Featured The BEST argument against Calvinism . . .

Wasn’t Owen a Covenant Calvinist and a Puritan which revolted (and I use that word deliberately to denote a separation from Anglican theology, Book of CommonPrayer High Church types). Today I see Anglicans as almost to emulating Roman Catholicism, not Calvinist Reformists.

 

So what would you have defined Aaron Rogers as adhering too? We already know his SBC connections but what does his teachings say about the belief leanings?

 

Yes. Most of those verses you list are the same ones Owen used. I think everyone agrees on that. People do differ on how it comes about that we come and to what extent it is predestined and directly caused by God. Owen wrote that the greatest offense men are capable of is refusing salvation. (And don't ask me how you can refuse irresistible grace. That's just what he said, so don't tell Silverhair).

 

Last I heard people were saying his girlfriend was a medicine woman or a witch.

 

I think the Church of England or Anglican church is almost dead. A few years ago we did a Bible study using an Anglican named Rico Tice who had a book about witnessing. He was OK but I see where he has since left the Anglican church over gay issues.

I'm not up on that much. The British fellow who used to be on here was up on it more. I do know they really went at it. I think the Puritans were horrible when they got control of anything, to be honest. The one thing I'm most appreciative of of the Baptists is that they finally got churches out of thinking they had to be running the state.

 

Owen the free will advocate. Who would have guessed. Time to change camps Dave.

 

Yes. He said your own free will is your biggest problem. And, once the Holy Spirit works on you you'll come by your free will because then you will see the value of doing so and have a true understanding of your sinful state. Owen also said Christ cannot benefit you if you don't believe. And he used Revelation 3:20 as Christ standing at the door of your heart and knocking in the context of salvation, as did almost all the other Puritan preachers. Edwards has a sermon saying to his people that Christ has died, he has provided everything you need and made everything ready for you and all that is needed is your consent. Go figure.

 

That is where the real problem comes in. When you have prominent calvinist preachers saying we need to exercise our free will in responding to the various means God uses to draw us to Him you have to wonder why so many people that claim to be calvinists reject that.

 

Egad, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen,Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen,Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, Owen, .....

 

John Owen was the foremost defender of high Calvinism in the second half of the 1600's. So I want you to go write that last sentence 300 times on the blackboard and then report back - or forget about recess.

 

Why not discuss Arthur Pink, MLJ, Spurgeon, Rutherford, George Whitfield… anybody other than Owen. All identified as Calvinists but contributed bigly to the framework.

 

Where is Marty Martleplace when you need him…. I got questions about The Puritan’s.

 

Arrrr, gotta love spell checker… what do I gotta do…


The Reverend
Adrian Rogers


this guy is who I meant.

 

I know. I was just giving you a hard time. I used to listen to him on the way home from work on the car radio. His voice had like a ring to it. I remember him saying that Calvinism was "wine and cheese theology", which of course is wrong. It's more like craft beer, cigars, tattoos, and beards.

 

I could do MLJ and Spurgeon. I haven't read the other guys enough. Besides, they are always quoting - Owen. By the way, if you are interested in an informal look at the Puritans and like MLJ, his book called "The Puritans" is excellent. And the book is important because he discusses the rediscovery of their writings and the resurgence of interest in them which lead to the modern comeback of Calvinism.

It seems like you had the rediscovery of Puritan writers and the paperback publishing of them which Martyn Lloyd-Jones was part of, and then you had the work of Piper, who made Jonathan Edwards popular to new audiences, and then the Gospel Coalition with guys who seemed to realize the usefulness of the internet before others. It will be interesting to see where it all goes. With the Young, Restless, and Reformed you can underline "Restless" for sure.

 

The best argument against Calvinism is that Calvinism is unbiblical nonsense.

When you ask the question show me where in scripture, Calvinism is taught, you get a list of verses that do not support the Calvinist interpretation.

The OP video suggested that there are 40 to 60 verses that support Calvinism. That is false.

The OP video suggested that determinism makes God the author of sin, and gives humans a great excuse for our "choice" to sin. That is true.

Lets run through a short list of so called supporting verses for Calvinism:

1) Does 1 Cor. 2:14 say the lost are unable to understand any spiritual thing? Nope. The scope of "the things of the Spirit" is not defined. Contextually the things refers to the Solid Food things.

2) Does Ephesians 1:4 say we (born anew believers) were chosen as individuals before creation? Nope. The contextual message is when God chose His Redeemer, we were chosen corporately as those the Redeemer would redeem, thus we were chosen in Him, or as a consequence of Christ being chosen.

3) Does Ephesians 2:8 say faith is a gift instilled by irresistible grace? Nope, the gift in view is salvation.

4) Does Philippians 1:29 say we were given, via irresistible grace, our belief in Christ? Nope, the idea is we were allowed to come to hear and understand and believe in Christ. Thus we were not hardened by God to preclude our belief as shown in Romans 11. Ditto for 2 Timothy 2:25 where God allows repentance, rather than precluding it by hardening the heart.

5) Does 2 Corinthians 4:6 say we were given our faith when God shined in our hearts? Nope. The idea is God provided His revelation that shined into our awareness and understanding, such as encountering witnesses presenting the gospel.

I could go on, but it is all the same, the Calvinists have read into the text support for their unbiblical doctrine.

 

Are you saying that Calvinists are staring up trouble… say at SBC’s?

 

I do not understand how any WELSHMAN would be interested in any English religion. MLJwas a committed Welsh Calvinist Methodist.

 

So. I was talking to Owen and he said I should use someone else once in a while. So here's Edwards on the way our will works:
"The dispute about grace's being resistible or irresistible, is perfect nonsense. For the effect of grace is upon the will; so that it is nonsense, except it be proper to say, that a man with his will can resist his own will, or except it be possible for him to desire to resist his own will; that is, except it be possible for a man to will a thing and not will it at the same, so far as he does will it." Edwards then explains it all again, using the idea that if you go the route that the enlightenment affects the understanding, so that a man now realizes that a thing is best for him, and thus he wills to obtain that thing, then how can it be said that that man could also have been able to also will the other thing? The idea being, that he was already truly acting according to his will.

Now this is Dave's interpretation of all this. From the above, and from Owen, you can see that they were not doing what some of the modern Calvinists are doing. What they do is they almost deny that any move on the part of the person is occurring at all, or that any "decision" is made, period. This is not what the Puritan Calvinist preachers did and I am including Owen, his contemporaries, even Baxter, and later guys like Ryle, Bonar, Spurgeon, and MLJ. What they did was that even though most of them were very deterministic and very much believed in the sovereignty of God in the salvation of men, they believed that the sovereign action was upon the will itself because that is where the problem is with man anyway. Once the will is acted upon, the coming to Christ, or believing, or accepting Christ, or whatever way you want to term it, is going to occur in exactly the same way any non-Calvinist Christian would observe it. The argument would occur in that the Calvinist believes there is much more going on than the taking in of the information contained in the gospel, evaluating it by the natural human mind, and then deciding what to do with it. This explanation they would oppose. What they did not do was what some of the modern Calvinists try to do, and that is to try to belittle or short circuit the whole idea of a person wrestling with these things, and then deciding to come to Christ, sometimes in a dramatic or emotional way. The only thing the Puritan Calvinist would insist on, is that the driver or effector of such a decision would be the Holy Spirit acting in a sovereign and individual way. They would deny the idea of the Spirit not being involved directly, and they would deny the Spirit being given in a general way, the same for everyone.

 

Calvinists are taking over the SBC, mainly because the seminaries are cranking out Calvinist graduates.