Cheryl Schatz

Mark,
You said:

I don’t think you can separate all these things all the time Cheryl. You seem to want to completely separate salvation from faith all the time.

No, I don’t want to separate salvation from faith, because there can be no salvation without faith. But what is separated is who does what. Salvation can never be done by us since it is a work that we are incapable of doing. But we can have faith just as we are required to have. If faith was merely God’s gift to us, then God would be unwise to command us to have faith. He would just give it to us.

Sure we can boast if we work for our salvation, but surely there is room for boasting if I believe and you don’t, if faith isn’t a gift.

There can only be boasting if I am capable of believing and you aren’t. If God created me with the elect position and granted me the ability to believe (after gifting me with faith) then I could boast that I am in and you are not and God planned me to be “in” from the very beginning. But the fact is that both of us have been given the ability to believe if we will turn from our sin and fear God.

There is heaps of room for boasting.

The only time that there is room for boasting is if one person is privileged and the other is not. If we are equal in our ability and neither of us can earn our salvation there is no cause to boast.

The fact is that if we are not picked to be in a higher class than others, we have no reason to boast. Salvation is a free gift offered to all.

The verses do not lend themselves to such seperation like you have done. Salvation, grace, faith are all gifts, so that we may never boast of anything of ourselves.

Gift is singular not plural in the passage. It is salvation that is the gift (singular).

I think you had a cheap shot a Piper there Cheryl. Any of us are vulnerable to pride not just Calvinists.

It is the Calvinists who say that Calvinism is the only pride-destroying system. The fact is that it is not and those who claim the name of Calvinist have been some of the most arrogant people I have ever met. I am not saying this about you for you are here in a humble manner dialogging with me. I don’t think that Calvinists do well by claiming that their theology produces humility more so than non-Calvinism.

I’m sure if you or I are ever in a position like Piper or anyone like that we would struggle. It is a good thing that Piper has realised this, he takes sin seriously and I praise God for that.

Well I praise God for that too, but unfortunately Piper didn’t take time away before his pride over took him. There are many non-Calvinist pastors who have not fallen to this kind of pride. Maybe that’s why I am predestined not to be a Calvinist. If I thought that I had been created by God to be loved and saved, while the majority of humanity had been created by God to be hated and destroyed in hell, I am not sure if I could keep the pride down. It would be so good for the ego to know that one is in the special class picked unconditionally. How many people can really handle that? It seems to me that if this really was the truth, the best thing that God could do is to tell us when we are in Heaven when we are not subject to pride.

Being a Calvinist does not negate nor increase one’s possibility of being proud- this is something we all struggle with.

Man I have heard so many sermons about Calvinism being pride-destroying that one would think that it is practically impossible to have pride while being a Calvinist.

But I reject that reformed theology increases people’s pride. That is just a cheap shot. It is illogical.

It isn’t illogical. I would feel very tempted to be proud if I was a Calvinist. After all I am so special (for whatever reason) that Jesus died for me and all the other special ones that God loves.

If I believe that God’s elect are purely chosen by God’s choice and mercy (Rom 9) how can I boast- it has nothing to do with me.

Because I am one of God’s “choices”. It wouldn’t matter why He picked me. The fact that I am in the special class and most are in the hated class – well how wonderful.
‘

I don’t believe that God loves me more than others- reformed theology doesn’t believe that.

It is a “special” love – a saving and special love. Goodness, we had to sit there and listen to our Calvinist pastor tell us how much God loves the elect and how special the elect and how much God hates the reprobate. And you say that Calvinism doesn’t teach that God loves you more than the reprobate?

he doesn’t take pleasure in the death of the wicked (Eze 18). But God also chose to save some and not others according to his pleasure and his will.

This is a contradiction. To say that God doesn’t take pleasure in the death of the wicked but it is His pleasure not to save them (so that they die) is just plain contradiction.

It has nothing to do with us or that he loves us more. You are misrepresenting reformed theology saying those sorts of things.

If you say that this is a misrepresentation, then explain how saving love one given to one group and withheld from another group is not “more” love?

Perhaps you should read Calvin! Please don’t also describe Calvinists as some sort of ‘elite’- this is unhelpful.

I didn’t say that Calvinists are some sort of “elite”. I said:

While you may not know the reason why He chose you, the fact that He chose you and you are one of the elite elect chose out of all humanity makes you have lots to boast amongst those that God doesn’t love.

I was talking about all of the elect here as Calvinism describes them as being the ones loved from all of eternity by God. That would be an elite group – not just the Calvinists. Trouble is that I don’t believe that there is a group of people that God has unconditionally picked as a people to love while hating all the other reprobate people that He would create. You believe in this class. I don’t.

Perhaps you should read Calvin!

I am reading Calvinist literature as much as I can stomach. I prefer to get my spiritual nourishment from the Bible .

You obviously have not understood me at all. Let’s try again. Saving faith is not a work ONLY because it is a gift of God. Once you remove the fact that it is a gift, it no longer is something from God, it is something from man therefore it becomes a work.

The bible never says that saving faith is a gift and any other kind of faith is a work and not from God. Please prove your point from the Scripture, because I have never once seen faith described as a work. Please show it to me instead of just giving a philosophical answer.

Your view( although you say you believe grace alone through faith alone) have made the ‘faith’ part into a man’s work because you deny it is something that God gives us.

Prove this from the Scripture.

Do you see the difference. I have stated this several times now.

No. The Bible never calls any faith a work of man. It is not Scriptural.

Yes faith is a response, but even a response is a work (because it is something we do) UNLESS it is a gift of God.

This is where you greatly err. Doing something doesn’t make it a work. Cashing a cheque is not a work.

This is a work:

exertion or effort directed to produce or accomplish something; labor; toil.

It is impossible for believing God to be a work. If I am wrong, then stop arguing with me and show me this from the Scripture.

You are struggling to accept Calvinism because you don’t understand it.

I have some very good resources and explain Calvinism and I cannot accept something that contradicts the Scripture. The explanations that they give and what you give contradict Scripture.

That’s why I keep recommending you read Calvin, not me, not any other ‘Calvinists’.

If Calvinism is the truth, one would not need to read Calvin. One could be instructed by reading the Bible. Books on Calvinism that are recommended by Calvinists are sufficient. Calvin has been made out to be an icon that one cannot understand the Scripture without him. That really goes against the grain.

Then see if what Calvin saids squares with the Bible.

I have already quoted Calvin about the false faith that God gives to some of the reprobate. Where does that “square” with the Bible?