Calvinism and the Book of Life

[nobdysfool]

And it where your inferences that were wrong.

Then you are not holding to consistent beliefs. My inferences were based on other statements you have made over the course of time in this forum.

See if you can agree with this stuff.

God is the Absolute. He is not dependent on anything.

True.

God is the Creator. He creates out of nothing.

True

God is good. (follows from being the Absolute).

True, provided that you do not superimpose a flawed human concept of "good". Define "good".

God can therefore not create anything bad. He cannot create sin. He cannot create that which is incompatible with Himself.

Here is where you start to impose flawed, human concepts onto God. You make the statement "God cannot create sin", yet sin exists in His Creation. If sin exists, and we agree that it does, did it come into being by itself, apart from God? Does His Creation have the power, apart from God, to create, ex nihilo, something out of nothing?

Also, define "bad". Concepts such as "good" and "bad" mean nothing unless they are defined.

God created Man in His own image and Likeness. Man was created free. Man was not created as a "controlled being", puppet or robot.

Here is where you really begin to depart from the reservation. If Man was truly created free, then he would be like God, with no responsibility to God. To say that Man was created in the Image and Likeness of God is not absolute. The creation cannot be equal to its creator. Man was created with an understood responsibility to God, which is not "control" or being a "robot". You need to define what you mean by "created in His Image and Likeness. What does that mean?

When God created Man thus free like Himself, the possibility was also created that Man would be no longer depending on God: thus sin would enter the world. However, this was by no means a necessity. It was not a flaw created by God. There was no necessary reason, nor was it God's intention that Man (Adam) must depart from God.

Then how is it said that Christ was the slain lamb from the foundation of the world? For what reason would God and Christ plan for Christ to be slain in order to redeem His people, if that was not intended from the beginning? The decree that Christ would redeem His people by dying for them was made before Creation, not as a "Plan B" after Adam had sinned.

Once Adam sinned, then he was no longer free, but a slave to sin. And all Adam's descendants are born the same: they are in enemy territory and opposed to God.

Essentially true, but the concept of freedom for pre-Fall Adam is a relative concept, not absolute as you postulate. After God created Eve (from Adam's rib), they were given one commandment, with a warning of consequences for disobedience. . It was that commandment which opened the door, by creating the possibility of disobedience. Thus, Man was not as free as you postulate.

 

[holdon]

True, provided that you do not superimpose a flawed human concept of "good".

Sure. Good is not "evil for the purpose of good" or something similar.

Here is where you start to impose flawed, human concepts onto God. You make the statement "God cannot create sin", yet sin exists in His Creation. If sin exists, and we agree that it does, did it come into being by itself, apart from God? Does His Creation have the power, apart from God, to create, ex nihilo, something out of nothing?

Do lies come from God? Did/does He create them? Nonsense.

Here is where you really begin to depart from the reservation. If Man was truly created free, then he would be like God, with no responsibility to God.

Your logic is a little flawed. Free does not mean no responsibility. And Man was created "like" God.

To say that Man was created in the Image and Likeness of God is not absolute. The creation cannot be equal to its creator.

Did I ever say that? Of course you know better.

Man was created with an understood responsibility to God, which is not "control" or being a "robot".



Then how is it said that Christ was the slain lamb from the foundation of the world?

And where do you get that from, that He was?

For what reason would God and Christ plan for Christ to be slain in order to redeem His people, if that was not intended from the beginning?

Well, was there such plan? I don't see it.

The decree that Christ would redeem His people by dying for them was made before Creation, not as a "Plan B" after Adam had sinned.

Here the Calvinist comes with his claimed certainty of "this decree" and "that decree". Nonsense, they don't know anything of such supposed decrees.

Essentially true, but the concept of freedom for pre-Fall Adam is a relative concept, not absolute as you postulate.

??? Are you reading right? What/where did I "postulate"?

 

[Hismessenger]

For those of you who say God doesn't or can't or won't you truly impose your flawed understanding to what it is to be God. The whole of creation is but a nucleus of a cell in Gods spirit. name me one thing that can be in this creation that God is not the creator. If we can say what God will or won't do, then we bring him down to our level and he is no longer God because your flawed thinking cannot comprehend the fact that with God all things are possible and everything that he has purposed in this creation is very and I repeat very good for the purpose he set it forth to perform. The finite mind cannot comprehend the depth of God's doings so who is the clay to say that the potter can't make a corrupt vase if He so chooses.

hismessenger

 

[Dale]

Heymikey80 in post #12:
"John Calvin (nor anyone else who rightly holds the name "Calvinist") never said that God elects people to reprobation in the same way as He elects people to salvation. God doesn't write the reprobate into a huge book because He doesn't decide on them the same way."

Apparently you have not read John Calvin or my quote from same in post #6:
<< From the Chapter on Predestination in John Calvin&#8217;s Institutes of the Christian Religion:

&#8220;Predestination we call the eternal decree of God, by which He has determined in Himself what would have to become of every individual of mankind. For they are not all created with a similar destiny; but eternal life is fore-ordained for some, and eternal damnation for others.&#8221; >>

If later Calvinists have disavowed Calvin, then Calvin is not a Calvinist, or the Calvinists should stop calling themselves that.

Edited to add:

World Book Encyclopedia under Predestination:
"The Protestant leader John Calvin taught the doctrine of double predestination."

Double predestination means that some were Elected to Heaven while others were Elected to Hell. In contrast, Augustine and Luther taught single predestination.

 

[Dale]

Cygnusx1 in post #9, quotes Ephesians One.

Calvinists make the most incredible speeches about how you must believe every word of the Bible, then they quote the Epistles, the Epistles, and the Epistles.


"[5] Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,"
--Ephesians 1:5

The problem for Calvinists is that Paul is not talking about predestination of individuals, and he certainly is not saying that God predestined some for the hell of the final judgment, a place of eternal suffering. "Predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ" relates to the image of the Church as the Bride of Christ, an image which appears elsewhere in the Epistles and in the Gospels. Paul is saying that God planned the Christian Church to contain the souls of those saved by Christ and His grace. If souls were chosen for salvation or condemnation before creation, the "adoption" that Paul speaks of would not be necessary. Paul speaks of "adoption" because we are adopted into the Church, the Bride of Christ, when we are saved. After we are saved, and adopted, which is necessary because there is no predestination of individuals, Christ is our Father, and the Church is our symbolic mother.