How to become a Calvinist in 5 easy steps

[Mark Quayle]

God does. He cannot contradict Himself.

How do you know he requires them of himself? Must he remind himself to be good, or even that he is good? Is it not enough for him to simply be What/Who he is?

Can you show from Scripture, and not inference, that he requires anything of himself?

 

[BNR32FAN]

How do you know he requires them of himself? Must he remind himself to be good, or even that he is good? Is it not enough for him to simply be What/Who he is?

Can you show from Scripture, and not inference, that he requires anything of himself?

Because that’s what’s written in the scriptures. Can God defy what He wrote describing Himself and His judgement?

 

[Mark Quayle]

Then the scriptures should say that God’s judgement is _______. The word “just” should’ve been omitted since apparently we don’t actually have a word that describes His judgement, at least according to what your saying here. No I don’t care how many times you say it the fact is that the scriptures did use the word “just” to describe God’s character and judgement and your removing the definition of the word “just” because that definition contradicts your theology. Hence your theology contradicts scripture. Scripture says God and His judgement are just and you are redefining the word just which is twisting what the scriptures actually state.

Look how you and I both have a different take on the word, "just". Yet you think some dictionary is going to make the difference as to whether God is just? He needn't live up to any supposedly objective definition, nor anybody's subjective take on it. He simply is who and what he is, and that is just.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Because that’s what’s written in the scriptures. Can God defy what He wrote describing Himself and His judgement?

Where does it say he "requires" it of himself?

 

[Clare73]

There is a discussion that I'm being doubted in ... when I asked if you were male or female ... Claire or Clarence .. I was sure you said male ... please correct me with the truth so as not to offend my brother further .. thanks

Okay. . .because you are so nice, I will accommodate you.
I can see why you would be confused.

I am a woman, always have been and always will be.
I spell the name that way so it will be an uncommon name, for screen-name purposes only.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Then the scriptures should say that God’s judgement is _______. The word “just” should’ve been omitted since apparently we don’t actually have a word that describes His judgement, at least according to what your saying here. No I don’t care how many times you say it the fact is that the scriptures did use the word “just” to describe God’s character and judgement and your removing the definition of the word “just” because that definition contradicts your theology. Hence your theology contradicts scripture. Scripture says God and His judgement are just and you are redefining the word just which is twisting what the scriptures actually state.

Wrong again. The scriptures, concerning the word, "just", do not contradict my theology. By the way, you have not yet shown me the definition of "just" from scripture, nor have you shown that the definition is not from (or by) God's very nature, as I claim.

It amazes me that you should think God is subject to your understanding of anything.

 

[Clare73]

When the scriptures were written the definition of the word “just” was already established before the author chose to use it. Are you suggesting that the author used the wrong word to describe God’s character and judgement?

Not if you don’t ignore the meaning of just judgement.
Where do you get your definition of the word “just”?

From the Biblical use of it.

It is used of persons and of things. . .and of the ways of God.

Biblically, that means justice is defined by God's ways, rather than God's ways being defined by justice.

 

[Mark Quayle]

God doesn’t murder because murder is the unlawful killing of a person. God is not under the law. That doesn’t mean that God is not under the restraints that He imposed on Himself. By the written word of God He imposed on Himself that His judgement must be just. Unless you think He’s a two faced liar.

If God is not under the law, then why is he "required" to live up to "THE definitions" of his attributes, as you understand them? (And no, I am not saying he is under the law.)

But show this from Scripture: "That doesn’t mean that God is not under the restraints that He imposed on Himself. By the written word of God He imposed on Himself that His judgement must be just. Unless you think He’s a two faced liar."

 

[John Caldwell]

No, brother I meant that Biblicist is a word of various meanings and connotations. Even @Clare73 as I recall, has used it two different ways. Some take it to mean literalist to an absurd point and others simply literalist, and for the denier of plenary verbal inspiration, it is a term of contempt, while other believers are proud to accept the term. And there are other uses besides those.

I don't think she really believes the Trinity to be a challenge for literalists. After all, even she is a literalist. She only meant it is if literalism is taken to an absurd degree. At least, that is my take. She could answer better than I can.

I meant "biblicist" in terms of theological development from Scripture ("a person who takes the a literal approach to Scripture").

But I agree terms need to be defined. We often don't take the time to do that in these forums.

 

[Mark Quayle]

My point is that there are many approaches to Scripture. Calvinism does not take a literal approach (although many Calvinists believe they do). I insist on a literal approach, that foundational (first order) doctrines must be in "what is written". Therefore I could not be a Calvinist (it is one or the other).

Hopefully, at some point, you will see this differently. Calvinism/Reformed Theology is the only one I find in the end to be following a literal use of Scripture, including, as you mentioned, that foundational (first order) doctrines must be in "what is written". I'm curious what you think are the foundational doctrines of Calvinism/Reformed Theology.

 

[John Caldwell]

You must be referring to something I completely missed. I find [what I have heard of] her understanding of the Cross to be very much in the Bible.

What is "this method" you refer to, apparently the method you think she uses. What is it?



I think @Clare73 will surprise you.

I don't know what she believes. But going off her posts it seems to me that she holds to the Penal Substitution Theory of Atonement. Her posts seem to at least hint towards applying the philosophies behind the theory to Scripture in order to develop a doctrine of what is being taught by Scripture while being absent from the text of Scripture.

Perhaps @Clare73 may surprise me about what she believes. I find what people believe, and why, very interesting. But thus far she seems to be posting what I once believed and taught.

 

[John Caldwell]

Au contraire. . .as presented in post #463,

three separate persons in the one Being, God, is doctrine,
the threeness in the oneness,
the three separate persons (as distinct from just three separate functions) in the one God,
the Trinity in the Unity.

For Scripture presents the following relationships among the three separate divine agents:

the Son is subject to the Father, for the Son is sent by the Father in the Father's name (John 5:23,
36, 43),

the Spirit is subject to the Father, for the Spirit is sent by the Father in the Son's name (John 14:26), and

and the Spirit is subject to the Son as well as the Father, for the Spirit is sent by the Son as well as the Father (John 15:26, 16:7, 14:26).

A person doesn't send oneself, a person sends someone else who is a separate person.

Three separate persons in the one Being, God, is doctrine.

There are many doctrines. The belief that Jesus was an incarnation of the Father is doctrine. I do not believe it is correct, but it is doctrine nonetheless.

Trinity means "three". The basic doctrine of the Trinity is that there is One God: Father, Son, and Spirit. The Father sent the Son. The Spirit was sent when the Son returned to the Father.

Now from there we can expand the basic doctrine to include secondary ideas. That is fine.

If you are saying YOUR doctrine of the Trinity is not in the Bible, I can understand. But your doctrine of the Cross isn't either.

You are responsible for what you believe. I am responsible for what I believe.

 

[Mark Quayle]

When the scriptures were written the definition of the word “just” was already established before the author chose to use it. Are you suggesting that the author used the wrong word to describe God’s character and judgement?

Good grief! Where do you come up with this sort of thing? WHERE did she even begin to suggest the author used the wrong word to describe God's character? The question is, and remains unanswered by you, WHERE is this word defined in such a way that God is required to answer to that definition? Are you afraid to admit to what @Clare73 and I have both either claimed or alluded to, that God IS the definition for these, and thus (if for no other reason) need not answer to any of our notions?

 

[John Caldwell]

I can help you with that.

It goes to your assertion of only "literal" interpretation of Scripture, where the Trinity is not "literally" stated in the NT.
If you believe in the "Trinity," you are not employing a "literal" interpretation of Scripture.

Here you are wrong.

My doctrine of the Trinity is that God is One. The Father and Son are God and are One. The Holy Spirit is God's Spirit. The Father sent the Son. The Son sent the Spirit.

I understand if you cannot find those in your Bible, but I can (in the text of Scripture).

A literalist will believe the doctrine of the Trinity because it is in the text of Scripture. They may or may not believe secondary ideas about the Trinity ("personhood", for example) but they will believe the Triune God is three separate intities somehow being One God.

 

[Mark Quayle]

That’s not what the scriptures say.

Who planted the wheat, and who planted the tares? Who harvests the wheat and the tares? (No I did not ask who swings the sickle.) Who determines who is elect, and who is not, from the foundation of the world?

So what was it you were going to say that the Scriptures do say? Oh, I mean, besides repentance? There is almost no end of things like that, that show real difference. Was there not something else you wanted to say?

 

[Mark Quayle]

Because the word “just” already existed before it was put into the scriptures. It was already defined before the scriptures were written and that’s the word the authors choose to use to define God’s character and judgement.

Defined by.... who?

 

[Mark Quayle]

Because that’s what’s written in the scriptures. Can God defy what He wrote describing Himself and His judgement?

I repeat,
Mark Quayle said: ↑
Can you show from Scripture, and not inference, that he requires anything of himself? Assertion is not demonstration. You have not shown it from Scripture.

 

[John Caldwell]

Hopefully, at some point, you will see this differently. Calvinism/Reformed Theology is the only one I find in the end to be following a literal use of Scripture, including, as you mentioned, that foundational (first order) doctrines must be in "what is written". I'm curious what you think are the foundational doctrines of Calvinism/Reformed Theology.

I told you my testimony of how I left Calvinism. What I did not tell you was how hard it was for me to set aside what I had for so long read into Scripture.

It was easy in a way to leave Calvinism (God had convicted me it was incorrect and I could see it wasn't in the Bible). But it was very difficult to simply read Scripture for the text.

Try it. Read "Christ died for our sins" without thinking "Christ died instead of us". It's hard to understand the meaning of the former without automatically thinking king the latter.

What I found, however, is that the text actually makes perfect sense and is fluid with Scripture as a whole without those presuppositions. It also made me appreciate the views of the Early Church a bit more.

It's just hard to look at the ink blot that you've been told is a bat and not see a bat everything.

As an experiment, just try reading as if you were not a Calvinist. See what the words say. Then compare the two. You may decide you prefer Calvinism. You might not.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Okay. . .because you are so nice, I will accommodate you.
I can see why you would be confused.

I am a woman, always have been and always will be.
I spell the name that way so it will be an uncommon name, for screen-name purposes only.

I'm disappointed. No, not because you didn't keep it unresolved, but because I was hoping your name was a play on words, concerning clarity or something.

 

[Clare73]

There are many doctrines. The belief that Jesus was an incarnation of the Father is doctrine. I do not believe it is correct, but it is doctrine nonetheless.

Trinity means "three". The basic doctrine of the Trinity is that there is One God: Father, Son, and Spirit.

The NT shows the three divine agents to be persons, referred to with
pronouns denoting persons (he, him),
titles denoting persons (Son; Comforter/Counselor, Holy Spirit),
attributes denoting persons (affections, intelligence) and
functions denoting persons (speaking, deciding, testifying, interceding, etc.),
all of which are in the NT.

The basic doctrine of the Trinity is three separate persons (not functions) in the one God.