What's calvinism?

[Apollo]

Lightson:

As far as your assertions regarding many pre-Christian "resurrected savior-gods," I'm going to put the burden of proof on you to demonstrate that. What is your evidence?

“Mountains” of research and books have been written on Christianity’s parallels with “pagan” religion, in particular on the savior-god theme. I cited my source, including everything but the ISBN (0-87975-742-6). Do a Google search for “savior-gods” and see what happens.

The only time I hear these "rumors" is from atheists, hoping to debunk Christianity. It would be just like our arch-enemy to conjure up a myriad of counterfeits, in mythological form, for the purpose of undermining our faith.

These are not “rumors,” any more than what we know about ancient Greece and Rome are “rumors.” It is not intellectually honest to simply pretend the evidence doesn’t exist. What you “do” with the evidence is up to you. Christians once made the case that dinosaur bones were placed in the ground by the devil in an attempt to “undermine the faith.” Once you accept the “devil’s counterfeit” thesis, anything is possible, or impossible.

"He who will not eat of my body, nor drink of my blood, so that he may be one with me and I with him, shall not be saved."
Inscription from a temple dedicated to the God Mithra. The Vatican was built on the temple’s remains.

One of the most compelling witness-based observations is Peter and the other disciples. A man may die for a cause if he has convinced himself of its veracity, despite evidence to the contrary. But it is not reasonable that a man would die for something he knows to be a lie.

As the story is written, clearly the disciples are portrayed as “believing” it. If the Resurrection is true because the New Testament account says so, I guess that settles it. The internal evidence of the NT, however, is not “evidence,” any more than Homer’s “Odyssey” proves the existence of the Greek pantheon of gods.

Lightson:

When atheists bring into the discussion Mithra or Osiris, and the idea that Mithra was "the light of the world, and a savior God who died and resurrected," the implication is clear. The implication is that 1st century Christians simply borrowed these themes as well. If all we did was borrow, then Christ is fantasy.

My sentiments exactly.

If the Bible is not an authoritative statement from God on the veracity of Jesus and His status as savior-God, then our faith falls over.

The truth shall set you free.

It is a good thing I am not so easily swayed, or I would have just dropped kicked Jesus from my world view. Is this really where you want to drag me?

Believing in Jesus and in the miracles of the Bible is EASY. What’s hard is being asked to DISbelieve your own eyes when confronted with evidence to the contrary.

 

[smaller]

THE SCRIPTURES preached the Gospel to Abraham.

Enoch was a scribe of righteousness LONG before the usurpers.

The borrowing of the "saviour god" could just as easily have been done by the supposed lenders to Israel....

"He shall crush his head" was written early....

 

[Apollo]

Clete:

Here’s where you called me a liar:

The word for this section of your post is either "ignorance" or "lying"; probably a mixture of both.

I said “not stealing” is my normative moral condition, and you said.

Even if this were so, which I doubt very much, stealing is only one of many sinful things that one either decides to or not to do. Lying is another…

… with you “implying,” as I said, I’m a thief, and another dangling accusation of “lying.”

As is this one:

As for the lying accusation, you may have a different understanding of what lying is but and intentional attempt to mislead or deceive is lying, and you are guilty of that with out question.

What, specifically, have I lied about?

I’m posting the following quote as a public service announcement, and as a warning to others. This is what a psychotic episode (and visions of grandeur) look like:

As for my saying that there is a literal mountain of evidence for the resurrection, I meant exactly that. And if you read the description of the video on the web page I linked to, then you know that that phrase is used as a catch line in the video. I used the phrase in hopes of getting the exact reaction from you that I got, specifically so that I could send you to that site and present a video with the same catch phrase in its advertisement so that perhaps your interest would be peaked and that you would get the video. The tactic has worked every single time I have ever used it. And it's really brilliant (if I do say so myself) because whether the individual gets the video or not, I know that I'm getting ready to learn a lot about the persons real motivations.

But this really hurt:

You see, there is simply no good reason for you not to get that video. You asked for the information and I gave you a simple and free way to get that information and yet you refused it! Why?

I didn’t say anything about refusing the video. What makes you think I’m refusing the video? Jumping to conclusions again. Always thinking the best about people…

You are willfully ignorant, which I knew from the moment I read your first post! You totally deserved the stupid post of the day! Not only was the assertion in the post unsubstantiated in the post, it was off topic and more than that it just screamed at me that whoever posted that drivel, HATED God!

…he screamed.

Since when doesn’t Calvinism have anything to say about free-will and the law? I don’t hear lost anomaly complaining. You just couldn’t resist springing into action and getting yourself publicly de-panted on your resurrected savior-god claim.

As for hating God, I don’t hate God. I don’t hate Christians. I don’t hate Muslims. I don’t hate Chinamen. I don’t hate you. I don’t “hate” anyone. Few people I don’t “care” much for, but I don’t “hate” them. If anyone's behavior qualifies as "hateful" and "hate-filled," it's yours.

I knew from the start that you were a knuckle head and that this conversation had almost no possibility of getting anywhere, which is why I had to be prodded several times before I even actively engaged this conversation and is the reason I have been quick and consistent in pointing out when you've said idiotic, sinful things. The fact of the matter is that you hate God for whatever reason and you take every opportunity to slander Him.

No one prodded you or asked you to engage, and you’re free to go at any time. Not too soon, I hope. The more you babble and foam at the mouth, the better. YOU are the best argument against Christianity I’ve seen in quite a while. Ranting and name-calling becomes you.

 

[Apollo]

Granite, please note Clete and Lightson’s “inquisitorial tone” as you are “suspected” of aiding and abetting “the enemy” by merely acknowledging the testimony of verifiable history. Not long ago, fanatics like Clete had the power to silence the opposition, as well as suspected “sympathizers” at a time when merely asking “questions” was considered “heretical.” If I was Clete, I’d ignore Christianity’s dysfunctional family history, too.

 

[Apollo]

Pre-Christian resurrected Gods:

"Such eerie parallels between the pronouncements of Jesus and Mithras are not the only similarities between the two religions. Mithras was known to his followers as "The light of the world," or "The good shepherd," and exhorted his followers to share ritual communion. Mithras was also reputedly born in a cave, with shepherds in attendance, on the twenty-fifth of December.

"Are these just coincidences? Consider this- several other Gods share the December birthday, and like Mithras, they are also solar deities, who are born in the winter solstices, often of virgin mothers, die, and are reborn. One of these, a pre-Christian deity called Attis, was called "The lamb of God," and his crucifixion and subsequent resurrection were celebrated annually, with ritual communions of bread and wine. His virgin mother, Cybele, was worshipped as "The Queen of heaven." It gets more interesting the further back we look- Attis and Cybele's predecessors are the Babylonian Goddess Ishtar, and her consort Tammuz. It is from their legend that we get the name for the annual celebration of the resurrection of Christ- Easter, a name of the Goddess Ishtar. this is not the only coincidence related to this ancient couple- the earliest use of the cross as a religious symbol is related to Tammuz! In fact, crosses are related to a variety of solar deities.

"Thousands of years before Jesus, there was another passion story told about a God man, born of a virgin mother, in a stable. He travels about with his followers, preaching and performing miracles, including turning water into wine. Eventually, he incurs the wrath of the religious authorities, who are appalled that he refers to himself as a god. He allows himself to be arrested and tried for blasphemy. He is found guilty and executed, only to rise from the grave three days later, where the women weeping at his tomb do not recognize him- that is, until he assumes his divine form- as the God Dionysus.

"Common to all of these 'mystery' religions (so called because one was required to be initiated or baptized into the faith to learn its doctrines), including early Christianity, are themes of rebirth, redemption, and the transmission of life-changing information. So many religions in those times shared similar themes with that usually the deities became melded together. Early depictions of Jesus show him holding the Lyre of Orpheus, or driving Apollo's chariot. A talisman bearing the crucified likeness of Osirus-Dionysus is inscribed Orpheus/Bacchus.

"It is impossible to tell just by looking at old artwork which haloed infant gods are cuddled in the arms of which mothers. The Emperor Constantine, who legitimized Christianity in Rome, was a worshipper of Sol Invictus- an amalgamation of solar deities Mithras, Helios, and Apollo-and he recognized Jesus' place in that company almost immediately.

"Of course, later Christians were terribly perturbed by these similarities- these coincidences so disturbed one early Christian church father, Justin Martyr, that he accused the devil of sending an imitator of Christ in advance. Had he paid a little more attention to the past, he might have noted that the association of Jesus with Dionysus is not so strange-philosophers had been making connections between Jehovah and Dionysus for centuries.

"New Testament authors stuck sly references to Pagan gods throughout the gospels. Did early Christians, like their modern descendents, believe that theirs was the one and only true manifestation of religion? Consider the words of Clement, of Alexandria, "There is one river of Truth, which receives tributaries from every side." If only the later followers of the religion listened more closely, these mysteries may not have been lost."

http://altreligion.about.com/library/weekly/aa052902a.htm

Didn't intend on the discussion going in this direction, but you can thank Clete for that. Topic deserves its own thread.

 

[lost anomaly]

As intrguing as this debate has become would any body be terriblly upset if I asked we went back to the original topic of my post?

 

[Clete]

Originally posted by lost anomaly

As intrguing as this debate has become would any body be terriblly upset if I asked we went back to the original topic of my post?

I thought you'd never ask!

Where were we exactly?

 

[lost anomaly]

Well, does anybody know the Calvinsit view on Evangelism? It seems to me that there wouldn't be a need for it if you were a Calvinsit, the elect would come to know God because he willed and the others would just be doomed. But, that's just my thought at the moment.

 

[helmet84]

Originally posted by lost anomaly

Well, does anybody know the Calvinsit view on Evangelism? It seems to me that there wouldn't be a need for it if you were a Calvinsit, the elect would come to know God because he willed and the others would just be doomed. But, that's just my thought at the moment.

From Arthur Pink's the Sovereignty of God:

"Now in conclusion let us anticipate and dispose of the usual and inevitable objection—Why preach the Gospel if man is powerless to respond? Why bid the sinner come to Christ if sin has so enslaved him that he has no power in himself to come? Reply:—We do not preach the Gospel because we believe that men are free moral agents, and therefore capable of receiving Christ, but we preach it because we are commanded to do so (Mark 16:15); and though to them that perish it is foolishness, yet, "unto us which are saved it is the power of God" (1 Cor. 1:18). "The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men" (1 Cor. 1:25). The sinner is dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1), and a dead man is utterly incapable of willing anything, hence it is that "they that are in the flesh (the unregenerate) cannot please God" (Rom. 8:8).

To fleshly wisdom it appears the height of folly to preach the Gospel to those that are dead, and therefore beyond the reach of doing anything themselves. Yes, but God’s ways are different from ours. It pleases God "by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe" (1 Cor. 1:21). Man may deem it folly to prophesy to "dead bones" and to say unto them, "O, ye dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord" (Ezek. 37:4). Ah! but then it is the Word of the Lord, and the words He speaks "they are spirit, and they are life" (John 6:63). Wise men standing by the grave of Lazarus might pronounce it an evidence of insanity when the Lord addressed a dead man with the words, "Lazarus, Come forth." Ah! but He who thus spake was and is Himself the Resurrection and the Life, and at His word even the dead live! We go forth to preach the Gospel, then, not because we believe that sinners have within themselves the power to receive the Saviour it proclaims, but because the Gospel itself is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, and because we know that "as many as were ordained to eternal life" (Acts 13:48), shall believe (John 6:37; 10:16—note the "shall’s"!) in God’s appointed time, for it is written, "Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power" (Ps. 110:3)!"

-- helmet84

 

[God_Is_Truth]

so it comes down to "because God said to" ?

 

[Clete]

"We do not preach the Gospel because we believe that men are...capable of receiving Christ..." - Pink

Wow! Now that pretty much sounds exactly like the Gospel to me!

It is interesting to point out that evangelism isn't the only area in which Calvinists have this particular problem of logic. Indeed Calvinists are forced to live their lives exactly as if all of Calvinism isn’t true.
The entire TULIP would seem to indicate that evangelism is unnecessary and yet they evangelize.
All things are predestined and yet they CHOOSE to come to a web site and try to persuade people away from that which they were predestined to believe.
They say we have no free will and yet a thousand times a day we all act precisely as if that were not so. We choose to get up in the morning, we choose which shirt to put on, whether or not to wear a blue tie or a red one, whether to each Cheerios or Lucky Charms, etc, etc, etc. We make a hundred choices every day before 9:00am in the morning, and yet Calvinism would have us believe that its all a fantasy, an illusion.
WHY?!
Why, if the world is the way Calvinism teaches did God hide the facts inside a world that looks exactly as it would if Calvinism were not true?
I submit that not only is there no Biblical requirement for such a belief of the way things are, but that it simply doesn't make any sense to do so. It flies in the face of every single aspect of our existence, as well as the message of the Bible, to suppose that we are just automatons, playing out a preprogrammed set of arbitrary instructions that we have no control over.

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Granite]

"Why, if the world is the way Calvinism teaches did God hide the facts inside a world that looks exactly as it would if Calvinism were not true?"

That depends on what side you're on, wouldn't you say? To a Calvinist the truth of his theology is self-evident; the same with Arminians.

 

[Apollo]

A Calvinist would say that God has ordained the "ends" ("who" would be saved) as well as the "means" ("how" someone is saved, i.e., evangelism). Similar questions: Why "pray" for someone's salvation? Or, why "preach"? Seems that if God "said" to do something, this is reason enough to do it. Calvinists operate under the same Great Commission to disciple the nations as do the Arminians, who, with slight modifications, including man's free-will acceptance (or rejection) of the offer, would also agree that if God has ordained the ends, he has also ordained the means.

"Hyper"-Calvinists, on the other hand, would agree that, God being sovereign, and having predestinated the elect to salvation, evangelism is "theoretically" unnecessary, but this is a minority opinion, even among Calvinists who, as has been pointed out by Granite1010, have a long history of foreign missions.

 

[Apollo]

Clete:

The entire TULIP would seem to indicate that evangelism is unnecessary and yet they evangelize.

Man’s word alone cannot penetrate a heart hardened to the things of God. Salvation is accomplished through the hearing of God’s word “mixing” with the promptings of the Holy Spirit. The Arminian concludes that the Holy Spirit can be resisted. The Calvinist concludes that, once “chosen” (elected), the Holy Spirit cannot be resisted.

At any rate, how would the “total depravity” of a man be overcome, if not by preaching the Word (i.e., evangelizing), when salvation must come by “hearing” the Word of God? Whether “converted” into Calvinism, or converting into “Arminianism” (both human constructs, or “interpretations” of the conversion event), salvation is Word dependent. Thus, Calvinists are not only motivated by the “call” to evangelize and convert the nations (as all Christians are), they are bolstered by the conviction that their efforts will be successful.

 

[Swordsman]

Originally posted by Apollo
At any rate, how would the “total depravity” of a man be overcome, if not by preaching the Word (i.e., evangelizing), when salvation must come by “hearing” the Word of God? Whether “converted” into Calvinism, or converting into “Arminianism” (both human constructs, or “interpretations” of the conversion event), salvation is Word dependent. Thus, Calvinists are not only motivated by the “call” to evangelize and convert the nations (as all Christians are), they are bolstered by the conviction that their efforts will be successful.

Arminians and Calvinists alike believe the Word comes through the Gospel. You are correct saying salvation is Word dependant.

And it isn't by our efforts at all that will convert anybody. It is the Holy Spirit empowering our lifestyle that will send the message of the Gospel to the lost sheep.

Total depravity is only overcome by God's irresistable grace. A.W. Pink puts it this way about the doctrine of sovereign grace:

It magnifies His grace. Grace is unmerited favor, and because grace is shown to the undeserving and Hell-deserving, to those who have no claim upon God, therefore is grace free and can be manifested toward the chief of sinners. But because grace is exercised toward those who are destitute of worthiness or merit grace is Sovereign; that is to say, God bestows grace upon whom He pleases. Divine Sovereignty has ordained that some shall be cast into the Lake of Fire to show that all deserved such a doom. But grace comes in like a dragnet and draws out from a lost humanity a people for God's name, to be throughout all eternity the monuments of His inscrutable favor. Sovereign grace reveals God breaking down the opposition of the human heart, subduing the enmity of the carnal mind, and bringing us to love Him because He first loved us.

 

[lost anomaly]

Originally posted by granite1010

"Why, if the world is the way Calvinism teaches did God hide the facts inside a world that looks exactly as it would if Calvinism were not true?"

That depends on what side you're on, wouldn't you say? To a Calvinist the truth of his theology is self-evident; the same with Arminians.

Which porbably explains why I'm having trouble comprhending Calvinism?

 

[lost anomaly]

From what I have bee reading about the Calvinist's view on Evangelism is that they don't evangelize nessessarily to bring people to God but more because they are commanded to. Am I correct in assuming this?

 

[smaller]

They will admit they do not know (of course they don't) who is slated for salvation (their term is "THE ELECT,") therefore the(ir) word must be preached to as many as possible in order to reach those who MAY be the ONES who are ELECTED. But then even these ELECTED ONES are not really SURE if they are ELECTED unless they CONTINUE in their faith or then others of the ELECT would simply say they were never really the ELECTED to begin with.

One observation is still WHY BOTHER? If they are ELECT it would be IMPOSSIBLE for ANY of these ELECT to actually be LOST with or without the(ir) word being preached.

See how easy that is?

 

[Clete]

Originally posted by lost anomaly

From what I have bee reading about the Calvinist's view on Evangelism is that they don't evangelize necessarily to bring people to God but more because they are commanded to. Am I correct in assuming this?

Well, that's what they say anyway. But even that is inconsistent with their own theology. A more consistent thing for them to say is that they evangelize because they have been predestined to do so.
Being commanded to do so is somewhat irrelevant, because they could refuse to comply with that command and their noncompliance would also be (in their view) a predestined reaction to the command. Therefore, God's own commands are subordinate and in conflict with His predestination which means that God Himself is inconsistent and illogical.

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Clete]

Originally posted by Apollo
...Calvinists are not only motivated by the “call” to evangelize and convert the nations (as all Christians are), they are bolstered by the conviction that their efforts will be successful.

This is an overstatement at best.

Calvinist cannot tell who is 'elect' and who is not. They therefore are forced to live as if all are elect when evangelizing. They must assume that any one particular person is elect and therefore that their evangelistic efforts have some possibility of success, or else they would never bother in the first place. And so I make the same point here as I've made many times before, that Calvinist are required to live out their lives in the exact same manner as they would if Calvinism we not so.

And no, Granite, this perception doesn't depend upon your point of view. If it did, then it would be meaningless to say.
Calvinists are forced into acting as though everyone has the opportunity to be saved because they have absolutely no way of telling whether or not someone is "elect" until that person actually gets saved. I, on the other hand actually do believe that everyone has the opportunity to be saved and so my evangelical actions are consistent with my theological world view and the Calvinists actions are in spite of theirs.

Resting in Him,
Clete