No, I think my position is closer to those terms are thrown around, poorly defined or defined incorrectly, and there are real differences because Calvinists are willing to speculate to move the mystery
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1. SO... it's not primarily "semantics" as you suggested earlier; there are real, fundamental, defining difference between Single and Double Predestination; indeed, it may well be THE issue that defines Calvinism. So I think we're pretty much back to square one. And, it seems to me, if Double Predestination is abandoned by "modern" Calvinism, there goes pretty much the rest of TULIP, it all pretty much rests on the Double Predestination thing because without it, the rest isn't "logical." ???
2. See, there's my problem..... Even in this thread (and since the first Calvinist I met), the whole issue is how Calvinism is accepting the WORDS of Scripture (their definition of Sola Scriptura) whereas Lutherans "hate" the words of Scripture (that verbatim accusation from a Calvinist has been made repeatedly here at CH toward me and Lamm and Tigger) and it's NON-Calvinists who interject their denominational ideas into Scripture whereas Calvinists just accept the words "as is". You seem to be saying the exact opposite - it's Lutherans accepting the words (and stopping with them) whereas Calvinists like to interject their "speculations" (a word you use) to "push aside the mystery" (ie to replace it with the speculation). It seems to ME you are saying that the constant din that Calvinist charge everyone else with actually applies to Calvinists. I wonder what MennoSota for example thinks of that, lol....
3. Curious, because Protestantism was born largely out of a protest and rejection of what you claim Calvinism is about - interjecting speculation into things and then making that speculation into dogma. The Reformers protested Catholicism inventing stuff no one before had ever so such as mentioned.... human stuff, human conjectures and speculations, human philosphies and prescience concepts, human logic and reason... and then infusing and imposing those speculations into Scripture (where it is certainly NOT taught as even Catholic theologians are apt to admit) - and making DOGMA out of it. It's largely what split the church in 1054 and again in 1521. Now, you seem to be saying, Calvinism thinks Catholicism had the right idea, the most sound rubric, the best approach - just the wrong new human speculations interjected, imposed and dogmatized. You seem to be rebuking Lutheranism for the same reason Catholics do - sticking too much to Scripture and not swallowing new human speculations that some men think are really smart and "resolve" a lot of issues God forgot to. See my point?
while Lutherans refuse to accept unavoidable logical consequences.
No. Lutherans refuse to dogmatize human speculations (intended to alterwhat God said) when it contradicts Scripture. Such as when "all" means "few" and when "save" actually means "condemn." Refer to the video. Hey, we refuse to dogmatized pure speculation even when it doesn't so clearly contradict Scripture (such as the Perpetual Virginity of Mary or the Infallible Pope or Assumption of Mary), but certainly when it does (such as Limited Atonement, Double Predestination, etc.).
LIMITED ATONEMENT: Only the sins of those who would be saved were placed on Jesus on the Cross. God forgives 100% of all sins placed on Jesus and all sins not placed on Jesus are paid for by their owners in Hell.
UNLIMITED ATONEMENT: God places 100% of all sins ever committed on Jesus, so all sin is paid for on the Cross. Only some of the sin paid for on the cross is able to be applied to the sinner to prevent their eternal punishment. (Atonement is still limited, but the limit is Jesus ability to save some whose sin he has paid for). God then punishes the exact same sin for a second time as the sinner pays again for his own sins in Hell (sins for which Christ was already punished).
Which did God say?
Limited atonement is 100% a logic
So is Purgatory.... so is the infallible Pope.... so is Transubstantiation.... They aren't biblical but they are logical.
Okay, I miss it but maybe it's 100% human logic. But it seems like 0% God revelation, 0% Scripture. It's certainly a view not only missing in Scripture but I don't know if even one Christian before Calvin thought of it (so Scripture and all Christians for over 1500 years much have lacked sufficient "logic" to even theorize it?
Here's a pretty fair article by a grad of Dallas Theological Seminary and with a fair amount of Calvinist "logic" thrown in.
http://home.earthlink.net/~ronrhodes/Atonement.html
Most of Calvinism actually grows out of "Total Depravity".
I wonder if it rather grows out of what you are saying..... what God said in Scripture is very inadequate and that there are those who are to interject, impose, add human speculations and conjectures (even if no Scripture and no Christian knew a thing about it previously), human philosophies and theories, human "logic" and "reason" and "sense" - all because the one who can do this (usually only self) is smarter, more logical, and can make God make sense to self (but may mean a lot of what God said actually means the exact opposite of what he said). Catholicism too believed Scripture is very inadquate... and that one should supplement and correct and refine what God said with the conjectures, speculations, philosophies, theories that self suddenly came up with. Catholicism claims this whole other stream comes from God via invisible "Tradition" from the Apostles (and so at least baselessly CLAIMS some divine source) but it seems Calvinists just point to their own brain. ??????
Predestination of the reprobate: This is sort of a default logical argument
God does not love the whole world: Except Esau. You have to admit that God said He hated Esau.
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God hates everyone because he hates sin. But God loves everyone because God is love and His love is unconditional. Nowhere does the Bible say, "God desires most people to fry eternally in hell and so before the world began chose to send them there." " God does not love the world but only a small percentage of it." "God desires most people to fry in hell."
I think we're back to two very different theologies. And we're actually embracing the OPPOSITE of what Calvinists accuse others of, that it's Calvinists who (like Catholicism before it that it protested for doing what it does), appoints self to interject its own new speculations, conjectures, "logic" and theories into things (speculations not mentioned in Scripture, not mentioned by any Christian before) not because Scripture says it but because Scripture does NOT... unwilling to let God have the last word, bow before the sovereignty of God, leave mystery along, admit God likely knows more than self.... Even if the conjecture or theory means a LOT of Scriptures have to be twisted (as you've tried to do?) 180 degrees from what they say. In any case, I'm wondering about the constant din from Calvinists that Lutherans hate Scripture and ignore Scripture and twist Scripture..... maybe it's that, like Catholicism, Calvinism ADDS to Scripture - things it doesn't not say and no one mentioned before them - based entirely on its own speculations, conjectures, constructs, philosophy, "logic," "sense" - even if the result means a lot of Scripture must be twisted 180 degrees to mean something different than what God actually states. Did Calvin simply replace the "Tradition" of the RCC with the "brain" of himself? All to correct God, to make God make sense to self, to subject God to self, to deny the soverignty of God? I keep thinking of my Greek Orthodox friend, "The problem with much of Western Christianity it that it forgot how to shut up."
Interesting discussion....
- Josiah
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