Calvinism: Is it biblical?

[brandon1984]

I don't have time to read all of the good discussion here unfortunately, but I wanted to make a comment briefly.

I think the biggest problem lies in the meaning of predestined and/or elect. What could this mean if some kind of freedom exists? Just cutting to the chase here I think the best way to view it is a sort of potential slot that people have the ability to occupy. It does not refer to God choosing particular individuals rather to God choosing a particular faith which is in the Messiah and the resurrection. God chooses everyone that has this faith, they are the elect, the children of Abraham, they are Israel.

That's just part of the issue that could be talked on for many monographs.

[ArcticFox]

When I start comparing religions to expansion packs, maybe it's best I bow out.

Or, blast forward!

WHATDOYOUMEAN

BLAST FORWARD, OF COURSE!

For the LDS to deny the trinity, and to say that Jesus Christ is a created being, is heretical. I don't mean any offence. It's completely unbiblical.

No offense taken, my friend, as we regard the notion of the Trinity to be unbiblical. Fair is fair.

[Djents]

I don't have time to read all of the good discussion here unfortunately, but I wanted to make a comment briefly.

I think the biggest problem lies in the meaning of predestined and/or elect. What could this mean if some kind of freedom exists? Just cutting to the chase here I think the best way to view it is a sort of potential slot that people have the ability to occupy. It does not refer to God choosing particular individuals rather to God choosing a particular faith which is in the Messiah and the resurrection. God chooses everyone that has this faith, they are the elect, the children of Abraham, they are Israel.

That's just part of the issue that could be talked on for many monographs.

Israel wasn't chosen for salvation per se, God made a conditional covenant with them, which they had to obey. We can see that Saul lost his salvation, because he disobeyed God, and then consulted a medium. I'm not too sure about Solomon, but he disobeyed God too. We can read about people who broke God's covenant, as God never breaks His covenant, it's the other party that does.

"The earth is defiled by its people;
they have disobeyed the laws,
violated the statutes
and broken the everlasting covenant."

"10 They have returned to the sins of their ancestors, who refused to listen to my words. They have followed other gods to serve them. Both Israel and Judah have broken the covenant I made with their ancestors."

"7 As at Adam,[a] they have broken the covenant;
they were unfaithful to me there."

"“Put the trumpet to your lips!
An eagle is over the house of the Lord
because the people have broken my covenant
and rebelled against my law."

We know that who ever breaks the covenant deserves death, and it's not merely that they die physically, it's also spiritual.
Israel was elected to be the line of people that the Messiah would be born. We read God talking to Abraham saying

2 “I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you

Here we read Moses talking to the Hebrews

11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.

15 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.

17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.

19 This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

And of course, a lot of them were disobedient. When they wandered in the dessert they tested God. They were mumbling under their breath, they were in unbelief, not doubt, but unbelief. And God destroyed those who didn't didn't believe. They were without excuse, for they saw the plagues brought on against Egypt, they saw the Red Sea being split, they saw the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day. Again in Hebrews, we read

7 So, as the Holy Spirit says:

“Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion,
during the time of testing in the wilderness,
9 where your ancestors tested and tried me,
though for forty years they saw what I did.
10 That is why I was angry with that generation;
I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray,
and they have not known my ways.’
11 So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”
12 See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. 14 We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end. 15 As has just been said:

“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion.”[c]
16 Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? 17 And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? 19 So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.

And as we read, this rest was not only to go into the land God was giving them, as we read here

4 Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. 2 For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed.[a] 3 Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said,

“So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’”
And yet his works have been finished since the creation of the world. 4 For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: “On the seventh day God rested from all his works.”[c] 5 And again in the passage above he says, “They shall never enter my rest.”

6 Therefore since it still remains for some to enter that rest, and since those who formerly had the good news proclaimed to them did not go in because of their disobedience, 7 God again set a certain day, calling it “Today.” This he did when a long time later he spoke through David, as in the passage already quoted:

“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts.”[d]
8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. 9 There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; 10 for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works,[e] just as God did from his. 11 Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience.

[Djents]

When I start comparing religions to expansion packs, maybe it's best I bow out.

Or, blast forward!

WHATDOYOUMEAN

BLAST FORWARD, OF COURSE!

For the LDS to deny the trinity, and to say that Jesus Christ is a created being, is heretical. I don't mean any offence. It's completely unbiblical.

No offense taken, my friend, as we regard the notion of the Trinity to be unbiblical. Fair is fair.

I'm not sure how you do that, given scriptures like John 1, who says "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, He was with God in the beginning... The Word became flesh, and made His dwelling with us" and as we read in the book of Revelation concerning Christ "13 He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God." So we see that the "Word" is the same "Word of God" described in Revelation, also written by John. And when Jesus is baptized, we see that the Holy Spirit descends upon Him, and then we read that the voice of the Father comes from heaven, saying "This is my son". And we know that they aren't 3 different Gods, as I quote God Himself saying

8 Do not tremble, do not be afraid.
Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago?
You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me?
No, there is no other Rock; I know not one.”

And we read that Christ is the rock,

"1 Corinthians 10:4
and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ." "Zechariah 12:3
On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves." "Matthew 7:24
[ The Wise and Foolish Builders ] “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock."

these are only some of the things talking about Christ as the rock.
And we read about the "Spirit of Christ" which is the Holy Spirit

You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.

This verse equates the Spirit of God with the Spirit of Christ.

[ArcticFox]

I'm not sure how you do that...

I'd be happy to elaborate, if you'd like. I won't derail this thread with it, though.

[Djents]

I'm not sure how you do that...

I'd be happy to elaborate, if you'd like. I won't derail this thread with it, though.

Shoot.

[ArcticFox]

Shoot.

Care to start a thread? You can have the opening salvo.

Edit: You sort of did I guess. I'll copy your post and use it to start a thread in the Debates section.

[RoosterOnAStick]

Hello,

Something I often think is missed when discussing Calvinism is the concept of time as we understand it.

We are beings inside of time, bound by it and experience it as more or less a sequence of events. God is not bound by such things, He sees all things simultaneously as they are. Often when we talk about how God had "forseen" who would accept or deny Him, we are still speaking in terms of human understanding. This still talks as if God is living in the present and able to see ahead into some future time. The truth is none of this applies when speaking about God and how He relates to time to begin with. God has existed before time, God created time, and God is outside of time.

C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape letters explain the concept very well:

"But you must remember that he takes Time for an ultimate reality. He supposes that the Enemy, like himself, sees some things as present, remembers others as past, and anticipates others as future; or even if he believes that the Enemy does not see things that way, yet, in his heart of hearts, he regards this as a peculiarity of the Enemy's mode of perception - he doesn't really think (though he would say he did) that things as the Enemy sees them are things as they are! If you tried to explain to him that men's prayers today are one of the innumerable coordinates with which the Enemy harmonises the weather of tomorrow, he would reply that then the Enemy always knew men were going to make those prayers and, if so, they did not pray freely but were predestined to do so. And he would add that the weather on a given day can be traced back through its causes to the original creation of matter itself - so that the whole thing, both on the human and on the material side, is given "from the word go". What he ought to say, of course, is obvious to us; that the problem of adapting the particular weather to the particular prayers is merely the appearance, at two points in his temporal mode of perception, of the total problem of adapting the whole spiritual universe to the whole corporeal universe; that creation in its entirety operates at every point of space and time, or rather that their kind of consciousness forces them to encounter the whole, self-consistent creative act as a series of successive events. Why that creative act leaves room for their free will is the problem of problems, the secret behind the Enemy's nonsense about "Love". How it does so is no problem at all; for the Enemy does not foresee the humans making their free contributions in a future, but sees them doing so in His unbounded Now. And obviously to watch a man doing something is not to make him do it."