How to become a Calvinist in 5 easy steps

[BNR32FAN]

Lucifer, and the possibility of pride. Adam, and the possibility of rebellion. Yes, I said "possibility", so that you can at least accept that sin began with Lucifer's pride and subsequent rebellion, and so that you can at least accept that Adam was able to sin. Now my use of "possibility" ONLY means that it was possible —i.e. I don't think it happened by chance, but I used that terminology for your sake. You should also recognize the fact that omniscient God, even if merely knowing ahead (as you like to define foreknowledge), put these things into play by Creating them and all other things. They did not happen by accident. Notice he made Lucifer more beautiful than all the other angels. Notice he put the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Why would he do that if he didn't plan for ("want") Adam to sin? Is God subject to some principle beyond himself?

Lucifer rebelled against God as well. The common contributing factor is still free will. Lucifer wasn’t the only angel to rebel against God, there were many other angels that rebelled with him. So apparently free will was already causing sin even before Adam was created. The scriptures say that thru one man sin entered into the world but I think an argument could be made that the serpent actually sinned in this world before Adam did by lying to Eve. Perhaps by “world” Paul was referring to mankind.

 

[BNR32FAN]

You jump several steps farther than necessary. I'm not saying that your decision was random. I'm saying that your notion that anyone's decision is undetermined, invokes the notion that it had no cause, which invokes mere chance.

I’m sorry I just don’t see how when a person makes a choice that it is considered to be mere chance. If someone asks me a question and I tell them a lie there’s a reason for telling that lie, it wasn’t just the result of a random occurrence. It’s not like we don’t know or can’t control whether or not we’re going to tell a lie. When I roll dice I don’t have any control over what they’re going to land on, that is mere chance. When I sin I do have control over whether or not I’m going to sin, that’s not mere chance.

 

[Mark Quayle]

If Jesus bought a ticket to the movies for everyone it’s His prerogative to choose to give it to whoever He wants. He’s not obligated to give it to anyone He doesn’t want to.

So.... he didn't pay for their sins, or he did? Is God's justice satisfied whether they take the ticket, or not?

 

[Mark Quayle]

Lucifer rebelled against God as well.

I thought that is what I was referring to. Obviously, he did.

The common contributing factor is still free will. Lucifer wasn’t the only angel to rebel against God, there were many other angels that rebelled with him.

How does this demonstrate free will? Choice? Yes.

Uncaused choice? No

So apparently free will was already causing sin even before Adam was created. The scriptures say that thru one man sin entered into the world but I think an argument could be made that the serpent actually sinned in this world before Adam did by lying to Eve. Perhaps by “world” Paul was referring to mankind.

Of course Satan sinned before enticing Eve. What is your point? If by "free will", all you mean is responsible choice, then great. But don't play both sides of the fence here. Is it caused or not? and if caused, is not God at the head of causation, as creator?

 

[Mark Quayle]

Abide means to stay, remain, or continue.

Yes. You've already said that.

 

[BNR32FAN]

So answer mine. Is God, or is he not, the cause of all subsequent things?

God is the Creator of all things He is not the cause of all things. I strongly disagree with your entire understanding of causality because everything is not the result of a domino effect, not when your dealing with sentient beings capable of making choices. The choice one person may make can be completely different than the choice another person might make in the same situation and even the same person can make different choices in the same situation. A premeditated choice can often be completely different than a spurt of the moment choice in the same situation. How many times have you made a choice only to think later that you should’ve done it differently? God does not cause all of this decision making process, if He did we wouldn’t have so many problems in this world and in this life.

Are you saying you have not claimed that my theology puts God at fault for sin?

Yes I did when you said that everything that happened, happened because God caused it to happen. So when the shooting in Uvalde Tx where a boy shot & killed 19 elementary students happened God did not cause that guy to shoot anyone. If God caused him to shoot those kids then the shooter wouldn’t be responsible for their deaths, God would. Your reasoning on this subject is illogical.

You are not directly addressing the question of whether God is at the head of all causation or is chance, after all. I have heard all the protests —"No, I don't decide by chance, I decide by freewill". Really.

Yes really and let me show you an example. My decisions are not completely random. If some asks me a million times can I shoot you in the foot my answer will always be no. It’s never a random answer like mere chance would be. Now roll dice a million times and see if you roll the same number every time. It’s never going to happen because that is mere chance, it’s a random unpredictable result.

CAN YOU SHOW HOW FREEWILL DOES NOT DEPEND ON CAUSATION?

I have shown that by showing that I didn’t cause my son to disobey me by choosing to have a son knowing that he would disobey me before he was conceived. Just like God knew that we would sin before He created us, His creating us didn’t cause our sin, it was an inevitable side effect of free will which we absolutely must have in order to choose to love God.

CAN YOU SHOW HOW FREEWILL DOES NOT DEPEND ON CAUSATION BY CHANCE?

What is causation by chance? Can you give me an example of this?

 

[John Mullally]

Well I’m not convinced that they weren’t regenerate since they were once enlightened and had tasted of the heavenly gift. Furthermore verse 6 says it’s impossible to renew them AGAIN to repentance, indicating that they were repentant previously. Then there’s the question who bestowed the Holy Spirit upon them?

2 Peter 2 addresses false prophets and teachers that would soon show up. Here Peter presents a similar story of apostasy of those who were once saved. Interestingly, Peter says that Christ paid the ransom for these false teachers on their way to destruction.

2 Peter 2:1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction

2 Peter 2:20 For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. 21 For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.​

 

[Clare73]

John 15:6 needs no explanation. I suppose you think the implication is that they were 'in Christ' but didn't abide. They went by the name, but did not abide. What else needs to be said?

Hebrews 6:4-6 is of the same flavor, and to claim that those who cannot be returned to repentance, that to have "partaken of the Holy Spirit" implies regeneration, is false. The Spirit (John 3) goes where it will, and you can't say it can or can't do this. But more to the point: "It is impossible" may well be referring to the whole scenario, to prove that one who belongs to Christ cannot ultimately fall away, and the whole passage being a warning to those who are regenerated to continue instead to pursue Christ, rather than to be lazy or carnally minded;

Fist of all, Hebrews 6:4-6 is a warning, which must be seen in the context of the warning in Hebrews 3:7-4:11, regarding the rebellion of the Israelites in the desert, where
they tasted the fruit of Canaan when they spied it out,
but rebelled and refused to go into their promised rest (Joshua 1:13) there (Numbers 14),
invoking God's judgment, wherein he denied Canaan to all of them (Hebrews 3:11)
and let them die in the wilderness (Hebrews 3:16-19).

These newly professing Hebrew Christians--who in their discipling had been enlightened, had tasted the heavenly gift, had shared in the influence of the Holy Spirit (not his regeneration), had tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age (as the spies had tasted the fruit of their coming future)--were considering a return to Judaism. And they are being warned that, if they rebel; i.e., refuse to go into full salvation rest in Jesus Christ, they will be cut off as were the Israelites in the desert who refused to go into their Canaan rest (Deuteronomy 25:19). There will be no renewing of them.

For once an apostate has tasted the heavenly gifts, found them not to his liking and has rejected them, you will not be able get him to try them again. He's been there, done that, and rejects it.
All apostates were never born again in the first place, which is why the heavenly gifts turn out to be not to their liking.
(There's logic in there somewhere, if you can find it.)

notice he concludes with,
"9 Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are convinced of better things in your case—the things that have to do with salvation. 10 God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. 11 We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, so that what you hope for may be fully realized. 12 We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised."

2 Timothy 2:12 seems rather straightforward to me. Who are those who will deny him? You seem to think that Paul, by speaking of some who will deny Christ, is referring to the regenerated? (The demons also believe —and tremble).

It is possible for any of us to fool ourselves, thinking we are in him but not realizing our faith is self-generated.

 

[BNR32FAN]

How does this demonstrate free will? Choice? Yes.

Uncaused choice? No

Because punishment was the result. If God punished Adam & Eve for doing something that He caused them to do then His judgement upon them was unjust. Your saying that this was God’s will right? That He decreed that they would sin and that His will cannot be thwarted? So then Adam & Eve had no choice but to sin, is that correct? If they had no other choice but to sin then they can’t be punished for failing to meet an impossible expectation. That would be like if God commanded that we must eat our own entire body or we will be thrown into the lake of fire for all eternity. Obviously it’s impossible for someone to eat their own entire body so that expectation is impossible to meet therefore the punishment is unjust.

 

[BNR32FAN]

Yes. You've already said that.

I only said it once your just replying to the same post a second time.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Well I’m not convinced that they weren’t regenerate since they were once enlightened and had tasted of the heavenly gift. Furthermore verse 6 says it’s impossible to renew them AGAIN to repentance, indicating that they were repentant previously. Then there’s the question who bestowed the Holy Spirit upon them?

If he means that it actually can happen, then yes, I agree, those to whom it can happen are not regenerate.

Who bestowed the Holy Spirit? Who says he was bestowed upon them? The Spirit of God comes and goes, and nobody can say where or why. John 3. If God through the Holy Spirit wants to do something to or through use of somebody, who is to call that 'bestow', as though the work of the Spirit can be considered and rejected or accepted. The Spirit's promptings and urgings can, of course, but not his actual mission. It will be accomplished, and God will see all he planned come to fruition. You aren't the only one, so don't take this personally, but I keep hearing this from people, that what God does is not exactly necessarily effectual. That doesn't sound like God, to me.

I haven’t said the Holy Spirit can’t do anything, you read that for yourself straight from the word of God brother.

I read for myself that the Holy Spirit can't do anything? —what?

The Holy Spirit can bestow gifts as he pleases, even to the unregenerate, but if he has not regenerated them, "Depart from me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you."

Ok so your saying that the term “for it is impossible” is not actually part of the statement “to renew them again to repentance”. Ok let’s try that and see how the passage looks.

“For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible.

To renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.”
‭
No that doesn’t work because then the last part of verse 6 is an incomplete sentence. It’s a predicate with a missing subject.

You're placing that idea into a preassembled dialectic by translators. If the writer of Hebrews meant it the way I'm suggesting he might have meant it, and the translators had gone with that, the assembling would have been done differently in English. I don't know how well you know Greek, or at least, looked at the interlinear references, but Greek is not arranged how English is. The translators have to do the best they can.

Yeah the author apparently didn’t think that his audience was this kind of person. I don’t see how that changes anything. The word of God is still saying that Christians who have repented, who were enlightened by the Holy Spirit, and who had tasted of the heavenly gift are in fact capable of falling away. The author wasn’t rebuking his audience he was warning them of potential dangers.

But what are "Christians", even those Christians that the author is talking to? Born-again, or just attendees?

Is it saying that those who have been chosen by God before the foundation of the world, and in fact made for his particular purposes, to be his dwelling place, and specific members of the Body of Christ, and so have by his mercy been born again and sealed by the Holy Spirit, are capable of falling away? Not likely, lol.

In the end, it makes good sense to say that if God chooses someone, they are his. If, on the other hand, someone instead chooses God, they have a very iffy relationship.

 

[Mark Quayle]

The epistles to Timothy are personal letters written from Paul to Timothy. Nowhere in either of Timothy’s epistles does Paul address a congregation or any audience other than Timothy himself. These are not epistles like his other epistles because Paul is not addressing a congregation in the epistles to Timothy, he’s writing directly to Timothy himself. So the statement “if we deny Him, He will deny us” is referring to Paul himself and Timothy.

Perhaps you didn't notice that Paul was quoting a saying, not addressed to just Timothy. Yet, even if he had, the warning is for a purpose, and not a statement of the possibility that Timothy could deny Christ, if indeed Timothy was chosen and predestined for Salvation.

 

[Mark Quayle]

I only said it once your just replying to the same post a second time.

I'll take your word for it.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Well that’s not supported by the surrounding context. First you have Jesus telling His 11 faithful apostles to remain in Him. Then He tells them why they must remain in Him. Then He tells them the consequences of not remaining in Him. Then He tells them what they can expect IF they remain in Him.

““I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”
‭‭John‬ ‭15‬:‭1‬-‭7‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬

So in this entire conversation Jesus is referring to His 11 faithful apostles telling them to remain in Him then all the sudden switches to speaking about someone who is not connected to Him, then switches back to the faithful 11 again? He certainly didn’t exclude them from verse 6 when He said “anyone who does not abide in Me”. So why would He even mention what happens to those who were never connected to Him during this conversation if it had nothing to do with them? If it had nothing to do with them abiding in Him why would He include that in the middle of telling them to abide in Him, telling them why they must abide in Him and telling them what they can expect if they do abide in Him if it was irrelevant to them?

Been through this many time in many ways with you and others. It is a WARNING. We are more than capable of fooling ourselves; it behooves us to remember that our effort in obedience is necessary. "Apart from me you can do nothing". If we try to live on our own, apart from Christ, we are not accomplishing anything. Therefore, the warning is to us, that we need to continue in him. This reminds me of the old argument, where the Arminian claims the Calvinist implies that salvation is automatic and so therefore there is no need for effort on the part of the regenerated. Balderdash. How do you think God accomplishes his sure, predetermined ends? The way we would? No, his power is shown in weakness. WE have to work, and even then we find ourselves unable to do even the silliest of propositions, apart from him.

 

[BNR32FAN]

If he means that it actually can happen, then yes, I agree, those to whom it can happen are not regenerate.

I agree they are not presently regenerate they are apostates. Forgive me for saying this but it doesn’t seem like your completely thinking this thru. I even highlighted in all capital bold letters so that it would stand out and specifically mentioned that the passage says that “it is impossible to renew them AGAIN to repentance”. So evidently they were already repentant before they fell away. Since no one can repent unless they are regenerate that means that they were regenerate before they fell away.

 

[BNR32FAN]

I read for myself that the Holy Spirit can't do anything? —what?

The Holy Spirit can bestow gifts as he pleases, even to the unregenerate, but if he has not regenerated them, "Depart from me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you."

Perhaps I misunderstood you but I thought you were referring to verse 6 where it says “it is impossible to renew them again to repentance”.

 

[BNR32FAN]

You're placing that idea into a preassembled dialectic by translators. If the writer of Hebrews meant it the way I'm suggesting he might have meant it, and the translators had gone with that, the assembling would have been done differently in English. I don't know how well you know Greek, or at least, looked at the interlinear references, but Greek is not arranged how English is. The translators have to do the best they can.

I use a Greek interlinear Bible almost on a daily basis but I do admit that I am not well versed in Greek word variations, usages, and sentence structure. But what your suggesting doesn’t line up with the illustration that follows in verses 7 & 8. Not to mention I can’t find any translations that translate it the way your suggesting. Perhaps the scholars see something in the sentence structure that we don’t. Here’s the wording from the Eastern Greek Orthodox Bible, surely they understand the Greek language.

Regarding those who were once enlightened, who tasted of the heavenly gift, became partakers of the Holy Spirit, *tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, but then fell away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance! They crucify the Son of God for themselves all over again and expose him to shame!

 

[BNR32FAN]

Is it saying that those who have been chosen by God before the foundation of the world, and in fact made for his particular purposes, to be his dwelling place, and specific members of the Body of Christ, and so have by his mercy been born again and sealed by the Holy Spirit, are capable of falling away? Not likely, lol.

I disagree, I believe that God might bestow the Holy Spirit on people who will later fall away for the purpose of them having no excuse when they stand before Him in judgement. That’s not to say that their names were written in the book of life which is a subject we disagree on but according to my theology they would not have been written into the book of life because they did not abide in Christ and endure to the end. Because I believe God’s predestination is the result of His foreknowledge He would’ve foreseen their falling away and would not have included them into the book of life.

 

[BNR32FAN]

In the end, it makes good sense to say that if God chooses someone, they are his. If, on the other hand, someone instead chooses God, they have a very iffy relationship.

Ultimately in the end it all comes down to what the scriptures actually state. That takes precedence over what may seem to make good sense because what makes good sense is subjective.

 

[BNR32FAN]

Perhaps you didn't notice that Paul was quoting a saying, not addressed to just Timothy. Yet, even if he had, the warning is for a purpose, and not a statement of the possibility that Timothy could deny Christ, if indeed Timothy was chosen and predestined for Salvation.

Yes, a trustworthy saying. Are you suggesting that he wasn’t saying it in context to themselves? That would make it an irrelevant saying if it didn’t pertain to either of them.