Paul's Passing Thoughts

As anybody who reads here at PPT knows, I am being more and more convinced that the present-day Neo-Calvinist resurgence is a return to the same viral Gnosticism that wreaked havoc on the 1^st century church. Gnosticism is based on Platonism and assumes many different applications, but the basic idea is that the material world is evil, and only the invisible is good and true. People can scream all they want to, but the Protestant Reformation was clearly based on Neo-Platonism. Much of TTANC volume 2 will be dedicated to a painstaking documentation of this fact.

And once you know what to look for, things said by the premier evangelicals of our day reveal this shocking reality plainly. In a 2010 West coast conference that included John MacArthur, Michael Horton, and RC Sproul, MacArthur stated during the Q and A that his faith was grace poured out, not human, but supernatural. I filtered the statement mentality as mere run-of-the-mill spiritual sounding rhetoric, but latter, the implications of the statement hit me right between the eyes.

Our faith isn’t human? He plainly stated that his faith was “not a human faith.” This means we only “experience” faith that is from another realm; he also in essence, said that during the same line of thought in his answer as well.

That’s just straight up in-your-face Gnosticism stated plainly. The gift of faith granted to us by God cannot be part of our humanity because nothing intrinsic with humanity or the material world can be good. This also denies the new creaturehood of the new birth. Also, in John MacArthur’s coming out of the closet appearance at the 2008 T4G conference, more or less announcing to the Neo-Calvinist resurgence that I am one of you, he stated the following:

Call the sinner to flee from all that is natural and all that powerfully enslaves him.

Does the Bible call us to flee from “all that is natural”? Well, Gnosticism certainly does. And in true Gnostic fashion, MacArthur et al continually fustigate Gnosticism. Hence, if they criticize it, they must not be guilty of it. This approach falls into three categories:

1. Ignorance: MacArthur types actually don’t see the correlation.

2. The Noble Lie: They know its Gnosticism/Platonism, but such terms have negative cogitations and the unenlightened masses only think they understand that such philosophy is errant. They aren’t “ready” to accept the “hard truth” of the “scandalous” gospel. Aristotle had a caste mentality, but he believed man could understand reality; it is curious that Calvinists often criticize Aristotle, but do not mention his antitype, Plato. Shockingly, and in their apparent fear that they haven’t dumbed down the Protestant laity enough, they even criticize the eccentric Aristotelian Ayn Rand. Christians, thinking that they are merely reading theories on capitalism when they read Rand, are often surprised to go to church and hear criticisms of her. What does capitalism have to do with the gospel? Much more than we think.

3. Outright Deception: Redefine Gnosticism and criticize it. This was a mainstay deceptive practice among the Gnostics; redefine the definition of everything.

This is a very ancient concept, and much of the true gospel pushes back against it. Much of TTANC volume 2 will also show the shocking similarities between Calvinism and Hinduism. In fact, the history of Dualism will be traced from the Tower of Babel, to Hinduism, then to Plato, then to Augustine and the Reformation, and also Islam and Communism as well. Christians sometimes ask me what I think of the Marxist leanings of some New Calvinists. I think it doesn’t surprise me one bit.

Christ was100% man, and 100% God, and this is by design. I have had readers who attend Calvinist churches inform me that their pastors teach that Jesus’ humanity was not of the same essence as ours. This doesn’t surprise me much.

paul