How to become a Calvinist in 5 easy steps

[BBAS 64]

I don't know how many steps are needed to accept a horrific doctine that defiles God's character by asserting that God decrees many from birth to a future of eternal horrific suffering in order to give himeself glory (read quote Calvin's quote below). Fortunately, Paul contradicts that docrine per 1 Timothy 2:4 which says that God desires all men be saved. Upon reading the surrounding verses the meaning of 1 Timothy 2:4 it is very plain to everyone but the most indoctrinated that God does indeed desire all to be saved. God's desire does not mean all men are saved because God has given men free will (refer to parable of the Wedding feast) as men can reject God (John 15:23). If you cannot accept 1 Timothy 2:4 at face value, there are those who have a TULIP they will sell you.

“…individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death, and are to glorify him by their destruction.” (John Calvin,Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 23, Paragraph 6)​

Good Day, John


Does God create in the womb people that he knows will perish?

Why?

Do they serve a purpose for God?


Posting chapter heading and section in the whole:


REFUTATION OF THE CALUMNIES BY WHICH THIS DOCTRINE IS ALWAYS UNJUSTLY ASSAILED. This chapter consists of four parts, which refute the principal objections to this doctrine, and the various pleas and exceptions founded on these objections. These are preceded by a refutation of those who hold election but deny reprobation, sec. 1. Then follows, I. A refutation of the first objection to the doctrine of reprobation and election, sec. 2-5. II. An answer to the second objection, sec. 6-9. III. A refutation of the third objection. IV. A refutation of the fourth objection; to which is added a useful and necessary caution, sec. 12-14.

Section 6 - Objection, that God ought not to impute the sins rendered necessary by his predestination. First answer, by ancient writers. This not valid. Second answer also defective. Third answer, proposed by Valla, well founded.

6. Impiety starts another objection, which, however, seeks not so much to criminate God as to
excuse the sinner; though he who is condemned by God as a sinner cannot ultimately be acquitted
without impugning the judge. This, then is the scoffing language which profane tongues employ.
Why should God blame men for things the necessity of which he has imposed by his own
predestination? What could they do? Could they struggle with his decrees? It were in vain for them
to do it, since they could not possibly succeed. It is not just, therefore, to punish them for things
the principal cause of which is in the predestination of God. Here I will abstain from a defense to
which ecclesiastical writers usually recur, that there is nothing in the prescience of God to prevent
him from regarding; man as a sinner, since the evils which he foresees are man’s, not his. This
would not stop the caviler, who would still insist that God might, if he had pleased, have prevented
the evils which he foresaw, and not having done so, must with determinate counsel have created
man for the very purpose of so acting on the earth.
But if by the providence of God man was created on the condition of afterwards doing whatever he
does, then that which he cannot escape, and which
he is constrained by the will of God to do, cannot be charged upon him as a crime. Let us, therefore,
see what is the proper method of solving the difficulty. First, all must admit what Solomon says,
“The Lord has made all things for himself; yea, even the wicked for the day of evil,” (Prov. 16:4).
Now, since the arrangement of all things is in the hand of God, since to him belongs the disposal
of life and death, he arranges all things by his sovereign counsel, in such a way that individuals are
born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death, and are to glorify him by their destruction.
If any one alleges that no necessity is laid upon them by the providence of God, but rather that they
are created by him in that condition, because he foresaw their future depravity, he says something,
but does not say enough. Ancient writers, indeed, occasionally employ this solution, though with
some degree of hesitation. The Schoolmen, again, rest in it as if it could not be gainsaid. I, for my
part, am willing to admit, that mere prescience lays no necessity on the creatures; though some do
not assent to this, but hold that it is itself the cause of things. But Valla, though otherwise not greatly
skilled in sacred matters, seems to me to have taken a shrewder and more acute view, when he
shows that the dispute is superfluous since life and death are acts of the divine will rather than of
prescience. If God merely foresaw human events, and did not also arrange and dispose of them at
his pleasure, there might be room for agitating the question, how far his foreknowledge amounts
to necessity; but since he foresees the things which are to happen, simply because he has decreed
that they are so to happen, it is vain to debate about prescience, while it is clear that all events take
place by his sovereign appointment.

In Him,

Bill

 

[Mark Quayle]

Good question Z,
God knows if we are doing our best.
Doing our best just means doing what we can.
Maybe for one person it's evangelizing all the time,
maybe to someone else it's doing their job well and being peaceful in the workplace,
maybe for some it's keeping a pleasant home for the family.

We cannot do what we cannot do.
The Holy Spirit enables us to do what He wishes us to do.
So, yes, it is sujbective depending on the person and what that person can do for God.
1 John 5:3
Loving God means keeping his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome.

If they seem burdensome, maybe the person is going beyond their ability.



Well said.
Some persons feel like they don't have to do anything because Jesus has already done it all.
This is not right, of course. We are God's hands and feet on this earth.


Agreed.
I do think, though, that if a person is inclined to obedience, then probably they will obey.

"Best of our ability?" This can put an enormous pressure on a person since you can always do more. Of course I agree we are to obey. But to the best of our ability is very subjectice. Some are never doing any evangelizing or giving to the poor and still thinking they do their best to obey God. Another person is evangelizing on the street every day and giving half his income to the poor, yet feels he isn't doing enough to obey God. So how do we know that we obey God with the best of our ability?

David Bercot put it in a way I like. He said we are to live in a love, faith, obedience relationship with Christ. It's like all these parts fit together. It's a relationship with Christ, with all the things that comes in a relationship. But we are to be good servants, not like the ones not getting anything ready for the bridegroom.

Btw, of course if we are living in sin we are not obeying God. What I wrote to Mark was that you can have an inclination towards obedience and still live your whole life in sin. I didn't say that person won't come under judgement, if you think I meant that.

Somewhat of an aside, but this same question comes for those to whom God has ordained that they preach the Gospel (or that speak concerning any truth, for that matter). None of us has the right words, the right understanding, the right knowledge of what we are talking about. Not only that, but none of us has even the right spiritual maturity and integrity to be ministers of God's Word. And none of us even "do the best we can". In the light of such passages as 1 Peter 2 and Jude (not to mention the many proscriptions against perverting, adding to, taking away from and misusing the Word of God), we MUST depend on God's mercy. I love that fact.

 

[GodsGrace101]

Which theology states that our will is dependent on coercion? Can you cite it?

Of course I can cite it.
Compatibilist free will is coerced.
It's coerced by God.
Whether a calvinist wants to understand this or not is not my responsibility,
however, this is what's happening.

We need to remember here that in calvinist theology God controls EVERYTHING.
Everything. Even our decisions.

You said:
"Those of the reformed faith believe God picks who will and will not be saved.
They believe those saved cannot ever have their salvation in danger due to the perseverance of the saints.
This would tend to make one believe that free will has been removed from us.
Free will is presented EVERYWHERE in scripture - beginning in the Garden.
It is never taken away from us.
If you think it has, you'd have to show where."

Here you pick out (accurately enough) something Calvinism teaches, to wit: that God chooses who will and will not be saved, and combine it with something else it also teaches, and leave out the rest of it: That one MUST obey or they are not saved. Hello!

This is one of the problems I find with calvinism.
How does one ever really know if they are saved or not?
The problem is that they'll have to wait till the very end to know.

I can know if I'm saved because I choose to be.
But how can a calvinist be sure he has really been saved?
John Piper agrees with my BTW.
He told a woman questioning him that was worried about not really being saved that she probably was not.
Have you ever had a doubt?
We all have doubts. But I can be certain that I choose God and choose to remain under His protection.

Does the reformed faith say a person has no say in the decision, or that the person's decision is subsequent to their regeneration?

The reformed faith states that a person has no say in their salvation.
See Institutes of the Christian Religion
John Calvin
Book 3
Chapter 21
Paragraph 5

It states that God predestinates every single person to either life or damnation...based on His own will. (which we cannot know).

Instead the God of the bible desires that all men be saved and He instructs us on how to spend eternity with Him.

As to regeneration.
Problem.
Calvinism says God has to choose us first, and THEN we become saved.
Anyone that knows grammar cannot agree with this.
Ephesians 2:8
8God saved you by his grace when you believed.

What came first?

You might tell me that we're too depraved to choose God...
but the NT never states this.
We should go by what the NT states, and not what Calvin believed. (and others like him).

Why is it mocking to you? Do you dislike it because it grates on your sense of self-determination?

I was speaking about compatibilist free will.
It's mocking because some may THINK they are choosing, when in reality they are not.
They're just made to want what God wants so that they believe they are making a choice - when really God has made the choice for them.

This is why free will is such an important gift from God.

See, the fact is nobody has any excuse in the end. They did willfully oppose God. Even in Calvinism. I don't call it Compatibilist because it need not be named. I don't know if it ever occurred to you, but not only are the two wills not mutually exclusive —but the will (and therefore choice) of man is not even possible apart from causation.

You're getting into philosophy and I won't be any good at that.
It does seem that in quantum physics it seems as though some small particle (can't remember) does move differently if observed. This would indicate free will. It's interesting but I don't know enough about this.

I do agree with you that we all oppose God.
I do agree that our choice will always be affected by outside influences.
But I believe that the good news is that God sent His Son to reveal God Father to us and to teach us how to be on God's side and not on the side of the evil one.
IOW, we're not so depraved as to be unable to choose God once He has been revealed to us.
And I see from the NT that God has ALWAYS revealed Himself to mankind.

Bad representation of the facts. God does not choose for man. God chooses what will happen, and man chooses what he does, and it happens.

I don't believe what I do because of Calvinism. Calvinism just closely resembles what I believe. But show me the incongruities.

Don't understand your first paragraph.
God chooses what will happen and everything that happens.

And which congruities?
So far you've agreed with calvin...
Maybe we could be following a person and not even know it?
It does seem to me that a person has to be introduced into the reformed faith.
I just don't see it in the NT.

 

[GodsGrace101]

Spoken to the people of God in whom the Holy Spirit would work.

We know that those in whom the Holy Spirit does not work cannot choose to obey God (Romans 8:7-8).

We're going around in circles Clare.
The lost are lost and do not obey God.

 

[GodsGrace101]

Indeed, and as in the analogy above:
in "free will," as the deposit (guarantee) and mortgage payments are made by the same party, so
in "regeneration," the Holy Spirit deposit is made by God, while the mortgage payments are likewise enabled by the same party, God.

Please post some verses that state that it is God that chooses us and God that makes us forever sin no more.

I stated at some point that in your belief system
(that God keeps us)

It means that when we sin it means that the Holy Spirit failed at His job.

You didn't understand this.

Think about it.

 

[GodsGrace101]

Somewhat of an aside, but this same question comes for those to whom God has ordained that they preach the Gospel (or that speak concerning any truth, for that matter). None of us has the right words, the right understanding, the right knowledge of what we are talking about. Not only that, but none of us has even the right spiritual maturity and integrity to be ministers of God's Word. And none of us even "do the best we can". In the light of such passages as 1 Peter 2 and Jude (not to mention the many proscriptions against perverting, adding to, taking away from and misusing the Word of God), we MUST depend on God's mercy. I love that fact.

Let me ask you Mark,
To whom did Jesus give the great commandment?
Matthew 28:19

 

[GodsGrace101]

Good Day, John


Does God create in the womb people that he knows will perish?

Why?

Do they serve a purpose for God?


Posting chapter heading and section in the whole:


REFUTATION OF THE CALUMNIES BY WHICH THIS DOCTRINE IS ALWAYS UNJUSTLY ASSAILED. This chapter consists of four parts, which refute the principal objections to this doctrine, and the various pleas and exceptions founded on these objections. These are preceded by a refutation of those who hold election but deny reprobation, sec. 1. Then follows, I. A refutation of the first objection to the doctrine of reprobation and election, sec. 2-5. II. An answer to the second objection, sec. 6-9. III. A refutation of the third objection. IV. A refutation of the fourth objection; to which is added a useful and necessary caution, sec. 12-14.

Section 6 - Objection, that God ought not to impute the sins rendered necessary by his predestination. First answer, by ancient writers. This not valid. Second answer also defective. Third answer, proposed by Valla, well founded.

6. Impiety starts another objection, which, however, seeks not so much to criminate God as to
excuse the sinner; though he who is condemned by God as a sinner cannot ultimately be acquitted
without impugning the judge. This, then is the scoffing language which profane tongues employ.
Why should God blame men for things the necessity of which he has imposed by his own
predestination? What could they do? Could they struggle with his decrees? It were in vain for them
to do it, since they could not possibly succeed. It is not just, therefore, to punish them for things
the principal cause of which is in the predestination of God. Here I will abstain from a defense to
which ecclesiastical writers usually recur, that there is nothing in the prescience of God to prevent
him from regarding; man as a sinner, since the evils which he foresees are man’s, not his. This
would not stop the caviler, who would still insist that God might, if he had pleased, have prevented
the evils which he foresaw, and not having done so, must with determinate counsel have created
man for the very purpose of so acting on the earth.
But if by the providence of God man was created on the condition of afterwards doing whatever he
does, then that which he cannot escape, and which
he is constrained by the will of God to do, cannot be charged upon him as a crime. Let us, therefore,
see what is the proper method of solving the difficulty. First, all must admit what Solomon says,
“The Lord has made all things for himself; yea, even the wicked for the day of evil,” (Prov. 16:4).
Now, since the arrangement of all things is in the hand of God, since to him belongs the disposal
of life and death, he arranges all things by his sovereign counsel, in such a way that individuals are
born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death, and are to glorify him by their destruction.
If any one alleges that no necessity is laid upon them by the providence of God, but rather that they
are created by him in that condition, because he foresaw their future depravity, he says something,
but does not say enough. Ancient writers, indeed, occasionally employ this solution, though with
some degree of hesitation. The Schoolmen, again, rest in it as if it could not be gainsaid. I, for my
part, am willing to admit, that mere prescience lays no necessity on the creatures; though some do
not assent to this, but hold that it is itself the cause of things. But Valla, though otherwise not greatly
skilled in sacred matters, seems to me to have taken a shrewder and more acute view, when he
shows that the dispute is superfluous since life and death are acts of the divine will rather than of
prescience. If God merely foresaw human events, and did not also arrange and dispose of them at
his pleasure, there might be room for agitating the question, how far his foreknowledge amounts
to necessity; but since he foresees the things which are to happen, simply because he has decreed
that they are so to happen, it is vain to debate about prescience, while it is clear that all events take
place by his sovereign appointment.

In Him,

Bill

You should always state your source.
And, maybe, you could put into your own words what the article states?

You're stating that God created evil...which is accepted in the reformed faith.
But goes against everything the bible teaches.
1 John 4:8

Which is correct?
When there's a discrepancy in the bible, we must find a solution for it.

 

[Clare73]

We're going around in circles Clare.
The lost are lost and do not obey God.

I'm simply following you and answering your questions. . .

 

[Clare73]

Please post some verses that state that it is God that chooses us and
God that makes us forever sin no more.

Straw man. . .

I stated at some point that in your belief system
(that God keeps us)
It means that when we sin it means that the Holy Spirit failed at His job.
You didn't understand this.
Think about it.

Or is it you who does not understand that "keep" means from falling fatally, not from being sinless?
1 John 1:8-10

 

[Clare73]

Let me ask you Mark,
To whom did Jesus give the great commandment?
Matthew 28:19

Oh, let me!

The great commission?. . .to the apostles (Matthew 28:16).

Not all are evangelists (Ephesians 4:11).

 

[BNR32FAN]

Good Day, John


Does God create in the womb people that he knows will perish?

Why?

Do they serve a purpose for God?


Posting chapter heading and section in the whole:


REFUTATION OF THE CALUMNIES BY WHICH THIS DOCTRINE IS ALWAYS UNJUSTLY ASSAILED. This chapter consists of four parts, which refute the principal objections to this doctrine, and the various pleas and exceptions founded on these objections. These are preceded by a refutation of those who hold election but deny reprobation, sec. 1. Then follows, I. A refutation of the first objection to the doctrine of reprobation and election, sec. 2-5. II. An answer to the second objection, sec. 6-9. III. A refutation of the third objection. IV. A refutation of the fourth objection; to which is added a useful and necessary caution, sec. 12-14.

Section 6 - Objection, that God ought not to impute the sins rendered necessary by his predestination. First answer, by ancient writers. This not valid. Second answer also defective. Third answer, proposed by Valla, well founded.

6. Impiety starts another objection, which, however, seeks not so much to criminate God as to
excuse the sinner; though he who is condemned by God as a sinner cannot ultimately be acquitted
without impugning the judge. This, then is the scoffing language which profane tongues employ.
Why should God blame men for things the necessity of which he has imposed by his own
predestination? What could they do? Could they struggle with his decrees? It were in vain for them
to do it, since they could not possibly succeed. It is not just, therefore, to punish them for things
the principal cause of which is in the predestination of God. Here I will abstain from a defense to
which ecclesiastical writers usually recur, that there is nothing in the prescience of God to prevent
him from regarding; man as a sinner, since the evils which he foresees are man’s, not his. This
would not stop the caviler, who would still insist that God might, if he had pleased, have prevented
the evils which he foresaw, and not having done so, must with determinate counsel have created
man for the very purpose of so acting on the earth.
But if by the providence of God man was created on the condition of afterwards doing whatever he
does, then that which he cannot escape, and which
he is constrained by the will of God to do, cannot be charged upon him as a crime. Let us, therefore,
see what is the proper method of solving the difficulty. First, all must admit what Solomon says,
“The Lord has made all things for himself; yea, even the wicked for the day of evil,” (Prov. 16:4).
Now, since the arrangement of all things is in the hand of God, since to him belongs the disposal
of life and death, he arranges all things by his sovereign counsel, in such a way that individuals are
born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death, and are to glorify him by their destruction.
If any one alleges that no necessity is laid upon them by the providence of God, but rather that they
are created by him in that condition, because he foresaw their future depravity, he says something,
but does not say enough. Ancient writers, indeed, occasionally employ this solution, though with
some degree of hesitation. The Schoolmen, again, rest in it as if it could not be gainsaid. I, for my
part, am willing to admit, that mere prescience lays no necessity on the creatures; though some do
not assent to this, but hold that it is itself the cause of things. But Valla, though otherwise not greatly
skilled in sacred matters, seems to me to have taken a shrewder and more acute view, when he
shows that the dispute is superfluous since life and death are acts of the divine will rather than of
prescience. If God merely foresaw human events, and did not also arrange and dispose of them at
his pleasure, there might be room for agitating the question, how far his foreknowledge amounts
to necessity; but since he foresees the things which are to happen, simply because he has decreed
that they are so to happen, it is vain to debate about prescience, while it is clear that all events take
place by his sovereign appointment.

In Him,

Bill

No one is doomed from the womb because an unborn child cannot sin.

 

[BBAS 64]

No one is doomed from the womb because an unborn child cannot sin.

Good Day,

So unborn children are not sinners under the headship of Adam??

You missed the question: Does God create in the womb people that he knows will perish?

IN Him,

Bill

 

[BBAS 64]

You should always state your source.
And, maybe, you could put into your own words what the article states?

You're stating that God created evil...which is accepted in the reformed faith.
But goes against everything the bible teaches.
1 John 4:8

Which is correct?
When there's a discrepancy in the bible, we must find a solution for it.

Good Day, GG101

He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

Umm means God did not create evil ....

What makes you think evil is a created "thing"?

Was the Devil Created... if so by whom or what?


RC Sproul attempts to help us answer those types of Questions:

In Him,

Bill

 

[BNR32FAN]

Good Day,

So unborn children are not sinners under the headship of Adam??

You missed the question: Does God create in the womb people that he knows will perish?

IN Him,

Bill

We’re not a sinner until we actually sin. God created everyone in the womb, both those who will be saved and those who perish.

 

[GodsGrace101]

Straw man. . .

Or is it you who does not understand that "keep" means from falling fatally, not from being sinless?
1 John 1:8-10

Strawman?
Guess you can't find the verses...

And I NEVER brought up sinlessness.
It doesn't exist.

 

[GodsGrace101]

Good Day, GG101

He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

Umm means God did not create evil ....

What makes you think evil is a created "thing"?

Was the Devil Created... if so by whom or what?


RC Sproul attempts to help us answer those types of Questions:

In Him,

Bill

I respect RC BBAS.
But I don't go to him to find answers.
Basically, because I don't believe he has the answers.

1 John 4:8 states that God IS love.
It doesn't say He loves but that His entire being is love.

The reformed, such as RC, do believe God created evil.
They get this out of the OT and out of the idea that God predestinated everything, even evil.
So He's responsible for murder, child pornography, tsunamis, and the like.

This brings up many problems.
How can we worship a God that USES us for His own purposes?
Is Sovereignty different than evil totalitarianism?
Is the God of the OT different than the God revealed to us by Jesus in the NT?

Maybe, instead of listening to RC, you could check out the bible....

God is love: If God IS LOVE, how would He create evil?
How to reconcile this dilemma?

What Does the Bible Say About God Is Love?

 

[GodsGrace101]

Somewhat of an aside, but this same question comes for those to whom God has ordained that they preach the Gospel (or that speak concerning any truth, for that matter). None of us has the right words, the right understanding, the right knowledge of what we are talking about. Not only that, but none of us has even the right spiritual maturity and integrity to be ministers of God's Word. And none of us even "do the best we can". In the light of such passages as 1 Peter 2 and Jude (not to mention the many proscriptions against perverting, adding to, taking away from and misusing the Word of God), we MUST depend on God's mercy. I love that fact.

I also love the fact that we depend on God's mercy -which is part of His grace.
But in the reformed study of God, it would seem that God has no mercy since He does not give to all the same opportunity of salvation.

Which brings up His justice.
Is He just or not?
A just God would give to each AS HE DESERVES.

We all deserve hell, but God, in His mercy and justice, has given us a way out.
John 3.16 Prescriptive NOT descriptive.

And Jesus gave the Great Commission to the Apostles because HE taught them the truth, which they were to pass on. The ideas Luther, Calvin, Knox, etc had did not come about till the 1,500's.

This must surely tell us something.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Of course I can cite it.
Compatibilist free will is coerced.
It's coerced by God.
Whether a calvinist wants to understand this or not is not my responsibility,
however, this is what's happening.

We need to remember here that in calvinist theology God controls EVERYTHING.
Everything. Even our decisions.

You didn't cite it. But ok, we'll deal with what you did say. Coercion is to compel one to do something by threats and intimidation. (Ironically, that more closely resembles the notion that the threat of Hell is what brings someone to produce Faith!) But, how is that the same as to control someone, in the sense of how God "causes all things, whatsoever shall come to pass"? We decide according to our preferences, according to our inclinations. And fluid as our preferences are, the lost are unable to prefer God, though they may well think they prefer God.

To your mentality of self-determination, God controlling everything necessarily rules out actual ability to choose on the part of the controlled person. This is not so. (And not that I agree with the notion of God coercing, but even in the case of coercion, one still actually chooses to go with their preference even then, even if their preference is only coerced for the moment they decide. They decide that to comply with the coercion is better than the alternative.) God can coerce, certainly. He did so with Jonah, for example. But the Grace of regeneration is not coerced. Regeneration is indeed done to the elect person, without asking their permission, by a changing of their very being, from Dead to Alive. This is to be Born Again, to become a new person. It no more needs to be a decision on the part of the person than it needed to be so when they were born in the flesh. And yes, God has every right to do so, and to be just in doing so since we are his creatures, just as certainly as he has every right (and is just) as when we were born the first time.

This is one of the problems I find with calvinism.
How does one ever really know if they are saved or not?
The problem is that they'll have to wait till the very end to know.

I can know if I'm saved because I choose to be.
But how can a calvinist be sure he has really been saved?
John Piper agrees with my BTW.
He told a woman questioning him that was worried about not really being saved that she probably was not.
Have you ever had a doubt?
We all have doubts. But I can be certain that I choose God and choose to remain under His protection.

I can doubt I am saved, regardless of whether I am or not, and regardless of how I think I became saved, because of the evidence of works (i.e. by disobedience). Furthermore, as was for so long my case, where I KNEW I had chosen Christ, and remembered the sweetness, joy and intensity of fellowship with him, as scripture says will happen my heart condemned my works, in fact so often that I despaired of the confidence that I had really chosen him, really repented, really was sincere, regardless of the feeling or thoughts of sincerity I had at the time of repentance or decisions to obey. Like a spoiled child I sometimes demanded he show himself to me if I was really his, to show that I was changed by MAKING me obey if necessary, and even in the demanding I found joy in the focus of my energies for the moment, but in the end, I could not trust myself. You could possibly identify with me in the agony of the desire for holiness, to be like him.

I KNOW I am his, not by my decision, but by the witness of the Holy Spirit to my spirit. There is no better way to know. I am his, not my own. I am totally at his mercy. Not even the evidence of obedience, and when my conscience is satisfied that I am in him, can give me that joy and satisfaction of knowing I am totally at his mercy.

Shall I sin then, that grace may abound? Of course not!

The reformed faith states that a person has no say in their salvation.
See Institutes of the Christian Religion
John Calvin
Book 3
Chapter 21
Paragraph 5

It states that God predestinates every single person to either life or damnation...based on His own will. (which we cannot know).

Instead the God of the bible desires that all men be saved and He instructs us on how to spend eternity with Him.

As to regeneration.
Problem.
Calvinism says God has to choose us first, and THEN we become saved.
Anyone that knows grammar cannot agree with this.
Ephesians 2:8
8God saved you by his grace when you believed.

What came first?

You might tell me that we're too depraved to choose God...
but the NT never states this.
We should go by what the NT states, and not what Calvin believed. (and others like him).

Aye! Which came first? Logically, causation comes 'before' effect —i.e. the time sequence is irrelevant as to the cause. That is, unless you assume self-determination. I expect there are many of us that had no epiphanic (is that a word? epiphanous?) or crisis moments to point to, where I can only suggest that the Holy Spirit may have moved in and we didn't know it, in time-sequence prior to that moment, or that it happened simultaneous with that moment of crisis. Either way, according to Romans and Ephesians and other scriptures, and according to the witness of many believers, God caused it by the Spirit of God, and not by the will of man. Some people have even found that somehow they simply "came to believe" and don't have a time to point to, yet find themselves desiring and loving God, and inclined to submit and obey, and having the witness of the Holy Spirit to their spirit.

By grace we have been saved through faith. I find myself compelled to repeat, that if one's faith is self-generated, it is powerless. It doesn't even know how bad sin is, nor the graciousness of God, in its intellectual and emotional understanding of the Gospel! But if it is generated by the Spirit of God it is altogether powerful, wise, knowledgeable, capable and true!, unlike our weak, silly, ignorant, self-seeking, rebellious, self-determining ambivalent selves. (And that same faith is what continues after regeneration to compel obedience and repentance and desire for Christ.) Do we decide? Oh yes, indeed we do! Gladly, gratefully. Must we decide? Of course we must, or we do not belong to him! Do our decisions bear fruit? Most certainly they do! And that too is the grace of God.

I was speaking about compatibilist free will.
It's mocking because some may THINK they are choosing, when in reality they are not.
They're just made to want what God wants so that they believe they are making a choice - when really God has made the choice for them.

This is why free will is such an important gift from God.

WILL is an important gift from God. But if 'FREE' declares independence from the causation by God, freewill is an illusion. HOW, I ask, is anything we do good, if not done by the will of God???

But the notion that God changing us so completely makes us automatically obey, is bunk. And that is not what any theology I am familiar with teaches. Instead, we believe the regenerated are 'enabled' to obey, which the lost are not. The regenerated rather obviously do sin, but do not continue to be sinning. They will want to repent, to yeild their will, to obey. They love God, as they are compelled to do by the Spirit within them. God is not mocked. We don't ignore James' necessary exhortations. We certainly have choice.

You're getting into philosophy and I won't be any good at that.
It does seem that in quantum physics it seems as though some small particle (can't remember) does move differently if observed. This would indicate free will. It's interesting but I don't know enough about this.

I do agree with you that we all oppose God.
I do agree that our choice will always be affected by outside influences.
But I believe that the good news is that God sent His Son to reveal God Father to us and to teach us how to be on God's side and not on the side of the evil one.
IOW, we're not so depraved as to be unable to choose God once He has been revealed to us.
And I see from the NT that God has ALWAYS revealed Himself to mankind.

Don't understand your first paragraph.
God chooses what will happen and everything that happens.

And which congruities?
So far you've agreed with calvin...
Maybe we could be following a person and not even know it?
It does seem to me that a person has to be introduced into the reformed faith.
I just don't see it in the NT.

To a simply logical mind, (even that of an atheist who ironically also clings to self-determination), all things are caused, except first cause. The law of causation is pervasive. Nothing is quite spontaneous, except God himself.

And not to disagree with quantum theory, but if a particle moves as a result of observation, it, too, is caused to move. Even if it 'spontaneously comes into existence' or 'disappears from existence' as some claim, it is caused to do so. It is not 'free' of causation, nor does any human's 'free' will cause it to do anything. It may well be though, that it can be used as proof of God's existence, though I can't quite see how to do that —i.e. for me, it is still intuitive at this point. (It tickles me no end that even those who understand it best say that if anyone thinks they understand quantum theory, they don't understand it.)

Like I have said before and elsewhere, and maybe I didn't say it anywhere you have read it, that I came to these conclusions, believing what I do, long before I knew they resembled Calvinism or Reformed Theology. I didn't get it from them. Calvin is nothing to me. I don't discard his claims, I just don't care about it for its own sake. I've never even studied about him. I hear more about Calvin from those who disagree with me than from those who agree with me.

You say that a person has to be introduced into the 'reformed faith'. Likewise, I could say the same about you. Your worldview of self-determination is even drilled into you by secular sources, nevermind that common current Christendom demands it. It is how you think, because it is how you were brought up. But I'll agree, the mentality of self-determination comes more naturally than that which accepts the necessity of predestination.

 

[Clare73]

Strawman?
Guess you can't find the verses...

Precisely. . .

It doesn't exist.

Precisely. . .

 

[Mark Quayle]

Let me ask you Mark,
To whom did Jesus give the great commandment?
Matthew 28:19

To his disciples. Why do you ask?