/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

Wow ! A degenerate atheist Communist sympathizes with Calvin! Well done protties you got a great ally to root for your heresy!

>>254408

Probably also why lefties like Muslims so much. It's basically the same shit.

>>254408

>>254411

How is he wrong? He has a lot of respect for christianity

>>254413

He has absolutely no respect for Christianity, or he wouldn't be pushing this heresy.

>>254402

>otherwise we turn salvation into an economic exchange

Or maybe salvation just isn't something that's possible when a soul isn't connected with God. That's a possibility, of course. Calvin could try explaining why this world exists if every soul is already decided from birth whether or not it's pure.

>>254408

>protties

don't lump us together. if there's a theology that's more damaging to the very heart of Christendom itself, it's Calvinism and it's autistic double predestination.

>zizek

>>254413

Im guessing youre from leftypol? Zizek does have respect for christianity in a subjective sense (he thinks he gives respect to it, and has it). He takes the gospel to have an atheist narrative, and his view of calvinism comes from his very far from christian morality/philosophy. I like zizek, but he's far from traditional chrisrianity, which is why he must go into calvinism. Still a cool guy. Peace, and God be with you, leftymate.

>>254402

>"if we accept God we have to accept predestination, otherwise we turn salvation into an economic exchange…"

This makes no sense. What if God is just like a loving Creator who gives us free will, then puts circumstances in our path that show us the consequences of our choices and then lets us choose? What if He is continually rebooting peoples lives to make better decisions each time?

What if its a video game analogy, where God cares enough about His creation that He isn't going to bargain with it, but let it learn, intervening when it is stuck?

I've always had a problem with Calvanism because it is such a model of cruelty. "My view of God is limited, therefore God is limited."

>>254899

>but let it learn, intervening when it is stuck?

because in terms of salvation, free-will makes God impotent, it makes intervention impotent. He can't save who he wants, the ultimate authority relies in man.

>I've always had a problem with Calvanism because it is such a model of cruelty.

Then you have a problem with scripture, because predestination is deeply attested to.

>>254924

Your view of God is limited.

>>254402

Predestination isn't a defining feature of Calvinism. "Calvinism" used in that sense is just a scare word thrown around by people who don't understand the issue. Calvinists and Catholics didn't disagree about predestination. The primary issue was sola fide, not predestination. Maybe there were arguments about particular points (but Catholicism is a big tent); however, there was never disagreement on the main points (predestination from eternity ante praevisa merita, fixed number of elect etc.). Same thing with Lutherans. In the book "Predestination" by the Dominican priest Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, he spends all of three pages addressing excesses of Luther and Calvin and spends most of the rest of the book attacking the Catholic theologian Molina (who taught a different theory of how grace operated, not denying predestination).

>>254924

He isn't unable to intervene, he is unwilling. If you have options A and B, and you are able to choose one, the other, both, or neither, and you choose only A, you are still omnipotent–just personal, and administering a level of discretion.

Your argument is akin to:

>1) God can do anything/everything

>2) Anything/everything does not happen, only some things

>3) God does not exist or premise #1 is wrong

The potential to do things that are not done is not a demonstration of impotence. Knowing what will happen and allowing it to happen without your direct intervention is not predestination.

>>255812

Intervention wasn't the problem. Sovereignty was the problem. Human free-will negates God's sovereignty. If God can't save who he wills to save then he is impotent.

>>254408

>well done protties

Don't you dare act like all protestants are calvinist.

>>255824

>human free will negates God's sovereignty

That has to be the most ignorant idea of what free will in Christianity means. It is up to each individual person on earth to accept or reject Christ's gift. The fact that God already know the outcome doesn't change that fact.

>>255827

> The fact that God already know the outcome doesn't change that fact.

It has nothing to do with God's knowing, it has everything to do with God's willing.

If God wills something, and it doesn't come true, then he is impotant. It's like God saying "let there be light" and nothing happened. He wouldn't be God.

Salvation is predestined, the scriptures attest to this.

Acts 4:28, "to do whatever Your hand and purpose predestined to occur."

Rom. 8:29, "For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren."

Rom. 8:30, "and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified."

1 Cor. 2:7, "but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God predestined before the ages to our glory."

Eph. 1:5, "He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will."

Eph. 1:11, "also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will."

>>255829

You are applying one dimensional thinking to God.

If salvation is unconditionally established by an eternal decree, why should any of us concern ourselves with obedience and discipleship?

Grace is resistible and can be rejected, to our own destruction. God is actively drawing all people to himself, but his grace is not coercive.

Predestination is therefore based on God’s foreknowledge, not his will. That is, God corporately predestines all those who respond in faith to salvation, and by foreknowledge he knows who will respond. His foreknowledge does not cause their response.

>>255833

>If salvation is unconditionally established by an eternal decree

That is what scripture says. Go argue with the bible if you don't like the idea of election and predestination.

> why should any of us concern ourselves with obedience and discipleship?

Those who are saved and receive grace obey out of love. Those who are not saved follow their creaturely will and disobey. Simple.

>Predestination is therefore based on God’s foreknowledge, not his will.

No it is via his will.

Eph. 1:5, "He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will."

He didn't just "know" he actively "chose" the saved.

Eph. 1:4,"He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him."

Here is the exact formula, the saved have no part in rejecting or accepting it. Rom. 8:30, "and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified."

>>255824

This heresy is explicitly refuted by St. Paul.

>For it is God who worketh in you, 'both to will and to accomplish", according to his good will. (Philippians 2:13)

God gives us the grace to freely accomplish what he has predestined us to do. God's grace and free will work together in a synergistic manner.

>>255844

Dubs confirms truth

>>255829

Calvinism is proven false by the nature of what it conveys PRAYER as.

A Calvinist (which is a carnal saying, much better "Reformed") believes that prayer is solely the act of God molding us into the likeness of the Son. When we pray for someone or something, we are really only conforming to the ongoing process of sanctification.

Calvinists do not believe prayer is efficacious.

Meanwhile, Scripture repeatedly asserts that while, yes, our prayer is indeed everything mentioned above, it is also efficacious. This is why God will tell a prophet not to pray for a certain people, because otherwise that prayer would be empty–not empty of meaning or intention, but empty of result.

There are countless aspects of this truth in Scripture but I will let Jesus Christ our Lord, One Mediator between God and man, speak for Himself:

>"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!"

– Matthew 7:7-11

And again, taken directly and within context from the Epistle of James:

>Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.

>Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, "The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously"? But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble." Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

– James 4:1-8

Following Sola Scriptura we see that while there are elements of Calvinist assertions regarding predestination which fit into Scripture, there are other elements which are categorically unbiblical.

Now, this issue on prayer will not send you to hell since the ultimate and only answer given by Calvinists as to why, if their notion is true, anyone should pray for another to find Christ or be healed etc. is "BECAUSE GOD SAID TO"

This obedience is good, of course, but it affords no surety that your request to God is actually being listened to as a request (because remember, prayer in Calvinism is not efficacious). This also means that when a Calvinist prays for someone to be healed, unless it is merely "May your will be done, and help [currently ill person and their family] accept whatever your will may be", that the request for healing is in fact a pretense for what is "actually" occurring.

This leads many to believe that requests in prayer, outside of requesting for God to continually help them grow in the faith (which again is actually pretense because obviously by praying this they are being built up in the faith–again, from only a Calvinist POV), are pointless, and in fact if prayer was not also efficacious, it would be.

This makes praying to God a mere "Do it because I said so" rather than "Never fear, I hear you, so speak to me". It sullies prayer and sullies that wonderful bond we have with our father that we can come boldly before him, humble in spirit and bowing in body, to make a sincere heartfelt request of our Father.

The caveat is that Calvinists hate to imagine man has any influence on God's decisions. Sadly, they do not read properly many, many aspects of Scripture where this is the case–but always only to a limited degree. For example, whenever God makes an IF/THEN promise to anyone in Scripture.

>>255864

TL;DR Yes, God's Will is ultimate and all things go within the bounds of and/or only according to His will (however you like to say it), but God tells us more than "Do it because I say so" regarding prayer. Calvinists view this reality as if we are praying to a genie, making God our servant.

Rather, God is our one and only Holy Father, and just as a father listens in consideration (even expectation) of their child's request, so to does our Father listen in consideration of our requests. Will our prayers be answered? Yes.

Pray for worldly things and the answer is no.

Pray with doubt in your heart that the prayer will be answered, and the answer is no.

Pray as though you are commanding God, and the answer is no.

Otherwise, we are absolutely encouraged by the reality that prayer, in accordance to the grace and love of God alone, is efficacious.

TL;DR for the TL;DR Calvinism is not entirely correct, and thus should not be your guiding theology. Bear witness to Scripture, not Calvinism. In Scripture free will and predestination coexist with efficacious prayer and determinism. It's not your place to confine God's workings to your traditional logic or mine. The secret things belong to the Lord. Thus, bear witness to Scripture in full.

>>254402

Why are you listening to the voice of a godless fool?

The godless are fools, making themselves fools by suppressing the knowledge of God. I couldn't care what these people said for or against any theological notion of our Lord.

>>255866

>atheists can never be right they are fools

That's illogical and ad hominem.

>>255933

Read Romans 1

Case in point: Richard Dawkins sincerely placed his faith in man rather than God and received a stroke for it

>>255940

Christians receive strokes too and far worse. God rains on the good and the bad

>>255941

My point wasn't that he had a stroke but that it was the direct result of placing his faith in man, in "his people", the same godless ideologues who turned on him at a moment's convenience.

Seriously, read Scripture, anon. They are fools before God, following the wisdom of the world instead of the wisdom of their Creator, and the wisdom of the world is foolishness to God.

Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and not one of these spiritually bankrupt worshipers of ego and sociopolitical ideology have the slightest fear of God, hence why they mock Him so flippantly, like a blind mouse vulgarly taunting a the looming lion which glares down on it.

They are utter fools. Indeed, so were we, and we latched hold of the One who saved us from our foolishness and confusion, being tossed about by the whim of the sea of sin we were once drowning in.

The offer of salvation is open to them as well, but like Christopher Hitchens and many before them, they will likely never see the light for preference of their own darkness, and yet in that darkness they find their "spiritual" kinsmen turning on them like crabs in a bucket. Why? Because they are sinners.

We are no longer sinners in Christ, not to our own boasting but in pride of our Lord Christ Jesus who tore us from the shackles of sin and cleansed us in His blood. Where once we fumbled in the dark, now we walk in the light.

Yes, we stumble, we even fall, but we are not utterly cast down for we reside in the hand of our Father who will never abandon us, who has engraved His name in our hearts and blessed us with His Holy Spirit to never even dream of abandoning Him.

We were once fools, but by the grace of our Lord Christ Jesus we no longer are.

This offer of light and peace is open to all men, but not all men will take it, condemning themselves by rejecting the freely given gift of grace for preference of their own "wisdom".

Thus, these godless sinners, like all sinners (like we once were) are fools. Until they accept Christ as Lord in Gospel truth they will remain that way.

>>255948

Its not "what" he placed his faith in but "how" he placed it. He is addicted to arguing and yelling at people who disagree. I think Pastor Anderson is due for a heart attack as well because he operates on an even more destructive level.

Plenty of atheists have peace of mind. Plenty of Christians are perpetually nervous and angry. It depends how they treat their beliefs and how they attach to them

>>255950

>>255950

>Its not "what" he placed his faith

Of course it is. What are you talking about? He trusted man before God and got the result of it. He is addicted to controversy and mockery, true, but his faith, his trust, resides in men–people he thinks are his people.

Man is inherently duplicitous and thus cannot be trusted like God.

As a Christian you must know that it is both where and how one places their faith. It must be both in Jesus Christ as Lord and strictly according to Scripture (like how Mormons and Muslims place their faith in Jesus but it's placed in accordance to false doctrine).

>Pastor Anderson is due for a heart attack as well because he operates on an even more destructive level.

On a societal level Dawkins has done far, far more harm than Anderson.

On a faith-based level, Anderson's approach and stubbornness has misrepresented Christ, which is incredibly bad.

I won't compare which is more destructive since that's not the point, but rather it must be known that both have outright misrepresented God in some fashion or another, which is what we must pray to the Lord for guidance to never do.

>Plenty of atheists have peace of mind.

No they don't. Their peace is temporary and fleeting, moments of happy which ultimately end and revert back to frustration, depression or despair all due to their spiritual deprivation. Again, read Scripture.

Read Romans.

>Plenty of Christians are perpetually nervous and angry.

Some due to medical issues, others due to a lack of faith which they, if they are truly saved, seek God to build up within them.

I would say that any Christian who is otherwise perpetually in a state that shows a lack of trust in God such as constant anxiety, despair, or fury must seek the Lord truly and lay this before Him completely, and if they are not doing so and will not do so then they cannot be real Christians.

Read what I just said carefully before you may be inclined to argue otherwise.

>It depends how they treat their beliefs and how they attach to them

No, it depends on the reality of their faith. No real Christian can experience despair to their core and not seek the Lord to break these chains, knowing that no matter what they endure they are not destined for despair but eternal peace within the presence of God. This is why despair or anxiety cannot coexist within the SOUL of a believer.

Anxious moments? Sure.

Anxiety brought on by chemical imbalences? Yes, but that's not due to a lack of faith in God but a mental disorder.

Anxiety because everything is hopeless and crashing down around them and they have no hope? NO

HOW we place our faith and WHERE we place our faith MUST be in accordance to Scripture, and real Christians do this. Those of us who do not have yet to accomplish the actualization of their salvation, not that they are unsaved for feeling constant anxiety or giving into despair, but that they have yet to grow from milk to food, from crawling to walking in the faith, like all of us at one point in the past.

TL;DR Seeking God in Scripture truth with all our heart, soul and mind, our entire being, with which we also fear and love our sovereign Almighty Father, is both how and where we place our faith. We cannot be Christians otherwise and have no hope otherwise, and as such those who do not seek Christ so are fools whose only hope is the One they have yet to seek and seek properly according to Scripture.

Atheists do not do this but instead place their faith in man and/or their own reasoning, which is always lacking and foolish before the reasoning of the Holy Spirit of God.

Thus, they are fools. If they come to Christ, they are no longer fools (though they can at times, like all of us, act foolish). But unless they do so, they have no true hope and thus no true peace, and also have no desire to seek true wisdom which is of God, thus bearing no wisdom–not even the inkling of it.

Atheists, most especially those speaking like sophists before crowds and cameras, are fools whose opinions on the saving faith in Christ Jesus are null and pointless.

It is good to listen when there is a discussion in hopes of shining the light of Christ through you into the atheist which you are lovingly speaking to. But to take any measure the opinion of some random atheist commentating on God and our faith? Please..

Atheists aren't so good with logic

polite sage

>>254408

>A degenerate atheist Communist sympathizes with Calvin!

So what? Most atheists hate Calvin. Not a day goes by that I don't hear someone complaining about Servetus.

>>255812

>Knowing what will happen and allowing it to happen without your direct intervention is not predestination.

What manner of stupidity is this! God is the ultimate authority, right? God has the power to accomplish anything, right? So if he really didn't want a certain action to take place, he could have easily prevented it.

I'm really fed up with the "free will" cop out. God could have easily reconciled his desire to save all men while granting men their precious free will by killing off all the children that he KNEW would not be saved. I don't understand why Papists don't understand this simple logic.

One can successfully argue that God doesn't will evil to happen for its own sake (which is what Calvin and other Reformers have taught), but that God wills evil for a greater purpose.

>>254402

>atheist philosopher

Yes, and next time I'll take my driving advice from an Amish man.

>>255835

>Those who are saved and receive grace obey out of love. Those who are not saved follow their creaturely will and disobey. Simple.

Nice works-based salvation m8. This is why perseverance of the saints is damning.

>Roman 8:30 hurr durr

Try some context, it's good stuff

>Rom 8:29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

But seriously, what is there to philosophize about as an unbelieving pleb?

>we're nothing but a cosmic accident

>we came from soup and monkeys

>our ancestor is a rock

~Oooooo so profound and deep!

Atheism is a cult of depression and death.

>>259978

>as an unbelieving pleb?

See Adam "LOL memes" Savage of Mythbusters fame for an example.

https://archive.is/do29k

>I'm referring to the humanist axiom "Good without God," whereby "good" means morality. It's provably false that there exists no morality outside of religion, therefore the statement sounds defensive to me.

>No one is in charge. And honestly, that's even cooler.

>The idea of an ordered and elegant universe is a lovely one. One worth clinging to. But you don't need religion to appreciate the ordered existence. It's not just an idea, it's reality.

>This provides a particularly delicious meal for the eagle when it gobbles one up at the end of one's life.

>And that, to me, is a fine mission.