Response to Critique of Calvinism

  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

    If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!

    To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
A

Abiding

Guest
#101
#101
Paul gives alot of testimony in the scriptures
How he believed prior to being bornagain, and
how he was ignorant. It wasnt like he was resisting God at all in his life
 
A

Abiding

Guest
#102
#102
Man will never find God on his own.
Even if he seeks Him.

But God requires a man to first believe that He is and a rewarder to those who seek Him.
No doubt the man hasnt been alone in his endeavor. theres pleanty of scriptural evidence
that God is behind the schenes.
 
superdave5221

superdave5221

Senior Member
#103
Jul 28, 2009
1,409
31
48
#103
zone said:
the could thing i don't do dave.
it's the corridors of time.
the point is he didn't.
and the Book is filled with ppl doing stuff before they ever did it ! PROPHECY.
so *shiver*

i just KNOW i didn't make any decision. the only decision i made was to run around blindly sinning and crying and fearful
that's all i know.

when i found myself (literally) holding reading and believing the scriptures, i knew...i believed...more than believed, i was CHANGED.
opened eyes. it's impossible for me, based on personal experience to be anything other than monergist.
Click to expand...
I don't believe in the corridors of time either. I believe that God knows our free choices because He knows all truth, therefore it's part of His nature to know our choices. God knew what Abraham would do. That's why He picked him to father the nation of Israel. What I don't believe is that God made him do it.

But, I could be wrong.
 
zone

zone

Senior Member
#104
Jun 13, 2010
27,214
164
63
#104
CORRECTION:

zone said:
this is most certainly true.
the NT is clear that the mystery of a wide open salvation for gentiles just wasn't in the plan at all!
Click to expand...


^ was in the eternal plan, was hidden until the fullness of time.

sorry
 
zone

zone

Senior Member
#105
Jun 13, 2010
27,214
164
63
#105
Abiding said:
Paul gives alot of testimony in the scriptures
How he believed prior to being bornagain, and
how he was ignorant. It wasnt like he was resisting God at all in his life
Click to expand...
??

Acts 26:14
We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.'

It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks

Or, goads. The sharp goad carried in the ploughman's hand, against which the oxen kick on being pricked. The metaphor, though not found in Jewish writings, was common in Greek and Roman writings. Thus, Euripides ("Bacchae," 791): "Being enraged, I would kick against the goads, a mortal against a god." Plautus ("Truculentus, 4, 2, 55): "If you strike the goads with your fists, you hurt your hands more than the goads." "Who knows whether at that moment the operation of ploughing might not be going on within sight of the road along which the persecutor was travelling? (Howson, "Metaphors of St. Paul").
Vincent's
 
zone

zone

Senior Member
#106
Jun 13, 2010
27,214
164
63
#106
anyways, i'm out.
i'm a Confessional Lutheran, a monergist, and a grateful sinner saved by Grace.
i never doubt my salvation.
over and out.
nuthin' gonna change dat.


i have a tummy ache though.
i doubt my ability to resist berries.
night
 
tribesman

tribesman

Senior Member
#107
Oct 13, 2011
4,621
281
83
#107
superdave5221 said:
...I believe that God knows our free choices because He knows all truth, therefore it's part of His nature to know our choices. God knew what Abraham would do. That's why He picked him to father the nation of Israel. What I don't believe is that God made him do it.

But, I could be wrong.
Click to expand...
About this you most certainly are.

The difference in Abraham following God rather than staying an idolworshipper lied in God, not in Abraham.
 
superdave5221

superdave5221

Senior Member
#108
Jul 28, 2009
1,409
31
48
#108
zone said:
anyways, i'm out.
i'm a Confessional Lutheran, a monergist, and a grateful sinner saved by Grace.
i never doubt my salvation.
over and out.
nuthin' gonna change dat.


i have a tummy ache though.
i doubt my ability to resist berries.
night
Click to expand...
Hey Zone,

Let this not be a point of contention between us. I fully admit that I could be wrong. I must continue to question until I am sure however. Unfortunately, (and I know it is annoying), that is my nature. And only God can change that!!

Love

Dave
 
C

Chr

Guest
#110
#110
We all are learning, for good christian websites about this there is gotquestions.org desiringgod.org type monergism vs synergism on gotquestions.org also calvinism vs arminianism.

and can also go to desiringgod.org and type in tulip
 
E

eternally-gratefull

Guest
#113
#113
tribesman said:
Oh but Abe just used his natural ability to make a "free will choice" to follow God, he just outsmarted the rest...

If you only knew what this sounded like.. This makes utterly no sense at all

Or...maybe...God did not reveal himself to every-person-that-ever-lived...
Click to expand...
According to scripture he did. Just alot of people have blind eyes and do not want to see, because they would have to admit they are guilty.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
tribesman

tribesman

Senior Member
#114
Oct 13, 2011
4,621
281
83
#114
superdave5221 said:
Agreed!! .....
Click to expand...
Really? You wrote:

God knew what Abraham would do. That's why He picked him to father the nation of Israel.
Click to expand...
I do not agree with this. God's choosing of any of His Saints is not the result of Him seeing any merit in them that caused Him to give them such a great mercy. The choice is all in God, outside of man's efforts and will. Election is unconditional.

Rom.9

[9] For this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sara shall have a son.
[10] And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac;
[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; )
[12] It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.
[13] As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
[14] What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.
[15] For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
[16] So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
[17] For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
[18] Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
[19] Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
[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?
[21] Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
[22] What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
[23] And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
Click to expand...
 
SarahM777

SarahM777

Banned
#115
Dec 26, 2012
5,853
137
0
#115
tribesman said:
About this you most certainly are.

The difference in Abraham following God rather than staying an idolworshipper lied in God, not in Abraham.
Click to expand...
Where does the Bible say that Abraham was an idol worshiper?
 
A

Abiding

Guest
#116
#116
Abraham – “I, the Lord, have sworn by Myself, that because you have obeyed Me and have not withheld even your beloved son from Me, I will bless you with incredible blessings and multiply your descendants into countless thousands and millions, like the stars above you in the sky, and like the sands along the seashore. These descendants of yours will conquer their enemies, and be a blessing to all the nations of the earth – all because you have obeyed Me” (Genesis 22:16-18

Gen 18:[SUP]18 [/SUP]since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? [SUP]19 [/SUP]For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him.”


Not according to God.
 
Last edited:
superdave5221

superdave5221

Senior Member
#117
Jul 28, 2009
1,409
31
48
#117
tribesman said:
Really? You wrote:



I do not agree with this. God's choosing of any of His Saints is not the result of Him seeing any merit in them that caused Him to give them such a great mercy. The choice is all in God, outside of man's efforts and will. Election is unconditional.
Click to expand...
Agreed again. You are not paying attention. Abraham's choice had nothing to do with merit. He could never had made that choice without grace, as I said. But he could have refused. It is only when you ascribe "works" to a choice that it becomes meritorius. You are as guilty in this as you would have me be by making a choice made possible by grace a "work".
 
tribesman

tribesman

Senior Member
#118
Oct 13, 2011
4,621
281
83
#118
SarahM777 said:
Where does the Bible say that Abraham was an idol worshiper?
Click to expand...
The Bible does not say so. It has been debated whether he was or was not an idolworshipper before the Lord revealed Himself to him. At the least he ought to have come from such a home and his environment was such. Had not the Lord revealed Himself to him then what would have become of him? We're discussing the ground of God's election of Abraham here.
 
A

Abiding

Guest
#119
#119
tribesman said:
The Bible does not say so. It has been debated whether he was or was not an idolworshipper before the Lord revealed Himself to him. At the least he ought to have come from such a home and his environment was such. Had not the Lord revealed Himself to him then what would have become of him? We're discussing the ground of God's election of Abraham here.
Click to expand...
We are? ok
 
E

eternally-gratefull

Guest
#120
#120
tribesman said:
Really? You wrote:



I do not agree with this. God's choosing of any of His Saints is not the result of Him seeing any merit in them that caused Him to give them such a great mercy. The choice is all in God, outside of man's efforts and will. Election is unconditional.
Click to expand...
Why do you keep calling it merit?

God just knew abraham would do what he asked him to do. this is not on a merit system.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.