RECONSIDER

I have been arguing with Calvinists on YouTube again. I try to resist, but sometimes I get dragged into it.

And once I start, I always have to get the last word, because in online arguments, THAT means you won the debate. 😉

This post offers a current snippet of a back-and-forth that has gone on for several days. My Calvinist friend, Dulles, has accused me of ignoring context AND the plain meaning of various verses. Now he protests I have "twisted everything". (Yet he keeps coming back for more!)

Below you will find his objection and my windy response, both unedited. Perhaps some of my points add more heat than light, but I am trying to overcome his cognitive dissonance.

For context, Dulles has been saying we must read "Jacob I loved and Esau I hated" in Romans 9 absolutely literally. And therefore God hates all the reprobates which He created for destruction.

I have seen cracks in his resolve, so I am "going in for the kill"...

Dulles: You twisted everything. Your language is disturbing in the way you attack what I believe. You are adding in a way I never had. Yes I am a sinner but Christ died for me. I dont believe I had any part on my salvation. It was all of God and God saved a wretch like me.

Me: One of us believes in something that is false and we are both trying to persuade the other he is wrong. False teaching deserves to be attacked, right? One of us has bought into false teaching. You believe it is me and I believe it is you. We are even. The loving thing would be to persuade the other he needs to reconsider. I think we are both motivated by love, ultimately.

Please consider that what you call twisting could also be the experience of cognitive dissonance on your part. It is very difficult for someone who believes in Calvinism to see that dark side of the belief system: your God has created legions of human beings predestined to live and die apart from Him. He sent His Son to earth - but NOT for them. And when these billions of people die, He unleashes His wrath upon them and condemns them to hell for acting according to the nature that He built into them. They didn't ask to be born - the God of the universe went out of His way to create them for destruction. To His GLORY. He decreed the Holocaust, starvation, child rape, and drunk drivers. It is all HIS SCRIPT.

Calvinist preachers always say, "The question isn't why anyone should go to hell; it is why God should SAVE anyone." That sounds pious, but it still leaves you with a God who royally screwed up His own creation INTENTIONALLY. And then He curses the vast majority of the sentient beings He brought into existence. He creates His script, He creates the humans, and then He punishes every last one of them for reading His script and acting accordingly to all the villainous roles He decreed. It is sadistic.

If He hates them so much, why did He create them? Is He a masochist as well as a sadist?

But ... He chooses a few to save, says He LOVES them and expects to be worshipped by them.

And if anyone objects to this system, He says, "Who are you, o man, to question Me?"

Contrast all of that with the Father in Jesus' parable of the Prodigal Son, Who reluctantly allows His son to go his own way and then welcomes him home just because he starts walking back toward the Father. The son doesn't even ask for forgiveness and yet the Father forgives him and welcomes him back into the family. The Father gushes, "We have to celebrate because My son was lost but now he is found. He was dead, but now he is alive!"

So much for total depravity.

So much for irresistible grace dragging the son back home.

How does the Calvinistic portrait of God jive with Jesus' portrayal of the prodigal's Father? Can you honestly claim they are one and the same? If Jesus bought into TULIP, he sure told a heck of a misleading parable!