Wasn't Jesus' Bloodshed/Sacrifice Enough?

[jemfinch]

Now we have access to the Father. For you, that means salvation by faith. For us, that means salvation by faith and good works. Both are gifts from God.

To be clear, that’s what he understands it to mean, and that’s what we understand it to mean, but only one of us can be right: it’s not like he’s saved by something different than we are.

Jeremy

 

[VociMike]

The whole thing about extreme Calvinism or whatever this is: It makes believers appear inhumane in their witness, and it makes God appear a monster. No amount of Scripture-quoting gets around this.

I ran across this quote once, and it sums up my gut feeling pretty well:

CALVINISM, THE GOD DISHONORING SCHEME
"…Such is Calvinism, the most unreasonable, incongruous, self-contradictory, man-belittling and God-dishonoring scheme of theology that ever appeared in Christian thought. No one can accept its contradictory, mutually exclusive propositions without
intellectual self-debasement. For a theologian to flounder about in the morass of its opposing doctrines and assumptions, in a vain attempt to make them harmonize, and then admit that these are only feeble attempts to extricate ourselves from the profundities of theology,' is nothing but self-stultification. It holds up a self-centered selfish, heartless, remorseless tyrant for God, and bids us worship Him. ..........[The] God of Calvinism, is represented as creating countless billions of men and angels on purpose to send them to a hell of eternal torment, as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his creature!’ He sits on His throne and, `according to the good-pleasure of His will,’ causes them to pour like a niagara tide of life, into the yawning abyss of hell, with as little compunction as we would kill a few flies, which we have not even created!

"It is a historic fact that Calvinism has been a fruitful mother of infidelity. In its womb were born Universalism and Unitarianism, the twin sisters of unbelief. By the natural reaction of the mind they arose, as a mental protest against the monstrosities of the reigning theology. One extreme follows another. Nothing is needed but Calvinism and Carnality as parents, with evolution for a wet nurse to produce the modern drivel of New Theology.

• A.M. Hills

 

[Penitus]

To be clear, that’s what he understands it to mean, and that’s what we understand it to mean, but only one of us can be right: it’s not like he’s saved by something different than we are.

Jeremy

Exactly, but that is for another thread entirely.

 

[cpayne]

I ran across this quote once, and it sums up my gut feeling pretty well:

CALVINISM, THE GOD DISHONORING SCHEME
"…Such is Calvinism, the most unreasonable, incongruous, self-contradictory, man-belittling and God-dishonoring scheme of theology that ever appeared in Christian thought. No one can accept its contradictory, mutually exclusive propositions without
intellectual self-debasement. For a theologian to flounder about in the morass of its opposing doctrines and assumptions, in a vain attempt to make them harmonize, and then admit that these are only feeble attempts to extricate ourselves from the profundities of theology,' is nothing but self-stultification. It holds up a self-centered selfish, heartless, remorseless tyrant for God, and bids us worship Him. ..........[The] God of Calvinism, is represented as creating countless billions of men and angels on purpose to send them to a hell of eternal torment, as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his creature!’ He sits on His throne and, `according to the good-pleasure of His will,’ causes them to pour like a niagara tide of life, into the yawning abyss of hell, with as little compunction as we would kill a few flies, which we have not even created!

"It is a historic fact that Calvinism has been a fruitful mother of infidelity. In its womb were born Universalism and Unitarianism, the twin sisters of unbelief. By the natural reaction of the mind they arose, as a mental protest against the monstrosities of the reigning theology. One extreme follows another. Nothing is needed but Calvinism and Carnality as parents, with evolution for a wet nurse to produce the modern drivel of New Theology.

• A.M. Hills

Now stop beating around the bush and say what you really think!

 

[VociMike]

Now stop beating around the bush and say what you really think!

Yeah.

But what’s striking about what I quoted was that it was written by a Protestant, not a Catholic.

 

[jemfinch]

"It is a historic fact that Calvinism has been a fruitful mother of infidelity. In its womb were born Universalism and Unitarianism, the twin sisters of unbelief.

I distinctly recall in my reading of John Piper either he or someone he quoted emphasizing that it was only by preserving the Calvinist faith that Unitarianism and Universalism are avoided; I never though to consider whether it was the Calvinist faith itself that is the first step down that path. I’ll have to think about that.

Jeremy