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Author | Topic: Is Calvinism a form of Gnostic Christianity? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
jar Member (Idle past 394 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
I find it perfectly acceptable to admit we don't know or can't know some particular aspect about God, but Calvin's problem is, as you say, he does so after he paints himself into a corner. After he has piled up logical inconsistencies, that is when he declares that we dare not think too hard. He states that A=B and B=C, but A does NOT equal C - but don't actually think about that because it's not something you can understand. Just by the logic alone it is clear he has something terribly wrong. But is that not the very basis of "Biblical Christianity"; the Commandment that "Thou shalt not think too much"? Is that not how they approach all theology; taking "proof texts" out of context to avoid the implications when the full dialog is considered; simply declaring that there are no discrepancies, contradictions and outright falsehoods in the Bible and ignoring what is actually written or accepting any excuse to explain away the issues, to deny the god character in the Bible is as evil as is written; declaring there is a constant and consistent theme and purpose to scripture or a "God of the Bible"?Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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jar Member (Idle past 394 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
HBD writes: NN writes: Calvin rejects apriori that human judgment is applicable to God... the unflattering view Calvin paints of God when we apply our own view of what's right. This is a fair observation and criticism and certainly there are things about God to which we can never make sense of using human logic and judgement. But we CAN apply human logic and judgement to Calvin's theology, which is a human construct - a human system to explain God. Despite Faith's insistence that Calvin IS absolutely Biblical, theology is, at it's core, a human system. But that position also rejects the direct teachings of the Bible that mankind has the same ability to judge morality as does God. That is shown by direct statement in Genesis 3 and demonstrated by the dialog found in Genesis 18:
quote: So when Calvin claims that humans cannot understand or judge God's behavior in the area of morality then at best he is being willfully ignorant of what the Bible actually says.Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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jar Member (Idle past 394 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
But that is not what the story says:
quote: So according to the story God does not know that there aren't fifty, or forty-five, or even ten good men in Sodom. That is the point of going to look and see what the real story is. You can "presume" that God knows but what is actually written has God saying he does not know and so needs to go investigate.Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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jar Member (Idle past 394 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Yes but that is still irrelevant. The lesson in Genesis 18 is that God is subject to some human understandable moral standards unlike the God of Calvin that is beyond morality as humans might understand. Calvin describes an amoral God whose actions are not subject to human moral standards.
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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jar Member (Idle past 394 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
I agree that all of it is meant as a set up dialog and never meant to be taken as historical or fact.
And I meant Calvin's position. But if you look at the verse you quoted it shows Abraham saying that God's character must surely be something similar to a human's and something humans can understand and so judge.
What we don't have is the authority or the perspective to be completely impartial, objective judges of morality, especially of God's morality. But does God have the perspective to be completely impartial, objective judges of morality? Is there anything that supports such an assertion or is that extra-Biblical; another position that can be both supported and refuted by Biblical passages? And yup, the concept of the Trinity certainly cannot be explained or understood.Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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jar Member (Idle past 394 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Remember that God is represented inconsistently, contradictory, evolutionary and variably in scripture. There is no "God of Scripture" in the Bible. There are many different representation of God in the Bible; some nice, many vile, each the god the writer created as a part of a singular story.
Calvinism is simply marketing a picayune composite cartoon god combining all the worst traits to be found.
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jar Member (Idle past 394 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Phat writes: This is how I was taught in the Christianity I embraced in my early thirties. here at EvC, we discussed an alternative...that nobody was damned, all were chosen, and that we would be weighed according to what we did versus what we could have done. (works) That's kinda close nearby in the general neighborhood. Try this position and see if you can see the difference. You will be judged on the full body of your life as well as the motives for your actions.If you do something to please God ... tough. God does not need you to please her. If you do stuff to earn a reward, whether the reward is popularity among peers or salvation or money or prestige ... tough. God says you had your reward and you get nothing more. If you praise God, worship Jesus, get Born Again ... tough. None of those have any value to God. If you become a Christian ... tough. Jesus was never a Christian yet he pleased God. If you do something because it needs to be done, it makes the world just a little better, it helps someone else, if you do it just because it was the right thing to do ... Hallelujah. You got it. You know what Jesus message really was. Remember, the Goats were all followers of Jesus; proto-Christians. Edited by jar, : appalin spallin and do left out
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jar Member (Idle past 394 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Phat writes: But according to you, we already learned that message when we discovered the knowledge of right and wrong. Any old teacher could have shown us that. Think. Is knowing what is the right thing to do the same as doing the right thing? AbE: Is doing the same thing as being judged? Edited by jar, : see AbE:
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jar Member (Idle past 394 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Phat writes: But according to you, we already learned that message when we discovered the knowledge of right and wrong. Any old teacher could have shown us that. This seemed way too important to not take the time to expand on it. Humans are born with certain capabilities. For example, most kids are born with the capability of learning to see, to hear, to make sounds. Little kids seem to be born with an innate compassion and empathy and from a very early age will try to sooth or comfort others, feel sorrow when others are sorrowful, joyous when others are joyous. But humans need to learn how to use their capabilities. Phat's "Any old teacher could have shown us that." comment seems to reflect the same feelings that Naaman expressed when told to go wash in the crick over there. Yet reality is filled with examples of human inability to learn. Sure the message from Jesus is simple. But the Bible repeats it over and over and over and still most Christians and Jews don't get it. But wait, there's more. Hundreds of years before Jesus repeats the message the Buddha repeats the same message. The message is in Genesis; it is the great GIFT of learning how to tell right from wrong. But Christians instead turned the story in "The Fall". They just don't get it. The message is repeated in the Great Commandment. The message is repeated in Kings 5. The message is repeated in Matthew 25. The message is repeated bu Buddha. The message is repeated by Confucius. The message is repeated by Mencius. Many old teachers tried to show us that. But did we get it? A story with lots of woo-woo and great rewards and fields of milk and honey and "Let Mikey Try It!" simply is a far easier sale than "Go and do!"
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jar Member (Idle past 394 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Phat writes: In conclusion, there is no one teaching that can be labeled as authentic except in a personal sense of acceptance. Change authentic to authoritative and you would be closer. Every version of every religion is authentic.
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