Is persuasion even necessary in Calvinism ?

civic

civic

Well-known member
WHY SHOULD WE TRY TO PERSUADE THE LOST?

The English word “persuasion” (in all its various forms) is used three times more often than the word “predestination,” yet it seems the latter receives a thousand times more attention. Persuasion is at the very heart of apologetics, and I dare say, it is at the heart of evangelism itself. I have to wonder if the lack of emphasis on this biblical doctrine has lead to the decline in baptisms and evangelistic efforts among Evangelicals over the last few decades?

WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT PERSUASION?

Let’s take a look at some of it’s most relevant uses:

“Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas.” (Acts 17:4)

“Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.” (Acts 18:4)

“This man is persuading the people to worship God.” (Acts 18:13)

“(Paul was) arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God.” (Acts 19:8)

“Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to become a Christian?” (Acts 26:28)

“They arranged to meet Paul on a certain day, and came in even larger numbers to the place where he was staying. He witnessed to them from morning till evening, explaining about the kingdom of God, and from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets he tried to persuade them about Jesus. Some were convinced by what he said, but others would not believe.” (Acts‬ ‭28:23-24‬)

“Since then we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men.” (2 Corinthians 5:11)

Too often we speak only of the need to proclaim and explain the good news to the lost, but clearly the Bible teaches us that we should be trying to persuade people of its truthfulness. Is that not what evangelism and apologetics is all about?

Notice in Acts 17, when Paul “dialogued” (Greek: dialegomai, meaning ‘reasoned’) in the synagogue that it resulted in people being “persuaded” (Greek: peitho). Paul explained the Old Testament scriptures and answered their questions so as to convince them of the truth. This was typical in his approach with his fellow Jews (“his custom” v. 2) , because he knew the Jews considered their scriptures to be authoritative. However, Paul’s approach with the Gentiles shifted to speaking about their culture first rather than the Scriptures (see vs. 22-31). Paul is using his God given gift of persuasion by connecting with his audience on their level. He has “become all things to all people so that by all possible means [he] might save some” (1 Cor. 9:22).


WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO PERSUADE?
Vine’s Dictionary of New Testament Words describes the word “persuade” as follows: ”

To prevail upon or win over, to bring about a change of mind by the influence of reason or moral considerations.”

Notice this definition draws attention to both reason and morality. In other words, appealing to one’s conscience in an effort to get them to do what is right morally may be one effective approach to persuasion, but it’s not the only tool. Appealing to sound reason (by means of dialogue) is an equally important biblical tool in the persuasion process.

Persuasion is not about emotionally abusing people into submission. It is about speaking truth in love (Eph. 4:15). It is about being a person of character who earns the respect of the audience by showing them respect. It is about making sound, logical, well reasoned arguments that connect with the listener on a personal level. As Paul said:

“We have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:2)

Paul, while he was in Ephesus, was “arguing persuasively” (Acts 19:8). Doesn’t that strongly imply that it is possible to “argue unpersuasively?” Why would anyone want to risk being “unpersuasive” when it comes to proclaiming the most important news of all? soteriology101

hope this helps !!!
 
civic said:
WHY SHOULD WE TRY TO PERSUADE THE LOST?

The English word “persuasion” (in all its various forms) is used three times more often than the word “predestination,” yet it seems the latter receives a thousand times more attention. Persuasion is at the very heart of apologetics, and I dare say, it is at the heart of evangelism itself. I have to wonder if the lack of emphasis on this biblical doctrine has lead to the decline in baptisms and evangelistic efforts among Evangelicals over the last few decades?

WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT PERSUASION?

Let’s take a look at some of it’s most relevant uses:

“Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas.” (Acts 17:4)

“Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.” (Acts 18:4)

“This man is persuading the people to worship God.” (Acts 18:13)

“(Paul was) arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God.” (Acts 19:8)

“Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to become a Christian?” (Acts 26:28)

“They arranged to meet Paul on a certain day, and came in even larger numbers to the place where he was staying. He witnessed to them from morning till evening, explaining about the kingdom of God, and from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets he tried to persuade them about Jesus. Some were convinced by what he said, but others would not believe.” (Acts‬ ‭28:23-24‬)

“Since then we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men.” (2 Corinthians 5:11)

Too often we speak only of the need to proclaim and explain the good news to the lost, but clearly the Bible teaches us that we should be trying to persuade people of its truthfulness. Is that not what evangelism and apologetics is all about?

Notice in Acts 17, when Paul “dialogued” (Greek: dialegomai, meaning ‘reasoned’) in the synagogue that it resulted in people being “persuaded” (Greek: peitho). Paul explained the Old Testament scriptures and answered their questions so as to convince them of the truth. This was typical in his approach with his fellow Jews (“his custom” v. 2) , because he knew the Jews considered their scriptures to be authoritative. However, Paul’s approach with the Gentiles shifted to speaking about their culture first rather than the Scriptures (see vs. 22-31). Paul is using his God given gift of persuasion by connecting with his audience on their level. He has “become all things to all people so that by all possible means [he] might save some” (1 Cor. 9:22).


WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO PERSUADE?
Vine’s Dictionary of New Testament Words describes the word “persuade” as follows: ”

To prevail upon or win over, to bring about a change of mind by the influence of reason or moral considerations.”

Notice this definition draws attention to both reason and morality. In other words, appealing to one’s conscience in an effort to get them to do what is right morally may be one effective approach to persuasion, but it’s not the only tool. Appealing to sound reason (by means of dialogue) is an equally important biblical tool in the persuasion process.

Persuasion is not about emotionally abusing people into submission. It is about speaking truth in love (Eph. 4:15). It is about being a person of character who earns the respect of the audience by showing them respect. It is about making sound, logical, well reasoned arguments that connect with the listener on a personal level. As Paul said:

“We have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:2)

Paul, while he was in Ephesus, was “arguing persuasively” (Acts 19:8). Doesn’t that strongly imply that it is possible to “argue unpersuasively?” Why would anyone want to risk being “unpersuasive” when it comes to proclaiming the most important news of all? soteriology101

hope this helps !!!
Click to expand...
What is the point if God has already determined everything and there is no free will. Man is nothing but a robot. Reasoning with a predetermined outcome is useless. There is no need for the apologist or the Evangelist. Paul in Acts is doing the opposite of what the Calvinist believes.
 
civic said:
Persuasion is not about emotionally abusing people into submission. It is about speaking truth in love (Eph. 4:15). It is about being a person of character who earns the respect of the audience by showing them respect. It is about making sound, logical, well reasoned arguments that connect with the listener on a personal level. As Paul said:
Click to expand...
There's the story of the Sun and the Wind having a debate. The Sun and Wind looked down and saw a man wearing a coat down on the ground. The wind said, "I betcha I can make that old man there take off his coat quicker than you can." The Sun said, "Ok let's see what you can do"

So the wind blew and blasted the with everything he had.....and the man grabbed his coat and wrapped it around him more tightly than ever. The Sun said, "OK now let me give it a try." It came out from behind a cloud and surrounded the man with it's warm rays of of love and peace. The man opened his jacket and pulled it off demonstrating the Sun was better with the art of persuasion then the wind with all it's bluster ever could be.
 
In the doctrine of divine determinism everything is meticulously predestined by God before the world was created and there is no libertarian free will that can make a choice in calvinism. Choice is just an illusion and its really God who made that for you since you could never choose otherwise. What God has determined for you to do including sin was all planned before you existed. Nothing happens apart from His will. So it was His will that caused you to believe, to sin, to be condemned or to be saved- you had no real decision in any of those things since they were all determined to occur in eternity past. The craziest thing is that sowmhow they try and get God off the hook as being culpable for determining you would sin and had no choice to do otherwise. Its a blatant contradiction. Man cannot be held responsible for something he could not choose to do otherwise.

The only real solution is man does have a free will and is responsible for his sin and not God.
 
There is no need for persuasion in Calvinism. Its an oxymoron, You cannot persuade me into something God has already determined for me. I cannot be persuaded to believe the gospel if God determined I'm a reprobate. If I'm an Arminian its because God has determined I reject Calvinism. If I'm a Calvinist I cannot be convinced Arminianism is true because God determined for me to reject it. Determinism makes God the God of confusion, not the God of unity.

Historian, Philip Schaff explains how this view of predestination and election relates to divine determinism:


  • “Calvinism (…) starts from a double decree of predestination, which antedates creation, and is the divine program of human history. (..). History is only the execution of the original design. There can be no failure. The beginning and the end, God’s immutable plan and the issue of the world’s history, must correspond.”

– Philip Schaff (History of the Christian Chruch VIII, 1997: ch. 14, § 114)


John Calvin himself endorsed divine determinism. He wrote the following on this:


  • “God’s will is the highest and first cause of all things, because nothing happens except from his command or permission.”

– John Calvin (Institutes of the Christian religion, I.16.8)


  • “that his will may be for us the sole rule of righteousness, and the truly just cause of all things (…) Providence, that determinative principle of all things, from which flows nothing but right, although the reasons have been hidden from us.”

– John Calvin (Institutes of the Christian religion, I.17.2)
 
Libertarianism, however, is the view that people are self-conscious causal agents that have the ability to choose X or to refrain from choosing X. This ability or power to choose is called free will and the human soul is the seat of free will. By virtue of their creation in the image of God, human beings are free volitional agents. God freely chose to create this particular world out of nothing. Note that this freedom doesn’t mean that someone can do anything s/he likes, but simply that as a free causal agent, by his own choice, any human being could also have refrained from a decision. Free will is essentially the freedom to refrain, i.e. you could have chosen otherwise. This is, admittedly, by no means absolute. The range of your options may be partly outside your control, but you are not necessarily forced to choose something. You are the one in direct control over your decisions and are a direct initiator of an event yourself. Thus the ability to choose is part of who you are, it is ingrained in your soul, so to speak.

So it should also be noted that people make self-conscious choices, i.e. our decisions are not impersonal, irrational or morally neutral, but in accordance with our character. But it is not our character, our intentions or reasons that effectuate the choices we make. Reasons aren’t causal agents, they cannot make decisions between themselves: only a person with true causal agency can make such a decision. So, according to libertarianism, the person, the agent who decides is the direct efficient cause, that by means of which an effect is produced, and the reasons behind our decisions, whether for good or evil, are merely ultimate goals, i.e. final causes, which may concur with our decisions. So decisions are made for a reason but by a person.

Such libertarian freedom is certainly found in the Bible, f. ex. God permits Adam and Eve to eat from all the trees of the garden freely (Gen 2:16), yet he commands them not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (v. 17). Similarly, God’s cheerful giver is allowed to give freely and not under compulsion (2 Corinthians 9:7) and Paul writes to Philemon (v. 14) “but I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion but of your own accord”. The Bible actually ends with a free invitation: “And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Revelation 22:17 KJV).

It is of course a matter of dispute to what extent our freedom is still ours in the fallen and corrupted state of this world. Yet whether by God’s antecedent grace or not, with respect to salvation, Libertarianism holds, accordingly, that, God desires all people to be saved and, therefore, calls all people to salvation, but every human, by his own free choice, has the ability to freely and personally respond to this call by accepting or rejecting God’s free offer of salvation in Jesus Christ. This free acceptance or rejection, generally associated with Arminianism, is what a Calvinist rejects.

However, if you ever come to a philosophical level in a discussion with Calvinists, which you inevitably will, many will say that they do believe in a form of human free will, something known as Compatibilism. It is an attempt to reconcile the significance of human decisions with God’s predestination by redefining free will. To put it simply, Compatibilists don’t understand free will to be freedom of refrain, but freedom of inclination, i.e. someone is free to act in accordance with their desires. Our choices are brought about by our strongest inclinations and, necessarily, due to God’s concurrent causal involvement, only one choice is possible. Hence, all human activity is the result of choices by real human desires, which inevitably have their origin in God’s will and decree.

Note that this is essentially not a form of free will, but a soft form of determinism. For, if someone is only free to follow their desires, then they are not free to refrain after all, but compelled by these desires ultimately resulting from God’s decree. So, contrary to Libertarianism and like Divine Determinism, Compatibilism asserts that not the human agent him/herself, but that God’s will is the invisible primary efficient cause of every human decision and human desires secondary. God is still in primary causal control of human conduct in all aspects of their lives.buckleherry.wordpress

hope this helps !!!
 
Peter said:
Man is nothing but a robot.
Click to expand...
Rather, SINFUL man is nothing but a robot controlled by his enslavement to sin. In the process of repentance and sanctification the point when we regain our free will comes at the time we call being reborn. And though we then again have a free wll, our memories are full of the pleasures and profits of being sinful and our free will must be trained in righteousness. As we learn the consequences of sinning, we learn to eschew sin and choose only righteousness. These consequences for our sin are the harsh disciplines all HIS legitimate children must endure to be trained in righteousness, Heb 12:5-11.

Being trained in anything without a free will is an oxymoron...
 
TedT said:
Rather, SINFUL man is nothing but a robot controlled by his enslavement to sin. In the process of repentance and sanctification the point when we regain our free will comes at the time we call being reborn. And though we then again have a free wll, our memories are full of the pleasures and profits of being sinful and our free will must be trained in righteousness. As we learn the consequences of sinning, we learn to eschew sin and choose only righteousness. These consequences for our sin are the harsh disciplines all HIS legitimate children must endure to be trained in righteousness, Heb 12:5-11.

Being trained in anything without a free will is an oxymoron...
Click to expand...
Agree but calvinsm denies man has a free will.
 
civic said:
Agree but calvinsm denies man has a free will.
Click to expand...

I don't like calling it Calvinism because I've barely read anything by the man, but for the sake of clarity, I will.

IMO, Calvinism is just shorthand for monergism, that salvation is of God alone. Man does not have free will in the libertarian sense. Rather, we're free to do our will according to our inclination. And that is accordance with God's will. As Joseph told his brothers, "You meant it for evil, but God MEANT IT (not allowed it, MEANT IT) for good." His brothers did their will according to their inclination and according to God's will.
 
The Rogue Tomato said:
I don't like calling it Calvinism because I've barely read anything by the man, but for the sake of clarity, I will.

IMO, Calvinism is just shorthand for monergism, that salvation is of God alone. Man does not have free will in the libertarian sense. Rather, we're free to do our will according to our inclination. And that is accordance with God's will. As Joseph told his brothers, "You meant it for evil, but God MEANT IT (not allowed it, MEANT IT) for good." His brothers did their will according to their inclination and according to God's will.
Click to expand...
Its more than that my friend. Its that God has determined before creation every thought, action, deed both good and evil that comes to pass and that there was no other way it can play out. God determins every sinful thought and deed that is committed. And at the same time chose to save some and damn others before creation all for His glory. Its called meticolous divine determinism and double predestination. And they define Sovereignty in such a way that freedom becomes an illusion. It doesn't exist in their paradigm.
 
civic said:
Its more than that my friend. Its that God has determined before creation every thought, action, deed both good and evil that comes to pass and that there was no other way it can play out. God determins every sinful thought and deed that is committed. And at the same time chose to save some and damn others before creation all for His glory. Its called meticolous divine determinism and double predestination. And they define Sovereignty in such a way that freedom becomes an illusion. It doesn't exist in their paradigm.
Click to expand...

That's just your vision of how it works. I don't happen to share it. I'll leave it at that. On second thought, I'll answer it from scripture (with commentary):

19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” 20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?

22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— 24 even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?

I can't recall the word for it, but I happen to believe Adam's sin was ordained by God. Without sin, and without the objects of His wrath prepared for destruction, we would never know God's righteousness, wrath, power, and mercy. We might be happy little creatures in an Octopus's garden, but we could never truly know important attributes of God.
 
The Rogue Tomato said:
That's just your vision of how it works. I don't happen to share it. I'll leave it at that. On second thought, I'll answer it from scripture (with commentary):

19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” 20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?

22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— 24 even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?

I can't recall the word for it, but I happen to believe Adam's sin was ordained by God. Without sin, and without the objects of His wrath prepared for destruction, we would never know God's righteousness, wrath, power, and mercy. We might be happy little creatures in an Octopus's garden, but we could never truly know important attributes of God.
Click to expand...
This is why I left calvinism after a couple year study that resulted in this thesis paper. I'm still adding to it as I study and research the topic and may become a book at some point.

 
civic said:
Agree but calvinsm denies man has a free will.
Click to expand...
...which is why I dropped the Calvinist definitions of reality in the mid 70s in favour of our true free will before the fall and only sinners enslaved to sin being sown into the earth after its creation after the fall, Matt 13:36-39.

No free will equates to:
- no guilt for sin
- no righteous judgement
- no true love
- no true marriage, heavenly or earthly
 
The Rogue Tomato said:
I don't like calling it Calvinism because I've barely read anything by the man, but for the sake of clarity, I will.

IMO, Calvinism is just shorthand for monergism, that salvation is of God alone. Man does not have free will in the libertarian sense. Rather, we're free to do our will according to our inclination. And that is accordance with God's will. As Joseph told his brothers, "You meant it for evil, but God MEANT IT (not allowed it, MEANT IT) for good." His brothers did their will according to their inclination and according to God's will.
Click to expand...

I have long believed that they way many Calvinist treat "monergism".... it really is nothing more than a meaningless distinction. There is zero position that exists that rejected that God alone saves. Salvation wouldn't exist at all without God and the work of Jesus Christ.

Salvation is really both Monergistic and Synergistic. It is both. Not either or.

The action of God in Joseph was to overcome the actions of Joseph's brothers. The evil actions of his brother was all their own. Not God. God has always worked this way. The Calvinist insists that God took action against Joseph. He didn't.

There is a huge difference between God's direct action and God allowing things to happen.
 

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