What is wrong with Calvinism ?

[Jesus is YHWH]

I don't want to engage in a harangue. Suffice it to say that

#2609 fails to take into account that both the words "all" and "world" can mean either

all without distinction, or
all without exception,

which when applied correctly does not cause Scripture to contradict itself.

You assume "all without exception" where the whole counsel of God shows it to be "all without distinction."

I will not be arguing those differences with you.

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.

 

[Clare73]

Jehovah's Witnesses claim a similar thing about the Trinty, that the counsel of Nicaea AD 325 changed the reference point of who God is.

Can you show that the Early Church Fathers didn't hold the same position on free will as Pelagius?

I claim neither, and don't need to prove either.

 

[Clare73]

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.

That comes from Scripture itself, in light of the whole counsel of God.

 

[Jesus is YHWH]

I claim neither, and don't need to prove either.

Do you affirm or deny mans free will ?

 

[Jesus is YHWH]

That comes from the whole counsel of God.

Where please point me to this assumption of yours in the Bible so we can see if your cistern holds water or is full of holes.

 

[Clare73]

Do you affirm or deny mans free will ?

I affirm man's ability to voluntarily choose what he prefers, likes, which is shown throughout Scripture.

I deny the "free will" of philosophy whereby man can make all moral choices because
man cannot make the moral choice to be sinless in thought, word and deed.

I affirm the "free agent" of philosophy where man is able to make moral choices, but not all moral choices.

Those pesky distinctions again. . .

 

[Mark Quayle]

How do you figure?

Because they are effects, not "first causes". They do not occur without being caused to occur. And the Arminian argument is that they are caused by the person choosing, alone, "in some way" spontaneous. They cannot say how they are spontaneous, only that they are. Their only recourse is to claim that each person is capable "somehow" of one choosing better than another is capable of doing, which implies that one person is morally better, or better in some other way (which they don't want to claim), or that chance determines the difference. But, if they do say one is a better person than another, they still cannot account for THAT difference, but by causation.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

"Choice," in the sense of "free will," means the power/ability to execute the choice.
If you don't have the power to "do" it, then you can't really "choose" it.

Therefore you can't be judged for it.
Oh. There is a Scripture somewhere where Jesus said that even if we do great things for God, there is no giving of great honour for doing so, because all we have done is as unprofitable servants. So, if we are servants, we are bound to do what our master tells us.

Perhaps this makes better sense of the "Lord, Lord. Haven't we prophesied in you name, cast out demons, and done great works?" The Lord might answer, "Who told you do to those things? I never knew you, so it is obvious it wasn't Me who told you."

 

[zoidar]

I claim neither, and don't need to prove either.

Well, good then! Then I don't see the relevance for pointing out that Pelagius argued for free will.

 

[Mark Quayle]

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.

Do you have any evidence that God was hands off concerning Pharoah when Pharoah hardened his own heart? Wasn't it God who set things in motion knowing Adam would sin, and all people subsequent to that sin would be plunged into a life (but for the grace of God) of enmity against God? By that, if by no other way, God had something to do with the fact that Pharoah's heart went the way it did, even before you noticed it going that way. Did God have nothing to do with the fact that Pharoah was raised as a child the way he was? Did God have nothing to do with Pharoah's environment? He certainly had something to do with what Satan did with Job, no?

Do you think people nowadays are better than people in Noah's time, when "every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time"?

 

[Der Alte]

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.

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.​

 

[Jesus is YHWH]

I deny the "free will" of philosophy whereby man can make all moral choices because
man cannot make the moral choice to be sinless in thought, word and deed.
.

No one is arguing for the above. This is just another strawman, a caricature.

 

[zoidar]

. (Again)

 

[QvQ]

The only ones who taught against free will were the gnostics.

"We find nowhere within the primary or indirect sources related to ancient Gnosticism a systematic inquiry about human free will"
There are two lines in all the writings that say anything about human will.

Just for the Record.

 

[Mark Quayle]

If you also believe in hell, then after putting 1 + 1 together, you are saying that God wanted to demonstrate how just He is by creating beings He will torture for ever.

This is the area where the theology of calvinism (or perhaps just common calvinists) fails miserably to give good answers.

You say I am putting 1+1 together, and then put words in my mouth. I don't know what the two are you refer to, but whatever, it is you who synthesize the two notions, ignoring the full context of God's purposes, or even what little we do know of the full context, which he has told us outright and plainly, and which creation he has every right to create, and every judgement he passes, DEMONSTRATING HIS JUSTICE in doing so, and then say he is unjust for doing so? If every inclination of the heart of the sinner is only evil, he will reject God. Why is that so hard to accept? Man plainly chooses what he chooses, just as Scripture says, and you want to accuse God of wrongdoing, for making men for the purpose of demonstrating his justice?

 

[zoidar]

Therefore you can't be judged for it.

This is good and makes sense.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Is Hebrews 12:22-24 not describing the church, the one people of God, including the spirits of the OT saints?

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.

 

[Jesus is YHWH]

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.

Spot on !

 

[Clare73]

Where please point me to this assumption of yours in the Bible so we can see if your cistern holds water or is full of holes.

all without distinction - Romans 10:12 (Gentile as well as Jew)
all without exception - Romans 3:23 (all mankind)

 

[Mark Quayle]

Here's another example of what I'm talking about,

Genesis 15:16
But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not
yet full.

The Amorites had to reach a certain level of wickedness and seal their fate before God would intervene and have them destroyed. And this is just a kingdom of heathens and not particularly nice ones.

This is a good example of how God works.

Does it say this was to seal their fate?

But do you now believe in fate, but not determinism? Predestination by God?