Sounds like a very nice and typical rebirthing (as in born again) denialist’s response. ; - )
It looks like you missed this discussion last year…
…but you did reply in this one:
I’m sorry you do not have a Father you can count on.
When I taught through Hebrews a few years back I never felt the need to water down the warnings or rob them of their sting. The purpose of a warning is to warn others away from a certain course. The “danger unstable cliff edge” sign is intended to stop people going near the cliff, heeding the warning shows it is effectual. The warnings in Hebrews are shown to be effectual, when Christians, empowered by the Spirit, heed the warnings. That is true whether one is Calvinist or Arminian, or none of the above.
The ultimate proof of whether one’s faith is genuine, after all, is not whether we prayed a pray once, walked an isle, or can repeat the Institutes verbatim, but if we are trusting in Christ as we take our final breath. And that is true whether one is a Calvinist or Arminian, or none of the above too:
We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end. (Hebrews 3:14 NIV2011)
So you believe what you like, but don’t believe for one second that people falling away from the faith doesn’t keep Calvinists up at night. We got questions for the man upstairs too, just different questions. Heck, maybe not that different. Some of us even have emotions… hard as that is to believe.
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We all die, and from a strictly materialistic perspective, we’re just bags of meat, so what’s the big deal how or when anyone lives or dies? From a Christian’s perspective, even though I weep, I have to humbly trust that my Father is perfect in his justice. Last time I checked, that is synonymous with being fair.
Maybe we are talking past one another but from my perspective in the analogy, it’s impossible to actually fall off the cliff (salvation) for some. The warnings are just empty gestures as it’s all predestined. I’m not sure how a mature Adam or a tree with rings makes God out to be deceptive but this doesn’t.
Calvinists are just locked into bad intellectual presuppositions where the Bible is treated like a theological encyclopedia and its genre is misunderstood. The Bible contradicts itself over and over again on free will/election. Calvinism is akin to nihilism to me but Calvinists are certainly people created in the image of God.
Calvinists should be staying up late at night at the notion of a God who predestines people for eternal torment. I’d recommend seeking a mental health professional for anyone who doesn’t find that unsettling. It is contrary to the nature of Jesus and God as I understand them, which settles the issue for me. Thus, I’ll prioritize the scripture that says God desires all to be saved and emphasizes free will. I don’t take any language of election literally. All cultural idioms for how God was understood at the time. Just like I don’t think God is personally responsible every single time disaster befalls a city, despite what Amos says.
Vinnie
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The eye opener is understanding you deserve to go to hell.
I can respect people on both sides of the debate, and I like how Keener summarizes the warnings in Revelation irregardless of whether you are a Calvinist or an Arminian.
I don’t know how you get around revoking adoption and becoming unbirthed.
Continuing the discussion from Spinoff: Law vs. Grace?:
Well, I think that we can go too far the other way. I’ve met folks who were so Arminian that they were always on tenterhooks about whether they would lose their salvation or not. They wound up actually finding relief as Calvinists.
I think that Hebrew hyperbole has some role–and we all do see through a glass, darkly.
Thanks.
Maybe part of what we really understand about God controlling things is that we really don’t have that much control over things–and He knows that, and gives us grace.
Thanks.
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While it’s not always so easy to tell from the outside, for the person who totally fails to follow Jesus, it means for the Calvinist they were not actually born again. And for the Arminian, they lost their salvation.
I seem to remember there is a close parallel between Hebrews 6 and the parable of the sower and the seeds. So these warnings are not for nothing.
But there are also some pretty incredible promises about how Jesus guarantees a better covenant. Once on a whim I looked up the commentary on Hebrews 9:7 and was surprised by what I found.
I can’t really answer that. Free will defense does at least intellectually explain moral evil even if we still have emotional concerns with it but I’ve never seen an explanation of natural evil I found convincing. I do envy the Christians who can blame all natural evil on the fall. I imagine a lot of them would be devastated to learn that cancer and the like are a part of God’s good creation and not the product of man’s sin. Ignorance is bliss in this case.
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I take Jesus at his word when he said “strive to enter.” So many people comfortable in their beliefs were turned away sad by Jesus. Sell all you have, let the dead bury the dead, etc. Jesus comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable. I don’t like to be comfortable on account of that.
Vinnie
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Paul certainly taught about confidence, but confidence certainly does not equate to being ‘comfortable’. Just do a word search on ‘strive’ in the NT and see how many are associated with him. An athlete can be ‘comfortable’, secure and certain of his membership on the team, but he still strives!
We’ll since you clearly have such an exhaustive knowledge of Calvinism already, Vinnie, I don’t see what else we have to discuss.
The real eye opener to me is that nobody deserves eternal conscious torment in hell. That is just debasing and victimizing God’s children because theological presuppositions and an over literal view of Scripture has forced a person to believe that. Regardless of how “bad” you are, infinite punishment for finite crimes is absurdly unethical. No one deserves hell anymore than they deserve eternal bliss in heaven.
Sometimes theology gets too removed from common sense and a practical understanding of good vs evil, crime vs punishment and reality. I am saved by God’s grace but I reject that boogeyman version of hell meant to scare people. And I a Calvinistic framework how can anyone predestined for hell deserve it? If they deserve in what sense are they predestined? It’s mincing words because the concepts are mutually exclusive and incoherent. Sometimes we need to get off the head of the pin with the dancing angels and come back down through the clouds and take a deep look at reality and let that influence scripture consciously even as it does so unconsciously for all of us.
Vinnie
It’s not Calvinism I am interested in. It’s the model of inspiration and the hermeneutical approach leading to it that interests me because that is the only way to resolve this issue! Otherwise, it’s people just cherry picking one side when both are “clearly taught” in scripture per common Christian approaches to the Bible. Getting involved in that is too arbitrary for my tastes. When the same hermeneutical legitimately leads to both views it’s clear the hermeneutic is the problem. I’m sure we all have access to systematic theology textbooks, all of which should be thoroughly hashing out this issue and raising the relevant scriptures.
Vinnie
If that’s the case, it may be better to aim your critiques at whatever model it is you believe is the problem, rather than at “Calvinists” specifically. Keep in mind that there are participants here from many different theological points of view, and it might be healthier for discussions to focus on critiquing ideas and points of view rather than insulting entire groups of people.
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For me when I didn’t understand the gospel and asked God to have the gospel, it was an Isaiah 6 sense of woe is me, and it wasn’t for my past sins but it was for the sense that I knew I would continue to sin.
So yes apart from Christ, I deserve to go to hell.
And for you, apart from Christ do you disappear or are you a universalist?
Was that too removed from common sense?
I thought most Christians believe the exact opposite? Salvation is achievable only through God’s grace because we fall short.
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Arent you the ones preaching for a particular way of life,morality beign included in it? So you are basically contradicting yourselves
I didn’t bring up Calvinism. Dale posted a link to an OSAS type list and dredged up a quote from a past discussion and Liam followed suit in commenting on the issue. My only interest in this thread was Christians and doubt, an issue of paramount importance to me as I deal with it every day in life.
But if someone has convinced themselves God willfully chooses some people for eternal bliss and other people he predestines to eternal conscious torment, arbitrary of anything they do or don’t, I’m not sure what there is to talk about. I’m not of the “be grateful I was chosen for heaven while everyone else burns mentality.” That theology means God is no longer good or worthy of worship by any stretch of the imagination. Predestining people to eternal torment is the most vile and evil thing anyone could ever possibly do. There is nothing worse. God would be a being of which no lesser could be thought. As I said, my critiques of Calvinism are moral and based on meta-arguments. Its clear that “standard hermeneutics” lead to both Calvinism and Arminianism (we can find both CLEARLY articulated in scripture). Thus the problem is the approach to scripture. With that being said, Calvinism entails much more than predestination but when I criticize Calvinistic theology its only the belief in predestination that is on my mind. God desires all to be saved. If that were really true and he is just choosing who to save, its obvious he would choose everyone eventually. Not sure why Calvinists don’t just become universalists. It is a logical inference bases on what scripture says and how they approach it. Some have and when you do this problem goes away.
Vinnie