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Calvin vs. Arminius


Ovedya

What are your theological leanings: TULIP vs. DAISY?  

353 members have voted

  1. 1. What are your theological leanings: TULIP vs. DAISY?

    • 100% Calvinist - TULIP all the way!
      82
    • 60% Calvinist 40% Arminian - Parts of TULIP are too absolute.
      33
    • 50% Calvinist 50% Arminian - Both positions have merit.
      72
    • 60% Arminian 40% Calvinist - Parts of DAISY are too absolute.
      23
    • 100% Arminian - DAISY all the way!
      70


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Their will determined their predestination? Respectfully, jamie, this makes no sense. It is God who is doing the act of predestining. He did this in eternity past and it had nothing to do with any quality within those predestined. Let's follow this line of thinking to its logical terminus though. You and many others assume that God's foreknowledge of those men who by nothing but their own free will will come to Him is all that is meant by predestination. From whom did they receive their will? Was this will to come to God somehow inherent in them? God is the Creator and Designer of all. I think you will agree with that. So you would have to think that the God-given will in those who choose to accept Christ is of a greater moral capacity than that of the man who never accepts Him. So why did God give to some (and not all) a will that is more apt to accepting Him? No matter how you slice it, it always ends up back in God's court.

I see nothing strange or hard to understand at all in the fact that there are people who respond to Gods gift of faith by way of grace, and others who reject it.

An anology from carm:

"The sun will rise tomorrow. I am not causing it to rise nor am I preventing it from rising by knowing that it will happen. Likewise, if I put a bowl of ice-cream and a bowl of cauliflower in front of my child, I know for a fact which one is chosen, the ice cream. My knowing it ahead of time does not restrict my child from making a free choice when the time comes. My child is free to make a choice and knowing the choice has no effect upon her when she makes it."

Logically, God knowing what we are going to do does not mean that we can't do something else. It means that God simply knows what we have chosen to do ahead of time. Our freedom is not restricted by God's foreknowledge; our freedom is simply realized ahead of time by God.

We must take the Bible at face value on this. He determined in eternity past whom He would adopt and call His sheep.

I agree, and I just gave you the reason why.

If you read the whole of Romans, the context is clear. You emphasize "those who love God." But how can a man who is depraved by his very nature love God. The unregenerate man hates the law that proceeds from God. Hence he hates God.

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.

Can we reject this free gift by an act of our will? Yes

In the seventh chapter of Acts Stephen, a Spirit-filled man of God, speaking before the Sanhedrin and Jewish elders. And Spirit-filled Stephen said, "Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do ye.

If we have no free will then Jesus Christ most certainly died in vain! There would have been no need for a blood sacrifice, It would have all be a farce if we are all just puppets on a string.

Nothing personal, but calvinism is one of the most heretical doctrines out there, in my opinion.

When we remove tradition and the doctrines of men and take the Bible for what it says, the evidence is clear on predestination. It means what the Word of God says it means... nothing more, nothing less.

I agree :noidea:

I feel I have stated my belief very simplisticly and clearly, I have no desire to go on in circular arguments from this point.

The Lord bless you, '7cworldwide'

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Hello,

I would like to answer the above quote of the person who is struggling with the osas issue. I would like you to hear me out.

Some people promote an especially attractive idea: All true christians, regardless of how they live, have an absolute assurance of salvation, once they accept Jesus into their hearts as "their personal Lord and Savior". The problem is that this belief is contrary to the Bible and costant christian teaching.

Keep in mind what Paul told Christians of his day: "If we have died with him (in baptism) (See Rom 6:3-4) We shall also live with him; if we perservere we shall also reign with him" (2 Tim. 2:11-12).

If we do not persevere, we shall not reign with him. In other words, christians can forfeit heaven.

The bible makes it clear that Christians have a moral assurance of salvation (God will be true to his word and will grant salvation to those who have faith in Christ and are obedient to him (1 John 3:19-24), but the bible does not teach that christians have a guarantee of heaven. There can be no absolute assurance of salvation. Writing to Christians, Paul said, "See, then, the kindness and severity of God: severity toward those who fell, but God's kindness to you, provided you remain in his kindness, otherwise YOU TOO WILL BE CUT OFF". (Rom. 11:22-23, Matt. 18:212-35, 1 Cor 15:1-2, 2 Pet 2:20-21).

Note that Paul includes an important condition: "Provided you remain in his kindness." He is saying that christians can lose their salvation by throwing it away. He warns "WHOEVER THINKS HE IS STANDING SECURE SHOULD TAKE CARE NOT TO FALL". (1 Cor 10:11-12).

If someone asks me if I have been saved I say "I am redeemed by the blood of christ, I trust in him alone for my salvation, and, as the Bible teaches, I am 'working out my salvation in fear and trembling' (Phil 2:12), knowing that it is God's gift of Grace that is working in me".

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I see nothing strange or hard to understand at all in the fact that there are people who respond to Gods gift of faith by way of grace, and others who reject it.

Ahhh... you just hit on something here—"God's gift of faith." If faith is a gift, and it is, then it follows that salvation is completely of God. Even our faith is a sovereign gift.

"The sun will rise tomorrow. I am not causing it to rise nor am I preventing it from rising by knowing that it will happen. Likewise, if I put a bowl of ice-cream and a bowl of cauliflower in front of my child, I know for a fact which one is chosen, the ice cream. My knowing it ahead of time does not restrict my child from making a free choice when the time comes. My child is free to make a choice and knowing the choice has no effect upon her when she makes it."

Is this how it really is with salvation though? No. It's not. The cauliflower in this analogy would be likened to Christ. The child has the ability to choose cauliflower. But man does not have the ability to "choose" Christ without first being drawn by the Father. It is God that performed that act of choosing (cf. 2 The. 2:13).

Logically, God knowing what we are going to do does not mean that we can't do something else. It means that God simply knows what we have chosen to do ahead of time. Our freedom is not restricted by God's foreknowledge; our freedom is simply realized ahead of time by God.

This view is altogether the antithesis of Scriptural doctrine in this area of soteriology.

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.

Can we reject this free gift by an act of our will? Yes

Yes. It is the only will of the unregenerate man to reject God.

In the seventh chapter of Acts Stephen, a Spirit-filled man of God, speaking before the Sanhedrin and Jewish elders. And Spirit-filled Stephen said, "Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do ye.

Yes. This is further proving my point.

If we have no free will then Jesus Christ most certainly died in vain! There would have been no need for a blood sacrifice, It would have all be a farce if we are all just puppets on a string.

...and now the appeal to emotion. Here we have the common case of man deeming his system of justice to be greater than that of the perfect, omniscient, immutable God. I could write chapters upon chapters with biblical support on how terribly wrong this perception of the Reformed view is but I think it will suffice for now to respond with a brief question: How then would you interpret Romans 9:13-16?

Nothing personal, but calvinism is one of the most heretical doctrines out there, in my opinion.

Perhaps you don't know the history behind the doctrines of grace and the sovereignty of God... these doctrines called "Calvinism." These doctrines are the very orthodox views of the Reformation! Martin Luther sparred openly on the free will of man with Erasmus in The Bondage of the Will. If we're going to get down to the nitty-gritty on this, it was Arminius who was guilty of regressing back to the Roman doctrines of a works-based salvation and deemed a heretic. By twisting it around and calling all Calvinists heretics, you are condemning a great number of profound Christians. To name a few: Charles H. Spurgeon, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, John Bunyan, John Newton (author of the hymn Amazing Grace), J.I. Packer, Francis Schaeffer, R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, John Piper... the list goes on and on. These men, true exegetical preachers and teachers, lived (and died, for those already passed) by the Reformed doctrines, knowing their full consistency with the Scriptures.

I come from an Arminian background and I would never say my family and friends in that tradition are doomed to Hell due to their flawed soteriological views. Why not? Because it is God who saves, not theological views. And "heretic" is not a word to be throwing around lightly.

I feel I have stated my belief very simplisticly and clearly, I have no desire to go on in circular arguments from this point.

The reader can take an honest look at the content of my last post and especially the questions presented that were not addressed and see the holes in the typical Arminian argument. The Bible does not lie nor does it contradict itself. Read for yourself, not glossing over the difficult passages, and God Himself will reveal these truths to you! Then you will begin to see just how amazing His grace really is!

The Lord bless you, '7cworldwide'

Thank you, jamie. May the Holy Spirit be our guide always in all things.

Edited by 7cworldwide
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Perhaps you don't know the history behind the doctrines of grace and the sovereignty of God... these doctrines called "Calvinism." These doctrines are the very orthodox views of the Reformation! Martin Luther sparred openly on the free will of man with Erasmus in The Bondage of the Will. If we're going to get down to the nitty-gritty on this, it was Arminius who was guilty of regressing back to the Roman doctrines of a works-based salvation and deemed a heretic. By twisting it around and calling all Calvinists heretics, you are condemning a great number of profound Christians. To name a few: Charles H. Spurgeon, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, John Bunyan, John Newton (author of the hymn Amazing Grace), J.I. Packer, Francis Schaeffer, R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, John Piper... the list goes on and on. These men, true exegetical preachers and teachers, lived (and died, for those already passed) by the Reformed doctrines, knowing their full consistency with the Scriptures.

I come from an Arminian background and I would never say my family and friends in that tradition are doomed to Hell due to their flawed soteriological views. Why not? Because it is God who saves, not theological views. And "heretic" is not a word to be throwing around lightly.

I have to tell you, 7cworldwide ...I am not one to get stary eyed over 'great' men, though I am thankful that some were obedient to do everything God asked of them for the sake of many. It is obedience that counts moreso than who you are.

We are all on equal footing as children of God, although some of our giftings are different than others, all are as equally important. Oh, and i'm not a baptist either :emot-heartbeat:

I personally don't know how to reconcile a people having 'no' free will, with, Jesus coming for 'who so ever will'....it makes no sense and 'honsetly' sounds like heresy to me.

Do I believe "calvin" or do I believe the whole context of scripture? I have always believed the way I do based on spiritual discernment and the whole context of scripture, concerning free-will.

I only recently even heard of the Arminius view, so there has been no outside influence on me. I agree with Arminius because he agrees with what the Holy Spirit has taught me.

Maybe we are all wrong to a certain degree; A friend of mine put it this way...

"Error is nearly always to take one side at the exclusion of the other"

Perhaps the baby got thrown out with the bathwater way back when..

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I personally don't know how to reconcile a people having 'no' free will, with, Jesus coming for 'who so ever will'....it makes no sense and 'honsetly' sounds like heresy to me.

I never said people have no free will... nor would I. But to think that somehow it is by man's autonomous will that we are to enter into the Kingdom of God is wholly unbiblical. Man's fleshly will is at enmity with God and man in this state cannot please Him (cf. Rom. 8:7-8). Jeremiah writes (Jer. 17:9, KJV), "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" I have already shown from Jesus' own words that man is unable to come to Christ without first being drawn by the Father. I have presented questions to make you think about your views but you can only respond to say the Reformed view makes no sense. But does your view make sense? Honestly? Is it completely aligned with the witness of the many passages of Scripture I have presented?

Do I believe "calvin" or do I believe the whole context of scripture?

Calvin was a human. I am a human. You are a human. We are all fallible and finite in knowledge. All we can do is read the Bible and let the Holy Ghost teach us the mysteries of God which have been revealed to us in His Word. Mark my words. This is not about believing Calvin for I do not agree with Calvin on everything. This is about allowing ourselves to extract an honest and complete exegesis from God's revealed message to us in the holy Scriptures. That is my sole purpose... to know and to spread God's truth. Period.

I have always believed the way I do based on spiritual discernment and the whole context of scripture, concerning free-will.

I can say the same thing. In fact, I have. May God bless you in it. I will not condemn you or call you a heretic for the soteriological views you espouse. I can take comfort in knowing that God has a purpose in what He sovereignly reveals to each one in His flock.

I only recently even heard of the Arminius view, so there has been no outside influence on me. I agree with Arminius because he agrees with what the Holy Spirit has taught me.

Again, that's fine. I held strong Arminian views (way before I'd ever heard of Arminius) for years. It was only recently that the Holy Ghost led me in this direction in which I have come to know greater things about His sovereignty and grace. And I praise Him for it!

I must say that I don't think you're being honest with yourself in saying that you have had no outside influence on your beliefs. Are you saying that your parents, grandparents, preachers, teachers, et al. have never taught you anything related to Christianity that you ended up adopting as a personal belief? Really?

Maybe we are all wrong to a certain degree

A humble admission... and one that I will certainly join you in. No man has a monopoly on the truth and any that will tell you he does

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I never said people have no free will... nor would I.

I thought most calvinists didn't believe in free will, this has been my problem.

But to think that somehow it is by man's autonomous will that we are to enter into the Kingdom of God is wholly unbiblical. Man's fleshly will is at enmity with God and man in this state cannot please Him (cf. Rom. 8:7-8). Jeremiah writes (Jer. 17:9, KJV), "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" I have already shown from Jesus' own words that man is unable to come to Christ without first being drawn by the Father. I

I agree with you here, but you need to take into account that we are drawn to Christ. It took Him years to prepare my heart to recieve His saving grace. He knew the exact moment I would be ready to surrender my life to Him.

Jesus made the preperations in my natural life, and then wooed me by His Spirit. Never once did He over-ride my free will, He prepared my heart in such a way that made me ready to live for Him, and then He revealed Himself to me.

Without Him working in my life and heart, I would have never been able to recieve His gift.

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7cworldwide,

Perhaps you don't know the history behind the doctrines of grace and the sovereignty of God... these doctrines called "Calvinism." These doctrines are the very orthodox views of the Reformation!
Even that is really not quite accurate. Luther came first, then Calvin and a host of others. If you leave it as "orthodox views of Calvinism" you would be quite accurate.

The unfortunate thing about the statement is that it dismisses 1600 or Orthodox Christianity.

I never said people have no free will... nor would I. But to think that somehow it is by man's autonomous will that we are to enter into the Kingdom of God is wholly unbiblical.
But you have changed the wording. Man has free will. He does not have autonomous will. Two different things. But since you are taking the position of Calvin and the reformed view, free will by definition is excluded from the idea of election and predestination. They are mutually exclusive terms. Thus you probably are not a true predestinarian?

I have already shown from Jesus' own words that man is unable to come to Christ without first being drawn by the Father.
But that does not support the reformed view, as all men are drawn by the Father. All men are taught by the Father but not all learn from the Father. All are called, but only some answer in the positive. All men will answer, however.

This issue is of great importance and I believe Luther presents the biblical exegete's view quite well.
Once again, it is Luther's view and his own personal exegetical efforts. He could have done much better.
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I thought most calvinists didn't believe in free will, this has been my problem.

Did you read the Luther excerpt? :24:

I agree with you here, but you need to take into account that we are drawn to Christ. It took Him years to prepare my heart to recieve His saving grace. He knew the exact moment I would be ready to surrender my life to Him.

Jesus made the preperations in my natural life, and then wooed me by His Spirit. Never once did He over-ride my free will, He prepared my heart in such a way that made me ready to live for Him, and then He revealed Himself to me.

Without Him working in my life and heart, I would have never been able to recieve His gift.

You're close. But you must understand that He did override your will by changing you... regenerating you so that you could see! "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13, KJV). Thankfully, God does change our will. Otherwise, we'd never have any hope of seeing Heaven.

Shalom,

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Even that is really not quite accurate. Luther came first, then Calvin and a host of others. If you leave it as "orthodox views of Calvinism" you would be quite accurate.

The unfortunate thing about the statement is that it dismisses 1600 or Orthodox Christianity.

I'm not sure where you're coming from with this Thad. But Luther certainly believed in the full sovereignty of God and in what modern Calvinists call the doctrines of grace.

But you have changed the wording. Man has free will. He does not have autonomous will. Two different things. But since you are taking the position of Calvin and the reformed view, free will by definition is excluded from the idea of election and predestination. They are mutually exclusive terms. Thus you probably are not a true predestinarian?

When Arminians speak of "free will" they are conveying their belief that man is completely autonomous in choosing his eternal destination. That's what I meant by both terms (synonymously) as I discuss this issue with an Arminian.

I am a "predestinarian."

But that does not support the reformed view, as all men are drawn by the Father. All men are taught by the Father but not all learn from the Father. All are called, but only some answer in the positive. All men will answer, however.

Yes. All men will answer. But not all are called with the same efficacious call by which God brings his elect unto Him.

Once again, it is Luther's view and his own personal exegetical efforts. He could have done much better.

We could all do better, bro. But exegesis is exegesis and Luther gets it right when it comes to the issue of the bondage of the will (to sin).

Shalom,

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You're close. But you must understand that He did override your will by changing you... regenerating you so that you could see! "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13, KJV). Thankfully, God does change our will. Otherwise, we'd never have any hope of seeing Heaven.

7cworldwide, I don't know what kind of background you have, but mine is a rebellious one. God caused me to hate that old life for sure, but still I had the choice of heeding the call or wallowing in it.

I really think God would have us come willingly 'after' he works in us. If my husband loved me only because I over rode his will, his love wouldn't be honest, but manipulated.

There was a courtship that played a part in our love, there was a courtship of Gods spirit which made me desire Him. He didn't force me to love Him.

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