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Message |
Leigh
Registered user
Username: Leigh
Post Number: 32
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 08, 2005 - 9:39 am: |     |
I had a great conversation with our pastor over the weekend. Several of us were discussing Reformed theology and the sovereignty of God(our church is non-denominational). He shared with us that years ago when he began intensely studying about the sovereignty of God and digging deeper into truths that are hard for a human mind to comprehend, he became discouraged and thought that maybe he was not one of the elect. He said he was then led to a sermon by Spurgeon, (I can't remember the one) and found comfort. He said it was so amazing to ministered to by a minister who lived over a hundered years ago. He told me that he leans toward Reformed, but there are things he doesn't agree with. He also pointed me to a text in Psalms which continues to bring him peace:
1 Lord, my heart is not haughty,
Nor my eyes lofty.
Neither do I concern myself with great matters,
Nor with things too profound for me.
2 Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul,
Like a weaned child with his mother;
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.
Psalm 131:1,2
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Riverfonz
Registered user
Username: Riverfonz
Post Number: 623
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Monday, August 08, 2005 - 1:14 pm: | |
Leigh,
There is one sermon that I have posted several times from Spurgeon, and find it very helpful, so I don't know if it is the one www.spurgeon.org/calvinis.htm but the main site address www.spurgeon.org has most of Spurgeon's material on line. Maybe you've seen it. The bottom line is, if we are trusting in Jesus alone for our salvation, then we can know if we are one of the elect. Thanks for posting that scripture, and all the great songs you put up as well.
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Leigh
Registered user
Username: Leigh
Post Number: 33
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 08, 2005 - 2:29 pm: | |
Thanks, Stan for the links. I didn't recognize the title of the one you posted. I haven't read it yet, but I plan to. I'll have to look through the list of Spurgeon's sermons to see if I recognize any titles. I will be out of town for a while. The next time I see our pastor, I'll ask him the name of the sermon,again.
Leigh |
Patriar
Registered user
Username: Patriar
Post Number: 120
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Monday, August 08, 2005 - 10:50 pm: | |
Leigh:
Thank you for those verses. I need the comforting right now.
Patria |
Riverfonz
Registered user
Username: Riverfonz
Post Number: 634
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - 11:20 am: | |
Hello Adrian,
I have spent some time going over your above posts. By the way, I did go to the "Darkness to Life" link you posted above. That appears to be a very credible site.
I agree with you 100% about what you said about the gospel of "easy believism", the antinomian gospel put forward by Zane Hodges in his book "The Gospel Under Siege", in which he clearly argues that salvation is nothing more than raising your hand at an evangelistic meeting, and then no matter how you live your life you are saved forever. That clearly is not Biblical salvation. Ric_b did ask you a question in his post above trying to clarify what you mean by works contributing to salvation. I am still not clear whether you believe that even good works produced by the Spirit in the regenerate believer contribute in any way to salvation. In other words, Do you believe that the basis for our salvation is faith in Jesus Christ alone, or is it Faith in Christ plus some amount of the works of the Spirit in the believer? Do the works produced by the Spirit contribute any merit to our salvation? Is justification as stated in Paul, or is it as the RCC interprets James to mean? Because the difference is not just some semantical game. Because if good works--even Spirit produced ones--contribute any merit as the SDAs and Catholics believe, then you have a different gospel than the one Paul preached. It is interesting that James was written before Paul wrote his dissertation on righteousness by faith in Romans. James was one of the earliest books written and one of the last to be accepted into the canon of scripture. Luther called it an epistle of straw. But a logical way to resolve the apparent contradiction is to see that James was looking not from the vertical perspective that God does, but the horizontal perspective as to how another person can decide whether a person is a Christian. And as Luther said, "We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone. True Biblical salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, on the account of Christ alone will always produce good fruit as a result of being regenerated as a miracle that the Spirit works on our hearts of stone. But these works can never contribute in anyway to salvation.
With regard to Calvinists and Arminians fighting each other over the great doctrine of election, I like this quote from Michael Horton from his book "Putting Amazing Back Into Grace": "One group takes the theology. A doctrine like election is discussed and every phrase is rigorously checked for its doctrinal accuracy. Insults are then hurled at those who are "too blind" to see the truth as clearly. A doctrine calculated to produce humility instead creates pride; a ruby is squandered, the people impoverished, because the object was to win an argument rather than to share the wealth." Horton is correct about a lot of people in the Reformed group having this attitude of superiority because they intellectually understand the arguments, but then forget that this great doctrine of Election should produce humility. So, Adrian, thoughtful voices in the Reformed community agree with you to a certain extent. But the insults also come from the Arminian side as well.
Stan |
Riverfonz
Registered user
Username: Riverfonz
Post Number: 636
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, August 11, 2005 - 11:37 am: | |
Chris,
You mentioned Norm Geisler's view in a post above, and earlier than that archived somewhere you spoke about Molinism, or middle knowledge, as being a more moderate or in-between view. There is an article I came across on a Puritan history website, www.apuritansmind.com an article by McMahon on Middle Knowledge or Molinism being a heresy. Now, I think you said William Craig holds this view, and I don't think he is heretical, but this article seems to link Molinism to the open theism heresy. You are much more knowledgable on this topic than I so if you get a chance maybe you could review this article for me to see if it is representing the middle knowledge view correctly. Unfortunately, on this particular site, I can't get direct links to articles to work. So if you go to the main site, and under the search APM option, if you put in Molinism, then the article by C. McMahon is right there under middle knowledge heresy, and the article is not too long. I would be curious to see what you thought. Thanks so much,
Stan |
Chris
Registered user
Username: Chris
Post Number: 971
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 11, 2005 - 12:54 pm: | |
Stan, I have read this McMahon article reposted on other websites as well. I do not know if the concept of Middle Knowledge (sometimes called Molinism) is correct or not and I don't necessarily feel any great emotional need to defend it. But here's what I can say I know definatively: C. McMahon BADLY misunderstands the concept of middle knowledge (MK). MK stands in direct opposition to Open Theism (OT). I agree, as does William Lane Craig, that OT is a heresy that limits the knowledge of God, makes God less than omniscient, and denies foreknowledge. MK does exactly the opposite. MK affirms that God not only knows absolutely positively everything that ever was, everything that is, and everything that ever will be, but also knows every that ever COULD be. MK very strongly asserts God's foreknowledge and is one of the best philosophical tools out there for refuting the view of skeptics that an omiscient God with foreknowledge can't exist.
Here's one of the most misinformed lines in the whole piece:
quote:Free knowledge is Godís knowledge of this actual world...Molina, however, said this knowledge is not something that is essential in God, which is ludicrous in and if itself.
One must wonder if McMahon is here deliberately trying to misunderstand or misrepresent MK. Perhaps he just plain doesn't understand. perhaps he doesn't understand the term "essential" in a philosophical sense.
God's knowledge of what is in the actual world is most certainly essential to God. However, it was not essential that God create this particular world and if He had chosen to acutalize a different world than He would have complete knowledge of that actual world instead. In other words this type of knowledge is essential to God, but the actualization of this particular world is not, He could have created another.
This would be in contrast with natural knowledge. God's knowledge of Himself, who He is, His character, His eternal attributes, His abilities, etc. are essential to Himself. God cannot be any different than He is. His natural knowledge could not be any different than it is essential.
I know this is tough stuff, but there's just no reason for getting it as wrong as McMahon does. The only motive, other than ignorance, that I could ascribe to him is that of a Calvinist that sees any view that incorporates a free will component as being heretical. I really think Calvinist need to suppress this tendancy when evaluating competing frameworks.
Chris |
Chris
Registered user
Username: Chris
Post Number: 972
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 11, 2005 - 1:11 pm: | |
I failed to make one other point that I had planned to state above:
Middle Knowledge would also say that all God's knowledge, including his foreknowldge, is comprehensive, complete, exhaustive, unrestricted, unrestrained, and inerrant.
Now would someone please explain to me how that could possibly have any relation whatsoever to open theism??? That just sounds like an attempt to discredit an idea, not on it's own merits but by association.
Can you tell that this type of intellectual laziness pushes my buttons?
Chris |
Riverfonz
Registered user
Username: Riverfonz
Post Number: 639
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, August 11, 2005 - 1:49 pm: | |
Chris,
Well yes, I can tell. I just got an intuitive feeling from reading the article that something didn't seem right. Because, no where else, even on other Calvinist sites do I find anything criticizing William Lane Craig as being remotely heretical. He has been one of the great defenders of the faith with his great debates. As I posted above that quote by Horton about some Calvinists being far too judgmental and biased, it may be true of this guy. However, there still looks like a lot of good stuff on that website. I love a lot of the Puritans writings, especially John Bunyan. Thanks again Chris for taking the time to critique that article.
Stan |
Chris
Registered user
Username: Chris
Post Number: 973
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 11, 2005 - 5:28 pm: | |
For what it's worth, Stan, I would react the exact same if someone made up a bunch of ridiculous stuff about Calvinism, completely misrepresented Calvinism, or labeled Calvinism as ěheresyî.
I've spent a fair amount of keyboard time trying to accurately and fairly explain the TULIP on this discussion board. I would be pretty ticked off if someone wrote an article that fallaciously assigned heretical names and definitions to each of the 5 points, presented information that bore little or no resemblance to what Calvinists actually teach, and then had the gall to label other believers heretics based on the authors own ignorance.
I just have very precious little patience for poorly researched critiques. Are there false teachers, false prophets, and false belief systems out there? You bet! Are there real heretics and heresies creeping into the church? Absolutely! Should we point these people and beliefs out to the Bretheren? Yes! But we should save the label of "Heresy" for things that we can show contradict one of more of the essentials of the Christian faith. Short of that, itís an in-house debate. We might vigorously disagree, but we don't need to bring out the "H" label.
Chris |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 2394
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 11, 2005 - 6:00 pm: | |
Chris, I agree with your conclusions regarding heresy. We really can't label as "heresy" viewpoints that are in-house debates and not central to the Christian faith.
I still like Dr. M. Scott Peck's definition of truth and heresy. Truth, he says, is a paradox. For example, God is transcendent, but He is also immanent. You have to lose your life to find it. Christ, who is without sin, became sin for us. Etc.
Heresy, he says, is teaching one half of a paradox without the other half, and calling that half "truth".
Colleen |
Riverfonz
Registered user
Username: Riverfonz
Post Number: 643
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, August 11, 2005 - 8:13 pm: | |
Chris,
I agree with you 100%! No argument here. I want to say again, since you originally started this thread, you have been very fair, and have never misrepresented any of the teachings of Reformed theology. You have put out posts that I have copied since I like the way you stated positions which I believe in, but could not articulate the way you did. I thought this particular article was an "outlier" in mainstream Reformed thought. I have since reviewed other articles on tha site, and some are too quick to label people as heretical, just because they express some remaining Arminianism in their thoughts. That is why I liked the way Horton expressed what our attitudes should be. Thanks again Chris,
Stan |
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