Featured To Cals/Arms here on BB.. What is hardest Point to refute of each position held?

As a non-Cal I would say the nature of God's control over every detail is difficult. Will we say that tsunamis that wipe out hundreds of thousands of people are simply the effects of man's sin upon man, or will we blame God because he is in ultimate control of everything? The failure to answer this question well gives skeptics ammo. I was sharing with a lost guy over lunch today that brought up not this question but the question of God damning those "innocently ignorant" farming people in the countryside who never heard the good news to have a chance to respond to God. Some think this is a question that only educated Western Christians throw around during coffee breaks, but atheists born and bred in the far east think conjure up this stuff, too. BTW, I think God is drawing this man. I'll post something if his eternal status changes.

 

oops, sorry, I just noticed that you were the OP, not arbo...Sorry about that.

 

Okay, if God is not in control, then who is? I recommend you discover the answer to that question, then worship that.

Is "chance" in control? That is what the secular humanists worship...
Is "humanity" in control? Atheists worship that...
Is the devil in control? Satan worshippers worship that...
Is "nature" in control? All sorts of people worhip that...
Are the "elements" in control? Wiccans worship that...
Is some other god in control? MANY worship them...

Who is in control if God is not in control? Someone or something HAS to be in control for in the Bible we read of the end of the story... An end that is ALREADY fixed and which WILL come to pass -- or will you dispute that as well?

 

Complete this sequence;

1=3, 2=3, 3=5, 4=4, 5=4, 6=3, 7=5, 8=5, 9=4, 10=3, 11=?, 12=?

If you can solve this sequence, then you will know why it is difficult to refute Calvinism.

No cheating, this can be solved, see if you can do it.

 

11=3, 11=5 was my original guess....


I looked it up after I wrote this to see what the answer really is, but will keep quiet. Nice little puzzle.

 

Thank you JBH for keeping the answer secret. :thumbs:

Do you know why you could not solve it?

 

i was thinking about a pattern....


btw, I found someone else on the internet that came to the same answer as me. So I don't feel so bad.

 

The answer is number of letters in next number. Eleven has 6 and twelve has six.
I looked for a pattern as well, and found it in the spelling of the numbers. Puzzles are fun...



Two women were bringing a bull back to the zoo when their car broke down. They asked a man nearby to use his phone, he said "1 word = $1", but the girls only had $1. What was the word they said to get the zoo to collect the bull?

 

Wait a minute....you have choices....choices to commit evil or not, choices to sin or not. dont lay evil on the body of Christ & in the Mind of God & then say his plan will justify it....you just dont know it yet. That would make him your cosmic puppeteer & us the puppets.

Clearly in 1689 it sites God is NOT the author of evil & it is the creature that makes that decision to commit the evil. And just leave it there.

 

The point is, once a person has been conditioned to think a certain way, it is difficult to think any other way. It is really quite easy to refute all of Calvinism from scripture, but it is difficult to get a Calvinist to view scripture in the same way a non-Cal does, because they have been programmed or conditioned to interpret scripture a certain way. An example is the word "dead", a non-Cal will view it as separation from God, while a Cal will tend to view it more like physical death, therefore a person is unable to believe in the Calvinist mind.

Riddles expose this, riddles trick the mind into thinking a certain way which misleads, even blinds a person away from the answer. In the riddle I showed, most would see it as some sort of mathematical equation or formula. Most would not think of words or letters.

To be fair, all of us do this.

I guessed "Yours!" as the women telling the man they would just leave the bull there, who would then allow the women to talk all they wanted on the phone, then looked up the answer. I would have never thought of the correct answer.

 

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The problem is that Cals would say that the very fact that it is NOT easily refuted by scripture is the reason they hold to their views. You are correct that this goes both ways.

 

First, thanks for at least attempting to reconcile the rationale behind the thought instead of the more typical, "you are just stupid" or whatever response that we see around here.

Second, you assume that someone who is a Calvinist "must" be programmed, for there is no other way that they could see what they see in Scripture. Yet, I find that many of the avowed Calvinists on this board have a bunch more Bible education than do those who are not (not always, this is a generality). Yet, that means little to you.

Perhaps we "see" things because we process Scripture in formal ways that others cannot because they approach the Scriptures more from an emotional place than a place of scholarship and sound hermaneutics.

Please don't take my statement and run off with it with the old familiar refrain, "Calvinists are all haughty and think they are the only ones who can know anything..." That is not what I am saying. I am, however, saying that many of the arguments against the position do not compute when checked with Scripture, for God is preeminant in virtually every instance where choice is mentioned in the text. He always "arranges the choice" and invites the choice, which means that He has already decided to allow the choice, which is precisely what a Calvinist view stipulates (not the sterotype and strawman "fatalistic determinism" that is so often pressed forward as the Calvinistic view -- only "hyper" hold that, but you have argued before that we are all "hyper" which is mostly mean-spirited, and not scholarly in any sense).

That you think that there may be a "riddle" of perception involved can be said of both sides... And, your answer is incorrect to my own riddle. The answer is "comfortable" -- come-for-the-bull" -- which you could not see because you were looking for the answer to be contained in a single word instead of the fact that there was a deeper meaning within the word to be found -- my contention about Scripture illustrated.

Let's go back to the issue of a "programmed" view of the text.

I've actually read through the text in (now) 7 different tanslations and in the Hebrew and Greek. As I read, I have conditioned myself to examine the text for evidence pro and con for ALL of my theological positions, for the last thing I would want to do as a preacher of God's Word -- a position held by God as both worthy of "double honor" and also worthy of "double condemnation if I teach ascance of what God said" -- and so I WORK at the task of biblical interpretation as well as reading volumes of work by other expert scholars who have gone before so as to inform my reading and study.

What I find, overwhelmingly in the text is that God instigates EVERYTHING. For every verse where there is a choice presented, GOD presents the choice. Where there is a freedom allowed a free moral agent, there is a consequence of God that goes before that choice, and the choice is featured in Scripture to guide us in God's way rather than man's way, even though man's way is the illustration God uses.

Because we are in fact contingent beings, dependent on God for everything pertaining to life, and because there is no "higher" being, cause, rule, law, comandment, love, morality, wisdom, action, deed, thought, being, etc., etc., etc., than God, we also then, rightly, see God as the only possible instigator of a salvific event in the life of a human being separated from Him by the birth. It is not until a "rebirth" that we rejoin our God and remove the separation that exists between us. It is not the multitude of "sins" that separate us from God. It is the fact that we are born of a sinner, Adam, that separates us from God. We ARE Adam's progeny and we carry with us Adam's transgression. Because of our separation, we DO sin (commit sins) which further condem us, but as Christ told Nicodemus, "you are condemed already..." It takes no further action on our part.

I would be happy to go through the entire Bible, verse-by-verse to demonstrate that this is true if you like. Just start pasting in one verse at a time and we'll take the next 10 years and examine every passage. At the end of that time, I am fully convinced that my position will be the correct positon -- enough so that I am willing to take on the project! But, what I expect in return for my sincere effort to illuminate this issue is nothing more than another silly rebuttal and ad homenim attack. We'll see what happens next -- Scripture study or calling me "clueless" as is the case around here all too often of late.

 

I don't think Calvinists are stupid at all. I believe they are conditioned to perceive scripture so that it always supports Calvinism. I do not say that as an insult, just an observation.

It is actually education that conditions a Calvinist to perceive scripture to always support Calvinism. If all you study is Reformed authors, they will all give arguments to support Calvinism whether they are accurate or not. Some of these arguments are quite convincing.

Or perhaps with a more open and less conditioned mind.

I won't say that, though you know yourself it is often true.

No, I agree with you, that is why I posted a riddle in the first place. We must all be aware that our thought processes can be conditioned and controlled by what we are taught. I was taught that Original Sin was scriptural and believed it for many years. It seemed so simple and seemed to fit experience. But I constantly saw scripture that contradicted it. I had a great difficulty with this for a long time and did much study. Though very few here would agree with me, I have come to believe OS is false doctrine not taught at all in the Bible. I am sure you will disagree.

Well, what you and most other Calvinists cannot grasp due to training, is that non-Cals also believe that God institutes salvation. I wasn't walking along one day and said, "Hey, I think I'll seek God!". No, that is not how it happened for me or anyone else in the world. I heard about Jesus a few times as a boy when they took me to church. I remember attending a Vacation Bible school and hearing the scriptures as a boy. And the day I was saved I heard preaching from the Word of God that convinced me I was a sinner, and that Jesus died for my sins and rose again. If not for God's word, which I surely did not instigate myself, I could have never been saved. It was God's word that convicted me, it was God's word that told me of Jesus and enabled me to place my trust in him.

Non-Cals do not believe as you and others often portray them. We believe God instigated our salvation, and we believe only God can save. I came in trust to Jesus, but only God had the power to make me a son of God. I have no power at all.

Right. You really should not say ridiculous things you do not mean.

The fact that you are convinced you are right does not mean you are. The JWs are convinced they are right, the Muslims are convinced they are right, everybody is convinced they are right, but many are wrong.

Ever spend time with a JW or a Mormon? I have. And they are trained to have an answer for every scriptural objection you present them, just as Calvinists are. They all sound like parrots, because that is what they are. Very few can think "outside the box" because of their training and education.

That is why I said the great difficulty is not that Calvinism is easy to refute, it is extremely easy to refute from scripture. But the difficult part is to get someone to come out of that box they are enclosed in.

 

I'm calling you out Winman... Once and for all... EVERY TEXT OF SCRIPTURE IN ORDER FROM FIRST TO LAST. I don't care if it takes years and tens of thousands of posts. Let's look at EVERYTHING!

Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Verse 1 is all God with no free will whatsoever.

Gen 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Verse 2 is all God with no free will whatsoever.

Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

All God.

Gen 1:4 And God saw the light, that [it was] good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

All God.

Gen 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

All God.

Gen 1:6 ¶ And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

All God.

Gen 1:7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which [were] under the firmament from the waters which [were] above the firmament: and it was so.

All God.

Gen 1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

All God.

Gen 1:9 ¶ And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry [land] appear: and it was so.

All God.

Gen 1:10 And God called the dry [land] Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that [it was] good.

All God.

Gen 1:11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, [and] the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed [is] in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

All God -- and evidence that God is enacting His will into the future events of the living things so as to direct their actions.

Gen 1:12 And the earth brought forth grass, [and] herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed [was] in itself, after his kind: and God saw that [it was] good.

All God -- with the fulfillment of verse 1:11 according to God's will.

Gen 1:13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.

Historical information that does not confirm nor deny God's sovereignty nor any free will, save that the evening and morning were directed by God.

Gen 1:14 ¶ And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

All God -- with God setting in motion the actions of the heavenly bodies so that they could be measured and used to mark times and seasons according to His divine will.

Gen 1:15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

All God.

Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: [he made] the stars also.

All God.

Gen 1:17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

All God.

Gen 1:18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that [it was] good.

All God -- and God directed by His divine will to divide "light" from "darkness" which would later prove to be a "type" or "shadow" of the actions of His Son, Jesus.

Gen 1:19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

Historical information (see above).

Gen 1:20 ¶ And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl [that] may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

All God.

Gen 1:21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that [it was] good.

All God -- with God expressing His divine will as to the actions and reproduction of animals in this world, limiting their independent capability to will other than His directive.

Gen 1:22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

All God -- with a divine directive that is followed precisely to this moment in time (and presumably beyond).

Gen 1:23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

Historical information




So far, every single thing we've seen is ALL GOD and God's divine will expressed in the creation so as to cause His ex nihilo creation to obey His directives with no freedom of will whatsoever for its own directives.

Please go on. I am not afraid of what we will find... I expect that you might be...

 

OK, then explain this verse to me.

Jer 32:35 And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.

If man does not have a free will as you say, then how did the houses of Israel and Judah commit this gross sin of sacrificing their children to idols which God clearly says he did not command, neither did it come into his mind that they should do this?

Was it God's will that they should commit this sin?

 

First, yes, and it was no mystery to God. Your un-published assumption is that these people were okay with God before they did this sinful horrific act. They were not -- they were "already condemned."

Second, in order for that event to happen, God had to "permit" it by His absence. That does not mean that God LOVES THE IDEA that people will sin, but it DOES heap culpability onto those whom God would prefer do not. FOr a frame of reference, did God or did not God create a world where sinless people were created who were "very good" and is that not God's ultimate plan? The answer is, of course, yes, that is precisely what He did. Adam HAD a free choice to make, and he made it -- wrongly. Now, there is no free choice to make and though God wills that we all be returned to the state of Adam pre-fall, that is not now possible because of a Law of God that condemns sin. So, God wills that the sinner die, and so they do, but that does not over-ride the larger move of God to bring about a world where there is no longer sin and where no one ever dies again -- which He is indeed bringing about. His perfect will.

Third, one has to back up in the text a bit to gain a context for this passage. Earlier in the life of these people they had opportunity and did walk with God. God made it clear what His will was on the issue. They violated God's positive will and thus suffer God's absence of will and absence of presence forever.

Let's go back to the verse by verse exposition. I want to demonstrate that GOD is what GOD says He is and that human free moral agency plays such a small role in God's will as to be of no consequence. Are you so afraid to look verse-by-verse that you must "cherry pick" difficult passages to make your point?

 

Not true at all The ESV was taken from the NA27 wich is based on a discredited version of the greek text and it is far from word for word.

I didn't have to refute you . You did that well enough for your self.
MB

 

You nor I have the time to go through the whole Bible.

Now you speak of human free moral agency, before you seemed to deny free will altogether.

And of course I will pick difficult verses for Calvinism (and there are many), I said before that Calvinism is very easy to refute with scripture.

I prefer to stick to this verse for now.

Question #1- If God had ordained or decreed these sacrifices to take place (as he must in Calvinism), why does God say he never commanded these sacrifices and that they never came into his mind? Isn't a decree defined as a royal command?

Question #2- Why would God strongly deny any involvement in this sin if he had decreed and ordained they should take place? How can that be possible?

Question #3- Could these sacrifices have occurred if God had not ordained and decreed they should take place?

Question #4- If these sacrifices must have been ordained and decreed to take place, doesn't that mean it was God's will the house of Israel and Judah should commit this sin?

You said you would answer any challenge, answer these questions.

 

The textual source has nothing to do with being word for word. word for word has to do with translational style. The ESV is usually put right around the kjv as far as being word for word.


But anyway, going to leave the KJVO stuff to the kjv section. Nothing between the translations changes a thing with the meaning of the verse.

Sure. I gave a very sound exegesis of the last part of chapter 2 and the first part of chapter 3 and you have nothing else to say. Very well. Nice cop out. It's interesting that you have no answer so you resort to this type of chatter. Why don't you show where my exegesis went off at?

Here it is again for you

Verses 11-13 deal with the Spirit is the one that understand the things of God. It's not our natural spirit, nor the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God.

In verse 14, Paul says that the natural man cannot accept the things of the Spirit of God. It is foolish and he cannot understand. This is contrasted with the person who has the Spirit. He can understand because he has the Spirit.

In chapter 3, Paul is speaking to believers. He calls them "brothers." He says he could not address them as spiritual people because they were acting like people of the flesh or "infants in Christ." These are immature believers.

When we are saved, we receive the Spirit and are able to understand spiritual things. This doesn't mean that we are now perfect as clearly noted in chapter 3.