dermdoc said:
10andBOUNCE said:
dermdoc said:
10andBOUNCE said:
Mostly Peaceful said:
10andBOUNCE said:
What else can I add to my list to bring up to my church elders this coming Lord's Day?
So far I have the fact that we (Calvinists)...
Have no joy
Have no fruit
Have no love
Are demonic
Are a scourge
Should not have children
Don't know what Calvinism is
This is my takeaway from this thread, this board, and most people in general.
I will adjust expectations and come here for entertainment going forward.
So you think all of us geniuses on here have not tried to understand Calvinism?
I am not saying anyone has been malicious or whatever but no, I think there likely has not been a good faith dive into what Calvinism really is. I think there is a lot of ignorance, misunderstanding, group think, and clinging onto certain polarizing soundbites without placing them in the whole big picture.
I am not asking anyone to do so either, but to spout false accusations about Calvinism when you think you understand it is lazy at best. We often tell each other we are taking verses out of context (likely all of us guilty), so I would say most are taking soundbites out of context. I can't speak for everyone obviously and every religious group has there bad apples (except for Orthodox, those guys just seem perfect apparently).
The very example of posting something about Calvin never using the word "love" in his institutes lends me to believe this is true. I am not mad about it, but at this point there really can't be a real discussion if that is where we are at.
Okay I made one misquote on vacation. Do you agree Calvin advocated double predestination? Which logically means God creates people not just doomed to destruction but to ECT hell, correct?
Do you really believe I haven't read or studied Calvinism? I tried to believe it for a couple of years and I could not go there.
It is not lack of understanding my friend, it is reading the same Scripture and coming to different conclusions.
In my 70 years of life and about 60 years as a Christian, my experience is that when I try to discuss what happens to the non elect with Calvinists, there is a huge disconnect and frankly a rather blase' attitude towards the preordained damned. And they just say it is God's will. I don't know but that bothers me. As I have said, I must not be of the elect.
I might add, we have a Calvinist on here saying that I am committing slander by saying Washer, Lawson, and Sproul are/were Calvinists.
And since you say I do not understand Calvinism, explain it to me. Do you really think all the theologians who reject Calvinism have not studied it? Or understand it?
I mean according to Google, Calvinism is a tiny minority of Christians. 3-5% of Christians. Do all those folks not understand it?
And where was TULIP and Calvin's ideas on predestination and election for the first 1500 years of Christianity?
I am not saying you aren't "studying" it, but I don't exactly know what that means. There is a lot of material out there.
I have already commented on Washer, Lawson and Sproul. They are all Calvinists, and I am not sure why anyone would say otherwise.
Your idea of double predestination at it's root is off. The foundation is that we are all in sin and deserve the death Christ died for us. It would be just for God to condemn each and every one of us to hell. However through his perfect redemptive plan, he has chosen those whom he shows mercy and the others are simply left to their own devices and ultimately given the justice they deserve. I know you have heard this, but this idea is not what you proclaim on here as how you interpret double predestination. The entire Bible has a constant theme of those people in whom God places his favor and special choice on whom receive his covenantal blessing. Starting with Abraham. Then Isaac (not Ishmael). Then Jacob (not Esau). So on and so forth up through him choosing Paul to be the greatest missionary of all time. A man who was in the middle of ravaging Christians all of the sudden submits completely to Christ. It is unexplainable without the sovereignty of God at work.
As far as a popularity contest, Calvinism was once the "norm" in early America, and you are likely somewhat familiar with the Puritans, early Colonial period, and Great Awakening. From what I understand, the spread of large amounts of Baptists and Methodists was somewhat influenced by quick church plants in which the structure that Calvinistic and Confessional churches were formed was not easily or quickly scalable as the country's population blew up. And we are all too familiar with the red blooded American battle cry of personal autonomy, which kind of collides with what the Reformers taught about the role God plays in salvation. This American battle cry is at complete odds with the God of the Bible. Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is nonsensical if you are a Christian.
I am not going to even try to unpack what I truly believe is at the heart of a Calvinist. I think most people's minds are made up here, including yours, and like a true Calvinist, I believe God will work in the hearts of his people in accordance with his good purposes. To that extent, I will borrow the New Testament phrase of "shaking the dust off" and wishing all the best. I am of the mind that most professing Christians that regularly engage on this forum are likely in good standing with God in terms of their ultimate salvation, even if we disagree on how that all plays out. I expect to see you as we feast with the Lamb in our perfect and redeemed bodies.
The topic of evil and hell has been a head scratcher for all of time, and we must be willing to live in some amount of tension as we surely cannot plumb the depths of who God is and how all this fits together. Predestination was talked about often by the apostle Paul, so it was there right after the time of Christ. Beyond that, it really was not until Augustine until it became a hot topic. Major church heresies were the flavor of the day for many early centuries, and there simply was not time for the early fathers to just sit and all write complex systematic theologies. Many of the church fathers did however write much on justification by faith alone, which was at the heart of the Reformation. It is not hard to find.
