Why God never predestined me to be a Calvinist

I am struggling at the moment as some people I know have turned Calvinist
I have studied tulip and I don't understand why you even need the gospel if you are part of the elect

I know I am a sinner a wretched one and the thing is if you believe in predestination you have to believe that God predetermined all my sins and predetermined everything in life including every small detail

John 3:16
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

In the basic passage that everyone knows jesus says whosoever that believes in him shall have everlasting life not the limited elect. If we have to believe in him we are using are free will to believe in him

I cannot on judgement day say all my sins are god's fault

Pay no attention to Calvinism. Monstrous doctrine taken to its final inevitable conclusion. Your gut (Holy Spirit) is leading you right.

I’ve heard a lot of counsel in the body over the years and in many continents. That is very definitely the first time I’ve heard a Godly mature man counsel someone to trust his gut and declare that to be the HS. God of course gave each of us a gut but mine is apparently not as sanctified.

He who is willing to do the will of the Lord will know whether any particular teaching is of God or is of man. Give the Lord your whole life as a sacrifice and instrument in His hands and you will know the perfect will of God. No matter the issue.

Don’t check your gut brother.

It’s just an expression. Don’t get overexcited. Oswald Chambers calls it a "check in your spirit” or "witness of the Spirit.” When this happens, you feel it. And you best listen.

I'm surprised the forum here allows anybody to say they disagree with calvinism!

I've been to several Christian forums and speaking against John Calvin is forbidden and they end up banning some over this.

I am sharing this video not to start a fight but to have a discussion on the strong and weak points of Calvinism. Many devoted Christian leaders are on both sides of this doctrine.

https://youtu.be/CwTUwNUB9_M

Thanks for the video Mike. I don’t hold anything against the person on the video or his attempt to articulate the reformed basis for God’s sovereignty in salvation, but it isn’t a reasonable explanation. As for it being a starting point for discussion of strengths and weaknesses, I’ve been down this path before having been on both sides in my journey. It may start well but it usually ends poorly with someone accusing the reformed believer and/or his God of being a monster which may be an accurate description of me but not of my God.

While the video was presented in an earnest and forthright manner. I tend to agree with Robert in that this topic does often devolve into a fleshly affair.
(For me) the question is why does that happen,… why can’t brothers and sisters in Christ sit and reason together on this issue?
What I found was that each side is advocating and neither side is actually coming to the table hoping to learn that their spiritual ideology is hogwash 🤷🏽”â™‚️
Which is to say, rarely if ever, does one "convert” in the midst of these discussions, rather what I’ve observed is the tendency to defend to the death the respective cause, regardless of the facts presented. So it’s more of a contest than anything resembling ministry. I’m not judging that as right or wrong so much as pointing it out as fact-

The question remains,… why?
from where my research has led me, it’s a fundamental question of the sovereignty of God. Wether He has sovereign authority only or wether He has sovereign control in addition to sovereign authority-

A person whose base conception of "God” who only holds one of these tenants to be true will categorically differ from a person whose base concept requires both tenants to be true. Which is to say the starting points are different, inevitably each will relate scripture to their base model and therefore come to entirely different conclusions as they each attempt to relate or fit it all together in their respective contexts. So it’s kinda like the difference between a Microsoft and Apple operating system. How they uptake, allocate, store data is different to the point of being incompatible directly from terminal to terminal.

So perhaps a more profitable discussion could be the nature and limits (if any) to Gods "sovereignty”.

Having said this, like the video points out- this all became formalized in the time of Augustine and was "institutionalized” by the mid 400’s ad.

Rom. 16:17,18

From such turn away...

https://theapostasyfiles.com/heretic-landing-page/vlad-savchuk/?amp=1

But even a discussion just of God’s sovereignty will devolve to certain uncommon denominators. Some folks are comfortable taking certain positions to their logical conclusions regardless of how it makes God look. Others are less comfortable.

It seems the only way our minds can conceptualize it is to hold two contradictory tenets (e.g. God does and God doesn’t) as simultaneously true- like Schrödinger’s cat.

As a born again follower of Jesus Christ, I hold to neither Calvinism nor Arminism. Both doctrines have to omit a number of Bible verses in order to work. Calvinists say you can't lose your salvation, and Arminians say once you fall away you cannot be restored. I understand where they derive these teachings, but they do not agree with the entirety of the Bible.

If Calvinism were true, then the elect were predestined to salvation, and the vessels of wrath were appointed for destruction before they were ever born. This contradicts John 3:16. God foreknows who will come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, but He desires that NONE should perish. However, He doesn't force people to be born again. Otherwise, why would we bother to evangelise? The elect would be saved by irresistible grace, if Calvinism were true. No free will in the matter on man's side (so they assert).

I have lived long enough to know people who were truly saved, filled with the Holy Ghost, baptised with the gifts in evidence....who yet fell away into horrible sin, denying the Lord Who bought them. One such person apologised to everyone he had led to Christ in the past, saying he was delusional and it was all in his head. Staggering, but true. A Calvinist would say that such persons had never been saved in the first place. This is not correct. A bad tree cannot produce good fruit. Apostasy is real. One cannot fall away if he or she were not saved in the first place. There would simply be nothing to fall from.

I like Spurgeon's prayer: "Lord, save the elect. And when You are done, elect some more." That is an evangelist's heart.

Why Calvinism Does Not Reflect the Nature and Character of God - Michael Brown

https://youtu.be/HupjRxBw-So

Yes those points are consistent with my observations.
Tho, what saith the scriptures ?

If we can stay on topic and not sling personal insults at the other party, then it could be possible as long as the scriptures are the sole basis of reference for the discussion ;)

Again, people are not capturing all the ins and outs of both views of salvation. It isn't monolithic. Wesley believed in total depravity. Many who say they are Arminians, do not.
There are also 4 point Calvinists who think one "can" be in danger of falling away and other five point reformed believers who believe His warnings of falling away are real so that the warnings of God to His people have meaning and actually create the fear that keeps them from falling away. There are many Arminians who believe He desires all to be saved to mean that all have an opportunity to be saved and yet there are many Arminians who will acknowledge the obvious that a large majority of created humanity over the centuries never heard the good news ( thus they gravitate to at least the logically consistent argument for universal reconciliation) and thus don't have that salvific opportunity that they say "desires all to be saved" must mean.

God can't desire all to be saved in the sense that all have an opportunity to be saved unless you are willing to do some serious rewriting of Scriptures in your own reasonings to construct a spiritual house of cards. And just to anticipate some pushback, I am fully aware now of the universal reconciliation justifications and would not need a download.

And Fletcher is right about the flesh stepping into the argument after you get through the Scripture "plucking" and presenting. And Todd is right, some serious personal issues about who God is start to infiltrate the conversation and you get to a place that is very uncomfortable for some because it leads to a less that pleasing determination that either many are created by God with less merciful opportunities than others and thus are hopeless in this life or that all have the chance to repent in their life and don't and that God then graciously decides to save some. But make no mistake as Todd has said many times and I commend it, that God is creating billions that will ultimately choose against Him knowing full well that future choice and its consequence and yet He creates them anyway. Why? And to suggest He does that to magnify man's free will as some say makes no compassionate sense whatsoever considering the consequences for billions. So the quandry.

Just for the record. God desires ( very strongly desires) that man not commit murder just like He desires ( very strongly desires) that all men everywhere repent and be saved ( and commands it). Yet, men murder and don't repent.
God decreed, predetermined and planned that men would betray and murder His Son. How can God desire that no man murder another and yet plan, control and by His power bring about the murder of His own Son. His death was not God's will and yet it was and He planned it, ordained it and arranged for it (and created and raised up men to do it) before the foundation of the world. That is Scripture and undeniable.

God very strongly desires that His children be cared for by the world and yet He wills and plans for and even as a loving Father desires their persecution, suffering and death. We can't get too constrained by single verses in our understanding of God's simultaneous strong desires and ultimate plans and focus on one over another.

I have very strongly held views thought through as best I can do with God's leading and much Scripture reading about the reformed position but have no problem being shown to be wrong.
I prefer and love the truth over being right. I gladly admit I was wrong in my early views of this issue (holding staunchly previously to Arminian thinking based on the very verses others have quoted) and have even lately modified my views on the warnings of God to His people. I find others are not open to being wrong mostly because they can't personally deal with the fact that billions end up in Hell and they can't understand God allowing that unless He stops being God when it comes to who spends eternity with Him after their hating Him and being His enemy otherwise during their lives. Perhaps that is the rub. Most people don't see the world as hating and being at traitorous enmity with God. Most people are mostly good and just need a break or at least are just ignorant and need some better information about God...... from their perspective.

I guess we could start with a show of hands of who thinks God actively predestines folks to hell from the foundation of the world.

Then I can work on nice ways of saying how abhorrent that is.

duplicate

Can you modify that statement Todd somewhat so that God foreknows and therefore predetermines men for hell who, and because they, actively, knowingly, willingly and desiringly choose to reject Him who has created them for Himself and who do so because they want to be God ? And, if you can do that as I trust you can, which is abhorrent?

I'm not trying to trap you but trying to get you to state the position correctly.

I do not at all subscribe to universal reconciliation, though I have seen it fervently discussed on other threads.

Regarding billions of souls, I tend to just think of two: Adam who fell, and Jesus Who redeems. We all have the fallen Adamic nature and deserve eternal separation from God, but those who are born again ("from above") in Christ are a new creature with His imputed righteousness (under His blood covering, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and washed in the water of His Word). Humanly speaking, we are all offshoots of Adam. His attributes are scattered throughout humanity's gene pool which has seen significant corruption after the sons of Noah began to spread out over the earth.

And in Christ we (plural) are part of His body, knit together in love. So in either case we are part of a group. Westerners (myself included) tend to be individualistic.

Robert -

If God foresees who will be saved and elects them on that basis that is not overtly objectionable (although I still have qualms and it seems a rather roundabout way of doing things) but that seems to be same thing as corporate election (I think).

Yes, but I wasn't saying that. I was saying that those who aren't elected are entirely responsible for their judgment as they hated God and rejected Him because they wanted to be God.
Almost completely, those who are reformed say ALL deserve punishment for being rebels, traitors and their own god. Yet, in mercy, God saves some. I know you have concluded that this is the same thing as double predestination but it isn't and I'm convinced you can't be convinced on that one so I'm not trying but rather giving others the accurate account of what reformed people say they believe rather than a reductionism of it as you might see it.