• Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.

  • CF has always been a site that welcomes people from different backgrounds and beliefs to participate in discussion and even debate. That is the nature of its ministry. In view of recent events emotions are running very high. We need to remind people of some basic principles in debating on this site. We need to be civil when we express differences in opinion. No personal attacks. Avoid you, your statements. Don't characterize an entire political party with comparisons to Fascism or Communism or other extreme movements that committed atrocities. CF is not the place for broad brush or blanket statements about groups and political parties. Put the broad brushes and blankets away when you come to CF, better yet, put them in the incinerator. Debate had no place for them. We need to remember that people that commit acts of violence represent themselves or a small extreme faction.

What did Paul preach to the Corinthians?

Status
Not open for further replies.

janxharris

Veteran
Jun 10, 2010
7,562
55
Essex, UK
Visit site
✟43,897.00
Country
United Kingdom
Gender
Male
Faith
Agnostic
Marital Status
Married
I'm glad we've finally been able to come to agreement on this point. However, that makes what you're about to say inconsistent.

Paul NEVER established this as the gospel. What is 'this'?
That Christ had died for his (Paul's) and the other members of the church's sins, and not necessarily for their (unbelieving Corinthians) sins. This applies to the resurrection as well. So the gospel is, essentially, that Christ's death and resurrection are only for believers. It isn't for those that God determined it would not be for.
Since you have agreed that, if in the original context Paul preached a gospel wherein Christ's death was intrinsically efficacious for those who believe, he is referring to this message in I Cor 15, why would it be necessary for Paul to make that "explicit." It's what Paul preached, it's what the Corinthians remembered Paul preaching, and it's not precluded by pronoun choice.

You forgot to mention the bit about God compacting with himself what he willed to become of each man. That God did not create all men in equal condition - rather some were foreordained to eternal life, and some to eternal damnation. Where did Paul ever establish this?
You have already agreed that it is not a natural or necessary way of speaking to explicitly exclude the irrelevant. When I tell my wife "I have made reservations for us for dinner," I do not need to actually say "I have made reservations for us only for dinner." I and my wife and all parties who might overhear this are fully aware that when a man tells his wife he's taking her to dinner without qualification, that's a date meant just for the two of them. Paul and the Corinthians and everyone familiar with the Biblical doctrine of atonement as it was understood at least past the point Paul was writing all understood that an atoning death is a thing which reconciles God and man and is efficaciously, not potentially, salvific.

That is false.
We are to preach the Gospel to unbelievers. The gospel is that God, in the fulness of time, fulfilled his messianic prophecies and ransomed Israel through the death of his son on the behalf of his people. But Israel consists not merely of those who are of the blood of Abraham. Israel is a great multitude taken from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. You, o unbeliever, are not excluded from Israel for your lack of circumcision, your lack of bondage under the law, your lack of observance of Hebrew rites. Good news! There is nothing barring you from having been saved efficaciously through the particular redemption Christ has already completed on the cross if you believe. The only thing that can separate you from God is a faithless and unbelieving heart.

If this is your gospel then I cannot see why you consider that you are a Calvinist. Calvin excluded those God reprobated. They have no access to salvation.

That which I have emboldened is a disingenuous statement if you are a Calvinist. Are you?
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0

janxharris

Veteran
Jun 10, 2010
7,562
55
Essex, UK
Visit site
✟43,897.00
Country
United Kingdom
Gender
Male
Faith
Agnostic
Marital Status
Married
Predestination is not a fact supported by Scripture. Calvin got his exegesis wrong.

John
NZ

I am not talking about salvific predestination of certain individuals which is false. God did, however, predetermine that believers in Him would be holy and blameless in His sight.

I hope you understand my point.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0

OzSpen

Regular Member
Oct 15, 2005
11,553
709
Brisbane, Qld., Australia
Visit site
✟140,373.00
Country
Australia
Gender
Male
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Private
You do not accept it when your fallacies are pointed out to you. You commit the Fallacy of Generalization all the time here. The word "world" has various meanings:

Order or arrangement
The earth in contrast with heaven
The sum of temporal possessions
Believing Jews
Unbelieving Jews
Jews as distinguished from Gentiles
Jews and Gentiles that believe
Believing Gentiles
Gentiles as distinguished from Jews
Men that are in opposition to God
Abraham's children
What in the world are you talking about?

You have here redefined the 'Fallacy of Generalization'.
 
Upvote 0

OzSpen

Regular Member
Oct 15, 2005
11,553
709
Brisbane, Qld., Australia
Visit site
✟140,373.00
Country
Australia
Gender
Male
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Private
Explain how Paul could say that the Gentiles would listen (Acts 28:28). If he knew that they would listen, then he knew that they were Elect.
You are here imposing your meaning on the text. In hermeneutics it is called eisegesis.
 
Upvote 0

OzSpen

Regular Member
Oct 15, 2005
11,553
709
Brisbane, Qld., Australia
Visit site
✟140,373.00
Country
Australia
Gender
Male
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Private
Is this written in the rules? [piling on] Anyway, I will not do it again.
Check with the administrator to confirm ithat 'piling on' is a form of flaming on CF.

Thank you for agreeing not to do it again. Can I assume that this means that you will not engage in piling on against any person on this forum and if you have an issue with a person's post that you will post to that person for us all to see on CF?
 
Upvote 0

janxharris

Veteran
Jun 10, 2010
7,562
55
Essex, UK
Visit site
✟43,897.00
Country
United Kingdom
Gender
Male
Faith
Agnostic
Marital Status
Married
I dislike repeating myself.

1) Redemption is not universal.
2) Atonement is redemption, therefore atonement is not universal.

3) You posit that this verse is universal.
4) You posit that this verse is atonement.

Assuming the first two theses, anything you do which proves your supposition in (3) disproves your supposition in (4).

Now if you want to have a proper dispute about points 1 and 2, nothing's stopping you. But you're honed in exclusively on point 3 in this thread. You believe that if you establish 3 as fact, you'll be disproving the Calvinist doctrine in points 1 and 2. But logically you'd just as easily be disproving point 4.

I don't accept point 4 because I accept points 1 and 2 and not 3, but if you convinced me to accept 3, I wouldn't be compelled to reject 1 or 2, which seems to be the goal of this thread.

Without clear definitions of the terms you are using it impossible to discuss this.

I don't like to pull the "I'm an expert" card out, but you have to be not baffled by what I said if you want us to believe you understand language thoroughly enough to be making the argument you're making.

Sorry, but it would help if you wrote a little more plainly.

Your argument doesn't follow if Paul's use of quotation and antecedent are even slightly other than what you say they are. You feel very strongly that Paul's language choice indicates General Atonement, to the point that you feel Paul would be misleading his audience if he wrote something that brings up these feelings within you but didn't mean to. But if you can't explain why this is the case from a technical, linguistic standpoint, I can easily write off these feelings as eisegesis. You are Arminian, therfore this is what you expect to find in a text, so when you read a text, you find what you expect, not what's there.

I will try to write the technical argument I'm making in the most introductory of terms. Human language has the capacity to refer to things not by their actual, individual name, but by features they have. We call these pronouns. In Indo-European languages, the features defining pronouns are person, number, and gender. In other language families, a pronoun can indicate the social status of the speaker. But there is a limit to what a pronoun can indicate.

For instance, the human brain probably would be unable to handle a pronoun with an antecedent of one first person, two second persons, one lower class and one upper class third person, and a female hamster. We could say all that in our sentence to be explicitly, but the pronoun-handling part of our brain probably just isn't advanced enough to understand this concept.

How do we know whether or not a proposed class of pronoun is biologically capable of being understood? One good indicator is the presence or absence of that pronoun type in any natural language. If no natural language has ever come up with a word with a specific, precise use, it's probably the case that such a use can't be conceived of pronominally. Humans are really creative when it comes to making up new linguistic forms. If we haven't done it in 6000 attempts, it's highly unlikely it can be done.

Second person clusivity is one of those things that has never been done. Your argument hinges upon second person clusivity. Paul is including himself, "I," and the Corinthians, "you," together in his "we." You're suggesting that that second person "you" consists of "you, the audience I'm writing to, the Corinthian Christians," and "other people who were with you at the time." That's second person clusivity - indication through a pronoun that both the second and third person are being implied. It's doubtful that this can be expressed. So the reason you're hearing "all the world" in "we" in I Cor 15 has to be your prior commitment to general redemption, and your expectation to hear salvific language used of all the world. It can't be due to Paul's word choice.

Okay, I understand you, but it still remains for you to establish that the unbelievers were (and are still are) to be made aware of the full import of the doctrines of election/reprobation, else the charge of disception is valid.
 
Upvote 0

Epiphoskei

Senior Veteran
Jul 7, 2007
6,854
689
✟33,057.00
Country
United States
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Married
You forgot to mention the bit about God compacting with himself what he willed to become of each man. That God did not create all men in equal condition - rather some were foreordained to eternal life, and some to eternal damnation. Where did Paul ever establish this?
An interesting subject, but not at all the topic of this thread thus far.


That is false.
Read Leviticus.


If this is your gospel then I cannot see why you consider that you are a Calvinist. Calvin excluded those God reprobated. They have no access to salvation.

That which I have emboldened is a disingenuous statement if you are a Calvinist. Are you?
Of course I am, and no it's not. It's the definition of Calvinist particular redemption.
 
Upvote 0

OzSpen

Regular Member
Oct 15, 2005
11,553
709
Brisbane, Qld., Australia
Visit site
✟140,373.00
Country
Australia
Gender
Male
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Private
I am not talking about salvific predestination of certain individuals which is false. God did, however, predetermine that believers in Him would be holy and blameless in His sight.

I hope you understand my point.
Are you saying that there can be no sense of 'salvific predestination' in Scripture? Is predestination a biblical doctrine?
 
Upvote 0

Epiphoskei

Senior Veteran
Jul 7, 2007
6,854
689
✟33,057.00
Country
United States
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Married
Without clear definitions of the terms you are using it impossible to discuss this.
Which terms would you like defined?



Okay, I understand you, but it still remains for you to establish that the unbelievers were (and are still are) to be made aware of the full import of the doctrines of election/reprobation, else the charge of disception is valid.
Why? We're not even talking about election in this passage, we're talking about particularism. You do realize that the second and third points of Calvinism are capable of being defined without referencing one another, yes?
 
Upvote 0

janxharris

Veteran
Jun 10, 2010
7,562
55
Essex, UK
Visit site
✟43,897.00
Country
United Kingdom
Gender
Male
Faith
Agnostic
Marital Status
Married
An interesting subject, but not at all the topic of this thread thus far.

Very much the topic of this thread. Those that Paul preached to were mislead if they did not fully understand it.

Read Leviticus.

I have.

Of course I am, and no it's not. It's the definition of Calvinist particular redemption.

You, o unbeliever, are not excluded from Israel for your lack of circumcision, your lack of bondage under the law, your lack of observance of Hebrew rites. Good news! There is nothing barring you from having been saved efficaciously through the particular redemption Christ has already completed on the cross if you believe.

It is about time that you dealt with this, which is misleading. 'Nothing barring you', you say? Nothing??? If you believe???

Can we have an explanation please?
 
Upvote 0

Epiphoskei

Senior Veteran
Jul 7, 2007
6,854
689
✟33,057.00
Country
United States
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Married
I have a certain fascination with Calvin- he saw God as absolutely omnipotent, nothing escapes God.
And that's a healthy attitude, but he neglects free will and that is contrary to our very existence.
We are not here to be slaves, but to willingly serve God because He is righteous and worthy- He is the very crux, the Creator, of righteousness.

I can't speak for all of us, but it's been my experience that very few Calvinists disparage any articulation of free will which doesn't preclude God's ability to compatibilistically arrange for man to will as He directs. We didn't come to believe in this way despite Calvin.
 
Upvote 0

janxharris

Veteran
Jun 10, 2010
7,562
55
Essex, UK
Visit site
✟43,897.00
Country
United Kingdom
Gender
Male
Faith
Agnostic
Marital Status
Married
Are you saying that there can be no sense of 'salvific predestination' in Scripture? Is predestination a biblical doctrine?

Christ's coming to earth was predestined, so His provision of salvation for all men was predetermined. However, God did not predetermine who would and who would not believe.
 
Upvote 0

Epiphoskei

Senior Veteran
Jul 7, 2007
6,854
689
✟33,057.00
Country
United States
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Married
Very much the topic of this thread. Those that Paul preached to were mislead if they did not fully understand it.
Exactly why and how?


You, o unbeliever, are not excluded from Israel for your lack of circumcision, your lack of bondage under the law, your lack of observance of Hebrew rites. Good news! There is nothing barring you from having been saved efficaciously through the particular redemption Christ has already completed on the cross if you believe.
It is about time that you dealt with this, which is misleading. 'Nothing barring you', you say? Nothing??? If you believe???

Can we have an explanation please?

Specifically what do you need explained?
 
Upvote 0

janxharris

Veteran
Jun 10, 2010
7,562
55
Essex, UK
Visit site
✟43,897.00
Country
United Kingdom
Gender
Male
Faith
Agnostic
Marital Status
Married
Which terms would you like defined?

Atonement and redemption.

Why? We're not even talking about election in this passage, we're talking about particularism. You do realize that the second and third points of Calvinism are capable of being defined without referencing one another, yes?[/QUOTE]

They are linked.
 
Upvote 0

janxharris

Veteran
Jun 10, 2010
7,562
55
Essex, UK
Visit site
✟43,897.00
Country
United Kingdom
Gender
Male
Faith
Agnostic
Marital Status
Married
The biggest mistake a Christian can make is thinking salvation is due despite mortal transgressions. Do you not know that God judges righteously?

Black and white salvation on account of faith alone, and you defeat the entire premise of God.

Could you explain please?

Who are you talking to?
 
Upvote 0

janxharris

Veteran
Jun 10, 2010
7,562
55
Essex, UK
Visit site
✟43,897.00
Country
United Kingdom
Gender
Male
Faith
Agnostic
Marital Status
Married
Exactly why and how?

Specifically what do you need explained?

John Calvin said:
'We speak of predestination as God's eternal decree, by which God compacted with himself what He willed to become of each man. For not all are created in equal condition, rather eternal life is foreordained for some and eternal damnation for the rest.'

Firstly, do you agree with him?
If you do, you cannot then put forward as example of preaching what you in fact did:

You, o unbeliever, are not excluded from Israel for your lack of circumcision, your lack of bondage under the law, your lack of observance of Hebrew rites. Good news! There is nothing barring you from having been saved efficaciously through the particular redemption Christ has already completed on the cross if you believe.

Why is this so difficult to understand? It is cruel disception.
 
Upvote 0

Epiphoskei

Senior Veteran
Jul 7, 2007
6,854
689
✟33,057.00
Country
United States
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Married
Atonement and redemption.

Redemption: The restoration of a fallen sinner to eternal life.
Atonement: an act which mends a break in fellowship between two parties by eliminating the cause of the separation.



They are linked.
They make a nice whole when spoken of together with the rest of salfivic doctrine, but they're completely self-contained. Particular redemption is the doctrine that God saved those who would be saved on the cross, and did not save those who will not be saved. Period. The reason why a person belongs to one category or the other, predestination, is a different issue. You jump back and forth between them regularly.
 
Upvote 0

Epiphoskei

Senior Veteran
Jul 7, 2007
6,854
689
✟33,057.00
Country
United States
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Married
John Calvin said:
'We speak of predestination as God's eternal decree, by which God compacted with himself what He willed to become of each man. For not all are created in equal condition, rather eternal life is foreordained for some and eternal damnation for the rest.'
Firstly, do you agree with him?
If you do, you cannot then put forward as example of preaching what you in fact did:
You, o unbeliever, are not excluded from Israel for your lack of circumcision, your lack of bondage under the law, your lack of observance of Hebrew rites. Good news! There is nothing barring you from having been saved efficaciously through the particular redemption Christ has already completed on the cross if you believe.
Why is this so difficult to understand? It is cruel disseption.

That's a complete non-sequitur.
 
Upvote 0
Status
Not open for further replies.