You really need to stop writing that because it is not true.
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Anthony Pritchard
Active Member
Agreed regarding the Calvinist forum. The main thrust of the article was eternal security as shown by the Book of Life. The subtitle may have suggested a broader debate, but the focus was the permanence of the believer’s salvation.
The point about the Book of Life wholly refuting Calvinism on its own was an added observation, not the core argument, and in hindsight I should have left that aside. My intention was not to derail the thread or provoke anyone.
As far as being called a Pelagian, I could not possibly care less.
Maybe you're one of those stealth 'Calvinist-slayer by night', quietly slip in unawares, get everyone to like you and, BAM! You lower the boom when it's least expected and stamp out TULIP once and for all!
We've had a few that fancied themselves that way.
Anthony Pritchard
Active Member
I am not that smart!Maybe you're one of those stealth 'Calvinist-slayer by night', quietly slip in unawares, get everyone to like you and, BAM! You lower the boom when it's least expected and stamp out TULIP once and for all!
We've had a few that fancied themselves that way.
Ascetic X
Well-Known Member
Pelagianism is a 5th-century Christian theological movement asserting that humans possess the free will to achieve moral perfection without divine grace. It denies original sin and the inherited corrupt nature of humanity. Named after the British monk Pelagius, it was condemned as a heresy in 418 AD.
We can refute the Deterministic Fatalism of Calvinists without being Pelagian.
We simply point to the many instances of the command to repent, believe the gospel, and trust in Christ.
People who are “totally depraved”, as the murderous Calvin claimed, cannot repent, so the command is ridiculous, unless we reject the absurdity of TULIP.
DaveXR650
Well-Known Member
Yes, and most of them come from Calvinists.
Ascetic X
Well-Known Member
That would be contradictory.
Calvinists say unsaved people are totally depraved and cannot repent, believe, or seek God.
DaveXR650
Well-Known Member
No. It's not contradictory. It's true. And it is your willing ignorance that allows you to say such a stupid thing. You ever heard of Charles Spurgeon, the "Prince of Preachers"? A 5 point Calvinist. How about John Knox famous for saying "Give me Scotland or I die". What about William Carey, who basically started the cross cultural mission movement. Yep, a Calvinist. This is why these discussions don't go well. After repeatedly fielding nasty and ignorant statements for people too lazy to even go and look something up themselves folks loose patience. You are welcome to continue on if you wish.
Ascetic X
Well-Known Member
You talk about men who you say were Calvinists.
I am persuaded by scriptures, not men.
Your Calvinist-inspired hostility is revealed by your calling me ignorant and stupid.
Calvin was a bitter, arrogant, malicious man, who had his theological opponents killed. Your insults are congruent with your exaltation of Calvinism.
I have never insulted you attacked you personally. Because I’m not a Calvinist.
IMHO GOD by creating man in his own image, yet a little lower than the angels, by creating him of the flesh, because of the death, sold him under the sin and then redeeming him out of death would be the means of destroying, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, the one that from the beginning was sinning and his works from the beginning.
Through the seed of woman taken out of the man would come the Son of Man, Jesus made a little lower than the angels.
The destroying sinful devil was on the without form and void earth at the moment of verse 2 of Genesis 1. God was about to lay down the foundation of the world through which the devil would be destroyed. On day six the creation of the world Rom 1:20 was finished and God rested yet that creation was at that moment subjected to vanity Rom 8:20 , in hope. Not willingly BTW.
My post 42 shows the same. The plan was made before the foundation of the world, a system of order, which the word system implies IMHO.
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Actually, the bible avers that very thing you say it does not. 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.[1 Cor. 2:14 NASB] The natural man is a man without the Spirit of God, and that is how the NIV states it as well. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.[NIV] The person without the Spirit of God cannot and will not repent and believe the gospel. They are unable to do so.
For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, 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, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.[Romans 8:5-9]
Notice the clear distinctions betwixt those who live after the flesh, the lost, versus those who live after the Spirit of God, the saved.
The lost:
1) Have their minds upon the things of the flesh, to please themselves over pleasing God.
2) Their minds are set upon death, not life.
3) They are hostile, at enmity, with God.
4) Cannot please God, seeing they are devoid of faith, which pleases Him, per Hebrews 11:6.
The saved:
1) Have their minds upon the things of the Spirit.
2) Their minds are set upon life and peace, not death.
3) They are at peace with God, having been reconciled to Him.
4) They do please Him, seeing they have death.
There are no morally neutral ppl on this earth. Ppl are either at odds with Him, or reconciled to Him. No unregenerate person is going around trying to find a way to get to Him in their unregenerate state. They cannot and will not seek Him in their fallen in Adam state.
Indeed so. To call everyone who is not a Calvinist a Pelagian would be a distortion of the truth, but not more so than calling everyone who is a Calvinist a 'Deterministic Fatalist. Might it not be better to stop calling one another silly names and recognize each other as Christians?
By the same logic you would say that to call on compulsive gamblers to give up gambling is ridiculous. The inability of people to come to Christ unless drawn by the Father (John 6:44) is not constitutional, but moral. It is not so much that they cannot come, but they will not (John 3:19). When the Gospel is preached, many do come, but only because God Himself has loved them from before the foundation of the world and drawn them to Himself in time (Jer. 31:3; Acts 13:48).
If you were persuaded by the scriptures rather than men, you would not even mention the word 'Calvinism' because it does not appear in the Bible.
This was one of the main debates within Calvinism. The interesting thing is even today some Calvinists will agree that God is the author of sin (that this is a part of divine sovereignty, God is the cause of all sin). Most Calvinists do not go that far (their philosophy does, but they would not openly admit it).
The problem is not always with a person's logic. Often it is how far they take that logic and how far that logic takes them from the biblical text.
It does seem that some people on this board are utterly determined not to let facts get in the way of their prejudices.
Much of this I have posted before, but I have expanded it a little in the (probably vain) hope that folk on this board will overcome their prejudices through attention to the facts.
The earliest Particular Baptists (Spilsbury, Kiffin, Knollys, Keach, Bunyan etc.) were united in their understanding that God is NOT the author of sin and in their advocacy of the Free proclamation of the Gospel. Anyone who doubts this should read Bunyan's Come and Welcome to the Lord Jesus Christ or the 1644/46 Confession of Faith, Art. XXV: The preaching of the gospel to the conversion of sinners is absolutely free; no way requiring as absolutely necessary, any qualifications, preparations or terrors of the law, or preceding ministry of the law, but only and alone the naked soul, a sinner and ungodly, to receive Christ crucified, dead and buried, and risen again; who is made a prince and a saviour for such sinners as through the gospel shall be brought to believe on Him. The 1689 Confession teaches just the same.
Hyper-Calvinism was not introduced until the early 18th Century, by a Congregational minister called Joseph Hussey who wrote a book in 1707 called God's Operations of Grace but No Offers of His Grace. Hussey's views were introduced into Baptist churches through one John Skepp, formerly a member of Hussey's church. These views had a baneful effect on many Particular Baptist churches, though by no means on all, until around the end of the Century, when men like Robert Hall, Abraham Booth, Andrew Fuller and William Carey turned the churches back to a more Biblical and proper Calvinistic stance. Nevertheless, when C.H. Spurgeon commenced his ministry in London in 1854, he came under attack from various Hyper- Calvinistic ministers.
Spurgeon wrote, "I cannot imagine a more ready instrument in the hands of Satan for the ruin of souls than a minister who tells sinners that it is not their duty to repent of their sins or to believe in Christ, and who has the arrogance to call himself a gospel minister, while he teaches that God hates some men infinitely and unchangeably for no reason whatsoever but simply because He chooses to do so. O my brethren! May the Lord save you from the voice of the charmer, and keep you ever deaf to the voice of error" [from C.H. Spurgeon, Revival Year Sermons, Banner of Truth, 1959]. Spurgeon reprinted the 1689 Confession and made that the standard of the Metropolitan Tabernacle.
The 19th Century was a high water mark for the Particular Baptist churches, and the cause of their decline was not Calvinism but the abandonment of it and the inevitable rising-up of Liberalism and Pelagianism as a result. Those who are interested may search for 'Spurgeon and the Downgrade Controversy' on the internet. If there is any sign of revival in Bristain today, and I think there may be, it is due to the upsurge in interest in Biblical Free Grace theology.
There are still a few 'Hyper' church in Britain today. We have a dear chap in our church who was brought up in one, and he testifies to the grace of God in bringing him to a more open place.
People forget that God’s Word was not given to the scholars and religious elite but instead to the people. It was not the Pharisees Jesus chose as His disciples but fishermen, tax collectors. The religious elite were blinded by their own theology, unable to comprehend the meaning of the text they were dedicated to knowing and teaching.
I have observed that people tend to read a passage and then go to a commentary or source to see what it means, choosing the one that makes the best sense to them. They look at the root meanings of Greek and Hebrew words and find one that fits their expectations. People should instead read Scripture and submit to God’s words, to the actual text. Grasp the words. Meditate on the words. Pray over the text. Let God’s words steep instead of rushing to join a “camp”. Take in that difficult text. Believe it, even without a full understanding. Commit the Word to your mind, to your heart. Allow God to work within you to reveal the truth of the words He gave rather than running away to find meaning elsewhere.
What matters is the biblical text, the actual words that God gave us to know Him. “What is written”. “Theologies” are ointments men apply to the biblical text to make sense of it, to fit it to their own expectations. The problem is we are men and not God. There are files in the ointment.
The truth is all of these “theologies” are partially theology (the study of God) and partially philosophy (the understanding of men). They are all logical, but that logic can easily carry one away from the faith. If man does not have a perfect understanding then any small flaw is magnified.
Take the anti-missions movement. If you look at the logic it is very good. One who evangelizes strives against God when they encounter a reprobate. The problem is not the logic but where that philosophy carries people. It is the same with Calvinism, Arminianism, Pelagianism, etc. They are all logical. But they carry men away from God’s words.
Love God. Obey God. Stick with God’s words. Allow God to interpret His own words (Scripture interprets Scripture). God’s Word is not dependent on your understanding. The biblical text is objective. Rather than conforming Scripture to your understanding conform your understanding to Scripture – even if it means leaving your tradition.
I have observed that people tend to read a passage and then go to a commentary or source to see what it means, choosing the one that makes the best sense to them. They look at the root meanings of Greek and Hebrew words and find one that fits their expectations. People should instead read Scripture and submit to God’s words, to the actual text. Grasp the words. Meditate on the words. Pray over the text. Let God’s words steep instead of rushing to join a “camp”. Take in that difficult text. Believe it, even without a full understanding. Commit the Word to your mind, to your heart. Allow God to work within you to reveal the truth of the words He gave rather than running away to find meaning elsewhere.
What matters is the biblical text, the actual words that God gave us to know Him. “What is written”. “Theologies” are ointments men apply to the biblical text to make sense of it, to fit it to their own expectations. The problem is we are men and not God. There are files in the ointment.
The truth is all of these “theologies” are partially theology (the study of God) and partially philosophy (the understanding of men). They are all logical, but that logic can easily carry one away from the faith. If man does not have a perfect understanding then any small flaw is magnified.
Take the anti-missions movement. If you look at the logic it is very good. One who evangelizes strives against God when they encounter a reprobate. The problem is not the logic but where that philosophy carries people. It is the same with Calvinism, Arminianism, Pelagianism, etc. They are all logical. But they carry men away from God’s words.
Love God. Obey God. Stick with God’s words. Allow God to interpret His own words (Scripture interprets Scripture). God’s Word is not dependent on your understanding. The biblical text is objective. Rather than conforming Scripture to your understanding conform your understanding to Scripture – even if it means leaving your tradition.
Anthony Pritchard
Active Member
The absence of a word in Scripture does not invalidate the use of the word. The Bible never uses terms such as Bible, Trinity, omniscience, incarnation, millennium, or grandfather, yet we use these words to describe biblical truths and categories.
Calvinism is simply a label for a theological system. Using a label to identify a system is simply clarifying what is being discussed. The question is not whether the word appears in the text, but whether the doctrines themselves align with the text, or not.