Calvinists, why are you Calvinist?

twin1954 said:

Doesn't look like many things to me.

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We must not confuse how God uses all things with God being responsible for all things. God allows sin and evil but it would be blasphemous to proclaim that He is the cause of sin and evil. Therefore He has NOT ordained and decreed all things. That is false doctrine.

The one time an Arminian doesn't believe "all means all, all the time!"

Hahahahahahahha

Your libertarian view is contrary to scripture but completely consistent with humanism and freewill works religion.

Hahahahahahahha

Job8 said:

If you change "all things" to "many things" then that is God's truth. If you insist on "all things" then that is delusion. Satan would love to think that people hold God responsible for all the Devil's evil deeds.

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Was God good when He sent Satan to murder Job's children, have Job's goods plundered, and afflict Job with an illness that made him curse the day he was born?

Job8 said:

We must not confuse how God uses all things with God being responsible for all things. God allows sin and evil but it would be blasphemous to proclaim that He is the cause of sin and evil. Therefore He has NOT ordained and decreed all things. That is false doctrine.

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Now we have one who claims to believe the Bible not believing something that is clear and unmistakable written in the Bible because it shoots down his theology. And he claims we are false.

Leevo said:

Free will is all over scripture! Reread your Bible! Faith is not a work!

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Freewill is sin.

I already posted that faith is a gift of God. Plz reread this thread.

See also the impassibility of God

Leevo said:

Free will is all over scripture! Reread your Bible! Faith is not a work!

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You are correct that faith is not a work according to the Scriptures. But according to the Aminian understanding of the Scriptures it must be there is no other logical conclusion.

Yes man has a will that has never been denied but whether that will is actually free is the question. Man's will is subject and bound by his nature. Man's nature since the Fall is sin. We are not sinners because we sin we sin because we are sinners. The Bible is very clear on the nature of man and I could give you many passages that show that. So then if man is bound by his sinful nature how is it that he goes outside of his nature in a libertarian free way to choose something he neither wants or thinks he needs?

Leevo said:

Freewill was given to Adam and Eve by God, they used it to disobey God and cause the Fall of Man. Or do you believe that God wanted man to fall and be tainted? He didn't really mean when what it says when it says "and he saw that it was good."

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That's a good example of freewill being sin, thanks.

JM said:

That's a good example of freewill being sin, thanks.

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The greatest monument to the free will of man is the Son of God hanging on a cross. That is what man does to God when he gets his will.

Leevo said:

God grants him prevenient grace...

From Wikipedia "The United Methodist Book of Discipline (2004) defines prevenient grace as "...the divine love that surrounds all humanity and precedes any and all of our conscious impulses. This grace prompts our first wish to please God, our first glimmer of understanding concerning God's will, and our 'first slight transient conviction' of having sinned against God. God's grace also awakens in us an earnest longing for deliverance from sin and death and moves us toward repentance and faith."

Faith comes by hearing, we cannot go outside of our nature until the gospel is preached unto us.

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The problem with that is that it is a concept developed by Charles Wesley in order to combat the claims against his theology and his Pelagianism. He also preached and taught perfectionism and the modern Holiness movement came out of it. Prevenient grace is not a part of Classical Arminian theology. That kind of prevenient grace cannot be backed up by the Scriptures.

Leevo said:

Freewill can be used to sin, but freewill in and of itself is not a sin.

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Brother, and I do believe you are a brother, we are suppose to be doing the will of our heavenly Father. Jesus set that example. When we are not, we are using freewill and freewill leads to sin. That's all I meant.

JM said:

Not a problem at all. The


If we disagree I can live with that. I would say that it really isn't a problem, my interpretation of the passage in question. It was foretold that Christ must come as a suffering servant, be rejected and suffer all that humanity has suffered. Christ lived a perfect life because He experienced life the way we do. That wasn't a freewill option. Just as Pharoh was raised up with a purpose so were the unbelievers that persecuted Christ and now persecute us.

“We must always remember that the Lord sees us wrestling with the Enemy, and so we must never be afraid. Even should all hell fall upon us, we must be brave.”

Yours in the Lord,

jm

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This interpretation that "Jerusalem" makes reference to the Pharisee's preventing Jesus from gathering the Jews is really weak and severely problematic. James White makes this argument based on John Gill. I haven't seen it anywhere else except where it is repeated by some Calvinists. Here is a post that addresses just a few of the problems with this extremely strained interpretation: https://arminianperspectives.wordpr...ll-an-exegetical-vindication-of-matthew-2337/

twin1954 said:

No that isn't what I said at all. You are putting words in my mouth. What I said, and which follows logically, is that if God loves all men without exception then His love is a meaningless and worthless emotion for most of those He loves will never be saved.

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Because you say so?

It actually destroys the love of God and robs Him of the power of His love to do for His loved ones what He desires for them.

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This is just another assertion on your part. How do you know that God's desire is to cause those who hate Him to love Him irresistibly? If that is not God's desire, then none of this follows.

God's wondrous love is backed by His infinite wisdom and power so that He can and does accomplish what He desires for His loved ones.

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And if God desires for His creatures to freely love Him, then His desire cannot be met by irresistibly causing His creatures to love Him, right?

So again, you are essentially claiming that unless God loves in an irresistible manner, it has no value. And you are begging the question in assuming that God can only desire to love His creatures in an irresistible manner. And once again, you are placing the value of God's love in the hands of the creature who either accepts or rejects that love, which sounds extremely "man centered" to me. I am saying that God's love has infinite value regardless of whether man accepts or rejects it. Your comments suggest that this cannot be the case, that the value of His love is dependent on whether or not it is accepted or rejected. And yet you say I am the one with a low view of God (below).

This is nonsense of course. What happens to His love at judgment? If He loves those who end up in everlasting damnation what good was His love to them?

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That depends on what you mean here by "good." It was good for them in the sense that God made it possible for them to freely respond to that love and experience it in such a way as to escape judgment. If it was no good for them, that is only because they refused it. It says nothing about the value of God's love itself.

Suppose someone gets fired from his job because of unethical behavior and as a result cannot pay his mortgage. Someone who loves him, out of love and compassion and a desire to see him remain in his house, offers to pay his mortgage until he can find another job. He refuses refuse the offer (for whatever reason). Does this mean that the one who offered him the gift did not genuinely desire for him to accept the gift? Does it mean the person's love him "failed" and had no value? It didn't do him any good (as far as attaining the desired results), but that is only because he refused it. His refusing it has no impact on the value or nature of the gift or the love and desire behind the gift.

It made no difference at all and makes God to be the most frustrated being to ever exist. You have a very low view of God's love.

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Let me point out here just how philosophical this argument is. It is certainly OK to make philosophical arguments, but this needs to pointed out because so often the Calvinist refrain is that Calvinism is based on exegesis and Arminianism is based on philosophy. You are making philosophical claims on the nature and value of God's love without any Scriptural support. The Bible is full of examples of people refusing God's love for them. I honestly cannot imagine how you can read the Bible and not see that. Just read through the prophets. Do you want to see a picture of a God who loves but is consistently rejected? You will find it there. Paul says not to grieve the Holy Spirit. Is Paul saying that because it is impossible to grieve the Holy Spirit or because it is possible? How do we grieve the Holy Spirit? By following His will for our lives or by following our own will for our lives?

Look at Luke 7:30, Rom. 10:21, cf. Isa. 65, Jer. 13:17, etc.

Look at Isaiah 5:1-7. God says that He planted a vineyard which He loved and cared for accordingly so that it would produce the desired fruit. The vineyard is Judah in whom God "delights", and yet the vineyard does not produce the desired fruit. God Himself says that He did everything needed for the vineyard to produce fruit. And yet it did not. And so God brings severe judgment on His vineyard because it refused to produce the desired fruit even though God did everything needed for that fruit to come forth from them. God's love and care for that vineyard desired a certain outcome. That outcome did not attain, so judgment followed. According to your logic as stated above, this means God's love was worthless because it did not attain the desired result. According to your logic, Isaiah must have a "very low view of God."

And it is also interesting that the Calvinist must also insist that while God said He did all that was necessary for the vineyard to produce the desired fruit (the fruit that God Himself desired of them), God actually did not do all that was necessary. In fact, God did not do the one thing that could have possibly produced the fruit (according to Calvinism). He did not irresistibly cause them to produce that fruit. God said He did all that was necessary to attain the desired outcome, but Calvinism says He did not. That sounds a lot like "talking back to God" to me.

See the post where I explain the difference between an offer and a gift. http://www.christianforums.com/threads/arminians-why-are-you-arminian.7926633/page-4#post-69100786 If God offers you salvation and you take it you are the one who is saving yourself because you did something that others did not do. If that isn't self salvation then the sky isn't blue. There is no way around it. If you do something that others do not do then you are the one saving yourself by something you do which is a work.

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Again, this is just an assertion on your part and an argument the Bible nowhere makes itself. The Bible never focuses on the actions of the "other person who rejected the gift" because that is irrelevant to whether or not salvation is by works or not. No matter how much you want to spin it, salvation can never be a work because it receives a free and unearned gift from the hand of God. If we must trust in Christ to save us, that proves that we are powerless to save ourselves. And as Paul says, the nature of salvation as a gift received by faith is what establishes it as "by grace" and excludes boasting. If I must trust in Christ do for me what I cannot do for myself, then I cannot boast in what Christ alone was able to do for me (save me).

Not absurd at all but very logical and truthful. No one claims that you buy the gift but you are the ones claiming that you must receive the gift. If you must do something in order to be saved you are your own savior.

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Not at all, and the absurdity is still very apparent in your argument. We are no more a self-savior than one who receives a gift is a self-giver of the gift. And I suppose when the jailer asked Paul "What must I do to be saved?" Paul should have said, "nothing." But he doesn't. He tells him to do something. He tells him to trust in Christ to save him (Acts 16:30-31).

Straw man of course. That has never been our argument and you know it.

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But it is the essence of your argument and you have just re-stated the same absurd argument here. Saying it in a different way does not change the fact that it is still based on absurdities, re-definitions of universal concepts and equivocation.

Our argument about Arminianism being a works salvation isn't that you earn salvation but that you save yourself by an act of your will which others do not do.

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Which is plainly false since we do not save ourselves but trust in Christ to save us. And many, many, many Calvinists do indeed say that in Arminianism we "earn" our salvation if salvation is not given irresistibly. So it is in no way a straw man argument.

That makes salvation depend on you and your will rather than on the complete and finished work of Christ. Again a straw man.

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Actually, faith is depending on the finished work of Chris to save us. Talk about a straw man argument!

You are the one being absurd with such groundless accusations. More straw man accusations that have nothing to do with the Calvinist argument. Are you so devoid of an original actual argument that you must resort to such tactics?

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Too bad you felt it necessary to throw in a personal insult here. I hope you don't think that such rhetoric makes your argument sound more convincing.

If Calvinists actually argued what you claim that they do it would be ridiculous but you obviously know nothing of what the Calvinist argument is or you simply ignore it in order to build your straw man.

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Sorry you feel that way. I am only basing what I write on what Calvinists say and the implications of what they say. It is not my fault if they do not follow their arguments to their logical conclusions or recognize the problems their argumentation. Pointing out those problems is not "straw man".

God Bless.

I notice that the "two wills" argument is being appealed to by many here. For a sound refutation of that view, see here: https://atheologyintension.wordpres...horough-examination-of-pipers-two-wills-view/

And here is a much more concise post addressing the issue of two wills in God: http://evangelicalarminians.org/two-wills-in-god/