Giving Calvinism a ... longer glance

I agree. But this passage didn’t even appear in John’s gospel until after the canon was formed. NT textual criticism is a far different thing (i.e. far more documentation, far less speculation) than OT textual criticism. Other than that caveat, my general approach is to interpret the final form of the canon.

Sorry, but the rest of your musings would require far more time than I can spare today. I’ll try to comment tomorrow, but in general, the soteriology you describe as Calvinistic (“you don’t need to do anything”) seems the opposite of Reformed doctrine that I learned, which very much emphasizes that we are saved by grace through faith.

Whoever added that particular passage and whenever, I’m glad God used them to get it in there! It’s one I will continue to refer to often. We are all the woman at some points, and at other times we are the accusing crowd.

I realize that is still a caricature of Calvinism if one stopped there. I know Calvinists don’t really think that way, but do heed Jesus’ command to love and to make disciples.

The “you don’t need to do anything” would be in regard to how somebody “gets saved”, and in that regard should probably be strengthened to “you can’t do anything” (with regard to salvation). I don’t feel a need to get it all resolved soon, and do rest in trust that the whole program as it has been seen in some quarters may be a misplaced agenda anyway, or in any case is God’s agenda well above our pay grade. I’ll still look forward to your input though (and I haven’t forgotten Jon’s reading suggestion.) I’m trying to take to heart his suggestion that “you might trouble to at least know the doctrine, before you purport to criticize it”.

Speaking to a time when I was pretty seriously minded towards a Calvinist view of the universe … I can attest to a perspective that I found to be quite a natural result of my calvinism, and one that contradicted the usual cliches about Calvinists:

I would frequently hear the idea that Calvinists surely had no desire to “do” any particular thing, if they already had the idea that they were “saved” by grace.

However, I was endlessly fascinated by what I actually found passing through my mind at all times:

If everything is predestined, then God is paying attention to every detail, no matter how small. And with that kind of scrutiny on every detail to which I might turn my attention, I felt the strongest compulsion to pay as much attention to the matter myself … as best I could … in order to measure up to God’s expectations for me.

I suppose I could have convinced myself that all that attention and fuss on my part wasn’t necessary. But it just never seemed to be the right thing to do … and if it was… it was never quite the right time to start taking the easier way.

I do not think this attitude was unique to me… and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was common to most all Calvinists!

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The only prominent person I ever actually heard propound that belief was R T Kendall, who wrote Once Saved, Always Saved and seems to have got Reformed theology badly wrong on this, as his predecessor at Westminster Chapel, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, stated in no uncertain terms. Though there was a movement called “Hypercalvinism” which took human passivity to its illogical extreme, and ended up flatly disobeying the great commission on the basis that preaching contradicts grace. Tosh, as they’d have known if they’d have actually remembered Paul’s example rather than recycling the interpreters of previous theologians.

As Calvin himself stressed, election is always election in Christ, not in some absolute disconnected sense, and it is election not to pie-in-the-sky salvation, but to penitence, faith, effort, Christlike behaviour, and perseverance under suffering.

The person who lacks those things will either be saying, “It’s OK because I prayed the prayer once…”, and condemn themselves by their complacency, or will despair of themselves and throw themselves on Christ in penitence - and no longer lack them.

None of that is incompatible with the New Perspective on Paul - incorporation into God’s people is still by faith, and faith is either “more precious than gold” (Peter) because it is very meritorious, or else because it is “not of yourselves, it is a gift of God.” (Eph)

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Are any of you familiar with the Eastern Orthodox position predestination?

I commend to you

blogs.ancientfaith.com/orthodoxbridge/plucking-the-tulip-1-an-orthodox-critique-of-the-reformed-doctrine-of-predestination/

If you take the Eastern Orthodox position, there isn’t a problem with predestination anymore.

Please read and comment.

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I started reading the link you kindly provided, but it is long enough that I won’t be able to complete that reading in a timely manner tonight (and may not have much chance tomorrow either). Can you summarize for us here what a couple of salient points of difference are between the Orthodox and the Reformed perspectives?

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@Mervin_Bitikofer

Here’s one page from the linked article dealing with the an Eastern Orthodox viewpoint on the
“T” of Calvin’s “TULIP”: “Total Depravity”:

[[ Be sure to click on the image to maximize the font size for ease of reading. ]]

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@Richard_Mohr, good job on locating this page !

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I would advise here that John Hick’s assessment of Augustine v Irenaeus, certainly as interpreted in articles like this, is grossly misleading.

I wrote on that after researching the original sources here way back in 2012, and am pleased to note that C John Collins not only agrees with my my conclusions in his book on Adam, but cited my own blog post in his prepared reply to Joshua Swamidass at the recent Dabar conference.

Since we’re in that area, let me also correct a common misapprehension on “total depravity” - none of the Reformers, least of all Calvin, said that humanity is as corrupt as is possible, but rather that the effects of sin spread to every area of our nature. Thus our best acts always have some measure of self-interest, and so on - a fact, I think, of common experience.

Most importantly, our wills are incapable of turning to Christ apart from grace (as Luther and Calvin wrote, see posts above and as, I contend, Irenaeus concurs, since he says Adam’s children are born into the same bondage to Satan that Adam incurred, and require the work of Christ to free them from their dungeon.)

One important confirmation of that is the prophetic teaching on the main difference between the Old, failed, Covenant in Moses and the New Covenant in Christ. The New Covenant was announced at exactly the time the failure of the Old was shown most starkly - as Judah was exiled to Babylon and the whole state and cult dismembered.

Sin is, after all, primarily a disease of the will, and this contrast between the covenants is particularly clear in Jer 33:33-37: “I will put my law within them and on their heart I will write it”; and in Ezek 36:22-36, especially vv 26-27: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will be careful to observe my ordinances.”

The liberation of the will, then, is the very heart of the gospel as the prophets announced it - Israel had shown that “the ability to choose” led only to failure and exile, and presenting the gospel merely as a new set of choices would have no greater success. A radical renewal of heart was required by the action of God himself, and was provided in grace. But that implies that sin had produced a radical loss of freedom. And that is all that Augustine, Aquinas, Luther and Calvin claimed, and what is meant by the rather misleading term “total depravity” in later writings.

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In my more verbose days, I would summarize it but I’d rather not now.

I’m not being lazy. I’d rather that you comment on the article, rather than on my summary.

There is a lot behind anyone’s presuppositions. Claims based on Scripture are influenced by one’s methodology of interpretation and one’s Tradition/traditions that heavily influence that methodology. I got saved at Melodyland long ago. The way they looked at things was quite different from that of the folks at Dallas Theological Seminary, true? I got my M.Div. from Fuller which also differed from Dallas. Fuller had a very theologically diverse student body. Now I am an Eastern Orthodox Christian which has made things simpler.

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Let’s see if I can do this without erasing what I type.

In my more verbose days, I would summarize it but I’d rather not now.

I’m not being lazy. I’d rather that you comment on the article, rather than on my summary.

There is a lot behind anyone’s presuppositions. Claims based on Scripture are influenced by one’s methodology of interpretation and one’s Tradition/traditions that heavily influence that methodology. I got saved at Melodyland long ago. The way they looked at things was quite different from that of the folks at Dallas Theological Seminary, true? I got my M.Div. from Fuller which also differed from Dallas. Fuller had a very theologically diverse student body. Now I am an Eastern Orthodox Christian which has made things simpler.

How can I refuse since you asked me specifically. Twice!
You should appreciate the historical irony of putting an Anabaptist (that’s me) in the position of potentially feeling he needs to defend Calvin. But the irony won’t last – because I won’t. I strive to follow Christ, and if Calvin wants to come along I will keep good company with him; but if it would seem ways must part, then I will bid Calvin farewell and continue on after Christ. But that’s easy for me to say since I am not steeped in the reformed traditions in the first place. So in that equitable spirit, my scandalous deficiency of loyalty must extend to other traditions such as yours as well. However, they are all (Calvin’s included) valued for how they may help me understand scriptures and Christ. I have my own traditions too that would shake me up considerably more in my own turn if the same choice was brought to bear.

Arakaki writes at one point:

Thus, Calvin’s belief in total depravity was based upon a narrow theological perspective.

Given Jon’s input above I’m willing to also allow for the possibility that… Arakaki’s take on Calvin here may be based on a narrow perspective of Calvin’s work. That is the obligatory charity I will put up for Calvin here. But now let me devolve into personal opinions.

It seems to me on initial (and fast) reading that I am more comfortable with the Easter formulation of things, given that they insist on free-will, and the necessity of free-will for love to really exist. I think that way too.

Another way in which I may have some tinges of Christian humanism showing through is in how we answer the question about what is our most basic human nature. I may depart from Calvin on this one too, though always with the caveat that it could be more me misunderstanding Calvin --or even being ignorant entirely of what he’s actually said.

Where Calvin (or so I suppose) settles on depravity as our most core nature, I think there may be a core that is even deeper yet. And I do write this with Jon’s corrective in mind above. Perhaps Calvin might actually agree with me here. In any case, while wickedness is a “very early development” in the stage of human affairs, it does not appear to me to have that scriptural primacy that the original creation retains for itself. We were created “good” after all, before evil left its mark. While none of us escapes that evil mark, I would argue that all the more so, then, neither do we escape the original good image of God imprinted in each of us. And that to me is to be embraced as the more primal, core identity to recognize in ourselves and in others. Evil still has its due, and is universally there to be reckoned with, to be sure. Will I die on any hills trying to sell others on this. Maybe not. But I think this question of our most basic human identity is a potentially much more important discussion to have than the next one I’ll mention: predestination.

I’m quite willing to hold all discussions of predestination at arms length indefinitely for want of support where one should most hope to find it: in the life and teachings from Christ himself.

And one particular annoying, but always fascinating habit Christ has, is never giving a ‘yes / no’ answer to his questioners. So in that spirit, let me pose this (to myself and you and all who get tied up in knots over free will): A little boy has been starved for some time. You discover him, and set a feast before him. He digs in with a hearty energy that only a starved soul could display. So answer me this: did the lad have free will about whether or not he partook of your offering of food? If you can give the definitive answer to that, then you’ll have your answer on whether or not any of us truly have free will.

Meanwhile, I’ll behave and live as if we do [have freewill]. And some things just don’t seem like important distinctions to me. Whether or not God “foreknows” or “fore-ordains” makes little difference to me, as I will continue to behave as if I have free-will anyway because …I believe I actually do. So it would seem I favor the “foreknows” over the “fore-ordains”. And I’m fine with that. But I’m not going to lose any sleep trying to convince others to use one word over the other. I behave as if I have choice because that is what I see being modeled in the bible, and most importantly, by Christ himself.

I’ve been reading and listening to so many things lately that I forgot where I heard this (maybe around here even?). But one of the church fathers has been quoted as saying that whenever he encounters a particularly hard scripture, he brings that ‘hard nut’ into the Messianic light of Christ, which is the rock on which that nut always breaks open. I appreciate and try to use that approach myself. And perhaps in some cases, the light of Christ shows us that a particular ‘nut’ doesn’t even need to be opened. That might generally apply to some of the philosophy and words involved in our discussions here.

Hopefully I’ve touched on some matters of interest. It sounds like I could probably get on fine in an Easter Orthodox setting. But I’ll not presume too much.

I’ve a question for you regarding the Eastern Orthodox. Somebody I know who spent time living in Greece in for many years once told me that in broad characterization, the western church looked to Peter as its first and foremost leader after Christ. Whereas the eastern church looked to Paul. (Not to say that either one “writes off” the other, of course --we’re only speaking of who is hearkened to as a kind of “first pope” if you will - literally in the first case of course!) What do you think of that characterization?

[with edits]

@Jon_Garvey,

I think the writer of the Eastern Orthodox position makes a logical mistake or two. But I believe he describes quite accurately the nature of his denomination’s opinion regarding Original Sin.

I’m not saying that the Eastern Orthodox are right about everything regarding Augustine’s position on Original Sin… but, as you know, I do agree with them about the need to reject Augustine’s formulation.

In regards to Peter and Paul, it is easy to generalize but is not always helpful. We just finished the fast having to do with Peter and Paul. We have icons of the two of them hugging one another, a useful thing considering their big argument that we read about in Galatians. Some Fathers think that it was a “staged” thing so that those there could hear the issue fully expounded and also because they didn’t think that Paul would have ambushed Peter like that. Others think that it really was a case of Paul getting on Peter’s inconsistency with Gentile Christians.

The older I get, the less I feel like debating these things. I recommend books to people or websites and also urge people to attend Eastern Orthodox services, liturgy and vespers and whatever else is available. Go to a wedding or funeral service. See what we do during Advent, Christmas, Lent, Holy Week and Pascha. Remember that there was a time when few people could read and the Scriptures were very expensive, so the faith was what we believed and did in Church and outside of church.

My church, St. Barnabas Antiochian Orthodox Church in Costa Mesa, California baptizes and chrismates new members on Lazarus Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday. It’s a while before we are there again but you have time to attend some services and read some things by Orthodox writers to learn how we think about things and ask questions.

Take a look at
The Bible In The Liturgy - Almoutran

There Biblical references for everything that is said during the Divine Liturgy. Below is the text of the Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom. Under each line …

You can see how seriously we take the Bible. If we think something is good, we tend not to change it or discard it for something more up to date. One of our prayers in Vespers, “Oh, Gladsome Light,” possibly goes back to sometime in the second century.

I also suggest that you get a copy of Father Patrick Reardon’s Reclaiming the Atonement and read that. He is a convert as are almost all of the adults at my church.

Take a break from unresolvable controversies that have been going on for several hundred years in the West and spend some time with us. How many denominations and heresies must come into existence before folks walk away from what is, for many, a kind of religious recreation? The fact that the arguments having been going on for so long ought to indicate that the problems lie in the whole approach to matters of the Christian faith. If it was just sola scripture, the arguments would have been settled long ago, don’t you think? Leave them behind and come home to the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Also, listen to

3:14
The Nicene Creed |
Choir of St
Vladimir’s
Seminary
Holy God (Trisagion) in English. - YouTube

:arrow_forward: 2:39

May 19, 2014 - Uploaded by since33
This hymn is chanted immediately before the Prokeimenon and the Epistle reading in the Divine Liturgy .

Attachments area
Preview YouTube video Holy God (Trisagion) in English.

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Very interesting. We have one or two EO regulars on this forum. My church is not Eastern Orthodox, but we have a beautiful orthodox Icon of Christ in the sanctuary. btw, do you have a Trinity Sunday in your liturgical calendar?

That’s a beautiful sentiment to celebrate. You go on to write:

While reconciliation is a beautiful thing we would all like to celebrate, I think there is a danger also in papering over real and hard differences the early church faced, not to mention smoothing over real human faults that early apostles had. Imagine if early redactors had decided that Peter’s three denials of Christ were too harsh and embarrassing to include about him – imagine all the sermons about Christ’s mercy and forgiveness and making use of us as faulty vessels in the extreme – imagine all the sermons that would be lost! And some will say … ah yes, but after the Spirit of Christ is in the picture and the disciples were sent forth at Pentecost, they must have been one gloriously unified crescendo of harmony after that, right? Not so, we read in scriptures. Turns out Peter is still Peter, and the disciples are still human and God seems to be just as merciful and able to use them as he always was. So I don’t share in the eagerness of any church fathers who want to imagine away real conflicts as staged ones, but rather celebrate the stories of our humanity and God’s ever bigger grace because of it.

BTW, I’m developing a new appreciation for high church liturgies. Many evangelicals have written liturgy off as “too Catholic” (or “too Orthodox”?), but the while their churches were deciding that liturgy was too forced or stodgy and so abandoning it, what really happened is that they abandoned their kids to the recitations of the liturgies of the world, and as it turns out, profit-pursuing industries have no such reticence about spreading their secular liturgies to us from the entertainment portals in our living rooms. Basically, evangelicals let the devil have all the liturgy and have barely begun to wake up to the fact - probably too late. So the Catholic and Orthodox churches are to be commended [yes–Lutherans and many others as well] for standing steadfastly in that gap. It turns out that the regular recitation of words, even when “we don’t always feel it” still has a formational, habit-building effect on our spirits. I owe the insights of this last paragraph to the Canadian philosopher, Dr. James K.A. Smith.

Do you really think all the church splits of history were really for no reason? The entire reformation, or the eastern/western split from before that … did that all really emerge from some pure church with no problems, and a few folks just decided to meander off? I don’t buy that narrative either. I know – everybody likes to think of themselves as being on that “main trunk of truth back to Christ” off of which it was everybody else that branched in other directions. And no doubt, some are truer than others, and some branches have even fallen off the tree entirely. But as a child of the reformation – no – even that ever scorned radical reformation that even the original reformers themselves scorned in their own turn - as an heir to all that, we’ve seen the underbelly of the establishments of history, to put it mildly. [And Anabaptists face the problem of being yet another establishment in our own turn.] I won’t walk away from that heritage but will prize it instead, not as yet another occasion for self-righteousness, but as an opportunity for God to show the wideness of His mercy yet again as it manages to encompass all His quarreling and wayward children. It is another opportunity for Peter and Paul to hug after very real and even perhaps very necessary conflicts. I would happily visit an Eastern Orthodox service if they would have me. I agree with you that the west surely has many lessons it needs to learn (or relearn?) from its cousins to the East. Don’t look for some sort of “conversion”, though. Perhaps it would be more like a realization that your family is bigger and more diverse than you previously thought.

One of the good things I’ve heard about EO churches is their conscious rootedness back into a very deep history, and their sense or even obligation of heritage to carry on what the saints from before had done in their own turn. The splintered west has much it could and needs to recover of that heritage I think. So I do agree with you that there is a lot of collective soul-searching, scripture-searching, and ultimately Spirit-seeking to be done. Don’t get too complacent, though, in thinking that this is only true of “other churches”. Such complacencies can be the seeds of … well … reformations.

Thanks for the links to the resources.

[with edits]

I would add that a great deal of discussion is ongoing within EO on many interesting areas of theology, and also useful discussions that people on this site undertake, such as for example laws of science. A good deal of overlap and agreement can be found, as well as additional insights.

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Why can’t we say, “Paul planted, Peter watered, and God gave the increase”? (tongue in cheek).

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@Mervin_Bitikofer

I seriously wonder if there would have been a Lutheran split if the Romans had been in sync with Eastern Orthodox views.

The root of the East / West schism (apparently?)… is that the Latin speakers were eager to resolve matters… while the Greek speakers didn’t work very hard to keep up with Latin-based theological explorations!

One of our (Episcopal) priests, the Reverend Joel C. Daniels, Ph.D., serves on the Ecumenical Commission of the Diocese of New York, focusing on dialogue with the Eastern churches.

Your icon of Jesus Christ - I’m assuming that it has the gold nimbus (that round thing) behind His head and the three Greek letters on the cross that is in the nimbus. Every saint has a nimbus but only Jesus Christ has the the cross there. Within the cross are the letters ὁ ὤν. The Greek letter omicron (like our “o”) is the definite article; the omega and nu are the word meaning “Existing One.” We hear “the Existing One” near the end of our Vespers service.

At Liturgics - Christ our God, the Existing . . . He Who Is - Orthodox Church in America we read:

"There are two blessings at the end of the service. The first one blesses (speaks well of) God, and the second blesses God’s people (asks for God’s blessing on them). Praise of God precedes petition. The first blessing is based on the name God gave himself: “Christ our God, the Existing [He who Is] is blessed, always, now and ever, and unto ages of ages.” The second blessing concludes the service “May Christ our true God . . . have mercy on us and save us . . .”

Next time you have a Septuagint in hand, find Exodus 3:14 where Moses is talking to the Burning Bush. Moses has asked for God’s name in case the Hebrews want to know what it is. God replies: ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν .

Trinity Sunday is Pentecost. See:

oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/worship/the-church-year/pentecost-the-descent-of-the-holy-spirit

Celebrating Pentecost | Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese
ww1.antiochian.org/node/19418