Leaving behind Calvinism

[bogeydogg]

I fell for Calvinism as the logical Protestantism. I could never wrap my head around faith alone with free will admitted. It should be noted one of the errors of Calvinism is that it re-defines the word “elect”, to mean something the Bible doesn’t support. If you read this thread and you’re a Calvinist please consider the following:

Elect in the Calvinist thinking means “predetermined saved person”, unconditionally chosen without merit or other qualification. Elect or “chosen” in the Bible is best illustrated in the passage in Luke where Jesus chooses his disciples. THere’s a great crowd, and He picks His disciples out from among them, like the Shepherd seperating the sheep from the goats. All are called to participate in the kingdom, but only a few will actually succeed in their race for the prize. Only a few will persevere. “Many are called but few are chosen.” In another sense Jesus chose His disciples from the beginning, and so that leaves a great mystery between God’s sovereignty and man’s free will. But preDESTINING people to salvation is not the same as preDETERMINING who gets saved. God doesn’t abuse His creation. No one is predetermined as going to hell. Something to think about

One of the supreme ironies of this is that of all things it is Luther who perfectly deconstructs the Calvinist argument before Calvin ever made it. Something btw which Calvinists conveniently ignore.

Erasmus had complained that in God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart God had done an injustice to Pharaoh and that it was strange to argue that God then would Pharaoh accountable for his actions.

Luther replied that the flaw in Erasmus’ thinking was that he assumed that if God had not hardened Pharaoh’s heart that Pharaoh would have acted differently than he did. If you follow this through it really pulled Calvinism apart at the roots, and coincidentally in small way is why i am no longer a Calvinist.

Think about it, the Calvinist will argue that because God predestines men for salvation He also therefore predestines men for reprobation. The error is that the assumption Calvin made is that if God did not predestine men to Hell tehy otherwise might not go and presumably some of the non-elect would get into heaven when god wasn’t looking.

The Bible teaches however that all have sinned and fallen short and have done so because they suppress the truth of God in their own unrighteousness and God, in spite of this, has provided a means to escape. Does God know who will and will not be saved? Of course. But knowledge alone is not causative. The Calvinist assumption is that if God knows then God wills, therefore those whom god knows will end up in Hell he wills to end up in Hell.

And when the question of 2Peter 3:10 come up, “for the Lord is not willing that any should perish but that all would come to salvation” they argue this letter is to the Church and thus the elect and so the reprobate really shouldn’t think that it means what it means.

Much like the ordinance of the Table those who wish to argue this way wind up saying that God stuttered or spoke with a forked tongue, and I would prefer to think that God, instead of lying or erring, said exactly what He meant to say and that for His own purpose and His council allows men to destroy themselves even though He finds no pleasure in it. (Ezekiel 33 btw)

God Bless