Calvin vs. Arminius

[eis]

WITHOUT A DOUBT !!

Please forgive, but I have another question,

Under Calvinism babies are of the elect, but have no faith???

That is the trouble when man tries to explain God in their own words, they fail terribly.

What do you mean?

[OneLight]

WITHOUT A DOUBT !!

Please forgive, but I have another question,

Under Calvinism babies are of the elect, but have no faith???

That is the trouble when man tries to explain God in their own words, they fail terribly.

What do you mean?

Instead of looking at this through the eyes of Calvin or Arminius, look at through the eyes of Christ. Does it really matter what they thought? What Christ thought is all that we should be concerned with. People have placed too much emphasis on both of these teachings, as if they over ride scripture. What you should ask yourself is what does scripture say.

God Bless,

Alan

[eis]

WITHOUT A DOUBT !!

Please forgive, but I have another question,

Under Calvinism babies are of the elect, but have no faith???

That is the trouble when man tries to explain God in their own words, they fail terribly.

What do you mean?

Instead of looking at this through the eyes of Calvin or Arminius, look at through the eyes of Christ. Does it really matter what they thought? What Christ thought is all that we should be concerned with. People have placed too much emphasis on both of these teachings, as if they over ride scripture. What you should ask yourself is what does scripture say.

God Bless,

Alan

I can't disagree with you there. One reason I asked this question is that if Calvinistic belief is that God gives man (those elected) faith that he may receive grace then the explanation under this concept is that babies must be of the elect or since they have no faith, they must be lost. The babies that is.

[OneLight]

I can't disagree with you there. One reason I asked this question is that if Calvinistic belief is that God gives man (those elected) faith that he may receive grace then the explanation under this concept is that babies must be of the elect or since they have no faith, they must be lost. The babies that is.

What most Calvinist miss is that God "foreknew", so He predestined. Romans 8:29 "For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren."

Children, before they understand sin, can not sin. Babies fall into this category, so if a baby dies, they are automatically with God. This would hold true for either side of the debate.

[nebula]

It looks like even scientists are arguing over whether or not we have free will:

~~~

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturel...ref=online-news

Sternberg addresses two related problems throughout the book. The first concerns the wide range of influences on our actions that we are unaware of at any given moment. If an action I take is triggered by unconscious sensory input, am I employing free will?

The second, known as the "causal exclusion problem" in philosophy, is the one that really disturbs Sternberg. You, in the grand sense of "you" - your thoughts, emotions, volition and moral reasoning - depend on neuronal processing in your brain. If the firings of any neuron are enough to cause the next neuron to fire, your brain runs all on its own. There is no extra place in which you, as a higher-level, conscious being, can direct proceedings and assert free will. This clockwork determinism undermines any causal role we could have in our own actions - and, by implication, our responsibility for those actions.

So what is Sternberg's answer to the problem of free will? Emergence. This concept can be roughly summed up as "the whole is more than the sum of the parts". Just as temperature emerges from a collection of molecules even though it does not exist at the level of individual molecules, free will, Sternberg argues, emerges from otherwise deterministic processes at the level of neurons.

Philosophers and scientists have been debating the merits of emergence in solving the free will problem since the 1920s. Rather than providing an account of exactly how free will could emerge from deterministic processes, Sternberg offers an analogy with the theory of continental drift. When it was first proposed, scientists dismissed it because it lacked a mechanism to account for how such massive objects could move over huge distances. Sternberg's moral is that even though we don't know how free will emerges, we will some day, so we shouldn't throw moral responsibility out the window just yet.

[EricH]

It looks like even scientists are arguing over whether or not we have free will:

~~~

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturel...ref=online-news

Sternberg addresses two related problems throughout the book. The first concerns the wide range of influences on our actions that we are unaware of at any given moment. If an action I take is triggered by unconscious sensory input, am I employing free will?

The second, known as the "causal exclusion problem" in philosophy, is the one that really disturbs Sternberg. You, in the grand sense of "you" - your thoughts, emotions, volition and moral reasoning - depend on neuronal processing in your brain. If the firings of any neuron are enough to cause the next neuron to fire, your brain runs all on its own. There is no extra place in which you, as a higher-level, conscious being, can direct proceedings and assert free will. This clockwork determinism undermines any causal role we could have in our own actions - and, by implication, our responsibility for those actions.

So what is Sternberg's answer to the problem of free will? Emergence. This concept can be roughly summed up as "the whole is more than the sum of the parts". Just as temperature emerges from a collection of molecules even though it does not exist at the level of individual molecules, free will, Sternberg argues, emerges from otherwise deterministic processes at the level of neurons.

Philosophers and scientists have been debating the merits of emergence in solving the free will problem since the 1920s. Rather than providing an account of exactly how free will could emerge from deterministic processes, Sternberg offers an analogy with the theory of continental drift. When it was first proposed, scientists dismissed it because it lacked a mechanism to account for how such massive objects could move over huge distances. Sternberg's moral is that even though we don't know how free will emerges, we will some day, so we shouldn't throw moral responsibility out the window just yet.

I saw that as well. Especially in the discussions that are happening between Quantum Physicists (the study of the very small) and Relativity Theorists (the study of the really large.

[Littlelambseativy]

Regarding children, what did Jesus say ?

Suffer the children to come unto me and forbid them not for of such is the kingdom of heaven:wub So without question children go to heaven they are not at the age of reason.

With regard to the scientists sit sounds like they are into the new age man is god himself = or am I misreading it? I think to God we are more than neurons . Is this the group trying to find the

'God particle' ?

Edited March 28, 2010 by Littlelambseativy

[nebula]

Hey guys - try this on for size.

In 1964, physicist John Bell of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland . . . calculated a mathematical inequality that encapsulated the maximum correlation between the states of remote particles in experiments in which three "reasonable" conditions hold: that experimenters have free will in setting things up as they want; that the particle properties being measured are real and pre-existing, not just popping up at the time of measurement; and that no influence travels faster than the speed of light, the cosmic speed limit.

As many experiments since have shown, quantum mechanics regularly violates Bell's inequality, yielding levels of correlation way above those possible if his conditions hold. That pitches us into a philosophical dilemma. Do we not have free will, meaning something, somehow predetermines what measurements we take? That is not anyone's first choice. Are the properties of quantum particles not real - implying that nothing is real at all, but exists merely as a result of our perception? That's a more popular position, but it hardly leaves us any the wiser.

Or is there really an influence that travels faster than light? Cementing the Swiss reputation for precision timing, in 2008 physicist Nicolas Gisin and his colleagues at the University of Geneva showed that, if reality and free will hold, the speed of transfer of quantum states between entangled photons held in two villages 18 kilometres apart was somewhere above 10 million times the speed of light (Nature, vol 454, p 861).

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2062...a-distance.html

[Guest real truth]

Don't know if this has been said already..

But there are christians who are neither calvinist nor armenian

Why?

Not calvinist, because they do believe in having to call out for salvation from Jesus.. there is an initial call in response to the Holy Spirit's drawing. This is a once off call.. that gives salvation permanently forever.. just as long as it is genuine.

Romans chapter 10, John 3:16, John 5:24 are just a few bits that support this.

Now.. not arminian.. because there is absolutely no way.. once salvation is given that it can be undone. No by the person saved.. nor Jesus.

Again the above verses support this.. plus many many more.

When you want to know sound salvation teaching.. you don't go for men's teachings.. unless you know for sure they line up with scripture in context solidly.

Calvinism.. takes 'he who endures to the end will be saved' out of context. This verse.. and others like it are all about being delivered from troubles and trials.. not eternal salvation.

Hebrews 6 gets taken out of context by Armenian doctrine.. mistakenly assuming 'fall away' means loss of salvation. Also.. 'blasphemy of the Holy Spirit' .. getting taken to be addressed at christians.. when Jesus was talking to unsaved pharisees and scribes when He talked about it. Not to mention a whole raft of other verses regarding salvation.

The key thing is.. there is a big difference between saving faith.. the once off act.. and daily service 'the faith'.. they are not dependent on eachother.

You don't HAVE to do good works after salvation... Jesus wants us to so we can be in close intimacy with Him.. rather than a distant relationship.. not because He'll send us to hell if we don't.

Take off the glasses that say there is only Armenianism and Calvinism when it comes to salvation doctrine.. take off the glasses that say there is Catholicism and all churches coming out of the Reformation.. that are all there is as far as christian churches go!

There were.. and always have been christians who believed just the bible.. and not in Calvin or Armenius. There were and always will be churches that have no Catholic roots.. and also no Reformation roots.. because there were independent christian churches coming right from the NT churches to today. Who were and are they? Independent baptists are the modern equivalent of these kind of churches that relied solely on the bible and nothing else .. since Jesus' day.

They weren't always called baptists.. they had there own names.. in fact I think alot had no name but were given nicknames. But they all believed the same teachings in general.. based entirely on scripture and not men's teaching.

[Rick-Parker]

I tend to agree with real truth. I don't know if that makes me 50/50 or not. I believe that God foreknew who would choose Christ; who would be saved. I don't believe that one who has genuine faith in Jesus Christ and Him crucified can lose their salvation, nor can they walk away. Some call it "once saved always saved" while others call it "perseverance of the saints." I believe that those who "walk away" or "lose their faith," those who continue to live in their sins without the "regeneration" of the Holy Spirit - continuing to "willfully" sin - never had a genuine faith and in fact were never saved to begin with.

I believe in what the Bible teaches exclusively; relying on no man to tell me what is Truth. Truth comes through the Word, and that Word is Jesus Christ. The meaning of the Word is given to me through the Holy Spirit, and new eternal Truth is revealed to me continually as long as I seek it out by reading the Word. Not "new" in the sense of not being there in the first place, but new knowledge of Jesus Christ and Him crucified as contained in the Bible - both the Old and New Testaments.

I guess I'm rambling now. So I'll stop here.