Sorry, I just don’t see that in John (and given that Calvinim developed somewhat late in Christian history, it seems the earliest readers of that evangelion didn’t either). Yes, God is glorified, but the over-arching theme is God’s love. And yes, the two are intertwined, but not in the way you seem to suggest where God’s love is secondary to God’s glory and particularly not where God’s capacity to love is an artifact of God’s obsession with His own glory.

“I think it’s God so loved His glory that He so loved the world in a way consistent with the expression of that glory in His love.”

If I have read that tangle correctly, I’d say you have the cart before the horse. As Josh points out, you seem to be trying to find some excuse for God loving us. Real love doesn’t work that way. I don’t ’so love myself that I can love my son in a way consistent with the expression of that self-love in my love’. I just love him. And I would sacrifice myself to save him, not to glorify myself, but just because I love him.

And there in a way is my biggest objection to how you characterize God. The gospel story is incredibly powerful because God Almightly comes and suffers and dies on our behalf *because He loves us*. Change that story to say that He does it because He so wants to show His own glory or because He so loves His own glory that He is capable of loving us, and you get a different – and significantly less compelling – story altogether. You get in fact, not Christ emptying Himself for our sakes, Christ dying because he is so full of himself.

Joe: “He demands glory for Himself BECAUSE He loves others. Others are only fulfilled as they are “obsessed with Him.” He is the highest good.” I agree with that. But if you read my comments to jmanning above, my problem is with a theology that puts it the other way round: ‘He loves others BECAUSE He so loves His own glory.’ The way you put it, His concern for His glory is based on wanting is best for those He loves. Yes! The other way, it comes off as He doesn’t *really* love us, we’re just a medium for Him to indulge His own desire to express His glory.

btw, I mostly agree with Amyraut. Did you say he converted from Judaism? I wonder how much the concept of God’s grace for all people, but His particular election of Israel influenced his theology.

“From Moses to Moses there were none like Moses…”

But I’d like to think that might be said of another Moses…Moses Amyraut.

He was a real “pillow-free” Calvinist. He believed in unconditional election, total depravity, irresistable grace, perserverance of the saints…but his conscience wouldn’t allow him to hold to limited atonement even though the “logic of theology” tempted him to that. He taught a “hypothetical universalism” alongside a particular election.

Now here is a species of Calvinism upon which you can get assurance. I just don’t see how you can have it if you cling to limited atonement. That one petal of the tulip needs to be plucked. I mean, if you believe that everyone’s sins were paid for, you can go ahead and take hold of it in agreement without going through the typical “well, what if Christ didn’t die for me?” angst.

A good argument in this type of theology’s favor is that such an angst is NEVER seen in the NT writings. Never. Christ was presented as the savior of the world, and sinners streamed to Him.

“Moses Amyraut, originally a lawyer, but converted to the study of theology by the reading of Calvin’s ‘Institutes,’ an able divine and voluminous writer, developed the doctrine of hypothetical or conditional universalism, for which his teacher, John Cameron (1580-1625), a Scotchman, and for two years Professor at Saumur, had prepared the way. His object was not to set aside, but to moderate and liberalize Calvinism by ingrafting this doctrine upon the particularism of election, and thereby to fortify it against the objections of Roman Catholics, by whom the French Protestants were surrounded and threatened. Being employed by the Reformed Synod in important diplomatic negotiations with the government, he came in frequent contact with bishops, and with Cardinal Richelieu, who esteemed him highly. His system is an approach, not so much to Arminianism, which he decidedly rejected, as to Lutheranism, which likewise teaches a universal atonement and a limited election.

Amyraut maintained the Calvinistic premises of an eternal foreordination and foreknowledge of God, whereby he caused all things inevitably to pass—the good efficiently, the bad permissively. He also admitted the double decree of election and reprobation. But in addition to this he taught that God foreordained a universal salvation through the universal sacrifice of Christ offered to all alike (駡lement pour tous), on condition of faith, so that on the part of God’s will and desire (voluntas, velleitas, affectus) the grace is universal, but as regards the condition it is particular, or only for those who do not reject it and thereby make it ineffective. The universal redemption scheme precedes the particular election scheme, and not vice versa. He reasons from the benevolence of God towards his creatures; Calvinism reasons from the result, and makes actual facts interpret the decrees. Amyraut distinguished between objective grace which is offered to all, and subjective grace in the heart which is given only to the elect. He also makes a distinction between natural ability and moral ability, or the power to believe and the willingness to believe; man possesses the former, but not the latter, in consequence of inherent depravity.”

http://www.theopedia.com/Amyraldism

Blessings,
Joe

“While we teach that faith ought to be certain and assured, we cannot imagine any certainty that is not tinged with doubt, or any assurance that is not assailed by some anxiety” -John Calvin(Institutes of the Christian Religion 3.2.17)

Also this on Wesley’s explication of the witness of the Spirit:

http://wesley.nnu.edu/wesleyan_theology/theojrnl/21-25/23-12.htm

John Wesley’s classic sermon on “The Witness of the Spirit” can be found here:
http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/wesley/sermons/10/

It might help.