How about creating a new group of Non-Calvinists where we can discuss something constructive instead of hitting against a wall?
Calvinism is Gospel !
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Nothing coming to me at the moment, but I have a feeling you will find a good title/name.
The difference is that it's easy to find and quote examples of Roman Catholics addressing prayers to Mary. Can you quote a Calvinist saying that some believers are doomed for hell?
"Your response has trapped you in a maze of circular logic, a direct denial of Christ's words, and a spiritual impossibility. In your desperate attempt to protect human pride, you have constructed a timeline that makes absolutely no sense.
Let’s look at exactly where your system collapses:
1. Your Circular Logic Trap: The Blind and Deaf Dilemma
Look closely at what you just wrote. You claim that God does not open blind eyes or unstop deaf ears until faith is exercised. At the same time, you claim that the preaching of the Gospel is what produces faith.
Think through the logical absurdity of your own timeline:
If a sinner’s ears are spiritually deaf to the truth of God, and God refuses to unstop those ears until the sinner believes, how can the deaf sinner hear the preaching of the Gospel to get the faith in the first place? If a sinner's eyes are completely blind to the glory of Christ, and God refuses to open them until they believe, how can the blind sinner see Christ to place their faith in Him?
Your system demands that a spiritually blind and deaf man must see and hear the Gospel via free will while still blind and deaf, so that God will reward him by opening his eyes and ears. This is a theological trainwreck.
Scripture turns your timeline upside down. God doesn't open eyes because we believe; we believe because God sovereignly opened our eyes. Jesus tells Paul in Acts 26:18 that He is sending him to the Gentiles 'To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light... that they may receive forgiveness of sins.' The opening of the eyes is the first sovereign act that allows the sinner to see the kingdom and believe.
2. You Empty the New Birth of Its Divine Power
You claim that regeneration and the New Birth only happen after a person exercises faith. You have just flatly contradicted John 1:12-13:
John explicitly states that those who receive Him and believe on His name are those who were born of God. Furthermore, he explicitly rules out human initiative, stating that this birth is not of the 'will of the flesh' and not of the 'will of man.' If the sinner must choose to exercise faith while still unregenerate to trigger the New Birth, then the New Birth is directly dependent on the 'will of man.' You are stripping God of His sovereign role as the sole Author of life.
3. Why the Gospel is Preached
You claim the Gospel is not preached to the elect, but to the general public. High Calvinism agrees that the external call goes out to the public. But Paul tells us the exact target of that preaching in 2 Timothy 2:10: 'Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.'
The net is cast into the general public, but it is explicitly sent for the elect's sake. The reprobate public hears the external words and rejects them as foolishness because their 'alive soul' cannot receive them (1 Cor 2:14). But the elect sheep hear the internal, effectual voice of the Holy Spirit.
As Jesus told the free-will Pharisees of His day in John 10:26-27: 'But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.'
Jesus did not say, 'You become my sheep if you choose to believe.' He said, 'You cannot believe because you are not of my sheep.' Identity precedes action. Election precedes faith. God must first make you a sheep, open your blind eyes, and unstop your deaf ears through sovereign regeneration, or you will never move an inch toward Christ."
How do you know?
Evanescent grace suggests there is a temporary grace that God gives, but it fades with time.
The text speaks about God calling people according to His purpose. It does not posit TWO different KINDS of calls - one outward and human and the other inward and divine. All these underlined descriptors are NOT IN THE TEXT. Instead they are eisegeted INTO the text from your belief system.
Look closely at the text and tell me if these ideas are mentioned explicitly in the text:
a). TWO KINDS OF CALLS
b). One of which is an EXTERNAL CALL that is outward and human
c). The other of which is an INTERNAL CALL which is inward divine and sovereign
d) Can you not see that these descriptors are not explicitly stated in the text
e). Instead, you have imported these distinctions based on your presupposition of Calvinism
f). Even when textual evidence is completely absent you assume that these ideas are present though INVISIBLE
You have unfortunately reached the place where your beliefs are based on extra-textual traditions rather than the word of God and you cannot even see it
The passage you cite here from Romans 8 lays out the SEQUENCE of God's plan for us:
1). First we have to be called by the Spirit of God. Nothing can proceed until we first hear the call
2). However, we must do more than hear. We must understand and respond to the call.
3). While you allude to the "golden chain" of God's plan of redemption, you immediately oppose this "chain" because the gospel has not been preached to everyone
4). This implies that the way God sent the good news of salvation to the nations is somehow UNFAIR because of the many who have not heard it
5). Then you immediately attempt to replace this "golden chain" of redemption with the "forged iron chain" of Calvinistic determinism which offers us no way of responding to God's offer of salvation. Indeed, to even imagine that we CAN respond is an affront to God's sovereignty (sovereignty meaning the idea that God controls every variable in the universe including every thought, desire of man)
6). While this idea was probably intended to humble us, it ends up making us a helpless prisoner of nature to the point that our very ability to consent or refuse is nullified.
7). So if we are UNABLE to respond, how is anyone saved? You offer no recourse except to wait and see if God unilaterally and irresistibly ACTS UPON us to save us.
8). This is not how the Apostles presented the gospel of salvation to the nations. When asked what shall we do to be saved, did the Apostle say: you can do nothing. Just wait until God reveals to you whether or not you are one of the elect
9). No, Jesus and His Apostles commanded all men everywhere to REPENT of their sins and put their trust [or believe] in CHRIST to save them and that when we did He would save us
10). It is not God who is keeping men from believing but men who in our pride and self-conceit refuse to listen and submit
Do Pelagian heretics have eternal security? They deny an awful lot of Scriptures.
Nope, on the contrary. I have posted several times about election including angels, Israel, and those in Christ. God has elected all of these to serve his purpose. The context is never salvation.
Notice the text does not say, "According as he has chosen us to be in him before the foundation of the world." This is how Calvinists read it.
Once again, you falsely accuse me of something I did not claim. God chose Jacob, not of any works he had done, but to serve his purpose according to the seed. This seed goes back to Genesis 3:15. Only one of those boys could serve God's purpose to carry the seed line. God chose Jacob, not Esau. Romans 9-11 is all about how God used Israel to carry out his purpose, gave them every opportunity, and yet, they rejected him. Because of this rejection, God would turn to the Gentiles and offer them salvation in accordance with his grace.But look at how the Apostle Paul completely shuts this down in Romans 9:11-12: '(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth
God's character never changes. But to say God never changes is scriptural ignorance. One easy example is found in Matthew 5. God once stated under his law, eye for an eye...Christ comes along and changes the law he himself put in place. He changes it to turn the other cheek. God's direction for man has changed many times throughout the course of human history. What he requires of man has changed and once again will change in the future.
Matthew 5:
38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
"Your 10-point emotional venting has forced you into an absolute mathematical contradiction and a direct denial of the plain vocabulary of the Apostle Paul. You accuse me of eisegeting descriptors into Romans 8:30, but your conditional theology completely destroys the text.
Let’s look at exactly where your argument shatters:
1. The Mathematical Failure of Your Conditional Sequence
You claim Romans 8:30 is a sequence where man must 'understand and respond' to the call in order for salvation to proceed. You are exposing a fatal inability to handle the structure of the text.
Look at the absolute pronouns Paul uses: 'whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.'
Paul uses the exact same Greek pronoun them (toutous) for every single link in the chain. The group predestined is the exact same group called; the group called is the exact same group justified; the group justified is the exact same group glorified. There are zero dropouts.
Think through your own logic: if this 'call' is just a general invitation preached to the public that depends on human cooperation, then every single human being who has ever heard a sermon must be legally justified and eternally glorified. But you already admitted that millions hear the preacher and reject it. If a single person who receives the call in Romans 8:30 finishes in hell, the chain breaks, the pronoun 'them' becomes a lie, and Paul's absolute promise is ruined. The text itself demands that this call is exclusive, sovereign, and 100% effective for the elect alone.
2. The Inarguable Scripture Proof of Two Calls
You claim the 'two calls' framework is an invisible, extra-textual tradition. I don't need the theological labels 'internal' and 'external' to prove it; I have the plain words of Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul.
Compare these two explicit scriptures:
- Call #1: Jesus declares in Matthew 22:14: “For many are called, but few are chosen.” This call goes out to a broad mass, yet it fails to save them because they are not chosen.
- Call #2: Paul declares in Romans 8:30: “whom he called, them he also justified [and glorified].” This call has a 100% success rate.
3. You Are Repeating the Blasphemous Objection of Romans 9
You attempt an emotional deflection, claiming my view implies God is 'unfair' because many have not heard the gospel. You are using the exact same carnal objection that the wicked opponent brings against Paul in Romans 9:19: “Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?”
Look at how the Holy Spirit answers your 'unfairness' complaint in Romans 9:20: “Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?”
You complain that sovereign grace turns man into a 'helpless prisoner of nature.' The Bible doesn't call us prisoners of nature; it calls us dead in trespasses and sins (Eph 2:1) and slaves of sin (Rom 6:20). A dead slave doesn't have 'free will' to consent to a resurrection.
4. Acts 2:37 Shuts Down Your Free-Will Initiative
Finally, you ask mockingly if the Apostles told people to 'do nothing' and wait for a unilateral act. You completely miss why people repented under apostolic preaching.
Look at the real-world execution of the Effectual Call in Acts 2:37: “Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?”
Why were their hearts pricked? Did their free-will initiate that conviction? No! The Holy Spirit sovereignly invaded their dead hearts under the preaching of the Word, quickening them and opening their eyes. Peter commanded them to repent and believe because God had already moved first to make them alive.
You claim that it is man’s pride that keeps them from submitting, and on that point, you are correct. The natural man’s free-will pride hates a God who is completely sovereign. You want a God who is frozen and 'won't move an inch' until the creature gives Him permission. But the God of Romans 8 and 9 is the Absolute Potter who sits on His heavenly throne doing whatsoever He pleases, forging an unbreakable chain of salvation for His elect from eternity past to eternity glory."
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