One horrendous doctrine

[Daniels]

One of the worst faces of Reformed doctrine is its insistence that God has set his love on a small fraction of the human family. The story is that before he created the human family God chose some to enjoy eternal life with him and the rest he consigned to eternal torture. Some of these teachers are bolder than others and without apology they insist that not only did God foreordain the saved to be saved (independent of anything God foresaw in them) he also foreordained the lost to eternal torture (independent of anything he foresaw in them). Others who sense the horror of such a view try to ease the situation by saying that God chose some and "simply passed by" the rest. Hard-line Calvinist, John Piper (rightly in my view), thinks that lacks consistency and follows John Calvin who made no bones about it: he said God created some (including those that die in infancy) for no other reason than to consign them to eternal torture. (He admitted it was a horrible decree but thought if the Bible taught it he should go along with it.)
Many of us take 1 John 2:2 at face value and think that Christ died to deal with the sins of the entire human family (even John Calvin believed that) but people like Piper and Sproul, Packer and Feinberg tell us that "the world" really means the elect that are scattered throughout the nations of the world. They limit the love of God to the relatively few he chose.
http://www.jimmcguiggan.com/weekly2.asp?id_message=295

 

[Tonks]

This belongs in sotierology. Moving there.

 

[DArceri]

I'll give the same answer I gave to another post:


I guess we as humans have to stand back and let God be God..... What is the "supreme higher commitment" of God? Is it the Glorification of His sovereign grace, or is it saving every sinful soul on the planet no matter what? Let's just remember we all deserve death "for all have sinned and fall short of His Glory".

Duet 29:29
"The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever..."

 

[Raz]

I came to a point where my thought process about God and His salvation changed, from;

"I can't believe God wouldn't want to save everybody"

to;

"I can't believe God bothers to save anybody"


I think it comes with an understanding of man's wickedness and God's holiness........dunno.

.

 

[IamAdopted]

It is by the grace of God that any are saved. For we are not worthy of salvation. We are not even deserving of salvation. It is a gift from God.

 

[nobdysfool]

2Chronicles 7:14 is not speaking to the heathen, but to God's people, in this case Israel, but it has application to all of God's People, who are by definition, not all of mankind, without exception.

 

[heymikey80]

The Synod of Dordt, essentially the constitution of Reformed Theology, denies that God "foreordained the lost to eternal torture (independent of anything he foresaw in them)." So your shot fires at another.

If John Piper made such a statement (and context is often quite significant) he's wrong. I've never seen Calvin say such a thing, though I can certainly come up with statements close enough to make anti-Calvinists think he did. Produce the citations from Calvin, and if you can from Piper.

But either way, you are posting a complaint about hypercalvinism and calling it Reformed. So a couple of mistakes have already been made.

Hence it clearly appears that those of whom one could hardly expect it have shown no truth, equity, and charity at all in wishing to make the public believe:

--that the teaching of the Reformed churches on predestination and on the points associated with it by its very nature and tendency draws the minds of people away from all godliness and religion, is an opiate of the flesh and the devil, and is a stronghold of Satan where he lies in wait for all people, wounds most of them, and fatally pierces many of them with the arrows of both despair and self-assurance;
--that this teaching makes God the author of sin, unjust, a tyrant, and a hypocrite; and is nothing but a refurbished Stoicism, Manicheism, Libertinism, and Mohammedanism;
--that this teaching makes people carnally self-assured, since it persuades them that nothing endangers the salvation of the chosen, no matter how they live, so that they may commit the most outrageous crimes with self-assurance; and that on the other hand nothing is of use to the reprobate for salvation even if they have truly performed all the works of the saints;
--that this teaching means that God predestined and created, by the bare and unqualified choice of his will, without the least regard or consideration of any sin, the greatest part of the world to eternal condemnation; that in the same manner in which election is the source and cause of faith and good works, reprobation is the cause of unbelief and ungodliness; that many infant children of believers are snatched in their innocence from their mothers' breasts and cruelly cast into hell so that neither the blood of Christ nor their baptism nor the prayers of the church at their baptism can be of any use to them; and very many other slanderous accusations of this kind which the Reformed churches not only disavow but even denounce with their whole heart.​

 

[OldWiseGuy]

The 'second death' is still death; not eternal life in hellfire. That is reserved for Satan and the demons. Eternal torment is a Satanic lie believed by most of 'Christianity'. Truth is that Satan just wants to scare the 'Bejeebers' (euphramism for 'Jesus') out of folks (and he might just want some company down there).

 

[billwald]

I know it will irritate most of you, but God could save (elect) "in Christ" anyone including Mormons, JWs . . . .

 

[leothelioness]

I know it will irritate most of you, but God could save (elect) "in Christ" anyone including Mormons, JWs . . . .

That's true. God could save anyone. However if He did save Mormons and JW's they would cease to be Mormons and JW's.

 

[leothelioness]

In regard to the OP, I don't really think it matters if and why God pre-destines souls to salvation or otherwise. It really is none of our business. God has His reasons why He does things.

Instead of worrying about why God does the things He does we should just simply step back and praise God for what He does. We should simply be happy that God is in our lives and pray for those that do not know Him.

Everything that God does is righteous and has a special purpose. If He chooses to let us know why He does some things, fine. If He doesn't, fine.

At the end of the day our focus should be on the fact that God is in each of our lives. Worrying why He does certain things is only going to detract from the time that could be spent worshipping Him.

 

[nobdysfool]

In regard to the OP, I don't really think it matters if and why God pre-destines souls to salvation or otherwise. It really is none of our business. God has His reasons why He does things.

Instead of worrying about why God does the things He does we should just simply step back and praise God for what He does. We should simply be happy that God is in our lives and pray for those that do not know Him.

Everything that God does is righteous and has a special purpose. If He chooses to let us know why He does some things, fine. If He doesn't, fine.

At the end of the day our focus should be on the fact that God is in each of our lives. Worrying why He does certain things is only going to detract from the time that could be spent worshipping Him.

Good point. Would to God that more thought that way. God will do what He will do, and my choices and decisions were already known to Him, before I was born. In Him we live and move and have our being. All things are happening and progressing exactly as He has ordained, foreknown, and planned. Nothing takes Him by surprise, or forces Him to change or adjust His Plan. We all freely choose to do what He has foreordained that we do. He knows the end from the beginning, and I've read the end of the book. We (all who are in Christ) win!

 

[OldWiseGuy]

In regard to the OP, I don't really think it matters if and why God pre-destines souls to salvation or otherwise. It really is none of our business. God has His reasons why He does things.

Instead of worrying about why God does the things He does we should just simply step back and praise God for what He does. We should simply be happy that God is in our lives and pray for those that do not know Him.

Everything that God does is righteous and has a special purpose. If He chooses to let us know why He does some things, fine. If He doesn't, fine.

At the end of the day our focus should be on the fact that God is in each of our lives. Worrying why He does certain things is only going to detract from the time that could be spent worshipping Him.

I think God wants us to understand more about him and the way things are. Arguments, debates, discussion helps.

 

[leothelioness]

I think God wants us to understand more about him and the way things are. Arguments, debates, discussion helps.

Of course He wants us to understand more about Him, but He doesn't want us to dwell on it like so many here do.

He only lets us know the things He wants us to know. If He doesn't want to reveal something to us that's His business and nothing we should fret over.

 

[leothelioness]

Good point. Would to God that more thought that way. God will do what He will do, and my choices and decisions were already known to Him, before I was born. In Him we live and move and have our being. All things are happening and progressing exactly as He has ordained, foreknown, and planned. Nothing takes Him by surprise, or forces Him to change or adjust His Plan. We all freely choose to do what He has foreordained that we do. He knows the end from the beginning, and I've read the end of the book. We (all who are in Christ) win!

 

[heymikey80]

I think God wants us to understand more about him and the way things are. Arguments, debates, discussion helps.

I guess I don't think God wants to reveal everything about Himself. Election seems to be one of those places where we try to imply into the texts a number of things that =shrug= He doesn't say.

God chooses. He has every right to choose. And His choices are beyond the accusation of wrong. Even were it a choice of no one at all, we couldn't object to, because "there is none righteous; not a one." And yet God says He chooses some, and promises to save them through regeneration and faith and adoption, through calling and justification and glorification, through union with Jesus Christ.

 

[Wrigley]

I know it will irritate most of you, but God could save (elect) "in Christ" anyone including Mormons, JWs . . . .

Sure. And when God calls them they will become ex-mos and ex-jws.

 

[leothelioness]

Sure. And when God calls them they will become ex-mos and ex-jws.

Haha. That's the same thing I said.

 

[Jipsah]

One of the worst faces of Reformed doctrine is its insistence that God has set his love on a small fraction of the human family.

Hmmm... I've never heard anyone say any such thing. How small a do you reckon we figure will be saved? 1%? 5%? 10%? 20%? Whatever percentage it is, how do you reckon that compares with the number that will be saved if it's all up to the individual? What percentage then, 60 or more? And how do you know in either case?

Now me, I reckon I have more trust in God's grace and mercy than I do in the sagacity of individual sinful human beings. "Cause here's the thing - whether you believe in total depravity of not, you have to admit that we're all of us a pretty lousy bunch of sinners. I'm of the opinion that most of us don't care diddly squat about the things of God. If our only hope is in ourselves making the right choice(s), then I reckon that most of us are toast. I prefer to think that God will save some of us in spite our our uselessness, bone-headedness, stupidity, and plain old evil, 'cause if He doesn't, we won't.

Yeah, I know, if God saves us against our perverted will, then that just wouldn't be fair. And maybe it's just me, but I don't want God to be fair with me, I want Him to be merciful. I may fight the guy who's pulling me out of the water while I'm trying to drown, but I'm gonna shake him by thehand until it breaks his arm once I'm back on dry land. I reckon it's the same with those who've been saved "against their will".

The story is that before he created the human family God chose some to enjoy eternal life with him and the rest he consigned to eternal torture.

Unless you're a universalist or a conditionalist then you believe that whether you're Reformed or Arminian.

Many of us take 1 John 2:2 at face value and think that Christ died to deal with the sins of the entire human family

But you believe that somehow it just didn't work, right?

Same old baloney.

 

[Van]

Folks, when you read this thread, you see the same old baloney. Evasion, distortion and claims that Reformed Theology does not teach what it teaches.

God loves the world, all of fallen mankind. He gave His Son, so that anyone who believes in His Son would not perish but have eternal life. These He sets apart - elects - by spiritually placing them in Christ.

Lets deal with the false assertion that if you do not believe God consigned folks before creation you are a universalist. This misses the biblical truth that God elects folks to salvation during their physical lives, as clearly taught by 1 Peter 2:9-10.

Next lets deal with the false premise that propitiation equals salvation. Christs finished work on the cross was completely sucessful, not in saving everyone, but in providing the propitiation for everyone. But this reconciliation of mankind did not save any individual. In order to be saved, you have to receive the reconcilation provided by the cross. And this happens when God accepts your faith in Christ and then places you spiritually in Christ.

Reformed Theology provides an absurd view of God, and the result is that many reject it. As stated in Mathew 23:13, the effect upon some is to shut-off entry into the kingdom by presenting false doctrine. It is time to consign this relic of the dark ages to the trash-bin of history.