Why I don't believe in Calvinism.

[Sam91]

2 Peter 1:10

“Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble.”

It does not say 'Therefore, brethren. Relax and rejoice for your call and election is already sure. Rest assured if you are part of the elect you will never stumble.'

It uses the word 'diligent.' Tells us to 'make your call .. sure' Make it stay. It says we won't stumble if we do things. This is an active thing again. It isn't if we do these things we know we are of the elect. It is pretty simple and to turn the verse into one which backs up Calvinism we need to change it. That is also the case with 100's - 1000's of other verses. They need discounted or altered to fit the doctrine.

God is not the author of confusion. One simply can not come up with Calvinism from reading the Bible alone. It needs preached. The bible says we do not need any man to teach. The bible is pretty clear. It boils down to trusting man rather than dismissing you own understanding and reading what the Bible says.

 

[Si_monfaith]

Because of faith. If everyone just believed perfectly, then there would be no real faith or tests. We would also not appreciate the good things of God if everyone perfectly believed and they walked perfectly with the Lord. God created men with free will as a part of His creation. Scripture says God does not take pleasure in the destruction of the wicked. So this means that God does not get the glory if He destroys those who chose to reject Him. God gets glory when we shine His light through us by doing His good works.

"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." (Matthew 5:16).

Did God yet created those He knew beforehand wouldn't believe in His Son because He has a plan & purpose for mankind for His glory?

Are you making humans sovereign capable of disrupting God's eternal plan & purpose?

 

[Si_monfaith]

I was afraid I may not have made myself clear. The name, "The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil", has nothing to do with a point in time when Adam & Eve acquired a conscience, or began knowing right from wrong. As I stated later, in my second paragraph, "Adam & Eve were given consciences". By that I mean that they already possessed them, as created. The term "the knowledge of good and evil" deals with the actual knowledge or experience of both, begotten by their first experience of evil, their own sin against God, with evil bringing good into focus by contrast. From then on these two realities, good and evil, would be literally known to man. A major paradigm shift had taken place in their world. They were now in a foreign state of being which would have to become the new norm for humanity: cut off in some manner from God, from their fellow man, from the rest of creation, and even from themselves.

Anyway, in light of this understanding my post #245 should be clearer.

If as you seem to claim they had a moral conscience before they ate the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, why didn't they have the moral requirement to be clothed before they ate the fruit?

 

[fhansen]

If as you seem to claim they had a moral conscience before they ate the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, why didn't they have the moral requirement to be clothed before they ate the fruit?

There was no moral requirement for such. Gen 2:25 tells us: "Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame."

An innocent human would have no need for clothes, at least not for moral reasons. Shame is a mark of loss of innocence, a mark of our "falleness". IOW, everything God created was good, including the human body in all its natural glory.

 

[Si_monfaith]

There was no moral requirement for such. Gen 2:25 tells us: "Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame."

An innocent human would have no need for clothes, at least not for moral reasons. Shame is a mark of loss of innocence, a mark of our "falleness". IOW, everything God created was good, including the human body in all its natural glory.

So wasn't a moral requirement, a law, introduced AFTER they started to have the knowledge of good and evil (kge)?

 

[fhansen]

So wasn't a moral requirement, a law, introduced AFTER they started to have the knowledge of good and evil (kge)?

Not for clothes as far as I know, at least not a moral law, while we do have civil laws against obscenity. But fallen man, due to his weakness, now considers obscene that which God created good. We aren't totally comfortable in our own skins to put it one way.

Adam succumbed to pride and pride is a desire to be more than who we naturally are, more than who we are in essence. At its root is the desire to be like God, which was attempted by denying God's own godhood, His authority over man, by Adam's act of disobedience. Pride isn't satisfied with ourselves as created beings and all that entails, and, since "createdness" is our status, our reality, then shame is, presumably, a natural consequence for all fallen humans. Innocence was truly lost; we're not in the Garden anymore and this compromised, broken world is the one we live in now.

In any case the giving of the Law by God was a necessary step in man's formation, in God's plan of salvation which was fully consummated at the advent of Christ. Regarding that Law Augustine said this, "God wrote on tablets of stone that which man failed to read in his heart." Once God's authority was denied in Eden, man became a law unto himself, doing what was right in his own eyes. The revealed Law that came later sought to instruct fallen man on how he should be, and hold him accountable to that higher standard, a standard that was planted in his conscience already where God's voice spoke, but a conscience that had been dimmed, compromised, ignored as God's voice in Eden had been ignored and unheeded.

By trying to become more than who he was man lost a big part of who he was, his loss of moral integrity being a central aspect of that loss. While the Law sought to remedy this situation, it could not, by itself, cause man to be who he "should be"; it could not justify IOW. There was still something missing in man, something that Jesus came to restore when the time was ripe: the Spirit of God, Himself, residing in and communing with man, the very "partnership" that Adam effectively dismissed and forfeited. That's the purpose of the New Covenant. Adam/we just needed a bit of incubation time beforehand in a world where the Master is effectively gone away in order to develop a hunger and thirst for Him and the truth and righteousness that only He can bring to the table, as our world is so lacking in those very things. Man needs God; man needs intimate communion with God; that's what we were made for. Otherwise all "heck" breaks loose.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

Did God yet created those He knew beforehand wouldn't believe in His Son because He has a plan & purpose for mankind for His glory?

Are you making humans sovereign capable of disrupting God's eternal plan & purpose?

Uh, men surrendering to God (by faith) is not man showing sovereign rule over God. It is man submitting to God and his sovereignty.

 

[Si_monfaith]

Not for clothes as far as I know, at least not a moral law, while we do have civil laws against obscenity. But fallen man, due to his weakness, now considers obscene that which God created good. We aren't totally comfortable in our own skins to put it one way.

Adam succumbed to pride and pride is a desire to be more than who we naturally are, more than who we are in essence. At its root is the desire to be like God, which was attempted by denying God's own godhood, His authority over man, by Adam's act of disobedience. Pride isn't satisfied with ourselves as created beings and all that entails, and, since "createdness" is our status, our reality, then shame is, presumably, a natural consequence for all fallen humans. Innocence was truly lost; we're not in the Garden anymore and this compromised, broken world is the one we live in now.

In any case the giving of the Law by God was a necessary step in man's formation, in God's plan of salvation which was fully consummated at the advent of Christ. Regarding that Law Augustine said this, "God wrote on tablets of stone that which man failed to read in his heart." Once God's authority was denied in Eden, man became a law unto himself, doing what was right in his own eyes. The revealed Law that came later sought to instruct fallen man on how he should be, and hold him accountable to that higher standard, a standard that was planted in his conscience already where God's voice spoke, but a conscience that had been dimmed, compromised, ignored as God's voice in Eden had been ignored and unheeded.

By trying to become more than who he was man lost a big part of who he was, his loss of moral integrity being a central aspect of that loss. While the Law sought to remedy this situation, it could not, by itself, cause man to be who he "should be"; it could not justify IOW. There was still something missing in man, something that Jesus came to restore when the time was ripe: the Spirit of God, Himself, residing in and communing with man, the very "partnership" that Adam effectively dismissed and forfeited. That's the purpose of the New Covenant. Adam/we just needed a bit of incubation time beforehand in a world where the Master is effectively gone away in order to develop a hunger and thirst for Him and the truth and righteousness that only He can bring to the table, as our world is so lacking in those very things. Man needs God; man needs intimate communion with God; that's what we were made for. Otherwise all "heck" breaks loose.

Not for clothes as far as I know, at least not a moral law, while we do have civil laws against obscenity.

Did the knowledge of good and evil make them think nakedness was evil? Are you denying the existence of a moral requirement to be clothed now? Are you advocating nudity?

 

[Si_monfaith]

Uh, men surrendering to God (by faith) is not man showing sovereign rule over God. It is man submitting to God and his sovereignty.

Aren't those whom God foreknew won't believe in Son & yet created them, also under God's plan & purpose? Are they outside of God's plan & purpose?

 

[fhansen]

Did the knowledge of good and evil make them think nakedness was evil? Are you denying the existence of a moral requirement to be clothed now? Are you advocating nudity?

God knows that we're weak, no longer innocent. Otherwise, of course He's certainly unashamed of human nudity; He created humans nude; clothes are unnatural compared to the human body which is completely natural. But I don't advocate any such thing myself; I know that humans are fallen and that we cannot parade around in our b-day suits without feeling shame and perhaps lust-causing other problems-but only because we’re fallen. So I only maintain that nudity is looked down upon in a fallen world; it would not be considered immoral or lawless in Eden. Because there's simply nothing inherently or naturally wrong with the human body. I challenge you to explain why there might be.

The knowledge of good and evil didn't make them see nakedness as evil; rather their shame did so. They had determined that nakedness was evil; we still do for all practical purposes. Animals aren’t ashamed of their bodies or considered by us to be obscene just because they’re naked. But humans are. This should tell us that there’s something basically wrong with the world we live in-and it’s "something" that we must simply live with in this life. Man got dumber after the Fall, not smarter or suddenly in possession of a conscience or interior law that he lacked beforehand. We live in bodies the truth of which we want to hide. We hide from truth in many ways, just as Adam & Eve, due to shame of what they had done, hid from God in Eden.

 

[Si_monfaith]

God knows that we're weak, no longer innocent. Otherwise, of course He's certainly unashamed of human nudity; He created humans nude; clothes are unnatural compared to the human body which is completely natural. But I don't advocate any such thing myself; I know that humans are fallen and that we cannot parade around in our b-day suits without feeling shame and perhaps lust-causing other problems-but only because we’re fallen. So I only maintain that nudity is looked down upon in a fallen world; it would not be considered immoral or lawless in Eden. Because there's simply nothing inherently or naturally wrong with the human body. I challenge you to explain why there might be.

The knowledge of good and evil didn't make them see nakedness as evil; rather their shame did so. They had determined that nakedness was evil; we still do for all practical purposes. Animals aren’t ashamed of their bodies or considered by us to be obscene just because they’re naked. But humans are. This should tell us that there’s something basically wrong with the world we live in-and it’s "something" that we must simply live with in this life. Man got dumber after the Fall, not smarter or suddenly in possession of a conscience or interior law that he lacked beforehand. We live in bodies the truth of which we want to hide. We hide from truth in many ways, just as Adam & Eve, due to shame of what they had done, hid from God in Eden.

So I only maintain that nudity is looked down upon in a fallen world

If so, why did God undertook to clothe them with skin? Wouldn't their human fig leaves been sufficient?

The knowledge of good and evil didn't make them see nakedness as evil; rather their shame did so. They had determined that nakedness was evil; we still do

Why did they feel ashamed, hadn't God already seen them naked? If it was they who had determined to see it as evil why didn't they see so before they had the knowledge of good and evil?