I have a question for Calvinists...

lukecash12

New member
lukecash12,

I don't know how to say this except to say you're just wrong.
I mean, of course Calvin was not the only source of what is called Calvinist doctrine but the only Calvinists you'll find that will deny this stuff are those that I refer to as lay persons. People who are just regular folks that sit in a pew on Sunday and believe whatever the preacher says because he's the expert and they aren't and aren't interesting in becoming one. Any educated Calvinist will not deny a word of what I've said and in fact they'd likely be offended by your attempt to soften their core doctrines. And make no mistake, they do consider this to be a core doctrine.

And you, an Arminian, are every bit as much a product of the Reformation as any Calvinist. Their attempt to rename themselves serves them in two ways. It serves to muddy the water by distancing themselves from Calvin (not because of his doctrine but because he was a horrible human being) and it serves to obscure Arminianism! I'm not sure why you'd be willing to go along with that.

Resting in Him,
Clete

I've been made to understand that whatever educational, and more importantly factual, leaps and bounds I demonstrate you will reiterate the same tired old statements.

Let's see... you've been around since 2003 and if you didn't miss it, this silliness of "Reformed thinkers are ultimately just Greek thinkers" was blown out of the water with post #15 here: http://www.theologyonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=53669 I somehow doubt you've ever read the Westminster Confession of Faith either, otherwise you would know there are manifestly more influences than Calvin, and you would know exactly how most Reformed thinkers contemplate double predestination.

It's more than a little evident, reading your own past material, that "you're just wrong" has for some time now been a cop-out in the face of having to demonstrate why you're right. It is impossible to educate someone, or talk with that person about material requiring sufficient education, if they demonstrably despise education and correcting themselves.

In fact, I canvassed a few heavily educated Reformed thinkers here, and the only quibble I heard from one of them was that when I defined double predestination near the beginning of the thread, I left the reader's mind open to assume that either predestination was exactly the same kind of predestination.
 
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musterion

Well-known member
I've been made to understand that whatever educational, and more importantly factual, leaps and bounds I demonstrate you will reiterate the same tired old statements.

Let's see... you've been around since 2003 and if you didn't miss it, this silliness of "Reformed thinkers are just Greek thinkers" was blown out of the water with post #15 here: http://www.theologyonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=53669

It's more than a little evident, reading your own past material, that "you're just wrong" has for some time now been a cop-out in the face of having to demonstrate why you're right. It is impossible to educate someone, or talk with that person about material requiring sufficient education, if they demonstrably despise education and correcting themselves.

Are you a Calvinist, or are you just arguing in favor of Calvinism just to be doing it? Serious question...which are you?
 

lukecash12

New member
Are you a Calvinist, or are you just arguing in favor of Calvinism just to be doing it? Serious question...which are you?

1. I'm a Reformed Arminian. That means that I believe in a sublapsarian theodicy. Regarding TULIP, I believe in: total depravity, conditional election, unlimited atonement, prevenient grace, and the possibility of apostasy.

Sublapsarian theodicy means that the order of God's decrees is this:

(1) God decreed to create human beings, (2) God decreed to permit the fall, (3) God decreed to provide salvation sufficient to all, and (4) God decreed to choose some to receive this salvation.

Infralapsarianism:

(1) God decreed the creation of mankind, (2) God decreed mankind would be allowed to fall into sin through their own self-determination, (3) God decreed to save some of the fallen, and (4) God decreed to provide Jesus Christ as the Redeemer.

Supralapsarianism:

(1) God decreed the election of some and the eternal condemnation of others, (2) God decreed to create those elected and eternally condemned, (3) God decreed to permit the fall, and (4) God decreed to provide salvation for the elect through Jesus Christ.

Reformed thinkers, as opposed to Reformed or Wesleyan Arminians, believe in supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism. Infralapsarians are the primary group amongst them, and they are the group that most strongly affirms double predestination.

2. I'm not arguing in favor of Calvinism, or defending it just for the heck of it. Apparently, there are people here at TOL who have not read critical material on just what Reformed belief is, and because of that they are drawing inaccurate assumptions about them.
 

musterion

Well-known member
You are of a considerable minority in Reformed circles. That's why our focus is on what the historic majority believes, which aligns with what Calvin wrote (though many of them tend to not admit it these days). So when you say you're here to correct our misunderstandings of Calvinism, it isn't even your brand of Calvinism we focus on here.
 

lukecash12

New member
You are of a considerable minority in Reformed circles. That's why our focus is on what the historic majority believes, which aligns with what Calvin wrote (though many of them tend to not admit it these days). So when you say you're here to correct our misunderstandings of Calvinism, it isn't even your brand of Calvinism we focus on here.

See the rest of my last post, for a summary on God's decrees. "Calvinists" aren't required to be infralapsarians, and those that are "infra" do not have to believe that God is actively making people reprobate, as opposed to inactively allowing them to be reprobate.

Their actual statement of faith, in whichever variation of it that they use (none of which were written by John Calvin), is a truer way to see what they think on election. The people in the congregation who drew up the WCF were both "supra" and "infra".

What the OP primarily has in mind, by mentioning double predestination, are supralapsarians. Hyper-Calvinists are a particular brand of supralapsarian that also doesn't believe in the free offer of the gospel. This is in direction contradiction with the Canons of Dort, the Westminster Standards, and the Westminster Larger Catechism.
 
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lukecash12

New member
Weird how someone can label himself by the name of another man yet contradict him on such a fundamental point. Very weird.

It is a label that was forced on them basically from all sides. While in many respects they do agree with Calvin, as he was formative for Reformed thinking, not only do many of them disagree with Calvin about decrees but they disagree with him on other subjects in Reformed thinking (like credo vs paedo baptism, "infant vs informed"). It's not uncommon to see or hear in discussions between "Calvinist" theologians, that they prefer to call themselves Reformed.
 

Clete

Truth Smacker
Silver Subscriber
I've been made to understand that whatever educational, and more importantly factual, leaps and bounds I demonstrate you will reiterate the same tired old statements.
Huh?

Let's see... you've been around since 2003 and if you didn't miss it, this silliness of "Reformed thinkers are ultimately just Greek thinkers" was blown out of the water with post #15 here: http://www.theologyonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=53669 I somehow doubt you've ever read the Westminster Confession of Faith either, otherwise you would know there are manifestly more influences than Calvin, and you would know exactly how most Reformed thinkers contemplate double predestination.
So where's the sudden hostility coming from?

I've read it many times as I've also read the Canons of Dordt, The Smalcald Articles and probably any other document you care to name. They are all quite easily available on a number of websites, my favorite of which is Reformed.org which is the website for the Center for Reformed Theology and Apologetics. They used to have a web forum similar to this one where I had the pleasure of debating many different points covered in the Westminster Confession of Faith.

It's more than a little evident, reading your own past material, that "you're just wrong" has for some time now been a cop-out in the face of having to demonstrate why you're right.
On the contrary. I make it a habit to explain why, although there are exceptions depending on the context. It is I who is seemingly always stating to the Calvinists that saying it doesn't make it so.

I'll think you'll see, if you go back and check, that I've told you that you were wrong twice and that both times I explained specifically what I meant by that.

It is impossible to educate someone, or talk with that person about material requiring sufficient education, if they demonstrably despise education and correcting themselves.
This statement is factually true but does not apply to me in the least. The level of your education does not impress me in the slightest. I've seen people on this website who at least claim to have a PH.D. in theology and claim to be an employed professor of theology say some of the most mind blowingly idiotic things you can imagine, not to mention blasphemous.

What impresses me is reason. Make an argument. I'm not interested in your opinion or how much money and time you've invested in formulating it. If you can't or won't make an argument then you're education is worthless. In fact, in such a case the education is worse than worthless because it likely has you entrenched into whatever belief system you've invested all that time and money into.

In fact, I canvassed a few heavily educated Reformed thinkers here, and the only quibble I heard from one of them was that when I defined double predestination near the beginning of the thread, I left the reader's mind open to assume that either predestination was exactly the same kind of predestination.
That's them being nice to you. Push them on it and see what happens. Push hard enough an it won't be long before you're accused of denying the gospel itself. I've seen it right here on this website a hundred times.

You can pretend like I'm just making all this stuff up as I go if you like but that won't change the fact that there isn't one educated Calvinist you can find anywhere that will deny a syllable of what I've quoted from Calvin's books. Not one syllable of it! Look all you like. Look here on TOL, or go to any other website you want, or read any book you want. Quote Pink, Van Til, R.C. Sproul, C.S. Lewis, D. James Kennedy, or whoever you want! (authors, all of whom I've read, by the way.) You won't find one that admits the existence of a single rouge atom in the whole of the universe or who will deny one word of the quotes I've posted of Calvin here and elsewhere.

Now, if its all the same to you, I'd like to continue what was on its way to being a productive discussion. I'll be 100% as intellectually honest as you are.

Resting in Him,
Clete
 

Clete

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Apparently, there are people here at TOL who have not read critical material on just what Reformed belief is, and because of that they are drawing inaccurate assumptions about them.

Those "people" being me, primarily.
 

Clete

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It is a label that was forced on them basically from all sides. While in many respects they do agree with Calvin, as he was formative for Reformed thinking, not only do many of them disagree with Calvin about decrees but they disagree with him on other subjects in Reformed thinking (like credo vs paedo baptism, "infant vs informed"). It's not uncommon to see or hear in discussions between "Calvinist" theologians, that they prefer to call themselves Reformed.

Infant baptism is not a Calvinist distinctive and so of course Calvinists are not forced to agree on such a point. And as I said before, they prefer to call themselves Reformed. not because of Calvin's doctrines but because Calvin was just a horrible person and because it means that you can't call yourself that. It's just branding. Its the exact same sort of thinking that has caused such a huge number of Southern Baptist Churches to name their church anything at all other than "Baptist". A rose by any other name...

Resting in Him,
Clete
 

Clete

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The piece de resistance. Clete, you are so worth the read. :thumb:

Not that I'm anywhere near being the primary voice of anti-Calvinism here on TOL, there's lots and lots of us. I simply was pointing out that luke was referring to me when he made the comment.
 

Clete

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Weird how someone can label himself by the name of another man yet contradict him on such a fundamental point. Very weird.

He's right! It is a fundamental point! And I don't mean that as a figure of speech, either. It is an absolute logically undeniable point for the whole system of Calvinism. Those who deny it are either ignorant or intentionally softening the doctrine but regardless of the motivation it cannot be done without logically undermining the whole system. Infra this and supra that only serves to muddy the water. It isn't that complicated. God is either absolutely immutable or He can change in some ways. There is no third alternative. If the former then its supra supra supra! If the later, Calvinism if flatly false - period.

Resting in Him,
Clete
 

glorydaz

Well-known member
Not that I'm anywhere near being the primary voice of anti-Calvinism here on TOL, there's lots and lots of us. I simply was pointing out that luke was referring to me when he made the comment.

LOL Yeah, I got that. One thing about you, Clete, you always make yourself very clear. :)
 

HisServant

New member
Of course anyone can offer an answer but I want to hear from the Calvinists in particular on the following question....


If someone sets your house on fire in the middle of the night and then, once the house is fully engulfed in flames, rushes in to rescue you and your 2nd child but decides to leave your wife and your other ten kids to burn in the fire, do you praise the man as a hero or condemn him as a murderer?

Would your answer be different if you were the wife or one of the other ten children?

Resting in Him,
Clete

God isn't a man, so the comparison doesn't hold water.

Its more like, you are conducting an experiment in a petri dish that you thought was sterile before you inoculated it... as a result you have some contaminated colonies growing in the dish... so you pull out the bad ones and keep the good ones and hope there is no cross contamination. Then you have to maintain it like a garden to keep the bad stuff in check.

Or, you could have just thrown the petri dish away and started all over again.

God has his reasons... and they are his own, and he is not accountable to any of us.
 

musterion

Well-known member
He's right! It is a fundamental point! And I don't mean that as a figure of speech, either. It is an absolute logically undeniable point for the whole system of Calvinism. Those who deny it are either ignorant or intentionally softening the doctrine but regardless of the motivation it cannot be done without logically undermining the whole system. Infra this and supra that only serves to muddy the water. It isn't that complicated. God is either absolutely immutable or He can change in some ways. There is no third alternative. If the former then its supra supra supra! If the later, Calvinism if flatly false - period.

Resting in Him,
Clete

TULIP is a logical chain. The assumptions are flawed but its interally coherent as a system. That's why reprobation is demanded by TULIP's own logic and Calvin knew it...if few other Calvinists do.
 

intojoy

BANNED
Banned
Of course anyone can offer an answer but I want to hear from the Calvinists in particular on the following question....


If someone sets your house on fire in the middle of the night and then, once the house is fully engulfed in flames, rushes in to rescue you and your 2nd child but decides to leave your wife and your other ten kids to burn in the fire, do you praise the man as a hero or condemn him as a murderer?

Would your answer be different if you were the wife or one of the other ten children?

Resting in Him,
Clete

"Rushed in" did God rush? "Someone set the house on fire" you presuppose innocence in humanity before birth? All humanity is conceived and born spiritually dead do to one man's sin. Your question blames "someone" other than self for the state of separation from God, that is error.

The problem with your question is you base your judgement of God's work of election on human emotions from a created being's vantage point.
 
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