Calvinism is Gospel !

[GWH]

He does indeed:

(Joh 5:39-40 NKJV) You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.

And Matt. 23:37.

 

[Melach]

Good question. Here is what I have come to believe is the answer:

As truthseekers, whenever we encounter someone who has a contradictory understanding, we want to learn which is the better belief, to admit when we are wrong, and to change our opinion. As people-lovers we want to share our knowledge with other truthseekers, so that we may fellowship (2Tim. 4:3-4, 1John 1:3).

According to the Bible, God created everything else that exists (Gen. 1:1, Jer. 10:16, John 1:1-3), including the ability by volitional beings (souls) to choose to rebel against His Lordship (Gen. 2:16, Deut. 30:19). Our finite minds cannot comprehend how God does this (Isa. 40:28). However, neither are we able to understand why the universe exists without God (John 3:8). Theistic and atheistic cosmologies are both mind-boggling! Just as atheists believe that somehow the world always existed and somewhat intelligent beings evolved, so theists believe that for some reason the eternal Intelligence or Spirit of God created and pervades the physical universe, including the brains of those who freely will to spit in His face (Rom. 5:6-8, Matt. 27:30)! (What God was doing before the creation of time/space is as inconceivable as nothing/atheism.)

As Immanuel Kant indicated: humans do not have the mental categories or ability to imagine alternative or supernatural reality, which may be why the NT does not describe immortality and hell in detail (cf. 1Cor. 15:35-44 and Matt. 24:51, 25:30, 41&46.) However, I will share my understanding of the NT concept of God, “the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God” (1Tim. 1:17), in terms of seven words. Four terms are used to describe (but not explain and certainly not “box in”) the supernatural power of God: omnipotent (almighty), omniscient (all-knowing/ intelligent), omnipresent (everywhere), and omnitemporal (eternal). “Natural laws” actually are God’s ongoing first miracle (Rom. 1:20), and supernatural resurrection to judgment will be the final miracle (Heb. 9:27-28, 1Cor. 15:12-26).

If the NT is not too good to be true, then the Lord of the universe is neither dictatorial nor distant, but rather relates to humanity. Although we cannot comprehend the infinite God completely, hopefully we can do so sufficiently in order to achieve the type of relationship God desires to have with humanity (John 14:9-25). God desires communion.

1. God’s omnipotence means that He can do everything except “disown Himself” or not be God (2Tim. 2:13). It does NOT mean that God can perform logical absurdities, such as creating a rock too large for Him to move. Omnipotence or sovereignty also means that human MFW has limits with regard to how it can contradict God’s will. God provides morally competent humans the ability to resist His intentional will and plan of salvation (POS) within limits, such as the time limit that will end with death, resurrection (the last miracle) and judgment (per Heb. 9:27)–called His permissive will.

2. God’s power is equivalent to His omniscience. Jeremiah wrote that “God made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom.” (Jer. 10:12) Many NT passages refer to God as the source of true wisdom (e.g., Acts 6:3, 1Cor. 1:25, Col. 2:2-3, Jam. 1:5). God’s infinitely superior knowledge is extolled in Rom. 11:33-34 (echoing Isa. 40:13-14) and Dan. 2:20-23.

Omniscience includes knowledge of people’s thoughts (Psa. 94:11, Matt. 12:25) and the foreknowledge of events (Acts 2:23, Rom. 8:29, 11:2, 1Pet. 1:2). Some people think that God even knows what a person will be/do before that person exists (Jer. 1:5). If this view is correct (which I find incomprehensible a la Kant), it must be maintained that God’s fore-knowledge does not predetermine a person’s spiritual choice regarding the satisfaction of God’s requirement for salvation or else moral responsibility would be abrogated. I find it simpler to think that God merely tweaks the river of history occasionally to keep if flowing in the direction He intends but allows the fish to swim as they wish. (Surely this universe is not a replay of a history that has already happened!) God allows eddies in the river of salvation.

3. Omnipotence is connected with omnitemporality (in Rev. 1:18): “I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” Rom. 1:20 refers to God’s “eternal power”, and Jer. 10:10&16 names God “the Lord Almighty”, who is true, living and eternal.

4. God’s infinite power implies omnipresence (per Psa. 139:7-8). God transcends spatial existence while being immanent in all points of space. (Other scriptural support for this view includes 1Kings 8:27, Isa. 66:1, Jer. 23:33, Acts 17:27-28 and Eph. 4:6.) God’s superiority over His creation must be viewed as a matter of degree or quantitatively in order to preserve the continuity between God and humanity that would be requisite for communication (like the need for a common language and culture cited in Part I). However, the Bible teaches that God also differs from creatures in kind or qualitatively, so that attaining equality with Deity is impossible (Isa. 55:9, Eph. 3:19). We can be like God (Gen. 3:3), and we can become one with the Son of God (John 17:21-23), but we cannot become God (cf. Humanism).

Hope this helps answer the question.

i understand your view i believe. but i simply see its better to say that God decreed everything for a reason. i find that in the view where God creates and simply foreknows from the foundation of the world all that will happen, and allows it to come to pass it makes evil have no purpose and God is a spectator. even His election is based on what He knows the players do on the field

 

[brightfame52]

i understand your view i believe. but i simply see its better to say that God decreed everything for a reason. i find that in the view where God creates and simply foreknows from the foundation of the world all that will happen, and allows it to come to pass it makes evil have no purpose and God is a spectator. even His election is based on what He knows the players do on the field

Friend God is the first cause of all things, including evil !

 

[Melach]

Friend God is the first cause of all things, including evil !

first cause of evil? i dont think so. that would be hyper-calvinism

"When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone;" James 1:13

 

[GWH]

i understand your view i believe. but i simply see its better to say that God decreed everything for a reason. i find that in the view where God creates and simply foreknows from the foundation of the world all that will happen, and allows it to come to pass it makes evil have no purpose and God is a spectator. even His election is based on what He knows the players do on the field

I agree that it is easier to explain foreknowledge as decree/determinism, but that makes God responsible for sin
and reduces those made in His image to robots, removing the reason/purpose/meaning of fellowship for creation,
so I encourage you to believe as well as to understand my Bible-based view/insight.

 

[brightfame52]

The key principle which releases the Truth of God is GRACE. GRACE IS THE KEY! Salvation is by grace, and the Gospel is the Gospel of the grace of God in the salvation of His people. The Gospel is the Good News, the Message which teaches salvation by grace alone. The bad news is works do not save. The Good News is GOD SAVES BY GRACE! GOD DOING IS THE KEY! God graces His people with salvation.

Grace is about what God has done to save His people from their sins, and how He saves His people from their sins. Grace is God doing, salvation is what God has done and all of this is testified to by the Spirit of Truth in God's Gospel of Truth. GRACE IS GOD IN ACTION NOT GOD AND MAN IN TANDEM https://www.godsonlygospel.com/by-grace-alone-36

 

[Melach]

I agree that it is easier to explain foreknowledge as decree/determinism, but that makes God responsible for sin
and reduces those made in His image to robots, removing the reason/purpose/meaning of fellowship for creation,
so I encourage you to believe as well as to understand my Bible-based view/insight.

im glad you said that. is that not the case in your view as well? if God already knows what everyone will choose, can they choose otherwise? no they cannot. so isnt it all decreed in your view as well? i think only open theists have genuine open future, but to have it they must deny exhaustive foreknowledge

 

[brightfame52]

I agree that it is easier to explain foreknowledge as decree/determinism, but that makes God responsible for sin

God is responsible for sin because He is responsible for Salvation from sin. Now God in His all wise purpose is responsible for sin entering into His creation, but nevertheless He is not the doer of sin.

 

[GWH]

im glad you said that. is that not the case in your view as well? if God already knows what everyone will choose, can they choose otherwise? no they cannot. so isnt it all decreed in your view as well? i think only open theists have genuine open future, but to have it they must deny exhaustive foreknowledge

My view is that folks are free to choose, and God MIGHT know what they will choose freely, unless such is in the vein of logical absurdity: God’s omnipotence means that He can do everything except “disown Himself” or not be God (2Tim. 2:13). It does NOT mean that God can perform logical absurdities, such as creating a rock too large for Him to move.

Also reconsider this that I said: Omniscience includes knowledge of people’s thoughts (Psa. 94:11, Matt. 12:25) and the foreknowledge of events (Acts 2:23, Rom. 8:29, 11:2, 1Pet. 1:2). Some people think that God even knows what a person will be/do before that person exists (Jer. 1:5).

If this view is correct (which I find incomprehensible a la Kant), it must be maintained that God’s fore-knowledge does not predetermine a person’s spiritual choice regarding the satisfaction of God’s requirement for salvation or else human moral responsibility would be abrogated. I find it simpler to think that God merely tweaks the river of history occasionally to keep if flowing in the direction He intends but allows the fish to swim as they wish. God allows eddies in the river of salvation/MFW within limits.

 

[Roger316]

Thats the mind we have by nature.

I don't think people are born with a mindset.

 

[GWH]

I don't think people are born with a mindset.

I agree, per my following reasoning: Having established three unavoidable or axiomatic beliefs, my intent now is to discuss the logical point from which the varieties of beliefs extant in the world diverge. Only the first student or one with a tabula rasa (blank slate)—like a newly sentient child—actually starts exploring reality from the beginning. (A pre-sentient infant in the womb is completely agnostic or without knowledge of every ism.) Nevertheless, in Part II the present study “begins” in the midst of this writer’s life and learning by seeking to assume the position or condition of adult innocence (unprejudice/lack of bias).

 

[Roger316]

My post explained why/how your view is tulip, but you did say one new thing I think might carry the discussion forward:
"The Bible teaches both God’s universal love and God’s sovereign choice, and we should affirm both without forcing one to cancel the other."

This is true and what MFW does but TULIP does not. If you refuse to see this, I don't know how to fix your logical/semantic box.

All I can do is sympathize with the frustration Jesus and Paul must have felt as they cited Isa. 6:9-10 in Matt. 13:14-15 and in Acts 28:26-27, respectively, because I have already pointed out that it is wrong/sinful to think that satisfying God's condition of faith (indicated by IF in John 8) is meritorious. If you think it is just for God to favor only some with the possibility of salvation, you fall into the category of those who reverse logic/morality (Isa. 5:20). I hope you don't treat your children that way.

Why does there need to be a box?

Let's put it this way. It's simply a matter of coming to terms with the full understanding of salvation. Being born again is not a small adjustment to one’s religious outlook; it is a Spirit‑created paradigm shift. Before the new birth, a person interprets reality through the categories of the flesh—limited, darkened, and self‑centered. But when the Spirit gives new life, the entire framework changes. What once seemed impossible now becomes desirable. What once felt irrelevant now becomes essential. What was true under the old paradigm no longer governs the new one. Jesus’ point is that unless this radical shift occurs, a person simply cannot perceive the kingdom of God. The new birth is the moment when God rewrites the inner operating system, enabling a person to see, understand, and live in God’s reality.

A person who receives this Spirit‑given paradigm shift becomes categorically different from the rest of humanity, and this is precisely why Scripture calls them saints—holy ones, people set apart. The new birth does not merely add a religious layer to an otherwise ordinary life; it creates a new kind of person, someone who now participates in God’s reality in a way others simply cannot. When God grants this transformation, He marks that individual as His own, separating them from the mass of humanity still operating under the old paradigm. Paul’s language of holiness, election, and sanctification flows from this truth: those who have been born again are not merely forgiven—they are reconstituted for a holy purpose, distinguished by the very presence and power of the Spirit within them. Their uniqueness is not moral superiority but divine workmanship, a life set apart because God has acted in them in a way He has not acted in everyone.

Those who have experienced this know what I am talking about.

 

[brightfame52]

I don't think people are born with a mindset.

It doesnt matter what you think. Its a explicit fact that the carnal mind is enmity against God, that's the natural man from birth, hence the necessity of having to be born again.

 

[Roger316]

It doesnt matter what you think. Its a explicit fact that the carnal mind is enmity against God, that's the natural man from birth, hence the necessity of having to be born again.

Paul is not claiming in Romans 8 that people are born with a carnal mind; he is describing a learned orientation, a mindset shaped by the values, symbols, and confidence markers of the flesh. To say “the natural man from birth has a carnal mind” confuses categories. We are born with human nature, but we are formed into a mindset by the world we grow up in—its religious assumptions, its cultural loyalties, its inherited ways of defining righteousness. Paul’s argument is that Israel’s flesh‑centered confidence produced a carnal mindset, not that infants enter the world already hostile to God. The contrast in Romans 8 is not between two biological conditions but between two covenantal orientations: one shaped by the old age and its fleshly markers, the other shaped by the Spirit. The necessity of being born again arises because people have been trained into the wrong paradigm, not because they were metaphysically defective at birth.

 

[GWH]

Why does there need to be a box?

Let's put it this way. It's simply a matter of coming to terms with the full understanding of salvation. Being born again is not a small adjustment to one’s religious outlook; it is a Spirit‑created paradigm shift. Before the new birth, a person interprets reality through the categories of the flesh—limited, darkened, and self‑centered. But when the Spirit gives new life, the entire framework changes. What once seemed impossible now becomes desirable. What once felt irrelevant now becomes essential. What was true under the old paradigm no longer governs the new one. Jesus’ point is that unless this radical shift occurs, a person simply cannot perceive the kingdom of God. The new birth is the moment when God rewrites the inner operating system, enabling a person to see, understand, and live in God’s reality.

A person who receives this Spirit‑given paradigm shift becomes categorically different from the rest of humanity, and this is precisely why Scripture calls them saints—holy ones, people set apart. The new birth does not merely add a religious layer to an otherwise ordinary life; it creates a new kind of person, someone who now participates in God’s reality in a way others simply cannot. When God grants this transformation, He marks that individual as His own, separating them from the mass of humanity still operating under the old paradigm. Paul’s language of holiness, election, and sanctification flows from this truth: those who have been born again are not merely forgiven—they are reconstituted for a holy purpose, distinguished by the very presence and power of the Spirit within them. Their uniqueness is not moral superiority but divine workmanship, a life set apart because God has acted in them in a way He has not acted in everyone.

Those who have experienced this know what I am talking about.

There should be no box, but reversing the meaning of morality paints oneself/a tulipist into a logical corner:
It is absurd to say a God who favors only a few is just and loves the unfavored.

Yes, revelation of the HS is a paradigm shift from the OT mode of salvation via obeying laws to the NT way of walking with God's HS via faith and love in our hearts (Rom. 4:4). GW once ignored becomes desired. The categorical difference is saved vs. condemned.

God wants to grant each and every sinner this transformation, but some persist in refusal to cooperate. Those who believe this are in for a wonderful experience aka heaven, beginning on earth.

 

[brightfame52]

Paul is not claiming in Romans 8 that people are born with a carnal mind; he is describing a learned orientation,

False, he is declaring a fact about the natural man.

 

[Komentaja]

Your response seems to imply that you have some concept of how God chose individuals, to place into Christ, before the foundation of the world. Then what say you about the following:

Rom 9:11 (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
Rom 9:12 It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.
Rom 9:13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

That Jacob being chosen has nothing to do with salvation, Jacob was chosen to be the one who receives the blessing of the firstborn despite being the younger.

 

[Komentaja]

im glad you said that. is that not the case in your view as well? if God already knows what everyone will choose, can they choose otherwise? no they cannot. so isnt it all decreed in your view as well? i think only open theists have genuine open future, but to have it they must deny exhaustive foreknowledge

Foreknowledge does not equal causation. Allow me to show it from the Scriptures, where God foreknows something that does not eventually happen:

1 Samuel 23:11-13
Will the men of Keilah deliver me into his hand? Will Saul come down, as Your servant has heard? O Lord God of Israel, I pray, tell Your servant.”
And the Lord said, “He will come down.”
Then David said, “Will the men of Keilah deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul?”
And the Lord said, “They will deliver you.”
So David and his men, about six hundred, arose and departed from Keilah and went wherever they could go. Then it was told Saul that David had escaped from Keilah; so he halted the expedition.


As you see, God foreknowing this did not cause it to materialize, it did not happen, cause David fled. Therefore we conclude God foreknowing something does not cause things to occur. Counter-factuals prove this.

Also, open theism is a strong position I would say it is impossible to refute it contextually without importing philosophical meaning to the text.

 

[brightfame52]

That Jacob being chosen has nothing to do with salvation, Jacob was chosen to be the one who receives the blessing of the firstborn despite being the younger.

It has everything to do with salvation In the Rom 9m context , its subject is salvivic Rom 9:1-3, Paul is explaining why God isn't saving all ethnic jews. Paul is showing that it was never Gods intention to save all, but a remnant Rom 9:6 then he breaks it down with Isaac and Ishmael, the Jacob and Esau. Also you dont understand the birthright issue, it was spiritual and redemptive, the chosen line for the Messiah who is the actual Saviour from sin.

John Gill writes on Rom 9:13

"This is to be understood... of their persons, and of the eternal election of the one, and reprobation of the other... It does not merely respect the temporal blessings of the birthright, for Esau had temporal blessings as well as Jacob; but it respects the special love of God, which is eternal, immutable, and everlasting."

Vincent Cheung argues:

• If God arbitrarily chooses who gets earthly blessings before they are born, without any regard to their good or evil works, then God is still a complete determinist.
• If God has the sovereign right to discriminate over a temporary earthly birthright, He has the exact same sovereign right to discriminate over eternal salvation.

Furthermore the context is about Gods purpose of Election in Salvation Rom 9:11

 

[Roger316]

There should be no box, but reversing the meaning of morality paints oneself/a tulipist into a logical corner:
It is absurd to say a God who favors only a few is just and loves the unfavored.

I agree with your point about the absurdity of saying that God loves the unfavored. And I agree that the tulipist has painted himself into a logical corner.

Even so, I must be cautious and avoid the philosophical traps set before us. I am so glad to hear you say that there should be no box because I often feel that when I write about Biblical subjects, people react to the box instead of me. I have always said that Calvinists are good at Biblical exegesis but very poor at philosophy, i.e. unable to think outside the box. Well, I'm not a Calvinist but I am willing to think outside of my own box.

Yes, revelation of the HS is a paradigm shift from the OT mode of salvation via obeying laws to the NT way of walking with God's HS via faith and love in our hearts (Rom. 4:4). GW once ignored becomes desired. The categorical difference is saved vs. condemned.

I'm speaking outside the box now to say that it is more than revelation of the Holy Spirit, which is very important and profound. Jesus is saying more with his analogy of new birth. Yes, the Holy Spirit reveals the truth, but he also prepares the heart to accept the truth.

God wants to grant each and every sinner this transformation, but some persist in refusal to cooperate. Those who believe this are in for a wonderful experience aka heaven, beginning on earth.

Now it is up to you to speak from outside your box. Are you certain that the Bible explicitly teaches us that a person must repent prior to new birth, or is that a philosophical conclusion that exists inside your box? I'm just asking. Is it stated explicitly in the Bible that new birth can be refused or does that idea also exist inside your box?

I am questioning my box. Would you like to come along?