What do Calvinists believe?

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Curtis

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Calvinism believes that once people have been saved by God, those people cannot lose their salvation through any act of their own. This belief is based on a belief in the complete sovereignty of God. If God has chosen something or someone, no mere mortal has the power to thwart that choice.

And it’s very wrong.

Here’s an interesting fact from Calvinism that is ignored today - temporary grace.

Calvin had to explain away the fact that some believers who were clearly Christians at one time, fell from the faith, even stopped believing completely — so He came up with the doctrine of EVANESCENT (temporary) grace - which is that God gives some of the non elect who are predestined to hell a temporary grace that allows them to believe for a while, even think they are of the elect, until the temporary grace runs out, and they immediately revert to their predestined damned-to-hell status, and stop believing.

The obvious downside to evanescent grace is the fact that no “elect” believer can know if he’s really the lucky predestined elect, or just one of the unlucky pre-damned- to-hell non- elect, who’s temporary grace will one day expire.

That’s probably why it’s not talked about by Calvinists these days.
 
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Curtis

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From what I know of Calvinism, I cannot see Augustine's influence. Not when he exhibited great insight to the born again nature that Calvinism is blind to. What did Augustine teach that actually agrees with Calvinism that I can research?

So far, you may have to ask for Augustine's forgiveness. LOL

Look for the last 18 years of his life:

Augustine taught variants of these five points of Augustinian Calvinism the last eighteen years of his life. Previously he had taught traditional Christian views defending humanity's free choice to believe against the deterministic Manichaeans, to which he had belonged for a decade before converting to Christianity.[7][8] In this pagan group, a non-relational God unilaterally chose the elect for salvation and the non-elect for damnation based upon his own desires. Early church fathers prior to Augustine refuted non-choice predeterminism as being pagan.[9][10][11] Out of the fifty early Christian authors who wrote on the debate between free will and determinism, all fifty supported Christian free will against Stoic, Gnostic, and Manichaean determinism and even Augustine taught traditional Christian theology against this determinism for twenty-six years prior to 412 CE.[12] When Augustine started fighting the Pelagians he converted to the Gnostic and Manichaean view and taught that humankind has no free will to believe until God infuses grace, which in turn results in saving faith.[13][14][15]

Total Depravity and Unconditional Election in Infant BaptismEdit
The controversy over infant baptism with the Pelagians was a major reason for Augustine's change. Tertullian (ca. 200) was the first Christian to mention infant baptism. He refuted it by saying children should not be baptized until they can personally believe in Christ.[16] Even by 400 CE there was no consensus regarding why infants should be baptized.[17][18]The Pelagians taught infant baptism merely allowed children to enter the kingdom of God (viewed as different than heaven), so that unbaptized infants could still be in heaven.[19] In response, Augustine invented the concept that infants are baptized to remove Adam's original guilt (guilt resulting in eternal damnation).[20] Inherited original sin was previously limited to physical death, moral weakness, and a sin propensity.[21]

Another key element within infant baptism was Augustine's early training in Stoicism, an ancient philosophy in which a meticulous micromanaging god predetermines every detailed event in the universe.[22] This included the falling of a leaf from a tree to its exact location on the ground and the subtle movements of muscles in roosters' necks as they fight, which he explained in his first work, De providentia (On Providence).[23] Augustine taught that God foreordained (or predestined) newborn babies who were baptized by actively helping or causing the parents to reach the bishop for baptism while the baby lived. By baptism, these babies would be saved from damnation. Augustine reasoned further that God actively blocked the parents of other infants from reaching the baptismal waters before their baby died. These babies were condemned to hell due to lack of baptism (according to Augustine).[24][25] His view remains controversial, even some Roman Catholic Augustinian scholars refute this idea,[26] and scholars cite the view's origin as derived as from Platonism, Stoicism, and Manichaeism.[27][28][29]

Augustine then expanded this concept from infants to adults. Since babies have no "will" to desire their baptisms, Augustine expanded the implication to all humans.[30] He concluded that God must predestine all humans prior to them making any choice. Although earlier Christians taught original sin, the concept of total depravity (total inability to believe on Christ) was borrowed from Gnostic Manichaeism. Manichaeism taught unborn babies and unbaptized infants were damned to hell because of a physical body. Like the Gnostics, the Manichaean god had to resurrect the dead will by infusing faith and grace. Augustine changed the cause of total depravity to Adam's guilt but kept the Stoic, Manichaean, and Neoplatonic concepts of the human dead will requiring god's infused grace and faith to respond.[31]
 

Curtis

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From what I know of Calvinism, I cannot see Augustine's influence. Not when he exhibited great insight to the born again nature that Calvinism is blind to. What did Augustine teach that actually agrees with Calvinism that I can research?

So far, you may have to ask for Augustine's forgiveness. LOL

Part TWO:


Limited Atonement in Augustinian CalvinismEdit
Augustine attempted numerous explanations of 1 Timothy 2:4.[32] The Pelagians assumed 1 Tim 2:4 taught that God gave the gift of faith to all persons, which Augustine easily refuted by changing wills/desires to ‘provides opportunity’ (Spir. et litt.37–38). In 414 CE Augustine's new theology has ‘all kinds/classes’ definitively replacing ‘all’ as absolute (ep. 149) and in 417 CE, Sermon 304.2 repeats this change of 'all' to 'all kinds.' But only in AD 421 (c. Jul. 4.8.42) did Augustine alter the text to read “all who are saved” meaning those who are saved are only saved by God's will, which he repeats the next year (ench. 97, 103). People fail to be saved, “not because they do not will it, but because God does not” (Epistle 217.19). Despite their certain damnation, God makes other Christians desire their impossible salvation (corrept. 15, 47). Rist identifies as “the most pathetic passage.”[33] By AD 429, Augustine quotes 1 Cor. 1.18 adding “such” to 1 Tim. 2:4, redefines all to mean as “all those elected,” and implies an irresistible calling. Hwang noted,[32]



Augustine attempted at least five answers over a decade of time trying to explain 1 Tim. 2:4 regarding the extent of Christ's redeeming sacrifice.[32] His major premise was the pagan idea that God receives everything he desires. Omnipotence (Stoic and Neoplatonic) is doing whatever the One desires, ensuring everything that occurs in the universe is exactly the Almighty's will and so must come to pass (Sermon 214.4).[34] He concluded that because God gets everything he wants, God does not desire all persons to be saved, otherwise every human would be saved. Chadwick concluded that because Augustine's God does not desire and so refuses to save all persons, Augustine elevated God's sovereignty as absolute and God's justice was trampled.[35] This also logically demanded that Christ could not have died for those who would not be saved. Therefore, Christ only died for the elect since God does not waste causation or energy.[36]

Irresistible grace in Augustinian CalvinismEdit
Augustine did not use the term irresistible grace, but wrote of God placing persons in circumstances God knew would cause them to make a certain choice or act a certain way.[37]

Perseverance of the Saints in Augustinian CalvinismEdit
One of his last works specifically addresses the Gift of Perseverance. In this work Augustine notes that persons cannot know whether or not they have received that gift from God.[38] Since Augustine accepted the doctrine that the Holy Spirit is received at water baptism producing regeneration (salvation), he had to explain why some regenerated babies continued in the faith while other baptized infants would fall away from the faith and even live immoral lives in debauchery. Both groups possessed the Holy Spirit, so how can one account for the difference? Augustine concluded that God must give a second gift of grace called perseverance. The gift of perseverance is only given to some baptized infants.[39]Without this second gift of grace a baptized Christian with the Holy Spirit will not persevere and ultimately will not be saved.

Summary of TULIP's Development (Augustinian Calvinism)Edit
The term Augustinian Calvinism remains appropriate since Augustine invented the five points of Calvinism's TULIP. The elder Augustine's emphasis on Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited Atonement, and Perseverance are currently taught as Calvin's Reformed theology. Augustine's view that God placed persons in circumstances where they could not resist grace became TULIP's Irresistible grace. The critical component of infant baptism in the development of Augustine's later views of Total Depravity and Unconditional election cannot be overemphasized.
 

prism

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For those that criticize Calvinism, do you have perfect doctrine?
I'll admit, there's much I don't agree with in their Confessions (Westminster, Belgic etc.), but I'm not going to pretend my doctrine is squeaky clean.
 

Stumpmaster

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For those that criticize Calvinism, do you have perfect doctrine?
I'll admit, there's much I don't agree with in their Confessions (Westminster, Belgic etc.), but I'm not going to pretend my doctrine is squeaky clean.
Through Paul's writing we have doctinal certainty that salvation is to be accompanied by applicable activity.
I'm no longer astonished by the inconsistencies and incongruities in the ideologies and behaviours of those who fellowship as members of the body of Christ, but some have been traumatising.

Rom 13:11-14 And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. (12) The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. (13) Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. (14) But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.
 
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prism

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Through Paul's writing we have doctinal certainty that salvation is to be accompanied by applicable activity.
Which 'applicable activity'?

2 Timothy 1:9 (KJV) Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,

Titus 3:5 (KJV) Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
 

Stumpmaster

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Which 'applicable activity'?

2 Timothy 1:9 (KJV) Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,

Titus 3:5 (KJV) Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
Your quotes relate to the AUTHOR of salvation but do not relate to things that ACCOMPANY salvation, so I refer you back to my quote with the applicable activities highlighted in red.

Rom 13:11-14 And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. (12) The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. (13) Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. (14) But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.

Also note:

Heb 6:9
But, beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you, yes, things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner.
 

prism

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Your quotes relate to the AUTHOR of salvation but do not relate to things that ACCOMPANY salvation, so I refer you back to my quote with the applicable activities highlighted in red.

Rom 13:11-14 And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. (12) The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. (13) Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. (14) But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.

Also note:

Heb 6:9
But, beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you, yes, things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner.
I don’t understand. I wrote about Calvinism and those that challenge Calvinism, and then you challenge me with a statement from Paul supposedly referring to ‘applicable activity’. Why? Very confusing when the topic of the OP is ‘What do Calvinists believe?’.
 

Stumpmaster

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I don’t understand. I wrote about Calvinism and those that challenge Calvinism, and then you challenge me with a statement from Paul supposedly referring to ‘applicable activity’. Why? Very confusing when the topic of the OP is ‘What do Calvinists believe?’.
Well there is a flawed corollary of Calvinism that negates the slightest need for the fruit or applicable activities that accompany salvation. I came across a Calvinist quote to the effect that if God has predetermined someone for salvation they can jump off a cliff shouting curses and denying the existence of God, and they will still be saved. Go figure.

It is a doctrinal certainty that the fruit of salvation is evidence of salvation. Calvinist doctrine is lacking in this regard.
 
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ChristisGod

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Well there is a flawed corollary of Calvinism that negates the slightest need for the fruit or applicable activities that accompany salvation. I came across a Calvinist quote to the effect that if God has predetermined someone for salvation they can jump off a cliff shouting curses and denying the existence of God, and they will still be saved. Go figure.

It is a doctrinal certainty that the fruit of salvation is evidence of salvation. Calvinist doctrine is lacking in this regard.


Try quoting Calvin saying such nonsense and not someone who knows nothing about calvinism. Whoever said that is clueless.
 
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CharismaticLady

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Yes. The Westminster Confession of Faith is the "Statement of Faith" for both Presbyterians, Free Presbyterians, and Reformed Churches (very similar but distinct, and primarily Dutch) and they are all Calvinistic. Some Presbyterians today are rank liberals.

The Lutherans do not subscribe to this Confession, and The Anglicans have their own Thirty Nine Articles of Faith, but the English Puritans were Calvinistic Anglicans and rejected the Anglican position. There are also Calvinistic Baptists who are not really "Reformed" or "Presbyterian", but like to think of themselves as "Reformed Baptists". C.H. Spurgeon was a Calvinistic Baptist but his preaching was very similar to non-Calvinistic Baptists.

During the Reformation, Calvinism and Zwinglism (very similar) extended from France, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, and Poland all the way to Russia. But Lutheranism extended from Germany to Scandinavia. However Spain and Italy remained staunchly Catholic.

Thank you. Very informative. I have some Spurgeon books; a set of 20 volumes from the 1800's. Can you tell me how his teaching differed from actual Calvinism?
 

CharismaticLady

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Their hearts are not good . They GOD is MONEY . Kenneth himself has said , I HAD to TELL GOD TO MOVE HIS SON OUT OF MY WAY
SO I COULD GET THE JOB DONE . THEY are charlatons . SO is cessastionism . Its false too .
But we had all better watch out . cause nar , the prosperity gospel , they all infected real bad as well . As is the emergent and many others .
The lump is sin bruised and oozes out much pus and rotted gangren chancors . Christendom , no matter the denomination
has been infected real bad sister . But they GONNA ALL UNIFY under the FAKE UNITY MOVE . Which the harlot leads in .
Mama is calling all her children home . Dont expect to see me in that gathering . Let us stick to those bibles and learn that doctrine well .

As I said, they have some faulty passions, but they are passionate about not sinning too. I've never heard that quote about Copeland. If it wouldn't be too much trouble could you tell me where you heard that. I'd like to hear him say it himself.
 

prism

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Well there is a flawed corollary of Calvinism that negates the slightest need for the fruit or applicable activities that accompany salvation. I came across a Calvinist quote to the effect that if God has predetermined someone for salvation they can jump off a cliff shouting curses and denying the existence of God, and they will still be saved. Go figure.

It is a doctrinal certainty that the fruit of salvation is evidence of salvation. Calvinist doctrine is lacking in this regard.
Well I do know that they will require "fruit" to prove that someone is elect. So if someone walks according to a predetermined protocol, 'they are in'...I guess.
 

Enoch111

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Thank you. Very informative. I have some Spurgeon books; a set of 20 volumes from the 1800's. Can you tell me how his teaching differed from actual Calvinism?
After preaching the Gospel, Spurgeon urged ALL his hearers to repent and be converted. Assuming he was sincere (which appears to be the case) he expected all to believe and turn to Christ for salvation.
 

ChristisGod

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Thank you. Very informative. I have some Spurgeon books; a set of 20 volumes from the 1800's. Can you tell me how his teaching differed from actual Calvinism?
You have spurgeon books and you don't know he was a 5 point calvinist ?

You really are clueless aren't you ?

Do you have a reading comprehension disability ?

“It is no novelty, then, that I am preaching; no new doctrine. I love to proclaim these strong old doctrines, that are called by nickname Calvinism, but which are surely and verily the revealed truth of God as it is in Christ Jesus.” —Charles Spurgeon
 

Addy

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I only got to page 2 of this thread... It was PAINFUL to read....
 

Enoch111

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“It is no novelty, then, that I am preaching; no new doctrine. I love to proclaim these strong old doctrines, that are called by nickname Calvinism, but which are surely and verily the revealed truth of God as it is in Christ Jesus.” —Charles Spurgeon
This is true. But when you examine his sermons you do not see this.
Let's take one example from his sermon Light for Those Who Sit in Darkness:

"It is our delightful task to add that there is light for those who sit in darkness in our Lord's person and nature. Mark right well who this Jesus Christ is. He is in the constitution of his person both God and man, divine and human, equal with God and fellow with man. Do you not see in this fact the love of God, that he should be willing to take humanity into union with himself? If God becomes man, he does not hate men, but has love towards them.

Do you not see the suitability of Christ to deal with you, for he is like yourself a man, touched with the feeling of your infirmities; of a human mother born, he hung at a woman's breast, he suffered hunger and thirst and weariness, and, dead and buried in the tomb, he was partaker in our doom as well as our sorrow? Jesus of Nazareth was most truly a man, he is bone of our bone and flesh of your flesh.

O sinner, look into the face of the man of sorrows and you must trust him. Since he is also God, you therein see his power to carry on the work of salvation. He touches you with the hand of his humanity, but he touches the Almighty with the hand of his Deity. He is man, and feels your needs; he is God, and is able to supply them. Is anything too tender for his heart of love? Is anything too hard for his hand of power?...

...Remember, dear hearers, that to-day the gospel command is sent to you all; you that are most despairing, you are bidden to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. "Prove that," say you. I prove it thus: he bade his disciples go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature; you are a creature, therefore we preach it to you. And what was the gospel? Why, just this: "He that believeth and is baptised, shall be saved: he that believeth not shall be damned." That gospel, then, comes to you—God commandeth all men, everywhere, to repent. O what mercy it is that the light of the gospel shines around you still! Will you shut your eyes to it? I beseech you, do not so wickedly."


Now do you see anything Calvinistic in these passages which invite ALL his hearers to repent and be converted? So why did Spurgeon insist that he was a Calvinist while contradicting himself in his preaching? Only God knows.