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fons_vitae
Guest
Why is it that Puritans (and oftentimes Calvinists in general) are stereotyped as being overly abstemious, prudish, etc.? I never understood this, considering their sola fide Reformation heritage.
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jwright82
Guest
I am a Calvinist and I love the Puritians so maybe I can answer your questions. The Puritians beleived that Scripture defined what was right and wrontg regarding almost every issue, at least every issue indirectly. This included sex, I don’t know what abstemious means, they beleived that certian acts were not to be talked about in public. People couldn’t you could say do certian things in their opinion. I read a good article one time regarding the issue of sex and the Puritians and it was very counter-intuative to what we regard as Puritian behaviour. Whatever they though about things that say deserve the label of prudishness cannot be answered because they did not talk about it.
So what a husband and wife decide to do in their own privacy is largley, though not completly, relegated to what the Westminster Confession of Faith regards as the liberty of conscience, God alone in our opinion is the Lord of conscience and he will convict his people as he sees fit. Now this does not mean that anything goes only that there is a whole lot of private things that God deals with privatly, if that makes sense. I mean the Catholic Church also leaves these sorts of things, in general, to private discression right, from what I have gathered?
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Cat_Herder
Guest
If such a stereotype exists it probably has to do with the Calvinists’ embrace of presuppositionalism and the rejection of reason and evidence that goes along with that epistemology.
“SPEAK ENGLISH, CAT HERDER!”
John Calvin rejected all proofs for the existence of God and for the authority of the Bible. He said people could rely on their own feelings to determine these two articles; in other words, these articles could be presumed / presupposed / assumed to be true with no reasoning, no evidence, and no basis other than emotion.
“SPEAK ENGLISH, CAT HERDER!”
John Calvin rejected all proofs for the existence of God and for the authority of the Bible. He said people could rely on their own feelings to determine these two articles; in other words, these articles could be presumed / presupposed / assumed to be true with no reasoning, no evidence, and no basis other than emotion.
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fons_vitae
Guest
The stereotype certainly exists for the Puritans. The second definition of puritan in my Oxford American Dictionary reads: “a person with censorious moral beliefs, esp. about pleasure and sex.”
The vague idea I had in my head was that no one could know for sure if they were of the Elect or the Reprobate. Thus, one had to demonstrate to themselves and others their “Electness,” if you will, since there would be no progress from one pole to the other.
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cooterhein
Guest
Might have had something to do with the uniquely American development of that Reformed tradition. As with most stereotypes, I’m sure there’s some basis for it, although it can be taken too far. Nice use of the word abstemious, btw.
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Cat_Herder
Guest
In other words, if they hold to double predestination, then why the emphasis on individual behavior (i.e. works) when that cannot change one’s predestined state? But for that matter, since it is predestination (not faith!) that ultimately saves, why bother with the Bible anyway and why have churches… and so, why have Calvinism?
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fons_vitae
Guest
This! That’s the crux of my question. Why an emphasis on works if said works are predestined?
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fons_vitae
Guest
English major here.
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MGLechner
Guest
A quick joke…
How do you define a Calvinist?
Answer: A Calvinist is someone who lays awake at night tossing and turning with worry that someone out there might be having a good time!
How do you define a Calvinist?
Answer: A Calvinist is someone who lays awake at night tossing and turning with worry that someone out there might be having a good time!
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jwright82
Guest
As a Presupossitionalist I can safley say that we do not regect reason or evidence only the use of both put in better perspective, but this is the wrong forum for that so. My dealings with the Puritians suggests that it was the sexual revolution that probably gave rise to this steroetype more than anything.
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Cat_Herder
Guest
All I have to do is ask you how you know that God exists and that the Bible is His Word, and then you’ll say “Because I assume it is!” Why? “Because all truth is founded on assumptions, not reason or evidence!”
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fons_vitae
Guest
Actually, I’ve herd this “properly basic” principle from my (ironically) Lutheran Bible teacher back in school. I was never particularly convinced by it, either…
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Cat_Herder
Guest
Absurdity aside, there are two problems with presuppositionalism, that is, the “all truth is based on assumptions, therefore I assume the Bible has authority, therefore the Bible has authority” tack:
(1) It is a novelty cooked up by Calvin in order to explain how one could be “Christian” without any sort of recourse to the Catholic Church. That makes it by definition a new and different gospel.
But more imminent to the Calvinist…
(2) It gives children an indefensible foundation for their faith, and thus sets them up for their apostasy once they leave the Calvinist bubble and encounter a college professor toting Darwin’s Origin of Species. This almost happened to me.
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East_Anglican
Guest
Because Calvinism is a muddle.
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jwright82
Guest
Well presupossitionalism utilizes a particuler form of philosophical argumentation called a transcendental argument. So in a sense yes we assume God to exist and the bible to be His Word, but we maintain that this is the only truly or completly rational assumption to have. There was a Catholic apologest who was on Catholic Answers some time ago, I can’t remember when, who wrote a book against the new atheism that was done more or less in a presupossitional style. The whole argument from ethics is essentially presupossitional, without we have no reason to beleive that right and wrong exist. I hope that makes a little more sense.
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jwright82
Guest
I hate to split hairs so please forgive but the properly basic thing is what is called Reformed Epistomology, not Presupossitionalism.
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MGLechner
Guest
But doesn’t Dr. John M. Frame refer to himself as a Presuppositionalist (note the correction in the spelling)?
I am thinking about his course: Topics in Apologetics -Apologetics as Offense.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presuppositionalism
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jwright82
Guest
Thanks for the correction, my spelling is horible. Yes he does, but he is more critical of its founder Van Til than other Presupositionalists would be, he tends to go off in other directions some times a little, but he is withen the fold. For instance he doen’t think that the transcendental argument is any different than a direct deductive argument but philosophy since Kant has generaly recognized that it is. I just never hear any Presupositionalist use the term “properly basic”. The Reformed Epistomology group uses the word all the time, so my mistake I thought you were efering to them not Frame, my apologies. I will check out the link.
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fons_vitae
Guest
Actually, I think that’s the section he was teaching on that day. I think he’s really Reformed at heart, but just a big fan of Luther
…
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fons_vitae
Guest
Care to explain? :3 (Not trolling, just curious.)
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