Beloved57 are you sure you’re chosen?

[Idolater]

...they're not elect...the Blood wasn't shed for reprobates...so they have 0% chance of being saved no matter what they believe.

Calvinists don't like to talk about this, I've found.

That's all I was sayin.

 

[ttruscott]

What if God predestined you to think you are saved but actually plans on sending you to hell?

This question betrays a great gap in the understanding of GOD's love and the reason, ie, HIS purpose, the heavenly marriage, that HE created us to fulfill.

It is as wrong as the level of misunderstanding that would suggest Satan is one of the Divine Persons of the trinity.

 

[ttruscott]

If you're predestined to heaven there's nothing you can do to change it----nothing.
If you're predestined to hell there's also nothing you can do to change it----nothing.

Ask any Calvinist if the above two sentences are true----they'll tell you.

Not just Calvinists... I am a die-hard anti-Calvinist and have had Beloved57 on ignore for years but I accept that these two sentences are true or the word predestination has no meaning.

 

[Arial]

Fluff.

Unsubstantiated declaration.

One predetermined event does not inherently mean that all things are predetermined by God.

Is 46:9-11 Remember the former things of old, for I am God and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring tge the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure. Calling a bird of prey form the east, the man who executes My counsel, from a far country, indeed I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it; I will also do it.

Because God wasn't controlling them like puppets.

Rather, like a Master chess player (or a Meijin (名人), which is probably even more appropriate, to be honest), He is fully capable of manipulating His enemies to accomplish His purposes.

Manipulating? Really? See above scripture. It says He DOES it.

Isn't it arrogant and presumptuous to call into question someone's professed faith in God simply because they challenge your theology?

That is exactly what Polly and GD and M and Clete did to Beloved 57 and by extension all who do not believe as you and they do. However I did not call into question Polly's faith. I called into question her remark to B57, since she IS a Christian (as far as I know). I did not even do it because it challenged my theology. Pay attention before you go all accusatory.

Some of us here used to be Calvinists. Some of us have, in fact, learned what it is that Calvinism/Reformed theology teaches. We oppose it on logical and moral grounds, not emotional.

The only one getting emotional about it here, in this conversation, and bringing up emotion at all, is you.

Many people say they used to be Calvinist and many people say they understand it completely, then say things that show clearly (to one who does understand it, because I asked the question "what if" and wasn't afraid to look and look deeply) that they do not understand it at all. Rather they saw God presented in a way they were not willing to accept if it were true, and so they didn't. They returned to a God which they basically made in a image more to their liking and more controllable. Nevertheless, it is not necessary to see or understand it----God remembers that we are made of dust.

Christ Himself tells us to judge, and even to judge rightly, and so does Paul.

We are told "he who is spiritual judges all things."

Why are you judging us for judging, Arial?

Where does Christ tell us to judge PEOPLE? He tells us to judge teaching. And you are judging other's beliefs strictly according to and by your own, and condemning them to hell if they don't line up with yours. And those beliefs of yours which you judge and condemn by are most of the time in no way connected to salvation. Such as the beliefs of those who agree with the sovereignty of God in salvation and those who do not agree with your MAD doctrine.

that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
Romans 10:9

Do you know that BTK confessed with his mouth the Lord Jesus? And are you able to look into his heart and see what He believed? His repeated unrepentant actions declare that he was never joined to Christ----(continued below)

Did you miss this part?


I sure didn't.

or what position he held in what church. Not to mention a great many Lutheran churches as well as "Calvinist" churches, are as watered down and as unconcerned about doctrine as most other churches, including Methodist, many Baptist and almost 100% of non-denominational churches. That is why neither shepherd or sheep recognize a wolf, even when he doesn't bother to wear his sheep's clothing.

 

[ttruscott]

The Jews and Romans were predetermined by God to crucify Jesus, yet they were also entirely responsible for their own evil behavior.

...which would tend to imply that their predetermined fate was based upon their free will choices and decisions and NOT without condition nor reason as Calvin suggested.

They chose their eternal relationship with YHWH and HE chose their eternal fate as the perfect moral response to their free will choices.

 

[Arial]

No, those believing in an elect group of people also believe God purposely causes one to not believe in Him.

No they don't. They already didn't believe in Him. They were born that way---born in Adam.

 

[Hoping]

It is what a person believes about the person and work of Jesus that determines what their faith is in, and therefore, whether or not someone is in Christ.

What is atrocious @Poly, is for someone to directly and deliberately sow seeds of doubt within the heart of another. Do you not know that we will reap what we sow?

Those who believe that the Bible teaches that it is God, and no part of themselves, who saves, even in His grace of giving them a new birth wherein their natural enmity towards God is dissolved, their stony heart removed and a new soft and pliable in His hands heart given; these are just as saved as those who (one could say arrogantly and with presumption) say they are saved because of what Jesus did but also because of what they did, when they, being much better people by nature than those who who do not chose to believe, chose to believe in Jesus. That sure Jesus did the work, made the sacrifice, but that it has no efficacy without the actions of man also.

All who are saved are saved by the grace of God.

Thank God we can accept that grace.
Thank God we can turn from sin.

 

[Arial]

That does seem a bit hypocritical.

Well that is what happens when people jump to conclusions, and the worst case scenario (or most convenient one) at that.

 

[ttruscott]

No, those believing in an elect group of people also believe God purposely causes one to not believe in Him.

Yes, this is the Calvinist mistake, knowing a little theology but nothing about HIS loving nature...believing sovereignty trumps love but it in fact must conform to love, righteousness and justice. Sovereignty does not mean that if HE chooses to do something it then conforms to HIS loving righteousness but rather that HIS sovereignty must conform to HIS nature of loving and righteous.

The reason some were chosen, elected, to be saved and others were passed over for such election and left to hell had to have been based upon their free will faith based choice as love, righteous and justice would never do it any other way.

But to blatantly deny the meaning of election, predestination and the predetermination of our lives as so clearly stated is also very dismaying. Calvin got it wrong but the answers given by others often doesn't seem to fit proper hermeneutics.

 

[Arial]

Thank God we can accept that grace.
Thank God we can turn from sin.

Yup. And it doesn't matter how we think that came about. It is what we believe about Jesus that determines a person's salvation.

 

[Arial]

...which would tend to imply that their predetermined fate was based upon their free will choices and decisions and NOT without condition nor reason as Calvin suggested.

I don't know what Calvin suggested. If God does something, i.e. electing some to salvation, it is not without reason. Reformed teaching does not say there is no reason, it says there is a reason within God, but that reason is not something about us, (our goodness or that we deserve it for some reason. We are all in the same boat. We are all sinners.

 

[Arial]

That's all I was sayin.

That is what you say, but it is not what Reformed theology teaches. It says no one will believe because they do not want to, unless God regenerates them (the new birth). We are by nature at enmity with God. We may want Him to exist as the master solver of all our problems when we are in a trouble for which we can find no escape on our own, or for any number of reasons. We do not want Him to take away all those things we desire that are opposed to Him and tell us what we should and shouldn't do.

We do not want Him or anyone else to be Lord of our life.

 

[Poly]

No they don't. They already didn't believe in Him. They were born that way---born in Adam?

Did God not determine that they be born that way? Born in Adam?

 

[Arial]

According to Calvinism, especially hardcore Calvinists such as B57, ANYTHING a person believes is predetermined by God before the foundation of the earth.

And that includes at every point in a person's life.

I do not know what B57 believes in that regard. But it is not what Reformed theology teaches. A person is born a non believer in the sense that we are all born with the propensity to sin (and will sin). And are at enmity with God. Reformed teaches that a person will remain an unbeliever at every point in his life unless God quickens him giving him a new heart, one that now desires God and leans on Christ.

Aside from what Clete said above (which is extremely well said, btw... Nice one @Clete!), is not this thread a "reaping of what is sown" by B57?

This type of remark shows up often in your posts, you relying on Clete and praising him. Are you both the same person? The one being freed by alias to be the more brutal of the two?

Which includes non-Calvinists, by the way, just so you know.

If a person is smart enough, wise enough, humble enough, good enough, to make a choice to believe and trust in Jesus, that came from them. They became the deciding factor in their salvation. No matter what gorgeous and humble looking clothes you clothe it in.

Is it not arrogant and presumptuous to assert that you are the determiner of who is saved and who is not, simply because they present a challenge to what you believe?

Is it arrogant and presumptuous to challenge the belief that God predetermined some people to go to hell, and others to go to heaven, simply due to "the pleasure of His goodwill"?

You are the one saying what one believes on this subject determines whether a person is saved or not. Not me. I have said the opposite.

It would be presumptuous to say such as your second sentence if there was no support for it in scripture. If there is such support (whether rightly interpreted or not) in scripture, it is simply telling the truth.
Eph 1:5 Having predestined us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will."

 

[Arial]

Did God not determine that they be born that way? Born in Adam?

Actually Adam did?

 

[Right Divider]

Yes, this is the Calvinist mistake, knowing a little theology but nothing about HIS loving nature...believing sovereignty trumps love but it in fact must conform to love, righteousness and justice. Sovereignty does not mean that if HE chooses to do something it then conforms to HIS loving righteousness but rather that HIS sovereignty must conform to HIS nature of loving and righteous.

They have a completely false definition of "sovereignty".

 

[ttruscott]

Reformed teaching does not say there is no reason, it says there is a reason within God, but that reason is not something about us, (our goodness or that we deserve it for some reason.

I agree. HIS reason is accepted by Calvinists as apparently not based upon any condition found in us to accept us or to reject us but to play this unfathomable card is unfathomable in itself giving the fact of HIS nature e benevolent, loving, righteous and just.

Our salvation had to be outside of any condition found in us because we are all lost in enslavement to sin but our election pre-sinfulness had to have been chosen by us to fit the self revelation of HIS nature.

 

[Hoping]

I don't know what Calvin suggested. If God does something, i.e. electing some to salvation, it is not without reason. Reformed teaching does not say there is no reason, it says there is a reason within God, but that reason is not something about us, (our goodness or that we deserve it for some reason. We are all in the same boat. We are all sinners.

Are you not glad we don't have to remain "sinners"?

 

[ttruscott]

Did God not determine that they be born that way? Born in Adam?

This is impossible to avoid without massive doublethink, accepting that opposites can be true at the same time...that HE predetermined all things yet is not responsible for our being created evil by having us created in Adam's sinfulness.

 

[musterion]

re: sovereignty

R. C. Sproul insisted that if even one stray molecule of gas in deep space floats aimlessly and without God's direct direction at every point of its existence, then He is not fully in control of His universe, not sovereign, thus not God.