However, I believe that the system commonly called Calvinism is closer to what the Bible teaches than other systems. [A bit screwy on baptism, but.]

How closely tied together are TULIP and Covenant Theology though? Just cause some guy named John taught both of them doesn’t make them mutually dependent.

Hi David McKay

Well we have a point of departure straight away.  I believe in Jesus Christ, but if you want to worship a book, don’t let me stop you.

How do you explain Mathew 25:31ff?

Well free will and determinism are mutually exclusive.  Can’t anyone else see a logical problem here?

cheers

John

John, we have to make sense of the biblical data, even if it appears at first to be contradictory.

Hi Dannii
Calvin did not teach TULIP. TULIP is a 20th century acronym of the Synod of Dort response to Arminian theology, which is post-Calvin.
An Australian Presbyterian living in the US [David Ponter] has shown fairly conclusively that Calvin was not a 5-point Calvinist, through an exhaustive study of his writings.

Calvin taught that Christ really did die for the sins of the whole world, not restricting his death to being only for the elect.

However, 5 point Calvinism does seem to fit the biblical data better, I think, and is also a better logical system.

New Covenant Theologians are happy to embrace 5-point Calvinism without embracing covenant theology.

Have you read New Covenant Theology by Zaspel and Wells, Dannii? Well worth a read.

And see these online resources
A Brief Explanation of New Covenant Theology

One stop shop of NCT

Well we have a point of departure straight away.  I believe in Jesus Christ, but if you want to worship a book, don’t let me stop you.

Who’s worshipping a book? I read the other day that worship really involves three things: love, trust and service. Now we protestants may love and trust the Bible, but that’s really just a smaller part of our love and trust in God, for if we knew God perfectly we could love and trust him without the Bible. So service… how do we serve the Bible?

I would ask you, how can you believe and trust in Jesus Christ without the knowledge we have of him through the Bible?

Well free will and determinism are mutually exclusive.  Can’t anyone else see a logical problem here?

Quite. But logic too is a part of this universe, and is something God created. We are logical creatures in a logical world, but in some ways God is beyond logic in ways we cannot fully comprehend. Free will vs sovereignty is one of them.

Calvin did not teach TULIP. TULIP is a 20th century acronym of the Synod of Dort response to Arminian theology, which is post-Calvin.
An Australian Presbyterian living in the US [David Ponter] has shown fairly conclusively that Calvin was not a 5-point Calvinist, through an exhaustive study of his writings.

The irony ;)

Have you read New Covenant Theology by Zaspel and Wells, Dannii? Well worth a read.

Not yet, though I’ll look into it when I have a little more time. It’s definitely more than a passing interest for me, so I will get there eventually.

But logic too is a part of this universe, and is something God created.

Might be an interesting topic for another thread :).

I’m not sure if logic is just simply part of the created universe. After all Jesus is referred to as the logos. And logic and mind are concepts that can’t be explained materially.

Hi Derek.
Logic and logos are related linguistically, but it may not be right to equate them because of this accidental verbal relationship.

Logic is very mathematical, and as maths is definitely a property of the universe, I think logic is too. Just as there are coherant non-euclidean geometries, there are other logics too, and maybe in some of them there is no paradox of the wills.

Hi David / Dannii
Thanks for your responses - they make me think.

David McKay

Why do we have to make sense of the biblical data?  I am hearing a big assumption here regarding the bible and its provenance.

This is a big topic and I am currently time poor, but I see we have two choices.  Literal reading of the bible leads to an illogical outcome = accept bible and live with illogical outcome.  Alternatively, accept that books of the bible were written by people inspired by the holy spirit but articulating their experience of christianity and without a drive to internal consistency.  At the most basic, people use different approaches depending on the point they want to make.  So for example Paul weighs into the circumcision debate and talks about the importance of grace, the writer of Mathew is concerned about how we live in the world and so he presents the speech of Jesus about sorting the sheep from the goats.

Dear Danii Wilson

My argument is at least as good as the straw men arguments put up by some protestants to demonstrate that catholics are idolators.  Please don’t repeat them, I am sure I have heard them all.  David’s words were that he “believed in the bible”.  Please find me a passage anywhere in the bible where Jesus says something along the lines of “your belief in [a yet to be written and categorised] bible has saved you”.

There is no special logic in mathematics.  It is possible to make illogical statements in maths.  [See Godels theorem].  Maths is not a property of the universe, it is possible to make a mathematical model that describes some of the observed behaviour of the universe.  Non euclidean geometries follow the rules of mathematics, they just have different starting assumptions.

Really all your answer is is to say well I want to believe in predestination and free will at the same time (I think that is what you are saying, you have not articulated your position).  You have in effect called it a mystery.  This is really no more than acceptance of cognitive dissonance.  I don’t have a problem with that, so long as you are 1 explicit and 2 Don’t make universalist claims based on your peculiar and irrational beliefs.

How do you rationalise a protestant belief that no action by a person can lead to salvation with a belief that one decides to believe in Christ?

cheers

John

Dannii Willis - 25 August 2008 01:09 AM

I would ask you, how can you believe and trust in Jesus Christ without the knowledge we have of him through the Bible?

I agree with this comment entirely, but I suspect the comment would mean vastly different things to both of us.

John

Dear Danii Wilson

My argument is at least as good as the straw men arguments put up by some protestants to demonstrate that catholics are idolators.  Please don’t repeat them, I am sure I have heard them all.  David’s words were that he “believed in the bible”.  Please find me a passage anywhere in the bible where Jesus says something along the lines of “your belief in [a yet to be written and categorised] bible has saved you”.

I presume you’re replying to me? Cause that name is completely wrong…

How was I saying Catholics are idolaters? I was defending myself and others against the accusation that we were idolising the Bible.

I also don’t know what you’re asking me to find there, or why. Jesus told us to believe him, and to do so we need to know what he said. The Bible records his word faithfully, so we believe it, and through it, Jesus.

There is no special logic in mathematics.  It is possible to make illogical statements in maths.  [See Godels theorem].  Maths is not a property of the universe, it is possible to make a mathematical model that describes some of the observed behaviour of the universe.  Non euclidean geometries follow the rules of mathematics, they just have different starting assumptions.

Mathematics as a system is not a property, but I think that certain things like transcendental numbers may be.

Really all your answer is is to say well I want to believe in predestination and free will at the same time (I think that is what you are saying, you have not articulated your position).  You have in effect called it a mystery.  This is really no more than acceptance of cognitive dissonance.  I don’t have a problem with that, so long as you are 1 explicit and 2 Don’t make universalist claims based on your peculiar and irrational beliefs.

I don’t think it’s irrational to say that logic has limits.

How do you rationalise a protestant belief that no action by a person can lead to salvation with a belief that one decides to believe in Christ?

I don’t classify faith as an action or work, but even if it were, it’s still a gift from God and not from ourselves.

Hi Danii

Apologies for munching your name.  Didn’t suggest you were saying that catholics are idolators but it is a common theme in anti catholic web sites and literature.

Well the bible says a lot of things that aren’t the words of Jesus.  And if it is all 100% literally right then what happens when two things contradict such as the two creation accounts in Genesis?

Mathematics is a symbolic language and we can use operators that in some cases.

If faith is a gift from god then it doesn’t matter what we do, we either are given it or we aren’t and if we aren’t given it then it is wood heap time.

cheers

John

I’m struggling to see what you’re actually arguing for. Would you be able to explain what you do believe about this topic (or point me to where you have already if I’ve missed it.)

Interpreting the Bible literally is not the same as interpreting it literalistically. There are many, in my mind compelling, explanations for the seeming contradictions like Gen 1 & 2, but as you haven’t even said what’s wrong with those chapters I won’t go into it here. If you want to get into the details please do start another topic.

Dear Dannii

I have an old copy of Peakes Bible Commentary (around 1970 or so) at home that I picked up in a second hand book shop for $10.  It has a foreword by the archbishop of Canterbury.  In the chapter on Genesis it sets out the two Genesis creation stories side by side to demonstrate the differences and expounds a theory of Genesis as an amalgamation of two sources by a third source.  For example, the two sources use different words to refer to god.  The second source uses Yahweh, translated in the RSV as Lord God, while the first uses the term god only.  The sequence of events is different in chapter 1 to that put forward in chapter 2 and 3 (the split is in the middle of verse 4 of chapter 2).  For example in the first story plants were created first and in the second man was created first.

I am not sure if this theory of the genesis of genesis is still in vogue or what stature it has in scholarly circles.  Note I said scholarly circles - I am talking published papers in refereed journals here.

I am not aware of a substantive difference between literally and literallistically, except the the suffix ist suggests a personal noun, ie the first implies there is no human agency.  A literal reading takes the words at face value without mysticism, allegory or metaphor.

I am not really arguing for anything.  I am more responding to two recent events.  Firstly, I was sent a copy of book by Ray Galea, basically on the theme of why his sect of protestantism is right and catholics are wrong, and second, two articles published by Dean Jensen in the SMH around World Youth Day, and in a similar vein as to why he is right and catholics are wrong.  After years of dealing with smug and self righteous evangelicals, firstly at university and secondly in my wife’s family, it has finally got up my nose and I have taken the opportunity to apply the same blowtorch to protestant beliefs that some protestants apply to catholic beliefs.  (Having said that, I am not an apologist for catholicism and don’t subscribe to a number of dogmas).

As an outsider, it is clear to me that there are a number of beliefs held by protestants that are unbiblical and unreasonable.  The basis of these beliefs, in my opinion, is most probably Zwingli’s rejection of sacramentalism rather than the post hoc explanations generally put forward.

One example is the true presence in the eucharist.  There are good reasons to believe that this was a belief of the early church but this belief is rejected in the Calvinist stream of Protestantism.  That rejection requires as a minimum an invocation of metaphor.

However there is a cleft stick here.  At other times protestants argue for a literal reading when an allegorical reading seems to me to be strongly supported such as in Genesis for the reasons stated above.  This inconsistent application of rules makes me wary, and leads me to treat the purported basis as a post hoc justification of a particular ideological position.

Some other positions that warrant critical examination include the scripture alone position (at best a circular argument), the essential nihilism arising from the faith alone position as demonstrated by the doctrine of predestination, the blindness to biblical references to the importance of personal acts in the faith alone position and the danger of biblical and experiencial idolatry.

I see this thread as an opportunity to discuss the implications of predestination.

cheers

John