Where did Martin Luther and John Calvin disagree?

[TriuneUnity]

You are probably right. Tis’ a Pity.

It’s an unknown whether those differences would have been resolved. Anything other than I don’t have a clue would be a blind guess as good as any other.

Philip Melancthon did send letters to several bishops in the East to meet with them. They refused. Can’t blame them. Hordes of Turks overtaking your countries and not wanting to get embroiled in another dispute with Rome is understandable.

 

[Mickey]

Eph 1:3-6: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

Being predestined by God does not nullify human will: in everything, God is the originator, the initiator; we merely respond, but our response is necessary. Becoming Christian is not so much inviting Christ into one’s life as getting oneself into Christ’s life. What is true of Christ must become true of one who is in Him.
OSB

 

[TriuneUnity]

The Scriptures and man’s experience both bear witness that all things work together for good to those who love God. Setbacks and difficulties there will be, but God turns them into “light afflictions” (2Cor 4:17, 18; 12:9, 10). God has foreknowledge of all things.

No disagreement here.

Predestined must not be understood as overpowering man’s free response, for man’s free will is a gift from God.

Nor does it overpower per se. It overpowers man’s natural inclination to reject God and despise His grace. Without God’s predestinating call through the Gospel the only free response man would offer is continued rebellion.

Nor does the term apply to individuals.

The Ephesians and the Romans were composed of individuals.

Rather this term (which can also be translated “preordained”) means that God has a specific calling for His people from before the beginning of the world.

True; and that plays itself out in the lives of individual Christians.

“God does not will evil to be done, nor does he force virtue” (John Dm).

God is most certainly not the author of evil. But apart from Christ, we can do nothing.

Based on His foreknowledge, God assures, or predestines, that those who will choose to love Him will be conformed to the image of His Son, that is, glorified.
OSB

God has foreknowledge because He effects that which He foreknows.

 

[raumzeitmc2]

Rom 8:29: For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

Is the creation of works like those listed below anyone’s idea of someone being “conformed to the image of his Son?”

Just Reward for the Most Satanic Pope and His Cardinals, by Martin Luther.
thumbsnap.com/v/4SO3pZGp.jpg

See also: The Pope, God of the World, is Worshipped, Birth and Origin of the Pope etc pp. 191ff in:

Luther’s Last Battles: Politics and Polemics 1531-46, Mark U. Edwards, Jr., Fortress Press, 2006, ISBN 0800637356, 9780800637354

(you may have to reload this page a couple or times for images to appear)
books.google.com/books?id=kYbupalP98kC&pg=PA191&dq=%22their+blasphemous+tongues+would+deserve+what+is+rightly+depicted+here%22&lr=&sig=ACfU3U2kY3IbVGzGSCBucU63N6m32OPVwg#PPA191,M1

books.google.com/books?id=Pos741KQFtcC&pg=PA257&dq=%22birth+and+origin+of+the+pope%22&lr=

Now, I just have to ask our Protestant friends: were the reformers in possession of a *moral free will *when they produced this kind of awful stuff, or were they simply “predestined” to produce it?

Is there any justification whatsoever for such crude behavior?

 

[sola_scriptura]

The Scriptures and man’s experience both bear witness that all things work together for good to those who love God. Setbacks and difficulties there will be, but God turns them into “light afflictions” (2Cor 4:17, 18; 12:9, 10). God has foreknowledge of all things.

Predestined must not be understood as overpowering man’s free response, for man’s free will is a gift from God. Nor does the term apply to individuals. Rather this term (which can also be translated “preordained”) means that God has a specific calling for His people from before the beginning of the world. “God does not will evil to be done, nor does he force virtue” (John Dm). Based on His foreknowledge, God assures, or predestines, that those who will choose to love Him will be conformed to the image of His Son, that is, glorified.
OSB

You’re only correct in one respect here. God is not the author of evil. However, by caveat of not giving grace to some they are destined to continue in their depraved ways. The idea that God does not “force virtue” (carried to its logical end) is in clear tension with both Scripture and the writings of Augustine.

 

[TriuneUnity]

Being predestined by God does not nullify human will: in everything, God is the originator, the initiator; we merely respond, but our response is necessary. Becoming Christian is not so much inviting Christ into one’s life as getting oneself into Christ’s life. What is true of Christ must become true of one who is in Him.
OSB

I was brought into Christ by His words in my Baptism. I did nothing to get myself into Him. He united Himself to me. Our response is necessary, yes; but the response is only possible because He freed me from sin to do so. He even gave me the response (the gift of faith).

 

[sola_scriptura]

Foreknowledge, as it relates to election (i.e. 1 Peter 1:2, Romans 8:29) is explained by Jeremiah 1:5

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."

There are also several other verses to this effect in both Jeremiah and Isaiah, but all convey this same point. The foreknowledge spoken of is a personal knowledge of His elect. There is no explicit explanation offered beyond this – however, through sound exegesis we know that God knew us because He decreed our existence eternally.

Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things which have not been done,
Saying, ‘My purpose will be established,
And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’ (Isaiah 46:10).

 

[Mickey]

Eph 2:1-5: And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

Two unequal kingdoms are at war. Each is spiritual in nature; each stamps its image on its subjects and requires strict obedience. Yet they are opposites. The king of the lesser realm is a created being, Satan. His domain is of the air (v.2), neither fully on earth nor of heaven. He is the author of disobedience (v.2), rebellion. The beginning of his rule is spiritual death (v.1). The desires of his subjects are lustful, of the flesh and of the mind (v.3). Their deeds are trespasses and sins (v.1). The result of his rule is wrath (v.3), and hence eternal death.

The King of the other Kingdom is uncreated, God the Father (v.4). His realm is the heavenly places (v.6). He rules by mercy and love (v.4). The beginning of His rule is redemption to eternal life (v.5).
OSB

 

[Mickey]

The idea that God does not “force virtue” (carried to its logical end) is in clear tension with both Scripture and the writings of Augustine.

God forces nothing on us. That is clear in Scripture. I do not care much about what Augustine wrote–and especially what Calvin twisted up.

 

[Mickey]

Foreknowledge, as it relates to election (i.e. 1 Peter 1:2, Romans 8:29) is explained by Jeremiah 1:5

In Jer 1:5 God’s foreknowledge and His calling are here woven together.

 

[TriuneUnity]

Two unequal kingdoms are at war. Each is spiritual in nature; each stamps its image on its subjects and requires strict obedience. Yet they are opposites. The king of the lesser realm is a created being, Satan. His domain is of the air (v.2), neither fully on earth nor of heaven. He is the author of disobedience (v.2), rebellion. The beginning of his rule is spiritual death (v.1). The desires of his subjects are lustful, of the flesh and of the mind (v.3). Their deeds are trespasses and sins (v.1). The result of his rule is wrath (v.3), and hence eternal death.

The King of the other Kingdom is uncreated, God the Father (v.4). His realm is the heavenly places (v.6). He rules by mercy and love (v.4). The beginning of His rule is redemption to eternal life (v.5).
OSB

Indeed…and to use medieval feudal imagery…unless the King rides into the other domain and rescues those in servitude to Satan…there will be no peasants revolt. Indeed, they are in misery, but choose to stay there.

 

[Mickey]

I was brought into Christ by His words in my Baptism.)

And now you are in Christ.

 

[Mickey]

Indeed, they are in misery, but choose to stay there.

Indeed.

 

[TriuneUnity]

And now you are in Christ.

To the praise of His grace…but those who have not been united to Christ in Baptism or been converted by His word of Gospel…their state is the exact opposite of what that saint you posted described.

 

[Mickey]

*Declaring the end from the beginning,**And from ancient times things which have not been done,*Saying, 'My purpose will be established,
And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’ (Isaiah 46:10).

There is no greater prayer than “Thy will be done,” for God does all things for our good (Rom 8:28), and His counsel (or will) shall stand.

 

[sola_scriptura]

God forces nothing on us. That is clear in Scripture. I do not care much about what Augustine wrote–and especially what Calvin twisted up.

I see you’re Orthodox – I thought you were RC. I know you guys hold firmly to the idea of absolute free will & would not find any merit in Augustine’s writings. All I can say is I disagree & I’ve expressed my reasoning.

Blessings

 

[TriuneUnity]

God forces nothing on us. That is clear in Scripture. I do not care much about what Augustine wrote–and especially what Calvin twisted up.

Not an issue of force at all, really. God’s work in our lives frees our souls from bondage and we willingly choose Him. God works through means…Word and Sacrament…to call His people to Himself. Yes, this is predestined from before the foundation of the world, but honestly, Mickey…predestination is given in Scripture to comfort those who are God’s people; that they may know that He has done all that is necessary to insure their salvation and Satan can never take it from them. It is NOT meant to stir us intellectually and seek to reach into the heavens into the hidden will of God and figure out His plans.

We are to look at the reality of God’s grace and predestinating love in the cross of Christ and nowhere else.

 

[sola_scriptura]

There is no greater prayer than “Thy will be done,” for God does all things for our good (Rom 8:28), and His counsel (or will) shall stand.

You mean unless we choose otherwise don’t you? I thought you held to an absolute sense of human free will.

 

[Mickey]

I see you’re Orthodox – I thought you were RC. I know you guys hold firmly to the idea of absolute free will & would not find any merit in Augustine’s writings. All I can say is I disagree & I’ve expressed my reasoning.

I’m sorry. I thought you knew I was Orthodox.

Fair enough. I strongly disagree with you and I humbly attempt to provide my reasoning.

 

[Mickey]

You mean unless we choose otherwise don’t you? I thought you held to an absolute sense of human free will.

Our free will is a gift from God. We are free to choose to participate in God’s grace.

But God’s will shall always be done. This is a great mystery and the Orthodox do not attempt to define it through circular reasoning and vain philosophy.