I too have contributed to an earlier thread in apology of the doctrines of grace as delivered through Christ and the Apostles in the peace and purity of the Church. I’m here, at Catholic Answers. I cherish opportunities to love all my family in Christ and in Him to help resolve enmity among dear Christian brethren and facilitate an honourable understanding of one another.
Shall I further tell you what TULIP is?
It is a test and opportunity to “preserve the unity of the Spirit by the peace that binds [us] together” (Eph. 4:3,
NJB). The “unity of the Spirit” is eternally established among all believers despite our doctrinal differences. All true believers are members of Christ’s Body, which is indivisible. TULIP is one of but a myriad of opportunities dating back to the Apostle Paul’s first rebuke of the most prominent Apostle Peter, when Peter began to misrepresent the Gospel by separating in fear from eating with gentiles, in defiance of faith in Christ*. The challenge, which was well met by both Paul and Peter, was to navigate, “but even if we ourselves or an angel from heaven preaches to you a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let God’s curse be on him” (Gal. 1:8,
NJB), and, “For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love” (Gal. 5:6,
NAB), toward, “for the whole law is fulfilled in one statement, namely, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ But if you go on biting and devouring one another, beware that you are not consumed by one another” (5:14,15,
NAB), and, “brothers, even if a person is caught in some transgression, you who are spiritual should correct that one in a gentle spirit, looking to yourself, so that you also may not be tempted” (6:1,
NAB), so that we might, “let all our actions be for the good of everybody, and especially of those who belong to the household of the faith” (6:10,
NJB). In summary, TULIP is a providence of God toward facilitating His love, in rising above human limitations and enmity of misunderstandings toward that most glorious of divine gifts, the embrace of communal reverence and charitable empathy.
Calvinistic Christians love God and esteem Him the God of Love - holy, sovereign, full of grace and mercy, and victoriously omnipotent over sin, death, and any affront to His majesty. “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts!..All the earth is filled with his glory!” (Isa.6:3,
NAB). Non-Calvinistic Christians love God and esteem Him the God of Love – holy, accommodating in grace and mercy, and respectful of man’s decisions and responsibilities. “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh” (Rom. 13:14,
NAB). Neither hold God as the author of sin, nor that He does violence to the will of His creatures, nor that a liberty of secondary causes is removed by His sovereignty.
The real test of TULIP, as with any delving into understanding God through revelation, Scripture, and Christian tradition, is whether or not we will prove our love of God by loving one another amidst our human limitations.
I think,
We all agree that man needs God’s grace, which TULIP affirms.
We all agree that God chooses men to salvation through Christ, which TULIP affirms.
We all agree that Christ’s blood is applied to the debt of life man owes to God, which TULIP affirms.
We all agree that God’s grace effectively accomplishes that to which it is applied, which TULIP affirms.
And, we all agree that God is Almighty, able to eternally preserve whatever He destines to preserve.
- Gal. 2:11-16, NJB. “However, when Cephas came to Antioch, then I did oppose him to his face since he was manifestly in the wrong. Before certain people from James came, he used to eat with gentiles; but as soon as these came, he backed out and kept apart from them, out of fear of the circumcised. And the rest of the Jews put on the same act as he did, so that even Barnabas was carried away by their insincerity.
When I saw, though, that their behaviour was not true to the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of all of them, ‘Since you, though you are a Jew, live like the gentiles and not like the Jews, how can you compel the gentiles to live like the Jews?’
We who were born Jews and not gentile sinners have nevertheless learnt that someone is reckoned as upright not by practicing the Law but by faith in Jesus Christ; and we too came to believe in Christ Jesus so as to be reckoned as upright by faith in Christ and not by practising the Law: since no human being can be found upright by keeping the Law.”
NAB Confraternity of Christian Doctrine note from 2:18: “To return to observance of the law as the means to salvation would entangle one not only in inevitable transgressions of it but also in the admission that it was wrong to have abandoned the law in the first place.”
:hug1:
