I seem to have a bigger emptiness than most people at times. I cannot be satisfied with myself, so I search the world for something to fill the inner void. In my experience, controling people try to get you to believe their way by trying to make you feel insecure about yourself. I understand that people will constantly try to do this to me in life. One of the main weapons they usually use is to instill in me doubts about myself, my worth, my abilities, my potential so that they can get me in their power. They often diguise this as the objective truth but the purpose is to keep me down and lead me astray. I’m learning that In every moment of life I must deny people this power by maintaining a sense of purpose. From such a position people’s attempts at control do not harm me; they only make me more determined. The higher I raise my self-image, the fewer judgments and manipulations I tolerate. When I have a weak ego I do not have a secure sense of my worth or potential. A strong ego, however, is completely different for me. When I have a solid sense of my own value and feel secure about myself I have the capacity to look at the world with greater objectivity and I am less likely to be led astray. I have greater confidence in myself. Which is the very thing the majority of Calvinistic teaching doesn’t want you to have. Total Depravity and the teaching that I deserve to suffer forever kept me in this bondage to fear and insecurity. Not any more.
This is a poem about the crazy God of Calvinism. I’ve won gold in many contests with this one.
Betrayed
Betrayed by the picking of the fruit
In anger I beat my fist
To satisfy my anger and thirst
Now I must bleed your wrist
Let the blood flow and run like water
Until your soul runs dry
I want to feel you scream in pain
And rejoice as I hear you cry
To assuage my wrath and release my pain
Crimson blood is what I need
I get my pleasure out of watching you die
And hear you suffer and bleed
For I am the holy and righteous One
There’s no other God besides me
That’s what happens when I am betrayed
And you pick from the forbidden tree.
Calvinism is such a bizarre thing in that I constantly wonder if I’ve maybe missed something within it - there’s a lot of big-hitters, as it were, in the Church that are Calvinists. Yet when I seriously think it through logically and go through each element, I get to a point where I’m seething with rage that people manage to believe it. It just seems such a contemptible set of ideas. And I especially have no time for the idea that God has zero obligations towards us and that he can just treat us like pieces within his own game, including predestining most people to hell, either actively or passively, with them being apparently unable to choose him, and then having the temerity to say that those people have nobody but themselves to blame.
Jonny,
Yes such a system can be quite frightening. It is for me anyway. It completely paralyzes me with fear and insecurity believing that most of the human race is going to suffer forever for not choosing Christ when they never had the ability to choose anyway. It says without Christ I can do nothing and that I am worthless. Well, I don’t believe that anymore. The system gets me to doubt myself and abilities also in it’s denial of free will. I believe more in myself today and I’m happier though not perfect. The happiness I need isn’t found in a book or guru. It comes from within. When I learn to love and have confidence in myself then I can love others from a position of power instead of insecurity. I turn to others out of a desire to share ideas - secure about who I am. I learn to be myself and make my own path instead of someone who wants to follow the path of someone else. I don’t like to follow a pattern already laid down for me. I like to make my own tune. Granted there are people who have helped me along the way. But there comes a time when I must grow up and fly on my own. It’s my time to shine. And I just hope that there will be someone there to help me in my landing.
My Universalism is a combination of the best of Arminianism and Calvinism. Calvinism, while rightly affirming of unconditional election, irresistible grace, God’s sovereignty, and the perseverance through the ages, Calvinism I take issue with because it turns our Father into a hideous avenging monster and denies the divine nature of love. Arminianism, while rightly affirming the divine nature of love, rejects our Father’s will and intention to bring the whole of creation- all things in earth, under the earth, above the earth and through the Earth back to our Father. If our Father fails to save even one of his children, then God is not truly God.
My Universalist TULIP looks like this:
Total Reconciliation
Unconditional election
Love of God
Irresistible Grace
Perseverance of God through the ages
Hey allsouls!
I wrote this awhile back. I’m pretty much in agreement with what you said in your post.
Over the weekend, I was invited to join my neighbor’s family and relatives for dinner. Most of the food was English - like Shepard’s pie. We talked about me as an Anglo-Catholic, liking the High Church worship style. They preferred the low church, bible church contemporary worship style. What was interesting was some men there majored in both philosophy and computer science, and had a good grounding in theology. One even knew French, so I have a potential language practice partner there. He just needs to swap Irish for Spanish though. So you can imagine we had much to talk about. John Calvin was brought up in passing and I mentioned my instant dislike for him, when I first encountered him. Luckily, nobody there found him a favorite theologian. Then I thought of Arthur Schopenhauer. He was rather pessimistic. Perhaps a good combination is embracing John Calvin in theology and Arthur Schopenhauer in philosophy? Run for the hills if you ever encounter that combination in a person.
That’s a lethal combination for sure, Randy. I almost got some projectile coffee on my monitor when you mentioned that Schopenhauer was ‘rather pessimistic’. 
For those that have not read Schopenhauer, reading him is more depressing than reading ‘Sinners in the hands of an angry God’. IMO.