Said so well
Chris over at Pleroma ended a great post with this paragraph:
I suspect that Calvinists are so dead set on "unconditional election" because they regard it as a watertight bulkhead against any idea of "works salvation" and necessary for the total exclusion of any "boasting" on our part about our salvation. They see any idea of cooperation with grace as not just "action in common" between God and man, but also a sharing of the "credit" for salvation between God and man. Nothing could be farther from the truth. When we act apart from grace, we can truly take "credit" for our actions, except it is not credit, it is only blame. When we act in coooperation with grace, all of the credit belongs to God, who deigns to work through us for our own salvation and the salvation of those around us. An Orthodox priest once explained to me, "You can never earn your salvation, but you must assuredly work for it." For it is through that working (enabled and empowered by grace, and impossible without grace) that we are transformed, and become "conformed to the image of His Son" (Ro 8.29).Whether or not my Calvinist friends will admit it, this is exactly what Calvinists "think," i.e., this is the ideology that pervades the Calvinist mindset. Though they may want to argue against it in strict dogmatic terms, practically speaking this is absolutely the sort of thing that is ingrained in contemporary Calvinism. Posted by jeremy stock at November 25, 2002 11:39 PM
Seems to little ole (Calvinistic) me what is being argued against here is hyper-Calvinism.
Posted by: Tim at November 26, 2002 10:13 AMSeems to little ole (Calvinistic) me, what is being argued against here is hyper-Calvinism.
Posted by: Tim at November 26, 2002 10:14 AMTim,
I'd have to take issue with you there. I don't think hyper-Calvinism comes into this at all. Chris is merely describing the Calvinistic intense insistance on monergystic salvation: "God does all the work."
The intense insistence can be said to come out of a presupposed fear that any activity on the person's part is immediately and inextricably tied to that person's earning "merit" or "credit." Chris does a great job pointing out a way of looking at the "salvation process" in not so strong a dichotomy as the Calvinists press.
Posted by: jeremy at November 28, 2002 08:11 AMTim
I've seen reference to "hyper-Calvinism" before, but I don't have any idea what it means. How would you define hyper-Calvinism?
Tim
Did you read the whole post on my weblog, or just Jeremy's excerpt? If you read the whole post, I'd be honored if you'd post a comment on my weblog explaining why you think it's hyper-Calvinism that I am arguing against.
Posted by: Christopher Jones at November 28, 2002 10:42 PMChris, I just read Jeremy's comments.
Hyper-Calvinists, like Arminians, cannot reconcile God's sovereignty with man's resposibility. HCs therefore deny that man has anything to do in salvation. You can't preach the gospel to the nations because you'd be lying to the non-elect. If God is going to save someone, He'll save them and man has nothing to do with it. The command is not "repent and be baptized" it is "ask God to grant to faith" even if someone hears the gospel and seeks forgiveness.
Jer, I think it is a misunderstanding of Calvinism to call it monergystic. When a Calvinist is asked "what must I do to be saved?" the answer is always "repent, trust in Christ." Our part in salvation is to trust (and even this is a gift from God!) God is the one who takes the initative in salvation by granting repentance, faith and regeneration, we respond to His action not by assisting Him through our good works but expressing the faith that He has given us. To claim that Calvinism denies this is to confuse it with hyper-Calvinism.
My comment stands.
Posted by: Tim at November 30, 2002 09:37 AMThere's a superb, long-out-of-print biography,'CHARLES SIMEON OF CAMBRIDGE' by Hugh Evan Hopkins, still available at http://www.torontochristianbooks.com/simeon.htm. It's a wonderful example of what Christianity was once considered to be, both in public and private life.
That site also has a lot of new and unplayed out-of-print Christian music cassette bestsellers, CDs, and hymn records from the 1980's and '90's. Try:
http://www.torontochristianbooks.com/cassette.htm
http://www.torontochristianbooks.com/records.htm
http://www.torontochristianbooks.com/demorecs.htm
http://www.torontochristianbooks.com/oldcds.htm
There's a substantial listing of other useful resources, too, on the huge http://www.torontochristianbooks.com main page, including their interesting list of exclusive reprints at http://www.torontochristianbooks.com/reprint2.htm.
Tim,
I definetely concur with you. Perhaps one way to look at the issue is to misrepresent Calvinism to defend the conspicuous form of Arminianism demonstrated by Jeremy and others. Your accurate definition of God's grace is another chilling reminder that without God's grace I am left to my utter animosity towards the things of God.
The number of God's elect are always brought in by grace determined befor time began (Ephesians 1).