See, it makes perfect twisted sense if you think about it. Suppose you wrote a book, and at the end of the book, you write that the hero gets rewarded and the villain gets punished. But why does the villain get punished? You created him after all. But, given the actions of the villain (tying the girl to the railroad tracks, foreclosing on the widow’s farm, and so on), he certainly is evil, and deserves punishment. And the hero gets rewarded by you, because he deserves it, even though he only deserves it because you decided that the hero should save the girl and help the orphans.
And so, the villain deserves punishment because he’s evil, and the hero deserves reward because he’s good, even though it was the author of the book who made them be good or evil. You wouldn’t want the villain to be rewarded after all the evil he’s done, right? Just because you created him to be evil doesn’t mean he’s not evil.
Which makes god nothing but a detached, uninvolved, and unloving creator rather than a being of love and mercy that we should worship with abject fear because he loves us.
This is somewhat disappointing, I thought Calvinists look at bums and vagrants and contrast it to the health & weath of the Church members, and say “look at the difference between the non-elect and the Elect”. That’s what I want, to be able to look down at the Reprobate losers who fill up our maximum security prisons, halfway houses, and public non-charter schools. (Is there some other church that lets me do that more openly?)
But it seems my status as the Elect isn’t that way because of my individual worth, such as my regular reading of the master’s (Cecil Adams’) own words, or otherwise throwing a few pennies in the collection plate, but sort of just randomly. That seems a bit off.
Then answer me this: How can all humans be equally depraved? This means that even ‘saints’ or charitable people are on the same plane as baby rapists? That strikes the conscience as absurd . . . can the Calvinists overcome this reaction by argument, or must we accept that we are all the equivalent of felons?
Well, God is perfect, right? So ANY sin, no matter how small or how big, is intolerable to God. You see a huge difference between the baby-raper and the guy who forgot to say “thank you” when his wife passed him the salt. God doesn’t.
That’s a ridiculous definition of total depravity. It simply means we are in a way “handicapped” by original sin and thus are sinful by nature and cannot choose God.
Prosperity theology people are not Calvinists, being instead quasi-Arminians, indeed often they are opposed to each other.
Jonathan Edwards, not John Edwards. Don’t confuse that great man with the adulterer from North Carolina.
It’s not clear your own position is solid enough to make such judgements.
Why is this concept necessary, anyway? It’s not enough for your life to be evaluated after your death - God also has to have the ability to perfectly foresee all your actions before you are born and you’re already starting out with the big negative of “original sin” ?
In that article, it reveals, among other things, that the puritans were quite enamoured of Augustine’s idea, expressed in his book “The City of God” that “God’s divine providence selected, elected, and predestined certain people and certain places in order to restore humanity and reconcile it with its Creator.” (p. 77 in the above link)
Prosperity theology has long been preached by many prominent Calvinist theologians. Granted, it has also been argued against by even more Calvinist theologians; but still it has played a significant part in the history of that belief, and continues to do so today for many who call themselves Calvinists.
I’d say all these are a logical consequence of an omniscient God. Not the.
But I’d also say it is less about omniscience and more specifically about God being the First Cause. If one accepts that he is, and Calvin did, then it logically follows that since everything was set in motion by God on purpose, then everything that happens, including sin, was all set up from the get go. Calvin (and Calvinists) couldn’t see a way around this logical construct. Free will (as understood by non-Calvinists) is a logical impossibility in a reality which is in its very essence made up of God’s will. All of reality is God’s will manifest. Not metaphorically, but essentially. God’s will = reality, and that is all there is. You can’t do something against God’s will anymore than Jay Gatsby in the Great Gatsby can do something against F. Scott Fitzgerald’s will. Even if Gatsby does something Fitzgerald doesn’t like, it is still Fitzgerald making him do it.
Both are equally contemptable in the eyes of the Calvinist God. It’s not like you can buy your way out of hellfire just by not commiting adultery, or being from North Carolina.
I agree that practices and attitudes about religion can deviate from what the founder of the religion says, but it doesn’t seem to me that the book you cited (“Exile and Kingdom”) really supports your thesis. In fact, if you look at page 244, dealing with some Puritan nobles willing to come to Massachusetts if they get special benefits due to their wealth and noble standing,
I mean, there was in some parts of Calvinism the idea that material wealth could be an outward sign of grace, but that’s not the Prosperity Gospel. The Prosperity Gospel is a mid and late 20th century Pentecostal idea that says if you believe in God and Jesus, you’ll be rewarded with material wealth.
