Featured 7 point Calvinism

@Alan Gross

I disagree, Both Election and Reprobation are positive actions by God, positive decrees. Rom 9 :20-23

20 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?

21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

22 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:

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

God in His Purpose made each vessel unto their destiny. To make in Vs 21 is in the active voice, So God is active in purposing and executing His Purpose.

 

Yea … I am of Calvin the same guy that sanctioned the execution of an insane man. And blood will out, I am of Calvin who labels fellow Christians as witches and executes them or expels them into the wilderness.

 

So, clearly you'd reject Catholicism as well so, if you take the three, Catholicism, Calvinism and Arminianism, that's a pretty gigantic swath of the whole of Christianity!

Isn't it amazing how the plain simple reading of the bible and a willingness to both understand it to mean what it seems to mean and to allow that understanding to mold your doctrine (i.e. rather than the reverse where your doctrine is used to mold the scripture), isolates you from not only all the unbelieving persons on planet Earth but also almost the whole of those who call themselves Christian?

I'm right there with you, by the way!

It seems that nearly the whole of Christianity is in a contest to see who can formulate a doctrine from non-biblical sources and then read that doctrine into the text of scripture so that they can still call themselves a Christian. No other religion has this problem. If you want to be a Buddhist or a Hindu or a Taoist then you just are one and you believe what those faiths teach and that's the end of it for the most part. Christianity, on the other hand, seems to have this attraction for people where they want to be called a Christian regardless of what they actually believe and they'll read almost anything imaginable into the text of scripture to make it work.

 

You forgot to evaluate the Absoluter’s ( people who believe in total/absolute predestination. ) For example, if a field mouse farted in the meadow at 6:18pm on Saturday night, that wasGods plan and the creature was pre ordained to pass gas at that time & place. I can see you suggesting that claim that PB’s are Calvinists, only nobody I know in the PBChurch believes that.

 

You wrote:
"It seems that nearly the whole of Christianity is in a contest to see who can formulate a doctrine from non-biblical sources and then read that doctrine into the text of scripture so that they can still call themselves a Christian."

List them for us please.

You wrote:
"No other religion has this problem. If you want to be a Buddhist or a Hindu or a Taoist then you just are one and you believe what those faiths teach and that's the end of it for the most part."

Your statement is entirely false. There are many different variants of Muslims and cults of Islam. They kill each other. There is a massive spectrum of Hindu's. They kill each other. There are variants of Buddhists, ranging from polytheists to atheist in their teaching. They kill each other.

What is obvious is that you don't know your comparative religions.

 

I did. Catholics, Calvinists, Arminians. That's got to cover more than 90% of Christianity and everyone of them believe stuff that they import into Christianity, mostly from pagan Greek philosophy.

You missed the point. It seems you'd almost had to have done so on purpose. I'm not stupid enough to believe what you're comments are in response too here and neither is pretty much anyone else who is intelligent enough to use a computer keyboard.

Care to try again?

 

This is incorrect. Standard Calvinist doctrine is precisely as EWF described where there is not a rogue molecule in all of existence, or, as one prominent Calvinist put it....

“If there is one single molecule in this universe running around loose, totally free of God’s sovereignty, then we have no guarantee that a single promise of God will ever be fulfilled.” - R.C. Sproul​

How on Earth he justifies such a conclusion based on that premise is anyone's guess but the general idea is in keeping with what Augustinians have taught since Augustine introduced this idea into the church some 1600 years ago, as well as with with Calvin's own writings...

“But since he foresees future events only by reason of the fact that he decreed that they take place, they vainly raise a quarrel over foreknowledge, when it is clear that all things take place rather by his determination and bidding.” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 23, Paragraph 6)

“We hold that God is the disposer and ruler of all things, –that from the remotest eternity, according to his own wisdom, He decreed what he was to do, and now by his power executes what he decreed. Hence we maintain, that by His providence, not heaven and earth and inanimate creatures only, but also the counsels and wills of men are so governed as to move exactly in the course which he has destined.” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 16, Paragraph 8)​

Clete

 

Clete, is God unaware of some things?

 

According to your doctrine, no. According to the bible He is, yes...

Genesis 18:21 I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know.”

Jeremiah 19:5 (they have also built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or speak, nor did it come into My mind), (This same thing is repeated again in Jeremiah 32:35)​

In fact, passages like these, well as others that teach things like the fact that God sometimes changes His mind, are what kept Augustine from accepting Christianity for years because such things contradicted Aristotle and Plato, whom Augustine all but worshiped. It wasn't until his mother's bishop, Ambrose of Hippo, told him how to interpret the bible in light of Aristotle's teachings that he agreed to become a Christian.

 

You think that these two verses say that God is not aware of all things?

Clete, if God is unaware of something, then he is not all powerful, not all knowing, and not all present at all times. In short, such a god would be small and capable of being deceived.

I do not see the Bible ever teaching such a thing and neither do the verses you have proposed.

Also, your narrative of Augustine is unique to you. I have heard his conversion story, multiple times, and none has had your version.

 

That is explicitly what they say.

Quite so!

Saying it doesn't make it so. If, when you stand before God, you discover that your doctrine here is false, you'll discover simultaneously that this statement was blasphemy. I suggest you be more careful with your words.

You do see it because I just showed it to you. Your declaring it not so doesn't change what the scripture explicitly states and there's quite a lot of similar passages, by the way. It's sort of a theme throughout the Old Testament and Genesis in particular.

HA! That's a laugh!

You're the only Calvinist I've ever encountered that tried to deny such well established history. It's only recorded in Augustine's own writings.

Well, when you live in an echo chamber you only hear what you like to hear. Deny it all you want, it doesn't change the facts.
Augustine's mother tried for years to get him to become a Christian and he refused specifically because the bible teaches that God can change.

The idea that God cannot change (including changing His mind) comes from Socrates, whom we learn about through Plato and Plato's student Aristotle, both of whom Augustine really really loved when he was young.

From Plato's Republic Book II, Socrates says to Adeimantus...

"And what do you think of a second principle? Shall I ask you whether God is a magician, and of a nature to appear insidiously now in one shape, and now in another --sometimes himself changing and passing into many forms, sometimes deceiving us with the semblance of such transformations; or is he one and the same immutably fixed in his own proper image?

I cannot answer you, he said, without more thought.
Well, I said; but if we suppose a change in anything, that change must be effected either by the thing itself, or by some other thing?

Most certainly.
And things which are at their best are also least liable to be altered or discomposed; for example, when healthiest and strongest, the human frame is least liable to be affected by meats and drinks, and the plant which is in the fullest vigour also suffers least from winds or the heat of the sun or any similar causes.

Of course.
And will not the bravest and wisest soul be least confused or deranged by any external influence?

True.
And the same principle, as I should suppose, applies to all composite things --furniture, houses, garments; when good and well made, they are least altered by time and circumstances.

Very true.
Then everything which is good, whether made by art or nature, or both, is least liable to suffer change from without?

True.
But surely God and the things of God are in every way perfect?
Of course they are.
Then he can hardly be compelled by external influence to take many shapes?

He cannot.
But may he not change and transform himself?
Clearly, he said, that must be the case if he is changed at all.
And will he then change himself for the better and fairer, or for the worse and more unsightly?

If he change at all he can only change for the worse, for we cannot suppose him to be deficient either in virtue or beauty.

Very true, Adeimantus; but then, would any one, whether God or man, desire to make himself worse?

Impossible.
Then it is impossible that God should ever be willing to change; being, as is supposed, the fairest and best that is conceivable, every god remains absolutely and for ever in his own form.

That necessarily follows, he said, in my judgment."
​

Aristotle takes this same thought process and applies it to God's mind...
From Aristotles' "Metaphysics" book XII...

"The nature of the divine thought involves certain problems; for while thought is held to be the most divine of things observed by us, the question how it must be situated in order to have that character involves difficulties. For if it thinks of nothing, what is there here of dignity? It is just like one who sleeps. And if it thinks, but this depends on something else, then (since that which is its substance is not the act of thinking, but a potency) it cannot be the best substance; for it is through thinking that its value belongs to it. Further, whether its substance is the faculty of thought or the act of thinking, what does it think of? Either of itself or of something else; and if of something else, either of the same thing always or of something different. Does it matter, then, or not, whether it thinks of the good or of any chance thing? Are there not some things about which it is incredible that it should think? Evidently, then, it thinks of that which is most divine and precious, and it does not change; for change would be change for the worse, and this would be already a movement."
​

I could go on multiplying quotes here but I think the point is made. If you believe that God is immutable and/or that God cannot change his mind, it is because of these specific passages from Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Metaphysics and others like them.

Augustine took this precise teaching and imported it into the church through his "Confessions".

From Augustine's "Confessions" Book V...

"This was especially clear after I had heard one or two parts of the Old Testament explained allegorically--whereas before this, when I had interpreted them literally, they had “killed” me spiritually."​

Augustine is speaking there of the teaching of his mother's bishop, Bishop Ambrose of Milan.

From Book VI chapter IV....

"I was also glad that the old Scriptures of the Law and the Prophets were laid before me to be read, not now with an eye to what had seemed absurd in them when formerly I censured thy holy ones for thinking thus, when they actually did not think in that way. And I listened with delight to Ambrose, in his sermons to the people, often recommending this text most diligently as a rule: “The letter kills, but the spirit gives life,” while at the same time he drew aside the mystic veil and opened to view the spiritual meaning of what seemed to teach perverse doctrine if it were taken according to the letter."​

Do you see what he's saying there? He rips II Corinthians 3:6 completely out of its context and instead of teaching that its the law that kill but God who gives life, which is what the passage is actually teaching, and instead uses it to say that the bible aught not be taken literally but figuratively - whenever it says anything in contradiction to Plato or Aristotle. And he's talking here about how this teaching from Ambrose is what began to change his mind about Christianity.

Augustine continues...

From Confession Book VII chapter III

"But as yet, although I said and was firmly persuaded that thou our Lord, the true God, who madest not only our souls but our bodies as well--and not only our souls and bodies but all creatures and all things--wast free from stain and alteration and in no way mutable, yet I could not readily and clearly understand what was the cause of evil. Whatever it was, I realized that the question must be so analyzed as not to constrain me by any answer to believe that the immutable God was mutable, lest I should myself become the thing that I was seeking out (i.e. the cause of evil)"​

Here Augustine tells us explicitly that his standard is the immutability of God. He is saying that he will except no explanation for the problem of evil that suggests that God can change. The point being that he was never able to find such an answer in the bible but found his answer in the teachings of Bishop Ambrose who interpreted the bible figuratively so as to make it agree with Plato's philosophy and that of Plotinism.

Okay, so, once again, I could go on and on multiplying quotes here but the point is made and the history is clear, well established and totally undeniable. There is a straight and unbroken line that starts with Socrates goes through Plato and Aristotle to Ambrose of Milan to Augustine of Hippo to Martin Luther (an Augustinian monk) and Calvin to every Calvinist today that believes and teaches this stuff.

Those of you who desire to read a more complete and fully documented treatment of this same topic. I strongly recommend reading the following article by the late Pastor Bob Hill...

Calvinism Unmasked by Bob Hill

 

No. I didn't quote Presbyterianism (except maybe by accident), I quoted Sproul, a very standout and proud Calvinist and Calvin himself. The fact that Sproul is a Presbyterian is irrelevant except that every Presbyterian I've ever heard of is as "Reformed" (i.e. Calvinist) as it is possible to get.

Look, what I'm saying here isn't even a little bit controversial! Calvinism teaches that EVERYTHING is predestined and anyone who calls themselves a Calvinist and doesn't believe that is in error. To deny that every single event is predestined is to deny the immutability of God, it is to deny the Calvinists version of God's omniscience and omnipotence and providence. It very effectively unravels the whole of what Calvinism is!

 

file:///C:/Users/fundi/Downloads/BaptistSuccession_10213136.pdf

BAPTIST SUCCESSION:
HANDBOOK OF BAPTIST HISTORY By D.B. RAY, 1870

SECTION II. —
PECULIARITY SECOND
IDENTIFIED IN PRESENT BAPTIST TEACHING.
pg. 185

"That the Bible alone is to be regarded as the rule of faith and practice, all Baptists hold with unyielding tenacity.

"‘Our rule of faith and practice is the New Testament.’

"We have no other authority to which we all profess submission.”

"It is true that Baptists have, at different times, written their views on the prominent points of Scripture doctrine, which has proved very important as a matter of history but they appeal to no other standard except the Bible, in the reception, discipline, and exclusion of members.

"The design of this oneness was not Simply ’to assemble together a mass of persons holding all sorts of doctrines'. The apostle exhorted the brethren as follows: “I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you:
but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind,
and in the same judgment.”

"And in order to this oneness, in mind and judgment, it becomes absolutely necessary for those who desire to dwell together in unity to express themselves in regard to the leading points in Bible doctrine. If they are designed to be united in church capacity, it is necessary for persons to express themselves, at least on all those points that are essential to church organization;

"for if persons Should assemble together Simply on the profession that "they believe the Bible", then we might have Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Methodists, with all other Pedobaptists; and also we would have Unitarians, Universalists, Quakers, Campbellites, and Mormons, all united with Baptists on "the vague profession of believing the Bible".

"We must not only receive the Bible as our standard theoretically,
but we 'must make it our rule of action.“

"Therefore, in the midst of such a multitude of Opposing parties and doctrines, it becomes absolutely necessary for those who would dwell together to express their views of Bible doctrine."

 

So, I know two things about you.
1) Your god is small.
2) You are listening to hacks and taking them as facts.

 

I don't know, taisto, he did say,

 

This is the way that I was saying I saw it;

Borrowed from Gill.

"with respect to the vessels of honour,
whom he appoints for his glory," = appointment.

"he determines to create them; = positive determination.

"to suffer them to fall into sin, = negative determination.
whereby they become polluted and guilty;

"to raise and recover them, = positive determination.
by the obedience, sufferings, and death of his Son;

"to regenerate, renew, and sanctify them,
by his Spirit and grace, = positive determination.

"and to bring them to eternal happiness;" = positive determination.

"and hereby compass the aforesaid end, his own glory,
the glorifying of his grace and mercy,
in a way consistent with justice and holiness:" = appointment complete.
...

"with respect to the vessels of dishonour,
whom he also appoints for the glorifying of himself," = appointment.

"he determines to create them out of the same lump; = positive determination.

"to suffer them to fall into sin; = negative determination.

"to leave them in their sins, = negative determination.
in the pollution and guilt of them,

"and to condemn them for them; = positive determination.

"and hereby gain his ultimate end, his own glory,
glorifying the perfections of his power, justice, and holiness,
without the least blemish to his goodness and mercy" = appointment complete.

 

Understood, however I believe scripture teaches both are from a positive decree of Gods Making.