Certain scripture.. Calvinistic?

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desire_the_end

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Hey all. I’m a new member. Though I am not Catholic, I am very interested in it. I’m considering converting whole-heartedly from my non-denominationism.

Lately I have been debating with a Calvinist about how believers come to believe, how one discovers the desire for God, and how one is “saved”; ultimately, that God elects who is saved.

I’d like to hear some opinions on how Catholics interpret some of the following passages. I’m very intruigued by Calvinism, though I do no see it having any consistency with mainstream Christian teaching/doctrine. (And if anyone knows something that GK Chesterton wrote that is something of a rebuttal of Calvinism, please let me know!)

Some of the verses that I have a hard time ignoring are Romans 8:28-32, and all of Romans 9. Some of you probably know a lot on the topic and can bring more to the table, as well as interpretations consistent with Catholic theology!

Peace be with you!
lovetony
 
As a former Baptist preacher I have faced this issue many times with my Calvinist friends. And what I believed about Election and predestination has not changed much since I have converted to Catholicism.

I think what most hyper-calvinist tend to bypass is the issue of the “foreknowledge of God.”

What makes free will and predestination possible to work together in perfect harmony is God’s foreknowledge. It is mentioned in Romans 8:29 and 1 peter 1:2 before election is mentioned.

So here is how it works. God knew ahead of time how we would use our free will, so He was able to predetermine or predestinate our election. Only God is eternal and can know the past present and future!

I hope this helps!
 
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copland:
So here is how it works. God knew ahead of time how we would use our free will, so He was able to predetermine or predestinate our election. Only God is eternal and can know the past present and future!
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Actually, that is not the Calvinist view. Foreknowledge is the issue. God’s foreknowledge is not that He knows how you will use your will, and that influences Him to elect/predestine you (that is an Arminian position). Foreknowledge, in Rom 8, is an intimate knowledge, in which God sets His love upon the ones He elects, and that, not based on anything the elect person has done. Paul illustrates that in Rom 9, see v11ff.

The view that God sees one’s choice and then elects, raises the question of how one who is unregenerate, spiritually dead, and an enemy of God, could make a choice for God in that condition of deadness.

The emphasis in election is upon God’s sovereign choice of an individual according to His will, and His will alone (Eph 1:11), and in Eph 1:5, we are told that the intention of His will is one of kindness toward the individual elected.
 
Desire the End: First, I think you would be making a mistake to focus your attention on the passages from Romans with the mind set that Paul was primarily trying to give the Romans an explanation of Pre Destination. I don’t think he was (by the way, my judgement on this has come from reading various commentaries and of coarse ROMANS, but I haven’t read the suggested books given in other post - although I intend to do so).

To best understand the verses mentioned, you have to read what Paul writes before and after the verses in question. If you do, you may find Paul has been discussing the Roman’s response to their Christian calling, especially in the way they are living out their Faith through their every day lives. And as today there were some serious divisions developing within the Church of Rome.

Paul, then, is addressing these things and it seems from what I’ve read, Paul, when he begins his discourse on predestination, it wasn’t to point out that some would be saved and others not because of God’s arbitrary choice. Rather, Paul was stressing how important each member of the Church calling was - they have been elected by God to live out thier lives in Faith and Love, not in the worship of idles (which could be hand made images of created things, or a law that has be object of their worship - much like the “Golden Calf” rather than a means to come to know God and His Will for all) So the emphasis isn’t on who’s choosen and who isn’t, the stress was the Romans were chosen, by God’s Mercy, but with their vocation came great responsibility. This is brought out in a particulr way by Paul’s teaching on the role of Gentiles who will lead the Jews back to the salvation that was the Jews by a God-given right and promise.

And for us today who need to discuss the role of Salvation in light of predestination, I think it is important to remember we are trying to grasp and explain something that is impossible to explain.We are trying to explain the infinite using finite intelligence and language. How can we explain the relationship of the dimension of Time which we must live and is mutable with God who is eternal and thus immutable? How can God know the future when the future doesn’t exist for God because everything is immediately the Present for God and can be nothing else because anything else would involve change?
 
Thank you to all who replied.

I notice that Paul’s Letter to the Romans is under certain contexts. One could miscontextualize Paul’s words, isolating them from their context easily.

I’ll give those books a read, thank you!
 
desire the end:
Hey all. I’m a new member. Though I am not Catholic, I am very interested in it. I’m considering converting whole-heartedly from my non-denominationism.

Lately I have been debating with a Calvinist about how believers come to believe, how one discovers the desire for God, and how one is “saved”; ultimately, that God elects who is saved.
Click to expand...

God elects, for His own good purposes. To complain that we cannot see what the rationale for His choosing maybe, is to forget that we are creatures, and that God is the Creator, Whose ways far exceed our understanding. Whose ways cannot but do so, if He is God and not a mere man. One of Calvin’s great services to Christianity, IMO, was his insistence on the folly and presumption of complaining against the ways of God for no better reason than that we do not understand them. Who but an atheist would imagine, even in his dreams, that we could understand them ? There was a lot of the insane arrogance that tries to subject God the Creator to the limited understanding of sinful man then, and there is a lot of it now. Because God is God, because He is holy & righteousness in all His ways, all His acts & purposes are also most holy - so it is not necessary to be able to do the impossible, and understand all his purposes: it is enough that they are the righteous acts of the Righteous God. We can therefore adore them, even though we do not understand them.​

I’d like to hear some opinions on how Catholics interpret some of the following passages. I’m very intruigued by Calvinism, though I do no see it having any consistency with mainstream Christian teaching/doctrine. (And if anyone knows something that GK Chesterton wrote that is something of a rebuttal of Calvinism, please let me know!)

Some of the verses that I have a hard time ignoring are Romans 8:28-32, and all of Romans 9. Some of you probably know a lot on the topic and can bring more to the table, as well as interpretations consistent with Catholic theology!

Peace be with you!
lovetony
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It’s possible to go a long way in agreeing with Calvinism. Some parts of it are more problematic (from a RC POV) than his soteriology; such as his sacramental doctrine.​

Romans 8 is part of the Bible - it is not meant to be ignored, any more than any other part of the Bible. The Calvinist emphasis on election and predestination is an emphasis on things that are part of God’s revelation in the Bible - the Catholic understanding of them is not quite the same as the Calvinist, but these things aren’t illusions: God does elect, and does predestine; when God called Abram out of Ur, He was choosing him, IOW, electing him.

TULIP (which was formulated by the Synod of Dordt, not by Calvin himself) is very logical - whether that is a good thing, is another matter: for St. Paul’s preaching was not in accord with human reason, but by the power of the Spirit. What God has done for us, is not logical - it is gracious, from being to end; so it is beyond both logic & law. It’s possible that Calvinism is not grace-based, but law-based & logic-based: it can certainly seem so, as can Catholicism. ##
 
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