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Author | Topic: Is Calvinism a form of Gnostic Christianity? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NoNukes Inactive Member |
You can't take a piece out of context you know, you have to understand how they all work together. That's great advice Faith. In fact it turns out to be exactly the point of what I said in my complaint about your citing of God's hatred for Esau. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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NoNukes Inactive Member
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The "Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated" quote is doubly silly since Jacob is portrayed as a pretty nasty character in the stories, one who is hell bent on stealing Esau's birthright and without scruples. In any event, here is Spurgeon's take on it. The Spurgeon Library | Page not found After going through a bunch of Calvinist doctrine and slicing up some Arminianism, Spurgeon claims that Esau earned God's enmity by selling his birthright to Jacob. Yet Spurgeon never gets around to the point of including the Calvinist doctrine that requires that God authored the whole birthright selling.Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
I just read the Spurgeon sermon. It says what I was trying to say. You did not actually say very much.
Again, he doesn't mention Calvin at all. I would still like to see how someone like Spurgeon reads Calvin, if he reads him to be saying that God authored anything to do with sin. Right. No mention of Calvin at all.
It certainly seems from this sermon that he couldn't believe that's what Calvin was claiming although so many here think that. You are confused. Spurgeon does not mention here Calvin at all. So how could this particular sermon tell you what he thinks Calvin is claiming? Perhaps Spurgeon simply places the Bible ahead of whatever Calvin might think.
quote: For Calvin, this would be nearly practically a doctrine of works. Because to Calvin, man is too corrupt to make any move towards God. Spurgeon is apparently Calvin lite. Perhaps all modern "Calvinists" are such. The Spurgeon Library | Page not found
quote: "I do in the main hold them" Not exactly a ringing endorsement for five point Calvinism.
quote: So there is no such thing as 'back sliding'? Do you agree with this? Is this even Biblical?Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
Calvinists do not think Calvin made God the author of sin It's not hard to see why they would reject such a characterization. That particular formulation expresses the concept we are discussing in what must be the among the most off putting, provocative way possible. I expect Calvinists to deny such. But predestination, unconditional election, and total depravity really don't leave much room for humans to bear any responsibility for their own fate. If humans are inherently unworthy, blaming a man for his condition is like blaming gun powder for being explosive.Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
so Calvin can't be saying that God only loves the elect. Really Faith? Because Calvin has said that fairly explicitly. If you want to convince somebody that Calvin did not actually mean what he wrote, you know what is required.
Spurgeon in contrasting His loving Jacob but hating Esau may have made it sound that way, but that must be only because he's emphasizing that context and not dealing with the concept of love as such. Except that Spurgeon did not make it sound that way. Spurgeon pointed to actions on Esau's part as justifying God's hatred of Esau, and he further rejected any statements of repentance by Esau as insufficient or insincere. Of course he also tells us that no reason is necessary. In short, Spurgeon simply isn't relying on Calvin's argument.
Logical inconsistencies that contradict the Bible have to be ignored, not because there's something obviously wrong with our logic, but because they DO contradict the Bible. Your statement is unhelpful on two fronts. First, we are not talking about logical inconsistencies that contradict the Bible. The question is instead whether the doctrines are indeed Biblical versus being cherry picked. Second, one might well apply this kind of 'see no controversy' idea to any doctrine that can be drummed up as long as there is a Bible verse or two to support the doctrine. Find a contrary verse? Well that's true too, just ignore any inconsistency. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
Except her version is really not all that watered down, its just that she, like Calvin himself, denies that there are any real inconsistencies in the theology Are there inconsistencies in Calvin's thinking? I think not. Calvin rejects apriori that human judgment is applicable to God. The issue with Calvinistic thinking is not the logical inconsistencies. Instead the issues are a) contrary verses in the Bible and b) the unflattering view Calvin paints of God when we apply our own view of what's right. Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
Would God be responsible if He only foreknew what we ended up doing? If we become (and became) the decisions that we make, how is God responsible simply by foreknowing? There is another open thread in which both Calvinism and Arminianism are on topic. You might raise your question there. But I think it is clear that the analysis is quite different.Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
The lesson in Genesis 18 is that God is subject to some human understandable moral All of the Bible stories are subject to interpretation. In particular, this story is nothing like a first hand account of a conversation between God and Abraham. I don't find either your interpretation or that of Dr. Adequate to be all that improbable.
Yes but that is still irrelevant. That's a fairly strange thing to say given that you brought the story up in order to refute a Calvinistic view point in a thread about that theology. Surely a counter proposal is at least relevant.Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
But regardless, this story does contradict a Calvinistic, Biblical literalist view. It does do that. But in my view arguments that a theology contradicts the literalist view is not enough because I don't believe the literalist interpretation is correct. It would be hypocrisy for me to attack Calvin with an issue that turns on a tight literalist reading, and then to defend my own interpretation (even on a different matter) by departing from literal inerrancy. And, in my view, it is unnecessary to do so. Everyone agrees on the interpretation of Bible verses that are claimed to contradict what Calvin says. What's left to argue about is what Calvin actually said and what that means, and perhaps the validity of some lame excuses about why we ought not to delve to deeply into thinking about the implications. And of course, that ought to leave little enough in dispute, because Calvin expounded on his doctrines at some length. And well the point of debating about what Calvin says is to explore it in some depth. I accept that doctrine can be useful in some areas despite being an unusable approximation in other areas. I don't agree that Calvinism is the least bit useful.
What we don't have is the authority or the perspective to be completely impartial, objective judges of morality, especially of God's morality. Maybe not. But I think we can objectively to judge the theology Calvin describes. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
Faith defends her position better here than she has recently. And what is that great defense?
quote: Yes. In short, the same old assertion that God is beyond questioning, so by definition, what a Calvinist decides that God does must be moral. Are the Calvinists right? I would say not. And if not then does not the entire argument fall apart? If Calvinists have the wrong view then one can attack their view without attacking God. Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I was thinking as long as I have my hands up they’re not going to shoot me. This is what I’m thinking they’re not going to shoot me. Wow, was I wrong. -- Charles Kinsey We got a thousand points of light for the homeless man. We've got a kinder, gentler, machine gun hand. Neil Young, Rockin' in the Free World. Worrying about the "browning of America" is not racism. -- Faith I hate you all, you hate me -- Faith
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