Why should Calvinists Care about Evangelization?

  • Thread starter Thread starter CHESTERTONRULES
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Seeking12 said:
Mystic Warrior;4934150:
Contarini is right.

God doesn’t push a magic red salvation button labeled “John Smith” in order to validate John Smith’s salvation. He uses people and events to consummate His Divine will that the elect be saved. If John Smith in Uganda is one of the elect, then God sends John Doe from America to preach the word to John Smith. John Smith believes the gospel as pre-ordained.

But God uses the gospel messengers to carry this out (as they were commanded to do). The gospel messengers are cooperating in the plan of God. I don’t agree with Calvinism. But you at least need to know what it is in order to argue against it.

Peace…

MW
Click to expand...
**Which of these points do you disagree with? What is your basis if you reject?
The five points of Calvinism can be summarized by the acronym TULIP. T stands for total depravity, U for unconditional election, L for limited atonement, I for irresistible grace, and P for perseverance of the saints. Here are the definitions and Scripture references Calvinists use to defend their beliefs:

Total Depravity - As a result of Adam’s fall, the entire human race is affected; all humanity is dead in trespasses and sins. Man is unable to save himself (Genesis 6:5; Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 3:10-18).

Unconditional Election - Because man is dead in sin, he is unable to initiate response to God; therefore, in eternity past God elected certain people to salvation. Election and predestination are unconditional; they are not based on man’s response (Romans 8:29-30; 9:11; Ephesians 1:4-6,11-12) because man is unable to respond, nor does he want to.

Limited Atonement - Because God determined that certain ones should be saved as a result of God’s unconditional election, He determined that Christ should die for the elect alone. All whom God has elected and Christ died for will be saved (Matthew 1:21; John 10:11; 17:9; Acts 20:28; Romans 8:32; Ephesians 5:25).

Irresistible Grace - Those whom God elected and Christ died for, God draws to Himself through irresistible grace. God makes man willing to come to Him. When God calls, man responds (John 6:37,44; 10:16).

Perseverance of the Saints - The precise ones God has elected and drawn to Himself through the Holy Spirit will persevere in faith. None whom God has elected will be lost; they are eternally secure (John 10:27-29; Romans 8:29-30; Ephesians 1:3-14).**
Click to expand...
I reject all of them, but that’s not the point of the thread. If you want to discuss TULIP in depth I would suggest starting another thread.

MW
 
Mystic_Warrior said:
I don’t claim such a thing. You just don’t get it.

Look back at what Contarini and Badilyyah have been saying. My point is that you are beating a dead horse that Contarini has attempted to put out of its misery. I could never argue the point as well as these two have.

MW
Click to expand...
My argument is with Calvinist dogma. If some Calvinists don’t hold to dogma, that is an entirely different issue.
  1. Unconditional Election:
    God does not base His election **on anything **He sees in the individual. He chooses the elect according to the kind intention of His will (Eph. 1:4-8; Rom. 9:11) without any consideration of merit within the individual.calvinistcorner.com/tulip.htm
Whatever method the Calvinist God uses, actions on earth are irrelevant to the selection process. This is dogma. I’m not dreaming this up. 🙂
  1. Unconditional Election
    Men are unconditionally elected by God for His purposes without any prior works (good or evil) by which God would judge them good or evil. The election of men rests solely on the counsel and purposes of God. God has not decreed anything which he foresaw in the future, for that would place His decree upon foreseeing something in the creature.
This INCLUDES hearing and believing the words of an evangelist.

Evangelization is UNRELATED to the Calvinist God’s plan. It is not decreed on ANYTHING he foresaw in the future.
 
Badaliyyah said:
actually, you keep claiming that someone is saying this, but everyone keeps telling you they are not, so i do not know who you are talking about any more. You certainly are not talking about Calvin, (or Thomas, or Augustine, with whom Calvin agrees on this topic, and who are probably the two greatest and most important theologians in the Latin tradition)…or me, or any of the several actual Calvinists who have bothered to answer you as well. You have shown no interest or willingness to understand the people you criticize. Before you can have a conversation with/about someone, you have to at least make an attempt at fairly understanding what it is they have to say.

Contarini has pointed out the determinism still latent within Molina (and a fairly crass one at that). I have tried to point out logical and philosophical problems with it. But just because we think it is impossible to give human action the relevance you want to give it – because we see substantial problems in doing so – is not the same as saying that human actions are irrelevant.

salaam.
Click to expand...
I’m not claiming anything, I am providing direct quotes from Calvinist doctrinal sources, including John Calvin.

Your inability to accept the ramifications of Calvinist dogma is interesting, given your intelligence.

If the Calvinist Jesus died for his elect alone and nothing can change the number of elect, upon what basis does a Calvinist claim that human actions can impact this number.
 
CHESTERTONRULES said:
My argument is with Calvinist dogma. If some Calvinists don’t hold to dogma, that is an entirely different issue.
Click to expand...
Your argument is a strawman. You’re arguing against something that isn’t true.
  1. Unconditional Election:
    God does not base His election **on anything **He sees in the individual. He chooses the elect according to the kind intention of His will (Eph. 1:4-8; Rom. 9:11) without any consideration of merit within the individual.calvinistcorner.com/tulip.htm
Click to expand...
Whatever method the Calvinist God uses, actions on earth are irrelevant to the selection process. This is dogma. I’m not dreaming this up. 🙂
Click to expand...
“on anything he sees in the individual” means that they are unable to effect their own salvation. He sees no righteousness that can overcome their sin debt. You’re not understanding what you’re reading. A person responding to the gospel preached to them is not a meritorious event for the individual in the Calvinist way of thinking. They are simply following through on what has been predestined by God.
  1. Unconditional Election
    Men are unconditionally elected by God for His purposes without any prior works (good or evil) by which God would judge them good or evil. The election of men rests solely on the counsel and purposes of God. God has not decreed anything which he foresaw in the future, for that would place His decree upon foreseeing something in the creature.
Click to expand...
This INCLUDES hearing and believing the words of an evangelist.
Click to expand...
Evangelization is UNRELATED to the Calvinist God’s plan. It is not decreed on ANYTHING he foresaw in the future.
Click to expand...
You are taking it out of context because the later part says, “for that would place His decree upon…something in the creature”. That’s the caveat. It isn’t based on the merit of the individual or works they may perform. As you know, Calvinism espouses that we can do nothing to earn our salvation, not even the act of “believing”. Your interpretation is faulty.

Peace…

MW
 
CHESTERTONRULES said:
I’m not claiming anything, I am providing direct quotes from Calvinist doctrinal sources, including John Calvin.

Your inability to accept the ramifications of Calvinist dogma is interesting, given your intelligence.

If the Calvinist Jesus died for his elect alone and nothing can change the number of elect, upon what basis does a Calvinist claim that human actions can impact this number.
Click to expand...
God’s predestination is the cause. The humans (including the preacher and the preached) who cooperate with His plan are the effect. Human actions are not the cause.

Peace…

MW
 
Mystic_Warrior said:
God’s predestination is the cause. The humans (including the preacher and the preached) who cooperate with His plan are the effect. Human actions are not the cause.

Peace…

MW
Click to expand...
That’s my whole point.

According to Calvinist doctrine, God has already chosen the elect.

This choice has NOTHING to do with human activity.

Why evangelize? It will have ZERO impact on your salvation or the person you are trying to reach.
 
CHESTERTONRULES said:
That’s my whole point.

According to Calvinist doctrine, God has already chosen the elect.

This choice has NOTHING to do with human activity.
Click to expand...
No, no, no. You’re oversimplifying it. His choice, yes, is God’s and God’s alone. However, human activity is the effect of that choice. Look at Newton’s cradle (the swinging balls of momentum). You rear back on the first ball, release it and it hits the other balls and causes the chain reaction.

In this case, God is the one who caused the first ball to hit the others. The effect is the other balls channel that energy and continue the momentum. Humans are the balls. God starts it. The humans follow through. It really is that simple.
Why evangelize? It will have ZERO impact on your salvation or the person you are trying to reach.
Click to expand...
No, no, no. Remember the example I gave before. If John in Uganda is destined to be saved, God sends Joseph from America to preach to him. Joseph is not the cause of salvation. He doesn’t “convert” John’s soul. The Holy Spirit does that. He is simply the way God chooses to fulfill His will. If Joseph refused to go, God would send another.

Think about this for a minute. Just think about it. If Calvinists really believed what you think they believe, then they would care less about preaching, evangelization, Church service, etc. Don’t you think they have thought this through? Do you think Calvin just overlooked this obvious error? Of course not. Did Calvin tell his people not to preach or evangelize? Of course not. Because he believed it was not only a commandment of Jesus, but perfectly fit in with his theology.

Contrary to what you may think, John Calvin had a superior intellect. He carefully crafted his theology. It’s wrong, but then so is Richard Dawkins, though he’s obviously an intelligent man.

Peace…

MW
 
Mystic_Warrior said:
No, no, no. You’re oversimplifying it. His choice, yes, is God’s and God’s alone. However, human activity is the effect of that choice. Look at Newton’s cradle (the swinging balls of momentum). You rear back on the first ball, release it and it hits the other balls and causes the chain reaction.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
CHESTERTONRULES said:
According to Calvinist dogma, can ANY human activity change the makeup of those individuals preordained to eternal life or to eternal damnation?
Click to expand...
If by “makeup” you mean things like thoughts, dispositions, moral character, personality, etc., then of course it can. According to Calvinist dogma, human actions influence others in ways that God uses to accomplish His purpose. That would include preaching the Gospel, which is then brought home by the Holy Spirit to someone’s heart in such a way as to change them.

I think you are led astray not so much by Calvinist dogma as by Calvinist rhetoric. That is one of the many ways in which Thomism is superior (and hence much more formidable for those of us who find both Thomism and Calvinism morally disturbing) to Calvinism. Many Calvinists, both in the Reformation era and today (those despised Calvinist scholastics were in fact less prone to this), tend to talk in sweeping ways about the inability of “man” to do anything, and I can see why this, combined with Calvinist teaching on absolute predestination, has misled you.

Edwin
 
Contarini said:
If by “makeup” you mean things like thoughts, dispositions, moral character, personality, etc., then of course it can. According to Calvinist dogma, human actions influence others in ways that God uses to accomplish His purpose. That would include preaching the Gospel, which is then brought home by the Holy Spirit to someone’s heart in such a way as to change them.

I think you are led astray not so much by Calvinist dogma as by Calvinist rhetoric. That is one of the many ways in which Thomism is superior (and hence much more formidable for those of us who find both Thomism and Calvinism morally disturbing) to Calvinism. Many Calvinists, both in the Reformation era and today (those despised Calvinist scholastics were in fact less prone to this), tend to talk in sweeping ways about the inability of “man” to do anything, and I can see why this, combined with Calvinist teaching on absolute predestination, has misled you.

Edwin
Click to expand...
By makeup, I mean the makeup of heaven and hell.

That was poorly constructed, sorry.

I’ll rewrite it and you can answer yes or no.

According to Calvinist doctrine, can ANY human activity change who ends up in heaven and hell?
 
CHESTERTONRULES said:
Here’s a simple YES or NO question for you:

According to Calvinist dogma, can ANY human activity change the makeup of those individuals preordained to eternal life or to eternal damnation?

Calvin’s Institutes states, “All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life or to death.”
Click to expand...
I give up.

Edwin is much better than I with this. Hopefully his responses will sink in.

Peace…

MW
 
CHESTERTONRULES said:
You give up because you don’t want to answer the question.

I understand.
Click to expand...
You assume a lot out of your pride and arrogance. I’ve explained my position and have to keep repeating it. It’s just not sinking in. You understand nothing. I know when to stop, but it doesn’t seem that you do.

Peace…

MW
 
Mystic_Warrior said:
You assume a lot out of your pride and arrogance. I’ve explained my position and have to keep repeating it. It’s just not sinking in. You understand nothing. I know when to stop, but it doesn’t seem that you do.

Peace…

MW
Click to expand...
You claimed I don’t understand.

Help me understand.

Answer yes or no:

According to Calvinist doctrine, can ANY human activity change who ends up in heaven and hell?
 
Why should people care about evangelism? Because Christ commands everyone to evangelize.
Matt 28:19-20
19 " Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."
NASU
 
DLClark said:
Why should people care about evangelism? Because Christ commands everyone to evangelize.
Matt 28:19-20
19 " Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."
NASU
Click to expand...
With regard to heaven and hell, according to Calvinist theology, what difference does it make?

Evangelization is a work, as are the other things Jesus commanded us to do.

What is your answer to this question:

According to Calvinist doctrine, can ANY human activity change who ends up in heaven and hell?
 
CHESTERTONRULES said:
Another evasion.

Is it really such a difficult question?

According to Calvinist doctrine, can ANY human activity change who ends up in heaven and hell?
Click to expand...
:hammering: I tried so hard :o

Edwin gave an excellent response to your question earlier here:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=4936414&postcount=89

Change as in converting themselves or others? No. God decides their fate. A preacher doesn’t cause one’s salvation, nor does the elect change himself to decide either Heaven or Hell. The Holy Spirit does the work in the person’s heart. But God uses a multitude of ways to bring to pass what He has ordained. As Edwin stated earlier from that post:
40.png
Contarini:
According to Calvinist dogma, human actions influence others in ways that God uses to accomplish His purpose. That would include preaching the Gospel, which is then brought home by the Holy Spirit to someone’s heart in such a way as to change them.
Click to expand...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top