but do i take it that you believe God loves the reprobate? that would agree with my point of view, that says that God loves “the world” as per John 3:16, not just the “chosen/elect.”
so this could be common ground.
but how then do you deal with the idea that God thus dooms Himself to eternal unreciprocated love if He loves those He’s hardened, so that they remain in their hatred towards Him?
how am i different, that i love God, but should hate Him by nature? i find the concept confusing that God loves us all, chooses only to save some, and those He saves are changed from hating Him to loving Him, but He who loves the reprobate (by this line of reasoning) can’t be bothered to also change the rest of us? but obviously loving us means He should be bothered…
to me it’s a vortex of illogicity, sorry…maybe i am missing something obvious here.
also, if God loves the reprobate, but can’t be bothered to change them or perhaps (though i can’t believe you think this!) He “can’t” because of their …CHOICE… that = Arminianism, or at least Calvminianism, which tries but fails to walk between those two opposing schools of thought.
I have to agree Corpselight.
Once again (as I have noted repeatedly on this thread) you (jaxxen) fail to address any of the points made but rather just make disconnected statements. That is not debating.
For example, if your post above was entirely true, and in accordance with scripture (which I do not believe), it still does not negate(or even address) one thing that I said. It is a mere distraction. A further attempt to disengage from the logic of the argument.
As I said, according to your theology, your god hates the majority of humankind. This is the vile message that has been rejected by all those who believe St John’s clear statement that God is Love (mysteriously absent from the whole of Calvin’s ‘Institutes’).
So, if you wish me to follow you down your rabbit hole, the true christians who have rejected the hatred of Calvinism with all its evil fruits are the ones who LOVE God because God IS Love and gave Himself for the entire human race.
P.S. You may say what you will but I will not respond until you have attempted to answer Johnny’s questions. My response was because of your reply to Bird but I do not want to encourage you in any deflection from answering his questions. Personally, any Calvinist should have ready answers for such basic questions. Suggesting profundity where there is none and pleading for more time is in itself a revealing response.
In the argument between the various views, Calvinism, Arminianism, Annihilationist, and Universalism it seems to me that one of the biggest stumbling blocks for all involved is which scriptures are to be taken literally and which are to be taken figuratively as describing concepts in the spiritual realm.
For example are there currently angels sitting in an actual dungeon in chains? What are the chains made out of? How big does each link have to be to hold down an angel? Right away it should become apparent that interpreting this as literal is preposterous. The bible is describing something spiritual using metaphorical figurative language.
The Spirit of God tries to use the Bible to teach us things that are spiritually appraised. We like to take the figurative language of the Bible and dogmatically hold to it as if it is describing literal things.
Is there really a literal physical lake of fire with people getting never-endingly blistered and charred? It’s absurd to take this literally.
What about the fatherhood language in the Bible. Some verses say God is our father. Some verses say the devil is our father. Does this mean the devil procreated leading to an actual physical birth of a man or woman?
Was there an actual man in a garden that was talked to by a snake or is that whole scene intended to illustrate a spiritual concept or truth?
Suppose each of us is a son of God and a son of the devil. Suppose the scene in the garden was a metaphorical description of how mankind’s mind, soul, or whatever in this earthy realm was split in half – one half good and the other half evil.
Suppose God predestined the now evil half of each of us to eternal damnation? Suppose God will one day totally annihilate the scraggly bastard portion in each of us. I sure hope so because I don’t want to have to drag this old fellow around forever.
Suppose God predestined the now good half of each of us to eternal life?
What if we ALL go through hell on our way to heaven?
Suppose all the conflicting images we are presented with in the Bible are actually describing different aspects of the same spiritual thing - two sides of the same coin?
Anyway, think outside the box, there really is something beautiful going on and there really is good news, and the conflicting views of the Bible really do fit together to paint a picture of what actually is a glorious spiritual future for each of us.
great post, mate. echoing a lot of the thoughts i have been thinking over the past few years.
there’s alot of courage on this thread lol…that of jaxxen defending himself against us all, as well as checking us out for discussion and research rather than coming to accuse. and there’s your courage in thinking outside the box, as you say.
challenging accepted teachings is scary.
but it’s interesting to see all the ways our forerunners (even Mr Calvin himself) challenged things, like for example literal interpretation. we have a great cloud of witnesses!
Once again you hit the nail on the head here. I too do not consider myself ‘born again’ - at least, not in the way this term is traditionally interpreted. I too cannot countenance the idea that God ‘hates’ me until I find the truth. God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. He cannot hate me one minute and love me the next. He loves me with an irresistible love, keeps on loving me until I turn to him in love. And when I do, then I am ‘born again’ by the spirit.
A while ago I had an interesting discussion on another website about the idea that ‘salvation’ has three elements, or ‘stages’ if you like - ontological, noological and sacramental. In brief, ontological salvation is the ‘fact’ of or our salvation, won for us by Christ from the foundation of the world - meaning that our ultimate resurrection, restoration and immortality is a ‘done deal’, and there is nothing we can do to to negate that, nor indeed nothing whatsoever that we need to do to make it so. That is my understanding of free grace.
Noological salvation is all about our coming to know the fact of our ontological salvation, through faith. Sacramental salvation is the eschaton, the new Jerusalem, the beatific vision, God being all in all.
Actually, quite a few people do seek. And quite a few of those people died atheists. Does your interpretation has room for halfway cases where God sort of makes them seek for a bit but doesn’t get them all the way through?
If by “get it” you mean I’ll start to agree with your theology, you should realize that’s a fallacy of sorts. I’ve heard it from Calvinists before, who then left the faith. It’s a Catch-22, and those don’t really work. In fact, I’d say it’s disrespectful.
Hey all! Still not figuring out the quote feature.
Johnny, I’ll try to answer at least some of your questions. In my mind, I would bang out a neat, succinct essay type of response. But I’m not a good writer and the more I come back to this thread and see more posts my head spins and I get easily distracted. Can we change the rules up a bit?
I answer a question and then ask a question? That would help me out. I request each answer to be representative of our doctrines, not personal speculation (or at least not too much speculation). Although it’s primarily Johnny and I going back and forth, everyone’s included.
How do I know that I’m elect? Great question! I believe the Bible is adamantly clear that the LORD has a chosen people that doesn’t include everyone. We (you and I) agree that this is Reformed thinking. Now, regarding my personal election…“Whosoever calls upon the LORD shall be saved”, “I will by no means reject anyone who comes to me”.
I trust in the active and passive righteousness of the Christ. I believe in my heart and confess with my mouth. My faith in Christ. My good works (which are NEVER 100% pure in my heart) show some level of desire and conformance to the law of God. My faith in Christ. I’m NOT equating that with works/righteousness but rather “show yourself to be approved…make your election and calling sure”. My grief over my ongoing sin and failure to conform. My faith in Christ as my scapegoat and paschal lamb. I believe that this would fall under the “P” in TULIP i.e. The Preservation (Perseverance) of the Saints aka the Eternal Security of the Believer in Christ Jesus.
Now, I admit that I may not always “feel” saved. Even your beloved Westminster Confession of Faith acknowledges that for a season it may please the LORD to remove the light of His countenance.
Ch. 18 “Of Assurance of Grace and Salvation” #4
“True believers may have the assurance of their salvation shaken in many ways…by their own negligence…by falling into some special sin that grieves the conscience and the Spirit, some sudden or vehement temptation…by God’s withdrawing the light of His countenance for a season…YET we are never utterly destitute of that seed of God…that love of Christ…which is the operation of the Spirit…this assurance may in due time be revived, and in the meantime we are supported from utter despair.”
Johnny, I know y’all reject the WCoF, the Articles (Forms of Unity) etc. I believe that you are familiar enough with the Scriptures to at least see, maybe not agree, but see where Reformed Theology gets some of its ideas.
How would I feel if I were not elect or am wrong? Like Pilgrim! JK, I couldn’t resist! No offense, but this question is kind of rhetorical. It depends on what’s right. For example, if UR / EU is right, then I’d still be fine (would I not?). I know in whom I have believed and His imputed righteousness and sacrificial death would have me covered, no pun intended. If Islam were correct, it’s a different scenario altogther.
My question to y’all…
If Christ’s death on the cross was punishement from the Father on behalf of people (all people, in UR EU doctrine, right?), even to the point that He cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Why then are people still punished for their sins in the age to come in the lake of fire? Granted, y’all believe the lake ( not debating whether it’s literal or a metaphor of God’s punishment) is not neverending. But it seems to imply that the Lord’s death was not sufficient to propitiate / expiate the Father’s justice FULLY, i.e. Jesus was punished AND the nonbelievers of this age must still be punished in the age to come, if only for a limited time. Hopefully I’m asking my question rightly.
Another question would be how does EU define “born again”? You and Bird both stated that it’s not in the traditional sense.
BTW, anyone who wants to PM me for further clarity or whatever, feel free. G’night for now!
I can take a stab at your last question. (BTW its a great question.)
The non-elect are punished in the age to come for the same reason the elect are punished in this life prior to coming to faith. Just as the punishment the elect face in this life prior to coming to faith is instrumental in bringing them to faith, the punishment the non-elect face in the age to come is instrument in bringing them to faith. In either case, such punishment does not pay for sins, rather it achieves a redemptive purpose, that of helping to bring about faith in Christ leading to salvation.
BTW To quote stuff bring up two windows, (a) one where you compose the message in the EU website text editor and (b) one with the stuff you want to quote. Copy text from window (b) and paste it into the text editor in window (a). Once it is in the text editor in window (a) you can highlight text and then hit the “Quote” or “B” (for bold) or “i” (for italics) “u” (for underline) buttons [along the top of the text editor box] to insert special characters that will achieve these effects when it is published. I hope this helps.
But it seems we are not punished…at least not in the way the Bible implies re the lake of fire. Jesus said, “It is finished” and gave up His ghost. While here, unregenerate, we are separated from God’s blessings , but we still receive much joy, fun and hope. Also, are we called to walk by faith and not by sight. It seems that in the age to come it will be by sight-and the Scriptures can not be broken.Can you elaborater further?
I appreciate your understanding of the devastating effects of Calvinism and your effort to proclaim this.
Earlier I stated :
First of all “choice” is closely related to the idea “will” and I will use them together in what follows. It is also important to differentiate between the concepts of “choice/will” and “free-choice/free-will”.
I think it is important to note that the following concepts are foundational for the Calvinist:
***All are conceived in sin and by nature, corrupt. Fallen people most definitely have a “will” and the ability to “choose”. What is denied is “free will” or the ability to choose freely. This is not due to some outward constraint but is due to the idea that the will is always in bondage to the corrupt sinful nature (ala Martin Luther). The “will” chooses things every day, but it can only choose what is most appealing to the sinful nature. However this moral inability does not in any way alleviate a person of culpability for failing to obey or come to Christ, since it is due to an internal corruption of nature and not some outside force. ***
So how is anyone saved? God must come in through the “back door” of a man’s heart and change the sinful nature so that Christ becomes appealing. Then the will of man does what it always does: chooses the most appealing thing. (This a secret operation of God. Converted sinners are not aware of what God has done in them. To them they feel as if they chose Christ as freely as they feel they chose everything else .)
Now some may argue that if men are born with corrupt sinful natures that will not allow their “will” to choose freely, then men should not be held accountable for their choices. There is certain logic to this but scripture, at least according to the Calvinist, does not allow for this. See point (e) above. I believe Jonathan Edwards refers to this as “moral inability.”
So when Driscoll says:
… he is completely in line with standard Calvinism. By these statements he clearly affirms that men have wills but he is not asserting that such wills are “free”. Free of outside constraint yes, but not free of the sinful nature.
Now Arminianism is a whole different ball game. Arminianism DOES affirm the existence of “free will”. They may assert that a “free will” is only made possible through a dose of “prevenient grace” (necessary to restore “free will” since “free will” was lost in the Fall) but nevertheless they do believe “free will” is active before a person makes the choice for or against Christ. Calvinism and Driscoll (at least from what I see in the quotes you gave) NEVER claim this. In your subsequent post I understand your points but they merely indicate that Calvinism denies “free will” and the ability to choose freely, and I agree, but that doesn’t mean Calvinism denies the existence of a will or the ability to choose.
NOTE: By the same token I object to people (not you, but others) calling Driscoll a hyper-Calvinist when He speaks of God’s hatred for people. He is NOT a hyper-Calvinist, just as he is not a Calv-Arminian. In fact, the quotes you gave earlier prove he is NOT a hyper-Calvinist. (Hyper-Calvinism is NOT a more hateful version of Calvinism, rather, according to Wikipedia, “Hyper-Calvinism is a pejorative term referring to a denial of the free offer of the gospel and duty-faith.”) When Driscoll speaks of God’s hatred for people he is merely recounting standard run-of-the-mill Calvinism. I think this is important because I want people to see what standard Calvinism is all about. If they wrongly think Driscoll is a hyper-Calvinist they may think that the belief in God’s hatred for people arises from hyper-Calvinism when it really is core to standard Calvinism.
Hey Johnny,
I don’t understand your beef with being “born again”? I grew up in a conservative, evangelical, ECT church and have never met someone who didn’t basically believe that being born again was receiving new life by faith in Christ. Jesus said, “Unless you are born again, you cannot enter the kingdom of God” or something like that (it’s late and I don’t have my bible near). Why is this a negative thing for you?
Chris
I’m not offended at all! Neither am I surprised, whether in jest or not, I regard it as a compliment if a Calvinist suggests that I am not one of their ‘elect’. It is the last thing that I would want to be. Calvinists worship a capricious cruel god who finds pleasure in deliberately creating sentient beings for the sole purpose of watching them fry eternally.
My God is the one from scripture who is Love, the one who desires that all be saved, the one who prayed “Father forgive them” -specifically refering to those ‘reprobates’ who were crucifying him.
i think the key thing is that this “punishment”, so far as i know, is “kolassis”, which means “pruning”. pruning implies doing something that is ultimately for the betterment of the plant being pruned. this was apparently commonly used as terminology for disciplining children. it doesn’t make them less children…in fact it ensures they ARE children. God only chastises (prunes/punishes/disciplines) those He loves. so how could it be different for the reprobate?
first and foremost, though, not all of us believe in post mortem judgement in the traditional sense. i abandoned it totally in favour of annihilationism for a couple years, when convinced that actually hell does not mean ECT, it means grave! and the most damning thing (ha!) for the doctrine was that the OT Hebrews did not have an afterlife…though resurrection was prophesied. God never once mentioned that the wages of sin were anything but death, and i think He might’ve done had ECT been part of reality. no, we have imported ECT from paganism, Greek and otherwise. likewise we have imported the capricious and vengeful god from paganism. obviously i refer to old-school blood-shedding paganism…not the fluffy tree-hugging paganism of today.
anyway, as i rejected hell on i believe strongly Biblical grounds, i have not yet come around to this idea of purgatorial post mortem refining, but i may do. it’s just a bit of a u-turn, and i am stubborn!
but as it stands, i believe fully that Christ accomplished what He set out to accomplish in His life, death and resurrection. i don’t really buy the penal substitution model (has some logical inconsistencies, such as God trapping man with a shiny red button, then sacrificing Himself to Himself in order to pay for the debt that He arbitrarily decided to charge, it’s just a bit mad!), but am still exploring the other ideas, such as Christus Victor (sort of a ransom/conquering/heroic/self-sacrificing/ardent lover idea). i realise there is much evidence for penal substitution, but i feel it doesn’t quite get the whole picture and falls down in logic (and God may use logic that confounds the wise, but that doesn’t mean He’s not logical).
sort of like mainstream Calvinism and Arminianism miss large chunks of the picture, in my view.
here’s my question, why does the love of God have to play second fiddle to His sovereingty? have them both together, and you have UR…exalt one above the other and you have C and A.
Sorry, I should have explained myself a bit better. What I mean is that I don’t believe we are unforgiven sinners, bound for hell, until we become ‘born again’ in the traditional sense, ie by praying the sinner’s prayer. I believe we are all of us – Christian or not – forgiven already. Jesus reconciled us all to God from the foundation of the world, through his sacrificial life, death and resurrection. When He cried out on the cross, “it is finished”, I believe that meant something like “it is accomplished, I have taken away the sins of the world – of every man and woman who has ever lived, or will live”. Thus our eventual salvation and acceptance into the family of God is assured, and was assured from eternity. This is ‘ontological’ salvation.
But, only when we come to realise this fact, by faith – and this as the gift of God, by His free grace – do we enter into that salvation in the sense of ‘knowing’ or ‘experiencing’ it if you like. This is ‘noological’ salvation, and it is only when we experience this noological salvation that we begin to be renewed, to receive new life, to be transformed by the spirit – and thus enter the Kingdom of God (which is something we experience in our earthly lives). This is what I understand being ‘born again’ means. (So actually not that much difference there from what you describe.)
The final ‘stage’ of salvation – ‘sacramental’ salvation – only occurs after we die, and we are sanctified fully, enter the new Jerusalem and enjoy the direct presence of God.
So basically, I don’t have a beef with being born again, but I do reject the traditional transactional interpretation of it – which sounds to me far too much like us waving a magic theological wand and suddenly God’s attitude towards us changes from one of alienation to one of embrace.
I confess I haven’t fully worked all this through, but it’s how I see things currently. Hope that all makes sense!
I see what you’re saying here about Calvinism and the will. But one of my problems with all this is that I do not believe it is legitimate to use the language of choice in relation to Calvinism at all. I tried to explain this in my earlier post to you of Sun Feb 12, 2012 4:54 pm. Maybe you missed it - it’s already disappeared *way *up the thread ?
Just in case you did, or even if you didn’t (because I want to reiterate this point anyway) I am going to quote an extract from my earlier post (yeah, I know, bad form, sorry ):
You see, my basic point, Fiery, is that the language of choice, of possibility, of alternatives, is simply meaningless in Calvinism. There *are *no choices. Everything was preordained before time began. IMHO, to argue otherwise is simply to run around in paradoxical theological circles before disappearing up one’s own fundament.
Thus your original point (i) - ‘we must choose God in order to be saved’ - is simply a non-statement, a meaningless collocation of words.
Which in turn leads to all Calvinism’s talk about us being ‘responsible’ for our perdition being rendered equally meaningless. May I quote the good George again here (I think I’ve probably used this quote somewhere on this thread already, but it is a goodie, and it sums up how I feel about this perfectly ):
"If sin must be kept alive, then hell must be kept alive; but while I regard the smallest sin as infinitely loathsome, I do not believe that any being, never good enough to see the essential ugliness of sin, could sin so as to deserve such punishment. I am not now, however, dealing with the question of the duration of punishment, but with the idea of punishment itself; and would only say in passing, that the notion that a creature born imperfect, nay, born with impulses to evil not of his own generating, and which he could not help having, a creature to whom the true face of God was never presented, and by whom it never could have been seen, should be thus condemned, is as loathsome a lie against God as could find place in heart too undeveloped to understand what justice is, and too low to look up into the face of Jesus. It never in truth found place in any heart, though in many a pettifogging [ie quibbling] brain.
There is but one thing lower than deliberately to believe such a lie, and that is to worship the God of whom it is believed."
Fiery, you’re absolutely right about this not being about Driscoll, but about Calvinism generally. But one of my points in starting this thread was to hold up to scrutiny the, in my opinion, dishonest way in which Calvinism is ‘sold’ to the masses - because in its undiluted form it just makes people turn away in revulsion.
Thanks for all your posts so far on this subject. It is great to hear the fallacies of Calvinism articulated so forcefully by one who has actually been exposed to their toxic effect in a way that I, thankfully, have not.
You make other excellent points I would like to come back to you on, but I am getting the strong feeling that this thread is already too long for people to keep track of properly, and that long posts addressing too many separate issues in one go are hard for all to follow also.
My issue with the born again issue wasn’t that I’m saved or not saved. It was that God, currently, does not love me, and does not care. That both contradicts 1 John 4 and makes it difficult to move forward, IMO.
As for Christ, I do not believe his death was in place of God’s punishment. I do not believe Christ’s dying and Gehenna are, in fact, related much. That’s penal substitution creeping in.
I’m trying to avoid commenting in this thread, as Matt/Jaxxen already has more than he can easily keep track of.
But to clarify, since he asked: Christian universalists who believe the Father punished the innocent Son, and so who accept that version of penal substitution theory, tend to also be ultra-universalists who don’t believe God punishes any sinners anymore (thanks to having already infinitely and completely finished punishing the Son for sins of sinners), and won’t do so in the eschaton. They also tend to be eschatological preterists, who think the prophecies apparently pointing to that sort of thing were fulfilled entirely already (typically at the destruction of Jerusalem in 70CE). In short, people who believe the punishment of sinners is already fully pre-termitted in Christ (and/or at Jerusalem), don’t think God will be punishing sinners later.
This is a position similar to that of many Calvinists, who regard the punishment of the elect, but not of the non-elect, to be already fully pre-termitted in Christ. Other Calvinists believe the punishments of all sinners, including the non-elect, were technically pre-termitted in Christ, but God chooses whether or not the pre-termission will practically apply for any particular sinner. (And then of course there are Calvinists who don’t go with either of those concepts.)
Purgatorial universalists like myself tend not to hold to that version of penal substitution theory. As an orthodox trinitarian theist, I have technical trouble with it myself long before getting to universalism; I did back when I was an Arminian, and I still would if I had been (or was now) a Calvinist instead.
However, a purgatorial universalist could hold a belief in this type of penal sub similar to the way some Calvinists do: the punishments of all sinners were technically pre-termitted in Christ, but for various reasons God doesn’t apply it to some sinners in the eschaton at first. (The difference would be “at first” vs. “at all”. )
I’m not sure if that actually clarified much of anything, but I meant well by it.
Good point, Bird. Rather off-topic, but I can’t help myself. I believe that we who are still physically alive in this world are BEING saved – if we are following Jesus. We require saving from our sinfulness; He has taken care of our sin by forgiving us, the law by nailing it to the tree, and our sinfulness by the cross which we must also take up (as He did) to follow Him through death into life. We now have the power to BECOME sons of God; we have always been His children.
(I say sons rather than children not as a matter of sex, but of the position of adopted, adult heirs, who back in the day were nearly always sons. (we are a work in progress after all.))
Yes, before I wrote my last post I did read your Sun Feb 12, 2012 4:54 pm post. I understood your point that :
and I also understand where you are coming from when you included the following quote in your last post:
Please note that my point was not to agree nor disagree, but to assert that :
1.) Conventional Calvinists (not Calv-Arminians) have what they believe to be good reasons for the concepts of “choice” (but NOT “free-choice”) and “personal culpability” having a meaningful place in their theology …
2.) AND more importantly, to make sure the Jonathan Edwards and Spurgeons and Sprouls and Pipers and sweet garden variety Calvinists down the street (or behind the bushes) get to share equally in the cannon blasts you currently have directed at Driscoll. For they all are believing and usually preaching the same thing (at least in regards to the concepts of “choice” and “culpability”.)
I must admit that in a way I want to take a little of the heat off of Driscoll. I actually kind of respect him more than most because he (like jaxxen BTW) does not shy away from the “dark underbelly” of his theology. Its those that hold to the basic tenants of Calvinism and try to hide or sugarcoat the “dark underbelly” that I really think deserve to be in the crosshairs.