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From all I have written I think you are making a strange conclusion from my post. No, both believers and unbelievers get the get-out-of-jail-free-card, but unbelievers refuse to use it.
Sorry brother but that doesn’t make sense. Maybe unpack it a bit?
Discipline and authority can be really tough nuts to crack. Without a willing social group, they become meaningless, whether in religion or in other areas of human life. Witness the various political revolutions that have occurred over time. Tyrants can only maintain their power and authority using brute force, which ultimately results in enormous fear and resentment among the populace which generally results in a regime change which, sadly, often creates a worse situation than the original one (e.g. various nations in South America).
It seems to me that there is a deeply rooted psychological need for stability, which includes routines, both in life and in religion. This has various manifestations, as in the seven-day week with one day set aside for rest. Ritualism also plays into this need. In the past, the need for religious ritualism within Protestantism was not adequately met by its relatively cerebral services. One of the results was the development of Freemasonry which was initially quite popular across the religious spectrum, but was condemned both by Catholics and Lutherans who seemed threatened both by its religious content and its elaborate ritual. Now that Freemasonry is in a death spiral, other forms of ritualism are being tapped.
I pointed to Jesus' authority. When people said things like, "This man speaks with authority," do you think they were saying, "This man is a tyrant"? Authority and tyranny are not the same thing. Similarly, "central" authority and authority are not the same thing. So making points about tyrants or centralized authority doesn't have any bearing on my points about Luther and Protestantism.
True.
'Causal determinism' was around long before calvin.
I don't know if this will help:
Do you hold that Calvinists are heretics? How about monergists in general?
And I asked you if you consider Calvinists or monergists in general to be heretics. I do not so your post makes no sense to me, hence, why I asked you to unpack it. A question is not unpacking your post.
I am unpacking what I've said by pointing to what has already been said, because you don't seem to understand what follows from what has already been said. For example, if you admit that, "Double predestination is seen by most Christians as a serious heresy," and you nevertheless wish to maintain your claim that all Christians worship the same God, then we must ask whether you hold that Christians and heretics worship the same God.* If you do not hold such a thing, then you must either abandon your claim that all Christians worship the same God, or else you must claim that heretics such as double-predestinarians are not Christians at all, and therefore they do not count.
I see your point. In fact I misread your post and didn’t catch the heretic part. That’s my bad and why it was not making any sense to me. I am changing my answer since I don’t not agree that folks that believe in double predestination are heretics. To me they are just simply wrong. I don’t believe in it and the reason that, although being primarily reformed, I am not a full blown Calvinist.
Okay, well I'm glad we got a little bit of traction, and I'm glad you at least agree that double predestination is incorrect.
I critique your denomination and in return you claim that denominational differences just don't matter (and therefore the critique can't matter). The reason I spoke about heresy is because a heresy is by definition a religious belief that does matter. There are, by definition, "brownie points" for avoiding heresies. Of course a contemporary Christian—especially given the influence of classical liberalism—may try to claim that there are no heresies, but usually such an approach is not tenable. Note too that for the original Reformers beliefs and heresies mattered very much. Even you seem to care about beliefs at least to the extent that you reject the doctrine of double predestination as "wrong" (if not heretical).
I think Calvinism is a heresy, and probably "monergism" too given the way I assume you mean the word. To accept Protestant "monergism" while rejecting universal salvation leads to this same problem of limited atonement, and this in turn leads to an arbitrary God who is, in my opinion, foreign to authentic Christianity (and Judaism).
So you believe that Christians outside of the Catholic Church cannot be saved?
But then anyone that is reformed or a Calvinist is a heretic so no chance for salvation, right? Or do you believe that heretics can be saved?
Seriously? Is this a new reinforced position you're taking now, or have you always been sliding that judgment by in silence all of these years?Curiously, it seems to be the current tone emanating from the Vatican where Protestants are being called members of "ecclesial communities" and are being told that they can be saved, even though the Catholic Church alone contains "the fullness of salvation". What is not being said is the historic message that "there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church". Some would choose to imagine some form of mystical connection with the Catholic Church through baptism so that others, who do not consciously reject Catholicism might be saved. The reality is that unless Protestants, and other heathen, disown their belief system and embrace Catholicism, they will not be saved. That means that Protestants and every one else can be saved, but only if they convert to Catholicism.
