Denying Calvinism...

[Biblicist]

Could an arminian say arminianism is the gospel?

The problem that we have is that Arminianism is not a theological construct such as Calvinism where Calvinism is defined by Calvins teachings. With James Harmens or Jacob Harmenzoon or plain old Latin Arminius, his writings and beliefs (as to what they may be) play no part in our theology. We would simply say, "What does the Bible say on a given matter" and go from there; whereas a Calvinist must overlay Calvins teachings on top of the Scriptures where the Word is filtered through this construct. For most of us, we simply take the Scriptures on face value and whatever it says it says!

As far as the Gospel goes, most Evangelicals and certainly all Pentecostals would quickly apply John 3:16 which is a global call for man to first respond to the written Gospel where he is to repent and acknowledge Christ as Saviour. If someone chooses to reject the Gospel then that will be to their eternal detriment.

 

[striger]

The problem that we have is that Arminianism is not a theological construct such as Calvinism where Calvinism is defined by Calvins teachings. With James Harmens or Jacob Harmenzoon or plain old Latin Arminius, his writings and beliefs (as to what they may be) play no part in our theology. We would simply say, "What does the Bible say on a given matter" and go from there; whereas a Calvinist must overlay Calvins teachings on top of the Scriptures where the Word is filtered through this construct. For most of us, we simply take the Scriptures on face value and whatever it says it says!

As far as the Gospel goes, most Evangelicals and certainly all Pentecostals would quickly apply John 3:16 which is a global call for man to first respond to the written Gospel where he is to repent and acknowledge Christ as Saviour. If someone chooses to reject the Gospel then that will be to their eternal detriment.

Five points of remonstrance looks pretty constructed to me.

The problem of arminianism and calvinism is not living in parallel demensions.

The other dimension is past, present and future happening all at once deminsion.

To me arminianism is stuck in the present where the past and the future don't exist.

 

[Biblicist]

Five points of remonstrance looks pretty constructed to me.

The problem of arminianism and calvinism is not living in parallel demensions.

The other dimension is past, present and future happening all at once deminsion.

To me arminianism is stuck in the present where the past and the future don't exist.

Your certainly correct regarding the Five Articles of the Remonstrance but most people don't concern themselves with them; for that matter the vast majority of those who come under the Arminian umbrella would not even be aware that they exist - we simply go to our Bibles.

This probably seems a bit odd to a Calvinist as your views are based on his teachings where we could not care any less about James Harmens (no offence to Arminius of course) as we use our Bibles as our benchmark.

 

[Frogster]

What was that about? Could you maybe provide a link.

It was the new "perspective on Paul", that NT Wright is for.

 

[Frogster]

Lol your dog is not conscious of guilt and coercion by force is not
Obedience out of love,

You seem to be in a rough place,,you ok froggy
? Seems more bite then usual from you

Sure it is, he wags his tail when I give him a biscuit when he is obedient, and he gets that love look in his eyes. It is well known that some dogs look to please their masters. Obedience is elemental, good doggie, bad doggie.

I prefer to walk knowing that it is not about my obedience as center.

 

[Doctor Octavius]

To me arminianism is stuck in the present where the past and the future don't exist.

Well said!

 

[jiminpa]

Don't forget, the hyper-Calvinist John Piper would also say that God also purposes individuals to eternal punishment where they have no opportunity to repent of their sin. Even though this is nothing less than heretical, it is still the logical outworking of Calvinism.

That's not just the outworking that is pretty much the definition of calvinism. It calls God an evil liar.

 

[Doctor Octavius]

This probably seems a bit odd to a Calvinist as your views are based on his teachings where we could not care any less about James Harmens (no offence to Arminius of course) as we use our Bibles as our benchmark.

You apparently don't even believe God is all knowing, you accuse me of being some enemy of yours on another forum, you can't even respond to very simple refutations of your claims or answer a simple question, you thump your chest about "moving in the spirit," as if others lack Him, and now you say that the Bible is your benchmark, and that we "overlay Calvin over everything"? Look at the vain and shallow things you people say! and then you wonder why I don't want to rejoin your little club? It be like willingly jumping into a nest of vipers, each one with little Pope hats and Bibles, speaking holy things, until they unhinge their jaw to bring you down their gullet.

 

[jiminpa]

IOW, there is some goodness left in us by which we can "do good" without God

Is that what I said? No.

Besides, what I said is from the Bible. That's that thing that you extract your very narrow list of out of context proof texts from. Hopefully you've heard of it.

 

[Doctor Octavius]

Is that what I said? No.

So you wrote the post with apparently no meaning? What were you trying to say then? And you didn't quote the Bible at all.

 

[Doctor Octavius]

That's not just the outworking that is pretty much the definition of calvinism. It calls God an evil liar.

We don't call God a liar. We call man a liar, and confess the world guilty before God.

"What the Arminian wants to do is to arouse man's activity: what we want to do is to kill it once for all - to show him that he is lost and ruined, and that his activities are not now at all equal to the work of conversion; that he must look upward. They seek to make the man stand up: we seek to bring him down, and make him feel that there he lies in the hand of God, and that his business is to submit himself to God, and cry aloud, 'Lord, save, or we perish.' We hold that man is never so near grace as when he begins to feel he can do nothing at all. When he says, 'I can pray, I can believe, I can do this, and I can do the other,' marks of self-sufficiency and arrogance are on his brow."

C. H. Spurgeon

 

[jiminpa]

We don't call God a liar. We call man a liar, and confess the world guilty before God.

"What the Arminian wants to do is to arouse man's activity: what we want to do is to kill it once for all - to show him that he is lost and ruined, and that his activities are not now at all equal to the work of conversion; that he must look upward. They seek to make the man stand up: we seek to bring him down, and make him feel that there he lies in the hand of God, and that his business is to submit himself to God, and cry aloud, 'Lord, save, or we perish.' We hold that man is never so near grace as when he begins to feel he can do nothing at all. When he says, 'I can pray, I can believe, I can do this, and I can do the other,' marks of self-sufficiency and arrogance are on his brow."

C. H. Spurgeon

The Bible says that God is not willing that any perish. The calvinist says that god is not willing that calvinists perish.

Personally I don't care what spurgeon or sproul or charles manson have to say on theology. All the times that they disagree with the Bible, it is not the Bible that is wrong.

But now I've gone and said more than this argument is worth.

 

[jiminpa]

So you wrote the post with apparently no meaning? What were you trying to say then? And you didn't quote the Bible at all.

I wrote a post on scripture. As a calvinist I can understand why you would find it meaningless.

 

[Doctor Octavius]

The Bible says that God is not willing that any perish. The calvinist says that god is not willing that calvinists perish.

Personally I don't care what spurgeon or sproul or charles manson have to say on theology. All the times that they disagree with the Bible, it is not the Bible that is wrong.

But now I've gone and said more than this argument is worth.

You mentioned "narrow contexts":

2Pe 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

The verse is "to us-ward," that is, to the elect. The reprobate are mentioned immediately before hand, the "scoffers," meant for the fire "reserved unto judgment" for them. That is your context. This verse is not about how God intends to save the scoffers or the reprobates, but how God holds off His judgment against the world in order to bring in the full number of the Elect. Not to be confused with the wicked reserved unto judgment.

Personally I don't care what spurgeon or sproul or charles manson have to say on theology.

Comparing these men to Manson? These men of God? Christians? Spurgeon and Sproul are greater evangelists than you will ever be. The irony must burn.

 

[Biblicist]

You apparently don't even believe God is all knowing, . .

God is certainly all knowing but only within the realm of logical possibility. Now I would expect that we both agree that God does not know how to make the proverbial rock so big that he cannot lift it with his own arm; does this mean that he is not all-knowing or not all-powerful, of course not as this is a logical impossibility. How can we expect the Father to know about what has not happened as there is nothing yet to know?

We certainly know that God is well able to count the number of hairs on our head as this is something that the Scriptures tell us. We also know that God is aware of when even a small bird dies and we know this because the Father has revealed this about himself in the Scriptures. Does he get involved in time travel where he is able to go into the future and observe when I approach a corner while tired on a drizzly day and where a large truck zips by partially blocking my view of the Red light and due to the complexity of these events I end up going through the Red light – of course not.

To be fair, we can move away from the notion of there being some form of space-time-continuum to our present time. If I were to go to a congregational meeting tonight where I had to speak on a specific issue, does the Father know exactly what I will say word for word, well of course not as the future has not yet occurred. Does he know my position on the matter in question and with my ability to convey my point either effectively or ineffectively, yes!

We have a good example in Jer 32:35 where God reveals that he did not expect Israel to go to the depths of depravity that they did. Was God surprised, well no as he would not be surprised that the wickedness of the human heart is incapable of any form of evil but this was certainly something that God did not expect them to do. So even the Father has revealed that he works within the bounds of logical possibilities though I appreciate that the Calvinist will go to great lengths to correct God on this matter, as will some misguided non-Calvinists as well.

. . . you accuse me of being some enemy of yours on another forum, you can't even respond to very simple refutations of your claims or answer a simple question, you thump your chest about "moving in the spirit," as if others lack Him, and now you say that the Bible is your benchmark, and that we "overlay Calvin over everything"? Look at the vain and shallow things you people say! and then you wonder why I don't want to rejoin your little club? It be like willingly jumping into a nest of vipers, each one with little Pope hats and Bibles, speaking holy things, until they unhinge their jaw to bring you down their gullet.

Wow . . . that’s certainly a solid piece of diatribe, but of course when you inappropriately jump onto a forum while hiding behind a false name then I guess that this allows you to spill your spleen so to speak, it least it avoids having to reply with any real degree of substance. When I am over on the GT or even the Traditional theology forum would I dare say, “Hey, do you know how to identify a strong Calvinist church in the middle of Hawaii during a heatwave, they’ll be the ones where the icicles are hanging from the beams”. That would hardly be appropriate now would it; though John Piper did post an article on his website a couple of years back on this very same question, but again, it’s not something that I can or should say on those two forums.

As for ‘little club’, considering that the vast majority of Born Again believers are in our so called ‘little club’ then I think that we a re generally (with some exceptions) in pretty good company.

 

[Biblicist]

We don't call God a liar. We call man a liar, and confess the world guilty before God.

"What the Arminian wants to do is to arouse man's activity: what we want to do is to kill it once for all - to show him that he is lost and ruined, and that his activities are not now at all equal to the work of conversion; that he must look upward. They seek to make the man stand up: we seek to bring him down, and make him feel that there he lies in the hand of God, and that his business is to submit himself to God, and cry aloud, 'Lord, save, or we perish.' We hold that man is never so near grace as when he begins to feel he can do nothing at all. When he says, 'I can pray, I can believe, I can do this, and I can do the other,' marks of self-sufficiency and arrogance are on his brow."

C. H. Spurgeon

Spurgeon, certainly one of the great Calvinist theologians who was undoubtedly one of the greatest Arminian preachers of all time.

By the way, if you take a look at what I have put in bold text, as a Calvinist, why would you bother trying to convince anyone of their depravity when man is unable to resist the call of God. It does seem that you are trying to do God's work?

 

[Doctor Octavius]

Does he get involved in time travel where he is able to go into the future and observe when I approach a corner while tired on a drizzly day and where a large truck zips by partially blocking my view of the Red light and due to the complexity of these events I end up going through the Red light – of course not....We have a good example in Jer 32:35 where God reveals that he did not expect Israel to go to the depths of depravity that they did.

Jeremiah 32:35 says no such thing. Not even the Jews in their commentaries regard it as such. It only says "I did not command them, neither did it enter my heart," IOW, He neither spoke it, nor did the suggestion even entered into His heart, that they should do this thing. He speaks here of His command and desire, not His knowledge. This is straight out heresy. To deny that God knows the future contradicts a mountain of scripture and 2000 years of Christian theology. The Lord's understanding "is infinite" (Ps 147:5). All His works He knows from eternity (Acts 15:18). He knows "the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done" (Isaiah 46:10). Nevermind it also negates such words as "foreknowledge" and "predestination" that are found everywhere in the scripture. You say "of course not." Of course not what? God's vision is clouded by the rain? God can't time travel? You even used the phrase "time travel"?? What a sad display this is.

O Christians, if there are any here, run from men like this as fast as you can!

Spurgeon, certainly one of the great Calvinist theologians who was undoubtedly one of the greatest Arminian preachers of all time.

By the way, if you take a look at what I have put in bold text, as a Calvinist, why would you bother trying to convince anyone of their depravity when man is unable to resist the call of God. It does seem that you are trying to do God's work?

Spurgeon certainly wouldn't agree with your characterization. And I do not even know if we can call you an orthodox Christian when you deny God's knowledge of the future. As for preaching-- we preach because God commands us to, and because He has chosen to use us as one of His tools to collect the faithful, but the result of our preaching always belongs to the LORD:

1Co_3:6 I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.
1Co_3:7 So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.

Act_13:48 And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.

Mat_16:17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

Joh 6:64 "But there are some of you who do not believe." (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.)
Joh 6:65 And he said, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father."

 

[striger]

....

We certainly know that God is well able to count the number of hairs on our head as this is something that the Scriptures tell us. We also know that God is aware of when even a small bird dies and we know this because the Father has revealed this about himself in the Scriptures. Does he get involved in time travel where he is able to go into the future and observe when I approach a corner while tired on a drizzly day and where a large truck zips by partially blocking my view of the Red light and due to the complexity of these events I end up going through the Red light – of course not.

Everything is written in a single vibration. Everything that happens comes from what is written in a single vibration. That's how God knows all that cause He designed it that way.
That's why calvinism is so far in advance. They said God already did the choosing on some. The future is already written in the molecules and lightwaves. Some are able to see the future by viewing something that cantains everthing that will happen.

The blueprint of life is in everything.

 

[Biblicist]

O Christians, if there are any here, run from men like this as fast as you can!

Aaahh…Ocky ol’ boy, you’ve given me a lot of pleasure on this particular thread and I hope that if anyone has put in a complaint that the mods will simply let them slide by – I love it. As Putin recently said to a very strange remark by a protagonist reporter “You really make me laugh. God bless you, because it’s almost time to finish the day, indeed it is already time to go to sleep. At least I will arrive home in good humour”. When I think back about the reporters cold blank bewildered stare, it just struck me, he must have been a Calvinist.

Surely, only a hard-core Calvinist could down such a silly pathway – but I do love you chaps as you’re absolutely great for a good laugh. By the way, I recognise that there are many Believers within the Calvinist fold, after all, our God is a miracle working God . . . all things are possible!

Now back to some serious discussion; as the chuckles fade away into the distance . . .

Jeremiah 32:35 says no such thing. Not even the Jews in their commentaries regard it as such. It only says "I did not command them, neither did it enter my heart," IOW, He neither spoke it, nor did the suggestion even entered into His heart, that they should do this thing. He speaks here of His command and desire, not His knowledge.

As you are understandably working from within the overlay of Calvinist understanding where you will need to view Scripture through this filter (and filters can certainly be useful), you will of course be unable to take this passage on face value which is where I have the advantage. When move over to Jer 7:31 where the passage can be improperly used to support my position, “…to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, and it did not come into My mind; this becomes another matter as it is at least a bit ambiguous, though I would be more inclined to say that in this case unlike Jer 32:35 that the passage is referring to God not intending to choose this pathway for them.

Spurgeon certainly wouldn't agree with your characterization. And I do not even know if we can call you an orthodox Christian when you deny God's knowledge of the future. As for preaching-- we preach because God commands us to, and because He has chosen to use us as one of His tools to collect the faithful, but the result of our preaching always belongs to the LORD:

It's funny how the eye can play a few tricks at times, I was about to agree with your statement but then I realised that you did not say "...because Calvin commands us" but instead "God commands us", silly me!

This is straight out heresy. To deny that God knows the future contradicts a mountain of scripture and 2000 years of Christian theology. The Lord's understanding "is infinite" (Ps 147:5). All His works He knows from eternity (Acts 15:18). He knows "the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done" (Isaiah 46:10). Nevermind it also negates such words as "foreknowledge" and "predestination" that are found everywhere in the scripture. You say "of course not." Of course not what? God's vision is clouded by the rain? God can't time travel? You even used the phrase "time travel"?? What a sad display this is.

Heresy, well that's "Calvinist heresy" and not real heresy so it really doesn't mean all that much. I suppose from a Calvinist mindset anything that differs from this old overlay can be like throwing the cat in amongst the sleeping pigeons, but such is life – you might need to get out a bit more.

The Lord's understanding "is infinite" (Ps 147:5).

Yes his understanding (tebunah) is indeed infinite but his has nothing to do with his knowledge of minute and mundane future events or for that matter, with knowledge in general – understanding or perception is not the same as knowing our future thoughts.

All His works He knows from eternity (Acts 15:18).

The passage as you have supplied and with the 15 versions that I have, make no mention about God knowing about our future minute and mundane matters centuries down the track – not even a hint. God certainly knows about what he has done in the past and present and he undoubtedly knows what he will be doing in the future as well; but his has nothing to do with him knowing about OUR minute and mundane thoughts – and why would he even bother.

(Isaiah 46:10). Nevermind it also negates such words as "foreknowledge" and "predestination" that are found everywhere in the scripture.

“Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, 'My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure';​

Okay, where back to the problem where I will simply say that the Calvinist perspective is simply so skewed to the Calvinist overly that their position goes way beyond the Scriptures and reason. This passage has absolutely nothing to do with God knowing about all of our future thoughts and actions as it is speaking about God ensuring that his purpose and pleasure will be accomplished. It has nothing to do with what you have suggested.

You say "of course not." Of course not what? God's vision is clouded by the rain? God can't time travel? You even used the phrase "time travel"?? What a sad display this is.

Maybe you might need to come up to speed with the vast range of rather unusual explanations that people employ where I agree that ‘time-travel’ is certainly odd but probably no stranger to the notion that God knows our every minute and mundane thoughts hundreds of years down the track.

I enjoyed compiling this post and I truly hope that we can keep it going - it's been a lot of fun.

 

[Biblicist]

Everything is written in a single vibration. Everything that happens comes from what is written in a single vibration. That's how God knows all that cause He designed it that way.
That's why calvinism is so far in advance. They said God already did the choosing on some. The future is already written in the molecules and lightwaves. Some are able to see the future by viewing something that cantains everthing that will happen.

The blueprint of life is in everything.

"Vibrations"? Well that's not quite the vibe that I'm getting, but who knows, maybe we are simply playing different tunes.