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- Thread starter Anthony Pritchard
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Ascetic X
Well-Known Member
What has been slanderous and incorrect?
The "sin is inherited from Adam" (as opposed to "death spread to all men for all have sinned") came from post-Augustine Catholic doctrine. Augustine built a doctrine based on a Latin mistranslation which grew into the Catholic doctrine).
You are, of course, right. My post was an attempt at irony, but clearly it went astray. My point was that if you and @Ascetic X can be so wildly inaccurate about Calvinism and what it actually is, how can any of us have confidence in your understanding of the Bible?
What I find ironic is that you and @JonC are always talking about just using the words of Scripture, and how wonderful it is to rely purely on that, and yet you can find no agreement and end up in a shouting match.
The fact is that the people who talk about 'just Scripture' are usually heretics. The JWs do it all the time. At the beginning of the 18th Century, there was a great upsurge in Unitarianism and those who were leading that insisted on only using the words of Scripture. BUt when people asked them what they understood by those words, they became very coy. I wrote an article on the subject and then putit on my blog. You can read it here: Learning The Lessons of History (1)
Learning the Lessons of History (2)
[Read first I am sure that I cannot be alone in seeing remarkable parallels between the early 18th Century and today. In our own time we have seen a marked decline in Christian orthodoxy and teac…
marprelate.wordpress.com
@DaveXR650 recommended a fine book by Iain Murray, Spurgeon Vs. Hyper-Calvinism, published by Banner of Truth. I also recommend another book by the same author and publisher, The Forgotten Spurgeon. This book covers the 'Baptismal Regeneration' controversy of 1864, and also the 'Downgrade' controversy of Spurgeon's final years. But most interestingly for you, @Ascetic X and others is his defence of Calvinism against the wretched, diluted gospel fashionable in London in the 1850s.
Here is a very brief sample of Spurgeon's early preaching. His text was Galatians 1:15: 'It pleased God.'
'You will perceive, I think, in these words, that the divine plan of salvation is very clearly laid down. It begins, you see, in the will and pleasure of God: "When it pleased God." THe foundation of salvation is not laid down in the will of man. It does begin with man's obedience, and the proceed on to the purpose of God; but here is its commencement, here the fountain-head from which the living waters flow: "It pleased God." Next to the sovereign will and good pleasure of God comes the act of separation, commonly known by the name of election. This act is said in the text to take place even in the mother's womb, by which we are taught that it took place before our birth when as yet we could have done nothing whatever to win it or to merit it. God separated us from the earliest part and time of our being; and indeed, long before that, when as yet the mountains and hills were not piled, and the oceans were not formed by His creative power, he had, in His eternal purpose, set us apart for Himself. Then, after this act of separation came the effectual calling: "and called me by His grace"........'
I could not care less whether Calvinism is 'historical Christian Doctrine.' I will let you and the Roman Catholics worry about that.
I care that it is Biblical Christian Doctrine, which it most certainly is.
Anthony Pritchard
Active Member
Exactly. I’ve studied the early churches for years, and predestinarianism simply isn’t there. The first known instance of a church adopting anything like unconditional election or monergistic grace appears only in the North African Latin churches influenced by Augustine, beginning around 397–430 AD. That’s when Augustine developed and promoted his new doctrine of predestination.
Before Augustine, no church, Greek or Latin, held anything resembling later predestinarianism. That isn’t opinion; it’s the consensus of historical scholarship. The early fathers consistently taught real human freedom, universal atonement, and resistible grace. The shift toward determinism begins with Augustine, not with the apostles and not with the early churches.
Anthony Pritchard
Active Member
Martin, that response simply sidesteps the point. When a doctrine has no presence in the first churches, no presence in the apostolic communities, no presence in the Greek East, no presence in the Latin West before Augustine, and no presence in any creed or council for four centuries, it is entirely fair to ask why.
If a doctrine is truly “Biblical Christian Doctrine,” then the churches founded by the apostles, taught by the apostles, and discipled by the apostles should have held it. But they didn’t. Not one of them. The first church at Jerusalem didn’t teach it. The Greek churches never taught it. The Latin churches didn’t teach it until Augustine introduced it in the late 4th–early 5th century.
So the historical question matters because it exposes whether a doctrine is apostolic or post‑apostolic. Calvinism is post‑apostolic. It begins with Augustine, not with Scripture, not with the apostles, and not with the early churches.
You’re free to believe Augustine’s system if you want, but calling it “Biblical Christian Doctrine” requires more than asserting it. The burden is to show where the apostles taught it and where the churches they founded ever believed it. History shows they didn’t.
Ascetic X
Well-Known Member
Calvinists consistently deny the simple, clear statements of scripture.
Hebrews 2:9
But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.
Calvinists: Every man does not mean every single man. It means only every elect man.
2 Corinthians 5:15
And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.
Calvinists: Died for all does not mean everyone. It means all the elect only.
1 John 2:2
And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
Calvinists: The whole world does not mean everybody in the world. It means just the elect.
I Timothy 2
3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;
4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
Calvinists: All men does not mean every single man. It means only some men, who are the elect.
The "isms" are based on logic (these "theologies" are just as much philosophy as they are theology. Logic is the science of reasoning while philosophy is the rational study of subjects.
The problem is both are natural wisdom. Logically if a bush is on fire it will be consumed. The problem is God is Spirit. He is above nature.
When people read words they often "see" things that are not there. This is because of their philosophy (their understanding of reality, their worldviews).
For example, one can read "Jesus bore our sins bodily" and understand the sentence. Jesus bore our sins bodily. BUT some would see a substitution (Jesus took our sins from us and bore those sins bodily).
The logic is flawed becausw what is being "seen" is not actually in the text. It is instead in the mind of the reader who projects it into the text.
Logic is the ointment we use to work our Scripture. But the fly in the ointment is what we "see" that is not there. People see different things (different "flies"). So they use the same human wisdom and arrive at very different places.
The only true doctrine is God's words, not what people see, not what they think os taught, not what a passage means to them. The actual biblical text.
Scripture does not teach anything except the words of God, "what is written", the "faith once delivered".
The problem is both are natural wisdom. Logically if a bush is on fire it will be consumed. The problem is God is Spirit. He is above nature.
When people read words they often "see" things that are not there. This is because of their philosophy (their understanding of reality, their worldviews).
For example, one can read "Jesus bore our sins bodily" and understand the sentence. Jesus bore our sins bodily. BUT some would see a substitution (Jesus took our sins from us and bore those sins bodily).
The logic is flawed becausw what is being "seen" is not actually in the text. It is instead in the mind of the reader who projects it into the text.
Logic is the ointment we use to work our Scripture. But the fly in the ointment is what we "see" that is not there. People see different things (different "flies"). So they use the same human wisdom and arrive at very different places.
The only true doctrine is God's words, not what people see, not what they think os taught, not what a passage means to them. The actual biblical text.
Scripture does not teach anything except the words of God, "what is written", the "faith once delivered".
Alan Dale Gross
Well-Known Member
Being "blotted out of the Book of Life"
Since, you don't know what a sinner is, by saying the first two at the top on the right could not possibly be seen all through the Bible, through the Old Testament and the New Testament.
The Bible is drenched with those teachings. A sinner is one who is blind to the Word and dead to God, Spiritually, since they have no Devine Nature with which to relate directly to God, Who is Spirit, in the Spirit Realm.
God Chose that "by the foolishness of preaching (the Gospel)" lost souls would be saved.
"For after that in the Wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God,
it Pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." I Corinthians 1:21.
God uses the Message of bragging on His Son and His Fully Accomplished Eternal Plan of Salvation, by Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, and when God has a lost sinner under the teaching of the Gospel and telling what Jesus did for sinners just like them, the Holy Spirit may convict the lost soul of their sin and Grant them the Repentance of their sins which where Placed on Jesus and caused His death, with the Grace to take sides with God against themselves, and turn from their sins, while also Giving the formally Spiritually dead soul, in the region of the mind below conscience, the Spiritual Gift of Faith to believe Jesus died for them, personally, by the New Birth from Above.
"For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness;
but unto us which are saved it is the Power of God." I Corinthians 1:18.
God has the preacher in place every time, or the Message of the Gospel dispensed in other ways, when God then has the lost sinner under the Eternal Word of God, if He is Pleased by the Power of His Will to Make the formally lost sinner to be Willing in the Day of His Power, and
it Pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe,"
"For the preaching of the cross" ..."to us which are saved it is the Power of God."
"So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that Sheweth Mercy.
God Brings Glory to the Triune Godhead by Quickening the Spiritually dead sinner, who was "dead in trespasses and sins", while that lost sinner's soul is under the preaching of How Jesus is THE SAVIOR, Who they now need, to save their soul from their sin.
That is How God Saves otherwise hopeless, wicked, God-Hating, Spiritually dead wretches who are nothing but an Affront to God and Violating His Universal Moral Law and Eternal Holiness at all times, when He Finds them heaped in sin and then Irresistibly Calls them as He had Elijah preach to the dry bones and like when Jesus Irresistibly Called Lazarus from his State of death, and Raised him up, back to Life and how God Struck Paul Down with the New Birth.
The Word of God is Accompanied by the Holy Spirit, at all times, and is Alive.
"It is the Spirit that Quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing:
the Words that I Speak unto you, they are Spirit, and they are Life," John 6:63.
"The concept of the Power Inherent in God's Word is a Central Theme throughout the Bible, underscoring the Bible's Divine Authority, Transformative Ability, and Enduring Truth. The Scriptures, as the Word of God, are not merely Historical Documents or literary works; they are Living and Active, Imbued with the Power to Effect Change in the hearts and lives of individuals and communities."
Topical Bible: The Power of God's Word
"So shall My Word be that Goeth Forth out of My Mouth:
it shall not return unto me void, but it shall Accomplish that which I Please,
and it shall Prosper in the thing whereto I Sent it," Isaiah 55:11.
But, you must first know what a sinner is and why they need a Savior.
Anthony Pritchard
Active Member
Alan, none of what you wrote actually addresses the point I made. You simply restated the Calvinist system, but the question on the table was the Book of Life and the historical record of the early churches.
The issue is simple:
If the sinner is spiritually dead in the sense of total inability, then the warnings about being blotted out of the Book of Life make no sense. You cannot “blot out” someone who was never written there. Yet Scripture says the names begin there and are removed only by unbelief. That alone contradicts unconditional election.
And historically, the early churches did not teach the system you just described. Not Jerusalem. Not Antioch. Not Alexandria. Not the Greek churches. Not even the Latin churches until Augustine introduced his new interpretation in the late 4th–early 5th century.
So the question remains: If Calvinism is the biblical doctrine of salvation, why did none of the apostolic churches ever teach it?
Quoting verses about preaching, conviction, and the power of God’s Word doesn’t answer that. I believe all of those things. But none of those passages teach irresistible grace, total inability, or unconditional election. Those are later theological constructions, not apostolic doctrine.
If you want to discuss the actual point, the Book of Life and the historical record, I’m glad to do that. But simply repeating the Calvinist framework doesn’t resolve the issue.
DaveXR650
Well-Known Member
When I said that Calvinist preaching commands people to believe the gospel and trust in Christ, and gave examples, continuing to repeat the above, without providing evidence showing otherwise, is slanderous and incorrect.
I don't mind if you bring up perceived inconstancies, or contradictions, or point out the differences in the understanding of this theology even among Calvinists. But where do you get the right to just make these outrageous claims, then just blow off statements with references that refute those claims, and repeat the same extreme and ridiculous charges in the next post you make? And then you wonder why we don't have civil discussions on here.
DaveXR650
Well-Known Member
That can be true. It can also be true that what they are doing is remembering other scriptures that seem to say something different and in trying to keep these things straight eventually develop theologies. Of course it's because of their understanding of reality. Any human who claims to be so pure and open minded that they (and usually it's claimed that they alone) have a proper view of the meaning of the pure scripture is either deranged or lying. That's how all the cults start.