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Isn't it interesting...

TaylorSexton

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...that there are so many people on this board who hate (and I mean hate) Reformed theology, yet are too squeamish, when kindly invited, to open up a thread on the "Debate with a Calvinist" subforum on their grievance?

Anyone else experience that here, or is it just me? I don't think I have ever received so much vitriol as when someone on this board finds out I am Reformed.
 
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Long Island Pilgrim

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Really? That's surprising. Some of the most razor sharp minds of the world emerged from the Reformed community. I wouldn't say that all my Theology is fully aligned but I have found a treasure of jewels through reading and listening to many of the reformed giants . We are so privileged to have access to all the great literature of those mighty men.
 
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dhh712

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Yeah, it's true. The ones I've encountered get bothered about the Sovereignty of God. They don't like to consider that God has ordained all the bad things that happen in the world like the holocaust and stuff like that. Granted, that stuff is hard doctrine and it's not something to be spoken of in a provoking manner. Yet to deny it is to make a caricature of God.

It seems to me that's what bothers those who don't like Reformed people--they're fine with God being loving but don't want to acknowledge that he's just too. For the reformed people, the only way to understand all of what God has revealed to us about him is to take into account that he is a God of justice and of mercy. To understand that he is just merciful without being just... well, yeah, then if I were to be an atheist as I had been for almost 20 years, he wouldn't seem like much of a God to me either.

I remember more recently someone posting about the "problems" with penal atonement; I wish I had the time to answer all of it, but from what I was reading cursorily, the problems he had with it was from his faulty understanding of biblical doctrine.

(Edit: sorry, just thought of this later: One of the things I really can't understand about the people who seem disgusted when they make comments like, 'You really believe God had planned something so awful like the holocaust?' What I don't understand is how can they take comfort in a God that is not in control of EVERYTHING. It brings such a comfort to me to know that God is in control of every particle of life, even if something tragic happens. For instance, the person God used to bring me to him had a beloved daughter die when she was 12. He understood God's Sovereignty and wrote later that he saw the good even in this. Would people really rather prefer that their child accidentally die from some random thing that God had no control over? How can you place your trust in a God such as that? I just don't understand it).


They prefer the prosperity and health and wealth stuff.

Gosh, when I first read this, I thought you said, 'I prefer the health and wealth stuff.' I figured you were being sarcastic. Yeah, that stuff can be more pleasurable to hear to some people. Afterall, why wouldn't someone be thrilled to find out they have some magical god person raining down temporal blessings on them if they worship him? Sounds great. Too bad it's not true! Which all too many atheists figure out if they tried that route.
 
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twin1954

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I have been here for several years and have experienced such utter hatred of the God I worship it would curl your hair. Mine too if I had any.

You see the problem isn't that they do not like the truths we hold so dear but that they hate the God of the Scriptures. As I believe it was Pink who said that they have gone into the dark forests of their imaginations and carved out a god for themselves whom they can control and worship him.

Again it isn't a matter of doctrine but of man's unwillingness to bow to God. Therefore he seeks to rob God of His glory and set himself up on the throne of God. Man will bow to every attribute (when he has perverted it enough to actually destroy it) of God except the one he hates the most: God's sovereignty over man's destiny. Man cannot allow God to determine if He will save him or not so he must make salvation to be up to himself in some way.


(Mat 5:11) Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

(Mat 5:12) Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
 
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Long Island Pilgrim

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"What I don't understand is how can they take comfort in a God that is not in control of EVERYTHING. It brings such a comfort to me to know that God is in control of every particle of life, even if something tragic happens."

Yes, me too! Gave me great comfort during the whole election process because I simply don't have a horse in that race. I'm just an observer. The whole theater of it all caused me to marvel at Gods sense of humor though.

"Again it isn't a matter of doctrine but of man's unwillingness to bow to God. "

YES!
 
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AMR

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“There is no attribute of God more comforting to his children than the doctrine of Divine Sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe troubles, they believe that Sovereignty has ordained their afflictions, that Sovereignty overrules them, and that Sovereignty will sanctify them all.

There is nothing for which the children of God ought more earnestly to contend than the dominion of their Master over all creation—the kingship of God over all the works of his own hands—the throne of God, and his right to sit upon that throne.

On the other hand, there is no doctrine more hated by worldlings, no truth of which they have made such a football, as the great, stupendous, but yet most certain doctrine of the Sovereignty of the infinite Jehovah. Men will allow God to be everywhere except on his throne.

They will allow him to be in his workshop to fashion worlds and to make stars. They will allow him to be in his almonry to dispense his alms and bestow his bounties. They will allow him to sustain the earth and bear up the pillars thereof, or light the lamps of heaven, or rule the waves of the ever-moving ocean;

but when God ascends his throne, his creatures then gnash their teeth; and when we proclaim an enthroned God, and his right to do as he wills with his own, to dispose of his creatures as he thinks well, without consulting them in the matter, then it is that we are hissed and execrated, and then it is that men turn a deaf ear to us, for God on his throne is not the God they love.

They love him anywhere better than they do when he sits with his sceptre in his hand and his crown upon his head.”

-Spurgeon
 
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Long Island Pilgrim

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jimmyjimmy

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I have friends of over 20 years who tolerate me, but get rabid about my being Reformed. They do not take the time to listen to explanations or corrections of the misconceptions. For example, one might say that Calvinists believe that God created robots. I explain that we don't. We believe that man has a (limited) free will, and two seconds later I hear the same charge again!

It takes a little more than average intelligence to understand these issues. Wrestling with abstract concepts is not something that everyone is capable of doing. Maybe that's part of the problem.
 
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Long Island Pilgrim

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I do think that's part of the problem jimmy. I also think that a big part of it is pride. The truth has to be more important to someone than opinion. There is a supreme idolatry of opinion and people have a strong attachment and deep love and affection for their opinion. I believe the Lord is actually going to play out the eschaton in such a way as to annihilate all preconceived notions and eschatologies for the very purpose of demonstrating just how erroneous all the end times opinions and speculations were. I expect the world to learn a whole lot of lessons about presumption and opinion by that one single event.
The more one comes in deep fellowship with God the more one realizes just how dumb he/she really is. lol I have no illusions about how much I know anymore.
 
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JM

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This may sound crazy but I don't believe everyone that professes to love Christ actually does - if they did they wouldn't hate "Calvinism" because Jesus was a Calvinist.

Yours in the Lord,

jm
 
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jimmyjimmy

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This may sound crazy but I don't believe everyone that professes to love Christ actually does - if they did they wouldn't hate "Calvinism" because Jesus was a Calvinist.

Yours in the Lord,

jm

Bold, man. Bold.
 
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twin1954

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The truth of God's sovereignty in salvation and electing love which sent the Son to redeem all His beloved is not higher learning to which many believers cannot attain. There is simplicity in the Gospel and its truth. As I said before it isn't a matter of not grasping these truths, for anyone can grasp them even a child, but one of submission to the things which are clearly revealed of God.

Folks who otherwise are as intelligent as they come willfully check their brains at the door of truth when it comes to spiritual things. They will not give up their "right" to determine their destiny.

It isn't that they cannot understand truth it is that they will not submit to God. Instead they imagine a god which seeks their good and loves them unconditionally, one that they control.

In so doing they destroy, though they deny it, all that is God.

All true believer know the truth of God when they hear it and submit to it and rejoice in it.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that you must be a Calvinist to be saved. I am saying that you must know who God and Jesus is.


(Joh 17:3) And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
 
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twin1954

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Bold, man. Bold.
Boldness is what is required in this generation of people who hear everything but the truth. We rely solely on the power of the Gospel preached through the Spirit of God to meet sinners at their point of rebellion.
 
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jimmyjimmy

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Boldness is what is required in this generation of people who hear everything but the truth. We rely solely on the power of the Gospel preached through the Spirit of God to meet sinners at their point of rebellion.

Yes, yes, but now I'm beginning to see why people hate Calvinists.
 
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AMR

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There is some truth to the matter:
Why Are Calvinists So Negative? | Desiring God

Admittedly, Reformed theology is difficult to assimilate. Mastering it requires a great deal of commitment to study. After we are confident about that which we hold dear, sometimes we become are our own worst enemies.

And we are victims of what we are often accused of being. Think of all the in-house debates related to the Sabbath day, the regulative principle of worship, supra vs. infra, covenantalism, and more. Rare is the person who has come to grips with all the nuances that lie at the root of our internal disagreements. Is it any wonder that the casual onlooker is often apoplectic about our views?
 
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