God Got The Memo

It was a comparison in order to help you understand how Calvinism can be viewed as being "fatalist." And it can! You insist upon God's foreknowledge being His will and immutable. No amount of us saying then that we get to choose anything but what God wills makes any sense. For mankind, just as it was in the Greek depiction of it, that is fatalism (that is what "fatalism" means). And that being the case, you have a fatalistic theology.

Your ordus saludo doesn't make sense, Larry. You are saying we are saved before we have faith. And the problem with teaching that is that people go forward with the "faith" without personally accepting Christ as Savior and so don't receive the Holy Spirit indwelling and so can't really know spiritual things... They just learn more about whatever they are taught in church fellowship and feel justified in that.

One of the reasons there is a liberal church out there is this very reason -- people presume they are saved. Pastors presume to know what the Spirit hasn't told them because they are NOT indwelt. And the "snowball" keeps rolling down the "hill" and getting bigger all the time. They're called "Laodicea," BTW.

skypair

 

So there really are men created gay with a "gay nature?" And God created them evil that way?

OK, at least I know where they are getting their arguments now. :tear: Apparently, from the same argumentation as fatalism and Calvinism, most have given up hope.

Course nothing but God could change their nature, right? Psychological couseling nor a good woman ever avails, I guess. There really is no choice.

skypair

 

Hey y'all,

What would be missing in our respective, practical sotierologies if we laid aside "election" (none of us can see God's choices as to whom He will save) and agreed that a personal will decision MUST be made in faith unto salvation?

Do you think we could take the Calvinist "pages," which we have inserted into our Bibles, out and see what's left?

skypair

 

Again, you are making distinctions that Scripture does not make. Faith and belief, in Scripture, are the same. It is obvious that they are not to you, but that simply shows that your theology is not scriptural on this point.

There is no more "objective proof" in terms we think of it today that Christ died for sins to satisfy God than there is for the second coming. It is all faith, or belief.

Remember, the NT has one word, pisteuo, that is translated as "faith" in the noun form, and "believe" in the verb form. It is the same word.

I understand the concept perfectly fine. And it illustrates my point. You have no choice to change your mind because in eternity past God foreknew your choice and now you can't change it. Any "change" must be foreknown as well.

This completely destroys the very thing you hope to save ... man's "free will."

He loses it because God's foreknowledge means that man has to do exactly what God knows he will do.

I am not an expert on Calvin by any means, so I am not qualified to answer this. Since the doctrines commonly known as calvinism come from Scripture, we need only to know Scripture. But having said that, there are plenty of people who were right on some things and wrong on others. Consider yourself: you are right on a number of issues; but you are dead wrong on trying to make a biblical distinction between faith and belief. Should we discount every thing you say because you think faith and belief are different? Of course not.

I remembered that, and if you remember, I agree. But you have not shown where Scripture disagrees with Calvinism. You have shown that you disagree with Calvinism. You have not shown that Scripture does.

 

Virtually no Calvinist disagrees with that.

You should listen to some of hte preaching from the Together for the Gospel conference last week. You might find it helpful in understanding more about the gospel as Calvinism preaches it. You might find it surprising even.

 

Ah! I finally got on the good side of your HUMOR! :laugh: BTW, why do you put a space before your periods (.)? You're drivin' me NUTS with that "tick." :laugh:

Rip -- at some point you did choose Christ as YOUR Savior, right? You won't deny that, will you?

There's a story behind that. Ever hear of Jack Hyles? I went to see him in Isla Mirada (Florida Keys). He preached there yearly for a week so he could go deep sea fishing. One night he held up his Bible and said, "Know why this Bible is so thick? It's a special Bible -- every other page is blank so I can put my notes in."

Great preacher! Hope he's still alive. But here you have an example of what I believe Calvinists have done. Only in their case, I believe they have put -- not what they got from God -- what they got from Calvin.

skypair

 

Any other place you would insist that a word has a "range of meanings," Lar. But here you refuse to allow any. Hmmm?

No, Lar. Have you not received the Spirit?? The "earnest of our redemption?" You certainly don't mean what you just wrote.

Yes, Larry. And Greek is a really precise language as well. Yet and still I do not believe one has "evidence" until they receive the Spirit. Now you insist that you receive the indwelling Spirit BEFORE you are saved and I believe it's after. Can you remember which way it was when you were saved?

Yes! And NONE of us likely accepts Christ the first time we hear. We ALL change our minds and ALL get 2nd and more chances. But again -- please bear with me -- "God foreknew your choice." Is that "God decided for you" or "God foresaw what you would choose?"

Larry, do you detect the assumption you are making? "Man has to do exactly as God knows he will do?" IOW, God "dictates" what a man will do rather than God foresees what a man will do?

You are, of course, right. I, like Calvin, have "fitted" everything into a framework that I believe in biblical. And I am asserting that what I believe is MORE biblical than Calvin. Based on what? My salvation first of all. Second, I have been taught by more Godly men than Calvin was. How so? We have learned MUCH more than was known then. You "cling" (I hate to sound like Obama) to an out-of-date theology. There MUST have been a place in the church era when Philadelphia superceded Sardis!

skypair

 

It was shown in numerous places to be a bad comparison.

No it can't. It is fundamentally flawed.

No, you are again misunderstanding. In addition, you are contradicting yourself, since you have admitted that you can only choose what God knows you will choose, and as a result, you only have once choice.

No. I have never said that. Calvinism doesn't say that. You konw better. I have directly refuted this on numerous occasions and I do not know why you would continue to repeat it unless your intention is to be dishonest.

This doesn't even make sense. You can't have faith in Christ without accpeting Christ as Savior. That is what faith is. And everyone who accepts Christ as Savior has the Holy Spirit indwelling them.

That is true in non-liberal churches as well.

This makes no sense.

No they're not.

 

Check the lexicon. A word has a range of meanings according to its usage. Pisteuo has a semantic range. Check it out.

I mean exactly what I wrote. I have the Spirit, the earnest of my redemption. But as you well know, the Holy Spirit can be counterfeited.

No more than any other language really.

So?

I have never insisted any such thing. I don't even believe it. It happens at the same time, though the indwelling of the Spirit is logically subsequent to salvation.

God foreknew, in the biblical sense of the term, not your misused sense. The fact that we change our minds is not a problem for me. It is for you because in teh end you can only choose what God foreknows. You cannot make any other choice. And by your defintion, you have therefore lost your free will. This is so simple. When you sit and think about it, I imagine you will probably understand the conundrum you are in.

Doesn't he? Or can God's knowledge be wrong?

Those are your "other words," not mine.

The problem is that if God's knowledge is perfect, you can only do what he foreknows. You have no free will do anything else. If you can do something else, then God's knowledge isn't perfect.

But we have shown that incorrect on teh basis of the Bible. Will you change to bring your beliefs in line with Scripture? That is really the only question left open here.

I was not aware that the theology of Jesus and Paul was out-of-date, but if you insist, I plead guilty.

Nope. If you study history, you will see these two churches existed at the same time.

 

Whew! Sorry. You have no sense of humor after all. :tonofbricks:

You wouldn't think he was much of a preacher -- you're probably just like the liberal detractors when his Gary, IN church when he came there from TX. They didn't want to hear "hell, fire, and brimstone" preaching. He got death threats for years. His church built the largest bus ministry in the USA when my church in Memphis had the 2nd largest. You wouldn't like that much, would you.

Better watch out, rip, God's gonna get you!

skypair

 

Yeah, that's the advice Bildad gave to Job in Job 8:8. You're right on track with the WRONG answers.

skypair

 

"Shown" to you, no doubt. What is your defintion of "fatalism."

It's apparently hard for you to think in 4 dimensions.

BINGO!! And everyone who doesn't believe ISN'T regenerated!! So why does regeneration come before acceptance??

Don't know if you are old enough but as Aynn Rand used to say, "If people say things that are irrational, you just don't understand their premises." You absolutely have your Calvinist programming. You apparently do not understand the free will, biblical perspective.

skypair

 

Not to a believer He can't!! I'm not asking "do you speak in tongues, Lar." Do you think it is "counterfeit Spirit" to not believe Calvinism?

Yes, faith precedes regeneration. Thank you.

If you read back over our posts, you will see we are going back and forth believing the same thing then. I have no problems with changing my mind -- my theology does NOT "cast all things in stone" before God foreknows the future. Maybe you are my latest "convert." :laugh:

OK, purposely misunderstand me if it seems funny to you. But in case you are not trying to be clever, CALVINISM is out-of-date, Lar.

And there is no other significance than that, right? Now you really are showing the shallowness of your theology. But you didn't really mean that, did you?

skypair

 

Aynn Rand? Isn't her "thinking" the foundation for Scientology?

I have always found your posts to be puzzling. I may now be understanding why.

peace to youraying: