4 thoughts on “Sin, Reprobation and Foreknowledge: The Calvinists Attempt to Have Their Cake and Eat it Too”
I once had a Calvinist asked me why I started ignoring his posts and not answering. I told him “I’m not actively ignoring your posts, I’m passively passing over them, leaving them in their unanswered state.”
This is just basic logic, which reasonable men have alleged since Augustine first proposed the absurd concepts which were later adopted by Calvin. I can never understand how Calvinism can be defended with a straight face, without acknowledging the monstrous nature of the god it constructs. But more importantly – to all those who have been ‘persuaded’ by redefined words, imaginary decrees, and false notions of God’s nature – you do not have to believe in or worship such a being, because that is not who God is. The genuine God, of the universe and of scripture, is a good, loving, faithful being who utterly loves his creation, and absolutely desires that every single man, woman and child, without exception, respond to his revelation of himself, turn from wickedness and live eternally in a loving relationship with him. He tells us this himself, directly, not via some roundabout conclusion based on faulty interpretations of verses that have been less than objectively translated into a language that does not well convey the idioms and meanings of the original.
I pity those who believe in the unloving and unjust God of Calvinism – a god who created men deliberately to destroy them; who ordains and compels sin, then disingenuously forbids that which he irresistibly decreed; who threatens and condemns men for doing what he created, ordained and compelled them to do before they were ever born. All for some sadistic ‘good pleasure’ or narcissistic desire for ‘glory’. If people knew even the slightest part of the true history of the tyranny, torture and murder that was required to bring even partial and temporary acceptance of these hideous doctrines, they would not be so quick to embrace them.
Is it really possible that so many people don’t get that there are perfectly logical interpretations to every single prooftext that Calvinism takes out of context? Reasonable interpretations that preserve all of the dignity, morality, goodness and justice of God, rather than throw them aside in order to uphold some very misguided interpretations of men concerning God’s nature and works. I pity those who have such distorted concepts of who God is, for having no understanding of his boundless love, his limitless grace and the true, marvelous nature of the gospel of love and peace. How tragic it is to believe in a cruel, tyrannical, controlling, heartless deity when there is a gracious, merciful and loving God who has sacrificially demonstrated the nature of his love for mankind. How sad to be left with such a partial, puny ‘love’ in order to worship at the alter of brute and brutal power.
I once had a Calvinist asked me why I started ignoring his posts and not answering. I told him “I’m not actively ignoring your posts, I’m passively passing over them, leaving them in their unanswered state.”
Funny! 😀
This is just basic logic, which reasonable men have alleged since Augustine first proposed the absurd concepts which were later adopted by Calvin. I can never understand how Calvinism can be defended with a straight face, without acknowledging the monstrous nature of the god it constructs. But more importantly – to all those who have been ‘persuaded’ by redefined words, imaginary decrees, and false notions of God’s nature – you do not have to believe in or worship such a being, because that is not who God is. The genuine God, of the universe and of scripture, is a good, loving, faithful being who utterly loves his creation, and absolutely desires that every single man, woman and child, without exception, respond to his revelation of himself, turn from wickedness and live eternally in a loving relationship with him. He tells us this himself, directly, not via some roundabout conclusion based on faulty interpretations of verses that have been less than objectively translated into a language that does not well convey the idioms and meanings of the original.
I pity those who believe in the unloving and unjust God of Calvinism – a god who created men deliberately to destroy them; who ordains and compels sin, then disingenuously forbids that which he irresistibly decreed; who threatens and condemns men for doing what he created, ordained and compelled them to do before they were ever born. All for some sadistic ‘good pleasure’ or narcissistic desire for ‘glory’. If people knew even the slightest part of the true history of the tyranny, torture and murder that was required to bring even partial and temporary acceptance of these hideous doctrines, they would not be so quick to embrace them.
Is it really possible that so many people don’t get that there are perfectly logical interpretations to every single prooftext that Calvinism takes out of context? Reasonable interpretations that preserve all of the dignity, morality, goodness and justice of God, rather than throw them aside in order to uphold some very misguided interpretations of men concerning God’s nature and works. I pity those who have such distorted concepts of who God is, for having no understanding of his boundless love, his limitless grace and the true, marvelous nature of the gospel of love and peace. How tragic it is to believe in a cruel, tyrannical, controlling, heartless deity when there is a gracious, merciful and loving God who has sacrificially demonstrated the nature of his love for mankind. How sad to be left with such a partial, puny ‘love’ in order to worship at the alter of brute and brutal power.
The little snippet says enough! 😀