In Arminianism, God excludes some people from salvation

FreeGrace2 said:

You and your ilk.


No, the heart is that God created the human race antagonistic to Him, so He had to arbitrarily select a few, change them against their will, so that they will love Him back. If that isn't RT, please take it apart point by point.

Did any of the selected ones (according to RT) want the change He makes in them? Of course not. So it's against their will.

On what basis does He select these few? For no apparent reason. Therefore, totally arbitrary and capricious.

That does not describe the loving God of Scripture. Not even close.

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This shows that you really don't understand Calvinism.

Hammster said:

This shows that you really don't understand Calvinism.

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Oh, really??

This is what I said:
Did any of the selected ones (according to RT) want the change He makes in them? Of course not. So it's against their will.

On what basis does He select these few? For no apparent reason. Therefore, totally arbitrary and capricious.

That does not describe the loving God of Scripture. Not even close.

Please identify which of these statements doesn't reflect Calvinism, then.

And, given the usual responses, please be specific about each one.

No drive-by snippet one-liners.

FreeGrace2 said:

Oh, really??

This is what I said:
Did any of the selected ones (according to RT) want the change He makes in them? Of course not. So it's against their will.

On what basis does He select these few? For no apparent reason. Therefore, totally arbitrary and capricious.

That does not describe the loving God of Scripture. Not even close.

Please identify which of these statements doesn't reflect Calvinism, then.

And, given the usual responses, please be specific about each one.

No drive-by snippet one-liners.

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I didn't read past "No, the heart is that God created the human race antagonistic to Him,". I didn't see the point. When you start off with a bad premise, the rest is sure to fail.

Hammster said:

This shows that you really don't understand Calvinism.

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Amen !
But a straw man is certain to sidetrack and tempt others to dance to a divergent lost cause ...

Smoke and mirrors bro and childish games of 'refute me then' 'I can rebut better than you' it's like kindergarten !!!

OzSpen said:

It makes God the author of evil.

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No, it shows that the will of God is more powerful and free than the will of creatures. It shows our God in Heaven "does whatever He pleases". It shows THY will be done, not thine.

OzSpen said:

How is it fair for God to not condemn ALL people who hate him?

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How is it fair that God the Son should suffer the punishment I deserve? It's called the MERCY of God on the undeserving and it is quite liberating.

Hammster,

So you disagree that He has chosen people, despite what scripture says?

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False accusation. You don't know what I believe when you make that kind of ignorant statement.

(This shows your ignorance of Calvinism since Calvin didn't found it)

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You also show some ignorance about 'The Origins of Calvinism', with this article stating:

Hammster said:

So John Calvin agrees with the Reformed Arminian position of God loving the entire human race.

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Calvin also believed in infant baptism. So obviously I don't agree with him on everything. In fact, I have hardly read any Calvin.

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The topic is God loving the entire world or not. So what did you do? You committed a Red Herring Fallacy by changing the topic to what I did not raise - infant baptism.

I have a biblical view that says God actually saves those He loves, not that He sends some that He loves to hell for disagreeing with Him.

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That is not the topic we are discussing, but the biblical view, as I've demonstrated from John 3:16, is that God loves the entire world. And have a guess what? Lutheran commentator, R C H Lenski, agrees with my exegesis of John 3:16 and not yours. Here is what he states:In the words of Lenski, you are the one who is 'misinterpreting' Scripture and by making 'the world' not mean the world, it is you who is 'inserting a limiting word where Jesus and the Scriptures have no such word'.

I find it staggering to believe that you have added to Scripture like this.

Oz

Works consulted
Lenski, R C H 1943. Commentary on the New Testament:The interpretation of St. John's Gospel. Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson Publishers (limited edn assigned by Augsburg Fortress).

Apologetic_Warrior said:

No, it shows that the will of God is more powerful and free than the will of creatures. It shows our God in Heaven "does whatever He pleases". It shows THY will be done, not thine.

How is it fair that God the Son should suffer the punishment I deserve? It's called the MERCY of God on the undeserving and it is quite liberating.

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You didn't deal with the issues I raised and side-stepped them to give your Calvinistic spin. That's committing a Red Herring Logical Fallacy and we can't have a logical conversation when you use such an illogical tactic.

OzSpen said:

Hammster,
False accusation. You don't know what I believe when you make that kind of ignorant statement.
You also show some ignorance about 'The Origins of Calvinism', with this article stating:

From that time on, Protestantism divided into two traditions, Lutheranism and Calvinism—the latter being the Reformed tradition as understood and expressed in the writings of John Calvin and his fellow Reformers.​

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And Calvin did not found it.

The topic is God loving the entire world or not. So what did you do? You committed a Red Herring Fallacy by changing the topic to what I did not raise - infant baptism.

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No, I brought up the fact that I don't hold to all that Calvin believed.

That is not the topic we are discussing, but the biblical view, as I've demonstrated from John 3:16, is that God loves the entire world. And have a guess what? Lutheran commentator, R C H Lenski, agrees with my exegesis of John 3:16 and not yours. Here is what he states:

'The universality already expressed in the title "the Son of man" (1:51; 3:14) and in "everyone who believes" (v. 15), is brought out with the most vivid clearness in the statement that God loved "the world," ton kosmon, the world of men, all men, not one excepted. To insert a limitation, either here or in similar passages, is to misinterpret. We know of nothing more terrible than to shut out poor dying sinners from God’s love and redemption. But this is done by inserting a limiting word where Jesus and the Scriptures have no such word' (Lenski 1943:260).
​

In the words of Lenski, you are the one who is 'misinterpreting' Scripture and by making 'the world' not mean the world, it is you who is 'inserting a limiting word where Jesus and the Scriptures have no such word'.

I find it staggering to believe that you have added to Scripture like this.

Oz

Works consulted
Lenski, R C H 1943. Commentary on the New Testament:The interpretation of St. John's Gospel. Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson Publishers (limited edn assigned by Augsburg Fortress).

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I haven't added anything. World has many definitions in the writings of John. You picked one that fits your theology. And because of it, you have God sending people He loves SO MUCH to hell just because they disagree with Him.

Hammster said:

And Calvin did not found it.

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Here are a couple of quotes from a solid scholarly source on the subject:

"CALVINISM is an ambiguous term in so far as it is currently employed in two or three senses, closely related indeed, and passing insensibly into one another, but of varying latitudes of connotation. Sometimes it designates merely the individual teaching of John Calvin. Sometimes it designates, more broadly, the doctrinal system confessed by that body of Protestant Churches known historically, in distinction from the Lutheran Churches, as “the Reformed Churches” (see “Protestantism”); but also quite commonly called “the Calvinistic Churches” because the greatest scientific exposition of their faith in the Reformation age, and perhaps the most influential of any age, was given by John Calvin. Sometimes it designates, more broadly still, the entire body of conceptions, theological, ethical, philosophical, social, political, which, under the influence of the master mind of John Calvin, raised itself to dominance in the Protestant lands of the post-Reformation age, and has left a permanent mark not only upon the thought of mankind, but upon the life-history of men, the social order of civilized peoples, and even the political organization of states. In the present article, the term will be taken, for obvious reasons, in the second of these senses. Fortunately this is also its central sense; and there is little danger that its other connotations will fall out of mind while attention is concentrated upon this."

Warfield, B. B. (2008). The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield: Calvin and Calvinism (Vol. 5, p. 353). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

"Historically the Reformed theology finds its origin in the reforming movement begun in Switzerland under the leadership of Zwingli (1516). Its fundamental principles are already present in Zwingli’s teaching, though it was not until Calvin’s profound and penetrating genius was called to their exposition that they took their ultimate form or received systematic development. From Switzerland Calvinism spread outward to France, and along the Rhine through Germany to Holland, eastward to Bohemia and Hungary, and westward, across the Channel, to Great Britain. In this broad expansion through so many lands its voice was raised in a multitude of confessions; and in the course of the four hundred years which have elapsed since its first formulation, it has been expounded in a vast body of dogmatic treatises. Its development has naturally been much richer and far more many-sided than that of the sister system of Lutheranism in its more confined and homogeneous environment; and yet it has retained its distinctive character and preserved its fundamental features with marvelous consistency throughout its entire history. It may be possible to distinguish among the Reformed confessions, between those which bear more and those which bear less strongly the stamp of Calvin’s personal influence; and they part into two broad classes, according as they were composed before or after the Arminian defection (ca. 1618) and demanded sharper definitions on the points of controversy raised by that movement (see “Arminius, Jacobus, and Arminianism”; “Remonstrants”). A few of them written on German soil also bear traces of the influence of Lutheran conceptions. And, of course, no more among the Reformed than elsewhere have all the professed expounders of the system of doctrine been true to the faith they professed to expound. Nevertheless, it is precisely the same system of truth which is embodied in all the great historic Reformed confessions; it matters not whether the document emanates from Zurich or Bern or Basel or Geneva, whether it sums up the Swiss development as in the second Helvetic Confession, or publishes the faith of the National Reformed Churches of France, or Scotland, or Holland, or the Palatinate, or Hungary, Poland, Bohemia, or England; or republishes the established Reformed doctrine in opposition to new contradictions, as in the Canons of Dort (in which the entire Reformed world concurred), or the Westminster Confession (to which the whole of Puritan Britain gave its assent), or the Swiss Form of Consent (which represents the mature judgment of Switzerland upon the recently proposed novelties of doctrine). And despite the inevitable variety of individual points of view, as well as the unavoidable differences in ability, learning, grasp, in the multitude of writers who have sought to expound the Reformed faith through these four centuries—and the grave departures from that faith made here and there among them—the great stream of Reformed dogmatics has flowed essentially unsullied, straight from its origin in Zwingli and Calvin to its debouchure, say, in Chalmers and Cunningham and Crawford, in Hodge and Thornwell and Shedd."

Warfield, B. B. (2008). The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield: Calvin and Calvinism (Vol. 5, pp. 360–362). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

OzSpen said:

You didn't deal with the issues I raised and side-stepped them to give your Calvinistic spin. That's committing a Red Herring Logical Fallacy and we can't have a logical conversation when you use such an illogical tactic.

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I guess we cannot have a conversation since I am not an aristotelian nor rationalist. I am interested in biblical conversation and bibical tactics. Quite honestly I think it is lazy to dismiss whatever does not agree with one's thought process as a red herring, especially when it is relevant to the topic.

Hammster said:

I haven't added anything. World has many definitions in the writings of John. You picked one that fits your theology. And because of it, you have God sending people He loves SO MUCH to hell just because they disagree with Him.

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Yes you have.

You have made world = only part of the world.

Apologetic_Warrior said:

I guess we cannot have a conversation since I am not an aristotelian nor rationalist. I am interested in biblical conversation and bibical tactics. Quite honestly I think it is lazy to dismiss whatever does not agree with one's thought process as a red herring, especially when it is relevant to the topic.

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You have given me another Red Herring fallacy by giving your spin and not admitting what you did - changed the topic and used that fallacy.

OzSpen said:

You have given me another Red Herring fallacy by giving your spin and not admitting what you did - changed the topic and used that fallacy.

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I should be upset because you totally ignored, dodged what I replied to you with to begin with and merely spewed formal logic accusation which does not even apply to what I originally wrote. Try removing the aristotelian blinders next time and seek the logic of Scripture, with Divine logic.

You ungraciously purposely maliciously put words in someone's mouth by replying with:

"It makes God the author of evil."

We cannot even define evil without God. We have no right to be the moral judge of God. We have to take God at His word in Scripture. People make that assumption because of Predestination which they think eliminates any 'free' choices which has never been the position of Calvinism, and you know that Ozpen, you have no excuse for making such blasphemous remarks.

OzSpen said:

Yes you have.

You have made world = only part of the world.

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So world only has one meaning?

Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever. (1 John 2:15-17 NASB)

Hammster said:

I didn't read past "No, the heart is that God created the human race antagonistic to Him,". I didn't see the point.

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How could you not see it? Doesn't Calvinism claim that total depravity means that no one seeks God and that all hate Him???

btw, avoiding and hating someone equals being antagonistic towards them.

When you start off with a bad premise, the rest is sure to fail.

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I hit the nail directly on the head, and you just dodged.

If my so-called premise is bad, how about correcting it, so that I can see where you're coming from?

Apologetic_Warrior said:

I should be upset because you totally ignored, dodged what I replied to you with to begin with and merely spewed formal logic accusation which does not even apply to what I originally wrote. Try removing the aristotelian blinders next time and seek the logic of Scripture, with Divine logic.

You ungraciously purposely maliciously put words in someone's mouth by replying with:

"It makes God the author of evil."

We cannot even define evil without God. We have no right to be the moral judge of God. We have to take God at His word in Scripture. People make that assumption because of Predestination which they think eliminates any 'free' choices which has never been the position of Calvinism, and you know that Ozpen, you have no excuse for making such blasphemous remarks.

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You again don't want to admit what you did when I pointed out your original Red Herring Fallacy to you. Why could you not admit what you did that caused me to note the illogical practice of a logical fallacy you used?

Hammster said:

So world only has one meaning?

Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever. (1 John 2:15-17 NASB)

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We are dealing with 'world' in John 3:16 and leading Calvinists (e.g. John Calvin), Lutherans (R C H Lenski) and I, a commoner, disagree with you profoundly.

God so loved the whole world of fallen humanity. Amazing love. Amazing grace.

But you don't get it but add to what John 3:16 states.

So don't try this illogical leap to what 'world' means elsewhere. We are dealing with what 'world' means in John 3:16 and you have added to Scripture to come up with your understanding. I endorse what Lenski has said of your view:

To insert a limitation [on the meaning of 'world'], either here or in similar passages, is to misinterpret' (Lenski1943:260).

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Bye.

OzSpen said:

We are dealing with 'world' in John 3:16 and leading Calvinists (e.g. John Calvin), Lutherans (R C H Lenski) and I, a commoner, disagree with you profoundly.

God so loved the whole world of fallen humanity. Amazing love. Amazing grace.

But you don't get it but add to what John 3:16 states.

So don't try this illogical leap to what 'world' means elsewhere. We are dealing with what 'world' means in John 3:16 and you have added to Scripture to come up with your understanding. I endorse what Lenski has said of your view:
Bye.

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Your accusation was that I changed the definition of the word, which I did not do.

Hammster said:

Your accusation was that I changed the definition of the word, which I did not do.

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There is no other language to use than to call this a lie. You have changed the definition of the word 'world' in relation to John 3:16 and who God loves. How do I know? Here's your evidence in this directory:

Please go back to #418 where you stated: 'It's not unjust for God to not love everyone. It would only be unjust if He was obligated to do so'.

Now go to #425 where you stated: 'Yes, God loves His CHOSEN people. That's the reformed view'.

In #430 you wrote: 'I have a biblical view that says God actually saves those He loves, not that He sends some that He loves to hell for disagreeing with Him'.

So you have misinterpreted 'world' in John 3:16 and made

1. world = not everyone (#418);
2. world = his CHOSEN people (#425);
3. world = those God actually saves and loves (#430).

Please don't kid us into believing that you haven't changed the meaning of 'world' and who God loves in John 3:16. I'm not falling for your tactics when you have provided the evidence to refute yourself.


Oz

FreeGrace2 said:

How could you not see it? Doesn't Calvinism claim that total depravity means that no one seeks God and that all hate Him???

btw, avoiding and hating someone equals being antagonistic towards them.


I hit the nail directly on the head, and you just dodged.

If my so-called premise is bad, how about correcting it, so that I can see where you're coming from?

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"No, the heart is that God created the human race antagonistic to Him,"

This is not the heart of Calvinism. That you think so shows that, despite all your time here on CF, you still only know your straw man view of Calvinism. I honestly cannot see how trying to correct you further will be of any benefit. You may continue to call this a dodge. I frankly do not care.