Is Calvinism a form of Gnostic Christianity?

I would argue that we have to place our own experience within Gods sovereignty or else we may find ourselves with a GOD who is unknowable.Faith, do you think that humanity can now build upon and perhaps improve our concepts of faith/belief beyond what Calvin did, or would you argue that Calvin was such a great intellect that we are unable to improve upon what he taught?

The idea that there is a God, and that he is sovereign over all, is true ... but for practical purposes we should pretend that he's not?This makes God kinda different from other things, such as gravity, where we'd be literally insane to behave as though it didn't exist. But when it comes to the existence and nature of God, well then the sensible thing to do is to behave like Calvin is wrong. (But he's right.)

What is the Biblical support for Unconditional Election?

Just a couple off the top of my head: There are probably more.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This Calvinism stuff is subject to a similar treatment to what lots of Christians subject atheists. The old argument goes that if one is atheist then one has no reason to not rape, murder, and enjoy engaging in all manner of deadly sin.Calvinism offers the same opportunity. One is either of the elect or one is not. Nothing you do makes any difference. If you assume you are counted in the favored set then all manner of debauchery is open to you without consequence since you are already assured immortality and a forever existence singing hymns 24/7/365 at the foot of the golden throne. On the other hand if you assume you have been passed over then you were doomed from before the foundations of the world so you might as well go all out and enjoy your sins of choice in the here and now since whether you do or not makes no difference to your already sealed fate in the hereafter.Worse than that, from what Calvin believed, you have no choice whether to sin or not since you are just a puppet on a string with no will to resist whatever it is the puppet master has already determined you are going to think or not think, say or not say, do or not do. In a situation like that you might as well give up since your consciousness is just a faade directed from above (if you were predetermined to have such a thought, that is).People go on about the purpose and meaning of life. Seems to me that for the Calvinist these thing are meaningless since any thoughts they may think they have on the subject were preprogrammed in and are not really their own anyway.This differs so starkly from Gnosticism, with its reliance on self-generated (with help from the Messengers of Light — Jesus being a most prominent messenger) searching for the True Divinity, salvation by transcendence of the divine spark by internal intuition, Gnosis, that Calvinism, with its total powerlessness before the puppet master’s script, IMHO, does not qualify as gnostic anything.

Well, you just did a brilliant job of mischaracterizing Calvinism as people so often do that makes me hate these discussions. It would wear me out to try to correct all that though. I'm sorry I let myself get into it again when I've kicked myself for it so many times in the past. Suffice it to say your view of it is NOT Calvinism, it's just an intense version of the usual misreading. Sigh.

Oh, Faith, you do not hate these discussions. You love them. It shows. You've become quite good at them. I wouldn't be surprised if this were the case. I've been known to go off into the weeds before.But in this case, it is not I who is misreading Calvin but it is Calvin himself. Apparently, he has totally misunderstood what he himself wrote. But then he didn't have the benefit of learning what he actually meant from all the experts who so obviously know Calvinism so much better than he did.Calvin and I both stand corrected.

As I said way back at the beginning I don't try to be an expert on Calvinism, it's too demanding, and these discussions among all us half-baked Calvin interpreters get very tedious.The reason I'm a Calvinist is that I did once take the time to digest the basics of the system and understand how it is biblically superior to the Arminian arguments, but mostly it's because really great preachers I'm familiar with are Calvinists. I leave it to them to argue it.There is no point in my getting too far into these complexities when I know that Jonathan Edwards, John Owen, Charles Spurgeon, A W Pink and John MacArthur have argued for Calvinism. I can point back to them instead of trying to argue it myself. Until I get sucked into it in a debate. Which I usually regret.

Off the Sermon Audio list of Calvinist preachers I linked in the last post I found this pamphlet, Arminianism -- Another Gospel, that gives a historical perspective on the Calvinist-Arminian conflict I wasn't aware of. It shows that the conflict was far more than just a minor theological disagreement, Arminianism was considered to be a false gospel altogether. John Wesley is treated as an enemy of the gospel.I thought HBD in particular might find this interesting, I hope not merely offensive to his Wesleyan views.Being a historical presentation it doesn't get into the specifics of the debate, referring to Calvinism as the "doctrines of free grace and of God's sovereignty" as against free will and other Arminian principles considered to be essentially Roman Catholic.-========CORRECTION: As I've been reading through the pamphlet I came to a section where the doctrinal differences are discussed, so I was wrong to say it doesn't get into the debate issues.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Calvinism is pretty simple stuff, and its really easy to understand what he is saying.The demanding problem is getting what he says to be anything other than awful.

Your link also points to a bunch of preachers who have very negative views of Calvinism. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Yes, there are both views there. Though very few anti Calvinists, not "a bunch." I never heard of those guys though, the pro-Calvinists are the big names.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

For people who aren't looking at 'Big Names' as a meaningful indicator, the quality of the arguments and their relation to scripture might be worth considering. There are lots of ways to become a 'Big Name' in theology.The problem some of us are having with this particular argument is that it is simply an appeal to which authority is most popular. You are not actually able to discuss the arguments in any level of detail. Arguments about what person X or person Y believes are only secondary indicators of what is correct. And such arguments are totally unnecessary because we have the actual scripture and the doctrines available.What I find the most telling about Calvinism is the need to explain away the implications of its doctrines (total depravity and unconditional election) when it comes time to actually live and act as a Christian. Then Calvinism is seen for what it actually is... an impediment to living as Christ taught.

Calvinists are a minority of a minority. As a member of their sect, maybe you know their names best. A Catholic might never have heard of them but would think St Thomas Aquinas was a big name. A devout Satanist would never have heard of them, but would consider Anton LaVey to be a big name. Your idea that these are big names rather than minor loonies is a consequence of you belonging to the Calvinist culture, and so it can't be a justification of it.

If Christians in general have never heard of Charles Spurgeon or Jonathan Edwards or John MacArthur, there is something very very wrong. These guys are bigger than big. A W Pink might not be big enough, however. And John Owen also might not have been heard of but that would only be because of a sad deficiency of historical knowledge because he was very big in his own time, had a position at Oxford, was a well known leader of the Nonconformists or Puritans, wrote a lot of theology. Was also a mentor of John Locke though I suppose people could be excused for not knowing that.