The "List"...
Arminains love to caricature Calvinism, by saying that Calvinists believe that God has a "list" from eternity and everything else in the whole world doesn't make one bit of difference; God diesn't use means, God doesn't prepare the soil before He plants the seed in it, etc. etc.; it is all reduced to this idea of a fatalistic "list"--and the whole reason for this reduction is in the fact that they need some point from which to argue against the sovereignty of God (lest they be forced to abandone the idea that they are sovereign themselves), and what better point than to conjure ideas of God unjustly sending men to hell by some arbitrary "list"--I do not know of any.
Whatever might be said about how this doctrine misrepresents Calvinism and the true doctrine of God's sovereignty, there is something else to consider, besides.
Does the Arminian system escape the idea with which it imputes Calvinism?
I contend that it does not.
In the Arminian system God had a master list of those who will be saved and those who will go to hell before creation. He made up this list by predicting who would believe in which situations, or by "looking into the future to see who would believe."
-So far their system matches their own accusations.
On the Arminian system, God then causes the situations to come about that will bring salvation for some; but not all, however.
-We have no divergance from their caricature of Calvinism, by their own system, as of yet.
They must hold that the list is unchangeable, because God already looked into the future when He made it. He could not be wrong.
-Still, no divergance, so we procede.
On the Arminian system, some will burn in hell, and they have no choice in the matter, nor can they EVER be saved, because God already looked into the future and saw what circumstance they would need in order to believe, and then refused to give it to them.
Amazingly, the Arminian system is fitting exactly into the mold that it so decries!
Indeed, no Arminian can answer the question cogently:
If it is true that;
1. God is completely sovereign over the external conditions of human life. (Matt. 10:29-31).
2. God is completely sovereign over the method of salvation. (Acts 2:23-24; Isa. 59:16; Psa. 118:21-23).
3. God is completely sovereign over the amount of time a person is allowed to live. (Heb. 9:27; Eze. 18:4).
And;
4. God wants all individuals who have existed or will ever exist to be saved. (1 Tim. 2:4).
Then why don't we see:
(1) The external conditions in the lives of all individuals leading them inexorably to,
(2) the chosen method of salvation, in
(3) the amount of life that has been given to them?
God is able to do this (even if we grant that the chosen method involves "free will,") if God is truely sovereign in these areas, as the Bible teaches. So why don't we see it?
Not to mention such questions as; why infants die, or there are still-births, if Rom. 6:23 is true, as well as their premise that infants are born completely free from the actual guilt of sin?
Nor can they answer how it is that God is still just even though on their scheme He makes Christ and man both to suffer for the same sin.
The list of legitimate questions runs on till it runs out of eyeshot.
Yet, we have seen in the one main charge they can bring against our system, is illigitimate; if not because it is not what Calvinists actually believe, because, if it proves anything it proves to much--their own system would fall condemned under their sentence!
Conclusion:
"There is nothing for which the children of God ought more earnestly to contend than the dominion of their Master over all creation—the kingship of God over all the works of his own hands—the throne of God, and his right to sit upon that throne. On the other hand, there is no doctrine more hated by worldlings, no truth of which they have made such a foot-ball, as the great, stupendous, but yet most certain doctrine of the Sovereignty of the infinite Jehovah. Men will allow God to be everywhere except on his throne. They will allow him to be in his workshop to fashion worlds and to make stars. They will allow him to be in his almonry to dispense his alms and bestow his bounties. They will allow him to sustain the earth and bear up the pillars thereof, or light the lamps of heaven, or rule the waves of the ever-moving ocean; but when God ascends his throne, his creatures then gnash their teeth; and when we proclaim an enthroned God, and his right to do as he wills with his own, to dispose of his creatures as he thinks well, without consulting them in the matter, then it is that we are hissed and execrated, and then it is that men turn a deaf ear to us, for God on his throne is not the God they love. They love him anywhere better than they do when he sits with his sceptre in his hand and his crown upon his head. But it is God upon the throne that we love to preach. It is God upon his throne whom we trust." Charles Haddon Spurgeon, New Park Street Chapel, May 4, 1856 (Divine Sovereignty (Sermon No. 77)).
iHs Registered User
Posts: 25
(4/3/02 8:10 am) Reply
Re: The "List"...
If man is not saved by an act of God, how is man saved? Is it something we do? This very question has been the subject of much dilemma.
The sacramentalism of Roman Catholicism is rejected by most reformers. However, for the armenian, it is not dismissed in whole. For them, both the choice of believing and profession are sacraments. These are the works we are saved by.
I now must ask the question that the armenian stance begs; What is necessary for man to be saved? We already have choice and profession. Is that all? Who is right as to the degree?
Isaiah 64:6
(GW) We've all become unclean, and all our righteous acts are like permanently stained rags. All of us shrivel like leaves, and our sins carry us away like the wind.
How does a dirty deed save us? Even our most righteous acts are dirty.
(KJV+) But we are all as an unclean2931 thing , and all our righteousnesses6666 are as filthy5708 rags899; and we all do fade5034, 1101 as a leaf5929; and our iniquities5771, like the wind7307, have taken us away5375.
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