The West, as The Christian Paradigm, states the Sanctity of the Human Person, and so the Sacrality of Human Life and thus of Its Native Perfection and Its corollary Infinite Perfectibility.
No other Civilization shares such views.
edit h+21: "no other Civilization", excepted Judaism, which, as a Christian, I do include into Christianity (yeah, Jesus Christ aka Yeshua Ha Mashiach was Jewish, etc.).
While I'm not a Calvinist or a Catholic, this topic is important enough to that other Augustinian tradition which I do represent so that I feel it is worth clarifying some of these details for accuracy.
Jesus Himself declared "You did not choose me, I chose you" (John 15:16) to the Apostles and the Saints. This establishes that election is ultimately a work of God through Jesus rather than a work of man's will independently from God.
St. Paul wrote "no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, except by the Holy Ghost" in 1 Corinthians 12:3. Wherefore, to claim man's will is entirely independent from God would likewise violate this assertion.
St. Paul also specifically cites the existence of Divine Predestination in Romans 8:28–30 with respect to God's grace that brings men to salvation.
St. Augustine, following from Jesus and St. Paul's words, also rejected that man's will can choose Christ without an act of prevenient grace in the rejection of the works of bishop Pelagius who claimed that men can choose Christ solely by the action of free will.
St. Thomas Aquinas also appears to have acknowledged St. Augustine's position but also attempted to grandfather in libertarian free will resulting in tenuous logic.
Consequently, there's been much debate whether Aquinas's position is libertarian or compatibilistic. Some infer that his position is actually compatibilism. Others insist it is purely libertarian.
Nonetheless, this discussion is what opens the door for the argument from Divine Sovereignty which is used in Calvinism and Lutheranism. (which I represent)
The initial spark that appears to have begin the relevant debate to this topic is clearly Luther's statement in the Heidelberg Disputation that "Free will, after the fall, exists in name only, and as long as it does what it is able to do, it commits a mortal sin." (HD Thesis 13) This statement was made to rebut an assertion by the Occamists that human salvation consists of "doing what is in oneself" which Luther rightly understood to be problematic theology because it was reminiscent of Pelagius which is why it is termed Semi-Pelagianism.
Following Luther's debate in Heidelberg, Erasmus appears to have taken issue with the stance and wrote Diatribe de Libero Arbitrio ("Discussions on Free Will") where he championed the cause of the Occamists but did so in a manner that appeared to exacerbate the very problems Luther was opposing.
Thus, Luther's response was De Servo Arbitrio ("On the Bound Will") where he ties the action of grace to a work of Divine Sovereignty and insists God is not operating on contingency but necessity. This draws out why he considers free will to be a misleading concept for theologians. Because in that sense our will even existing depends on the power of God. Note, Luther was being hyperbolic and was NOT rejecting free will entirely. Rather, he was rejecting that human will operated separately from God's own grace or our sin-corrupted nature in the process of salvation.
Hence, in Lutheran theology WE understand that "free will" operating without grace after the fall is inherently bound to the Original Sin and thus our choice to follow God comes from an imputation of Divine Grace which permits us to even conceive of a desire to follow God. Likewise, we understand the role of Predestination in salvation as a single predestination by God to grace not a double predestination as Calvinism teaches. This is not to say we have NO free will, but that our free will is tainted and cannot be trusted to produce salvific desires without Jesus and the Holy Spirit intervening in our nature to produce a new set of desires.
Nonetheless, Calvinism appears to be following our premises in a slightly different direction by making a logical inference from the contraposition of "God not choosing" someone and the assumption that necessitates condemnation based on the parallelism in John 3. Thus, they assume God must have specifically chosen condemnation by not making a choice to save. (As I mean to imply, Martin Luther and Lutherans would not agree with this assumption by John Calvin because it appears to be trying to inject our presumptions into God's own mind... but that's another debate)
Finally, only Hyper-Calvinism actually makes the claim that no free will exists at all. Calvinism has always stated that it is compatibilistic and claims that free will exists in context of the determinism that Divine Sovereignty establishes.
Summary: This discussion is a lot more complicated than just "Calvinism=no free will" and you should realize that. If you really have a problem with it, go talk to Christ and St. Paul about why you think THEY were wrong.
Invalid speculation. Jesus never limited the meaning to "administrators" in the cited passage. Exegesis can never add context that isn't stated in the text.
Paul is not inspired
You made that claim but it's not historical or true. Your claim has no legitimate basis in any historical form of Christianity. It conveys no authority other than you stating your own assertion and expecting others to concur. You are simply asserting what you think is true on the basis of your own whims and flawed reasoning.
Fact: Catholicism clearly accepts Paul. Orthodoxy clearly accepts Paul. Arianism clearly accepted Paul. Even Gnosticism clearly accepted Paul. Your supposition was never even raised as an idea until Emanuel Swedenborg came up with it during the 1600s. You might as well just invent your own fanfiction for all this claim is worth. And yet you dare to apply it against Calvinism? Instead of owning up to the fact that your history is flawed, you just ignored the context of how Calvinism arose and shit on everyone else along the path to aggrandize your own ego.
Regardless, making your claim poses a serious historical problem in terms of the documentary history of the Christian faith because Paul is literally one of the earliest recorded witnesses to Christianity. Historians date his Epistles before the Gospels. The issue is that your arguments are being made on the basis of your own logical assumptions rather than any normative historical basis.
Most normal Christians (Catholic or otherwise) use a chain of historical testimony dating back to the Apostles as the basis of their doctrinal views. Why? Because the Apostles lived at the time and heard what Jesus said and provide a historical chain of testimony linking to what Jesus said and did. If you're seriously making the argument that Paul can't be an authoritative witness, then you might as well claim Jesus said "smoke weed every day" because Paul is the earliest chain of historical authority that anchors what the early Apostles were teaching.
Even Peter's epistle, which clearly MUST have been written after Paul given its citation of his works, declares Paul authoritative:
Consider also that our Lord’s patience brings salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom God gave him. He writes this way in all his letters, speaking in them about such matters. Some parts of his letters are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction. Therefore, beloved, since you already know these things, be on your guard so that you will not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure standing (2 Peter 3:15-17)
Peter's letter claims Paul is Scripture. Who are you? But keep Peter in mind because he'll be back again with more...
But Paul claims everyone who says "Jesus is Lord" is inspired by the Holy Ghost.
Somehow you claim "Paul isn't inspired." But on the other you reject the idea that inspiration of the Holy Spirit would be necessary to follow Jesus by rejecting Paul's claim that the Holy Spirit is needed to confess Christ as Lord. Given that reasoning, why should we care that you claimed Paul isn't inspired? By your own logic, such a thing is irrelevant. And let's go back to your other insistence:
Plenty of people who don't really believe claim they do. Jesus himself said "Why do you call me Lord Lord but not do what I say?"
Yet Paul dragged his butt around the Mediterranean telling people about Jesus, didn't he? Went to jail a few times doing so. Died in Rome for doing so.
Remember when Jesus said to the Pharisees who wrongly claimed He was doing work by an evil spirit, "If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand" (Mark 3:25) and "...whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin." (Mark 3:29) Or, maybe I'll use John's version: "If I am not doing the works of My Father, then do not believe Me. But if I am doing them, even though you do not believe Me, believe the works themselves, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I am in the Father." (John 10:37-38)
So, if Paul wasn't doing the works of Jesus, why would Paul go around setting up Churches in Greece that follow Jesus? Why would Paul then rebuke some saying "What I mean is this: Individuals among you are saying, 'I follow Paul,' 'I follow Apollos,' 'I follow Cephas,' or 'I follow Christ.' Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul?" (1 Cor 1:12-13)
And now here's Peter.
For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:21)
Let's get back to the point of Paul's passage. If God's presence isn't in you, then you aren't capable of honestly following Him. Otherwise, what would you be following? Your own imagination and whims? Thus for those of us who follow Christ, Paul rightly says "The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children." (Romans 8:16)
But, if you want to deny Paul's citations, then you'd have to deny the clear implications of Jesus and Peter too because they say the same thing as Paul did yet you are too stubborn to accept it.
Augustine... A fornicating piece of shit who was a Gnostic
The Catholic Church clearly regards Augustine as a saint. Your claim here is also anachronistic.
But I can take it from your comment that you subscribe to some form of Donatism whereby once someone has sinned in a manner you find egregious they are unforgivable and cannot participate earnestly in the faith. Jesus said in Mark 3:28-29 "Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin." Your denial of God's ability to reform neglects the testimony of John 3:16 which declares "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" as well as Jesus's clear forgiveness shown to many sinners as He ate with "prostitutes and tax collectors" and forgave the adulteress.
For that matter, what's your problem with Gnosticism? At least they date back to the First Century. On what basis can you reject them if you think that the Bible is your grab bag to "do what thou wilt" with?
(And before you drag Luther's appendicization of the Deuterocanon into this: This was specifically stated to be an argument on the HISTORICAL BASIS of earlier debates of in the Church and not something done merely out of whims as you are doing.)
You can think whatever you want about what Calvinists concluded, but you're not making an argument that can be defended historically. Moreover, it is not an argument that can be justified in accordance with Christ's own teachings as declared in the Gospels. If you are going to argue against something you must do so in accordance with the historical context and premises or else your argument will be counterfactual. It's about as factual as the left's BS claim that the "US was founded on Racism."
You may not subscribe to the Calvinist's premises or agree with their conclusions, but you sure as heck don't get to inject your future assumptions onto them as though you alone have access to God's Will and can infallibly declare your interpretation above anyone else's.
The West, as The Christian Paradigm, states the Sanctity of the Human Person, and so the Sacrality of Human Life and thus of Its Native Perfection and Its corollary Infinite Perfectibility. No other Civilization shares such views.
edit h+21: "no other Civilization", excepted Judaism, which, as a Christian, I do include into Christianity (yeah, Jesus Christ aka Yeshua Ha Mashiach was Jewish, etc.).
While I'm not a Calvinist or a Catholic, this topic is important enough to that other Augustinian tradition which I do represent so that I feel it is worth clarifying some of these details for accuracy.
Jesus Himself declared "You did not choose me, I chose you" (John 15:16) to the Apostles and the Saints. This establishes that election is ultimately a work of God through Jesus rather than a work of man's will independently from God.
St. Paul wrote "no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, except by the Holy Ghost" in 1 Corinthians 12:3. Wherefore, to claim man's will is entirely independent from God would likewise violate this assertion.
St. Paul also specifically cites the existence of Divine Predestination in Romans 8:28–30 with respect to God's grace that brings men to salvation.
St. Augustine, following from Jesus and St. Paul's words, also rejected that man's will can choose Christ without an act of prevenient grace in the rejection of the works of bishop Pelagius who claimed that men can choose Christ solely by the action of free will.
St. Thomas Aquinas also appears to have acknowledged St. Augustine's position but also attempted to grandfather in libertarian free will resulting in tenuous logic.
Consequently, there's been much debate whether Aquinas's position is libertarian or compatibilistic. Some infer that his position is actually compatibilism. Others insist it is purely libertarian.
Nonetheless, this discussion is what opens the door for the argument from Divine Sovereignty which is used in Calvinism and Lutheranism. (which I represent)
The initial spark that appears to have begin the relevant debate to this topic is clearly Luther's statement in the Heidelberg Disputation that "Free will, after the fall, exists in name only, and as long as it does what it is able to do, it commits a mortal sin." (HD Thesis 13) This statement was made to rebut an assertion by the Occamists that human salvation consists of "doing what is in oneself" which Luther rightly understood to be problematic theology because it was reminiscent of Pelagius which is why it is termed Semi-Pelagianism.
Following Luther's debate in Heidelberg, Erasmus appears to have taken issue with the stance and wrote Diatribe de Libero Arbitrio ("Discussions on Free Will") where he championed the cause of the Occamists but did so in a manner that appeared to exacerbate the very problems Luther was opposing.
Thus, Luther's response was De Servo Arbitrio ("On the Bound Will") where he ties the action of grace to a work of Divine Sovereignty and insists God is not operating on contingency but necessity. This draws out why he considers free will to be a misleading concept for theologians. Because in that sense our will even existing depends on the power of God. Note, Luther was being hyperbolic and was NOT rejecting free will entirely. Rather, he was rejecting that human will operated separately from God's own grace or our sin-corrupted nature in the process of salvation.
Hence, in Lutheran theology WE understand that "free will" operating without grace after the fall is inherently bound to the Original Sin and thus our choice to follow God comes from an imputation of Divine Grace which permits us to even conceive of a desire to follow God. Likewise, we understand the role of Predestination in salvation as a single predestination by God to grace not a double predestination as Calvinism teaches. This is not to say we have NO free will, but that our free will is tainted and cannot be trusted to produce salvific desires without Jesus and the Holy Spirit intervening in our nature to produce a new set of desires.
Nonetheless, Calvinism appears to be following our premises in a slightly different direction by making a logical inference from the contraposition of "God not choosing" someone and the assumption that necessitates condemnation based on the parallelism in John 3. Thus, they assume God must have specifically chosen condemnation by not making a choice to save. (As I mean to imply, Martin Luther and Lutherans would not agree with this assumption by John Calvin because it appears to be trying to inject our presumptions into God's own mind... but that's another debate)
Finally, only Hyper-Calvinism actually makes the claim that no free will exists at all. Calvinism has always stated that it is compatibilistic and claims that free will exists in context of the determinism that Divine Sovereignty establishes.
Summary: This discussion is a lot more complicated than just "Calvinism=no free will" and you should realize that. If you really have a problem with it, go talk to Christ and St. Paul about why you think THEY were wrong.
Invalid speculation. Jesus never limited the meaning to "administrators" in the cited passage. Exegesis can never add context that isn't stated in the text.
You made that claim but it's not historical or true. Your claim has no legitimate basis in any historical form of Christianity. It conveys no authority other than you stating your own assertion and expecting others to concur. You are simply asserting what you think is true on the basis of your own whims and flawed reasoning.
Fact: Catholicism clearly accepts Paul. Orthodoxy clearly accepts Paul. Arianism clearly accepted Paul. Even Gnosticism clearly accepted Paul. Your supposition was never even raised as an idea until Emanuel Swedenborg came up with it during the 1600s. You might as well just invent your own fanfiction for all this claim is worth. And yet you dare to apply it against Calvinism? Instead of owning up to the fact that your history is flawed, you just ignored the context of how Calvinism arose and shit on everyone else along the path to aggrandize your own ego.
Regardless, making your claim poses a serious historical problem in terms of the documentary history of the Christian faith because Paul is literally one of the earliest recorded witnesses to Christianity. Historians date his Epistles before the Gospels. The issue is that your arguments are being made on the basis of your own logical assumptions rather than any normative historical basis.
Most normal Christians (Catholic or otherwise) use a chain of historical testimony dating back to the Apostles as the basis of their doctrinal views. Why? Because the Apostles lived at the time and heard what Jesus said and provide a historical chain of testimony linking to what Jesus said and did. If you're seriously making the argument that Paul can't be an authoritative witness, then you might as well claim Jesus said "smoke weed every day" because Paul is the earliest chain of historical authority that anchors what the early Apostles were teaching.
Even Peter's epistle, which clearly MUST have been written after Paul given its citation of his works, declares Paul authoritative:
Peter's letter claims Paul is Scripture. Who are you? But keep Peter in mind because he'll be back again with more...
Somehow you claim "Paul isn't inspired." But on the other you reject the idea that inspiration of the Holy Spirit would be necessary to follow Jesus by rejecting Paul's claim that the Holy Spirit is needed to confess Christ as Lord. Given that reasoning, why should we care that you claimed Paul isn't inspired? By your own logic, such a thing is irrelevant. And let's go back to your other insistence:
Yet Paul dragged his butt around the Mediterranean telling people about Jesus, didn't he? Went to jail a few times doing so. Died in Rome for doing so.
Remember when Jesus said to the Pharisees who wrongly claimed He was doing work by an evil spirit, "If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand" (Mark 3:25) and "...whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin." (Mark 3:29) Or, maybe I'll use John's version: "If I am not doing the works of My Father, then do not believe Me. But if I am doing them, even though you do not believe Me, believe the works themselves, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I am in the Father." (John 10:37-38)
So, if Paul wasn't doing the works of Jesus, why would Paul go around setting up Churches in Greece that follow Jesus? Why would Paul then rebuke some saying "What I mean is this: Individuals among you are saying, 'I follow Paul,' 'I follow Apollos,' 'I follow Cephas,' or 'I follow Christ.' Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul?" (1 Cor 1:12-13)
And now here's Peter.
Let's get back to the point of Paul's passage. If God's presence isn't in you, then you aren't capable of honestly following Him. Otherwise, what would you be following? Your own imagination and whims? Thus for those of us who follow Christ, Paul rightly says "The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children." (Romans 8:16)
But, if you want to deny Paul's citations, then you'd have to deny the clear implications of Jesus and Peter too because they say the same thing as Paul did yet you are too stubborn to accept it.
The Catholic Church clearly regards Augustine as a saint. Your claim here is also anachronistic.
But I can take it from your comment that you subscribe to some form of Donatism whereby once someone has sinned in a manner you find egregious they are unforgivable and cannot participate earnestly in the faith. Jesus said in Mark 3:28-29 "Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin." Your denial of God's ability to reform neglects the testimony of John 3:16 which declares "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" as well as Jesus's clear forgiveness shown to many sinners as He ate with "prostitutes and tax collectors" and forgave the adulteress.
For that matter, what's your problem with Gnosticism? At least they date back to the First Century. On what basis can you reject them if you think that the Bible is your grab bag to "do what thou wilt" with?
(And before you drag Luther's appendicization of the Deuterocanon into this: This was specifically stated to be an argument on the HISTORICAL BASIS of earlier debates of in the Church and not something done merely out of whims as you are doing.)
You can think whatever you want about what Calvinists concluded, but you're not making an argument that can be defended historically. Moreover, it is not an argument that can be justified in accordance with Christ's own teachings as declared in the Gospels. If you are going to argue against something you must do so in accordance with the historical context and premises or else your argument will be counterfactual. It's about as factual as the left's BS claim that the "US was founded on Racism."
You may not subscribe to the Calvinist's premises or agree with their conclusions, but you sure as heck don't get to inject your future assumptions onto them as though you alone have access to God's Will and can infallibly declare your interpretation above anyone else's.