Why are so many against reformed Theology…

[BNR32FAN]

Take it as I'm not going to waste my time. You are looking at only one chapter and ignoring the rest of the bible.

I invited you to pick any 3 scriptures you want to support your theology and I will explain how they don’t and in return you explain my 3 scriptures and how they don’t support conditional salvation and YOU DECLINED, not me. I’m not “ignoring” ANYTHING. I’ve already invited you to post your evidence. Have I declined to address any scripture you have provided? No I have not. I was so looking forward to hearing your Greek explanation of John 15:1-10 when you suggested that I needed to consider the Greek word usage and you declined on that to. So far you haven’t presented ANYTHING to support your theology.

 

[BNR32FAN]

It seems that reformed advocates have some of the puzzle put together but can’t seem to fit all the pieces together to get the full picture. That’s probably because reformed theology wasn’t formulated until 1500 years after the church was established. Did ya really think that everyone had it wrong for the first 1500 years of Christianity?

 

[renniks]

If God decrees everything that happens, everything is predetermined to happen exactly as it does, and that is exactly what determinism is.

 

[renniks]

Because our daily bread not a given. Do you mean to say no Christian ever goes hungry? Reformed theology says God's will being done is a given in all situations. It's just not so. God doesn't will that we sin against him.

Why do we pray for our daily bread when Jesus said not to worry about such things that God will provide what we need?

Here’s why. Jesus said “pray in this way.”

 

[renniks]

So who was Adam in bondage to? No Free Will equals no just punishment for wrongdoing. Does God punish us for what he ordained us to do?

Man’s choices are in accordance with whom or Whom he is in bondage to.

That is the Biblical narrative and explained well by the Apostle Paul in Romans 6.

 

[renniks]

Jesus died for all because he had to in order for God to save just one. Yet when Jesus was praying to the father he prayed only for the elect, not every human in the world, to be saved and preserved in the world so the gospel could continue to be preached and God's elect saved.

He prayed for those who would believe, which includes whosoever will. It's ridiculous to say that he died for all if there's only a few pre chosen.

 

[Oseas]

Uh that English word Devouring in the Hebrew is the word Akal and it means to entirely consume.

Yes, a devouring FIRE will consume as said the LORD. What prevails is the Word of God. The Word is God, understand? He said: Malachi 4:1-3
Behold, the Day comes (that is the seventh and last Day or Lord's Day), that will burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, will be stubble: and the Day will burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But unto them that fear my name will the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and they will go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. And they will tread down the wicked; for they will be ashes under the soles of their feet in this Day that I do this, saith the Lord of hosts.

The people will be as the burnings of lime: as thorns cut up will they be burned in the FIRE. Is.33:v.12

Revelation 21:v.8 - 8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

 

[Tra Phull]

Adam sinned without being in bondage.

 

[renniks]

That is why they conflate what the bible says regarding God's sovereign act in election with the idea that they can choose Christ while still in bondage to the sin nature

That's pelagarian. Arminians don't believe we can choose Christ until he extends prevanient grace to us.

 

[renniks]

That is because nothing can happen that is not predestined by God to happen

That's a very small god you have there. God can't allow anything to happen that he did not cause by decreeing it? That makes God prisoner to his power.

 

[His student]

Or they just visit the latest You Tube theologian who thinks they are apologists. I get a lot of You Tube links to supposed pastors and Bible teachers I never heard of and it only takes a few minutes to figure out they are mimicking just another nobody on the internet.

I am constantly amazed at the number of people who will post strong opinions about subjects that they themselves have never thought through thoroughly on their own.

While it is true that internet theologians will be held to a more strict judgment for influencing these people - they, in turn, will be held to a more strict judgment for passing along the opinions of those who they have read and relayed along without thinking through the subject themselves.

The biblical view of human will, in my best estimation, is that we can choose but we are enslaved to sin and can not free ourselves from it on our own.

That is as I see it also exactly the biblical view of human will.

God must act in special grace in order for any sinner to overcome that enslavement and become free in order to choose wisely. To whom He will extend that special grace is determined by election and that election takes place even before the person was in existence and in that respect it is not conditional on the activities of that "non existent" person - nor can it be.

 

[Tra Phull]

So it was PREDESTINED by God that I NOT believe in Calvinism?

It has definitely happened.

 

[His student]

That's a very small god you have there. God can't allow anything to happen that he did not cause by decreeing it? That makes God prisoner to his power.

The GOD I "have there" is not small at all. He is the God who creates and brings to pass everything that occurs in His creation by His Word, for His Word, and in Who's Word all things exist.

I suppose, if you insist on using those terms, God is indeed a "prisoner" to His powerful Word. He cannot lie.

His Word which proceeds from His mouth will not return to Him without accomplishing everything He sends that Word forth to accomplish - namely everything that happens outside of His inherent existence.

Concerning His Word John says at the end of His gospel (in the most massive understatement in the history of the universe):

"And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written." John 21:25

 

[Tra Phull]

I have not been PROGRAMMED to believe in Calvinism. So whose fault is that?

 

[Tra Phull]

God "repented" that He had made man, and wiped out all but 8 people in a flood.

 

[His student]

So it was PREDESTINED by God that I NOT believe in Calvinism?

It has definitely happened.

Yes it was perhaps predestined by God that you not believe in Calvinism (by your own choice not to so believe). Reformed theology declares very clearly that the decrees of God in no way negate the free choices made by men such as yourself.

I say that it was "perhaps" predestined because you have not yet pass on from this life and as such there is still time for us to see you believe in Calvinism or any number of other things.

""The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever......" Deuteronomy 29:29

I have not been PROGRAMMED to believe in Calvinism. So whose fault is that?

Reformed theology couldn't be more clear that God does not "program" any choices made by men.

"God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established."

The Westminster Confession of Faith

You may not subscribe to everything that is taught in Reformed theology - but please don't misrepresent those teachings.

God "repented" that He had made man, and wiped out all but 8 people in a flood.

Reformed theology is very clear that God's interaction with His creation and the attendant emotions involved with those interactions are all predestined to occur just as they did and do occur.

 

[Tra Phull]

Not THAT much time left, His student, I'm 67 now.

Perhaps I will yet become a 6 or 7 point Calvinist, or perhaps I could fall from grace altogether, but it does not seem likely.

But if I WAS predestined not to believe in Calvinism, and IF Calvinism is true, that would seem out of character for God - to MAKE me disbelieve something that was true.

But of course I truly think Calvinism is untrue, and choose to believe that way of my own free will.

 

[Al Touthentop]

Good Day, Al

Think you have that a bit backwards...

Election is a verb God does... nothing to do with you God is the effective and only cause of our election.

God gave the rules. If we don't obey those rules, we aren't elect.

We obey as a direct result and purpose of God in his election of us.

That isn't what God said. If he did say that somewhere, you can easily cite it.

 

[Al Touthentop]

"God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established."

The Westminster Confession of Faith

It isn't scripture and it doesn't conform to scripture.

 

[His student]

Not THAT much time left, His student, I'm 67 now. Perhaps I will yet become a 6 or 7 point Calvinist, or perhaps I could fall from grace altogether, but it does not seem likely. But if I WAS predestined not to believe in Calvinism, and IF Calvinism is true, that would seem out of character for God - to MAKE me disbelieve something that was true. But of course I truly think Calvinism is untrue, and choose to believe that way of my own free will.

I am 74 now and have changed many points in my theology even in these later years.

I don't claim to be a Calvinist or even necessarily Reformed. But I hate to those beliefs t misrepresented by anyone just as I would hate for your beliefs to be misrepresented by anyone.

I used to spout the full "5-point" Calvinism party line. But I no longer do - as I feel that every point would need to be nuanced in such a way that most so called Calvinists would disown me (which is OK by me).

You still seem to equate, for some reason, the Reformed doctrine of predestination with "programming" by God. Nothing could be farther from the truth of what they actually teach.