Problem with Election

[Radagast]

That doesn't work as one of those might decide to leave. Election requires that no one can decide to leave.

I don't think you understood the scenario. I'm saying that if you don't want to leave, then it makes no difference whether the door is locked or not.

 

[Radagast]

Saying this doesn’t make it true. Calvinism is based on the foundation that, above all else, God’s defining attribute is His sovereignty over everything that happens.

It's certainly based on the idea that God is 100% sovereign (although He is also just, wise, loving, and other things).

After all, if one denies the sovereignty of God, I don't think one is really a Christian any more.

 

[grasping the after wind]

I don't think you understood the scenario. I'm saying that if you don't want to leave, then it makes no difference whether the door is locked or not.

I get that. But in strict election, if you want to leave you can't. Even if the door is wide open. and of course, you won't ever want to leave anyway because it was never your choice to begin with. .

 

[needhugs]

Very sweet of you, but no thanks.

here, you can at least clear up the stuff about hell, deal with your other complaints as you see fit

 

[Dorothy Mae]

I suppose then you may well decide to consider me a casually interested person and ignore my reasonable objections to your subjective assumptions. I would submit that neither Moses nor Abraham understood God but they simply obeyed Him without understanding Him at all.

Well, it is difficult to communicate truth to someone who insists what they think is reasonable AND assaults the character of the one trying to explain it. This means there is a wall around you thinking and you are praising your own thinking and preparing a defense of it by going on the offense. This is difficult for anyone to break through.

Now you are wrong about Moses and Abraham. Are you reasonable enough to look at the evidence or have you already made up your mind and evidence will only irritate you? For anyone who is open to consider the matter, both Moses and Abraham negotiated with God as a man does with someone he knows. They reasoned with him based on knowing His character. This only happens when a man knows God. Do you know the Bible well enough to know where?

In Psalms we are told not to be merely obedient like the horse who needs a bit to be steered. Paul, by the way, also knew God. He said that was his goal, to know him. And he did. I know God as well. You can ask me questions if you like. But if you have already decided that all that you think is reasonable and all that I think is merely subjective, you have already closed your mind. I will not be able to penetrate the fortress you have set up, if that is the case.

"God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." The humble man does not think what goes on in his head on a subject has to be reasonable and everyone else ignorant or merely having subjective assumptions. Your view of your own thinking is rather subjective, IMHO.

 

[Dorothy Mae]

That "real life" version of "free will" requires that you take the action that you wanted to take. Because you wanted to take it, you can be blamed.

That kind of free will is fully compatible with predestination.

Ah, the difference is in Calvinism, God is predetermining the action and the man is not. That man does not have free will because a will outside of his is making him take that action. If God is the cause of all human action, whether the human wanted it or not, then God is to blame.

Imagine that you are trapped in a locked room. But you don't know it's locked (you never try the door). You stay in the room because it's full of fun toys: you want to stay there, and you do so of your own free will, even though the person who locked the door predestined you to stay there.

This is making the person who predestined you rather evil because there is no free will. It is all an illusion which is an evil thing to do to someone. Amusing yourself with toys is not the most fulfilling life to be lifed. I know you thought it would be good because people like toys. But the a fulfilled life is not one of many toys. So the person is quite cruel to deceive the subject trapping them in their own thinking offering no truth to them. He/She does not even love them enough to tell them that they can leave. Very cruel.

 

[grasping the after wind]

Well, it is difficult to communicate truth to someone who insists what they think is reasonable AND assaults the character of the one trying to explain it. This means there is a wall around you thinking and you are praising your own thinking and preparing a defense of it by going on the offense. This is difficult for anyone to break through.

Now you are wrong about Moses and Abraham. Are you reasonable enough to look at the evidence or have you already made up your mind and evidence will only irritate you? For anyone who is open to consider the matter, both Moses and Abraham negotiated with God as a man does with someone he knows. They reasoned with him based on knowing His character. This only happens when a man knows God. Do you know the Bible well enough to know where?

In Psalms we are told not to be merely obedient like the horse who needs a bit to be steered. Paul, by the way, also knew God. He said that was his goal, to know him. And he did. I know God as well. You can ask me questions if you like. But if you have already decided that all that you think is reasonable and all that I think is merely subjective, you have already closed your mind. I will not be able to penetrate the fortress you have set up, if that is the case.

"God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." The humble man does not think what goes on in his head on a subject has to be reasonable and everyone else ignorant or merely having subjective assumptions. Your view of your own thinking is rather subjective, IMHO.

Are you contending that if I say I am being reasonable I am somehow attacking someone else's character?

 

[Dorothy Mae]

Are you contending that if I say I am being reasonable I am somehow attacking someone else's character?

If you say that you are reasonable AND I am ignoring you (on purpose) that is attacking my character while elevating your view of your own opinion. You have edited out the bit where you talked about me. What is more, you said my position is subjective assumption. I guess you think your view is not subjective and not an assumption. This is a defense indicating one is closed to anything else but one's own subjective assumption.

 

[Dorothy Mae]

Reformed theology does not allow for God forcing anyone to do anything they are not willing to do.

Predestination and the somewhat related doctrine of election - do not in any way eliminate the free choices made by men (be they elect of reprobate).

Reformed theology requires God forcing people to do what they do not want to do or worse, manipulates them from the inside making them want what Calvinism says God decided for them. It is tyranny of the mind and heart.

And predestination and election as the Calvinist sees it eliminates entirely the free choices made by men. There is no other logical way to see it. Now what some do is commit intellectual suicide and jettison reason. They just say it doesn't thinking saying so makes it so. Everyone including athesists see thru this smoke easily.

 

[grasping the after wind]

If you say that you are reasonable AND I am ignoring you (on purpose) that is attacking my character while elevating your view of your own opinion. You have edited out the bit where you talked about me. What is more, you said my position is subjective assumption. I guess you think your view is not subjective and not an assumption. This is a defense indicating one is closed to anything else but one's own subjective assumption.

So, if you say I am being unreasonable are you attacking my character? What if I was actually being unreasonable and arguing from my emotions rather than my reason? Would that make me malevolent and of poor character or would that mean I simply a was not using reason and instead using emotion as the basis for my argument? BTW, I do not recall talking about you at all. I was under the impression that I was addressing your argument and not attacking you personally. If I find your argument to be subjective it does not mean I find you to be evil.

 

[redleghunter]

Let me write 2 Timothy 1:9 over the top of this.

Paul did not say that we are justified purely by grace apart from faith and works.

 

[συνείδησις]

By grace are you saved, through faith, and that (faith) is not of yourselves; it is the gift of God. Eph. 2:8,9 KJV
"...the life that I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God..." Galatians 2:20 KJV
The phrase "the faith of" Christ, the Son of God, Him, etc. occurs numerous times throughout Scripture. It is not our faith, but His, His gift to us.

This interpretation of Ephesians 2:8 - that this refers to faith - I disagree with. This is referring to the gift of grace.

Also, Galatians 2:20 doesn't say "the faith of the Son of God". It says that Paul lives in the faith of the son of GOD loving him and giving his life for him. It is Paul's faith in Christ's justifying act of love.

 

[GodsGrace101]

lol i think you just lost your right to complain bitterly about untruths, if you say 'no thanks' to the truth

I don't know what you mean.
I retain all my rights...

 

[GodsGrace101]

here, you can at least clear up the stuff about hell, deal with your other complaints as you see fit

Very sweet of you, but no thanks.

 

[GodsGrace101]

However, what is Love? what is just? I also believe God is Love and God is Just. Given that,how is God supposed to act? If he forgives the malevolent he is loving but unjust. If he punishes the malevolent he is just but unloving. Have we decided that God must conform to our moral imperatives?

If God is all-loving, and
God is omnipotent,
why does evil exist?

So many questions, so little time.

 

[GodsGrace101]

God is who He is. His nature is what His nature is. I do not have a vote.

God hasn't revealed Himself to you?
Was Jesus' trip to earth a waste of time?

 

[GodsGrace101]

I recommend when you read the word "predestined" in the Bible look carefully at the text and see what one is predestined for. You will never find predestined for Heaven or Hell. Never. In Ephesians you will find that it says we who believed are predestined to become sons or offspring of God. That is what we are predestined for. Since we play the major roll in how that is fulfilled for obvious reasons, predestined to be like Jesus is the plan of God. It does not mean we cannot fail. So predestined means God wants us all to be like Jesus and that is the plan. Salvation is not mentioned.

And yes, God wants all of humanity to be saved but he is not going to let all those who loved wrong and selfishness into Heaven because he cannot stand them suffering. Unless we repent, we will not be let in. And it is his house and He gets to say who comes in. So I agree with you are very right wne you say that you do not see the predestination doctrine in the Bible. If a man only had the Bible and no teacher, he would not have come up with that doctrine from reading the Bible alone. Men made that one up for personal reasons.

 

[GodsGrace101]

And there are many many more made in His image that have no love for Him.So I ask you to be intellectually honest here and tell me what you intended to convey when you said "made in His image." What does that mean to you exactly?

-Paul Washer

Those who don't care about heaven or hell are atheists.
They don't believe in either one.

Those who believe they exist and still choose to disobey God and respond to God's drawing of all humanity, will surely not be with God when they die.

As to made in His image:
I can't take the time to answer this since it won't matter to you anyway.

You should study up on it however.
In Genesis God said Let Us Make Man in Our Image.
What is YOUR image of God?
Does man have love?
Is man a social being?
Is man moral?
Can man create?

Of course satan ruined all of the above in one way or another.
But we ARE made in the image of God because we have His "attributes" but with a fallen nature.

 

[GodsGrace101]

I made an error and actually addressed Marvin about posts that YOU made. Sorry, Marvin.

I suggest that you should read what the Reformers actually wrote before criticizing them.

What makes you think I haven't?
You think that once I "read" them, I'll magically agree?
The more I read the worse it gets.

This is one of my favorite writings of Calvinistic theology.
This alone is enough to make me reject calvinism.

Unconditional Election Expressed
The Westminster Confession of Faith states, "God has predestined and foreordained some men and angels to everlasting life out of His free grace and love without any foresight of faith or works in man or perseverance in either of them, and others are foreordained to everlasting death and the number of either is so certain and definite that it cannot be increased or diminished." (Chap. III, art. 3,4 &5; Chap. X, art. 2)

Calvin's Institutes states, "All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life or to death."

 

[GodsGrace101]

So what?

I was talking to you when I chimed in and that's all that matters.

You have been from the beginning conflating what you think Calvinist doctrine "amounts to" with what Calvinist doctrine actually is. That's not unusual. It's a common practice here in the forum.

Therefore I supplied an in depth statement of their actual doctrine for you to look at so you would not inadvertently say incorrect things about their beliefs.

Now if you continue to misrepresent them on purpose - it amounts to lying about your brothers and sisters.

If you refuse to study actual Reformed doctrine in relationship with the scriptures they use to support it then you should at least - chatter less and listen more. It will serve you well considering your intellectually lazy condition.

Mr dear sir,
I don't have to study anything to understand calvinism any better than I do.

When I state something that you feel is incorrect, it is incumbent upon YOU to correct me.

Just as I've corrected many here.