How to become a Calvinist in 5 easy steps

[Clare73]

1 Peter was written to believers in provinces listed in 1 Peter 1:1. From Mark 16:16 we know that God decided long agol that those who believe and are baptized will be saved

God's foreknowledge is of his decree from "long ago" to choose them to believe and be saved.

- and thus the goodness of 1 Peter 1:2 applies to them. Peter's is writing to persecuted believers and was encouraging them by telling them God's glorious plans for them. It lines up well with Ephesians 3:14-21. If Peter was tryng to lay down Calvinist Determinism - why wasn't that a theme by early church fathers (with the possible exception of Augistine).

Requiring another to "reconcile them in the light of the whole counsel of God" as you frequently say is arrogance on your part as no man on earth understands the whole counsel of God (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Strawman. . .

On top of that it is always best to be specific in your critique.

God chooses who will be saved from the standpoint of Mark 16:16.

Mk 16:16 neither denies nor implies election to salvation.

Keeping in mind that I do not do weeds.

 

[All Becomes New]

It could very well not be.

Not in my Bible.

Which version are you using?

 

[John Mullally]

God's foreknowledge is of his decree from "long ago" to choose them to believe and be saved.

Strawman. . .

Mk 16:16 neither denies nor implies election to salvation.

Keeping in mind that I do not do weeds.

Curt reply as normal. I also see you don't do scripture. It is pretty foolish to frequently disreguard what others say unless they can present the full counsel of God, unless you yourself can - ignorance going to seed!

@John Mullally

Note by Clare's unofficial official editor: Here I think Clare is not saying that you should ditch 1 Tim 2:4, but in saying that your inconsistency needs to ditch it, she is saying you are using it wrong, since your use of it does not agree with the rest of the counsel of God, (to include 1 Pe 1:2).

Yes, I know you are in cahoots. Perhaps you are interpretting 1 Peter 1:2 in a light that requires ignoring 1 Timothy 2:4 and 1 Timothy 2:6.

 

[Clare73]

Curt reply as normal.

Falls somewhat short of a Biblical demonstration.

 

[John Mullally]

Falls somewhat short of a Biblical demonstration.

As do many of your replies. Ha, Ha,

 

[BibleBeliever1611]

Thanks again... so in regards to your original response to this thread, where your concern seemed to at least partly revolve around God's hand in evil, it would seem to me that you can have one of the following:

God #1

1. Predestines all, including evil, for the greatest glory of God.
2. All good, and evil, is the unfolding of God's plan.

God #2

1. Does not predestine evil.
2. However, can see all evil down the corridor of time, can prevent it but instead uses this evil to bring about the greatest glory of God.

If God's hand in evil is objectionable then how is God #2 any better? In both cases the child dying with leukaemia has been ordained by God and could have been prevented by God. In her time of prayer for her fading child, is the word from God to the mother to be "Okay, I know it's hard, and I wish it wasn't so that evil has afflicted your child, but instead of saving your child I have something better in mind, I've figured out how to turn this into a greater good. Your child still dies though."

Of course I could equally word God #1's response as cruelly, but my point here is rather to politely suggest that the God you've described in your responses may not be so let off the hook as you believe.

Calvinism gives the greatest glory to yourself. You think you have a special priviledge to go to heaven that nobody else has. You think you are like an angel in heaven who has never sinned. Seeing yourself as better than other people. That's 100% glory to yourself, 0% glory to God.

 

[All Becomes New]

Calvinism gives the greatest glory to yourself. You think you have a special priviledge to go to heaven that nobody else has. You think you are like an angel in heaven who has never sinned. Seeing yourself as better than other people. That's 100% glory to yourself, 0% glory to God.

I say this as someone who is NOT a Calvinist, but this is blatantly wrong.

 

[BibleBeliever1611]

I say this as someone who is NOT a Calvinist, but this is blatantly wrong.

No, it is exactly right. A Calvinist is a person who doesn't even realize that he is just as much a sinner as a person who is not a Christian. You don't deserve a special priviledge to be the elect any more than any other sinner. You can only be saved by God's grace.

 

[All Becomes New]

No, it is exactly right. A Calvinist is a person who doesn't even realize that he is just as much a sinner as a person who is not a Christian. You don't deserve a special priviledge to be the elect any more than any other sinner. You can only be saved by God's grace.

Again, that is blatantly false. What Calvinist teach do you know of that says once you are saved you don't sin anymore? List one. And if you can list one, that one is clearly wrong about this issue, which has nothing to do with Calvinism itself.

Besides, you have the same problem whether you realize it or not. You put salvation in the hands of the human making the choice to believe. So in this way, you did the good thing and the unsaved person did the bad thing.

Not to mention that you have very little control over what you believe. Faith is a gift, not something you choose to believe. You make a mockery of God as the one who saves us to defer to the person who cannot choose their salvation any more than they can choose when they are born.

 

[BibleBeliever1611]

Again, that is blatantly false. What Calvinist teach do you know of that says once you are saved you don't sin anymore? List one. And if you can list one, that one is clearly wrong about this issue, which has nothing to do with Calvinism itself.

Besides, you have the same problem whether you realize it or not. You put salvation in the hands of the human making the choice to believe. So in this way, you did the good thing and the unsaved person did the bad thing.

Not to mention that you have very little control over what you believe. Faith is a gift, not something you choose to believe. You make a mockery of God as the one who saves us to defer to the person who cannot choose their salvation any more than they can choose when they are born.

What makes the Calvinist one of the elect? Why does he deserve to be the elect if he is also a sinner just like the people who are not saved?

 

[Brother-Mike]

What makes the Calvinist one of the elect? Why does he deserve to be the elect if he is also a sinner just like the people who are not saved?

I do not know whether I am elected. I do not know whether you are either.
But I can tell you how to be: continue to believe in Jesus, repent, and manifest the fruits of one in the vine. Do these and you reveal your election.

That’s it brother. Where is any boasting or exclusion in this?

 

[All Becomes New]

What makes the Calvinist one of the elect? Why does he deserve to be the elect if he is also a sinner just like the people who are not saved?

That's just it. In Calvinism, it is God's unmerited grace that saves a person. It's called Unconditional Election - the U in TULIP. I don't believe that the U in Tulip is true, but I understand it. I believe who God chooses is not based on a strength a person has, but a weakness to shame the wise. So we do have some information on why God chooses who he does. So it's not a vacuum where God just picks people out of a hat which is basically what Calvinists believe, but I believe that who Christ picks is based on the idea of shaming the wise.

 

[Brother-Mike]

That's just it. In Calvinism, it is God's unmerited grace that saves a person. It's called Unconditional Election - the U in TULIP. I don't believe that the U in Tulip is true, but I understand it. I believe who God chooses is not based on a strength a person has, but a weakness to shame the wise. So we do have some information on why God chooses who he does. So it's not a vacuum where God just picks people out of a hat which is basically what Calvinists believe, but I believe that who Christ picks is based on the idea of shaming the wise.

With respect no Calvinist would agree that God’s choice of election is based on shaming anyone.

All that God does is to his greatest glory.
God’s choice of Jacob, and his rejection of Esau, are both to God’s greatest glory.
On this side of Judgement we can’t fully understand why… but later? Maybe.

 

[All Becomes New]

With respect no Calvinist would agree that God’s choice of election is based on shaming anyone.

All that God does is to his greatest glory.
God’s choice of Jacob, and his rejection of Esau, are both to God’s greatest glory.
On this side of Judgement we can’t fully understand why… but later? Maybe.

That's whatever to me. God rose up Pharoah to do what he wanted by hardening his heart in Calvinism. Lots of other examples where God chooses peoples or nations to punish someone else. Basically the same thing.

 

[Mark Quayle]

No, it is exactly right. A Calvinist is a person who doesn't even realize that he is just as much a sinner as a person who is not a Christian. You don't deserve a special priviledge to be the elect any more than any other sinner. You can only be saved by God's grace.

You seem to me to be looking at it from the POV of a person who thinks he has a little to do with it, as if most of the Glory goes to God, and an almost insignificant part belongs to man. But you are wrong on both counts. ALL the glory goes to God. Have you forgotten the doctrine of Total Depravity? The elect are no better than anyone else, and don't claim to be. "In me there dwells no good thing."

 

[Mark Quayle]

That's whatever to me. God rose up Pharoah to do what he wanted by hardening his heart in Calvinism. Lots of other examples where God chooses peoples or nations to punish someone else. Basically the same thing.

Did God not predestine the events of Calvary? Acts 2:23

Proverbs 16:4
"The LORD has made everything for His purpose—even the wicked for the day of disaster."

 

[zoidar]

This is a problem with Calvinism I like to raise. When a person is convicted of sin, he turns to Christ for forgiveness. If he doesn't know for sure Christ took the punishment for his sins, how can he turn to Christ for forgiveness? Wouldn't this lead the poor sinner to the confused state of not knowing whether he can be forgiven or not?

What the Calvinist seems to have to do is convince the sinner that if he is convicted, Christ died for him, which he in reality couldn't know if Calvinism is true, since the sinner is not yet saved.

And further... "Trust in Christ that he died for you." How can I if I don't know he was punished for my sins? Or is it enough to trust that Christ was punished for some sins for me to be saved. I find this being confusing and an inconsistency with Calvinism.

You need to know you are elect before you can know Christ was punished for your sins, and you can't know you are elect until you trust in Jesus being punished for you sins. You see the problem?

 

[All Becomes New]

Did God not predestine the events of Calvary? Acts 2:23

Proverbs 16:4
"The LORD has made everything for His purpose—even the wicked for the day of disaster."

Why do you think I disagree with this?

 

[Mark Quayle]

This is a problem with Calvinism I like to raise. When a person is convicted of sin, he turns to Christ for forgiveness. If he doesn't know for sure Christ took the punishment for his sins, how can he turn to Christ for forgiveness? Wouldn't this lead the poor sinner to the confused state of not knowing whether he can be forgiven or not?

What the Calvinist seems to have to do is convince the sinner that if he is convicted, Christ died for him, which he in reality couldn't know if Calvinism is true, since the sinner is not yet saved.

No, strictly speaking, the Calvinist has no duty toward the lost but to live and present the truth, even the Gospel, and to try to do it in terms the individual can understand. The Calvinist's duty toward the lost by Calvinist doctrine is no different/harder/more involved than the duty of any other believer by any true doctrine.

Your question implies the sinner turns to Christ out of intellectual rigor. Even one who has no concept of Calvinistic doctrine, like all the lost, can be convicted of sin and seek relief, yet even that is not the evidence of salvation, nor even does it mean that he has 'turned to Christ for forgiveness'.

The heart of the individual may be full of the anguish of conviction, emotion and determination, but it means nothing apart from the work of Christ, and of the Spirit of God in regeneration. Witness King Saul.

Nobody alive as of yet has full understanding of the Gospel of Christ, but the Spirit of God within does. When Scripture says, "The Spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are the children of God" it is not only about feeling eternal security, but about how the thing is done that we can 'understand' in whatever sense we actually do understand. It is more than intellectual. Our faith is by the work of the Spirit of God, not by the will of man.

 

[Mark Quayle]

This is a problem with Calvinism I like to raise. When a person is convicted of sin, he turns to Christ for forgiveness. If he doesn't know for sure Christ took the punishment for his sins, how can he turn to Christ for forgiveness? Wouldn't this lead the poor sinner to the confused state of not knowing whether he can be forgiven or not?

What the Calvinist seems to have to do is convince the sinner that if he is convicted, Christ died for him, which he in reality couldn't know if Calvinism is true, since the sinner is not yet saved.

And further... "Trust in Christ that he died for you." How can I if I don't know he was punished for my sins? Or is it enough to trust that Christ was punished for some sins for me to be saved. I find this being confusing and an inconsistency with Calvinism.

You need to know you are elect before you can know Christ was punished for your sins, and you can't know you are elect until you trust in Jesus being punished for you sins. You see the problem?

I don't know if you remember me trying to reduce the Gospel to the simplest terms the clinical idiot, who has no understanding or conceptual ability the common man has, never saw nor felt anything external, yet God can convict him of the huge moral distance between God and himself, and make him glad that GOD has provided a way to bring him into oneness with God. The things we seem to think we have to reason into being are not what produces faith. It is not a product of emotion, felt need, human knowledge, intellectual integrity, force of will, nor anything else we can do. It is the gift of God, the work of the Holy Spirit that has taken up permanent residence within us. (But, oh! yes, it is done IN us. That we accept it, is beyond question.)