Sunday, August 24

If a Calvinist cannot state accurately what God says, what makes you think they'll get your words right?

Calvinists accuse God of creating people for Hell (Double Predestination) and Christ of dying for only some people (Limited Atonement), both of which are contrary to Scripture and make YHWH a lying monster.

Additionally, they pretend an affinity to Luther, trying to wrap around themselves the cloak of the Reformation, when in reality what they have is a Deformation of Christ.

Here a guest not only defends the hellish doctrines of Double Predestination and Limited Atonement, he attributes to me his own perverse attitudes:
How do you look at the things Jesus says later on in John 6? Namely, that the full number of those whom God gives to Him WILL come to Him, and that out of that number not a single one will be lost? Just curious.
Those who are not given to Christ by the Father -- are those not given because YHWH created them for Hell, because Christ did not die for them, or because the Holy Spirit never worked in their hearts?

Or is it, as Scripture teaches -- including here in John's gospel -- that they are rejected because they reject God through unbelief?

You're trying to say against that a person's condemnation is God's fault. Where does He say that?

Here's some of what God does say in John 6, including another opportunity for Calvinist selective reading near the end:
All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out [. . .] this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

[. . .] No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

[. . .]

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.

Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.
Note in verse 44 that God says all who come to Christ are drawn by the Father. It doesn't say that only those who come to Christ were drawn by the Father.

Did not Christ say that when He was crucified He would draw "all men" to Himself?

Dusty McDusty continues:
I notice you tend to accuse Calvinists of bringing blasphemous charges against God's character
That's false. I accuse Calvinists of blaspheming God by their false doctrine.
There's a difference between Calvinists proclaiming that God is malicious, for example, and Calvinists proclaiming something that makes God seem malicious in your own personal judgment.
Where did I accuse Calvinists of saying that God is malicious? Is that misrepresentation of my words intentional?
-God says that He is not willing that anyone should perish. You say God makes people for Hell.

-God says that Christ died for all. You say Christ died for some.

-God says that He has mercy on all. You deny His mercy to "many."

-God says that in Christ's body on the cross, He was reconciling the world to His Father. You deny that reconciliation to "many."

-God says that Christ is the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the "whole world." You deny His sacrifice to "many."

-God says only that believers are predestined to eternal life. From this you infer that God predestined those in Hell to Hell. when in fact they rejected Christ's payment for sin through unbelief.
Where does God say that He predestines the "many" who find themselves in Hell for it? Where does God say that Christ died for only some? That He loves and has mercy on only some?

Dusty continues:
I've never heard a Calvinist call God "malicious" or "blame" God's sovereignty for people going to hell.
No, he just claims that God creates people for Hell.

I don't suppose I need to restate this, but just in case: The Calvinist makes God a monster. I merely point out what the Calvinist is doing.
And hey-- do you believe that God, before creating this existence, foresaw the situation of lots of people going to Hell, and yet decided to create this existence anyway? Well, if you do (and how can you not, as a theologically responsible Christian), then how do you not also "blame God's sovereignty" for the fact that people go to hell? God could have created this existence differently and He didn't. Voila--He's to blame (not to mention malicious). Shame on you for believing such a thing.
Just like the Darwinist and the Muslim, projecting their error onto the one pointing out the error.

You're confusing foreknowledge with predestination.

The reason I cannot "blame God's sovereignty" for people going to Hell is because unlike the Calvinist, I tell the truth about what I read. God says a person goes to Hell because of their own sin.
Do you, as a theologically correct sort, believe that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-present? (That is, that God is sovereign?)
Here comes a perfect example of Calvinist theology in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .
your own version of a cruel, malicious God? You know what I mean, right? The God who is sitting there as you read this refusing to intervene in the brutal beating and worse of a little child at the hands of her mom's drunk boyfriend (3rd time this month)... and Who will send that little child to hell when she dies of a drug overdose 19 years from now after a life of bitterness and unbelief, which He could have done something to prevent by putting a stop to the brutal beatings and worse 19 years before...
Blaming God first for mom's drunk boyfriend's cruelty (and mom's negligence), and second for
the adult woman's sin and unbelief.

To a Calvinist that's called, "good theology."

But what does God say? He says that He has mercy on the just and unjust.

Christ explained in one parable that He allows the weeds to grow up alongside the wheat until the harvest so that no good plants are destroyed prematurely along with the weeds.

As Peter said, God's "slowness" is His patience, for He wants all to be saved.

And there will be justice: Either in Christ's body on the cross, or in the unrepentant sinner's in Hell.
soul-squashing evil that people's lives are saturated with all over the world on a daily basis--evil which the loving, non-malicious, all-powerful God you believe in allows. Stuff that plays a huge part in stoking the UNBELIEF of people everywhere, which unbelief--as you yourself profess--is the reason why people go to hell.
That's dishonest!

You blame God (again) for human evil, you blame Him (again) for unbelief, and you attribute the responsibility for unbelief to outside forces rather than to the individual.

You imply also that suffering causes unbelief, when in fact, God often works through suffering to create and strengthen faith, as He says.
Nice, well-thought-out beliefs (and accusations) you've got going here. What a noble defender of God's character you are.
If you say what God says -- no more, no less -- you won't have to worry.