"#Calvinism is wrong. All men are called to God. He does not create some people just to be damned with no hope of receiving salvation."
Not how it works. God:
- Gave Man free will.
- Is still Sovereign.
- Therefore: knows who'll turn to Christ of their own volition.
- Therefore: knows the Elect.
Those rejecting Christ do so with real free will, and God knows who they are.
God isn't bound to Creation. We are.
How would you reconcile that with Romans 8, which says outright that God predestined people to salvation?
Physical determinism and free will are perfectly compatible.
The best chapter in the Bible.
Interesting discussion, but I think he uses a false dichotomy about the Armenian take on free will.
Here is my feeble attempt to reconcile issue of predestination.
If you have children or plan to in the future, wouldn't you purpose in your heart, before they're born, that they would be conformed to an image. Most parents desire to raise their off spring to be good, moral, kind hearted, truthful. Yet in reality children will stray or outright rebel from the image parent has purposed for them from the beginning. And as parents we never abandoned our desire for the child to be in harmony with parents will towards good.
For me it seems God purposed in his hearts before foundation of the world for those whom he created to be conform to highest good...the image of Jesus Christ. God desired this long before the child comes of age to know or acts upon influence of good and/or evil.
Never once will God grow weary to bring, or call his children back, nor to forgive them, to justify them, to restore or glorify those who want to be in harmony with His will.
Hope is helps in some small way.
That makes sense, but the text of Romans 8 specifically mentions that God predestined people to follow him and then called them and then justified them and then sanctified them
Also work is not the measure of value, an insane notion which disregards the work of directing that work toward useful pursuits for some efficacy in carrying out the Lord's work.
No one—not one—can turn to God out of their own “goodness of their heart” (i.e., their own will) for they are unable and unwilling. All you have to do is READ the Bible.
Yes, and I agree with you. It’s not good to be a Calvinist; it’s best to be a Biblicist 🎯
What’s a biblicist?
Hi there. My apologies for late reply. A biblicist is one who looks to Scripture—and Scripture alone—to know and understand any topic found in the Bible (aka, biblical doctrine). A biblicist does not like to be put in camps. For example, I used the word “biblicist” in the context of understanding the relationship between God’s sovereignty and Man’s responsibility (aka the topic of salvation, soteriology). Two well known camps in soteriology are Arminianism and Calvinism. While there are ppl who like to be classified under or the other, a biblicist says, “let’s go to the Bible and see.” There’s so much to explain and say, but I believe this clarifies things. Here to help!
No problem at all. Ok but what if we both together ‘go to Bible and see’ and we both see something different? What happened before there was a Bible to go and see?
Calvinism would say that man's dead heart has the free will to chose within the limits of its deadness, in other words, only the matter of this world. It cannot choose the divine because it is unalive spiritually. It must be restored to life first. this is the Prime Move in the chain of salvation.
Bible > ESV > Romans 9
◄ Romans 9 ►
English Standard Version
God’s Sovereign Choice
1I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— 2that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. 4They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. 5To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.
6But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, 7and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 8This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. 9For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.” 10And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, 11though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls— 12she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” 13As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
14What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! 15For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16So then it depends not on human will or exertion,b but on God, who has mercy. 17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
19You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” 20But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” 21Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? 22What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— 24even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?
Personally I think the very idea of a Loving God that would condemn a person to eternal torment for one human lifetime of not managing to believe the right dogma is completely and totally absurd and contradictory. God created us imperfect. To then punish us forever for being imperfect would be completely psychotic.
I doubt people as knowing "The Way" that have such a twisted theology.
Your complaint is common, twisting God into a petty sadist, but that’s a straw man. A loving God doesn’t doom us for stumbling over doctrine—He’s the one who opens eyes to truth.
We’re not punished for being imperfect by design; our ruin traces back to a rebellion we’re born into, a nature that rejects Him.
Eternal torment isn’t some unhinged overreaction; it’s the fitting end for souls that, left to themselves, cling to darkness over light.
God’s not deranged for letting justice roll; He’s holy. You scoff at the outcome, but the marvel is He spares anyone at all.
Twisting? It is what the dogma says. I never looked at God that way. But it is what the creed says. Being born guilty is not the act of loving or rational God either. More silly dogma. Eternal punishment with no chance of reprieve is pure evil torture for nothing. If that is your God or your conception of God then perhaps you are deranged.
It isn't mere dogmatics. Scripture is clear about the cause and nature of original sin.
Re: "torture for nothing"
What do you think a just and loving God should do to unrepentant sinners instead of eternal hell? Honest question.
Why is scripture, which was largely tuned by the Catholic Church, in a Bible full of contradictions, any standard at all? Punishing people for eternity for merely not encountering and affirming the right doctrine can hardly be a just and loving act. God created us imperfect according to the Bible. FWIW
Scripture is older than the Roman Church
The bible is full of apparent contradictions that one finds are not actual contradictions with careful study.
There is such a thing as absolute truth and objective moral standards. The Scriptures are the best account for this reality.
Hell is not for deniers of right doctrine but deniers of the lordship of Christ and their need for salvation.
I encourage you to spend a more time studying scripture, if for no other reason than to steelman your opponents.
Your first bullet point already disproves Calvinism.
yes, this is the correct view. this is not Calvinism.
Tit 2:11 KJV For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
God does not look into the future because God is already there.
Calvin’s just a guy. An -ism of a guy’s name is a bit suss regardless of if it’s right or wrong
