Calvinism Critiqued by a Former Calvinist

It's not JesusFan's fault that Calvinism is so convoluted and confusing.

 

Yes...Exactly.....in this we can find the most agreement on...this alone will lead to truth....
:thumbsup::thumbsup:
Most arguments here are not about the actual teaching...but rather deliberate,or ignorant twisting of a persons view.

This is mostly accurate....because having looked at it...and rejecting it as error..many do not want to keep these false thoughts in our mind...buj delete these false ideas like a computer clean-up file deletes unnecessary mb.
Another reason is...arminianism gets stomped on discussion boards...so no one admits to being one....they call themselves everything but :laugh:

Ah ..yes...but just put on your local am radio or religious tv broadcast to hear that error all the time!

I think you are being as honest about it as you can be here.That is a most noble thing to do.....and yet i know we will soon be disagreeing about one thing or another.

That is a good word for each person here....sooner or later it will lead to truth.

 

MATT.

JF is on the right track...but posts very casually...that seems to be his style.

Calvinism is a long distance race...not a sprint....it takes time to learn and work through all 66 books to get the picture to clear up....most of us who profess that belief are still learning....we all still mis-speak and make mistakes......Matt....try not to jump on our words...look at the teaching and the God who gave the teaching.... you might find that you also come to believe it

Ps...i think JF will understand what I am saying to Him.....wording is important....in another post i think you offered that we turn on each other...but that is not so.
We do not mind being scripturally corrected,and it should not be looked upon as putting someone down...to instruct ,admonish, rebuke,encourage....thats what the one anothering verses are about;

 

Close, the inverse of exponential functions is logarithmic functions. Calculus by the way is the mathematics of the infinitesimal. See you do know some calculus.

 

Initially, this looked like a good analogy. But then I thought about it some more, and wondered at the correlation. Seems like you need to re-arrange this analogy; the correlation appears to be that people consider God to be like dirt and sin to be like steak. That would actually beg the question, why do the unchosen think God is like dirt?

On the other hand, if you re-arrange it to steak (God) or dirt (sin), and you choose dirt; it kind of starts to fall flat.

In theory, the analogy works; but upon closer examination, it brings up questions. So some explanation as to why the unchosen would have no desire for "the better thing" would help....

 

Who made you a sinner? Don't you believe from the moment of conception you were a sinner? Was this your doing?

A proper analogy would be a man programming a robot so that it can only choose A. Then you offer the robot a choice of A or B. The robot can only choose A, because that is how it was programmed.

Now, who is the cause of why the robot cannot choose B? Is it the robot, or the programmer?

 

Iconoclast, I am not a calvinist and I cherish the works of John Owen.

Holiness, Communion with God, etc...

HankD

 

yes they did. If I give you this option and I give another person this option, you both have a choice. Because I plead with you to choose the steak and don't with the other person doesn't change the fact that there is still a choice.

 

Hank I too am no calvinist, but I enjoy reading NT Wright.

 

It's a perfect analogy. It was only showing about our desires and our choices based on our desires. To the unsaved, they don't have any desire for God like I have no desire to eat dirt. You could insert anything you like there, but the point still remains the same, the unsaved, initially, have no desire to come to Christ.

We always choose what we want with the options available to us. Every single decision that you make is based on your desires. Now, you are in an alley and someone points a gun to you and asks for all your money. You don't really want to give him your money, but your choices isn't about money. It's about living and so you give him your money to live. We always choose what we want in any given situation.

 

Being offered a choice is not the real issue, it is a deflection from the real issue.

As I explained with my robot analogy, you believe everyone is born a sinner through no fault of their own. You did not choose to be a sinner in your system.

You were also born hardwired or programmed so that you could not desire God or be willing to believe.

The cause would be that person who programmed you so that you always choose against God. Therefore, God would be responsible for your sin.

It doesn't matter that you are offered a choice, because God programmed you to always choose sin.

 

No, men go to hell because of their sin. Let's look at it this way. If God never offered any mercy. Jesus never died on the cross. Why would men go to hell? It would be because of their sin. It's the just punishment for sin. So if God decided to only save one person, it would still be because of sin. That doesn't change. God has called all men to repent and believe. If man does this, he will be saved by the grace of God. Every single believer will be saved. Those that are in hell are there because they are a sinner and they have rejected God.

 

Straw man, not going to waste my time with it again. And don't say it's not a straw man, it is.

 

You know better. You know it is a very accurate analogy of what Calvinism teaches.

 

Its really not, and is a solid point. Identifying the first cause is anything but a strawman.

 

It's not accurate. God doesn't keep anyone from believing. Winman has a habit of using straw man arguments. (now, there are some that would believe that and his illustration would be valid, but he knows that I don't believe that way and thus, straw man).

 

It's a lousy analogy, and here's why: you compare dirt and steak, and desire for one and no desire for the other--without regard for the reason why there's no desire for it. Is it because we know it's dirt, and tastes like dirt, and will not be fulfilling? Or do we not desire it for some unknown reason? The analogy only works if we understand why we don't want the dirt and prefer the steak. The logical assumption of your analogy is that we understand the difference between dirt and steak, and that's why we have no desire for the dirt.

The premise of calvinism is that man has no knowledge and no understanding of the difference between God and the path of sin we are already on. That man, in his spiritually dead state, has no ability to discern between the "dirt" that is his current condition, and therefore cannot desire the better thing.

And that's why your analogy fails. I was trying to be nice about it in my first post, but you didn't want to accept that there were flaws. Unfortunately, there are no perfect analogies.

 

Sorry, but my anology isn't lousy. It's purpose as with any anology is to show a point. That's what I did. It had nothing to do with why one didn't like something. It was only showing the desires. Please stop trying to read into it anymore than what I stated. Again, its ONLY to show that you have no desire for something, not why you don't have a desire for something.

That's because you are taking my analogy beyond the point I was making. It was to show you about desires and that our choices are based on our desires. Nothing more. It had nothing to do with why you didn't like dirt or why you did like steak.

 

It has everything to do with why you didn't like the dirt or why you like the steak. By using those specific items, you create a known quantity; of course I'll choose steak over dirt, because I already know, or have been taught all my life, not to eat dirt. So it starts with a presupposition that doesn't accurately reflect the premise of calvinism, and therefore is not an accurate analogy to use in support of calvinism.

 

It's my anology. It has nothing to do with it. Again, my anology that I was using to demonstate a point that was asked by me. You don't determine what I mean by my anology. It has nothing to do with why because I wasn't discussing why.

I wasn't using it to support Calvinism but using it to support why we choose the things we choose. Change dirt to something else if that helps you understand it better. Make it an ugly box and has a billion dollars in side. you reject it because you think it's an ugly box, but really it's not. Again, that was NOT my point. My point was simply to show desires and the connection to our choices, not why we have certain desires or anything else. I understand what you are saying, but I wasn't trying to illustrate that.