Calvinists: Why I Can't I Choose to be Saved?

by leavingwt 51 Replies latest jw friends

  • Deputy Dog
    Deputy Dog

    Stephen and leavingwt

    How can those who have not been predestined for salvation "turn and live"?
    I think this is LWT's original point and I understand it well

    It sounds as if you have a big problem with Paul in Romans 9:22.

    So let me ask you (if you believe the bible) what does it mean to be a "vessel of wrath prepared for destruction"?

    Also, most of the ex-JW community here has expressed the opinion that JWs do not believe in Predestination, even if they believe this Scripture. So, I'm in a minority.

    First, I have to say JWs don't believe any "Scripture", they only believe what the WT tells them about it.

    Any view of "Predestination" by a JW, would be flawed by the way they make "Johovah" subject to (time) his own creation.

  • Chalam
    Chalam

    Hi DD,

    No problem with the Romans 9, it is predestination loud and clear! My only difficulty is reconciling all with some.

    But to answer your question, the Holy Spirit brought this to me in light of two JWs who had just left my house.

    1 Peter 2:8-9 (New International Version)

    8 and,
    "A stone that causes men to stumble
    and a rock that makes them fall." They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for.

    9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

    Blessings,

    Stephen

  • Perry
    Perry

    How about this one:

    Proverbs 21:18 The wicked shall be a ransom for the righteous, and the transgressor for the upright.

    Here ransom simply means "sum of money" or price. So what does this buy? The existence of evil is a necessity for the unique freedom wrought by God on the cross in the midst of the shadow of (seeming) defeat in Eden.

    Romans 12:2 be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

    This is what the wicked have purchased for the [declared] righteous with their own demise: the ability to bump and grind up against the evil of others and even the evil in their own [still fallen] flesh, without the fear of punishment. And in the midst of this special, unique freedom where the believer at times chooses to sin and at other times chooses to follow the Spirit....he is able through the agency of PERSONAL EXPERIENCE work out for himself the fact that God's will is superior and more delightful than his own.

    Adam and Eve and even the Angels, needed to trust and take God's word for it. Believers, on the other hand are able to experience both sides and prove to themselves over time (sanctification) the superiority of God's will over their own. This of course is at the expense of the reprobate who act ONLY in accord with the flesh.

    2 Corinthians 12:9 And he said unto me [Jesus], My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

    Predestination and personal choice are at work in our reality. Both are true:

    1. Many are called but few are chosen

    2. ye have not, because ye ask not

  • Terry
    Terry

    Over the millennia, Christians have invented things they have needed out of thin air.

    Ad Hoc is what it is called.

    You need a doctrine; you invent the doctrine.

    Sometimes these doctrines amount to HAVING IT BOTH WAYS at the same time.

    Sort of like Eating your cake while having it too.

    The doctrine which states Jesus is fully god and fully human is one of those.

    The doctrine which states you are Predestinated and you have Choice is another one.

    Opponents of Christian "logic" back them into a corner and suddenly PRESTO! they invent a doctrine to get out of trouble.

    PREVENIENT grace is another such rabbit-out-of-a-hat.

    Ever heard of that one? Look it up. It is so Ad Hoc on the face

    of it you wonder how they could concoct it with a straight face.

    Christian "thinkers" such as John Calvin treat scripture as a sort of Science. They extract Laws and Doctrines from the Bible while declaring

    their source as inviolable. Astoundingly, they are opposed by other equally devout and secure christians who are Diametrically opposed to the very things they wrenched from Scripture!

    Same textbook (Bible) produces opposite doctrines!

    Should the malleability of Bible Text make us wonder even slightly how such content as it holds ends up being all things to all people?

    There is no superiority of faith, honesty or devout seriousness on either side of Doctrinal issues.

    The fault can only lie in the Text itself.

    If the text can be "anything" it is surely useless.

    The elusive Holy Spirit works both sides in these debates and no conclusion can be reached.

    What a curious conundrum, indeed!

    He who controls the framing of issues and who can control the definition of words is the one who wins.

    It all comes down to an argument over words.

    We can't know what the actual words of scripture are.

    There are no original texts.

    Gone.

    Vanished.

    Nada.

    We have plenty of fraud, however.

    The reason we know it is fraud is that the results of that fraud are flagrantly apparent throughout the history of Bible believing christianity.

  • Deputy Dog
    Deputy Dog

    Perry

    I think the problem is, most people mistake the choice, with the ability to carry it out.

  • Terry
    Terry
    most people mistake the choice, with the ability to carry it out.

    I cannot choose to be 8 feet tall because I cannot become 8 feet tall.

    I cannot choose to be the World Chess Champion because I cannot ever possess the extraordinary skills to do so.

    Where there is no ability to achieve one's "choice" there is no true Choice.

    It is a misuse of the word CHOICE.

    What it is amounts to FALSE-choice.

    A word cannot embrace its opposite and function the same way.

  • Perry
    Perry

    Terry,

    We have gone over these issues and over these. Real Christians are not robots. They agree on the New Covenant Contract with Christ and debate other issues. So what? You want the disfellowshipping system for not being tin soldiers?

    There is a separate judgment just for believers called the Bema Seat. God will Judge his own sons and daughters as to the profitableness of such issues and non-issues.

  • designs
    designs

    ya gotta love this - 'Real Christians' not robots but ants 'Bema Seat' extra gold stars, 'agreeing on the New Covenant' when there are differences of views. Pauline contradictions by the pseudonym writers. The Holy Spirit can't seem to give clear direction or if someone disagrees with one group they are 'heretics'. Excuses after excuses.

    Cults come in a lot of flavors. Recognizing them for what they are and avoiding the trap is essential.

  • Perry
    Perry

    designs are you an atheist? What is your worldview specifically?

    You seem very negative toward Christians, why?

  • Terry
    Terry

    Terry,

    We have gone over these issues and over these. Real Christians are not robots. They agree on the New Covenant Contract with Christ and debate other issues. So what?

    Humanity did not make itself, right?

    We have two arms, two eyes, two legs and one brain. We don't choose that.

    We have appetites and impulses and tendencies and such NOT because we so choose. It is a GIVEN.

    Choice is an illusion.

    Eat or don't eat. Some choice. Live or die.

    What did Adam want but to "be like god knowing good and bad"?

    Where does this DESIRE originate? From a talking snake?

    Choice here is illusory.

    Adam was never a baby cradled in his loving mother's arms. Nobody sang a lullabye to him or tickled him just to make him smile. Adam didn't grow up with brothers and sisters and a playground or a teddy bear or sitting around a family dinner with loving conversations.

    Adam wasn't GIVEN by God the things we take for granted as minimum requirements to normalize us.

    This is what makes the Genesis account so cold and unloving on God's side of the argument.

    What humanity could Adam possess?

    His was a cold, empty, loveless existence until Eve appeared.

    But, that decision to eat of the fruit (offered by the only companion he ever knew beyond some disembodied voice from the sky) was a HUMAN decision.

    Whatever humanity he possessed was by DEFAULT.

    God made Man what he IS.

    No choice involved.

    Not really.

    To say Adam was not a Robot is not really saying anything great about what he WAS as God made him to be.

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