Predestination/Calvinism

[PRmerger]

A parable is different from a fable.

Ok.

 

[PRmerger]

Wow we agree on something!

Oh, but jericho, we agree on much, much more. Get an atheist on here, or a Muslim, or even Catholic Nancy Pelosi and we’d be arguing from the same position on practically everything.

 

[PRmerger]

What is lacking in Christ’s afflictions?

Our participation in the sacrifice of Christ.

 

[jericho777]

Oh, but jericho, we agree on much, much more. Get an atheist on here, or a Muslim, or even Catholic Nancy Pelosi and we’d be arguing from the same position on practically everything.

Nancy Pelosi is Catholic! You really are open minded but you also forgot the former Ted Kennedy.

 

[jericho777]

Our participation in the sacrifice of Christ.

Don’t do this to me. You are killing me! We agree again. You are slipping where’s elvis?

What was lacking in Christ’s afflictions in regards to our Christian walk? It is the ability for us to identify first hand with His suffering. Unless we suffer first hand for the cause of Christ ourselves we will never be able to identify fully with the Christian principal of sacrificial living that brings glory to God.

When we suffer for the cause of Christ we experience God’s ability to move in our lives and bring Himself Glory through our afflictions. It is not whether we live or are martyred for the faith but us living out our faith in the will of God.

Paul recognized this when he wrote Colossians. The body of Christ already had His promises, but needed someone who would be willing to live and bring it to pass. This meant Paul living past his fleshly concerns and sacrificially for the building of the body of Christ. We see ultimately it was the body that was built up by Paul’s suffering and sacrificial living all the while Christ was strengthening him with His Spirit. Thus being the ultimate witness and bringing all the glory to God.

 

[jrose90]

I’ve always thought that God has given us free will to choose which path we’ll take. He does, however, know which path we’ll pick. I don’t think He picked FOR us, He just knows what’s going to happen.
Plus, I can’t imagine God pulling a trick like that, it sounds so cruel to create us for Hell.

 

[benedictus2]

PR is having a hard time the rich man is actually in hell.

No she is not.

You were asked if it is said in the Bible that there is actually someone in hell.

You gave the example of the rich man.

BUT, one thing you completely missed is that THE STORY OF THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS IS A PARABLE.

Secondly, as someone brilliantly pointed out, hell is the absence of all goodness. It is being totally turned in one one’s self.

The rich man was begging Abraham to send someone to his family that they may repent. This means that he is not in hell but in purgatory. He sees how rotten he was and does not want the same fate to befall others. That is actually an act of love. Love does not exist in hell.

So try something else.

 

[benedictus2]

But the place is limbo and not heaven they do not receive the full love of God because it’s a lesser place. Scripture leaves only two places as a final destination. Scripture does not answer the question. I would like to see all conceived people go to heaven. Because God is just all people will be judged for sin.

Welll hellooo, how can god be just if he is going to cast them to hell for being sinners when according to you, it is he who made them sinners?

Here is how Calvinists understand it (correct any part of this which I may have misrepresented)

1. 
   *]People are born sinners because of the fall
   *]The Calvinist god decides to save some and damn some even before they are conceived simply because he can, because he is god.
   *]You say he is just in doing so but do not provide any reason why it is just and loving apart from “we can’t understand god’s will”
   
   Here is the problem with the Calvinistic understanding.
   
   **When people are born sinners, since the fall happened at the very beginning, god knew already that when he causes them to be born they will born sinners.
   
   So the question is : if he is just, why does he condemn them to hell for being sinners when it was his fault for causing them to be born still. he could have stopped creating people after the fall because he already knew that every offspring that comes will be sinners and yet he continues to create people. Why? I thought he hates sin and yet he continues to create people who he knows will sin/
   **
   
   Here is an analogy that illustrates that scenario for you.
   
   Let’s say you and your wife have a disease that you pass on to all your offsprings. This disease is so terrible it causes the person to die an extremely slow and extremely painful death causing them to bleed through the skin and all the orifices of their body, with putrefying sores all over their body, and incredible pain. They cannot sleep or move.
   
   So you get the picture? Being born is a living hell for these children.
   
   But, you and your wife are also in possession of an unlimited supply of medicine that when administered results in total and complete healing. Once the baby is born all they have to do is give this medicine and they will be healed. Whether you give it to the baby at birth of even years later, the result is the same, complete healing.
   
   However, you and your wife knowing all this, decides to have hundreds of babies. But even before these babies are conceived, you have already decided that to half of these babies you will give the medicine but to the other half you will withhold the medicine to make sure that they go through this torment.
   
   **THAT dear Jericho, is exactly the kind of god that Calvinism comes up with.
   **
   Tell me, would you and your wife be capable of doing that, withholding the medicine?
   
   If you answer no, then you are saying that you are more just and more loving than god.

 

[benedictus2]

Original sin from Adam.

Which god already knew from the beginning. So why did he keep on making people knowing that they will be born evil? does you god like sin?

Now, if he did not know that they will be born sinners or is powerless to change the state of affairs then that is a different matter.

But god knew. I mean, does he not realize that the more people he creates the more evil is created precisely because of the fall?

 

[benedictus2]

No they go hand in hand. David says we are conceived in sin. Just as you are human at conception so you are a sinner.

So therefore god created sinners . Why? does god like sin?

 

[benedictus2]

Maybe the same reason He created people He knows who will not accept Him and go to hell and be tormented for eternity.

Exactly! So therefore your god is a blood thirsty, psychopath. Thank you for agreeing with me.

Just as He knows there will be people He created who will reject Him and be in hell for eternity.

So he creates people knowing that they will reject him so he can send them to hell. Again, thank you for agreeing with me that your god is a psychopath.

By your thoughts God is unable to really save anyone. He must just sit back and hope someone will be worthy of the salvation He has provided.

No, that is by YOUR thoughts.

The point was someone else by their sin caused the death baby. The baby had no freewill in that matter. It was not about his eternal destination.

Nope that was not the point. You cite a passage, claim that it supports your kind of predestination to hell when it does not. I think you better read and understand the passages you cite before you quote them. It seems to me you do not understand these passages at all.

Exactly Amen!

Actually, you can’t say Exactlly or Amen to that. It does not support your position at all but ours.

You say that in some cases grace abounds for some sinners but not for others.

We say that grace abounds for ALL which is exactly the way St Paul put it.

Game set and match.

 

[benedictus2]

God’s grace and mercy is not related to who we are but to who He is.

Of course it is related to who we are. By the very term Mercy, it is relational. That someone is dispensing mercy and someone is in need of mercy.

God’s mercy depends on us being sinners. If we are not sinners, why would he need to be merciful to us? If we are all good then mercy is not needed.

 

[benedictus2]

A parable is different from a fable.

So it is and neither PR nor myself claims they are the same.

But the story of the rich man and lazarus still is a parable. Not real people. You were asked for an example of real people who are in hell.

Here is a definition taken from wikipedia.

A parable is a succinct story, in prose or verse, that illustrates a lesson. It differs from a fable in that fables use animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as characters, while parables generally feature human characters. It is a type of analogy

The word “parable” comes from the Greek “παραβολή” (parabolē), the name given by Greek rhetoricians to any fictive illustration in the form of a brief narrative.

 

[benedictus2]

I’ve always thought that God has given us free will to choose which path we’ll take. He does, however, know which path we’ll pick. I don’t think He picked FOR us, He just knows what’s going to happen.
Plus, I can’t imagine God pulling a trick like that, it sounds so cruel to create us for Hell.

Yes, it is cruel to create us for hell.

Which is why I wonder how Calvinists can believe in such a god.

I put it down to a complete drought of reason. If they had only bothered to do a little bit of logical thinking, they would have known that this is just completely un-Biblical.

What I don’t get is in spite of the many explanations on how their position ends up with psyhopathic god, they still persist in their theology. Is this a persistence in a refusal to think?

 

[benedictus2]

Nancy Pelosi is Catholic! You really are open minded but you also forgot the former Ted Kennedy.

Ted Kennedy is a strange one. When he was younger he was so opposed to abortion. One wonders whether the change is for political convenience. Which is sad as it means a sell out. The devil must have paid a good price

 

[benedictus2]

What was lacking in Christ’s afflictions in regards to our Christian walk? It is the ability for us to identify first hand with His suffering. Unless we suffer first hand for the cause of Christ ourselves we will never be able to identify fully with the Christian principal of sacrificial living that brings glory to God.

When we suffer for the cause of Christ we experience God’s ability to move in our lives and bring Himself Glory through our afflictions. It is not whether we live or are martyred for the faith but us living out our faith in the will of God.

Wow you’ve actually written something that I can agree with! That is excellent! :clapping::clapping::clapping:

Now, the question is, WHY do we need to suffer for the cause of Christ or more appropriately to suffer with Christ?

Or put another way, why did Christ have to suffer to bring about God’s glory?

 

[benedictus2]

**I think ALL **Protestant belief leads to Predestination.

Other denominations may not believe in Predestination but so long as they hold to the doctrine of utter depravity (which Luther and Calvin - and I think even Zwingli does) then the only conclusion that one can arrive at is Predestination to Hell for those who end up in hell.

They just have not followed the trajectory of their belief to its logical conclusion.

 

[SyCarl]

**I think ALL **Protestant belief leads to Predestination.

Other denominations may not believe in Predestination but so long as they hold to the doctrine of utter depravity (which Luther and Calvin - and I think even Zwingli does) then the only conclusion that one can arrive at is Predestination to Hell for those who end up in hell.

They just have not followed the trajectory of their belief to its logical conclusion.

I have made my point that God can both predestine and grant freewill. In your view, where would Augustine’s and Thomas Aquinas’ views on predestination fall?

 

[PRmerger]

Don’t do this to me. You are killing me! We agree again. You are slipping where’s elvis?

LOL! What does elvis have to do with this?

What was lacking in Christ’s afflictions in regards to our Christian walk? It is the ability for us to identify first hand with His suffering. Unless we suffer first hand for the cause of Christ ourselves we will never be able to identify fully with the Christian principal of sacrificial living that brings glory to God.

Yes, this is very Catholic of you to say, jericho!

While I think Catholic theology has been the vanguard on the redemptive nature of our suffering, when we unite it to Christ’s, certainly other Christian pastors have preached this gospel.

From Pope JPII: "But there remains the one dimension, the one reality in which human suffering is essentially transformed. This dimension, this reality, is the cross of Christ. On His cross the Son of God accomplished the redemption of the world. It is through this mystery that every cross placed on someone’s shoulders acquires a dignity that is humanly inconceivable and becomes a sign of salvation for the person who carries it and also for others. “In my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s affliction” (Col 1:24), wrote St. Paul.

 

[PRmerger]

I have made my point that God can both predestine and grant freewill. In your view, where would Augustine’s and Thomas Aquinas’ views on predestination fall?

I think she answered that here, here and here.