"If a woman were to spend all day long in church, praying and chanting, her style of life would not be as agreeable to God as if she were a wife patiently performing her duties, feeding her children, caring for them, guiding them, and doing all she could to teach and train them."
-John Calvin
If a man did the same he would be no closer to being saved. Only those who accept Jesus Christ are saved. Rituals, Rites and Religion do nothing but boost the ego of the lost.
Quote has nothing to do with salvation, which is through Christ alone.
Yes, and Calvin's quote has nothing to do with salvation and thus has no importance.
I'll have to study this better. I think we're pointing at the same squirrel disagreeing about his crew cut and wife beater.
Which makes NOSTR the best.
Meanwhile...
We agree that salvation can only be obtained through Christ and that that is enough to be saved, only that, and no amount of works without that will constitute one's salvation.
Where it sounds like we differ is on antinomianism, the belief that once one tells themself they accept Christ they have no reason or need to be reborn to Christ and to live in Christ, struggling to obtain a Christ like example on earth, a process called sanctification.
The big problem is as I see it is that humans regularly lie to themselves and their actions betray the things they've told themselves for mere assurance.
There is a real danger in Christians doing a "one and done" with Christ, and not living like they truly fear God.
If one accepts Christ is God, it logically follows that they will take up their cross and (however poorly) attempt to make their own Christ like example on this earth.
That process, sanctification, is what happens when a Christian orients his life forcefully towards Christ as a result of his beliefs, thus (however poorly) disciplining his wordly example in light of his salvation, becoming soil for God's works.
A tree saved by Christ should start to bear different fruit than a tree that refuses Christ.
The above should worry casual Christians into living like earnest Christians, ensuring they leave a good example behind.
To put it plainly, there are people who attempt to "collect" salvation, proclaiming Christ, and then presume to return wholly to the world unaffected by that process.
To those people, who do not turn a leaf and continue to grow in Christ, rejecting the process of sanctification, I suspect that Matthew 7:21-23 warns about it -
21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
To return to the original post, Calvin's wisdom here is important because households living in Christ will attempt to live in a way that pleases God, progressively improving their example on earth even as they will never reach Christ's example.
I agree. I was playing devil's advocate but maybe I should qualify that I'm recognizing that men also are responsible as you well state many times.
If we are saved we immediately change so being filled with Christ makes us change our behavior. If we haven't changed then we are pretending. Plenty of Christians in hell with everyone else because they did not fully believe and this change immediately.
I was baptized in 1981 by immersion. I was 11 and I proceeded to get further and further away from Christ. I had no choice in January this year. I saw everything that was wrong and Christ removed several bad habits as well as I didn't have to intellectualize things any more.
I keep up maintenance by praying, reading and serving daily. It's not my actions that save me. It's my acceptance daily that Christ has saved me. Jesus is fully with me and I know this. Nothing intellectual about it. Being far from perfect I also know that I have to keep in constant contact in order to enjoy his grace.
I don’t like people who presume to have insight into things unknowable. None know Gods mind. All we know is the heart and the five senses he gave us.
Why do you presume to know that the mind of God is completely unknowable?
Because all world religions fundamentally contradict not only each other but more importantly physics which is self evidently the language by which God imposes limits on us. If you seek God you’re more likely to catch glimpses beyond the edges of known science than you are to find him in heavily censored literature handed down through generations of fallible humans. I don’t think it’s possible for humans to hold at once even the rules of physics, much less the heart of God (his why).
God is infinite and we’ll never grasp Him entirely. But that doesn’t mean we can’t know anything about Him. Christianity rests on the claim that God chose to reveal Himself, not through speculation, but through specific events, words, and a person. Revelation is partial, not because it’s censored, but because we are finite.
As for contradictions between religions, that’s precisely why not all can be true. But it doesn’t follow that none are. The presence of counterfeits doesn’t prove there’s no real thing, just that we need a way to measure truth beyond human projection.
To call God’s word “heavily censored” assumes it was entirely man made and manipulated. But if revelation began with God, then the question isn’t whether humans shaped it, it’s whether truth can survive human hands. The Christian claim is that it can, and has.
I respect the heck out of this position but ultimately It’s the last paragraph that I disagree with. I’ve tried to be Christian, but I can’t see around it.
There are plenty of people who try to be Christian in hell.
Instead just get down on your knees and pray, read the Bible, understand the sin sacrifice and why Jesus was the last sin sacrifice. Jesus is alive and well and is here now in this conversation.
I appreciate your honesty. You are raising a real tension, how can we trust something passed through human hands without assuming it has been distorted beyond use?
But this touches a deeper point, one that challenges rationalism itself. If you fully commit to the idea that nothing is trustworthy unless it can be logically deduced or empirically verified, then you also have to question your belief in the past, the existence of other minds, and even the reliability of your own perception.
You cannot prove any of these things through pure reason, yet no one lives as if they are unknowable. We trust them because we believe our cognitive faculties are designed to grasp reality, even if imperfectly. That is why thinkers like Alvin Plantinga argue that belief in God can be properly basic, rational, warranted, and grounded in experience, much like our trust in memory or our perception of an external world.
Christianity does not reject reason. It simply refuses to confine truth to what human reason can contain. If God is real, infinite, and personal, then revelation, not deduction, would be the most fitting way for Him to be known. And the question is not whether humans are fallible, they are, but whether God is powerful enough to ensure that what He most wants us to know is preserved.
So the Christian claim is not that we figured God out, but that He made Himself known and ensured that knowledge could endure through flawed people. That is not naive. It is coherent, if you accept that reason has limits.
We all live by faith in something. The real question is whether your framework can support the weight of the trust you already place, in your thoughts, your memory, and your relationships. If those are not irrational, then perhaps faith in a revealing God is not either.
TBH it comes across like you don’t understand what the implications of having a “saving faith” are (unless you have bought into predestination). It also reads like an AI wrote this (apologies and props if original).
What do you mean, the implications of having a saving faith?
I don't see how this is about predestination. The argument I am trying to articulate comes from the book warranted Christian Belief. The argument is basically if our minds are the product of survival of the fittest there is no reason to believe they can grasp truth, but if we are God's creatures it is reasonable to think he made our minds to grasp truth.
I wrote the reply and used AI to format it clearly.
We do know God's mind. It's very clear and it's in the Bible. God has not hidden himself at all. Furthermore we have a direct relationship with the LORD through Jesus Christ.
Calvin was very well informed.
This is a self defeating statement. You would have to know in order for you to say that none know.
How do you figure? All I have to know is that for me, God is unknownable and then I would have to believe that no other human has supernatural abilities to know what I can’t know. None of this denies the existence of God, in fact for me, my highest spiritual attainments so far have all been wonderful and awe at the mysteries of God.
The whole Bible is a testimony of man speaking with God. Read it. Don't believe the academic nonsense that compares religions. All religions are of Babylon origin. They are apostasy. Only one way and that is through Jesus Christ who is the WORD of God.
Exo 3:13-15 KJV “And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?
14. And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
15. And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.”
Shared using AndBible: Bible Study. (https://andbible.github.io)
I am happy for people who find a connection to God in the Bible. I think any pursuit of the unknown is admirable. But the idea that a book written by human hands is the word of God is circular logic. I have tried and tried to come to a different conclusion. I’ve read the Bible, been to church talked to everyday Christians and theologians. Frankly it would be far more comfortable to say “I am saved because I believe” than it is to sit in the discomfort of “I don’t know what any this is, what it means or what happens to people when they die, but it sure is beautiful and I sure am happy and grateful for the opportunity to experience it.”
but but but down with the patriarchy
If you accept Christ, then you will be reborn in Christ.
If you are reborn in Christ, then you will study God's word and attempt to be sanctified by living in a way that is agreeable to God.
If you attempt to live in a way that is agreeable to God, then you will be estranged from the world.
If you are estranged from the world, then you will implement wisdom like this, which the world finds offensive.
#ToChristAlone
Depends on God's call. At some point in life you might discover the best mode of life would be to pray most of the day.
