On an ontologically false critique against calvinism
- Thread starter Simpletruther
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Simpletruther
Well-known member
By the same standard you judge God to "diabolical" for ordaining a child be molested (or the Hitler gas chambers etc) also judges Him to be diabolical for sitting by and watching it happen.
You seem logically to find your comfort and peace in the notion "God is less diabolical in my view".
Of course you don't say that, because of a cognative dissonance. Your view logically necessitates it. It's not a good place to be theologically.
The reality is the standard you are using to judge is faulty, leading to this absurd position.
There is no a perfect correspondence between God's moral standard for us and for Him. The golden rule was just one example of your faulting reasoning and judgment upon God.
Our moral standard as a whole does not apply to God(though there is overlap, for example He cannot lie).
It is an ontological error to do so. This has been demonstrated with examples.
Another example: it's wrong for us to seek our glory. But it's not wrong for God. There are plenty of examples of the failure of this type of ontological error.
God does not sin by determining sin to happen, or the cross would be a sin for God.
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Rockson
Well-known member
That's what I'm wanting to believe that these Calvinists really don't believe the things they say in their hearts, but their minds are confused. Nothing worse than thinking you have light or enlightenment and yet really, it's the opposite of it. I think this might apply what Jesus said,
“The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! Matt 6:22
In other words, if the thing you think you've got in you is enlightenment and it truly isn't.....what a sad, sad, state to be in.
That sounds like enslavement, doesn't it, enslaved to the lie.
Theo1689
Well-known member
We believe what we say.
This is nothing but a worthless false accusation and personal attack.
Why wouldn't we be honest about what we believe? Your accusation is ridiculous.
Another worthless personal attack.
Why would you expect ANYONE to accept your false teachings when all you do is personally attack them?
Would you respond positively if someone constantly insulted and personallly attacked you?
Unfortunately we can't try that experiment, since I'm a Christian.
Well, you'd know better than anyone, wouldn't you?
So now you're disrespecting God by abusing His Scripture to insult others.
Wow.
Well, you'd know better than anyone else...
Theo1689
Well-known member
Well, if it's "enslavement", then there's nothing we can do about it, is there?
Well according to Calvinism, no, God has to regenerate you first, no?
Christian
Well-known member
Theo1689
Well-known member
But YOU were the one who said it sounded like “enslavement”.
That was YOUR comment.
So are you now a Calvnist?
If not, then what was your meaning?
Or are you simply playing stupid games?
Rockson
Well-known member
Well then I trust you're hoping and praying I'd come in the LIGHT as I feel towards him.
But I guess maybe you can't right for to you that might be a presumptuous request? Who are you to ask God to do something that wasn't his will right? And you might say you might but add If it be your will God. And by the way lets look at how Paul prayed.
For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in your knowledge of Him.I ask that the eyes of your heartb may be enlightened, so that you may know the hope of His calling, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and the surpassing greatness of His power to us who believe. Eph 1:16
Notice Paul didn't add there if it be your will either. Which spins off other questions. If some Christians stay carnal all their lives then you therefore must believe God wanted them to stay such! And now what's this do to the truth that God wants all his children conformed to the image of Christ? Are we to believe he doesn't really?
See what I mean folks and no offence, but Calvinism takes one on a scrambler ride where everything gets mixed up and confused. When it comes to TULIP it's not a theology that holds up when the genuine questions are put to it. God Bless.
Christian
Well-known member
Amen to the truth !!!
Theo1689
Well-known member
I pray that you come into the light if it be God's will.
So you don't believe in praying for people's salvation.
Got it.
I have to disagree.
Exactly.
So you realize how bankrupt your arguments are.
Congratulations!
<Chuckle>
Such condescension... As if I don't know Scripture backwards and forwards.
That's because they were ALREADY saved.
Or did you miss that part?
Oops!
Then you should probably ask your pastor, if you don't understand Scripture.
After all, you've already made it quite clear that your refuse to accept anything I teach you.
Which is fine. I never claimed to be your teacher. But it seems tiresome for you to constantly waste my time asking me questions, when you refuse to accept the answers.
Why do you ask questions, when you provide the answers yourself?
Carnal "Christians' are not children of God.
Of course not.
But you already knew that when you asked the question.
You only asked to try to make Calvinism look foolish by misrepresenting it.
"You will know them by their fruits".
More worthless rhetoric and insults.
"You will know them by their fruits".
Of course it holds up PERFECTLY.
Because it comes from SCRIPTURE.
Are you angry? I am only explaining what Calvinism says, are you going to deny what I said is untrue?
Your belief system is getting free publicity, you should be thankful, shouldn't you?
Theo1689
Well-known member
No, I'm not.
Why do you feel the need to constantly project negative emotions onto me?
No, you're mocking Calvinism, and misrepresenting it.
It was a question.
If you are enslaved in sin, Calvinists do not believe you can be saved without being regenerated first, so is that not what you believe?
Simpletruther
Well-known member
Wedo t havero actually say it. But it should be our heart.
So if you knew something was against the God's will, would you pray for it anyway?
Theophilus
Well-known member
So what about Calvinists and Determinism ? What do they have to say about God’s responsibility and humanity’s responsibility for the fall and all of its consequences?
The Calvinists argument of God’s ordaining evil and rendering it certain. That God does not cause evil actions but “determines them” by “divine withholding.” This high account of God’s sovereignty claims only the immediate cause of an evil act can be considered guilty of it. God caused it, but if you did it you own it. I believe this is bogus because it flies in the face of common sense and natural law.
Reality on the other hand says: “Ultimate responsibility … resides where the ultimate cause is.”
The most obvious and frequently mentioned one, even by Calvinists, is the combination of divine absolute sovereignty and human responsibility.
Calvinism does not have a sufficient answer when trying to explain how God can predetermine all things, but not be responsible for the sin He preordains.
Calvinists refer to “decretive will” and God’s “preceptive will.” In other words, according to this view of God’s providence, God commanded Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (preceptive will) while at the same time (or from all eternity) decreeing that they would eat of it.
The crucial question this raises is how God is good and not in conflict with himself. God assures that his moral commands will be disobeyed. How can God do that without coercing people to sin? And how does he do it without being responsible for sin?
Most Calvinists admit it is a problem how people can be foreordained and rendered certain by God to sin such that they could not do otherwise like Adam and yet be responsible for it in the sense of guilt.
How can a person be held accountable and punished for something they could not avoid doing. Yet that is what Calvinism says about God and sinners. We got us a conundrum here. There’s nothing strictly illogical in the formal sense about the combination of determinism and responsibility, but it goes against the grain of all human thought and experience.
For many of us, this conundrum is too filled with tension to accept. It has to be resolved by being modified and, fortunately, Scripture allows it. How? God’s foreordination of people’s sinful decisions and actions is nothing other than his decision to allow them. And he allows them by self-limitation, not “specific, willing permission” that renders them certain. Those who sin are responsible and accountable because they could have done otherwise with the free will God gave them.
So if divine determinism is true, nothing is really evil. Think about it. If the good and all-powerful God has specifically willed and rendered certain every single event in history, how can anything really be evil? Say it isn't so Joe.
Why would God foreordain and render certain anything but the best of all possible worlds? And how could anything in the best of all possible worlds really be ontologically evil?
If I were still a Calvinist (in the strong, divine determinist sense) I would have a difficult time getting angry or worked up about anything because I would try to see everything as God’s will—planned and purposed by God for a good reason, even if that good reason is simply “the greater glory of God.”
Even hell itself must be good because it manifests God’s justice and thereby glorifies God. So why think hell is a bad place? Similarly child abuse, murder, rape, genocide—all willed and rendered certain by God. So why think they are evil?
The Calvinists argument of God’s ordaining evil and rendering it certain. That God does not cause evil actions but “determines them” by “divine withholding.” This high account of God’s sovereignty claims only the immediate cause of an evil act can be considered guilty of it. God caused it, but if you did it you own it. I believe this is bogus because it flies in the face of common sense and natural law.
Reality on the other hand says: “Ultimate responsibility … resides where the ultimate cause is.”
The most obvious and frequently mentioned one, even by Calvinists, is the combination of divine absolute sovereignty and human responsibility.
Calvinism does not have a sufficient answer when trying to explain how God can predetermine all things, but not be responsible for the sin He preordains.
Calvinists refer to “decretive will” and God’s “preceptive will.” In other words, according to this view of God’s providence, God commanded Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (preceptive will) while at the same time (or from all eternity) decreeing that they would eat of it.
The crucial question this raises is how God is good and not in conflict with himself. God assures that his moral commands will be disobeyed. How can God do that without coercing people to sin? And how does he do it without being responsible for sin?
Most Calvinists admit it is a problem how people can be foreordained and rendered certain by God to sin such that they could not do otherwise like Adam and yet be responsible for it in the sense of guilt.
How can a person be held accountable and punished for something they could not avoid doing. Yet that is what Calvinism says about God and sinners. We got us a conundrum here. There’s nothing strictly illogical in the formal sense about the combination of determinism and responsibility, but it goes against the grain of all human thought and experience.
For many of us, this conundrum is too filled with tension to accept. It has to be resolved by being modified and, fortunately, Scripture allows it. How? God’s foreordination of people’s sinful decisions and actions is nothing other than his decision to allow them. And he allows them by self-limitation, not “specific, willing permission” that renders them certain. Those who sin are responsible and accountable because they could have done otherwise with the free will God gave them.
So if divine determinism is true, nothing is really evil. Think about it. If the good and all-powerful God has specifically willed and rendered certain every single event in history, how can anything really be evil? Say it isn't so Joe.
Why would God foreordain and render certain anything but the best of all possible worlds? And how could anything in the best of all possible worlds really be ontologically evil?
If I were still a Calvinist (in the strong, divine determinist sense) I would have a difficult time getting angry or worked up about anything because I would try to see everything as God’s will—planned and purposed by God for a good reason, even if that good reason is simply “the greater glory of God.”
Even hell itself must be good because it manifests God’s justice and thereby glorifies God. So why think hell is a bad place? Similarly child abuse, murder, rape, genocide—all willed and rendered certain by God. So why think they are evil?
Christian
Well-known member
Most excellent summary of that belief system which is the opposite from the God of the Bible.
Rockson
Well-known member
You were talking to another and I don't think they were doing that but let's assume they did. You have no real place asking the question. You already would know. God ordained that they would. So believing as you do you should be asking God why are you doing this to me! I wonder if that's something you'll do. If not I'd say you're not REALLY believing in Calvinism at least from what I'd see.
Theo1689
Well-known member
Anyone repeatedly projecting a derogatory emotional response like "angry" or "upset" is engaging in dishonesty, and is showing their true colours that they are not any true kind of "Christian".
But since you can't defend your false theology Bibically, I understand why such worthless individuals need to engage in such dishonest tactics.