Thursday, June 9, 2016

super garbage

Despite the logical consistency of [Calvinism and Augustinianism] and the renown of those who have taught it, the perspective has many fatal flaws...God is the only actor; humans are but characters in the novel...All participants in the storyline do exactly what the author determines. All have their traits laid out by and have no existence apart from the author. The plot moves inexorably to the end determined by the author. What he desires is precisely what occurs; there can be no variation.
John E Sanders, "God as Personal"
So this is a fatal flaw how?

Sanders begins his discussion with the idea of control beliefs. Control beliefs are the foundation to other beliefs. They are what shape and control our interpretation of the Bible. Does God change? Is He all powerful? Is He all-knowing? While he diligently questions the control beliefs of Calvinism, he neglects to do so with regards to Arminianism. Calvinism, he says, is subject to the beliefs of early Greek philosophers like Plato. Yet he completely assumes the truth of the beliefs of Arminianism, namely that in any interpretation Scripture, the will of man is always free and he must always determine his own destiny. Any other assumption is "fatal". The Bible never assumes the truth of free will, however.

After reading so many "Christian theologians" make this primary assumption without drawing attention to it or explicitly describing it, it bothers me far less than originally. They rarely make even a veiled attempt at upholding Scriptural truth. They create a different scripture entirely and a different God and they profess their belief in them. As such, they can say whatever they want. We do not believe in the same God; we do not believe in the same Bible. I will forever agree with an unbiased and literal interpretation of the Biblical text, however deterministic it seems, because I trust in the determination of God.

This is the real problem Arminians have with Calvinism. They do not trust God and they do not trust His will. In a contest between their will and His, they choose the importance and fallibility of their own.

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