cooterhein

I'm a non-denominational Christian who doesn't identify strongly with any single reformer, although they have a collective impact that's pretty significant. You could say I'm a part of the broadly reformed tradition, and that would be about right, although that doesn't mean I'm confessional. I'm not a primitivist for reasons that are kind of complicated, although I understand how it can be appealing at first glance. If you are a primitivist, though, I must confess that I tend to think of you as someone who's probably wearing some rose-colored glasses. I'm a fan of Piper, Noll, Lampe, Athanasius, a lot of what Augustine did, certain parts of Aquinas' Summa, Calvin to some extent, certain aspects of Luther and Zwingli....among others. I tend to think of myself as a 5-point Calvinist, although I completely understand why some people want to make the Amyraldian move with rejecting Limited Atonement. I think that has to do with exactly how you define Atonement, though, and I tend to think it's better to define it in the way that works with LA. I also give partial support to Best of All Possible Worlds (I think it can work nicely with a couple of other things for a hybrid-type theodicy) and there is a certain sense in which I can get behind Double Predestination, although I continue to be somewhat hesitant in doing so.

Something I get behind to a much greater extent is monergistic regeneration. With that as a starting point- and it is important to have that as your starting point- I also give full support to Lordship Salvation. If you're a bit more of a synergist, the concept of lordship salvation can come off as works-based. But as long as you're rooted in monergism, you succeed in completely avoiding antinomianism while maintaining God's supremacy and causality on every link of the chain in the salvific process. And I know how you might react to the words "salvific process," but this is exactly what I'm talking about- it's not a process that we can initiate, carry out, or take any credit for. God gets all the credit for that- hence the monergism- and every part of the salvific process (see "Golden Chain of Salvation") is something that he's responsible for. It culminates in the act of God getting our butts into heaven (aka "glorification"), so until that happens, the salvific process is still on in some sense- even if it's more like a stage of preservation at this point. But it's on in the sense that God's doing it, not in the sense that our efforts make it or break it. This also dovetails nicely into my affirmation of Perseverance of the Saints- it's all tied together that way.

I think I covered most of the stuff that's important to me. I might come back and add a bit more as I go.