Calvinist Robots

Rick Otto · Feb 23, 2009

chestertonrules said:
The are many troubled minds among Catholics.

However, we don't base our faith on their ideas!

No, but you subject your beliefs to their approval.

chestertonrules · Feb 23, 2009

Rick Otto said:
No, but you subject your beliefs to their approval.

Absolutely not.

Our beliefs are founded on the bible, tradition, and teachings of the Church.

The Catholic Church is not founded on the ideas of any single man. It is founded on the revelation of God as revealed to the apostles and passed on to their successors.

LamorakDesGalis · Feb 23, 2009

chestertonrules said:
These guys don't sound like the Calvinists here on GT!

Then I hope you realize why I say you do NOT understand Calvinism. The quotes come from well respected writers in the Reformed tradition. No one will deny that the Hodges and Kuiper are NOT Calvinists.

Calvinism is NOT one dimensional as some people would like to make it.

Online, polemical debates always tend to polarize instead of leading to understanding. Hence, the polarizing in this thread and others in GT. What a mess - fun for some, but a confusing morass for everyone else.

LDG

chestertonrules · Feb 23, 2009

LamorakDesGalis said:
Then I hope you realize why I say you do NOT understand Calvinism. The quotes come from well respected writers in the Reformed tradition. No one will deny that the Hodges and Kuiper are NOT Calvinists.

Calvinism is NOT one dimensional as some people would like to make it.

Online, polemical debates always tend to polarize instead of leading to understanding. Hence, the polarizing in this thread and others in GT. What a mess - fun for some, but a confusing morass for everyone else.

LDG

There are multiple kinds of Calvinism. My problems are with the traditional 5 points Calvinism.

As you can see from these boards, there are many who defend the most extreme positions.

These views are damaging and should be exposed and refuted.

I would think you would be on my side for this!

Rick Otto · Feb 23, 2009

chestertonrules said:
There are multiple kinds of Calvinism. My problems are with the traditional 5 points Calvinism.

As you can see from these boards, there are many who defend the most extreme positions.

These views are damaging and should be exposed and refuted.

I would think you would be on my side for this!

You're trying to to the right thing to the wrong people.
Clean up your own backyard.

chestertonrules · Feb 23, 2009

Rick Otto said:
You're trying to to the right thing to the wrong people.
Clean up your own backyard.

My back yard is pristine. The gates of hell will not prevail against it!

I built my house on the Rock!

squint · Feb 23, 2009

Rick Otto said:
No, but you subject your beliefs to their approval.

And if not qualified and specifically charged to do so by that authority, should rightfully keep silent.

squint · Feb 23, 2009

chestertonrules said:
The are many troubled minds among Catholics.

And the congregation said _ _ _ _!

jckstraw72 · Feb 23, 2009

If he died for all, why are not all saved? Isn't the power of the blood of Christ enough to cover the sins of the whole world right?

not all are saved bc not all want to be saved. God doesn't desire forced love and repentance, since that isnt love and repentance.

PETE_ · Feb 23, 2009

jckstraw72 said:
not all are saved bc not all want to be saved. God doesn't desire forced love and repentance, since that isnt love and repentance.

Calvinist do not teach that God forces love and repentance

Albion · Feb 23, 2009

The reason men want to believe they have complete freewill is because of sinful pride.

We mortals need to feel that we have the final control over our lives. Although we talk as though we defer to God, we actually want to retain the final determination, saying that God has delegated his judgment to us, allowing us to save or damn ourselves. We won't accept that there is anything we can't understand, and we can't accept that we don't control everything--given enough time and effort to work on it. This was Adam's sin, if you remember.

But when we finally accept God as the supreme being and not as some celestial scorekeeper or "facilitator," when we stop trying to make him into our own idea of how a divine being ought to operate, we come to the ultimate understanding that He is in charge of all things, our eternal destinies included.

Then we know peace and joy in him, relieved from forever worrying if we've done enough to save ourselves or even if we know how much is needed.

Freewill is a theory not unlike the Ptolemaic view of the Universe, full of unexplainable processes and numerous contradictions that have to be fixed with patches that are exceptions to the theory's own rule. Otherwise it doesn't work. And it provides no idea at all about how to use that supposed freewill in order to earn salvation. It's a general statement with no coherent parts.

Believing the Bible's teachings on Election, however, does away with that view of life in which we stumble around in the dark for a lifetime, trying to do good, hoping that the bad doesn't outweigh it, hoping that what is done is acceptable to God as being good enough,and never knowing what actually counts. God's eternal plan of Predestining men to salvation despite their inherent unworthiness is mercy indeed! What's more, this eternal design not only liberates us from this confused freewill treadmill that doesn't go anywhere that we can depend upon, but it's also consistent with everything we know of God--his mercy, his justice AND his sovereignty. For what kind of sovereignty is there if everything is undecided and uncertain in his universe as it relates to the work of his divine Son?

Then it is that we live for God instead of for ourselves, no longer trying to scratch out salvation but not knowing how to accomplish it.

We no longer think we might be able to curry God's eternal favor by way of doing little deeds we hope he likes enough to admit us to heaven. We have learned to "let God be God."

jckstraw72 · Feb 23, 2009

Calvinist do not teach that God forces love and repentance

then what does it teach?

Thekla · Feb 23, 2009

Do adherents of predestination feel comfortable with the EO teaching that we cannot fully "understand" God, and the resultant comfort with "mystery", "ineffable", "unknowable in His essence" ?

Albion · Feb 23, 2009

Thekla said:
Do adherents of predestination feel comfortable with the EO teaching that we cannot fully "understand" God, and the resultant comfort with "mystery", "ineffable", "unknowable in His essence" ?

I believe that there's something to that. Predestination, as I was saying, lets God be God, and trusts God, instead of us playing God all the time without admitting it. What's more we obey and do his will merely because it's right to do, not because a certain amount of it will, hopefully, buy us something from him. All those who think that Predestinarian Christians "can do whatever they want since it's all been decided and it can't be changed" actually have it 100% backwards.

You'd call some of that a mystery better left undefined (in contrast to the hyper-scholastic way that Roman Catholicism wants to define everything imaginable). Sure, I can see your point.

PETE_ · Feb 23, 2009

jckstraw72 said:
then what does it teach?

Spurgeon states it better that I

There is no opposition between the doctrine of irresistible grace and the fact of the free agency of man. How, say you, if man be thus irresistibly carried as by storm, how can he be free? Bethink thyself, man, and answer for thyself. Wert thou never overcome in argument? Didst thou never resist an argument for a time, till at last another reason was given, and then another, and thou couldst not but yield to the overwhelming arguments? Didst thou then prove that thou hadst no reason of thine own? Nay, it proved thou hadst a reason, and therefore could be mastered by arguments fitted to thy reason. If thou hadst been bereft of reason-an idiot-nobody could have spoken of an irresistible argument so far as thou wert concerned, but thy powers of understanding enabled thee to be overcome by legitimate force. So with the will-we do not dream, as some falsely imagine, that physical force is used by the Lord with mens moral natures, but we teach that there are appeals and persuasions, arguments and forces, which are applicable to the will which, without violating its freedom even in the smallest degree, yet overwhelm it and subdue it to the right and the true, so that the man with full consent yields up himself to the full power of divine love.
Spurgeon, Charles H.: Spurgeon's Sermons: Volume 14.

Thekla · Feb 23, 2009

Albion said:
I believe that there's something to that. Predestination, as I was saying, lets God be God, and trusts God, instead of us playing God all the time without admitting it. What's more we obey and do his will merely because it's right to do, not because a certain amount of it will, hopefully, buy us something from him. All those who think that Predestinarian Christians "can do whatever they want since it's all been decided and it can't be changed" actually have it 100% backwards.

You'd call some of that a mystery better left undefined (in contrast to the hyper-scholastic way that Roman Catholicism wants to define everything imaginable). Sure, I can see your point.

So maybe there are at least some points where we can find a common language

So, perhaps, EO ascetic praxis can be understood (in light of your description of 'doing') not as 'works', but as a struggle against the passions, etc. to open us more to hearing Him ?

jckstraw72 · Feb 23, 2009

so some Calvinists believe in free will and some don't then? cause i have definitely talked to many who dont believe in free will.

and Spurgeon's example of a really strong argument that eventually wins you over isnt actually irresistible. someone could still resist if they wanted to, even if they recognized how sound the argument is. happens all the time. if its truly irresistible then man has no freedom.

Albion · Feb 23, 2009

jckstraw72 said:
so some Calvinists believe in free will and some don't then? cause i have definitely talked to many who dont believe in free will.

No. There are variations and different schools of thought within Reformed theology, but none are freewill.

and Spurgeon's example of a really strong argument that eventually wins you over isnt actually irresistible. someone could still resist if they wanted to, even if they recognized how sound the argument is. happens all the time. if its truly irresistible then man has no freedom.

Are you sure they can?

jckstraw72 · Feb 23, 2009

Are you sure they can?

sure. either Peter or Paul in Acts tells the Jews that they resist the Spirit just as did their fathers, and Christ would have gathered them under his wing but they were unwilling.

Tzaousios · Feb 23, 2009

jckstraw72 said:
so some Calvinists believe in free will and some don't then? cause i have definitely talked to many who dont believe in free will.

and Spurgeon's example of a really strong argument that eventually wins you over isnt actually irresistible. someone could still resist if they wanted to, even if they recognized how sound the argument is. happens all the time. if its truly irresistible then man has no freedom.

The Calvinist notion of the human will is predicated on an entirely different set of philosophical and theological paradigms than Eastern Orthodoxy. Their concept of the will comes from Augustine, who had departed from the general patristic understanding, and from later Reformation and post-Reformation thinkers. They read passages in Scripture that imply that humans have choices in spiritual matters based on this assumption.

They think that the will is only "free" in that it can choose and act based on its desire, which for the unregenerate is according to the sinful nature. The unregenerate can only choose to sin until grace transforms and frees the will from the bondage of the sin nature.

The Orthodox understanding of the human will, from what I can tell, comes from a combination of the Platonic/Neoplatonic view and a literal reading of passages where a choice is implied in the Bible. What I mean by the "Platonic/Neoplatonic view" is that an intelligent, rational human can ultimately exercise a choice between options based on knowledge and previous experience.

Calvinist Robots

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