Why I didn't become a Calvinist

Author: Soluminsanis
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#1
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If there are any Reformed folks on this forum, grace and peace.  I usually don't spend too much time with in house discussions right now as I'm currently pursuing natural theology,  however this topic is one I love pondering. 

I had a very brief flirtation with Calvinism this past year, I ultimately didn't go down that path as I believe Molinism offers a superior solution to the classic questions of divine sovereignty and human freedom.

Here's my thoughts: 

In Reformed theology God is absolutely and meticulously sovereign over His creation because nothing happens outside of His decree.  If it happened it is because God decreed it.  

In the Molinist paradigm however, God is still absolutely and meticulously sovereign over His creation,  but not because nothing happens outside of His decree, but because He uses His middle knowledge to achieve His will and purposes through the free undetermined actions of His creatures. 


Why is this important?

Well in the Reformed schematic,  I don't see how determinism can be affirmed without sourcing the origin of sinful acts in God.

 In the Molinist schematic,  God can perfectly enact and accomplish His will through completely free creatures. 

In other words, under Molinism God doesn't have to play the chess pieces on the board (i.e. decree everything they will do). He can let each piece move freely themselves on their own while still getting His will accomplished.  This seems like a superior understanding of God.

Any thoughts? 
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@Soluminsanis
This seems like a superior understanding of God.
That is probably because it is also the biblical understanding of God.

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@ethang5
I concur wholeheartedly.  Are you also a molinist?
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@Soluminsanis
So many "ists"........Grab your self some "old bloke" and stick an "ist" on the end of his name.

So that makes Mr E and Ethanist and me a Meist.


#5
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@Soluminsanis
What motivates "YHWH"?
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@3RU7AL
Tetragrammaton....Now there's a good word to slip into a debate.

Nonetheless...I would imagine that, YHWH motivates YHWHists and vice versa.
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BrotherDThomas
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SOLUMINSANIS, 

YOUR QUOTE TO ETHANG5 THAT WILL NEVER BE ADDRESSED: " I concur wholeheartedly.  Are you also a molinist?"

You will NEVER get an answer from the 2nd most Bible ignorant pseudo-christian ethang5 in what division of Christianity he follows, just watch!   This is because of the fact that pseudo-christians like him do not want their division of the faith exposed because each division has its embarrassments that other divisions of the faith attack as being wrong!  What an irony, huh? LOL

With your "flirtation" of Calvinism, how do you know it is the totally correct division of the faith?  Listed within this link are hundreds upon hundreds of the divisions of Christianity to choose from, therefore, which ever one you pick, how is it known you've picked the correct one?  Obviously all of these divisions cannot all be correct at the same time because they contradict each other, now what?

Listen, I know you cannot discuss the matters of the faith with me any more than the #1 and #2 Bible ignorant fools Tradesecret and ethang5 can, because you RAN AWAY from my biblical axioms directed to you within your "Modal Ontological Argument" thread that fell flat upon its face with you stating that it became tiresome.  Simply put, what does that say about YOU?!  LOL


In the name of the hung Savior,

Brother D. Thomas
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@zedvictor4


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zedvictor4,

YOUR QUOTE: "Nonetheless...I would imagine that, YHWH motivates YHWHists and vice versa."

To give your revealing quote a little more "Ummmph," yes, the Jewish God ONLY Yahweh does motivate his Jewish followers in the Old Testament, especially in having them to kill others for not being a Jew and following Him.



.
 

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@3RU7AL
I'm not sure I follow,  motivates Him to do what?
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@BrotherDThomas

It is also duly noted that you have gone to Tradesecret and ethang5's pseudo-christian school of "How to run away from disturbing biblical axioms, and to try in vain to remain intelligent looking in the aftermath."  For this, I am truly sorry for you, because you will continue to be the Bible fool in this forum like Tradesecret and ethang5 have been easily shown.
Gone to the school?

I run the school. 

I am the head instructor,  and will go down as the greatest theologian in history.  

I have trained an army of master theologians to DEBATE and EXPOSE your heresies.  

#11
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@Soluminsanis
I'm not sure I follow,  motivates Him to do what?
Does "YHWH" act by necessity in accordance with its essential nature?
#12
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@Soluminsanis
Are you also a molinist?
It better states my understanding than Calvinists.
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@Soluminsanis
In simple terms, a modest theist then.....Otherwise regarded as an expert in Middle Eastern folklore and the westernisation thereof.
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@3RU7AL
I wouldn't say God acts by necessity or that His nature compels Him to perform certain acts.  I would say though that God cannot act against His nature
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@ethang5


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Ethang5, the runaway from biblical axioms and is on record stating that Jesus. is not the Father! LOL,

Soluminsanis simply asked if you are a Molinist: 

Your lame little boy runaway response without an absolute answer was: "It better states my understanding than Calvinists."

Ethang5, are you too SCARED to tell others in what division of Christianity that you bludgeon to death on a continued basis within this forum?    Remember biblical fool, Jesus is watching you in how you respond to this very simple premise. (Hebrews 4:13)


NEXT PSEUDO-CHRISTIAN THAT IS TO EMBARRASSED LIKE ETHANG5 IS, TO TELL THE MEMBERSHIP IN WHAT DIVISION OF CHRISTIANITY THEY FOLLOW WILL BE...?


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#16
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@Soluminsanis
Interesting post but fundamentally flawed. 

Every True Christian is either expressly a Calvinist or is a closet Calvinist. They are but they just don't know it yet. 

Calvin of course followed the teachings of Augustine, who followed Paul, who followed Jesus, who is very similar in thinking with Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, David, Daniel, Moses and Samuel. Wow, it just amazed me of the historical unity between all of these people. And these are just the ones I thought of immediately. In fact as I look through the Bible I cannot find any one - well apart from the heathens and heretics who would not be consistent with Calvinist teaching. 

Prove me wrong. 


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@Soluminsanis
Prove me wrong. 
Whoop! Did I just hear a challenge?
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@ethang5
Absolutey!
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@Tradesecret
Every True Christian is either expressly a Calvinist or is a closet Calvinist. They are but they just don't know it yet. 

My,  what a claim! May I ask for you to elaborate? I certainly wouldn't consider myself a closet calvinist. Ironically enough,  Luis Molina,  and myself being a molinist,  affirm(ed) unconditional election.  However the molinist understanding of unconditional election differs from the calvinist.  


Calvin of course followed the teachings of Augustine, who followed Paul, who followed Jesus, who is very similar in thinking with Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, David, Daniel, Moses and Samuel. Wow, it just amazed me of the historical unity between all of these people. And these are just the ones I thought of immediately. In fact as I look through the Bible I cannot find any one - well apart from the heathens and heretics who would not be consistent with Calvinist teaching. 

Prove me wrong. 
Just so I have a general idea,  what type of Calvinism do you affirm? Are you an infralapsarian or supralapsarian? Are you an Amyraldianist or do you affirm limited atonement? Would you consider yourself a compatibilist or a hard determinist? 
Do you subscribe to the Westminister confession?

Whoop! Did I just hear a challenge?
I think so! This is exactly the type of fruitful discussion I was hoping for with this thread, I foresee this dialog turning into a formal debate. 
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@Soluminsanis
Every True Christian is either expressly a Calvinist or is a closet Calvinist. They are but they just don't know it yet. 

My,  what a claim! May I ask for you to elaborate? I certainly wouldn't consider myself a closet calvinist. Ironically enough,  Luis Molina,  and myself being a molinist,  affirm(ed) unconditional election.  However the molinist understanding of unconditional election differs from the calvinist.  
Well pleased to hear you accept unconditional election. I would be interested in knowing how your view differs from the Calvinist. 

Calvin of course followed the teachings of Augustine, who followed Paul, who followed Jesus, who is very similar in thinking with Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, David, Daniel, Moses and Samuel. Wow, it just amazed me of the historical unity between all of these people. And these are just the ones I thought of immediately. In fact as I look through the Bible I cannot find any one - well apart from the heathens and heretics who would not be consistent with Calvinist teaching. 

Prove me wrong. 
Just so I have a general idea,  what type of Calvinism do you affirm? Are you an infralapsarian or supralapsarian? Are you an Amyraldianist or do you affirm limited atonement? Would you consider yourself a compatibilist or a hard determinist? 
Do you subscribe to the Westminister confession?
Well thank you for asking.  Yes, I subscribe to the WCF.  Yes,  I affirm limited atonement. I am a 5 point Calvinist by conviction, not by birth. I grew up very much in the evangelical arm of arminianism.  I do not believe in double predestination, not because it is not logical because it is - but because it goes further than Scripture goes. I am not an Amyraldianist; although I know some who might call themselves that - although by listening to them they really do not understand it very well. 

At college I took the view of Supra in relation to the Order of Salvation. At different times I have probably been more infra, depending upon how I understood Romans 9:11. 

My view in relation to free will is that we have free will. Yet we need to understand what it means and what are its limits and how it has changed in relation to the fall of  humanity. Yet I also how to the decrees of God. This is what I would call the Trinitarian or Covenantal position. 


Whoop! Did I just hear a challenge?
I think so! This is exactly the type of fruitful discussion I was hoping for with this thread, I foresee this dialog turning into a formal debate. 
Ok. 
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@ethang5
This seems like a superior understanding of God.
That is probably because it is also the biblical understanding of God.
Are you sure about that? 
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@Soluminsanis
 May I ask for you to elaborate?
Very often the five point of Calvinism - AKA (informally) TULIP. 

I subscribe to the view that we need to distil the essence of each point to that which even children can understand.  When we do that - the more untenable points actually make sense. 

I teach my children - TULIP in the following way: I begin by pointing out that the essence of Calvinism is "Salvation Belongs to the LORD". 

Total Depravity:  All have sinned. Sin is not as evil as could be - but enough to distort the image of God such that a Savior is required.  I use an illustration of a glass of water that is tainted by one drop of ink. The one drop of ink - totally dilutes into the glass of water but touches every droplet of water - turning the pure glass of water murky. Enough for most not to drink it.  The glass does not become total ink - but it totally depraved.  Enough such that a Holy God would not accept it. 

Unconditional Election: God chooses his people unconditionally. In other words, there is nothing about any human that warrants salvation or mercy.  No condition such as wealth, intelligence, race, sex, sexual orientation, age, etc. including creed, is necessary or required for God to choose. It is a situation whereby God saves us not because of something better than someone else but entirely because of his mercy. 

Limited Atonement: Some people go to heaven and some people go to Hell.   In other words, not everyone goes to heaven; therefore atonement is limited by definition.  For older persons - I also point out the difference between assurance of salvation as a doctrine verses the sufficiency of Christ's death as a doctrine.  People often quibble about whether Christ's death was sufficient for all - which I think it is. Limited Atonement as a doctrine however is quite a distinct doctrine from sufficiency.  Limited Atonement is simply stating - NOT ALL people go to heaven. 

Irresistible Grace: Probably the most difficult of all points to get your head around.  Essentially, it means that those who are the elect cannot FOREVER resist the Spirit's call to salvation and will turn to God in repentance. It falls in line with "those who are his, know the shepherds voice".  I have always likened this point for my children to chocolate. Chocolate for kids is irresistible. What sensible kid is going to reject chocolate? Once a person - sees Jesus for whom he is - cannot but fall in love with him and want to follow him. 

Perseverance of the Saints: Sometimes called preservation of the Saints.  This is a doctrine which teaches that God will keep his children or elect in his care.  It is sometimes mistaken for a "once saved always saved" position. But this is not what the doctrine teaches.  It is he who endures to the end who will be saved.  This is in accordance with covenantal teaching. It is a call to faithfulness. Yet it is built on the promises of God that he will never leave or forsake his people.  It is akin to baptism of infants. The promise is given that those who remain faithful - he will keep. Not a promise to those who are unfaithful - but those who remain faithful - he will keep. 

Reformed or Calvinistic or biblical teaching is all about God and his promises to us. This is why I call it covenantal - in essence. It is not about us - but about God. It is the only system of doctrine which truly and faithfully and adequately assists in understanding the difference in the one and the many but also in free will and determinism and that which does not put God or humanity in a bad or unfair light.




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@ethang5



.

Ethang5, the runaway from biblical axioms and is on record stating that Jesus is not the Father which is complete Bible stupidity! LOL,

YOUR QUOTE TO YOUR EQUAL BIBLE IGNORANT TRADESECRET:  "Whoop! Did I just hear a challenge?"

As shown, the bigger "whoops" is you running away from my challenge to you in my post #16 in the "where is brother Thomas" thread where you came up with lame little boy excuses to run!  Yes, as shown in said thread, you are to SCARED to discuss Jesus with the Brother D., and probably peed your pants when I challenged you. LOL!


NEXT RUNAWAY PSEUDO-CHRISTIAN OTHER THAN ETHANG5 WILL BE ...?



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@Tradesecret



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TRADESECRET, whose gender went from a man, to a woman, and now unknown, the Debate Runaway on Jesus' true MO,  Bible denier of Jesus being the Trinity God in the OT, the runaway to what division of Christianity he/she/unknown follows, the pseudo-christian that has committed the Unpardonable Sin, the number 1 Bible ignorant fool regarding Noah's ark, the pseudo-christian that says kids that curse their parents should be killed, states there is FICTION within the scriptures, and is guilty of Revelation 22:18-19 and 2 Timothy 4:3, an admitted sexual deviant, and had ungodly Gender Reassignment Surgery, Satanic Bible Rewriter, an embarrassed LIAR of their true gender,


YOUR EMBARRASSING QUOTE IN POST #18: "Absolutey!"

Barring the fact that I easily own you and your division of Christianity as shown ad infinitum within this Religion Forum, where you are to embarrassed to tell the membership in which division of the faith you follow, and subjectively speaking, your response to the equally Bible stupid ethang5 would have had more validity towards Soluminsanis if you spelled absolutely correctly, where you spelled is as "Absolutey" :(   



YOUR QUOTE IN POST #16 OF WHICH I RELISH: "Prove me wrong"

Again, it must be so disturbing for you to accept that I have "proved you wrong" on so many occasions within this forum, where you finally had to remain silent to my posts because you could not refute them in any way and remain intelligent looking in the aftermath, where your latest situation of this fact is within your "Is nature more powerful than science"  thread where I proved you wrong once again at your flustering expense.    Why do you RUN AWAY from Jesus' true biblical axioms all the time, and where the Satanic comedy of this fact is that you teach others? Surely you jest! LOL



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#25
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@Soluminsanis
Just ignore the empty idiot. He's looking for attention using loony schtick.

This seems like a superior understanding of God.
That is probably because it is also the biblical understanding of God.

Are you sure about that? 
Even more so after your last post.

I would be interested in knowing how your view differs from the Calvinist. 
I want to hear that too.
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@ethang5
Are you sure about that? 
Even more so after your last post.

How so? 
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@Tradesecret
Are you sure about that? 
Even more so after your last post.

How so? 
I found nothing in your post that contracted my beliefs. 
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#28
Soluminsanis
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@Tradesecret
Thank you for your reply,  I would like to go through the five points one by one and assess them. 

So in regards to total depravity I would take no issue with what you laid out.  Calvinists usually say we're not as evil as we can possibly be.  I would agree.  I would also add,  which many calvinists do not,  that we are not as spiritually blind as we could be. But putting that aside I would argue there's not too much contention here. 


Unconditional Election: God chooses his people unconditionally. In other words, there is nothing about any human that warrants salvation or mercy.  No condition such as wealth, intelligence, race, sex, sexual orientation, age, etc. including creed, is necessary or required for God to choose. It is a situation whereby God saves us not because of something better than someone else but entirely because of his mercy. 
This is a really soft definition of unconditional election. Even the staunchest arminian would agree with this.  I'm going to quote the WCF's definition of unconditional election:

 "By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated to everlasting life, and others are foreordained to everlasting death.
"These angels and men, thus predestinated and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed; and their number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished.
Would you affirm that? In regards to the molinist view of unconditional election,  I will devote a second reply to it because it'll take up too much space in this one...

 therefore atonement is limited by definition.
Yes but limited in what sense? In its scope or its application? The non Calvinist would say limited in application.  The Calvinist would say limited in its scope. 

I'll phrase it this way,  did Christ die for the sins of every person,  or the elect only? 

Once a person - sees Jesus for whom he is - cannot but fall in love with him and want to follow him. 
I wholeheartedly agree! The question though is what brings about this change in view of Christ? The Calvinist would argue the entire person's will,  heart,  mind,  and outlook on spiritual matters were brought about in such a way that the person could not resist.

Ironically enough,  the molinist understanding of saving or effectual grace is closer to the Calvinist than arminian.  I'll address that in my next post. 

I would affirm perseverance of the saints as well.....

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@Soluminsanis
Do we really need to search this hard for points of disagreement? 😀
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#30
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@Tradesecret
I would be interested in knowing how your view differs from the Calvinist. 
I want to hear that too.
So the molinist understanding of unconditional election is a bit complicated.  But once you understand it I think it makes sense and is faithful to Scripture.  

Let me just say not all molinists would affirm unconditional election as originally taught by Molina.  Some Molinists have gone more arminian directions (William Lane Craig) others more Calvinist directions ( Congruism)

Nevertheless,  I will try to give a brief summary. 

 My understanding is, Molina basically taught that for every possible individual,  there exist three possible worlds God could have actualized (Molina understood election in possible world semantics,  much like the modal ontological argument uses)

Possible world 1. Individual is saved. 

Possible world 2. Individual is lost.

Possible world 3. Individual does not exist. 


Now here's where it gets interesting.  Molina was a staunch defender of libertarian free will.  Yet he believed that whichever world God elects is totally and completely up to Him and His sovereign will.  God does not elect a world and therefore and individual based on any foreseen merit (or even faith). He does so according to His good pleasure. 

So two questions arise. 1. Where does that leave human free will and responsibility? 2. Where is any of this in the Bible?

In regards to question 1, that's where the molinist understanding of effectual grace comes in. 

Molinism originally taught that God's prevenient or enabling grace was offered and actually acted upon every individual,  all they had to do was not resist it,  and it would bring them to salvation.  However,  if someone of their own free will resists it,  that person then belongs to possible world 2. Where they will be lost.  God  sovereignly actualized the world in which they found themselves resisting His grace, but they actualized their damnation through freely resisting His grace. 



So does God elect unconditionally? Yes. 

Is mankind fully responsible for their damnation? Yes. 

So where is this in Scripture?

I think the most startling revelation of this is Christ's statements of counterfactual knowledge in Matthew chapter eleven. 



Matthew 11:21 Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

The Lord here reveals a counterfactual statement.  There was a possible world where the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon were saved.  For reasons known only to Him,  God did not actualize that world.  However,  the individuals of Tyre and Sidon freely rejected the grace and the light they were given,  which would have been sufficient to save them anyway. 


It's mindblowing to think about...