m053 Calvin Affirm Gnostic Enlightening

God is Open book series:

[jeffreybailey]

That was enlightening. I didn't think to focus on the practicality of Paul's intentions in 1Cor 2:14 as the passage flows into the Carnal Christians in the next chapter. I think this view makes the first few chapters less disjointed and more coherently discursive than the Calvinist make it appear in their teachings. Thanks.

[heyman]

I apologize for dominating the comment section here but another thing I would point out is that this raised a huge contention between Dr. Francis Schaeffer and the famous Calvinists Swiss theologian Karl Barth. Barth believed that the Bible could only be read by regenerated or enlightened people and that it had no relevance to common man. I guess dr. Francis Schaeffer actually tore this Barth apart for that. Dr. Francis Schaeffer was a presbyterian but he believed in evidentialism and the resurrection as proof enough to believe in God. This is the same thing that the apostle Paul says as well. So it's no small thing and it's very modern to point this Gnostic idea out because it will ultimately create these unorthodox positions about scripture. The claim that the Bible is not written to man as he is, is a gnostic absurdity that Dr. Francis Schaeffer criticized Barth for.

[bonniejohnson]

Calvin, & Luther theology not only had man's existence fated, but they had God's existence fated also...

[cluny]

Did the translator of Calvin select Insufferable or is that Calvin ? Reminds me of: Tyndale 1526: But Iesus sayde: suffre the chyldren and forbid them not to come to me: for of suche is the kyngdome of heven.

[manager]

The Canons or Dordt says that God decided who the "elect" were from the foundation of the world, and the number is fixed. if this is true, this renders all Christian activity meaningless.

[heyman]

If we go back just one chapter the 1st Corinthians 1:30 it says that Jesus has been made unto us righteousness, sanctification AND THE WISDOM OF GOD. What Calvin is doing is separating the gospel from the person of Jesus. He's turning the gospel into some inanimate state of consciousness. The gospel isn't greater than Jesus. Tall is simply the good news about Jesus and 1st Corinthians 1 says that Jesus has been made unto us. Jesus is the ministry of God that has come to us. It's been dispensed to us not reserved in some Nirvana.

[heyman]

The gospel is the condescension of Christ to man-it's not the ascension of man unto a special truth. Calvinism is Hinduism. The gospel is a person. Some of the dumbest people in the world can understand Jesus. Jesus came as a person because that's the easiest way for people to understand God In the flesh.

[bonniejohnson]

most all of what is called Christianity is Platonist theology/ About 2 billion strong.