Why should Calvinists Care about Evangelization?

[SyCarl]

It is enough for me.

However, if preaching, hearing, doing, working, believing, etc. are all irrelevant, why bother?

I believe Calvinism is false.

This verse has no place in Calvinist dogma:

James 5:19-20 “Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his ways, will have saved a soul from death”.

Again it is important to the Calvinist to distinguish between the result and the means to that result.

God is perfectly capable of forgiving everyone by any means He chooses. God willed salvation of the elect, leaving aside the question of who is elect. God chose the means of this salvation to be the sacrifice of Jesus. Could He have chosen another means? I would answer yes because He is God but He chose a certain means. Similarly He can choose the elect and still require evangelism as the means of achieving that purpose.

 

[SyCarl]

Or to take another example, Catholics believe that the sacraments were instituted as a means of receiving God’s grace. This does not mean that God could not have chosen another way of receiving His grace. The purpose or result is to provide His grace. The means of receiving that grace is something else.

 

[Badaliyyah]

Here’s the link to Calvin’s quoteHope it works)
books.google.com/books?id=GJkEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA206&lpg=PA206&dq=%22All+are+not+created+on+equal+terms,+but+some+are+preordained+to+eternal+life,+others+to+eternal+damnation%3B+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.%22&source=bl&ots=g89gSzbrpa&sig=65OTKyRbF6eJVWDoAbZQO7lNqog&hl=en&ei=eCe3Sbn5L4-mM97npdUK&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result

Thomas is the model for much of Catholic Theology, but his works are NOT Catholic Doctrine.

Calvinism absolutey denies that God’s initiative DEMANDS man’s free response.

Calvinism absolutely denies that God has placed in MAN a longing for truth and goodness.

Calvinism absolutely denies that a soul enters freely into the communion of love for God.

Calvinism denies that justification is expressed by the assent of faith.

2002 God’s free initiative demands man’s free response, for God has created man in his image by conferring on him, along with freedom, the power to know him and love him. The soul only enters freely into the communion of love. God immediately touches and directly moves the heart of man. He has placed in man a longing for truth and goodness that only he can satisfy. The promises of “eternal life” respond, beyond all hope, to this desire:

1993 Justification establishes cooperation between God’s grace and man’s freedom. On man’s part it is expressed by the assent of faith to the Word of God, which invites him to conversion, and in the cooperation of charity with the prompting of the Holy Spirit who precedes and preserves his assent:

Notice in 1993 that the HS precedes and preserves human assent. Everything we do is done in the HS. Human freedom for God is only possible in grace. You just have a notion of freedom that sees human freedom as somehow in competition with the activity of the HS, such that it can only be one or the other. Instead Thomas, much like Calvin, sees human freedom actually set loose by the HS, and powerless without it.

“But these [people] seem to have drawn a distinction between that which flows from grace and that which flows from free will, as if the same thing cannot come from both…Now there is no distinction between what flows from free will and what is of predestination; as there is no distinction between what flows from a secondary cause and a first cause. For the providence of God produces effects through the operation of secondary causes…” (Thomas, Summa, Pt.1, Q23. art.5).

And I don’t know how one can possibly read Calvin and not come away with the clear message that grace comes through hearing the Word of God. Calvin has a fairly robust understanding of secondary causes as well. I realize that some of the things that go under the name of Calvinism are (a) not Calvin, but (b) still taught as Reformed doctrine. But, in any case, for Calvin, the normal way in which we receive grace is through the Word of God. And as the Second Helvetic Confession says, “The Preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God.”

salaam.

p.s. the link to the Institutes worked. Thank you. I got the page number, I will look at my copy later.

 

[SyCarl]

The same effect on evangelism could be argued from positions other than unconditional election as well. For example the view that God predestined those whom He knew would believe. Since God infallibly knows who will believe then those people will believe whatever happens since otherwise God’s foreknowledge would not be infallible. If they are going to believe because God has foreseen it, why bother to evangelize since it is going to happen in any case.

 

[CHESTERTONRULES]

Notice in 1993 that the HS precedes and preserves human assent. Everything we do is done in the HS. Human freedom for God is only possible in grace.

 

[Badaliyyah]

The same effect on evangelism could be argued from positions other than unconditional election as well. For example the view that God predestined those whom He knew would believe. Since God infallibly knows who will believe then those people will believe whatever happens since otherwise God’s foreknowledge would not be infallible. If they are going to believe because God has foreseen it, why bother to evangelize since it is going to happen in any case.

This basically is the doctrine of election. God’s knowledge is causal. “God effects what God knows”, not subsequently, but in the very act of knowing. Or to put it differently, the divine Knowing and Willing are the same, because God is One.

To get away from election you basically have to toss out the doctrine of God, and reduce “God” to some really powerful being (or not so powerful), who hopes things turn out ok, but isn’t really sure and is just along for the ride. Omnipotence goes, Omniscience goes, Simplicty, Immutability…pretty much the whole classical account of God goes out the window. God is no longer Being, but merely a being among beings.

salaam.

 

[CHESTERTONRULES]

Again it is important to the Calvinist to distinguish between the result and the means to that result.

God is perfectly capable of forgiving everyone by any means He chooses. God willed salvation of the elect, leaving aside the question of who is elect. God chose the means of this salvation to be the sacrifice of Jesus. Could He have chosen another means? I would answer yes because He is God but He chose a certain means. Similarly He can choose the elect and still require evangelism as the means of achieving that purpose.

God chose to give us the ability to seek or reject his will by the power of his grace.

God gave us specific instructions.

God wants the salvation of all men, but he forces no one to follow his will:

1 Tim 2
3This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4who **wants all men to be saved **and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

Matt 23
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones to death those who have been sent to her! How often **I wanted **to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling!

 

[CHESTERTONRULES]

To get away from election you basically have to toss out the doctrine of God, and reduce “God” to some really powerful being (or not so powerful), who hopes things turn out ok, but isn’t really sure and is just along for the ride. Omnipotence goes, Omniscience goes, Simplicty, Immutability…pretty much the whole classical account of God goes out the window.

salaam.

This is a false dichotomy.

A sovereign God could choose to grant his creatures the ability to love him freely.

Coercion is not love. God wants our love and our salvation.

 

[Badaliyyah]

Thomas may not BE Catholic doctrine (i.e., there is not a Council somewhere saying you have to believe Thomas on election and grace), but Molina is not a Doctor of the Church (on top of the fact that his view makes no sense whatsoever).

In some ways this is neither here nor there, Thomas is not a heretic. We can put it negatively if you like, the doctrine of election is not contrary to Catholic teaching. In fact the two great Catholic Doctors on grace, Thomas and Augustine both agree with Calvin here.

There are definitely things that separate Calvin from Catholicism, but election is NOT one of them.

salaam.

 

[Badaliyyah]

This is a false dichotomy.

A sovereign God could choose to grant his creatures the ability to love him freely.

Coercion is not love. God wants our love and our salvation.

At which point you are a Thomist. Welcome home

 

[CHESTERTONRULES]

There are definitely things that separate Calvin from Catholicism, but election is NOT one of them.

salaam.

The word “Election” means nothing without further explanation.

There is a huge difference between Catholic Doctrine as laid out in the Catechism and 5 points Calvinism.

Calvinists deny man’s responsibility to follow Christ.

Calvinists deny God’s love for all men.

Calvinists deny that God requires our response in order for us to reach heaven.

 

[CHESTERTONRULES]

Thomas may not BE Catholic doctrine (i.e., there is not a Council somewhere saying you have to believe Thomas on election and grace), but Molina is not a Doctor of the Church (on top of the fact that his view makes no sense whatsoever).

salaam.

Molinism make sense if you understand it.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Their efforts are among the means God uses to bring the elect to salvation.

I’m sure you have been told this before. But I repeat it in the faint hope that you actually care a little bit about reason and fairness.

Edwin

Thanks for saying what I had in mind. It looks like yet another “baiting question”. ​

 

[Badaliyyah]

The word “Election” means nothing without further explanation.

There is a huge difference between Catholic Doctrine as laid out in the Catechism and 5 points Calvinism.

Calvinists deny man’s responsibility to follow Christ.

Calvinists deny God’s love for all men.

Calvinists deny that God requires our response in order for us to reach heaven.

I am sure there are things that might separate the TULIP crowd from Catholicism. But…How many TULIPers are there left? like 3? holed up in an old Orthodox Presby Church somewhere? I am only half-kidding.

But none of what you have mentioned so far means (1) that preaching the word of God makes no sense if one follows Calvin. In fact it remains the normative way in which Reformed Christians think of God’s grace being mediated to humanity. (2) Nor does it mean that Calvin is in opposition to Catholic teaching in how he understands the basics of election…in fact, one ought to appeal to Calvinists to come home to Catholicism as the great Doctors of the Catholic Church, like Augustine and Thomas, teach the sovereignty of God the absolute priority of God’s grace in election.

The Westminster Confession, which is the backbone Confessional statement of Anglophone Reformed churches, is quite in keeping with Thomism and Catholicism on election.

---

To touch on your objections, briefly:

Following Christ is the result of faith (which comes about freely through God’s grace). And faith (a human act: it is belief) comes through grace. This seems to answer objections 1 and 3.

Much like Thomas, Calvin believes that God loves everyone to some degree (at the very least God grants them their being which is good). “God loves all men and all creatures inasmuch as He wishes them all some good; but He does not wish every good to them all.” (Summa I,23,1). This answers objection 2.

Nothing in Calvin would suggest that election undermines freedom, but instead God’s grace frees us for God.

salaam.

p.s. I know that even some Reformed folks, like Plantinga, have sorta gone down the Molina road, but I don’t get it. It still seems like a way of saying that God’s knowledge (and hence action) is determined by the finite, with all the effects I mentioned above: i.e., God’s knowledge is something less than effective.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

I’m still waiting for a Calvinist to give me a decent explanation of John 20:21-23.

John 20:21-23
[21] Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.”
[22] And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
[23] If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

If you either ARE are ARE NOT one of the elect, what is the point of Jesus giving the apostles the power to forgive sins?
Why would they even need to?

michel

As a means to confirm as real in this world the reality of the election which is otherwise known only to God. The bestowing of forgiveness within the fellowship of the Church, accepted through faith on Christ, is a sign of the favour with which God beholds the elect; as such, it is a motive to hope all the more in God & to trust in His promises. So it fits rather nicely into belief that one is elect. Whether in this passage Jesus is instituting a sacrament is another question - a Calvinist would say no; but that has only a rather distant connection with election.​

BTW, did you think that those whose sins are not forgiven can enter heaven ? What evidence for that is there among Calvinists ? And why are people failing to say anything whatever about the duty of the Christian believer to behave holily & graciously & obediently to God’s Will as revealed in Scripture, in Christ, & through the Holy Spirit ? Would it hurt to mention these & other such things ?

To understand a body of doctrines - what doctrines, doesn’t matter - one has to join the dots between them. Proof-texting is hopolessly insufficient for this: to quote only texts (Biblical or other) without explaining the thinking by which they they are joined, is like putting bricks together without any mortar - the building will be easy to knock down. That is poor building, not good; & it’s poor thinking to put texts together without looking at how they are joined together.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Another one!

Read and learn:

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
2. 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.
3. From the Westminster Confession:

IV. Others, not elected, although they may be called by the ministry of the Word, and may have some common operations of the Spirit, yet they never truly come unto Christ, and therefore cannot be saved: much less can men, not professing the Christian religion, be saved in any other way whatsoever, be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature, and the laws of that religion they do profess. And to assert and maintain that they may, is very pernicious, and to be detested.

reformed.org/documents/wcf_with_proofs/

1. 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.”

So why do you not mention effectual calling, for example ? Or irresistible grace ? Or the preservation of the saints ? The WCF as just quoted is not describing the elect - it is describing those not included in the decree of election, that, those passed over by that decree, whose damnation is foreknown by God. As they are going to damn themselves, God knows from all eternity that they will - which seems not unfair at all, nor immoral, nor any such thing.​

BTW, how can man possibly come to God ? He is at enmity with Him. He is out of God’s favour. He is deserving of Hell. If any of this is true - then only a completely gratuitous, undeservable, unearnable free & sovereign & gracious act of God can possibly give man a rght standing before God: works are no good for this whatever - those done before justification cannot be a title to God’s favour, & those done in Christ do not need to be done to gain what is their basis. Therefore, they are not meritorious either before or after justification, for they are useless in the first case, & needless in the second. So they are necessary, but not as any kind of title to God’s favour. They are required because the doing of them is a means of furthering God’s Kingdom & Gospel.

 

[Contarini]

Correcting me with an error is not really a correction, is it?

I have posted these definitions many times. Why do you want to define Calvinism differently than Calvinists do?

If I’m defining Calvinism differently than Calvinists do, why is it that whenever Calvinists post on these threads of yours they agree with my interpretation of their views against yours? You are engaging in your own “private interpretation” of Calvinist texts without any attention to context or nuance.

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

Indeed. But election results in certain things being in the individual. One of the things election results in is the hearing of the Word of God and a believing response to that Word. Another is perseverance in doing good works, although Calvinists agree with Lutherans that these good works are not in themselves the ground for a person’s acceptance by God (faith is; not election directly, although election is the ultimate cause for the person’s coming to faith). You declare hastily that all of this is irrelevant because it’s guaranteed by election. But that isn’t really an argument. It’s just a truculent refusal to see sense in any theology that differs from your own. To a Calvinist the fact that something is guaranteed by God’s eternal purpose doesn’t make it irrelevant. God has chosen to use certain means, and Calvin clearly asserts that this choice is grounded in God’s eternal goodness and wisdom, even though we often cannot understand how or why. God has chosen to create a certain kind of world in which things happen in a certain kind of way. That’s His prerogative.

1. From the Westminster Confession:

IV. Others, not elected, although they may be called by the ministry of the Word, and may have some common operations of the Spirit, yet they never truly come unto Christ, and therefore cannot be saved: much less can men, not professing the Christian religion, be saved in any other way whatsoever, be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature, and the laws of that religion they do profess. And to assert and maintain that they may, is very pernicious, and to be detested.

This is a particularly ironic example, because you’re missing the point of the whole article. The article is insisting precisely on the necessity (while denying the sufficiency) of the external ministry of the Word. It is rejecting the very view that you ascribe to Calvinists (and which Zwingli did hold): that a person could be saved directly by election without the hearing of the Word and belief in that Word. The point is that both the ministry of the Word and a faithful response to it is necessary. Only the elect give that faithful response. But only upon hearing the Word can anyone respond in faith (and hence God obviously so arranges it, in Calvinist theology, that all the elect hear the Word).

You have not taken into account the obvious fact that an omnipotent God of the kind Calvinists believe in can ensure that the elect hear the Word. He does this precisely by moving Christians to go out and preach the Word.

Argue with them about what Calvinism teaches.

Nothing I have said contradicts anything you have quoted. The Calvinists who post on this board agree with me on this. You are willfully choosing to interpret Calvinist texts in a manner that disagrees with how real Calvinists interpret them *and *with how a non-Calvinist scholar of the origins of Calvinism (that would be yours truly) interprets them. I know that by mentioning the fact that I have relevant credentials I’m opening myself to accusations of elitism and arrogance. But since you have claimed that I don’t know what I’m talking about, I am entitled to point out that I have a Ph.D. from Duke University focusing in the theology of the Reformation era, and that my doctoral dissertation is on Martin Bucer, who was a friend of Calvin and may have been a significant theological influence on him.

Since you persistently choose to misrepresent this fact, I will also point out that we are not arguing over whether Calvinists believe in unconditional election. So you can quote passages showing this till you are blue in the face and you are accomplishing nothing. We are arguing over whether unconditional election really makes the means of grace irrelevant. Calvinists clearly do not believe that they do. You claim that this is inconsistent, but you do not seem to have bothered actually listening to Calvinists explain how their theology fits together. You have no claim on the attention of reasonable people, since all you can do is state the obvious (Calvinists believe in unconditional election) and make unwarranted extrapolations from it.

Edwin

 

[cazayoux]

The bestowing of forgiveness within the fellowship of the Church, accepted through faith on Christ, is a sign of the favour with which God beholds the elect;

Amen.
I agree that God gave men the authority to forgive sins.

…did you think that those whose sins are not forgiven can enter heaven ?

Nothing unclean shall enter heaven.

What evidence for that is there among Calvinists ? And why are people failing to say anything whatever about the duty of the Christian believer to behave holily & graciously & obediently to God’s Will as revealed in Scripture, in Christ, & through the Holy Spirit ? Would it hurt to mention these & other such things ?

I’m with you.
Only the saved go to heaven.
Jesus tells us what is necessary to be saved.
As a Catholic, I believe what the Bible says in terms of what one must do in order to get to Heaven …
Have faith (Rom 3:28, John 3:16, 1 John 4:15)
forgive the sins of others (Matt 6:14-15)
care for one’s family (1 Tim 5:8)
feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and imprisoned (Matt 25:31-46)
keep the Commandments (Matt 19:17 and 1 John 2:3-4)
love my brother (1 John 2:10)
deny ourselves and pick up our cross daily (Luke 9:23)
do the will of the Father (Matt 7:21)
eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man (John 6:51-58)
give a return for the talents the Master has given us (Matt 25:14-30)
be baptized (John 3:3-5, 1 Ptr 3:20-21)
confess our sins (1 John 1:9)…
all by the grace of God.

Let me repeat this last part…
all by the grace of God.

Grace is the free gift from God, but we ARE told what to DO once we have that gift.
A myopic view of the elect, reduces God and his relationship with man as well as all the scripture I listed above that shows ‘faith’ as an action word.

To understand a body of doctrines - what doctrines, doesn’t matter - one has to join the dots between them. Proof-texting is hopolessly insufficient for this: to quote only texts (Biblical or other) without explaining the thinking by which they they are joined, is like putting bricks together without any mortar - the building will be easy to knock down. That is poor building, not good; & it’s poor thinking to put texts together without looking at how they are joined together.

I completely agree that looking at scripture requires context … within the paragraph, chapter, book, and the entire bible.

The scripture I brought up before:

John 20:21-23
[21] Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.”
[22] And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
[23] If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

The exegesis from Calvinists in previous discussions here results in the understanding that the apostles didn’t actually forgive sins, which seems to contradict the direct text.

If I’m missing the context, I’m asking the Calvinist here to show me that the face of the text is not what I read it to be.

My understanding from other discussions with Calvinists give me the understanding that you either ARE are ARE NOT one of the elect.
If this is so, then what is the point of Jesus giving the apostles the power to forgive sins?
Why would they even need to?
If you are already a Christian, and have received grace from God, and sin doesn’t separate you from your salvation, why does Jesus expect us to need to have our sins forgiven?

michel

 

[Dirk_Skene]

I’m still waiting for a Calvinist to give me a decent explanation of John 20:21-23…

And you will be for awhile ole friend Prostestant theology is not well thought out as we Catholics know.

 

[Contarini]

And you will be for awhile ole friend Prostestant theology is not well thought out as we Catholics know.

Calvinist theology is. It’s the only version of Protestantism that can compare with Catholicism in this regard, though it’s still crude and barbaric by the standards of Thomism.

Edwin