Nevertheless the mere fact that such a result is possible, and possible to imagine, under the Calvinist system is a reason to doubt the accuracy and veracity of the Calvinist system.

I. Howard Marshall has a good pithy saying, “Howard Marshall makes an excellent observation, “Whoever said, ‘The Calvinist knows he cannot fall from salvation but does not know whether he has got it” (as quoted by D.A Carson, “Reflection on Christian Assurance,” Westminster Theological Journal, 54:1,24).

I quote now the experience of a famous Calvinist, an experience that flows directly from his erroneous Calvinist system of theology: “R.C. Sproul writes in one of his Tabletalks, “A while back I had one of those moments of acute self-awareness…and suddenly the question hit me, “R.C., what if you are not one of the redeemed? What if your destiny is not heaven after all, but hell?” Let me tell you that I was flooded in my body with a chill that went from my head to the bottom of my spine. I was terrified… I began to take stock of my life, and I looked at my performance…” I do realize, of course, that Sproul was able to restore his assurance, but it is also my contention that his assurance was illegimate and unpersuasive given his Calvinist beliefs.

regards
#John

Tanksley engages in some fallacious reasoning in order to avoid the point I made respecting the likelihood of an Arminian rejecting God on her death bed.

I answered that the probability of a Christian (not an Arminian!!!) rejecting Christ on their deathbed was zero. That’s not avoiding your point; that’s answering it.

If you’d like to question that, feel free to say that the probability is “very small”, or something like that; then my previous argument holds, since very small isn’t zero.

Tanskley uses the fallacious reasoning of the Greek philospher Zeno, in what has become famously known as “Zeno’s Paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise”. … The fact that one can mentally divide time into infinitely small pieces does not give Tanksley’s reasoning any validity.

I’ve already specifically denied twice that I was talking about a tiny amount of time. I specifically said in my proof — which, by the way, is a standard proof by induction with a limiting case, not a Zeno-style proof by repeated division — that the time unit was “the amount of time it takes to reject God”. I’ve said that in every post dealing with this issue, and you’ve assumed in each one that I MUST be talking about a mathematical instant. Very odd.

Furthermore, any issues that Tanksley has with Arminianism have no bearing on the inherent problems and contractions of Calvinism (which is what I have been arguing about).

But if your proof that Calvinism is invalid also invalidates Arminianism, you’re required to either retract your belief in Arminianism, or retract your proof.

-Wm

Why would I do that?? Because in Calvinism it is a very real possibility, that’s why! And there is simply no way to know that I am truly one of the elect. I may have only been given temporary grace by God Himself. Frankly, I don’t like the thought that I may being going to hell and that I can’t be at all assured that what God has given me is the real thing!!

Even John Calvin himself admitted that pretty much every thinking person would have these thoughts regarding their election. He said something to the effect that one just had to be sure that those thoughts didn’t take hold. I have also read quotes by varous Calvinists that say that they have been troubled by these thoughts.

So I guess if they haven’t occured to you or troubled you, William, you are one of the very few exceptions that Calvin spoke of!!

John says, “They went out from us.” However the “they” spoken of is obviously referring to the many antichrists that are already here that he was speaking of the the proceeding verse. Then he goes on the define the term “antichrist” in verse 22 as, “Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.”

It sounds to me like the person spoken of here that was in their midst did a lot more than just not follow through in His Christian life, i.e. fail to persevere, or just say, “I am not going to walk in God’s ways anymore.” They are ones, it would seem that didn’t even believed that Jesus was the Christ and didn’t believe in the Father either. And probably never had.

Thoughts??

if I truly believed the Calvinist system of theology [...] I would always find myself wondering if I was truly one of the elect, if Jesus had even died for me, and if the Christian life I have experienced in the past and am experiencing now is all nothing but a false illusion given to me by God Himself. I would be wondering when, as the old saying goes, “the other shoe would fall,” and it would all disintegrate around me.

Why would you do that, though? If you actually believed the Calvinist system of theology you wouldn’t accept the doctrine of election without also accepting all the other doctrines and promises. In particular, you wouldn’t “worry for the future”; you’d pray about it to God.

Would it be so terrible for you to be praying to God all the time? Perhaps if you did so without paying attention to His word, in which He gives the means for you to be assured of your salvation… One shouldn’t neglect one’s responsibilities on the pretext of casting all your cares on God. Hopefully one of your fellows would counsel you.

The epistles of John appear to have been written to people with similar worries to yours, I think; they discovered from experience that beloved people could actually just “leave the faith” that they trusted in.

Is it more reassuring to be told “yes, any of you could leave also — there’s nothing you can do, you’re no different from them as far as you know”; or to be told “they left because they were not like the rest of you.” I think it’s telling that John said the second.

-Wm

Tanksley states, “double standard: you demand that Calvinists know their final destiny merely because God has decreed it, while you don’t ask that Arminians know their final destiny, even though God foreknows it (and has on that basis predestined it).”

As discussed in my post 449, I do not have a double standard, but rather take only as a standard that which each system holds out as applicable to itself (what standard or claims do Calvinists hold out for Calvinism, same for Arminians).

Tanksley’s post 446 and paradox

Tanksley engages in some fallacious reasoning in order to avoid the point I made respecting the likelihood of an Arminian rejecting God on her death bed. Tanskley uses the fallacious reasoning of the Greek philospher Zeno, in what has become famously known as “Zeno’s Paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise”.

In the paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise, Achilles is in a footrace with the tortoise. Achilles allows the tortoise a head start of 100 metres. If we suppose that each racer starts running at some constant speed (one very fast and one very slow), then after some finite time, Achilles will have run 100 metres, bringing him to the tortoise’s starting point. During this time, the tortoise has run a much shorter distance, say, 10 metres. It will then take Achilles some further time to run that distance, by which time the tortoise will have advanced farther; and then more time still to reach this third point, while the tortoise moves ahead. Thus, whenever Achilles reaches somewhere the tortoise has been, he still has farther to go. Therefore, because there are an infinite number of points Achilles must reach where the tortoise has already been, he can never overtake the tortoise. Of course, simple experience tells us that Achilles will be able to overtake the tortoise, which is why this is a paradox. The point at which Achilles overtakes the Tortoise can be calculated mathematically (111 1/9 metres after running for 11 1/9 seconds).

The fact that one can mentally divide time into infinitely small pieces does not give Tanksley’s reasoning any validity. Moreover, the smallest meaningful unit of time (for our universe) is a Planck unit, which is descrete and not infinitely small.

In any event, my point was only the one that I made later, which is that the longer one lives a life of faith, the less likely it is that one will reject God and His drawing and turn away from a life of faith. Furthermore, any issues that Tanksley has with Arminianism have no bearing on the inherent problems and contractions of Calvinism (which is what I have been arguing about).

regards,
#John

I, as an Arminian, do not believe that it is a legal fiction that a person was saved for a time, until they turned from God. Their salvation during that period of time was true and real. If that person (i.e., the person who had saving faith and then rejected God) died during the period that they had faith, they would go to heaven.

The Calvinist, on the other hand, would maintain that they never were saved. That is, I suppose, why you, a Calvinist, refer to it as a “legal fiction”. For the Calvinist, if person who has temporary faith, resulting from their experience of evanescent grace, died during their period of temporary faith they would not go to heaven because they were not elect and their faith was not saving. Of course, if they died afterward, during the time they rejected God, then they would not go to heaven then either.

It is thus not true that a temporarily believing person is in exactly the same position under the Calvinist and Arminian systems. Under the former the person never had salvation, while under the former the person did. That is a huge and substantial difference and outweighs the other accidents of faith such as an experience of love, fruits of the Spirit, fellowship of the saints, etc. What good is a short experience of these aspects of faith if one spends an eternity in hell?

1 John 2:19 is of no particular advantage to the Calvinist over the Arminian, since both can affirm the explanatory power of that phrase. The Arminian has the advantage in so far as she does not have to rely on the unscriptural and problematic doctrine of evanescent grace. Furthermore, the Arminian can take the warning passages of Scripture at face value, and also take the experience of people at face value. In regard to this latter point, it means accepting one’s own, or someone else’s, experience of faith as real and not mistaken.

regards,
#John

How can people receive the benefits of Christ’s death in a personal way, such as experiencing the Spirit and growing, if they are people that Jesus never died for–as in limited atonement? After all, it is Jesus death for us that makes these things possible in our lives. Therefore, it is totally illogical to say that a person can experience these things when Jesus never died for them in the first place!