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Joined September 2021
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I’m curious about this shift in the dialogue. Lucas on video with me 2 1/2 years ago agreed that the Arminian is NOT suggesting an ontological change that happens with Prevenient Grace (Luke clearly denied ontological change in the second video here), but last week he was saying it’s Pelagian to deny an ontological change.
Boring FloridaMan retweeted
It’s not my claim originally… but Caio doesn’t care about facts. While taking their stabs at non-Calvinists these respected Calvinistic scholars all affirm this clearly seen fact:
“It may occasion some surprise to discover that the doctrine of Predestination was not made a matter of special study until near the end of the fourth century... They, of course, taught that salvation was through Christ, yet ***they assumed that man had full power to accept or reject the gospel.*** Some of their writings contain passages in which the sovereignty of God is recognized; yet alongside those are others which teach the absolute freedom of the human will. Since they could not reconcile the two, they would have denied the doctrine of Predestination... They taught a kind of synergism in which there was a cooperation between grace and free will...
-Loraine Boettner, Reformed Doctrine of Predestination
In the early church, at a time when it had to contend with pagan fatalism and gnostic naturalism, its representatives focused exclusively on the moral nature, freedom, and responsibility of humans and could not do justice, therefore, to the teaching of Scripture concerning the counsel of God. ***Though humans had been more or less corrupted by sin, they remained free and were able to accept the proffered grace of God.*** The church’s teaching did not include a doctrine of absolute predestination and irresistible grace.
—Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics
“Semi-Pelagians were convinced that ***Augustine’s monergistic emphasis upon salvation by grace alone was a significant departure from the traditional teaching of the church. And a survey of the thoughts of the apostolic fathers shows that the argument is valid... *** In comparison to Augustine’s monergistic doctrine of grace, the teachings of the apostolic fathers tended toward a synergistic view of redemption.”
-Robert Peterson and Michael Williams, Why I Am Not An Arminian (IVP, 2004) 36.
Predestination does not form an important subject of discussion in history until the time of Augustine. Earlier Church Fathers allude to it, but do not as yet seem to have a very clear conception of it. On the whole, they regard it as the prescience of God with reference to human deeds, on the basis of which He determines their future destiny… Their representations are naturally rather indefinite, imperfect, incomplete, and sometimes even erroneous and self-contradictory. Says Kahnis: ***“It stands as an assured fact, a fact knowing no exceptions, and acknowledged by all well versed in the matter, that all of the pre-Augustinian Fathers taught that in the appropriation of salvation, there is a co-working of freedom and grace.”***
—Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Eerdmans, 1932) 130.
And there are more…
It is utterly laughable, not to mention historically illiterate by nature, to pretend as if the church prior to Augustine held some sort of Proto-Provisionist view of anthropology.
Also, this claim about Augustine taking a departure from the early church has been debunked. It is poor history at best, and intentionally dishonest at worst, to continue making this claim.
The sources that Leighton used to come to this conclusion are simply bad secondary sources. You can see this claim being dismantled by Edwin in the linked post here (xitter.cf/edwinnunez1646/status/…).
Boring FloridaMan retweeted
And I notice Calvinists who say they disagree rarely ever confront other Calvinists who say this stuff.
It reminds me of politicians that won't speak out against radicals in their party because they are "Attacking the right people."
It puts Hypercalvinists in the drivers seat.
Boring FloridaMan retweeted
Your response proved my point. The false dilemma is the assumption that faith must originate either entirely from God or entirely from man, as though these are the only two possibilities:
If faith comes from God, God must irresistibly cause it.
If faith comes from man, man must create it independently and earn salvation.
But neither conclusion follows.
God can be (and is) the ultimate source of man’s existence, rational faculties, moral agency, revelation, and opportunity to believe, while man remains the actual agent who freely exercises those God-given capacities. God provides the truth and the ability to respond; the person either believes or refuses.
The word “originate” also hides an equivocation. God is the source of the capacity and object of faith, but man is the subject who believes. Just as God gives a person the capacity to reason without irresistibly determining every conclusion he reaches, God can give the capacity to believe without irresistibly determining the response.
So “Does faith come from God or man?” is improperly binary. The better question is: Does God’s provision of the capacity to believe necessarily mean God irresistibly determines who exercises it? Calvinism assumes yes, but it does not prove it.
Boring FloridaMan retweeted
No, it shouldn’t be, though nor should it have ever been.
Buuuuuuuuut, let’s not erase hundreds of years of Calvinists calling Arminians Pelagians before Provisionalism came around and Arminians were given reprieve from that slop.
It’s the most disingenuous 🐂 💩 for either Calvinists or Arminians to act like they’re good buddies and have always been after all that history.
Some of us can remember things longer than five minutes ago.
Boring FloridaMan retweeted
Watch this Calvinist squirm and try to wriggle out of the implications of his own repellent conception of God. Meanwhile his atheist opponent is confident and emboldened. Calvinism as presented here seems to provide a solid justification for atheism.
Calvinism fails at apologetics youtu.be/_a3eMTy4mAw?is=sCPi…
Boring FloridaMan retweeted
Calvinism self-contradicts. That is why the Westminster confession says God is not the author of sin and then says God causes all things. They know it is a contradiction, but without it, the system falls apart. That's when they start screeching "who are you, O man...!"
Boring FloridaMan retweeted
So…God is literally the author of sin and evil, but isn’t morally accountable for authoring all that sin and evil.
And even though the confessions plainly state God is not the author of evil, he is, because, well, you like this analogy because characters in fiction are analogous to conscious moral agents because…trust me bro reasons.
Got it.
Boring FloridaMan retweeted
Non-sequitur.
God could ordain all things whatsoever comes to pass and still be God.
God could ordain some things whatsoever comes to pass and still be God.
God could ordain no things whatsoever comes to pass and still be God.
God could not ordain at all and still be God.
There is nothing inherently contradictory in any of the above statements.
It seems like you’re the one with a deficient Theology Proper after all.
Nothing in the “comes to pass” category is in the category of necessity.
This assertion fails the premises of your own confessional standard. God ->freely<- ordained, and thus God possessed all the necessary attributes to be God prior to that ordaining, and nothing about the contingency of whatever comes to pass, whether all things or not, add or take away any of God’s necessary attributes required to be God. If an exhaustive decree were required, then you contradict your own premise in Theology Proper that God is free in his decision to ordain or not, regardless of what is decreed (all things, some things, or no things that comes to pass), in addition to all this being an affront to aseity.
You get an F- for contradicting your own theology proper in this silly, flippant assertion.
To help you out, you should’ve said “If God ->can’t<- ordained whatsoever comes to pass, he is not God.”
Unfortunately, you didn’t say that, which is a nothingburger anyway.
Take your L, my reply is unassailable, and I’m muting the thread to avoid your weeping and gnashing of teeth trying to pinhole your way out of it.
Love you, bro.
👍😉
Boring FloridaMan retweeted
The principle of “ought implies can” applies at the micro level to individual choices, not to the macro level across all choices.
For example:
On any single coin flip I can get heads
≠>
Across 1 billion coin flips I can get all heads
Boring FloridaMan retweeted
Oh. Can you point out the apostles claiming they couldn’t understand Christianity as the reason for their rejecting it? The Bible says they traded the truth in for lies or suppressed it in unrighteousness, they never say they just couldn’t understand it. In fact, it specifically says they are rejecting what they did see and understand (Rom 1).
Isn’t it Calvinism that teaches they can’t really understand until they are regenerated first?
Well, we are talking about the reaction of regenerated believers to doctrines that didn’t start dividing the church until the 5th century when a former Gnostic introduced these new beliefs.
Boring FloridaMan retweeted
Until you can articulate your own position clearly enough so you don’t have to accuse literally everyone who doesn’t agree of misunderstanding your position, you have not even begun to put forward a coherent position worth debating.
Debate Rule #1: Until you can articulate your opponent's position in a way they would agree with, you have not even begun to debate your opponent.
Boring FloridaMan retweeted
Who wants to see me and @DineshDSouza team up to debate @HwsEleutheroi & @PastorNinja on Calvinism? Like, comment & retweet!
Hey @DineshDSouza ive spent a long time exposing Calvinism from a Biblical, historical, and philosophical perspective. Tons of content on my channel. Id be happy to be your debate partner in a 2v2 against @HwsEleutheroi and @PastorNinja
Boring FloridaMan retweeted
When you work through all the arguments, the bottom-line defense of compatibilism in Reformed theology is "mystery."
In essence, Reformed theology created a problem that it simply refused to solve.
Boring FloridaMan retweeted
Calvinist Confession Part 1: God brings about all moral evil.
Calvinist Confession Part 2: God is not guilty for moral evil.
Provisionist: We disagree with your assertion that God brings about moral evil because that would make him guilty.
Calvinist: BUT OUR CONFESSION DENIES THAT HE IS GUILTY!!!
Provisionist: Can you explain how that’s possible?
Calvinist: Mystery.
Provisionist: If you’re going to appeal to mystery anyway why not do so before boldly claiming God brings about moral evil?
Boring FloridaMan retweeted
"The people the SPLC paid in Charlottesville weren't actual Nazis, they were undercover good guys!"
So you're telling me there were very fine people on both sides?
Boring FloridaMan retweeted
Yikes. I’ve been telling people to STOP making this divide between God and “human logic.” Logic is logic. There is no “human logic”, just like there is no “human truth.” God is logical, as logic is rooted in Him.
Instead of saying “human logic” (which makes us sound illogical to outsiders), instead say “human reasoning” or just say it’s beyond our comprehension. That is vastly different than “human logic.”
