John Calvin said this....

[Cedarbay]

Not perfect? You've got to be kidding me!

Yeah, that was a dumb thing for me to say.

 

[Shasta]

John Calvin did!

“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)

”He testifies that He creates light and darkness, forms good and evil (Isaiah 45:7); that no evil happens which He hath not done (Amos 3:6).* Let them tell me whether God exercises His judgments willingly or unwillingly.” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 18, Paragraph 3)​

It looks like Calvin is as bad an exegete as his teacher Augustine of Hippo. JC apparently did not understand Hebrew well enough to know that the word translated "evil" (Hebrew ra) can have many meanings besides moral evil - like distress and adversity definitions which fit these passages very well. James said "God is not tempted with evil neither tempts He any man (with evil)

 

[HisServant]

Imagine a man calling himself a Christian who either will not or cannot explain what justice is.

What stronger argument against such a man's theology can there be?

Justice has changed over time... In the old testament it was and eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth.

In the new testament we are told for forgive 70*7 so Christians really shouldn't be seeking justice at all.

As far as God's justice, its a much more complicated thing. But the essence is that anything against God's will and commands are punishable by physical death and eternity in hell. It's where everyone belongs.. with one exception, Jesus.

 

[j4jesus09]

Romans 9:19-21

You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” 20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?

 

[Totton Linnet]

Thank you CB. If you struggle with it then why not simply reject it? Isn't that the simplest course?

Here is my reaction to your specific point:
Evil is a relative term. What is evil for one is good for another. If your shares go up, it is great if you bought them but it is bad if you shorted them. Absolute good and absolute evil are Platonic terms that have no meaning in the real world. In the real world, everything is relative to everything else. That's what reality is.

What is more important to me is to be able to clearly answer the question of whether you think God is magnified and glorified by the idea that he creates people, the vast majority, with the express purpose of damning them to endless conscious torment, giving them no opportunity for salvation and then blaming this on them - for the sole purpose of making the few that he creates for eternal life feel how lucky they are to be shown the mercy of God.

Thank you for not asking me to believe you. I only ask in turn that you answer the question for yourself without resorting to prevarication. And it would be great to hear your answer too, but of prime importance is that it is clear in your own mind.

God did not create anybody to be damned, man chose that, every man and every woman who is a sinner endorse Adam....if God saves anybody it is a miracle of grace, I believe in the wider mercy, a BILLIONfold wider mercy but no man ever deserved to be saved.

 

[HisServant]

The only thing I would add, is that the New Testament still asks us to Fear the Lord.... its not all luvey dovey for us. Jesus paid for our sins with a terrible cost and we should honor that with how we live our lives.

Scripture says we are now his bond servants, he has pierced our ear and we now belong to him, so we are no longer permitted to do whatever we feel like.

Christianity is a very sobering life.

 

[j4jesus09]

The only thing I would add, is that the New Testament still asks us to Fear the Lord.... its not all luvey dovey for us. Jesus paid for our sins with a terrible cost and we should honor that with how we live our lives.

Scripture says we are now his bond servants, he has pierced our ear and we now belong to him, so we are no longer permitted to do whatever we feel like.

Christianity is a very sobering life.

Yes it is.

 

[Shasta]

It seems imprudent to simply reject a thought or teaching out of hand.

I don't recall a teaching from anyone of the Reformation where God gives a number of saved vs unsaved.

How can one prevaricate in a simple exchange like this? Aren't we both trying to find the truth?

"Total Depravity" is the heart of Reformed doctrine. The term does not mean merely that all human beings are sinners. It has to do with INABILITY.

Of this scripture

"Therefore say to them, Thus says the LORD of hosts, "Return to Me," declares the LORD of hosts, "that I may return to you," says the LORD of hosts.'" (Zechariah 1:3)

another reformer Martin Luther had this to say,

"It is not in your power to turn to God. If you think that it is in your power to turn to God you have missed the whole Reformation and don't understand total depravity. It is not in your power to turn to God. You are a sinner, you're dead, you're eaten up with corruption. Every free choice of yours is evil and not good. So how can we turn to Him who is light, righteousness, holy and good?"

It is not that people WILL not turn to Him, they CANNOT. We cannot because we are personally guilty from conception of Adam's sin of rejecting God. This is why the reformers, including Calvin, taught infant baptism. This ceremony supposedly did away with "original sin."

Calvin, who as a rule, did not like ceremonies allowed that some infants might make it into the arms of the Savior...somehow...through some mysterious process. Most being unable to exercise faith would be damned. He had no problems with infant damnation itself but was uncertain about the conditions by which a person could be exempted.

All this craziness goes back to Augustine of Hippo who when he saw Romans 5:12 in the grossly mistranslated Latin version read it to men "in whom (in Adam) all sinned" instead of "because (i.e., as a consequence) of whom all sinned." The Greek the Latin was based on says all men sin as a consequence of what Adam did not that we all actually sinned in him. Had Augustine been able to read Greek he would have realized this. If he had taken the time to read the writings of his Greek-speaking predecessors, the "Early Church Fathers" he would have seen that they had for centuries renounced ideas like inability, and predestination as false doctrines, alien to Christianity. Calvin too ignored the ECF and devoted his time to studying Augustine.

But Luther was an Augustininan monk and shared Calvin's false belief in inability:

Since all of us are sinners, we have a duty to return to God, but we are unable to do so. We simply do not have the ability. Because we are responsible for our sins before God and are commanded by Him to return to Him in repentance does not mean that we have the natural ability to do so

He does not seem to allow that God might draw a person who subsequently resists, quenches and grieves the Spirit which the scripture says people are able to do.

 

[Dialogos]

Clete - I don't know how you can get false doctrine from one little quote. [\quote]
Well first of all it's quite a quote. Boone with a theology proper that was even close to biblical could never say such a thing.

Right, this is quite a popular approach for anti-Calvinists isn't it?

"Lets mine Calvin's works and rip statements out of context that we can use to bludgeon Calvinists. Maybe then they will abandon Calvinism wholesale."



Here's the problem. Calvinism, as it stands today, is really more a product of the Synod of Dort than it is Calvin's Institutes. I will grant that the nomenclature is rather unfortunate as creates the misconception that Calvinists accept with unquestioned loyalty everything that John Calvin ever wrote. But Reformed theology itself teaches that the Word of God is the only infallible rule of faith and practice. Calvin isn't a papal figure that speaks ex cathedra in any of his works. Calvin, as a sinner, probably got some things wrong. Today you have 5 pointers that have probably never read the institutes and there are number of Reformed Baptists (which would have been unthinkable during Calvin's day) who share Calvin's commitment to the sovereignty of God in the process of salvation but who disagree with Calvin on a great many things.


Consequently, there are Calvinists who will read the quotations you want to use to bludgeon Calvinists with and happily say that Calvin could very well have been wrong on many aspects of his theology but who still, nevertheless, share Calvin's very strong commitment to the notion of monergism, which is really a defining characteristic of modern Calvinism, much more important than immutability.

This isn't all that hard to understand. You have a quote from Sanders in your signature line. Should we take from that fact that you support everything that Sanders has ever written? Can we quote mine Sanders and throw those quotes at you? Can we hold you accountable for everything that Boyd believes because you both share a common theology in "Open Theism?"

No...?

Then it shouldn't be all that hard to realize that there are some reformed folks who can read the product of your Calvin quote mining adventures and disagree, or conclude that they wouldn't have put it quite that way, or just say, as I will, "who cares what Calvin or Sanders or Boyd say, lets start with God's word."

The quotes I've presented here and the quotes I will be presenting are an accurate depiction of not just Calvin's doctrine but that of Calvinism as well. All of it follows logically from a single premise. That premise being the pagan Greek notion of the absolute immutability of God. It is their Cardinal doctrine without which the whole system falls to dust.

First, the pagan Greek's didn't believe in immutability in the same way that Reformers do. Second, pagan Greeks had a form of open theology that might look for more like your own than you would be comfortable admitting. Third, the notion of the immutability of God is not the cardinal doctrine of reformed/Calvinistic thought. Monergism is really what makes Calvinism distinct from Arminianism, Catholicism, Open Theism, etc...

 

[Grosnick Marowbe]

Agree entirely. Well said. If the result of a good Christian life is that the Gospel 'is fully understood', then there ought to be words to explain that understanding. For Calvin and people like B57 ("The Lord does not love everybody, nor is it his purpose to save everybody.") the words they use to convey their understanding are not acceptable and are clearly seen as opposite to the Gospel. Whilst for the majority of Calvinists, being unwilling to confront the enormity of the grotesque picture these words paint of God, they resort to ear-muffling techniques such as 'I haven't grasped it all myself even' or 'It's a mystery that no one can fully comprehend' or 'We are all sinful beings and cannot understand it' or 'God is beyond logic, therefore it is bound not to make much sense to our finite minds.' All sorts of ruses to avoid having to confront the truth of the immorality of their own doctrine. The moment their doctrine becomes coherent, it is seen for what it is and is brought to light. All the subterfuges are only to prevent it from coming to light, thus proving that it is in fact a work of darkness.

Excellent post.

 

[Grosnick Marowbe]

Thank you CB. If you struggle with it then why not simply reject it? Isn't that the simplest course?

Here is my reaction to your specific point:
Evil is a relative term. What is evil for one is good for another. If your shares go up, it is great if you bought them but it is bad if you shorted them. Absolute good and absolute evil are Platonic terms that have no meaning in the real world. In the real world, everything is relative to everything else. That's what reality is.

What is more important to me is to be able to clearly answer the question of whether you think God is magnified and glorified by the idea that he creates people, the vast majority, with the express purpose of damning them to endless conscious torment, giving them no opportunity for salvation and then blaming this on them - for the sole purpose of making the few that he creates for eternal life feel how lucky they are to be shown the mercy of God.

Thank you for not asking me to believe you. I only ask in turn that you answer the question for yourself without resorting to prevarication. And it would be great to hear your answer too, but of prime importance is that it is clear in your own mind.

Another good post

 

[HisServant]

People will invent just about anything based on the belief that there is something in them worth saving.

And that is what the real grotesque part is... it isn't God's sovereign choice, its mans stubbornness to acknowleged their own sinfullness and worthlessness before God.

There is nothing in any of us worthy of saving... nothing.

 

[Grosnick Marowbe]

Indeed, I don't believe that is what God does. There seems to be confusion among Christians, in distinguishing God's providence, decrees, and fore-knowledge. I'm still trying to figure it out myself.

I think it's very easy to come to terms with the idea that God
doesn't promote or cause sin, evil, debauchery, etc. Neither
does He force evil, sin and debauchery on His created beings.

 

[Desert Reign]

It seems imprudent to simply reject a thought or teaching out of hand.

I don't recall a teaching from anyone of the Reformation where God gives a number of saved vs unsaved.

How can one prevaricate in a simple exchange like this? Aren't we both trying to find the truth?

I wasn't suggesting that you did prevaricate. Just referring to the typical methods of avoiding the truth outlined in my previous post and hoping you will not fall into them.
The idea that the vast majority of humanity is predestined to damnation is based on 2 things: Jesus' image of the wide and narrow roads and the other is simple experience of the number of believers in existence at any one time relative to the total number.
But yes, of course it is true that we must test everything and I hope you will too. If you need any help, feel free to ask.

 

[HisServant]

I think it's very easy to come to terms with the idea that God
doesn't promote or cause sin, evil, debauchery, etc. Neither
does He force evil, sin and debauchery on His created beings.

But he did harden Pharaoh's heart.... which caused the death of the firstborn of all Egypt.

 

[Grosnick Marowbe]

Ephesians 6:12 states: "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." God is not at fault for the evils
of this world. The above passage points the finger elsewhere.

 

[j4jesus09]

Ephesians 6:12 states: "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." God is not at fault for the evils
of this world. The above passage points the finger elsewhere.

Maybe these principalites are in these humans and we think they are like us?? Maybe that's why God can do what he does with certain humans. Maybe we are missing something? Maybe these humans are being literally controlled by these spirits? Like the anti christ to come? Just reasoning. I viewing both sides of the discussion.

 

[HisServant]

Ephesians 6:12 states: "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." God is not at fault for the evils
of this world. The above passage points the finger elsewhere.

Yet Scripture states that God is in control of all the governments of the world and he has put them in power. ISIS exists because God wants it to.... think on that.

 

[Grosnick Marowbe]

But he did harden Pharaoh's heart.... which caused the death of the firstborn of all Egypt.

You cannot take an isolated point in time where God, "in order to show
His Glorious power and Glory," "Hardened Pharaoh's heart." Pharaoh
himself had already hardened his own heart. Read up on the background
of when these things occurred and why.

This occasion is NOT enough to conclude that, God creates ALL evil, sin,
and debauchery. Hyper-Calvinists carry that idea, way too far.

 

[Grosnick Marowbe]

Rationally speaking, if God creates ALL sin and it's His will to MAKE men
commit heinous crimes against Him and the world about Him, what part
does the Devil play in your belief system?