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Valke2
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Your education obviously has gaps. Hobbs was the stuffed tiger who was Calvin’s constant companion. Together they got into all kinds of trouble and hilarious hijinks.
Geez. People need to study religion more.
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Geez. People need to study religion more.
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lak611
Guest
Oh, ha ha. I know the comic strip.
I thought he was some important figure in church history that I had somehow overlooked. So much for people on this forum not having any fun! (But that’s a different thread!).
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Valke2
Guest
Oh, ha ha. I know the comic strip.
I thought he was some important figure in church history that I had somehow overlooked. So much for people on this forum not having any fun! (But that’s a different thread!).
Other than the comic strip and some fuzzy memories from high school history, I know nothing about Calvinism.
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mommyof4
Guest
I don’t know much about the dogma of Calvinists, but I know several people who are Reformed or Netherlands Reformed, etc. They live very Christian lives and have truely been an inspiration to me. In fact, seeing some of the examples of their lives actually made me want to investigate my Catholic Church, and has brought me closer to my own faith. Although we are dogmatically different, I will always be greatful for the witness that they have given me.
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a_priori
Guest
It’s interesting to ask What would Calvin do?
Well, we know what he did to unwed pregnant girls and people who dared to criticize him in Geneva. Not pretty.
-Former Calvinist
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flameburns623
Guest
Arminianism has more in common with Catholic Molinism. Keep in mind that there is a whole 'nuther school of theology within Roman Catholicism, known as Augustinianism, from which Calvinism is derived. Both strands of Catholic theology are perfectly orthodox–it is widely said that Benedict XVI is Augustinian in orientation–but since the Enlightenment, philosophies which stress the autonomy and free will of human beings have been more in the ascendancy.
“Hobbes” was "Calvin’s sidekick in the comic series by Bill Watterson, but the stuffed tiger took his name from Thomas Hobbes, the political philosopher:Sorry if this sounds like a stupid question. I am fairly well-versed in church history, but who is Hobbs? . . . .
. . .Oh, ha ha. I know the comic strip.
I thought he was some important figure in church history that I had somehow overlooked. So much for people on this forum not having any fun! (But that’s a different thread!).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes
Aquinas’ theology was based on Augustine’s, and Augustine’s was based upon the Scriptures, especially Paul’s epistles and the Gospel of John. Try these links on if you’d like to actually grapple with the ideas of Calvinists and not with caricatures of their thought:
geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/8449/armin.html
reformed.org/
tulipedia.org/
monergism.com/
Oh and to answer the OP: I think rather highly of Calvinists.
Flameburns623 (theologically predisposed to Calvinism).
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allischalmers
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Calvinism is just a nickname for Biblical Christianity.
Forever Baptist
allischalmers
Forever Baptist
allischalmers
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lak611
Guest
Yes, I am familiar with Thomas Hobbes, whom I studied in political science. Hobbes was pretty much the opposite of Locke. Locke had a strong influence on Thomas Jefferson.
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Sixtus
Guest
Frankly I am not interested in what Calvanists believe [or don’t believe]. I know that I belong to the Holy Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ. That is all that matters to me.
I love her very very much. I am also having a love affair with my Lord
I love her very very much. I am also having a love affair with my Lord
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a_priori
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Locke was influenced by Samuel Rutherford. Rutherford (Lex Rex) provided Locke then Jefferson with a Christian understanding of how government should work although Locke secularized it.
Man an image-bearer of God but fallen; therefore unalienable rights but separation of powers.
To extrapolate the concept of a “Christian” society to be ascribed to America is a bit of a stretch.
Calvinists gave impetus to the notion of Christians, and by extension America, to be elect and therefore entitled to treat the non-elect (like native Americans) in the way they did. When you are God’s special people you can do a lot of stuff to a lot of people and sleep very well at night.
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exoflare
Guest
This is my impression of what Calvinists believe. If I am mistaken on either of these, please tell me…
- Human beings do not have free will.
- Your actions in life have no bearing on whether you end up in Heaven or Hell.
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exoflare
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Are you serious?
If so, how do you define “Biblical Christianity” in the first place? It seems like you are taking a lot for granted here…
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VociMike
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Gottle_of_Geer
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2 is easier to answer briefly, because issue 1 is confused by ambiguities as to
- what one defines as freedom
- how to distinguish the faculty of FW from the exercise of FW
- what is meant by FW in God, in the unjustified on earth, in the justified on earth
So that when Calvinists deny FW, what they are denying seems to be “libertarian FW” - which we would also deny. For them, as I understand it, freedom is what agrees with God’s Will - whatever is not in accord with that, is not freedom in any worthwhile sense. In which they are surely right.
Do the elect sin ? Of course. But Christ has paid a full satisfaction for their sin; He is their Surety, so their enormous guilt & their unpayable debt has been fully paid by Him, & is no longer chargeable to them. He has made no such atonement for the non-elect, so “the wrath of God abides upon them”.
As for 2 - the suggestion is a half-truth: it’s true in the sense that the elect cannot (so to put it) “sin away” their election: election is God’s deed, not theirs. And no amount of disobedience or ingratitude on their part can prevail against the settled, victorious, almighty & all-wise purpose of God in electiog this or that particular person: for election is of particular persons. The sins of the elect are still sins, but they have no power to destroy the elect - they are sinners, but their sins against their own souls & well-being will lead to their being chastised (Hebrews 12) but not damned; they cannot destroy themselves, for they cannot prevail against God, any more than the devil can. So they are safe even from their own unregenerate hearts.
And if they are elect, they will be justified, sanctified & regenerated (however imperfectly) - so they will have a “new heart” as promised (Jeremiah 31.31-34), with new & heavenly affections, longings, & motives; so they will want, however imperfectly, to do the Will of Christ, instead of living only to themselves. “And this comes from the Lord Who is the Spirit” - not from them. IOW, the Work of Christ makes a difference to those for whom it is undertaken. It is not fruitless. Catholics & Calvinists agree that it changes people - they differ as to the details of how.
Election is always going to seem unfair to somebody: because it is election of X, so not of Y. This is no more unfair than anything else in life - it is equally “unfair” that X choose A as a spouse, rather than B. Or that A is good & Maths, while B is not. It doesn’t follow that B doesn’t receive many great blessings in other ways. Election is simply a form of difference between entities which can be chosen - & difference is part of the variety of creation. One might as well complain of not being the Archangel Gabriel
. God’s Providence has ordained all things, even the very least, first for His Glory, & also, for the good of His elect - hence Romans 8.28. To complain of differences, is to forget that God gives His goods as He sees fit - it is not for us to dictate to Him, because He sees all things, & we do not.If 2 means that Calvinism is fatalistic - it isn’t.
Hope that helps
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Gottle_of_Geer
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It’s long - so it would take a while. It’s very easy to caricature Calvinism (just as it is easy to caricature Catholicism).
“…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."This is the fallacy of “poisoning the wells”: it makes reasoned discussion impossible, by sneaking in a moral judgement about Catholic clergy (as Newman complained in the Apologia Pro Vita Sua); or about Calvinists (as here). “PTW” does not allow for the possibility that the poisoner of the wells is mistaken.
I’ll get back to you on this ##
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Gottle_of_Geer
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"…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. …But such a pitiless human autocrat is as gentle as a ray of early morning sunshine compared with the God of Calvinism, - who 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!
…cont’d…]
There is a lot of accusation here - but also much vagueness. Who is the quoted theologian ? R.L. Dabney, perhaps ? Someone else ? In which of his works does the quotation occur ? If we knew, it might be possible to refer to them, to see what the context of the quoted remark is. For if that cannot be known, it is impossible to say whether the theologian is admitting what this writer asserts - or is speakling of something quite different. There are matters, such as the Blessed Trinity, of which we can indeed say that our ideas in regard to It ‘are only feeble attempts to extricate ourselves from the profundities of theology’ - & the same applies to the mysteries of God’s eternal counsel, whuch Scripture calls “a great deep”. God is a great God, wonderful in counsel, so it is unthinkable that His ways should be fully comprehensible to us; but we are not condemned to know nothing of them at all. So that admission is by no means unChristian, nor unworthy of a Christian who seeks to understand the ways of God better; let alone a condemnation of Calvinism. God will cease to be mysterious if He ceases to be God or if theology becomes wholly rationalist - to be God at all, is to be wholly beyond the power of our feeble sin-struck minds to know fully. The objection is also spoiled by emotionalism - hard questions can’t be solved by appeals to emotion.
However unsatisfactory some aspects of Calvin’s doctrine of predestination may be, he was wrestling with a question which presses as hard on other theologies on his - the question of how it can be that an Almighty, Good, All-Wise God can create free beings who are capable of falling from Him, & of damning themselves. He was well aware of the moral issues involved, & uncompromisingly rejects the notion that God is the Author of evil: both in the Institutes, & in “The Eternal Predestination of God”. He is Sovereign - but He is in no way the Author of evil; Calvin is very clear on that……cont’d…]
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Gottle_of_Geer
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…continued…]
It was St. Paul, not Calvin, who wrote:
God is to be adored, because He is supremely wonderful, supremely glorious, indescribable in goodness: the Puritans have written of the excellence & beauty of God; the author sounds almost as if the idea that we should love God devotedly, totally, with all that we have, are, do, & under all circumstances, is a sort of indecency, a tyrannical invasion of our liberty. We worship God for reasons beyond counting - His astonishing kindness to sinners who were His enemies, is surely reason enough.
BTW - what else is worthy of worship ? Nothing.
christianstudy.homestead.com/files/classes/defending_the_faith/lesson11.htm
…cont’d…]
It was St. Paul, not Calvin, who wrote:
- Rom 9:14 What shall we say then? [Is there] unrighteousness with God? God forbid.
- Rom 9:15 For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
- Rom 9:16 So then [it is] not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
- Rom 9:17 For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
- Rom 9:18 Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will [have mercy], and whom he will he hardeneth.
- Rom 9:19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
- Rom 9:20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed [it], Why hast thou made me thus?
- Rom 9:21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
- Rom 9:22 [What] if God, willing to shew [his] wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
- Rom 9:23 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
- Rom 9:24 Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
- the objection to Calvin’s God, is as fatal to that of St. Paul.
Which is also a good description of the God of the OT, as many sceptics point out - because they miss the point. Of course God is “self-centred” - and thank God that He is. He is selfish & self-centred only in the sense that He is jealous for the Glory of His Name, “for it is Holy”. It matters immensely that we should know what sort of God we adore - and idols debase both Him and those who use them. Which is why idolatry is utterly hateful to Him, & intolerable, loathsome, abominable, detestable, obscene. How can we love God as we ought, if we are adoring some wretched “no-god” ?
What is forgotten by this author, is the love of God for His chosen - something neither Paul nor Calvin forgot. That God does choose, is a fact of both Testaments - as a Christian, a theologian, a preacher, a commentator & a pastor, Calvin could hardly have ignored it: whether people like it or not. Since when was revelation to be measured by what we like to hear ?God is to be adored, because He is supremely wonderful, supremely glorious, indescribable in goodness: the Puritans have written of the excellence & beauty of God; the author sounds almost as if the idea that we should love God devotedly, totally, with all that we have, are, do, & under all circumstances, is a sort of indecency, a tyrannical invasion of our liberty. We worship God for reasons beyond counting - His astonishing kindness to sinners who were His enemies, is surely reason enough.
BTW - what else is worthy of worship ? Nothing.
christianstudy.homestead.com/files/classes/defending_the_faith/lesson11.htm
- a very good page on the “selfishness” of God
…cont’d…]
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Gottle_of_Geer
Guest
…cont’d & ended]
“We do not wonder that this wicked caricature of God…”,
‘At the funeral of every lost soul the procession of mourners will be headed by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.’
"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.
Besides - which doctrines ? St. Paul writes of election - yet he was the most tireless of missionaries. “Irresistible grace” is named; let us throw in election & predestination, to make things easier for the purposes of accusation.
It is God, not man, who makes the call to salvation effectual - the sincere call of God to the unregenerate may be refused a thousand times before it overcomes the heart of stone; so it is no wonder that it is not effectual every time it is made. It is effective when in God’s good purpose He wills it to be; & what is there to complain of in that ? So Finney cannot boast, neither can Calvinists. Paul sows - but God, gives the increase. It is unfair to Finney to praise his work for reasons implying that those who praise him have forgotten this. ##
“We do not wonder that this wicked caricature of God…”,
which is not Calvin’s idea, but a distortion of it
"…was called by Henry Ward Beecher ‘a horrid nightmare of human reason!’ The sentiment of the missionary, Bishop Wm. Taylor, of holy memory, was infinitely more Scriptural when he wrote:‘At the funeral of every lost soul the procession of mourners will be headed by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.’
"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.
The first sentence, slightly adapted, could be said of any form of Christianity.
"Its doctrines are an impediment to revivals.Try telling that to the persecuted Huguenots, or to the persecuted Calvinists of the 18th century - the survival of Reformed Protestantism, often under at very great cost in suffering, says otherwise. ## The churches of America were paralyzed by the doctrine of ‘moral inability’ and sinners were either plunging into universalism and infidelity, or sleeping on the brink of hell, supinely waiting for the ‘irresistible grace’ to force salvation into them, when Finney, with his mighty eloquence, like the hammer of Thor, smashed their Calvinism, and aroused the multitudes to use their powers and seek salvation. He spent nearly a year in the Presbyterian churches of Philadelphia alone, and from that center, and other places where he labored, the revival spread, and spread, over the English speaking world. Nobody knows how many hundreds of thousands of souls were saved. But Finney records that the ministers and churches that clung to their old Calvinistic doctrines were smitten with the barrenness of death. And working right along with Finney were the Methodist ministers, preaching a similar Gospel, and winning multitudes to God."
It is no disrespect to C.G. Finney to point out that George Whitfield & Jonathan Edwards, both firm Calvinists, were equally active in the same work a century before him. It is not true that Calvinism is as such an impediment to revival - forms of it may be, but it as such need not be; and as a matter of the historical record, C.H. Spurgeon, William Cary, Hudson Taylor, & other Calvinists too numerous to name have been either preachers or missionaries. The authors of “Amazing Grace” (John Newton); “Rock of Ages” (Augustus Toplady); “There is a Fountain Fill’d With Blood” (William Cowper), were all Calvinists. So was Isaac Watts. These hymns, sermons, & writers are still in print, & valued by thousands who are are not Calvinists. Surely this counts for something.
It is interesting that Calvinists such as John Bunyan, Thomas Watson, Richard Vincent, the men of the Westminster Assembly, & the other Puritans, should, by implication, be objected to for their “intellectual self-debasement”. Bunyan - “intellectually debased” ? Surely not.Besides - which doctrines ? St. Paul writes of election - yet he was the most tireless of missionaries. “Irresistible grace” is named; let us throw in election & predestination, to make things easier for the purposes of accusation.
It is God, not man, who makes the call to salvation effectual - the sincere call of God to the unregenerate may be refused a thousand times before it overcomes the heart of stone; so it is no wonder that it is not effectual every time it is made. It is effective when in God’s good purpose He wills it to be; & what is there to complain of in that ? So Finney cannot boast, neither can Calvinists. Paul sows - but God, gives the increase. It is unfair to Finney to praise his work for reasons implying that those who praise him have forgotten this. ##
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Sixtus
Guest
Calvanism is about ‘eliteism’ where the elite are calvanists and ‘the great unwashed’ are everyone else, us included.
Christ died to save the Calvanists, but the Romists [as the elitists like to call us-even if we do have the real bible], are still in our sins. We have no chance of getting to heaven no matter how much we ask Christ to come into our lives, the only hope for our salvation is to turn away from the Church which Christ founded and profess our faith in them for whom He died.
Calvinism so far as I can see, is a form of freemasonry. You are either in the chosen few or you are not. If you are not, then there is nowt one can do but get a spare pair of teeth as one is going to need them with all the nashing we will be doing!
Seriously, Calvanists reject the Authodox tradition in preference for the Hebrew one.
It is interesting to note that the early Church Fathers of the First century used the Septuagent. If they erred, then it was within a decade or two of the resurrection of Christ. That lets us RC’s off the hook as the Calvanists say our Church did not come into existence until way after the first century. We Romists merely inherited the Septuagent that was passed onto us by the Apostles. Luther however, rejected the Texts that the Apostles used as he thought they had made a mistake in chosing this Hebrew Canon.
We Catholics have no such imagination or originality, like ‘sheep to the slaughter’. We just accept the Scriptures handed to us from the Apostles. I mean, anyone would think they had met the risen Christ, the way they behaved. Such arrogance indeed!!
Christ died to save the Calvanists, but the Romists [as the elitists like to call us-even if we do have the real bible], are still in our sins. We have no chance of getting to heaven no matter how much we ask Christ to come into our lives, the only hope for our salvation is to turn away from the Church which Christ founded and profess our faith in them for whom He died.
Calvinism so far as I can see, is a form of freemasonry. You are either in the chosen few or you are not. If you are not, then there is nowt one can do but get a spare pair of teeth as one is going to need them with all the nashing we will be doing!
Seriously, Calvanists reject the Authodox tradition in preference for the Hebrew one.
It is interesting to note that the early Church Fathers of the First century used the Septuagent. If they erred, then it was within a decade or two of the resurrection of Christ. That lets us RC’s off the hook as the Calvanists say our Church did not come into existence until way after the first century. We Romists merely inherited the Septuagent that was passed onto us by the Apostles. Luther however, rejected the Texts that the Apostles used as he thought they had made a mistake in chosing this Hebrew Canon.
We Catholics have no such imagination or originality, like ‘sheep to the slaughter’. We just accept the Scriptures handed to us from the Apostles. I mean, anyone would think they had met the risen Christ, the way they behaved. Such arrogance indeed!!
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flameburns623
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I frankly don’t know where you get your information. The Elect are the Elect, wherever they may be found. Many, certainly, will be found in the RCC. And my election does not make me ‘elite’: we who are saved are saved by God’s sovereign grace, not based upon any merit or virtue residing in us.
The Septuagint is a translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek, done on behalf of first-century Jews of the Diaspora. It is the version of the Old Testament most commonly cited in the New Testament itself, though we don’t know of a certainty that it was used by the Apostles in their daily ministry. When Jesus read from the scrolls in the synagogue, he likely read directly out of the original Hebrew. Paul the apostle likely reasoned with his fellow-Jews directly from the Hebrew text, at least much of the time. The use of the Septuagint in the NT probably has more to do with the fact that the NT itself was written in Greek and the NT writers felt it better to use a commonly-accepted translation than translate the Hebrew into Greek on their own.
The Septuagint did include a # of what Catholics call the Jewish Deuterocanonical books (what Protestants later termed the Apocrypha). These books were deemed even in the Septuagint as being of lesser authority, and when Jewish leaders later put together an authoritative canon of Jewish Scripture they excluded the Deuterocanonicals. This decision by Jewish scholars was one of the factors used by Martin Luther in deeming the authoritativeness of the Deuterocanonicals. It is important to realize however that Luther considered the Deuterocanonicals to be worthy of some consideration, and so included them in a separate section of his translation.
None of which has much to do with Calvinism.
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