Simple Question

[OneForTruth]

[quote name='PapaHilarious' post='1401369' date='Oct 12 2007, 03:39 PM']Well, my friend, that is where this conversation seems to always die. If we all have equal authority to interpret Scripture, then there is no way to settle disputes like this. Consider the 30,000 Protestant denominations, most of which not prescribing to any sort of Calvinist view of predestination. For you to hold to Calvinist teaching, you have to deny their interpretations as well, keeping in mind they would call your reading of Scripture equally "skeptical." It's not just Catholics and Orthodox, the vast majority of Protestants do not hold to what Calvin teaches.

And what does Scripture tell us to do when there are disputes among Christians? Matthew 18:17
We can go in circles all day debating the beliefs of a man who splintered off from the Church less than 500 years ago and preached [i]his[/i] view as the truth. Or, we can appeal to the authority that Christ left us in Matthew's Gospel. Christ establishes a Church for just such a reason, so that we could be One (John 17:20-23).

Jesus, after all, did not leave us the Bible. He left us the authority of the Church, which then produced the Bible over the next few decades. Paul talks about the authority and tradition passed on by the apostles in 2 Thes 2:15:
Praise be to Christ for such a gift of the Church! Were we left all to our own interpretations, there would be no authority, no ability to settle disputes, and no ability to be One in Christ. What a dark fate Jesus saved us from with his words in Matthew 16, by staving off the very gates of hell.[/quote]

What do you do with John 6:44??? Obviously, this is one of many verses/passages explaining the elect coming to Christ...but, I like this one...

Joh 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

You know - let me add one more...

Joh 6:65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.

What does this mean?

[OneForTruth]

To address another one of your questions...

Assuming that God has the right and power to call whom he pleases effectually to faith, how can it be consistent for God to pass over people and leave them in their sin and condemnation when Ezekiel 18:32 says, "For I have no pleasure in the death of any one, says the Lord God, so turn and live"? If God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but, in fact, Jesus weeps over the unbelief of Jerusalem (Matthew 23:37; Luke 13:34; 19:41–42), then why does he not effectually call them all? Or, turning it around, if he weeps over their unbelief, can we really believe that he has himself made the choice ahead of time who will believe and who will not?

First, we remind ourselves that Jesus said things even in Matthew and Luke that make his tears look puzzling; we are not forcing some strange doctrine onto Jesus.

Matthew 11:25–27—Jesus seems to rejoice that God has hid his meaning from certain wise ones in Israel.

Matthew 15:13—"Every plant that my Father has not planted will be rooted up."

Matthew 16:17—He says God reveals to Peter the true meaning of Christ.

Matthew 22:14—"Many are called but few are chosen."

Matthew 24:24—He refers to the elect who cannot possibly be led astray by the false prophets.

Luke 19:41–42—Right in the passage where Jesus is weeping he says, "But now they are hidden from your eyes." This is what he had said also in 18:34 and 9:45.

Both Matthew (13:10–17) and Luke (8:9–10) taught that the purpose of the parables was to conceal the truth of Jesus mission.

Deuteronomy 28:63 says, "And as the Lord took delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so the Lord will take delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you." This is apparently the opposite of Ezekiel 18:32. God does in some sense or in some circumstances delight in the death of the wicked!

From all this we do not throw the question out. We simply steady our hand so that we don't jump to unwarranted conclusions about the impossibility of grieving over the unbelief of Jerusalem and the death of the wicked on the one hand, and concealing the saving truth from them and delighting in their judgment on the other hand. We prepare ourselves for some complex and deep mind in God and in his Son.

Second, we consider the possibility that God has the capacity to will something in one sense that he disapproves of in another sense. We consider this because it seems to be the case again and again in Scripture, which is the only place we can find out clear and reliable things about God.

For example, God willed the death of his Son (Isaiah 53:10; Acts 2:23; 4:27–28). Yet this was a terrible sin that Jesus should be killed. Did God delight in this occurrence or not? I think he did, insofar as he contemplated it as an act of redemption for the accomplishment of his wise and holy purposes. But I think that he did not delight in it insofar as he contemplated it as an act of sin in the intentions of the Pharisees and Pilate and Herod. He was angry and grieved.

From this I conclude that God's will is not a simple thing. He can will a thing in one sense and not will it in another sense. When we read that God wills a thing or that he does not will a thing; or when we read that he delights in a thing or that he has no delight in a thing, we must always be ready to admit that this simple statement of what he wills or delights in is not the whole story.

Take Ezekiel 18 and Deuteronomy 28, for example. Must we say that these are simply contradictory, or should we not say that in one sense God does delight in the judgment of the wicked (insofar as he contemplates the judgment in relation to the greatness of their wickedness and in relation to the preservation of his justice and glory and in relation to the other good things for other generations that will come from it, etc.), and in another sense he has no delight in the death of the wicked (insofar as he contemplates it narrowly as the destruction of his creature created in his image with potential for his praise and as a tactical victory of the evil one)?

Similarly with Jesus' weeping over Jerusalem. In one sense he is grieved as he considers the sin of the people, the dishonor of his Father, the loss of life in spite of the fact that they had had such great advantages in the Word of God. But in another sense he gives hearty approval of God's overarching design to suffer a temporary hardening and blindness to lie upon Israel. He even "rejoices in the Holy Spirit and says, 'I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes; yea, Father, for so it was well pleasing to thee.'" Whether he is weeping or rejoicing depends on the angle of vision, or on whether Jesus is contemplating the universality of things or the narrow nature of sin and death for itself in isolation.

Therefore, the numerous texts in the Bible that describe God willing and yearning that men and women be saved should not be ignored, or diluted. We should let them stand and, in fact, we should join God in his tears and longings. But then we should realize that the mind and heart of the infinite God are more complex than we may have at first thought and may indeed allow for another sense in which for good and wise purposes he ordains to come to pass what in itself he hates (like the death of his innocent Son).

This is the way that I would be inclined to understand the passages in 1 Timothy 2:4 and 2 Peter 3:9 if the contexts of these passages did not provide a different solution—which I think they do.

[Mateo el Feo]

Nothing worse than plagiarism on a debate board, OneForTruth. I was wondering why your text wasn't addressing what we were talking about.

[url="http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/1985/514_Those_Whom_He_Predestined_He_Also_Caled_Part_2/"]http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary..._Called_Part_2/[/url]

I'm proud of you, you can cut-and-paste. When you can find words for yourself, please let us know.

[Mateo el Feo]

PS: I noticed that some of your previous posts were also cut-and-pastes of posts you had previously made here at Phatmass and on Catholic.com's forum. Were they originally your words, or were they taken from someone else, too?

BTW, this is what I'm referring to:

[url="http://www.google.com/search?q=%22If+God%27s+decree+is+to+come+to+fulfillment%22&hl=en&fiddler=0"]http://www.google.com/search?q=%22If+God%2...en&fiddler=0[/url]

[PapaHilarious]

[quote name='Mateo el Feo' post='1401760' date='Oct 13 2007, 02:05 PM']PS: I noticed that some of your previous posts were also cut-and-pastes of posts you had previously made here at Phatmass and on Catholic.com's forum. Were they originally your words, or were they taken from someone else, too?

BTW, this is what I'm referring to:

[url="http://www.google.com/search?q=%22If+God%27s+decree+is+to+come+to+fulfillment%22&hl=en&fiddler=0"]http://www.google.com/search?q=%22If+God%2...en&fiddler=0[/url][/quote]


Thanks for pointing this out. I was wondering, too, why our friend wasn't addressing the specific passages I mentioned.

No response about authority to settle disputes...
No response about authority to interpret Scripture...
No response about Jesus saying belief AND baptism necessary for salvation...
No response about Paul putting love about faith in 1 Corinthians...
No response about Jesus willing [u]all[/u] to himself in Matthew 23...
No response to tradition of the Apostles in 2 Thes 2:15...
Etc, etc, etc...

[Mateo el Feo]

Bumping to give "OneForTruth" the opportunity to come clean and apologize for his plagiarism.

[cathoholic_anonymous]

[quote name='Mateo el Feo' post='1402526' date='Oct 15 2007, 03:17 AM']Bumping to give "OneForTruth" the opportunity to come clean and apologize for his plagiarism.[/quote]

He has an ironic choice of username...

[PapaHilarious]

[quote name='Mateo el Feo' post='1402526' date='Oct 14 2007, 07:17 PM']Bumping to give "OneForTruth" the opportunity to come clean and apologize for his plagiarism.[/quote]

Don't count on it. He's switched over to the other thread he started, hoping people would forget about the cutting and pasting.

[Lord Philip]

[quote name='PapaHilarious' post='1402983' date='Oct 15 2007, 09:08 AM']Don't count on it. He's switched over to the other thread he started, hoping people would forget about the cutting and pasting. [/quote]

Calvinists are not interested in answering questions. All they want to do is present what they call "the gospel" (i.e. sola fide) to "stir our hearts" to respond to it. For them, we are either the elect or we are not. God decides that. Therefore trying to be persuasive is irrelevant (thus the ridiculous "presuppositional" approach...jeez louise): just getting the words out there to see if we are damned or not: apparently I am damned.

[jeffpugh]

In other words, reason = dangerous?

[Lord Philip]

[quote name='Sacred Music Man' post='1403144' date='Oct 15 2007, 04:24 PM']In other words, reason = dangerous?[/quote]

For some, perhaps, but I do not think that is a widely held belief. But what is widely held is that reason is absolutely insufficient as a cause of conversion because of the total depravity of man. Since it is useless it is abandoned in their evangelism: that is why their evangelism is so dominated at merely quoting the Scriptures. This is why so many of them do not answer questions. They just post Bible verses. They figure that argument is fruitless, but that the "elect" will respond to the Scriptures posted and will be converted to the "true gospel."

So while we cannot necessarily say they think reason is dangerous, we can still say "So much for reason..."

God bless,

Philip

[uruviel]

[quote]is jesus your savior?

it's a simple question.

i would think you want to say yes? if you're like most catholics you do, even though you don't follow your own belief to its logical conclusion. (which is probably why catholics are known for wretched states such as martin luther was before the reformation)

if you say yes, then you should not be saying, as most catholics do, all this stuff about how you might or might not make it to heaven. you should say that you will be saved, cause he's your savior.

if you only believe it's a possibility that you'll make it to heaven, then you have no right to declare that jesus is your savior. he only MIGHT be.

now, you might argue that someone pulling you from drowning by rope would be your savior, perhaps in a twisted sense of the meaning. but, he's not your savior till you're safe. let's not mince words here.

so i repeat, is jesus YOUR savior?[/quote]

You're saying that Christ saves us, correctly? Well it makes no sense to say he saves whoever wants to be saved. What do you have to do to be saved then? Are there any requirements for heaven? Do you just believe? So you can live like a proud sinner and claim to believe in God because he's your savior and you can do whatever you want with your soul, you are already in heaven, your spot is reserved for your dirty soul? Does it make sense to you?
So lets say God is EVERYONE'S savior, but only those who accept can be saved by Him. He won't force it on anyone, you must choose Him before He can save you. If that is what you think, then to do that your life is a consqeunce of your decision, if you choose God, then you abandom the pleasures and evils of the world. Thus to get into Heaven, you make sacrifices.
"Christ already MADE that sacrifice". Ahuh. He didn't die for you to not try, to not live like Him and get into Heaven anyway. Heaven is a reward, Heaven is a place where we give glory to God. Our lives should be the same thing, we should strive to give glory to God so that we may eternally be able to give Him glory. That comes with many sacrifices in our decision to follow Him, we must trust, we must trust that God will guide us into Heaven. But we mustn't be ignorant about it, or be frivolous with our salvation, or anyone's.
"God has already saved me. I don't have anything left to do, my work here is done, all I have to do is sit around and wait for Heaven."
It doesn't work that way. Is that love to you? Is that faith? Is that why God made you?

I have another question for you..... Is anything truth to you? Do you believe there is an objective truth? In anything?

I'm sorry for this post, I know it's incredibley unfinished, but I felt like getting a few words out, even if they are messy. And I know this comes a little late. But I'm getting used to apologies at the end of my posts.

Edited October 16, 2007 by uruviel

["Kyrie eleison"]

Where is Jesussaves? Do they just hit and run?

[desertwoman]

[quote name='"Kyrie eleison' post='1403675' date='Oct 16 2007, 04:15 PM']Where is Jesussaves? Do they just hit and run?[/quote]


in another tread he/she said that he/she was leaving

["Kyrie eleison"]

Why do they do that? That's too bad, I wanted to hear him/her wiggle out of the scripture verses that proclaim there is more to salvation than just professing and or believing in Christ as your saviour.

[Starets]

[quote name='desertwoman' post='1403687' date='Oct 16 2007, 03:43 PM']in another tread he/she said that he/she was leaving[/quote]
that was OneforTruth that was leaving
i think jesussaves was a "drive by witnessing"

[LouisvilleFan]

[quote name='Lord Philip' post='1403193' date='Oct 15 2007, 08:19 PM']For some, perhaps, but I do not think that is a widely held belief. But what is widely held is that reason is absolutely insufficient as a cause of conversion because of the total depravity of man. Since it is useless it is abandoned in their evangelism: that is why their evangelism is so dominated at merely quoting the Scriptures. This is why so many of them do not answer questions. They just post Bible verses. They figure that argument is fruitless, but that the "elect" will respond to the Scriptures posted and will be converted to the "true gospel."

So while we cannot necessarily say they think reason is dangerous, we can still say "So much for reason..."

God bless,

Philip[/quote]

I know there are a lot of Baptist/Calvinist types who think this way, but it seems like the ones I've know have actually be very much into using reason and argument for evangelization. Honestly, I find Calvinism to make a lot of sense if you accept the Sola Scriptura premise. Of course, Catholicism also makes a lot of sense even if you argued for it from Scripture alone. If we're intellectually honest, we should recognize that there is very good biblical commentary and scholarship coming from Calvinist and Reformed theologians who certainly have not abandoned reason as useless.

By the way, I believe we all agree that grace is the only sufficient means of conversion.

[S][N]

Nope. But I'm athiest so I don't count