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What is wrong with Calvinism ?

John Mullally

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Sin is a result of rebellion that started with Satan, who then successfully tempted Adam. Per Jeremiah 7:31, Jeremiah 19:5, Jeremiah 32:35 I know that God does not decree some evil as it never came to His mind. Since I know God does not decree some evil and God does not tempt anyone with evil (James 1:13), I don't believe God decrees any evil. Additional support: It seems odd that our God of Love (1 John 4:8 and 1 John 4:18) would judge men and angels for doing something He decreed they do. 1 Corinthians 13 among other things states that love "thinks no evil".

To add balance - although God is love and the Holy Spirit had Paul describe love in 1 Corinthians 13, we also know this about God:

Romans 11:22 Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.​
You have a lot here.
 
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Clare73

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The Bible has not left this shrouded in mystery, but has given us the simple explanation; i.e., God works in the dispositions of men giving them to prefer his will which they then freely and voluntarily choose; e.g., Exodus 4:21; Exodus 9:16; 1 Samuel 18:10; 2 Samuel 24:1, 2 Samuel 24:10; 1 Kings 22:23; Job 12:16; Ezekiel 14:9; Daniel 4:25.

"Mystery" solved. . .
 
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Clare73

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Redefine what love means because you don't think God fits the accepted definition of love. Sounds dark from my perspective.
Precisely. . .sounds to me like the human notion of love is "somewhat inadequate" regarding divine love.
 
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zoidar

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Clare73

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Maybe you are ok with that rationalization but I believe you are taking your verses out of context i.e. Pharoah who hardened his heart on his own several times before God began directing his motives.
I believe we've already discussed this.
Keeping in mind that God told Moses before he ever left Midian to go to Egypt, that he would harden Pharaoh's heart so that he would not obey (Exodus 4:21).

God ran that show.
 
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Clare73

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The answers don't get any better than Scripture itself.

You might try Romans 9:23.

.
 
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Clare73

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You give no credit to David Bercot who has spent half his life studying the
Early Church Fathers and claims they held the belief of free will?
So? . . .The concept comes from philosophy (Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Cicero)--before the Church Fathers, not from the Bible.
Pelagius (British monk, circa 400 AD) argued for it as necessary for moral responsibility.
 
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RickReads

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Keeping in mind that God told Moses before he ever left Midian to go to Egypt, that he would harden Pharaoh's heart so that he would not obey (Exodus 4:21).

God ran that show.

True but doesn't change the facts. At first, it was all Pharoah. God didn't have to interfere until Pharoah got tired and was thinking about giving in.
 
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Clare73

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True but doesn't change the facts.
Precisely. . .it doesn't change the fact that God told Moses before he went to Egypt that he would harden Pharaoh's heart (Exodus 4:21). . .and he did precisely that.
 
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trophy33

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The answers don't get any better than Scripture itself.

You might try Romans 9:23.

.
I am not a Calvinist, so I do not need to try to find verses to defend them.

Even though I think they got many things right, they are making quite a serious error dividing the character of God into isolated parts ("this is made because of His love, that is made because of His justice..."), while, in reality, God is always loving and always just, in everything He does.
 
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Jesus is YHWH

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So? . . .The concept comes from philosophy (Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Cicero)--before the Church Fathers, not from the Bible.
Pelagius (British monk, circa 400 AD) argued for it as necessary for moral responsibility.
and so does the calvinist view of predestination, sovereignty and determinism has its origin in the pagan religions/false gods.
 
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misput

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Yes, we can choose to live sin free our self but this is where sin comes in, we find out we cannot, just like Adam, or we can choose to walk with God/Christ to be successful.
 
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Clare73

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QvQ

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It is one thing to speculate, this way, but it is foolish and risky to produce doctrine this way.
God is good. When I have been very afraid or stressed, I would repeat those words to myself. I know that whatever appears to be chaotic, traumatic or even life threatening God is in control. It is the basic assumption of faith, that God is with me. And He will guide me through the valley, all the days of my life.
I can trust in the goodness of God

Sometimes I think this culture worships love. Love, in the common usage is so overused as to be meaningless. I would not like to see love become god. "Get the big prize "love" if you come to Jesus. Step right up folks" Love becomes the entire message.
 
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Jesus is YHWH

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God is love is a primary/essential and core attribute of God. As Triune and Immutable its who God is as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is love before there was a creation and anything/anyone to be Sovereign over. Love precedes Sovereignty. Sovereign requires a creation, love does not.

1 John 4:10
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

The Son came from Heaven where He was with the Father before the world was created and shared the Fathers Glory. (John 17:5). It looks like the our Triune God had redemption in mind with the creation and the greatest act of love was for the Father to send the Son. This was planned before creation.


I will quote the renown Theologian and one of the greatest minds in Christianity A.W. Tozer from his book the Knowledge of the Holy,

The words “God is love” mean that love is an essential attribute of God. Love is something true of God but it is not God. It expresses the way God is in His unitary being, as do the words holiness, justice, faithfulness and truth. Because God is immutable He always acts like Himself, and because He is a unity He never suspends one of His attributes in order to exercise another.

From God’s other known attributes we may learn much about His love. We can know, for instance, that because God is self-existent, His love had no beginning; because He is eternal, His love can have no end; because He is infinite, it has no limit; because He is holy, it is the quintessence of all spotless purity; because He is immense, His love is an incomprehensibly vast, bottomless, shoreless sea before which we kneel in joyful silence and from which the loftiest eloquence retreats confused and abashed.

A man is the sum of his parts and his character the sum of the traits that compose it. These traits vary from man to man and may from time to time vary from themselves within the same man. Human character is not constant because the traits or qualities that constitute it are unstable. These come and go, burn low or glow with great intensity throughout our lives. Thus a man who is kind and considerate at thirty may be cruel and churlish at fifty. Such a change is possible because man is made; he is in a very real sense a composition; he is the sum of the traits that make up his character.

We naturally and correctly think of man as a work wrought by the divine Intelligence. He is both created and made. How he was created lies undisclosed among the secrets of God; how he was brought from no-being to being, from nothing to something is not known and may never be known to any but the One who brought him forth. How God made him, however, is less of a secret, and while we know only a small portion of the whole truth, we do know that man possesses a body, a soul, and a spirit; we know that he has memory, reason, will, intelligence, sensation, and we know that to give these meaning he has the wondrous gift of consciousness. We know, too, that these, together with various qualities of temperament, compose his total human self.

These are gifts from God arranged by infinite wisdom, notes that make up the score of creations loftiest symphony, threads that compose the master tapestry of the universe.

But in all this we are thinking creature-thoughts and using creature-words to express them. Neither such thoughts nor such words are appropriate to the Deity. ”The Father is made of none,” says the Athanasian Creed, ”neither created nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone, not made, nor created, but begotten. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and the Son: not made nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.” God exists in Himself and of Himself. His being He owes to no one. His substance is indivisible. He has no parts but is single in His unitary being.

The doctrine of the divine unity means not only that there is but one God; it means also that God is simple, uncomplex, one with Himself. The harmony of His being is the result not of a perfect balance of parts but of the absence of parts. Between His attributes no contradiction can exist. He need not suspend one to exercise another, for in Him all His attributes are one. All of God does all that God does; He does not divide himself to perform a work, but works in the total unity of His being.

An attribute, then, is a part of God. It is how God is, and as far as the reasoning mind can go, we may say that it is what God is, though, as I have tried to explain, exactly what He is He cannot tell us. Of what God is conscious when He is conscious of self, only He knows. ”The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.” Only to an equal could God communicate the mystery of His Godhead; and to think of God as having an equal is to fall into an intellectual absurdity.

The divine attributes are what we know to be true of God. He does not possess them as qualities; they are how God is as He reveals Himself to His creatures. Love, for instance, is not something God has and which may grow or diminish or cease to be. His love is the way God is, and when He loves He is simply being Himself. And so with the other attributes.

One God! one Majesty!
There is no God but Thee!
Unbounded, unextended Unity!
Unfathomable Sea!
All life is out of Thee,
and Thy life is Thy blissful Unity.
Frederick W. Faber
 
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Clare73

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Once we find out that Jesus lives we then have the free will to choose between life and death.
Calvinism denies this truth.
"Free will" is not in the Bible.
 
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Clare73

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and so does the calvinist view of predestination, sovereignty and determinism has its origin in the pagan religions/false gods.
Water, air and light are also in the pagan religions. . .did they also come from the pagan religions?
 
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