In your opinion only: you'll never be able to cite a Calvinist agreeing with you, which makes this characterization of yours partisan.
How about John Calvin himself?
“The devil, and the whole train of the ungodly, are in all directions, held in by the hand of God as with a bridle, so that they can neither conceive any mischief, nor plan what they have conceived, nor how muchsoever they may have planned, move a single finger to perpetrate, unless in so far as he permits,
nay unless in so far as he commands, that they are not only bound by his fetters but are even forced to do him service” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 17, Paragraph 11)
Logically prior to that, Calvinism claims that it will never happen. And why it will never happen is the next logical sequence: because we are the natural man, who by nature will never pursue, consider, choose, prefer sinlessness.
“Therefore, those whom God passes over, he condemns; and this he does for no other reason than that he wills to exclude them from the inheritance which he predestines for his own children.” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christia/n Religion, Book 3, Chapter 23, Paragraph 1)
It is only after these claims, that Calvinism wades into the reason why some people turn to God. Left to their own devices no natural man will ever choose God (QED).
“We cannot assign any reason for his bestowing mercy on his people, but just as it so pleases him, neither can we have any reason for his reprobating others but his will.” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 22, Paragraph 11)
Sure there is! The monkey could get some help learning some words or driving a car! That is of course a possible alternative. Just because the monkey, if left alone, will NEVER learn language or how to drive, does not mean there's "no possible alternative"!
“We hold that God is the disposer and ruler of all things, –that from the remotest eternity, according to his own wisdom, He decreed what he was to do, and now by his power executes what he decreed. Hence we maintain, that by His providence, not heaven and earth and inanimate creatures only, but also the counsels and wills of men are so governed as to move exactly in the course which he has destined.” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 16, Paragraph 8)
SO WHAT?! It means that there are NO ALTERNATIVES! It PRECLUDES the very notion of "CHOICE"!
The portion I was responding to was a tangent.
Apologies, it's a typo. I meant #647.
The natural man is the consequence of the Fall in Eden. God did not "program" the natural man. Adam was not the natural man, Adam was "very good."
NOT according to Calvinism.
"At present it is necessary only to remember, that man, at his first creation, was very different from all his posterity; who, deriving their origin from him after he was corrupted, received a hereditary taint. At first every part of the soul was formed to rectitude. There was soundness of mind and freedom of will to choose the good. If any one objects that it was placed, as it were, in a slippery position, because its power was weak, I answer, that the degree conferred was sufficient to take away every excuse. For surely the Deity could not be tied down to this condition,—to make man such, that he either could not or would not sin. Such a nature might have been more excellent; but to expostulate with God as if he had been bound to confer this nature on man, is more than unjust, seeing he had full right to determine how much or how little He would give. Why He did not sustain him by the virtue of perseverance is hidden in his counsel; it is ours to keep within the bounds of soberness. Man had received the power, if he had the will, but he had not the will which would have given the power; for this will would have been followed by perseverance. Still, after he had received so much, there is no excuse for his having spontaneously brought death upon himself. No necessity was laid upon God to give him more than that intermediate and even transient will, that out of man’s fall he might extract materials for his own glory." (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 15, Paragraph 8)
By the way, in case it wasn't extremely obvious, I am most definitely not a Calvinist.
So it should be obvious also that when I said what I said above, it was not talking about myself personally.
He didn't give you that nature.
“Therefore, those whom God passes over, he condemns; and this he does for no other reason than that he wills to exclude them from the inheritance which he predestines for his own children.” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 23, Paragraph 1)
“We cannot assign any reason for his bestowing mercy on his people, but just as it so pleases him, neither can we have any reason for his reprobating others but his will.” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 22, Paragraph 11)
Unless and only unless God intervenes. This is Calvinism.
God only intervenes for those whom He has elected, according to Calvinism.
No, because our nature is such that if He doesn't intervene and the key here is that He must intervene effectively.
In the same way that the dog chooses to not learn words. It's not like he knows completely what is being offered to him but chooses intellectually to remain illiterate. He's a dog. Without God's help he's just never going to learn a single word, never.
Those are not mutually exclusive. Just because the dog isn't going to learn a word unless he is changed on the inside somehow, doesn't mean there's no reason for God to not constantly remind all dogs, that they really should devote themselves to learning to use words and language, for their own good.
"As the human mind is unable, from dullness, to pursue the right path of investigation, and, after various wanderings, stumbling every now and then like one groping in darkness, at length gets completely bewildered, so its whole procedure proves how unfit it is to search the truth and find it."(John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 2, Chapter 2, Paragraph 15)
Nope. There is a choice. But the natural man will never freely make the choice for God.
"...free will does not enable any man to perform good works, unless he is assisted by grace; indeed, the special grace which
the elect alone receive through regeneration." (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 2, Chapter 2, Paragraph 8) Emphasis added
It's in the nature of the natural man, a Biblical term. It has nothing to do with predetermination, that the natural man won't freely and of his own accord choose sinlessness.
"...our freedom is not to the extent of leaving us equally inclined to good and evil in act or in thought, but only to the extent of freeing us from compulsion. This liberty is compatible with our being depraved, the servants of sin,
able to do nothing but sin.In this way, then, man is said to have free will, not because he has a free choice of good and evil, but because he acts voluntarily, and not by compulsion. (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 2, Chapter 2, Paragraph 8 & 9) Emphasis added
That's because you don't understand it.
Just because you don't believe everything calvinism teaches doesn't mean that I don't understand Calvinism, or that what I'm telling you Calvinism teaches isn't actually Calvinism. I understand it quite well. You don't, or at the very least, you don't hold to everything Calvin teaches.
False! God has a permissive will. This is not Him actively choosing, it is Him permitting.
Not according to Calvinism.
“Therefore, those whom God passes over, he condemns; and this he does for no other reason than that he wills to exclude them from the inheritance which he predestines for his own children.” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 23, Paragraph 1)
“We cannot assign any reason for his bestowing mercy on his people, but just as it so pleases him, neither can we have any reason for his reprobating others but his will.” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 22, Paragraph 11)
“We hold that God is the disposer and ruler of all things, –that from the remotest eternity, according to his own wisdom, He decreed what he was to do, and now by his power executes what he decreed. Hence we maintain, that by His providence, not heaven and earth and inanimate creatures only,
but also the counsels and wills of men are so governed as to move exactly in the course which he has destined.” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 16, Paragraph 8) Emphasis added
“thieves and murderers, and other evildoers, are instruments of divine providence, being employed by the Lord himself to execute judgments which he has resolved to inflict.” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 17, Paragraph 5)
Permitting and allowing are synonyms.
Calvinism teaches that God commands, decrees, not permits.
You have the same problem with Hitler as the Calvinists do.
This is called a Tu Quoque fallacy.
It's also false.
You might claim they're worse because for them God decreed Hitler and the Holocaust, but what about you? Why didn't God stop Hitler and the Holocaust, once He became aware it was happening? Did He not know what was happening? Or was He powerless? Is there some other option? besides Him not knowing, or being powerless?
This isn't the same problem the Calvinists have.
It's a similar problem, but the difference is that God is not inherently unjust for decreeing the murder of millions.
Permitted. Which is exactly your Open View position, and you have the same theodicy problem: Why did not God stop the Holocaust?
Not stopping the Holocaust is not the same as decreeing the Holocaust.
If you would like to start a new thread on "Why did God not stop the Holocaust if He did not decree it to happen?" then you need to start a new thread, and I will be more than happy to address it there.
Only unrepentant violent criminals argue like this, like somehow it was all because my mother didn't love me, and so what I did I'm not responsible for.
Yes, that is one effect of Calvinism. There are countless Christians in prison who wonder why things happen to them, and it's because they were taught that God has a specific plan for their lives, and so they commit crimes, and then wonder why they're in prison, not realizing that the reason they're in prison is because they were not doing God's will but their own (which is what Open Theism teaches, by the way, not Calvinism). But according to Calvinism, they're in there because God commanded that they do the things they did, and that the police officers would arrests them, and that they would be assigned to that specific cell, and that they would be forced to live there for however long.
Calvinism is just not that silly. It's a false characterization of Calvinism. It's a straw man fallacy argument.
I think the quotes I provided above directly from Calvin himself are enough to show that this is exactly what he taught.
God is very just in permitting the natural man to suffer the penalties for his free actions.
But that's not Calvinism, as per above.
It's about logic. rn you can't conceive of a situation where one party is planning out what another party will do, but while the other party is always acting with complete freedom. To you these are mutually exclusive, but the movie depicts that it is possible for them both to be true simultaneously.
In other words, it's trying to say that A = !A. It's literally trying to get you to believe that two things that are contradictory are both true in the same way and at the same time, which means that the movie is wrong.
So it bears on theology, but it's about logic.
If it's a contradiction, then it cannot be true.
A = A is true. (Law of Identity)
A = !A is false. (Law of Non-Contradiction)
A OR !A (Law of Excluded Middle)
It (the movie) violates the very laws of logic it's trying to use.
Your beliefs are irrational, trying to say that which is contradictory is true.
It makes sense in this regard: The Gospel is sown everywhere like seed. But the condition of the soil is not up to the soil, but up to God. At any rate, it's out of the hands of the one sowing the Good News. The sower should just sow, and not worry about the why's and the how's. I think that's the point of the parable.
What you describe is not what Calvinism teaches.
P.S. By the way, Thank you
@Clete for your posts which contain the above quotes from Calvin's Institutes!
en.wikipedia.org