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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   28565 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 19, 2024

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There's some ambiguity in your comment, but I'll try to answer it.

It has already been ordained whether you'll be saved and there is no act on your part that can change that. Your only way to find out is to die.

There might be some readings of this where this is technically correct, but that's a pretty bad way to look at things, at least. Calvinists, as Protestants, think that our salvation is dependent upon our having faith. This is both necessary and sufficient for our salvation. Your lives are relevant to your salvation/damnation: you're damned for your sins, and saved due to faith in Christ.

But this is part of God's plan; in fact, the turning of people to him is itself his work.

It makes little sense to me that God that sacrificed himself for us wouldn't be trying to guide our actions even here.

You seem to be saying that God doesn't care about how we live our lives, and that this somehow follows from predestination. This is not true. For one thing, he told us things, in the commandments. For another, he actively works in us, giving us a new heart. Predestination isn't something laying out some separate path of salvation that has nothing to do with this life. Rather, those who were predestined and will ultimately be saved in the meantime go through thiselife, and, by the work of God, are brought to faith in Christ, are sanctified unto improvement in the Christian life and good works, etc.

Or that he would gift us with free will if free will didn't allow us to prevent evil.

We just don't want to.

Sorry, but libertarian-style free will is always really bizarre to me—you dislike the idea of any of it being determined, but then you end up with everything being arbitrary, which is plainly worse. My actions are based on things—whatever I like more/think is better/whatever other motivations shape my choices and ultimately result in whatever I choose, and it's weird to me that people would prefer that they didn't have reasons for choosing things.

If one can't prevent their damnation, how free are they really?

Given that you brought up Thomism, I assume you're catholic. Looks like Trent disagrees:

The holy Synod declares first, that, for the correct and sound understanding of the doctrine of Justification, it is necessary that each one recognise and confess, that, whereas all men had lost their innocence in the prevarication of Adam-having become unclean, and, as the apostle says, by nature children of wrath, as (this Synod) has set forth in the decree on original sin,-they were so far the servants of sin, and under the power of the devil and of death, that not the Gentiles only by the force of nature, but not even the Jews by the very letter itself of the law of Moses, were able to be liberated, or to arise, therefrom; although free will, attenuated as it was in its powers, and bent down, was by no means extinguished in them.

But I don't especially care whether we call our wills free or not; it suffices that we recognize that people are the sources of their actions and morally culpable for the choices they make. I am perfectly willing to affirm that people are unable to will themselves out of damnation. Eph 2:1.

I am perfectly willing to affirm that people are unable to will themselves out of damnation.

I guess this is where our disagreement truly lies, on what this means. It's evident that Calvinists still preach that one should live a godly life, but their doing so ultimately only successfully to the elect, while logically consistent, doesn't sit right with the essential meaning of salvation in my opinion.

I understand the position is that salvation is solely due to grace, but I believe synergism, whether Catholic or Orthodox makes a lot more sense as a solution. Regeneration preceding faith seems to sap the miraculous nature of grace and to obviate the need to preach the wicked.

Regeneration preceding faith seems to sap the miraculous nature of grace and to obviate the need to preach the wicked.

The opposite, rather. Regeneration preceding faith (logically, not temporally) makes our salvation a miraculous work of God. Preaching to the wicked is essential because God works through means, and we don't know who will be saved, (and, of course, he told us to).

What's your theological background?

we don't know who will be saved

I expected this answer, and it's the most coherent with the premise. But preaching the wicked simply being going through the motions of humility seems to undersell our purpose.

What's your theological background?

It's complicated. I think the best approximation for the current standpoint I study religion from at this time is the same sort of theistic rationalism as Thomas Jefferson. I'm most familiar with Catholic and Sunni theology but I'm always curious of the minutiae of any successful credo since it must contain at least in part a measure of eternal wisdom. That said, so far I have not found a unique philosophy that provides a comprehensive solution to Mystery.

It is genuinely trying to convert them, we just don't know who will ultimately prove responsive.

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