More on Pinnock

Re: "From Augustine to Arminius: A Pilgrimage" in The Grace of God and the Will of Man

The doctrine of "Calvinism" (in truth, the Gospel) is one of humility and submission. Christ commands men to repent. Scripture commands men to submit, and declares them blessed if they do. The Bible repeats this message throughout. For this reason, when we read scripture, we must ask ourselves, "How am I expected or required to submit with humility to the truth presented?" We must also ask, "How is the name of God glorified in this truth?”— for His glory, and God's zeal for it, is the other truth that scripture repeats throughout. What baffles me is the complete lack of humility that Pinnock possesses when he speak of God, and the complete absence of any sense of God's incomparable "otherness", separateness, holiness or glory.

Pinnock uses words like "autonomy" and "dialogue" in his first paragraph as he discusses how he had begun to reinterpret scripture in this pilgrimage of his. He places modern culture on equal footing with scripture, and in doing this, places men (the creators of culture) on equal footing with God (the Author of scripture). As if to further emphasize his belief that we are somehow equal with God, he refers to God as a "partner" with us, and a "co-worker." These words denote a relationship between equals. Pinnock, like Eve before him, craves equality with God. He craves independence—"autonomy", as he calls it. Equality is independence, for inferiority is submission. Adam ate the fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, declaring himself independent of God’s word and will, and as we all know, independence requires rebellion.

Pinnock's new Arminian theology contained "dimensions of reciprocity and conditionality"

Growth

My pastor preaches on growth this morning.

How do we grow?

A right concept of grace
A right relationship with the world
Transparency and honesty with God
A delight in spiritual disciplines and activities

What does scripture say?

Before I was afflicted I went astray but now I keep your word

Psalm 119.67

It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I may learn your statutes.
Psalm 119.71

We grow through pain. Moses had pain. Moses murdered a man, abandoned everything he knew and lived in the desert for forty years before God called him.  David had pain. God anointed David as a teenager then Saul chased him for fifteen years before he died and David could become king. Jacob deceived his father and suffered the consequences of his deception as he worked for his deceptive uncle for fourteen years to earn the right to marry the woman he loved. Even Christ "learned obedience" from suffering. 

We grow because God calls us. We grow because God afflicts us. We grow because we surrender to his will. These things: grace, how we see the world, our relationship with God, our disciplines — these are the mechanics but the core, the why is much deeper, much more difficult to endure or to understand. 

Few among us perform these mechanics by nature. Naturally we depend on ourselves. Naturally we look to the world to meet our needs and to satisfy our desires. We look to the world because we know the world and we see the world. Only after God removes the things we depend on do we depend on him. Only after God removes these natural trappings do we see that the world does not meet our needs or satisfy our desires. Only after God removes love, sanity, strength do we understand that these things only exist through him and apart from him we are nothing. Only then do we seek him through honesty and discipline. Only then do we understand that we breathe and walk and exist only by his grace.

Faith does not easily grow. We enter the world arrogant, deceitful, filthy narcissists. Depending on our parents, we may receive training that increases or decreases this arrogance. Regardless, God will faithfully use the rest of your life to undo the nature that Adam gave us all. 

I know, O Lord, that your judgments are righteous and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.
Psalm 119.75

YouTube script

Atheism is the most empty and pointless of all the world religions. The Catholic says, "you're a loser but even though you're a loser you have to do what only a winner can do: earn eternal salvation." the Muslim says, "murder everyone who isn't a murderous loser like you and turn the world into murderous losers". Christianity says, you're a loser and because you're a loser only God can save you. Every other religion is just a drunk mix of bad philosophy, but atheism says literally nothing. Nothing exists but what I can see. It is the religion of not. God does not exist. You do not have a purpose. The atheist, at least the well intentioned atheist, attempts to make something of his life. He attempts to create his own purpose, and as long as life goes well, he's fine. But when life does not go well and (only for the fortunate few does life go well) when life goes badly what does he have? He has a purpose he has created for himself built on the shallow shifting foundation of his own ego but what is that built on? He has already denied the existence of ultimate reality and face it atheists, you know God exists. You know you will face the Eternal Judge. You put so much effort into denying this fact because you need it to be false because if it's true your world will collapse. Atheism destroys people.
Not only people but entire civilizations. Atheism birthed communism. The question was, now that God is dead, how do we build a functioning society? The answer was exactly what any child would say: we share! This is communism. But a person must be forced to share and that as it turns out, is not true sharing. Atheism denies the biblical truth that men are evil and instead it posits a good man at its core of a functioning society. But this is a lie so men must be forced at gunpoint to share. Men are lazy and evil apart from the grace of God and they will not work for each other and they will not share. If they are forced to share they are not sharing and it is the government who must force the collection and redistribution of resources. But isn't this what atheists wanted to avoid in the first place? Don't they want to avoid the heavy hand of some authoritarian despot? Only they've traded a loving cosmic authority for a violent human authority. The atheist is a fool, as scripture says.

YouTube script

Oy hello atheists.
I'm not going to try to convince anyone of what I believe. Only God can do that. If he wants you to believe you will believe. If not, sorry mate. None of you want a proof. You want to deny any proof. Nothing will convince you. If God came to earth and told you he was God and performed miracles and rose from the dead, you still wouldn't believe. You'd make excuses and claim connivery and charlatanishness and all manner of atheism. So...let's move on.
What I will do is tell you what is. I am going to tell you what God has done and what has happened and what will happen. Ok

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YouTube Script

Hey everyone. My name is Alejandro and I believe in ideas. Together we are going to change the world. We are going to begin with one idea and we are going to build from there. 

I begin by saying that God exists. There is a really simple proof and it goes like this: existence, therefore, God. If we trace any theory of origin, either evolution or aliens or God, we have to conclude that any origin of existence must be eternal. Nothing can come from nothing so all things must have an origin that has always existed. If anything ever came into being, it cannot have come from nothing. If we travel far enough backwards we can only stop at something that did not have an origin. That is to say, only an eternal something can be the origin of existence. That origin must be eternal and it must be powerful enough to be the origin of everything that is not eternal. Combine eternality and power and we have God. First truth: God exists. Deny it all you want, but you exist and the universe is not eternal so you and the universe must have an origin that is eternal and outside of nature, since nature cannot create itself. 

Second truth: God sovereignly rules over his universe. He created all so he rules over all: events, disasters, coincidences, tragedies, victories, and glories. He commands the worlds, the nations, armies, kings, presidents, men and women great and small rich and poor good and evil. He rules the thoughts intentions desires passions and wills of every man and woman. Nothing surprises him. Nothing dissuades, discourages or frightens him. Nothing gets in his way. Nothing stops him from doing his will. Nothing can for he rules over all and we have been created by him for his pleasure and his purposes and not for ours.

The World is Mad

The world has gone mad and the Church is to blame. The world has gone mad because we refuse to speak the truth and the first truth is that God rules over all. The second truth is that men are depraved and wicked to their core.

God rules over all of Creation.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

If God created, then God can destroy. If God created all then God owns and rules over all. He comprehends all. He rules over all events, over good and evil, over the thoughts, intentions, and desires of men. Nothing comes to pass that he is not aware of and either commands or allows. All is from His mighty hand.

None are saved apart from His will. None can be saved apart from His desire for we are hostile towards him by nature. He saves who he wills and allows to perish who he wills. If we are left to our natural desires, we will gladly choose eternal destruction. By His grace and intent alone are any delivered.

Men are wicked and unrepentant without his grace. We murder, cheat, lie and steal from each other. We destroy all we touch. Only by his grace do any survive a single day in his creation.

If we deny his sovereignty, we will necessarily deny man's depravity. If we deny man's depravity, we deny his sovereignty. These two run together. Today our works destroys itself because we have accepted the lie that men are not depraved but good. We believe that men have "evolved" and in this evolution we have reached a state of morality that does not require a Creator. We believe that men can live together without the influence or rule of an absolute moral standard Bearer, and despite the onslaught of overwhelming evidence, we cling to our lie because we prefer it to the truth that we are all beyond any redemption of it own making.

The Church builds on this lie. We prefer our righteousness to God's when we say that men are "free" to believe in God. We grasp small meaningless remnants of our dignity when we deny that God rules the heart, but we have no dignity. We are slaves to our sin. We wallow in our filth but we call it "choice" because that is how we define love. God does not define love this way. God loves and only God. Only God can love. When we claim that we chose God, we claim a false goodness that does not exist and we refuse to submit ourselves to God's sovereignty.

Our God is in the heavens; he does what he pleases.

He does not do what we please. He does not respond to us. He does not wait for us. He does not relinquish his rule and place us on the Creator's throne. That is madness. The world has gone mad because the Church believes that men are good and God is weak, but we can save the world if we submit to God and speak the truth.