TULIP: The Calvinist Map of Salvation.

[pasifika]

I wanted to take another pass at this, assuming my little gaffe hasn't derailed my own thread. A friend who has been coaching me a little on Calvinism told me it wasn't unusual to approach the five points of Calvinism using different terminology. Let's take for instance Total depravity, one has to wonder was the image of God completely ruined in man as the result of Adam's disobedience or simply damaged. When God told Adam on the day you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you will die. The Hebrew has a very interesting form of that word, it literally means, 'dying you shall die', here is a discussion of how the word is used elsewhere (Dying You Shall Die: The meaning of Genesis 2:17). Total depravity might just be one way of expressing it, sin is actually more transcendent, since it gets into everything including the mind, will and emotions. Sin is also a spiritual malady that withers the spirit on the vine. Now I think we can all agree that someone who is not a Christian, or religious, or even remotely spiritual is still capable of making basic moral decisions, loves their family and follows the rules most of the time. Yet because of original sin there is this curse of sin and death that clings to the human condition.

Anyway, I just wanted to throw that out there and maybe open the discussion up more to the principles behind the five points of Calvinism in a little more depth.

Grace and peace,
Mark

Hello, I think the word "dying" or "death" is more refer to spiritual death meaning spiritual body (soul) without The "SPIRIT" (The SPIRIT is what made the soul live just as our blood makes our physical body live)...

 

[mark kennedy]

Hello, I think the word "dying" or "death" is more refer to spiritual death meaning spiritual body (soul) without The "SPIRIT" (The SPIRIT is what made the soul live just as our blood makes our physical body live)...

Man wasn't completely driven away from God, Abel offered an acceptable offering, Enoch walked with God and Noah was blameless and upright. Indeed our dying is a spiritual death on many levels but sin infected every aspect of the human condition.

 

[pasifika]

Man wasn't completely driven away from God, Abel offered an acceptable offering, Enoch walked with God and Noah was blameless and upright. Indeed our dying is a spiritual death on many levels but sin infected every aspect of the human condition.

Hello, you're right man was not completed driven away from God, not because of man repented heart but because of God's mercy towards man that enable man to turn toward Him.We see All of these righteous people and their faith in Hebrew 11..their faith as a result of their believing heart is totally an work of God not the individual itself..
Sin is powerful as shown by the Law...

 

[mark kennedy]

Hello, you're right man was not completed driven away from God, not because of man repented heart but because of God's mercy towards man that enable man to turn toward Him.We see All of these righteous people and their faith in Hebrew 11..their faith as a result of their believing heart is totally an work of God not the individual itself..
Sin is powerful as shown by the Law...

All true, let's consider, in Gen. 6:8 Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, in Gen. 6:8 it says he was righteous in his generation. In Genesis 15:6 Abraham believed God and it was credited (imputed) to him for righteousness. In Rom. 4:3 Paul quotes that passage to demonstrate a righteousness that is by grace through faith, apart from works. So there are certain principles that run throughout Scripture. Justification by grace through faith being one of the more important ones.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[TheSeabass]

Just noticed the OP did not want this to be open for debate, so I will post my response elsewhere in another thread.

 

[Daniel C]

I have a question regarding part of the ''U'' in TULIP.

Do the Calvinists or Reformed group believe man has any control over our salvation or is it 100% Gods decision?

I'm referring to free will. Do we have the will to choose God according to the reformed theology?

 

[mark kennedy]

I have a question regarding part of the ''U'' in TULIP.

Do the Calvinists or Reformed group believe man has any control over our salvation or is it 100% Gods decision?

I'm referring to free will. Do we have the will to choose God according to the reformed theology?

Yes but its a secondary cause.

 

[hedrick]

I almost put that in the OP but I didn't want to bog it down. Here is the one that got me going with it, 'blessed are the poor in spirit' and Total depravity. The word Jesus is using means utterly destitute, not the working poor or some poor guy reduced to begging.

Outside the NT the word means destitute. However according to TDNT it's the normal word for poor in the NT, used 31 times, particularly in the Gospels. Hermeneia, Logos, and ICC on Mat 5:3 look at the various possibilities, and conclude that it's not referring to economic poverty, which is what you're saying. But the most likely meanings involve one nuance or another of humility. "Poor in spirit" would be the opposite of "proud in spirit."

Calvin says "But Christ pronounces those to be happy who, chastened and subdued by afflictions, submit themselves wholly to God, and, with inward humility, betake themselves to him for protection." Slightly different, but close to the modern interpreters.

Total depravity in the Reformed sense is corruption of nature. That seems impossible in context, and would make no sense in the Lukan parallel, where it's probably economic poverty.

 

[ICONO'CLAST]

I have a question regarding part of the ''U'' in TULIP.

Do the Calvinists or Reformed group believe man has any control over our salvation or is it 100% Gods decision?

I'm referring to free will. Do we have the will to choose God according to the reformed theology?

God 100%

No free will , but rather self will.
110 The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.

2 The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.

3 Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.

4 The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

 

[The Righterzpen]

I have a question regarding part of the ''U'' in TULIP.

Do the Calvinists or Reformed group believe man has any control over our salvation or is it 100% Gods decision?

I'm referring to free will. Do we have the will to choose God according to the reformed theology?

It might be useful to define what is understood as "free will".

In the theological sense, none of us really have a "free will". We are encumbered by both our own sin and our fallen nature.

That being the case though, any life form with the cortex to make it capable of a decision making process has an "independent volition". If you have pets, or farm animals even, you see this. They make decisions that are independent from the intention and direction of other individual organisms, as well as independent of "instinct". Would you call that "free will"? Maybe only in the generic sense.

To answer the theological question though; I think there is a very real interplay in real time as to how God's sovereignty works. The real mystery though is how God's orchestration of time operates. I agree with @mark kennedy. Our will is secondary to God's working. Are we so predictable in our sin though that it takes all the "guess work" out of God's sovereignty? LOL. I don't know. Omniscience and omnipotence though are certainly capable of conforming the will of anyone.

 

[Daniel C]

God 100%

No free will , but rather self will.
110 The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.

2 The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.

3 Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.

4 The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

Ok. What's the difference between free will and self will.

 

[Daniel C]

It might be useful to define what is understood as "free will".

In the theological sense, none of us really have a "free will". We are encumbered by both our own sin and our fallen nature.

That being the case though, any life form with the cortex to make it capable of a decision making process has an "independent volition". If you have pets, or farm animals even, you see this. They make decisions that are independent from the intention and direction of other individual organisms, as well as independent of "instinct". Would you call that "free will"? Maybe only in the generic sense.

To answer the theological question though; I think there is a very real interplay in real time as to how God's sovereignty works. The real mystery though is how God's orchestration of time operates. I agree with @mark kennedy. Our will is secondary to God's working. Are we so predictable in our sin though that it takes all the "guess work" out of God's sovereignty? LOL. I don't know. Omniscience and omnipotence though are certainly capable of conforming the will of anyone.

I understand God is soverien, I understand God picks who he will save and who he will not save. The question for me and I suspect many others is how we fit into the process of salvation. How does God pick his saved? Is it because we have heard the Gospel and put our faith in Jesus or is it just a lottery where the favoured are granted salvation?

 

[The Righterzpen]

I understand God is soverien, I understand God picks who he will save and who he will not save. The question for me and I suspect many others is how we fit into the process of salvation. How does God pick his saved? Is it because we have heard the Gospel and put our faith in Jesus or is it just a lottery where the favoured are granted salvation?

The Scripture says that those who are predestine to salvation were predestine from the foundations of the world. So before any of us had existed, it was already determined. So in that sense you could say it's a "lottery" of common sinners to choose from; seeing how none are righteous anyways and left to our own devices none of us would seek after God.

Father: "So, Jesus take Your pick - which of the lot of them do You want?"
Jesus: "Ehh, how about numbers 12, 25, 86....."

What predicates God's choice outside of Jesus paying for sin, the Scripture never tells us. The only thing we know is that the entire human race stands on equal footing before God as all being condemned. There are no "favored" because no body obeys.

Faith is something that's granted to a person by God. It's sort of like tickling the feet of a sleeping dog. Eventually the dog will wake up. "Quickening" or bringing a dead sinner to conscious understanding of their need for redemption automatically produces in them a "yes" of their will and this is because they readily recognize the alternative. And they consciously recognize that alternative because they've been particularly awakened by God to see it. This is why the human will is secondary in the process; yet the "choice" to repent and believe is a legitimate act of the will.

 

[Daniel C]

The Scripture says that those who are predestine to salvation were predestine from the foundations of the world. So before any of us had existed, it was already determined. So in that sense you could say it's a "lottery" of common sinners to choose from; seeing how none are righteous anyways and left to our own devices none of us would seek after God.

Father: "So, Jesus take Your pick - which of the lot of them do You want?"
Jesus: "Ehh, how about numbers 12, 25, 86....."

What predicates God's choice outside of Jesus paying for sin, the Scripture never tells us. The only thing we know is that the entire human race stands on equal footing before God as all being condemned. There are no "favored" because no body obeys.

Faith is something that's granted to a person by God. It's sort of like tickling the feet of a sleeping dog. Eventually the dog will wake up. "Quickening" or bringing a dead sinner to conscious understanding of their need for redemption automatically produces in them a "yes" of their will and this is because they readily recognize the alternative. And they consciously recognize that alternative because they've been particularly awakened by God to see it. This is why the human will is secondary in the process; yet it is a legitimate act of the will.

Interesting. I can't say i'm subscribed to the reform theology because some of it I've yet to explore and thus I don't know whether I could give a Amen to it.

I will keep on observing and learning and time will tell.

Thanks again to you and the other posters on the thread for the helpful input.

 

[mark kennedy]

Outside the NT the word means destitute. However according to TDNT it's the normal word for poor in the NT, used 31 times, particularly in the Gospels. Hermeneia, Logos, and ICC on Mat 5:3 look at the various possibilities, and conclude that it's not referring to economic poverty, which is what you're saying. But the most likely meanings involve one nuance or another of humility. "Poor in spirit" would be the opposite of "proud in spirit."

Calvin says "But Christ pronounces those to be happy who, chastened and subdued by afflictions, submit themselves wholly to God, and, with inward humility, betake themselves to him for protection." Slightly different, but close to the modern interpreters.

Total depravity in the Reformed sense is corruption of nature. That seems impossible in context, and would make no sense in the Lukan parallel, where it's probably economic poverty.

I think you misunderstood my intent, context is key in the Greek. In the opening verses of Matthew 5 Jesus is describing the attitudes and inclinations of a disciple. At times it's apparent Jesus can mean physical poverty, Luke's recounting of these lessons seem to emphasis it. In this context clear it it an attitude of the spirit of man, facing the reality of being spiritually destitute. Physical and spiritual poverty while not synonomous are closely related in the New Testament. The reason I think Jesus uses this word I think reflects the idea of total depravity since the poverty indicated is one completely and utterly dependant on the kindness of others for the most basic needs of the individule.