Are we just trying to understand the inconceivable?

GodsGrace101 said:

You're just repeating the question which I've already answered. We were speaking about Luke 8:10.
Read my reply in no. 85 again and MAYBE answer it?
Why do YOU think God spoke in parables? Because He doesn't desire all men to be saved...as you believe?

No. There are too many verses against this idea...
John 3:16
John 12:32


They merit the garment by accepting God's condition: Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. Acts 16:31



God does not predestinate anyone to salvation and thus to hell. He offers each person the possibility to be saved. Foreknowing something does not cause it to happen.



Absolutely. This is what the bible teaches from Genesis on.

Why was the person not dressed properly thrown out of the Wedding Banquet? Because he was not dressed properly...NOT because God just felt like throwing him out for no reason at all, which is what calvinists believe. Incorrectly, of course.




God in His mercy saves some???
No.
God in His mercy saves ALL who DESIRE to be saved.
Praise God I serve a God that is a loving, merciful and just God.

You, OTOH, serve a whimsical God, or might I say, you server a person named Calvin, that changed the nature of the one true and Almighty and Sovereign God.

To whom calvinists give very little respect in changing His nature after 1,500 years of Christian theology.





Don't know where you got this idea.

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No my point with Luke 8:10 was to show Jesus opened some ears and not others. He calls some His sheep and others He calls not His sheep. See John 10.

GodsGrace101 said:

Knowing the future does not cause it to happen.

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Did the Sanhedrin and Pilate choose to act according to their nature when condemning Jesus? Or did God predestine the events which condemned Jesus?

Put simply? Was there any doubt things would unfold according to the Will and Purpose of God?

GodsGrace101 said:

Knowing the future does not cause it to happen.

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No, but knowing the future does rule out all the alternatives but one, which means that it rules out libertarian free will.

GodsGrace101 said:

Would you agree that the reformed Church follows the teachings of the Institutes of Calvin?

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No, I would not agree. The defining documents of the Reformed churches, apart from the Bible itself, are the Belgic Confession, the Westminster Confession, and the Canons of Dordt. On top of that framework, a number of theological books have been written.

redleghunter said:

No my point with Luke 8:10 was to show Jesus opened some ears and not others. He calls some His sheep and others He calls not His sheep. See John 10.

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Of course....I explained why He spoke in parables,,,it was not because He opened only Some ears....I even posted scripture showing that God would desire all to be saved.

And of course some are His sheep and some are not.
No mystery there.

redleghunter said:

Did the Sanhedrin and Pilate choose to act according to their nature when condemning Jesus? Or did God predestine the events which condemned Jesus?

Put simply? Was there any doubt things would unfold according to the Will and Purpose of God?

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I replied to this.
I even mentioned Mary....
God will have His way in the end, this does not take away from our free will.

Radagast said:

No, but knowing the future does rule out all the alternatives but one, which means that it rules out libertarian free will.



No, I would not agree. The defining documents of the Reformed churches, apart from the Bible itself, are the Belgic Confession, the Westminster Confession, and the Canons of Dordt. On top of that framework, a number of theological books have been written.

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Thus the many different beliefs...
I agree, of course.

I disagree with your first paragraph.
Knowledge and predestination are different,,,,one does not cause and one does.

GodsGrace101 said:

Knowledge and predestination are different,,,,one does not cause and one does.

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But they both rule out any future alternative except one. Hence they are both incompatible with libertarian free will.

If God foresaw me eating a steak tonight, then I can't possibly do anything except eat steak. I cannot choose to eat chicken.

redleghunter said:

You completely ignored his references to the bondage of the will. Now brushing off that you are completely ignoring the works of your own church doctor St Augustine.

If you don’t want to get knee deep in the details then don’t bother doing a drive by assertion which will evoke a response.


Then again...


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Evoking a response

JohnB445 said:

Some things are mysteries that we may not fully understand or know.

The Arminianism vs Calvinism thing.

God can at the same time give us free will, along with knowing in the end what we are going to do with it and where we will end up. I don't think God can be surprised or takes in knowledge passively. Since he is eternal, he also exists outside of time.

Could we be predestined? Maybe, who knows. What's the benefit of trying to understand God's decree anyways?

Although its interesting to see both theological views, does it produce any fruit is it worth going into?

A quote I found "I sometimes think it would be more profitable to just read the Bible and thank the Lord Jesus for saving us than try to figure it all out."
"Such a faith is preferable. People who try to be overly intellectual about the Bible sacrifice the mystery of the union with God to the reaches of their intellect."

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So, the thing is, there is a lot more to Calvinism, and also to Arminianism, than pre-destination or the lack thereof. Actually, a lot of people declare themselves to be Arminian without a real understanding of the beliefs of Arminius and the Remonstrants, which are different from the beliefs of the Eastern Orthodox, the Roman Catholics, the Lutherans, the Methodists, most Anglicans, and most other non-Calvinist churches.

Now, I think your post raises a valid point that all non-Calvinists would agree on, that being that God gives us free will, but since He knows all things, He knows how we will use that free will.

Now, why does all of this matter? As a former Calvinist, who has since embraced the Patristic soteriological framework of the Eastern churches, and gained an extreme respect for John Wesley, I think a debate on Calvinism can be important, because John Calvin introduced some innovations into the Christian faith concerning predestination, which were not shared by the Early Church. He also revived and popularized the error of iconoclasm, and this inspired Puritans and other fanatics in England and elsewhere to destroy many priceless cultural treasures of Christian artwork, and additionally, led to the desecration of tombs wherein persons regarded as saints were kept. As a particularly terrible example, the remains of Thomas Becket, the martyred Archbishop of Canterbury, were removed from his tomb and destroyed, and his tomb was also destroyed. Calvin was complex however; he was not all bad - for example, he believed Christians should partake of the Eucharist every Sunday. Many, indeed I would say most, unpleasant aspects of the Church of Geneva and the government of that city were the responsibility of the city council: they prevented Calvin from having weekly Communion, they ordered Servetus burned at the stake, over Calvin’s objections (Calvin felt he should be executed, but not burned at the stake, and so on).

Furthermore, some of Calvin’s scholarship, when he refrained from hyperbole, in the Institutes, is interesting, and more importantly, more recent Calvinist theologians like Karl Barth have done some truly exceptional work. Some churches which started from a Calvinist premise developed into particularly impressive evangelical churches, for example, the traditional churches in the US descended from the Dutch Reformed Church. Two of the four* greatest televangelists were Calvinist - Rev. Schuller of the Crystal Cathedral, who was from the Dutch Reformed tradition and Dr. James Kennedy of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian church in Fort Lauderdale Florida, both of whom I had the pleasure of seeing in person.

So rather than a polemical, adversarial relationship between Calvinists and non Calvinists, I believe what we need is an ecumenical and friendly relationship. Calvinists do not regard John Calvin as a saint or a model moral figure, so to the extent he erred, and to the extent his Scottish protege John Knox erred, it does not inherently reflect on the Reformed or Presbyterian churches or their members.

* The other two great televangelists were Archbishop Fulton Sheen of the Roman Catholic Church, and the evangelical preacher Rev. Billy Graham, who interestingly enough received a blessing from the Patriarch of Moscow and the Russian Orthodox Church to preach during the Soviet era, as he was the only person who could get into the USSR to preach, before Gorbachev, and Russian Orthodox priests were basically unable to preach, catechize or do anything other than administer the sacraments.