Blog Stats
- 618,015 Likes!
Blogroll
- Andy Underhile
- Conrad Mbewe
- Design of Providence
- Every Nation
- Got Questions?
- Old Life
- Rated R for Reformed
- Reformation Italy
- Reformed Quotes
- Scripture Zealot
- Sola Sisters
- The Contemporary Calvinist
- The Cripplegate
- The Old Guys
- To every tribe
- Tolle Lege
- Tony Reinke
- Travels from Ur
- Two Ages Pilgrims
- Urbana: Missions Blog
Resources
Travel/ Tours
Search this blog!
Categories
Twisted® Tag Cloud
a.w pink
africa
altar calls
anointing
arminianism
authority
baptist
Benny Hinn
Bible
Bible Study
biblical truth
Breaking News
calvinism
charismatic
Charles Finney
Charles Spurgeon
Christ
christian
Christian best sellers
Christianity
Christians
Christmas
church
church history
Death
decisional regeneration
doctrines of grace
Easter
Evangelism
Faith
god
gospel
Gospel Lite
Heresy
Holy Spirit
humor
J.c Ryle
Jesus
jesus christ
jim west
joel osteen
john calvin
John macArthur
John Piper
Mark Driscoll
marriage
martin luther
martyn lloyd-jones
mega churches
Missionaries
Missions
monergism
Pastor
paul washer
persecution
prosperity
Prosperity Gospel
purpose driven church
purpose driven life
Quotes
reformed
reformed theology
Religion and Spirituality
rick warren
Satire
seeker sensitive church
Seeker Sensitive Movement
sin
theology
Total Depravity
Uganda
way of the master
Word faith movement
word of faith
Your best life now
In my long time struggle to reconcile scripture, church history and the world we live in, where real people make real choices daily about everything, with the teaching of Calvin or Arminius’s take on things, I always come up, well a bit un-reconciled. Neither totally make sense to me, so much so that it has made me set aside my entire library of Systematic Theology books and look farther back than those two.
The one thing about Calvinism that I can’t shake is that in the real world we live in, it makes God out to be more like a monster. And so your last line about “nobody get’s injustice” seems to me a real conflict. If nobody can be saved unless God regenerates them, and God will only regenerate those whom he chooses, then those he does not choose have no hope. But it doesn’t end there, even though they will spend an eternity in Hell, God still creates them, and punishes them for something that by their very nature they can not resist: Sin. This may be many things, but love is not one of them. Some try to get out of this dilemma by stating that they are punished because they are guilty, which is true. But that doesn’t really answer the dilemma. They can’t be anything BUT guilty.
We can massage that all we want and try to make it sound better, but that is the way it is if Calvin got it right. Now, I readily admit that this may be the way God really does work, but if it is, not only does it seem unjust, it IS unjust. If a human father had two children, and prior to birth decided that one of the children he would lavish his love on and teach how they might honor and please him, and then reward that child with a wonderfully un-earned inheritance because simply because he/she was his child. We wouldn’t question his love. But if with the second child he decided he would do the opposite, keeping how to please him and live in a way that honored him secret, and punishing the child for failing to do something they could never do, throwing the child to the street to fend for itself, we would call that father many things, but loving isn’t one of them. It’s a bad example, I know, but you can see the point.
I look at the cross, and when I do, I don’t see a God that seems unjust at all. Calvin’s take on things (let’s face it the guys was a kid at 23 when he penned the Institutes) seems to describe another God.
So, are there any other options out there besides the new ideas that flowed from Calvin or Arminius?
Jim it’s good to see you are struggling with theological issues. I am sorry I do not usually quote Calvin or Arminius (as both are helpful in many issues but atthe end of the day are fallible). When explaining these tensions I prefer to look to scripture.