a comparison

First - you keep stating Arminianism is this and that. Please define what you mean by Arminian because it apparenlty is not in accordance with it natural and predifined meaning.

Second - it is a dotrine that has been around since the early church was started by Jesus and held to by many of the early church Fathers, even Augustine in his early years.

Thrid - If it was such a "deviant doctrine" why pray tell, did they agree not long thereafter (regarding years) to allow that devient doctrine back in and preached in their providences. They could actaully come back and teach the "devientness" without fear of being put to death.

That is kinda an amazing thing though, to hold to something that is supposed to be a lie in spite of the fact your brother in the Lord would jail you and or could take your life over it.

 

"It [scripture] speaks in one place of man's free will as though there is no election. In another place, it speaks of election as though there were no free will. Thus it teaches us that we must hold fast to both of these truths alongside each other, even when we cannot understand them or make them harmonize. In the light of eternity, the solution of the mystery will be given. He who grasps both in faith will speedily experience how little they are in conflict. He will see that the stonger his faith is in God's everlasting purpose, the more his courage for work will be strengthened. While on the other hand, the more he works and is blessed, the clearer it will become that all is of God."_______Andrew Murray

 

Rom 8:6 The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7 the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. 8 Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.

Man is controlled by the sinful nature and cannot submit to God. Man is totally depraved, there is no 'if' donnA.

Hello Steven.

I don't know who Andrew Murray is but I would not listen to a man that believes we must hold a contradiction as truth, equally believing a 'can' and 'cannot'.

There is no mystery but a refusal to believe God's word. God said, "Man must not reach out his hand and live for ever." Free will was shot in the head at the beginning of the bible.

Gen 3:22 And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." 23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.

One can reach God and one cannot reach God is just that, an unresolvable conflict. The logic is damaging to the good name of Christianity, it's laughable.

john.

 

By grace. That is what grace is. Different theologies formulate it differently, but it is always initially God reaching out to man, not man reaching out to God.

 

Cool donnA.


Hello Allan.

ECC 1:9 What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

Calvinism is tolerant towards others on the whole. The Reformers fought and died so men did not have to believe what they were told to believe. Once secure religious tolerance is a norm for Calvinism. We didn't slaughter the Catholics in England when they fell from power even though we had the means and their addresses.

We still have anti-Catholic laws. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/547220.stm

john.

 

Thanks Jerome

This old post by Jerome is intended for POB and Allan as a reminder.It's fitting also that today is the anniversary of John Calvin's birth.

 

This has nothing to do with me

 

Then respectfully, you were taught incorrectly about "Arminianism."

Blessings,

JDale

 

Enabling [prevenient] grace.

JDale

 

Arminianism pays lip service to TD. In actual practice fallen humans still have the native ability to turn to Christ any time they put their will-power to it.

 

Rip:

You and I have covered this ground on other threads in the past. Suffice it to say that we will not agree.

How you [mis]characterize Arminianism, however, remains dead wrong. Instead of fighting Arminianism, which DOES INDEED affirm Total Depravity, you might want to spend more time fighting the very real "semi-pelagianism" that infects almost ALL Evangelical churches these days. It is OFTEN falsely labelled "Arminianism" by those speaking out of ignorance, or else those who have a theological axe to grind and purposefully misrepresent it as such.

By going after the real misunderstandings and misrepresentations of semi-pelagianism, you could do both your Calvinist and Arminian brothers in Christ a huge favor.

Or don't you count Arminians as brothers in Christ?

JDale

 

To Rip:
His views on the atonement show a distinctive difference from Institutes to his commentaries on certain passages. This does not discount those passages in which he speaks of a specific or limited view in certain places as well.

I know he advocated Particular atonement but there is a multitude of evidence in his commenataries which show Christ died for all men everywhere as well and in other places he states that Christ died for the elect. It isn't my problem that he wrote it nor is it my problem he was at least willing to show scripture disagreed with his position at times.
Such as shown here is a thread started Jarthur001 about Calvin on John 3:16
One can not get around his statements like these:

Before I go on I do state that J.Calvin does believe that faith is a gift given by God and that faith is not given to all men. However, in order for life to be available to all or that he can invite all indiscriminately to partake of life, then something had to be done in order that these kind of statements might be true. Or even statements like God being 'reconciled to the whole world by inviting "all men without exection".
That is here:

Question: What must be done in order for God to be reconciled to a person or people? Is it not the atonement??
How then is God reconciled to the whole world without an atoning sacrifice???

But this is only from John 3:16. I am not and have not stated that John did not believe in particular atonement but it is apparent he also could not deny that God does love the human race and that God being reconciled to the whole world is able to offer life to every person indiscriminately. John contends that only those whom God gives faith to will come to life in Christ but that does not dismiss nor invalidate these statements he sets forth many times in his commentaries.

 

"In his expositions [John Calvin] is not always what moderns would call Calvinistic; that is to say, where Scripture maintains the doctrine of predestination and grace he flinches in no degree, but inasmuch as some Scriptures bear the impress of human free action and responsibility, he does not shun to expound their meaning in all fairness and integrity. He was no trimmer and primer of texts."
---Charles Spurgeon