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Pax
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I hope you read my responses to Fisher because they apply equally to your claims. I believe scripture disagrees with your position and I have only begun to scratch the surface of the many passages that refute OSAS.
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nonsumd
Guest
One can only ask the question this way if one assumes that salvation is granted in the instant of initial conversion. Since Scripture speaks continually of “persevering till the end,” salvation must be a process which is only completed after the end of earthly life.
It is true that Jesus often says to someone, “You are saved” or “Your faith has saved you.” The salvation in these cases applies to the consequences of a person’s former life, not to his future actions: the person is saved from the condition of falling into sin,he is not absolutely guaranteed against falling into sin again because that would require God taking back the gift of free will from the person (God will give the person the graces needed to be preserved from falling into sin, but the person must exercise his free will to accept those graces).
Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery, “Where are your accusers? Neither do I condemn you. Your sins are forgiven you. Go and sin no more.”
Jesus did not say, “Go and know you will never be able to sin again.” Nor did He say, “If you do sin again, it will not matter, for this forgiveness now applies to all your future sin.”
If that woman had gone on to sin, would we be forced to conclude that somehow Jesus had not really forgiven/saved her?
I don’t see that there are only two options: either a person makes a heart-change or they do not.
It is rare that a person makes in an instant a total conversion that completely changes the way they live. One changes often that which is easiest to change while persisting in the vices or weaknesses that have the strongest hold. If one does not continually seek God’s grace, it is easy to fall back into one’s previous condition.
Similarly, our motive for obeying God generally evolves over time. Who can honestly say that most initial conversions are not motivated by fear of hell? Or to get free of the hell we have made for ourselves of this earthly life? Does it not take time to understand how much God loves us and how much sin displeases God and to repent of our sins out of love of God rather than out of fear of Him?
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flameburns623
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I’m a little befuddled by what you are trying to say here. In part this is likely because I am an out-and-out Calvinist; some proponents of ‘eternal security’ come very close to holding to an Arminian view of the issue. In my view, the ‘Elect’ are saved from eternity; the rest of humanity are condemned from eternity. The revivalist focus on ‘getting saved’ does not feature so prominently in my theology, although all human beings start out at enmity against God and the Elect are drawn to Him, wooed by Him unto Himself over the course of their lives.
Sin is sin, and all human beings are rank, wretched sinners. One’s sins prior to being saved are not somehow ‘more serious’ or ‘less serious’ than those committed afterwards. The blessed virgin Mary stands before her God a vile repulsive thing covered not by her own righteousness but by the righteousness of Christ. Mother Teresa and John Paul II stand before God as thoroughly condemned for their wickedness as Jeffrey Dahmer, Josef Stalin, and/or Adolf Hitler–the distinction being that our best evidence has it that Mother Teresa and John Paul II were redeemed from their wickedness by God’s own grace, while the others were not. I think you have a distorted picture of how grievously Protestants view sin.
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contramundum7
Guest
Untrue. Sin can take away your “chosen-ness”.
Repentance, Confession, prayer, meditation, etc. can bring it back…
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contramundum7
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In Matt 18:23, the King totally forgives the repentant servant when he begs him for mercy. Then that servant turns around and, with one who owes him an even lesser sum than he once owed, demands that he pay back the debt. When the man asks for mercy, he shows none. The king gets angry and turns the servant “over to the torturers” (Purgatory and/or Hell) “until he should pay back the entire debt”. Jesus says, “So will my heavenly father do to you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
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contramundum7
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Not everyone who says Lord Lord will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but [only] he who does the will of the Father. (don’t have Bible handy)
The way to eternal life is narrow and there are few who find it.
Be perfect as your father in Heaven is perfect…
Plus: Matthew 18:23
Matthew 25:31-46
1 Cor. 3:13
No unclean thing will enter Heaven…
The way to eternal life is narrow and there are few who find it.
Be perfect as your father in Heaven is perfect…
Plus: Matthew 18:23
Matthew 25:31-46
1 Cor. 3:13
No unclean thing will enter Heaven…
:shrug: Where do people come up with OSAS? Surely not from the Bible...
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contramundum7
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No man can snatch them out of his hand… but SIN can… and does…
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contramundum7
Guest
The Bible does not say that he who endures to the end IS
saved… but that he WILL be saved…
saved… but that he WILL be saved…
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contramundum7
Guest
SHALL be saved, not IS saved…
This analogy is not “accurate” . Jesus gave us the gift of Himself. If we reject him - which we do every time we sin, especially mortal sin… we are throwing the gift back in his face…
You underestimate the power of sin (unrepented sin)… Sin destroys our lives & the lives of others… & leads us on the pathway to Hell… which is why Jesus, when asked how to get to Heaven, said, “Obey the commandments”. He didn’t say anything about accepting him as your personal savior…
Only mortal sin separates one from God. There is no repented-of sin that can damage our salvation eternally.
If you repent of all your sins b4 death, you will go to Heaven. However, there are consequences of sin that must be dealt with, so many of us will end up in Purgatory and will probably be there for a long time before entering Heaven. One saint said that the average time in Purg is 40 yrs
and its even longer for those who never believed in Purgatory, never began the expiation process… on Earth.[If you live a Christian life in this world, you actually begin your Purgatory here on Earth, through sufferings, etc…]
The scriptures speak of a cleansing (purging) we must endure in order to get into Heaven. If u r forgiven, u will get to Heaven, but by way of Purgatory first… Matt 18:23, Matt 25:31, 1 Cor 3:13,
(?) “Not everyone who says Lord Lord will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but he who DOES the will of the Father.”
OTher Purgatory scripture: Matt 12:32 speaks of forgiveness in the next age…
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Pax
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You are more than an out and out Calvinist. I would say that you are perhaps a “hyper-Calvinist.” I mean no offense by the statement but I believe that you go somewhat beyond Calvin. I say that because of your views on the Virgin Mary. Calvin himself believed Mary to be free of sin. Calvin shared the Catholic teachings on Mary and this fits in very well with his view of predestination.
Mary was chosen and predestined for her role as the mother of our savior. She was saved and preserved by God from original sin and by the grace of God lived a sinless life. This was predetermined by God. Calvin believed this to be the case with Mary because of her special place as the mother of Jesus the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.
As a Calvinist why don’t you believe this as Calvin did?
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Pax
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Please show us from scripture where it says that the rest of humanity are condemned from eternity.
Please show us by way of scripture how it is that those in heaven mentioned in your quote stand before God as vile and repulsive. Also show by scripture how they are thoroughly condemned for their wickedness. The disctinction that you made in your subsequent comment is of no consequence to my questions.
Thanks in advance.
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nonsumd
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flameburns, why do you call yourself a Calvinist, why are you following Calvin’s selective reading of Scripture (or his latter-day followers’ selective reading of his selective reading) rather than Jesus Himself as we know His teachings from the Gospels?
First let me say, from the responses on this thread, I am starting to see that one can believe in OSAS/perseverance of the saints/eternal security within the framework of different Protestant theologies (at least with respect to predestination).
Do you not see that there are contradictions in the very language you use? You say that God chose the elect from before time; at the same time, you say that He “woos them to Himself” over the course of their lives. “Wooing” implies an attempt at persuasion and the possibility that one will not be able to persuade. If God had chosen the saved and there were no possibility, as it were, to get un-chosen, what would be the point of His “wooing”? The entire Bible is God’s attempt to woo us – and one only woos if there is a possibility to be turned down.
If all that stood between a soul and God was inherited Original Sin and not our own actual sin, can it really be said that such a soul is as wretched as a soul that had willfully committed sin? Is a newborn as wretched as a serial murdered?
If, as you appear to be saying, sin alienates us from God before we are saved yet sin after we are saved does not alienate us from God, then post-conversion sin clearly is less grave and has less grave consequences than pre-conversion sin. You therefore cannot claim that you take the “sin of the saved” to be as grievous as the “sin of the damned.”
There is no righteousness but that which comes from God. Can one really say that Original Sin left absolutely no trace of grace in the human soul? If so, where would the innate, natural morality that even unbelievers exhibit come from?
As for the sinlessness of the Blessed Mother, do you really believe that God would incarnate Himself in a sinful vessel, that a tainted tabernacle would hold Him, that He would not apply salvation beforehand to the human being who would give Him His flesh?
The physical Incarnation was distinct from God’s abiding spiritually with us sinners – denying the sinlessness of Mary the God-Bearer (Theotokos), like denying the Real Presence in the Eucharist, expresses an un-Christian, in fact a Gnostic, impulse to separate the spiritual from the physical. Christ came to redeem both the soul and the body because the human is defined by the union of a soul and a body. The necessity of the Incarnation only makes sense if salvation applies to that soul-body union rather than only to the soul.
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nonsumd
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flameburns, why do you call yourself a Calvinist, why are you following Calvin’s selective reading of Scripture (or his latter-day followers’ selective reading of his selective reading) rather than Jesus Himself as we know His teachings from the Gospels?
First let me say, from the responses on this thread, I am starting to see that one can believe in OSAS/perseverance of the saints/eternal security within the framework of different Protestant theologies (at least with respect to predestination).
Do you not see that there are contradictions in the very language you use? You say that God chose the elect from before time; at the same time, you say that He “woos them to Himself” over the course of their lives. “Wooing” implies an attempt at persuasion and the possibility that one will not be able to persuade. If God had chosen the saved and there were no possibility, as it were, to get un-chosen, what would be the point of His “wooing”? The entire Bible is God’s attempt to woo us – and one only woos if there is a possibility to be turned down.
If all that stood between a soul and God was inherited Original Sin and not our own actual sin, can it really be said that such a soul is as wretched as a soul that had willfully committed sin? Is a newborn as wretched as a serial murdered?
If, as you appear to be saying, sin alienates us from God before we are saved yet sin after we are saved does not alienate us from God, then post-conversion sin clearly is less grave and has less grave consequences than pre-conversion sin. You therefore cannot claim that you take the “sin of the saved” to be as grievous as the “sin of the damned.”
There is no righteousness but that which comes from God. Can one really say that Original Sin left absolutely no trace of grace in the human soul? If so, where would the innate, natural morality that even unbelievers exhibit come from?
As for the sinlessness of the Blessed Mother, do you really believe that God would incarnate Himself in a sinful vessel, that a tainted tabernacle would hold Him, that He would not apply salvation beforehand to the human being who would give Him His flesh?
The physical Incarnation was distinct from God’s abiding spiritually with us sinners – denying the sinlessness of Mary the God-Bearer (Theotokos), like denying the Real Presence in the Eucharist, expresses an un-Christian, in fact a Gnostic, impulse to separate the spiritual from the physical. Christ came to redeem both the soul and the body because the human is defined by the union of a soul and a body. The necessity of the Incarnation only makes sense if salvation applies to that soul-body union rather than only to the soul.
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flameburns623
Guest
‘Calvinism’ is one way of typifying a particular theological paradigm relating to soteriology. It does not relate to Mariology. ‘Hyper-Calvinism’ is an epithet usually directed at those who hold to a strict form of double-predestination–i.e, that God not only acted in mercy to save the Elect, but positively and actively willed that all other would be condemned. Most Calvinists, including myself, do NOT ascribe to the idea of double predestination. It is worthwhile to note that Roman Catholics of an ‘Augustinian’ theological bent tend on-balance to be largely in agreement with Protestant Calvinists.
Interesting choice of words.
I happen to disagree with Calvin that Scripture or the normative understanding of Christians always and everywhere supports such notions.
Start with this website:
fccphx.homestead.com/TotalDepravity.html
Feel free to do a search of previous posts where I have dealt with this subject at considerable length and appended both books and links elaborating the subject.
I think that it is not contrary to Catholic doctrine or teaching that God both foreknows and fore-wills all that is going to happen. God has known from all eternity who is gong to be saved and who is not going to be saved. It is in that sense that Calvinists–and Augustinians of a Roman Catholic persuasion–say that the damned are damned from before all time. Where the debate gets sticky is that Roman Catholic theology–even in it’s Augustinian manifestation–wants to leave some room somewhere for individual human beings to cooperate with God freely in being saved. Or, conversely, that humans who go from this life condemned to Hell somehow exercised their ‘free will’ to resist God’s grace and thereby ‘chose’ their own condemnation.
What Calvinists say is that no such notions of free will are explicitly apparent from a careful, contextual study of Scripture. It IS clear that human beings–ALL human beings, Elect or non-Elect–are somehow culpable for their sins, that God is fully just in exercising judgement against humanity, and that it is only in mercy that He chooses to refrain from passing judgement on at least some human beings. It is also clear from Scripture that God is no respecter of persons–He does NOT choose based upon human merit. We are in fact not told HOW God comes to choose some human beings and yet passes over others. We just know that this is what God has revealed from Scripture that He has done.
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nonsumd
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I have a basic objection to this idea that Scripture does not teach that an individual’s free will plays a part in his or her salvation.
I doubt that a “careful, contextual study of Scripture” necessarily makes that idea explicit since I have seen many careful, contextual studies of Scripture that demonstrate the opposite idea.
Even a “superficial” reading of Scripture shows us God attempting to persuade us to conversion. As I see it, a God who even engages in evangelizing, in calling souls to repentance and conversion, is not a God who has predetermined the fate of souls beforehand and leaves no room for souls’ free response to His grace.
Does a politician make a speech in order to get people to vote for him or does he make a speech assuming that he cannot change anyone’s mind? If somewhere in the speech the politician says something that can be construed to mean, “Whatever I say, you will vote the way you vote,” does that mean he does not ultimately intend to sway people?
If repentance is irrelevant to one’s eternal fate, would God engage in the empty exercise of calling us to repentance ? Does it make sense and is it scriptural to contend that God became flesh and offered Himself as a redemptive sacrifice if the redemption was not potentially available to all?
How can we speak of “culpability,” how can we say that all humans are culpable for their sin, if humans have no true free will when they sin? If God foreknows and forewills everything, does He not then foreknow and forewill all human sinning as well? Do we really want, and does Scripture really compel us, to resolve the mystery of God being both omniscient and all-just/all-merciful/all-loving by understanding His omniscience in a way that renders His justice/mercy/love meaningless?
Are we surprised, need we be discouraged, by the fact that trying to understand God is a “sticky business”?
All this philosophizing about things we can’t know such as what exactly God knows seems to me futile in the face of the obvious fact that the Bible is an extended persuasive argument: God speaks to us so that we can let Him change us.
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Pax
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Your post did not answer my two questions at all, and neither did the link you posted. Likewise, you misunderstood my use of the term “hyper calivinist.” The term “hyper calvinist” should not be applied to anyone that believes in double predestination. Afterall, that is exactly what Calvin taught. My point is that you went well beyond Calvin in how you look at the saints in heaven and especially the vigin Mary.
Moreover, you went on to say that you do not believe in double predestination, but this very post to which I am responding is filled with the language of double predestination. You also claim that God’s grace is irresistable. Please read and study Acts 7:49-52. You will find verse 51 particularly instructive. It says:
“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are forever resisting the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do.”
This one verse totally smashes the Calvinist claim that grace is irresistable. Likewise, the link you posted is an attempt to support total depravity. Instead, all it does is point out that we are all under the burden of original sin. I can supply a very complete refutation of total depravity as presented by you and the link supplied if you need it.
I again ask you to answer the two questions I asked in my previous post.
Thanks in advance,
Pax
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