1Mind1Spirit
Literal lunatic
Romans 7:18 KJV
18 For I know that in me (that is , in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
John Calvin said this....
- Thread starter Clete
- Start date
Romans 7:18 KJV
18 For I know that in me (that is , in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Shasta
Well-known member
I judge that Calvin's concept of God was not the view of the Holy Men who wrote the OT and the NT nor was it the view of Early Christianity. My replies against "God" are not against the Father but against the false idea of who the Father is, an conception that was drawn from pagan Gnosticism and introduced into Christian doctrine in the 400-500s AD . I am not against any truth in the Bible only Calvin/Augustine's distorted hermeneutics.
Allah has an inscrutable will and is often capricious, arbitrary, and unjustly preferential. He even deceives if it is according to his purposes. Moreover he, like Calvin's concept of God does not love mankind. He loves only those whom obey him and these he predetermines to believe in him. It matters not at all if Allah sends the majority or even all of mankind to hell. This sounds much like the Calvinism's deity but nothing like the God of scripture judges men fairly according to the choices they have made.
Dialogos
Well-known member
Have you been judged fairly, according to the choices you have made?
Or have you been given grace, judged far more favorably than the choices you have made merit?
Jesus was "judged fairly" in my place!
God is just therefore I am saved!
Resting in Him,
Clete
Dialogos
Well-known member
So were you saved by your decisions or His?
Shasta
Well-known member
Grace of course. God's justice and mercy can be seen in the cross. At the same time we are given the option of trusting in and serving ourselves or believing in and serving him. I do not by embracing Christ in any way earn salvation. I am just putting myself in a position to receive the free gift.
A typical straw man many Calvinists use is that any act of the will is equivalent to a meritorious "work" but I doubt if people of the time would have interpreted it that way. If that had been so then God never would have commanded man to do anything. However, when men preach the Gospel in the Bible they almost call for an decision to be made. Usually the response they command is immediate. You do not see anyone preaching a Calvinist message like "God has not died for all of you, but only for a few. Most of you have no power whatever to choose Him" Neither do they say "God so loves a few of you."
The Gospel calls for a decision to be made. The decision is to believe on Him. It is true that this would only be a responses to the drawing of the Spirit, but "drawing" means leading or influencing, impelling, not coercing or driving. In fact, if men were being coerced no appeal to the will need be made but as far as I can tell persuading and informing are fundamental to evangelism. What God wants is for us to repent and believe in Christ. The decision to do this is not a meritorious work but the work of faith. The promise of this choice of faith is that we will receive eternal life.
In another post you were arguing for limited atonement by trying to make the term "world" encompass fewer people than the whole of mankind. The verse under discussion was John 3:16. You spoke of the need for establishing context in that verse.
While it is true that the world can mean a variety of things I think it is clear in the wider context of John's theology that the Apostle believed that the sacrifice of Christ was sufficient for all though the benefits were not actually appropriated by any except those who believe.
In his First Epistle the Apostle makes this clear
"And he is a propitiation for our sins; and not ours only, but for the sins of the WHOLE WORLD" 1 John 2:2.
He is the propitiation ("atoning sacrifice") for OUR sins - for believers
but for the sins of the WHOLE WORLD - everyone who is not a believer
The population of believers and unbelievers makes the population of the whole of mankind.
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Ask Mr. Religion
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Choosing according to one's greatest inclinations at the moment one chooses does not deny choice is not truly one's choice. Any choice you make is because that choice was what you wanted to make at that time.
You are developing a hair trigger response to every post in the heat of emotion or something. Take a deep breath and consider what is being said.
AMR
Calvinists are stupid! Either that or they're intentional liars.
They can't seem to think more than one single step at a time! A problem I have a hard time believing isn't intentional.
Even if you accepted this IDIOTIC definition of "choice" it doesn't help them because according to their own doctrine the "what you wanted" part of their convoluted choice equation was just as predestined BY GOD as the choice itself was!
NO WAY IS ANYONE THIS STUPID!!!!
Why oh why does anyone tolerate this sort of contorted hoop jumping in their doctrine? :bang:
Resting in Him,
Clete
Non-sequitur or question begging implied argument - one or the other. You really can't tell that those Calvinist colored glasses are on your face, can you?
Either way the question is invalid.
I was saved by God's grace through faith. I decided to believe which granted me access to God's grace but that grace would not have been available had God not decided to make it available.
Do you suppose the drowning man saved himself when he grabbed hold of the life preserver that the boat captain threw out to him?
Or is it that you would feel gratitude toward the man who caught your house on fire and then ran in to rescue you after you had passed out from smoke inhalation?
Resting in Him,
Clete
You make sense, since they claim to be a Calvinists.
Reformed are also based on Calvin's teachings.
So we implicitly agree Clete's post makes little sense.:chuckle: :cheers:
No one who worships an arbitrary (unjust) god would see a problem!
So you're saying people who by definition call themselves followers of a man will likely agree with him. Okay then.
Why would you expect Calvinists to distance themselves from the man himself? Like it or not there's a brutal internal consistency among Calvinists that rarely if ever wavers--Boettner, Pink, et. al. were all very much on the same page. If anything Calvinists are often downright proud of the brutishness inherent to their belief system. No shame, in other words.
Yes, Calvin himself was hateful. So hateful that he was responsible for killing his enemy.
Like leader, like followers.
Your point?
Because the false nature of what he said is intuitive and most people who call themselves Calvinists have no idea what Calvin taught.
One formerly prominent Calvinist on this website had a debate with Knight and challenged him to come up with a single example of someone who affirmed absolute divine immutability, thinking that would be difficult to do. He was actually attempting to suggest that the idea was an intentionally distorted expression of real Calvinist teaching promulgated by us anti-Calvinists in order to poison the well. An accusation leveled at me in this very thread based on the fact that I merely quoted Calvin! In short, Calvinists deny Calvinism's teachings all the time. Its actually harder to find Calvinists that refuse to deny it than it is to find people like yourself who understand that the doctrine's demean the character of God under any normal understanding of the term and don't care.
Oh I have no doubt that those enmeshed in Calvinism so far as to be published on the topic would be in the hard-core "God is arbitrary" camp. Of course they would be. But there's not a lot of published Calvinists who post on internet forums or who are in attendance at your local church. They are a relatively rare sub set of those who call themselves Calvinists.
It's similar to a political title. Most people who accept the title Republican or Democrat do so because their parents did, not because they've actually thought through the issues and spent the time to understand the party platforms. It's just mindless human cattle herd behavior. People do what they are familiar with. Calvinism is no different. This forum however is a perfect place to expose the truth to people because people in this audience at least give lip service to thinking things through.
Resting in Him,
Clete
1Mind1Spirit
Literal lunatic
Lip service to thinking things through???
In other words, what these folks say, I cannot refute.
I am at a complete loss. :dizzy::kookoo::jawdrop:
1Mind1Spirit
Literal lunatic
My point is, that God created sinners who need Christ.
God put Adam, a sinless sinner in paradise.
That's what all of us who enter the kingdom are.
Sinless sinners .
:king:
Only those who ONLY give lip service to thinking things through could take issue with that comment. This is theology forum. Your presence here implies a desire to think through theological issues. There are many here who, if brains were dynamite, couldn't blow the fuzz off of a peach but that doesn't mean they don't give lip service to the thinking process.
Resting in Him,
Clete