Is Calvinism a heresy?

bbbbbbb · Jun 27, 2023

zoidar said:
The whole thing sounds strange to me. I know I'm a sheep, since I got saved 2010. But I don't believe in the perseverance of the sheep, but I trust in Christ and feel secure in him.

Interestingly, the vast majority of professing Christians I have encountered have a very clear sense of their eternal security in heaven regardless of their theological orientation. For example, the vast majority of Catholics, many of whom will only darken the doorway of a Catholic Church when they are baptized as an infant, at first communion, at marriage, and at death, are quite convinced that they will be in heaven, albeit after a sojourn in Purgatory. This is in the face of clear Catholic teaching affirming that there is no such thing as an assurance of salvation in this life.

My personal take is that human nature is not geared toward personal insecurity and potential damnation, although one can easily accuse others of it. Thus, many Christians relish their roles as "fruit inspectors", passing judgement on others while remaining completely blind to any of their own sins and failures.

zoidar · Jun 27, 2023

bbbbbbb said:
Interestingly, the vast majority of professing Christians I have encountered have a very clear sense of their eternal security in heaven regardless of their theological orientation. For example, the vast majority of Catholics, many of whom will only darken the doorway of a Catholic Church when they are baptized as an infant, at first communion, at marriage, and at death, are quite convinced that they will be in heaven, albeit after a sojourn in Purgatory. This is in the face of clear Catholic teaching affirming that there is no such thing as an assurance of salvation in this life.

My personal take is that human nature is not geared toward personal insecurity and potential damnation, although one can easily accuse others of it. Thus, many Christians relish their roles as "fruit inspectors", passing judgement on others while remaining completely blind to any of their own sins and failures.

I do doubt my salvation at times. Especially after repeated sin.

bbbbbbb · Jun 27, 2023

zoidar said:
I do doubt my salvation at times. Especially after repeated sin.

I can definitely relate to that myself.

Mark Quayle · Jun 27, 2023

Derf said:
I don't think I do. His decree would be His command to Himself. And His commands to others take a back seat to His commands to Himself. In other words, He can decree that someone sin the most horrific sin, because He takes pleasure in the death of the wicked, according to Calvinism. But He can't really write it down in His word that way, or it looks bad

That's just silly. He commands himself? You ARE confused.

And this is what you think Calvinism comes down to —He takes pleasure in the death of the wicked?

But I've been off in the weeds with enough of you. No point going any further.

Mark Quayle · Jun 27, 2023

zoidar said:
I do doubt my salvation at times. Especially after repeated sin.

As you should, and as do I.

Mark Quayle · Jun 27, 2023

Derf said:
That God doesn't know what? Whether Hezekiah or David's son would die? In a sense you're right...that when Isaiah told Hezekiah he would die, He didn't know if He would delay His death, though it was a possibility. David's son I can't be too sure about.

But if at any point a wicked nation, and I presume this could be applied to a single wicked person, repents and turns to righteousness, He has the power to stop the calamity He had already decided upon.
Is that a problem?

Why should that be a problem?

zoidar · Jun 27, 2023

Derf said:
Yet, if you can somehow "see" it, and you are seeing something that's truth, then it IS predetermined. You don't predetermine it by seeing it, but you can't see it accurately without it being predetermined (even if we don't know who predetermined it). Breakfast tomorrow is fairly easy for us to predetermine for ourselves by buying only certain products and deciding the day before which ones we'll eat. But predetermining anything before we exist is out of our hands (no hands before we exist ).

What is God seeing? Is He seeing truth or just possibility? If truth, then it is impossible for you or even God to change it, else God is not seeing truth, and God is believing a falsehood.

It's unclear whether God knew it or didn't know, just going by the questions He asked. I asked my children questions I already knew answers to because I wanted to reach them how to tell the truth.

Then you have to wonder if what you've always believed is true. If our knowledge of God comes from inside, then God could be like even the most unChristian version of God you could think of.

If it's true from the foundation of the world, then it was decided back then.

I won't give any lengthy response. I rather believe God knows everything and in libertarian free will, and not being able to fully explain all the hows, than believing God doesn't know everything to be able to have an explanation that suits my imperfect mind, but go against Church history. Of course what Scripture teaches is true no matter what we believe about it. Still am I better suited to understand this than the Early Church?

Derf · Jun 27, 2023

zoidar said:
I won't give any lengthy response. I rather believe God knows everything and in libertarian free will, and not being able to fully explain all the hows, than believing God doesn't know everything to be able to have an explanation that suits my imperfect mind, but go against Church history. Of course what Scripture teaches is true no matter what we believe about it. Still am I better suited to understand this than the Early Church?

I don't really think it's best to go with the early church if it conflicts with the scriptures. If the church fathers had everything right, then we could use their writings as scripture...but we don't.

I'm not trying to disparage them. Their works are important. But their works should always be considered less authoritative than the Canon of scripture they upheld.

Derf · Jun 27, 2023

Mark Quayle said:
And this is what you think Calvinism comes down to —He takes pleasure in the death of the wicked?

Yes. And even you recognise it as conflicting with scripture, don't you. If a systematic conflicts with scripture, wouldn't you say it's heretical?

Yeah, me too.

bbbbbbb · Jun 27, 2023

Derf said:
I don't really think it's best to go with the early church if it conflicts with the scriptures. If the church fathers had everything right, then we could use their writings as scripture...but we don't.

I'm not trying to disparage them. Their works are important. But their works should always be considered less authoritative than the Canon of scripture they upheld.

The pursuit of the ECFs can be a very slippery slope.

Derf · Jun 27, 2023

bbbbbbb said:
The pursuit of the ECFs can be a very slippery slope.

Maybe not more so than the pursuit of Calvin or Luther or the Wesleys or Billy Graham or Charles Templeton, or any of the Popes, etc.

bbbbbbb · Jun 27, 2023

Derf said:
Maybe not more so than the pursuit of Calvin or Luther or the Wesleys or Billy Graham or Charles Templeton, or any of the Popes, etc.

This is true of any form of human reasoning apart from divine revelation. There are some really convincing arguments for all sorts of things out there.

maxamir · Jun 28, 2023

bbbbbbb said:
Although this is true for many Reformed Christians, including Lutherans, it is not true for others who firmly believe in the perseverance of the saints. Without perseverance as manifested by a changed outward life displayed in a panoply of good works, one simply cannot claim to be one of the elect. Thus, for example, if a Puritan willfully absented himself from the communal Sabbath service in the meetinghouse he ran the risk of not only losing his membership in the church, but also being branded as a goat. In addition, it is not enough to persevere for a lengthy period of time and then "fall away" later. One must persevere to the end of life, because Christ has promised that His own will, indeed, persevere to the end. If His promise to keep His sheep is true, then any who are not His sheep manifest this by their failure to abide in Him.

The fruit of those who are the elect is that they persevere to the end, not by looking only to their good works but by looking primarily to Christ and trusting in His strength without which men can do nothing (John 15:3). They who do not persevere to the end will know that that they were not created in Christ for good works (Eph 2:10) and were never of Him (1 Jn 2:19).

maxamir · Jun 28, 2023

Derf said:
So you are saying that we can't humble ourselves, and that God is speaking in a useless fashion? Is it because your systematic has judicially blinded you?

Which is everybody, then
John 12:32 KJV — And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.

Acts 17:30 KJV — And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:

You can do that? I thought you could do nothing toward your salvation?

You can't be made willing. Those terms are oxymoronic.

God uses means to humble His people to see their need of Christ and the means He has chosen to use is the Gospel, which according to you, there is no need for people to preach because you seem to think men can humble themselves without the need for God's means at all.

The Gospel is commanded to be preached to all as a testimony of the victory that Christ has won for His sheep from all nations, tongues, tribes and peoples throughout the whole world but once again according to you, there is no need to preach the Gospel whatsoever because God loves absolutely everyone and therefore there can not logically be a Hell to be saved from.

When will you realise that God has decreed that His Gospel works both to save some people and to justly condemn others as clearly stated in 2 Cor 2:14-16?

The conversion of the apostle Paul on the road to Damascus is one the clearest evidences that God does not need the will of men to save them but you will twist this any way you can to avoid this along with the many other Scriptures that confirm this truth and in so doing are identified with those who abandoned Christ when He confronted them on this matter (John 6:44, 65-66).

Mark Quayle · Jun 28, 2023

Derf said:
Yes. And even you recognise it as conflicting with scripture, don't you. If a systematic conflicts with scripture, wouldn't you say it's heretical?

Yeah, me too.

It's rather obvious, I thought, that I don't think it comes down to that, in which case your question is moot.

To me it's also obvious that your systematic (such as it is) conflicts with Scripture, so....

Derf · Jun 28, 2023

Mark Quayle said:
It's rather obvious, I thought, that I don't think it comes down to that, in which case your question is moot.

To me it's also obvious that your systematic (such as it is) conflicts with Scripture, so....

Well, the Westminster divines recognised it, because they saw they needed to include a caveat about God not being the author of sin.
"God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.

They could see that if God ordained everything unchangeably, it would be obvious to people that God would be blameable for sin, that violence would be done to the will of the creatures, and the liberty or contingency of secondary causes would be taken away. So they tried to say the obvious result wasn't the result.

zoidar · Jun 29, 2023

bbbbbbb said:
The pursuit of the ECFs can be a very slippery slope.

True! But as I understand it, God being all knowing/omniscience has never really been contested in church history.

bbbbbbb · Jun 29, 2023

zoidar said:
True! But as I understand it, God being all knowing/omniscience has never really been contested in church history.

Certainly not contested, but equally certainly, it was understood and defined in various ways. Even an individual such as Augustine expressed differing views in his earlier and later writings.

bbbbbbb · Jun 29, 2023

maxamir said:
The fruit of those who are the elect is that they persevere to the end, not by looking only to their good works but by looking primarily to Christ and trusting in His strength without which men can do nothing (John 15:3). They who do not persevere to the end will know that that they were not created in Christ for good works (Eph 2:10) and were never of Him (1 Jn 2:19).

However, one slight slip on the narrow path and it is evident to all that the individual failed to look to Christ and, having failed to persevere to the end, revealed to all his true, fallen nature. In certain times, that might be using one's left hand rather than one's right hand or it might be taking a sip of alcohol as, say, in a medicinal form.

Mark Quayle · Jun 29, 2023

Derf said:
Well, the Westminster divines recognised it, because they saw they needed to include a caveat about God not being the author of sin.
"God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.

They could see that if God ordained everything unchangeably, it would be obvious to people that God would be blameable for sin, that violence would be done to the will of the creatures, and the liberty or contingency of secondary causes would be taken away. So they tried to say the obvious result wasn't the result.

No, they recognized that self-deterministic people would assume it implied it. They didn't think it implied it either.

Is Calvinism a heresy?

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