Calvinist dead

[DaveXR650]

Good logic MrW. But Calvinism cannot be dealt with by logic. According to 1 Cor 2, which has been referenced already, the spiritual man can know the deep things of God through the words God has chosen to make them known.

That's a good point. Using human logic you can arrive at two choices. Either God meticulously determines, and I mean by that "directly causes" everything and you are just part of it; or, you are completely free and autonomous in all your actions and even God Himself cannot be sure of what you will do next because your choice is truly autonomous.

So what do you have in a confession or a theological system? It is NOT an attempt primarily, to satisfy human logic. It is an attempt to arrange revealed scriptures into a coherent system of thought and use this knowledge to interpret scriptures that on their own are difficult to understand.

So when a Calvinist theologian like John Owen writes reams of paper on the dangers of apostacy and how to recognize the early signs and what to do to avoid it and a modern internet theologian comes along and blows it all away and say "Well, no, the truth is that the elect cannot turn away so Owen doesn't know what he's talking about", who are you going to believe?

Likewise, when a Calvinist says that you are so unable to come to Christ on your own that you could use the term "dead", yet this is because you don't find Christ and the gospel desirable, and you are unable to come because you think it's stupid and foolish - the appeal here is not primarily to your human logic, but scriptures that seem to indicate some truth to that. That is not to say that it doesn't BEST fit what we know by human logic. Anyone who's ever tried to share the gospel knows this feeling - that you are talking to someone who is completely oblivious, even "dead".

 

[DaveXR650]

It is a cancer in the body and it will kill. There is no way to get to God without believing his words.

Both sides dish it out but in my posting on this board I have quoted Calvinist theologians one after another who explicitly say that there is no way to get to God without believing His words. I realize and have seen many of the Calvinists on here say that you have a false gospel and they doubt the salvation of anyone who is not a Calvinist. So I guess they have it coming when you say Calvinism is a cancer in the body. I think it's unfortunate.

 

[JD731]

Both sides dish it out but in my posting on this board I have quoted Calvinist theologians one after another who explicitly say that there is no way to get to God without believing His words. I realize and have seen many of the Calvinists on here say that you have a false gospel and they doubt the salvation of anyone who is not a Calvinist. So I guess they have it coming when you say Calvinism is a cancer in the body. I think it's unfortunate.

If the words of God are spiritual and life giving, they being the only words that are, why the need to add unscriptural terminology to explain what God is like? Doing that simply affirms that Calvinists do not accept what God has given and that understanding his character and ways are dependent on the words he has given to us. Adding to something perfect destroys it's perfection.

I asked a Calvinist on one of these boards about the following statement of scripture;

Ro 5:6 For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

Does this mean that only the elect according to Calvinism's definition are ungodly ?

Of course, Paul had already written four chapters explaining that all are equally in an ungodly state from before the flood until his present time, witnessed by the fact that all had died. The first sin makes the person committing it ungodly.

The problem with Christendom is the toleration of infiltration of doctrines that oppose "the faith." We are warned about that.

 

[kyredneck]

Please, everyone notice that the above is not Calvinism.

ROFL, never said it was, and why should you care? You're no Calvinist.

 

[DaveXR650]

If the words of God are spiritual and life giving, they being the only words that are, why the need to add unscriptural terminology to explain what God is like?

Because there are passages that seem to indicate you actually choosing to follow, and keep following God, and other scriptures that seem to indicate you are saved and kept totally BY God. So people try to understand and explain this. It's not wrong to look at another scripture and try to see why it seems to say something different than the first scripture you looked at. Either our scriptural record is flawed in such a case, or we may be failing to understand the truths and how they relate to each other. Thus you have theology.

Ro 5:6 For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

Does this mean that only the elect according to Calvinism's definition are ungodly ?

For a strict or high-Calvinist it would mean that all those He died for were ungodly. Exactly what the words say. You are just as guilty of adding to the meaning as a Calvinist if you try to turn that statement into an argument for universal atonement. It's fine if you want to, and you may be right, but you are doing theology. You are fitting a meaning of a verse into your vision of the overall system you believe in. We all do it.

 

[DaveXR650]

ROFL, never said it was, and why should you care? You're no Calvinist.

You know Ky. Occasionally you put up a thoughtful reply, but often you just throw out some snide insult like above. I definitely don't worship the TULIP, and I don't think you or some of the hyper-Calvinist or Primitive Baptists on here have much of a coherent theology. But I am quite familiar with the writings of Owen, Bunyan, Spurgeon, Bonar, Ryle, Watson and Calvin and I agree with 90% of what they say. The other 10% I attribute to my own lack of understanding or to my modern logic based thought patterns or background. Actually the later Calvinists like Spurgeon, and Bonar I agree with almost 100% of the time. Where do you, with your half baked random theology, get off saying I'm no Calvinist. And what is ROFL?

 

[kyredneck]

Rolling On Floor Laughing, if you are a Calvinist, you are one very wish washy waffling one. And Calvinists at their very root are Monergists, which you evidently are not:

Austin was unable to admit that the correct answer to the question is that God's absolute sovereignty and man's true responsibility are both in operation.

Synergism: the doctrine that the human will cooperates with the Holy Ghost in the work of regeneration.

Monergism: the doctrine that the Holy Ghost acts independently of the human will in the work of regeneration.
How To Be Saved

 

[Alan Gross]

Calvinists love to talk about how people are DEAD and CANNOT BELIEVE on the Lord Jesus Christ until God supernaturally makes them ALIVE.

So does God.

"you hath He Quickened"; Ephesians 2:1a.

It is God Almighty that had to initiate Quickening and New Supernatural Life to the lost soul, "who were dead in trespasses and sins"; Ephesians 2:1b.

The lost souls, "who were dead in trespasses and sins", were dead, SPIRITUALLY, and entirely dead to God Who is Spirit, in the Realm of The Spirit, with NO WAY to bring themselves the Eternal Life in God's Quickening.

But it doesn't say they have total inability, doesn't say they cannot believe.

That is like saying that you can't drown in the ocean, because there is no water there.

Total Depravity is Total Inability. You could say it this way, "dead" is "dead".

Now if Calvinists were honest about it, and truly believed they were DEAD, just like a dead body

For the sake of honesty, no Calvinist has ever believed a lost soul was "dead just like a dead body", in the way you are equating them. SPIRITUAL death is "like" the death of Lazerath, who was PHYSICALLY dead. Jesus calling him forth to live again is a "picture" of the SPIRITUAL death of the lost soul. Until Jesus Effectually Calls them by the New Birth, they are in a natural state of being dead, SPIRITUALLY.

The death spoken of by God is SPIRITUAL.

The death you are accusing Bible-believing Christians of is the death of the body, PHYSICALLY.

which cannot see

Nope, not SPIRITUALLY.

The Bible calls the lost soul, "blind", does it not?

cannot hear

Nope, not SPIRITUALLY.

Jeremiah 6:10

"To whom shall I speak and give warning
That they may hear?
Behold, their ears are closed
And they cannot listen.
Behold, the word of the Lord has become a reproach to them;
They have no delight in it."

Source: 34 Bible verses about Refusing To Hear

cannot have its feelings hurt if someone insults it

Nope, not with regard to any SPIRITUAL "feelings", because they don't have any, SPIRITUALLY.

cannot fight back if you strike it

Nope, not SPIRITUALLY.

The weapons of the saved souls are mentioned, however.

cannot even know it if you set it on fire

Nope, not SPIRITUALLY. Their spirit is dead.

You can no longer sin, right? You cannot see sin

Physically see sin? Come on MrW.

hear it

Physically "hear" sin? Come on MrW.

can't have anything to do with it.

Physically have nothing to do with sin? Come on MrW.

You have TOTAL INABILITY to sin

Incorrect.

Isn't that correct?

Incorrect.

Same logic.

Incorrect.

Physical and Spiritual are two different realms of reality.

You have to know to pick one or the other to talk about.

 

[DaveXR650]

Rolling On Floor Laughing, if you are a Calvinist, you are one very wish washy waffling one. And Calvinists at their very root are Monergists, which you evidently are not:

Synergism: the doctrine that the human will cooperates with the Holy Ghost in the work of regeneration.

Monergism: the doctrine that the Holy Ghost acts independently of the human will in the work of regeneration.
How To Be Saved

What happens is that the when the Calvinist theologians said that salvation is Monergistic, they did NOT mean that the realities and the necessity of belief and repentance did not have to be actually done by the person being saved. What they meant was that all that happens is initiated and motivated sovereignly by the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. This is far different from a Synergistic theology where Jesus has died, the gospel message if proposed and God now waits for men - to see if they are going to respond or not. Do you not see the difference? And my biggest concern with the theology of some of you on here is that objections are actually raised when someone simply does what is commanded for people to do - repent and believe, as if that is somehow infringing on the Monergism of God in our salvation. That is not Calvinism. That is another gospel.

Let me be very clear. A theology that is so deterministic that any message to unbelievers about their need to repent and believe being not their true responsibility because they may not be elect and the idea that telling someone that they must do these things is an affront to the gospel really is an abomination. If the non-Cals on here are seeing that, and that is what they are objecting to then they are right in their assessment of this type of "Calvinism". My only hope is that they realize that this is not what the great Calvinist divines taught, whether Puritan, or early like Calvin, or later like Spurgeon and Bonar.

 

[kyredneck]

A theology that is so deterministic that any message to unbelievers about their need to repent and believe being not their true responsibility because they may not be elect and the idea that telling someone that they must do these things is an affront to the gospel really is an abomination. If the non-Cals on here are seeing that, and that is what they are objecting to then they are right in their assessment of this type of "Calvinism". My only hope is that they realize that this is not what the great Calvinist divines taught, whether Puritan, or early like Calvin, or later like Spurgeon and Bonar.

...and this applies to Primitive Baptists like me how?

 

[DaveXR650]

...and this applies to Primitive Baptists like me how?

You quoted me above from another thread where I said that God's absolute sovereignty and man's responsibility are both in operation. I assume you don't agree with that. Well then that is what I am talking about. If that bothers you then you are way worse off than a non-Cal who simply thinks that he heard the gospel message and believed it and received Christ. Because that is truly what he did and it is truly what he had to do. He may disagree with me when I say that the reason he did any of that was due to the work of the Holy Spirit, but he differs from me only in the explanation of HOW it happened, not in what had to happen. You seem to have a problem with the idea that there is a true offer of the gospel to everyone and with the fact that if anyone listens to the gospel and comes to Christ they will be saved. You think that is "wishy washy". In reality it is the gospel and anyone who has a problem with that is teaching another gospel. Now I personally know some Primitive Baptists and they don't seem to go the that unscriptural extreme but you brought up the quote above so that is how it applies to you.

 

[Alan Gross]

1 Corinthians 2:10-14 is "crystal clear on that".

2:1; "And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.

2 "For I determined not to know anything among you,
save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.

3 "And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.

4 "And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:

5 "That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God."

 

[kyredneck]

???

@DaveXR650, never mind.

 

[Silverhair]

How else could you gain acceptance in god w/o belief? Maybe this all is hinged on the definition of Original Sin and if you believe that it’s passed on to Adams generations. See if you don’t, if you are Pelagian then Doctrines of Grace have no value for you. That’s probably what this argument is about I’m thinking.

Actually if one does not accept the DoG it just means they are not a Calvinist. You want to hold to your man -made theology that is your choice, well actually it is not as under that theology you do not have the ability to make any free will choices. You just have to hope that God is not just pulling your leg so to speak.

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

Actually if one does not accept the DoG it just means they are not a Calvinist. You want to hold to your man -made theology that is your choice, well actually it is not as under that theology you do not have the ability to make any free will choices. You just have to hope that God is not just pulling your leg so to speak.

Oh I got nothing to worry about, I’m a child of God. Are you?

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

Actually if one does not accept the DoG it just means they are not a Calvinist. You want to hold to your man -made theology that is your choice, well actually it is not as under that theology you do not have the ability to make any free will choices. You just have to hope that God is not just pulling your leg so to speak.

And if you are referring to predestination, again you haven’t a clue what that’s about either. Kentucky Red explained it to you ignoramuses but you disregarded it … but then again that is par for the course with your ilk.

 

[Alan Gross]

And if you are referring to predestination, again you haven’t a clue what that’s about either. Kentucky Red explained it to you ignoramuses but you disregarded it … but then again that is par for the course with your ilk.

my, my...

 

[Silverhair]

And if you are referring to predestination, again you haven’t a clue what that’s about either. Kentucky Red explained it to you ignoramuses but you disregarded it … but then again that is par for the course with your ilk.

Do all Calvinists take courses in how to be nasty or is it that only those with that natural disposition would become Calvinists?

 

[Silverhair]

Oh I got nothing to worry about, I’m a child of God. Are you?

Well since under your theology you can never really be sure as to whether your faith is real or not the best you can do is hope you are a child of God. As I said your version of god could just be pulling your leg. But as they say "hope springs eternal" so you live in your hope of your salvation and I will live in my assurance of mine.

 

[AustinC]

Well since under your theology you can never really be sure as to whether your faith is real or not the best you can do is hope you are a child of God. As I said your version of god could just be pulling your leg. But as they say "hope springs eternal" so you live in your hope of your salvation and I will live in my assurance of mine.

You have no understanding of the gospel of grace.
Yes, the best "we" can "do" is live by faith in perseverance. We hope in Christ and rest in His atonement, by faith. That truly is the best we can do and it is amazing!