Calvinism and Christianity - incompatible?

I know you will enjoy this one.
Go over to the Conciliary Anglican site and go through the four parts on election and predestination from the classical Anglican perspective he doesn't agree with Calvinism, Arminianism or Universalism. Great set of articles and makes heaps of sense.

 

But here is the very problem: to 99% of Christianity, the gospel is undermined, is viewed as monstrous, if by 'gospel' Calvinists proclaim that man is an evil robot. There IS no gospel of Christ really, in Calvinism. You had no choice to persuade me or not, in this thread. I have no choice to listen to you or not. I am a robot, just like you, and the "gospel" of Calvinism is a helpless mute communication between two robots. There is no offer, there is no cosmic choice, so to us, what kind of gospel this is, is utterly puzzling.

Man cannot frustrate God's intentions, because God is omniscient, and he knows who will accept and reject his offer, before the foundation of the world.

I told you, synergistic theology in the Anglican and Protestant understanding is much more nuanced than you're giving it credit for. You may be assuming that all of us are going to argue in the vein of Molina or that Romanism holds some sort of ultimate sway on all who aren't 5-point TULIPs.

This I am very puzzled by. Man is not "ultimately" responsible for salvation, because God offers the ultimate grace; he holds all the keys in his hands, he maintains complete 100% sovereignty. But he gives to his Creatures a tiny window, in which they can accept his offer or not, so of course we play a role, albeit a small one.

But what's more, you said that my position can lead to Semipelagianism, which teaches that Man makes the first move towards faith. Please substantiate how you think my position equals to that, because your claim implies a charge of heresy.

I just want to be clear, that I am very interested in reading the Reformed and other exegeses on these verses. But no amount of exegesis can take superiority over rules of language.

You once said that Calvinism is still a man-made attempt to understand Scripture, and that it's not infallible and your adherence to it is not indefectible (as is mine). So when your system finds that it cannot give answers to all parts of Scripture, and must violate language, and other methods of understanding, just to fit all of its theories, isn't that a hint that something is wrong?

I mean what possible hint of wrongness would you admit or accept? After all it's not like there's some verse that the Calvinists haven't written an answer to; I am sure you'll find 10 commentaries giving an 'answer' to Consular's quotes where we can reject the Holy Ghost. No, they will prove that we cannot reject the Holy Ghost, that it's allusive, or it's allegorical, or it is qualified language, which in Calvinist terminology allows it to mean the OPPOSITE of what it says, etc.

Every single passage in the Bible will have an 'answer', when you encounter arguments or verses from the other side. So what possible loophole could give you a hint that there could be an error in the system? I don't see a loophole. Either you apply a consistent standard of Scripture as God's Clear Revelation (whereupon Calvinism fails), or you apply a consistent standard of Calvin's Clear Teaching (whereupon many passages in the Bible are a 'problem').

 

Well, most of what you said might be so. But the reformers in general didn't put together the 1549, 1552 or 1662 Books of Common Prayer. The primary work as you see it in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer was done by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. Anyone who has read Samuel Leuenberger's book, Cranmer's Immortal Bequest, can tell you that Cranmer utilized both Scripture and the church fathers to show that the English Reformation could be supported from both Scripture and the church fathers. Cranmer's treatise on the Lord's Supper, for example, quotes extensively from the church fathers to prove that the Calvinist/Zwinglian view of the sacrament is in fact the catholic view. Therefore, it would not be surprising that Cranmer would utilize collects from the church fathers that showed an Augustinian theology of sovereign grace.

I understand that you're reading things from a more Tractarian perspective. However, when the Tractarians tried to re-invent the Thirty-Nine Articles and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer to make it fit their more Roman Catholic leanings it was in fact unjustified revisionism. The plain meaning of the Articles used to interpret the 1662 BCP can never justify a Tractarian theology of the 1662 Prayer Book.

 

It would be helpful if you could provide a link. I don't know which site you mean?

 

Consular, indeed!

I could add a third passage showing us that we can reject God's grace:

Hebrews 10:28-29 "Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant, by which he was sanctified."​

And here's a fourth one:

Isaiah 19-20 "If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land. But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it."​

Indeed. Lowly is totally at odds with Anglicanism on these issues.

 

Well, can you give a Scripture where the Bible says that men are robots? I don't see that in the Bible whatsoever. Your caricature of the Scriptures is one that only those with an agenda would dare to even consider. The Bible clearly teaches that God commands men to do what they are unable to do: be sinlessly perfect. Do you really believe that God lowers His moral standards to your level so that you can "appear" to be holy to other men? Jesus clearly contradicted such a view.

I do not believe that man is ultimately responsible. But man is responsible for his own moral choices. Simply because the fall rendered mankind unable to obey does not remove moral responsibility. God commands you to be sinless, but are you? Have you never sinned whatsoever? I think you have. Jesus is the only sinless man who ever lived, excepting Adam and Eve--and they both sinned afterwards. God is ultimately the cause of all that happens. On that point we agree.

 

Those are statements of the commands of the moral law. Of course the reprobate are unable to obey God's moral law. Where is grace mentioned in those texts? The visible church is composed of both the elect and the reprobate. If someone falls away it is not because they were ever regenerate and then lost it. It is because they were never of us:

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us. (1 John 2:19 NKJ)

Calvinists have never said that apostasy from the visible church and the Christian faith is impossible. What it does teach is that the "elect" can never fall away permanently.

Conditional statements of obedience like those above are moral commands with conditions. The commands of the law convey no actual power to obey. The law is a bare command. If you're saying that the will of man is free, then everyone should be able to live a sinless life. Where do you see that in Scripture or in real life?

The Bible says there is none righteous. God's standard is perfect obedience, not grading on a curve. So you claim to be able to live a sinless life?

By the way, the English Reformers were by and large Calvinist in their understanding of the Scriptures. That would include Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley. Cranmer was also influenced by Lutheranism in Germany. He most certainly was not an Arminian since that heresy did not develop until after his death. (1618-19, Synod of Dort).

You might be interested to know that the Lambeth Articles of 1595 expressed the opinion of most Anglicans just prior to the Synod of Dort, which had Anglican representatives who were in agreement with the Dutch Reformed churches:

1. The eternal election of some to life, and the reprobation of others to death.​

2. The moving cause of predestination to life is not the foreknowledge of faith and good works, but only the good pleasure of God.​

3. The number of the elect is unalterably fixed.​

4. Those who are not predestinated to life shall necessarily be damned for their sins.​

5. The true faith of the elect never fails finally nor totally.​

6. A true believer, or one furnished with justifying faith, has a full assurance and certainty of remission and everlasting salvation in Christ.​

7. Saving grace is not communicated to all men.​

8. No man can come to the Son unless the Father shall draw him, but all men are not drawn by the Father.​

9. It is not in every one's will and power to be saved.​

 

Because such a thing is a huge security risk. The internet is not a safe place, now some has his name and if they know what they are doing can easily start to steal his identity, when you use your real name as your user name your playing fast and lose with your identity and security

 

As a member of the Church of England who's used the 1662 BCP for over forty years I'm well aware that ++Cranmer was the primary compiler of Common Prayer. If you wish, I can provide the source for every collect in the 1662 book. There were some 600 revisions made in the Prayer Book of 1662, and +Cosin introduced liturgical changes pointing it in a more 'Catholic' direction.

 

A valid point my friend. Sad that the times are as corrupt as they are.

Jeff

 

Why is all this so important, by the way? Monergism vs. Synergism? The Scripture was written that we might believe and, believing, have life in Christ's Name. Whether this is forced out of us from Eternity in one way or another does not have any meaning: God is outside Time, and there is no before or after with Him. I believe in Christ now, and so be it.

Without defining the reason for its import, this just devolves into a big theological peeing contest without grounding.

 

You conveniently missed the point Gregory Dix, the Anglo-Catholic, said that Cranmer's liturgy taught justification by faith alone. Cranmer's "sources" were used to further his point that the church fathers could be shown to have supported the Augustinian view, not the semi-pelagian view. Isn't it amazing that the church fathers said things in line with Calvinism?

 

The Church Fathers did teach sola scriptura, sola fide, and sola gratia. Those facts are not uniquely in line with Calvinism, however. I as an "Arminian Anglican" confess the 5 solas with joy.

 

I have shown in multiple posts that semipelagianism is a term without meaning in this discussion. A Red Herring, a strawman, used to label everyone who can't be entirely called a Pelagian.

Old Christendom, and the Lutheran Book of Concord, defined it as "the belief that man can initiate his own salvation", that, and that alone. It is NOT everything that is between Calvinism and Pelagianism.

 

Well, no. You haven't shown anything from the Scriptures. You have merely made assertions and expressed your opinion. The Bible is full of verses that refutes common grace or general grace. Secondly, semi-pelagianism is not an empty term. It was specifically rejected at the Council of Orange as a heresy:

CANON 6. If anyone says that God has mercy upon us when, apart from his grace, we believe, will, desire, strive, labor, pray, watch, study, seek, ask, or knock, but does not confess that it is by the infusion and inspiration of the Holy Spirit within us that we have the faith, the will, or the strength to do all these things as we ought; or if anyone makes the assistance of grace depend on the humility or obedience of man and does not agree that it is a gift of grace itself that we are obedient and humble, he contradicts the Apostle who says, "What have you that you did not receive?" (1 Cor. 4:7), and, "But by the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Cor. 15:10). Monergism: Council of Orange and Council of Trent​

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Arminianism has more in common with Rome than with the Reformation. In fact, Augustus Toplady thought that Archbishop Laud and the high church Arminians were in cahoots with the Jesuits. Lets not forget that the great ejection of the Puritans could have been avoided if Laud had not utilized the star chamber and the persecution of the Puritan ministers in the Church of England.

 

!walks up to brick wall and begins to bang head against wall...


Yep it was pretty clear brother Stalwart - I mentioned earlier that the Conciliar Anglican site has a excellent explanation of the classical Anglican doctrine.

I believe Fr. Jonathan does a great job in his 4 part series I know most of you know of his site as he used to post here some time ago but here is a link anyway:

http://conciliaranglican.com/catego...-comfort-the-anglican-view-of-predestination/

 

Gordon, the

Gordon, I have no idea what you mean by "classical" Anglican view. The English Reformation exposed Rome's view as unbiblical and out of step with even the church fathers as they are read via Scripture rather than Rome's wrong interpretation of both the church fathers and the Scriptures. Thus, whatever occurred in Anglicanism prior to the Reformation was most likely in error as well. The Reformation was about critical examination of the Latin Vulgate, which had numerous instances of wrong translations from the original languages into Latin. Even Disiderus Erasmus, a solid Roman Catholic, said that the translations were wrong. The Vulgate wrongly translated the Greek to say "do penance" when the actual meaning was "repent". Alistair McGrath's book on the King James Version of the Bible has an excellent discussion of these translation issues. Mary is not "full of grace" as in a repository or treasury of grace. Rather, she is a sinner who is a recipient of God's favor or grace. "Mary, highly favored of God..."

I might add that I call men by their names. Jonathan is no father of mine He might be a minister but that does not entitle him to be called what he most certainly is not.

The "classical" Anglican view as far as I'm concerned is the Protestant view of the Reformation. That view, according to Cranmer, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and others is the "catholic" view.

 

I was quoting Fr. Jonathan you would need to ask him how he defines the classical Anglican view... there is plenty of detail on his site so if you spend a bit time there or even him I am sure he will let you know what he means.

I am a Franciscan in the Anglican communion - so the "classical" Anglican view for me is what I find in the creeds, the Franciscan principles (TSSF Rule). I actually couldn't be bothered arguing about theology, history shows us all that has achieved in Christs Church over the past 2000 years is division and in some cases violence and hatred.

 

I get my sources from Scripture, the creeds and the Reformed Confessions, particularly the Anglican Formularies. The last I checked there is nothing "Franciscan" in the Formularies.

Sincerely,

Charlie


edited for language
-admin

 

The bible is full of verses that teach the possibility of general atonement and contributive work of man to the Holy Spirit. See? two can play that game.

Great then if thats the text of the canon, then you have no pretensions to me, because I believe God must have a contributive grace in everything we do. Without him, we are nothing.

What the canon condemns is the idea of autonomy, the autonomous man, imputing which to me you've created another strawman, since I never advocated it.

Who cares what Augustus Toplady thought? He was a nobody, a pea on the radar, and the fact of how little anybody joined him shows just how alone he was in the larger Anglican culture. The fact is that we had already fought a war with the Puritans; they may have killed our King, but the Church won in the end, and expelled the whole Puritan body, calling it Heretical and Schismatical; and in the Great Ejection more than 2000 puritan ministers unceremoniously found themselves out of doors, throught the whole Church of England. And we have forthwith proceeded to reordain under a Bishop any ex-puritan who asked to be readmitted, because we determined Presbytetian ordination to be wholly empty and meaningless. Sorry these are just facts of Anglican history, if you want to talk about a blip on the radar like Augustus Toplady.

Why would anybody want to avoid the Great Ejection? I think you're confused. The churchmen found it to be a great Triumph at the time, and any loyal son of the Church will do the same today also.