General question about Evangelical belief, disturbing if true

[flameburns623]

JimG:

Well, I certainly didn’t intend to endorse Pelagius, who thought that the human will could attain sufficient moral strength on its own without the need of Grace . . . . The initiative IS all God’s. But both Catholics and Protestants believe that some human action is necessary. The act of accepting Jesus is a human action, a movement of the human will, to choose or to reject. It is indeed God who gives the grace for us to choose. Yet we retain the human ability to reject His grace.

You don’t understand either Pelagius or Augustine or Calvin especially well. (Which is OK, since I rest square in the middle of Calvin and Augustine myself and don’t always understand the issues myself. In some of my early posts to this thread I thrashed a lot of these issues out elsewhere–and took a bit of a thrashing from the resident Eastern Orthodox priest, Fr. Ambrose).

Calvin in particular was clear that God’s grace is irresistable and that libertarian free will is a pagan idea introduced into Christianity by way of pagan Greek philosophy. The tough thing to absorb is that human beings are not free absolutely but free only within their nature–which is sinful and fallen and at absolute enmity with God. We are nonetheless ‘culpable’ to God for our wickedness, and God is absolutely NOT culpable for ‘making us so’–He is utterly sovereign and holy, and can neither be judged by His creation, nor blamed for our sinfulness, nor obliged to save any of us from it. That He saves any is His absolutely free decision: not even His mercy obliges Him to do so, yet we are told that He does save some. And we don’t get to ask ‘why’ nor question His decision in this matter–which is the point of the concluding chapters of Job (38-41), the illustrations of Isaiah (45:9-13) and of Romans (9:19-23). There are limits even upon the permissible speculations of the philosopher, of the theorizings of the theologian.

Which goes far afield of the specific question of this thread, perhaps. In any case: there are gradations of Pelagianism (hence the error known as semi-Pelegianism). Really mean Calvinists like to call all non-Calvinists Pelagians. I just like to bring up the point that an error exists in leanng too far towards the issue of free will. Someone on EWTN did a pretty good talk the other night (I assume on re-broadcast) on Catholicism’s belief in predestination, which the speaker carefully distinguished from ‘predestinarianism’. Which they typified as Calvin’s view, getting Calvin wrong in the process. This is a tough topic and raises tempers rather easily . . . .

 

[JimG]

flameburns623:

Someone on EWTN did a pretty good talk the other night (I assume on re-broadcast) on Catholicism’s belief in predestination, which the speaker carefully distinguished from ‘predestinarianism’.

I didn’t see the EWTN talk, but in the interests of learning something about Catholic predestination, checked out the following web sites:

One (rather lengthy) article from New Advent (newadvent.org/cathen/12378a.htm ),

and a much shorter summary of Ludwig von Ott. ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ120.HTM

In contrast to the absolute Positive Reprobation of the Predestinarians, Thomists insist on the universality of the Divine Resolve of Salvation and Redemption, the allocation of sufficient graces to the reprobate, and the freedom of man’s will. However, it is difficult to find an intrinsic concordance between unconditioned non-election and the universality of the Divine Resolve of salvation.

Well yes, it’s difficult to resolve those two notions! I’ll have to go over the longer article in more depth. But it seems to me that this would be a difficult subject to preach to ordinary believers, without causing them to either (a) give up all hope of salvation, or (b) to search frantically for some absolute assurance of predestination to heaven.

 

[CatholicMatthew]

JimG:

But both Catholics and Protestants believe that some human action is necessary. The act of accepting Jesus is a human action, a movement of the human will, to choose or to reject. It is indeed God who gives the grace for us to choose. Yet we retain the human ability to reject His grace.

Not all protestants believe that the “act of faith” is something that a human can do. I was listening to Protestant radio and RC Sprouol through out the idea (he said doctrine) of salvation by faith involved nothing from him but was tottally God’s doing and work that human had no part in. He did not know why he had it and others didn’t know why God had (a mystery) given him the gift of faith and not someone else but the fact that he had it wasn’t his fault. This is reformed theology–I believe.

SCARY.

Under the Mercy,

Matthew

 

[Mijoy2]

CatholicMatthew:

I was listening to Protestant radio and RC Sprouol through out the idea (he said doctrine) of salvation by faith involved nothing from him but was tottally God’s doing and work that human had no part in. Under the Mercy,

Matthew

This concept undermines my understanding of why we are on earth at all. If our very salvation is all Gods doing then why didn’t God simply create people who are of the elect only and bypass our life on earth for everlasting life in Heaven with Him? Wouldn’t this be a win win situation for all? Seems illogical.

The implication of this line of belief is:

God created people to go to Hell.
God created people who couldn’t help but go to Heaven.

If so, then why the mortal part of our existance??

My understanding is contrary (but it holds some logic for me). If God didn’t create us as individual thinkers then we are all puppets. Seems a shame.

 

[metal1633]

The implication of this line of belief is:

God created people to go to Hell.

This makes God a monster and the real cause of evil. This is not the Christian God. Our Lord Jesus Christ does not create people for the express purpose of torturing them for eternity. Better to be an atheist and deny Him than than serve such a horrible being.

Perhaps the rise in atheism in the west can be linked to the rise in Calvinist doctrines? Men became atheists in order to be saved from this evil God, a God who wished to kill them, hiding their head and closing their eyes like an ostrich.

 

[Mijoy2]

metal1633:

This makes God a monster and the real cause of evil. This is not the Christian God. Our Lord Jesus Christ does not create people for the express purpose of torturing them for eternity. Better to be an atheist and deny Him than than serve such a horrible being.

Perhaps the rise in atheism in the west can be linked to the rise in Calvinist doctrines? Men became atheists in order to be saved from this evil God, a God who wished to kill them, hiding their head and closing their eyes like an ostrich.

As my kids used to say, “'zactly”.

 

[JimG]

CatholicMatthew:

Not all protestants believe that the “act of faith” is something that a human can do.

Yes, I think you are right about this. And even Catholics believe that Faith is a divine gift which is freely given by God, but we do have to accept or reject the gift. And that very acceptance or rejection is a human act.

If absolutely NO human act is required, then there is no point in even preaching the gospel.

Some of the Protestant theologies of human nature consider it to be so utterly fallen that it is entirely depraved, incapable of any good action whatsoever, even accepting the gift of faith. That, I think, is what leads to the idea of formal predestination. The Catholic view of human nature is that it is fallen but not utterly depraved.

 

[Contarini]

I haven’t read every post in this thread, but I’d like to point out that many evangelicals would hold to the Catholic view on this issue. I grew up in a very conservative Wesleyan “holiness” background, but I was taught that there was a possibility that those who had never heard the Gospel would be “judged according to the light they had received” and thus go to heaven. Generally, the more Calvinist evangelicals are less likely to accept this and the more Wesleyan/Arminian types are more likely to do so. But you find both views among all traditions, and the adherence to the “inclusivist” view (basically the view of Vatican II, that all are saved through Christ but you can be saved through Christ without having come to intellectual belief in this life) is growing among evangelicals. Of course, hardline conservatives would say that we “inclusivists” aren’t “real” evangelicals, so we get back to the vagueness of all terminology.

Edwin