How to become a Calvinist in 5 easy steps

[ICONO'CLAST]

If that is not part of the illustration, then the illustration is inadequate to the actual case.

Try this, A couple goes to an orphanage and they adopt 2 children out of 200 children that are there.
they don't have to adopt any, they choose to adopt 2 not based necessarily on what the children do they just for their own reason choose two are you gonna fault them for not adopting all 200 kids?

 

[Clare73]

Try this, A couple goes to an orphanage and they adopt 2 children out of 200 children that are there.
they don't have to adopt any, they choose to adopt 2 not based necessarily on what the children do they just for their own reason choose two are you gonna fault them for not adopting all 200 kids?

To make the illustration accurate to the divine situation, another element must be added: if all the kids are going to become slave laborers, then those I do not adopt are consigned to slave labor.

No one would fault me for not adopting 200, but then I'm not God with the ability to do so.

Single predestination is necessarily double predestination.

 

[Mark Quayle]

It's relevant to me. And everyone has scriptures. The SDA have gobs of scripture. But it's another doctrine that didn't exist for a thousand plus hundreds of years. I'm a little skeptical of these doctrines that God waited so long to enlighten someone with.

Paul had it.

 

[Mark Quayle]

This isn't something someone comes up with from just reading the Bible, because if it was, many would have come up with it hundreds of years earlier.

They did. Such as Paul.

BTW I came up with it —well, ok, not JUST from reading the Bible, but from despair at trying to live my life according to the fundamentalist semi-arminianism I had grown up in as a missionary kid. I did not find it by the op's 5-step method, (which, btw, is tongue in cheek. But I'm not surprised someone would take it seriously). I didn't even know, for a while, that what I had learned over time, was called Calvinism.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Is God not free to show mercy to some if he so chooses? (Romans 9:18)

Exactly so!

Matthew 20:15 "'Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?'"

 

[Mark Quayle]

It's how one qualifies the term "predestination" in order to understand what it means regarding God's will for man an His actions within us. It's not strict determinism, but rather includes God's foreknowledge of what we will do, then His use of our choices and actions for His own purposes. So, did God harden Pharoah's heart or did Pharoah harden Pharoah's heart? In Exodus it's said that both did, but that Pharoah hardended his own heart many more times than that God did. So the Church teaches:

So I see your continuing notion that mere chance has determining power beyond that of First Cause.

 

[John Caldwell]

But it's another doctrine that didn't exist for a thousand plus hundreds of years. I'm a little skeptical of these doctrines that God waited so long to enlighten someone with.

This is a good point. We are talking about a doctrine that could not exist apart from philosophical and theological developments over the course of over a thousand years.

I do not have an issue with predestination and "double predestination" as all things being predestined is necessary if God is omniscient (if God is all knowing, to include a foreknowledge of future contingencies). Everything must be ordained if God, being omniscient, is the Creator (God created knowing what would unfold).

That seems logical to me. But that is not quite Calvinism (a position I abandoned years ago).

 

[Mark Quayle]

It doesn't seem that would amount to them sending themselves to hell though, if God predestined them to go there no matter what.

The Calvinist / Reformed interpretation of Romans 9 didn't exist until 1500 years after it was written.

And according to what I looked up, currently only about 80 million out of 800 million (10%) Protestants are Calvinist / Reformed.

If God is first cause, he caused all subsequent things. Including the choices we freely make. If God is not first cause, you can look for him on Mt Olympus —I have no use for such a god.

Paul wrote Romans 9, and Romans 8, and Romans 7, 6, 5 etc. And Ephesians 2 and many more such places. And Jesus taught Reformed Theology, though it was not called that until what— 1500 years later? In fact, Reformed Theology is taught in Genesis 1, 2, 3 etc.

WHAT in the world does comparative numbers of those said to be Calvinists vs the total numbers of those said to be Christians have to do with anything?

 

[Mark Quayle]

This is a good point. We are talking about a doctrine that could not exist apart from philosophical and theological developments over the course of over a thousand years.

I do not have an issue with predestination and "double predestination" as all things being predestined is necessary if God is omniscient (if God is all knowing, to include a foreknowledge of future contingencies). Everything must be ordained if God, being omniscient, is the Creator (God created knowing what would unfold).

That seems logical to me. But that is not quite Calvinism (a position I abandoned years ago).

Calvinism, and Reformed Theology, are not (contrary to the notions of some attendees) self-supporting, but Doctrine supporting. That is, they are based on Scripture, and not on Calvin nor Luther nor anyone else, but God and his Word. This is not a club-come-lately like Dispensationalism. Every book in the Bible assumes or teaches the same things Calvinism and Reformed Theology teach. And if anyone can show that they teach extraneous things, then the Reformed want Scripture, not Reformed Theology.

 

[Mark Quayle]

The SDA whom you disagree with profusely can say the same thing. The fact is, as the article says, one must become indoctrinated by Calvinists to see Calvinsm in the Bible.

FALSE. I stand by Calvinism, not because of Calvinism, nor because of Reformed Theology, but by what I have found in Scripture before I even knew it was called Calvinism the last few hundred years.

 

[ICONO'CLAST]

To make the illustration accurate to the divine situation, another element must be added: if all the kids are going to become slave laborers, then those I do not adopt are consigned to slave labor.

No one would fault me for not adopting 200, but then I'm not God with the ability to do so.

Single predestination is necessarily double predestination.

Your carnal reasonong is off.
If God had not planned redemption, all would perish, dead in Adam.
All mankind are dead in Adam going over a water fall
God does not have to save any.
In mercy He reaches down, and saves a multitude

 

[ICONO'CLAST]

To make the illustration accurate to the divine situation, another element must be added: if all the kids are going to become slave laborers, then those I do not adopt are consigned to slave labor.

No one would fault me for not adopting 200, but then I'm not God with the ability to do so.

Single predestination is necessarily double predestination.

No...not at all.

 

[Clare73]

Your carnal reasonong is off.

You haven't shown how.

If God had not planned redemption, all would perish, dead in Adam.
All mankind are dead in Adam going over a water fall
God does not have to save any.
In mercy He reaches down, and saves a multitude

The fact remains: when there are only two options, in his destining only some to one (salvation), he has thereby destined the others to the only other (damnation).

 

[Mark Quayle]

Your carnal reasonong is off.
If God had not planned redemption, all would perish, dead in Adam.
All mankind are dead in Adam going over a water fall
God does not have to save any.
In mercy He reaches down, and saves a multitude

Her use and meaning, her reasoning, is not carnal. I don't think you realize @Clare73 agrees with you. Her only objection was to the nature of, or maybe the validity of, your parallel or allegory. She has no objection to anything you say here, other than the assumption behind it, that she opposes you. She does not oppose you.

But for the casual reader here, and for those quick to find fault with Calvinism/Reformed, let this be a lesson to you that Calvinists and Reformed do not support Calvinism nor Reformed merely because they are Calvinists or Reformed! I have yet to hear Clare claim to even be one of them, yet she is more staunch in her defense of the doctrines they espouse than many who do claim it. Her reasoning is both Biblical and logical, not "Reformed" or "Calvinist". The fact that the things she posts are so often taken as defense of Calvinism or Reformed theology should open one's eyes to the validity of Calvinism/Reformed theology.

Her argument goes to the simple-enough logic of the fact, that if God predestined anything, or part of it, logically he predestined it all. I myself have a problem supporting the TERM of "double predestination" because too many people take it to imply that God's purpose was simply to condemn most. Romans 9 puts the lie to both (1 the notion that God's primary purpose for their creation/existence was condemnation, and to (2 the notion that God did not predestine them to perdition. It also rejects completely the lie that God decides such things capriciously. As you, ICONO'CLAST, well know, Calvinism teaches no such thing as capriciousness in God's decree. In many of her posts, Clare will present one side of an argument, such as the fact that those whom God rejects, rejected God, without at all denying, as shown in other posts, or even later in the same post, that God predestined them to perdition, and that, not because he based it on their future decision. She is no Arminian.

 

[ozso]

FALSE. I stand by Calvinism, not because of Calvinism, nor because of Reformed Theology, but by what I have found in Scripture before I even knew it was called Calvinism the last few hundred years.

You're probably in the minority.

 

[Mark Quayle]

You're probably in the minority.

My point is that the doctrines are scriptural. Calvinistic or not is irrelevant.

 

[Bobber]

One of the biggest problems I have with Calvinism is that, even if the theology is spot on true, it’s God isn’t worth following. He may be sovereign and all, but that doesn’t make Him good if He directly wills/ causes/ predetermines every evil act, or predestines anyone to eternal torment. ‘He’s God; His thoughts are not my thoughts’, and that’s supposed to make it ok-to be in the hands of an all-powerful, untrustworthy God.

The theology however IS NOT spot on it's way, way off from the truth.

 

[Bobber]

Try this, A couple goes to an orphanage and they adopt 2 children out of 200 children that are there.
they don't have to adopt any, they choose to adopt 2 not based necessarily on what the children do they just for their own reason choose two are you gonna fault them for not adopting all 200 kids?

Sorry but this is such a silly way of reasoning. First you bring it down to such a low natural way of how could most families even adopt 200....how would they take care of them. I think that's the feeling you're seek to create. You're talking about God who created billions of galaxies with trillions of stars and each and you're talking about 200 kids like a problem.

 

[ozso]

If God is first cause, he caused all subsequent things. Including the choices we freely make. If God is not first cause, you can look for him on Mt Olympus —I have no use for such a god.

Paul wrote Romans 9, and Romans 8, and Romans 7, 6, 5 etc. And Ephesians 2 and many more such places. And Jesus taught Reformed Theology, though it was not called that until what— 1500 years later? In fact, Reformed Theology is taught in Genesis 1, 2, 3 etc.

WHAT in the world does comparative numbers of those said to be Calvinists vs the total numbers of those said to be Christians have to do with anything?

The longer it takes a theology to come into existence and the less accepted it is, the more likely it is that it's man-made.

 

[ozso]

My point is that the doctrines are scriptural. Calvinistic or not is irrelevant.

doctrines, even patently false ones, are based on scripture and have lots of proof-texts. What's relevant is how much indoctrination is needed to get someone to accept that doctrine. And how many Christians reject it outright.