I have moved the blog to Word Press. I will be blogging there from now on. They have features which will help prevent dishonest people from posting as sock puppets undetected. They also come highly recommended by some who were one time users of Blogger, so I thought it would be nice for a change. The site has been completely moved except for the side bar links which I need to do manually and might take a while. Any future posts will be made there. I hope to have the next post up regarding Hebrews 10 by the end of this week.
If you link to AP please change the link to the new Word Press address. Here is the link:
http://arminianperspectives.wordpress.com/
Thank you and God Bless.
Ben
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Happy Easter
I will be away until after Easter but wanted to wish everyone a wonderful Resurrection Sunday.
"For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the Head over all rule and authority; and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead." (Col. 2:9-12 emphasis mine)
In Him alone do we have life now and forever!
God Bless,
Ben
"For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the Head over all rule and authority; and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead." (Col. 2:9-12 emphasis mine)
In Him alone do we have life now and forever!
God Bless,
Ben
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Synod of Dort
Billy has been doing some nice work on the Synod of Dort at his new web-site Arminian Manifesto. Be sure to check it out.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Paul's Sock Puppet Show?
Does ~PM stand for Paul Manata or does it stand for Puppet Master? Examine the evidence and decide for yourself at the junkyard.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Calvinist Humility Displayed
Here are some comments taken from the combox of a recent post on apostasy in Hebrews by Ben Witherington. The first comments are from a Calvinist objector, followed by a small portion of Ben’s response.
“Many words don't mean truth, more likely much sin, as Prov 10:19 says, a big reason for the shallowness of web "christianity" (if the present atomized "web christianity" isn't an oxymoron versus God's Heb.10:25 picture of the Church.
Contra Witherington and Wesley, and their countless antiBiblical synergistic egoistic delusional errors, castles on air with not one verse of Scripture to support them, there is of course no possibility of a true Christian apostatizing, as 1 John 2:19 and all of Romans and many other passages make clear, explicated voluminously by so many of the Puritans (such as John Owen and Jonathan Edwards, to name but two, and ably demonstrated at www.monergism.com and www.desiringGod.org for those who desire God more than men, unusual for synergists, as Ben's bizarre and irrational antiBiblical insistence (sadly almost universal today) on God idolatrously glorifying man and not Himself as supremely worthy), whom synergists can't handle honestly but need not worry about today's illiterates ever reading to expose their bluff, stupidity, vacuity, and vanity. As C.S. Lewis said about the assured results of modern criticism, the only reason the results are so "assured" is that the original authors are dead and so can't blow (=refute) the gaffe (=error).
As John Piper has pointed out on the passage in preaching through the book (www.desiringGod.org), contrary to the usual eisegetical delusions of synergists, for whom the ego is God, and God is belittled, contrary to the pillar of Romans 9:15 that tells us God is sovereign and decides all (Prov 16:33), Hebrews 6 refers to two DIFFERENT soils, NOT one soil that changes itself; sadly I myself taught Ben's error many years ago before I matured, and was rightly ejected from the house I shared with Christian brothers for it as I wish would happen to wake up those following Ben's error to make them take the Christian faith versus mere ego seriously.
Ben would have saved himself a lot of wasted time and effort typical for synergists trying to use special knowledge like "rhetorical signals" and what not, going all over the map with extraBiblical legerdemain vainly trying to escape the simple meaning of the Sacred text, and thus failing to notice the small but essential point that overthrows these vast (and as vain as vast, in both senses of the word) synergist speculations with a bogus antiBiblical view of grace that has been so catastrophic in destroying God's Church, especially but not only in the west) by substituting for His true Gospel of grace, Wesley's and Finney's ultimately humanistic chicanery of a pseudo-gospel of works and ego (I (appropriately the middle letter of sin) have the final say, not God, in who is elect, contradicted by Rom 9:15) that today's tragically stupid and worldly Biblically illiterate couch potato devils'/idiots' box & screen imbibers are all too happy to embrace as James 4 adulteress-idolatresses. God save us, for only His grace in sending conviction and revival to His Church that has lost her way (at least in the west), gleefully headed like lemmings for certain destruction but for His amazing grace.”
Witherington’s entire reply was excellent but I only want to cite a small portion:
“It is interesting to me, who has read the works of Calvin, Owens, Edwards, Berkhof, Berkower, both Hodges, Warfield and so on and did attend a Reformed seminary and has respect for that tradition, that I am happy to admit I learned a lot from them, but when I actually turned to doing the detailed exegesis of all the NT, while their theological system was certainly logical and coherent, unfortunately it did not match up with what the actual text of the NT was teaching on ever so many points, not the least of which is what it teaches when it warns genuine Christians about apostasy.”
Here is exactly why I reject Calvinism. There is no doubt that Calvinism as a system is, to some extant, inherently logical. The problem comes when we try to harmonize this “system” with the Scriptures. The fact that its doctrines are at odds with so many of the most basic Scriptural declarations (e.g. God’s love for all the world and desire to save all) is the reason why this Arminian rejects it. I suspect that is the case with most Arminians and Non-Calvinists. It is not some desperate desire to “worship at the alter of free will” or “exalt man above God”. It is simply a desire to build theology on the teachings of Scripture, however bothersome those teachings may be to some (e.g. the possibility of genuine apostasy, etc.), rather than constantly struggling to fit the square peg of Calvinism into the round hole of Scriptural teaching.
Calvinists can reject Arminianism for whatever reasons they like but they should have the decency to stop trying to tell Arminians why they reject Calvinism. Calvinists may not like it, but I suspect that most people reject Calvinism for no other reason than that they find it thoroughly unbiblical. If I could find real support for Calvinism in the pages of Scripture, I would embrace it at once. Don’t you think I would like to be one of those “intellectual elite?” However, as attractive as being a “mature” and “intellectually superior” Calvinist might be, I would rather be a fool in their eyes for the sake of allowing the Lord to define Himself and His intentions through the infallible revelation of His word.
I should point out that the arrogance of the commenter at Mr. Witherington's blog is by no means representative of all Calvinists. Some have similar thoughts but would never express them as this gentleman has done. There are surely numerous Calvinists who exercise genuine humility in thought and practice everyday. However, the attitudes expressed by the above Calvinist commenter sadly seems to reflect the norm rather than the exception among Calvinists today, particularly on the Internet. This is strange behavior for those who claim to have a corner on humility based on the teachings of their theology. It is even stranger that those who claim to alone understand the "doctrines of grace" so often conduct and express themselves with such little grace themselves.
“Many words don't mean truth, more likely much sin, as Prov 10:19 says, a big reason for the shallowness of web "christianity" (if the present atomized "web christianity" isn't an oxymoron versus God's Heb.10:25 picture of the Church.
Contra Witherington and Wesley, and their countless antiBiblical synergistic egoistic delusional errors, castles on air with not one verse of Scripture to support them, there is of course no possibility of a true Christian apostatizing, as 1 John 2:19 and all of Romans and many other passages make clear, explicated voluminously by so many of the Puritans (such as John Owen and Jonathan Edwards, to name but two, and ably demonstrated at www.monergism.com and www.desiringGod.org for those who desire God more than men, unusual for synergists, as Ben's bizarre and irrational antiBiblical insistence (sadly almost universal today) on God idolatrously glorifying man and not Himself as supremely worthy), whom synergists can't handle honestly but need not worry about today's illiterates ever reading to expose their bluff, stupidity, vacuity, and vanity. As C.S. Lewis said about the assured results of modern criticism, the only reason the results are so "assured" is that the original authors are dead and so can't blow (=refute) the gaffe (=error).
As John Piper has pointed out on the passage in preaching through the book (www.desiringGod.org), contrary to the usual eisegetical delusions of synergists, for whom the ego is God, and God is belittled, contrary to the pillar of Romans 9:15 that tells us God is sovereign and decides all (Prov 16:33), Hebrews 6 refers to two DIFFERENT soils, NOT one soil that changes itself; sadly I myself taught Ben's error many years ago before I matured, and was rightly ejected from the house I shared with Christian brothers for it as I wish would happen to wake up those following Ben's error to make them take the Christian faith versus mere ego seriously.
Ben would have saved himself a lot of wasted time and effort typical for synergists trying to use special knowledge like "rhetorical signals" and what not, going all over the map with extraBiblical legerdemain vainly trying to escape the simple meaning of the Sacred text, and thus failing to notice the small but essential point that overthrows these vast (and as vain as vast, in both senses of the word) synergist speculations with a bogus antiBiblical view of grace that has been so catastrophic in destroying God's Church, especially but not only in the west) by substituting for His true Gospel of grace, Wesley's and Finney's ultimately humanistic chicanery of a pseudo-gospel of works and ego (I (appropriately the middle letter of sin) have the final say, not God, in who is elect, contradicted by Rom 9:15) that today's tragically stupid and worldly Biblically illiterate couch potato devils'/idiots' box & screen imbibers are all too happy to embrace as James 4 adulteress-idolatresses. God save us, for only His grace in sending conviction and revival to His Church that has lost her way (at least in the west), gleefully headed like lemmings for certain destruction but for His amazing grace.”
Witherington’s entire reply was excellent but I only want to cite a small portion:
“It is interesting to me, who has read the works of Calvin, Owens, Edwards, Berkhof, Berkower, both Hodges, Warfield and so on and did attend a Reformed seminary and has respect for that tradition, that I am happy to admit I learned a lot from them, but when I actually turned to doing the detailed exegesis of all the NT, while their theological system was certainly logical and coherent, unfortunately it did not match up with what the actual text of the NT was teaching on ever so many points, not the least of which is what it teaches when it warns genuine Christians about apostasy.”
Here is exactly why I reject Calvinism. There is no doubt that Calvinism as a system is, to some extant, inherently logical. The problem comes when we try to harmonize this “system” with the Scriptures. The fact that its doctrines are at odds with so many of the most basic Scriptural declarations (e.g. God’s love for all the world and desire to save all) is the reason why this Arminian rejects it. I suspect that is the case with most Arminians and Non-Calvinists. It is not some desperate desire to “worship at the alter of free will” or “exalt man above God”. It is simply a desire to build theology on the teachings of Scripture, however bothersome those teachings may be to some (e.g. the possibility of genuine apostasy, etc.), rather than constantly struggling to fit the square peg of Calvinism into the round hole of Scriptural teaching.
Calvinists can reject Arminianism for whatever reasons they like but they should have the decency to stop trying to tell Arminians why they reject Calvinism. Calvinists may not like it, but I suspect that most people reject Calvinism for no other reason than that they find it thoroughly unbiblical. If I could find real support for Calvinism in the pages of Scripture, I would embrace it at once. Don’t you think I would like to be one of those “intellectual elite?” However, as attractive as being a “mature” and “intellectually superior” Calvinist might be, I would rather be a fool in their eyes for the sake of allowing the Lord to define Himself and His intentions through the infallible revelation of His word.
I should point out that the arrogance of the commenter at Mr. Witherington's blog is by no means representative of all Calvinists. Some have similar thoughts but would never express them as this gentleman has done. There are surely numerous Calvinists who exercise genuine humility in thought and practice everyday. However, the attitudes expressed by the above Calvinist commenter sadly seems to reflect the norm rather than the exception among Calvinists today, particularly on the Internet. This is strange behavior for those who claim to have a corner on humility based on the teachings of their theology. It is even stranger that those who claim to alone understand the "doctrines of grace" so often conduct and express themselves with such little grace themselves.
Interesting Church Sign
The sign in the front of my local Presbyterian church read:
"God's love is meant for all."
I admit that I do not keep up with the Presbyterian church. I have heard some rumblings that there is some strife within the denomination, but I couldn't remember if it had much to do with the Calvinist Arminian debate. Is there a move towards Arminianism in the Presbyterian church or is there a "secret" meaning behind "God's love is meant for all" that I am just not clever enough to figure out?
"God's love is meant for all."
I admit that I do not keep up with the Presbyterian church. I have heard some rumblings that there is some strife within the denomination, but I couldn't remember if it had much to do with the Calvinist Arminian debate. Is there a move towards Arminianism in the Presbyterian church or is there a "secret" meaning behind "God's love is meant for all" that I am just not clever enough to figure out?
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