Could Someone Explain Calvinism?

[Monk Brendan]

I have doubts sometimes, definitely, but then I remember that my salvation depends solely on Christ's work and I trust him to finish the work he began in me. Solus Christus in order that Soli Deo Gloria.

The question was, do you have doubts. You said yes. Now, if doubts inhabit the two of us, there must be more. Therefor there is no rock solid evidence of an assured salvation. If there is, then someone is making it up.

 

[Monk Brendan]

Joseph's brothers, Pharaoh, Cyrus, Lydia are examples of how God overrides people's will. We have choices that we make, but those choices are never greater than God's sovereign decree.

Everyone of them had free will. Joseph's brothers could have stayed in Canaan, the Pharaoh could have kept his heart open, listened to God, and freed the Jews. Cyrus could have kept his heart open, and freed the Jews, which would have been the right thing to do.

As far as Lydia, are you talking about the women selling purple or are you talking about the Lydians?

 

[Monk Brendan]

Jesus Christ is the one who grants assurance, not Catholicism, not some Pope, no one else but Christ.

Who do you think Catholics and Orthodox worship? Mary??? The Pope??? Far from it. We worship Christ, and Him crucified and risen from the dead!

 

[Monk Brendan]

DP

 

[Monk Brendan]

To rephrase, we are born again because the almighty, triune God willed that Christ would become an atonement for sin--and this was not done by our will or because of any goodness that we possess, but solely that God loves us and desires to save us.

I will say this. I will say that God, in His goodness and love for us sent Christ into the world to save MANKIND from sin, whether we, as a race, wanted it or not.

But we, as individuals, have free will to choose whether to accept His grace or reject it.

 

[Monk Brendan]

The answer that would be perhaps most helpful to Monk Brendan is whether today's Calvinism/Calvinists are teaching precisely what Augustine did. I don't have the answer. Can we know? Is there helpful info available?

I have to say this. I am a busy monk. Besides washing dishes and mopping floors, Fr. Basil has tasked me with taking OLD translations of hymns of the Orthodox Church and bringing them up to date--less Tudor pronunciation and more Truman age pronunciation, and to do it without doing harm to the beauty and majesty of the hymn itself. Also, I am still working on a new translation of the Psalter.

 

[bsd058]

The question was, do you have doubts. You said yes. Now, if doubts inhabit the two of us, there must be more. Therefor there is no rock solid evidence of an assured salvation. If there is, then someone is making it up.

My doubts come when I look in myself. But when I look to Christ, my doubt melts away because he is a perfect Savior.
And I'm not just trying to be poetic here. That's exactly what happens. I look at what I do and I begin doubting. I look at the Scriptures and Jesus perfectly saves, so I have no worries. Such is the life of a fallen son of Adam.

 

[Jesus: From Gen to Rev]

My dear friend bsd058, I have been trying to impress upon many a reader in these feeds about the need to understand the Gospel as it was taught the Jews in the Old Testament, so we can ensure we have our theology right pertaining to the Gospel in the New testament. They must be in complete harmony, otherwise we have the Gospel wrong.

It was Jesus Himself who spoke the words recorded in John 3:16, and in sufficient context for our discussion here Jesus stated ...

John 3
14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

So we need to understand about the "serpent in the wilderness" and what went on back there ...

Nu 21:9 And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.

What happened if a bitten man did not look at the brasen serpent? Death! The choice was to be made by the person bitten. Exercise free will and look at the brasen serpent and live, or do not look at the brasen serpent and die.

Jesus made it very clear in John 3 that the "brasen serpent" was a type of His work of salvation.

Friend, every human on this Earth (Christ being the only exception when He came here as a man) has been "bitten by the serpent" so to speak. We have all sinned. Just as anyone bitten could look at the "brasen serpent" and live, so too is Jesus saying in John 3 that anyone who believes on Him will not perish (ie. will not die the eternal death).

It IS, and only IS, an exercise of the free will of any human being, not a select predestined subset of humanity, but anyone at all that wants to be saved and accepts Jesus' free gift of salvation, who will be saved.

My dear friend, Scripture can't be clearer than that surely.

 

[DingDing]

Hi Episaw, ...

Perhaps you know of our little acrostic TULIP? The "U" in TULIP stands for "Unconditional Election". It means that God's choice of us is NOT "conditioned" on our future actions regarding faith in His Son (or anything else He sees in us for that matter). Arminians are the ones who believe that God looks down through a tunnel of time to see how we respond to the Gospel, and that God chooses/elects us based on our choosing of Him first. This, again, is NOT what Calvinism teaches (it is, in fact, the opposite of what Calvinism teaches)...
Yours in Christ,
David

Hello David and all,
I wanted to add something real quick. Yes, traditional Arminians like Arminius and his followers attempted to reconcile the belief in human choice with the belief in individual election in the manner you describe. To them (and to me) this attempt to reconcile these two concepts was plagued with problems form the start. The problem was that they had been so immersed in the notion of individual election that they apparently never thought to challenge it. The real 'fix' to the problem is a complete rejection of the notion of individual election, and the acceptance of corporate election. Corporate election is truly opposite of what calvinism teaches.

 

[Rick Otto]

The question was, do you have doubts. You said yes. Now, if doubts inhabit the two of us, there must be more. Therefor there is no rock solid evidence of an assured salvation. If there is, then someone is making it up.

Having doubts doesn't disprove the evidence. It just proves you have problems accepting it completely.

 

[Rick Otto]

Hello David and all,
I wanted to add something real quick. Yes, traditional Arminians like Arminius and his followers attempted to reconcile the belief in human choice with the belief in individual election in the manner you describe. To them (and to me) this attempt to reconcile these two concepts was plagued with problems form the start. The problem was that they had been so immersed in the notion of individual election that they apparently never thought to challenge it. The real 'fix' to the problem is a complete rejection of the notion of individual election, and the acceptance of corporate election. Corporate election is truly opposite of what calvinism teaches.

I see your "fix" as a false dichotomy because groups are composed of individuals.
A group cannot be predestined without it affecting the individuals of that group.

In fact, the notion of group predestination as a substitute is precluded in Paul's statement that 'Not all who are of Israel, are Israel.'

 

[DingDing]

I see your "fix" as a false dichotomy because groups are composed of individuals.
A group cannot be predestined without it affecting the individuals of that group.

In fact, the notion of group predestination as a substitute is precluded in Paul's statement that 'Not all who are of Israel, are Israel.'

I'm sorry, but from your post you really do not understand how corporate election works.

 

[St_Worm2]

I'm sorry, but from your post you really do not understand how corporate election works.

Hey DD, I thought a discussion of corporate -v- individual election might make for an interesting thread, but if you wouldn't mind, for Rick's sake and for mine (if no others), please give us a quick/concise explanation of your understanding of corporate election and how it works (perhaps in contrast to individual election if you feel that's necessary, both of which can be from the Arminian understanding of each if you'd prefer as well), so that we can be sure to be on the same page with you.

Thanks

--David

 

[DingDing]

Hey DD, I thought a discussion of corporate -v- individual election might make for an interesting thread, but if you wouldn't mind, for Rick's sake and for mine (if no others), please give us a quick/concise explanation of your understanding of corporate election and how it works (perhaps in contrast to individual election if you feel that's necessary, both of which can be from the Arminian understanding of each if you'd prefer as well), so that we can be sure to be on the same page with you.

Thanks

--David

Hello David,

Yes, I think this topic should have it's own thread (I wouldn't want to derail this one with an extended discussion on corporate versus individual election). I will start a thread later today, and will alert you and whoever else is interested when I do. But back to the title of this thread - Could Someone Please Explain Calvinism - from my perspective I think the foundational premise is the calvinist definition of total depravity. All calvinist doctrine pretty much is based upon this one premise. So for those who want to understand calvinism, start with this one premise and work your way out. And as most should be able to suspect, I disagree with this foundational premise.

 

[St_Worm2]

Hey DD, you are quite correct, our understanding of the "T" in TULIP is the foundational premise of the 5 points of Calvinism. Of course, I don't believe that the "free willers" among us, be they Protestants, Lutherans, Baptists, etc., or even our RC friends (not totally sure about the Orthodox ) would argue against the pervasive and detrimental effects of Original Sin (apart from God's intervention anyway), so I think it may come down to our different understanding of the scope and effect of God's enabling grace as well, yes? (what my Arminian friends refer to as "Prevenient Grace").

When you get your thread started about corporate vs individual election, I would be interested, so please let me know

Yours in Christ,
David
p.s. - the game is on again, gotta go

 

[JoeP222w]

Everyone of them had free will.

Free will that could only respond to their fallen human nature. Not one of them could have made the righteous choice, because at the time they sold Joseph into slavery, they themselves were in bondage to their own depravity. Man does not have autonomous free will.

As far as Lydia, are you talking about the women selling purple or are you talking about the Lydians?

Lydia, the woman selling purple cloth.

Acts 16:14 One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.

 

[JoeP222w]

Who do you think Catholics and Orthodox worship? Mary??? The Pope??? Far from it. We worship Christ, and Him crucified and risen from the dead!

Some (not all) Roman Catholics bow down and pray to Mary in a religious context in their church or cathedral. If Moses found someone doing this, he would not believe for a second that that person was not worshiping Mary. So, yes, Roman Catholicism teaches the worship of Mary.

 

[Monk Brendan]

Some (not all) Roman Catholics bow down and pray to Mary in a religious context in their church or cathedral. If Moses found someone doing this, he would not believe for a second that that person was not worshiping Mary. So, yes, Roman Catholicism teaches the worship of Mary.

WRONG! Roman Catholics do NOT worship Mary. Or if they do, it is done IN SPITE OF the teaching of the Church, and not because of it.

There is a church in Peru that literally worships soccer. Their worship is to gather at the church whenever there is a soccer game on cable or satellite, and reverently watch the game. I'm sure Moses would not believe that worship, either.

Chill! If you're going to get so bent out of shape over something like this, then I'm sure you would get turned into a pretzel over some of the things that some Protestants believe, including Calvinists. So, I'll just let you stew in your own juice.

 

[JoeP222w]

Roman Catholics do NOT worship Mary. Or if they do, it is done IN SPITE OF the teaching of the Church, and not because of it.

Then the appears a misunderstanding of the catechism on one side of this issue.


Roman Catholic Catechism:

966 "Finally the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death."506 The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son's Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians:

In giving birth you kept your virginity; in your Dormition you did not leave the world, O Mother of God, but were joined to the source of Life. You conceived the living God and, by your prayers, will deliver our souls from death.507

. . . she is our Mother in the order of grace

969 "This motherhood of Mary in the order of grace continues uninterruptedly from the consent which she loyally gave at the Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross, until the eternal fulfilment of all the elect. Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this saving office but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation .... Therefore the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix.

971 "All generations will call me blessed": "The Church's devotion to the Blessed Virgin is intrinsic to Christian worship.


The Church rightly honors "the Blessed Virgin with special devotion. From the most ancient times the Blessed Virgin has been honored with the title of 'Mother of God,' to whose protection the faithful fly in all their dangers and needs.... This very special devotion ... differs essentially from the adoration which is given to the incarnate Word and equally to the Father and the Holy Spirit, and greatly fosters this adoration."514 The liturgical feasts dedicated to the Mother of God and Marian prayer, such as the rosary, an "epitome of the whole Gospel," express this devotion to the Virgin Mary.

The Church is awaited by the one she venerates as Mother of her Lord and as her own mother.

There is a church in Peru that literally worships soccer. Their worship is to gather at the church whenever there is a soccer game on cable or satellite, and reverently watch the game. I'm sure Moses would not believe that worship, either.

If it is done in the context of church, it is worship.

Chill! If you're going to get so bent out of shape over something like this, then I'm sure you would get turned into a pretzel over some of the things that some Protestants believe, including Calvinists. So, I'll just let you stew in your own juice.

Amazing to me how you can read so much emotions into my response. I showed no emotion in my response that you assert that I do.

And how someone twists the truth has no bearing on the truth of God.

 

[Rick Otto]

I'm sorry, but from your post you really do not understand how corporate election works.

You are forgiven.