Can anyone who is a calvinist explain why God predestined certain people to hell or heaven without regards to anything? It seems injust
also how would one know if they are a reprobate or one of the elect
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Prot nonsense
I'm a Calvinist and my answer is middle knowledge, but that answer doesn't come from calvinism. Westminster says
>according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin
Isn't middle knowledge a molinist concept? I though all calvinists were opposed to that. It's hard to see how it could be compatible with unconditional election.
Yeah they're opposed to that, see James White. Dirk is trolling, as usual.
Wlc once remarked that every member of the theology faculty of Calvin college told him they're molinist
I don't think it contradicts sovereign election
James white doesn't define reformed theology
>Wlc
WHO
William lane Craig
That hack?
What are you talking about Dirk. Middle knowledge completely contradicts unconditional election and God's sovereignty. If election depends on some action God foresaw the elect would do, then it's not unconditional. Also, and as Jame White pointed out in his debate with Craig, where did these subjunctive counterfactuals come from? How is it that an omnipotent, eternal God is somehow limited by these hypotheticals about creatures that have not yet been created?
Gods middle knowledge is prior to his decree while said knowledge is not an independent condition compromising his sovereignty
And like Craig responded to white, such an objection relies upon a theory of truthmaker maximalism that's not at all reasonable to assume and isn't demanded for a biblical worldview
If you accept Middle Knowledge you can't be a Calvinist.
Why?
I just don't understand how you can reconcile middle knowledge with unconditional election. This was developed in the context of Molinism, it asserts a certain degree of free will on the part of the believer that would exclude the bondage of the will, whereas unconditional election logically leads into double predestination for which it was developed for. If you want to find a way to reconcile them go ahead but it's not historical.
It sounds like you pit free will against calvinism, is that how you view things?
Well in the context of salvation, yes.
What do you mean by that
That a believer cannot freely respond to God's grace.
You mean without gods prior regeneration right
God regenerates the elect to then freely respond in obedience
Ok but then that's not really free will, which means this isn't middle knowledge on God's part, it's just plain Calvinism. To give the basic gist of Molinism, God has created the best of all possible worlds where creatures can freely respond to his grace. In Calvinism believers cannot freely choose to respond to God's grace due to their views on total depravity, which is why it requires double predestination.
Molinism doesn't necessarily assert god made the best possible world, in it's basic form it only asserts god possesses counterfactual knowledge, which is an evidently biblical concept. In application molinists speculate that god applied middle knowledge prior to his decree to create, thus reconciling predestination and truly free will
I don't see the incompatibility with double predestination
I just gave you the basic gist, it asserts God creates situations where the believer freely responds to God's grace, there is an implication of cooperation which cannot be in Calvinism. These are mutually exclusive. I don't know how you cannot see this.
It doesn't, at least it doesn't always. I see molinism as answering the question of who he decrees as elect and who as reprobate, and in time election is still unconditional and regeneration still precedes faith
But it does always. I don't know of any mainstream Reformed theologian who would defend this view.
Apparently a significant part of the faculty at Calvin college
"Apparently"? You're going off of the perspective of an actual Molinist... That means nothing. I've not seen a single Reformed theologian speak of this on length. Your understanding has a lot of deficits in it, you need to study these issues more before you begin making these assertions. Just a word of advice.
Dirk is embarrassing himself so hard in this thread. He's such a fricking idiot.
What assertions
Everything you said about middle knowledge and Calvinistic election.
That I fail to see the contradiction?
Clearly, which means you don't have a deep understanding of these doctrines.
You're being really obnoxious
.... I'm not... I'm actually just telling you what I'm seeing from you... I am trying to help you understand...
Dirk shut the frick up you're not smart.
Holy frick Dirk you really don't understand theology yet like to claim all your opponents don't. Lmao the hypocrisy.
>I'm a Calvinist and my answer is middle knowledge, but that answer doesn't come from calvinism.
Lol moron
For his own eternal glory bigot
He just knows who will reject him and go to hell.
Simple as.
If you think hard about it you’ll see it makes sense
Not the most participation trophy theory to have
But it did motivate people to prove themselves and have internal anxiety that drove them to succeed. Plus it’s kinda metal.
Calvinist’s pre-destination dogma is a theology and you should just stop talking about it. We’ve had a million threads on it already. You can still go to any church and find and read the King James Version Bible and really get saved and baptised if you just request it. If they rejecting that then lol it’s not a real church of God get out of there. It’s not hard to notice when you are being played by satanists if you follow that direction.
The calvinists are paying too much attention to the select few people God did predestinate , such as Jesus Christ himself, or Abraham and Noah, Moses, Israel, Elias, Joseph and Mary, those people. Along with those people, there were those who were slaughtered for Jesus, God the Father, and the Word. Can you guess who were slaughtered? It consists of the blood of the righteous from Abel to Zachariah, and the generations of Baby Moses and Baby Jesus both, the firstborns who were killed seeking for their life, and killed others. Now here is another interesting one. When Mary virginally gave birth to Jesus, other Mary’s showed up. And some may have even believed, though they were not, that they were THE MOTHER MARY. And maybe even told to believe that they were. Which would mean that they weren’t wrong to believe that. Lol. So God has to delicately handle their matter. Now, here is where things get even more wild. Some people may even think they are Noah, or Cain. Or Judas, or even Satan. Some people may even think they are God (HUGE EGOTIST PROBLEM) or they might think they are Jesus, or they might think they are Herod, or the antichrist, or they may not even be reading the Bible and making their own religion and believing their own lies.
They may also believe the story of Abraham about to slay isaac, and they may believe and teach that they did slay isaac, and they might believe that isaac was in the blood of the righteous (doctrines of demons) in which people may be enslaved to a false religion.
Actually christcuck threads usually boil down to cath/ortho/prot shit flinging contest. Rarely do we actually get in the weeds of theology; let alone calvinist theology.
>Rarely do we actually get in the weeds of theology; let alone calvinist theology.
This article seems to get into the weeds of the Molinism/Calvinist conundrum:
>Can one be both a Calvinist and a Molinist? Many Reformed Christians have deemed this an impossibility, while some prominent Reformed philosophers like Alvin Plantinga and Del Ratzsch profess to be simultaneously Calvinists and Molinists. The answer to the question likely depends on what one means by Molinism.
https://freethinkingministries.com/can-one-be-both-a-calvinist-and-a-molinist/
No, they usually try to force us into theology, that’s 99% of Satan’s agenda, devil gentile moron.
Unbelievers claim that the Bible sounds like fairy tales. Yet the same people can;t write new ones as we see in all ages of apostasy. Apostates cannot write fairy tales, and therefore society suffers from a lack of new good movies, videogames, stories, and TV. God called this a tree and it’s fruit. The good tree is the tree that abides in Jesus Christ the Lord, the evil tree is an apostate tree which cannot near forth good fruit because apostates cannot even entertain the thought of fairy tales, which they equate with God being worthless. So Gos makes them worthless.
Calvinism makes God out to be worse than Satan. Making people simply to send them to hell for eternity and torture them forever -- with nothing they could have ever done to stop it.
Sounds like a genuine heresy to me. Is there any way to find out if you're going to heaven or hell before you die? If you're destined for hell can you just choose to do a bunch of bad things then?
>muh calvinism
Calvinism is the modern day Gnosticism. It corrupts the hearts and minds of many of Christ's followers.
>Calvinism is the modern day Gnosticism. It corrupts the hearts and minds of many of Christ's followers.
Very true
At least it's consistent with behavioral genetics where genes predict outcomes better than all environmental factors combined.