Your belief vs your neighbors unbelief

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Reformedguy

Well-known member
It's that age old question we Calvinists pose to our non-Calvinists friends. I heard a great podcast on this question today and would like to pose the question here if I may.

For the non-Calvinist, why did you choose to believe while your neighbor rejected the gospel message. What about you is different? Are you wiser? More humble? Or some other reason?
 
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squirrelyguy

Active member
Reformedguy said:
It's that age old question we Calvinists pose to our non-Calvinists friends. I heard a great podcast on this question today and would like to pose the question here if I may.

For the non-Calvinist, why did you choose to believe while your neighbor rejected the gospel message. What about you is different? Are you wiser? More humble? Or some other reason?
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I was raised by parents who took us to church every Sunday morning and evening up until I was in high school. It was a church in which altar calls were given in every service, and one couldn't go long without hearing about our individual need to trust Christ as our Savior. It actually isn't hard to get kids who are raised in such a church to believe in Jesus and to pray to Him for salvation - and to mean it. I used to think that most kids who who make professions of faith and are baptized in SBC churches are not legitimately saved, but I no longer think that way. I think those simple, genuine prayers of children are salvific, and I believe it was the case with me and with all of those other kids who made professions of faith and got baptized as a young age.

A better question would be this: why did I not walk away from my faith as I got older like so many of those other kids did? But that's not the question you're asking.
 
ReverendRV

ReverendRV

Well-known member
squirrelyguy said:
A better question would be this: why did I not walk away from my faith as I got older like so many of those other kids did? But that's not the question you're asking.
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So, what was different about you than a person who never chose Christ? Something? Nothing?
 
PeanutGallery

PeanutGallery

Well-known member
Reformedguy said:
...

For the non-Calvinist, why did you choose to believe while your neighbor rejected the gospel message. What about you is different? Are you wiser? More humble? Or some other reason?
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Why does one "elect" embrace TULIP while another "elect" rejects TULIP. What is different; wisdom, humility, reasoning?
 
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Reformedguy

Well-known member
squirrelyguy said:
I was raised by parents who took us to church every Sunday morning and evening up until I was in high school. It was a church in which altar calls were given in every service, and one couldn't go long without hearing about our individual need to trust Christ as our Savior. It actually isn't hard to get kids who are raised in such a church to believe in Jesus and to pray to Him for salvation - and to mean it. I used to think that most kids who who make professions of faith and are baptized in SBC churches are not legitimately saved, but I no longer think that way. I think those simple, genuine prayers of children are salvific, and I believe it was the case with me and with all of those other kids who made professions of faith and got baptized as a young age.

A better question would be this: why did I not walk away from my faith as I got older like so many of those other kids did? But that's not the question you're asking.
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If you have a better question then start your own thread. Care to address the OP?
 
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squirrelyguy

Active member
ReverendRV said:
So, what was different about you than a person who never chose Christ? Something? Nothing?
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Perhaps the biggest difference (as it pertains to me individually) is the fact that I was raised in a conservative evangelical church where a heavy emphasis was placed on the need to make a profession of faith in Christ. When I think of someone who never chooses Christ, I think we're almost certainly imagining people who were not raised in church, or who were only marginally involved with church as kids. I honestly can't think of a single kid that I grew up with in that church who did not make a profession of faith by the time they were in middle school. It would be quite a coincidence indeed if 100% of kids raised in that church were among the elect.

I can think of quite a few who walked away as they got older...but I consider that to be a different question.
 
Chalcedon

Chalcedon

Well-known member
ReverendRV said:
Are you the Anti OP? Why do you get to change the question this early?
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Because he hates / despises Calvinism and it’s his modus operandi here.

People for some unbeknownst reason to me people always seem to cast the scriptures that support Calvinism with disdain. They like to “ soften” them up some so God becomes more appealing to the masses and it’s an easier sell to the lost.
 
Chalcedon

Chalcedon

Well-known member
squirrelyguy said:
Perhaps the biggest difference (as it pertains to me individually) is the fact that I was raised in a conservative evangelical church where a heavy emphasis was placed on the need to make a profession of faith in Christ. When I think of someone who never chooses Christ, I think we're almost certainly imagining people who were not raised in church, or who were only marginally involved with church as kids. I honestly can't think of a single kid that I grew up with in that church who did not make a profession of faith by the time they were in middle school. It would be quite a coincidence indeed if 100% of kids raised in that church were among the elect.

I can think of quite a few who walked away as they got older...but I consider that to be a different question.
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Regarding your last paragraph their story is still being written and like the prodigal son might return one day.
 
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squirrelyguy

Active member
Reformedguy said:
If you have a better question then start your own thread. Care to address the OP?
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I did address the OP. I believe that the primary advantage that I had lies in the fact that I was raised in a conservative evangelical church where 100% of the kids who were also brought to church every Sunday made professions of faith by the time they were in middle school. So that's not a matter of being wiser or more humble than others; but nor is it a matter of being regenerated or quickened. It's a benefit of the time and circumstances of my birth.
 
PeanutGallery

PeanutGallery

Well-known member
Reformedguy said:
Care to address the OP or not?
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Choice.
Isa 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
Isa 1:19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:
Isa 1:20 But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
 
Dizerner

Dizerner

Well-known member
Reformedguy said:
For the non-Calvinist, why did you choose to believe while your neighbor rejected the gospel message. What about you is different? Are you wiser? More humble? Or some other reason?
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The assumption is being forced here that a choice can only be different because a person is fundamentally different. The meaning of free will is that two people with the exact same agency can be free by reason of only that agency to choose different things. The reason for the choice is the agency of the will itself, the function of decision-making ability endowed by God.

There is in fact no necessary logical connection between a righteous result and a preceding righteous nature, until it is forced upon the equation by asserting a non-sequitur of a conclusion: any righteous result means the person is more inherently righteous. This is false. Non-meritorious actions logically exist, where the result cannot be tied up with the reason for the choice.

Wisdom and humility may be virtues instead of vices, but they don't contain within them inherent righteousness, and are gifts from God. This is why King Saul can tell David he was a more righteous man than he was without actually appealing to David's self-righteousness as the reason, or why people can do things that are declared righteous without violating the need for grace.

If humility were an inherently righteous thing, the mere act of admitting one was wicked would immediately make them righteous, with no need for atonement at all. Once we see the incorrect presuppositions being smuggled into the question itself, the objection completely dissolves: a wicked person can make a better decision without it making them more inherently righteous in nature.
 
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Reformedguy

Well-known member
Dizerner said:
The assumption is being forced here that a choice can only be different because a person is fundamentally different. The meaning of free will is that two people with the exact same agency can be free by reason of only that agency to choose different things. The reason for the choice is the agency of the will itself, the function of decision-making ability endowed by God.

There is in fact no necessary logical connection between a righteous result and a preceding righteous nature, until it is forced upon the equation by asserting a non-sequitur of a conclusion: any righteous result means the person is more inherently righteous. This is false. Non-meritorious actions logically exist, where the result cannot be tied up with the reason for the choice.

Wisdom and humility may be virtues instead of vices, but they don't contain within them inherent righteousness, and are gifts from God. This is why King Saul can tell David he was a more righteous man than he was without actually appealing to David's self-righteousness as the reason, or why people can do things that are declared righteous without violating the need for grace.

If humility were an inherently righteous thing, the mere act of admitting one was wicked would immediately make them righteous, with no need for atonement at all. Once we see the incorrect presuppositions being smuggled into the question itself, the objection completely dissolves: a wicked person can make a better decision without it making them more inherently righteous in nature.
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Okay but why did you choose to believe and your neighbor did not? Are you wiser, more humble??
 
R

Reformedguy

Well-known member
PeanutGallery said:
Choice.
Isa 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
Isa 1:19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:
Isa 1:20 But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
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We know it's choice. A believer obviously makes the right choice and a unbeliever does not. Like you for instance. So what about you is different?
 
R

Reformedguy

Well-known member
squirrelyguy said:
I did address the OP. I believe that the primary advantage that I had lies in the fact that I was raised in a conservative evangelical church where 100% of the kids who were also brought to church every Sunday made professions of faith by the time they were in middle school. So that's not a matter of being wiser or more humble than others; but nor is it a matter of being regenerated or quickened. It's a benefit of the time and circumstances of my birth.
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So you had a advantage because you were brought up in a Chrisyian household? What of those in the same situation who do not?
 
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