Free will

[ReformedChapin]

Ergo, the Calvinist position is not Pelagian, Semi-Pelagian, or Arminian, and is coherent. Imagine that!

I know

 

[Rhamiel]

EO's, RCC's and many protestants are Semi-Pelagians.

what is your definition of Semi-Pelagian?

 

[CaliforniaJosiah]

The Lutheran position is just plain incoherent.

Of course, I disagree. The Lutheran position affirms what Scripture (all of Scripture) affirms - and stops there. It does not embrace the generally good logic of BOTH Arminianism and Calvinism that contradict each other and, IMHO, are problematic vis-a-vis Scripture. I don't deny that BOTH the Arminianists and Calvinists have Scriptures to quote or deny that they BOTH employ good arguments from their own fallible, limited, human logic. I just think that both are stating what God doesn't, both are trying to largely dismiss a corpus of Scriptures (the ones the other "side" keeps presenting), and are equating their own human, limited logic with Scripture. I think BOTH simply go too far. But I agree, BOTH are humanly LOGICAL and coherent arguments and I'd probably give them equal affirmation for THAT.


Forgive my interruption. IMHO, the more these two humanly logical arguments denounce each other, make their case, and reveal the difficulties of the other vis-a-vis God's Holy Scripture, the more the Lutheran position seems best. With that, I'll bow out and let my Arminian (including Catholic) and Calvinist brothers go at it. God loves 'ya both! And so do I....






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[ReformedChapin]

Of course, I disagree. The Lutheran position affirms what Scripture (all of Scripture) affirms - and stops there. It does not embrace the generally good logic of BOTH Arminianism and Calvinism that contradict each other and, IMHO, are problematic vis-a-vis Scripture. I don't deny that BOTH the Arminianists and Calvinists have Scriptures to quote or deny that they BOTH employ good arguments from their own fallible, limited, human logic. I just think that both are stating what God doesn't, both are trying to largely dismiss a corpus of Scriptures (the ones the other "side" keeps presenting), and are equating their own human, limited logic with Scripture. I think BOTH simply go too far. But I agree, BOTH are humanly LOGICAL and coherent arguments and I'd probably give them equal affirmation for THAT.


Forgive my interruption. IMHO, the more these two humanly logical arguments denounce each other, make their case, and reveal the difficulties of the other vis-a-vis God's Holy Scripture, the more the Lutheran position seems best. With that, I'll bow out and let my Arminian (including Catholic) and Calvinist brothers go at it. God loves 'ya both! And so do I....






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My gf grew up in the Lutheran Church. When she learned of the Lutheran position she clearly saw the clear contradiction and was persuaded in the reformed faith. Again I am not saying this is always the case but when you see a contradiction and you call it "the scriptural position" you clearly see something is wrong. This is why you have a bunch of Calvinist running around even in Arminian Churches.

 

[ReformedChapin]

what is your definition of Semi-Pelagian?

works based salvation

 

[CaliforniaJosiah]

Of course, I disagree. The Lutheran position affirms what Scripture (all of Scripture) affirms - and stops there. It does not embrace the generally good logic of BOTH Arminianism and Calvinism that contradict each other and, IMHO, are problematic vis-a-vis Scripture. I don't deny that BOTH the Arminianists and Calvinists have Scriptures to quote or deny that they BOTH employ good arguments from their own fallible, limited, human logic. I just think that both are stating what God doesn't, both are trying to largely dismiss a corpus of Scriptures (the ones the other "side" keeps presenting), and are equating their own human, limited logic with Scripture. I think BOTH simply go too far. But I agree, BOTH are humanly LOGICAL and coherent arguments and I'd probably give them equal affirmation for THAT.


Forgive my interruption. IMHO, the more these two humanly logical arguments denounce each other, make their case, and reveal the difficulties of the other vis-a-vis God's Holy Scripture, the more the Lutheran position seems best. With that, I'll bow out and let my Arminian (including Catholic) and Calvinist brothers go at it. God loves 'ya both! And so do I....





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My gf grew up in the Lutheran Church. When she learned of the Lutheran position she clearly saw the clear contradiction and was persuaded in the reformed faith.

I see no contradiction in Scripture or in the Lutheran position.

What I see in the philosphical school of determinism applied to soteriology is the application of human, fallible logic to SOME Scriptures and the essential dismissal of other Scriptures - all in the "name" of subjecting God to OUR logic.

It is not a matter of "contradiction" to say what Scripture says (all Scripture) - and no more, adding or substracting nothing. It is humility and faith.





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[Rhamiel]

works based salvation

I do not know of a single Christian denomination or Church that teaches salvation based on works
really the differance between are not as big as people make it out, the debate over, as far as I can see, double predestination, the preservation of the saints, and I think that is about it,

 

[ReformedChapin]

I do not know of a single Christian denomination or Church that teaches salvation based on works
really the differance between are not as big as people make it out, the debate over, as far as I can see, double predestination, the preservation of the saints, and I think that is about it,

You dont know a single church that admits consistantly that people MUST work for their salvation. Natural for the RCC of course.

The debate since the time of augustine has centered on thsi very issue. Who does the work? God or us? Can we choose God? The orthodox answer has always been no.

 

[ReformedChapin]

I see no contradiction in Scripture or in the Lutheran position.

What I see in the philosphical school of determinism applied to soteriology is the application of human, fallible logic to SOME Scriptures and the essential dismissal of other Scriptures - all in the "name" of subjecting God to OUR logic.

It is not a matter of "contradiction" to say what Scripture says (all Scripture) - and no more, adding or substracting nothing. It is humility and faith.





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You are always subjecting every though to your LOGIC. You are doing that right now. Essentially you are using logic to defeat logic. Its a pure argument of ignorance.

"Scripture states this______," you are essentially using propositional logic.

 

[Rhamiel]

Can we choose God? The orthodox answer has always been no.

so you do not choose to follow God?

 

[Rhamiel]

Who does the work? God or us? Can we choose God? The orthodox answer has always been no.

any act of supernatural love (i.e. love of God, repentance, sorrow for our sins, ect.) can only come from a special grace from God, St.Augistine and St.Thomis Aquinas knew this.

 

[ReformedChapin]

so you do not choose to follow God?

Not without him supernatural intervining with my sinful nature to change into one so that I will follow him. Not everyone has this opportunity or we would all be saved.

 

[Rhamiel]

Not without him supernatural intervining with my sinful nature to change

all of Christianity says this

 

[ReformedChapin]

all of Christianity says this

no it doesnt, I am saying that he does it for me and he completly changes me, he doesnt give me option to change. Everytime God changes a believer he finishes the work, he never lets the believer do the work on their own and contribute to their salvation by their faith.

 

[CaliforniaJosiah]

Here's what I believe...


Read ALL the verses below (ALL of them - as an inseparable set), adding or substracting nothing from them.


John 3:16, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life."

John 1:29, "John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world."

1 John 2:2, "Jesus is the atoning sacrificie for our sins, and not only for ours but for the sins of the entire world."

Titus 2:4, "God wants all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth."

2 Peter 3:9, "God does not want anyone to perish."

Matthew 23:37, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who killed the prophets and stones thsoe sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your childen together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing."

Luke 7:30, "The Pharisees rejected God's purpose for them."

Acts 13:46, "Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: We had to speak the Word of God to you first, but since you rejected it , we now turn to the Gentiles."

Mark 16:15-16, "Jesus said to them, 'Go into all the world and preach the Gospel gto all people. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved but whoever does not believe will be condemned."

Romans 3:23, "God justifies him who has faith in Christ."

Acts 2:21, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

Acts 16:30-31, "He asked, 'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?' They replied, 'Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved'."

1 Corinthians 12:3, "No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except as empowered by the Holy Spirit."

1 Corinthians 2:14, "The one without the Spirit does not accept the things that are from the Spirit, for he cannot."

Romans 6:23, "...the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus."

Romans 3:23-24, "For all fall short and so are justified freely by God's grace through the redemption that came by Christ."

Ephesians 2:8, "It is by grace that you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God."

2 Timothy 1:9, "God saved us and called us because of His own purpose and grace."

Acts 13:48, "... all who were appointed for eternal life believed."

Ephesians 1:3-6, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blesssing in Christ. For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blamelsess in His sight. In love, He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves."

Romans 8:28-31, "We know that in all things God works for good to those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined, He also called, and those He called, He also justified and those He justified, He also glorified. What, then, shall we say? Since God is for us, what can be against us?"



Some thoughts....


1. I believe that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ (Sola Gratia/Solus Christus/ Sola Fide/ Soli Deo Gloria). This is ONE doctrine, ONE truth. Inseparable. In that sense, justification is conditional and thus it is a matter not entirely of God's primary/unconditional will but is a matter of God's secondary/conditional will. Taken into account is God's atoning work in Christ and our faith in such. Justification, as applied to the individiual, looks not ONLY at God's grace and heart but also at Christ and our faith in Him.


2. The Doctrine of Election is presented in Scipture as GOSPEL. It's purpose is always to comfort, assure and strengthen. It becomes difficult when it is twisted upside down and inside out, applied backwards, as, IMHO, is what happens in the Doctrine of Predestination. Election is presented in Scripture as Gospel. When I was a little boy, I remember loving to hear my mom tell of before I was born. She'd stress to me how much she and Dad loved me. How they prayed often every day for me. How my mom sang to me, even read stories to me. How she was so careful about what she ate and did. She told me how they prepared the nursery for me and how they had to paint it yellow because the doctors disagreed on whether I was a boy or girl. She'd go on and on - and I hung on every word. And all the while, I was VERY aware that she didn't know a thing about me - I wasn't even born yet! I had "earned" NONE of this. She didn't know that I would be this incredibly handsome, smart, good, successful and wonderful person. And frankly, it didn't matter. All this love was not something I earned, it was just something I received. And, looking back, I think why I so often wanted to hear all that, is that it assured me that that love was dependable and constant. If I got very sick (and I did), that love would not deminish. If...... that love would not deminish. THAT is always the underlying purpose and point of this doctrine. It is pure GOSPEL. It is abused, IMHO, when it is turned inside out, upside down, twisted 360 degrees, to suggest that Mom therefore hates all other children and wishes they would all eternally burn. Gospel should not be made Law, nor Law made Gospel.


3. It seems to me, God calls us to be stewards of the mysteries of God. He never called us to try to apply our sinful, fallen, limited logic to try to make God seem logical or to answer all our own questions and require God to agree with us. "I understand this like this...." is one thing. "It is dogma" is a wholly other matter. I think it was John Wesley that said, "We are to speak where Scripture speaks and be silent where Scripture is silent." That, of course, can be taken too far but I think there's some wisdom in that humility. My grandfather (a retired pastor): "Humility is the foundation of all good theology."



MY perspective....



Pax


- Josiah

You are always subjecting every though to your LOGIC.

The position I related is by quoting Scripture. The ones Calvinists like to quote and the ones Arminians like to quote. I agree with them all. That is the Lutheran position.

No, I'm not adding MY personal, fallible, limited, human LOGIC to any of them. You are. Quite well. So does the Arminian. Quite well. BOTH of these position are humanly LOGICAL (about equally so, it seems to me) but as each so well reveals, BOTH sides argue that BOTH sides are problematic vis-a-vis Scripture.

My position is to embrace what ALL the Scriptures say. And stop there. I find that neither illogical or unscriptural. I find that humble and wise. IMHO, you seem to want to embrace some Scriptures and RUN with them - adding a lot of your own fallible, limited, human logic and subjecting Scripture to such. Thus, our difference.


Sorry for the interruption in the "war" between these two "logical" arguments. It seems to ME, this debate does MUCH to reveal the wisdom of the Lutheran position.



Thank you!


Pax


- Josiah



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[Rhamiel]

wow
one of the only debates I have been to where logic was thought of as a bad thing
so are we all in aggrement that the Lutheran position has no logic to it at all?

 

[CaliforniaJosiah]

one of the only debates I have been to where logic was thought of as a bad thing

Fallible, limited, human logic is not "bad" - it's just not embraced as equal to Scripture.

It's not a question of whether it IS or IS NOT "logical" to fallen human beings. The more important question should be whether it is Scriptural.

I agree that Catholicism places far more emphasis to and gives a far larger role to human logic and secular philosophy than is generally true in Protestantism. Another topic for another day and thread. Side note: For over a year, I was involved in a pretty intense (but respectful) "discussion" on a blog primarily between two men: one was a 4th year Catholic seminarian and the other a Mormon teacher and apologist from Las Vegas who had been a cradle Catholic and graduated from a tiny Catholic prep college and went to Catholic seminary for some time. Both had degrees in philosophy from very conservative, small Catholic colleges. Thus, the "debate" was rather saturated with philosophy. I was a frosh in college at the time, majoring in math and physics - so all this was outside of my expertise. But, fortunately, both were "patient" and embracing of the dozen or so of us "lerkers" (roughly half Catholic and half LDS) and explained things. What was stunning to me is how Catholicism could be discussed - at length - without any references to Scripture but with LOTS of references to secular philosophers (not infrequently pagans) and such. But we're off topic.

Again, IMHO, BOTH Armininists (and this largely includes Catholicism) and TULIPians are logical arguments - and they seem about equally "sound" to me AS SUCH. And BOTH have their Scriptures to quote. And I think BOTH have a point, TO A POINT (lol). Thing is: both take SOME Scriptures, RUN with them, ADD lots and lots of their own "logic" and then come to rather predictable "conclusions." Problem is: those other Scriptures the "other side" keeps pointing out (each has their own way of explaning them away) and each is not Scripture's conclusion but rather that of their own fallen, limited, human "logic." No, I'm not opposed to logic in hermeneutics, but I think both Arminianism and TULIPism go too far with such, creating the situation we so obviously note in both.






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[MrJim]

.[/QUOTE]

wow
one of the only debates I have been to where logic was thought of as a bad thing
so are we all in aggrement that the Lutheran position has no logic to it at all?

What Josiah says makes some sense in that attempting to apply "logic" to God with our limited understanding is like watching a child attempt to explain nuclear fission. We absolutely think we have a handle on things when in fact we are so filled with our own pride of our knowledge that we refuse to humble ourselves to the point of knowing we don't understand everything. We don't want to accept "Mystery"-that doesn't compute, and so we have to have a 'cut & dried' explanation for every minutae of doctrine...and in the process we miss the entire point..

 

[Rhamiel]

so that is where you get the idea that the LDS and the Catholic Church are similar, but you yourself said

Both had degrees in philosophy from very conservative, small Catholic colleges.

they came from the same cookie cutter, it makes sense that they would have similar styles, and the Mormon was raised Catholic, so it makes sense that at least some of his thought patterns would still be Catholic.

Arminianism is a school of soteriological thought within Protestant Christianity based on the theological ideas of the Dutch Reformed theologian Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609)[1] and his historic followers, the Remonstrants. The doctrines' acceptance stretches through much of mainstream Christianity, including evangelical Protestantism.

wikipedia i love you, Arminianism is from the Dutch Reformed school of Protestantism, I am amazed you keep on comparing the Catholic Church to the Mormons and the Dutch Reformed
really it is like you are grasping at straws, anything with the slightest similarities you hold up as if there is some corollation, this is almost as bad as reading "the two babylons" whats next, are you going to claim the Mitre is the Fish Hat of Dagon? lol

 

[CaliforniaJosiah]

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Catholic, Mormon

so that is where you get the idea that the LDS and the Catholic Church are similar, but you yourself said they came from the same cookie cutter, it makes sense that they would have similar styles, and the Mormon was raised Catholic, so it makes sense that at least some of his thought patterns would still be Catholic.

Lost me....

Where did I EVER remotely suggest that the RCC and LDS are "similar?" I have NEVER in my life wildly suggested such an absurd and laughable thought.

What I have pointed out is...

1) Both make the same foundation self-claim for self alone that Jesus founded itself and then pretty much the same chain of self-claims for self alone flowing from that ("authoritative" "the true denomination" "the sole interpreter" etc.). It's essentially the same Ecclesiology, with the same point.

2) Both STRESS that God's revelation is also extra-biblical and that Tradition (as each so defines, chooses and interprets) is equally authoritative in nature and normative in function with the Bible, and each stresses that self alone is the sole authoritative interpreter of the Bible, as well as the Tradition (as self alone defines, chooses and interprets). They have the same "Sola Ecclesia" epistemology.

Now, there are some other things, but those are the two PRIMARY things where they are "on the same page." Ecclesiology and Epistemology. (BTW, the two primary things that I disagree with the RCC about and the two primary reasons why I "left" the RCC). But because the RCC and LDS agree on these TWO things (the two things that are the main reasons I'm not Catholic) doesn't REMOTELY suggest that they are "similar." There are 2,865 points in the latest edition of the RCC Catechism. I probably agree with 95% of them, the typical Mormon would probably agree with 5% of it! Lutheranism is FAR, FAR, FAR more "similar" to Catholicism than is Mormonism. I've NEVER remotely, wildly, suggested otherwise.


Yes, I AM aware of the "sameness" of RCC and LDS ecclesiology and epistemology in large part because of that "discussion" between the Catholic Seminarian and Mormon apologist/teacher (both with degrees in philosophy from small, conservative, Catholic prep colleges; both with extensive Catholic seminary training; both raised and educated in the RCC). BTW, they agreed that the two denominations were essentially the same in those TWO areas. But to leap from that to saying the two denominations are "similar" would be like saying that homo sapiens and tomatoes are "similar" because biologically, we could find two things they share. Absurd.


BTW, I became aware here at CF that, much to my surprise, there are Catholics with a very deep and passionate hate for Mormons and the LDS Church. I NEVER encountered that during my years in Catholicism or at any other website, but I sure found it here! I have distanced myself from his hatred and "anti-Mormonism" and will continue to do so. Do NOT impose any hatred YOU may have on me. I've never, EVER, said a single disparaging thing about the LDS or any Mormon. Any hatred or "anti" feelings are not mine.

wikipedia i love you, Arminianism is from the Dutch Reformed school of Protestantism, I am amazed you keep on comparing the Catholic Church to the Mormons and the Dutch Reformed

Yes. But I regard the RCC to be semi-Arminianistic. And if you read these threads, it's often the Catholics who are defending and stating the Arminianistic view MORE and often more PASSIONATELY than any Protestant. Such has been my experience - here and elsewhere. Just read these threads and note the position of the Catholics posting. It's pretty unavoidable.

"the two babylons" whats next

You MUST know that I have argued often and strongly that I do NOT regard the RCC to be the "Babylon" of the Book of Revelation. If you regard the LDS as such, that's YOUR view, do not rebuke me for a position that is yours.






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