As a non-Calvinist I am truly baffled at WHAT is it that is SO APPEALING to Calvinists that they would fall for the T.U.L.I.P. doctrines and be blinded to how clearly Calvinism is contrary to the Word of God? Again, please, only non-Calvinists should respond.Why do people fall for the false doctrines of the T.U.L.I.P.?
I did a stint in a Calvinist Baptist church back in the 90's. I was never so miserable in my entire life. Every time I went to church, I cried. Even the hymns were so depressing that they too made me cry. For me, there was no joy to be found in Calvinism!
How did I end up in a Calvinist Baptist church? I was reading the Bible independently and trying to find my way after leaving a pseudo-Christian cult. Instead of asking for God's guidance, I thought I could pick out a church all by myself. What I ended up with was almost ten years of total misery and the complete destruction of whatever faith I had. TULIP quite literally turned me into an atheist. (I returned to the Lord a few years ago and last year, to the Church.)
Now to answer your question...how did I fall for TULIP? I was lied to...plain and simple. They did it for the benefit of my soul, I am sure of their motives...but they twisted the scriptures to mean what they wanted them to mean and not what the authors of that particular book in the Bible meant. Scriptures were frequently taken out of context to prove their point of view. And of course, I was vulnerable to Scripture abuse as I had just left a pseudo-Christian cult...
I so miserable because I could not reconcile the God of the Bible that said salvation was open to all through Jesus Christ (John 3:16; 2nd Peter 3:9), with the God of Calvin who picked and chose who would be saved. And I rejected the teaching of ';total depravity';, because although I do believe in ';original sin';, I also believe that man is able to respond to God's calling him to grace. Total depravity says this isn't possible, so I rejected it.
And as for ';limited atonement';, the very idea that Jesus died on the cross only for a predestined few, is spiritual pornography, in my ever so humble opinion. Jesus died on the cross for all of us...for anyone who is willing to accept His sacrifice on the cross as a substitute for the death we deserve for our own sins. So again, I rejected that doctrine and with two down, they all fell in my eyes...and it took my faith with it. It took several years before God opened my eyes again...my Calvinist experiment was so not worth it...
As for why it is spreading....I expect it is because of the allure of being one of the ';chosen'; elect...also the promise of ';eternal security'; (once saved, always saved). Also, I expect that they have good missionaries.
Pax Christi!Why do people fall for the false doctrines of the T.U.L.I.P.?
The Calvinist doctrine is simply false doctrine and people are easily deceived by it. The first point of of T.U.L.I.P (Totaly Depravity, aka Original Sin) is false and is the foundation which the rest of the doctrines are built upon. See my website for details. http://www.dividingword.net/
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I believe in the open view of God and also am non calvinist.
My personal experience is that it is like other false ideas demonic. In the past I have had experience in deliverance and the demon said he was the spirit of calvinism.. strangely enough our modern world of Christianity is full of these false ideas. It is the devils way of confusing the character of God so that people don't love and trust him. In calvinism the devil has no place because god ordained evil.. the devil loves tulip. It takes him off the hook.
I think the only person who could answer your question completely would be a Calvinist. Since it is not appealing to non-calvinist they would probably have a hard time explaining what is appealing.
I am not a Calvinist but I did grow up a Moonie (Follower of Rev. Sun Myung Moon) What I learned from being in that controvesial religion was that theology is often misinterpreted to show a point (usually a negative bias) to the public. If taken from an outside prospective widely accepted christianity (as well as other major religions) looks a bit crazy and illogical as well (watch ';Religulous';).
Not a Calvinist, but it's based on the concept of salvation by grace, in other words, God only gives it to a few. I've never understood the appeal of it either, and Arminius (giving us Arminian, not Armenian) pointed out that Calvinism leads to God foreordaining evil, which would constitute blasphemy.
';Calvinism'; and ';arminianism'; are both wrong.
Because, John 3:16 proves them both wrong.
WHOSOEVER (meaning everyone can be saved). Whosoever will believe in Jesus, gets ETERNAL life (meaning you cannot lose or ';leave'; salvation). :)
likely this:
what will be will be...
to need to worry about it
what gets me is why do calvinists evangelize?
There was a time when I really struggled to believe that man was totally depraved as per the teaching of John Calvin. In my naivet茅 I went to a Baptist seminary after undergraduate school not knowing that there were different approaches to soteriology and not prepared for the concept of total depravity. I had been taught original sin as a Moravian but never that this sin made man totally depraved unable to do any good. Try as I might I just could not accept this teaching of total depravity because it just did not match the Scriptures as I read them, instead the idea created conflicts in my mind with Scriptures. Try as I might I could not reconcile those conflicts and then began to reject that presupposition of total depravity and search for another understanding without the conflicts with Scripture and more doctrinal consistency. I came to this realization as I was studying my second course in hermeneutics and was reading some of Rudolph Bultman鈥檚 writings discussing the difficulty and his perceived impossibility of one being instructed by Scriptures without presuppositions. He stated that we all come to Scriptural study tainted by our worldview and unable to be objective and allow the text to instruct us instead of gleaning from the text support for that which we already supposed instead. I came to believe that this is exactly what Calvinist inclined exegetes do when the degree of depravity of man is studied and often ignore Scripture references to the contrary building a case for the one worldview of a depraved and hopeless humanity incapable of even recognizing goodness.
There were a lot of problems I had with Calvin鈥檚 theology on man鈥檚 total depravity. When I went to seminary, I had already been to war in Vietnam. I was not the innocent, idealistic person that had graduated from undergrad school. I had seen man at his worst exposed by war, murder, lust, hatred, etc. It occurred to me that if I was to believe in the total depravity of man then the logical assumption in a consistent mind is that God wills evil as well as good. Otherwise, God would destroy the evil in men with his irresistible grace.
Now I had no trouble in accepting God鈥檚 sovereignty but could not understand why God would predestine some to salvation and others as reprobate, all this by some mysterious selection when we were created. To me, it was impossible to ignore that God was creating some for righteousness and others to evil, some to eternity and others into the lake of fire and damnation if Calvin was correct. In a real sense, God was creating evil and goodness if Calvinist theology is to be considered consistent. This created great difficulty because I saw the consistent message in the Bible that God was just and loving. I just could not see the love and the justice in the Calvinist God creating those condemned as reprobate. In addition, this doctrine of Calvin was not consistent with my life experience where I had served in the military with many who had not accepted God鈥檚 saving grace but I saw the goodness of love in these people. With the presence of love how could they be the victims of the divine lottery of total depravity? Where there is love can there be total depravity? This seems inconsistent.
Calvinist doctrine continued to fall apart in my mind when considering why some are saved and some are reprobate. Calvin suggested that God chose who would be saved and who would be damned based not on any free will or choice of the individual but simply on God鈥檚 will through his declarative sovereignty, He wills it therefore it happens. But, I kept seeing in Scriptures that Jesus came to save all of humanity. I even thought for a time that Calvin might be right and the Scriptures that speak of salvific opportunity for all men may be a mistranslation from the Greek to the English or even the Latin as I was already a Latin scholar. Eventually, when I learned Greek, I found that the Scriptures do speak quite adamantly about the inclusive opportunity of all to receive the saving grace of God by our believing in Christ and through Him all salvation may be realized. Christ coming for salvation of the whole world certainly conflicted with predestination and with total depravity and try as I might I could not reconcile these Scriptures with Calvinist doctrine. This is especially clear in the writings of St. John the beloved disciple. No, Calvin must be wrong, the Scriptures do not talk of salvation for only the elect unless we would assume that the whole world is only the elect which Scriptures would also contradict. If the elect are drawn by irresistible grace why is this irresistible grace given to all and not just the elect? The Scriptures are not supposed to create more questions than they answer and in this doctrine leave so much ambiguity as to who will be saved and /or why some are elect and others are damned. Surely there must be some element of free will and not just irresistible grace. One thing in Scriptures that really jumped out at me was learning from Scriptures that God did not create the everlasting fire for mankind but for Satan and his minions (Mat 25:41). If He created the everlasting fire as punishment for them only as Scriptures teach, then why does He also create some of humanity for the everlasting fire?
Then there is the issue of original sin. We see the sin of Adam and Eve which we inherit but it is clear from Scriptures that they did not sin because of a depraved state. In the Garden there obviously was not irresistible grace that would prevent them from sinning. Had there been irresistible grace death would not have entered the world. It seems to me that they sinned from their choices made within their free will. Where in Scriptures does it suggest that as a result of original sin that we no longer have choice or free will but are subject to election through irresistible grace. Why, if God chooses us with irresistible grace as the elect, are we not regenerated into perfection, immune to sin? Where is man鈥檚 responsibility in Calvin鈥檚 theology?
(1Jo 2:2) And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.
Are these words not true? John Calvin brings them into doubt.
In Christ
Fr. Joseph
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