Will The Actual Calvinists Here Please Stand Up?

Something that always gets brought up with the calvies......Who is HE speaking to? BELIEVERS.

BELIEVERS Are Predestined To be in Him. Believers are predestined To be holy and blameless. Believers are predestined to the adoption.

Unbelievers have NONE of these blessings. Unbelievers Have the GOSPEL......John 3:16 Acts 16:31.

What you originally posted makes no sense, no matter how you wish to twist it!

The fact that Paul is talking to believers is beside the point. The fact remains that they were predestined before the foundation of the world. This is not something that happened after they believed, nor is it something that was earned because they believed. This predestination was done according to the good pleasure of His will – before the foundation of the world! Please read the words before drawing your conclusion.

And you cannot say that unbelievers have none of these blessings. How do you know that they will not also turn to God in faith – just as those whom Paul is speaking to.

What you originally posted makes no sense, no matter how you wish to twist it!

The fact that Paul is talking to believers is beside the point. The fact remains that they were predestined before the foundation of the world. This is not something that happened after they believed, nor is it something that was earned because they believed. This predestination was done according to the good pleasure of His will – before the foundation of the world! Please read the words before drawing your conclusion.

And you cannot say that unbelievers have none of these blessings. How do you know that they will not also turn to God in faith – just as those whom Paul is speaking to.

The God of the Bible isn't like that.

You persist in pushing Christian Universalism,which is not scripture.

And,you are unlearnable in what is correct Godly scripture.

Thank you for proving the words of God are righteous and true.

How can saying "not everyone repents" be viewed as pushing universalism?!

OK, so everything in that sense is a label, even believer. The difference is that "elect" is a label that God uses. Calvinist is not.

When you flip to your other script and omit, "not everyone repents".

Good history lesson. I align with Eastern Orthodox re MFW.

Augustine had a theory that preserved the free will of the elect by saying that God foreknew which options they would freely choose and presented those to them. Of course, this did NOT preserve the omnilove of God toward the nonelect.

So, thanks to the popular Calvinist evangelist George Whitefield converting many American souls
during the Great Awakening in the 1740s the debate continues on CC.

Augustine had a theory that preserved the free will of the elect by saying that God foreknew which options they would freely choose and presented those to them. Of course, this did NOT preserve the omnilove of God toward the nonelect.

Neither Augustine, nor Luther who was an Augustinian monk, nor Calvin who was an Augustinian theologian believed in "free will" Neither did they believe in "foreknowledge" Instead, they believed God decrees "whatsoever comes to pass" whether that includes physical events or the choices, desires (evil and good) of every human that has ever existed. The Greek fathers who lived before them are the ones who taught foreknowledge and human free will but Augustine succeeded and shifting the emphasis away from what they taught.

If God Predestined all things according to his will and plan,God also has foreknowledge of all things.

There are many passages in God's word that speak to God having foreordained all things by his will and in keeping with his plans. Sovereign Dominion Eternal Creator=God.

I think our insistence our will overcomes that is naive. And of the flesh. Ego, Pride.

https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Foreordained-Plans

Martin Luther and John Calvin believed in Sola Scriptura.

"(1525) — one of only two works (Martin) Luther wrote that he thought were worth posterity’s interest — Luther grounded his doctrine of sinful humanity’s bondage to sin in God’s sovereign predestination: “If we believe it to be true that God foreknows and predestines all things (Romans 8:29), that he can neither be mistaken in his foreknowledge nor hindered in his predestination, and that nothing takes place but as he wills it (as reason itself is forced to admit), then on the testimony of reason itself there cannot be any free choice in man or angel or any creature.”1


"The international Synod of Dort (1618–1619), convened to address the erroneous views of Arminianism, defined election as “God’s unchangeable purpose by which . . . before the foundation of the world, by sheer grace, according to the free good pleasure of his will, he chose in Christ to salvation a definite number of particular people out of the entire human race, which had fallen by its own fault from its original innocence into sin and ruin” (1.7). "

" Finally, the most important compendium of doctrine in the English-speaking Protestant tradition, the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647), says this of predestination: “By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life; and others foreordained to everlasting death” (3.3). "

Source: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/calvinists-before-calvin

if there is no free choice then why are we held accountable on judgement day or when we die? why are some rewarded and others punished? from no fault of their own? or is there actually something to deciding this day who we follow?

I think those are good questions only God shall answer when we meet him.

Meanwhile,God tells us all humans are born with a natural mind,a fallen nature. Did we choose that? Or did God make us to be that way?

Proverbs 16:9 A man’s heart plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.

I like to think of election like this, supposively according to some scientists there exist different timelines in which one choice is made and another is also in one universe I decided to get a full nights rest in another I decided to stay up all night both realities exist but the choice was different.

If God in all his all knowing knows each and every decision based on the choices we make it is possible that if there is some truth to that theory that he gave us a choice to believe and follow him and saw each outcome depending on the choice made.

We are told to believe in him that is a verb action he wouldn't tell us to believe if there was not a way to choose to listen to him or not. We are held accountable for the choices we make that is why we either go to heaven or hell in the end if everything was decided already then how could we be held accountable for any choices we make in this life?

Do we just chalk that up to God's sovereighnty or is there something deeper to it?

There is something deeper than dictatorial power: sacrificial love of God in Christ. (EPH 3:14-19)

I think sometimes we forget that he is not just an all powerful all knowing God he is our father the original parent so you have to think like a parent to understand how his mind works

Yes, God is our loving heavenly parent.
I wonder if TULIPists had/have loving fathers.

Well the only logical thing is that there is in fact a choice otherwise we would not be held accountable and he wouldn't tell us to believe believing is a verb action a purposeful decision when you choose to believe his words or not are you not making a choice? or were your beliefs decided for you before you were born? did you not have a choice to believe what you do?

See the thing is he gave adam and eve a choice with the fruit of knowledge and even told them not to eat it he wouldn't have done that if he didn't give them a choice to listen to him or not.

And when Jesus came he always said to believe more than anything else he said, I don't think these are questions that will be answered one day it just requires that one is able to drop what they first thought was true otherwise it will remain a mystery
The scriptures do say that God directs our steps but that is the thing he directs it not ordains to direct soemone is to point them in the right direction nothing more

well I think it may be that they don't really see him as their father or understand that he operates like an actual father, we call him father but is he really?
I mean anyone who is a parent knows the maturnal instincts would they loving their children as a parent should have some predestined for heaven and others for hell?