Hot answers tagged calvinism
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Martin Luther and John Calvin followed the tradition of St. Augustine in abhorring any theoretical belief in a state of sinlessness, whether for a moment, day, year, or whatever.
They seem to have regarded sinless perfection as the vain imagination of human pride and a result of our sinfulness. For example, commenting on Psalms 106:6, Calvin said:
How ...
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My Thesis
While you won't find many modern Calvinists preaching firebrand sermons of this sort, that has more to do with the change in American culture than with a change in theology. The point of the sermon is not to rejoice in the suffering of sinners, but to warn of the very real danger (under Calvin's theology) of falling into hell. Edwards was ...
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The Westminster Confession of Faith (the doctrinal standard for many Presbyterians), Chapter III, makes it clear that at least one well recognized portion of Calvinists firmly rejects the claim that God is the author of evil (emphasis added):
I. God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain ...
5
To be fair to Calvin, why not go straight to the horses mouth. Calvin did not believe this kind of verse (1 Tim 2:3) implied God's desire to save every man. Here is where we discover limited atonement as proposed by Calvin and is various different ways supported by the most eminent Calvinists that have ever lived, including in my mind one of the greatest ...
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Approaching the throne of grace is an inward action and would actually be a natural part of going to one's brother to be reconciled (perhaps along the lines of "Thank you God for bringing this issue to mind and please give me the proper words when I go before my brother.").
If one was coming before one's king, who is renown for his love of justice, to ...
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With all due respect to Mark Hausam, the logic just doesn't hold water. That sounds like a category error.
Category Errors
These fallacies occur because the author mistakenly assumes that the
whole is nothing more than the sum of its parts. However, things
joined together may have different properties as a whole than any of
them do ...
5
This word is clearly defined here.
Basically Supralapsarianism is a big word meaning 'before' 'fall' i.e before the fall. Calvin was what many call today extreme Calvinists or 'High Calvinism'. It refers to those people who believe God chose who will be saved and who damned, sealing their fate, before Adam sinned. Low Calvinists just hold predestination of ...
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Doing a little bit of searching through Christopher Hitchens' own book "God Is Not Great", he seems to be attributing this ditty to an English satirist. The reference is as follows:
Calvin's Geneva was a prototypical totalitarian state, and Clavin himself a sadist and torturer and killer, who burned Servetus (one of the great thinkers and questioners of ...
4
I think you've got a misunderstanding of the concept of "Total Depravity" and of the definition of the word "good" from a Christian perspective.
Total Depravity does not mean that we are totally evil. It doesn't mean that we have no good within us whatsoever. Everybody on earth has some good in them, so it would be utter foolishness to interpret the ...
4
Calvinists generally believe that our works and resulting rewards are also predetermined from eternity.
For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (NIV Ephesians 2:10)
However, the absence of our will is never included in the concept, either in receiving Christ or in doing good ...
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As a Calvinists and someone who has mostly read books from the 1500 to 1700s I have never encountered any other view beside Christ's second coming as the end of the world. In other words there is no talk about a rapture other than the final one at the end of the world. (I am not saying there is none to be found, just that among the main Calvanists leaders ...
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If any famous Calvinist could be accused of not believing God loved everyone it would be John Owen one of the foremost Calvinistic theologians. Owen (like Calvin as well) can be misunderstood as those 'who did not believe Christ died for all'. However the more I have read of their works the more I have become convinced that actually nobody has ever-believed ...
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this is actually exploring the entire theological framework of
reformed theology using this particular verse only
That's a bad idea from a Reformed or any other perspective. To take one verse and attempt to understand a full theology based on it is simply not possible. The surest way to misinterpret Scripture is to take verses out of context.
Taken ...
3
Yes, the God of Calvinism is loving and no, there is never a time when his actions are not loving.
The loving nature of God is, according to Calvinism and Reformed theology in general, both perfect and immutable. There is no time in which he is not loving nor action which does not display his love.
The reason many people have a problem with this is that ...
3
I believe you are misreading the intent of the sermon. For some historical context, here is an excellent essay
When Jonathan Edwards preached during July, twelve slaves had already
been burned and nine were hanged, and the minister had no way of
knowing how the horror would end.
So he was describing what God would do to us, were it not for grace, ...
3
It does not take much research at all to find out the great offense that many reformers took in the use of religious icons in worship. They viewed it as nothing less than idolatry.
Calvin dedicated a section of his Institutes to explain how this idolatry, though originally opposed by ancient church Fathers (he argues), became an established sin in the ...
3
Lutherans who hold to their confessions [ http://bookofconcord.org/ ] believe that justification, faith, and baptism go together. A baptized infant believes the Gospel at its baptism. An adult who falls away from faith in Christ which has been given in Baptism and is converted is returning to the promise of the Gospel which has been applied to him in ...
3
Limited atonement brings with it the implication that not anyone can be saved by Christ - only those for whom he atoned. The language used in the Bible to describe salvation is inclusive. It is described as being presented to whosoever wills. In 1 Timothy, Paul claims that God desires all people to be saved.
1 Timothy 2:3-6 (ESV)
3 This is ...
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It seems that your question is a settled part of Church History, from David Calhoun's document on this subject, entitled Reformation & Modern Church History:
Knox said women should not rule over men. That was a kind of call for revolution. People could read between the lines and realize that what John Knox really wanted was for men in the two ...
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Background
Although Calvinism and Arminianism are often presented as polar opposites, they have a common heritage. Jacobus Arminius studied under Calvinist teachers and was himself a Calvinist when he began his ministry. So it's not a surprise that the two systems share a common framework.
But Arminius eventually questioned some of the tenets of Calvinism, ...
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I am still learning so any feedback would be useful here, but I do think I have some things to add to this discussion.
We need to keep in mind that in a technical sense, we are driven to the honest answer that if God chose to Save anyone they will be Saved. Since there is not a direct declaration about unborn children, or those with limited mental faculty, ...
2
When I face this issue I think sometimes it’s just about semantics. For example, of course only those who are saved, Christ died for, because as He knew all men from eternity. He knew who He was dying for, in terms of actually providing real forgiveness to. However, with the hyper Calvinistic view (which I think you are referring to for Calvin did believe ...
2
You have it right: "X is sinful" -> "everything X does is sin" -> "X is incapable of believing in Christ without the additional work of the Holy Spirit" --> is the basic belief held by Calvinism. One of the best explanations of the doctrine of original sin is by Jonathan Edwards, entitled ‘without surprise’, ‘The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin ...
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The argument against irresistable grace is centered in the Biblical teachings that, on the one hand, God desires everyone to be saved and has made his grace available to all people.
1 Timothy 2:3-4
This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
2 Peter ...
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I'd say yes. Though it may seem a cop-out, there does seem to be some philosophical distinction between hard- and soft-determinism, though, and I think most mainline Calvinists would affirm Compatabilism. By definition, Compatabilism takes a syncretic view of determinism and free agency. So, yes, determinism is part of the equation, but it's not quite ...
2
For Calvin himself, I think the answer is a qualified "yes" - qualified, because his views should be distinguished from a merely mechanistic view of what determinism means (as if the unfolding of time was just a physical system, nothing to do with God). Calvin saw the action of God at work in all things:
With regard to inanimate objects, again we must ...
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From http://www.theopedia.com/Arminianism
Arminianism is a school of theology based on the teachings of Dutch
theologian Jacob Arminius, for whom it is named. It is perhaps most
prominent in the Methodist movement and found in various other
evangelical circles today. It stands in contrast to Calvinism, with
which it has a long history of debate. ...
2
What is the difference between Calvinist “nature” and “nature” in the sense of the Hypostatic union?
Regeneration, initiated by new birth, is the Evangelical belief that when a person believes in Christ they are mystically united into Christ. Their old nature dies in him and a new nature is born. Rebirth, or regeneration is when the image of God is restored within a sinner. Calvin thought of it more in the fullest sense of continuing into sanctification ...
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No difference.
On the doctrines or original sin and justification by faith Wesleyan and Calvinism seem to run a course along the same stream. Wesley's view of original sin is made clear with few words in a sermon entitled 'SERMON 44 ORIGINAL SIN'.
This sermon on its own clearly shows that Wesley taught the same doctrine as the Protestant reformers, ...
1
Kind of simple but I think the best way of understanding Calvinism with respect to God's immutable absolute free will and the tiny free will he gave men is like this:
The history of mankind was predetermined like a ship starting at London and arriving at New York. On the ship are puny humans like grasshoppers who can do whatever they want but they can't ...
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