Only.me80 #2: "In mercy God must choose to save some"

Here's part 2 of my heavily-updated reply to a comment from Only.me80.  Click here for part 1.  (Another few parts coming up eventually.)  And click here for the much-shorter original reply on my comment blog.

About Only.me80's comment: "Thank God in mercy HE saves some... in mercy God must choose to save some"

In practically every sermon or article on predestination, Calvinists wax poetic about Calvi-god's great "mercy" to mankind, to the Calv-elect, always quoting Romans 9:18 (“Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.”) to try to prove that their doctrine of election/predestination is God showing true and abundant "mercy"... to some people.  

"Mercy, mercy, mercy, grace, grace, grace, love, love, love.  Isn't it wonderful that Calvi-god picks at least some people to save instead of predestining everyone to hell!"  

As my ex-pastor preached on February 1, 2015: "Why would people reject Jesus?... The answer from the Bible goes back to the stubbornness, blindness, perversity, depravity, wickedness of the human heart... The human heart is described as sinful, wicked, blind, dead, deceitful, corrupt, evil... because of this, the Bible says that unless God overrides our resistance and rebellion, we will not believe and we will reject Him.  [Show me the chapter and verse that clearly says this, please.]  

... Now your question might be this: 'Why doesn't God draw everybody?  And why doesn't He save everybody and open the eyes of every sinner and have mercy on them all?'... He does not.  He does not.*   

You know what: When we ask that question, we are forgetting the biblical doctrine of sin.  In light of the Bible's graphic description of our wickedness and cruelty and rebellion [all ordained by Calvi-god], the question, friends, is 'Why does He save anybody?' [Deflection.  Minimizing the real problem in Calvinism.  Ignoring the terrible flip-side.] 

He says in Romans 'I will harden whom I want and I will have compassion on whom I want.'  Americans hate that verse, but it's biblical. [Yeah, but Calvinism's interpretation of it is not!]

And the fact that God has mercy on anybody should cause all of us to fall on our knees in thanksgiving... The only answer why God draws anybody is His love, His mercy, His grace.  The doctrine of election was not designed to cause controversy.  It was designed to cause thanksgiving and to cause praise in God's people.... That is why the gospel is called 'good news' [for the Calv-elect only, but it's bad news for the non-Calv-elect.  Very very bad news!]" 

[*Hmm, but let's see what the Bible says:

John 12:32 says “But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.”  

And Romans 11:32 says "For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all."  

And John 16:8 says "When [the Holy Spirit] comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment."  

(But Calvinists - when it needs to fit their views - define "all men" and "the world" as mankind in general or as the Calv-elect from all nations, not all individual people.)

And Calvinism's question of "Why doesn't He save everybody" always (incorrectly) presupposes that everybody isn't saved because it was Calvi-god's choice to not save everybody because he predestined most people to hell for his glory.  

But that's not why everybody isn't saved.  Biblically, the God of the Bible made salvation possible for all and offers salvation to all, but He lets us decide, of our own free-will, to accept it or reject it (and we all have the ability to accept it, to believe) - and that's why everybody isn't saved, because many choose to reject it even though they had the chance and ability to accept it.]

And on August 16, 2015: “Once you begin to understand [how wicked we are], the question is not ‘Why aren’t more people elect?  Why isn’t everyone going to heaven?’  What’s the real question?  ‘Why is anybody elect?  Why is anybody going to heaven?’*

... Why do some sinners believe and some don’t?... The answer from the Apostle Paul through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit [Translation: "So if you disagree with me, you disagree with Paul, the Holy Spirit, the Bible."] is one phrase: Because of God’s sovereign predestination, His sovereign election.  It’s a doctrine of grace, a doctrine of mercy… God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden.  That’s a difficult verse in American culture. [It's only "difficult" because Calvinists misinterpret it so badly.]

... The definition of election, predestination, is that it's the Bible's teaching that as God looks out on rebellious, sinful humanity, He chooses to have mercy on some sinners and not others.  [Try to find that definition of those words clearly written in the Bible.]

… In other words, He’s not an equal opportunity convicter.... If it wasn’t for predestination, election, nobody would go to heaven [well, sure, if you don't count free-will] because we’re born slaves to sin, in bondage to sin, under the wrath and judgment of God, no one seeking Him… God is a God of mercy.  He is a God of grace.  And He delights in summoning a remnant to Himself, forgiving and bestowing mercy and grace on them.  [And Calvi-god equally delights in predestining the rest of the people to eternal torment in hell for his glory.  But, shh, let's not talk about that.]

… Dead people can’t choose anything [except, of course, to sin and reject Calvi-god] unless a miracle happens.**

And so therefore election is based on nothing we do ["not even on our own decision to believe, because we don't make our own choices - Calvi-god makes them for us"]... It’s why He sovereignly elects and gives grace and mercy to some. 

… [But some people object and say] 'Doesn’t election make God look bad?'… But on the contrary, election does not make God look bad; it makes God look good.  [Gaslighting: "Don't trust your belief that predestining people to hell reflects badly on God.  Trust me: It's really good, even though it sounds really bad."]  

In fact, election and even its opposite - hardening - both glorify God.  God is equally glorified in the salvation of sinners as He is in the damnation of sinners.  [Which should scare Calvinists, not elicit their praise.]

… The elect get mercy.  The unelect get justice.  Nobody is treated unfairly."***

[* It's very telling - and alarming - that in order to get people to believe their twisted, contradictory, dreadful doctrines, Calvinist pastors not only have to spend many months training people to see things their way through sermons and Calvinist Indoctrination Classes (if Calvinism was so "clearly taught in the Bible," as Calvinists say, then why the need for so much help seeing it?)... but, furthermore, when it comes to pushing their worst beliefs, they must always, always, always resort to cult-like tactics of deflection, manipulation, gaslighting, shaming, etc.  And yet, most of us don't recognize it as cult-like behavior, as non-answers to very serious questions and doubts about their beliefs.  Calvinists have taught us to not ask the hard questions, to only look at the good side of Calvinism (what Calvi-god does for the Calv-elect), and to fall in line with whatever we're taught (not disagreeing, making waves, or causing "division/disunity")... because that's what good, humble, truth-accepting, God-glorifying Christians do, right?  And we all want to be good, humble, truth-accepting, God-glorifying Christians, don't we?   

But I remind you: "Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world." (1 John 4:1)

** It's a stupid, wrong analogy to equate spiritual death with physical death.  Biblically, spiritual death is about our sins separating us from God and about us being unable to close that gap ourselves, to work our way to heaven.  It's not about our brains being unable to work or us being unable to make decisions.  But this bad analogy works for them, tricking many people into buying their nonsense.  (And, no, believing in Jesus is not "working for salvation," as Calvinists say.)

*** "The elect get mercy. The unelect get justice. Nobody is treated unfairly."  Well, sure, if you call it "justice" for Calvi-god to punish people for what he predestined and caused, for what the people had no real choice about or control over.  And, of course, it's easy to say that no one is treated "unfairly" when you think that you are one of the Calv-elect.  But have you ever heard of Calvinism's "evanescent grace"?]]

And on July 8, 2018: "God is not unjust to have mercy on some and not others - because of the wickedness, depravity, and innate rebellion of mankind.  [But he is unjust if, as Calvi-god does, he predestines/causes people to sin and reject him - commanding them to repent and believe but preventing them from repenting and believing - but then he punishes them for it, pretending like they had a choice about it.] 

... He's dealing with a planet of rebellious, sinful, wicked human beings [wicked by Calvi-god's decree].  And so anything He does for them is merciful.*

... Once you grasp the...wickedness, evil, corruption, rebellion of the human heart, the real question is not 'Why didn't God elect everybody?'  The real question is 'Why does He elect anybody?'  [No, the real real question is "Is it even true that election is about God predestining who goes to heaven, like we Calvinists think?"]

When you preach on [predestination], there are usually 3 responses to the doctrine of predestination: anger... avoidance... appreciation...**  

Appreciation is the fact that if you are saved, God chose you, had mercy on you, turned you around, gave you a new heart, put His Holy Spirit in you, and then dumped a boatload of blessings on you, promising you eternal life on a new heaven and new earth - it's staggering.  [More staggering than, say, the idea that Calvi-god predestines most people to hell, punishing them for what he ordained and caused!?!]

That's what election is designed to foster: thanksgiving and worship.  Because God owes it to nobody."  [Translation: "So stop complaining about what happens to the non-elect!"  Gee, must be nice to dismiss the souls - the eternal damnation - of billions of other people this easily.😕  And for the record, "God doesn't owe salvation to anyone" is far different than Calvinism's "God predestines people to hell."]"

[* When Calvinists say something like "And so anything He does for them is merciful" or "God is merciful to everyone," they mean that it's "merciful" for Calvi-god to predestine the Calvi-elect to heaven and that it's also "merciful" for him to give the non-Calv-elect food and water while they're alive on earth before sending them to their predestined eternal damnation in hell.

"After all," says the Calvinist, "he didn't have to give the non-elect breath, food, water, sunshine - he could've just dumped them right in hell instead - but he let them live awhile and gave them nice things on earth before they went to hell.  He was so 'merciful' to them while they were alive.  Isn't it wonderful!  Isn't it gracious!"

😕😕😕  

Yeah, that's about as "wonderful and gracious" as carefully caring for cows for years, abundantly showering them with fresh water and fabulous foods... to fatten them up for the slaughter so that you can later feast on their tasty flesh.  You're not doing it for their good, but for your good.

After all, that's what happens in Calvinism to the "non-elect."  They're cared for by Calvi-god while they're alive (given food, water, sunshine, breath), but not because he wants the best for them eternally.  It's because he merely wants to fatten them up for the slaughter so that he can spend eternity feasting on their burning souls: getting glory and praise for their eternal damnation in hell.  

** "anger... avoidance... appreciation": I guess we're not allowed to disagree - because, in Calvinism, rejecting/disagreeing with Calvinism is rejecting/disagreeing with God, the Bible, the gospel - which means that we can't truly be Christians, according to Calvinists.

R.C. Sproul calls those who disagree with his theological views "atheists." 

John MacArthur (in Election and Predestination: The Sovereignty of God in Salvation): "Let me tell you: This country is literally filling up with those kind of converts under this seeker-friendly [free-will] approach in churches... the unconverted living in a deception."  

My ex-pastor, in a July 2018 sermon, said: "The Bible teaches that God sovereignly chooses some and not others... The first question when it comes to Bible study is not 'Do I like this?'... The first question is "WHAT DOES THE TEXT SAY?"  If this is not your first question, your first burden, there is concern if you really know Christ as Lord and if you honor Him.  If all you accept is the stuff you like and what is convenient for you and emotionally comfortable for you [read: "If you don't accept the dreadful things I'm teaching you"], then there is a real question whether you know Christ, if His Spirit lives in you."  [Cult-like manipulation at its finest!]

And here's a question for those Calvinists who think that those who reject Calvinism can still be true Christians: Why would Calvi-god ordain and cause true Christians to believe false things, to reject his Calvi-truth, his Calvi-gospel?  And if Calvi-god does this, then how can Calvinists ever trust that their beliefs, their thinking, their doctrine is correct?  Calvi-god could very well have ordained that you are deceived, believing lies, and rejecting the truth.

Calvinism is self-defeating, leaving Calvinists with no solid ground to stand on, no assurance that what they believe is true, and no assurance that they're really saved.  

"But, oh," says the Calvinist, "isn't Calvinism glorious!"😕]

And on October 12, 2014: "After thousands of years of [human] rebellion, that God would be willing to elect any rebellious sinner to eternal life shows tremendous love and grace and mercy."

See what I mean by waxing poetic about how "wonderful" their Calvi-god is and how great his mercy is to some people, completely ignoring his bad side, his deceptive and duplicitous nature, and how he treats the non-Calv-elect.

Ugh. 

The thing is (as seen in the above quotes)... 

Calvinism's ideas are all built on their previous ideas.  All their doctrines flow from one into the next, being built on the one before it and creating the one after it.  And so regarding the point of this post, Calvinism's unbiblical view of election/predestination (the fact that Calvi-god has to "elect" certain people for heaven) is because of Calvinism's unbiblical view of human depravity/spiritual death (as "total inability"), as seen again and again in Calvinist quotes like those above.

Simply put, "The doctrine of total depravity... necessitates unconditional election." (Nick Batzig, "What is Unconditional Election?")

"... if a person really embraces the doctrine of total depravity, the other four points in this five-point system more or less fall in line. They become corollaries of this first point." (R.C. Sproul, Total Depravity part 1) 

"A direct corollary of total depravity is that fallen people cannot rescue themselves from their guilt and depravity... [those who are in the flesh] cannot respond of themselves to the grace of God in Christ... It requires a radical change, altering the entire bias of the human will, in order to respond positively to the gospel, a change that can be brought about only by the Holy Spirit.  [Meaning that Calvinism's doctrine of "total depravity" necessitates/requires/creates their doctrines of irresistible grace and unconditional election.]"  (Robert Letham, "Worse than we think: What Toal Depravity is (and is not)")

[And let's not forget that Calvinists also start with an unbiblical view of what it means that God is "sovereign."  They assume it means that He decrees, ordains, preplans, orchestrates, controls, causes all things that happen, even sin and evil and unbelief.  They believe that if He doesn't do these things then He's not God.  (Telling God how He must be and act in order to be God is a foolish thing!)] 

And so because Calvinists define spiritual death/depravity as people being totally unable to want/seek/believe in God on our own and define sovereignty as God preplanning, controlling, causing everything, then they reject (they must reject) the idea of true free-will from the very beginning. 

True free-will is not possible in their Calvinist framework which has been built on their unbiblical understandings of total depravity and sovereignty.

[And their fake free-will (compatibilism, soft determinism) is not really free-will at all.  It's still Calvi-god preplanning, controlling, orchestrating all things, especially the desires we have in our hearts to sin and reject him.  

But because we "desired" to sin and reject him - even though he determined we'd have those desires (and only those desires), and even though we had to obey those desires (we couldn't resist them or desire/choose/do anything else) - Calvinists still call it "freely doing what we wanted to do: free-will."  

But in no way is that "free" or "will" in the honest and accurate sense of the words.]

And so when someone rejects the biblical truth from the very beginning, at the foundational level of their theology (or worse yet, they twist it and redefine it to make it Calvinistic), they will inevitably get everything wrong after that, ending up at unbiblical conclusions about how we get saved, who determines who gets saved, who Jesus died for, what the gospel is, our role/responsibility in it all, God's role/responsibility in it all, who's responsible for evil, etc.  

It's like how scientists who automatically discount the existence of God will inevitably come up with incorrect ideas of how the world was created - because they rejected the correct option from the very beginning.  And so all that they have left to work with are incorrect options leading to incorrect conclusions.  It's inevitable.

In conclusion... 

Only in Calvinism must God "choose to save some" - because only in Calvinism is there no true free-will, a god who preplans/causes everything himself, and the belief that "total depravity" means "inability to believe."

Only in Calvinism is it considered "merciful" for God to predestine some people to heaven while reprobating the rest to hell.  ["But, shh, don't talk about the non-elect."]  

Only in Calvinism is Romans 9:18 (the "mercy and hardening" verse) interpreted as God choosing who goes to heaven and who doesn't - because only in Calvinism is Romans 9 interpreted as a passage about individuals being chosen for heaven or hell.

[See the 45-second clip from Soteriology 101 "What Paul is NOT doing in Romans 9" and the 20-minute video "Struggling with Romans 9 and Calvinism?  WATCH THIS!" and the 11-minute video "Provisionists believe in Predestination and Election" for a different explanation of predestination, one that actually makes sense, fits all of Scripture, and that truly upholds God's loving, righteous, just, gracious, merciful, trustworthy character.]

Only in Calvinism is God still considered good, trustworthy, and praiseworthy even though Calvi-god commands us not to sin but then ordains/causes us to sin and then punishes us for it.  [See "But Calvinists don't say God causes sin and evil!"]

Because only in Calvinism is it okay for Calvi-god to cause all sin, evil, and unbelief because "he is a good God, and so, therefore, whatever he does must be good, even if it seems evil to us."

[You see, in Calvinism, it isn't that Calvi-god does what is good and just because it's good and just, but it's that whatever he does is good and just simply because he does it, even if he does things that would be evil and unjust if we did them.  

John Calvin in Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God: "God may be free of guilt in doing the very thing that He condemns in Satan and the reprobate and which is to be condemned by men... For what man wickedly perpetrates, incited by ambition or avarice or lust or some other depraved motive, since God does it by His hand with a righteous though perhaps hidden purpose - this cannot be equated with the term sin.  Sin in man is made by perfidy, cruelty, pride, intemperance, envy, blind love of self, any kind of depraved lust.  Nothing like this is to be found in God."  {Translation: "Our motives and natures determine if it's sin or not.  And so what's sin for man and Satan is not sin for God because He doesn't have our sin nature and because the evils He ordains flow from His good character and pure motives, which makes it okay for Him, but not for us."😖}

A Calvinist, RadCentristThrowaway, on a reddit post about what happens to children who die too young: "Further, sin is transgression against God's law. God has not given Himself any law that says He cannot do these things, therefore it is not sin for Him to do them."  {Johngalt1234 responds to him, accurately summing up Calvinism's view of God: "So [Calvinism's] God be as evil as he likes and it wouldn't be inconsistent with his character?"  Well said!}  

John MacArthur (Doctrine of Election, part 1), demonstrating how Calvinists excuse any evil or unjust thing Calvi-god does: "[Some people say that] somehow election is unfair.  Somehow it is unjust.  But first of all, we want to make it very clear that God is not to be measured by our understanding of what is just... God has ways and thoughts that are to us incomprehensible, unresolvable, inscrutable... And so whatever he says is just, is what justice is.  [But the problem isn't what God says is just, but it's what Calvinists say is just.  And that's very different!] ... And whatever it is that he wills is by definition just because he is just.  It is just because he wills it.  It is not because he sees that it is just that he wills it, it is that he wills it and then it becomes just.

... Salvation never has been a matter of fairness... 'Who are you, O man, who answers back to God?'  Shut your mouth... Who do you think you are?  Are you accusing God of unjust punishment of sinners?  Are you accusing God of unjust condemnation?  Are you accusing God of evil? [No, you Calvinists are!  We're just exposing it.]"

This is how Calvinists answer the questions of "How can Calvi-god command people to believe but prevent them from believing?  How can he decree that we break his decrees?  How can he ordain, cause, orchestrate sin and evil after commanding us not to do sin or evil?  How can he hold people accountable for the sin and unbelief he ordained?  Etc."  

They claim that we can't judge anything that Calvi-god does as bad but that we must believe that it's good, that it's okay for Calvi-god to do these things because he is a "good" god and so whatever he does must be "good," even if it seems terribly evil and unjust to us.  Of course, sometimes we do view things differently from God (such as we might think that a job loss or a break-up is tragic, but maybe God knows it's ultimately good and will lead to better things), but I'm talking about things that are inherently and unquestionably bad according to God's moral code, a moral standard that isn't flexible and shouldn't shift based on who's doing it.  Nothing Calvi-god does is bad (even ordaining the sins he punishes us for doing), but it's only our limited human perspective that's bad.*  (You all know what gaslighting is, right?)

But C.S. Lewis says this in Reflections on the Psalms chapter VI (which I believe is a direct attack on Calvinism): "There were in the eighteenth century terrible theologians who held that 'God did not command certain things because they are right, but certain things are right because God commanded them.'  To make the position perfectly clear, one of them even said that though God has, as it happens, commanded us to love Him and one another, he might equally well have commanded us to hate him and one another, and hatred would then have been right.  [This is like how Calvi-god ordains one person to believe in him, love him, obey him, while ordaining another person to reject him, hate him, disobey him.  In Calvinism, they're both "good" just because Calvi-god ordains it, for his purposes and his glory.]  It was apparently a mere toss-up which He decided on.  Such a view of course makes God a mere arbitrary tyrant.  It would be better and less irreligious to believe in no God and to have no ethics than to have such an ethics and such a theology as this.... [But the truth is] He enjoins what is good because it is good, because he is good.  Hence His laws have emeth 'truth', intrinsic validity, rock-bottom reality, being rooted in His own nature, and are therefore as solid as that Nature which He has created."

He's saying that truth and morality are rooted in God's nature and that when God created the world, He created things with intrinsic morality, where some things are intrinsically bad and some are intrinsically good.  There is a solid and unchanging truth that certain things are either good or bad, based on His nature, with Him as the measuring stick.  And so God Himself - being a good God - can only do what is intrinsically good, in line with His nature.  (And so if Calvi-god does evil or injustice, it doesn't magically become "good" and "justice.")  God cannot do bad or evil because that is contrary to His nature.  Therefore, things like commanding one thing but decreeing the opposite, ordaining sin, causing people to break His commands, deceptively saying he wants all people saved while predestining most to hell, punishing people for what he caused, etc., is something God cannot do, will not do, because it is inherently wrong, contrary to His good, righteous, holy, trustworthy character and the truth He embedded in creation.

Calvinism, however, changes God into a God who can say one thing but do another, but it's "okay" because "He is God and can do whatever He wants" and "He is good, and so whatever we Calvinists tell you that He does is good, even if it's bad."

In non-Calvinism, God is good and can only do what is already good.

But in Calvinism, whatever Calvi-god does miraculously becomes good, even if it's evil for anyone else to do it.

As I've said before, Calvinism erases the line between good and evil, using a double-standard depending on who's doing the evil, who's judging it.  

It's as C.S. Lewis says in The Problem of Pain, chapter 2: 

"if God's moral judgment differs from ours so that our 'black' may be His 'white,' we can mean nothing by calling Him good; for to say 'God is good,' while asserting that His goodness is wholly other than ours, is really only to say 'God is we know not what'.  And an utterly unknown quality in God cannot give us moral grounds for loving or obeying Him.  If He is not (in our sense) 'good' we shall obey, if at all, only through fear - and should be equally ready to obey an omnipotent Fiend.  The doctrine of Total Depravity - when the consequence is drawn that, since we are totally depraved, our idea of good is simply nothing - may thus turn Christianity into a form of devil-worship."  

Amen and amen!  Another direct attack on Calvinism!

If there is no real, clear dividing line between true good and true evil, true justice and injustice - if (as Calvinism claims) evil is good as long as God does it - then we cannot call anything good or evil, and we cannot even call God Himself good.  

"Good" loses all meaning when it looks and acts just like evil or when it's used as an excuse for evil.  "Evil" loses all meaning if it can magically become "good" depending on who's doing it.  The words "good and evil" become meaningless when they can mean the same as their opposites.

Calvinism blurs the line between good and evil, destroying God's righteous, trustworthy character and Word.  And blurring the line between good and evil, between justice and injustice, blurs the line between God and Satan.  

And who do you think is responsible for something like that?

Isaiah 5:20: "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter {"who call merciless things 'mercy' and graceless things 'grace' and injustice 'justice'...}"

2 Corinthians 11:13-15: "For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ.  And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.  It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness.  Their end will be what their actions deserve."

Hmm, I wonder: Could a God who gave people true free-will - the ability to decide on our own whether we will reject Him or believe in Him, whether we will sin or obey Him - be the same God as a god who preplans, causes, controls it all himself, even all sin, evil, and unbelief?

Could a God who says what He means and means what He says be the same God as a god who says one thing but means another? 

Could a God who truly offers salvation to all people and who made it possible for all people to believe and be saved be the same God as a god who didn't?  

Could a Jesus who died for all sins of all mankind to make salvation possible for all individual people be the same Jesus as a Jesus who didn't?  

Could a God who tells us to seek Him and believe in Him, who gave everyone the chance and ability to do these things, and who lets us decide for ourselves and then allows us to face the consequences of our free choice be the same God as a god who commands all people to seek him and believe in him but prevents most people from doing it and yet then punishes them for what he predestined and caused them to do?  

Could a God who can still be glorified in spite of the evil that humans freely choose to do be the same God as a god who is glorified because of the evil that he himself ordains, orchestrates, causes?

Just wondering.  

Do Calvinists and non-Calvinists really believe in and worship the same God, the same Jesus?

*Do you know what's really ironically funny about Calvinists claiming that "humans can't actually discern between justice and injustice, between evil and good, because we see things differently from Calvi-god and so there might not really be a difference at all"?

Proverbs 28:5: "Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the Lord understand it fully."

Proverbs 2:6,9: "For the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding... Then you will understand what is right and just and fair - every good path."

Hebrews 5:14: "But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil."

And so if Calvinists say that we can't really tell the difference between good and evil, between justice and injustice, because there may not ultimately be one, then what does these verses tell us about Calvinists?]

Calvinists:

Non-Calvinists:

 

And, at the end of it all, only in Calvinism are we required to shut up and accept the horrible things we're taught without resistance or pushback; manipulated, shamed, and gaslit into believing that their dreadful Calvinist doctrines are true, that their contradictions are not really contradictions, that Calvinism is wonderful and elevates God's glory, and that we might not even be Christians if we disagree with them.

From my ex-pastor's June 28, 2015 sermon on hell: "Doctrines like predestination or salvation are designed to drive us to our knees in thanksgiving that there is a way left [for the elect only], that He does have mercy on some.  Otherwise, we're all toast, literally."

From the end of my ex-pastor's August 16, 2015 sermon: "Election does not make God look bad; it makes God look good.… Election is designed not for theological debate.  It is designed to drive God’s people to their knees in humble thanksgiving and praise to their Maker.… When we see God in His glory in election and predestination, it’s actually a God-entrenched theology that exalts who God is..."

A.W. Pink (Doctrine of Election): "those who continue to cavil against [Calvinism] and steadfastly refuse any part of the truth, are not entitled to be regarded as Christians."

Vincent Cheung (The Author of Sin): “All that God does is intrinsically good and righteous, so it is also good and righteous for him to create the reprobates… Some would be horrified by this because they are more concerned about man’s dignity and comfort than God’s purpose and glory, but those who have the mind of Christ would erupt in gratitude and reverence, and affirm that God is righteous, and that he does all things well.”

And, of course, if we do have a problem with any of their teachings, Calvinists remind us that we're just having an emotional reaction to it, that we're putting our own ideas above God's truth, that we're unhumble, that we're worshiping man, that we're refusing to believe what the Bible "clearly" teaches, that we're denying God the glory due Him, that we're rejecting it because we can't understand it and don't like the sound of it, etc.  

We are always the problem, not them or their theology!  

(How do you think cults get such a hold on people?)

What a mess! 

Calvinism is truly a brilliant theological system - a huge, satanically-inspired, tightly-interconnected web of unbiblical ideas, bad definitions, and out-of-context verses.  It's a philosophy - a gnostic philosophy, not a biblical theology - where one error is woven into, creates, and supports the next error.  [If you pay attention, you'll see Calvinist regularly say things like this in their writings: "And if this is true [some Calvinist presupposition or a Calvinist misinterpretation of a verse], then it follows that this next thing must also be true [the next bad Calvinist idea based on the previous bad Calvinist idea]."

But because it's so tightly interconnected and skillfully spun - and because they find verses (taken out of context) that seem to back them up - it appears to be true, solid, consistent, and intelligent, easily entangling anyone who believes any small piece of it.  Every error will inevitably force you to agree with the next error.  

[And because Calvinism is such a huge web of interconnected ideas, it's exhausting to debate it because we can never tackle just one error of Calvinism - kinda like Lay's chips: "can't eat just one" - without exposing and tackling five more errors, and so on and so forth.  (Why do you think my posts are so long?)  Each error is embedded with and embedded into many more errors.  Frustrating.  Exhausting.]

And so once you're in it, it's hard to get out.  Once you start nibbling the breadcrumbs along their Systematic Theology trail, it's near-impossible to recognize the error in it anymore - or to even know where to start questioning it - because you're immediately drawn into the deep-end where you're fully submerged in error.  

All their errors form one cohesive unit that you must take as a whole, where every error supports the other errors.  

And when everything is error, nothing looks like error.