2 Calvinists leave Christianity Romans 9
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Lily
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I pray that they “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” because “the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (2 Peter 3:18; 1 Peter 5:10). To Him be the dominion forever and ever, amen.
atpollard
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So if 2 Arminians also leave Christianity, does that mean that we are neither DRAWN nor granted FREE WILL?
Should we all then look to Allah and Islam for truth?
(I am trying to understand what point you are attempting to make.)
Here is what the Apostle John had to say about the subject:
Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not [really] of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but [they went out,] so that it would be evident that they all are not of us. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar except the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also. [As for] you, [see that] what you heard from the beginning remains in you. If what you heard from the beginning remains in you, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. - 1 John 2:18-24 [NASB20]
civic
Well-known member
@atpollard i wonder is that was the same Derek from CARM
Diserner
Well-known member
Free will explains apostasy better than God wanting to decree fake Christians for some incomprehensible reason.
Free will always gives a better security, since your salvation can be decided by you, and not a capricious God who might just let you think you're Christian for awhile.
Free will always gives a better security, since your salvation can be decided by you, and not a capricious God who might just let you think you're Christian for awhile.
civic
Well-known member
Do you think it’s the same Derek in the video from CARM that left Calvinism ?
atpollard
Well-known member
I don’t know (I was never active on CARM), so I never interacted with “Derek”.
That said, I listened to enough of the “former Christian” conversation to know that these two are intellectual featherweights. They have not honestly thought through the real issues and the possible answers. I say this as someone raised on atheism and arguing against the existence of God, then taught Wesleyan Holiness for a decade in search of answers to real questions when I could not deny God’s existence any longer who ultimately came to 5-point Calvinism from reading Scripture on my own. I would dismantle their arguments from Secular Humanism or Wesleyanism or Calvinism.
The core of their complaint is that God does not match the “golden statue god” that they created in their mind. They want a different “idol” to worship and decided to go “god shopping”. TRUTH doesn’t work like that. Try applying that methodology to “aircraft design” and see how it works.
Diserner
Well-known member
It looks like it matches up. I think it's more likely than not.
Diserner
Well-known member
I would personally prefer the Calvinist God over the Biblical God, as it means more selfish security for me.
So the criticism doesn't really carry any weight with me.
civic
Well-known member
Oh I agree with you. I left Calvinism myself but could never leave Christ. My salvation is not based on my theology but the Person and work of Christ alone.
atpollard
Well-known member
God is not the author of evil … God does not compel people to fake “Christianity”, God merely permits the tares to grow for a season until their true nature is inevitably exposed. (I think I read that somewhere in the Bible.
)
civic
Well-known member
That’s what I was thinking seems like the same age too. I remember it hit RV and some others really hard.
TibiasDad
Well-known member
Hi, atpollard, nice to meet you. As a lifelong “Wesleyan Holiness” adherent, I’d be interested in hearing your experience within it. I am a Nazarene pastor and have tasted many versions of Wesleyan experience so I can probably relate to your experiences in some manner.
Since you left Wesleyan circles in favor of Calvinism I’m curious as to your journey.
Doug
civic
Well-known member
ditto
atpollard
Well-known member
God has a great sense of humor. I started out as an atheist, but not the garden variety “god is an invisible unicorn so it is silly to believe in what you cannot prove” atheist. I was a NIHILIST [there is no such thing as objective truth or morality - eating a sandwich or setting an enemy on fire are neither good nor evil, they are only actions - men assign relative moral value to actions based on random criteria]. If I shoot an enemy soldier, I am a hero but if I shoot a man and take his money I am a monster … says who? Both men are just as dead!
God being God used a group of Catholic Charismatics to present the gospel to a gang member that literally HAD set his enemies on fire. My first reaction was a very reasonable “these people need their meds adjusted”. Then God chose to claim me for His property in what is best described as a “Road to Damascus” type encounter that shattered any hope of remaining an atheist. So I quit the gang, left the neighborhood and moved a few thousand miles away to start over. Who I was died with that life … time to find out who God had called me to be.
I struck out with the Roman Catholic Church and its Catechism for Inquirers. There were things they believed about Mary that just didn’t make sense from what I was reading in the Gospels. When I talked with the priest about it, he patiently explained about the importance of TRADITION alongside SCRIPTURE and how these dogma came from Tradition. Since I knew that I could never bring myself to swear an oath that I believed things that I did not … the RCC and I parted ways amicably just before the move.
That brought me to a new life in a new location and looking for a new church. All churches look the same when what you know of THEOLOGY would fit on less than one side of an index card. The nearest church was part of “The Church of God of Anderson Indiana” … a denomination founded during the Wesleyan Holiness movement by preachers in a wagon riding a circuit across the Great Plains. The pastor of this particular local church of between 100 and 200 people was the grandson of one of those wagon preachers that started the denomination. They had a small parsonage on the property that was being used by a missionary. It turns out that Africa actually sends missionaries TO the United States to reach the lost in this country (weird, huh?). So I attended that church for about 10 years, listening to “Wesleyan” sermons from the pulpit on Sunday and attending classes at the parsonage where we studied “Bible Precepts” and “threads” that repeated throughout scripture and new Christians could ask questions about anything.
I just kept reading the Bible on my own and trying to reconcile my personal “Road to Damascus” conversion with all the talk about Free Will and choosing to believe and general Wesleyan Theology that really did not fit my empirical experience. I eventually settled on 4 Truths from scripture that aligned with my life experience:
- Deep down, people are just no darn good.
- God does not ask permission, God just does.
- Whatever reason God chooses to save us, it is because of Him … we certainly do not deserve it.
- God finishes what God starts.
- Total Depravity
- Irresistible Grace
- Unconditional Election
- Perseverance of the Saints
[If pressed, I have to agree with Spurgeon that it seems more like God to build a narrow bridge all the way across the river that is just wide enough for “whosoever believes” rather than a bridge wide enough for “all men without exception” that spans only half-way across the river.]
So I owe a debt of thanks to the lay Catholic Charismatics for sharing their Gospel. I owe a miraculous salvation to Jesus Christ and Him alone. I owe a debt of thanks to a Wesleyan African Missionary with the Church of God of Anderson Indiana for teaching me the fundamentals of Biblical Theology. I owe a debt to a Sunday School teacher from an Evangelical Free church with a Doctorate in Theology for answering a million questions. I owe a debt to the Southern Baptist Church that walked me through the Baptist Faith and Message and taught me more about Baptism and the Trinity than I even knew to ask. Most of all, I owe a debt to God that for reasons that I still find incomprehensible chose to pluck me out of a world surrounded by death and claim me as HIS PROPERTY.
Arthur
TibiasDad
Well-known member
Arthur,
Again, nice to meet you, and thank you for your openness. Regarding your conversion, highlighted in the above quote, what were the specifics of “God chose to claim me for his property”? Exactly how was it a “Damascus road” like experience? (Please know I am not doubting your testimony in the least, I am just trying to correlate your 4-points with the specific dynamics of the “God choosing you” experience and how this has formed your perspective as a whole.)
I’ll await your response before I contemplate any further thoughts about your experience. I really enjoyed and appreciate your testimony!
Your brother,
Doug
atpollard
Well-known member
Some things are awkward to describe to those that were not there. A decade ago, I would have refused to protect people still living, but now most are dead.
What I will speak of is that I engaged at various points in gangs, interstate drug smuggling, arson, burglary and came closer than is prudent to joining the ranks of McVeigh and Kaczynski. It was after searing my conscience and recognizing that I was within a few years of death by cop, by gang or by life in prison that I chose the time, place and method of my death as a final act of defiance against the universe.
Let’s take a detour into the philosophy on the afterlife. (It is important to understand who I was to understand why the “Billy Graham” model of making a decision could never fit what actually happened.) I viewed any god or afterlife as a statistical improbability approaching zero percent. However, as one prepares to die, it becomes impossible to not consider the possibility that one is wrong (Pascal’s Wager in philosophical terms). My atheism was not born from “science” but from “The Problem of Evil”. Since most people are familiar with the arguments, I will only post the 4 possible conclusions:
- God is powerless to stop evil [no god]
- God is ignorant of evil [no god]
- God is too busy to stop evil [no god]
- God can stop evil and chooses not to [god is evil]
The Charismatics shared their “Gospel” with me and unlike the lukewarm social Methodists that I had been exposed to as the child of “Submarine Christians” (surfacing twice a year at Easter and Christmas), the Charismatics had a genuine faith in their “invisible unicorn” (but needed their meds adjusted). It was after encountering them, as I neared completion of my “project”, that God literally appeared to me and spoke to me [there was no vision, but you knew that you were in the presence of God … when the prophet says in scripture “I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips” … I KNOW exactly how he felt.]. I would say I spoke with God, but it would be more accurate to say that God spoke and I listened. The message was not for public consumption … it was personal … but the gist was that effective immediately, I belonged to Him. Period. End of discussion.
As I said, I immediately quit the gang and the life and from that day to this, I belong to Him. That cannot be reconciled with “prevenient grace” or a “free will decision” to follow. I was NOT seeking Him, when He claimed ownership of me. I started reading the Bible since I figured that I should probably read the manual and learn about this God that just claimed me. So I LOVE Wesleyan Theology - I just cannot affirm it in my salvation.
The Rogue Tomato
Well-known member
Cowards, clinging to pride.
TibiasDad
Well-known member
civic
Well-known member
The two who left the faith in the video ?
