The following is a response to some Calvinist statements made in a presentation on the subject of Soli Deo Gloria.
Soli Deo Gloria, "To God Alone Be Glory" from the "Reformation Solas" Conference.
(Note - The entire Youtube channel entitled "Protestant Witness" was deleted at around about 13 September 2018).
Presbyterian Minister (PM) - 10:43 Quotes from Romans 9, for who resists his will?
Answer - PM thinks Romans 9 concludes to God acting and man having no free will. Yet Romans 9 focusses on God predestining, and never denies free will. Yet the Calvinist does deny free will in contradiction to Romans 9 and many other places in scripture where free human choice is inferred.
PM – Is it unjust for God to judge mankind for being sinful when men could not be otherwise? No. Freedom to do otherwise is not necessary in order from someone to be accountable for something. The only thing needed from God to hold them accountable is the authority to do it.
Answer – This is only the Calvinist position then men have sin natures and are not free due to the effects of original sin. Many deny the Calvinist position, such as the Armenians, and the Catholics, who hold that men have free will. The Calvinist position makes God into a monster who created mankind just, then mankind became depraved and always sins without free will. The Calvinist God then judges men based upon sin caused as through men being compelled to sin from a depraved nature. Then again, if men are compelled to act without free will, then such acts are not sins. For sin and the accompanied imputation of guilt implies a just imputation of guilt to the man who freely acted against the law. For the Calvinist to hold that men are guilty of sin, and are also not free to act, then men are mere animals without rationality. The animal does not have free will, but only ever acts in accord with instinct. The Calvinist gospel, god and nature of man are all false.
It is also unjust that God judge any man who is not free to do otherwise than what the Calvinist understanding of human nature is - depraved and thereby always sinful. The PM comment that God is not unjust because God can hold men accountable assumes God does actually do what the Calvinist thinks God does, when in fact the Calvinists answer is only the fallacy of begging the question. For the Calvinist must beg the question regarding God actually acting to judge men with sin natures, whilst assuming the Calvinist has never proven men have sin natures, nor God actually judges men who could not have acted otherwise.
It is also unjust that God judge any man who is not free to do otherwise than what the Calvinist understanding of human nature is - depraved and thereby always sinful. The PM comment that God is not unjust because God can hold men accountable assumes God does actually do what the Calvinist thinks God does, when in fact the Calvinists answer is only the fallacy of begging the question. For the Calvinist must beg the question regarding God actually acting to judge men with sin natures, whilst assuming the Calvinist has never proven men have sin natures, nor God actually judges men who could not have acted otherwise.
PM - Some object and say, if God has decreed everything that happens how can he judge men that he has decreed men would do and they could not possibly have done otherwise? God has determined ahead of time (predestined) the final destiny of all men.
Predestine means to predetermine, or decide beforehand the eternal destinies of all men.
Answer – PM assumes predestination excludes free will, and yet PM has not proven men do not have free will. Further, PM has not accounted for the scriptural data that affirms free will, nor has PM accounted for diverse understandings of predestination. For predestination may be understood as God ordering all human acts as free will acts in union with grace to the end preordained by God to either glory or damnation. Free will is not excluded in Romans 9, but assumed wherever there is a reference to any human, moral action. Any text that discusses the divine election and does so that appears to indicate divine action without free will is only to focus on the divine act itself, without denial of free will. PM is wrong to assert predestination unto glory in Rom 8 infers no free will in man.
Further, the Calvinist understanding of predestination is only in accord with Calvin's fabricated and false understanding of double predestination, which says all men are predetermined by God to heaven or hell. Calvinist predestination follows from the total depravity of man, which no longer has free will and thereby must only act determinately to sin. Yet, because man does have free will and predestination is in fact only in accord with God predetermining men to glory and not to damnation. For damnation is only a result of defect in the human will which is the choice of man as a free agent. God is not responsible for sin and thereby is not responsible for damnation. God is therefore not responsible for predetermining men to sin, nor men to damnation.
The PM actually teaches below that Adam sinned without God acting to cause Adam's sin. Yet the PM must also hold to God acting to cause men to sin and thereby cause men to be damned in accord with His plan of predestination. Calvinism is false at many levels, which begins with the denial of free will and ends up making God into the ultimate despotic dictator of the universe that causes men to act always exactly as God dictates so some are glorified and some are damned, because the Calvinist God says so.
Further, the Calvinist understanding of predestination is only in accord with Calvin's fabricated and false understanding of double predestination, which says all men are predetermined by God to heaven or hell. Calvinist predestination follows from the total depravity of man, which no longer has free will and thereby must only act determinately to sin. Yet, because man does have free will and predestination is in fact only in accord with God predetermining men to glory and not to damnation. For damnation is only a result of defect in the human will which is the choice of man as a free agent. God is not responsible for sin and thereby is not responsible for damnation. God is therefore not responsible for predetermining men to sin, nor men to damnation.
The PM actually teaches below that Adam sinned without God acting to cause Adam's sin. Yet the PM must also hold to God acting to cause men to sin and thereby cause men to be damned in accord with His plan of predestination. Calvinism is false at many levels, which begins with the denial of free will and ends up making God into the ultimate despotic dictator of the universe that causes men to act always exactly as God dictates so some are glorified and some are damned, because the Calvinist God says so.
PM – Sin entered into creation, not by divine force, but by Adams desire to disobey God. God decreed Adams sin would happen. Was Adam forced to sin against his will? No. Did Adam want to do what was right in his heart? No. Sin was decreed by God but did not come into creation by the hand of God. The secondary cause, Adam was the one who brought sin into creation.
God was not the active agent with evil desires. Adam was. Adam sinned because Adam wanted to do so. But why would God decree that that would happen? God purposed it to His own glory. God was not involved in Adams sinful desires.
Answer – If God was not involved in Adams sinful desires, then Adam acted apart from God’s decree. For Gods decree is always active in accord with the Calvinist understanding of Romans 9. So God decreed that Adam would sin, which infers God was involved in Adams sinful desires, in contradiction to PM’s assertion that God was not involved with Adam’s sin.
Also, if Adam sinned after being made righteous by God in the initial creation event, then the original sin and the effects of original sin are from Adam acting as a free agent. Therefore, Adam’s sin and the associated guilt of man’s sin natures results from a free act of Adam. For the Calvinist, sin is caused in Adam by a free act. But then Calvinists claim mankind is always bound by a sinful nature as from Adam, whilst men do not have free will. For the Calvinist, sin is caused by both free will and not by free will.
Alternatively, if Adam was created without free will, then Adam could not have sinned, or God is responsible for sin and the effects of sin. God then acts for His own glory, which includes causing men to sin and then be damned. The alternatives for the Calvinist end in a contradiction or a false god of causing sin, whilst remaining all holy.
Furthermore, if "God was not the active agent with evil desires" then the Calvinist has admitted that God does not act to cause sin, because God is all holy. Yet God is a liar in the theory of penal substitution. So God does not actually cause Adam to sin, but in fact is the all-holy Calvinist God who sins as through lying at the cross to save some from sin and damn the others.
Furthermore, if "God was not the active agent with evil desires" then the Calvinist has admitted that God does not act to cause sin, because God is all holy. Yet God is a liar in the theory of penal substitution. So God does not actually cause Adam to sin, but in fact is the all-holy Calvinist God who sins as through lying at the cross to save some from sin and damn the others.
PM – will those who are happily content in their life of sin dare to say against the holy God for the things they freely and knowingly do against Him . . .
Answer – The PM has just contradicted himself by asserting men have free will to sin. For above the PM denied men have free will, where he said “freedom to do otherwise is not necessary” when discussing God's decree against men. Calvinism is a bundle of contradictions, just like all false versions of Christianity, or for that matter any false religion.
PM – Here we have the end of the argument. The potter has a right to make one for honour and one for dishonour.
Answer – God as the potter and man as the clay is only a metaphor highlighting God power over man to form man as God wishes. If men do not have free will as the Calvinists say, then it is God who is acting to form both the elect and the damned for glory and damnation without the free consent of men. Therefore, it is God who is actively causing virtue and grace within the elect and actively causing sin within men for damnation. For men do not have free will in the Calvinist system. All of God’s acts occur without men having free will, whilst God who is all holy, then causes men to sin. The Calvinist system is convoluted and contradictory because the Calvinists misunderstand St Paul and fail to make distinctions where required.
To counter the Calvinist claim above, one may also hold to free will and say God always acts as sovereign whilst men are always free. There is no reduction in the claims of divine sovereignty by man having free will.
To counter the Calvinist claim above, one may also hold to free will and say God always acts as sovereign whilst men are always free. There is no reduction in the claims of divine sovereignty by man having free will.
PM – God tolerates those vessels of destruction in order to make known the riches of his grace on the vessels of mercy.
Answer – The PM assumes the vessels of destruction and vessels of mercy are diverse groups of men. But PM fails to account that the two groups may in fact be the same group stated in two diverse manners. God tolerates the vessels of destruction so that those vessels would become the vessels of mercy is another possible outcome not considered by the PM. Rom 9:24-25 indicates the two groups are the same where Jews and gentiles are both chosen as “my people”.
Also apparently, the Calvinist God in Romans 9, who predestines all thing has to wait patiently for men to be damned and glorified. What is God waiting for when the entire plan is in accord with the divine will which is the only free agent acting in the play? The language of Romans 9 is against Calvinism, for there is nothing for the Calvinist God to wait patiently for at all. The Calvinist God has already programmed everything before the game starts and the game will only ever play out as God has pre-ordained.
Contrarily, the patience of God is better understood if men do have free will and the vessels of wrath are given time to become vessels of mercy through repentance.
Also apparently, the Calvinist God in Romans 9, who predestines all thing has to wait patiently for men to be damned and glorified. What is God waiting for when the entire plan is in accord with the divine will which is the only free agent acting in the play? The language of Romans 9 is against Calvinism, for there is nothing for the Calvinist God to wait patiently for at all. The Calvinist God has already programmed everything before the game starts and the game will only ever play out as God has pre-ordained.
Contrarily, the patience of God is better understood if men do have free will and the vessels of wrath are given time to become vessels of mercy through repentance.
PM – God chose Jacob and not Esau. God chose to give mercy to some and justice to the rest.
Answer – The Jacob and Esau example does not conclude to the Calvinist position of election to glory for some and damnation to everyone else by God’s election alone without free will. The Jacob and Esau example only discusses covenant election, or God acting through the human channel which God chose to bless the nations. In fact, Esau had the blessing of the firstborn and then freely gave it away to Jacob. The Esau and Jacob example assumes free will is involved in changing God’s channel of election from Esau to Jacob.
Furthermore, the Jacob and Esau example infers a line of Patriarchs through which God intended to bless the world with divine sonship, rather than the standard Calvinist understanding that infers damnation for those hardened by God without free will. Jacob received the blessing and through Jacob, the nations are later blessed with divine sonship. Those who received the blessing are the same persons who received the letter from St Paul. All who receive divine sonship are then the vessels of mercy, that were once vessels of wrath, as caused by the salvation story through Jacob.
PM - Our salvation does not depend upon us in any way, because our salvation has its sole purpose in the glory of God.
Answer - The above statement is a non sequitur. Our salvation does not depend upon us only if a man does not have free will. And yet PM admits above that man both does and does not have free will. The glory of God is obtained if men are responsible for their own salvation by using their free will to say yes to God acting in union with God's grace. The glory of God does not require that men do not have free will.
Furthermore, acts of free will do not conclude to boasting associated with merit. For merit is inferred wherever a free act is done, even when done with the grace of God.
PM assumes far too much in his statments as true, which in fact are not true.
PM - all works are excluded.
Answer - works are included in several passages in the NT, such as Eph 2, and James 2. Works are only excluded when discussing God's work of grace in man without reference to man's free will, but assuming man's free will. Merit does not take away from God's glory, but assumes God's glory, for man that act freely imitate God who is free, to then become like God in heaven as free agents. Calvinism has many confusions and many wooden readings of passages in St Paul's letters.
Calvinists quite frequently miss the mystery and paradox involved in the biblical texts and claim their own reading of the text includes the full import of the text, when in fact the full import is often missed. For example, Eph 2 teaches God raised up men for good works, and thereby imply good works are involved in man's salvation. Yet the Calvinist reads the text as though good works automatically implies boasting which St Paul excludes. Contrarily, Eph 2 and other passages include works as acts of men done freely, whilst also being caused by God's grace acting within men. The action of divine grace that causes human action is then the reason why men cannot boast, rather than the Calvinist reading of Eph 2, that implies men cannot boast because works are excluded following upon man not having free will to do any meritorious acts.
The Calvinist reading of St Paul's letters is only one reading that contains contradictions, sophistry and errors. There is nothing compelling about Calvinism that requires any Christian to become a Calvinist.
PM - Unconditional election . . .
Answer - PM assumes unconditional election as from the premise of no free will in man and God predestining all things for his own glory. As men do have free will, the Calvinist version of unconditional election is false.
PM - It ruins the show to trust in your own works.
Answer - The Calvinists teach justification by faith alone. Yet faith is a work men do, and therefore the Calvinist gospel of justification by faith alone is in contradiction to the Calvinist gospel of all things are for the Glory of God alone.
The Calvinist show is a bundle of contradictions, where -
1) God is all holy and yet an unholy liar in the great exchange.
2) God is all good, and yet creates men for damnation which is a very great evil.
3) Men are created in the image of God, yet men are all depraved and more resemble the devil than God.
4) Works are understood as any human act, which do not justify. Yet faith is a human act that does justify.
5) All righteous works are as filthy rags. Yet God causes men to become new creations and even then, the divine work of the new creation is not good enough. For all man's works, even when regenerated and justified are as filthy rags. The Calvinist god of power is not powerful enough to make man's works good enough even when God makes men into a new creation.
6) All righteous works are as filthy rags. Faith is a righteous work. Therefore men are justified by filthy rags. But fithly rags is a metaphor for sin. Thereore men are both condemned and justified by different sins.
7) Calvinists claim to only follow God's word in the scriptures, and yet sola scriptora, and all of the other solas are not in the scriptures, but are rather only human traditions.
8) Calvinists have a version of Christianity that did not exist prior to John Calvin's inventions. Yet Calvinism claims to be the authentic Christianity, which all Christians in history either believed or are bound to believe. The Calvinist claim is incredulous.
9) Not all Calvinists follow all of John Calvin's theology. So not all Calvinists find Calvin compelling. Some Calvinists believe in human free will, whilst others do not.
10) Calvinists claim their version of Christianity is from God as the true gospel, and yet the church fathers and the early church were not Calvinist, but Catholic.
11) If all human acts are as filthy rags as Calvinism teaches, then all human institutions are sinful and worthy of destruction. Calvinism promotes the so called true gospel as a resolution to the human problem of sin, but Calvinism is inherently inhuman. For Calvinism concludes all that is human is depraved, and consequently should be opposed, except for the one thing called faith. Calvinism is both human and inhuman.
12) John Calvin is thought to be a reformer along with Martin Luther and yet the two men disagreed on many points of theology. The Calvinists must then defined the Reformation in accord with Calvinism but then claim Luther was a reformer, whilst ignoring Luther's doctrines which differed from Calvin. Calvin was a Reformer, and Luther a Reformer, but not so much a Reformer.
13) God is love, and yet His love of mankind is seemingly subordinated to His acts to always glorify himself through the vessels of wrath and mercy. Apparently, those in hell and heaven are there because God loves Himself enough to damn some, and glorify some others. The Calvinist god of love is one strange lover that seeks patiently to damn, when He could easily act to save, but also seeks to save when He could easily act to damn, all for the sake of His glory.
God is love, but hates some and has mercy on others, when in fact there is no real motive other than some mysterious decree from God to act for some and not for some others. The Calvinist God smells of a crazy fictional human invention, similar to the wrathful pagan Greek and Roman gods. God hates some because of His glory and also loves others because of His glory. Glory is then a motive for God to love and hate men.
There are so many contradictions within Calvinism and Lutheranism, it is difficult to take Reformation theology seriously.
PM - I'm not co-operating with anything . . .
Answer - then you have no assurance of your salvation, for your faith is as through grace acting within you to cause you to believe. Yet you claim you do not co-operate with anything. Your claim is only another one of many contradictions within Calvinism. Also, the very prayer in which you stated you did not co-operate with anything is, in fact, a grace given to you from God to pray. Hence prayer is also a co-operation of men acting with grace.
Calvinism claims the gospel is all for the glory of God, and yet the Calvinist gospel reduces God down to a manipulator of the show without any free human agency. The Calvinist gospel is like the puppeteer who moves all of the unfree puppets, and some end up in hell and other in heaven. The real gospel, however, includes the truth of human free will and human co-operation in the divine plan of salvation. The real gospel is the Catholic gospel.
Furthermore, if the Calvinist is not co-operating with God, how then does a man act to sin and therefore act in accord with the divine plan? Is sin a cooperation with God, or not? Is repentance a co-operation with God or not? The Calvinist makes claims but cannot provide clear answers to the above questions. Apparently, God is sovereign and acts to cause all things to occur, but no man actually co-operates with God to carry out Gods plan.
Also, the cooperation of man with God is clearly taught in Philippians 2:12-13, where God works inside Christians to will and accomplish -
12Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
Evidently, the Presbyterian minister's claim that he does not co-operate with God is against scripture.
Other Problems -
1) PM presents Romans 9 as the text used to conclude for the only reasons God acts to elect and damn, is based on God's glory. Yet there are other texts that imply men are elect and damned, based upon their own decisions. For freedom is clearly taught in many passages in the OT (Gen 2:16-17, Josh 24:15, Prov 16:9, Isa 55:6-7, etc) and the NT (Rom 6:23, 8:2, 1 Cor 7:21-22, 1 Cor 9:1, 1 Tim 3:3, Philemon 1:14).
2) The god of Calvinism imputes sin to Christ's account even though Christ did not sin, and imputes Christ's righteousness to the sinner's account, even though the sinner is unrighteous. The divine lies involved in the great exchange reduce God's holiness to an anthropomorphic scam, whereby God becomes the sinner to redeem sinful men.
If we apply the lies involved in the Calvinist gospel, God must then have predestined His own lies to redeem men and thereby gain glory from himself. God then gains glory through God sinning to save the elect. It would have been more God glorifying to never have sent His Son, so God would never have lied and all men would justly be sent to hell. Apparently, God's sin to save some and thereby glorify Himself whilst acting against His own nature as all Holy. Calvinism is simply not even remotely believable.
3) The Calvinist god lies in the great exchange to save the elect. The Calvinist god is, therefore, a false god, who sins, just as men sin. By the Calvinist worshipping the false Calvinist god, the Calvinist commits the sin of idolatry every Sunday. The false god of Calvinism leads Calvinists to hell through sins of idolatry committed every Sunday, whilst the Calvinists think they are the elect of God.
4) The Calvinist goes the to the bible to discover the gospel and yet the gospel is conveyed to mankind as from the church and oral tradition which existed prior to the written text. The Calvinist should be more consistent with history and go to the church of history first to discover the gospel and then within the context of church doctrine, seek to penetrate the meaning of the biblical text in accord with church teaching. By the Calvinist approaching the text first, without reference to church teaching, the Calvinist is open to receiving both truth and his own errors whilst remaining unaware of the errors. Such is the problem with sola scriptora which is unhistorical, and thereby also unbiblical. For the bible always has a historical context written for a historical faithful who already knew of the laws and sacraments as from God before the text was written.
The Calvinist approach to the biblical text is backwards.
5) Calvinists deny human co-operation in salvation as a result of their assertion of mans bondage to sin. The calvinist then assumes he has assurance of salvation because the work of salvation is entirely from God. The Calvinist has faith as a gift from God, whilst all other men do not. So the Calvinsit is saved, and other men are not saved. Yet again, if the Calvinist assertion of the bondage of the will is false, then the Calvinist assurance of salvation is also false and the Calvinist may in fact fall from grace, for the Calvinist must co-operate with God to attain asalvation, when in fact the Calvinist thinks he does not have to co-operate with God. The Calvinist assurance of salvation is no assurance at all, but only a fiction based upon the false notion of the bondage of the will.
6) Romans 8:30 - And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
Calvinists quote from Romans 8:30 as (the golden chain) evidence for Calvinist predestination, and yet the New Testament does not contain any similar chain for damnation, like say - And those he predestined to damnation, he also did not call; those he did not call, he also did not justify; those he did not justify, he also damned. Why is there no similar chain of damnation if Calvinist double predestination is true? A perplexing problem indeed.
Recommendation - Calvinists should read the works of Thomas Aquinas to obtain a more realist understanding of human nature and the truthfulness of the Catholic Jesus Christ and His Catholic church which causes grace through the sacraments.
A Corollary - If men are not free and always must sin in accordance with their sinful nature, God is then the author of sin. For, God is the only free agent acting in human history to cause men to act in accord with His predestined plan. So when God sent His Son to die on the cross, He did so to redeem man, as by redeeming Himself as the author of all evil. The Calvinist god is the author of everything, and no man is free. So the Calvinist god must redeem Himself from His own plan in which the Calvinist god has predestined.
The Calvinist god is a false god invented by Calvinists who misunderstand St Paul's argument in Romans 9 and think St Paul assumes no free will whenever St Paul teaches men are dead in their sins (Rom 6:11, Eph 2:1). And yet, the true gospel has men dead in sin and then regenerated by the Holy Spirit so men can then act freely to love God (John 8:36, Rom 8:2, 1 Cor 7:22) above all things and thereby keep the commandments (1 John 5:3). The bondage to sin inferred by the phrase "dead in sin" does not infer men are always unfree. Dead in sin only refers to one aspect of the human condition (the human will being directed towards the love of creatures above God as a false ultimate end) which is resolved through the work of Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Because dead in sin refers to a false ultimate love, men are also free when dead in sin. For a man in the state of mortal sin may always acts freely to chose to do or not do any particular act, whilst loving a creature more than God. Men in sin have free will with regard to election of action, but not with regard to an ultimate end. When the sinner is converted through regeneration, the man loves God above creatures as the true ultimate end, and may also freely act to do or not do. The regenerate man is also free to sin mortally and suffer the loss of loving God above all creatures as the true ultimate end, and then direct all of his loves towards a creature as the false ultimate end.
The phrase, dead in sin involves several aspects of freedom that are ignored by the Calvinist, which should be embraced to have a more authentic understanding of the nature of sin and redemption.
Furthermore, the Jacob and Esau example infers a line of Patriarchs through which God intended to bless the world with divine sonship, rather than the standard Calvinist understanding that infers damnation for those hardened by God without free will. Jacob received the blessing and through Jacob, the nations are later blessed with divine sonship. Those who received the blessing are the same persons who received the letter from St Paul. All who receive divine sonship are then the vessels of mercy, that were once vessels of wrath, as caused by the salvation story through Jacob.
PM - Our salvation does not depend upon us in any way, because our salvation has its sole purpose in the glory of God.
Answer - The above statement is a non sequitur. Our salvation does not depend upon us only if a man does not have free will. And yet PM admits above that man both does and does not have free will. The glory of God is obtained if men are responsible for their own salvation by using their free will to say yes to God acting in union with God's grace. The glory of God does not require that men do not have free will.
Furthermore, acts of free will do not conclude to boasting associated with merit. For merit is inferred wherever a free act is done, even when done with the grace of God.
PM assumes far too much in his statments as true, which in fact are not true.
PM - all works are excluded.
Answer - works are included in several passages in the NT, such as Eph 2, and James 2. Works are only excluded when discussing God's work of grace in man without reference to man's free will, but assuming man's free will. Merit does not take away from God's glory, but assumes God's glory, for man that act freely imitate God who is free, to then become like God in heaven as free agents. Calvinism has many confusions and many wooden readings of passages in St Paul's letters.
Calvinists quite frequently miss the mystery and paradox involved in the biblical texts and claim their own reading of the text includes the full import of the text, when in fact the full import is often missed. For example, Eph 2 teaches God raised up men for good works, and thereby imply good works are involved in man's salvation. Yet the Calvinist reads the text as though good works automatically implies boasting which St Paul excludes. Contrarily, Eph 2 and other passages include works as acts of men done freely, whilst also being caused by God's grace acting within men. The action of divine grace that causes human action is then the reason why men cannot boast, rather than the Calvinist reading of Eph 2, that implies men cannot boast because works are excluded following upon man not having free will to do any meritorious acts.
The Calvinist reading of St Paul's letters is only one reading that contains contradictions, sophistry and errors. There is nothing compelling about Calvinism that requires any Christian to become a Calvinist.
PM - Unconditional election . . .
Answer - PM assumes unconditional election as from the premise of no free will in man and God predestining all things for his own glory. As men do have free will, the Calvinist version of unconditional election is false.
PM - It ruins the show to trust in your own works.
Answer - The Calvinists teach justification by faith alone. Yet faith is a work men do, and therefore the Calvinist gospel of justification by faith alone is in contradiction to the Calvinist gospel of all things are for the Glory of God alone.
The Calvinist show is a bundle of contradictions, where -
1) God is all holy and yet an unholy liar in the great exchange.
2) God is all good, and yet creates men for damnation which is a very great evil.
3) Men are created in the image of God, yet men are all depraved and more resemble the devil than God.
4) Works are understood as any human act, which do not justify. Yet faith is a human act that does justify.
5) All righteous works are as filthy rags. Yet God causes men to become new creations and even then, the divine work of the new creation is not good enough. For all man's works, even when regenerated and justified are as filthy rags. The Calvinist god of power is not powerful enough to make man's works good enough even when God makes men into a new creation.
6) All righteous works are as filthy rags. Faith is a righteous work. Therefore men are justified by filthy rags. But fithly rags is a metaphor for sin. Thereore men are both condemned and justified by different sins.
7) Calvinists claim to only follow God's word in the scriptures, and yet sola scriptora, and all of the other solas are not in the scriptures, but are rather only human traditions.
8) Calvinists have a version of Christianity that did not exist prior to John Calvin's inventions. Yet Calvinism claims to be the authentic Christianity, which all Christians in history either believed or are bound to believe. The Calvinist claim is incredulous.
9) Not all Calvinists follow all of John Calvin's theology. So not all Calvinists find Calvin compelling. Some Calvinists believe in human free will, whilst others do not.
10) Calvinists claim their version of Christianity is from God as the true gospel, and yet the church fathers and the early church were not Calvinist, but Catholic.
11) If all human acts are as filthy rags as Calvinism teaches, then all human institutions are sinful and worthy of destruction. Calvinism promotes the so called true gospel as a resolution to the human problem of sin, but Calvinism is inherently inhuman. For Calvinism concludes all that is human is depraved, and consequently should be opposed, except for the one thing called faith. Calvinism is both human and inhuman.
12) John Calvin is thought to be a reformer along with Martin Luther and yet the two men disagreed on many points of theology. The Calvinists must then defined the Reformation in accord with Calvinism but then claim Luther was a reformer, whilst ignoring Luther's doctrines which differed from Calvin. Calvin was a Reformer, and Luther a Reformer, but not so much a Reformer.
13) God is love, and yet His love of mankind is seemingly subordinated to His acts to always glorify himself through the vessels of wrath and mercy. Apparently, those in hell and heaven are there because God loves Himself enough to damn some, and glorify some others. The Calvinist god of love is one strange lover that seeks patiently to damn, when He could easily act to save, but also seeks to save when He could easily act to damn, all for the sake of His glory.
God is love, but hates some and has mercy on others, when in fact there is no real motive other than some mysterious decree from God to act for some and not for some others. The Calvinist God smells of a crazy fictional human invention, similar to the wrathful pagan Greek and Roman gods. God hates some because of His glory and also loves others because of His glory. Glory is then a motive for God to love and hate men.
There are so many contradictions within Calvinism and Lutheranism, it is difficult to take Reformation theology seriously.
PM - I'm not co-operating with anything . . .
Answer - then you have no assurance of your salvation, for your faith is as through grace acting within you to cause you to believe. Yet you claim you do not co-operate with anything. Your claim is only another one of many contradictions within Calvinism. Also, the very prayer in which you stated you did not co-operate with anything is, in fact, a grace given to you from God to pray. Hence prayer is also a co-operation of men acting with grace.
Calvinism claims the gospel is all for the glory of God, and yet the Calvinist gospel reduces God down to a manipulator of the show without any free human agency. The Calvinist gospel is like the puppeteer who moves all of the unfree puppets, and some end up in hell and other in heaven. The real gospel, however, includes the truth of human free will and human co-operation in the divine plan of salvation. The real gospel is the Catholic gospel.
Furthermore, if the Calvinist is not co-operating with God, how then does a man act to sin and therefore act in accord with the divine plan? Is sin a cooperation with God, or not? Is repentance a co-operation with God or not? The Calvinist makes claims but cannot provide clear answers to the above questions. Apparently, God is sovereign and acts to cause all things to occur, but no man actually co-operates with God to carry out Gods plan.
Also, the cooperation of man with God is clearly taught in Philippians 2:12-13, where God works inside Christians to will and accomplish -
12Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
Evidently, the Presbyterian minister's claim that he does not co-operate with God is against scripture.
Other Problems -
1) PM presents Romans 9 as the text used to conclude for the only reasons God acts to elect and damn, is based on God's glory. Yet there are other texts that imply men are elect and damned, based upon their own decisions. For freedom is clearly taught in many passages in the OT (Gen 2:16-17, Josh 24:15, Prov 16:9, Isa 55:6-7, etc) and the NT (Rom 6:23, 8:2, 1 Cor 7:21-22, 1 Cor 9:1, 1 Tim 3:3, Philemon 1:14).
2) The god of Calvinism imputes sin to Christ's account even though Christ did not sin, and imputes Christ's righteousness to the sinner's account, even though the sinner is unrighteous. The divine lies involved in the great exchange reduce God's holiness to an anthropomorphic scam, whereby God becomes the sinner to redeem sinful men.
If we apply the lies involved in the Calvinist gospel, God must then have predestined His own lies to redeem men and thereby gain glory from himself. God then gains glory through God sinning to save the elect. It would have been more God glorifying to never have sent His Son, so God would never have lied and all men would justly be sent to hell. Apparently, God's sin to save some and thereby glorify Himself whilst acting against His own nature as all Holy. Calvinism is simply not even remotely believable.
3) The Calvinist god lies in the great exchange to save the elect. The Calvinist god is, therefore, a false god, who sins, just as men sin. By the Calvinist worshipping the false Calvinist god, the Calvinist commits the sin of idolatry every Sunday. The false god of Calvinism leads Calvinists to hell through sins of idolatry committed every Sunday, whilst the Calvinists think they are the elect of God.
4) The Calvinist goes the to the bible to discover the gospel and yet the gospel is conveyed to mankind as from the church and oral tradition which existed prior to the written text. The Calvinist should be more consistent with history and go to the church of history first to discover the gospel and then within the context of church doctrine, seek to penetrate the meaning of the biblical text in accord with church teaching. By the Calvinist approaching the text first, without reference to church teaching, the Calvinist is open to receiving both truth and his own errors whilst remaining unaware of the errors. Such is the problem with sola scriptora which is unhistorical, and thereby also unbiblical. For the bible always has a historical context written for a historical faithful who already knew of the laws and sacraments as from God before the text was written.
The Calvinist approach to the biblical text is backwards.
5) Calvinists deny human co-operation in salvation as a result of their assertion of mans bondage to sin. The calvinist then assumes he has assurance of salvation because the work of salvation is entirely from God. The Calvinist has faith as a gift from God, whilst all other men do not. So the Calvinsit is saved, and other men are not saved. Yet again, if the Calvinist assertion of the bondage of the will is false, then the Calvinist assurance of salvation is also false and the Calvinist may in fact fall from grace, for the Calvinist must co-operate with God to attain asalvation, when in fact the Calvinist thinks he does not have to co-operate with God. The Calvinist assurance of salvation is no assurance at all, but only a fiction based upon the false notion of the bondage of the will.
6) Romans 8:30 - And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
Calvinists quote from Romans 8:30 as (the golden chain) evidence for Calvinist predestination, and yet the New Testament does not contain any similar chain for damnation, like say - And those he predestined to damnation, he also did not call; those he did not call, he also did not justify; those he did not justify, he also damned. Why is there no similar chain of damnation if Calvinist double predestination is true? A perplexing problem indeed.
Recommendation - Calvinists should read the works of Thomas Aquinas to obtain a more realist understanding of human nature and the truthfulness of the Catholic Jesus Christ and His Catholic church which causes grace through the sacraments.
A Corollary - If men are not free and always must sin in accordance with their sinful nature, God is then the author of sin. For, God is the only free agent acting in human history to cause men to act in accord with His predestined plan. So when God sent His Son to die on the cross, He did so to redeem man, as by redeeming Himself as the author of all evil. The Calvinist god is the author of everything, and no man is free. So the Calvinist god must redeem Himself from His own plan in which the Calvinist god has predestined.
The Calvinist god is a false god invented by Calvinists who misunderstand St Paul's argument in Romans 9 and think St Paul assumes no free will whenever St Paul teaches men are dead in their sins (Rom 6:11, Eph 2:1). And yet, the true gospel has men dead in sin and then regenerated by the Holy Spirit so men can then act freely to love God (John 8:36, Rom 8:2, 1 Cor 7:22) above all things and thereby keep the commandments (1 John 5:3). The bondage to sin inferred by the phrase "dead in sin" does not infer men are always unfree. Dead in sin only refers to one aspect of the human condition (the human will being directed towards the love of creatures above God as a false ultimate end) which is resolved through the work of Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Because dead in sin refers to a false ultimate love, men are also free when dead in sin. For a man in the state of mortal sin may always acts freely to chose to do or not do any particular act, whilst loving a creature more than God. Men in sin have free will with regard to election of action, but not with regard to an ultimate end. When the sinner is converted through regeneration, the man loves God above creatures as the true ultimate end, and may also freely act to do or not do. The regenerate man is also free to sin mortally and suffer the loss of loving God above all creatures as the true ultimate end, and then direct all of his loves towards a creature as the false ultimate end.
The phrase, dead in sin involves several aspects of freedom that are ignored by the Calvinist, which should be embraced to have a more authentic understanding of the nature of sin and redemption.
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