What Presbyterians Believe

hedrick

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I have a theory about what Calvin meant when he spoke about glorifying God. When you say that some people are damned to glorify God, it's easy to get a picture of God gleefully frying people. I'm not so sure he meant that God was gleeful about it. Recall that Calvin was very clear about the limits of our knowledge. We can only know what God chooses to reveal about himself. As far as I can tell, he didn't tell us why he made the world the way he did. I suspect that what Calvin is saying is that while we don't know why God made a world where some people are damned, we can be confident that when we find out, it will bring credit to God.
 
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SPB1987

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First, wrapping our mind around what the Bible says isn't as important as believing what the Bible says. Too many people (and I'm not accusing you of this) approach the Bible with an attitude that they'll believe if it they like it. When our "I'll believe what I like" guard rails are removed and we approach the Bible with our eyes and ears open we can start to see the real beauty of the gospel.

People go to Hell because they sin, and they sin because they want to. That is true in my theology and (hopefully) in yours. God could have designed man any way He wanted, to suit absolutely any purpose. The decisions He made about creation and our design either led to where He knew and intended they would or He was caught by surprise somehow, or defeated by something. I can't accept that God was surprised or defeated because the Bible is clear that this isn't the view we should have. The Bible is also clear that God gets what He wants.

At the same time, man has a will and he chooses according to his desires, and he is held accountable for the choices that he makes (or granted the mercy to put the penalty of sinful choices on Christ).

If we can not understand, how can we believe? The old believe what the Bible says without actually understanding why it says what it says makes no sense to me. If you were born and raised in the middle east, would you likely feel the same about Islam and the Koran?

So basically we are all born with a sinful nature and God decides to merciful on a select few? If we are created with a sinful nature, why should be be punished because God decided he would not save us? Furthermore, why should all of the creation suffer as a result of Adam and Eve?
 
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Eddie L

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If we can not understand, how can we believe? The old believe what the Bible says without actually understanding why it says what it says makes no sense to me. If you were born and raised in the middle east, would you likely feel the same about Islam and the Koran?

There comes a point that we accept that God knows the truth and we understand a little as we go over time. We also have to accept that God is more complicated than we can fathom, and that there will be mysteries and things that take a while to really grasp, or things we'll just come to understand that we cannot really grasp. That means that a part of trusting God is coming to believe that what He does is right and best even when we don't see how. His job is not to sell Himself to us. Our job is to commit ourselves to Him.

So basically we are all born with a sinful nature and God decides to merciful on a select few?

You believe this, too, right? You just put a different basis on God's selection process.

If we are created with a sinful nature, why should be be punished because God decided he would not save us? Furthermore, why should all of the creation suffer as a result of Adam and Eve?

  1. Men who are not saved are condemned because they sin.
  2. God could have decided to save everybody if He wanted to (in your world view and in ours). It's obvious that He chose not to.
  3. All creation suffers as a result of Adam's sin because Adam represented us in the Garden. Nobody could have done a better job than Adam, except Jesus.

Paul wrote about the exact objections you are bringing up now in Romans chapter 9.
 
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SPB1987

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There comes a point that we accept that God knows the truth and we understand a little as we go over time. We also have to accept that God is more complicated than we can fathom, and that there will be mysteries and things that take a while to really grasp, or things we'll just come to understand that we cannot really grasp. That means that a part of trusting God is coming to believe that what He does is right and best even when we don't see how. His job is not to sell Himself to us. Our job is to commit ourselves to Him.



You believe this, too, right? You just put a different basis on God's selection process.



  1. Men who are not saved are condemned because they sin.
  2. God could have decided to save everybody if He wanted to (in your world view and in ours). It's obvious that He chose not to.
  3. All creation suffers as a result of Adam's sin because Adam represented us in the Garden. Nobody could have done a better job than Adam, except Jesus.

Paul wrote about the exact objections you are bringing up now in Romans chapter 9.

You say our job is to commit ourselves to him...your reasoning in previous posts makes it seem like we have no choice in committing ourselves to him.

I do not know what I believe about God or if I even believe he is real to be honest. I was raised SBC and started attending a Church of Christ with my wife...both of these kinds of churches teach free will.

I do not have a problem with the idea that not everyone will be saved...I think you are misunderstanding me here. I take issue with the idea that some of us are saved and others are condemned to hell when we have no choice in the matter. In regards to hell, do Presbyterians believe that hell is a literal place of physical and mental suffering or just simply death? I can not wrap my head around the idea that a loving God would chose to send people to hell(physical and mental suffering) because they sin when He did not even give them the opportunity to believe in Him and follow His word.

I will check out Romans 9 and get back to you on that.
 
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You say our job is to commit ourselves to him...your reasoning in previous posts makes it seem like we have no choice in committing ourselves to him.

I do not know what I believe about God or if I even believe he is real to be honest. I was raised SBC and started attending a Church of Christ with my wife...both of these kinds of churches teach free will.

I do not have a problem with the idea that not everyone will be saved...I think you are misunderstanding me here. I take issue with the idea that some of us are saved and others are condemned to hell when we have no choice in the matter. In regards to hell, do Presbyterians believe that hell is a literal place of physical and mental suffering or just simply death? I can not wrap my head around the idea that a loving God would chose to send people to hell(physical and mental suffering) because they sin when He did not even give them the opportunity to believe in Him and follow His word.

I will check out Romans 9 and get back to you on that.

I've been having a similar discussion in another thread and will post some of the same content here as it is relevant to the discussion...

"Compatibilism offers a solution to the free will problem. This philosophical problem concerns a disputed incompatibility between free will and determinism. Compatibilism is the thesis that free will is compatible with determinism. Because free will is typically taken to be a necessary condition of moral responsibility, compatibilism is sometimes expressed in terms of a compatibility between moral responsibility and determinism." - Compatibilism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

"...we allow that man has choice and that it is self-determined, so that if he does anything evil, it should be imputed to him and to his own voluntary choosing. We do away with coercion and force, because this contradicts the nature of the will and cannot coexist with it. We deny that choice is free, because through man's innate wickedness it is of necessity driven to what is evil and cannot seek anything but evil. And from this it is possible to deduce what a great difference there is between necessity and coercion. For we do not say that man is dragged unwillingly into sinning, but that because his will is corrupt he is held captive under the yoke of sin and therefore of necessity will in an evil way. For where there is bondage, there is necessity. But it makes a great difference whether the bondage is voluntary or coerced. We locate the necessity to sin precisely in corruption of the will, from which follows that it is self-determined." - John Calvin from Bondage and Liberation of the Will, pg. 69-70

...it's called "limited freedom", which you also affirm, unless you deny what Jesus said about good trees and bad trees. "Free will" is basically a meaningless term, as it is misused and abused to the point of absurdity. In what sense is a will free? Free from what? to what? Free to decide apart from desires, would that not be a desire in itself? Is the sinner dead in sins, free to not sin, even though nothing they do is done with faith in Christ?

Do you agree with Scripture where it say's "for whatever is not from faith is sin" (Ro 14:23) and "But without faith it is impossible to please Him" (Heb 11:6)? Do you agree with the (Augustinian) doctrine of "original sin" and that we "were dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph 2:1)? Then you [secretly] agree with Calvin's notion of sinners voluntary sinning by their nature, which is self-determined by the will where faith in Christ is absent, where faith in God is dead.

TOTAL INABILITY

Job 14:4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one!

Psalm 22:29 All the prosperous of the earth Shall eat and worship; All those who go down to the dust Shall bow before Him, Even he who cannot keep himself alive.

Proverbs 20:9 Who can say, “I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin”?

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Who can say, I have made my heart clean,.... The heart of than is naturally unclean, the mind, conscience, understanding, will, and affections; there is no part clean, all are defiled with sin; and though there is such a thing as a pure or clean heart, yet not as made so by men; it is God that has made the heart, that can only make it clean, or create a clean heart in men; it is not to be done by themselves, or by anything that they can do; it is done only by the grace of God, and blood of Christ: God has promised to do it, and he does it; and to him, and to him only, is it to be ascribed;

I am pure from my sin? the sin of nature or of action: such indeed who are washed from their sins in the blood of Christ; whose sins are all pardoned for his sake, and who are justified from all things by his righteousness; they are pure from sin, none is to be seen in them, or found upon them in a legal sense: they are all fair and comely, and without fault in the sight of God; their iniquities are caused to pass from them; and they are clothed with fine linen, clean and white, the righteousness of the saints: but then none are pure from indwelling sin, nor from the commission of sin; no man can say this, any more than the former; if he does, he is an ignorant man, and does not know the plague of his heart; and he is a vain pharisaical man; yea, a man that does not speak the truth, nor is the truth in him, 1 John 1:8.

Jer 13:23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots? Then may you also do good who are accustomed to do evil.

Matt 7:18 “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.

John 6:44 “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him;

John 6:65 And He said, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.”

John 8:34 Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
34, 35. Whosoever committeth sin-that is, liveth in the commission of it-(Compare 1Jo 3:8; Mt 7:23).

is the servant of sin-that is, the bond-servant, or slave of it; for the question is not about free service, but who are in bondage. (Compare 2Pe 2:19; Re 6:16). The great truth here expressed was not unknown to heathen moralists; but it was applied only to vice, for they were total strangers to what in revealed religion is called sin. The thought of slaves and freemen in the house suggests to our Lord a wider idea.

John 8:44 “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.

Romans 6:20 For when you were slaves of sin

Romans 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.

Read Barnes' Notes on the Bible (Ro 8:7)

1 Cor 2:14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned

2 Tim 2:25 in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, 26 and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.
 
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kenrapoza

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We tend to think, for whatever reason, that in order for love to be genuine, it requires that we can choose the antithesis. Let's take a more familiar example. I am married, as I can see from your icons that you are also. We both love our wives, right? What does it mean that we love them? Well, there are many examples of it, but I like to go with what scriptures says just to keep things simple:

"Husbands, love your wives, as Christ has loved the church and gave himself up for her" (Eph. 5:35)

So, we are to love and serve our wives sacrificially, walking in our vocation as Christian husbands. We seek their highest good and we seek their spiritual growth. Now, in order for us to properly love and serve our wives, is it necessary for us to have the option to forsake them? Let's say that option were off the table, would that mean that we still can't build up our wives in the Lord? We can't give ourselves up for them and we can't do loving things for them? Of course not, but our individualistic and freewill worshipping culture have conditioned us to believe that? Does it means that we are robots? Of course not, we would still be freely choosing to love them and thinking of ways that we can love them better.
 
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SPB1987

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We tend to think, for whatever reason, that in order for love to be genuine, it requires that we can choose the antithesis. Let's take a more familiar example. I am married, as I can see from your icons that you are also. We both love our wives, right? What does it mean that we love them? Well, there are many examples of it, but I like to go with what scriptures says just to keep things simple:

"Husbands, love your wives, as Christ has loved the church and gave himself up for her" (Eph. 5:35)

So, we are to love and serve our wives sacrificially, walking in our vocation as Christian husbands. We seek their highest good and we seek their spiritual growth. Now, in order for us to properly love and serve our wives, is it necessary for us to have the option to forsake them? Let's say that option were off the table, would that mean that we still can't build up our wives in the Lord? We can't give ourselves up for them and we can't do loving things for them? Of course not, but our individualistic and freewill worshipping culture have conditioned us to believe that? Does it means that we are robots? Of course not, we would still be freely choosing to love them and thinking of ways that we can love them better.

You could obviously still do loving things for her but.....without the ability to choose to love your wife how can one understand love? It would be rather difficult to understand love and goodness without the choice to commit evil as well.
 
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Eddie L

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You could obviously still do loving things for her but.....without the ability to choose to love your wife how can one understand love? It would be rather difficult to understand love and goodness without the choice to commit evil as well.

Well, maybe, then, God is exposing us to some evil in this world so that we will see the contrast when we are completely influenced by His Spirit in the new one. Love may be shown to be more beautiful when it is contrasted against evil, but love certainly does not need evil to be love.
 
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SPB1987

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Well, maybe, then, God is exposing us to some evil in this world so that we will see the contrast when we are completely influenced by His Spirit in the new one. Love may be shown to be more beautiful when it is contrasted against evil, but love certainly does not need evil to be love.

If we are predestined, why would we need to see evil to fully grasp good?
 
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SPB1987

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Why wouldn't we? God's sovereignty works through means. If we ain't taught we won't learn nuthin'.

And again, why would we need to do any of that if we are predestined? We are predestined to learn algebra or we are predestined to not learn algebra. We are predestined to know God or we are predestined to not know God.....what is the point then? If we do not have to ability to choose to believe, then how meaningful is belief in God?

Imagine an arranged marriage...the kind where the man picks from a number of women and none of these women have the option to say no....what meaning is there in this? The woman in this situation does not choose to marry this man nor does she love him either(probably never will). I hope this illustrates where I am coming from a little better.
 
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SPB1987

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Yes, I agree with Eddie here. Whether or not we fully grasp a concept is a completely different question than whether or not something can exist without its opposite being present.

That is not what I said anyway. I was dealing with the issue of choosing to do good or choosing to do evil which it appears that Presbyterians do not believe in....just trying to figure out why and understand this a little better.
 
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