The Lie
Paul – in my time in the reformed church, I was taught and agreed that through our faith we are saved (justification and salvation done – complete) and we then begin our lifelong journey of sanctification as we learn and grow in our knowledge and faith. When I view the chart I have always interpreted it in the same way that I interpreted my college education – the more you learn the more you realize what you don’t know. In that same way, the more I know of our father, the more ugly and selfish my sins look to me. I have never been taught any more than that and I believe the chart makes a good point in that regard. If there is a deeper meaning than what I have presented I have not heard it.
Anon,
Your perfectly reasonable sounding statement is the bait that hooks people into the lie. The chart is indicative of the founding principle of Reformed theology: knowledge of good and evil. Read the first sentence of book one in the Calvin Institutes. Hence, deeper knowledge of those two things define both (reality) and continually glorify God. But the Scriptures make it clear that God is most glorified by us becoming more like Him and displaying that to the world, not a deeper self-realization of our own potential evil. Moreover, if we aren’t guilty of certain depths of evil, to ascribe ourselves to it is not the truth. Therefore, this is just another primary pillar of biblical metaphysics that Calvinism turns completely upside down. And the implications are chilling: without evil, wisdom cannot be obtained. That is a precedent that has given birth to horrific episodes of evil throughout human history. Obviously, if a deeper knowledge of evil is efficacious to gaining wisdom, evil will not be perceived in a healthy way. I am utterly convinced that this is at the root of indifference to injustice that is so prevalent in Calvinistic circles.
paul
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
Almost going crazy doing it Paul.
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trust4himonly,
You might want to consider how the apostle Paul defines “Israel” at the beginning of this section of Romans. 9:6. The question answered in the entire passage, 9-11, is, God’s promises to Israel have not fallen to the ground without fulfillment have they? Paul reminds his readers that “they are not all Israel who are of Israel.” This definition must prevail throughout the entire passage. That is not allegorical. It is just fact. And before you begin to make accusations about my beliefs, you might want to ask me what they are.
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I do not know how they do it- the Bible is so simple in truth to me. There is no reason to complicate unless you want to use it to control others…..And that is exactly why they do it. It keeps man in a system to control and manipulate. I do not have a God who manipulates man, but a God who in His great love gave us the freedom to choose Him or not, with our brains- quite simple really. I think my being a simple fool for Christ is what is really getting Sams undies in a bunch; I am not one of the enlightened.
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trust4himonly,
Free Will- hmm….. the ability for sinful man to freely choose who will be his master; To choose whom he will freely love (not forcibly love). Sounds like everyday life does it not?—-I love my wife because I choose to want to love her. I will love my boss (as a Christian) because I freely choose to love and respect him or her out of obedience to God because I love God. Does this not sound like normal relationship stuff?
Sounds like you have had a sex change. All this time you have been talking about your husband. Now you say you love your wife. Strange stuff.
Anyway, if that is how you define “free will,” I believe in free will. I believe sinners freely choose who will be their master. They freely choose whom they will love (not forcibly love). This is why definition is so important.
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Do you seriously believe God the Father is literally going to write his name and the name of the Lamb on the foreheads of the 144.000?
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Wow Paul,
You seem to have mastered looking beyond words to make them mean what you wish them to mean. “Heretofore” means before the work of regeneration he is describing occurred.
It will likely ruin your whole day to hear this, but I won’t be here for a little while. I guess you will just have to bear up and get along without me.
Sam
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Sam,
I explain all of this in painstaking detail in TTANC, chapters 12 and 13. I actually wrote the book so I wouldn’t spend the rest of my life reexplaining it. So, buy the book if you want my case which is irrefutable in the book and well documented. You can’t provide one shred of Reformed writing that states we are new creatures capable of pleasing God by obeying his word. It is all nuanced with ambiguous statements about wills, hearts, etc., etc.
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Where do you ever find them teaching “the whole Jesus obeys for us thing” taught by the Reformers not in broad daylight?
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Oh Sam, oh Sam……did you not read my earlier posts, that you can tell by easy and simple grammar when or not the writers of Scripture used nuance, metaphors, and similes. You can easily tell this…..just like God says “I have engraved you on the palm of my Hand” -does not mean we are actually engraved on His Hand.. Come on…just like His name written on their foreheads means that they will be sealed from harm from the Anti-Christ and Satan. Just like when God use the term sheep to describe us- we are not literally sheep, we are LIKE sheep.
Just like when I was saying “I love my wife….” I was using it as an example. By the way I don’t have a boss, so I was using that as an example too.
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“State my position accurately and I will defend it to the death.”
Sam, I have been interacting with Calvinists, YRR, NCT, Reformed or whatever they are calling themselves today….for a very long time. I love at ground zero for the YRR and have seen a lot coming from the resurgence of that movement that is down right deceptive and evil. Nothing you are doing here is new for me. What you state above is impossible. For one, you must state your position but have not. You are simply correcting statements about Calvinism, right?
When the actions and words of the Reformed dead guys do not match, I look at their actions to understand what they believe. It is so funny how one can read Calvin or any of the creeds and come away with something so different from the next person. You do not see total depravity in the Canon of Dort, but I do. So what would be the point? Most of the creeds and all the Reformation was political. There is no separation of the political from the theological. That makes it evil.
Anyway, I am not an ST person. I used to be. I now think it is borderline evil and takes folks away from being led by the indwelling Holy Spirit and offers up man’s idea of truth for God’s. It is a diversion from the Holy even though they get some things right.
If I answered all your questions, of which many are worded for your benefit of an argument, we would no more come to an understanding nor change our minds. Here is one example of the silliness to make an argument: “Do you think it would be a valid argument that because a person believes in Jesus’ virgin birth, he must be a Roman Catholic since Roman Cathollics believe in the virgin birth?”
Why would I taint the things of Christ with man’s (including dead ones) creeds and writings? Creeds tell me nothing about living as Christ here and now. The writings of man when it comes to such things as the Institutes, Works or Creeds, is just that…man’s opinion about theology. There are many correct things there but a lot missing or added, too. The focus on such things to me is like being stuck in a elementary reader when Tolstoy is sitting there waiting to be read. It is like trading diamonds for cubic zirconia. I prefer the real thing. Not all the counterfeits. We cannot ignore the fruit of those men who wrote these things. And much of it is rotten and was for political purposes.
1 John says, if saved, we have anointing. I am promised as much Holy Spirit as any of the guru’s throughout history or today. There is no caste system in Christendom.
At some point in the convo’s I start to think I am throwing His pearls out to be trampled upon. And that means we are both in sin when that happens.
I will say we are NOT born neutral. But here is your problem with original sin as defined by most of Christendom which they got from Augustine, it logically requires infant baptism…… just in case. You cannot get around that. That is why infant baptism was practiced for a thousand years with no questioning and those that did were drowned for it even by the Reformers.. That doctrine flowed from an incorrect understanding and we can trace that incorrect understanding to Augustine. It is part Plato reengineered by Augustine for Christendom.
. We are born into dying bodies that were corrupted by the Fall. “The wages of sin is death”. And no one escapes that except through Jesus Christ. And, we are born into a world created by God that was also corrupted…things die here and now.. If I go with the typical Augustinian understanding of original sin, then a very Holy God was swimming around in sin juice in Mary’s womb for 9 mos. How can that be? Perhaps they believe the Holy Spirit removed the sin goo for that time? That is where imputed guilt takes us…Mary’s womb.
Yet, we are born sinners. Did God cast the babies that drowned in Noah’s flood into hell? Would a mentally challenged adult be cast into hell because you and I both know they sin.
I think 1 Tim 1 gives us insight into that situation. God has mercy on ignorance but not willful ignorance when we know the truth.
There is such an ingrained doctrine of original sin that any discussion of it, becomes a litany of verbal abuse and name calling. In many circles, one cannot be saved unless they agree with Augustine and his version of original sin.
What concerns me the most about the Cal/Aug filter is when people live it out. It becomes doctrine over people. The very educated people who should have understood the prophecy of Messiah did not believe it when it was right before them. Yet many who worshiped tons of gods/ were idolaters, who had no education or background in Torah or the prophets, embraced the Good News. Ironically, the educated former Pharisee was sent to tell the Gentiles. Yet the uneducated Jews were sent to tell the Jews. Don’t you find that ironic? What can we do with that truth today? As I believe the institutional church throughout history has run a parallel track to how the Priests in the OT operated. And that is not a good thing. Our glorious God gave many a warning that was ignored.
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trust4himonly,
So we get to decide what we think is symbolical in the Book of the Revelation and what is to be taken literally.
Don’t you think it is possible that the entire book is a symbolical representation of Jesus’ triumph over Satan and evil? If not, what objective standard do you suggest for deciding what is symbolical and what is to be taken literally. Lots of people take 666 in the forehead and hand literally. Do you think they are wrong?
Sam
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