| Author | Message | ||
| Agapetos Registered user Username: Agapetos Post Number: 88 Registered: 10-2002  |
I'm not very initiated in the finer points of Calvinism, but I've seen Stan mention it several times in different posts, so I thought I'd open up this thread for some to talk about it or explain to folks like me who don't know so much. I'll admit up front that I'm generally predisposed against it. Among the reformers, I've always felt that the question of salvation by faith (Luther) was much more important than the question of predestination (Calvin). I'm sure Calvinists see the two as intrinsically linked, however. Yet I was at a conversation cafe here and overheard the conversation with one of the teachers was a nice girl from New York. Sometimes we get questions about what Catholics or Protestants are, or the difference between them. She explained that the Catholic-Protestant split came because the Catholics believed in Free Will, and the Protestants were saying that you were Predestined. Ouch, I thought. She had never heard that it (the reformation) was about salvation by faith, salvation by Christ----not salvation by works. But recently I also read Philip Yancey's wonderful book, "What's So Amazing About Grace?" and learned about Calvin's Geneva, and that was truly disturbing. I know no reformer is without his share of "spots", yet the legalism and control was still very incredible. I believe he had a family relation put to death for some Sabbath violation. I'll have to look it up again to comment more knowledgably. | ||
| Riverfonz Registered user Username: Riverfonz Post Number: 1741 Registered: 3-2005 |
Ramone, You are right about Calvinism being one of my favorite topics. I used to shy away from these doctrines, and spoke actively against it for eight years after I was saved. The doctrine of the full sovereignty of God is now a very liberating doctrine for me. Knowing that God is sovereign all that happens in the world is truly wonderful. There is a great introduction to this topic in a sermon by Charles Spurgeon that has helped many people, and is a joy to read, linked here, www.spurgeon.org/calvinis.htm Stan | ||
| Dennis Registered user Username: Dennis Post Number: 746 Registered: 4-2000  |
Agapetos, Luther actually wrote more about eternal security and predestination than Calvin did. However, Calvin is more remembered for it. Yes, the Reformers were far from perfect (akin to Jesus' disciples). In spite of their human frailties, God was able to use them mightily. The Reformer's theological legacies continue to enlighten the world. The battle cries of the Protestant Reformation consisted of the following five solas: sola gratia (grace alone), sola fide (faith alone), solo Christo (Christ alone), sola scriptura (Scripture alone), and soli deo gloria (all to the glory of God). Truly, God can use even broken vessels to convey the gospel of Jesus Christ. Dennis Fischer | ||
| Riverfonz Registered user Username: Riverfonz Post Number: 1742 Registered: 3-2005 |
Ramone, Dennis is correct about Luther. Luther wrote a classic book on this topic called "The Bondage of the Will", that is widely available, and the one edited by J.I. Packer is the best available. Luther contended that man cannot come to God by his own free will. Roman Catholicism and Wesleyan Arminianism do teach this. Salvation is entirely by grace. The natural man is entirely dead to spiritual truth, and it takes a miracle of God to resurrect man's dead soul. Martin Luther believed that this doctrine of man's total inability to seek after God and lack of free will was the very basis of the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Stan | ||
| Riverfonz Registered user Username: Riverfonz Post Number: 1745 Registered: 3-2005 |
Here are some more resources and links with regard to Calvinism. www.monergism.com is one of the best general sites of information on Calvin and Luther. For general info on John Calvin: www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/topic/calvin.html For info on John Calvin's role in the execution of Servetus there is a very balanced perspective at this site: www.banneroftruth.org/pages/articles/article_detail.php?457 Stan | ||
| Agapetos Registered user Username: Agapetos Post Number: 89 Registered: 10-2002 |
About the Servetus article... it's a decidedly pro-Calvin article. At the same time, my first reaction is, "Oh my God." Not because of "who did it?" but because this thing rises up in me saying, My God, what monster have we created?! The authors of the article take great consolation in victoriously noting that the Catholics have not erected any monument for those they burned as heretics. Yet the fact remains: they burned a heretic. Yes, it was the spirit of the age, but it was ugly. I also wonder at the assertation that such types of "blasphemy" are "still punishable" in England by imprisonment. (Is the article that old? And if so, then if it is used to justify Calvin, it ought to contain some annotation about that, I think). The author is interested in exonerating Calvin, and hence makes much of Calvin's intercessory attempt to stay the execution. Yet while recognizing that truly good effort of Calvin's, the author forgets that Calvin was the one who drew up the thirty-eight articles of accusation. I suppose a case could be made--based on deeper research and what it could hopefully unveil--that Calvin took the accusor's role in order to save the man. Yet that would wholly depend on unearthing proof of such. The more obvious likelihood, rather, is that though the Council was in disagreement with Calvin on other things, they were yet united in belief of how heresy ought to be dealt with. It would seem more likely that Calvin's intercession represented second thoughts about the previous action he set out on. Of the genuineness of that I can't judge---for Judas Iscariot also had "second thoughts" after the sentence was handed down on Christ. That one is up to Christ, thank God. Yet as far as "our responsibility" comes as humans in being stewards---I don't think we're meant to be stewards over determining someone's life or death based on religious beliefs. I think I'll look up the Yancey quotes. | ||
| Agapetos Registered user Username: Agapetos Post Number: 90 Registered: 10-2002 |
Ah, I see I have mixed things I remembered from his book. I apologize. Forgive me, Zondervan, for quoting this passage from the book.
All I can say is that it was rough and I'm glad I didn't live there at that time. | ||
| Agapetos Registered user Username: Agapetos Post Number: 91 Registered: 10-2002 |
In sight of that, actually, I think that finding the gospel and assurance of salvation in Christ would be no greater miracle than finding the same while still Adventist. Perhaps it would be easier in Adventism, but perhaps not. They are different, yet the "cloud" is as thick in both worlds, I think. | ||
| Agapetos Registered user Username: Agapetos Post Number: 92 Registered: 10-2002 |
About Calvinism. I think the first thing I note is that terms being used, "free will" versus "the doctrine of sovereign grace". Perhaps the rigid definitions of each are cause for my instant knee-jerk reaction away from either rigidly-defined position. I've strongly tended to view "free will" and "predestination" not according to a developed theology associated with the names, but rather according to what is obvious and intrinsicly stated by the names themselves. In other words, "predestination" means you're destined/determined by another--by a kind of fate, essentially. I've taken "free will" to mean that you are free to choose, that God has given you a will with which to choose, that your course is not pre-determined. And I've strongly taken the position that both views are true. I can't always explain it, and when I do it well, it is rare, but essentially I've found both views true in my own life. God has known what I would do, where I would end up. What He has said has come true. He has put me in places that only He could have known about. He has known the future ahead of time, before I did. Yet at the same time, I have had complete freedom of choice in all matters. I have made decisions---and I don't believe that all of these decisions are merely the "illusion" of free will. I believe God has allowed me to make these decisions, and even at certain points has withheld from telling me which way to choose expressedly because He wanted me to learn to choose for myself. The marvel, the mystery, the wonder of it for me has been seeing that I have freely chosen---and that that gift has been from God---yet He has known where my choices would take me. I can only explain it as a paradox. To me it is fundamentally explainable not in rational laid-out theologies, but it is explainable only in the presence of God Himself. When in His presence---rather, when I am fully aware of His presence as He rests on me---then I know both of these truths: that I have free will, and that my life is foreseen and fore-ordained. In these views I have felt closer to a Catholic rebuttal I once read to predestinationism as expressed by Luther and Calvin. The Catholic author said that God knows who will be saved and who will not, but that we do not know, and indeed God will generally not reveal such things to us. The popular conception of Calvinism. The popular image of Calvinism is that it cries out the predestination of who will be saved and who will not. It declares that the election is fore-decided. The emphasis that I note in your comments above, however, is rather on what Jesus said in the gospel of John: "No one can come to Me unless the Father draws him." I certainly do believe that! And I have seen that in my own life. That it was His grace from beginning to end which brought me to Him does not contrast with the notion of "free will" to me. At some point I clearly had the free choice to decide to accept that Grace which had been so working in my life, drawing me to Him. And I believe the gospel declares in fact that God has ordained such a moment (or two, or twenty!) in all of our lives in which we must choose Him. Because you have stressed the simplified "heart" of Calvinism (if I may summarize it that way), I wonder at where the popular conception of Calvinism has come from. Is it incorrect? Is there any writing or expression that Calvin/Calvinists have made which would justify the popular conception of Calvinism? And would that explain why Calvin is remembered for predestination rather than Luther? By the way, when skimming through some of Luther's comments about predestination, the impression I got was more that Luther struggled with it, rather than forcefully proclaimed it. The Calvinists, I thought, seemed to forcefully proclaim it as gospel truth. Again, this refers to the popular conception of Calvinism/Predestinationism, not to the "root" which you dearly love and which I too believe. Yet again I emphasize the paradoxical nature of the whole question, and actually I rather enjoy that paradox because it is explainable only in God's manifest presence: we choose, yet He knows, and bowing in sight of His knowing us before we were born, calling us, and knowing how we would choose---and how we have yet to choose---yet He has dearly loved us. (Further, He has dearly loved us enough to give us the choice. The contrast must be exposed, I believe, to dispel the notion that His sacrifice is only for the elect... I believe His sacrifice is also for those who He has known will not choose Him. I believe that just as no one can fully know His infinite joy, no one can fully know His infinite sorrow for those He dearly loves but who do not love Him in return.) | ||
| Agapetos Registered user Username: Agapetos Post Number: 93 Registered: 10-2002 |
Again, I wonder why it is that Luther is remembered for "righteousness by faith" and Calvin is remembered for "predestination". And I lament the understanding that my co-worker believed about the Protestant Reformation---that the division in the church arose because of the belief in predestination. Focus on that, no matter how much one may link it to grace, in essence draws the focus away from the most important thing of all: that God has saved us by His Son's work instead of by ours. This was, I believed, the Gospel that was rediscovered by the Reformation, and I believed it was the essence of the Reformation and it's major cry. That the predestination question was so loud and forcefully advocated so as to cause many to believe it was "the issue" of the Reformation seems to me quite a distraction from the truly important matter the Reformation rescued from obscurity. | ||
| Leigh Registered user Username: Leigh Post Number: 97 Registered: 2-2003 |
Hi Ramone, Stan mentioned the book by Luther "The Bondage of the Will." I am reading it now and am about halfway through it. I started reading is several months ago, but decided that I needed to learn a little more about Luther so I took a break from that book and read "Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther" by Roland Bainton. Excellent book! I have realized that I really didn't know much about Luther or his theology until I read these books. I got my previous knowledge of Luther from the Great Controversy!  In the book "The Bondage of the Will" Luther is quite forceful in his defense of God's absolute sovereignty and the impossibility of sinful man coming to Christ on his own free will. | ||
| Dennis Registered user Username: Dennis Post Number: 747 Registered: 4-2000 |
We cannot choose what we do not desire. God must do something first to create that desire in us to choose Christ. Otherwise, we would never choose Jesus in our fallen nature. We have a moral inability to choose Christ. It is important who gets the glory or credit for our salvation--certainly not myself but only God alone (Soli deo Gloria). Jesus said, "For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted from the Father" (John 6:65 NASB). Dennis Fischer | ||
| Jackob Registered user Username: Jackob Post Number: 253 Registered: 7-2005  |
The Bondage of the Will, by Martin Luther can be downloaded here I provided the exact link, all you have to do is to give a click on the link. It's worth reading. | ||
| Riverfonz Registered user Username: Riverfonz Post Number: 1746 Registered: 3-2005 |
Ramone, Did you get a chance to read the Spurgeon sermon in defense of Calvinism that was linked above? He clearly affirms the paradoxical truth that you mention. Calvinism many times is not taught accurately. There are two parallel truths. God is absolutely sovereign. He has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world, and that choice is based not on God's foreknowledge of how we will respond to him, but according to His good pleasure, and sovereign will. At the same time man is fully responsible for all of his choices. Everyone who ends up in hell will be there because they willfully rejected the truth about God. When Adam sinned, he experienced immediate spiritual death, and physical death followed much later. Since we all inherited Adam's sinful nature, we are therefore born spiritually dead in our tresspasses and sins. We have a totally depraved and dead corpse as our spiritual nature before we are born again. God would be perfectly just if he didn't save anybody. We all deserved hell. God extends his regenerating grace on whomever He will. How many of us are able to choose to be born physically? Then, if you grant that spiritual birth is even a greater miracle, then how could we choose to be born spiritually? A dead corpse cannot resurrect itself. Our souls are resurrected by exactly the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. It is a total miracle of God's grace. Martin Luther was very clear on this. "If any man attributes salvation to free-will, even in the slightest, he knows nothing of grace, or the gospel of Christ." This was the very basic argument of the Reformation. Erasmus, the RCC scholar reasoned from human reason, but Luther set forth his arguments from scripture alone. We see today that most of American evangelicalism has bought the free-will line from Rome. Charles Finney followed in the footsteps of Jacob Arminius, who was working in league with Rome to bring the doctrines of Rome and mix them with American Protestantism. What you see in evangelical churches today is the religion of Rome minus the priestly robes and the sacraments. It is Protestantism without the Reformation. Stan | ||
| Seekr777 Registered user Username: Seekr777 Post Number: 538 Registered: 1-2003  |
Stan it is interesting that just before I signed on here I had received in my email a "blog" entry which included the folloing. I'm sorry for the length. --------------------------------------------- Amazing Grace, The History And Theology of Calvinism Who could have thought that a presentation of Calvinism lasting nearly four and a half hours could keep me at rapt attention? Actually, I suppose most people who know me wouldn't be too terribly surprised. Amazing Grace - The History And Theology of Calvinism is an examination of the doctrines of grace, produced by The Apologetics Group. It is hosted by Eric Holmberg and is a collage of interviews, historical readings, Scripture and drama. It examines "life's greatest mystery, that man's question for meaning and redemption is in the end the story of the Lord 'seeking and saving that which was lost.'" The presentation is divided into three parts. The first provides the historical context to Calvinism, beginning with the dispute between Pelagius and Augustine. It continues to a discussion of semi-pelagianism, focusing particularly on the dispute between Luther and Erasmus. The section concludes with a brief examination of what came to be known as the five points of Calvinism. The second part examines the Biblical basis to the doctrines of grace as summarized in the acronym TULIP. Each is examined in the light of the Arminian controversy, in the light of the Scripture, and in light of the impact a proper understanding of this doctrine has on the Christian walk. It concludes with an examination of how Arminian doctrine has damaged the testimony and work of the church. The third and final section speaks about the necessity of evangelism and provides pointers on evangelizing in a Biblical way. It answers the question of how God's sovereignty and human responsibilty interact in the preaching of the Gospel and the conversion of souls. The participants who were interviewed extensively are R.C. Sproul, R.C. Sproul Jr, James Kennedy, Walter Chantry, Thomas Nettles, Walter Bowie, Roger Schultz, Joe Morecraft III, Kenneth Talbot, George Grant, Thomas Ascol and Stephen Mansfield. While all of them have much wisdom to impart, I was drawn especially to R.C. Sproul, who always looks like there is nothing he is more excited about than speaking of the Lord's gracious act of redemption. He leans into the camera, with a smile on his face, just bursting with enthusiasm as he tells of the works of the Lord and the doctrines of His grace. I also very much appreciated the inclusion of Walter Bowie, pastor of Koinonia Baptist Church in Jackson, Mississippi. So often it seems (in these parts, at least) that Calvinism is the refuge of the bland, middle-aged, amateur theologian. Yet Bowie, who is African American, lent some wonderful diversity and plenty of godly wisdom to the presentation. Prior to seeing the DVD I was concerned about the quality, almost expecting it to be poor. Thankfully, I was wrong. Apart from a couple of very minor audio issues (for example, at one point during an outdoor interview wind blows across the microphone) the quality is top-notch. This presentation is well-produced, thoroughly researched and, most importantly, built firmly on the foundation of Scripture. While it deals with theology, it is practical throughout and is sure to help believers, young and old, Calvinist and Arminian, understand just how amazing God's grace really is. I highly and unreservedly recommend it. The DVD is only available for purchase online. You can find it at outlets such as Monergism Books. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 4145 Registered: 12-2003  |
Ramone, another really good discussion of God's soveriegnty and our free will occurs in Wayne Grudem's book, "Systematic Theology" in chapter 16, "God's Providence", page 315. He explains the paradoxical nature of the fact that we have real choices inside the reality of God's sovereign will. As Dennis said above, "we cannot choose what we cannot desire". It takes the intervention of God through the Holy Spirit to awaken in our hearts a desrie to say "Yes" to Himóor to awaken the ability to see Him and still say "No", as did Judas and the Pharisees. (see Ephesians 2:1-10.) I think of it as an umbrella of God's sovereignty over all creation inside which, because of His provision, I have meaningful choices which have eternal consequences. Without God's intervention, we would remain captive in the domain of darkness without real choice. Romans 9-11 clearly teach the doctrine of predestination and election, as does Ephesians 1, Romans 8, etc. Yet we aren't expected to be able to come up with a formula for how it works. As Grudem says in his book, if we embrace the texts that clearly teach God's election and predestination and ignore or explain away those that clearly teach choiceóor vice-verseówe ignore half the Bible. We must admit all these seemingly opposing texts are true, because they are all part of the word of God. (These kinds of apparent contradicitions are part of the reason so many people dismiss the Bible as reliable.) Yet if we trust God and His Spirit Who inspired the Bible, we must admit all are true. John Piper says in his book, "Brothers, We Are Not Professionals", that the difficult passages of the Bible are there for us to pray over, asking God to teach us truth. The paradox of what seems contraidctory in three-dimensional, time-bound terms is a seamless whole from God's eternal persepctive. We are asked not to explain or understand it intellectually but to trust Him. He will personally clarify how we are to live with these truthsóand the more I see and embrace the reality of God's total sovereignty and His powerful ownership of all His creation, I am overwhelmed with awe and gratitude. Nothing can touch me without His permission. Colleen | ||
| Leigh Registered user Username: Leigh Post Number: 98 Registered: 2-2003 |
Hi Ramone, A while back I posted this link to a great article written by C.J. Mahaney regarding election. http://www.sovereigngraceministries.org/pdf/perspectives/election.pdf | ||
| Riverfonz Registered user Username: Riverfonz Post Number: 1747 Registered: 3-2005 |
Richard, That email blog really blessed me this AM, in fact I am reminded to tune into the KKLA radio show at noon today before going to work to hear R.C. Sproul expound on God's grace on his show "Renewing Your Mind". I highly recommend Sproul. Leigh, Thanks for linking Mahaney. I do remember that link, ahnd I have it printed out next to me here. Mahaney has a way of putting these doctrines in a grace-filled way. The whole ministry of Sovereign grace is exceptional with great praise music by Keith Getty, etc. That web site is very helpful. Stan | ||
| Riverfonz Registered user Username: Riverfonz Post Number: 1750 Registered: 3-2005 |
Richard, Here is the link for that "Amazing Grace" DVD you mentioned above. www.monergismbooks.com/amazing2112.html Stan | ||
| Dennis Registered user Username: Dennis Post Number: 748 Registered: 4-2000 |
Jacob, Thanks for the link to download Martin Luther's 221-page exposition, "The Bondage of the Will." Now I need to decide if I want to read it on-screen, save it, download it, or buy the book. I have been blessed already by briefly reading some pages. Dennis Fischer |
