My Theological Stance after Searching with All of My Heart

I had an excellent Patristics professor who persuaded me to look at early church authors through the right lens. Augustine of Hippo had many good things to say, but he also made a number of errors. Augustine's worth is in providing a window into the theological landscape of the 4th century. He certainly isn't to be taken as a defense for any doctrine. For that matter Calvin, Beza, Luther, Charley Wesley, Arminius, Spurgeon, Chaffer, Scofield, Ryrie, Sproul, MacArthur et al are not authoritative sources in themselves. These men have worth to the extent they drive us ad fontes (to the source, the Bible).

The author of the OP is in a cage stage right now, so he won't be able to receive this with an open mind. I was there once many years ago. It took some time for me to stop listening to myself. However, to dismiss men like Calvin because of his past is to implicate men who did far worse. David was a conspirator, murderer, and serial adulterer. Paul overtly persecuted the Church. Why not demand their writings be removed from the Bible? How about the skeletons we have in our own closet? By dismissing Calvin, the Reformers, and Puritans a person can eliminate opinions they don't want to hear. Convenient.


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Keep on studying, as Reformed theology would be the natural way to explain the Bible view on salvation proper!

 

Actually, theology is the study of God proper, and did not Jesus do that for us?

 

Did the angels and lucifer do something that was against the ultimate Will of God? Since God already had had the Cross in mind to counter their sinfulness, and especially the Fall of Adam, how can that be absolutre free will then?

 

I am a Classical Arminian. I honestly know of no one except extreme fringe Arminian theologians that argue for "absolute free will." Arminius definitely did not. He was very plain about God placing limits on man.

 

Is the Sermon on the Mount considered theology?

 

You be vary rare here, as most who are not calvinist/reformed seemed to be into total free will salvation!

 

What about Jesus teachings on heaven , Hell, salvation , end times etc?

 

What about it? Is that theology!

 

Yes, as that Sermon gave to us how God really meant the Law to be keep...

 

I am rare everywhere. There are very few Classical Arminians left. Classical Arminianism is very Close to Calvinism. I believe Wesley was the last theologian that really hammered the point of how close the two belief systems actually are. I do not want to derail this thread, but I believe fully in total depravity; I do not believe in irresistable grace. (Many would argue Calvin did not believe in it either. I personally think he did, but that can not be definitively proven nor disproven.)

 

I agree with you so much on this thought... I have been walking with Lord or trying to since the age of seven... That was sixty-four years ago, and I have been in the valley and been on the mountain... I've been in darkness and I've been in light... I've been through the fire and have been on fire... All this time trying in my own unworthy way of serving my Lord and Master Jesus Christ... I have a theology position now of God's Loving Sovereign Grace, but it took along time... It didn't just happen overnight, but took years of burning the midnight oil... To me you get out of God, what you put into God... But I can now at this time in my life say I truly "HAVE PEACE OF MIND"!... To me that is the most important thing in our walk with God... Do you have that peace that passeth all understanding?... Do I struggle?... Do I have trials and tribulations?... Do I fall and stumble at times?... Oh yeah!... But I still have peace of mind... No matter what happens GOD IS STILL IN CONTROL!... When you truly realize that, then you too can have peace of mind... Brother Glen

 

Steven, I do not know if you are able to hear yourself the way others may be taking this. I know you will not admit to this, but you sound as though you are the only person to have uncovered dirt on the early church fathers and the Reformers. You attempt to defend David because he repented. Fair enough. But are you an expert on the notable figures of church history? You seem to be seeking some sort of purity that even YOU do not possess, save for Christ.

I am not in the business of defending Calvin, Luther, Zwingli et al, but to deny their part in church history would be foolishness. I came to embrace Reformed Theology, not by the persuasive writings of old dead theologians (although their words drove me to search the scriptures). I came to embrace Baptist Reformed Theology because I believe that is what the bible teaches. Does that mean I endorse any and all character flaws that theologians who have predated me possess? Of course not! The Presbyterians persecuted Christians. That is a historical fact. Does that mean there is no value in reading the works of notable Presbyterians? Another emphatic no.

When I read Augustine, Luther, and Calvin on the nature of the will, I see a consistency that all three of these men share. I am then forced to filter their views through the Word of God. Do their words pass the scripture test? That is the scholarly approach.

I wish I had the time to share with you, in detail, the things I wrestled with back in the early 1990's. I came to faith in Christ in 1979. I was immediately thrust into the Jack Chick mold of fundamentalism. I believed the Synergist view of free will because that was all I knew. It was what I was taught. I attended a Synergist bible college, where any challenge to the established norm would result in a swift kick to the curb. It was not until the early 1990's that I started asking questions that those who were in "my camp" did not want to answer.

I made the mistake of studying the Book of Romans. I was playing with a ball of string. I kept pulling on the ball by asking questions. I would have stopped had my questions been answered, but they were not. I kept asking more and more questions until that ball of string became an unwieldy mess. I was troubled by Romans 8:7, "because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so". That passage brought me to 1 Corinthians 2:14, " But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised." This was another passage that was doing very little to soothe my troubled mind. Ephesians 2 was the nail in the proverbial coffin. Ephesians 2:1, "And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,". Further down in the chapter I read the following passage, Ephesians 2:4-5 "But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),". What became evident to me was that God was the one who changed the human heart, making it able to believe. If Man was left to his own devices Romans 8:7, 1 Corinthians 2:14, and Ephesians 2:1 made it abundantly clear that the sinful human heart just did not want to believe, it could not. When that truth finally sank into my cranium, my whole world imploded. For me, it was a major crisis. I left Synergism kicking and screaming. It was not a pretty sight.

I did not go directly from Synergism to Reformed Theology. I was a long circuitous route that lead me to the Reformed faith. I am not going to say that I arrived, because the Reformation credo is "Semper Reformanda", or "Always Reforming".

 

I agree,

What a poorly constructed sentence attempted to indicate was the superior thinking theologically. Often baptists only look to baptists, but neglecting Edwards is a huge mistake.

As you remember, I am not a big fan of puritan designs of purify rather than to regard living in the world but separate from it as was more the Separatists view, however, I do hold Edwards work in high regard. Especially in his complete work on this important topic of freedom of the will.

 

If you read more thoroughly, you will find the principles of Scriptures used throughout the work.

Edwards approach was to take the typical logic offered in that day (which is more often the same arguments used in this time, too) and shred each with both logic and the principles of the Scriptures. This is why his writing approaches each argument from multiple positions.

Like I said it is definitely not an easy read, but anyone who seeks to understand freedom of the will is lacking if they have not spent the time working through Edwards "Freedom of the Will."

 

I suppose I am too harsh on Luther. I have rejected most of his work, not because of the soundness, but because of the man.

I just can't get past his racist views, his desire to cleanse and not separate from the papists, and how he still held to the papist teaching views of the sacraments, pedobaptism, purgatory, and confessionals...

He was pushed into the reformation not by desire or conviction to separate from the ungodly, but by circumstance, and politics.

But then so was Henry VIII, though unlike Henry, Luther didn't die clutching the rosary mumbling.

 

I do not know what books you have been reading about the Reformers, but something is seriously wrong with your conclusions. Also, to take one passage of the Bible (Matthew 7:16-18) and form a sweeping opinion is a bit of reach. It seems like a Prayer of Jabez type thing. Anyway, I do not think we are going to make much progress here, so I will bow out.

 

No, admirable. How many Reformers can you name aside from the three you cited?

No, it's my understanding that he had one woman that he should have married, instead of keeping it secret.