What is wrong with Calvinism ?

[Mark Quayle]

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.

What you said about realizing God is in control; this is one of the reasons I love the thinking I refer to as Reformed or Calvinistic, that God is doing all this for himself. When I was a little kid, living in the tropics with no ceiling but a tin roof, and we would get a deafening torrential downpour with lightning and thunder so close it was terrifying, and I was alone in the house, one time it occurred to me that not only did God have control of it, but that God was himself CAUSING it. And enjoying himself! I realized that if he was to hit me with lightning he was welcome and had a good reason to do so.

Another similar, though very different, thing happened when I was grown and married, and my young son was on a carpeted floor, building a tall stack of blocks, very unstable. He was sitting back on his heels, so because I knew how ridiculous it felt to have it happen, I touched him on his forehead which was just enough to lose his balance backwards, and his feet stuck out and knocked his stack of blocks down. He didn't get mad, because it was SO ridiculous feeling, but also, because I was his daddy, that had done it, so he could experience the humor of the situation. Some days later, I had put way too much effort into a job where things just kept going wrong, and was in a situation where once I began a repair it HAD to be completed. Couldn't wait another day. And the more I did, the worse things got. At one point, I lost an integral part to the hog house heater, down in the "6-inch deep residue of hog" (thank you, Dave Barry (I think —maybe it was Patrick McManus)) and thought I'd go back the 4 miles to my shop and fabricate another, but the truck tire was flat, and the jack was missing, etc etc etc, and I was starting to get a little upset, when I remembered the situation with my son, and thought, "I might as well laugh —this stack of blocks I'm trying to put together doesn't matter so much. And the ridiculous irony of all these things happening tonight is funny!"

Anyhow, like you said, God is with me, and in control.

 

[QvQ]

I'm guessing you mean, since you are for Calvinism, they think that therefore you don't claim John 3:16?

Yes, this verse is yours and this verse is mine. Perhaps I am wrong but it is a perception I find a bit odd.

Now, I have been considering why I tend to Calvin.
When I study Christianity, I noticed the elephant in the room. That is while God is good, loving, kind, merciful Whence then came Evil?
Aquinas and especially Calvin addressed the question of Evil.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Gods grace is resistible,

God is resistible as we read in both Testaments below.

Titus 2:11
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men,

Since all men are not saved and Gids grace goes out to all men, Gods grace can be resisted.

Acts 7:51
“You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit!

God the Holy Spirit can be resisted.

Hebrews 10:29
How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?

Here we see the Spirit of grace resisted, insulted, rejected and trampled under.

Hebrews 6:4-8
It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age 6 and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.


Here we have those receiving Gods grace sharing in the Holy Spirit of grace reject it. They have fallen away permanently from His grace and can no longer repent.

Psalm 78:17;40
But they continued to sin against Him, rebelling in the desert against the Most High. How often they disobeyed Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert!

Here we see them in the wilderness rejecting Gods grace upon them and grieving God in the process.

conclusion: just 1 passage showing God can be resisted is enough to prove it is true. But as we see there are plenty of passages which prove man can resist God.

The " I " in tulip is false teaching.

Listen to the Calvinist Lorrain Boettner.

Loraine Boettner has stated on p. 59 of his book, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination,

"prove any one of them true and all of the others will follow as logical and necessary parts of the system. Prove any one of them false and the whole system must be abandoned."

1)I have already proven irresistible grace is not true with Acts 7:51
2)I have proven the atonement is not limited- John 1:20, 3:16, 1 Tim 2:4-6, 2 Pet 3:9 and 1 John 2:2
3)I have proven that election is not unconditional- whosever will may come, that means all, everyone from numerous passages . John 1:12 John 3:16

hope this helps !!!

Calvinism does not teach that Grace cannot be resisted.
Calvinism does not teach that the Holy Spirit cannot be resisted.

I could go on, but (using your picture) just with those two your whole structure has crumbled as your number (1) is false. You have not even dealt with irresistible grace. You have misrepresented it with a strawman. I won't bother to show in this post how you are also wrong with (2) and (3) —it is not necessary until you actually prove that irresistible grace is not true.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Do you have a biblical lexicon to support " all with or without distinction" ????

Once again that is your assumption not from the bible or the lexicons.

Lexicons don't prove anything but to show uses of words. All means all; pretty much in the Greek as in the English —many different things.

Did you put all the money in the bag?

 

[Mark Quayle]

Yes, this verse is yours and this verse is mine. Perhaps I am wrong but it is a perception I find a bit odd.

Now, I have been considering why I tend to Calvin.
When I study Christianity, I noticed the elephant in the room. That is while God is good, loving, kind, merciful Whence then came Evil?
Aquinas and especially Calvin addressed the question of Evil.

Them, and many others, some by simple logic, the Grace of God being dear to them, and their absolute dependence on his omnipotence, and with the realization that this life is not for this life, see that God necessarily causes all things.

 

[Mark Quayle]

That makes Jesus a liar

John 3:15-16
(15) That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
(16) For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.​

How does that make Jesus a liar?

 

[Mark Quayle]

Its the same group the same all.

Says who?

 

[Mark Quayle]

Is the Holy Spirit caused? No, yet God gives us the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is God. The ability to make uncaused decisions is not God, though only he has it.

Frankly the whole notion wraps around our little brains' need for a handle by which to carry a cogent concept. God's decisions are not something he must consider, as if there are options for him from which to choose. That's only the way we do things. So comparing his liberty to ours is a bit ludicrous, anyway. We do not have his causelessness.

 

[Der Alte]

How does that make Jesus a liar?

Here is what Clare73 posted.

I believe, per the Scriptures, that will be the outcome at the end of time.
I believe, per the Scriptures, that he chose some in Christ before the foundation of the world.
If he didn't choose all. . .you do the math.

Here is what Jesus said.

Matthew 11:28
(28) Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
John 7:37
(37) In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.​

One of them is wrong. I say Clare73.

 

[Mark Quayle]

I don't pile up a bunch of biased questions for you to answer so not interested in the question game
which I consider to be a poor substitute for a real dialogue.

True, the swine returns to the mire. Bad habit. I apologize. I mocked your use of the term, fate, pretending you really believed in it.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Here is what Clare73 posted.

Here is what Jesus said.

Matthew 11:28
(28) Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
John 7:37
(37) In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.​

One of them is wrong. I say Clare73.

Did they all come unto him?
Who was thirsty?
Or Who, among the thirsty, came to him?

Do you deny Romans 8 which says the sinful nature CANNOT submit? Do you think it is God, or man, that brings sinners to God?

 

[Mark Quayle]

I saw the video. He was saying we are changing, but the soul is not changing. The soul is the same in me now as it was when I was a kid. How do I know? Because the "I" looking out my eyes now is the same "I" that was looking out my eyes as a boy. The character changes, not the "I". We know that by experience.

I kind of like Sproul, much more than Piper or White.

Not exactly. He was saying that we are creatures, changing. But God is not changing. (Your soul is only and always what God says it is, but that's not the point of this discussion or of his teaching). He also says that that which changes, necessarily is caused by what does not change.

 

[Der Alte]

Did they all come unto him?
Who was thirsty?
Or Who, among the thirsty, came to him?
Do you deny Romans 8 which says the sinful nature CANNOT submit? Do you think it is God, or man, that brings sinners to God?

Would Jesus say "Come unto to me" if it was not possible for his audience to come to Him?

 

[Mark Quayle]

Would Jesus say "Come unto to me" if it was not possible for his audience to come to Him?

Maybe he meant it only, in the end, to those who would obey.

Nevertheless, the command does not imply the ability to obey. Romans 8 says the sinful nature will not and indeed CANNOT submit to God's law.

 

[Clare73]

The OT saints and the NT saints are one and the same people of God, all saved by Grace. I have no problem with that.

My problem is with the notion that angels are part of the body of Christ, the Bride, THE dwelling place of God. God did not make the angels in his image, as far as I know. What he put us through these several thousand years is what it took for him to make a people like himself. The angels are not the ones Christ died for.

Back to this. . .

We know the image of God includes righteousness, holiness and knowledge of him (Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10).
It would also include spirit and rationality.
It seems to me the angels are in possession of such.
They are called sons of God in Job 1:6, Job 38:7, and serve him as sons.

Hebrews 12:22 presents them as in the heavenly gospel church, in the same family with the same head as it presents the firstborn and the deceased saints--both OT and NT, with God the Judge of all and Jesus the Mediator (Hebrews 12:23-24).

At this point in God's economy, the angels are superior to us (Psalms 8:3-8).

 

[misput]

Good question. . .I agree, it is the conscience, and it governs the human realm (Romans 2:14-15) .

Scripture is also emphatic that God himself, his invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--are likewise clearly seen from what has been made, so that man is without excuse for neither glorifying him as God nor giving thanks to him (Romans 1:19-21).

However, morality and God are not the same thing. One can be both moral and Godless.

Morality is about the law. Neither the Godless nor the believer are saved by being moral but the law is instrumental in dragging us to God/ Christ because it makes us aware we are without hope in it. If we look at Rom.:2:16- on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus. Seems to indicate these people will be judged by the gospel. Why bother with that statement if there is no possible connection to the Holy Spirit/God for them? Do you believe the Spirit of God/Holy Spirit has not and does not work toward salvation with all mankind? Being Spiritually dead does not mean we cannot think, reason or make a positive decision for God. We learn about/see the kingdom as we grow, if we grow. You seem to obsess on certain scripture to the point of leaving no room for the Spirit but as Christ said It goes where it wants and we do not know where. Your theology tends to present God in a very bad light.

 

[misput]

Did they all come unto him?
Who was thirsty?
Or Who, among the thirsty, came to him?

Do you deny Romans 8 which says the sinful nature CANNOT submit? Do you think it is God, or man, that brings sinners to God?

The scripture says man plants the seed and God gives the increase, so I guess it is both.

 

[misput]

Maybe he meant it only, in the end, to those who would obey.

Nevertheless, the command does not imply the ability to obey. Romans 8 says the sinful nature will not and indeed CANNOT submit to God's law.

How about the Gospel? Lots of sinful men seem to submit to that, I know I did.

 

[misput]

misput said: ↑
Do you think God is bound by philosophy?

Relevance?

Evasion.

 

[trophy33]

If every inclination of the heart of the sinner is only evil, he will reject God. Why is that so hard to accept?

The error Calvinists are making here is that they read this poetic expression too literally. Making people to be all-evil monsters in every moment, deserving never ending torture for something they cannot change.

you want to accuse God of wrongdoing, for making men for the purpose of demonstrating his justice?

No, just saying you and other common Calvinists are giving some wrong views and answers.