The Strongest Arguments for Predestination

[Presbyterian Continuist]

## God is greater than any High Court Judge - for He is the Creator of those whom He decides, both to create, & to rule in such a way that they cannot avoid being damned. He could be compassionate to them if He so desired - but He does not so desire: He desires, & will effect, their destruction. He does not love them - not if the life of Jesus is any guide. No - He hates them, with an eternal & inextinguishable hatred, & He is going to pour out on their heads "the fury of the Wrath of God Almighty". Not because of any sin of theirs, for they were reprobated before they were created, by an eternal & unchangeable decree, but because He wills it.

How is such motiveless hatred worthy of the God revealed in Christ ?

My latest posts answers your questions.

The Scripture says that God is angry at the wicked every day. Every sinner in the whole world is subject to God's anger and wrath until they come to Christ and place their whole dependence on His work on the Cross of Calvary for their salvation.

Look up the Scriptures for yourself. God does hate the wicked. There are references that reflect that.

But the Scripture says that God so loved the world that He sent His only Son. Also that God is not willing that any should perish. But the hard fact is that many do and will perish, because they reject the offer of salvation through Christ.

How God can love the world, and yet be angry at sinners and hate them, decide to save some and leave others to go to punishment and hell, are all within His secret counsel which He has not completely revealed to us. Our natural minds are limited here in the world, and if we try and work Him out here, we will be disappointed and frustrated.

You can believe in a lovey-dovey sentimental god if you like, but that god is not the Living God of the Bible.

 

[Jeronimomoulia]

We catholics know that there´s precedent predestination, without detriment to free will.

God painted everybody white, knowing who was going to become black by his own free will. ¿Why Did God painted someone who He knew he was going to become black?

Because dark colours improve the beauty of the picture of creation. According to apostle Paul, they are glasses of anger for showing the justice of God, likewise predestinated show the mercy of the Almighty.

The mistake of Calvin is to deny free will: free will works in a different dimension that predestination; doomed perish by their free will; it´s a consequence of the goodness of God; if God would have created someone to hell regardless of his free will, He would be unfair. Calvin violates natural theology, besides he denies a point of dogma of the church of Christ.

By example, in "introduction of christian doctrine" Calvin says that in paternoster, when we ask for forggiving our debts, the condiction of Christ that we have first to forgive debts of another, becomes no condiction: becomes a way to show that we believe in the mercy of God: theology of a fool: Christ says: if you have no mercy to the others, God will have no mercy with you.

This is the raison of what calvinist has no mercy with another people: they are legalist: they have the confession of faith, so they are saved, therefore justice and mercy are not important; but Christ said: you forgot the most important of the law: justice and mercy.

 

[LaymanPreacher]

This is where I disagree. The Bible is very clear in the quotes that I gave. The problem is that some people want some underlying interpretation instead of accepting the literal words of the Scripture. If the Bible says that the names of the Elect are written in the book of life before the foundation of the world, what other meaning can anyone put to that, except the meaning that is quite clearly expressed - that God has a list of all the people that He is intending to save, and that He made up the list before the world was created?

Again, if the Scripture says that there is a group of people who could not believe because they were deliberately blinded by God so they could not see or understand the Gospel, what other meaning is there except just what was said?

I think that it is not that people cannot see the literal rendering of the Scripture, is more that they don't want to accept it and are playing the "that's your interpretation" card. But the Scriptures I have quoted have no other interpretation than what is literally written.

I have already said that there is harmony between predestination and free will, but it is within the mystery of God's own mind and will and has not been clearly revealed to us. It is not that there is a doubt about the fact that God has a list of His Elect. That is a clear fact from Scripture. But how the harmony between predestination and free will exists, we don't really know because of the simple fact that God has not told us.

There is a problem with those people who put free will in opposition with predestination when actually both are true. If a person believes in predestination without free will, you have fatalism; and if you believe in free will without predestination then you are making salvation totally dependent on the whim of man. Either way, they might as well get a pair of scissors and cut out of the Bible those Scriptures which do not fit into the side they believe in. For example, a person who does not believe in Election, can cut out of the Bible all the Scriptures that support Election because he does not believe them. In other words, he is saying that when God inspired these Scriptures, He was mistaken. Can you see where that is leading to?

Election is a very harsh doctrine and hard to accept, but the Scripture says quite clearly from my quotes that God has created people to show his wrath on those who rebel against Him. This is not an attractive or pleasant doctrine, but it is what the Scripture says, and we either believe the Scripture as it is written or not. The only Scripture that has hidden meanings behind the literal are the apocalyptic books like Daniel and Revelation. But the teachings of Paul are direct and straightforward, and are mean to be taken at face value.

The trouble with some theologies is that a lot of them involve twisted and forced interpretations of Scripture that on their face value are quite direct and straightforward. The Scripture is twisted because the particular theologians do not wish to accept what the Scripture plainly says. It does not fit into their theology, so they would rather adulterate the Scripture than to admit that their theology is a figment of their own philosophy.

Faith comes by hearing and accepting the Word of God. The Scripture says that whatever is not of faith is sin. Faith bases its dependence on the literal words of the Bible. So, not accepting the literal words of the Bible without trying to force some sort of underlying interpretation into them may very well be viewed by God as sin - the sin of unbelief.

Ok, here you have discussed clearly about the harmony between free will and predestination. If you have discussed it elsewhere, then I must have missed it. In any case, that was the point I was trying to make, that 1.) there are the Calvinist Predestination doctrine and the Lutheran Free Will doctrine, 2.) some have taken Scripture and seen it as proving that there is a synthesis of the two, and 3.) I am one of the people that believe that there is such a synthesis.

You make claims that sound like you are saying I am trying to adulterate the Bible when the opposite is true. All I have been doing is say that you have Scripture that can be used to prove the side of Predestination, and you also have Scripture that can be used for the side of Free Will. Which again, leads me to believe that Scripture supports a harmony between the two--a synthesis, if you will.

This is an issue that has caused serious debate among denominations, such so that entire families have split over it. That is why I say that we will only know exactly what the Bible says once we get to heaven and face our Lord and Savior. Because of my belief that only God knows the final interpretation of the Bible on issues on which multiple denominations have had discourse, I would say that to claim only one human interpretation on this issue as though it were final is dangerous. You have even said in your post that God has not revealed to us where the harmony between the two doctrines lie, and yet you also claim that the Scriptures you used have only one interpretation. You also claim that God has a list of people that HE intends to save, that HE made up before HE created the earth. That to me seems like a dangerous interpretation, and one that I do not see as coming from Scripture.

The fact is, I do believe in the Bible. I am 20 years old, and each day I read the Scriptures to grow more mature in HIS teachings every day. There are indeed passages in the Bible that, literally interpreted, give us the backbone for Predestination, but on the other hand, there are other passages that do the same for Free Will. For me, trying to look at all sides of interpretation and studying denominational theology on this issue does not invalidate my faith in God, but rather helps me in my study, so that I may show myself approved (that comes from Scripture as well).

In the end, this will not matter, because the MAIN thig that is important is that we trust in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, for He is "the Way, the Truth, and the Life," and He is the only way into heaven (John 14:6). I will prefer to have my questions (which questions are normal and healthy in anyone's Christian walk--that leads to study and prayer) answered by the Lord Himself once I get to heaven. Thank you. Peace.

 

[Hairy Tic]

Whether you think it is unfair or not, that is what the Scripture teaches.

## The Bible prevented the Pharisees from recognising Christ. It is useless for the Bible to say X, if X is immoral or makes God indistinguishable from the devil. Calvinism got rid of sin-prone human Popes, only to replace them with a far more tyrannical & far more corrupting paper Pope. A human can be argued with, but who can argue with a book, that has been dead almost 2,000 years ? It really is dead - deader than any OT idol. Calvinists bow down to their god of paper and ink every bit as much as the nations bowed down to their idols. And like all idolatries, this one has corrupted the moral sense of its practicers Leave your god of paper & its tyrannical cruelty - worship the God made known in Jesus Christ.

If the whole of the human race is in rebellion and sin because of Adam's rebellion, and is justly condemned to judgment and punishment, what is unfair about that?

## Since you're fond of bad analogies - what would you think of a justice that hanged all the US for the rebellion of the Founding Fathers against George III ? If that is not fair - why should God's eternal execution of the reprobate be judged fair ? Is God so cruel & insatiable for suffering that He cannot be satisfied with punishing those who freely sin ? This kind of God makes Freddy Krueger look like Caspar the Friendly Ghost.

I believe in God - therefore I expect Him to behave in a way that is not an outrage to the very sense of fairness of which He is the author. If a theology attributes satanic behaviour to Him, that theology is, in that respect at least, a libel on the Divine Goodness. If God is Good, but can lie and bully & torture & commit genocide, then He is not God. He is an Almighty Satan. I do not believe in God the Devil, & I don't intend to corrupt myself by doing so. I would rather believe there is no God, than believe in a God of Unrighteousness, Cruelty, & Deceit. But that is the God of double geminate predestination (DGP) - a God who creates, not men, but trash, so that He can throw it away & enjoy the warmth of the flames in which he burns it.

Life is too short to entertain views of God that libel him as an Almighty Monster, whatever the Bible may say. If a book were enough, there would have been no Christ, & no Spirit of God. To believe in the Trinity, is to proclaim that the Bible is "refuse" (I won't offend delicate feelings by translating the word used by Paul accurately).

The Bible says that we are not saved by our works, so a person can work hard all his life to serve God and still be condemned to hell because he is depending on his own works, or his own righteousness, which, being corrupted by his sinful nature, is repulsive to God.

## This idea is the kind of thing that Jack Chick publicises. In his tracts, doing good to others, which is what Jesus commanded & exemplified in His own life, is a one-way ticket to the Lake of Fire in them (preceded by a look at the giant videoscreen that shows the lives of all those whom the faceless giant Jesus of Chick judges). Jesus is probably frying in Hell for doing good.

So, do you think that a prisoner who killed his wife and children and is now on death row, should escape execution because since his crime he has done a lot of work for the other prisoners and for the community, and even has adopted religion?

## Try asking Evangelicals that They seem to think that if an an axe-murderer who has arranged the body parts of a dozen people in a pattern unlike that in which they were when the axe-murderer had not begun work on them "finds Jesus", all the gore & mess & misery & destruction go for nothing, because he's "washed in the Blood of the Lamb". It's a shame the cops can't use it at crime scenes, if it's that strong.

I believe in the death penalty, for a wide variety of crimes; &, had I the power, I would certainly criminalise several activities that are not even misdeameanours at present; such as these interminable prophesyings of the Second Coming.

The death penalty, however atrocious its cruelty - & it has often been exceedingly cruel and long drawn-out - does at least come to an end. No man, however ingeniously & imaginatively cruel, has the power to inflict suffering for ever. But "God is not a man". He has power to torture the damned with every refinement of cruelty, for ever, in Hell. And that is what He does to the reprobate.

But how can any man, however ingeniously & brilliantly cruel, prolong & intensify the miseries & torments of the damned for ever ? So it makes no sense to compare earthly sufferings with those that are attributed to God. And if God does these things to mortal men, having already contrived matters to ensure their damnation, where is His Goodness ? For a child to pull the wings off an insect is horrible, & no sane human being thinks it is good; so how can the reprobation - before their creation, as you pointed out - of countless millions of human beings be the act of a good God ?

What would you think if he was allowed to go free because of the good things he did? What would the victims think about the justice system?

## See above

So, what would we think about the justice of God if we were to share heaven with Judas, Pharoah, Pilate, the Jewish High Priest, Agrippa, Herod (who cut John the Baptist's head off) or the Pharisees who resisted the message of Jesus? All these people did a lot of good for their communities. They were not completely evil. They all supported good government and did much to keep the stability of authority and government in the country. By your estimation you are saying they should escape punishment? Do you think that the names of these people are written in the book of life alongside Peter, John, Paul, Apollos, or any other faithful Christian who put his or her complete dependence on Christ?

## None of that is my problem - I'm not God. I don't have to defend either double geminate predestination, or its consequences. Calvinists have to, because it is their doctrine.

Hell, or escaping punishment, are not the only possibilities: Origen's idea of a final restoration of all, is another. Why is God so keen on hurting people anyway ?

Those people may have had far more excuse than is often allowed. Logically, your argument allows only outstanding Christians into Heaven - it has no place for those of us who are not at all admirable. Your argument allows salvation by works to be its basis - for if salvation is by grace, no one can be excluded, regardless of what he may or may not have done. If free grace is to be a reality, & not a slogan, it completely undermines all ideas based on works - including evil works. Free grace abolishes Hell; that is what the logic of the idea leads to, even though this is not intended by Calvinism or other "magisterial Protestant" Churches. If it is truly free & truly grace, it cannot act as though it were not both. It ends by relativising Protestantism - and the Bible - as thoroughly as it relativises the CC. Which makes a pig's ear of all Protestant attempts to maintain their own theological righteousness over against others.

Heaven would not be Heaven if truly converted Christians had to share it with those evil people.

## If God wants them in Heaven, He will fit them for it. And if righteous is imputed, not inherent (not even by God's gift), there is no difference between Cain OTOH, & Abel OTO. As I said, I'm not God So I don't have to sort any of this out. (I thought it was meant to be wrong to judge God BTW )

So, is God being a fair judge if He punishes evil doers, and is He being unfair if He decides, because of his unmerited grace, to save some of them?

God did not have to save any of us. We all deserved punishment in hell. If He decided not to save anyone, we would only be receiving the just punishment that was coming to us.

So, if God makes an arbitrary decision to save some, then that is a reflection of His grace. The people whom He decides to save are just as evil as the ones left behind. There is nothing in those ones to provide any intrinsic merit in order to persuade God to save them. He just makes an arbitrary decision based on His grace and mercy toward them. So they are saved through God's mercy and predestination.

## I know all this - I've read Calvin on Predestination, meaning his 1552 treatise, not just the brief treatment in the Institutes. But, none of this deals with the horrible results of reprobation for the reprobate. The election of the elect does not in any way show that the "passing over" of the reprobate is not cruel & unjust & worthy of God.

And to say that none of us deserves salvation & therefore it is very good of God to save any of us, also avoids dealing with the problems that arise from the reprobation of the reprobate. Surely, if the elect have any love of neighbour, they would think not of the good they enjoy, but of the reprobate who are not sharing in it with them; and would prefer to forego the enjoyment of their salvation until everyone comes to share in it.

This idea of foregoing happiness so as to be compassionate to those without it is perfectly exemplified in the figure of Kuan Yin:

​

If He decides to leave others to their punishment, He is just leaving them to what they were going to get anyway, He has done nothing to them that would be unfair, because the fair thing would be for evil people to be appropriately punished.

## But how do you know that ? "[God's] ways are not [our] ways" -what we call fair, might not be fair in His eyes. This is the problem with Calvinist argument: it has a tendency to use reason opportunistically, not consistently. If you can use reason to justify God, I can use reason to show that DGP attributes injustice to God.

So people are lost because of their own sin. They cannot be lost through God's predestination, because God has done nothing for them. To predestinate someone, God has to do something in and for them. But He has done nothing for the sinners He leaves, therefore, there is no predestination for them.

## Which is unjust, because He saves others. So He cannot plead lack of power to save. ISTM that convincing arguments can be made for parts of Calvin's theology of God taken sepately, but that as a whole one has a sort of Frankenstein's Monster of a God, "a thing of shreds and patches".

None could be lost, if none were reprobated - the question is whether any are reprobated at all. What have the reprobate done to God, that He should be satisfied with nothing less than their damnation ? How could they do anything to Him, when they were not even born ? Sorry, but this simply does not make any sense This is not sentimentality, because it is not sentimental to hate unfairness - especially as there is no analogy in what else is said of God to prepare one for the behaviour attributed to God by DGR. Far from it - God is said to behave in a way that bears almost no relation to the presentation of Him in the Prophets or the Gospel. He acts in a flagrantly unrighteous way, a way that tramples everything ever said about His Righteousness.

If our moral sense were so unreliable - why is it appealed to in the Prophets ? If it can be appealed to in Amos, & relied on by Paul in Romans 1-2, then it can be used when reading Romans 9. Paul cannot expect it to switch on & off like a light.

 

[Hairy Tic]

My latest posts answers your questions.

## No doubt they were meant to, but they don't.

The Scripture says that God is angry at the wicked every day. Every sinner in the whole world is subject to God's anger and wrath until they come to Christ and place their whole dependence on His work on the Cross of Calvary for their salvation.

Look up the Scriptures for yourself. God does hate the wicked. There are references that reflect that.

## I know that verse you cited, & those references, & they do not suggest that "God is Love" - which is what St. John says, twice. NT theology can't be supported by OT verses; for the OT takes no account of Christ. Those OT verses are pre-Christian, sub-Christian, & of no value for Christian theology.

But the Scripture says that God so loved the world that He sent His only Son. Also that God is not willing that any should perish. But the hard fact is that many do and will perish, because they reject the offer of salvation through Christ.

## Since they are reprobated, they cannot do anything else. Since He hates them, how can they be loved by Him ? If He were indeed unwilling "that any should perish", He would move efficaciously in their hearts so that they could freely receive Him. But the unwillingness attributed to Him by Calvin is unreal - he makes Him unwilling to prevent then perishing - which is the contrary of what that verse says.

If Calvin wanted to affirm that the lost are lost by their own fault, he could have done so as a Catholic. Some of his Catholic opponents were semi-Pelagian, or close to it; but certainly not all Catholic theologians contemprary with him were. Augustinianism was not confined to Calvin - there was no lack of Catholic Augustinians either. St.Thomas Aquinas is so faithful to St. Augustine that his understanding of Predestination is very close to Calvin's - they differ in that (IIRC) St.Thomas does not attribute the reprobation of the damned to a supra-temporal Divine decree, & does not cast any shadows over the sincerity of God's Universal Salvific Will; God remains the God Who sincerely desires the salvation of all, & has sent His Son for that very purpose, "so that none should perish, but all should come to everlasting life". That is Good News.

How God can love the world, and yet be angry at sinners and hate them, decide to save some and leave others to go to punishment and hell, are all within His secret counsel which He has not completely revealed to us. Our natural minds are limited here in the world, and if we try and work Him out here, we will be disappointed and frustrated.

You can believe in a lovey-dovey sentimental god if you like, but that god is not the Living God of the Bible.

## Neither is a Sadist in Heaven the God of the Bible. The God of the Gospel is not God the Sadist. I believe in a God Who does not give us a moral sense, then tell us it is worthless; I certainly believe in a God Who is Infinitely Better than the highest & purest & holiest thoughts He gives us to have of Him; but not in a "God" whose Righteousness is what men would call evil, cruelty & tyranny. That, is the "God" I reject.

Our minds are quite capable of recognising moral rubbish - love is love, not an alias for hate. If they lack this capability, the argument in Romans 2 becomes hollow & unmeaning. If someone mugs you, are you going to appreciate the love of that stranger for you ? I doubt it very much. Reprobation is a bit more deadly than mugging. If my "natural mind" cannot tell me the difference between cruelty & love, then there is no reason why I should not praise Hitler for his all but boundless love of the Jews. Did Stalin massacre the kulaks out of love ? Are the loving attentions of various Catholic rulers to the Waldensians not much more often regarded - and rightly regarded - as massacres ?

Well then, if God's Love is of the Hitlerish or Stalinesque order, why can Calvinism not call it what it is - hate & cruelty - instead of corrupting & confusing people's moral sense ? Evil is not Good, Good is not Evil, & to switch them around is to make the Bible meaningless.

 

[LaymanPreacher]

Look up the Scriptures for yourself. God does hate the wicked. There are references that reflect that.

Ok, just because God punished those who sinned does not mean he hates them. A father can kick his son out of his house for seriously bad behavior, but that does not mean that he hates him. You talk of God correcting us for our bad behavior--why would the God who created us in His Image, who loves us despite our humanity, hate us when we fall short? Like a father with his son; let's say the son was five, and needed constant guidance and discipline to grow and mature. Well, that's what a good and loving and just father does, to have a child grow up to be repentant of wrongdoing and to strive for a Christlike life.

 

[LaymanPreacher]

#### I know that verse you cited, & those references, & they do not suggest that "God is Love" - which is what St. John says, twice. NT theology can't be supported by OT verses; for the OT takes no account of Christ. Those OT verses are pre-Christian, sub-Christian, & of no value for Christian theology.

I disagree about the Old Testament, for without it, there would be no New Testament. If we look in the Gospels, for instance, there is a constant referencing to OT prophecies that Christ fulfilled during his ministry here on earth. IF the Old Testament is of no value to Christian theology, then we can discount these proofs about Christ's divinity. Which would mean at some point we would have to discount the Gospel and the rest of the New Testament, because if we cannot have proofs to support what it says as true, then why believe it?

Also, the Old Testament gives us our Creation doctrine, our doctrine on how Original Sin came into the world (which was why Christ came to die and come again for us), as well as the Law(s) which Christ said that he didn't come to abolish, but to fulfill.

Look at it this way: take the Ten Commandments. As a Christian, you belive to believe in the one true God and not to make false gods before Him, right? If we discount any of the Old Testament, then we have to discount the whole thing, which would warrant this law as meaningless. The same goes for the rest of the Commandments.

Now I know that you are talking about specific verses that Oscarr referenced as being Pre-Christian, Sub-Christian, and meaningless in value to Christian Theology, but if that were true, then why not take them out? Because then, as I said before, we would have to get rid of the entire Old Testament, which contains the Psalms and Proverbs, as well as all the prophecies alluded to by the Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior. And the men like Moses and Eligah and David, though repentant sinners, belived in the Christ that was to come and went to heaven (Elijah went up in a chariot of fire).

This is all I have for now. Hopefully we can all study and learn, and when we get to heaven, God will reveal all of His truths to us.

 

[Hairy Tic]

I disagree about the Old Testament, for without it, there would be no New Testament. If we look in the Gospels, for instance, there is a constant referencing to OT prophecies that Christ fulfilled during his ministry here on earth. IF the Old Testament is of no value to Christian theology, then we can discount these proofs about Christ's divinity. Which would mean at some point we would have to discount the Gospel and the rest of the New Testament, because if we cannot have proofs to support what it says as true, then why believe it?

1. Because faith is not based on books, but on the gift of God. The Jews have the OT - they do not see Christ in it. We do not need the Bible to have faith. All too often, it can be a source of trouble & confusion to Christians, a temptation not to believe. But if it is superceded, now that Christ has come, if the shadow gives way to the reality, then it lose much of its power to trouble & annoy. I believe in Christ not because of the Bible, but despite it. And I'm sure others could say that.

2. The OT passages you mention could be kept - they are not the morally obnoxious ones. In practice, I don't think the Bible is of much use - it supplies a general outlines of the sort of thing Christianity is, but so do books for which no has ever claimed inspired or canonical status. It is historically & culturally important, certainly; but it would be absurd to imagine that an oracle of comfort to the Jews - such as are found in Second Isaiah - is intended for Evangelical Christians 25 centuries later. Yet that is how those parts of Isaiah 40-55 are often treated.

Probably there are many Christians who are more influenced by John Bunyan or C.S. Lewis or other Christian authors, than by the Bible: authors not in the Bible can be more of a canon for Christian living than those in it. Not necessarily a bad thing, IMO.

Also, the Old Testament gives us our Creation doctrine, our doctrine on how Original Sin came into the world (which was why Christ came to die and come again for us), as well as the Law(s) which Christ said that he didn't come to abolish, but to fulfill.

## Its creation myths are very important, agreed; though if, as some exegetes say, Gen.3 is not about sin, the weight of significance borne by it at present has to be borne by Romans 5:12-21. Wisdom 2:24 is about sin, & probably had more influence on Romans 5 than Gen.3 did.

As for the Law, "Christ is the end of the Law" - if we are still under the Law, Christ has died in vain. The idea is not far removed from the (much more thorough) Judaising of Dispensationsalism. If the schedule of our offences has been nailed to the Cross, the Law cannot possibly have any power over us; because all its demands have been met by the one Man Who "fulfill[ed] all righteousness". So it has no claim on any Christian, any more than sin (which Christ overcame), death (which He has abolished), or the devil (whom He has cast out).

Look at it this way: take the Ten Commandments. As a Christian, you belive to believe in the one true God and not to make false gods before Him, right? If we discount any of the Old Testament, then we have to discount the whole thing, which would warrant this law as meaningless. The same goes for the rest of the Commandments.

## I do believe that, but not because of the Ten Commandments As for the "discounting", tell that to Luther -

The Law of Moses Binds Only the Jews and Not the Gentiles
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...Here the law of Moses has its place. It is no longer binding on us because it was given only to the people of Israel. And Israel accepted this law for itself and its descendants, while the Gentiles were excluded. To be sure, the Gentiles have certain laws in common with the Jews, such as these: there is one God, no one is to do wrong to another, no one is to commit adultery or murder or steal, and others like them. This is written by nature into their hearts; they did not hear it straight from heaven as the Jews did. This is why this entire text does not pertain to the Gentiles. I say this on account of the enthusiasts. (2) For you see and hear how they read Moses, extol him, and bring up the way he ruled the people with commandments. They try to be clever, and think they know something more than is presented in the gospel; so they minimize faith, contrive something new, and boastfully claim that it comes from the Old Testament. They desire to govern people according to the letter of the law of Moses, as if no one had ever read it before.
​

But we will not have this sort of thing. We would rather not preach again for the rest of our life than to let Moses return and to let Christ be torn out of our hearts. We will not have Moses as ruler or lawgiver any longer. Indeed God himself will not have it either. Moses was an intermediary solely for the Jewish people. It was to them that he gave the law. We must therefore silence the mouths of those factious spirits who say, "Thus says Moses," etc. Here you simply reply: Moses has nothing to do with us. If I were to accept Moses in one commandment, I would have to accept the entire Moses. Thus the consequence would be that if I accept Moses as master, then I must have myself circumcised, (3) wash my clothes in the Jewish way, eat and drink and dress thus and so, and observe all that stuff. So, then, we will neither observe nor accept Moses. Moses is dead. His rule ended when Christ came. He is of no further service.

That Moses does not bind the Gentiles can be proved from Exodus 20:1, where God himself speaks, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." This text makes it clear that even the Ten Commandments do not pertain to us. For God never led us out of Egypt, but only the Jews. The sectarian spirits want to saddle us with Moses and all the commandments. We will just skip that. We will regard Moses as a teacher, but we will not regard him as our lawgiver - unless he agrees with both the New Testament and the natural law. Therefore it is clear enough that Moses is the lawgiver of the Jews and not of the Gentiles. He has given the Jews a sign whereby they should lay hold of God, when they call upon him as the God who brought them out of Egypt. The Christians have a different sign, whereby they conceive of God as the One who gave his Son, etc.

Again one can prove it from the third commandment (4) that Moses does not pertain to Gentiles and Christians. For Paul [Col. 2:16] and the New Testament [Matt. 12:1-12; John 5:16; 7:22-23; 9:14-16] abolish the sabbath, to show us that the sabbath was given to the Jews alone, for whom it is a stern commandment. The prophets referred to it too, that the sabbath of the Jews would be abolished. For Isaiah says in the last chapter, "When the Savior comes, then such will be the time, one sabbath after the other, one month after the other," etc. [Isa. 66:23]. This is as though he were trying to say, "It will be the sabbath every day, and the people will be such that they make no distinction between days. For in the New Testament the sabbath is annihilated as regards the crude external observance, for every day is a holy day," etc.

Now if anyone confronts you with Moses and his commandments, and wants to compel you to keep them, simply answer, "Go to the Jews with your Moses; I am no Jew. Do not entangle me with Moses. If I accept Moses in one respect [Paul tells the Galatians in chapter 5:3], then I am obligated to keep the entire law." For not one little period in Moses pertains to us...

http://www.wordofhisgrace.org/LutherMoses.htm

Now I know that you are talking about specific verses that Oscarr referenced as being Pre-Christian, Sub-Christian, and meaningless in value to Christian Theology, but if that were true, then why not take them out?

## For the same reason as we leave Philemon in; it's of no practical use, both because the culture in which was written is long dead, & because no Christian keeps slaves or would even want to. Paul may not have seen any moral objection to owning other human beings as one might own a toga or a villa, but - not without a long struggle - the idea that one can treat people as property, as objects, is much closer to extinction than it was. How many Christians, if they think about it, see wage-slavery as acceptable in Christian ethics ?

Maybe the sub-Christian parts of the OT could be relegated to an appendix, just as Luther at first relegated four NT books to an appendix because of their lack of the Gospel.

Because then, as I said before, we would have to get rid of the entire Old Testament, which contains the Psalms and Proverbs, as well as all the prophecies alluded to by the Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior. And the men like Moses and Eligah and David, though repentant sinners, belived in the Christ that was to come and went to heaven (Elijah went up in a chariot of fire).

This is all I have for now. Hopefully we can all study and learn, and when we get to heaven, God will reveal all of His truths to us.

## I look forward to continuing this

 

[LaymanPreacher]

1. Because faith is not based on books, but on the gift of God. The Jews have the OT - they do not see Christ in it. We do not need the Bible to have faith. All too often, it can be a source of trouble & confusion to Christians, a temptation not to believe. But if it is superceded, now that Christ has come, if the shadow gives way to the reality, then it lose much of its power to trouble & annoy. I believe in Christ not because of the Bible, but despite it. And I'm sure others could say that.

2. The OT passages you mention could be kept - they are not the morally obnoxious ones. In practice, I don't think the Bible is of much use - it supplies a general outlines of the sort of thing Christianity is, but so do books for which no has ever claimed inspired or canonical status. It is historically & culturally important, certainly; but it would be absurd to imagine that an oracle of comfort to the Jews - such as are found in Second Isaiah - is intended for Evangelical Christians 25 centuries later. Yet that is how those parts of Isaiah 40-55 are often treated.

Probably there are many Christians who are more influenced by John Bunyan or C.S. Lewis or other Christian authors, than by the Bible: authors not in the Bible can be more of a canon for Christian living than those in it. Not necessarily a bad thing, IMO.
## Its creation myths are very important, agreed; though if, as some exegetes say, Gen.3 is not about sin, the weight of significance borne by it at present has to be borne by Romans 5:12-21. Wisdom 2:24 is about sin, & probably had more influence on Romans 5 than Gen.3 did.

As for the Law, "Christ is the end of the Law" - if we are still under the Law, Christ has died in vain. The idea is not far removed from the (much more thorough) Judaising of Dispensationsalism. If the schedule of our offences has been nailed to the Cross, the Law cannot possibly have any power over us; because all its demands have been met by the one Man Who "fulfill[ed] all righteousness". So it has no claim on any Christian, any more than sin (which Christ overcame), death (which He has abolished), or the devil (whom He has cast out).
## I do believe that, but not because of the Ten Commandments As for the "discounting", tell that to Luther -

The Law of Moses Binds Only the Jews and Not the Gentiles
​

...Here the law of Moses has its place. It is no longer binding on us because it was given only to the people of Israel. And Israel accepted this law for itself and its descendants, while the Gentiles were excluded. To be sure, the Gentiles have certain laws in common with the Jews, such as these: there is one God, no one is to do wrong to another, no one is to commit adultery or murder or steal, and others like them. This is written by nature into their hearts; they did not hear it straight from heaven as the Jews did. This is why this entire text does not pertain to the Gentiles. I say this on account of the enthusiasts. (2) For you see and hear how they read Moses, extol him, and bring up the way he ruled the people with commandments. They try to be clever, and think they know something more than is presented in the gospel; so they minimize faith, contrive something new, and boastfully claim that it comes from the Old Testament. They desire to govern people according to the letter of the law of Moses, as if no one had ever read it before.
​

But we will not have this sort of thing. We would rather not preach again for the rest of our life than to let Moses return and to let Christ be torn out of our hearts. We will not have Moses as ruler or lawgiver any longer. Indeed God himself will not have it either. Moses was an intermediary solely for the Jewish people. It was to them that he gave the law. We must therefore silence the mouths of those factious spirits who say, "Thus says Moses," etc. Here you simply reply: Moses has nothing to do with us. If I were to accept Moses in one commandment, I would have to accept the entire Moses. Thus the consequence would be that if I accept Moses as master, then I must have myself circumcised, (3) wash my clothes in the Jewish way, eat and drink and dress thus and so, and observe all that stuff. So, then, we will neither observe nor accept Moses. Moses is dead. His rule ended when Christ came. He is of no further service.

That Moses does not bind the Gentiles can be proved from Exodus 20:1, where God himself speaks, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." This text makes it clear that even the Ten Commandments do not pertain to us. For God never led us out of Egypt, but only the Jews. The sectarian spirits want to saddle us with Moses and all the commandments. We will just skip that. We will regard Moses as a teacher, but we will not regard him as our lawgiver - unless he agrees with both the New Testament and the natural law. Therefore it is clear enough that Moses is the lawgiver of the Jews and not of the Gentiles. He has given the Jews a sign whereby they should lay hold of God, when they call upon him as the God who brought them out of Egypt. The Christians have a different sign, whereby they conceive of God as the One who gave his Son, etc.

Again one can prove it from the third commandment (4) that Moses does not pertain to Gentiles and Christians. For Paul [Col. 2:16] and the New Testament [Matt. 12:1-12; John 5:16; 7:22-23; 9:14-16] abolish the sabbath, to show us that the sabbath was given to the Jews alone, for whom it is a stern commandment. The prophets referred to it too, that the sabbath of the Jews would be abolished. For Isaiah says in the last chapter, "When the Savior comes, then such will be the time, one sabbath after the other, one month after the other," etc. [Isa. 66:23]. This is as though he were trying to say, "It will be the sabbath every day, and the people will be such that they make no distinction between days. For in the New Testament the sabbath is annihilated as regards the crude external observance, for every day is a holy day," etc.

Now if anyone confronts you with Moses and his commandments, and wants to compel you to keep them, simply answer, "Go to the Jews with your Moses; I am no Jew. Do not entangle me with Moses. If I accept Moses in one respect [Paul tells the Galatians in chapter 5:3], then I am obligated to keep the entire law." For not one little period in Moses pertains to us...

http://www.wordofhisgrace.org/LutherMoses.htm

## For the same reason as we leave Philemon in; it's of no practical use, both because the culture in which was written is long dead, & because no Christian keeps slaves or would even want to. Paul may not have seen any moral objection to owning other human beings as one might own a toga or a villa, but - not without a long struggle - the idea that one can treat people as property, as objects, is much closer to extinction than it was. How many Christians, if they think about it, see wage-slavery as acceptable in Christian ethics ?

Maybe the sub-Christian parts of the OT could be relegated to an appendix, just as Luther at first relegated four NT books to an appendix because of their lack of the Gospel.

## I look forward to continuing this

Apparently you and I disagree regarding the Bible. That is ok, as we are all Christians, right?

 

[LaymanPreacher]

We catholics know that there´s precedent predestination, without detriment to free will.

God painted everybody white, knowing who was going to become black by his own free will. ¿Why Did God painted someone who He knew he was going to become black?

Because dark colours improve the beauty of the picture of creation. According to apostle Paul, they are glasses of anger for showing the justice of God, likewise predestinated show the mercy of the Almighty.

The mistake of Calvin is to deny free will: free will works in a different dimension that predestination; doomed perish by their free will; it´s a consequence of the goodness of God; if God would have created someone to hell regardless of his free will, He would be unfair. Calvin violates natural theology, besides he denies a point of dogma of the church of Christ.

By example, in "introduction of christian doctrine" Calvin says that in paternoster, when we ask for forggiving our debts, the condiction of Christ that we have first to forgive debts of another, becomes no condiction: becomes a way to show that we believe in the mercy of God: theology of a fool: Christ says: if you have no mercy to the others, God will have no mercy with you.

This is the raison of what calvinist has no mercy with another people: they are legalist: they have the confession of faith, so they are saved, therefore justice and mercy are not important; but Christ said: you forgot the most important of the law: justice and mercy.

This is why I do not believe in absolute predestination nor absolute free will.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

I enjoyed reading your post. You have thought deeply about this and I am confident that you are looking into the Scripture to find out what is true about these issues. I will make some brief comments just to clarify some points.

Ok, here you have discussed clearly about the harmony between free will and predestination. If you have discussed it elsewhere, then I must have missed it. In any case, that was the point I was trying to make, that 1.) there are the Calvinist Predestination doctrine and the Lutheran Free Will doctrine, 2.) some have taken Scripture and seen it as proving that there is a synthesis of the two, and 3.) I am one of the people that believe that there is such a synthesis.

This synthesis is something that we accept by faith, because the natural mind is unable to reason it out.

You make claims that sound like you are saying I am trying to adulterate the Bible when the opposite is true. All I have been doing is say that you have Scripture that can be used to prove the side of Predestination, and you also have Scripture that can be used for the side of Free Will. Which again, leads me to believe that Scripture supports a harmony between the two--a synthesis, if you will.

The Scripture supports both. The problem arises when they are made adversarial to each other. I believe that the Scripture does not prove one side at the expense of the other. It supports both, because they are in harmony.

This is an issue that has caused serious debate among denominations, such so that entire families have split over it. That is why I say that we will only know exactly what the Bible says once we get to heaven and face our Lord and Savior. Because of my belief that only God knows the final interpretation of the Bible on issues on which multiple denominations have had discourse, I would say that to claim only one human interpretation on this issue as though it were final is dangerous. You have even said in your post that God has not revealed to us where the harmony between the two doctrines lie, and yet you also claim that the Scriptures you used have only one interpretation. You also claim that God has a list of people that HE intends to save, that HE made up before HE created the earth. That to me seems like a dangerous interpretation, and one that I do not see as coming from Scripture.

It is granted that these issues have caused much division in the church in recent times. It is a historical fact that Calvin's teaching was widely accepted in the Protestant church in the late 1500s and 1600s and was responsible for the major revivals that happened during that period of history. Then, when Arminius came along and put free will against predestination, thereby making them adversarial to each other - that's when the problems started. Arminianism has its virtues and deals with one side of the argument, but it denies God the right to be the Lord and Master of the salvation of people.

What you need to do is use your concordance and look up references to God's book of life, and find out when God wrote the names of the elect in it. You need to look up references to the elect and find out what the Scripture actually says about it. Also, references to the foundation of the world. The question you would be wanting to answer is when did God formulate His plan of salvation for mankind? You are saying that you cannot see that God has written the names of the elect in His book of life before the foundation of the world. The Scripture says that He did. Here are some references:

Rev 13:8
Rev 17:8
Eph 1:4
1 Peter 1:20
John 17:24
Matt 25:34

The fact is, I do believe in the Bible. I am 20 years old, and each day I read the Scriptures to grow more mature in HIS teachings every day. There are indeed passages in the Bible that, literally interpreted, give us the backbone for Predestination, but on the other hand, there are other passages that do the same for Free Will. For me, trying to look at all sides of interpretation and studying denominational theology on this issue does not invalidate my faith in God, but rather helps me in my study, so that I may show myself approved (that comes from Scripture as well).

This shows in the way you handle this discussion. But if we accept by faith that predestination and free will are not adversarial but in harmony, then the difficulty disappears. But if we try to use our natural reasoning to try and work things out we tie ourselves into knots. Our natural reasoning is suited to this world and involves the five senses. The truths of God are spiritually discerned and are accessed by faith.

[quote[In the end, this will not matter, because the MAIN thig that is important is that we trust in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, for He is "the Way, the Truth, and the Life," and He is the only way into heaven (John 14:6). I will prefer to have my questions (which questions are normal and healthy in anyone's Christian walk--that leads to study and prayer) answered by the Lord Himself once I get to heaven. Thank you. Peace.[/quote]

Absolutely! Couldn't agree more. We know in part, but when that which is perfect is come, then what is in part will be done away, and we will know as we are known.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

## The Bible prevented the Pharisees from recognising Christ. It is useless for the Bible to say X, if X is immoral or makes God indistinguishable from the devil. Calvinism got rid of sin-prone human Popes, only to replace them with a far more tyrannical & far more corrupting paper Pope. A human can be argued with, but who can argue with a book, that has been dead almost 2,000 years ? It really is dead - deader than any OT idol. Calvinists bow down to their god of paper and ink every bit as much as the nations bowed down to their idols. And like all idolatries, this one has corrupted the moral sense of its practicers Leave your god of paper & its tyrannical cruelty - worship the God made known in Jesus Christ.
## Since you're fond of bad analogies - what would you think of a justice that hanged all the US for the rebellion of the Founding Fathers against George III ? If that is not fair - why should God's eternal execution of the reprobate be judged fair ? Is God so cruel & insatiable for suffering that He cannot be satisfied with punishing those who freely sin ? This kind of God makes Freddy Krueger look like Caspar the Friendly Ghost.

I believe in God - therefore I expect Him to behave in a way that is not an outrage to the very sense of fairness of which He is the author. If a theology attributes satanic behaviour to Him, that theology is, in that respect at least, a libel on the Divine Goodness. If God is Good, but can lie and bully & torture & commit genocide, then He is not God. He is an Almighty Satan. I do not believe in God the Devil, & I don't intend to corrupt myself by doing so. I would rather believe there is no God, than believe in a God of Unrighteousness, Cruelty, & Deceit. But that is the God of double geminate predestination (DGP) - a God who creates, not men, but trash, so that He can throw it away & enjoy the warmth of the flames in which he burns it.

Life is too short to entertain views of God that libel him as an Almighty Monster, whatever the Bible may say. If a book were enough, there would have been no Christ, & no Spirit of God. To believe in the Trinity, is to proclaim that the Bible is "refuse" (I won't offend delicate feelings by translating the word used by Paul accurately).
## This idea is the kind of thing that Jack Chick publicises. In his tracts, doing good to others, which is what Jesus commanded & exemplified in His own life, is a one-way ticket to the Lake of Fire in them (preceded by a look at the giant videoscreen that shows the lives of all those whom the faceless giant Jesus of Chick judges). Jesus is probably frying in Hell for doing good.
## Try asking Evangelicals that They seem to think that if an an axe-murderer who has arranged the body parts of a dozen people in a pattern unlike that in which they were when the axe-murderer had not begun work on them "finds Jesus", all the gore & mess & misery & destruction go for nothing, because he's "washed in the Blood of the Lamb". It's a shame the cops can't use it at crime scenes, if it's that strong.

I believe in the death penalty, for a wide variety of crimes; &, had I the power, I would certainly criminalise several activities that are not even misdeameanours at present; such as these interminable prophesyings of the Second Coming.

The death penalty, however atrocious its cruelty - & it has often been exceedingly cruel and long drawn-out - does at least come to an end. No man, however ingeniously & imaginatively cruel, has the power to inflict suffering for ever. But "God is not a man". He has power to torture the damned with every refinement of cruelty, for ever, in Hell. And that is what He does to the reprobate.

But how can any man, however ingeniously & brilliantly cruel, prolong & intensify the miseries & torments of the damned for ever ? So it makes no sense to compare earthly sufferings with those that are attributed to God. And if God does these things to mortal men, having already contrived matters to ensure their damnation, where is His Goodness ? For a child to pull the wings off an insect is horrible, & no sane human being thinks it is good; so how can the reprobation - before their creation, as you pointed out - of countless millions of human beings be the act of a good God ?
## See above
## None of that is my problem - I'm not God. I don't have to defend either double geminate predestination, or its consequences. Calvinists have to, because it is their doctrine.

Hell, or escaping punishment, are not the only possibilities: Origen's idea of a final restoration of all, is another. Why is God so keen on hurting people anyway ?

Those people may have had far more excuse than is often allowed. Logically, your argument allows only outstanding Christians into Heaven - it has no place for those of us who are not at all admirable. Your argument allows salvation by works to be its basis - for if salvation is by grace, no one can be excluded, regardless of what he may or may not have done. If free grace is to be a reality, & not a slogan, it completely undermines all ideas based on works - including evil works. Free grace abolishes Hell; that is what the logic of the idea leads to, even though this is not intended by Calvinism or other "magisterial Protestant" Churches. If it is truly free & truly grace, it cannot act as though it were not both. It ends by relativising Protestantism - and the Bible - as thoroughly as it relativises the CC. Which makes a pig's ear of all Protestant attempts to maintain their own theological righteousness over against others.
## If God wants them in Heaven, He will fit them for it. And if righteous is imputed, not inherent (not even by God's gift), there is no difference between Cain OTOH, & Abel OTO. As I said, I'm not God So I don't have to sort any of this out. (I thought it was meant to be wrong to judge God BTW )
## I know all this - I've read Calvin on Predestination, meaning his 1552 treatise, not just the brief treatment in the Institutes. But, none of this deals with the horrible results of reprobation for the reprobate. The election of the elect does not in any way show that the "passing over" of the reprobate is not cruel & unjust & worthy of God.

And to say that none of us deserves salvation & therefore it is very good of God to save any of us, also avoids dealing with the problems that arise from the reprobation of the reprobate. Surely, if the elect have any love of neighbour, they would think not of the good they enjoy, but of the reprobate who are not sharing in it with them; and would prefer to forego the enjoyment of their salvation until everyone comes to share in it.

This idea of foregoing happiness so as to be compassionate to those without it is perfectly exemplified in the figure of Kuan Yin:

​

## But how do you know that ? "[God's] ways are not [our] ways" -what we call fair, might not be fair in His eyes. This is the problem with Calvinist argument: it has a tendency to use reason opportunistically, not consistently. If you can use reason to justify God, I can use reason to show that DGP attributes injustice to God.
## Which is unjust, because He saves others. So He cannot plead lack of power to save. ISTM that convincing arguments can be made for parts of Calvin's theology of God taken sepately, but that as a whole one has a sort of Frankenstein's Monster of a God, "a thing of shreds and patches".

None could be lost, if none were reprobated - the question is whether any are reprobated at all. What have the reprobate done to God, that He should be satisfied with nothing less than their damnation ? How could they do anything to Him, when they were not even born ? Sorry, but this simply does not make any sense This is not sentimentality, because it is not sentimental to hate unfairness - especially as there is no analogy in what else is said of God to prepare one for the behaviour attributed to God by DGR. Far from it - God is said to behave in a way that bears almost no relation to the presentation of Him in the Prophets or the Gospel. He acts in a flagrantly unrighteous way, a way that tramples everything ever said about His Righteousness.

If our moral sense were so unreliable - why is it appealed to in the Prophets ? If it can be appealed to in Amos, & relied on by Paul in Romans 1-2, then it can be used when reading Romans 9. Paul cannot expect it to switch on & off like a light.

A good example of natural human reasoning. This can't be faulted. But the ways of God are beyond human reasoning. The natural mind is darkened. The plans and purposes of God are spiritually discerned, and the way to this spiritual discernment is through believing the Gospel of Christ, which is foolishness to the natural, educated mind. Why is this? Because we approach God through faith in what is written in the Bible. Believing the Gospel, against human reasoning is the narrow way into enlightenment through the Holy Spirit. The natural mind is darkened to an understanding of the Gospel until the person decides to believe the Gospel as it is written. Once the person believes that the Gospel is true, then insight and understanding of what it teaches about God and His plans and purposes comes. The Holy Spirit reveals the things of God only to those who have been converted to Christ, and who are living by faith and not by their reasoning which is limited to the five senses.

 

[laconicstudent]

A good example of natural human reasoning. This can't be faulted. But the ways of God are beyond human reasoning. The natural mind is darkened. The plans and purposes of God are spiritually discerned, and the way to this spiritual discernment is through believing the Gospel of Christ, which is foolishness to the natural, educated mind. Why is this? Because we approach God through faith in what is written in the Bible. Believing the Gospel, against human reasoning is the narrow way into enlightenment through the Holy Spirit. The natural mind is darkened to an understanding of the Gospel until the person decides to believe the Gospel as it is written. Once the person believes that the Gospel is true, then insight and understanding of what it teaches about God and His plans and purposes comes. The Holy Spirit reveals the things of God only to those who have been converted to Christ, and who are living by faith and not by their reasoning which is limited to the five senses.

Saying "You are wrong, because your mind is darkened while I have supernatural enlightenment beyond human understanding" is not a good argument.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

## No doubt they were meant to, but they don't.
## I know that verse you cited, & those references, & they do not suggest that "God is Love" - which is what St. John says, twice. NT theology can't be supported by OT verses; for the OT takes no account of Christ. Those OT verses are pre-Christian, sub-Christian, & of no value for Christian theology.

What? Jesus, Peter and Paul quoted extensively from the OT, because that was what they had. Jesus went right through the OT with the disciples on the road to Emmaus and showed them how Moses and the Prophets pointed to Him. The Gospel of Christ runs as a thread through the whole of the OT. Any Jewish scholar will tell you that the OT points toward the Messiah, even though they do not recognise Jesus Christ as the One.

To say that the OT is of no value to Christian theology is just nonsense and shows a lack of understanding of where the OT fits into the Gospel of Christ. If it was of no value, Paul would not have quoted from it and used it as proof of the Gospel he preached to both the Jews and the Gentiles.

## Since they are reprobated, they cannot do anything else. Since He hates them, how can they be loved by Him ? If He were indeed unwilling "that any should perish", He would move efficaciously in their hearts so that they could freely receive Him. But the unwillingness attributed to Him by Calvin is unreal - he makes Him unwilling to prevent then perishing - which is the contrary of what that verse says.

God loving mankind and not wanting any to perish is quite consistent with His anger at sinners. Sinners are condemned through their own choice and their rejection of God. God can still love them and not want them to perish, but can still be angered at their rebellion and their treading of His precious Son under their sinful feet.

God is quite capable of saving the whole world, but unless the requirements of justice are met, He will not save anyone. God has to be fair and just, and if He saves every rebellious sinner in the world, He has to save Satan and the fallen angels as well, otherwise He is not being consistent, and can open Himself to being accused by the holy angels who did not fall of violating His own rule of justice.

God found a way of meeting the requirements of justice by sending His own Son to be a sacrifice for the sin of mankind. But those who reject that sacrifice have walked away from the only way they can be saved. God is not responsible for that in the same way that a helicopter pilot is not responsible for a person who drowns in a flood by refusing to be winched up to safety.

If Calvin wanted to affirm that the lost are lost by their own fault, he could have done so as a Catholic. Some of his Catholic opponents were semi-Pelagian, or close to it; but certainly not all Catholic theologians contemprary with him were. Augustinianism was not confined to Calvin - there was no lack of Catholic Augustinians either. St.Thomas Aquinas is so faithful to St. Augustine that his understanding of Predestination is very close to Calvin's - they differ in that (IIRC) St.Thomas does not attribute the reprobation of the damned to a supra-temporal Divine decree, & does not cast any shadows over the sincerity of God's Universal Salvific Will; God remains the God Who sincerely desires the salvation of all, & has sent His Son for that very purpose, "so that none should perish, but all should come to everlasting life". That is Good News.

Calvin was a close reader of Augustine's work, and his own views follow closely upon it. There is not a lot of difference between Augustine and Calvin in their theology. (Although I have not done a close comparative study of them.)

## Neither is a Sadist in Heaven the God of the Bible. The God of the Gospel is not God the Sadist. I believe in a God Who does not give us a moral sense, then tell us it is worthless; I certainly believe in a God Who is Infinitely Better than the highest & purest & holiest thoughts He gives us to have of Him; but not in a "God" whose Righteousness is what men would call evil, cruelty & tyranny. That, is the "God" I reject.

I think that you need to do a close study of God's justice. A high court Judge may have loving and compassionate thoughts toward a condemned prisoner, but in the interests of justice he has to sentence the prisoner to death for the capital crime he committed. The prisoner is condemned through his own choice to commit the crime. But if another person offered to be executed in his place, who was innocent of the crime, then there is a chance the condemned prisoner could go free, because the interests of justice would be met.

Our minds are quite capable of recognising moral rubbish - love is love, not an

alias for hate. If they lack this capability, the argument in Romans 2 becomes hollow & unmeaning. If someone mugs you, are you going to appreciate the love of that stranger for you ? I doubt it very much. Reprobation is a bit more deadly than mugging. If my "natural mind" cannot tell me the difference between cruelty & love, then there is no reason why I should not praise Hitler for his all but boundless love of the Jews. Did Stalin massacre the kulaks out of love ? Are the loving attentions of various Catholic rulers to the Waldensians not much more often regarded - and rightly regarded - as massacres ?

All reprobation is, is God doing nothing to save a condemned sinner who is already justly condemned for Adam's sin and his own rejection of the sacrifice of Christ for him when He died on the cross. God is not being cruel when He decides not to rescue someone who rejects the offer and invitation He makes to the person to come to Christ. To be cruel, a person has to take some kind of action.

Well then, if God's Love is of the Hitlerish or Stalinesque order, why can Calvinism not call it what it is - hate & cruelty - instead of corrupting & confusing people's moral sense ? Evil is not Good, Good is not Evil, & to switch them around is to make the Bible meaningless.

All God has done is to stand back and allowed people to have their own sinful way. These people knew the Gospel of Christ and rejected it. They themselves closed the only door that God had opened for their salvation. I don't see how God is cruel by accepting their choice to go to condemnation instead of salvation.

What you need to realise is that justice is also an attribute of love.

Anyway, what would be cruelty would be to allow rebellious sinners to go to heaven where holiness and total subjection to Christ is the order of the day. If they hate God and Christ on earth, then they would find being in heaven absolute torture. So, God would be cruel to them if He admitted them into heaven where they would have to spend the rest of eternity being square pegs in round holes.

Also, if the holy people of God who did all they could to follow Christ, and even give their lives for the Gospel, had the share heaven with the hitlers and stalins and others who ridiculed and persecuted them, and had to put up with the disgusting acts of sins which sinners did - murders, rapes, stealing, lying, etc., which they would continue to do, because their hearts would not be changed, wouldn't that be cruel and unjust of God to allow that? I don't think that I would want to share heaven with the mongrel who raped my daughter, if he had not been truly converted to Christ. Despicable mongrels like that should justly be sent to hell if they don't accept Christ as their saviour.

 

[laconicstudent]

Also, if the holy people of God who did all they could to follow Christ, and even give their lives for the Gospel, had the share heaven with the hitlers and stalins and others who ridiculed and persecuted them, and had to put up with the disgusting acts of sins which sinners did - murders, rapes, stealing, lying, etc., which they would continue to do, because their hearts would not be changed, wouldn't that be cruel and unjust of God to allow that? I don't think that I would want to share heaven with the mongrel who raped my daughter, if he had not been truly converted to Christ. Despicable mongrels like that should justly be sent to hell if they don't accept Christ as their saviour.

Matthew 5:44

"But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,"

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

Saying "You are wrong, because your mind is darkened while I have supernatural enlightenment beyond human understanding" is not a good argument.

I am just one of about 50 million converted Christians whom the Holy Spirit has revealed something of the ways of God and the Gospel of Christ through spiritual discernment.

Is your mind darkened? I don't really know. It's not my judgment to make. You haven't convinced me yet that you have a good understanding of what the Gospel of Christ is all about. But that's not my problem, and my own attitude to the things of God is out of the range of your judgment.

You simply don't have enough information to say whether I am right or wrong. So it would be better to address the issues and not start criticising the people who are expressing different points of view.

You did this on my thread on General Theology, and it ended up in just an exercise in trolling instead of fruitful discussion. There is a rule about belitting individuals on this forum and I am prepared to have it enforced if necessary. So, if you cannot contribute anything worthwhile to the discussion, then go and troll somewhere else.

 

[laconicstudent]

I am just one of about 50 million converted Christians whom the Holy Spirit has revealed something of the ways of God and the Gospel of Christ through spiritual discernment.

Is your mind darkened? I don't really know. It's not my judgment to make. You haven't convinced me yet that you have a good understanding of what the Gospel of Christ is all about. But that's not my problem, and my own attitude to the things of God is out of the range of your judgment.

You simply don't have enough information to say whether I am right or wrong. So it would be better to address the issues and not start criticising the people who are expressing different points of view.

Actually, I was simply criticizing your logic at that point. The issue under discussion being completely irrelevant.

 

[laconicstudent]

I am just one of about 50 million converted Christians whom the Holy Spirit has revealed something of the ways of God and the Gospel of Christ through spiritual discernment.

Only 50 million? Interesting number.

 

[Jeronimomoulia]

Own interpretation of scripture is not a good criterion, because scripture was written by God, and God is who must interpretate by the prophets He set up (that is what Peter said), according to the gospel: who listens you, listens me, who rejects you, rejects me.

Good criterion is, at first, natural religion, based on raison and nature; later this natural religion remits to revelated religion, it´s to say, christianity.

Sects forget the difference between natural religion and revelated, so whatever they say is Word of God. Calvinism is wrong: free will is in scripture, not against predestination, but in another dimension.

Predestination regardless free will is rejected by natural raison, so it is wrong: because revelated religion is always according to the raison, because for both the light is only one: Christ. Luther said that raison was the harlot of Satan, and so he became serve of darkness.

 

[LaymanPreacher]

I enjoyed reading your post. You have thought deeply about this and I am confident that you are looking into the Scripture to find out what is true about these issues. I will make some brief comments just to clarify some points.



This synthesis is something that we accept by faith, because the natural mind is unable to reason it out.



The Scripture supports both. The problem arises when they are made adversarial to each other. I believe that the Scripture does not prove one side at the expense of the other. It supports both, because they are in harmony.



It is granted that these issues have caused much division in the church in recent times. It is a historical fact that Calvin's teaching was widely accepted in the Protestant church in the late 1500s and 1600s and was responsible for the major revivals that happened during that period of history. Then, when Arminius came along and put free will against predestination, thereby making them adversarial to each other - that's when the problems started. Arminianism has its virtues and deals with one side of the argument, but it denies God the right to be the Lord and Master of the salvation of people.

What you need to do is use your concordance and look up references to God's book of life, and find out when God wrote the names of the elect in it. You need to look up references to the elect and find out what the Scripture actually says about it. Also, references to the foundation of the world. The question you would be wanting to answer is when did God formulate His plan of salvation for mankind? You are saying that you cannot see that God has written the names of the elect in His book of life before the foundation of the world. The Scripture says that He did. Here are some references:

Rev 13:8
Rev 17:8
Eph 1:4
1 Peter 1:20
John 17:24
Matt 25:34



This shows in the way you handle this discussion. But if we accept by faith that predestination and free will are not adversarial but in harmony, then the difficulty disappears. But if we try to use our natural reasoning to try and work things out we tie ourselves into knots. Our natural reasoning is suited to this world and involves the five senses. The truths of God are spiritually discerned and are accessed by faith.

[quote[In the end, this will not matter, because the MAIN thig that is important is that we trust in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, for He is "the Way, the Truth, and the Life," and He is the only way into heaven (John 14:6). I will prefer to have my questions (which questions are normal and healthy in anyone's Christian walk--that leads to study and prayer) answered by the Lord Himself once I get to heaven. Thank you. Peace.

Absolutely! Couldn't agree more. We know in part, but when that which is perfect is come, then what is in part will be done away, and we will know as we are known.[/QUOTE]

This is great. I think we are reaching an understanding, man. Peace brother.