This post was chosen as newsworthy at Sensus Divinitatis News….

Now it seems the right thing to think!

¿what’s going on?

I am not trying to convert anyone to anything.

Some bloggers have confused Van Til’s view that syllogisms can not tell us anything. I am only trying to give a correction. Van Til’s context was Apologetics! Fideism over-against evidentialism not the doctrines of scripture. Besides both Augustine and Aquinas would never say that a syllogism was meaningless.

I cited Luther because some bloggers asserted “free-will” in a non-biblical sense and Luther although rejecting “actual atonement” did teach that “no one can come to Christ apart from the work of the Spirit.” I would also suggest Gordon Clark on refuting the non-biblical notion of free-will as well.

[Mod edit]

I have a sneaking suspicion that Calvin wasn’t a Calvinist to today’s hyper-Calvinists. (They say both Darwin and Marx said late in their life “I am not a Darwinist/Marxist”; there’s a common stupid human trick to take an idea and run way too far with it.)

My writing partner told me last week he’s encountering Hyper-Calvinists who are hyper to the point of “Socratic Atheism”, i.e. even God is under the thumb of Total Predestination and can do only what He has been Predestined to do. (“Eh, Kismet…”) At which point, Socratic Atheism kicks in; if God is subject to Predestination, then God is not God — Fate/Destiny/Predestination is. (My Church calls this “heresy”, specifically “Jansenism”.)

This is the last warning:

Here at IM we do NOT attempt to convert one another. If you want to discuss the “Limited” atonement, that’s great, but please stop addressing Fr. Ernesto in an attempt to make him a Calvinist.

You may be unfamiliar with how we do discussions here, but we do NOT attempt to convert one another. Omit the personal comments like “who told you.”

If you persist in this tone, I’m going to ban you.

And Luther wasn’t a Calvinist and didn’t believe in a “Limited” atonement like Calvin.

MS

I don’t think it can denied that Christ’s work on the cross did one of the three things I enumerated above! The fact of the matter is that the scripture leaves us with only those options and your unwillingness to deal with it is quite telling.

Your argument assumes that the scripture teaches that Christ died (atoned) for the sin of every person.

No offense but who told you Christ died (atoned) for the sins of the whole “world?” Please do yourself a favor and look at how that term is used in scripture. Ex. John in ch 1 uses it in three different senses in one verse! When it is used of the atonement it is never used in a universal sense sir.

To wit, “God so loved the world” Both John Gill “Cause of God and of Truth” as well as Alfred Edersheim have pointed out that the term was used by the 1st century Rabbis as a synonym for the Gentiles! See St. Paul in Romans 10-11 he uses it in the same sense.

Therefore your argument contrasting the nature of the Atonement with the Two Natures of Christ as as examples of a biblical “mysterium” is not sound! We have no basis in scripture to teach that Christ died ATONED for each and every person!

Luther’s work “Bondage of the Will” should be on your reading list. Sorry about the seemingly harsh tone, but God’s truth must be upheld.

“—”

“I’m God and you’re not.”