New Calvinist Hoplessness
When the doctor comes to us and says, “I’m sorry, there is nothing we can do,” that is interpreted as hopelessness with a capital “H.” But somehow, among Christians, the idea that we can’t do anything supposedly gives hope. No wonder that the world will not come to us for answers to life’s deepest problems. Somehow, we think the world will believe that God can save a soul when He can’t even teach His children to save a marriage. In fact, the church is indifferent to solutions because after all, “God has preordained it.” No wonder churches are dying. True, there are confused ones that believe God hasn’t preordained hopelessness, but still say there is nothing we can do. That is where New Calvinists offer a more doctrinally sound hopelessness.
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
Lin –
You wrote: “God gives us faith! It is as if they are saying God believes in Himself for us.”
“For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift – not from works, so that no one can boast.” Eph. 2:8-9 (HCSB)
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Are you on moderation or did I just lose my comment?
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Yep, it was lost. I will try again,
You wrote: “God gives us faith! It is as if they are saying God believes in Himself for us.”
“For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift – not from works, so that no one can boast.” Eph. 2:8-9 (HCSB)”
Jeff, do you think this verse is saying God gives us faith? Or is it He gives us Grace and we must have faith? Is Grace the gift?
Why would Jesus tell everyone to repent and “believe” if they are not able?
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esthersrequest,
Most of the sources I consulted believe that “this” refers to both grace and faith, according to Greek grammar.
Jesus also tells us: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Even if this only has to do with loving our enemies, can we do this perfectly?” I recently read a blog post on this very subject that I found to be helpful. Since it’s from a Reformed perspective, you might disagree: http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2012/06/inability-and-responsibility.html.
Paul,
As I await your book, I’m still studying to see if “Reformed theology is works salvation by faith alone.” In a world where the word “tax” can apparently mean anything we want it to mean, anything is possible.
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“Most of the sources I consulted believe that “this” refers to both grace and faith, according to Greek grammar.”
There was a HUGE debate on this very thing over at SBCToday.
“Jesus also tells us: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Even if this only has to do with loving our enemies, can we do this perfectly?” I recently read a blog post on this very subject that I found to be helpful. Since it’s from a Reformed perspective, you might disagree: http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2012/06/inability-and-responsibility.html.
”
This is where I think Reformed Doctrine really presents a false dichotomy. We cannot be “perfect” so Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us so we can be perfect. It is nothing but an excuse to excuse sin and why I view Calvinism as really another form of easy believism.. Think about this for a moment, The Reformed icons Luther and Calvin persecuted believers thinking they were doing God’s work. When in fact, scripture teaches that those who persecute believers are really persecuting Christ. But they were “perfect” because Jesus imputed righteousness to them? (Nevermind they were not really brilliant theologians)
I mean, with that thinking, we should be very afraid of Calvinist Christians~ The only thing separating them from persecuting us are American laws against such things!!!
The problem the Reformed have is starting out with their definition of total depravity which is really total inability and Adam’s “guilt” imputed to us. (Jesus, the perfect One lived in a womb full of sin water? How is that guilt imputed one guy asks…by semen?)
There are some passages that seem to read that way with the Augustine/Calvin fitler on them. But when we really take a look there are some major problems with that. Man was not cursed. The ground and animals were. Man was condemned to die and now to be born into a
“condemned to death” body seperated from God. There are too many passages that are calling on man to “do” something. Whether it is repent, obey, believe, etc. I often ask Calvinists if they think there is any “image of God” today in people at all or was it all taken away at the Fall. Death IS condemnation, my friend. Jesus came to give us eternal “life” if we repent and believe. (Neither are a work of salvation btw)
Calvinists have us as robots who cannot obey God. We cannot live the sermon on the mount. Christ had to do it for us which means I had better avoid Calvinists…lock up the children, hide the silver as Jesus is being perfect for them so they don’t even have to obey any commands such as love your neighbor. Jesus is doing it for them, I guess.
1 John is an excellent source for us. Are we “walking in the light”? Do we “practice” sin as a lifetyle? John says believers do not even though they ARE sinners by the very truth they are born into corrupted bodies into a corrupted earth. We are constantly battling our flesh. A true believer could NEVER imprison or torture another believer simply because they disagreed with infant baptism. The fact that some think they could be true believers and do such things chills me to the bone. And many people follow such people and interpret the scriptures through their lens. I find that chilling.
I am always perplexed at what Calvinists do with the New Birth and we are now “New Creatures” in Christ. What does that mean since we are unable to even have faith…God has to have faith for us or impute faith to us, I guess.
The other problem Calvinists have is that God is repsonsible for giving us faith, repentence and belief in order to be saved BUT he is not responsible when when he is rejected. But God is the one who must make the decision whether we are regenerated. Mark 10 is a real problem as just one example where the Rich young ruler comes to Jesus and Jesus looked at him and LOVED him. So are we to surmise that Jesus, Savior, looks at him, loves him, decides NOT to regenerate him and consigns him to hell?
Since we are worms with no ability to respond to God then this problem of God as the author of evil and turning us away by not regenerating us becomes a problem. God in the flesh can look at someone who is seeking and NOT grant him regeneration to sell his stuff and follow Christ? Yet he LOVES HIM????? And it starts with the fact they give man no ability at all in the process.
To me, Calvinism does nothing but give man an excuse to sin, be arrogant and unloving. I will stick with the folks who want to please God and who strive to be Holy like Jesus was holy. They are safer. :o)
I do not know where this ‘esthersrequest” is coming from!!!!
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Esther,
A few questions, if you don’t mind:
David arranged for the death of his mistress’s husband. Was he a believer?
Could God save everyone? Since, most likely, He doesn’t, what does that say about Him?
What is the moral or spiritual condition of a human when she/he is born?
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Jeff, The problem we have here is the fact that all of the systematized theology arguing for a deterministic salvation comes from Reformed theology which is a false gospel because it fuses justification and sanctification together. In essence, it is works salvation. We must maintain our salvation by following a reformed mystic formula.
Election is a mystery, and a debate that should not preempt a discussion concerning the Reformation’s false gospel.
> —–Original Message—– >
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“David arranged for the death of his mistress’s husband. Was he a believer?”
We are talking about different covenants.Where is Jesus? I could ask you if God used David after all that then you must think Christ went to the Cross so we could sin even more? Is that the point of trotting out David, I wonder? Luther said, “Sin Boldly”. Why would Jesus need go to the Cross since God used David and look at all his horrible sin?
(This is one of my huge pet peeves. Trotting out David to excuse heinous sin in the New Covenant. David also had a lot of wives…that was God’s intention in the Old Covenant? Solomons 600 wives?)
“Could God save everyone? Since, most likely, He doesn’t, what does that say about Him?”
That he did not create marionettes but created man in His own Image. And the fall did not take away man’s ability to think, reason, make choices. That the Holy Spirit can draw us to Him when we hear the truth and we CAN choose to reject Jesus Christ. Christianity is a relationship with Jesus Christ. Not a system/religion. And that is what I think Calvinism does….makes it a systemized religion. It is darkness,a vortex of confusion and mysticism, fatalistic with a determinist God who is a short walk from Allah. At least the Calvinist version of God has grace for a few He chooses.
This is why Calvinism historically either dies out or goes liberal. It does not produce humble, servants who are full of love. It produces tyrants and sycophants. Just look at the Puritans. Geneva.
“What is the moral or spiritual condition of a human when she/he is born?”
My understanding is that we are condemned to die. Born in a corrupt body into a corrupt world. Totally separated from God. This corruption affects every aspect our our lives. But we are not imputed Adam’s guilt. We are guilty for our own sins. I have had Calvinists tell me that babies are selfish when they cry for a bottle. It never occurs to them that might be an instinct given by God for survival. And since Jesus was perfect, we must assume he never cried to be fed as a baby?
Imputed guilt is one reason that Calvinists baptize babies…they believe we are imputed with Adam’s guilt and this sprinkling saves them if they die as babies. Speaking of David, he believed his dead child went to be with God.
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Because of a service outage, I’ve been offline for about 8 days. Just catching up now.
Esther – “This is where I think Reformed Doctrine really presents a false dichotomy. We cannot be ‘perfect’ so Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us so we can be perfect. It is nothing but an excuse to excuse sin and why I view Calvinism as really another form of easy believism”
Luther said that believers are “simul justus et peccator,” roughly “at the same time righteous and sinner.” Among other things, he was referring to the constant struggle we have with sin, the conflict between the flesh and the Spirit (e.g. Rom. 7). I have never read anything in Calvin or Luther that comes anywhere close to excusing sin.
Concerning David: Gen. 15:6 says “Abram believed the LORD, and He credited it to him as righteousness.” People could be saved in the Old Covenant, although I think everyone is ultimately saved by Jesus. David sinned grievously and sincerely repented. God called him “a man after My own heart.” I don’t think it’s up to us to decide which sins a believer couldn’t commit.
Yes, Christianity is a relationship, but there is also doctrine, so there is, in a sense, a system also. Non-Calvinists have systems too.
“[Calvinism] does not produce humble, servants who are full of love. It produces tyrants and sycophants.” Bunyan? Spurgeon? Matthew Henry? B.B. Warfield? J.I. Packer? And the Puritans were not the stereotype most people believe.
“But we are not imputed Adam’s guilt.”
“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all men, because all sinned.” (Rom. 5:12) “So then, as through one trespass there is condemnation for everyone, so also through one righteous act there is life-giving justification[f] for everyone. For just as through one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so also through the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” (Rom. 5:18-19)
AND we are guilty for our sins.
I don’t believe in infant baptism, but I also don’t think Calvinists believe that infants, or anyone else, are saved by water baptism.
In all the foregoing, I’m speaking of “Classic” Calvinism, not of any distortions by New Calvinists.
Paul – I got your book. Thanks.
“Election is a mystery, and a debate that should not preempt a discussion concerning the Reformation’s false gospel.”
Yes, of course election should not preempt that discussion. And, yes, election, like everything that God does (or at least that we think that He does), is, ultimately, a mystery. But the word is mentioned a lot in Scripture, so I think that we can (tentatively) draw some conclusions about it.
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Wow Jeff! 8 days! Was it real hot,. too?
“Luther said that believers are “simul justus et peccator,” roughly “at the same time righteous and sinner.” Among other things, he was referring to the constant struggle we have with sin, the conflict between the flesh and the Spirit (e.g. Rom. 7). I have never read anything in Calvin or Luther that comes anywhere close to excusing sin.”
But their lives did. How can one take their Determinist God and subtract him from the state/church that persecuted? How come what they believed and wrote about did not make this obvious?
“Concerning David: Gen. 15:6 says “Abram believed the LORD, and He credited it to him as righteousness.”People could be saved in the Old Covenant, although I think everyone is ultimately saved by Jesus. David sinned grievously and sincerely repented. God called him “a man after My own heart.” I don’t think it’s up to us to decide which sins a believer couldn’t commit.”
I must not have made myself clear. I believe God dealt worked through his nation Israel but that we are in a New Covenant and given the Holy Spirit. That temple veil was torn in two for what reason? This is not about what sins a believer could or could not commit but about God going from being with Adam and Eve in the Garden, being seperated from us after the fall as in we are now born seperated from God. So eventually God Dwells in a temple during the Old Covenant and NOW he is dwelling in US as the temple.
This is the part that always confuses me about universalists and Calvinists. Will a born again ax murderer still murder people? Will a born again robber continue to rob until Jesus comes back? Those are drastic examples but I do wonder where the New Birth is and how it can really work for Calvinism. or should we be scared of Calvinists? :io)
“Yes, Christianity is a relationship, but there is also doctrine, so there is, in a sense, a system also. Non-Calvinists have systems too.”
I have to laugh at this one. Doctrine has become MORE important than people. The relationship with Christ IS the doctrine. IN fact, the problems of church/state, tyrannical Christianity started when doctrine became the focus in about 300 AD. Before that, reading early Christians like Polycarp, etc, the focus was on HOW they lived.
“[Calvinism] does not produce humble, servants who are full of love. It produces tyrants and sycophants.” Bunyan? Spurgeon? Matthew Henry? B.B. Warfield? J.I. Packer? And the Puritans were not the stereotype most people believe.”
I am not going to argue this one except to say Reformed history is a bloody evil mess as is Catholic history. I do not know what hisgtory of the Puritans you are reading but I have learned something about this. Be careful. I can read the same things you read and come away appalled you don’t. I find reading the charters of Puritan settlers startling as in their view if the Natives do not mind their taking their land then take it by force. The burning of witches which everyone makes cliche should be researched more in depth.
May we honor the victims of religous persecution instead of belittling them to prop up ou favorite tyrants.
“But we are not imputed Adam’s guilt.”
“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all men, because all sinned.” (Rom. 5:12) “So then, as through one trespass there is condemnation for everyone, so also through one righteous act there is life-giving justification[f] for everyone. For just as through one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so also through the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” (Rom. 5:18-19)”
I do not read Romans through the Augustinian/Calvin lens. I read it as a redemptive narrative…more from Paul writing from a historical position considering what had gone on in Rome during those times and from the lens of Jews and Gentile believers who had come together. If we read chap 1 we see man’s responsibility for sins..
LEt us take this and ask: What is the condemnation? Death. And what sin produced the condemnation of death for everyone and for things on earth: Adam eatiing the fruit. Where is the imputed guilt in this? The consequence of Adam’s sin is death. We are guilty of our own sins not Adams. We are now born separated from God.
I” don’t believe in infant baptism, but I also don’t think Calvinists believe that infants, or anyone else, are saved by water baptism.”
That has changed over history to mean other things like a covenant relationship thing with the Presbyterians. But it used to be done to save them in case they died during infancy because they were born with Adam’s guilt. Read history and don’;t take this lightly. People died for believers baptism (REformers called it their “third baptism”) and refusing to baptize their infants during the Reformation. Baptism was seen as a “sacrament”– means of grace by Reformers. There was no believers baptism in Luther’s Germany or Calvin’s Geneva.
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“This is the part that always confuses me about universalists and Calvinists. Will a born again ax murderer still murder people? Will a born again robber continue to rob until Jesus comes back? Those are drastic examples but I do wonder where the New Birth is and how it can really work for Calvinism. or should we be scared of Calvinists? :io)”
They deny the new birth. Those who continue to live by the same gospel that saved them (continual faith and repentance only resulting in the cross getting bigger) MANIFEST images of Christ like the sun casts shadows on the earth. We don’t change, we manifest images/reflect Christlike images. This is known as “spiritual transformation.”
paul
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Lin –
No power outage, thank God. I live in the D.C. area – it would have been real bad without a/c.
“The relationship with Christ IS the doctrine.”
Mormons worship Christ. Jehovah’s Witnesses worship Christ. Are their Christs the One in Scripture? Doctrine is even necessary to tell us who Christ really is.
“I do not read Romans through the Augustinian/Calvin lens. I read it as a redemptive narrative…more from Paul writing from a historical position considering what had gone on in Rome during those times and from the lens of Jews and Gentile believers who had come together. If we read chap 1 we see man’s responsibility for sins..”
I confess that I do not understand what you’re saying here.
“LEt us take this and ask: What is the condemnation? Death. And what sin produced the condemnation of death for everyone and for things on earth: Adam eatiing the fruit. Where is the imputed guilt in this? The consequence of Adam’s sin is death. We are guilty of our own sins not Adams. We are now born separated from God.”
Rom. 5:14 says, “Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, *even over those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam’s transgression.* He is a prototype of the Coming One.” So, yes, Adam’s sin was imputed to us (vss. 12, 15-19) even though we did not commit the sin he did.
Vs. 12: “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through [Adam], and death through sin, in this way death spread to all men, because all sinned.”
I think Paul is saying this: Because Adam sinned, we are all born as sinners. What do sinners do? They sin. What is the consequence of sin? Death. So it’s: Adam – Sin – Death. Not: Adam – Death.
It seems that God saw Adam as our representative, so his guilt was imputed to us, possibly because God knew we too would have sinned if we had been in Adam’s place. It may not seem “fair” to us, but it also wasn’t fair for a sinless man to be crucified. God’s ways aren’t ours.
Though we were born with an inherited tendency to sin (or a “sin nature”), God doesn’t then say that our sins are not our fault. As you wrote, we are guilty of our own sins. So inheriting a sin nature and being guilty of our own sins are not mutually exclusive.
Concerning infant baptism, I confess I’m far from being an expert on its history. And I’m not sure what it means to so-called Calvinists today when they talk of “covenant relationship,” etc. But I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean that the infant is a full-fledged believer or even that it’s certain that he/she will become one.
Incidentally, I didn’t get very far in my reading of Dante’s “Inferno.” When I got to the part about the crying infants who were in the “nicest” part of hell because they hadn’t been baptized before they died, I threw the book against the wall in disgust and never continued reading it, masterpiece or not.
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