CALVINISM IS NOT GNOSTICISM IN (CHECKS LIST)… 0 OUT OF 6 CRITERIA

So someone who shall not be named objected to the comparison of Calvinism with Gnosticism, and to prove his case he posted a list of what Gnosticism teaches – refer image:

However as a nonCalvinist member immediately pointed out:

literally 5 out of 6 matches with Calvinism.

1. Total depravity

2. Only Calvinists know/accept the hard truth of determinism

3. God is so beyond any creation, that even the anthropomorphism can’t truly convey God to us.

5. Pre-creation uncondition election and Regeneration precedes faith.

6. Jesus came only to reveal about and fulfil predetermination of how the elect will be saved.

Good job.

With the belated addition of a match on point 4:

4. The goddess of free will that Calvinists accuse everyone else of worshiping, which ironically only came into existence because of Calvinism.

THREE ‘IN-BETWEEN’ VIEWS IN IMAGE FORMAT

I’ve covered each of these in other lengthier posts.

I don’t know why I lean towards these sort of ‘hybrid’ views. I mean, it’s been said that Molinism is already kind of an in-between of Calvinism and Open Theism.

Maybe it’s because it easily accomodates both ends of the prooftext spectrum, or because much of ‘orthodox’ Christian belief is already both/and (Trinity, Incarnation, Now/Coming Kingdom, etc).

And I’ll throw in one more to boot, Provisionism which I find to be just an -ism way to describe the basic Gospel message. Although the COFFEE acronym works well enough too IMHO!

OPENING LYDIA’S HEART – FOUR ALTERNATIVES TO BEING A PROOFTEXT FOR IRRESISTIBLE GRACE

One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. – Acts 16:14

1) She was already a worshiper of God before hearing Paul, did God irresistibly change her heart to flesh earlier too? And if so, why need to affect her heart again when Paul comes along?

2) Why is it when it comes to the Bible and God, suddenly everything must be woodenly literal? If I say “That rude driver made me angry” do you assume that motorist used their psychic powers to control my emotions? It’s perfectly reasonable to understand it as God opened Lydia’s heart through the gracious offer of salvation as communicated via Paul.

3) Even if God worked directly & miraculously on Lydia’s heart, why assume it was irresistibly? It could be resistible as per the Ambulatory model, God wants to draw all people without exception but only saves those who don’t actively resist and fight against the rescue (as seen in Matt 23:37, Luke 7:30, Acts 7:51, Rom 10:21, Heb 3:7-8, Eze 33:11… and as compared to Paul’s non-resistance in Acts 26:19).

4) And even if God directly worked IRRESISTIBLY on Lydia’s heart, be wary of Faulty Generalisation – does this then conclude that God works that way on every single convert ever? Why mention this specific incidence if this is how God irresistibly graces people all the time?

WHY DOESN’T GOD STEP IN TO STOP EVIL, TO JUST DISALLOW IT?

A question that’s been raised before, in a free will universe where God hates evil, why doesn’t God step in to stop it?

Well, where should God draw the line? At only the biggest, most horrific evils like the Holocaust? Then the objection would still stand on lesser but still quite big evils.

If God stops big evils too, then what about slightly lesser evils? And thus is becomes subjective to each person what counts as ‘big enough an evil that God should / shouldn’t disallow’. Who gets to decide?

And then the point will be reached where God stops ALL evil… And we’ve basically reached a fully deterministic universe where God steps in to disallow free will decisions to cause evil all the time.

(And which leads to the objection against the existence of evil under a fully deterministic universe, it should not exist since God can just MAKE everyone behave perfectly all the time.)

Hence looping back all the way to the start, if we don’t want to start on the slippery slope of God disallowing evil which concludes in God abrogating all free will, then we have God necessarily not stopping evil (NB: except in certain specific cases as we see described in the Bible, which are exceptions and not the norm).

MY FUTURE KNOWLEDGE OF A SPORTING EVENT – Thought Experiment

Say that someone records footage of a live boxing match taking place on the night of 10-Jan. They then send the video over to me.

A) Now imagine that a weird anomaly in spacetime occurred and the video was sent to me 1 week in the past, to 4-Jan. I watch the video and am curious that the date of the event seems to be almost week in the future. However I dismiss it as a typo and don’t do anything more. A week after watching the video, on 11-Jan I open the news and am astounded to discover that the actual match just took place the night before, 10-Jan! Now even though I watched the entire match and knew the outcome a week before the actual events, were the choices and actions of the two fighters freely or unfreely made?

B) Continuing on from that, someone records a live MMA match on 28-Feb and emails the video to me and the time anomaly occurs again. On 21-Feb I receive the video and notice that once again, the date shown seems to be in the future. What’s more, the challenger is someone I know – say, Tim Stratton making a return to the ring! If I told him the outcome where his attempted fancy high kick gets him caught in an ankle lock and he is forced to tap out, he could avoid doing that and I thereby change the future. BUT I CHOOSE NOT TO REVEAL THIS KNOWLEDGE TO ANYONE. Tim loses the match, but did he and his opponent freely or unfreely make their choices just because I knew their future?

C) But what if I DID show Tim the video of what will happen and he totally believes it shows his future? Whether he subsequently chooses to avoid or peruse high kicks, did he freely or unfreely make those choices despite being forewarned?

Now use these examples and slot in God instead of me. Say that God knows the future outcome of every choice and event. If God does not interfere (scenario B), are everyone’s choices freely or unfreely made? Is the future open, or closed as far as we humans are concerned?

But what if God does use His future knowledge to intervene (scenario C), as we see in several examples such as Keilah, Hezekiah’s illness, Jonah’s doomsaying to Nineveh? Are their responses and choices freely or unfreely made? Is the future open or closed?

And how about that ‘God outside of time’ view, where say God just let’s all of history run and looks onto it from above/outside spacetime, almost like after the fact. This is comparable to scenario A. Were all the choices in history freely or unfreely made?

These are my ponderings, now you can give your views.

AMBULATORY MODEL + CONDITIONAL SECURITY

Both are consistent together.

The second is basically just part of the first, the first being a looooong ambulance ride lasting till the day we physically die.

Just keep on not resisting God’s 100% saving work, whether at the initial stage or anytime onwards, and we’ll be saved.

THE BARBIE MOVIE – SUBVERSIVE PROPAGANDA AIMED AT CORRUPTING YOUR KIDS

It’s advertised as a family friendly harmless outing, like Super Mario was. But the actual film goes out of its way to depict all men as horribly as possible. It has kid-unfriendly jokes and innuendo.

It is divisive and vindictive on purpose when it could easily have maintained an innocent, conciliatory stance. If the target for bashing had been say, Black or Muslim people, this show would be excoriated and forced to grovel for forgiveness.

The plot summary by reviewers was so ridiculous and stereotypical, I wasn’t sure if they were describing the actual show or some extreme Poe’s Law parody in the style of Babylon Bee.

Avoid. Don’t let your daughters be poisoned by this subversive indoctrination. Remember that the corporate world, Hollywoke included, wants lots of single income earners who have empty lives of loneliness which they fill with products sold by the corporations.

Pic very, very related.

References:

The Woke Critic

The Critical Drinker

Endymion

Jesse Grant

Brittany Sellner

Becket Cook

Vex Lectronica

Jeremy Jahns

WorldClassBullsh*tters

Disparu

Alteori

Reaper

Archcast

Bonebridger

The Movie Cynic

AngryJoeShow

Chris Stuckmann

Dan Murrell (who makes a comparison to what if Super Mario suddenly had the message that koopa unionization was how to save the day)

Mediaholic

When the Memers Use 100% of Their Humour

This is amazing. Someone posted that dumb old meme to Sot101 Discussion:

And multiple comments dunked on it with their own countermemes:

And of course, my own from more than a month ago:

INDIANA JONES AND THE DISLIKE OF DECONSTRUCTION

I’m subscribed to 10+ film review channels and so far every one of them – men and women and future rulers from the center of the Earth – is massively excoriating and mocking Indiana Jones 5 for its nonsensical plot, bad action sequences, refusal to just give fans what they want, and of course yet another murder of a beloved action star on the altar of yet another Kathleen Kennedy self-insert British Brunette Mary Sue who is so much better than George Lucas… whoops, I mean, the old has-been hero she replaces. Noted by many that poor Harrison Ford now has had this done to his legacy character TWICE by Kathleen!

The Critical Drinker and everyone else on Critical Drinker After Hours

It’s A Gundam

Nerdrotic

Nerdword

Jesse Grant

Reaper

The Bonebridger

ENDYMIONtv

Red Letter Media

Vex Electronica

Knights Watch

TheQuartering

Jeremy Jahns

The Athletic Hero

FilmComicsExplained

Overlord DVD #DoomcockWasRight

More to be added as they get round to suffering through the film so that we don’t have to. Just like The Little Mermaid 2023, I’m getting far more hours of entertainment from YouTubers dunking on the show than the actual length of the show itself!