Is Calvinism a heresy?

[zoidar]

I believe in free will, but I don't think it's possible if God can tell the future from before we exist. That means somebody determined our future for us, and we have no say in it.

Yeah, we discussed it.

I don't understand why you think knowing is the same as determining.

 

[atpollard]

I would enjoy a thread, a discussion on the notion/concept of God seeing into the future; God is not like us.

I agree.
Even the CONCEPT of "God seeing the future" is bizarre when applied to a being [the GODHEAD] that exists outside of the temporal limits (4 dimensions of time-space) that HE created for us. What is "past-future" to an unchanging God of ETERNAL NOW?

 

[atpollard]

Yeah, we discussed it.

I don't understand why you think knowing is the same as determining.

Uncaused cause ... if God did not CAUSE it, then SOMETHING ELSE did. (If God did not cause that something else - as God being the FIRST CAUSE, then there exist TWO First Causes (uncaused causes).

• a philosophical example would be God and Satan acting in opposition to one another. This is DUALISM ... TWO gods ... two uncaused causes.
• Christianity is monotheistic because it rejects DUALISM ... only GOD is GOD ... beside Him there is no other.

Therefore, God can ultimately be the only "first cause" ... nothing happens because of anything OUTSIDE of God, rather it happens because God wills/purposes it to happen.

• For God to "look forward and "know" something and act on that knowledge, places the cause outside of God.
• In the case of "God sees who will believe", that makes the decision of man the FIRST CAUSE and God acting on that knowledge a Second cause. Men control God in that scenario ... which is illogical and contra-biblical.

Thus what God KNOWS, God also CAUSED to come to pass.
Romans 8:28-30 [NKJV]
28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to [His] purpose. 29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined [to be] conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

 

[zoidar]

I agree.
Even the CONCEPT of "God seeing the future" is bizarre when applied to a being [the GODHEAD] that exists outside of the temporal limits (4 dimensions of time-space) that HE created for us. What is "past-future" to an unchanging God of ETERNAL NOW?

Exactly, God is not limited to time! That is why God can know the future without looking in time, at the same time as we have libertarian free will.

 

[zoidar]

Uncaused cause ... if God did not CAUSE it, then SOMETHING ELSE did. (If God did not cause that something else - as God being the FIRST CAUSE, then there exist TWO First Causes (uncaused causes).

• a philosophical example would be God and Satan acting in opposition to one another. This is DUALISM ... TWO gods ... two uncaused causes.
• Christianity is monotheistic because it rejects DUALISM ... only GOD is GOD ... beside Him there is no other.

Therefore, God can ultimately be the only "first cause" ... nothing happens because of anything OUTSIDE of God, rather it happens because God wills/purposes it to happen.

• For God to "look forward and "know" something and act on that knowledge, places the cause outside of God.
• In the case of "God sees who will believe", that makes the decision of man the FIRST CAUSE and God acting on that knowledge a Second cause. Men control God in that scenario ... which is illogical and contra-biblical.

Thus what God KNOWS, God also CAUSED to come to pass.
Romans 8:28-30 [NKJV]
28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to [His] purpose. 29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined [to be] conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

Let me ask you this: If God created a duplicate of himself, would the duplicate be the first cause? No, that is not possible, since the duplicate was created. Then does the duplicate have free will? Of course, the duplicate is of the exact same nature as God. It's a simple example how a second cause can have free libertarian will.

 

[bbbbbbb]

I'm glad you touched on assurance as the only assurance for the Arminian comes from their ability to have faith in their faith and their perseverance in that faith whereas those who are truly regenerated by God know that they justly deserve God's wrath and are His children not because of who they are or anything that they do but solely because they are granted the gift of faith to trust Christ alone, in who He is and what He has done for them. This genuine assurance is evidenced by the Holy Spirit within them and manifested in them becoming new creations (2 Cor 5:17) who die daily to self and live in grateful obedience to Him who died and rose again for them.

Rom 8:16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,

A true work of the Spirit involves humbling a person to see their dusthood and clayness before the Potter and submitting to Him in all things. I sincerely hope He humbles you this side of eternity.

One of the problems with both certain forms of Arminianism and Calvinism is possessing an assurance of salvation. Both reject OSAS as it can lead to a false security. For the Calvinist assurance of salvation is contingent upon perseverance. If one produces sufficient (?) works, thus persevering, one is seen to be a genuine Christian. However, if the works are missing or, even worse, there is a consistent pattern of sin, then one's salvation is called into question. What does it take to persevere, according to Calvinism? Many Calvinists end up being "fruit inspectors", determining the probable eternal fate of others.

A classic modern example of this thinking is John MacArthur, who, styling himself as a Reformed Baptist, is quite insistent on works as evidence of salvation and quite insistent that salvation apart from works is no salvation at all.

 

[atpollard]

Let me ask you this: If God created a duplicate of himself, would the duplicate be the first cause? No, that is not possible, since the duplicate was created. Then does the duplicate have free will? Of course, the duplicate is of the exact same nature as God. It's a simple example how a second cause can have free libertarian will.

Can even God create a "married Bachelor"?

The concepts "married" and "bachelor" are mutually exclusive ... one can be one or the other, but not both. The CONCEPT (married bachelor) is self-contradictory and, therefore, cannot exist.

Another version of the same question is "Can God create an object that God cannot lift?"

• If YES, then God is not OMNIPOTENT since he cannot "lift the object".
• If NO, then God is not OMNIPOTENT since there is something that God cannot create.
• Either way, it appears to prove that God is not OMNIPOTENT (one of the defining attributes of God).
• What it really proves is that an "object that God cannot lift" is something that cannot exist. God cannot be untrue to His nature by creating what cannot exist. Everything that can and does exist has its origin in God (creator and sustainer of our reality - time and space ... see John 1).

So God cannot "create" an "uncreated creator" ... the act of being created means that the CREATION is not its own FIRST CAUSE.
In simple terms ... Sorry, but no matter how bad people want it, we are not our own Gods.

• We react to God, God does not react to us.
• We are the EFFECT, God is the CAUSE.

Want proof, then create something (anything) from nothing. I will settle for a thought. Create a thought that expresses an idea that comes from no prior inspiration or cause.

 

[QvQ]

I can only say: "Wow!"

That isn't what I said.
I mostly said, Strange..and what was that all about?

I mention it because at that point, I seem to have a choice, a definite crossroad I can't think of any other "choice" that isn't mixed up in everything else and within a chain of events, caused.

 

[zoidar]

That isn't what I said.
I mostly said, Strange..and what was that all about?

I mention it because at that point, I seem to have a choice, a definite crossroad I can't think of any other "choice" that isn't mixed up in everything else and within a chain of events, caused.

"The case for Jesus, for me who had been taught it is a fairy tale, is that no one could have made that story up. Christians are so used to that story they have, through familiarity, lost the awareness of how absolutely unique Jesus was. There was never anyone like that before or after in historical fact or fiction.
It is not within the power of man to create that epic. It is too unique and unusual. Nothing seen in the world before or since.
I also know the truth of it intuitively. You can know it in your bones that story is true."

This is the part i "wowed". I understand the experience you had of no existence of God, being a source of confusion. What do you think about this experience today?

 

[zoidar]

Can even God create a "married Bachelor"?

The concepts "married" and "bachelor" are mutually exclusive ... one can be one or the other, but not both. The CONCEPT (married bachelor) is self-contradictory and, therefore, cannot exist.

Another version of the same question is "Can God create an object that God cannot lift?"

• If YES, then God is not OMNIPOTENT since he cannot "lift the object".
• If NO, then God is not OMNIPOTENT since there is something that God cannot create.
• Either way, it appears to prove that God is not OMNIPOTENT (one of the defining attributes of God).
• What it really proves is that an "object that God cannot lift" is something that cannot exist. God cannot be untrue to His nature by creating what cannot exist. Everything that can and does exist has its origin in God (creator and sustainer of our reality - time and space ... see John 1).

So God cannot "create" an "uncreated creator" ... the act of being created means that the CREATION is not its own FIRST CAUSE.
In simple terms ... Sorry, but no matter how bad people want it, we are not our own Gods.

Of course God can't create something uncreated. Do you believe for God to make completely free choices He needs to be uncreated? If so what do you base that on?

• We react to God, God does not react to us.
• We are the EFFECT, God is the CAUSE.

Proof?

Want proof, then create something (anything) from nothing. I will settle for a thought. Create a thought that expresses an idea that comes from no prior inspiration or cause.

I can move my hand without any prior inspiration or cause.

 

[atpollard]

I can move my hand without any prior inspiration or cause.

You have set the bar for “libertine free will” much lower than I am accustomed to encountering it set. Yes, you have the ability to move your hand … you are not an automaton.

You cannot make a choice free from all outside influences. Even the choice of what to eat for breakfast with that hand was determined by prior choices (what did you buy) and experiences beyond your control (what culture did you grow up in and what prior events have left an impact) and biological forces predetermined at your conception (genetic predispositions towards and against certain flavors and textures). Your choice of breakfast is not ”free” in the LIBERTINE sense of the term, so how much less is the flesh, slave to a fallen world, not free to choose things of the Spirit?

 

[QvQ]

I can move my hand without any prior inspiration or cause.

Even a random motion would presuppose a hand (caused) and the ability to move the hand (caused)

 

[zoidar]

Even a random motion would presuppose a hand (caused) and the ability to move the hand (caused)

Yeah, but caused by what?

 

[zoidar]

You have set the bar for “libertine free will” much lower than I am accustomed to encountering it set. Yes, you have the ability to move your hand … you are not an automaton.

You cannot make a choice free from all outside influences. Even the choice of what to eat for breakfast with that hand was determined by prior choices (what did you buy) and experiences beyond your control (what culture did you grow up in and what prior events have left an impact) and biological forces predetermined at your conception (genetic predispositions towards and against certain flavors and textures). Your choice of breakfast is not ”free” in the LIBERTINE sense of the term, so how much less is the flesh, slave to a fallen world, not free to choose things of the Spirit?

Nobody is completely free. That is not my argument, but that we are libertarian free to choose within the range of possible options. You are saying there is only one possible option, and I very much disagree. You mention all these different factors that influence your choice. Sure they do, but they do not choose for you. By libertarian free will you choose what to do with the influences you got. You say you can't make a choice free from outside influences. That is true. But neither are you bound to make a specific choice because of outside influences.

 

[QvQ]

Yeah, but caused by what?

A hand, even in spastic motion, is caused to move by nerve impulses through bone and muscle. A hand that does not have nerve impulses could not move although it could flap but then the flapping would be caused by lack or damage to nerves and muscles.
It may not be evident to you that the "command" Move was given to the hand by the brain but the command originates in the brain which caused the hand to move. A hand can move in response to any sort of stimuli. Hands move a lot in response to stimuli that is not particularly evident to you. If you move the hand voluntarily, then you are of course the cause. The stimuli might be a fly or just a necessary change of position for circulatory or muscular reasons.
You are in very little control of your own body. IT mostly functions according to design and stimuli, without any conscious awareness by you.

 

[zoidar]

If you move the hand voluntarily, then you are of course the cause.

Yes, and what is the cause? I say, the cause is my choice. And that choice I say is libertarian free. That is also our experience.

 

[QvQ]

Yes, and what is the cause? I say, the cause is my choice. And that choice I say is libertarian free. That is also our experience.

I see. So if I asked, Why did you move your hand? That would be the answer, my choice, not because you were intending to write something and wanted to pick up a pencil.

But then again, it is part of a sequence if you were doing it to prove you could move your hand as a demonstration of your choice. I mean, to prove single cause being a libertarian free will....except that is the cause. Proving the point.

This is getting to be fun, An A priori that is its own a priori perhaps or is it circular a priori?

 

[atpollard]

But neither are you bound to make a specific choice because of outside influences.

There is a Humanistic school of philosophy (related to psychology) that argues that all actions are the result of a series of deterministic causes [they leave God out of it]. They posit that if one could KNOW ALL the facts, one could perfectly predict the choice that you would make. Nothing is random. (Chaos theory)

At its most advanced, it goes beyond me. I merely note that it exists as a SECULAR philosophy as well as a THEOLOGICAL belief. For me, God is either sovereign or He is not … and a God that is not in control makes the Bible false and theology a farce. God is God, or God is not. What exists that is outside of God’s control? (Either “nothing” or “everything”.)

It really comes down to the very DEFINITION of “god”. I do not believe in a “god” that can be bribed or controlled or that wrings its hands waiting for people to do something. I believe in a God that is the creator and sustainer of all that is and Who works ALL THINGS according to the good pleasure of His Will. God does not ASK, He TELLS. God does not TRY, He DOES. We exert the same control over God that the clay exerts over the POTTER … none. The Potter CAUSES and the clay responds.

 

[atpollard]

That is not my argument, but that we are libertarian free to choose within the range of possible options.

Ephesians 2:1-4

What are the range of options from which we are innately free to choose?

 

[Derf]

Mark Quayle said:
Answer the question, "If God is THE First Cause, and Omniscient and, of course, Omnipotent, how is it even possible that something could come to pass apart from his decreeing it to be so?"

Why does the question of "if no one else ever gets to make a decision" come up? Nobody is saying that nobody else but God decides.

But you are saying that everybody's decisions except for God's are detrmined by God, right? So in effect God makes all the decisions. Can anyone go against a decree of God?

I expect this is where you got that idea: "Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass, upon all supposed conditions; yet hath He not decreed any thing because He foresaw it as future, as that which would come to pass, upon such conditions." It is not saying that the only way he foresees is by causing, but that his decree (and I will add, 'his causing') is not dependent on his ability to see the future.

Yes, that's the correct reference. And yes, it's not based on His ability to see the future, but it doesn't offer any other option than that He knows because He causes, when you take your citation within the greater context.

I would enjoy a thread, a discussion on the notion/concept of God seeing into the future; God is not like us.

Notice you say, "...if we... reflect on it,". The "we" there does not include the Reformed, nor the Calvinists, nor others of that sort.

Yes, that was an exclusive "we".

As I have said before, you have a completely different worldview, that I call self-determinism, that does not consider that God is a completely different order of being, self-existent, which necessarily implies a different reality from what we know and deal with here. It is FROM him that we, and time, and all the other principles to which we are subject, come. HE is the default fact. He is not subject to our 'reality'.

Sure, but He made us to be facts in His reality. But if I were to create something that had its own will, and I commanded it to do something, it NOT doing that something would be the opposite of my decree. If doing the opposite is what I wanted, then my command would be duplicitous, and my creature would learn that to do the opposite of my command is really what I want from it--and my creature would be correct, in at least some instances. But not in others. Therefore my creature would have no idea how to please me, even if it wanted to and had the power to. Duplicity is the same kind of thing as "a kingdom divided against itself" that cannot stand. It's weird to me that Jesus would attribute wisdom to Satan that He wouldn't use Himself.

God glorifies himself. What is man, that God should gain glory by man's admiration?

It doesn't matter if God expects man to glorify Him.

God gains his glory by his use of man. (No, I'm not saying man should not glorify God, nor even that it is meaningless to God.) Likewise, how can man's praise of God be of any value to God, apart from God doing it in man.

Not true...there's no glory in a robot's praising, only a weird creepiness.

If man, apart from God, praises God, he has done nothing. His words are useless, and he is unable to describe God. Only God can do it in him, to any worthy degree. "Apart from me, you can do nothing."

Context shows clearly that Jesus wasn't talking about everybody and every thing in that statement. He's talking about the things the apostles would be doing for Him, that they needed to abide in Him to "bear much fruit". That obviously eliminates anyone who isn't trusting in Christ, and does not include...wait for it...NOT ABIDING IN HIM. Why do you apply it to everybody and everything, including sin?

The problem with the idea of a God who created a world where he doesn't know the future exhaustively is simple contradiction of omnipotence and omniscience.

Why?

But you're not the first who attempts to say it is no contradiction if he doesn't know what hasn't happened yet.

Nor the last, I expect.

But logically, it is impossible for First Cause "with intent" —i.e. God— from whom all fact logically descends via causation, to make anything uncaused. (It is self-contradictory to say that he can cause something he does not cause).

Yes, that's why we introduce subsidiary first causes. In other words, God made us to be able to cause things in our own right. In other words, we have freedom to choose right or wrong, good or bad, life or death, yes or no, travel or stay home, vanilla or chocolate. And doing so alters the following scenarios. But such altering is not outside of God's power to accomplish HIS plans.

Now if one says he can cause the thing, and so it is caused, but that he didn't know about it, or if he did, that he is unaware of its effects, then you are not only heretically ruling out omniscience and omnipotence, but you are engaging in circular reasoning: You are merely claiming something is valid by attempting to make a definition for it. The Open Theist does this, by saying it is not that God doesn't know some things. It is just that they are not yet things because they haven't happened yet. But the Open Theist does not know that he has invented a principle over which God is not sovereign.

I guess it depends on your definition of sovereignty.

Thus, his claim makes God not First Cause, after all, but just Main Cause. And so do you.

No, First Cause still works. But it doesn't mean no one else can cause something God doesn't want. Definitions again.

Does God mean what he says, when he claims omniscience?

Would you like to quote a verse where He claims it?

Does God mean what he says when he claims omnipotence? Do you believe he is those things? Because if god is less than Omnipotent, he is not God.

Based on which definition of "God"? Is it one from the bible?

Hezekiah's illness is no better an example than God's message to Ninevah through Jonah, nor any of several other such examples.

Actually it's a much better example.

It seems to me you don't want to find a way to understand them contrary to your notions of God's impotence.

I could say the same for you.

There are (at least) two kinds of prophecy found in Scripture. One is warning —telling what will happen if— and the other is foretelling what WILL Happen.

There are no "ifs" in your view of God.

But what was the "if" condition for Hezekiah, and how did he know? (The Ninevites knew they were being bad and needed to repent in sackcloth and ashes.) Was it merely to pray for something different than was prophesied? David did that, in sincerity like Hezekiah, and in humility like the Ninevites, but it wasn't good enough. And David wasn't being near as selfish as Hezekiah.

2 Samuel 12:14 KJV — Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die.
(compare with:
Isaiah 38:1 KJV — In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came unto him, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live.)


2 Samuel 12:16 KJV — David therefore besought God for the child; and David fasted, and went in, and lay all night upon the earth.
(compare:
Isaiah 38:2 KJV — Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed unto the LORD,)

2 Samuel 12:22 KJV — And he said, While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept: for I said, Who can tell whether GOD will be gracious to me, that the child may live?

David was an open theist.
So was Hezekiah.

The only way you can know which prophecies are warnings vs which are foretelling is how? That the warnings don't come to pass? You realize that's circular, right? Essentially that means that any time there's a prophecy you don't like, you have to assume it's a warning and pray for mercy...in other words, you have to act like an open theist.