need of God's grace.

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This is simply a complete botch from the very start. Jesus relied on God's grace more than anyone. His life is the life of one with utter reliance on grace alone. His death on the Cross is the moment when a Christian realizes that there is nothing else, no other hope whatsoever, but the grace of God.

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Now will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill:

And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.

And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard.

What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?

And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down:

And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.

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Originally posted by Zach82:
You really need to contemplate what human life is. There is no life at all without the grace of God.

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Originally posted by Zach82:
Anyone saying that one must accept grace to actually obtain salvation is making human choice a condition of salvation, and therefore saying that grace is NOT sufficient. Really it's a perfectly logical proposition assuming we use the real definitions of all the words involved.

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Ah, we need to take account of human situations. "Can God save me, pastor?"

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Originally posted by Zach82:
I would tell such a person that, according to the Holy Scriptures, the sacraments are certain signs of grace- Baptism and the Eucharist are God's decrees from Eternity.

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Originally posted by Zach82:
What is sin? Is it not, in the very least, a rejection of God's grace?

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

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Originally posted by Zach82:
Anyone saying that one must accept grace to actually obtain salvation is making human choice a condition of salvation, and therefore saying that grace is NOT sufficient. Really it's a perfectly logical proposition assuming we use the real definitions of all the words involved.

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In normal English usage:
- if somebody tells me that the change I've got in the pocket is sufficient to catch the bus they do not mean I do not need to pay the driver.
- if somebody tells me that we have sufficient food to feed twelve people that does not mean the people do not need to eat it.
- if somebody tells me that God's grace is sufficient to save us that does not mean that I do not need to accept it.

Points 1 and 2 are true of normal English usage aren't they? And therefore so is 3?

Oh, and it's an interesting quirk of rhetoric that whenever somebody says they're using the real definition of a word they're probably about to use a definition that contradicts every definition previously thought of.

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Originally posted by Zach82:
The Arminian must always say to himself "Have I really accepted grace?"

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Calvinism is so comforting because he doesn't expect us to cling to Christ, but is certain Christ clings to us.

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Originally posted by Zach82
Now will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill:

And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.

And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard.

What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?

And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down:

And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.

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Originally posted by Dafyd:
Because surely within a Calvinist understanding God's grace, being irresistible, cannot be rejected?

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Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Well done. You have just quoted a passage of Scripture that completely demolishes Calvinism.

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Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 

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Zach, let me try to explain where I'm coming from in less confrontational terms than I've used before. For a start, I'm not having a go at you personally; as I said earlier the chances are that you are a much better person than I am.

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...seems to turn into a chilling dogma (God deliberately created millions of humans with the express purpose of damning them for eternity).

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Well done. You have just quoted a passage of Scripture that completely demolishes Calvinism.

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Originally posted by Zach82:
By way of triple posting, the "condemning millions of millions" thing has nothing to do with Calvinism, which refuses to speculate about who and how many will be damned.

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Originally posted by Zach82:
It's the same problem Arminianism has. God sets up people He knows will fail, and then casts them into hell for eternity.

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Originally posted by orfeo:
Nope. See the edit. There is a massive difference between being aware they will fail and setting them up to fail. Even if God foresees the future, that is NOT the same as ordaining it.

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Originally posted by Zach82:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
Nope. See the edit. There is a massive difference between being aware they will fail and setting them up to fail. Even if God foresees the future, that is NOT the same as ordaining it.

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Now you're just preaching the heresy of Pelagianism- you are saying it is possible for a human not to sin.

Though I figure you'll just accuse me of setting up a stawman for pointing out the implications of your argument.

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But (1) it IS possible for a human not to sin, Jesus Christ and

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(2) that isn't remotely relevant!!

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Not relevant? The helplessness of humans to avoid sin is irrelevant to a conversation about free choice and personal responsibility? Golly we really do frame this debate in very different manners.
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
The inevitability of sin has no direct bearing on the availability of grace - except for making a God who limits the availability of grace into a total bastard. But there is no CAUSAL link.

And what's this "aside from Jesus and Mary" bit?

We've just had a conversation like this:

ZACH: A human can't be sinless.
ORFEO: I can think of 1 sinless human.
ZACH: HERESY!! The correct answer is 2!

If Jesus and Mary are humans, the answer to "can a human being be sinless" is yes. It's perfectly simple. I don't know what twisted logic enables you to cite 2 sinless humans while declaring that it's impossible for a human to be sinless.

You appear to be stumbling inarticulately towards a proposition that those 2 particular humans had a special quality that enabled them to be sinless, a special quality that other humans lack and can't emulate, but that wasn't the question.

[ 20. July 2012, 02:29: Message edited by: orfeo ]
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
PS Suggesting that Jesus doesn't count as a human, I'm fairly sure THAT'S a heresy although I can't pull out the correct name for it off the top of my head.
 

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Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 

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Originally posted by orfeo:
The inevitability of sin has no direct bearing on the availability of grace - except for making a God who limits the availability of grace into a total bastard. But there is no CAUSAL link.

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You appear to be stumbling inarticulately towards a proposition that those 2 particular humans had a special quality that enabled them to be sinless, a special quality that other humans lack and can't emulate, but that wasn't the question.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Hey Zach, how about you answer the question you keep avoiding: Does God want all to be saved?

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Originally posted by Zach82:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Hey Zach, how about you answer the question you keep avoiding: Does God want all to be saved?

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That's what the Bible says.

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Originally posted by Zach82:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
The inevitability of sin has no direct bearing on the availability of grace - except for making a God who limits the availability of grace into a total bastard. But there is no CAUSAL link.

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Arminian God is still, in your system, a bastard, for he damns people to hell for sin they were powerless to avoid anyway, and furthermore incompetent for trying to save them with inefficacious grace.

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Originally posted by orfeo:
And does the Calvinist Bible go on to explain why he apparently frustrates his own desires, despite holding all the cards?

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Originally posted by Zach82:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
And does the Calvinist Bible go on to explain why he apparently frustrates his own desires, despite holding all the cards?

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Calvin says that, whatever God's reasons, his actions are necessarily to his own glory.

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Look, you can have free will. I believe in free will as much as anyone, but have taken enough philosophy to know that defining free will is a very sticky matter. I just think predestination is the obvious truth of the Scriptures, and whatever free will is, it has to be compatible with predestination somehow. Certainly I am not the one to try to square them.

Gamaliel was pitching a tantrum for tension and grey area up the thread, but one doesn't get tension by making one end powerless. It's the truth of predestination that puts it in tension with the seeming autonomy we have over this moment.

In the end, Calvin didn't see these doctrines as at all diminishing the tensions of Christian life. He still saw the Bible as calling sinners to repentance and new trust in God's grace. He just saw that repentance as the work of grace, as God turning lost sinners around and putting them in a right relationship with Himself.

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Originally posted by Zach82:
God's grace would be inefficacious if it could not bring about salvation.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Hey Zach, how about you answer the question you keep avoiding: Does God want all to be saved?

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Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Aside from the fact that we can't know God's intentions, aside from what He chooses to share with us, Universalism is four-point Calvinism.

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Originally posted by Zach82:
Unless you take Dafyd's hopelessly simplistic understanding of the human will,

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That's an evasive 'No' from Calvin if ever I saw one.

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It struck me a few hours ago that Christians frequently lob the accusation at atheists that an atheist life is somehow devoid of ultimate meaning. Frankly, I'm looking at Calvinism and seeing something that strips ultimate meaning from life just as effectively but in a worse fashion.

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The false modesty isn't making me forget what you said.

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On another level, why are the only alternatives Calvinism and Arminianism? I go for months on end without thinking about either one; they both seem to be fairly small fragments of the Christian world to me.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Aside from the fact that we can't know God's intentions, aside from what He chooses to share with us, Universalism is four-point Calvinism.

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No, it isn't. I am a universalist but I don't believe in any of TULIP. I don't believe in total depravity, I don't believe in unconditional election, I don't believe in limited atonement, I don't believe in irresistible grace, and I don't believe in perseverance of the saints.

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Originally posted by Robert Armin:
On another level, why are the only alternatives Calvinism and Arminianism?

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Originally posted by Zach82
The song of a vineyard is a metaphor on the attentive grace of God and human failure to live up to that grace, not a theological treatise on free will.

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Though no doubt such a reading is convenient to your thesis, I see nothing in the text that indicates that it is particularly useful to your cause.

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Nothing to do with God's predestination at all.

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Originally posted by Zach82:

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On another level, why are the only alternatives Calvinism and Arminianism? I go for months on end without thinking about either one; they both seem to be fairly small fragments of the Christian world to me.

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You can go so long without thinking about the difference because it makes little difference in day to day life. I know lots of people who have very little understanding of Christology, but calling them heretics for not understanding what a "hypostasis" is would be silly. While the nature of Christ and efficacy of grace are central to Christian theology, it "really comes down to it" less often than one might think.

Like I said, Calvin still sees the Bible as calling sinners to repentance and new life in Christ. He, furthermore, still believes in the autonomy of the human will, just not the sort that can choose salvation without the grace of God.

It ought to be pointed out that Calvin and Luther didn't get themselves into trouble with the Church for preaching predestination. That was very much part of the catholic tradition- both Augustine and Thomas Aquinas believed in it. A close reading of Saint Paul reveals that he had no concept of the individual autonomy that Orfeo and Dafyd are basing their arguments on.

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Originally posted by Zach82:

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That's an evasive 'No' from Calvin if ever I saw one.

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Yes, we're ever the victims of malicious misreadings.

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It struck me a few hours ago that Christians frequently lob the accusation at atheists that an atheist life is somehow devoid of ultimate meaning. Frankly, I'm looking at Calvinism and seeing something that strips ultimate meaning from life just as effectively but in a worse fashion.

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If the ultimate meaning you want is that you have the autonomy to avoid sin, embrace grace, and live independent of the grace of God, you can't have it. At least, not while being an orthodox Christian.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Aside from the fact that we can't know God's intentions, aside from what He chooses to share with us, Universalism is four-point Calvinism.

---

No, it isn't. I am a universalist but I don't believe in any of TULIP. I don't believe in total depravity, I don't believe in unconditional election, I don't believe in limited atonement, I don't believe in irresistible grace, and I don't believe in perseverance of the saints.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Zach82
I agree it has nothing to do with predestination- it's neither for nor against it.

---

Do you enjoy twisting people's words?

It's obvious what I meant, and unlike you, I go to the trouble of explaining my position and seek to support it with some reasoned argument. You just seem to be coming out with smug rejoinders, which does nothing to help your cause.

The passage has nothing to do with predestination in the sense that God did not predestine (either by direct decree or by decreed neglect) the state of affairs in his vineyard. What God did and wanted was a vineyard producing good grapes. His purpose was thwarted. His "predestination" (i.e. his activity and agenda) was resisted.

So this passage most certainly speaks clearly against the TULIP view of predestination in which God's predestined grace cannot be resisted.

[ 20. July 2012, 14:49: Message edited by: EtymologicalEvangelical ]
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
And to break down your straw man: your "avoid sin" jibe is based on the fact that I pointed out Jesus Christ was an example of a human being who didn't sin. If you don't agree that Jesus Christ was human or if you don't agree that Jesus Christ was without sin, I'm quite sure I can find a whole HOST of heretical labels to slap you with.

And your "living independent of grace" remark is just demonstrating that you change the definition of grace as it suits you, unless you are asserting Universalism without coming out and SAYING it. If there are people on this earth that are going to be damned, then they are somehow living despite not having grace in your sense of saving grace, yes? Thereby demonstrating that your declaration that there is only life on earth thanks to God's grace is talking about a completely different definition of 'grace' which is a total red herring when it comes to the Calvinist-Arminian controversy.

And at this point, because I'm ready to push the button about 10 times, it's time to call you to Hell.
 

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Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 

quote:

---

And I call total bullshit on THIS for the reasons just cited. Namely, that there are an astonishingly large number of Christians, considered well and truly orthodox, who are not Calvinist and who therefore do not share your understandings of these matters.

---

When you're done pitching your tantrum maybe you'll see that I never made Christianity a dichotomy between Arminianism and Calvinism. in fact, I've cited Luther many times!

But regardless, your arguments here fit into NO Catholic system. You are arguing against Calvinism with the Pelagian heresy. Which may be fine with you for all I know.
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
You still haven't explained whether I was wrong to say Jesus Christ was human or whether I was wrong to say Jesus Christ was sinless.

That will help me to decide whether you're a Docetist or something else I haven't spotted the label for yet...
 

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Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
You still haven't explained whether I was wrong to say Jesus Christ was human or whether I was wrong to say Jesus Christ was sinless.

That will help me to decide whether you're a Docetist or something else I haven't spotted the label for yet...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:
You are wrong to say that anyone but Jesus and Mary can avoid sin.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:
This goes back to your inexplicable division between accepting grace and rejecting sin.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Aside from the fact that we can't know God's intentions, aside from what He chooses to share with us, Universalism is four-point Calvinism.

---

No, it isn't. I am a universalist but I don't believe in any of TULIP. I don't believe in total depravity, I don't believe in unconditional election, I don't believe in limited atonement, I don't believe in irresistible grace, and I don't believe in perseverance of the saints.

---

On the face of it this post is self-contradictory, so unless you were having a strange brain-fart you must have meant something other than what you wrote.

If you are a universalist then you surely believe everyone is saved (or will in the end be saved, from their own point of view) which is clearly the same as unconditional election, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints. In a 1+1=2 sense, that's what those words mean.

If election were conditional, then some might fail the conditions and not be saved, so universalism is the same thing as unconditional election. If grace was resistible then some might resist and not be saved, so universalism is the same thing as irresistible grace. If God's grace did not guarantee the perseverance of the saints then some might not persevere, and fall away from grace, and not be saved, so universalism is the same thing as the perseverance of the saints.

You could make an argument for universalism being the same as limited atonement as well, but the limit is everybody. Which is I suppose true but a bit uninteresting because does a limitless limit mean anything? Hmmmmmm... it does in maths, something can tend to infinity. But I bet that's not what they meant by it back when they were arguing about whether God knows the number of the saved.

I'll give you the "T" - whether or not "total depravity" is a fair description of our human condition has no bearing on whether or not all are saved. But its hard to see how any Christian could call themselves a universalist without agreeing with those other four points - though of course they might not use that particular jargon.
 

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Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
Are Lutherans heretics because they don't believe in Irresistible Grace? Is Wesley a heretic, and all the Methodists? That's clearly the one of those 5 'points' that us "heretics" have the biggest difficulty with, and it may stun you to discover that Lutherans and Methodists are not widely listed as among the heretical churches out of communion with the 'orthodox' ones.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
I am a universalist but I don't believe in any of TULIP. I don't believe in total depravity, I don't believe in unconditional election, I don't believe in limited atonement, I don't believe in irresistible grace, and I don't believe in perseverance of the saints.

---

---

quote:

---

But its hard to see how any Christian could call themselves a universalist without agreeing with those other four points - though of course they might not use that particular jargon.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
There are three apparently irreconcilable propositions in the Christian tradition.
1) For each person, God wants that person to be saved. (Explicitly stated in 1 Timothy and also follows directly from the belief that God is love and a number of Jesus' sayings.)
2) If God wants something to happen, then that thing happens. (The Biblical support is solely a dense and unclear passage of St Paul's in Romans. One might also say that it's implied by a number of theological propositions about the relationship between God and the world, although some of the further implications are problematic.)
3) Some people are not saved. (Heavily implied by Scripture but all the passages are susceptible of other interpretations.)

Calvinists reject 1) . . .

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
Calvinists reject 1) . . .

---

Again, not all Calvinists.

---

Sorry - correct Calvinists to Calvinists not included under the other two categories.
 

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Posted by MarcArthur (# 17145) on :
 
I greatly appreciate the opening question and the replies. As a Presbyterian pastor I've often labeled myself as a "Five Point Calvinist," but now gripped by this strange desire to be more "honest," I wonder if I've merely just tried to belong as an obedient little guy who's never very bold before others; that is, unless I hold all the cards as I often (and quite mistakenly) have thought. So my "obedience" has really just been a self-defeating ploy to avoid confrontation from self-confident equals. Anyway, I wonder if there are others out there like myself...
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Me - MacArthur - because I used to be almost a Five-Point Calvinist ... well, I tended to be a four-point one, truth be told ... or a TUlIP one at best - with small 'l' rather than a Big L.

Let's get a few things straight in terms of my own position, which is hardly fixed and is evolving, like most people's, I suppose ...

Firstly, I have nothing against Calvinists. Ken is one of my favourite Calvinists. Nick Tamen seems a reasonable sort too, I'm sure we'd get on. I'm sure I'd get on well with Zach82 in real life too, but although I would concede that he has brought in Lutheran arguments as well, he does seem inveterately wedded to what is - to my mind - a very binary and dualistic view - namely, that if you aren't a fully-paid up Calvinist then the only alternatives are that you must be a Pelagian heretick ...

Even the redoubtable Ken falls into binary and dualistic mode. Observe how he tries to argue that Mousethief's universalist position must logically be a Calvinistic one, although using different terminology and therefore - even though Mousethief is unaware of it himself - he must be unconsciously adopting a Calvinistic schema ...



This illustrates the point I was trying to make so clumsily (and unintentionally offensively) in the OP. Some Calvinists are apparently unable to see any alternative to their own schema - as if Calvinism and orthodoxy (small 'o') are coterminous.

They are apparently unable to hold certain aspects in tension or to allow room for 'mystery' and for a degree of agnosticism about those issues that are way past sounding out ...

One wonders, at times, how they are able to hold onto the tensions implicit in the Chalcedonian schema or in the doctrines of the Trinity - yet apparently they do. So why should the whole issue of soteriology and of predestination/free-will be given the reductionist treatment?

Indeed, the way that Zach82 writes about the sacraments they sound almost mechanical. I, too, believe that sacraments are a means of grace, that God 'affects' things through them, works in and through them but I don't see them as magic nor as some kind of electricity charge or conveying some kind of irresistible faith-force ...

I'm still working out my position on them, to be honest ... and I can live with a degree of ambiguity.

The same as I can live with ambiguity on the whole soteriology thing. As a young evangelical convert I used to worry about whether I was 'really saved' and so on ... that's normal. I don't get too exercised about it now, not because I have some kind of uber-confident 'assurance of salvation' nor because I've become indifferent and couldn't care less how I live and what I do (or don't do) ... but because I don't see any great value in getting all het up over it.

All I can do is to respond as far as I can and whatever way I can to what I understand as God's grace. I try to work out my salvation in fear and trembling and I don't make a very good job of it - but underneath are the everlasting arms ...

Sure, Calvinism can be a comfort and that's fine, but it can also lead to all manner of wierd and whacky views. So can Arminianism. So can any other soteriological schema. I get as narked by some Arminians as I do with some Calvinists. And I also don't think it's as binary and oppositional as that - there are other options.
 

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Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by MarcArthur:
Anyway, I wonder if there are others out there like myself...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Nick Tamen seems a reasonable sort too, I'm sure we'd get on.

---

My thanks, and I'm sure we would as well.
 

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Posted by Balaam (# 4543) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by MarcArthur:
I greatly appreciate the opening question and the replies. As a Presbyterian pastor I've often labeled myself as a "Five Point Calvinist,"

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:
This goes back to your inexplicable division between accepting grace and rejecting sin.

---

quote:

---

detractors who claim that Calvin taught that God saves people without their consent, or that Christ died only for the elect. Calvin taught neither of these things

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd):
One of the problems, as I see it, for the average person on the street today - not the theological addicts (I'm desperately trying to give it up) - is that Calvinism is so bloody difficult for them to understand.

Modern people want something simple.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
... What I don't get is this. If someone with no religious beliefs or commitment shows generous, brave or sensitive compassion to others at some cost to themselves, surely God in Christ is at work?...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:
Jesus was human and sinless. You are wrong to say that anyone but Jesus and Mary can avoid sin.

Apart from grace, of course.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
I suppose that if you reject total depravity you can say that there is some part of the soul in every person that never consents to sin.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
Like ken I don't see how universalism is compatible with rejecting unconditional election or with rejecting (post mortem) perseverance of the saints.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Balaam:
But watch out for the detractors who claim that Calvin taught that God saves people without their consent, or that Christ died only for the elect. Calvin taught neither of these things, but it is not unusual in these discussions to find people confusing this hypercalvinism with the things Calvin actually said.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
Yes but you only want to argue with the neo-conservative form of that. Can you imagine what a hiding a person would get here if they insisted Lefebrve Catholicism was true of all Roman Catholicism. Well you are doing that with Calvinism and ignoring the majority of churches that carry that label.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd):

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
... What I don't get is this. If someone with no religious beliefs or commitment shows generous, brave or sensitive compassion to others at some cost to themselves, surely God in Christ is at work?...

---

I think many Christians could see God's Grace working outside the Church in ways it's not easy to theologise about.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Aside from the fact that we can't know God's intentions, aside from what He chooses to share with us, Universalism is four-point Calvinism.

---

No, it isn't. I am a universalist but I don't believe in any of TULIP. I don't believe in total depravity, I don't believe in unconditional election, I don't believe in limited atonement, I don't believe in irresistible grace, and I don't believe in perseverance of the saints.

---

Perhaps it is more accurate to say that four-point Calvinism can be consistent with universalism.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
I suppose my next question is, are many Calvinists also universalists?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by W Hyatt:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd):

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
... What I don't get is this. If someone with no religious beliefs or commitment shows generous, brave or sensitive compassion to others at some cost to themselves, surely God in Christ is at work?...

---

I think many Christians could see God's Grace working outside the Church in ways it's not easy to theologise about.

---

.. and some see it in ways that are very easy to theologise about.

---

Therein may lie the danger.

Not all Theology "rings true". Much that passes for genuine theological thought is, I find, mere fluff.
 

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Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I think, Jengie, that most of us wouldn't have a big issue with the sort of mainstream Reformed churches you're referring to - it's just that it's the very vocal, very conservative form of Calvinism that most of us encounter most regularly here and find troubling.

Ok, some full-on RC and Orthodox types are going to have an issue with anyone who was Reformed, irrespective of how nuanced or balanced their position was ... but you get my drift.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd):

quote:

---

Originally posted by W Hyatt:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd):
I think many Christians could see God's Grace working outside the Church in ways it's not easy to theologise about.

---

.. and some see it in ways that are very easy to theologise about.

---

Therein may lie the danger.

Not all Theology "rings true". Much that passes for genuine theological thought is, I find, mere fluff.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I think, Jengie, that most of us wouldn't have a big issue with the sort of mainstream Reformed churches you're referring to - it's just that it's the very vocal, very conservative form of Calvinism that most of us encounter most regularly here and find troubling.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
I've been thinking about this a little bit. It seems plausible to me. A universalist Calvinism would overcome some of the most serious objections many of us seem to have with Calvinism - at least, in my case, the apparent inconsistency with the notion that God desires that all be saved/God so loved the [whole] world.

I suppose my next question is, are many Calvinists also universalists?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
Then I'm sure you can see how confusion (and defensiveness) become part of the conversation when that "very vocal, very conservative form of Calvinism" is simply labeled "Calvinism." When I see a discussion on "Calvinism," I assume that it will be about Calvinism in its many forms, not just one specific strain of Calvinism.

---

quote:

---

the doctrines and teachings of John Calvin or his followers, emphasizing predestination, the sovereignty of God, the supreme authority of the Scriptures, and the irresistibility of grace. Compare Arminianism.

---

quote:

---

the theological system of John Calvin and his followers, characterized by emphasis on the doctrines of predestination, the irresistibility of grace, and justification by faith

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eliab:
I think that for a lot of reasonably well-informed Christians outside the broad Calvinist tradition, "Calvinism" means "that which is distinctive in Calvin's theology and with which the rest of Christendom disagrees". The points on which Calvin agrees with other Protestants, of his time and subsequently, we would call "Protestantism". The points on which he agrees with the Catholics and Orthodox as well, we would call "Christianity".

The distinctive parts, the parts on which Calvin is likely to make you spit and cross yourself unless you agree with him, are pretty well summed up in TULIP.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Nick Tamen is right. Defining Calvinism by TULIP is like defining Anglicanism as only being Anglo-Catholicism or defining Roman Catholicism as being only Opus Dei. It's about as offensive too.

---

quote:

---

Not to mention Calvin's distinctive eccelesiology which is the reason I am an Elder, but nobody ever seems to get worked up about that.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eliab:
It's more like arguing against Catholicism because of Papal infallibility, indulgences, praying to Mary, going to confession, transubstantiation, and the sacrificial nature of the Mass.

---

quote:

---

If you want to claim the label "Calvinist" but disclaim allegience to the things which the rest of us think Calvin was distinctively and seriously wrong about, no one minds, but then you aren't the sort of Calvinist that we are talking about, and there's no need for you to consider yourself included in the objections to (what the rest of the Christian world means by) "Calvinism".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
The same cannot be said of Calvinism and TULIP. No one is defying some kind of Calvinist magisterium by rejecting TULIP.

---

quote:

---

I've been trying to think what is a more apt analogy. The one that comes to mind is arguing against Catholicism because of the belief in Mary as Mediatrix of all graces -- something many Catholics believe (and would like to see defined as dogma) but that is not actually defined as dogma.

---

quote:

---

And you really don't see how this comes across as non-Calvinists telling Calvinists that we don't really understand what it means to be a Calvinist?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eliab:
If you say so. Although, wasn't there some sort of meeting in the Netherlands around 1619 that seemed to think it had some sort of authority to decide the point?

---

quote:

---

There's two things that I can see what "Calvinist" might usefully mean. First, someone who professes allegience to a broadly Calvinist tradition, which might include membership of a certain type of Church, a system of theology firmly based on the primacy of scripture, a certain sort of ecclesiology, and so on. Second, it might mean someone who professes belief in a set of distinctively Calvinst doctrines, including such things as (double) predestination, irresistible grace, and the like. And I think it's blindingly obvious that someone proposing to argue with ‘Calvinism' means the second.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by PD:
Arminianism is a broad label too. For example, the Arminianism of Charles I's bishops is a different beast to the Dutch version, one suspects due to the high sacramentalism of Laud, etc..

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
Those who want to dispute the breadth and complexity of Calvinism may I suggest you read Ten Myths About Calvinism and then come back to this thread. Its not even a particularly liberal stance being printed by IVP but it will save us from having to go through the same arguments again and again.

Jengie

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:
The emotional basis for finding Calvinism comfortable - which is not of course a good reason to believe it it but people being people must be of some influence - is confidence in God, trust. All those arguments young evangelicals have over the late-night coffee or at the Bible study on Hebrews about "falling away" and "perseverence" and "once saved always saved" and "surety of salvation"

---

quote:

---

All that said, I suspect that it falls into a similar trap through its very Thomist sophistry.

---

Oh Lord.

St. Thomas Aquinas ain't really my bag or anything, and I disagree with him quite strenuously on key points, but I would never accuse him of sophistry. Such is the tenor of this thread, though.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Perhaps that's because you're a Sophist?



Or it could be, of course, that I've got the wrong end of the stick. Perhaps I've used the wrong term.

Perhaps 'Scholastic' might be a less loaded term.

But it is still quite loaded.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Sorry to double-post, but I've long thought of there being a line of descent, as it were, through Augustine, Anselm and Aquinas to the kind of late Medieval Scholastic milieu from which Calvinism emerged.

The Orthodox certainly see it that way, so perhaps my view has been skewed to some extent by borrowing their bi-focals at this point.

However much we 'load' it, I suspect that it is axiomatic that Calvin's theology developed from late medieval/Renaissance Western thought - how could it be otherwise?

Whether that is good, bad or indifferent, of course, depends on where you stand.
 

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Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 

quote:

---

Perhaps 'Scholastic' might be a less loaded term.

But it is still quite loaded.

---

It's a loaded word only to people that can stomach only squishy, grey pablum.

[ 25. July 2012, 12:25: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 


I quite like spikey as well as squishy. So the cap doesn't fit.
 

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Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
So all the caricatures and snide little comments about how unimaginative and constipated all this 'sophistry' is mean you 'quite like' all these views. Sorry for doubting you, I was confused is all.

Edit:

[ 25. July 2012, 13:24: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Well, the part of me that has been influenced by the Calvinist/broadly Reformed tradition quite likes these things ... as George MacLeod, founder of the Iona Community put it, 'Calvinism is a virus, you never quite recover ...'

That doesn't mean that I can't make snide remarks about it. If anything, it means that I'm more likely to make snide remarks about it, particularly as I'm a recovering Calvinist to a certain extent ...

Consequently, I've been wondering what it is about Calvinism that appeals to certain people. It could flatter, for instance, 'I'm one the Elect!' or it eviscerate, 'I am one of the Reprobate!' it can comfort, 'It all depends on God and not on me ...' and it can cause despair, 'God hates me and there's bugger all I can do about it ...'

And it can do anyone of these things at one and the same time.

I happen to think that full-on TULIP style Calvinism overstates the case and ends up forcing God into a corner, a trap whereby he is limited by his own sovereignty. Which can't be right.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I s'pose what I'm saying is that there are aspects of Calvinism that can appeal to the best of our natures, and aspects that appeal to the worst of our natures.

The trick, if I can put it that way, is to work out which is which and when. Or to give up on Calvinism and find another system that doesn't do the same thing to the same extent or at least does different things in different ways and has other pitfalls and inconsistences in other areas ...

I'm suggesting that all 'ism's are provisional.
 

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Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
How safe.
 

---

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Sorry to double-post, but I've long thought of there being a line of descent, as it were, through Augustine, Anselm and Aquinas to the kind of late Medieval Scholastic milieu from which Calvinism emerged.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:

They are apparently unable to hold certain aspects in tension or to allow room for 'mystery' and for a degree of agnosticism about those issues that are way past sounding out .

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I suspect that it appeals to a particular mindset, largely a Western mindset and I'd be prepared to lay odds that it appeals to IT-geeks and to lawyers and to such-like 'directive thinkers' rather more than it does to more 'discursive' or lateral thinkers - but I might be wrong.

---

And appeals to dodgy pop psychology to explain away opinions you disagree with aren't very helpful either
 

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Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 

quote:

---

And appeals to dodgy pop psychology to explain away opinions you disagree with aren't very helpful either

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:

quote:

---

And appeals to dodgy pop psychology to explain away opinions you disagree with aren't very helpful either

---

When all else fails, there's that line from Saint Francis.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I happen to think that full-on TULIP style Calvinism overstates the case and ends up forcing God into a corner, a trap whereby he is limited by his own sovereignty. Which can't be right.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eliab:
The most tempting reason to believe I Calvinism I've ever been given was from an Independent Evangelical pastor who described the relief he felt on finally believing in predestination because "Nobody's salvation depends upon me". That struck a chord. Anyone who is conscious of having been a very poor witness for Jesus cannot possibly be comfortable thinking that they have influenced other people in the direction of rejecting the gospel and being damned to Hell forever as a consequence of that choice. It is, simply, far too much responsibility to trust to any fallible human being, and Calvinism, to me, is at its most attractive when it is presented as God limiting the harm that I can do. That's not enough to make me a Calvinist, but its the only thing that has ever seemed to me to be comforting about it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:
How safe.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:

quote:

---

And appeals to dodgy pop psychology to explain away opinions you disagree with aren't very helpful either

---

When all else fails, there's that line from Saint Francis.

---

quote:

---

How snide.

---

quote:

---

"Preach the gospel at all times; if necessary, use words"?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:

quote:

---

How snide.

---

Are you even reading the snide drivel Gamaliel is posting?

---

quote:

---

Is this the "two wrongs make a right" defense? (Frankly a lot of his stuff falls into the TLDR bucket.)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I just don't believe in piling a whole lot of weight onto various soteriological matters that seem capable of being interpreted in different ways from the same scriptures and that are better left as a mystery while we sit down and drink some beer ...

---

Where you see something as being mystery and another sees it as cut and dry you don't give them as much wriggle room as you think you do. I'd like to discuss it over a beer though
 

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Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The same holds for other very conservative or almost-fundie positions too - including Orthodox ones in case anyone thinks I'm cutting them far too much slack. I've met Orthodox converts who would make some TULIP types look subtle.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:

quote:

---

Is this the "two wrongs make a right" defense? (Frankly a lot of his stuff falls into the TLDR bucket.)

---

It's not a wrong if it's right. The man called Thomas Aquinas a sophist for pete's sake.

---

"a person who uses clever or quibbling arguments that are fundamentally unsound"

So he's disagreeing with Aquinas and that makes him a demon, then?
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Not quite, Mousethief, Zach82 has acknowledged that he doesn't always agree with Aquinas. In fact he appeared rather troubled that I'd linked Calvinism and Thomism in the first place ...

As for Balaam's point, I think it was, that I don't give stringent types as much wriggle-room as I've suggested that I do - perhaps ...

'Who can discern his errors?'

And the other point about character traits is well made. I do wonder though, whether certain theological positions - not just Calvinism or the extreme form of it - attract particular personality types.
 

---

Posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd) (# 12163) on :
 
Interesting, Zach82 and his witting or unwitting board playmates seem to have turned this thread into a discussion about Zach himself.

I would hesitate to suggest Zach has "intellectual Asperger's Syndrome", as that would be Hellish.

But, good grief, didn't someone previously drag him there for almost exactly the same reason?
 

---

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Not quite, Mousethief, Zach82 has acknowledged that he doesn't always agree with Aquinas. In fact he appeared rather troubled that I'd linked Calvinism and Thomism in the first place ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd):
Interesting, Zach82 and his witting or unwitting board playmates seem to have turned this thread into a discussion about Zach himself.

I would hesitate to suggest Zach has "intellectual Asperger's Syndrome", as that would be Hellish.

But, good grief, didn't someone previously drag him there for almost exactly the same reason?

---

Well, this thread has already generated one Hell call, yes.
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I'm surprised Zach82 isn't in Hell permanently.

Well, in recent weeks at least ...
 

---

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
A general warning. The regular contributors to this thread have many years on board, quite sufficient to tell the difference between criticism of content and crossing the line into personal abuse.

The next line-crosser gets a personal warning. Take the personal stuff to Hell.

Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
 

---

Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on :
 
Some general observations, if I may.

Firstly, I am surprised by the Calvinists on this thread who have rejected TULIP as being a fair representation of Calvinism. While I accept that they know a lot more about the topic than I do, I first came across Calvinism when I went to university. The Calvinist students I met used TULIP to introduce me to this way of thinking, and tried to persuade me to accept it.

Secondly, I am not convinced that Calvinism does result in freedom from anxiety about final salvation. IIUC Calvin himself taught that only God knows who is Elect, so none of us on earth can be sure. In practice Calvinism is often seen (and this may be an unfair caricature, I know) as obsessed with rule keeping moral behaviour, to demonstrate one's membership of the Elect, and disapproval of rule breakers, who are clearly Reprobate. I find Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress disturbing in this regard. (Bunyan is widely taken to be a Calvinist, but I gather there is debate on this point. I can just see a new tangent developing...). Christian is graphically saved at the cross, when his burden of sin falls away. Yet, as he makes his journey after that, he meets many people who had started on the same path, made one mistake, and are now cast away. It is only by an intense act of will that he avoids all these snares, keeps going, and finally gets to Heaven. Frankly it sends shivers down my spine, as there seems no possibility of forgiveness within the Christian life. (Part 2, dealing with his wife Christiana, is much kinder as she helps many who had fallen away back onto the right path. However it isn't nearly so compelling as literature.)
 

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Posted by Balaam (# 4543) on :
 
I don't think that anyone has denied that TULIP is a fair representation of certain aspects of Calvinism. What people (including me) are saying is that there is more to Calvinism than the topics covered by TULIP.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
If you were referring to me, Barnabas, I was teasing but can see that I drew very close to the line. I will withdraw a few paces.

@Balaam, I would certainly accept that there is more to Calvinism than TULIP and - despite the OP - that is more nuanced than it is often given credit for. I tend to use a rhetorical device whereby I post something provocative to get the ball rolling then gradually adopt a more balanced or centrist position.

It may irritate some people and it clearly puzzles some. Over on the thread about regular Bible reading I could cite one or two people who don't seem to have 'got' where I was coming from ie. deliberately exaggerating to make a point.

Anyway, back to this thread ... I do think that it is axiomatic that certain highly conservative or fundamentalist positions will attract people of a particular personality type or mindset. I'm not saying that's wrong, just observing that this is the way these things work.

I could certainly balance my comments and questions out by citing aspects of the Calvinist tradition and legacy that I believe to be commendable and praiseworthy. It'd be less fun, but I would be prepared to do it ...

Don't forget that I used to be fairly Calvinistic myself at one point - partly as a reaction to the prevailing Arminianism of the restorationist house-church network that I was involved with, which was largely Arminian as it was led by people from a Pentecostal background. There were Calvinistic elements there, but there were not as prominent as they were in parallel movements such as New Frontiers.

These days, I find both viewpoints unsatisfactory. They both strike me as too neat and too cut-and-dried and, with some caveats and concerns, I do find myself drawn towards the Orthodox position on this one which is neither Calvinist nor Arminian - although some would accuse it of semi-Pelagianism of course.

I've been criticised for mush and slush and intellectual laziness for not taking clear sides. I don't accept that charge, but then neither would those I am accusing of lack of nuance and of spikey and inflexible thinking would accept that charge either.

'Who can discern his errors?'

They might be right about me and I might be right about them. We might both be right. We might neither of us be right.

I can live with the ambiguity.
 

---

Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
These days, I find both viewpoints unsatisfactory. They both strike me as too neat and too cut-and-dried and, with some caveats and concerns, I do find myself drawn towards the Orthodox position on this one which is neither Calvinist nor Arminian - although some would accuse it of semi-Pelagianism of course.

---

Warning - grotesque over-simplifications approaching fast...

So if you find both Calvinism (God chooses who is saved) and Arminianism (each individual chooses) unsatisfactory, what is your opinion? Indeed, what do you mean when you say 'the Orthodox position'?
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Better ask the Orthodox, South Coast Kevin, they understand it better than I do.

In a nutshell, gross oversimplification, they have a different view of original sin (ancestral sin) and a more positive anthropology (view of human nature) whilst acknowledging that it is Christ who saves us and not we ourselves.

They also, it seems to me, tend to take a more holistic and less reductionist view - ie. it isn't down to saying this or that prayer or simply giving intellectual assent to a series of propositions - as it can sometimes come across in some Western circles. Although I would defend both Arminians and Calvinists against that charge.

There are aspects of the Orthodox position that I struggle with - my view of the atonement remains a Western one - but I quite like the way that they blow the whole Arminian/Calvinist thing apart by not having either in the first place.



Perhaps it's perverse of me, but I quite like that. 'A plague on both your houses ...' sort of thing.

In short, it is more 'Mysterious' it seems to me and less 'Scholastic'. I might be completely wrong of course, but there's something pleasingly exotic about it. With the Arminian/Calvinist dichotomy it all gets very juridical and legalistic and a bit too black-and-white for my taste.

Perhaps I like things to be a bit more messy ... a bit more open-ended ...

Who knows?
 

---

Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
They also, it seems to me, tend to take a more holistic and less reductionist view - ie. it isn't down to saying this or that prayer or simply giving intellectual assent to a series of propositions -

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
The initiative in salvation is, of course God's. We love because he first loved us. Even while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Yet we also believe 2 things: (1) God doesn't force anybody to be saved, i.e. we must voluntarily accept God's salvation (this is the semi-Pelagian part that drives Calvinists to distraction), and (2) We are capable of accepting the offer referred to in (1).

---

Cheers for this, mousethief. It sounds pretty much like Arminianism to me, unless I've severely misunderstood! God is the initiator but all are free (within the bounds of our own circumstances, background etc.) to choose whether or not we accept God's offer of forgiveness and healing.
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
It's closer to Arminianism, South Coast Kevin, but I think the Orthodox would claim that it is different as the underlying assumptions are different in terms of the effects of 'ancestral sin' as opposed to 'original sin.' Arminianism would still posit 'original sin' in the Western, Augustinian understanding of it.

It is no accident, though, that the Orthodox tend to feel themselves closer to Wesleyan elements within Protestantism than they do to the Calvinist elements. Whilst maintaining that their view differs from both.

I s'pose that's what I've been getting at when I've been saying that it isn't a matter of there being such a stark choice as some posters have made out - ie. you are either Calvinist or you are Arminian. There is a third way, as it were ... to cite Tony Blair (not someone I would often quote in polite company but ...)

Mudfrog's citation of Wesleyanism as some kind of middle-ground between full-on Calvinism and full-on Arminianism is a useful one, I think, but even that falls within a 'Western' framework which is subtly different to the Orthodox one.

There's a useful and very balanced discussion of this issue in an Evangelical Alliance (UK) Commission on Unity and Truth report called 'Evangelicalism and the Orthodox Church' from 2001.

It has contributions from both Orthodox and evangelicals and the Orthodox contributors concede that the Orthodox position can sometimes be misconstrued as promoting 'works righteousness' and that some Orthodox themselves may mistakenly promote this view.

One of the good things about Calvinism, it seems to me, is that it does take away any sense that our own works or righteousness saves us - but it can set up a false dichotomy, introducing an unbiblical (there, I've said it) separation between faith and works. Of course, they are aware of this and that's why the Calvinist caveat, 'the faith that saves is never alone' is a good one.

But the whole premise is different to that found in Orthodoxy and the issue, as Anyuta has identified, comes down to the question of anthropology. Calvinists emphasise that we are 'dead in trespasses and sins' and that only God's grace can save us. Great. I'm all for that.

However, the 'depravity' thing, if I understand it correctly, means that we are 'depraved' in the sense that we cannot save ourselves by our own efforts. It doesn't necessarily mean, as some Calvinists appear to take it, that we inveterately hate God with every fibre of our being unless we are among the Elect and become regenerate.

Sure, I can see what they're getting at and would have strongly argued as much myself at one time. But now I tend to think it over-states the case. Not that this means that I'm a semi-Pelagian - although no doubt I'll be accused of being one by some of the more full-on Calvinistic posters.

And why would they accuse me of that? Because their system forces them into an incredibly bi-polar and dualistic position. It forces an extreme, as it were.

Hence my rather offensive analogy in the OP.

That's the sort of thing I was getting at. In the Calvinistic schema, if there is any 'human' element involved at all then somehow God is robbed of the glory he deserves. Why so? Why cannot God be glorified in someone who, by divine grace, obeys and loves him? Does it rob the conductor of an orchestra of any glory if the technicians from behind the scenes are invited onto the stage after a performance to share the applause? Is the contribution of the tympanist diminished if the second violins are acknowledged?

No, of course not.

It's this bi-polarity that bothers me about the more TULIP-end of Calvinism. There are equal and opposite errors in Arminianism. It can become anthropocentric. I'd side with the Calvinists against altar-calls and so on and so forth - all of which, as Mousethief has hinted, can lead to a form of 'works-righteousness' mentality.
 

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Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Why cannot God be glorified in someone who, by divine grace, obeys and loves him?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Why cannot God be glorified in someone who, by divine grace, obeys and loves him?

---

Precisely.

The only way out of the impasse that Calvinists get themselves into is to postulate a prevenient grace which God makes available to all who hear the gospel, making the offer of salvation (to the whole of humanity whom God loves, whom Christ died for, and whom God wills and invites to be saved) a genuine offer and not the insincere, rigged offer which Calvinists are obliged to believe in.

Sure, people are given a genuine freedom to accept the gospel, but any pseudo-objection that this choice constitiutes some sort of “work” pales into insignificance compared with the infinitely greater problem with which Calvinists are stuck: that a universe with no genuine choice afforded to creatures must be a universe in which God is the author of sin.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
There will be a Calvinist answer to this conundrum, Kaplan, as I'm sure you'll be aware and if we stick around long enough someone will enlighten us as to what it is.

But, being provocative here, don't you think that some of those who might oppose the Calvinist schema on those grounds might themselves fall into the same bi-polar and dualistic binaryness that I've been accusing them (or some of them) of espousing?

So the argument would run something like this:

Calvinist: Your position necessitates something 'extra' being added to divine grace. You are saying that grace alone is not sufficient. Therefore you must be trying to be justified by works - heretick!

Non-Calvinist: Your position completely robs humanity of any choice or freedom or action and reduces humankind to the level of meat-puppets (nice phrase, Mousethief). In fact, you tie God into the knots of your own schema and instead of defending God's sovereignty you actually limit it by preventing God from actually being God - heretick!

I s'pose what I'm saying is that both Calvinistic and Arminian schemes can run into equal and opposite errors. I don't say this to be all mushy, squishy and cuddly - simply to point out something that I feel to be flawed in both systems when taken to their logical conclusion.

I am quite happy to sing the old Wesleyan hymn 'And can it be ...' which includes lines that would warm the cockles of any Calvinistic heart (and I fully acknowledge that they have one ... ):

'Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast-bound in sin and nature's night,
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light'

etc

I once discussed this hymn with an Orthodox priest and he was happy with it too. He didn't think it contained anything that they would quibble with.

What I wouldn't do, though, is construct some kind of meccano-like edifice of 'prevenient grace' and this, that and the other - because I tend to think that these things operate on another and more mysterious level and are far beyond our workings out.

'The wind bloweth where it listeth.'

I am no more capable of working out a join-the-dots or painting-by-numbers or Venn Diagram, Gantt Chart or Periodic Table approach to soteriology than I am of telling God how to make the rhinoceros.

I'm with Toplady when he sings, 'Thou must save and thou alone' - but I'm not sure I could draw a chart of how that works in practice.

Which is one reason why I find the Orthodox approach quite attractive - even though it niggles and narks at my intrinsic Western legalistic and juridical mindset (I'm a product of that just as much as anyone else here). Because they don't tie themselves up in knots about prevenient grace and irrestible grace and this, that and the other kinds of grace. They just get on with whatever it is they do - some more effectively than others, but that's true over here in the West too.
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
I don't know about Arminianism -- even when I was an Evangelical I never studied theological niceties very closely -- but one thing the Orthodox would say is that our "acceptance" of God is an ongoing thing. Theosis is a product of synthesis between the wills of, and actions of, God and man.* Think of it as God leading the dance and us following. We still have to follow. Ginger Rogers didn't stand on Fred Astaire's toes when they danced. She danced too, but wherever he led her.

The mystery is suggested pretty loudly in St. Paul's letter to the Philippians. St. Clive pointed this out precisely as a paradox of who's doing what: Work out your salvation with fear and trembling (our job) for it is God who works within you (His job).

I like to liken it to a person stuck at the bottom of a well. God throws down a rope and says, "Tie this around your waist, and I'll pull you up! Watch you don't bump against the sides!" Who does the pulling? God. Can we pull ourselves out? No. Do we have something to do? Yes. We have to tie the rope around our waist, and push off from the walls with our feet. An imperfect metaphor, as all are. But it allows for the fact that God is the one who saves us, not we ourselves, YET, there is something we must do; accept God's salvation, and cooperate with his work in us.


____________________
*Well, God's energies, but that's a distinction it probably wouldn't help to get into right now.
 

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Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Anyuta:
I always sort of saw the difference between the Othodox view and the classic Calvinist view as being about our "starting point" . The classic Calvinist view as I understand it can be simplified as: we start out depraved. We deserve eternal damnation from the moment we are born, but can escape this, if God chose us to accept his Grace. The Orthodox view could perhaps be simplified as: we start out in the image of God, sinless. We certainly don't inherit any sin. But due to our separation from God, we are in a constant state of being drawn into a sinful state. With Gods grace, we can resist this, but it is a lifelong struggle.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
However, the 'depravity' thing, if I understand it correctly, means that we are 'depraved' in the sense that we cannot save ourselves by our own efforts. It doesn't necessarily mean, as some Calvinists appear to take it, that we inveterately hate God with every fibre of our being unless we are among the Elect and become regenerate.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
I like to liken it to a person stuck at the bottom of a well. God throws down a rope and says, "Tie this around your waist, and I'll pull you up! Watch you don't bump against the sides!" Who does the pulling? God. Can we pull ourselves out? No. Do we have something to do? Yes. We have to tie the rope around our waist, and push off from the walls with our feet. An imperfect metaphor, as all are. But it allows for the fact that God is the one who saves us, not we ourselves, YET, there is something we must do; accept God's salvation, and cooperate with his work in us.

---

Thanks, mousethief. I wonder how any Christian would disagree with the broad point of this metaphor, that God initiates our rescuing but that we also have a role to play. As you say, 'Work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works within you'.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
If we wait long enough, South Coast Kevin, someone might come along and tell us just that ... by putting some immensely Scholastic spin on those verses to suggest that it's not us holding onto the rope but God enabling us to hold on ... etc

@Eliab - that's a very clear and thought-provoking post and sums the dilemmas up very well, I think. As a point of information, though, I don't think that the Orthodox would seriously claim that their icons are portraits of how they imagined people to look - although some might, certainly those who go in for St Luke painting the likeness of Christ or the Virgin Mary and Veronica's Cloth and so on.

My understanding of it is that Orthodox iconography is deliberately non-naturalistic. But your point is well made and still holds - they glorify and venerate matter because, in Christ, God has united himself with matter ...

I'm going to be on shore-leave for a while.

May I wish you all well, Calvinist, Arminian, Semi-Pelagian, Pelagian or all points in between ... Not that we have many (or any?) Pelagians on these boards. At least, none that I can see.

And to each and every one, be they Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, evangelical, liberal or whatever else ...


 

---

Posted by tclune (# 7959) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
May I wish you all well, Calvinist, Arminian, Semi-Pelagian, Pelagian or all points in between ... Not that we have many (or any?) Pelagians on these boards. At least, none that I can see.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eliab:
Calvin's "starting point" is that the best interpretation of scripture is the one that most glorifies God.

He concludes that the view that most glorifies God is the one that makes God solely responsible for all the good that is ever done: and in consequence allows no credit whatever for going good or avoiding evil to humans.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
I honestly can't see how the idea that you can't get to heaven under your own steam got translated into the idea that you cannot move a muscle in that direction, but instead you lie there comatose.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
The other thing that I found very odd in some of the earlier conversation was the notion that the little action of responding to God's grace constitutes a 'work' and that because there's this absolute ban on us having anything to do with our own salvation, you can't have this 'work'.

---

Perhaps an example might help then.

Many Christians struggle with doubt. For some this is further compounded by issues like depression.

IME to people in this situation the description of Christianity that you are portraying it sounds as if God will only accept them if they carry on believing (which in their heads = have enough faith = feel as if they have enough faith).

Again, IME, such people find great comfort knowing that their salvation is dependent on God holding on to them and not the other way round.

This does not mean that there is no expectation of their faith to be evidenced by a changed life but more a strong sense of where their trust ultimately rests - in God rather than in themselves. To use MT's analogy (which, in general, I don't have much of a problem with) this gives confidence to those who feel that they have no strength left to hold on to the rope.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
@Fineline - well yes. And if you looked back over the thread you'll see that I apologised for using the analogy.

As I've explained elsewhere, I tend to use a rhetorical device whereby I overstate my case or use provocative or even potentially offensive examples to get the ball rolling. I then pull back to a more moderate position.

That's what I've been doing here.

On reflection, I wish I had used another analogy as this one has created rather more heat than light. All analogies are partial at best.

I can think of others that would have expressed what I was trying to say more clearly and without causing so much offence.

In fact, Tclune has very helpfully done the job for me:

'Not to worry. To a true Calvinist, "Arminian" and "semi-Pelagian" are just alternate spellings of "Pelagian."

My point entirely.



It isn't simply a matter of taking things literally - other conservative forms of Christianity do that - but of somehow reducing everything to a very limited set of propositions and alternatives.

As tClune (sp?) has helpfully demonstrated for us. Tongue in cheek, no doubt.



Peace, be to all.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
All analogies are partial, Johnny S.

I daresay Mousethief's could have been improved by the rope also having a loop or hook attached which the person being hauled out of the well could attach to their belt or tie around their waist ...



But even that would be partial. And even then they would have to do the tying or attaching ...

And the strength and ability to do so ultimately comes from God anyway - the fact that we have arms and legs and brains and so on ...

This is where the God only being glorified if there's nothing of anyone else involved thing falls down. 'For in him and from him and to him are all things ...'

To Him be the glory both now and forever and unto the ages of ages, Amen.
 

---

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Johnny S:
This does not mean that there is no expectation of their faith to be evidenced by a changed life but more a strong sense of where their trust ultimately rests - in God rather than in themselves. To use MT's analogy (which, in general, I don't have much of a problem with) this gives confidence to those who feel that they have no strength left to hold on to the rope.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
But we need to abide in him as He abides in us; we need to run with perseverence the race that is set before us. Again, God will not do anything to us against our will. If we want the benefits of salvation and theosis, we must open ourselves to them, take up our cross daily, as somebody once said.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
I prefer 'salvation by relationship', personally.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
In my analogy you don't hold onto the rope. It's not dependent on your strength. You tie it around your waist. Quite a different thing. This seems to have been missed by more people than just yourself.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
In my analogy you don't hold onto the rope. It's not dependent on your strength. You tie it around your waist. Quite a different thing.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
But we need to abide in him as He abides in us; we need to run with perseverence the race that is set before us. Again, God will not do anything to us against our will. If we want the benefits of salvation and theosis, we must open ourselves to them, take up our cross daily, as somebody once said.

---

This is the tricky part for those (and I think I'm one) who don't believe in 'once saved, always saved'. Unless we believe all will ultimately be saved and made right with God, our salvation is surely in jeopardy to the extent that we fail to abide in God and to take up our cross daily.

But then this could easily be described as works-based salvation, couldn't it? We either have 'once saved, always saved' or 'salvation by works', don't we? Hmm... Help me out, someone!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
I prefer 'salvation by relationship', personally.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by W Hyatt:
But if you look at the need for a response on our part to God's offer of salvation as having no connection to merit at all, it's possible to preserve free will and still attribute everything of salvation to God. All that is necessary is to realize that "works" can serve simply as a way to fully exercise our God-given free-will and commit ourselves to our choice to accept salvation and follow Him, with no connection to merit.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
The only other option as I see it is to hold that God chooses some to be saved and those chosen cannot do anything other than accept this salvation.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
Can I ask, if any Calvinists are still willing to pop up in here, what Calvinism makes of the parable of the Prodigal Son?

This popped into my head partly because I once acted in a version of it. And the fact is that the son came back. Rather than being dragged back home by his father.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Balaam:

quote:

---

Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
The only other option as I see it is to hold that God chooses some to be saved and those chosen cannot do anything other than accept this salvation.

---

God does not save people against their will, but the Holy Spirit moves in their lives until they are able to respond. This is Calvinism.

There is some free will in Calvinism but the ability to respond in free will is a gift from God. At every stage God is Sovereign.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
I'm not sure how this helps me, though - if the ability to respond to God's offer of salvation comes entirely from God Himself then why does God only give that ability to some people?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by chris stiles:
Unless you are universalist or some form of open theist then this is always a problem.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
I'm not sure how this helps me, though - if the ability to respond to God's offer of salvation comes entirely from God Himself then why does God only give that ability to some people?

---

quote:

---

Especially if the consequence of not accepting God's offer is eternal torment. How does this square with 'God is love' and 'For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son...'?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Balaam:
God's offer of salvation is for all. But God has foreknowledge and knows those who will not receive it. Take mousethief's well analogy, some people will not tie the rope around their waist and allow themselves to be hauled up.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
I like to liken it to a person stuck at the bottom of a well. God throws down a rope and says, "Tie this around your waist, and I'll pull you up! Watch you don't bump against the sides!" Who does the pulling? God. Can we pull ourselves out? No. Do we have something to do? Yes. We have to tie the rope around our waist, and push off from the walls with our feet. An imperfect metaphor, as all are. But it allows for the fact that God is the one who saves us, not we ourselves, YET, there is something we must do; accept God's salvation, and cooperate with his work in us.

---

Thanks, mousethief. I wonder how any Christian would disagree with the broad point of this metaphor, that God initiates our rescuing but that we also have a role to play.

---

quote:

---

The only other option as I see it is to hold that God chooses some to be saved and those chosen cannot do anything other than accept this salvation. So you're then at the extreme end of Calvinism

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Eliab:
The problem many Calvinists would have with it would be asking what it is that makes the difference between mousethief at the top of the well and another sinner still at the bottom. If they were offered the same salvation, but didn't take it, the thing that made the difference was mousethief tying the rope. And why did he do that? Because he had a better sight of the rope, or better hearing of the instructions, and so realised that was the way out?

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Originally posted by Balaam:

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Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
The only other option as I see it is to hold that God chooses some to be saved and those chosen cannot do anything other than accept this salvation.

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God does not save people against their will, but the Holy Spirit moves in their lives until they are able to respond. This is Calvinism.

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Originally posted by Eliab:
The problem many Calvinists would have with it would be asking what it is that makes the difference between mousethief at the top of the well and another sinner still at the bottom. If they were offered the same salvation, but didn't take it, the thing that made the difference was mousethief tying the rope. And why did he do that? Because he had a better sight of the rope, or better hearing of the instructions, and so realised that was the way out?

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In the Calvinist scheme, those things all come from God, so if mousethief did what the others would have done had they had the opportunity, then it is down to God giving him an opportunity which they did not get.

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But it is, in my view, where you do in fact end up if you accept the contentious proposition that we have absolutely no merit of our own whatever, because then it becomes impossible to make any part of our salvation conditional on our response. All the more reason, in my view, not to start there, but if you do, the Calvinist scheme is sound.

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Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
That's not going to fly with many people, though, because it implies there is no single measure / indicator of whether you are 'in' or 'out' with God. What gets you 'in' might not be enough for me because I've not done enough with all the advantages life has handed me.

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Originally posted by Balaam:

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Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
I'm not sure how this helps me, though - if the ability to respond to God's offer of salvation comes entirely from God Himself then why does God only give that ability to some people?

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God's offer of salvation is for all. But God has foreknowledge and knows those who will not receive it. Take mousethief's well analogy, some people will not tie the rope around their waist and allow themselves to be hauled up.

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Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
But God foreknowing who will choose to tie the rope round their waist and Him giving people the ability to do it are two different things. Aren't they?

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Originally posted by mousethief:
I like to liken it to a person stuck at the bottom of a well. God throws down a rope and says, "Tie this around your waist, and I'll pull you up! Watch you don't bump against the sides!" Who does the pulling? God. Can we pull ourselves out? No. Do we have something to do? Yes. We have to tie the rope around our waist, and push off from the walls with our feet. An imperfect metaphor, as all are. But it allows for the fact that God is the one who saves us, not we ourselves, YET, there is something we must do; accept God's salvation, and cooperate with his work in us.

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Originally posted by orfeo:
Can I ask, if any Calvinists are still willing to pop up in here, what Calvinism makes of the parable of the Prodigal Son?

This popped into my head partly because I once acted in a version of it. And the fact is that the son came back. Rather than being dragged back home by his father.

And so the call is often made, alluding to that parable, to 'come home'.

That simply doesn't seem to gel with a theology that leaves the whole thing entirely up to God.

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
I like to liken it to a person stuck at the bottom of a well. God throws down a rope and says, "Tie this around your waist, and I'll pull you up! Watch you don't bump against the sides!" Who does the pulling? God. Can we pull ourselves out? No. Do we have something to do? Yes. We have to tie the rope around our waist, and push off from the walls with our feet. An imperfect metaphor, as all are. But it allows for the fact that God is the one who saves us, not we ourselves, YET, there is something we must do; accept God's salvation, and cooperate with his work in us.

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I've been away for the weekend and have thought about this metaphor a lot. I like it and wouldn't exactly argue with it, but it seemed to me that there was something missing.

I think from my perspective (as one who comes from the Reformed tradition), I would say that God doesn't throw down a rope to the person in the well. God says "I'm sending someone down to get you." That someone does indeed come down, and finds the person injured (from the fall into the well?) or weakened, and says "You'll have to hold on to me as we go up; here, I will help you hold on."

Still imperfect, but a little closer to me at least.

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Originally posted by orfeo:
If the process is entirely God, and God always succeeds in his actions, the only logical conclusion is that people are not saved because God did not act.

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Originally posted by orfeo:

This is fundamentally what bothers me. The Arminian position (and indeed some others) see grace as being offered to all.

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If the process is entirely God, and God always succeeds in his actions, the only logical conclusion is that people are not saved because God did not act.

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Originally posted by chris stiles:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

This is fundamentally what bothers me. The Arminian position (and indeed some others) see grace as being offered to all.

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Which still doesnt explain why some accept that offer and some don't. Were they a little more spiritual? A little smarter? A little better?

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
If the process is entirely God, and God always succeeds in his actions, the only logical conclusion is that people are not saved because God did not act.

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That is not the only logical conclusion. There are four-point Calvinists (hypothetical universalists) who would say that it may be that all are elected. There are Barthian Calvinists who, as a middle ground to five-point Arminianism and five-point Calvinism, would say that God has acted, entirely and with full success, in Christ -- that it is Christ who is eternally elect, and that all joined in him share in that eternal election.

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Originally posted by chris stiles:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

This is fundamentally what bothers me. The Arminian position (and indeed some others) see grace as being offered to all.

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Which still doesnt explain why some accept that offer and some don't. Were they a little more spiritual? A little smarter? A little better?

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If the process is entirely God, and God always succeeds in his actions, the only logical conclusion is that people are not saved because God did not act.

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Well, if you take the Arminian route, you still have a God who creates the universe knowing full well that in doing so beings would be created who would ultimately reject him and end up in hell.

Either way you have some action of God in the depths of time that confine some subset of humanity to hell.

I don't think anyone has an answer to this. It's one of the paradoxes of faith. Basically the problem of Theodicy as it applies to salvation.

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Originally posted by orfeo:

There seems to be a fundamental difference to me between presenting the offer of salvation to all, recognising that not all will listen because of the very nature of the creatures you've created,

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In which case the explanation of why he doesn't GET everyone doesn't lie with God but with us.

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Originally posted by chris stiles:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

There seems to be a fundamental difference to me between presenting the offer of salvation to all, recognising that not all will listen because of the very nature of the creatures you've created,

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You've just moved the problem around. The question that now arises is - surely God being all powerful could create the best of all possible worlds in which all his creatures choose him freely.

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So why did you accept God while thousands didn't?

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Originally posted by Zach82:

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So why did you accept God while thousands didn't?

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There's the rub.

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As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

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Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.

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So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.

For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.

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?

What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:

And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,

Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? Romans 9:16-24

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Seriously, I am not even going to read that version.

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 

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Originally posted by chris stiles:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

There seems to be a fundamental difference to me between presenting the offer of salvation to all, recognising that not all will listen because of the very nature of the creatures you've created,

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You've just moved the problem around. The question that now arises is - surely God being all powerful could create the best of all possible worlds in which all his creatures choose him freely.

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Originally posted by Zach82:

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Seriously, I am not even going to read that version.

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Originally posted by Zach82:

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As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

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Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.

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Originally posted by orfeo:
It feels to me like the hard-line Calvinist response is that picking corn is work. The correct thing to do is to keep walking and wait to see whether God makes any of the corn grains leap into our mouths. Which he will open.

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Originally posted by orfeo:
Seriously, I am not even going to read that version. What is so magical about centuries old English? The Bible wasn't written in it.

But at some point I may look up the passage in my NIV and get back to you.

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Originally posted by orfeo:

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Originally posted by Zach82:

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So why did you accept God while thousands didn't?

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There's the rub.

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I listened.

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Originally posted by orfeo:
This honestly sounds like "can God create a rock he can't move". How on earth can it be a free choice if God has guaranteed the result? You've just robbed the word 'free' of its meaning.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
This is nonsense. If God creates the world in such a way that we all choose him, then we're not choosing him freely. "He forced me to freely choose to love him." Huh?

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Originally posted by chris stiles:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

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Originally posted by Zach82:

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So why did you accept God while thousands didn't?

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There's the rub.

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I listened.

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Why did you listen while thousands didn't?

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Yes, it's all my fault if you go out of your way to make the conversation difficult. Looking for another Hell call?

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Originally posted by orfeo:

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Originally posted by chris stiles:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

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Originally posted by Zach82:

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So why did you accept God while thousands didn't?

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There's the rub.

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I listened.

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Why did you listen while thousands didn't?

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No idea. I'm not in anyone else's head so it's impossible for me to know what it was like for me compared to what it was like for them.

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Originally posted by orfeo:

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Originally posted by Zach82:

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So why did you accept God while thousands didn't?

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There's the rub.

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I listened.

This is where the hard line Calvinist goes "AHA! A WORK!" but I just don't see it. I don't see how tying the rope around your waist makes it all about how wonderful you are. I don't see how there's any greater MERIT in having been one who listened over one who didn't. It still means I'm a person who needed saving.

Listening to God's call is only a 'work' if you take the extreme, Pharisaical view of work I referred to earlier in the context of their rules about what you could and couldn't do on the Sabbath. It's missing the point. Saying that you can't get to heaven by works is saying that you can't earn your way to heaven. There's no 'earning' involved in accepting God's free, unmerited invitation.

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Originally posted by Zach82:

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As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

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Originally posted by Zach82:

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Yes, it's all my fault if you go out of your way to make the conversation difficult. Looking for another Hell call?

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Oh, go on and look it up if "thy" is so difficult for you. If anything, the NIV is more damning to your line.

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It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. 17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”[a] 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” 20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”[b] 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?

22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory — 24 even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?

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Originally posted by orfeo:
Can I ask, if any Calvinists are still willing to pop up in here, what Calvinism makes of the parable of the Prodigal Son?

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Context!

Three lost things are found in Luke 15

The Lost Sheep wanders away because it knows no better, and the good shepherd goes and gets it back - whether it wants to come back or not. The sheep in no sense chooses to repent - the shepherd actively seeks it out, and carries it back on his shoulders. But "Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance."

The Lost Coin has no choice in being lost, and no choice in being found. The woman loses it, and the women finds it again. Yet "Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

The Lost Son chooses to leave, and the father not only lets him go, but actively supports him by giving him money. Then he chooses to come back of his own accord - without the money. However "...we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found."


And if you can put together a consistent theory of predestination vs free will out of that lot, either on the side of Paul/Augustine/Aquinas/Calvin or else that of Pelagius/Arminius/Wesley then you are a hero of eisegesis - they are stories, not philosophy essays!

[ 01. August 2012, 15:19: Message edited by: ken ]
 

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Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
Jesus leaves off the parable of the prodigal son before the ending- we never quite get to the party. So how, then, does it end? We know full well how it ends. The sons crucify the father, but he rises from the dead and offers his mercy all the more.
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 

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Originally posted by chris stiles:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

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Originally posted by chris stiles:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

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Originally posted by Zach82:

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So why did you accept God while thousands didn't?

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There's the rub.

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I listened.

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Why did you listen while thousands didn't?

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No idea. I'm not in anyone else's head so it's impossible for me to know what it was like for me compared to what it was like for them.

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Well, presumably you must have some thoughts on the matter. Did God shout a little louder? Or did you just listen a little harder?

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Originally posted by Zach82:
It was exactly the same passage I cited earlier. The one you refused to read because I didn't use your preferred translation.

Your little sermon about how I'm the one unwilling to engage is ringing rather hollow. I posted your authorized version.

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I stand at the door and knock

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I'm sure you can work out where that's from.

[ 01. August 2012, 23:22: Message edited by: orfeo ]
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 

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Originally posted by ken:
And if you can put together a consistent theory of predestination vs free will out of that lot, either on the side of Paul/Augustine/Aquinas/Calvin or else that of Pelagius/Arminius/Wesley then you are a hero of eisegesis - they are stories, not philosophy essays!

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I have an urge to just call this "the Luke 15 paradox" as shorthand from now on!
 

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Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 

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Originally posted by Zach82:
Here you go, Orfeo. Engage.

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I'm sure you can work out where that's from. [Roll Eyes]

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But that doesn't mean I'll come back here and talk to you about them.

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You will note that the passage is addressed to sinners who imagine themselves righteous.

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For the sinful heart likes to imagine itself as treating other people as pottery figures to dispose of as it likes, and if it imagines itself righteous then the sinful heart likes to imagine God as being its proxy, a giant version of itself in whose power the sinful heart fantasises it shares by proxy.

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To read the passage as supporting a non-universalist form of predestination is to read it with the mind of the Pharisee or the Elder Son and not as the publican or the prodigal.

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To read it as a Christian is to read on through Chapter 10, verse 1 to Chapter 11 verse 32

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Continuing to read certainly makes my point about the Pharisees, but doesn't draw out your exegesis of the previous passages. "But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone;"

In fact, the case for predestination only strengthens in chapter 11, where Paul writes

"What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded. (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day."
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
Zach, my issue with your methods the last couple of days is quite simple, even though you still appear not to have grasped it. Posting Bible passages does not, in and of itself, constitute a conversation. I'm simply not interested in treating Purgatory as a bulletin board for posting Bible verses.

You have now actually started TALKING about the passage. Great. When I've had a chance to sit down and read the passage properly, I will try to join in the conversation you've now actually, finally started with Dafyd.
 

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Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
Whatever, Orfeo. You don't have to keep posting about how much engagement I have in store as some indefinite future. I get it.
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 

 

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Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 

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Originally posted by Zach82:

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You will note that the passage is addressed to sinners who imagine themselves righteous.

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I note no such thing. Paul is presenting a theological argument that God is not unjust to save some and damn others, according to his own standards, not human standards.

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For the sinful heart likes to imagine itself as treating other people as pottery figures to dispose of as it likes, and if it imagines itself righteous then the sinful heart likes to imagine God as being its proxy, a giant version of itself in whose power the sinful heart fantasises it shares by proxy.

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Quite frankly your reading of that passage is bizarre. The passage says quite clearly that the potter is God, and he creates pots as he likes, some to salvation and some to damnation.

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To read the passage as supporting a non-universalist form of predestination is to read it with the mind of the Pharisee or the Elder Son and not as the publican or the prodigal.

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What do you and Orfeo think the Pharisees were guilty of anyway? The connection here to the Pharisees is really a complete mystery. The Pharisees believed they were righteous because they could follow rules, when real righteousness comes from grace, through faith.

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Originally posted by orfeo:
If the process is entirely God, and God always succeeds in his actions, the only logical conclusion is that people are not saved because God did not act.

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Originally posted by Zach82:
Yes, it is obviously about Jews and Gentiles, insofar as Paul is establishing his soteriology in contrast to that system. He flat out explains what the pots metaphor is about. He clearly says that the "vessels of mercy" "he had afore prepared unto glory," and can be Jew or gentile. That right there makes your interpretation impossible. The pot metaphor is used to support his argument, not as a foil.

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Originally posted by Dafyd:
That picture of the Pharisees is the result of Protestant polemic using the Pharisees as stand-ins for late medieval Roman Catholic theology. The Pharisees themselves believed nothing of the sort.
What did they believe:
Luke 18: 11: The Pharisee prayed thus: 'God I thank you that I am not like other people...'.
The Pharisee is thanking God for his righteousness. He believes that his righteousness is due entirely to God. He doesn't think that he's earned God's grace by his righteousness. He believes that his righteousness has been given to him by God's grace. The Synod of Dort could not fault him.

No. The Pharisee's fault is that he believes he is not like other people - he believes he is elect and other people are not.

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Yes. His argument being that God was perfectly entitled to make the Jews into special, holy pots and the Gentiles into common use pots.

NOT that God was perfectly entitled to make the saved into special pots and the unsaved into discards.

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Originally posted by Zach82:

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Yes. His argument being that God was perfectly entitled to make the Jews into special, holy pots and the Gentiles into common use pots.

NOT that God was perfectly entitled to make the saved into special pots and the unsaved into discards.

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Orfeo, Paul explains his metaphor in that passage, and that isn't it. Turn off your theology and just read what the passage says.

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In all sincerity I AM reading it. It is part of a great big long discussion about Jews and Gentiles. It is simply not a discussion about Christians and non-Christians.

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It's not that I think it supports my theology. It's that I think it's on a completely different topic which was of high relevance to Paul's audience in the 1st century AD and of almost no relevance to us today.

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Originally posted by Zach82:
Convenient.

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Get stuffed, Zach. I'm done. I have had an absolute gutful of your attitude, and I don't even care enough to generate another Hell call.

Have a nice afterlife.
 

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Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 

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Get stuffed, Zach. I'm done. I have had an absolute gutful of your attitude, and I don't even care enough to generate another Hell call.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
This is the reason Luke gives as to why Jesus told that parable: "To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else,"

How can we interpret the story in any other way than that?

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Originally posted by Zach82:
Dafyd, your exegesis is so strained that you've made me lose all will to argue with you. I think my exegesis of the passage is clear enough.

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Originally posted by Dafyd:
Any reading of Scripture, however 'clear', that has the effect of lessening our charity towards our neighbour is Satanic.

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Originally posted by Zach82:
You have any idea how condescending you seemed when you refused to read my posts because I cited the wrong version of the bible, threatened to call me to hell over the KJV, posted a half dozen times about how I'm not engaging with you because I didn't follow your posting format, then simply declared it irrelevant when my point about the passage became clear?

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Originally posted by Dafyd:
That's ok, so long as we don't think that the Pharisee believes he is justified by his righteousness. The Pharisee thinks his righteousness is due to God, from grace. He is a very proper anti-Pelagian in his attitude to grace.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:
That's ok, so long as we don't think that the Pharisee believes he is justified by his righteousness. The Pharisee thinks his righteousness is due to God, from grace. He is a very proper anti-Pelagian in his attitude to grace.

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Er, no.

You could be right, but there is no evidence for that in the story. When an Olympic athlete says 'thanks' to the person putting the gold medal over their head it does not mean that they recognise their award as a gift of grace.

As I said, Luke makes it clear what the point of the story is. You are reading something else in with no textual reason to do so.

(Apologies to any Australians who will find it hard to get that analogy.)

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There's no textual reason to read the story the way that you do, either. The Pharisee's beliefs aren't fully explicated in the story. However, they were an actual, historical, group of people -- and their beliefs (or maybe their meta-beliefs?) can be determined from sources outside the text in question. That's sorta the point of the NPP, innit?

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Originally posted by Zach82:

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There's no textual reason to read the story the way that you do, either. The Pharisee's beliefs aren't fully explicated in the story. However, they were an actual, historical, group of people -- and their beliefs (or maybe their meta-beliefs?) can be determined from sources outside the text in question. That's sorta the point of the NPP, innit?

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Paul is very careful to explain his position and the position of his opponents in that passage. Like I said, Romans is a true blue theological treatise. Real righteousness comes by grace, God's election, through faith. The "them" in that passage, the "vessels of wrath" are those who imagine that works make one righteous. Simply being circumcised is not of any value because it is a work, and no works at all are righteous before God. He also, it so happens insists that choosing is a work like any other. "It is not of him that willeth..."

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
You could be right, but there is no evidence for that in the story. When an Olympic athlete says 'thanks' to the person putting the gold medal over their head it does not mean that they recognise their award as a gift of grace.

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Originally posted by Zach82:
Paul is very careful to explain his position and the position of his opponents in that passage.

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Originally posted by Fëanor:
There's no textual reason to read the story the way that you do, either. The Pharisee's beliefs aren't fully explicated in the story. However, they were an actual, historical, group of people -- and their beliefs (or maybe their meta-beliefs?) can be determined from sources outside the text in question. That's sorta the point of the NPP, innit?

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I didn't say how I read the story. All I did was quote, verbatim, the reason Luke gave for why Jesus told the story.
 

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Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:
So I don't think your analogy shows my reading is wrong.

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quote:

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People say they believe God's offer of salvation is unconditional, but actually make it conditional on a person's decision to accept it. Which is a condition if there ever was one.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
Righteousness only comes from God. Whether he gives it only due to his grace or to those who deserve it is precisely what is being discussed on this thread.

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quote:

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If you are genuinely saying that you've never met anyone who freely thanks God (or nature for that matter) for good aspects of their behaviour and personality and yet is also proud that these aspects reflect well on them then, well, you don't get out much.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
Righteousness only comes from God.

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Everything only comes from God.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I'm back after a week's holiday and this thread is giving me a head-ache ...

I'd like to bang all heads together.

A few thoughts ...

@Chris Stiles - I've not thought this one through entirely, but you keep re-iterating the point as to why some posters have apparently heard and responded to God whilst thousands of others haven't. How do we know that? is profession of Christian belief and church attendance the only measure of how people 'stand' before Almighty God?

It would seem from the Gospels that there are other measures than that - and I know I'm being a bit anachronistic there.

There are plenty of passages, both OT and NT that suggest that God is pleased when ANYONE, irrespective of their faith position, does anything that is good and right.

Ok, that might not constitute 'saving faith' and so on in the nice neat Calvinist schema, nor the Arminian one either for that matter.

It strikes me that the Orthodox view, which has some dangers and difficulties attached to it too, is much broader in that it recognises that whilst works don't save us, God does appear to value works to some extent ...

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the whole Protestant soteriology thing is far more dualistic than the scriptures would suggest.
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 
Gamaliel -

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
@Chris Stiles - I've not thought this one through entirely, but you keep re-iterating the point as to why some posters have apparently heard and responded to God whilst thousands of others haven't. How do we know that? is profession of Christian belief and church attendance the only measure of how people 'stand' before Almighty God?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
Righteousness only comes from God. Whether he gives it only due to his grace or to those who deserve it is precisely what is being discussed on this thread.

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If you deserve something you deserve it on account of your merit. If you don't have righteousness you don't have merit. It makes no sense to say that righteousness is given to those who deserve it, since before righteousness is given to them ipso facto they don't deserve it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Johnny S:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
Righteousness only comes from God. Whether he gives it only due to his grace or to those who deserve it is precisely what is being discussed on this thread.

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If you deserve something you deserve it on account of your merit. If you don't have righteousness you don't have merit. It makes no sense to say that righteousness is given to those who deserve it, since before righteousness is given to them ipso facto they don't deserve it.

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I don't get that Dafyd. You seem to be simply giving me a circular argument here. As Ken says everything comes from God. Are you saying that means that none of us should ever be proud? ('Cos if so then you are correct but rather out of touch with reality.)

Or more likely I'm missing something.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gee D:
]I deserve nothing, and what I am given is given by His grace alone. It cannot be earned.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:

I don't think it's 'cloaking' things in mystery to say that none of us really know the answer to this one and that the whole thing is God's prerogative and not ours.

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quote:

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All we can do is to co-operate, so far as we can, with the grace that we have received. 'See to it that none of you fall short of the grace of God ...'

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Why do some co-operate more than others?
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 


'Why do some seem to co-operate more than others?'

No idea. I would also submit that what our idea of what it means to co-operate with divine grace is different when viewed from God's perspective. And seeing as how none of us here are God nor can claim to have an inside track on how the Almighty works, then I would suggest that this is where the 'mystery' comes in.

It would appear from Romans 2:13-16 that it is possible for those 'who do not have the Law' to 'do by nature the things required by the law' - which rather goes against the whole 'depravity' thing inherent within Calvinism, it seems to me - at least in the way it is often applied.

'... since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.'

vv.15-16. NIV

Some of you may have heard Calvinist preachers addressing these verses, but I haven't. Indeed, they seem to cause some slight embarrassment to evangelicals of all shades - but I'd imagine broader Calvinists and Lutherans would be able to handle the apparent contradiction - as well as more the more nuanced among the evangelicals.

At any rate, I'm not sure they fit into any neat theological schema from either side of the argument. The key word is 'secrets' - the 'secrets of men's hearts.' It's only God who can know those .
 

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Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Johnny S:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Johnny S:
Righteousness only comes from God. Whether he gives it only due to his grace or to those who deserve it is precisely what is being discussed on this thread.

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It makes no sense to say that righteousness is given to those who deserve it, since before righteousness is given to them ipso facto they don't deserve it.

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I don't get that Dafyd. You seem to be simply giving me a circular argument here.

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quote:

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Originally posted by chris stiles:
There are some here though who appear to think that this 'mystery' creates more problems under a Calvinist scheme than it does in non-Calvinist schemes. I'm simply contending that it's a problem in every scheme (bar open theism/universalism - which have problems of their own).

---

It's not that it creates more problems. It's just that it creates a worse problem. I don't understand how anyone who is not a sociopath can find the doctrine of irresistible grace tolerable, let alone comforting, without being a universalist.
(That there are such people, I'm sure. I just don't understand them.)
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
It works for those people who can 'shut down' or close off those parts of their brain that baulk against the idea - which is why, offensively perhaps, I'm suggesting that Calvinism appeals to those of a particular, rather geeky or legalistic mindset - the computer programmers and data-nuts of this world rather than your painters and poets ...



You'll notice that I didn't allude to the aspie thing of the OP then. I've abandoned that analogy.
 

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Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
You are wrong there, I suggest you read Jonathan Edwards sermons, seriously, not for his theology but for his dramatic style. He used words and just words to create the terror. He relied almost entirely on the words, his church was dark, his voice quiet and lowly modulated. He'd have made an excellent horror fiction writer. A "man in black" before he was invented if you like. That guy knew all about dramatic tension and can write.

Apparently parts of the institutes are in what today would be considered free verse, I am sorry but my Latin is not up to verifying this claim. Then Calvin is a rhetorician not a logician as are most lawyers.

What you mean Gamaliel is those parts of Calvinism you have come across tend to be geeky. I admit they are the loud mouthed self publicists amongst us and unless you spend time reading much wider then you will not hear the other voices. However go and look at the names mentioned here as Calvinist before you make up your mind.

Jengie
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
It's not that it creates more problems. It's just that it creates a worse problem. I don't understand how anyone who is not a sociopath can find the doctrine of irresistible grace tolerable, let alone comforting, without being a universalist.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
It works for those people who can 'shut down' or close off those parts of their brain that baulk against the idea - which is why, offensively perhaps, I'm suggesting that Calvinism appeals to those of a particular, rather geeky or legalistic mindset - the computer programmers and data-nuts of this world rather than your painters and poets ...

---

quote:

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Originally posted by chris stiles:
It's basically the problem of theodicy. The open theist solution is that God is not all powerful, the universalist solution is that God is not all good.

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Not sure this is a fair appraisal of open theism or universalism, chris stiles! Have you read up on these views, to find out how their advocates answer your charges? Here is something on Open Theism if you're interested.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Bollocks, Ken.



I am, of course, exaggerating to make a point. I think the point still stands.
 

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Posted by Balaam (# 4543) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
It's not that it creates more problems. It's just that it creates a worse problem. I don't understand how anyone who is not a sociopath can find the doctrine of irresistible grace tolerable, let alone comforting, without being a universalist.

---

Well, unless you are a universalist you still have a problem that God chose to create a universe in which he knew a number of people were definitely going to end up experiencing eternal torment.

It's basically the problem of theodicy. The open theist solution is that God is not all powerful, the universalist solution is that God is not all good.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by chris stiles:
Well, unless you are a universalist you still have a problem that God chose to create a universe in which he knew a number of people were definitely going to end up experiencing eternal torment.

---

quote:

---

It's basically the problem of theodicy. The open theist solution is that God is not all powerful, the universalist solution is that God is not all good.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Balaam:
@Dafyd - It is comforting because even the chief of sinners can be saved. It worked for Paul, it can work for us too.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
It's not that it creates more problems. It's just that it creates a worse problem. I don't understand how anyone who is not a sociopath can find the doctrine of irresistible grace tolerable, let alone comforting, without being a universalist.

---

Well, unless you are a universalist you still have a problem that God chose to create a universe in which he knew a number of people were definitely going to end up experiencing eternal torment.

It's basically the problem of theodicy. The open theist solution is that God is not all powerful,.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I think there's a particular strand within Eastern monasticism which asserts that the closer we get to God the less concerned we are about our own salvation..

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I think there's a particular strand within Eastern monasticism which asserts that the closer we get to God the less concerned we are about our own salvation and the more concerned we are about the salvation of others, Dafyd.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
]Not sure this is a fair appraisal of open theism or universalism, chris stiles! Have you read up on these views, to find out how their advocates answer your charges? Here is something on Open Theism if you're interested.

---

quote:

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@chris stiles - it isn't a problem for annihilationists either.

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It isn't as much of a problem for annihilationists - because *all* you have is a group of sentient beings, some of whom experience finite torment. I think I hear Ivan Karamazov

quote:

---

Well only if you think the only way to order the universe is through hard determinism. Open theism affirms that God can still (and sometimes does) determine events by his power alone. But usually he orders the universe by being ultra smart - so smart he can anticipate any eventuality and have a response laid on for it to achieve his purposes

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:

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Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
]Not sure this is a fair appraisal of open theism or universalism, chris stiles! Have you read up on these views, to find out how their advocates answer your charges? Here is something on Open Theism if you're interested.

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Sure, you can posit some variant of Molinism. Nevertheless, that still doesn't absolve a prime mover who sets everything in motion.

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No, I suppose it doesn't... Oh, and I don't know what Molinism is, sorry. Linky link to something you think sums it up well?
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
There aren't that many good Calvinists around then, Jengie ...

Thinking about it, there aren't that many good Orthodox, RCs, Wesleyans, Arminians or anything elses about either, come to that ...



Which is where grace comes in, of course.
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
No, I suppose it doesn't... Oh, and I don't know what Molinism is, sorry. Linky link to something you think sums it up well?

---

quote:

---

A good Calvinist isn't concerned with anyone's salvation; theirs or others, that is God's business. They are concerned with glorifying God, and to enjoying God forever.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
What I'm saying is that your characterisation of the Pharisee's position is circular. On account of what does the Pharisee think he deserves righteousness if he doesn't have righteousness already? The position doesn't make sense.

Or to repeat the schema:

Athlete: Person: Winning: Medal ::
Pharisee: God: ???: Righteousness.

What could ??? possibly represent given that it doesn't represent righteousness?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
It's not that it creates more problems. It's just that it creates a worse problem. I don't understand how anyone who is not a sociopath can find the doctrine of irresistible grace tolerable, let alone comforting, without being a universalist.

---

Well, unless you are a universalist you still have a problem that God chose to create a universe in which he knew a number of people were definitely going to end up experiencing eternal torment.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
And yes, I used the word 'try'. This comes back to the whole notion of free will existing. If it means anything, it means that God has constrained His power.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
And yes, I used the word 'try'. This comes back to the whole notion of free will existing. If it means anything, it means that God has constrained His power.

---

Yes, exactly. A part of God's self-emptying was to allow the existence of other causal agents, to allow us to make free and unrestrained choices, and to really allow our choices to change the world.

---

Precisely.

I repeat: The only alternative to the difficult proposition of a sovereign God's permitting a degree of genuine freedom in his universe, is the infinitely more difficult proposition of a holy God's being the author of sin.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Hmmmm ...

There is a Calvinistic argument I've come across, Mousethief that suggests that free-will can't really exist - or if it does, it is effectively constrained and therefore isn't 'free'. But they would say that, wouldn't they?

Seriously, though, I can certainly see the Calvinistic point of view when it comes to us being flawed or hampered in the choices we make - but then, the Orthodox would also agree that we are marred and constrained by the effects of 'ancestral sin'. The only difference on this score that I can see is the degree to which we stretch things.

TULIP Calvinists stretch human inability pretty far (some would say too far) in one direction and those with a more positive anthropology would stretch it in the other direction - again, too far for some people ...

But I don't think this is the nub of the issue. The stumbling blocks/sticking points of TULIP tend to be concentrated on the 'L' - the limitedness of the atonement - although this does follow as a logical corollary to the surrounding petals ...

This is what I mean by the cold logic and the apparent ability of some Calvinistically inclined people to 'switch off' what might be termed their natural humanity. Taken to its extreme there is something coldly inhuman about full-on Calvinism - at least in the way it's popularly represented.

I suggest that the onus is on Calvinists to demonstrate that this is not the case. Just as the onus is on those of a more Arminian or - dare I say it - semi-Pelagian persuasion to convince the rest of us that their schema is not anthropocentric works-righteousness ...

Quite frankly, I've come across some TULIP types who seem rather gleeful that the Almighty appears to have chosen some for eternal perdition without them having any say in the matter. They suggest that this glorifies Almighty God and demonstrates his justice. If ever there was a twisted logic out there, this is surely it.

I remember a missionary who'd worked in a West African Muslim country telling how the villagers in one place had stood passively by as a young girl was washed downstream in the local river. It must have been Allah's will. Eventually, he'd persuaded some of them to form a human chain and help him to scoop her out before she drowned. He insisted that there was nothing particularly cruel, negligent or indifferent about these people, they were wonderfully warm and loving. No, what had happened was that the extreme determinism of their particular 'take' on Islam had led them to adopt an almost passive or indifferent response to preventable disasters.

I submit that the same could hold of extreme forms of Christian determinism - but equally I would accept that, properly understood, the broad thrust of Calvinistic theology doesn't or needn't incline this way. The Reformed tradition has indeed produced many fine activists, missionaries, philanthropists, preachers and much else besides.

It's influence on the arts hasn't been as baleful as is popularly suggested either - although I can think of instances where 'populist' forms of Calvinism have had this effect.

I think it is the extremes that I, and others, are reacting against. I would also accept that my amateur psychologist categorisation of personality types and the placing of some Calvinists somewhere on the autistic spectrum isn't helping either - it is indeed, generating more heat than light.

I'm prepared to drop it.
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
There is a Calvinistic argument I've come across, Mousethief that suggests that free-will can't really exist - or if it does, it is effectively constrained and therefore isn't 'free'. But they would say that, wouldn't they?

---

That's not actually a particularly Calvinist argument, that's just Compatibilism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism

It tends to be fairly difficult to reconcile free-will in the libertarian sense, the world as we know it, and moral responsibility. The sorts of sources of indeterminism in the physical world tend not to be under our control.
 

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Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
Gamaliel

Predestinarianism does not rule out free will. Just that free will has nothing to do with salvation. The statement is God chose you, not you chose God is predestinarian however that is the only choice it applies to. Yes that leads to the diabolical logic that if you are saved, you can do what you like and nothing will stop you from being saved. However the sinner's prayer group of Arminians also are guilty of that.

But the yard stick for Calvinism is NOT TULIP, its a handy summary produced at the end of a very political theological struggle that is trotted out. If you don't believe me read the third chapter of Kenneth J Stevens book I recommended earlier, it answers in depth this very point.

I was taught by a Calvinist theologian and James A Whyte would own that he was (he was a Church of Scotland minister) and yet stood out as someone who was a profoundly humane pastoral theologian, said that there are two responses to logic, one is to accept it and the other to accept that it points out the limits of human logic and bow before the mystery of God acknowledging that you do not know. What I am asking you to do is for once acknowledge that there are both strands woven together in a fabric of the tradition in such a way we no more can separate one from the other but form a unity.

No tradition is made up of a uniform thread, you'd not expect it of the Anglica, Orthodox or Roman Catholic, why do you expect it of the Reformed? We are a living tradition making up the second largest tradition within Christianity, and often fiercely independent of each other. Do you really think we can speak so singularly?

If you want further proof try putting in Calvin and apophatic, and you will turn out a lot of interesting articles. I am not pointing to an apophatic Reformed theology, these articles are about something else. Basically there is not point in pointing to proofs, I did earlier, you aren't prepared to read them.

Jengie
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Of course I believe you, Jengie. What I've written above in no way detracts from your historical perspective on the way that TULIP was devised as a helpful (or Hellful?) acronym. I'm not disputing your insight at all.

I'm quite prepared to read your comments, Jengie and quite prepared to accept that there are multiple strands within the Reformed tradition. Where have I ever denied that?

I have repeatedly acknowledged that I am exaggerating my position/objections in order to make a point - as a kind of rhetorical device.

If you're going to accuse me of not listening to your viewpoints then I could just as easily accuse you of not reading my posts properly.

I have made it very clear in a number of posts now that I don't have a beef with the broader end of the Reformed tradition and that I don't believe that all Calvinists are inhumane, cold calculating, evil bastards. I don't doubt the humanity of your theological teacher for one minute.

I might cast doubt on your ability to recognise rhetoric when you see it though ...

I am certainly prepared to acknowledge that there are various strands woven together in the fabric of the Reformed tradition. I am quite prepared to accept too, that Calvinism, properly understood, does not eradicate free will but simply its effects in terms of salvation ... 'You did not choose me but I chose you ...' etc.

It doesn't help though, when certain Calvinistic posters respond in such a way as to make it appear that my deliberately and rhetorically offensive caricature may be based on demonstrable observation.

As you have done ...



Seriously, I've already said that I'm quite prepared to drop the autism analogies and I will do. I'm happy to cut you a heck of a lot of slack, I bow to your superior knowledge and insight into the Reformed tradition. I fully accept that that tradition is a lot broader and more nuanced than its detractors claim.

Lest there remain any ambiguity, I am not tilting at the Reformed tradition per se, I am not even tilting at Calvinism per se, at least not in the broader sense (I've got Calvinistic DNA in my spiritual genes too) - what I am carping at is a particular over-realised application of it which, it strikes me, almost invariably leads to dualism.

Other traditions will have their own Achilles's Heels. I'm simply suggesting that dualism and a certain lack of nuance might be the Achilles's Heel of a certain kind of populist Calvinism.

Anglicanism will have a different Achilles's Heel, Orthodoxy another, Roman Catholicism a different one again (unless your Orthodox in which case you'd see Roman Catholicism and Protestantism alike as sharing the same Scholastic Achilles's Heels).

I just happen to be focussing on particular forms of Calvinism in this thread. On another thread I might have a go at something else.

Get over it.
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
It doesn't help though, when certain Calvinistic posters respond in such a way as to make it appear that my deliberately and rhetorically offensive caricature may be based on demonstrable observation.

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You deliberately insulted people and they acted all insulted?
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
They shouldn't be so sensitive ...
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
Yes, exactly.

---

Precisely.

---

You guys rock.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Careful, Orfeo, outrageous shows of flattery and sycophancy bring out the worst in me. I may well turn my cannon around and start blasting at Kaplan's Arminianism, Mousethief's Orthodoxy and your inability to understand perfectly comprehensible passages in 16th century English that Zach82 posted (admittedly without any contextual background, but still ...).


 

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Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
Just ignore him, Orfeo.

I really appreciate flattery and sycophancy.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Yes, flattery will get us anywhere.

Bask in your all too fleeting exposure to flattery and sycophancy, Kaplan ... you deserve it ...

Perhaps we should wait until some full-on Calvinist comes along and tells us that it is yet more evidence of your semi-Pelagian desire to be justified by works ...


 

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Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
They shouldn't be so sensitive ...

---

It's been Gamaliel's stated purpose to insult Calvinists into confirming his idiotic assumptions this whole time. He admitted this during my hell call. Unfortunately, Calvinists keep posting on this thread all the same.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Perhaps you were predestined to post here, Zach ...

To convince recovering Calvinists like me of the error of our ways ...



Seriously, whilst I enjoy winding people up, particular those who are very earnest and so on, there are places where I believe that Calvin does ring true. I'm not saying Calvinism = Bad, Everything Else = Good.

That would be to display a similar kind of binary dualism that some of the posters here seem to exhibit.

Oh, I forgot, you are an American as well as a Calvinist ...



Seriously again, I've got a lot of time for some of the more Calvinistic folks here - ken, Chris Stiles, Jengie Jon (when she's not playing the 'I'm-the-only-person-in-the-whole-wide-world-who-truly-understands-Reformed-theology' card.

Heck, on some threads I even find myself agreeing with you on certain points.

Get over it already.
 

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Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
I am over it, though I am somewhat irritated that other the Calvinists still believe this thread is worthwhile.

[ 06. August 2012, 15:36: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Well you obviously do, otherwise you wouldn't have come back.

I think I've proven my point several times over.
 

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Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
And you're proving my point quite well, I think, so one more venture to this thread was not altogether worthless.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 


So it's quits, then. You think my post is idiotic and I think that you're overly legalistic, dualistic and binary.

So we're both happy ...

Who can discern his errors?
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
More seriously, I think that things would have gone more swimmingly if I'd started a thread that ran something like:

'How can Calvinism resist falling into dualism, Orthodoxy into semi-Pelagianism (if indeed it wants to avoid it) and Arminianism into a form of works-righteousness?'

That way the implied value judgements are spread all ways round.
 

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Posted by Ramarius (# 16551) on :
 
@Jengie. You wrote 'Predestinarianism does not rule out free will. Just that free will has nothing to do with salvation.'

Don't get that. You're free to make choices, but not about whether or not to respond to saving grace? Are we free to choose to respond to God's non-saving grace? Are you saying that there is one agent - God - when it comes to salvation but multiple agancy when it comes to other activity?
 

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Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ramarius:
@Jengie. You wrote 'Predestinarianism does not rule out free will. Just that free will has nothing to do with salvation.'

Don't get that. You're free to make choices, but not about whether or not to respond to saving grace? Are we free to choose to respond to God's non-saving grace? Are you saying that there is one agent - God - when it comes to salvation but multiple agancy when it comes to other activity?

---

I can't speak foir Jengie but predestination certainly does not rule out free will, whether or not free will has anything to do with salvation. Its all in Boethius

I suspect that the reason for confusion is that people are unclear about what they mean by "free will".
 

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Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
Saving Grace works independently of human will. Remember the doctrine of irrestible grace is also part of TULIP. Something that you can choose not to take is not by definition irrestible. As some things can be restible and others not you can have free will in some matters and not in others. After all death in the end is pretty irrestible but that does not mean I can't choose what I will have for breakfast tomorrow morning.

Predestinarians are not automatical determinists.

Jengie
 

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Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
Remember this debate is academic for me, both sides are wrong and they are wrong because they fail to take seriously how different the experience of creation is for God than it is for us. I believe in an omni-creator, the beginning is just one edge of God's creation not the start point. Therefore causality does not work the way we suppose when applied to God. I find the God who gives a free choice in such matters no more pleasant than predestinarianism.

However you both build up straw men. The tendency among those who claim to follow Arminus is to imply that Predestinarianism means loss of freewill completely. That is just as much nonsense as the straw men of predestinarians that claim to freely make that choice the will has to be totally unconstrained.

What Predestinarians take seriously about Grace is that its source is the Divine will, thus if it is as God wills then it must be irrestible. To jump from the conclusion that therefore all actions are constrained means that you propose the choice over breakfast cereal is somehow equivalent to the choice over Grace to God.

There is a long line of thought on this James Hogg's book The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner starts with the premis of someone believing exactly that, who is deceived by the Devil into believing that he is among the Elect. He goes onto commit murder, because if he is among the elect there is no way he can fall from Grace.

This extreme form is the opposite parody of the person who prays the sinner prayer but continues to feel free to drink heavily, beat his wife and commit any sort of crime because he has chosen Christ and therefore is saved.

Jengie

[ 06. August 2012, 18:16: Message edited by: Jengie Jon ]
 

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Posted by Ramarius (# 16551) on :
 

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Originally posted by ken:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ramarius:
@Jengie. You wrote 'Predestinarianism does not rule out free will. Just that free will has nothing to do with salvation.'

Don't get that. You're free to make choices, but not about whether or not to respond to saving grace? Are we free to choose to respond to God's non-saving grace? Are you saying that there is one agent - God - when it comes to salvation but multiple agancy when it comes to other activity?

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I can't speak foir Jengie but predestination certainly does not rule out free will, whether or not free will has anything to do with salvation. Its all in Boethius

I suspect that the reason for confusion is that people are unclear about what they mean by "free will".

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