Question for Arminians. What is so hard to "swallow" about Calvinism?

Well then PBs are wrong. I don't know any other way to say it. As Pete, a Calvinist, has pointed out Salvation is conditional. I know Pastor Larry, another Calvinist, has said the same. Election, in the Calvinistic system is unconditional, not salvation. No one can be saved apart from faith, therefore faith IS A CONDITION.

 

Nick, no more so than you can take pride in the fact that you have made the right choice as to whether you are a Calvinist or an Arminian.

 

by Skandelon

Well, then, no. It will be the Calvinists and the Arminians in the same wrong boat on this one.
The PB's have it right.
If any part of our eternal salvation was attached to a condition on which the fulfillment depends on man's ability, there can be no saved person at all.
Conditional salvation falls flat in the face of Total Depravity.

 

Well, then, no. It will be the Calvinists and the Arminians in the same wrong boat on this one.
The PB's have it right.
If any part of our eternal salvation was attached to a condition on which the fulfillment depends on man's ability, there can be no saved person at all.
Conditional salvation falls flat in the face of Total Depravity. </font>[/QUOTE]PB,

Does someone have to believe Christ is the Son of God to be saved?

 

Clearly the negative that Calvinism is trying to avoid is the notion that one spec of indepent free thought might actually happen in the mind of a lost person as they accept what God offers. This spec of thought might be construed into "a work" that in fact is added in some way to the infinite price God paid for the sins of the World.

Certainly they have gone through great "revisionist" lengths to avoid that spec of danger.

On the other hand -- the "risk" that the Arminian is trying to avoid is - two-part.

#1. Denying the scriptures where GOD says of HIMSELF that HE is not willing for any to perish and HE "so loved the WORLD"..

#2. Painting God as the author of evil, as arbitrary and as unreasoned and untrustworthy in His claims to Love the World. (Always having to cover for his grandeous statements by watering them down to the "arbitrarily select FEW of Matt 7" when He makes them).

So in fact - both groups have a risk - a problemn that they are trying to avoid.

It is left as an exercise for the reader to compare the risks.

In Christ,

Bob

 

A parable

A man quit his job and took severance pay, payment for his accumulated vacation days, etc.

Then he signed the check.

Then he went to small claims court to ask for an additional few minutes of time to be paid him for the time he spent endorsing and cashing the check. "For", he claimed in court, "Small and insignificant tho it was, it was actually work . . "

The company rep replied it might have been work but it didn't count because HE WAS OFF the CLOCK!

The judge, of course, ruled it was absurd to claim that cashing a check is work "FOR THE COMPANY" and therefore tossed out the claim.

In like manner, Paul links our salvation to grace and points out that our works would rightly earn us death instead of life.

But when we accept God's free gift - the mere "acceptance" of that gift is NOT A WORK. Because we are "off the clock" and we are not doing a good deed for Christ, we are instead accepting His good deed for us.

 

I'm not saying faith is a work, but I have to say that your reasoning to prove it isn't a work reminds me more of the expression "off your rocker" than "off the clock".

 

As this section of the board points out -- there are two primary difficulties in accepting Calvinism.

#1. First and foremost is the problem that the Bible itself "appears to be an arminian text". This is pretty clear in the repeated examples of Calvinists having to constantly "re-translate" and revise the text as it points to the Arminian position in the plain reading of it.

#2. The second is that the future Calvinist scenrio (and others) point out that Calvinism paints a very negative and arbitrary view of God as if "that is a good thing".

Here is what I mean... (A scenario I came up with a few years ago that illustrates some key Calvinist fundamentals in a context where we are not "allowed the luxury" of disconcern for the lost)

In Christ,

Bob