Is Calvinism a form of Gnostic Christianity?

You'd have to provide a quote to show me this supposed similarity because I see none whatever. Sin is a condition of the human heart and the Gnostics find evil in the material world, not the human heart. It's not a matter of going further at all, it's a whole other concept. There is no Biblical problem with the material world, for one thing, that is completely a Gnostic idea. And they picture humanity as victim rather than perpetrator of the Fall, a good humanity that just sort of got disconnected from their good God somehow or other through no fault of their own.This entity(?) called sophia "fell" -- see Message 13 -- and this word isn't even defined, in this message at least, just plain "fell," sort of like falling out of a tree or something, and "created" the "demiurge" or bad God or something like that. This is a whole other religion than Christianity.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-18-2006 01:07 PM

For sure. There had to be at least some trade contact between West and East around 1100 and thereabouts, but in any case I see no "similar circumstances," and as I said, I don't see "faith" being a part of ANY religion until Christ came. The usual development in man-made religions is towards good works, not faith. As for "similar circumstances," the Protestant Reformation was a reaction against the superstitions of the Catholic church, the veneration of saints and relics, and the sale of indulgences and the like, and it was a RETURN to the original Biblical teachings of Christ and the apostles, a return to faith in Christ for salvation after centuries of silly practices supposed to procure salvation and various other favors for you. Pure Land Buddhism appears to be a reaction against a completely different kind of teaching, and again, faith in Buddha to save you? Come on. That has to come from some contact with Christianity. Well, that's an interesting theory, but there is no parallel with the Reformation in any case, as I say above. To be any kind of parallel they'd have returned to the pure Buddhism of the Buddha. This is NOT Protestantism. It may not even be Pure Land Buddhism, that I don't know. But passivity is NOT what the Reformation taught, or "not striving." One rightly strives a lot, but doesn't attribute salvation to the striving. Whole nother beast from Protestantism, which is nothing other than basic Biblical Christianity and not any kind of new thing.

The Esoteric Christianity that you label as 'cult or heresy' has spoken:"Thus do we know the nature of Christ." Christ and His MissionThough Christ a thousand times in Bethlehem be born
And not within thyself, thy soul will be forlorn.
The Cross on Golgotha thou lookest to in vain
Unless within thyself it be set up again.
Angelus Silesius edited by AdminJar to fix linkThis message has been edited by AdminJar, 04-21-2006 09:26 AM

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"We venture to make the assertion that there is but one sin: IGNORANCE, and but one salvation: APPLIED KNOWLEDGE."

We're glad that you decided to join us. One point though, we generally like to debate individuals and not websites. Your post is pretty much what we call a bare link. In the future, please explain your position in your own words and how that relates to the topic under discussion.At the end of this message you'll find links to several threads that may make your stay here more enjoyable.

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Very Gnostic.First I've heard of Rosicrucianism in years.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-21-2006 11:08 AM

What do you think about the topic being debated here? Do you see any similarities between Gnosticism and Calvinism?Take a look at the opening post and let us know what you think. So far the debate has only involved me (a materialist atheist), Faith (a Calvinist Christian, I think), and ReverendDG (a non-Calvinist Christian?).

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The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible

This is as good of a thread as any to resurrect and discuss Calvinism. Most churches that I have attended(Non-Denominational,Assemblies of God,Free Methodist,and Nazarene) all talked at least briefly about Original Sin.The thing I don't agree with Calvinists about is the whole predestination thing.I believe that God chose everyone and that it is our decision to choose Him back.Of course, some would argue that such a God is weak and insecure...for even needing us to choose Him or caring that we do. I shall have to do some reading before I answer this.Lets focus on Calvinism.What,if anything, is good about Calvinist beliefs?Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

It seems to me that Calvinism gets targeted as something odd just because some of its tenets have been laid out so specifically it catches people's attention, but in reality all the tenets can be found in the Bible. Calvin was a very detailed Bible interpreter. But also, what we think of as Calvinism today -- the "TULIP" formula -- wasn't formulated by Calvin, it was a rather artificial statement put together much later by others defending Calvinism against Arminianism, so it focuses on only a few of Calvin's principles and doesn't represent Calvinism as a whole. Here's the TULIP formula: But just to address the predestination question, it's odd that it's challenged so often when it's clearly in scripture: Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

OK lets go over the differences between Calvinism and Arminianism together. Personally, I believe that humans are born in need. Original Sin means Original Need to me. Need of a relationship with GOD and with others. Sometime I think life is a giant test. Needs and inequalities exist. Humans will be judged by how they respond to the challenges. Trusting in Jesus may be a necessary response for some, though I cannot see how those who do not trust in Jesus yet try their best at good works for good works sake and no other reason would be destined for hell. Personally, I believe that Jesus desires a relationship...with everyone. I agree that many reject and resist Grace. I find myself in a war with it, even. Critics say that I loathe myself and need to find peace in my soul. Perhaps they have a point...though I want to help others. I want younger people in particular to have a better life than I had. My lingering question is this: What defines a better life? Personally, I don't believe that God will ever let me go, though I fear that the tests and challenges will only get harder. The reason is that I believe my character is being honed and formed. Lots of pain and emotion in this process! Overall, I feel wiser each day, but at the same time as prone to sin and stupidity as I ever was. Its on me to resist it. God wont simply carry me over each minefield I encounter. I believe in unlimited atonement. In order for this to be true, and in order for free will to be preserved, some folk should thus be left alone even if they don't believe. Attempting to convince them to convert only makes them resist it more.Keep in mind that my beliefs are always growing. (Dare I say evolving?)I believe that Jesus died for all, that He lives today, and that He desires communion with whosoever responds. As for the rest? Who am I to judge them... That too is on Jesus.

It makes one wonder why Christians bother to proselytize. It seems on this basis that instead of telling people about Jesus they might as well recite Jabberwocky --- or go bowling --- and things would still work out the same.I believe there are in fact some Christian sects which have drawn this conclusion, but obviously St Paul didn't even though he's meant to have written Ephesians. It's all very puzzling.

Yes that's a common question, and even some Calvinists feel that it doesn't make sense to evangelize. That's dubbed "hyperCalivinism" by others, because scripture does tell us we are to evangelize, and the explanation must be simply that we don't know who the elect are and we all become believers through hearing or seeing the message preached in one way or another. As I recall, Luther said that predestination was one of the principles it was best not to preach on except to very mature believers, where it serves as reassurance that we are secure in God's hands, but that new believers and unbelievers can't grasp it so it's best not to mention it.

It's even worse than that. According to Calvin, since there are those that are predestined to eternal life, then there are also those that are predestined to destruction, which would be the entire rest of humanity that was not predestined for adoption. So those that hate God, those that persecute Christians, those that do evil are simply doing what they were predestined to do. Yes, very few denominations are actually full-on Calvinists, they practice some watered down version of it. For example, while they may ascribe to predestination of the saved, they won't bring up the predestination of the wicked. Most Calvinistic churches still send out missionaries because of the point that Faith brought up, that it boils down to "we don't know who the elect are." But all that does is waters down Calvin's position. Calvinism says that the elect will be brought to salvation one way or another. There really is no need for a concerted effort to evangelize (although he did not specifically say there was no need, it is merely the logical result). What we can assume, based on Calvinism, is that those peoples in the deepest darkest parts of Africa are there because they are not predestined to eternal life. If they were part of the chosen ones, they would have been born somewhere good, like the U.S.When Paul talks about predestination he uses words like "we" and "us", and he is referring to the collective, rather than to individuals. But a Calvinist will take that to mean "I" am predestined, "you" are predestined, "he" is predestined and collectively this is "we." But what God predestined was that there would be a group of believers who would continue to represent Jesus on this earth, to be "the body of Christ;" his physical representatives. Everyone is free to choose to be a part of that collective or to not be.Not sure if that's any less puzzling to you. HBD

That's not really an explanation.If we are to take St Paul seriously, people "become believers through" God's free election, made prior to anyone hearing the word or preaching it. If someone's one of the elect, you could keep him his whole life in a soundproof box and he'd be saved; if he's one of the reprobate, you could preach at him until you're blue in the face and he'd go to hell. Nothing you can do makes the slightest difference. I don't see how that is reassuring. It tells you that your own desire and intention to remain firm in your faith is entirely ineffectual. God may have made up his mind to damn you, and if he has he can (and will) extinguish your faith as easily as I blow out a match. And there's no reason whatsoever why he shouldn't.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

I was raised in a Baptist church, which generally holds to Calvinistic doctrine, (although as I have pointed out several times, a watered down version of it). I rebelled in my teens and early adult life, there was just too many unanswerable questions, to many things that just did not make sense. When I finally returned to church in my late 20s, I eventually found myself at a Church of the Nazarene (Wesleyan tradition). The longer I am a part of this tradition, the further I get from Calvinistic thinking. I realize now how much that theological base had to do with my leaving the church. Wesley defined two types of sin, original and personal. Original sin is the condition we are born into and personal sin is willfully and knowingly choosing to do wrong. The problem comes when we think of original sin as total depravity. I think this really gives a poor image of what the condition really is. I like to think of original sin as brokenness. How mankind was originally intended to relate to God and to their fellow man is broken; beyond what we have the ability to fix on our own. This was Jesus' entire mission, to heal the broken, to seek the lost. I think that looking at it in this way provides a whole new perspective on what Christianity is about. Rather than being some hope for this pie-in-the-sky reward for following a bunch of rules, it becomes a way to truly make a difference in our lives and in the lives of those we come into contact with. Romans 7:14 - 25. "The desire to do good is inside of me, but I can't do it. I don't do the good I want to do, but I do the evil that I don't want to do." Paul recognized this war. Calvinistic thought suggests that we can never really win the war. That we will always struggle. But Wesley asserts we can win this war. We can live a holy life. We can have a pure heart. He doesn't suggest we can completely overcome our original brokenness, but that we can overcome personal sin. This is a point where Calvinism fails. It seems kind of pointless to be a Christian and yet still a sinner. Maybe I can be less of a sinner than a guy who is not a Christian, but we are both still sinners, its just that I'm saved and he's not. That seems totally pointless to me, and makes a mockery of what Jesus did. This concept of eternal security was developed primarily in response to the Catholic idea that salvation was fleeting, that you could never really be sure what condition you were in. That's why you would do all the religious things continuously so you would not be caught in a "lost" state. Your salvation state was in constant flux. The doctrine of eternal security says that our salvation is secure, that it doesn't rely on what we do, but on what Christ did. Of course, Calvin took it too far. What Calvin suggests is that no matter what we do, our salvation is never in peril. But this is dangerous. We are not free to live any way we want after being saved.I don't like the term "conditional salvation" though. It makes it sound as if there are conditions that we need to fulfill in order to qualify. I don't believe that to be the case. Christ died once for all. Words do little to convince people. What we need to do is live our lives in such a way as to make a difference in our own life and in the lives of others around us. It's not easy to do that on a forum such as this, since the way we interact is almost entirely words. Personally, I hate the image that most people have of Christians (although it is usually well deserved) and I often am ashamed to associate myself with that "club." All I can hope for is that I would be seen as a different kind of Christian than the stereotype. Yes. Could any of us have it all figured out to perfection so that our beliefs do not need to grow and change as we continue to learn? Growth and change is not a bad thing at all, it's honest.HBD

I kind of dread getting in to this because it so quickly becomes a tedious philosophical abstraction. Although I consider myself a Calvinist it's not something I spend time thinking about, it mainly means I heard the arguments, they can be shown to derive from scripture, and they made sense and I let it go at that.I could sum it up as a high appreciation of the sovereignty of God, and the sovereignty of God is too high for us mere human beings to grasp, but the Arminian view is always unsatisfying because it ends up depicting a weak God. If God is sovereign, that is, if He is a ruling King, He does whatever He wants to do, that's what Kings do.But from our own experience it doesn't affect us much, we just go on as we always go on and God's sovereign will in our lives is not something we have any way of experiencing, so I don't see the point in getting my brain tied up in knots trying to talk about it. That is, whatever happens in my life is going to happen whether I think of God as in charge of it or not. But already we are into the abstractions I was talking about. Theoretically yes you are right, but life doesn't happen that way. You talk to people about the gospel and they can seem interested at one moment and totally rejecting at another. And even those who are totally rejecting may eventually become believers. There's no way to know. I was a scoffer before I became a believer so I know even atheists and scoffers can change, as I did. In my case God more or less did all the work of making me a believer without the aid of human intervention. I was completely impervious to what little I did hear of the gospel from people, the street preacher, one of my aunts etc. But books did it, lots of books about lots of religions did it. I got interested and I started seeking out books. An Arminian would say I did it all myself, and from my own point of view that seems to have been the case. But I believe in the sovereign God who elects and saves so I attribute it all to Him even though nothing in my own experience would have led me to that conclusion. It doesn't help to picture someone being kept in a box, all these things happen in normal interactions over normal time. Well, in my own personal case I know it IS ineffectual. I vacillate a lot in my desires and intentions, so it is reassuring to think of God as having chosen me so that I don't have to depend on my own untrustworthy vacillating states of mind. Paul says nothing can separate us from the love of God. That kind of promise does become reassuring when you are as subject to moods as I am. Fortunately that is completely at odds with the picture of God's character given in the Bible. "A bruised reed He will not break." He doesn't toy with us, He is faithful when we are not. If we have a desire to belong to Him that in itself is evidence that we do, not ironclad evidence but evidence.