Pope Francis met JD Vance and said...

Thumbpicker said:
Calvin is regarded as the father of reformed theology. Lutheranism is not the same as reformed theology.
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Right, but Luther's goal was to reform the church. Apparently it wasn't good enough for the Calvinists. And so on and so on until every man is his own bishop and self interpreter of scripture which is why today there is no end to protestant denominations. Every protestant faith says the other protestant faith has wrong doctrine. You pick and choose which ecumenical councils you agree with and which ones you don't per the opinions and tastes of the "believer". It's woke christianity.
 
VonBonfire said:
Right, but Luther's goal was to reform the church. Apparently it wasn't good enough for the Calvinists. And so on and so on until every man is his own bishop and self interpreter of scripture which is why today there is no end to protestant denominations. Every protestant faith says the other protestant faith has wrong doctrine. You pick and choose which ecumenical councils you agree with and which ones you don't per the opinions and tastes of the "believer". It's woke christianity.
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Calvanism is a scholarly attempt to pull together the doctrines of Bible in a logical and coherent way. Read the Canons of Dort which has supporting and contrary verses outlining it all. I believe there is still some room to manouvre and things we won't find out until we are before God in heaven.

However it is a mistake to think the hand of man isn't behind the changes that the Catholic and orthodox churches have wrought over what it says in scripture because many of the changes are contrary to what scripture says.
 
Thumbpicker said:
Calvanism is a scholarly attempt to pull together the doctrines of Bible in a logical and coherent way. Read the Canons of Dort which has supporting and contrary verses outlining it all. I believe there is still some room to manouvre and things we won't find out until we are before God in heaven.
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Yes, Calvinism which predestines a man to heaven or hell. Complete heresy and a further corruption from even Luther.
 
VonBonfire said:
Yes, Calvinism which predestines a man to heaven or hell. Complete heresy and a further corruption from even Luther.
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Calvinism doesn't do anything. Calvinism is a theological encapsulation of the doctrines contained in the Bible. It's up to God. God knows who will be saved or not. You cannot deny that some people are going to hell and some are going to heaven - the Bible is clear on that. You cannot deny God knows who that will be before they are born. God knows everything (Omniscient). God doesn't wish it to be that way though.
 
Thumbpicker said:
Calvinism doesn't do anything. It's up to God. God knows who will be saved or not. You cannot deny that some people are going to hell and some are going to heaven - the Bible is clear on that. You cannot deny God knows who that will be before they are born. God knows everything (Omniscient). God doesn't wish it to be that way though.
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That's doctrinal calvinism though. You don't have a choice in the matter, God has already foreordained it therefore there is no motivation to seek after it yourself because the outcome has already been decided. It equates God's foreknowledge with total control over what choices you will make, which is also an error, because everyone has a choice they can make. This is why even many protestants condemn Calvinism.
 
VonBonfire said:
That's doctrinal calvinism though. You don't have a choice in the matter, God has already foreordained it therefore there is no motivation to seek after it yourself because the outcome has already been decided. It equates God's foreknowledge with total control over what choices you will make, which is also an error, because everyone has a choice they can make. This is why even many protestants condemn Calvinism.
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Foreknowledge doesn't mean total control over people's choices. However he knows what those choices will be. You know this to be true. How can it be otherwise.
 
Nobody knows if any of this is real until we pass. No sense arguing about it.
 
It's only predestination if you already know the outcome, which God obviously does.

A rat in a maze can think it's making wholly-independent choices but the designer of it knows where he's gonna end up.
 
There is a bit of a paradox in all this because the saving is done by God, not by anything we do. It's God's grace. We don't save ourselves, God saves us. I don't think it's possible to get our heads around it fully.
 
Thumbpicker said:
It does matter what you do. It's just that God knows what you are going to do.
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If God has predestined your salvation then it doesn't matter what you do, that is the only logical conclusion. He hasn't predetermined our choices for us, so predestination is wrong in the way Calvin describes it.
 
VonBonfire said:
If God has predestined your salvation then it doesn't matter what you do, that is the only logical conclusion. He hasn't predetermined our choices for us, so predestination is wrong in the way Calvin describes it.
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Well he sort of has because he knows before we are born what we are going to do.

Also as you know God is always in control.
 
Thumbpicker said:
Well he sort of has because he knows before we are born what we are going to do.
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Yeah but he isn't forcing you to choose one way or the other simply because he knows ultimately what our decision will be. Free will is in effect, and free will negates the idea of predestination, because there is no free will in predestination.
 
VonBonfire said:
Yeah but he isn't forcing you to choose one way or the other simply because he knows ultimately what our decision will be. Free will is in effect, and free will negates the idea of predestination, because there is no free will in predestination.
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We can go around in circles on this due to the paradox but the important thing is that at some point we either must decide whether to accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour for the atonement of our sins and repent or we reject him and don't repent. God knows what our choice in that matter will be before we are born. So you can say we are predestined in terms of that choice. Also it's true that there's nothing we do to save ourselves... it's God that does the saving and his grace. Some people will go to heaven and some will not. That seems harsh to us perhaps but that is what the Bible says. God cannot save those who have not had Jesus atone for their sins because he is Holy and cannot look upon us otherwise.
 
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Thumbpicker said:
but the important thing is that at some point we either must decide whether to accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour for the atonement of our sins and repent or we reject him and don't repent
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This doesn't square well with the part you wrote below.
Thumbpicker said:
Also it's true that there's nothing we do to save ourselves.
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You just said we have to decide whether to accept him as savior and repent which implies there is something we can do, which is true because we have self-determination, being made in the image of God. God has foreknowledge, but it doesn't trump our self determination. If I can do things to work out my salvation in the matter then it's not pre-determination as Calvin teaches. Seems like a protestant theological tangent more than anything.
 
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