Hi, gentle reader,
You possibly noticed a couple of changes going on around here today, so, since I rarely do anything without appending several paragraphs of justification in true Calvinist fashion, I thought I’d give you the lowdown on what is going on and why, just in case you’re remotely interested.
First off, I got a bit tired of using Quoracy Blue as the background to this blog. I couldn’t get any of the tag colour schemes in WordPress‘s “Mystique” template (which is what I’ve been using for nearly a year now and like it a lot) to work with it, it certainly clashed with many of the header images and on top of that it kind of distracted the eye from the main content. So I decided to exchange it for another of the colours I bought from the Unicef site www.ownacolour.com, namely my wife’s Christmas present (she didn’t use the malaria tablets and water the purchase funded personally, by the way, I believe they went to a village in India) which I called Elena James’ Dark Silver . At the same time I put my tabs to grey, which is one of the six colour options, and unsurprisingly they don’t clash, and even the way most of the header pics look doesn’t clash and also it is a more discrete and elegant colour all round, rather like the woman it is named for.
Anyway, since my wife owns, under the full rigour of international law that an august institution like Unicef represents, the colour with the hex code #505050, I hope people will respect that and not use the colour themselves without remembering to pray to God for her relief from her condition Multiple Sclerosis, and the additional disadvantages of having two autistic children, another child who is pathologically lazy and a fat eccentric workaholic husband who spends too much time goldlisting or messing around on the internet and whose sentences structures are far too long.
Second off, I changed the fonts again today. This one’s called Eigerdals or something. I had FF Dax before. I put both Quoracy.com and Huliganov.TV on the same look just for simplicity and a kind of commonality, as it were, but in the end that’s pretty boring and whilst FF Dax is OK, I think that this is a bit more original looking. Probably it will have difficulties with some of the foreign diacritics and I’ll have to improvise. I hope everyone can read it ok, as one size up from this looks less good – the dot on the i runs into the stalk and makes it look like the hard i in Turkish. Your feedback more than welcome.
Third off, as you can see I’ve been doing a post a day for the last ten days or so. That is made easier now by the use of scheduling, so I have started using this feature to spread out the content more evenly, so that subscribers don’t get indundated with posts on a productive day and then nothing for weeks when I’m busy with other things. I would be adding unscheduled ones like this one is on top anyway, and also I’ll be monitoring and answering comments in the same way as I was doing before.
That’s basically it. Hope you enjoy these changes.
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Speaking of justification and Calvinism, maybe you should write about that sometime? In the Polyglot Project, you wrote about your days before salvation that you were no match for the arguments of this Calvinist church that your friend belonged to. It would be interesting to read about that too.
Well, I was actually a left wing atheist, believing a lot of the gunk that is believed by Godless people who nevertheless find a need for some purpose or mission. I had a problem, though, and that was that the theory of evolution didn’t really stack up for me. It seemed to me as though the ages had been given by science in order to make it impossible to ask any questions about the start of life. If everything happens so slowly and gradually, it becomes impossoble to point a finger at the precise moment life began. And how should it be that we have this evident unique consiousness of being and meaning that no other creatures seem to have, on this world or from beyond it. I couldn’t fathom from evolution why the world should be this way or why I should have developed by means of evolution to the point where I should even be trying to analyse it and worry about it when nothing else was, indeed the most part of humanity barely is. And so I started to have questions in my head, but at the same time I wanted to show my intellectual superiority by deconverting Christians, but I got shown that in fact there is a system that does answer all my particular questions, and answers them in at least an internally consistent manner, and presents a reason and purpose for a world that was the way I observed the world to be. And therefore I identified it as truth. The heart followed after the head, and I came to Jesus Christ some weeks after that.
I know a guy who has set himself the goal of deconverting a pastor in a local church. How wonderful it would be to have him end up like you did!
Many do. The best weapon is prayer. Nobody can become a Christian unless God steps in and makes them one.
Yes, exactly. The Bible tells us to pray, even though God already knows what we need, so I’d think it also goes for praying for other people, even if God already knows whether they’ll be saved or not.
I must admit, though, that I have trouble understanding exactly why, though it is God’s will that none perish, but everyone come to repentance, as Peter writes in the second letter, He does not save everyone. This is probably the most common criticism of Calvinism, but maybe you have a good answer to it?
I suppose I think that the best answer is the words of Paul to the Galatians, that “it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy”.
God has always shewn mercy where it was His will to show mercy, but those who come have never been rejected by Him. Everyone knows because they hear so in the preaching of the Gospel that the mercy of God WILL be shown to all who ask for it. Some ask for this mercy then – because God leads them to it. Others do not ask because God does not soften them, but still they are recipients of the invitation and if so be they wanted to come they are also promised that they can come. They can have faith, they can hold God to promises made to all mankind. But still they do not do so. They are ready to go to hell and then complain at God about it rather than simply ask for salvation when it is freely there for the taking.
The fact is we do not have a choice to be good. Our wills are in bondage. But we have a choice still in one area and one only. We have a choice as to what we believe. That is why God commands us to believe because it is within our volition. And the man who said “O Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief” had his prayer answered in full, as would all who sincerely pray so.
Much of it makes sense, and the thing I like about Calvinism is that there always seems to be Biblical evidence for its teachings. Of course other teachings are based on the Bible as well, but very often philosophical conclusions are given as much weight as Scripture.
As is the case with most people, almost everything I know about Calvinism is the “five points” concerning its soteriology. As I understand it, Total Depravity means, among other things, that nobody can choose God unless God chooses him first, which, according to Unconditional Election, is not based on how good or evil anyone is. Limited Atonement means that Christ died for the sins of only those whom God has chosen (I think this one is rejected by four-point Calvinists). Irresistible Grace then makes sure that all the chosen ones believe and repent. Lastly, Perseverance of the Saints makes sure they stay in the Light.
Based on this, I can’t see how we could choose to believe, other than from a human perspective, from which it would appear that we do in any case. But as you said yourself, nobody can become a Christian unless God steps in and makes them one.
Spurgeon said some words to the effect of “you need to go through the school of repentance and faith to get to the university of predestination and election”. Predestination was never intended as a barrier to coming – those who preach it so are Hypercalvinist and they are in error. We need to remember the One who phrased this as elegantly as the mouth of a man has ever phrased it, and He did not shy away from the dichotomy: “All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me, and him that cometh to Me, I shall in no wise cast out”. Probably one of my all time favorite verses of Scripture.