Posted on 04/19/2003 7:32:39 AM PDT by drstevej
"Repent and believe, and you will be saved."
Were the Jews under some pagan notion of "fate"?
No. The Jews were not pagans (in general.)
Explain.
FATE, DESTINY, LOT, PORTION, DOOM mean a predetermined state or end. FATE implies an inevitable and usually an adverse outcome. LOT and PORTION imply a distribution by fate or destiny, LOT suggesting blind chance.
In other words, a man's lot was decided by fate or chance, and he was powerless to effect his life's outcome.
Calvin's "predestination" is just a rehashing of this pagan notion man's lot was decided by fate or chance, a notion still common to pagan religions like Hinduism.
The debate between God's Grace and our Free Will has gone on from day one, with no satisfactory agreement, no final word. Calvin's word sure as Hades is not The Final Word.
Why?
Because it is, afterall, a "Mystery" that will never be fully understood by man, nor fully explained by man's finite intellect and language.
That is why I see as only a worldly FOOL those men who proclaim to have definitively stated "The Final Word" on the issue of Grace vs Free Will. And that is why I see it as earthly foolishness this obsession over one failable man's explanation of the issue. Calvin most certainly was NOT granted some extraordinary grace and infallibility to be the sole arbiter in the debate.
As OrthodoxPresbyterian has eloquently pointed out, my own Church has differing explanations of the interaction between Grace and Free Will.
Why?
Because it is an infinitely faceted MYSTERY and our finite intellect and limited language is only able to express finite glimpes of these infinite facets of this Divine Mystery.
But to devolve the whole issue backwards to pagan fatalism is below us, and, as I said earlier, downright sinister, for the reasons Ultima Ratio outlined.
And the reasons I outlined here are the reasons I gave up this debate with OrthodoxPresbyterian long ago.
Only a fool thinks they have The Definitive Last Word in this debate.
Can a dead man displease God?
Can a dead man sin?
Can a dead man despise or reject Christ?
Can a dead man resist the Holy Spirit?
Can a dead man reject the Gospel?
Is a dead man responsible for his "actions"?
And how is a dead man any different from a dead baby?
In that case, I'll give you the last word. :-)
Yet I will gladly grasp the final word in stating once again,
Only a fool thinks they have The Definitive Last Word in this debate! 2000 years of hard cold Christian reality are firmly in my corner in saying this.
Can a dead man sin? YES THEY CAN
Can a dead man despise or reject Christ? YES THEY CAN
Can a dead man resist the Holy Spirit? NEED A MORE SPECIFIC QUESTION HERE
Can a dead man reject the Gospel? YES THEY CAN
Is a dead man responsible for his "actions"? YES THEY ARE
And how is a dead man any different from a dead baby? NEED A MORE SPECIFIC QUESTION HERE
In drawing this line of theology almost full circle, he quotes Garrigou-Lagrange, a Dominican professor of mystical and spiritual theology, who had as one of his best known students, a Polish Man named Karol Wojtyla. One of his lesser known students (except in certain small circles) was a Passionist priest who is my spiritual director.
I'd appreciate it if you took an honest and careful look at this link, and get back to me with your thoughts via FReepmail.
You are either misrepresenting Calvin's views or you are just ignorant.
Those who would cast obloquy on this doctrine, calumniate it as the dogma of the Stoics concerning fate. The same charge was formerly brought against Augustine, (lib. ad Bonifac. II, c. 6 et alibi.) We are unwilling to dispute about words; but we do not admit the term Fate, both because it is of the class which Paul teaches us to shun, as profane novelties, (1 Tim. 6:20,) and also because it is attempted, by means of an odious term, to fix a stigma on the truth of God. But the dogma itself is falsely and maliciously imputed to us. For we do not with the Stoics imagine a necessity consisting of a perpetual chain of causes, and a kind of involved series contained in nature, but we hold that God is the disposer and ruler of all things, - that from the remotest eternity, according to his own wisdom, he decreed what he was to do, and now by his power executes what he decreed. Hence we maintain, that by his providence, not heaven and earth and inanimate creatures only, but also the counsels and wills of men are so governed as to move exactly in the course which he has destined. What, then, you will say, does nothing happen fortuitously, nothing contingently? I answer, it was a true saying of Basil the Great, that Fortune and Chance are heathen terms; the meaning of which ought not to occupy pious minds. For if all success is blessing from God, and calamity and adversity are his curse, there is no place left in human affairs for fortune and chance. We ought also to be moved by the words of Augustine, (Retract. lib. 1 cap. 1,) "In my writings Against the Academics," says he, "I regret having so often used the term Fortune; although I intended to denote by it not some goddess, but the fortuitous issue of events in external matters, whether good or evil. Hence, too, those words, Perhaps, Perchance, Fortuitously, which no religion forbids us to use, though everything must be referred to Divine Providence. Nor did I omit to observe this when I said, Although, perhaps, that which is vulgarly called Fortune, is also regulated by a hidden order, and what we call Chance is nothing else than that the reason and cause of which is secret. It is true, I so spoke, but I repent of having mentioned Fortune there as I did, when I see the very bad custom which men have of saying, not as they ought to do, 'So God pleased,' but, 'So Fortune pleased.'" In short, Augustine everywhere teaches, that if anything is left to fortune, the world moves at random. And although he elsewhere declares, (Quaestionum, lib. 83.) that all things are carried on, partly by the free will of man, and partly by the Providence of God, he shortly after shows clearly enough that his meaning was, that men also are ruled by Providence, when he assumes it as a principle, that there cannot be a greater absurdity than to hold that anything is done without the ordination of God; because it would happen at random. For which reason, he also excludes the contingency which depends on human will, maintaining a little further on, in clearer terms, that no cause must be sought for but the will of God. When he uses the term permission, the meaning which he attaches to it will best appear from a single passage, (De Trinity. lib. 3 cap. 4,) where he proves that the will of God is the supreme and primary cause of all things, because nothing happens without his order or permission. He certainly does not figure God sitting idly in a watch-tower, when he chooses to permit anything. The will which he represents as interposing is, if I may so express it, active, (actualis,) and but for this could not be regarded as a cause.
I don't think bluntness is abuse....
(BTW: Polycarp -- cool name!)
Then there's Alex Murphy, who's taken the appelation "Athanasius contra mundum" in that fight. LOL.
I have the same problem with Calvinism. While the strident Calvinists seem to have all the answers, none of them are biblically satisfactory.
I opt rather to entrust the answer to God, Who is sovereign, loving and just. Whatever the answer, it will conform to His character.
Agreed, but the description of God under the definitions of Calvinism shows a God who is soverign to the exclusion of being loving and just; a god who created most of mankind for the sole purpose of burning them in hell for eternity merely for the good pleasure of his will. Sorry but that is out of character for the God of the Bible. I am certain it is out of character for the God you worship as well.
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