What is wrong with Calvinism ?

Jesus is YHWH

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Love is one of the primary and essential attributes which reflect the nature and character of God. The word Theology refers to the study of God, and God is Triune, a Trinity- Tri-Unity. All doctrine begins with God at its starting point. God’s innate attributes are Aseity (God is self-sufficient), Infinite (without limit), Eternal (God has no beginning or end, he is timeless), Immutable (God is unchanging), Love (God is love), Holy (God is set-apart), Perichoresis (the indwelling of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit). Divine Simplicity states God is Love and because He is Love, not because He possesses that quality. God's love is the center of all the Divine Attributes. They point to His Being. God is not distinct from His nature.

God is Love. In love, the Father sent the Son on our behalf to be the perfect sacrifice for sin. We Love because He first loved us and sent His Son as 1 John 4 tells us.

We must understand how God's attributes all work in harmony together, not in opposition to each other. God's attributes and character flow from His love—for God is love.

God being love has nothing to do with His creation. That is secondary. God is love, and that love is perfect, lacking nothing within His Triune nature as God. Love, by definition, has to be expressed with another, which is why a unitarian god cannot be love. Love requires another to share and express that love, and it is what we see with the Triune God. God is love before anyone/anything existed.

In the monumental work of Calvin’s Institutes , it is interesting for a man with such an attention to detail when it comes to dogma and Scripture that he left out any mention of Gods primary attribute that God is love (1 John 4:8;16) and any biblical reference to those two verses in 1 John regarding God is love. His institutes contain thousands of bible references and over 1500 pages in his Institutes.

Another interesting fact is that in the Shorter Westminster Catechism of Faith, question 4 “What is God “? We read the following regarding Gods attributes and notice what is left out.

“God is Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth. “

Notice like in Calvin’s Institute’s, the WCF leaves out Gods primary attribute that He is love.

Before creation, there was no sin. There was no judgment, wrath, mercy, grace, and justice. There was no Sovereignty for there was no creation to be Sovereign over. Why do you ask about those attributes and that they were not necessary? Because those are God's secondary attributes concerning the creation and the fall. God's love is a primary attribute, like Holy is a primary one. Everything about God flows from His being Love which includes His secondary attributes, which were not in use until the creation and the fall.

The true nature of Gods love is at the heart of the gospel message: God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in His shall not perish but have everlasting life, John 3:16.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:17
 
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Jesus is YHWH

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You wrote
Before creation, there was no sin. There was no judgment,

Well actually there was satan and the angels he convinced to follow him and their sin and judgment.

I am fairly sure the creation of man and the earth was in response to satan's actions.

But as for Calvinism, it is not based on correct Biblical theology.

https://www.amazon.com/Confronting-Calvinism-Refutation-Resolution-Soteriology/dp/1484138112
I said prior to creation and the angels were created. But thanks for your comment anyways.
 
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Calvinism is evil, and should be barred from teaching to any body of believers.
I understand why people think that and that the god of calvinism is a "monster " with double predestination and the creation of most humankind with no choice due to election/predestination for hell. Its a misunderstanding of Gods nature/character especially when it comes to love.

No parent would say they love all their 10 children yet only rescue 2 of them from the fire in the house when he could of saved them all and let the other 8 burn and die. That is unloving , not loving. But this is what calvinism teaches through their doctrines of grace called tulip.
 
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Gregory Thompson

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What is wrong with Calvinism ?

On paper, nothing appears to be wrong with calvinism. It has more to do with how it is applied, and how people are treated in a way that Jesus would disapprove of.

Because of the way people are treated and socialized with by calvinists, these other theologies start getting created around calvinism that calvinists tend to deny.

The same thing happens with every tradition once it gets too old. Anyone not in the inside group or familiar with the originating culture will just misunderstand it.

The above explanation was provided in case you wanted an answer to the subject question.
 
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2PhiloVoid

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Love is one of the primary and essential attributes which reflect the nature and character of God. The word Theology refers to the study of God, and God is Triune, a Trinity- Tri-Unity. All doctrine begins with God at its starting point. God’s innate attributes are Aseity (God is self-sufficient), Infinite (without limit), Eternal (God has no beginning or end, he is timeless), Immutable (God is unchanging), Love (God is love), Holy (God is set-apart), Perichoresis (the indwelling of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit). Divine Simplicity states God is Love and because He is Love, not because He possesses that quality. God's love is the center of all the Divine Attributes. They point to His Being. God is not distinct from His nature.

God is Love. In love, the Father sent the Son on our behalf to be the perfect sacrifice for sin. We Love because He first loved us and sent His Son as 1 John 4 tells us.

We must understand how God's attributes all work in harmony together, not in opposition to each other. God's attributes and character flow from His love—for God is love.

God being love has nothing to do with His creation. That is secondary. God is love, and that love is perfect, lacking nothing within His Triune nature as God. Love, by definition, has to be expressed with another, which is why a unitarian god cannot be love. Love requires another to share and express that love, and it is what we see with the Triune God. God is love before anyone/anything existed.

In the monumental work of Calvin’s Institutes , it is interesting for a man with such an attention to detail when it comes to dogma and Scripture that he left out any mention of Gods primary attribute that God is love (1 John 4:8;16) and any biblical reference to those two verses in 1 John regarding God is love. His institutes contain thousands of bible references and over 1500 pages in his Institutes.

Another interesting fact is that in the Shorter Westminster Catechism of Faith, question 4 “What is God “? We read the following regarding Gods attributes and notice what is left out.

“God is Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth. “

Notice like in Calvin’s Institute’s, the WCF leaves out Gods primary attribute that He is love.

Before creation, there was no sin. There was no judgment, wrath, mercy, grace, and justice. There was no Sovereignty for there was no creation to be Sovereign over. Why do you ask about those attributes and that they were not necessary? Because those are God's secondary attributes concerning the creation and the fall. God's love is a primary attribute, like Holy is a primary one. Everything about God flows from His being Love which includes His secondary attributes, which were not in use until the creation and the fall.

The true nature of Gods love is at the heart of the gospel message: God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in His shall not perish but have everlasting life, John 3:16.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:17

And what happens if Love isn't conceptually divisible from any of God's other attributes or even necessarily "at the center"? Or what if all of God's attributes are what they are, all equally integrated?

My point in asking is: who knows? Yet, we have a stream of people who keep showing up through the centuries who claim to know precisely what the 'divine method' of interpreting God is. Who's to say it's not apophatic?

I don't know. But I'm sure that most of us on this forum don't "know" either.

As for Calvinism, it's just one more historical theological attempt to "get it right." But that's all anyone can do---attempt to get their interpretation "right." I'm sure that where God in His fullness is concerned, we all, on the human scale, usually fail.
 
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TedT

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No parent would say they love all their 10 children yet only rescue 2 of them from the fire in the house when he could of saved them all and let the other 8 burn and die.
The idea of our inherited sinfulness is then like unto a man who forces his children to be born into and to live in a burning house, and, as proof of his love for them, telling them that he has provided a window for them to jump out of...

Sinfulness by being forced into another's sinfulness by our creation as human and not by a true free will decision to rebel against HIM is anathema, a blasphemy against HIS being love and HIS righteous justness.
 
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RickReads

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Where are you at with Calvinism? Your post sounds like a repudiation of it.
I didn't know it but my thinking was Calvinist when I was a young man, a result of listening to Baptist and Pentecostal sermons.

Once I learned what Calvinism really means I began looking for Biblical reasons to shift my positions.
It took several years of wrestling with it before I was satisfied with what I was seeing in the gospel.
 
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I understand why people think that and that the god of calvinism is a "monster " with double predestination and the creation of most humankind with no choice due to election/predestination for hell. Its a misunderstanding of Gods nature/character especially when it comes to love.

No parent would say they love all their 10 children yet only rescue 2 of them from the fire in the house when he could of saved them all and let the other 8 burn and die. That is unloving , not loving. But this is what calvinism teaches through their doctrines of grace called tulip.
I think that the better analogy would be that the house is equipped with smoke alarms and a fire escape and that those who take action when they hear the smoke alarm go off and use the fire escape to get out of the house are those who escape the fire. Those who don't believe there is any danger when the smoke alarm goes off and do not use the fire escape are those who perish in the fire.

The Gospel of Christ is that "smoke alarm" and receiving Christ as Saviour is the fire escape. Those who perish are those who ignore the salvation that the Gospel of Christ offers.
 
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God being love has nothing to do with His creation.
What about Romans 8:29? All was created for God's Son Jesus, because of His love for Jesus. He made this universe as His place for having and growing children who are pleasing to Him like Jesus is.
Before creation, there was no sin.
But there was Jesus, and our Father was so pleased with His own Son Jesus.
There was no Sovereignty for there was no creation to be Sovereign over.
But before creation our Father predestined that there would be "many brethren" who are "conformed to the image of his Son". This predestination was sovereign.
Everything about God flows from His being Love which includes His secondary attributes, which were not in use until the creation and the fall.
But in His sovereignty God predestined that there will be many children like His Son Jesus. This came from His love for Jesus who is so pleasing to Him.

And God's all-control has all things fitting somehow with the overall result that many will be conformed to Jesus. There is this all-managing which is based in His love . . . in Him who is love.
 
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What about Romans 8:29? All was created for God's Son Jesus, because of His love for Jesus. He made this universe as His place for having and growing children who are pleasing to Him like Jesus is.
But there was Jesus, and our Father was so pleased with His own Son Jesus. But before creation our Father predestined that there would be "many brethren" who are "conformed to the image of his Son". This predestination was sovereign.But in His sovereignty God predestined that there will be many children like His Son Jesus. This came from His love for Jesus who is so pleasing to Him.

And God's self-control has all things fitting somehow with the overall result that many will be conformed to Jesus. There is this all-managing which is based in His love . . . in Him who is love.
God being sovereign means that He does what He pleases and does not have to answer to anyone.
"Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases." Psalm 115:3).
 
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Jesus is YHWH

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I think that the better analogy would be that the house is equipped with smoke alarms and a fire escape and that those who take action when they hear the smoke alarm go off and use the fire escape to get out of the house are those who escape the fire. Those who don't believe there is any danger when the smoke alarm goes off and do not use the fire escape are those who perish in the fire.

The Gospel of Christ is that "smoke alarm" and receiving Christ as Saviour is the fire escape. Those who perish are those who ignore the salvation that the Gospel of Christ offers.
Except in Calvinism there is double predestination where the elect are chosen before the foundation of the world for salvation and the rest of mankind are elect to damnation. So God like the Father doesn't rescue them , only the elect are rescued and that has already been predetermined the fate of both groups.
 
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Except in Calvinism there is double predestination where the elect are chosen before the foundation of the world for salvation and the rest of mankind are elect to damnation. So God like the Father doesn't rescue them , only the elect are rescued and that has already been predetermined the fate of both groups.
Charles Spurgeon taught that we must put believing the Gospel of Christ and receiving Christ must come first, then sorting out election should come afterward.

Anyone standing before Christ at the Judgment cannot use predestination as a defence, because there are abundant promises and directions to believe the Gospel and that whoever comes to Christ will not be cast out. So the question asked will be, "Why didn't you believe the Gospel and put your faith in Christ?" The reprobate ones will have no answer to that question because they know that they are guilty of ignoring the salvation that was offered to them and that condemnation to Hell is their fault, not God's.

Election and Reprobation are mysteries that are in the mind of God, through His foreknowledge of who is going to believe the Gospel of Christ and who is going to reject it. Regardless of whether He knows already who is going to believe the Gospel of Christ and who is not, for us, believing the Gospel is paramount because heaven or hell for us is dependent on it, rather than a mystery decree in heaven that only God knows the detail of it.
 
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When I first heard the Calvinist proof text about a leopard not being able to change his spots, nor the Ethiopian his skin, I wanted to see the context. I found that God was speaking to the king and queen of Israel not, necessarily all of mankind, Jer 13:18. And as I read further in this chapter I found another passage, which refutes several tenets of Calvinism.
Does God predestine some part of humanity to salvation and another part to damnation and there is nothing either group can do about it? Many arguments have been presented in support of this.
Note this passage from Jeremiah. God said “I have caused to cleave” That word is הדבקתי/ha’dabaq’thi. It is in the perfect or completed sense. God’s express will, clearly stated, for the whole house of Israel and Judah, not just a chosen few, to cling to God as a belt clings to a man’s waist.

It was done, finished, completed, in God’s sight, and, according to some arguments, nothing man can do will cause God’s will to not be done. But they, Israel and Judah, would not hear and obey, their will, vs. God’s will, So God destroyed them, vs. 14.
…..This passage very much speaks to God’s sovereign will, and man’s free will and agency. God stated very clearly what His will was, in terms that cannot be misunderstood. But, because the Israelites and Judeans would not hear, and obey, God destroyed them, instead of them being unto God, “for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory, vs. 10.”

Jer 13:1 Thus saith the LORD unto me, Go and get thee a linen girdle, and put it upon thy loins, and put it not in water.
2 So I got a girdle according to the word of the LORD, and put it on my loins.
3 And the word of the LORD came unto me the second time, saying,
4 Take the girdle that thou hast got, which is upon thy loins, and arise, go to Euphrates, and hide it there in a hole of the rock.
5 So I went, and hid it by Euphrates, as the LORD commanded me.
6 And it came to pass after many days, that the LORD said unto me, Arise, go to Euphrates, and take the girdle from thence, which I commanded thee to hide there.
7 Then I went to Euphrates, and digged, and took the girdle from the place where I had hid it: and, behold, the girdle was marred, it was profitable for nothing.
8 Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
9 Thus saith the LORD, After this manner will I mar the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem.
10 This evil people, which refuse to hear my words, which walk in the imagination of their heart, and walk after other gods, to serve them, and to worship them, shall even be as this girdle, which is good for nothing.
11 For as the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave [הדבקתי/ha’dabaq’thi] unto me the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah, saith the LORD; that they might be unto me for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory: but they would not hear.

· · ·
14
And I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the LORD: I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them.
Note, verse 14, God said “I will NOT have pity, will NOT spare, and will NOT have mercy but destroy them.”


 
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Jesus is YHWH

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Charles Spurgeon taught that we must put believing the Gospel of Christ and receiving Christ must come first, then sorting out election should come afterward.

Anyone standing before Christ at the Judgment cannot use predestination as a defence, because there are abundant promises and directions to believe the Gospel and that whoever comes to Christ will not be cast out. So the question asked will be, "Why didn't you believe the Gospel and put your faith in Christ?" The reprobate ones will have no answer to that question because they know that they are guilty of ignoring the salvation that was offered to them and that condemnation to Hell is their fault, not God's.

Election and Reprobation are mysteries that are in the mind of God, through His foreknowledge of who is going to believe the Gospel of Christ and who is going to reject it. Regardless of whether He knows already who is going to believe the Gospel of Christ and who is not, for us, believing the Gospel is paramount because heaven or hell for us is dependent on it, rather than a mystery decree in heaven that only God knows the detail of it.
Spurgeon said tulip is the gospel and he is flat out wrong.
 
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Spurgeon said tulip is the gospel and he is flat out wrong.
So you don't believe that he said that we must believe the Gospel first then worry about election after. Correct?
 
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So you don't believe that he said that we must believe the Gospel first then worry about election after. Correct?
He said tulip is the gospel and one must believe the gospel to be saved right ?

here is Spurgeon:

And I have my own private opinion, that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and him crucified, unless you preach what now-a-days is called Calvinism. I have my own ideas, and those I always state boldly. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism. Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith without works; nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God in his dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor, I think, can we preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the peculiar redemption which Christ made for his elect and chosen people; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation, after having believed. Such a gospel I abhor. The gospel of the Bible is not such a gospel as that. We preach Christ and him crucified in a different fashion, and to all gainsayers we reply, ‘We have not so learned Christ.’ [Spurgeon’s Sermons, vol. I (Baker Books, reprinted 2007), 88-89.]
 
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What about Romans 8:29? All was created for God's Son Jesus, because of His love for Jesus. He made this universe as His place for having and growing children who are pleasing to Him like Jesus is.
But there was Jesus, and our Father was so pleased with His own Son Jesus. But before creation our Father predestined that there would be "many brethren" who are "conformed to the image of his Son". This predestination was sovereign.But in His sovereignty God predestined that there will be many children like His Son Jesus. This came from His love for Jesus who is so pleasing to Him.

And God's all-control has all things fitting somehow with the overall result that many will be conformed to Jesus. There is this all-managing which is based in His love . . . in Him who is love.

The manner in which you use the word “predestined,” suggesting God created them to choose Him, is problematic.

The “predestined” is in relation to those who, by their own free will, choose Christ. For this group of people He predestined eternal life.

Free will is where the person has it in their power to enage in some action or refrain from it. There isn’t an external force or external entity causing the person to behave. There isn’t an antecedent condition or cause.
 
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Charles Spurgeon taught that we must put believing the Gospel of Christ and receiving Christ must come first, then sorting out election should come afterward.

Anyone standing before Christ at the Judgment cannot use predestination as a defence, because there are abundant promises and directions to believe the Gospel and that whoever comes to Christ will not be cast out. So the question asked will be, "Why didn't you believe the Gospel and put your faith in Christ?" The reprobate ones will have no answer to that question because they know that they are guilty of ignoring the salvation that was offered to them and that condemnation to Hell is their fault, not God's.

Election and Reprobation are mysteries that are in the mind of God, through His foreknowledge of who is going to believe the Gospel of Christ and who is going to reject it. Regardless of whether He knows already who is going to believe the Gospel of Christ and who is not, for us, believing the Gospel is paramount because heaven or hell for us is dependent on it, rather than a mystery decree in heaven that only God knows the detail of it.

“Election” is not a Biblical mystery.

“For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters; 30 and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”

God’s omniscience permitted Him to perfectly foreknow, before any creation, A.) who would accept and follow Jesus and B.) Based on A, God had a plan, implemented the plan, that those who accepted and followed Jesus would have eternal life. The “elect” are those who, in God’s judgment, satisfied being saved by His son Jesus. For this group is designated by Him as the “elect,” made possible by His son and the free choices of people.
 
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