Is Calvinism a form of Gnostic Christianity?

Faith, people are capable of actually reading what was written.

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20 Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.

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3 Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.

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Are two fowls and seven fowls the same thing?Which one is inerrant Faith?AbE: More Faith New Speak.Too funny Faith, I am not the one who constantly misrepresents what is written in the Bible stories. I don't trash the Bible rather I honor what was actually written.Edited by jar, : see AbE:

It is my opinion that many of the same people who see the Bible as limited to human expression, motive, and intention are the same people who, when asked, find the idea of a relationship with God as impossible.Moreover, despite the fact that they argue the impossibility of such a belief..nevermind a desire for one....they will attempt to portray believers as either dishonest, delusional, and/or living in an adult fantasy.Don't let it get to you. Take all criticism with love...

I said "according to Calvin". And the one thing Calvin doesn't say is that God is evil. Rather, he portrays God as a sickening loathsome psychopathic monster who is perfectly good. God, as you say, planned 9/11 (in the Calvinist view), chose the day, the target, the victims, and is good. The fireman who ran into the flames, who laid down his life, not just for his friends, but for strangers --- well now he is totally depraved, and is now burning forever in hell as God decreed. This is Calvinism. I myself, as you know, don't think that God exists.

Is that so Phat, or do they ask how some determines there is a relationship with God?

All right. They ask for evidence. Since it is impossible to find evidence for the supernatural, it is thus impossible to believe 100% with no doubts, if one is honest. Thus, you take the position that it matters not what one believes but what one does. In your belief, the relationship is factually unprovable and thus it is not important.

I believe that God, on the other hand, knows that you exist and is not inclined to destroy or imprison you simply for refusing to believe n Him. In this I agree with jar.(one of the few things I actually agree with jar about! )

Faith, Calvin's Institutes can readily be found on the internet. Have another quotation: Now Calvin does also write what you quote, but it is you who is taking it out of context --- he is not denying that God arranged the Fall, original sin, etc, he's trying to dissuade people from thinking about why a supposedly good God would do that. In the very same paragraph you reference, he writes "Nor, indeed, is there any probability [...] that man brought death upon himself merely by the permission, and not by the ordination of God; as if God had not determined what he wished the condition of the chief of his creatures to be. [...] The first man fell because the Lord deemed it meet that he should: why he deemed it meet, we know not."If you now read through your quote again in the light of this ... ... you can see what he's actually saying. It's like a policeman saying "Accordingly, we should contemplate the evident cause of the murder in the bullet, which is closer to us, rather than seek a hidden and utterly incomprehensible cause, the identity of the murderer." The policeman is not denying that there is a murderer, or that the murderer's the cause behind the bullet, he's just given up on doing detective work. Similarly, Calvin is not denying that God is the cause behind the Fall --- on the contrary, he insists on it. This is just the point at which he gives up on trying to do theology.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

The only problem I've had in this discussion is that sometimes Calvin seems to make it sound like God is responsible for sin, but scripture says He's not. It's too confusing to try to resolve this problem now, in this hostile atmosphere.Otherwise I have no problem with God's ordaining absolutely everything, I think it's essential that we understand him that way, and the Arminians just create a weak and ineffectual God with all their efforts to spare Him the accusations you are piling on him here.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Or maybe Calvin understood scripture better than you do.

Well, I think it works something like this. A little girl is playing tea party with her dolls. Tea parties are boring, so she livens it up with Teddy pouring his tea over the Barbie doll's head. The Barbie doll goes "boo-hoo, it hurts" (voice supplied by the little girl talking in her 'Barbie' voice). The little girl says "bad teddy!" and spanks him. The teddy-bear was bad; the little girl was not bad and no sin can be imputed to her.Of course, people can feel actual pain, and some might think that this makes a difference ... Again, not I but Calvin. This is Calvin's theology. My theology is much shorter, simpler, and truer.

You apparently have a problem reconciling ALL the attributes of God into one portrait. Not only sovereign but GOOD. Not at all like your whimsical little brat.

So you don't agree with Calvin? Or do you? I am a little confused.

Again, Calvin does. I don't. I can reconcile perfectly his invisibility, his impotence, and his nonexistence. How is the girl not good? How is she a brat?---You complain about Calvin's God being "whimsical". He can hardly help being so. He does not choose people's fate according to their actions or character, rather he chooses their actions or character as part of their fate. Suppose I write a sonnet to my wife on one blank sheet of paper, and a death-threat to my enemy on another, identical blank sheet of paper. Before I write on the paper, there is nothing about them to differentiate them and make one suitable for an expression of love and the other for hatred. They have no qualities whatsoever except being writable-on. If I thought at all about which thing to write on which piece of paper, then I would necessarily have to be guided by a mere whim, there being no other conceivable criterion.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

But it is not at all a whim and that's what is apparently impossible to show you. It is all precisely calibrated to millions of causes simultaneously. The fate of all of us in the end is going to take into account bazillions of deeds over an entire lifetime with perfect precision, those who are not saved in Christ at least, and our deeds too are going to be taken into account. So with every event that occurs on this earth. God had very precise reasons for every detail of 9/11 that reflect both His perfect justice and His perfect mercy. I see a lot more mercy in 9/11 than I do judgment really because it could have been so much worse to an unimaginable degree.He's judging America but that's a love tap compared to judgment after it's built up over time and been ignored without repentance, which has to come eventually to America for that reason. God first told Israel judgment was coming, through prophet after prophet, giving them time to repent; and then judged Israel for their sins as He said He would, with devastation by the Assyrians and captivity under the Babylonians. Such events are given in the Bible as pictures of God's judgments as a warning to other nations. It's even all spelled out in the Law, in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, what they could expect if they don't keep up their end of the covenant.It's all to be taken as a pattern for other nations as well. 9/11 was just a warning. But I hate even saying any of this because you despise all of it. It's hard to explain God to someone who refuses to believe in Him but nevertheless feels he can judge the theologians who explain Him according to His word. I'm sorry, I don't get your analogy at all.. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Yes, but the point is that (per Calvin) the causes are also subject to the whim of God.A conventional God can say things like "This person has been good, therefore I will send them to heaven"; or "This person has been bad, therefore I will send them to hell". Such a God has a rational basis for his decisions.Calvin's God can have no such basis. The most we can expect of him is self-consistency, he can say "I will make this person good and I will send them to heaven" or"I will make this person bad and I will send them to hell". On what basis can he decide how to treat which person? Not on the basis of their moral character, since that is one of the things he's deciding. And the same would go for any putative basis for his decisions. If --- to take an example at random --- he had a systematic preference for blondes over brunettes, this still couldn't be a basis for his decision, since he also gets to choose people's hair color. He'd still be left saying "I will make this person blonde and good and one of the elect, and that person dark-haired and evil and reprobate". He can, therefore, never have a reason for his actions. Well, this is a case in point. Of a conventional God, you could say he had a reason for his actions: he warned Israel that he'd punish them if they didn't repent, Israel didn't repent, therefore he punished Israel. All you can say of Calvin's God is that he's self-consistent: he warned Israel that he'd punish them if they didn't repent, he decided that they wouldn't repent, planning down to the last detail which sins they'd commit and which false gods they'd go whoring after, and he punished Israel. He might as well have chosen that Israel did repent, and blessed them for it. That would also have been self-consistent.