Clarifying that Calvin's god really is a malicious, capricious beast

Tuesday, September 16

Clarifying that Calvin's god really is a malicious, capricious beast

Another note in an ongoing discussion here:

"I cannot conceive of why it is a problem for people to understand either double-predestination or its necessity."

Does not God "foreknow" all people? Does not YHWH intend Life for all people? Did not Christ die for and justify all people?

There is no problem "understanding" Double Predestination. The problem is accepting the idea since it is not found in Scripture [and contrary to the nature of the God revealed in the Bible].

Worse than that (that's bad enough!), it makes God out to be a capricious monster, which He is not.

"it is undeniably in Scripture."

No, only the statement that God predestines believers to eternal life is in the Bible.

If you want to say that God predestines people for Hell, you'll have to produce something from the Bible saying that . . . God predestines people to Hell.

And Arminianism doesn't cut it, either.

"It is not possible to retain an omniscient God and say, "Well, He doesn't know who will be saved . . . we have a God who knows in advance all who will be saved. Regardless of how you come to that conclusion, that would be "predestination"

You are confusing knowing the future for determining unalterably who will end up where.

"It is inescapable that if God is omniscient and knows all who will be saved, then He would also know all who will not be saved."

Again, knowing all things is not the same thing as causing them to occur.

Using your logic, Mohammed's slaughter is Calvin's god's will.

"if He doesn't intervene and change those who will not be saved"

YHWH did intervene. God did act. He has done EVERYTHING necessary for all to be saved, or is the death of His Son a small matter?

"If you argue that God knew but couldn't do anything about it, then you reject an omnipotent God. Which God do you reject?"

False dichotomy.

Instead, I prefer to say what God says:

"Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men" (Romans 5).

The correspondence continues:

"Now, since you reject that God "predetermined their condemnation" (which, by the way, is exactly what Jude 1:4 says), what exactly do you believe?"

Condemned for their sin, not created by God for condemnation.

["ordained," "written into" and "designated" according to the 1611 King James, Modern King James, and English Standard Versions.]

"The question of Limited Atonement . . . if He intended the salvation of all, He quite frankly failed. If He intended the salvation of those who believe, He succeeded. Which do you believe?

So, you're saying that Jesus only intended to save some but died for everyone? That makes sense?

I believe what God says:

"He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2).

Continuing the discussion:

"on "Irresistible Grace" . . . The point is that God has the capacity to call irresistibly. Given an omnipotent God, that seems like a given. What do you believe?"

So, your god can "call irresistibly," but chooses not to?

Are these clarifications really helping your argument?

You've got a god that chooses to save only a few based on a whim and calls only a few to faith.

I believe in the God of Scripture. He loves all. He desires that all should live. He calls all to salvation. He died for all people's sins. He has reconciled us all to Himself.

Many, however, choose to reject that gift, which means they've got to pay for their sins out of their own pocket.

"THe underlying belief here is that it is God's will that everyone be saved. The Bible says that God wants everyone to come to repentance, but it is clearly not His will . . . ."

That makes Calvin's god a sick monster and the Bible's God a liar.

"It is mandatory (biblically) that God's will occurs. It is impossible (especially given an omnipotent God) for God's will not to occur."

That is false, for He says not only that He is not willing that anyone should perish, but that many will.

That means also that your god wills genocide, slavery, and child rape.

"If it is God's will that all are saved, then we have only one of two possibilities. One is that all will be saved because God's will always occurs. The other is that some won't be saved ... and God is not omnipotent and the Bible's repeated claim that God always accomplishes what He wants to accomplish is a lie. Which do you believe?"

Neither. I believe God[, Who said that "I longed to gather you . . . but you were not willing," and, "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever doesn't believe will be condemned."]

"You obviously despise what you call "Calvin's heresies". Are you aware that these beliefs 1) are not "Calvin's", but 2) come from the Bible? I myself have never read a word of Calvin. My beliefs are out of the Bible."

[. . .]

Double Predestination and Limited Atonement are Calvin's heresies. [Both are contrary to Scripture and, as you have demonstrated here, make God a monster.]

To attribute them to Christ only heaps blasphemy upon blasphemy.

On the fall of Constantinople

"[...] the great church of Hagia Sophia was filled to capacity. Thousands of people were moving towards the church. Inside, Orthodox and Catholic priests were holding liturgy, the last Christian service after almost 1,000 years. People were singing hymns, others were openly crying, others were asking each other for forgiveness [...].

"Bands of Ottoman soldiers began now looting. Doors were broken, private homes were looted, their tenants were massacred. Shops in the city markets were looted. Monasteries and Convents were broken in. Their tenants were killed, nuns were raped; many, to avoid dishonor, killed themselves. Killing, raping, looting, burning, enslaving, went on and on [...].

"The great doors of Hagia Sophia were forced open, and crowds of angry soldiers came in and fell upon the unfortunate worshippers. Pillaging and killing in the holy place went on for hours. Similar was the fate of worshippers in most churches in the city [...].

"Thousands of civilians were enslaved, soldiers fought over young boys and young women [...] the invaders broke the heads of those women who resisted on the floor of the churches and they raped them dead. The famous icon of Apostole Loukas was totally destroyed.

"The sultan asked for the young sons of Duke Loukas Notaras. Their father refused and Mehmed was ready to take their heads. Notaras asked him to kill him after his sons so that he was sure that they were dead and not disgraced from the pervert sultan.

"And this is what happened."

Black Tuesday, The Last Day of the World, the twenty-ninth of May, anno Domini MCDLIII

On American Liberty

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."

Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence, 1776

"The Christian religion, when divested of the rags in which they [the clergy] have enveloped it, and brought to the original purity and simplicity of it's benevolent institutor, is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, and the freest expansion of the human mind."

Thomas Jefferson to Moses Robinson Washington, Mar. 23, 1801

"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800

The truth about Mahomet

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.

"A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property -- either as a child, a wife, or a concubine -- must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

"Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science -- the science against which it had vainly struggled -- the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."

Winston Churchill, Churchill, Winston S. (1899), The River War, First edition, Vol. II, pp. 248-250

A war of twelve hundred years

"And he [Jesus] declared, that the enjoyment of felicity in the world hereafter, would be reward of the practice of benevolence here. His whole law was resolvable into the precept of love; peace on earth – good will toward man, was the early object of his mission; and the authoritative demonstration of the immortality of man, was that, which constituted the more than earthly tribute of glory to God in the highest [...] The first conquest of the religion of Jesus, was over the unsocial passions of his disciples. It elevated the standard of the human character in the scale of existence. [...] On the Christian system of morals, man is an immortal spirit, confined for a short space of time, in an earthly tabernacle. Kindness to his fellow mortals embraces the whole compass of his duties upon earth, and the whole promise of happiness to his spirit hereafter. THE ESSENCE OF THIS DOCTRINE IS, TO EXALT THE SPIRITUAL OVER THE BRUTAL PART OF HIS NATURE.

[...]

“In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar [i.e., Muhammad], the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST: TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE

[...]

"Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. The war is yet flagrant. [...] While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and good will towards men.”

John Quincy Adams, Blunt, Joseph (1830),The American Annual Register for the Years 1827-8-9, pp. 268-269

Impossible Islamophobia

Nearly one and one-half millennia of slavery, rape, and slaughter in Allah's name ...

80% of American -- not Pakistani, not Saudi Arabian, not Iranian, but American -- mosques teach jihad/Islamic supremacism ...

Nearly twenty-seven thousand documented jihad attacks since 9/11 alone, and ...

Islam's "Ideal Man" Muhammad -- Allah's "beautiful pattern of conduct" for those who want to please it -- preached and practiced genocide, pedophilia, rape, slavery, torture, mutilation, anti-Semitism, theft, extortion, arson, wife-beating, polygyny, religious and gender apartheid, sedition, treason, deceit, and blasphemy and warned his devotees that "Allah made me do it, and you will too, or else!"

No, "Islamophobia" is impossible. Merely pointing out simple facts regarding a genocidal, malevolent, and totalitarian ideology is neither phobic nor intolerant. It is highly rational and moral.

We are in only the latest phase of an ancient and existential struggle, Allah's war against humanity.

Speaking the truth in love

Never surrender

"we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone [...].

"we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end [...] we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender [...]."

Winston Churchill to the House of Commons, June 4, 1940