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The Calvinist reframe would be: shall not right be what the judge of the earth does?
What's wrong with this? What could be more right than whatever the author of life is and does?
The problem with this is this is the opposite of what the verse says.
The Calvinist reframe would be: shall not right be what the judge of the earth does?
The doctrine that God does what's good, and not that good is whatever God does. Nowhere in the Bible is the latter stated formulaically. The reason this is extremely important is that "whatever God does is good," becomes by definition, "whatever I believe God does according to my theology is good." This opens the door for tyranny and all sorts of terrible things God can be believed to be doing, but it doesn't matter: if God does it, even if we think it's miserable and evil, it's good because he does it. What this really means is that we're considering a theology that fits together nicely no matter the consequences it means in terms of God's character.
The alternative, which prevents all this, is to say as the verse does: that God does good, that in a sense goodness is something "outside" God (note the quotes here). What does this mean? Instead of considering whatever we think God does is good, we actually have a standard of goodness by which we can consider God's behaviors and qualities to see if he fits them or not. If he doesn't seem like a good God, then our theology is at fault, try again.
The former is inherent to Calvinism and makes it dangerously easy for God to become a monster. I say it's best not to worship a God who you wouldn't at least respect in human form on earth if this person had the same characteristics.
I'm incredibly skeptical of any theology that idealizes power, sovereignty, omnipotence, things like that. Calvinism is the perfect example of this, and although I think there's nothing wrong with holding omnipotence with God as an inextricable characteristic of him (whatever this characteristic really means to us non-omnipotent creatures), it sounds like pure plain tribalism when we idealize power in this way. Like we're really saying, "MY God will mess YOU up," if you're not down with him (believe or perish), which makes you wonder why a person would have such a value.
Well, I think it's because, to some degree, this person is very sensitive to hurt and vulnerability, and they idealize power as a way to overcompensate for this perceived weakness (when it's anything but). In this sense (and this clearly isn't the only variable here), Calvinism (and associated protestant theologies) is the appearance of hypermasculinity that cloaks a very sensitive soft center.
"But people believe in Calvinism because they think it's true." I can't deny this to some degree; what I'm saying, though, is that you wouldn't be inclined to believe in God's super duper power tripism if you weren't psychologically primed for it beforehand.
You are avoiding the question. From whence comes the higher morality which even God is to be subject to?
Any belief on faith and absent objective evidence is psychologically primed, no matter what type of religious belief it is.
Non-belief is also psychologically primed, because non-believers typically have a much higher psychological need to reconcile beliefs, with reality and objective evidence.
If it didn't have biblical support, people would react against it in the same emotional way you do. Unfortunately, it does have biblical support.
What matters is whether it is true. Atheists would doubtless have the bare faced cheek to accuse theists of subjectivism.
The inconsistency with Calvinism goes way beyond just the Bible. Calvinism is logically inconsistent on a very basic level. It requires repentance which its targets can't provide. Book closed.
What do you mean? People are asked to repent, but they can't without God making them do it, so there's no point in asking them to repent?
I'm not avoiding it. It's you who is making the claim that God needs a standard outside of himself.
You don't think personal psychology plays a role in one's intuition?
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