Mark Osgatharp
New Member
If, as argued in another thread, foreknowledge = foreordination, does not a foreknowledge of damnation equal a predestination to damnation - what the old Calvinists called "reprobation"?
Will the Calvinists here be consistent and admit that their philosophy implicitly teaches that our merciful, kind, just, loving and faithful Creator created billions of human beings with the pre-calculated intention of damning them to everlasting torment with no possibility or bona fide offer of salvation?
Such a thing hardly seems characteristic of God's dealing with man, to whom He sent His Son to bid the weary and heavy laden to "come unto me." But we cannot deny the justice of it, if we approach the subject with the understanding that God's decree to damn the wicked is based on their sin and voluntary rebellion against Him.
And we cannot deny that is exactly what He did in respect of the wicked angels to whom no offer of redemption is given. And thus we freely confess that our God, foreseeing our lost and undone condition, did most freely and of His mere grace choose to have mercy on us, without any regard for any good or evil within us, for we were destitute of good and consumed with evil.
Thus it is truly written that He hath chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world, according to the riches of His grace and the good pleasure of His will.
But when we approach the subject of reprobation from the context of Calvinism, which teaches (whether explicitly or implicitly) that God uncondtionally hated and predestinated certain men to eternal damnation while still in their mother's womb, having done neither good nor evil, much less having any knowledge thereof, the whole idea becomes a slander and insult, not only to the mercy, but to the holy character and justice of God.
As vile as this slander on God is, the Calvinists of old - which is to say the bona fide and consistent ones - published it, as did the men of Sodom their filthy fornications, with impunity and with fear of neither God nor man. Take, for example, this extract from Bunyan's tract "Reprobation Asserted":
"Reprobation is before the person cometh into the world or hath done good or evil; this is evident by that of Paul to the Romans: 'For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to election, might stand, it was said unto Rebecca, The eleder shall serve the younger.' Here you find twain in their mother's womb, and both receiving their destiny, not only before they had done good or evil, but before they were in a capacity to do it, they being yet unborn - their destiny, I say, the one unto, the other not unto, the blessing of eternal life; the one chosen, the other refused; the one elect, the other reprobate" (chapter three).
And if that were not clear enough, this vile blasphemer of God adds,
"it be most true that sin is no cause of reprobation" (chapter 4).
No, my friend, Bunyan was too honest of a man to speak in watered down terms of God merely "passing by" the reprobate and leaving them to the just recompense of their sins. He flatly states (that which is but the honest and logical conclusion of the Calvinist heresy),
"it be most true that sin is no cause of reprobation."
Can I get an "Amen" from the loyal opposition?
Mark Osgatharp
Will the Calvinists here be consistent and admit that their philosophy implicitly teaches that our merciful, kind, just, loving and faithful Creator created billions of human beings with the pre-calculated intention of damning them to everlasting torment with no possibility or bona fide offer of salvation?
Such a thing hardly seems characteristic of God's dealing with man, to whom He sent His Son to bid the weary and heavy laden to "come unto me." But we cannot deny the justice of it, if we approach the subject with the understanding that God's decree to damn the wicked is based on their sin and voluntary rebellion against Him.
And we cannot deny that is exactly what He did in respect of the wicked angels to whom no offer of redemption is given. And thus we freely confess that our God, foreseeing our lost and undone condition, did most freely and of His mere grace choose to have mercy on us, without any regard for any good or evil within us, for we were destitute of good and consumed with evil.
Thus it is truly written that He hath chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world, according to the riches of His grace and the good pleasure of His will.
But when we approach the subject of reprobation from the context of Calvinism, which teaches (whether explicitly or implicitly) that God uncondtionally hated and predestinated certain men to eternal damnation while still in their mother's womb, having done neither good nor evil, much less having any knowledge thereof, the whole idea becomes a slander and insult, not only to the mercy, but to the holy character and justice of God.
As vile as this slander on God is, the Calvinists of old - which is to say the bona fide and consistent ones - published it, as did the men of Sodom their filthy fornications, with impunity and with fear of neither God nor man. Take, for example, this extract from Bunyan's tract "Reprobation Asserted":
"Reprobation is before the person cometh into the world or hath done good or evil; this is evident by that of Paul to the Romans: 'For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to election, might stand, it was said unto Rebecca, The eleder shall serve the younger.' Here you find twain in their mother's womb, and both receiving their destiny, not only before they had done good or evil, but before they were in a capacity to do it, they being yet unborn - their destiny, I say, the one unto, the other not unto, the blessing of eternal life; the one chosen, the other refused; the one elect, the other reprobate" (chapter three).
And if that were not clear enough, this vile blasphemer of God adds,
"it be most true that sin is no cause of reprobation" (chapter 4).
No, my friend, Bunyan was too honest of a man to speak in watered down terms of God merely "passing by" the reprobate and leaving them to the just recompense of their sins. He flatly states (that which is but the honest and logical conclusion of the Calvinist heresy),
"it be most true that sin is no cause of reprobation."
Can I get an "Amen" from the loyal opposition?
Mark Osgatharp
