Finestwheat
06-09-2009, 03:19 AM
Without understanding or believing anything about God or Christ or the Bible-because the "totally depraved" supposedly can't until they are regenerated-the "elect" are made spiritually alive by sovereign regeneration from God without any desire or cooperation on their part and without even knowing what is happening to the them.
But physically dead people not only can't believe but can't sin or do anything else, so spiritual death can't be equated to physical death.
Have you noticed there is insecurity in Calvinists as though performance were a major evidence of one's salvation?
Isn't God suppose to be a God of love? It doesn't make sense that the God of the Bible didn't love everyone enough to want them all in heaven, that Christ hadn't died for everyone even though the Bible seemed to say that He had.
God's sovereignty does not diminish His mercy and love.
C. H. Spurgeon said, "I believe you will [believe in Calvinism] before you enter heaven."
Whereas I believe if you profess to be a Calvinist or even in only the belief in Total Depravity and one other point of TULIP, you are confessing you are not born-again though you may not realize it. For this is not the God of love.
Calvinist doctrines were unknown in the church's first three centuries. Bishop Davenant confirms this:
It may be truly affirmed that before the dispute between Augustine and Pelagius, there was no question concerning the death of Christ, whether it was to be extended to all mankind, or to be confined only to the elect. For the Fathers...not a word (that I know of) occurs among them of the exclusion of any person by the decree of God. They agree that it is actually beneficial to those who believe, yet they everywhere confess that Christ died in behalf of all mankind...
Augustine died in AD 429, and up to his time, at least, there is not the slightest evidence that any Christian ever dreamed of a propitiation for the elect alone. Even after him, the doctrine of limited propitiation was but slowly propagated, and for long but partially received.
However, a growing trend likely out of guilt is for Calvinists to teach that Jesus did die for everyone, but at the same time still get to maintain their Limited Atonement view. Calvinists quote Spurgeon to support this view. Spurgeon himself was torn between his evangelist's heart, which desired the salvation of all, and his Calvinist beliefs. At times he seemed to reject Limited Atonement, though he often firmly preached it. Sometimes he seemed to contradict himself almost within the same breath.
Calvinists are reluctant to admit the unlimited merit and value of the effect of the cross does not reconcile with a God who wills and conceives a limited value to just an elect.
But physically dead people not only can't believe but can't sin or do anything else, so spiritual death can't be equated to physical death.
Have you noticed there is insecurity in Calvinists as though performance were a major evidence of one's salvation?
Isn't God suppose to be a God of love? It doesn't make sense that the God of the Bible didn't love everyone enough to want them all in heaven, that Christ hadn't died for everyone even though the Bible seemed to say that He had.
God's sovereignty does not diminish His mercy and love.
C. H. Spurgeon said, "I believe you will [believe in Calvinism] before you enter heaven."
Whereas I believe if you profess to be a Calvinist or even in only the belief in Total Depravity and one other point of TULIP, you are confessing you are not born-again though you may not realize it. For this is not the God of love.
Calvinist doctrines were unknown in the church's first three centuries. Bishop Davenant confirms this:
It may be truly affirmed that before the dispute between Augustine and Pelagius, there was no question concerning the death of Christ, whether it was to be extended to all mankind, or to be confined only to the elect. For the Fathers...not a word (that I know of) occurs among them of the exclusion of any person by the decree of God. They agree that it is actually beneficial to those who believe, yet they everywhere confess that Christ died in behalf of all mankind...
Augustine died in AD 429, and up to his time, at least, there is not the slightest evidence that any Christian ever dreamed of a propitiation for the elect alone. Even after him, the doctrine of limited propitiation was but slowly propagated, and for long but partially received.
However, a growing trend likely out of guilt is for Calvinists to teach that Jesus did die for everyone, but at the same time still get to maintain their Limited Atonement view. Calvinists quote Spurgeon to support this view. Spurgeon himself was torn between his evangelist's heart, which desired the salvation of all, and his Calvinist beliefs. At times he seemed to reject Limited Atonement, though he often firmly preached it. Sometimes he seemed to contradict himself almost within the same breath.
Calvinists are reluctant to admit the unlimited merit and value of the effect of the cross does not reconcile with a God who wills and conceives a limited value to just an elect.