Calvinism -TULIP

Of course God chose not to make them sinless and in harmony with his maker. Are you trying to say that had God tried to do this that he would have failed due to the power of man's sin? This is what is wrong with your false god. He is impotent to effectively save the elect. I am glad that the true God of the Bible is sovereign in all matters, including salvation.

Joseph Botwinick

 

The whosoevers are the elect of God. Otherwise, everyone would be saved. It is obvious that this is not going to happen. BTW, it is the arminian open theists who have limited the Gospels to the free will choice of lost sinners who are at emnity with God who would never choose Christ of their own accord.

Joseph Botwinick

 

Actually, what it means is that those who are saved are those who will to be saved and follow Christ. The big question that seperates arminians from the Bible is why some people will to follow Christ and others don't. The Bible teaches that it is because we are born again by the grace of God that we accept Jesus by faith and until then, we are at emnity with God. Arminians base their salvation on the goodness of their own free will choice. They believe in prevenient grace, which basically says that God gives everyone enough grace to be saved and the ability to choose it on their own. The only problem is that prevenient grace is no grace at all because it is based on the righteousness of the sinner. Grace is something that is freely given to us despite the fact that we are worthless sinners.

Joseph Botwinick

 

Nice premise, but it assumes that God must have made Hitler the way he was just to damn him. And the whole doctrine based on a total misreading of Romans 9 as a textbook lesson on "why individuals are lost". Nobody can explain the ways God works completely, and we all have theories and interpretations as to how God's timeless perspective and our perspective fit together, but all one side does is claim it has the absolute answer (that people are lost because God passed them over to be created for Hell, and makes this the central "question" of the Bible that "separates Arminians") and THEN proclaim it is "too much for us to comprehend" when people question that.
Sorry, but that is not enough ground to be always accusing the other side of "having a weak ineffectual god". (And let's not forget how Calvinists screamed high holy "mischaracterization" at Dave Hunt, who said nowhere near these kinds of things unless throwing Calvinist jabs back at them).

And Calvinists can and do boast, because if God "chose" me and not you, then what was it about me that made Him choose me? You can say "just His mercy" or again, "we can't know", but there still must have been something about me, for Him to choose me instead of that other; unless He was just drawing names out of a hat.
While maybe not boasting of goodness or merit or (directly) of being "better" than another, the boasting comes in the form of the "rub it in" approach to the lost (from the "My Testimony" thread):

And when you consider that if he dies without Christ, it is because God deliberately passed him over (and still "held him accountable"--as if He could have repented); it basically is rubbing their reprobation or preterition (in contrast to your election) in their face. Calvin even admitted this was just "imprecation". And again, it rips Romans 9 out of its context (God's raising of Israel--whose Christ-rejecting state Pharaoh was a type of; not a type of every person who dies without Christ--to prepare for Christ and the redeemed).

Many advocate just this; like it was Spurgeon or Edwards who said that God creates these people for Hell just for our pleasure so we can glorify God. There is nothing in the Gospel message that anywhere closely resembles that. (Unless read into certain texts). That's what you're looking forward to?

Then, further into Calvinism:

Calvin did have a clause in his teachings that God gives "reprobates" a false faith so He could take it away, and thus fulfill "His will" that they be lost. (And with this, salvation is by works/merit after all; only it is God who "enables" us to do them) This right here should make people who like to gloat about others going to Hell think twice, because some Calvinists have even admitted that their faith could be false, and they won't know for sure until they have "preserevered to the end with good works". So as much as you all have argued over OSAS, they ultimately believe the same thing as you! At least in your scheme, it wasn't God who ordained (scripted) them to fail (and not even know about it).
This blows the whole "total depravity" thing and its rationale out the window, because they insist that God is "not refusing anyone who wants to be saved; they are all running from God according to their own desires"; yet we see Him deliberately moving to trip people up so they would be lost. Now many Calvinists don't accept that. But those who do could accuse them of "rejecting things they don't like" just like they say about the Arminians. By the time all of this is finished; there is no "Good News" for anyone, at all!

 

Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I would of gathered you together and ye would not. must of had a choice!!!

 

I firmly believe Romans 7 is about the normal Christian life.

 

If you really want to know anything about calvinism go to www.monergism.com they have enough there to last you a lifetime.

 

You have to note though that Paul was writing that epistle to people in the church who had professed faith in Christ. Mankind has NO excuse whether they do have faith or not.

 

Define "excuse".

Hitler did not excuse the Jews - he slaughtered them. To say that the Jews had no recourse - no retort for Hitler is not quite the same thing as saying that they had no excuse for not giving up their heritage.

A man blind from birth has an excuse for not seeing.

 

Romans 1:18 - 3:20.

 

Romans 1 makes the case that they are without excuse BECAUSE God ENABLES them to see - because God CONVICTS the World of sin and righteousness and judgment -- because God MAKES them know what is sin - BECAUSE God ENABLES them to turn from it - "but they would not".

"OH HOW I WANTED to save your children BUT YOU would not!"

 

Amen to that! I was especially going to recommend Gill's commentary. I've only used two different commentaries. One of them was Matthew Henry. Then I discovered Gill. Wish I had it all along. There is a link to many commentaries, even Wesley's, at monergism.com.

 

Gill is good. I have his and Matthew Henry's commentaries on e-Sword. I wouldn't recommend Welsey as a whole, I deplore his theology. He does have a few good points, but other than that, nope.

 

No, it makes the case that with all of this we see and know, we SHOULD know that there is a God who made this all, and we should thank Him, but because our sinful selfish minds are totally against such a thought, we can't do that which we should. We will not because we can't, because it's not in our nature.

 

I heard that so much I am ill.

Anyone ever see that in the Bible.

 

Bob, before Christ we are dead - not sick - in our sins.

Oh how far many Baptists have strayed from their heritage. It's really sad.

 

Spiritually dead, not physically dead. Dead in this case means separated from life.

 

God "DRAWS ALL mankind unto Him" John 12:32.

Christ is the "Light that coming into the world ENLIGHTENS EVERY man" John 1.

EVEN by Calvinist standards this ENABLES ALL that depravity DISABLES.

So it is always amazing to me that Calvinists play this game with Arminians "Hey no way mankind can accept salvation - too depraved, too dead in sins".

Yet they circle back to this point time after time - all the while knowing that it contradicts their own doctrinal argument about what is ENABLED for those who are DRAWN by God.

In Christ,

Bob

 

How is it that "the dead see and know"??

I see "CAN't do that"....

The man born blind has no excuse for not seeing???

You are using doublespeak.

In Romans 1 "They are without excuse...FOR The INVISIBLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD ARE CLEARLY SEEN in those things that have been MADE"

You are argument above is "COULD have been clearly seen by the living but ARE NOT clearly seen because the dead CAN NOT see".

The Calvinist spin on this is the opposite of the text of Romans 1.

#1. EVEN Calvinism ADMITS that the DRAWING of God ENABLES all that depravity DISABLES. So you are dodging the real point by circling back on this as if you believe the ENABLING of God in His DRAWING of all mankind is "insufficient" to have them "see".

#2. God states in Gen 3 for ALL mankind "I will put enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent" - from the very beginning the Gospel supernaturally inserts the enabling against sin that is required for sinners to SEE and to choose.

In Christ,

Bob