Cheryl Schatz

Derek, Thanks for responding! Let me see if I can summarize what I think you are saying and see if you agree with how I summarize it. 1. You believe that everyone has a sin nature that we are born with and with this sin nature we all fail to live without some kind of sin in our lives, not because we are deceived like Eve, but because we sin knowing that what we are doing is wrong. 2. You also believe that God is the ultimate Sovereign of the universe so that no one can force His hand or be outside of His ultimate control of the circumstances. Because God knows the future, He does not need to react to an event as if He was surprised that it happened, but like a master chess player He knows all the moves that are available and He knows all the moves that each player will actually play. 3. You also believe that God has ordained that for those who love Him, to them everything will work out for good. Not everything will work out for everyone for good because not everyone loves Him, but God still has ultimate Sovereign control over what events He allows and what events He prevents and what events He sets up to happen. 4, You also believe that God uses events that seem like they are evil and He plans actions and uses people for His ultimate purpose. For example God’s purpose was that Joseph would be sent to Egypt and that he would become the top ruler in Egypt so that his reliance on God would ultimately save his family from starvation and death. In order to accomplish this plan, God sent the caravan of merchants who would purchase and sell slaves so that they would arrive at just the time that Joseph’s brothers would be deciding on what they could do to get rid of Joseph. God also worked in one of Joseph’s brother’s hearts so that he stopped his brothers from killing Joseph in preparation for the arrival of the caravan that would transport Joseph into Egypt. God also used the trials that Joseph would face because of his desire to please God, to train Joseph to rely on Him even during times when it seemed like God was not in control. Joseph came out of prison to the place of rulership in Egypt because of God’s pre-ordained plan to save Israel. 5. You also believe that God’s actions with Pharaoh was passive rather than active. Instead of hardening Pharaoh in Pharaoh’s own will, God merely took away the grace that makes men reasonable and willing to do what God wants them to do. 6. You also believe that Judas was not unconditionally damned from the foundation of the world, but was created by God knowing that God did not want Judas to be saved and in order to accomplish God’s purpose for Judas, God did not actively act to damn Judas, but instead He prepare the sinful choices that Judas could do and then let Judas loose to remain in his sin without God’s grace. Reprobation then is not unconditional, but is conditional and depends on man’s own sin that will take him to hell. By the way I should clarify that although a section of Calvinists have acted in a haughty way and have sinned against their brothers and sisters in Christ, I do not believe that Calvinists are the core of the problem. If Calvinists do wrong things as Calvinists, it seems to me it is because of the system for it teaches them how to have a deep love for a set of doctrines so that they are pulled towards reading books and hearing sermons by Calvinists alone. Many become unbalanced this way preferring to see themselves as Calvinists rather than just name the name of Christ as Christians. Derek, did my summary match up with your belief in any way? I have also decided that the issue of babies and salvation deserves a post of its own. There is room for too much dialog so I am going to work on that post and get it up as soon as I can.