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Finestwheat
11-10-2008, 11:55 PM
Is it really God's good pleasure to withhold the help that someone needed? Would someone who stood by and watched a person drown, whom he could have saved, be exonerated if he explained that it was God's good pleasure to do so?

If you are a calvinist you are hyper. No amount of cover up or attempt at double-talk makes you any different.

"The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works." (Psalms 145.9)

"If any man will do [i.e., wills to do] his [God's] will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself" (John 7.17). He offered "if any man will" not to a special elect but to the unregenerated multitude and rabbis who would soon crucify Him.

If any man is willing to do-has a mind and desire and inclination to do God's will... God deals with us as moral beings, and not as beasts or stones.

Churchwork
11-11-2008, 12:42 PM
"All in unbelief, that he may have mercy upon us all" (Rom. 11.32). The calvinism god does not give mercy to all. As to pelagianism, it denies original sin like calvinists deny original sin, for original sin doesn't make you totally deprave, since you are still made in God's image, afforded the choice by the grace of God. Why does a calvinist reject God's grace?

The Father gives to the Son whom He foresees comes to the cross of their own volition, since God has infinite foreknowledge and predestinates that which He foresees to approve it. He predestinates by foreknowing your free-choice: a conditional election, unlimited atonement, resistible grace, for preservation of the saints. There are no verses God limits His mercy to a select group of calvinist cult members. "Who will have all men be saved" (1 Tim. 2.4) by Jesus "to be the Savior of the world" (John 4.42; 1 John 4.14). May you repent of calvinism and give your life to Christ one day.

Churchwork
11-11-2008, 12:53 PM
"My spirit shall not always strive with man" (Gen. 6.3). How can there be real "striving" if man is dead in sin and therefore cannot even hear, much less be persuaded? And how could God be sincerely striving to convince those to believe for whom Christ did not die, and from whom He withholds the faith to believe? The entire teaching of Calvinism denies sincerity on God's part in seemingly offering salvation to those He has no intention of saving.

The Calvinist god strives for no one, because the salvation or doom of all is a matter of his having predestined them to one or the other. There would be neither purpose nor need for God to strive or plead with man if the eternal destiny of both elect and non-elect had been fixed from a past eternity by God's decree. If Calvinism were true, it would be meaningless for God to say that His Spirit will no longer strive with man.

Churchwork
11-11-2008, 01:07 PM
Trying to deny obvious inconsistency and thereby to distinguish himself from "hyper-Calvinists," John MacArthur, Jr., says, "God's love is for the world in general, the human race, all humanity." As evidence, he says, "...the fact that God promises to forgive...and even pleads with sinners to repent-proves His love toward them." Can MacArthur be serious?! It proves God's love for Him to plead with spiritual corpses who can neither hear nor respond, whom He has not sovereignly chosen to believe in Him, from whom He withholds the grace to believe and for whom Christ did not die? Coocoo!

John Piper attempts to absolve moderates of being "hyper" by claiming (like MacArthur) that God has "two wills" and that it is not "divine schizophrenia" for God to will that all persons be saved (1 Tim. 2.4) and "...elect [only] those who actually be saved..." This is double-talk! He goes so far as to say, "Every time the gospel is preached to unbelievers it is a mercy of God that gives this opportunity for salvation." That preaching the gospel gives opportunity for salvation to those whom Christ did not die, who God never had any intention o saving and whom He in fact has already predestined to eternity in the Lake of Fire, is the height of contradiction. It is, however, only one of many impossible irrationalities which moderates attempt to maintain in order to distance themselves from those they disparage as hyper-Calvinists!

Churchwork
11-11-2008, 01:31 PM
Calvinism not only presents a feigned pleading and striving by God for repentance from those whom He has already doomed. In addition, it confronts us with the alleged "mystery" of a God of infinite mercy and love who, nevertheless, doesn't manifest love toward everyone and therefore lets multitudes perish whom He could save. In fact, Calvin himself declared that it is to God's glory that He fills hell with those whom He could just as well bring to heaven. This repulsive doctrine, Calvin admits, comes from Augustine:

There is nothing inconsistent with this when we say, that God, according to the good pleasure of his will...elects those whom he chooses for sons, while he rejects and reprobates others. For fuller satisfaction...see Augustine Epist. 115, et ad Bonif., Lib. ii, cap. 7....The Lord therefore may show favour to whom he will, because he is merciful; not show it to all, because he is a just judge.
Not showing mercy at all could accompany justice; but not showing mercy to all when all are equally guilty is a perversion of justice. God declares that He "will by no means clear the guilty" (Ex. 34.6-7). If everyone is guilty then this guilty is not the same as refusing salvation by your own free-will. Calvinists are guilty of refusing to come to the cross by choice. They presume their salvation without humbly receiving the cross of salvation which is necessary for God to save you.

Churchwork
11-11-2008, 02:10 PM
Calvinists by their own irrational and stubborn refusal to receive the salvation God provided and freely offered, bind themselves for the Lake of Fire. They are damned to be tormented by the knowledge they are not there because God didn't want want them in heaven, but because they refuse salvation on His righteous terms. Calvinists present a God who fills hell with those whom He could save but instead damns because He doesn't love them. Little do they realize calvinists themselves are going to be resurrected for hell, because they are not biblical non-Calvinists as evident by how they respond to Christ, since Jesus didn't die for just some, but for all men and women. They worship what the Bible warns about many false Christs of which the god of calvinism is just one of them, though sometimes he wears different hats for moderates or hyper's, he is the same evil spirit.

Churchwork
11-11-2008, 03:48 PM
Calvinists are psychologically damaged by their doctrine of total depravity. Jesus said, "Ye do good to them which do good to you...sinners also do the same" (Luke 6.33). We must take Scripture as a whole. We are still waiting for a calvinist to provide a Scripture verse that says a person has to be regenerated before he can believe the gospel. Daily experience and Scripture tell us, "every imagination of thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" describes the general attitude of the heart, not what it must produce at every moment of every day-the propensity but not the necessity.

Similar statements that sound absolute but are not are found in the praise of man. God said David walked before Him with a "perfect heart," and that he was a "man after mine own heart, which shall fulfill all my will" (1 Kings 15.3; Acts 13.22). Yet David displeased God a number of times, even committed adultery and murder. In the same fashion, we must understand the statement's about man's wickedness and sin as describing his natural tendency but not his irresistible necessity.

Verses such such as John 1.13 and Rom. 9.16 have nothing to do with Total Depravity. In such verses we are simply told that by our own will we cannot force ourselves upon God. He is the author of salvation, and it is all by His mercy and grace, not by our efforts or planning, that we are saved. None of such passages, however, declare that anyone is unable to believe the gospel when it is presented to him with the convincing and convicting power of the Holy Spirit.

Churchwork
11-14-2008, 05:00 PM
Take human understanding of "dead," mix it together with the young John Calvin's immature understanding of God's Word, tainted by Augustine philosophy, stir it all up, and out comes the theory of Total Depravity. Such humanistic reasoning leads to absurdities. How is there free-will in a dead person? A dead person cannot reject Christ. A Christian who is dead to sin does not mean he is without free-will. The natural man is not dead. He walks around. But his spirit is dead to God, that is, lost its communication with God. It helps to realize we are spirit, soul and body. Our soul comprises our will and our spirit intuition.

What prisoner would not welcome freedom? Man is indeed enslaved to sin and would not of his own initiative seek after God. But there are no verses which say man is incapable of being convicted of his sin and judgment to come, or of believing the good news of the gospel. There are no verses in the Bible that say the Holy Spirit neglects to bring the conviction and understanding to anyone.

The confusion in a calvinist arises through failing to recognize the obvious distinction between man's inability to do anything for his salvation (which is biblical) and an alleged inability to believe the gospel (which is not biblical). Believing in and receiving Christ does not give any credit to man or detract at all from the fact that it is Christ alone who procures our redemption. Faith is not a work, nor does any credit accrue to the person who simply believes.

Christ said, "THY FAITH has made thee whole" to he woman who was healed by touching the hem of His garment (Matt. 9.22; Mark 5.34; Luke 8.48), to the blind man outside Jericho (Mark 10.52), and to the Samaritan healed of leprosy (Luke 17.19). Christ said, "THY FAITH hat saved thee," to the sinful woman who washed His feet with her tears (Luke 7.50) and to the blind man outside Jericho (Luke 18.42). "Great is THY FAITH," He said to the Canaanite woman who desired just a "crumb" of blessing (Matt. 15.28). And to Peter, before he was converted, He said, "I have prayed for thee, that THY FAITH fail not" (Luke 22.32). Each of these statements is made to the unregenerate.

Faith is said to be of the individual: James says, "shew me THY FAITH" (James 2.18). Peter writes, "that the trial of YOUR FAITH, being much more precious than gold that perisheth..." (1 Pet. 1.7). Otherwise, what would be the point of rewards? The unsaved (for their salvation) and the saved (for their walk with Christ and fruitfulness) are commanded to believe in God, in His promises, in Christ the Word of God.

Spurgeon labored under such delusion as Total Depravity. "Charles Haddon Spurgeon always claimed to be a Calvinists.... definite rejection of a limited atonement, it would have horrified John Calvin." (A. C. Underwood) Calvin even said, [B]"Lord, hasten to bring in all Thine elect, and then elect some more." Always remember, all 5 points of calvinism contradict all 5 points of osas arminian; there is no reconciation of any of the points, not for Baptists, not for Luther, not even for Spurgeon.

Churchwork
11-14-2008, 06:56 PM
God who is outside time and space has no problem, therefore, of observing all our free-choices. It is actually quite easy for Him to do. How He does it specifically is infinitely lifted above us. Man is free.... Thus the last greatest invitation in God's Book is an appeal to the will. God insists upon His sovereignty and also upon man's responsibility. Unfortunately, Calvin and many of his deluded followers have been unwilling to accept both sides of this biblical teaching, because they can't trust God; they must declare since they can't get in God's head, that God must do it their way according to their puny theories which has done much damage misrepresenting the gospel of salvation to lead many astray. Man would not be man without his free-will and God never robs us of our true moral manhood in saving us. Some have made the grave mistake of looking at God's choice alone and ignored the means and necessary choice on man's part.

Calvinists tell us that whatever is done in time is according to His decree in eternity. But would a Holy God decree evil that fills man's heart and the world today? Surely not! Even Spurgeon referred to "a class of hard-headed men who magnify sovereignty at the expense of [human] depravity." The unhappy conclusion of calvinism is its concept of sovereignty is required neither by the Bible or by logic. The truth of this mistaken assumption is God's sovereignty is not challenged on the basis God could create you with free-will. Both are completely reconcilable and easily harmonized by God outside time and space. Have faith to trust He can do it.

Is will really free if you can only choose to reject God? That is not free-will then. It is a very limited freedom and hardly human freedom. The open invitation in the Bible to trust Christ would then be a cruel hoax. It is always Satan's aim to make a mockery of Christianity and we know calvinism tries hard to do just that.

Churchwork
11-14-2008, 07:41 PM
How can there be any real freedom of choice if only one kind of choice can be made, and one, at that, which had been decreed eternally? To call this "free choice" is a fraud. Surely all men are expected to seek the Lord while He may be found. That God promises to be found by those who seek Him must imply that the unregenerate can seek Him. Either man has a free will, or his sin is according to God's will. The latter is what Calvin and Calvinists still teach today, making God the author of evil. Therefore, they are worshiping Satan, because the Bible explicitly states the author of evil is actually Satan. How could it be Adam's nature was actually sinful when God pronounced him "good" when He created him? How else, except by free will, can this be explained? If everything is already decreed then why would Christ tell us to pray, "Thy will be done on earth..."? Calvinists deny God's omniscience and omnipotence to suggest God cannot foreknow and control what He doesn't foreordain, decree, and cause. Calvinists are trapped in contradictions. Everything is gone if free-will is gone; the moral system is gone if free-will is gone. God foreordains all things to come to pass by foreknowing our free-choice, not by making it happen without regard for our choice.

Calvinism's basic error is failure to see that God could sovereignly give to man power of genuine choice and still remain in control of the universe. To acknowledge both sovereignty and free will would destroy the very foundations of of the entire Calvinism system. It does not please God to damn people to Hell whom He could have saved. That is not love. God can so arrange circumstances to keep man's rebellion from frustrating His purposes. He can even use man's free will to help fulfill His own plans, and He is thereby even more glorified than if He decreed everything man does.