I have! It is one of the strongest reasons I hold to what might be called "predestinarianism" (though I don't buy into the whole Augustinian or Calvinist systems around it...)
Calvinism is one system of theology that led me to have serious thoughts of suicide. Calvinists, like Roman Catholics, tend to be arrogant and very rude, from my experience. They both emphasize cold scholasticism as part of their superiority to insult those who are less learned of their convoluted dogma, both claim that their practices or teachings make them 'better' people, and both pervert the gospel message in a similar way: Calvinists, that God did not literally die for the whole world, and Roman Catholics, that Mary is excluded from the claim that "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God". I was Calvinist for a while, and part of it was the 'head over heart' logic that embodies the doctrine. We liked the idea of being superior to everyone in claiming that we didn't believe we had any part of our salvation and were more 'humble' because of it, but the way we talked to them and acted was quite the opposite. We were jealous at the compassion and spiritual fruit emanating from people who did not profess a staunch Calvinist doctrine while all Calvinists had was scholastic, academic books to their name but no fruit or anything to show any real obedience or holiness in the spirit. We wanted to rob them of their joy that we didn't have. The idea of people teaching things like encouraging the comfort of others while also teaching that suffering makes people 'holier' is confused. Some would even refuse to offer any sort of outreach or charity to a brother because to Calvinists "you need to suck it up and take it like a man". The view that every ounce of our value is entirely arbitrary and random and that words in the bible don't literally mean what they say means you can just as easily conclude that eternity in heaven or peace should not be taken literally, and therefore you could end up in heaven and be thrown into hell at some point because God felt that it was appropriate and would accomplish some greater 'good' for someone else. This led me to want to kill myself because not only could I not know that I was really assured any salvation since God and evil are all a puppet show, but that even if I did it may not be what I expected. I was on an Anti-Calvinist Arminian facebook group and it was taught that Arminius actually believed in predestination by foreknowledge, that God does act first to draw us to him, then we respond with the will enabled through his grace, as well as reject it through that, so he is always first and last cause. Romans 9 actually refers to a passage in Jeremiah which speaks of predestination by foreknowledge and not necessarily by design.
Indeed! Calvinists really alter the Gospel, in ways that are unacceptable, and especially with that rich arrogance of doing it 1500 years after the coming of our Lord and the teaching of the Church on all those questions While Arminius was better, his followers the historic “Arminians” were pretty bad as well That’s why I’m so grateful for the Anglican teaching on this, which alone of all the parties preserved the unaltered Original Teaching on grace, predestination, foreknowledge, and free will
Well said, Anglican74. And BibleHoarder, I am so happy to hear that you escaped that awful system. God bless you.
Yes. However, even though we had some Anglican members as part of the Arminian FB group, I left it because of some personal disagreements with the owner. He was hardly the sole contributor to the group and its website (I think it was actually owned by someone else). It's just that, even though he was a very kind and thoughtful guy, he was totally ignorant of what the real presence was despite having been brought up methodist. He denied that methodists even teach that, and when I said I found overwhelming consensus from their doctrinal books that it was true, he said it didn't matter because he was now Nazarene, and they teach the eucharist is only a symbol. I didn't like that, because he was always making jokes about being some kind of theology wiz by pointing out the 'errors' of Calvinists who allegedly don't 'know their doctrine' because they don't read Calvin's work properly. Miles nicer than most people in the reformed camp, but still naive.