Quick Question

Hello guys and gals, I have a quick question that needs an accurate answer so I came to BB:

What is the history of Calvinism before Calvin?

 

I am sorry for doing something frowned upon by the BB. I made a quick post hoping for a good answer to a question on church history. The reason for doing so is because the BB has given me far better church history information than google searches. I said I would make new threads only if the topic was easy, which to me means one where I don't have to get into some big discussion about a topic I do not mostly understand. This was just supposed to be a question that would lead to some reading.

 

Ah, yes the fight between Augustine's theology and Pelagian's theology. I remember that now with your help everyone. I want to say something shocking and controversial, but I did say I would hold back on new topics that are controversial for a time, so I won't.

 

Well, apart from the TULIP debate, I am reading up on the Christian "heresies," and I see no reason to persecute these people. In fact, some of the supposed heretics could simply be disagreed with, as we do today on so many biblical exegesis issues, nothing more. Pelagius makes sense on the doctrine of original sin being due to being raised in sinful community for instance, while seeming to be wrong on everything else. Also, why not have disagreement on the relationship of the Son to the Father and the Spirit? The Doctrine of the Trinity does not have to be the only game in town. These are difficult issues to be sure.

 

I also have a bunch of books like systematic theologies and church histories with some topic specific books as well on topics like Christian apologetics and soteriology. Its just wiki presents a lot more diversity of information than my books do. Wiki makes for a great starter point for deeper research in topic specific as opposed to general texts. Augustine vs Pelagius was something I had to specifically search for though. I had a hard time finding it from the Calvinism vs Arminianism debate histories.

OK, I just have to come clean and say something I should have a long time ago.

In my zeal, I made one determination that has completely blown apart my theology as much as it was blown apart by forsaking Moderate, Charismaticism for fundamentalism. I will trust no source and neither will I praise anyone who was a church leader and was guilty of innocent blood. That is if they fail to live up to at least David's standard of repentance for such acts. Simply put, I will never agree with any action or person who willfully took the blood of others, especially spiritual family unless they had other clearly righteous deeds. I get this from what I view as a literal reading of Matthew 7:15-20. When I made this determination this meant that my church history books were good for fires and little else, as the history of the Church is replete with bloodshed and sin among its leaders.

This greatly troubled me and I tried to understand what was going on. Was the Roman Catholic Church the only one culpable? My research in church history and Western Civ history found this to be a big "no." I believe strongly in separation and in church discipline, and because of this I decided to separate myself from all church movements that have not fully repented of their grisly pasts. Only four church traditions came up as fairly clean after research: Methodists, Baptists, Anabaptists, and the Salvation Army. Then I checked their doctrine to see if it was Literalist. This chucked out the modern Methodists and the modern Salvation Army. I was left with Anabaptists and the Baptists, who have doctrines I disagree with vociferously, but whom I may be able to agree to disagree with.

That said, I do not trust Augustine's views as he was guilty of the blood of our spiritual family the Donatists and never repented. Thus, if he was the biggest name in predestination, among many other teachings, until Calvin, I do not trust that doctrine given the teacher.

I also have to say as I read David Cloud, I see more and more that he has some views I cannot agree with, but which he would likely attack me for. He has good research on many issues though.

Also, I earned 45 credits towards an MDiv several years ago at a United Methodist seminary called Asbury Theological Seminary. I did this when I was a Moderate Charismatic. I am deeply disappointed with practically my whole education now, even the kind of stuff that would be taught at a Baptist seminary, now that it seems church history mostly means "history of the church under the Enemy instead of Jesus the Christ." Systematic theology has also stopped being a nice subject, which I used to love.