Yup and nope. He determines your confusion and has a reason for doing so.
Them why are we all not unified? Your impotent god is simply unable?
Determinism in Calvinism and the Reformed Confessions
- Thread starter civic
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Them why are we all not unified? Your impotent god is simply unable?
civic
Well-known member
agree god determined your confusion which is why you are trapped and incapable of leaving the false teachings of Calvin.
until the puppeteer pulls your strings you will remain in that belief and when he pulls the strings you will flee from calvinism.
So he didn't then. Better to knock down those strawman huh.
The reason you left, your confused. And God has a reason and a purpose for your confusion.
civic
Well-known member
projecting ask the puppeteer.
Sorry that is evidence of nothing but the fact you cannot defend the following fact
Your theology makes God the author of confusion, division and contradiction
Non Calvinist theology does not make God the author of confusion , division and contradiction
If you cannot see the difference that speaks to you not non calvinists
Keith
New member
Now that's the best way to start off the day... to read God's word. To see the truth in his word, to be doers of the word and not hearers is only.
First you present no evidence for your claim
Second it is your theology introduced by Manichean Gnosticism that is the cause of confusion
civic
Well-known member
Amen to the Truth
civic
Well-known member
Exactly the irrefutable historical facts reveal the truth.
Actually it's your theology, introduced by Pelagius that is the problem and the source of confusion.
Not only does Provisionism make God the author of division and confusion but it also promotes a contradictory and illogical God.
By the way. Would declaring war on your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ cause division and confusion? Asking for a friend.
civic
Well-known member
projecting again it was augustine the gnostic .
So he never said works means determinism. Yet you feel comfortable misrepresenting his position. Tells you all you need to know folks.
Nope. It was Pelagius the heretic. Your pal.projecting again it was augustine the gnostic .
civic
Well-known member
how you pal augustine the gnostic corrupted the church with his numerous false teachings.
Below is a history lesson about your beliefs.
Which the Reformation bought into with their doctrines. Both Luther and Calvin were heavily influenced by Augustine
The errors of the Gnostics were continually rejected by the Early Church, but the Gnostics continued to try to penetrate the Church with their views. The Gnostics even wrote their own gospels, known as the Gnostic Gospels today, where they stole credible names like Mary and Thomas to try to give validity to their teachings.
While many of the attempts of the Gnostics to infiltrate the Church failed, and many of their views are widely rejected today, it seems that their particular view of human nature, free will, and the nature of sin has found wide acceptance in the Church today.
On Free will
Regarding the term “free will,” John Calvin admitted “As to the Fathers, (if their authority weighs with us,) they have the term constantly in their mouths…”[31] He said, “The Greek fathers above others” have taught “the power of the human will”[32] and “they have not been ashamed to make use of a much more arrogant expression calling man ‘free agent or self-manager,’ just as if man had a power to govern himself…”[33] He also said, “The Latin fathers have always retained the word ‘free will’ as if man stood yet upright.”[34] It is a fact that cannot be denied even by those who most ardently oppose the doctrine of free will, that the doctrine of free will and not that of inability was held by all of the Early Church.
Walter Arthur Copinger said, “All the Fathers are unanimous on the freedom of the human will…”[35] Lyman Beecher said, “the free will and natural ability of man were held by the whole church…”[36] And Dr Wiggers said, “All the fathers…agreed with the Pelagians, in attributing freedom of will to man in his present state.”[37] This is a very important point because whenever a person today holds to the belief that all men have the natural ability to obey God or not to obey Him, or that man’s nature still retains the faculty of free will and can choose between these two alternatives and possibilities, he is almost immediately accused of being a heretical “Pelagian” by the Calvinists. This accusation is being unfair to the position of free will since all of the Early Church Fathers held to free will long before Pelagius even existed.
On Original sin
Harry Conn said, “Augustine, after studying the philosophy of Manes, the Persian philosopher, brought into the church from Manichaeism the doctrine of original sin.”[51]
The corruption of our nature, or the loss of our free will, Augustine credited to the original sin of Adam. Augustine said that the “free choice of the will was present in that man who was the first to be formed… But after he sinned by that free will, we who have descended from his progeny have been plunged into necessity.”[52] “By Adam’s transgression, the freedom of’ the human will has been completely lost.”[53] “By the greatness of the first sin, we have lost the freewill to love God.” And finally he said, “by subverting the rectitude in which he was created, he is followed with the punishment of not being able to do right” and “the freedom to abstain from sin has been lost as a punishment of sin.”[54]
Consider the following facts:
All of the Early Christians, before Augustine, believed in man’s free will and denied man’s natural inability.
The Gnostics in the days of the Early Church believed in man’s natural inability and denied man’s free will.
Augustine was a Gnostic for many years, in the Manichaeism sect, and converted to the Church out of Gnosticism.
After joining the Church and being appointed a Bishop, Augustine began to deny the free will of man and to affirm the natural inability of man
The Church, under Augustine’s influence, began to believe in the natural inability of man, which it never before held to, but which it formerly would refute.
The reason that John Calvin rejected all ancient theologians and dismissed all of their writings on this matter, except for Augustine, is because all ancient theologians affirmed the freedom of the will in their writings, except for Augustine. Gregory Boyd said, “This in part explains why Calvin cannot cite ante-Nicene fathers against his libertarian opponents…. Hence, when Calvin debates Pighuis on the freedom of the will, he cites Augustine abundantly, but no early church fathers are cited.”[80] That is why George Pretyman said, “…the peculiar tenets of Calvinism are in direct opposition to the Doctrines maintained in the primitive Church of Christ…” This we have clearly seen, but he also said, “…there is a great similarity between the Calvinistic system and the earliest [Gnostic] heresies…”[81]
The Reformers sought to return the Church to early Christianity, but actually brought it back to early heresies, because it stopped short at Augustine. The Reformers did not go far back enough. Rather than returning the Church to early Christianity, the Reformation resurrected Augustinian and Gnostic doctrines. The Methodist Quarterly Review said, “At the Reformation Augustinianism received an emphatic re-enforcement among the Protestant Churches.”[82] The Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics said, “…it is Augustine who gave us the Reformation. For the Reformation, inwardly considered, was just the ultimate triumph of Augustine’s doctrine… the Reformation came, seeing that it was, on its theological side, a revival of Augustinianism…”[83] The Reformation was to a great extent a resurrection or revival of Augustinian theology and a further departure and falling away from Early Christianity.
Gnosticism, Augustinianism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism have much in common. Augustinianism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism teach Gnostic views of human nature and free will but under a different name. It’s the same old Gnosticism in a new wrapper. Other doctrines also seem to have originated in Gnosticism, from Basilianism, Valentianism, Marcionism, and Manichaeism, such as the doctrines of easy believism, individual predestination, constitutional regeneration, a sinful nature or a sinful flesh, eternal security or once saved always saved, and others. But no Gnostic doctrine has spread so widely throughout the Church, with such great acceptance as the doctrine of man’s natural inability to obey God. https://crosstheology.wordpress.com/augustine-gnostic-heretic-and-corruptor-of-the-church/
civic
Well-known member
more about your pal
Do the Reformed/ Calvinists believe this about sola scripture ?
Boy another teaching of augustine, throw Sola Scriptura out the window , yikes .
“ And thus a man who is resting upon faith, hope and love, and who keeps a firm hold upon these, does not need the Scriptures except for the purpose of instructing others. Accordingly, many live without copies of the Scriptures, even in solitude, on the strength of these three graces [here Augustine seems to refer to hermits like St Antony of Egypt] . So that in their case, I think, the saying is already fulfilled: “Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.” 1 Corinthians 13:8 Yet by means of these instruments (as they may be called), so great an edifice of faith and love has been built up in them, that, holding to what is perfect, they do not seek for what is only in part perfect— of course, I mean, so far as is possible in this life; for, in comparison with the future life, the life of no just and holy man is perfect here. Therefore the apostle says: “Now abides faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity:” 1 Corinthians 13:13 because, when a man shall have reached the eternal world, while the other two graces will fail, love will remain greater and more assured.”
Saint Augustine’s De doctrina Christiana : Chapter 39.— He Who is Mature in Faith, Hope and Love, Needs Scripture No Longer.
civic
Well-known member
your two spiritual heroes augustine and calvin- YIKES
these are your buddies lol.
This was calvins mentor below.
“Except for the purpose of procreation, another man would have been a more suitable companion/or Adam or if it was not for help in producing children that a wife was made for the man, then what other help was she made for? If it was to till the earth together with him there was as yet no hard toil to need such assistance; and if there had been the need, a male would have made a better help. The same can be said about companionship, should he grow tired of solitude. How much more agreeably, after all, for conviviality and conversation would two male friends live together on equal terms than man and wife? While if it was expedient that one should be in charge and the other should comply to avoid a clash of wills disturbing the peace of the household, such an arrangement would have been ensured by one being made first, the other later, especially if the later were created from the former, as the female was in fact created. Or would anyone say that God was only able to make a female from the man’s rib, and not also a male if he so wished? For these reasons I cannot work out what help a wife could have been made to provide the man with, if you take away the purpose of childbearing.”
— Augustine, On Genesis, Book IX, 5.9, p. 380.
“How much more agreeable for companionship in a life shared together would be two male friends rather than a man and a woman,” he wrote in “De Genesi ad litteram” (The Literal Meaning of Genesis).”
