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artsippo
USA
5275 Posts |
 Posted - 07/16/2010 : 5:30:15 PM
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A protestant controversialist of my acquaintance (PCOMA) has asserted on his libellous blog that I have advocated the idea that all Calvinists are psychotic. he starts off by questioning my medical training and thereby my ability to diagnose psychoses in patients. Since I do this virtually everyday in the ER it amuses me. It also seems hypocritical of him to denigrate my professional credentials since his alleged 'degree' in theology is from an unaccredited diploma mill whereas my Medical degree is from Vanderbilt, my masters degree is from Johns Hopkins, and I am board certified in 2 medical specialties. Frankly, PCOMA is not qualified to form an opinion on this matter whereas, I am MORE THAN qualified.
But since he has asked the question, I will be happy to answer it.
The central tenets of the Calvinist religion are usually delineated by the so-called "TULIP" theology of 5 points:
Total depravity of all humans
Unconditional election
Limited atonement
Irresistible grace
Perseverance of the elect
What does all this gobbledygook really mean?
First of all it means that every single human -- even embryos, fetuses, babies, the retarded, the mentally ill -- is thoroughly evil in all of his or her parts and deserves eternal damnation in Hell. In other words it assumes that every human being is damned by his or her very nature. This is an extreme view of human nature. it is not really normal. While every adult has moral faults (and some are really vile) to claim a priori that all humans are damnable is assuming facts not in evidence and in fact denies the cherished view in American law that every person should be assumed innocent until proven guilty. This dark view of human nature is in fact very common among PSYCHOTICS who often think they can read minds or are so clever that they can tell that everyone is evil and out to hurt them. There is a cluster of symptoms of this disease including ideas of reference, paranoia, delusions of grandeur, etc. which PSYCHOTICS manifest as part of their disease.
It is one thing to say that all ADULT humans are actual sinners and that immature and impaired people are virtual sinners. This is common sense. But Total Depravity assumes much more than this. It actually postulates that evil exists in all humans below the level of conscious moral agency and that everything we humans do as humans is damnably evil. In the Calvinist view, to take a breath is damnably sinful just because a human does it.
Frankly, I find no justification for such a view of humanity. We are all sinners but TOTAL DEPRAVITY? That's Hannibal Lecter, not your average human.
The Calvinist assessment of humanity is clearly pathological and whoever invented this idea ... well I am suspicious that he was mentally unbalanced. It is not in the Bible (though Calvinists have tried to read it INTO the Bible) and it has no foundation in the Historic Christian religion.
What about Unconditional Election? That means that God chooses whom he will save for no discernible reason. He does it arbitrarily "for his own good pleasure." This is another way of saying that God acts IRRATIONALLY. this is another characteristic of the PSYCHOTIC patient. He will act spontaneously on impulse to do whatever pleases him at the moment ESPECIALLY if the voices tell him to do so.
Limited Atonement? God doesn't waste time and resources on those he wants to damn. He ignores them even though there is NO DISCERNABLE DIFFERENCE between them and the elect. This lack of concern or sympathy for other people is another sign of PSYCHOTIC behavior.
Irresistible Grace? When God saves you, he bends your will to act contrary to your natural "evil" inclinations. The corollary to this is that God does not merely ALLOW the non-elect to persevere in sin. He actually ordains their sins, making them do evil that he has already prepared from all eternity for them to do. Then He punishes them for doing what He himself has made them do irresistibly. This is the utter denial of free will. When I was in med school, one of the psychiatrists who trained me quipped "There are only two types of people who do not believe in Free Will: Psychotics and Calvinists."
Finally there is Perseverance of the Elect. Now this is a real good one. It means that the only people that ever receive true regenerative grace are those that persevere to the end. Everyone else - no matter how they strive and long to be good - have been abandoned by God to their sins (which He had ordained from all eternity and for which he will damn and torture them in unending Hell). The beauty of this tenet is that anyone who disagrees with the Calvinist system or who ultimately rejects it NEVER WAS SAVED IN THE FIRST PLACE. God does nothing for the non-elect. What elements of common grace exist among the Massa Damnata of humanity are for the benefit of the elect. Once again we see the PSYCHOTIC symptom of delusions of grandeur.
This is a very short presentation, but I hope it makes a point.
Are Calvinists all psychotic? No. They merely aspire to be that way. And the deity they worship and whom they hold up as the ultimate standard of goodness and rightness is is a willful, raving,uncaring, psychotic, psychopathic, monster.
The God of the bible made people in His own image he gave them a free will that would allow them to love him and follow him without "irresistible" coercion. Humanity in its arrogance rejected Him and went out on its own. By all rights he should have abandoned us, but God so LOVED the world that he sent His only son that all who believe in Him might be saved. The offer is real and the choice that we make is real. He is there with His grace at every step of the way, but as St. Augustine said, "The God who made you without you does not save you without you." At anytime in His good faith offer, we can reject Him, and He will respect our wishes, but it is OUR doing, not His.
Art
Omnes semper - ad Jesum, per Mariam, cum Petro! |
Edited by - artsippo on 07/21/2010 11:42:47 AM |
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Patti
USA
7401 Posts |
Posted - 07/18/2010 : 1:28:13 PM
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That was interesting, but didn't that blog post appear back in February? Frankly, I wouldn't waste my time addressing it. Some people thrive on any kind of attention whatsoever, including negative attention.
That said, the whole Calvinist theology system is deeply flawed and undermined by Scripture. Like Lutheranism, it took Christianity and filtered it through one man's interpretation of Scripture and, yes, Tradition, since it was the latter that collated and canonized the former. The claim that it is "Bible Christianity" or "Bible-based" can easily be disproven by examining Scripture as a coherent whole and not in piecemeal verses that "prove" a manmade position.
But don't expect your friend to retract any of his nonsense anytime soon. He's too busy publicly attacking and smearing reputations of Catholic apologists, most notably Steve Ray. But pity him and pray for him, because all those violations against the commandment about not bearing false witness are not going to look real good when he faces the God he claims to serve. Let us hope for his sake it's the real God of Scripture and not the harsh being created in Calvin's image.
Yours in Christ,
Patti
Laudare, benedicere, praedicare. |
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artsippo
USA
5275 Posts |
Posted - 07/19/2010 : 10:51:05 AM
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I do not bother myself with PCOMA and his White Feather Ministry of cowardice. I just happened to run across this little canard and so I decided to address it.
What is critical is that hard-shell Protestantism is grounded in mental illness and the thing they worship is not God but a monster that I call Goid. The Bible for them is a convenient source of out-of-context quotations that they paste together to support the merely human system of 'theology' that they invent for themselves.
Both Luther and Calvin celebrated the arbitrariness and capriciousness of Goid and their followers have gone further down the road into irrational delusions. They want a Goid that is so powerful that no one can even question him. They think it makes him even more powerful if he can act apart from any standards or moral norms. In the most extreme cases (i.e., Gordon Clark) they even assert that something is good because Goid wills it, not because it conforms to any moral standards since that would make morality greater than Goid. These people have abandoned the theory of Virtue from Medieval Christian theology and replaced it with extreme voluntarism derived from Nominalism and the Via Moderna which are passe systems of thought from the 16th Century.
We must never forget that the various Protestant systems are only marginally Christian at best when compared to the standards of historic Christianity. In Catholicism, we have the fullness of the Christian revelation preserved by the workings of the Holy Spirit throughout time.
Art
Omnes semper - ad Jesum, per Mariam, cum Petro! |
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Patti
USA
7401 Posts |
Posted - 07/19/2010 : 12:52:21 PM
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Sounds like their version of God resembles Islam more than Christianity. Weird.
Yours in Christ,
Patti
Laudare, benedicere, praedicare. |
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MonFrere
USA
1216 Posts |
Posted - 07/19/2010 : 3:12:51 PM
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Art says: These people have abandoned the theory of Virtue from Medieval Christian theology and replaced it with extreme voluntarism derived from Nominalism and the Via Moderna which are passe systems of thought from the 16th Century.
Art,
I've heard this point mentioned in a different context in a video between Scott Hahn and Father Barron. Dr. Hahn mentioned that the philosophy had a rupture that predated the Reformation and which flowered through the Reformation into the Enlightenment and was the cause of what became Modernity in the philosophies of today.
To quote our esteemed President - This is above my pay grade. But I would like some information that follows this train of thought. QUESTION: Do you think that Vatican II had a purpose of mending this rupture by it's desire to return to the "ancient sources"? You have always led to to good information with questions like this in the past and I would appreciate another shove at this time. THANKS!!
MonFrere
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artsippo
USA
5275 Posts |
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Patti
USA
7401 Posts |
Posted - 07/19/2010 : 5:08:17 PM
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I found this article helpful on understanding nominalism and its impact on modern thought:
http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2005/0510fea4.asp
Nominalism forms the basis of Protestantism. It also forms the basis of relativism. It is therefore not surprising to find different forms of relativism in Protestantism.
Yours in Christ,
Patti
Laudare, benedicere, praedicare. |
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aman 2
181 Posts |
Posted - 07/19/2010 : 11:38:39 PM
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quote:
[i]Originally posted by Patti[/i]
[br]Sounds like their version of God resembles Islam more than Christianity. Weird.
Yours in Christ,
Patti
Laudare, benedicere, praedicare.
I agree. I have been saying this for sometime now. I am astounded that Calvinists can't see this.
Peter |
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Jjane
Canada
1540 Posts |
Posted - 07/20/2010 : 07:37:32 AM
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| ok I'll bite, why is it like islam. Because it is so severe? |
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Patti
USA
7401 Posts |
Posted - 07/20/2010 : 09:26:29 AM
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Because their versions of a deity are alike; their god can do anything he wants without regard to his own nature, when he's supposed to be all good. This turns God into, to use Art's words, "a [willful], raving, uncaring, psychotic, psychopathic, monster". Their god sets standards for men to follow but doesn't follow these standards, which are supposed to be found in his nature. Their god, in fact, makes it impossible to follow these standards but just leaves us sinful and arbitrarily declares some of us clean. In both belief systems, God's grace does not actually infuse into man because we are so "utterly depraved" that it can't, yet our free will can be bent and forced to obey. (Which leads me to wonder: How can God be limited in His ability to work within us to effect our sanctification (with our cooperation following initial justification) and yet be able to force us to follow His will?) In both Calvinism and Islam, there exists an uncrossable gulf between God and man, crossable by neither, including God.
This is opposed to the witness of Scripture and historic Christianity, which assert that man was severely wounded and damaged by the fall but he wasn't made utterly depraved. Their god actively hates and damns many people, while our God tries to save as many as possible while respecting the free will He bestowed upon us.
Yours in Christ,
Patti
Laudare, benedicere, praedicare. |
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artsippo
USA
5275 Posts |
Posted - 07/20/2010 : 5:29:51 PM
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During the late Middle Ages, the writings of the Islamic thinkers Averroes, Avicenna, and Arfaldi became popular in the universities as were the various Arabic commenataries on Aristotle. All of these introduced distinctly Islamic ideas into the west including the fatalistic attitude towards Divine power. I have always thought that the nominalist concept of "potentia dei absoluta" sounded like a Christianized form of Islam. Calvinisim in particular has so over-emphasized the sovereignty of God that they border on Fatalism and seem very close to the Islamic view. I have searched for AOMEONE to make the connection academically, but so far I have not seen anyone willing to commit to this idea.
Art
Omnes semper - ad Jesum, per Mariam, cum Petro! |
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rr1213
4467 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2010 : 10:33:02 AM
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quote:
[i]Originally posted by artsippo[/i]
[br]The central tenets of the calvinist religion are usually delineated by the so-called "TULIP" theology of 5 points:
Total depravity of all humans
Unconditional election
Limited atonement
Irresistable grace
Perseverance of the elect
What does all this gobbledegook really mean?
First of all it means that every single human -- even embryos, fetuses, babies, the retarded, the mentally ill -- is thoroughly evil in all of his or her parts and deserves eternal damnation in Hell. In other words it assumes that every human being is damned by his or her very nature. This is an extreme view of human nature. it is not really normal. While every adult has moral faults (and some are really vile) to claim a priori that all humans are damnable is assuming facts not in evidence and infact denies the cherished view in American law that every person should be assumed innocent until proven guilty. This dark view of human nature is in fact very common among PSYCHOTICS who often think they can read minds or are so clever that they can tell that everyone is evil and out to hurt them. There is a cluster of symptoms of this disease including ideas of reference, paranoia, delusions of grandeur, etc. which PSYCHOTICS manifest as part of their disease.
It is one thing to say that all ADULT humans are actual sinners and that immature and impaired people are virtual sinners. This is common sense. But Total Depravity assumes much more than this. It acually postulates that evil exists in all humans below the level of conscious moral agency and that everything we humans do as humans is damnably evil. In the calvinist view, to take a breath is damnably sinful just because a human does it.
Frankly, I find no justification for such a view of humanity. We are all sinners but TOTAL DEPRAVITY? That's Hannibal Lecter, not your average human.
The calvinist assessment of humanity is clearly pathological and whoever invented this idea ... well I am suspicious that he was mentally unbalancved. It is not in the Bible (though calvinists have tried to read it INTO the Bible) and it has no foundation in the Historic Christian religion.
A couple thoughts. I am not a physician or a psychologist (nor am I a fan of the heresy of Calvinism by any means), but it seems extreme to me to say that advocates of total depravity are psychotic or pathological. Is that what DSM-IV would say?
As far as deserving hell, wouldn’t we agree that any competent person who commits a mortal sin and is unrepentant of that sin deserves hell? I think that is the teaching of the Church. And, let’s face it, mortal sin can include certain sins which most non-Christians would not deem to be “that bad” in accordance to human understanding. (E.g., “I’m a good person but I’m going to hell because for one brief moment one day I lusted after Raquel Welch and I’m proud of it?!?”) Remember that total depravity is determined from God’s perspective, not man’s perspective.
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rr1213
4467 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2010 : 10:44:04 AM
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quote:
[i]Originally posted by artsippo[/i]
[br]What about Unconditional Election? That means that God chooses whom he will save for no discernable reason. He does it arbitrarily "for his own good pleasure." This is another way of saying that God acts IRRATIONALLY. this is another characteristic of hte PSYCHOTIC patient. He will act spontaneously on impulse to do whatever pleases him at the moment ESPECIALLY if the voices tell him to do so.
Limited Atonement? God doesn't waste time and resources on those he wants to damn. He ignores them even though there is NO DISCERNABLE DIFFERENCE between them and the elect. This lack of concern or sympathy for other people is another sign of PSYCHOTIC behavior.
My understanding of the Catholic understanding of the respective roles of predestination and free will is, I will freely admit, very deficient. Basically, from what I’ve seen, it seems that the Catholic Church teaches that BOTH predestination and free will play roles in God’s salvation plan and, with a few exceptions, it is still uncertain exactly how that works.
One thing of which we are certain though is that God does not predestine people to hell (like some hyper-Calvinists argue). Although it does say in Romans 9:20-22 “But who are you, a man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me thus? Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for beauty and another for menial use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the vessels of wrath made for destruction…”
I come from a Methodist background, which is Arminian in nature, and I tend to favor an understanding which emphasizes free will more than either Calvinists or Thomists do. Nonetheless, is it psychotic to believe that a Sovereign God may act in the manner which Calvinists, especially hyper-Calvinists, think He does? Heretical, yes, but I don’t think that heresy always equates to being crazy.
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rr1213
4467 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2010 : 10:48:57 AM
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quote:
[i]Originally posted by artsippo[/i]
[br]Irresistable Grace? When God saves you, he bends your will to act contrary to your natural "evil" inclinations. The corollary to this si that God does not merely ALLOW the non-elect to persevere in sin. He actaully ordains their sins, making tham do evil that he has already prepared from all eternity for them to do. Then He punishes them for doing what He himself has made them do irresistably. Thsi is the utter denial of free will. When I was in med school, one of the psychaitrists who trained me quipped "There are only two types of people who do not believe in Free Will: Psychotics and Calviniists."
I have never understood Calvinists to argue that God ordains the sins of the non-elect. Allows them to happen (just like God allows sin in the world), but actually ordaining sin? I don't think that even the most strident of Calvinists would go that far. At least I've not seen it. |
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rr1213
4467 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2010 : 10:51:20 AM
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quote:
[i]Originally posted by artsippo[/i]
[br]Finally ther is Perseverence of the Elect. Now this is a real good one. It means that the only people that ever receive true regenerative grace are those that persevere to the end. Everyone else - no matter how they strive and long to be good - have been abandoned by God to their sins (which He had ordained from all eternity and for which he will damn and torture them in unending Hell). The beauty of this tenet is that anyone who disagrees with the calvinist system or who ultimately rejects it NEVER WAS SAVED IN THE FIRST PLACE. God doesnothing for the non-elect wjhat elements of common grace exist among the Massa Damnata of humanity are for the benefit of the elect. Once again we see the PSYCHOTIC symptom of delusions of grandeur.
Yeah, I agree that the Calvinist approach here is stupid, but I don't see it as being crazy. You can be stupid without being psychotic. |
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rr1213
4467 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2010 : 11:07:35 AM
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quote:
[i]Originally posted by artsippo[/i]
[br]I do not bother myself with PCOMA and his White Feather Ministry of cowardice. I just happened to run across this little canard and so I decided to address it.
What is critical is that hard-shell Protestantism is grounded in mental illness and the thing they worship is not God but a monster that I call Goid. The Bible for them is a convenient source of out-of-context quotations that they paste together to support the merely human system of 'theology' that they invent for themselves.
Both Luther and Calvin celebrated the arbitrariness and capriciousness of Goid and their followers have gone further down the road into irrational delusions. They want a Goid that is so powerful that no one can even question him. They think it makes him even more powerful if he can act apart from any standards or moral norms. In the most extreme cases (i.e., Gordon Clark) they even assert that something is good because Goid wills it, not because it conforms to any moral standards since that would make morality greater than Goid. These people have abandoned the theory of Virtue from Medieval Christian theology and replaced it with extreme voluntarism derived from Nominalism and the Via Moderna which are passe systems of thought from the 16th Century.
We must never forget that the various Protestant systems are only marginally Christian at best when compared to the standards of historic Christianity. In Catholicism, we have the fullness of the Christian revelation preserved by the workings of the Holy Spirit throughout time.
Art
Omnes semper - ad Jesum, per Mariam, cum Petro!
Don't forget that there are real differences between Lutherans and Calvinists. Among others, Lutherans do not believe that God chooses to predestine people to hell. They hold that God does predestine people to salvation (although, interestingly, they also hold that one can decide to affirmatively reject God), but since the Scriptures tell us that God desires all men to be saved the Lutherans do not believe that God predestines people to hell. They consider that to be heresy (as do we Catholics)and believe that people choose hell for themselves.
Also, when speaking about Protestantism, don't forget that there are many Protestants who would find both Calvinist and Lutheran teaching on this issue to be repugnant. Remember the Methodists and other Arminians. |
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artsippo
USA
5275 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2010 : 11:28:35 AM
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Hi Rob! Good to hear from you. You wrote:
quote:
A couple thoughts. I am not a physician or a psychologist (nor am I a fan of the heresy of Calvinism by any means), but it seems extreme to me to say that advocates of total depravity are psychotic or pathological. Is that what DSM-IV would say?
Oh, I agree. Though I think some of them clearly are. My point is that the MORAL IDEAL that the calvinists find in God does manifest characteristics that are what you would expect from psychotics and psychopaths. To me that is the worrisome point. One can dirve oneself to be psychotic by excessive adulation of patholigical thought forms and behaviors.
It is also my opinion that John Calvin showed sociopathic tendencies and that he maifested some signs of schizophrenia. It is impossible to make such a diagnosis without actually examining the patient, but psychological profiling is a well accepted technique in criminal investigations and I think it can be applied here.
quote:
As far as deserving hell, wouldn’t we agree that any competent person who commits a mortal sin and is unrepentant of that sin deserves hell?
Absolutely. The problem in Calvinism is that they find human nature to be fundamentally evil in all its parts. I have grave problems with this. As you noted, you have to be a COMPETENT person to WILFULLY sin. Just being and acting human is not enough for eternal damnation. Humanity in its natural state can expect nothing better than Limbo, the very Limbus or 'edge' of Hell. And it is clear that human beings are inclined to sin so that no one really stands innocent of actual sin before God EXCEPT those who lack the cometence that leads to sin.
My problem with the calvinist view is that it places evil in humans BELOW the level of moral agency and introduces an almost Manichean attitude towards human nature. Nothing can be essentially evil. It can only be accidentally so. To be good is to be NATURAL in the strict sense. But man is so torn apart by concupisence that it not possible for him to fulfill his own nature apart from the grace of God. So we always fall short, but some fall much shorer than others.
By inventing Total Depravity, the calvinists excuse themselves from having to deal with the complexities of the human condition. It is just another form of simplistic bigotry.
IMHO, the problem with humanity is not that we all hate God, but that we are AMBIVALENT to Him. We will go along with Him as far as we are willing, but we reserve to ourselves the right to pick and choose what we will and will not do at His comand.
We must realize that we can never trust our spontaneous insticts and that we need to practice constant vigilance and examination of conscience to remain moral beings. There is no such thing as "eternal security" or "once saved always saved". Those errors cause complacency and lead to the sin of presumption.
We have "the adoption of sons" and are expected to BE good children of our Father. We will not always succeed, but the ideal is placed before us and we need to keep "training to the standard." The point of salvation is as St. Paul told us in Ephesians:
Eph 2:
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God --
9 not because of works, lest any man should boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Art
Omnes semper - ad Jesum, per Mariam, cum Petro! |
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artsippo
USA
5275 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2010 : 11:38:41 AM
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Rob sez:
quote:
I have never understood Calvinists to argue that God ordains the sins of the non-elect. Allows them to happen (just like God allows sin in the world), but actually ordaining sin? I don't think that even the most strident of Calvinists would go that far. At least I've not seen it.
Actually they do. The notion of God merely ALLOWING sin undermines his sovereignty. As always among the Protestants many of their bolder statements die the death of a thousand qualifications in some of their systematics, but hard shell calvinists (and Pcoma is one of them) insist that God ordains sin.
If you really want to be disgusted, read what Gordon Clark says about sin. To him there are no principles of Good or Evil. There is only the will of God. If God wills something, it is good even if it is inconsistent with the Ten Commandments. That is how he avoids the problem of Genocide in the instructions given to Joshua and the Hebrews to kill every man woman and child in Canaan. There is no moral law in his view. You just need to do what God tells you, no questions asked.
IMHO such a view is very dangerous and borders on psycopathy.
Art
Omnes semper - ad Jesum, per Mariam, cum Petro! |
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artsippo
USA
5275 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2010 : 11:47:58 AM
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Rob sez:
quote:
Among others, Lutherans do not believe that God chooses to predestine people to hell.
True, BUT LUTHER HIMSELF DID! Read his book "The Bondage of the Will." This was a major point of contention between him and Erasmus.
I know Arminians demur on some of these extreme views, but they still look to Luther and Calvin as the founders of their revolt against historic Christianity. In that, I think they need to be a little more cautious. They need to admit that the whole Protestant Revolt was a big mistake and that they need to get back in communion with the real Church of Jesus.
Art
Omnes semper - ad Jesum, per Mariam, cum Petro! |
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artsippo
USA
5275 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2010 : 11:54:28 AM
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With regard to Perseverance of the Elect, Rob says:
quote:
Yeah, I agree that the Calvinist approach here is stupid, but I don't see it as being crazy. You can be stupid without being psychotic.
Psychotic believe stupid things precisely because they do not think clearly. The idea that only the elect will persevere is a tautology. Who perseveres to the end? The Elect. How do we know they are the Elect? Because they persevere to the end. This type of irrationality is a symptom of psychosis.
You don't need to be psychotic to be stupid, but they do go hand in hand.
Art
Omnes semper - ad Jesum, per Mariam, cum Petro! |
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artsippo
USA
5275 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2010 : 6:03:55 PM
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I also forgot to remind you of Sippo's Law:
quote:
Any time a pundit claims that "Everyone is {x}," it is an autobiographical statement.
When the Calvinist says that "Everyone is totally depraved," he is really talking about himself, and trying to project his own personal failings on to other people. This is typical trait of Psychotics. they project heir own negative attitudes onto to other people as a justification for anti-social behavior.
Art
Omnes semper - ad Jesum, per Mariam, cum Petro! |
Edited by - Patti on 07/21/2010 7:24:56 PM |
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aman 2
181 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2010 : 9:05:18 PM
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their god can do anything he wants without regard to his own nature, when he's supposed to be all good. This turns God into, to use Art's words, "a [willful], raving, uncaring, psychotic, psychopathic, monster". Their god sets standards for men to follow but doesn't follow these standards, which are supposed to be found in his nature.
I guess it was the the Calvinists and the Muslims saying in the Chronicles of Narnia: "After all He is not a tame lion."
Peter |
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Patti
USA
7401 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2010 : 9:19:08 PM
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quote:
The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God", he says, "is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably ... is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...".[4]
The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature.[5]
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg_en.html#_ftnref3
The pope pointed out that it is contrary to God's nature to act without reason. I'm not certain that this conflicts with Lewis's fictional rendition of God as a "wild lion".
Yours in Christ,
Patti
Laudare, benedicere, praedicare. |
Edited by - Patti on 07/21/2010 9:20:08 PM |
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aman 2
181 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2010 : 9:27:34 PM
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I was trying to point out how the "fake Aslan" was able to get away with all kinds of strange and repugnant things because people felt it was free to do whatever it wanted. Even to go against what they knew to be Aslan's nature. I guess I wasn't clear.
Peter |
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Patti
USA
7401 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2010 : 9:33:25 PM
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In looking back at your analogy, you made a good point. Irony was just too subtle a concept for me this evening; please forgive my response. Thanks for the clarification. :)
Yours in Christ,
Patti
Laudare, benedicere, praedicare. |
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artsippo
USA
5275 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2010 : 9:53:58 PM
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And remember the most important part of that exchange in "The Lion, the Witch, And the Wardrobe."
Mr. Beaver says, "Aslan is not safe but he is good!"
That is what is most important. No matter what we want to think about divine power, the important thing is that God is ESSENTIALLY good. He is benign and He can be trusted. Once you question the essence of divine goodness and replace it with raw naked power, you are dealing with a being that cannot be trusted.
I have no faith in the Calvinists Goid. He could use and abuse me for his good pleasure and as such is not worthy of my loyalty. it is God's goodness and his GRACIOUSNESS that makes Him worthy of our loyalty, not his power.
Art
Omnes semper - ad Jesum, per Mariam, cum Petro! |
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aman 2
181 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2010 : 6:59:57 PM
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quote:
[i]Originally posted by artsippo[/i]
[br]And remember the most important part of that exchange in "The Lion, the Witch, And the Wardrobe."
Mr. Beaver says, "Aslan is not safe but he is good!"
That is what is most important. No matter what we want to think about divine power, the important thing is that God is ESSENTIALLY good. He is benign and He can be trusted. Once you question the essence of divine goodness and replace it with raw naked power, you are dealing with a being that cannot be trusted.
I have no faith in the Calvinists Goid. He could use and abuse me for his good pleasure and as such is not worthy of my loyalty. it is God's goodness and his GRACIOUSNESS that makes Him worthy of our loyalty, not his power.
Art
Omnes semper - ad Jesum, per Mariam, cum Petro!
Right on the mark, Art. The calvinist goid is to be feared, not to be loved. Heck, this goid of theirs doesn't even make it possible to truly love it. It slips it's followers "the stuff" in order to have them "love" it. It comes across a little bit like the rape drug.
I saw your post above, Patti. No need to apologize. |
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Patti
USA
7401 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2010 : 7:33:57 PM
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Thanks, Peter.
Fulton J. Sheen wrote that God made man in His Image and ever since then, man keeps trying to return the favor.
Unfortunately, man-made images of God are not really God. If His mercy is overemphasized, He becomes a kitten or a lap dog, or a genie in a bottle who will grant everlasting life to anyone who wishes for it. If His justice is overemphasized, He becomes a ravening beast or wolf to be feared.
Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, not its end. Calvin and Luther didn't see that. They stopped with fear and decided that God was too great to meet us partway or join Himself to mankind.
The problem for their theology is, God had already done that. It's called the Incarnation of the Son. Only by stripping the Incarnation of its ability to truly redeem the universe and all humanity could these men refashion God into their warped image of god. That was where nominalism came into play. By sapping words of their meaning and reassigning meanings, everything could become just a gesture; a forensic declaration of cleanliness could be bestowed on those unclean.
There had to be a deep well full of self-loathing at the center of their psyches for them to create such a god. They projected how they believed God to look upon themselves onto all the human race. And people follow them, not realizing that this version of god bears no resemblance to the God of historic Christianity. They are following unbalanced men, the ones Peter warned us about when he wrote that there would be "the unstable, who twist Scripture to their own destruction".
Yours in Christ,
Patti
Laudare, benedicere, praedicare. |
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artsippo
USA
5275 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2010 : 09:20:51 AM
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When I debated Pcoma about justification in 1991 (a mere 19 years ago!) I told him that in his Calvinist system the continuing struggle with sin was seen as a sign of 'non-election' and would lead to despair. Meanwhile in Historic Christianity we are assured that God does not give up on us and that we can struggle everyday with recurrent sin and never lose hope. But we must not become complacent and presume on God's mercy. As i said in that debate:
quote:
God is nice. He gives you a break: as many breaks as you need, though maybe not as many as you want.
Art
Omnes semper - ad Jesum, per Mariam, cum Petro! |
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Are Calvinists Psychotic?
