LPC has left a new comment on your post "Lutheran UOJ Advocates Use Calvinistic Thought":
Pr. Greg,
You are right in your posts here. Calvin is confusing that is why it is a lost cause to defend him. Case in point - take any two Calvinists, one Paedobap and another Credobap, and both will find support from Calvin on their positions!
Why? It is because Calvin as you said separated the Means of Grace from the Holy Spirit - as a guarantee. For Calvin, it is a hit or miss proposition when it comes to the sacrament. For example in Baptism, only the elect is regenerated. Many lines of categorical deviations did he make from Lutheran doctrine which he himself once signed - the Augsburg Confession. For example he deviated on his understanding of faith, repentance, the nature of regeneration from Luther as well.
His idea of repentance for example was somewhat a compromise with Rome.
Take this example of a testimony I have heard - "I got saved looking at a beautiful sunset". In general both Arminians and Calvinists will accept this testimony of salvation. Lutherans will not!
Both Calvinists and Arminians think that Baptism and Supper are not related to JBFA! Yet for the Lutheran, they are absolutely JBFA in action.
I could have stayed in Calvinism and listened to the defense of people of how Calvin really did not believe in for example Limited Atonement etc etc. However, my reading of him is that he fails too low in precision compared to Luther who never swayed with regards to the Sacraments. Luther was thorough going and not double tongued on this issue.
LPC
---
LPC has left a new comment on your post "Lutheran UOJ Advocates Use Calvinistic Thought":
continued...
UOJ at the end of the day is like Calvinism in principle. Here is my argument, take the case of Eph 2:8-9.
The passage reads: 8For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
This passage is actually truncated in practice and in exposition by UOJ and Calvinists Dogmatics... to
8For by grace are ye saved it is the gift of God:
UOJ speaks this way because people have been saved before faith already.
Calvinists Dogmatics should not have a problem with this if one looks at their ordo saludis because for them regeneration comes prior to faith in logical order. For them regeneration is the seizing of the elect irresistibly by the HS. To Calvinism, faith is actually an after thought since salvational decree is the main thing.
Does not that ring a bell? For in UOJ faith is an after thought too ie, one just has to believe he is justified already and so he is but if he does not believe, then he is not.
Lutheran exegetes in that passage point to FAITH as that gift whereby one is saved by grace.
I like to know if any Calvinist reading this could spot where I misrepresented general Calvinist expositions on this issue.
LPC
---
churchmousec (http://churchmousec.wordpress.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Lutheran UOJ Advocates Use Calvinistic Thought":
Thank you, Dr Jackson, for the kind invitation to respond to your post on Calvinism!
First, excerpts on the Sacrament from 'A Short Treatise on the Supper of Our Lord':
http://churchmousec.wordpress.com/2009/08/10/the-sacrament-of-the-lords-supper-for-non-calvinists/
Here are a few excerpts (much more at the link):
'We have only to receive in faith the grace which is there presented to us, and which resides not in the sacrament, but refers us to the cross of Jesus Christ as proceeding therefrom.'
But he was at odds with Martin Luther on the idea of sacramental union — consubstantiation — where Christ is ‘in, with and under’ the elements of bread and wine.
'I only wished to observe, in passing, that to fancy Jesus Christ enclosed under the bread and wine, or so to conjoin him with it as to amuse our understanding there without looking up to heaven, is a diabolical reverie.'
Calvin said that, with the help of the Holy Spirit, the Sacrament of the Last Supper was ‘a secret too sublime for my mind to understand or express. I experience it rather than understand it.’ That seems so unlike John Calvin — who normally framed a reasoned argument for all things Reformed. However, he also wrote:
'Our Lord, wishing to give a visible appearance to his Spirit at the baptism of Christ, presented him under the form of a dove. St. John the Baptist, narrating the fact, says, that he saw the Spirit of God descending. If we look more closely, we shall find that he saw nothing but the dove, in respect that the Holy Spirit is in his essence invisible.'
Therefore, to a Calvinist, the bread and wine are symbols. Yet, when partaking of the Sacrament, Christ comes to the communicant and is truly present in them thanks to the gift of faith.
'We must confess, then, that if the representation which God gives us in the Supper is true, the internal substance of the sacrament is conjoined with the visible signs; and as the bread is distributed to us by the hand, so the body of Christ is communicated to us in order that we may be made partakers of it. Though there should be nothing more, we have good cause to be satisfied, when we understand that Jesus Christ gives us in the Supper the proper substance of his body and blood, in order that we may possess it fully, and possessing it have part in all his blessings.'
Finally, he urged frequent Communion — more frequent than that of the Catholics of the day, some of whom received it only once a year. (They did not believe they needed to receive it often.) Calvin wrote:
'However, if we duly consider the end which our Lord has in view, we shall perceive that the use should be more frequent than many make it: for the more infirmity presses, the more necessary is it frequently to have recourse to what may and will serve to confirm our faith, and advance us in purity of life; and, therefore, the practice of all well ordered churches should be to celebrate the Supper frequently, so far as the capacity of the people will admit.'
In order to receive the Supper properly, the communicant must:
* Have ‘a desire and an ardent longing to be fed’
* Conform his life to ‘the example of Jesus Christ’
* Be united with one’s neighbour in ‘indissoluable friendship’
* Recognise that our imperfections should encourage him to frequent Communion.
Link to original document in the post and here:
http://www.the-highway.com/supper1_Calvin.html
I think I have an irate comment from a Catholic following the post.
More soon
Churchmouse
---
churchmousec (http://churchmousec.wordpress.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Lutheran UOJ Advocates Use Calvinistic Thought":
Hello, Dr Jackson -- Many thanks for your kind invitation to post a comment on your post about Calvinism.
Have just cut and pasted several paragraphs, but they were too long to go through.
Whilst I locate more information, here is my link on Calvin's writings about the Lord's Supper (what I would refer to as Holy Communion):
http://churchmousec.wordpress.com/2009/08/10/the-sacrament-of-the-lords-supper-for-non-calvinists/
Questions or opinions welcome.
Many thanks
Churchmouse
---
churchmousec (http://churchmousec.wordpress.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Lutheran UOJ Advocates Use Calvinistic Thought":
Hello, again!
A summary of Calvin's beliefs for the non-Calvinist here (supporting docs in the post):
http://churchmousec.wordpress.com/2009/04/02/calvins-beliefs-for-the-non-calvinist/
An excerpt:
'# Justification by faith: Good works alone will not be enough for us to enter into God’s Kingdom. We must also have faith, which is the chief work of the Holy Spirit. On this point Calvin and Martin Luther agree.
'# Predestination: Calvin would be upset with so many of us for misinterpreting this doctrine. I have met no one outside the Calvinist faith who can explain it. It does not mean that the elect or predestined can do whatever they want in life — e.g. go on crime sprees — and still enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Election is not a selection based on merit but on God’s gratuitous grace. This means two things: a) not all will be saved and b) no one knows who the predestined are.'
Qualifier: I was still just a beginner there, but it was around Calvin's 500th anniversary, so wanted to start to get to grips with all the posts I had been reading at the time.
Churchmouse
---
churchmousec (http://churchmousec.wordpress.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Lutheran UOJ Advocates Use Calvinistic Thought":
Hello!
Excerpted thoughts on TULIP from Dr R Scott Clark, Westminster Seminary California:
http://heidelblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/19/the-trouble-with-tulips/#more-6258
'For “the non-Reformed, TULIP provides a wonderfully convenient box into which Reformed theology can be placed—and criticized.” He raises the question whether the TULIP provides an “adequate or even accurate distillation of Reformed theology.” He reminds us that the TULIP is a modern summary of the Canons of the Synod of Dort, which were “never intended as a summary of Reformed theology.” Further, he argues, the TULIP acronym does not “not provide an accurate summary of Dort itself. While acronyms work well as memory aids, in this case the acronym is misleading on key points within the canons themselves.” He notes that the phrase “total depravity” tends to communicate misanthropy rather than the Reformed doctrine of sin. He charges that the expressions “limited atonement’ and “irresistible grace” are also liable to serious misunderstanding.
'The greatest problem of the acronym TULIP is that it “perpetuates a basic misunderstanding about the Reformed tradition: that predestination is the center of Reformed theology from which all else flows.” Here Todd is echoing the criticism by Richard Muller and others against the “Central Dogma” theory of the history of doctrine, i.e., that the Lutheran “Central Dogma” was justification and the Reformed “Central Dogma” was predestination and that two distinct, parallel systems were deduced from these dogmas. This historiography has been thoroughly debunked but it continues to undergird the way many evangelicals and mainliners (and too many sideliners!) think about Reformed theology, piety, and practice.'
Solas explained and contrasted with TULIP here:
http://churchmousec.wordpress.com/2009/04/02/the-5-solas-of-calvinism-for-non-calvinists/
Churchmouse (only a layperson!)
