How to become a Calvinist in 5 easy steps

[John Caldwell]

Your post failed to indicate that.

I refer you to your response of post #739.

 

[Clare73]

I refer you to your response of post #739.

Agreed. . .

Edit: post #739 following:

You have not addressed the Biblical testimony regarding three separate persons in the one God presented in posts #656 and #680.

Nor does your misrepresentation work for me, as in posts #710, #740, #746, #751.

 

[John Mullally]

Agreed.

Ha, Ha. Congrats - a one word, one symbal, response to the simple reference to the two word post on post 739. No waste of words.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Look at threads on Calvinism and you will see this played out. More often I see quotes not from relevant Calvinists but from those from the 16th to 18th Century (e.g., John Gill, Owen, Knox). More contemporary ones like Pink (who died in 1952), Sproul (1939-2017), and MacArthur (83 years old) are sometimes referenced.

I haven't done a study on the question, but it seems to me most often these quotes are made by someone opposed to Calvinism, for the purpose of showing inconsistency or even to show that what a Calvinist in the thread is saying is not representative of Calvinism (since, according to them, these old dead guys are.)

I'm not going to say there aren't cultic elements among the behavior of some. But I find nothing cultic about the doctrines of Calvinism. (I also disagree that we don't see cultic elements among freewillers, according to the identifying marks described.)

I would appreciate if you could delineate just exactly what are these tenets of Calvinism, according to you, and exactly what it is you disagree with. Don't send me to a website.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Calvinism is the biblical teaching.
It is taught in all 66 books.
Calvin was one of the first who saw it, and wrote about it so they pinned that label on it.
Before the printing press not many had copies of scripture like we do now. We have several copies and study books that were not around then.

I doubt very much that he is the first that saw it. But he might have been the first to formalize it as such. There are many like me that have been through similar circumstances that they see their own inability, for instance, in combating sin, to find themselves not the ones who accomplish any victory, but God. They may not formally think of monergism in salvation, but thank God that he chose them and extracted them from their death of sin into new life. I know there are MANY who see and believe in the Sovereignty of God and even his absolute control over everything, but have not taken that to its logical conclusion, that freewill is not what it looks like on the surface. There are some, like my own father, who said, as opposed to the "'moment of crisis' salvation", that some people, "just come to know the Lord".

 

[ICONO'CLAST]

I doubt very much that he is the first that saw it. But he might have been the first to formalize it as such. There are many like me that have been through similar circumstances that they see their own inability, for instance, in combating sin, to find themselves not the ones who accomplish any victory, but God. They may not formally think of monergism in salvation, but thank God that he chose them and extracted them from their death of sin into new life. I know there are MANY who see and believe in the Sovereignty of God and even his absolute control over everything, but have not taken that to its logical conclusion, that freewill is not what it looks like on the surface. There are some, like my own father, who said, as opposed to the "'moment of crisis' salvation", that some people, "just come to know the Lord".

We have a will, but it is bound by our nature.it is not free

 

[Clare73]

We have a will, but it is bound by our nature.it is not free

We have limited free will, we are free agents. . .we can freely choose, without external force or constraint, what we prefer.

 

[GodsGrace101]

Evils in nature are of a different kind. We consider them to be natural, "acts of God", and know intuitively that they do not involve malicious intent as do acts that are done by our fellow man who, in the moment, could choose not to commit the evil he has in mind. Being the victim of a deliberate harmful act is the worst of evils and immediately strikes at and offends our innate sense of justice.

The bottom-line message, from Genesis through Revelation, is that created things, on their own, are subject to their inherent imperfections, to decay, to death; God alone sustains life. So the lesson to be learned here on earth, by both the physical evils we observe and experience directly as well as the moral evil (sin) that causes harm to each other is that man needs God, desperately. Adam had opted to be apart from Him, on his own. We’re given time and experience, revelation and grace to work this all out. Creation must be aligned with God’s will and, in the moral sphere, that is a choice, of man’s, and we’re here to learn that fact, certainly not to confuse or detract from it. And God is patient in helping us make it.

Hi fhansen,

You say evils of nature are of a different kind..."acts of God", and that they do not include malicious intent.

I've heard this before. Certainly there is no malicious intent, but there is surely evil in nature too.
Evil is just anything that is not good. Good and bad. Good and evil.

The word EVIL, when speaking biblically, just means anything that is not good.
I think you may be applying it ONLY to individuals that do evil.

When Adam fell, the fall also affected nature.
So we can say that there is evil in nature too...
when a soft breeze becomes a hurricane, this is evil in nature.
This would include the animal kingdom too.

 

[ICONO'CLAST]

We have limited free will, we are free agents. . .we can freely choose, without external force or constraint, what we prefer.

Rom6:20
For when you were the Servants of sin you were free from righteousness

 

[Clare73]

Rom6:20
For when you were the Servants of sin you were free from righteousness

Is righteousness due to free will?

Were we not "free from righteousness" the day we were born, in condemnation (Romans 5:18)
and guilt of Adam's imputed sin (Romans 5:12-15), remaining there until we were "born again," rather than until we were made "free"?

The human will has limited freedom; i.e., it can choose what it prefers, but it cannot choose to be always sinless in thought, word and deed.

 

[fhansen]

Hi fhansen,

You say evils of nature are of a different kind..."acts of God", and that they do not include malicious intent.

I've heard this before. Certainly there is no malicious intent, but there is surely evil in nature too.
Evil is just anything that is not good. Good and bad. Good and evil.

The word EVIL, when speaking biblically, just means anything that is not good.
I think you may be applying it ONLY to individuals that do evil.

When Adam fell, the fall also affected nature.
So we can say that there is evil in nature too...
when a soft breeze becomes a hurricane, this is evil in nature.
This would include the animal kingdom too.

Well, I agree-and didn't say otherwise. I simply said that physical evil is different in kind. Here are some related teachings I'm familar with, FWIW:

310 But why did God not create a world so perfect that no evil could exist in it? With infinite power God could always create something better.174 But with infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world "in a state of journeying" towards its ultimate perfection. In God's plan this process of becoming involves the appearance of certain beings and the disappearance of others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature. With physical good there exists also physical evil as long as creation has not reached perfection.175

311 Angels and men, as intelligent and free creatures, have to journey toward their ultimate destinies by their free choice and preferential love. They can therefore go astray. Indeed, they have sinned. Thus has moral evil, incommensurably more harmful than physical evil, entered the world. God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil.176 He permits it, however, because he respects the freedom of his creatures and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it:
For almighty God. . ., because he is supremely good, would never allow any evil whatsoever to exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful and good as to cause good to emerge from evil itself.177

312 In time we can discover that God in his almighty providence can bring a good from the consequences of an evil, even a moral evil, caused by his creatures: "It was not you", said Joseph to his brothers, "who sent me here, but God. . . You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive."178 From the greatest moral evil ever committed - the rejection and murder of God's only Son, caused by the sins of all men - God, by his grace that "abounded all the more",179 brought the greatest of goods: the glorification of Christ and our redemption. But for all that, evil never becomes a good.

 

[fhansen]

Is righteousness due to free will?

The will certainly plays its role- which is why we need and have a Bible, for example-which instructs us on what we should do. And the very first right thing to do for man to do isn't to try to obey the law and act all holy, but to turn to God in faith-both a gift of grace and a human choice-to accept and act upon that gift. Its impossible to do this without God-and yet it's still possible for us to fail to do even this because God does not/will not so overwhelm the human will as to prevent it from saying "no" to Him, but patiently works on drawing us to say "yes".

 

[John Caldwell]

I haven't done a study on the question, but it seems to me most often these quotes are made by someone opposed to Calvinism, for the purpose of showing inconsistency or even to show that what a Calvinist in the thread is saying is not representative of Calvinism (since, according to them, these old dead guys are.)

I'm not going to say there aren't cultic elements among the behavior of some. But I find nothing cultic about the doctrines of Calvinism. (I also disagree that we don't see cultic elements among freewillers, according to the identifying marks described.)

I would appreciate if you could delineate just exactly what are these tenets of Calvinism, according to you, and exactly what it is you disagree with. Don't send me to a website.

I disagree with the Penal Substitution Theory of Atonement.

 

[Clare73]

The will certainly plays its role- which is why we need and have a Bible, for example-which instructs us on what we should do. And the very first right thing to do for man to do isn't to try to obey the law and act all holy, but to turn to God in faith-both a gift of grace and
a human choice-to accept and act upon that gift.

Human choice. . .yes, man makes free and willing choices.

 

[John Caldwell]

We have limited free will, we are free agents. . .we can freely choose, without external force or constraint, what we prefer.

Exactly, and that is free will.

Some reject the idea of free will because we will according to our desires. Others acknowledge that men have free will but reject libertarian free will.

When I mentioned philosophy...well....now do you see what I mean?

You are there now.

 

[fhansen]

Human choice. . .yes, man makes free and willing choices.

Yes, which are meaningful regarding the drama of salvation only if man can resist grace, God's overtures to him, only if God doesn't change man's disposition such that man couldn't possibly will but one way, the right way now instead of the wrong way as before. God wants our wills involved, for our highest good, even as that means we may yet fail to come when He calls, or remain with Him after coming to Him.

 

[Clare73]

Exactly, and that is free will.
Some reject the idea of free will because we will according to our desires. Others acknowledge that men have free will but reject libertarian free will.
When I mentioned philosophy...well....now do you see what I mean?
You are there now.

Agreed. . .I explain the free will presented in Scripture in terms of philosophy, because the argument originated in, and is an argument in philosophy.

Which I do not do in regard to the atonement., which does not originate in philosophy, and is Biblical revelation.

Jesus paying the price (ransom) for my sin is direct Biblical revelation (Matthew 20:28, Hebrews 9:15) of substitutionary atonement, paying it in my place instead of me paying it. . .like the solider on the battlefront paying the price for my freedom, as my substitute, so that I don't have to pay it.

 

[Clare73]

Yes, which are meaningful regarding the drama of salvation only if man can resist grace,

Where do we find this notion of "meaningful" in Scripture being necessary to determine/validate Biblical teaching?

God's overtures to him, only if God doesn't change man's disposition such that man couldn't possibly will but one way, the right way now instead of the wrong way as before. God wants our wills involved, for our highest good, even as that means we may yet fail to come when He calls, or remain with Him after coming to Him.

 

[fhansen]

Where do we find this notion of "meaningful" in Scripture being necessary to validate Biblical teaching?

Why would/should it be un-meaningfully involved? There'd be no need or reason for the bible to begin with unless to instruct on us what we should do, because of the fact that we many not do it! Unless the human will is meaningfully, really involved, rather than determined, then the bible is just the reporting of a giant puppet show, where evil and good are both gratuitous and effectively meaningless concepts since the Puppeteer creates and orchestrates both for some unknown reason, with all the misery that results both on earth and in hell.

 

[John Caldwell]

Agreed. . .I explain the free will presented in Scripture in terms of philosophy.
Which I do not do in regard to the atonement.

Jesus paying the price (ransom) for my sin is direct Biblical revelation (Matthew 20:28, Hebrews 9:15) of substitutionary atonement, paying it in my place instead of me paying it.

I agree with the first.

But how do you get from Jesus dying for our sins, redeeming us with a price, ransoming us, ect. to the idea of Penal Substitution Theory without philosophy?

For one, the wages of sin is death and we die. The idea that we escape these wages is philosophical. What we escape is the wrath to come (the Judgment). It is appointed to man once to die and then the Judgment.