On the way home from a gig saturday
A radio gospel creature was informing me that I “Could be denied access to God.” Apparently, under certain circumstances, God would NOT hear my prayers.
Ohrly.
This is what always drove me batshit crazy about Calvinists. On the one hand, they’re all up in your grill about “Everyone else is WRONG! You ony have to accept Jesus Christ as your Personal Savior and you’re SAVED!!!” “JOHN 3:16!!!!!IIIIONE!!!” and then on the other hand you can lose your God all access pass?
Look: Calvin was a man. He didn’t like the establishment at the time, so he made up his own new set of rules that HE liked.
A MAN, get it? not God. If you believe Calvin was right and had some special insight into the Mind of God, well, there’s that word again. The more I examine it, the more it seems Faith is Godly and Belief is not.
21 comments Og | Uncategorized
I don’t wish to annoy you with nit-pickery. But I am going to.
Among other things, Calvin believed in the perserverance of the saints. IOW, you cannot lose your salvation, once got. So, blame the gospel creature on the radio, not Calvin.
Calvin’s arguments were not based on special revelation, but on logic. If you believe that God is Sovereign and can do whatever He wishes, then the rest follows.
The fun part is, that if you are a Calvinist, you have to accept that God can extend salvation to a Mormon, atheist, or even a Moslem.
What I believe is subjective and may depend on which side of the bed I got up on this morning.
My faith, on the other hand, never wavers.
Calvinism rejects the entire notion of free will. As a Methodist I’m not supposed to reject Calvinism, but unfortunately I do.
I think Calvin’s mistake was in assuming that the Book of Life is a program. It’s not; it’s a list. God created the universe and can see the entire thing, beginning to end, at once; He therefore can see the results of free will without making those choices Himself.
Otherwise, free will becomes completely redundant; why bother to have it at all?
Hale: nitpick all you want, until you can prove calvin was god, or that god spoke directly to calvin, he’s full of shit.
If God had spoke directly to Calvin he would be Mohammad. Not that God spoke to Mohammad.
I do remember a line in the NT that goes something like if you know Jesus, and then deny him, you will be locked out. Although Peter did deny him 3 times and is considered to be the right hand.
I do agree Faith is more important than belief. I also have problems with what is a Christ like life.
That is my problem though.
You are always good for a challenge, Og.
Neither my argument nor Calvin’s depend on his talking to God or being God.
Ah. So its all pure logic, right? Is logic what led calvin to delete books from the bible?
Sorry. Calvins “reformation” was purely ego driven and had zero basis in reason or spirituality.
I lean toward Hobbes. Pretty OK, for a tiger.
My favorite calvinism is where calvin says hobbes tail is a “necktie for his butt”
The hell of it is, men will lie to you, some from ignorance, some for gain, but they’ll lie. So we are warned, Deu. 11:16, Luk. 21:8. So if one lets somebody else do their homework, they shouldn’t be surprised when their paper comes back with an “F”
I know that is a very simple concept, but that’s how it is.
Interesting take on the subject awm.
On a totally different, and possibly more important topic, here’s what appears to be a solution to some of y’all’s problems.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zdDfQrPi5Q
I don’t know much about Calvin, but what I do know I don’t agree with, so I think I’m tracking with you. However, I thought of this passage after reading your post:
Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.
What I gather from this is that if I mistreat this very precious child of God, a gift from Him to me and mine, there is going to be an issue. My communication with Him will always be affected by the way I treat my wife.
“My communication with Him will always be affected by the way I treat my wife.”
Sure. You’re just making the post hoc ergo propter hoc association. God won’t not hear your prayers because you mistreat your wife; God won’t hear your prayers, because, if you mistreat your wife, you won’t make them. What kind of guy mistreats his wife and prays to God? I know a BUNCH of them, unfortunately- two in recent memory, were some very bad people
God is listening to their quiet and fervent prayers, but it’s probably hard for him to hear them over their “FUCK YOU GOD!!!” attitude where their actions toward others are concerned. Any God who stops listening to ANYONES prayers is not a Divine God, but a God cr4ated by humans in their flawed image.
Rick: Seen the Nut Bra. If they’d make it big enough, i might even consider one. Pitiably, it’s not a real product.
The post hoc ergo propter hoc association is exactly what God has in mind, me thinks.
Let’s say I send a prayer up to God. His reply:
“Hey, Jon, nice to hear from you. How are things with that great girl I sent your way these days? Not so well? How about we talk about that, I think it’s the most important thing. We’ll cover those other things on your mind when your relationship with her is right.†So I’m not saying that He doesn’t hear our prayers for one reason or another, just that He has priorities that may not line up with ours.
Am I off base here?
“Am I off base here? ”
How the hell should I know? here’s what I do know: To assign motives and directives and emotions to the Creator of the Universe seems very much like trying to recreate the creator in an image that suits you, or me, or jerry Falwell. I choose not to do that when I can, knowing full well I’m human. Do you think that God behaves the way you want him to behave? Or does what you think is just? I tend to go back to these two passages:
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.”As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
I try very hard not to presume to know what The Lord is thinking, and I have a good giggle at those who do. I am ashamed of myself anytime I try.
If, on the other hand, God stops listening to you depending on if he’s in a snit, who needs ’em.
LOL! I Just this minute noticed that I typed ‘Creature” and not “Preacher”
Subliminal slip that works rather well I think :)
Late to the game. Didn’t the Henglish have this argument about 100 years ago, and it ended badly for the Calvinists, with most of them excommunicated by the Church of England?
Calvin himself recanted of a lot of his theories, late in life. Calvinism wasn’t good for anyone, and time is not making it any better.