Calvinism and the Truth

[jmdrake]

Okay. Think this through. Calvinist claim that if you believe that man has freewill to choose right from wrong then man somehow has the power to "thwart God's will" therefore man can't have freewill right?

Calvinists also believe that man's will didn't have a warped will bent against God until after the fall right?

Therefore Calvinists must believe that Adam and Eve had perfect wills. Yet they fell. So Adam and Eve somehow had the power to thwart God's will? If yes then why is it so hard for Calvinists to accept that people after the fall have the ability to thwart God's perfect will and choose sin just like Adam and Eve? If no, then doesn't that mean that Adam and Eve weren't perfect? Or maybe they were perfect in their imperfection and there was no "fall"? You can't have it both ways.

Further if perfect Adam and perfect Eve had a choice and could choose wrong (or in the alternative choose right) why not everyone else? Claiming it's all due to "fallen nature" doesn't cut it. A fallen nature simply means you have a bent toward sin. It does not mean an impossibility to make a choice. And if Adam didn't choose sin, if that sin was forced upon him, despite being in an unfallen state, then Paul is made a liar when he says "By one man did sin enter the world".

 

[jmdrake]

I'm just trying to explain the Calvinist position.

We believe no one would willingly choose Christ apart from a work of God in that life because we are dead in our trespasses and sins.

We deserve spiritual death, not necessarily because we reject Christ but because we are sinners by nature.

The difference is that the rest of us believe that God works in everyone's life, but we as humans have the power through our choices to limit God because God chooses to let Himself be limited in that way so that we have freewill. Acts 17:30 says that God calls all men to repentance. But not all men repent. That's why Ephesians 4:30 says And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Remember Jesus said the grieving the Holy Spirit is the one sin that cannot be forgiven. (Matthew 12:31). He warned the Pharisees against doing that. If it was impossible for man to resist God's Spirit then there would be no reason for Jesus to give that warning.

 

[erowe1]

Adam and Eve didn't thwart God's will. They disobeyed him, but that was exactly what he planned for them to do. There was a 0% chance of any other outcome. And had it been the case that they would have chosen not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, then God could have just (and would have) given them some other test they were sure to fail. The cross wasn't some kind of plan B.

And if Adam didn't choose sin, if that sin was forced upon him, despite being in an unfallen state, then Paul is made a liar when he says "By one man did sin enter the world".

Adam did choose sin, just like he was predestined to do.

 

[jmdrake]

Adam and Eve didn't thwart God's will. They disobeyed him, but that was exactly what he planned for them to do. There was a 0% chance of any other outcome. And had it been the case that they would have chosen not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, then God could have just (and would have) given them some other test they were sure to fail. The cross wasn't some kind of plan B.

Adam did choose sin, just like he was predestined to do.

There is a difference between God knowing what Adam would do and God planning for Adam to do it. If God decided ahead of time for Adam to sin then Adam didn't choose to sin, God did. But the Bible clearly says that God is not the one who brings temptation.

James 1:12-14
12Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.

13Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:

14But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.

 

[erowe1]

If God decided ahead of time for Adam to sin then Adam didn't choose to sin, God did.

I reject this premise, and everything else you say hangs on it.

 

[jmdrake]

I reject this premise, and everything else you say hangs on it.

Reject it all you want. It's still the truth. I reject your premise that God's foreknowledge of Adam's sin = God "planning" for Adam to sin.

 

[Beorn]

We choose God because he gives us a way to be absolved of our sins and therefore a path to salvation.

Ok, God gives us all a way to salvation. I agree. If it isn't determined by God's will what ultimately distinguishes people who choose God's path and people who don't. Are people who choose God inherently better?

He doesn't, but he gives us the choice to reject salvation.

What about the poor innocent native that never heard of God?

And that "common grace extended to all" is enough for anyone to choose God. Some just don't. God "wills" that we have free will.

Where in the Bible do you read anything that supports this? Common grace is by definition distinct from saving grace.

See above.

That's not an answer. Free will is an ability. My question is what causes people to use their will to choose god or not choose god.

No. You aren't honestly stating my position. I believe Christ died to save everybody. But I believe that people have a freewill choice to accept or reject that gift. It would be like I Steve Jobs putting in his will that everybody could have a free iPod and Android users saying "Thanks but no thanks". I don't believe that grace is irresistible. That's the difference.

So you believe that God fails at things he attempts to do?

Because their thinking influences behaviors and in turn has consequences on other people's lives...there is a reason why murder is universally condemned...one doesn't need religion to figure that out..beside Christianity is a new religion in the grand scheme of our existence.

One doesn't need Christianity to believe murder is wrong, one does need Christianity to believe murder is wrong AND be logically consistent.

Even if murder is (almost) universally condemned that doesn't make it BAD if there is no God. Anyone expressing a different opinion on murder is not WRONG. They are just expressing their own personal preference.

Just like you have a supposedly personal preference for rational thinking and yet you want to impose that preference on others.

Can't help but notice the "what if" Paul uses there. Seems like something pretty serious to be speculating about.

It's just a rhetorical device used to soften the blow. I'm certainly not saying that Calvinism is an easy pill to swallow. Although, in retrospect for many it's hard to believe they ever held a different opinion.

Doesn't surprise me though, there's nothing infallible about saints in my opinion. They are no different from enlightened Buddhists, equally fallible and preaching according to the conditioning they've undergone in their own time and place.

Ok... We have whole different more fundamental issue here.

 

[eduardo89]

[SUP][/SUP]

What about the poor innocent native that never heard of God?

So then faith in Christ is not necessary for salvation?

 

[BUSHLIED]

One doesn't need Christianity to believe murder is wrong, one does need Christianity to believe murder is wrong AND be logically consistent.

Even if murder is (almost) universally condemned that doesn't make it BAD if there is no God. Anyone expressing a different opinion on murder is not WRONG. They are just expressing their own personal preference.

Just like you have a supposedly personal preference for rational thinking and yet you want to impose that preference on others.

LOL. I had to laugh at your last comment. Rational thinking is what brought us modern society: medicine, engineering, technology, you name it. Further, people were being burned as witches at the stake. it was rational thought that stopped those practices etc...

I know, I know. You are going to counter by saying that rational thought is just one way of knowing...I've heard all the arguments before. If one is to be logically consistent one must arrive at agnosticism...one cannot arrive at truth by being irrational.

Also, my point about murder was simply that one doesn't need a Judeo-Christian god to arrive at the conclusion that murder is wrong or bad for society....in fact, murder was condemned during the Greek Empire when they worshiped Zeus.

All one has to do is look at history to know that religion is an attempt and creation of mankind to understand their existence to give some order to it...now we have rational thought to guide, time to throw away the BIBLE and wake up..grow up!

 

[Beorn]

[SUP][/SUP]

So then faith in Christ is not necessary for salvation?

I believe faith is necessary. I'm just wondering what your answer is to the poor innocent native question since you believe people make a choice of themselves to reject or accept Christ. People in remote villages or before Christ came (outside of Israel) don't seem to have that choice.

 

[wizardwatson]

The difference is that the rest of us believe that God works in everyone's life, but we as humans have the power through our choices to limit God because God chooses to let Himself be limited in that way so that we have freewill. Acts 17:30 says that God calls all men to repentance. But not all men repent. That's why Ephesians 4:30 says And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Remember Jesus said the grieving the Holy Spirit is the one sin that cannot be forgiven. (Matthew 12:31). He warned the Pharisees against doing that. If it was impossible for man to resist God's Spirit then there would be no reason for Jesus to give that warning.

Out of curiousity what exactly does it mean to "blaspheme the holy spirit" or "grieve" the holy spirit? What exactly was Jesus trying to say?

 

[jmdrake]

What about the poor innocent native that never heard of God?

You asked that of someone else but....

Romans 2:14 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:

Acts 17:29-30
In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.

In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.

Psalms 87:4-6
4“I shall mention Rahab and Babylon among those who know Me;
Behold, Philistia and Tyre with Ethiopia:
‘This one was born there.’”

5But of Zion it shall be said, “This one and that one were born in her”;
And the Most High Himself will establish her.

6The LORD will count when He registers the peoples,
“This one was born there.”

Where in the Bible do you read anything that supports this? Common grace is by definition distinct from saving grace.

Titus 2:11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.

This bears emphasis.
God's saving grace has appeared to ALL men!

Saving grace is commonly given. It's just not commonly accepted.

That's not an answer. Free will is an ability. My question is what causes people to use their will to choose god or not choose god.

Their freewill causes it. What causes the force of gravity? Calvinists get stuck here and ignore clear Biblical teachings simply because they don't understand the mechanism of how freewill works. It just does. How did God always exist? I don't know. He just does.

So you believe that God fails at things he attempts to do?

So you insist on misrepresenting what I say? God willed that man has freewill. Why are you so eager to limit God? If you truly believe in a limitless God than you have to believe that God has the ability to give man a choice. You call that a failure. I call it a success in creating beings with freewill.

Here's the difference between you and I. I believe God's love is limitless. Such limitless love does not allow Him to create robots. It doesn't also doesn't allow Him to create "good" robots destined for heaven and "bad" robots destined for hell. You limit God's love because the idea of Him in His limitless love letting petting creatures limit His power offends you. It doesn't offend me because I realize that this limitation is self imposed.

 

[Beorn]

LOL. I had to laugh at your last comment. Rational thinking is what brought us modern society: medicine, engineering, technology, you name it. Further, people were being burned as witches at the stake. it was rational thought that stopped those practices etc...

I know, I know. You are going to counter by saying that rational thought is just one way of knowing...I've heard all the arguments before. If one is to be logically consistent one must arrive at agnosticism...one cannot arrive at truth by being irrational.

No. I think being rational is good. I just don't think rationalists are rational. Look at your statement above. They're packed with presumptions about what is GOOD and what is BAD. Yet, if you are honest you will admit that without God burning witches is not BAD it's just a preference. Medicine, engineering, and all the rest of it is not GOOD, but just a preference shared by much of society.

Also, my point about murder was simply that one doesn't need a Judeo-Christian god to arrive at the conclusion that murder is wrong or bad for society....in fact, murder was condemned during the Greek Empire when they worshiped Zeus.

All one has to do is look at history to know that religion is an attempt and creation of mankind to understand their existence to give some order to it...now we have rational thought to guide, time to throw away the BIBLE and wake up..grow up!

But, once you depend only on rational thought you lose any grounding you might have.

Again, my point is that, yes, much of the world has come to the conclusion that murder is bad. But, without God they don't HAVE to believe that. You can never say something is absolutely wrong without God. So looking forward society can say murder is wrong... Or not. And, if they don't believe murder is wrong you can't say that's BAD. You can only say they have a different preference.

 

[wizardwatson]

Doesn't surprise me though, there's nothing infallible about saints in my opinion. They are no different from enlightened Buddhists, equally fallible and preaching according to the conditioning they've undergone in their own time and place.

Ok... We have whole different more fundamental issue here.

What fundamental issue is that?

 

[BUSHLIED]

No. I think being rational is good. I just don't think rationalists are rational. Look at your statement above. They're packed with presumptions about what is GOOD and what is BAD. Yet, if you are honest you will admit that without God burning witches is not BAD it's just a preference. Medicine, engineering, and all the rest of it is not GOOD, but just a preference shared by much of society.

But, once you depend only on rational thought you lose any grounding you might have.

Again, my point is that, yes, much of the world has come to the conclusion that murder is bad. But, without God they don't HAVE to believe that. You can never say something is absolutely wrong without God. So looking forward society can say murder is wrong... Or not. And, if they don't believe murder is wrong you can't say that's BAD. You can only say they have a different preference.

You are right. Our world is build on agreement, arbitrary if you will. My point is that people came to the conclusion that murder is wrong over time as we evolved prior to Christ. Murder is not inherently anything but a behavior. Our world is inherently meaningless and arbitrary...overtime humans have sought to develop predictability to enhance survival etc...therefore, murder is now a crime etc...I am using reason and rational thinking to understand this all.

 

[jmdrake]

Out of curiousity what exactly does it mean to "blaspheme the holy spirit" or "grieve" the holy spirit? What exactly was Jesus trying to say?

Sorry. I skipped this debating others. The context of Jesus using the verse is that when Jesus cast out demons the Pharisees tried attribute that to the power of Satan. So here's what I believe. When someone sees clear evidence of the working of the Holy Spirit, yet actively rejects that working, they dull their "spiritual senses" so that it becomes harder to hear the Holy Spirit the next time. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead some of the Pharisees sought to kill Lazarus rather than let Lazarus testify to Jesus power. Trying to kill a man who had just been raised from the dead is insane. But that's how far gone they were. The same can be said of Pharaoh. The first few miracles Moses did, Pharaoh's magicians repeated. But once Moses started doing miracles his magicians couldn't duplicate, Pharaoh was already too gone to repent.

 

[wizardwatson]

Sorry. I skipped this debating others. The context of Jesus using the verse is that when Jesus cast out demons the Pharisees tried attribute that to the power of Satan. So here's what I believe. When someone sees clear evidence of the working of the Holy Spirit, yet actively rejects that working, they dull their "spiritual senses" so that it becomes harder to hear the Holy Spirit the next time. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead some of the Pharisees sought to kill Lazarus rather than let Lazarus testify to Jesus power. Trying to kill a man who had just been raised from the dead is insane. But that's how far gone they were. The same can be said of Pharaoh. The first few miracles Moses did, Pharaoh's magicians repeated. But once Moses started doing miracles his magicians couldn't duplicate, Pharaoh was already too gone to repent.

I guess that makes sense, thx.

 

[eduardo89]

Out of curiousity what exactly does it mean to "blaspheme the holy spirit" or "grieve" the holy spirit? What exactly was Jesus trying to say?

 

[Beorn]

You asked that of someone else but....

Romans 2:14 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:

Acts 17:29-30
In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.

In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.

Psalms 87:4-6
4“I shall mention Rahab and Babylon among those who know Me;
Behold, Philistia and Tyre with Ethiopia:
‘This one was born there.’”

5But of Zion it shall be said, “This one and that one were born in her”;
And the Most High Himself will establish her.

6The LORD will count when He registers the peoples,
“This one was born there.”

What is your interpretation of those passages? What's the bottom line for a person in Africa who never hears The gospel?

Titus 2:11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.

This bears emphasis.
God's saving grace has appeared to ALL men!

Look at the rest of the passage. Within context it's very clear that purpose of this passage is to show how grace works in the lives of Christians to sanctify them. This verse is NOT about justification.

11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people,
12 training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age,
13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,
14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

Saving grace is commonly given. It's just not commonly accepted.

You're confused. I hate to educate you about your own beliefs, but what you're referring to is distinct from common grace. I believe what you're really trying to get at is what Wesley called Previent grace..l which also doesn't have any basis in scripture.

Their freewill causes it.

So people's free will's must be different since there are different results. What differientiates a free will that accepts from a free will that rejects?

What causes the force of gravity?

Same thing that justifies... GOD!

Calvinists get stuck here and ignore clear Biblical teachings simply because they don't understand the mechanism of how freewill works. It just does. How did God always exist? I don't know. He just does.

I don't believe I'm the one that's stuck. I can explain how I believe the will works. The burden is on you to explain why everyone has the same free will and yet everyone makes different decisions. Is there any rhyme or reason to the ways people use Their free will or are all decisions random?

So you insist on misrepresenting what I say? God willed that man has freewill. Why are you so eager to limit God? If you truly believe in a limitless God than you have to believe that God has the ability to give man a choice. You call that a failure. I call it a success in creating beings with freewill.

I don't believe in a limitless God. God is confined by his own attributes. Including his sovereignty.

Here's the difference between you and I. I believe God's love is limitless. Such limitless love does not allow Him to create robots. It doesn't also doesn't allow Him to create "good" robots destined for heaven and "bad" robots destined for hell. You limit God's love because the idea of Him in His limitless love letting petting creatures limit His power offends you. It doesn't offend me because I realize that this limitation is self imposed.

This reveals where your thinking begins. Rather than approach the Bible with an open mind and accepting what it says you have brought with you preconceived notions about how the world works. Calvinism is not the natural presumption of how the world works. One must read and embrace the scriptures to believe what Calvinism teaches.

No where in the bible does it say that God is omnibenevolent or that he has limitless love. In fact quite the opposite is true. If you don't believe me ask an Amalekite, Pharoah, or Esau. Paul explicitly restates the OT teaching that Esau was hated by before he even had the ability to do right or wrong. That doesn't change the fact that we all deserve to be hated by God and we should be thankful for his saving grace to the believer and common grace to the nonbeliever.

 

[Beorn]

You are right. Our world is build on agreement, arbitrary if you will. My point is that people came to the conclusion that murder is wrong over time as we evolved prior to Christ. Murder is not inherently anything but a behavior. Our world is inherently meaningless and arbitrary...overtime humans have sought to develop predictability to enhance survival etc...therefore, murder is now a crime etc...I am using reason and rational thinking to understand this all.

Ok, but what's the purpose of using reasoning and rational thinking if the end result is arbitrary anyway?