Featured 7 point Calvinism

Please cite both decrees for those do not know.

 

I have already

 

Westminster Confession
CHAPTER 3
Of God’s Eternal Decree
God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin; nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.

Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass, upon all supposed conditions; yet hath He not decreed any thing because He foresaw it as future, as that which would come to pass, upon such conditions.

By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death.
These angels and men, thus predestinated and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed; and their number is so certain and definite that it can not be either increased or diminished.

My note: Seems Calvinists believe everything is totally predetermined.

 

It's interesting that naturalistic atheists believe in total predestination. Every molecule is directed by an unintelligent natural selection set in motion billions of years ago. Not one thing has free will. Not one atom or molecule. All actions are predetermined by the force of nature. Even the arguments people have are determined by nature.

Now, would you rather God not exist and nature were in control, or do you desire that God be in control? Or, do you want yourself to be in control?

 

Where?

 

Look for it, cant you read ?

 

So I can't tell if this was posted in agreement with my point or not.

One thing that all of those who call themselves Christian have in common is that they do give lip service to a belief in the bible.

Guess what - the bible doesn't teach everything that every brand of Christian teaches. In fact, the bible doesn't teach quite a lot of what most Christians believe and even divide themselves over. The whole reformation itself was very nearly 100% about a bunch of stuff that the Catholics were teaching that flat out isn't in the bible at all and so virtually all of those who would identify as "protestant" give lip service to not just believing in the bible but it's "ultimate authority" and "rule of faith" and yet there are a dozen or more flavors of just the Baptists alone and almost all of them hold to Augustine's theology proper which he imported from the Classics (i.e. Plato and Aristotle).

Also, I wasn't really directly pointing my comments at main stream Christian sects anyway. Most of them do at least try to figure out a way to make some sort of biblical reference when they're defending their doctrine, even if it requires completely ignoring the context. What I was think of, in particular, are all the cults. David Koreshes followers still believe two things, that they are Christians and that David Koresh was the Messiah - insanity! Mormons all believe themselves to be Christians. Christian Scientists put "Christian" right in the name of their cult! Jim Jones started as a Christian pastor and The People's Temple, if you asked those who belonged to it, would have all told you that they were Christians the day before they poisoned their children and committed mass suicide. And ALL of them give lip service to the bible!

There is no other major religion that has that sort of thing going on. Sure, there's all kinds of different flavors of Islam (just to pull one out at random) but I don't know of any that give mere lip service to the Koran. They may disagree about how to interpret it but there isn't any such thing as a David Koresh equivalent in the ranks of the Islamic faith, where some guy just want to preach whatever he likes and still call himself a Muslim. It just doesn't happen.

Same goes for Taoism and Hinduism, although I have to admit that it's a less meaningful thing to say about them because they are pantheistic religions. The point here is that there are no self proclaimed Taoists that believe Jesus is the Messiah but there are gobs of people who call themselves Christian who believe that God is in all things.

 

And you believe in the god of Socrates and couldn't debate your way out of a wet paper bag.

If my God is so small and I listen to hacks then you should be able to refute my arguments easily. But all you've got is insult and personal opinion.
Your know-it-all god must surely be wiser than my "small" God and so it should be a simple matter for you to show us all where I am wrong. Show us where and why what I've said is false.

YOU WILL NOT EVEN MAKE THE SLIGHTEST ATTEMPT TO DO SO!!!

You make a totally unsupported and unfalsifiable claim to have "heard stories about Augustine's conversion" and that I'm the only one who believes what I say and in response, I lay out the history in Augustine's own words with specific references to the source material itself. You respond to that by pretending I didn't present any of it and instead start through out insults and lying about my having taken the word of hacks as facts.

Not that I'm surprised. This is the normal mode of very nearly every Calvinist I've ever encountered. You do not debate because you loose when you do. Instead, you take a page from Saul Alinsky. Hope you're proud of yourself! I know I'd be embarrassed.

 

But not Presbyterianism!

The Calvinist version of God's sovereignty is not a Presbyterian distinctive! Lutherans believe it, most Baptists believe it and Calvin taught it. It's Calvinism, not Presbyterianism. You're the only person I've ever encountered in thirty years of debating this stuff that have even tried to make such a claim.

I couldn't care less about what one particular flavor of Reformed Baptists do or do not affirm! They can be as rationally inconsistent as they desire to be. When one doesn't mind being irrational, no one care whether you're consistent or not, right?

If so, one would wonder why they call themselves "Reformed"!

Here's the facts...
Reformed Baptist conform themselves to The London Baptist Confession of Faith, which states....

Of Justification
1 Those whom God effectually calleth, he also freely justifieth, not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for
Christ’s sake alone; not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing Christ’s active obedience unto the whole law, and passive obedience in his death for their whole and sole righteousness, they receiving and resting on him and his righteousness, by faith, which faith they have not of themselves; it is the gift of God.

2 Faith thus receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification; yet it is not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love.

3 Christ, by his obedience and death, did fully discharge the debt of all those that are justified; and did, by the sacrifice of himself in the blood of his cross, undergoing in their stead the penalty due unto them, make a proper, real, and full satisfaction h to God’s justice in their behalf; yet, inasmuch as he was given by the Father for them, and his obedience and satisfaction accepted in their stead, and both freely, not for anything in them, their justification is only of free grace, that both the exact justice and rich grace of God might be glorified in the justification of sinners.

4 God did from all eternity decree to justify all the elect, and Christ did in the fullness of time die for their sins, and rise again for their justification; nevertheless, they are not justified personally, until the Holy Spirit doth in time due actually apply Christ unto
them.
​

5 God doth continue to o forgive the sins of those that are justified, and although they can never fall from the state of justification, yet they may, by their sins, fall under God’s fatherly displeasure; and in that condition they have not usually the light of his countenance restored unto them, until they r humble themselves, confess their sins, beg pardon, and renew their faith and repentance.

6 The justification of believers under the Old Testament was, in all these respects, one and the same with the justification of believers under the New Testament.​

Sound like Calvinism to me! And that's just one section. The whole document is Calvinism from beginning to end.

Anyone can talk out of both sides of their mouth if they desire to do so. Primitive Baptists don't like to be called Calvinists but it isn't because they discard hardly any of his doctrine aside from infant baptism and they very much do hold to all five points of the Calvinist "TULIP" doctrines.They are Calvinists in practically everything but what they call themselves.

 

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There are some 130 posts on this thread.

You are either incapable or too lazy.

One set of references.

 

I've read that very expression from more than one hardcore Calvinist on this board.

 

You have to understand that the idea that there are no "rogue molecules" anywhere outside the sovereignty of God is nothing more than standard Christian doctrine if you believe that God is all knowing. Because if he knows, then if it happens he a least allowed it to happen and could have stopped it. So a Calvinist says it was at least "ordained".
There are plenty of Calvinists, maybe most, who say God meticulously causes every molecule to move and every minute event at all times and that he is the principle cause of every single action. The WCF is carefully worded to avoid going that far and also directly says God is not the author of evil.

If you agree God knows everything then it is in no way a stretch to say he's sovereign or that he ordains everything. But it is true that some Calvinists go way further.

 

Dave, I like how you put this. Yes, God is aware of every molecule. He has ordered nature with laws and reactions of which He, the master planner, has established. Such laws function as designed and God is aware of any malfunction in that design and the consequent results.

 

386 Augustine Converts to Christianity

 

You should've been keeping up with the thread and reading it.

 

Point one, Total depravity.
Point two, Unconditional election.
Point three, Limited atonement.
Point four, Irresistible grace.
Point five, Perseverance of the saints.
Point six,
Point seven,