Calvinism is the doctrine of reformed churches that came about because of the reformation of the Roman Catholic Doctrine which was believed to have been smothered by the law. Sin was easily forgiven in the Catholic Church, not by grace, but by indulgence wherein sinners could pay for their sins. Note that was not the problem of Christianity, but a Catholic doctrine.
Pardon, for the reformers, was “by
grace alone,” called by theologians the Latin sola gratia. The concept
of sovereignty is paramount in Calvinism as it should be, for only God is Lord
and King.
Soon, the Pope of the Catholic
Church became both lord and king, as the “king of kings” and Pontifex Maximus
of the house of Roman lords. Hence, the Pope is to them the sovereign and was
called “Pontiff” or the “bridge” to somewhere; apparently the mediator to God
instead of Jesus as is written, “For
there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1
Tim 2:5).
Hence, the doctrine that God is
sovereign and His Person, Jesus is Mediator, is of extreme importance to Catholics
and Christianity.
“Sovereignty” means that Jesus is
King and Lord; in fact he is even “King of kings, and Lord of lords” (Rev
19:16), not the Pope as his title and status among kings of the Holy Roman
Empire implied. In other words, the Pope is just a common man with no more
authority than any Christian (1 Pet 2:9). However, this commentary is not to
attack the flaws of Catholicism, but the doctrines of Calvinism which doctrine
is described by the acronym “TULIP”:
·
“T” — Total depravity (all
are spiritually dead since original sin)
·
“U” — Unconditional
election (God selects people based on His own sovereignty and people have no
merit to determine their own fates.)
·
“L” — Limited atonement (The
atoning death of Jesus was not to secure salvation for just anyone, but only a
limited number, the “elect”.)
·
“I” — Irresistible grace (The
elect only receive grace and only they can be saved to the extent that that
grace is irresistible.)
·
“P” — Preservation of the
saints (Those truly chosen will be preserved to the end regardless of their
faith or anything else and it is impossible for them to fall away (apostasia
in the Greek.)
Without going into every point,
the “election” is not truly election but control. God controls who
counts, and whatever is His decision goes, regardless of the plea.
Only God is good. We can agree on
that; can we not? However, is it good to condemn someone to Hell just because he
or she exists?
Under Calvinistic doctrine, God
needs no evidence and would sentence some to Hell and demand others
obtain heaven without regard to anything. The doctrine of “election” would make
God a tyrant on the order of Hitler; He would holocaust the innocent along with
the criminals as mere casualties.
“Limited atonement” would imply
that Paradise has only so much room and without a “room at the inn,” the
Christian is not welcome and would not have a room reserved for him, in
contrast to the good God. Speaking to His disciples, Jesus said:
Let not your heart be troubled: you
believe in God, believe also in Me. In my Father's house are many mansions; if
it were not so, I would have told you; I go to prepare a place for you, and if
I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto
myself that where I am, there you may be also” (John
14:1-3)
His disciples were those who
chose to follow Jesus. He was telling them that there was room for them in His
Father’s House.
Theologians think of that as a
room in Paradise; but remembering that Jesus is the “House” (Bet) of
God, then Jesus was promising that they be “sons of God” in like manner. That “House”
would not be material but the genesis of the Lord God, meaning those who are “born
again” (John 3:7; literally “engendered from above”);
I exhort therefore, that, first of
all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for
all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet
and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty; for this is good and
acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; Who will have all men to be
saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. (1 Tim 2:1-4)
First off, Paul exhorts “all men”
to be godly. Secondly, God accepts all men who follow Him to be saved. God
is not a dictator at all, but the concept of irresistibility makes Him one.
Those who follow Jesus, in the
Calvinistic lexicon, are merely robots going where Jesus goes. They are no more
than modern drones programmed to follow Jesus without any thoughts of their destination.
Why would they need to know since they were merely mindlessly following like an
instinct that God programmed into them. As such, irresistible grace makes
disciples no more than “Stepford Wives” rather than consciously choosing their
grooms.
Many Christians are now turning to
Calvinism because it removes all critical thinking on their own part; it is
just that wherever Jesus went, they would follow. Jesus went into dens of thieves
and inns of sin. Mindless Calvinists would follow Him there as well, but apparently,
they forget that they are not God.
God provided only mankind with
a fragment from Himself as the word “dominion” implies (Gen 1:26), according to
Strong’s (ibid). The “election” was in the beginning before the
foundation of the world as it is written: “According, as He has chosen us in Him
before the foundation of the world; that we should be holy and without blame
before Him in love…” (Ephes 1:4).
So, where should anyone look to see who was elected? To Genesis before the foundation of the world was finished. Before the foundation of the world was finished, God selected Adam’s kind, to wit:
God said, “Let us make man in our Image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth” (Gen 1:26)
God chose man, Adam, to be like
Him. Dominion means a part of Him. Adam (mankind) was part God and part man,
so after sin he was partly depraved, not totally so.
Gone unnoticed because of
translations are the “creeping things.” Those would not have been animals that
crawled at all, but a lower state of anthropoids. (I submit they may have been Neanderthal
and Denisovan men — manlike animals.) [1]
The “creeping thing” in the
Hebrew is remes (רֶמֶשׂ). The letter resh implies a man; the mem blood, waters, or
semen; and the shin fusion. Mem also represents genetics in the
blood. What did God miss in creating creeping things? Nothing; He chose
not to put His Image in them and hence, they were surely lower states of
men. The Sovereign God chose Adam and his kind, not any earlier forms
that looked like men. That was surely the “election” of which Paul wrote, and
it was found before time even began with the advent of sin. Does that not make
sense?
Early man was instinctual like the animals; and it was them who were the
robots, not Adam’s kind. Animal behavior can be predicted because it is in
their nature. Mankind cannot be predicted unless they follow Satan; hence, the
mindless people of modern times who go wherever the mob goes!
The Image of God seems to have conveyed to Adam the Will of God. Adam’s
kind, as was demonstrated by original sin, went wherever they wanted to go
despite the Presence of God. God had not made robots who mindlessly followed.
However, Satan was surely in some early form in a lower state than man, who would
have been mindless animals going wherever nature would take them, just as Cain
demonstrated in his wandering to the Land of Nod.
God did not make automatons; He made humans!
The last commentary was about “quantum entanglement” wherein it was
explained to be “in Christ.”
“Entanglement,” it was said, was following Christ and being like Him.
Now consider the Calvinistic doctrine of Preservation of the Saints.
First off, what might a “saint” be?
David wrote, “The Lord loves judgment, and forsakes not His saints; they
are preserved for ever but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off”
(Psalm 37:28).
The English word “saint” is in Hebrew hasid (חָסִי). Catholics make saints of men, so consider
the “saints” of God. “Saints,” in general, are kind people of God (ibid).
Examine the letters of hasid for the literal meaning; the first letter
chet means separation. The letter samekh coming next means
protected, or preserved, and lastly, the letter yod means work by the hand
of God. Hence a “saint” is a person preserved (made safe) by God. However, safety
and saved are two very different concepts; Christians are kept safe
(preserved) unto the time of salvation.
According to David, wickedness would cut them off (Psalm 37:28). Wickedness
is a gradual thing; a cutting off or falling away (apostasia). That the
wicked shall be cut off implies that before, they had been preserved. Paul
wrote about apostasy:
If they shall fall away (cut off; apostasy), to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the
Son of God afresh and put Him to an open shame. (Heb 6:6)
Apostasy means “to defect.” To defect from requires affection
before. That affection is for both the love of God and man.
Affection for God is love, and hence, the Image of God is the love of God.
Cain seems to have had affection for God because he prepared an offering to Him.
Because he was jealous of Adam and quite unkind, he not only cut Abel off, but
himself as well. Cain defected from God and became a free-range beast
like the early creeping things; becoming an instinctual, half-depraved man on
whom God had mercy and marked him (Gen 4).
Cain had fallen away, but not all the way away, albeit part of him was
depraved and part not.
There is much evidence that God does preserve the saints — those who have
affection for Him. However, preservation is not salvation, and
saints are those who remain kind to God; not the wicked who have turned away.
According to the Psalm, saints are those who remain righteous
to the end. That is for whom there is salvation: “He that shall endure unto the
end, the same shall be saved” (Mat 24:13) and the wicked shall be cutoff
because they are required to follow Jesus all the way to the end.
Those who are dead in Christ are saved first when Jesus comes again (1 Thes
4:16). That is not dead to Christ but those who have not turned wicked
and retain Christ in them. They are quantumly “entangled” but that state can be
dissolved.
So far, the argument has been purely biblical but does Bible match reality;
said to be exposed by science?
An earlier commentary discussed both quantum entanglement and decoherence. Below it is repeated for your convenience:
Quantum entanglement breaks primarily through “decoherence,” which happens when entangled particles interact with their environment (heat, light, other particles, magnetic fields), causing their fragile quantum link to collapse into classical states. The most direct way to force it to "break" is through measurement, which collapses the shared wavefunction, projecting the system into a definite, but now classical, state, destroying the entanglement between them. (Physics Frontier 2025)
That very well describes wickedness; it too is the influence of the world on Christians. Like particles of the cosmos, Christians are “fragments of God: as explained earlier — God is in Christians just as He was all Adam’s glorious kind were meant to be until sin interrupted.
The use of science does not make science pre-eminent to God who is sovereign, but that God seemed to have used science to do all things. Would He not for Re-creation if He did so for the Creation?
The world interfered with the female of Adam’s kind. That was a case of “quantum
decoherence.” Albeit Adam was preserved until the Redeemer came, Cain went his own
way away from God. God branded him like the “animal” he was (Gen 4:15), so that
he would not be killed for meat like any other animal.
He was marked, surely because he was a lower state of man, but still a man.
He was a man with just a particle of God in him but with a particle of Satan as
well. He was not totally depraved but had enough “God” remaining in him that
God preserved him, but after the foundation of the world; although preserved,
Cain vanished to Hell with the flood. Why? Because Cain became the Wicked One
(1 John 3:12).
He had been of God but turned on the part of himself that still had
a fragment of God in him. Within the world, he had lost his affection for God
and did as he willed. Cain was cut off because he fell away from God. That perfectly
describes “decoherence.” Apostasy therefore is decoherence! Apostasy is a quantum
change in states from righteous to wicked.
Much evidence of that exists even in modern times as young children are
preserved by God according to His divine purpose, but then the actions of the
world surround them, makes them incoherent to the Voice of God.
The evidence is that quantum decoherence reinforces the concept of apostasy.
Christians should belief that once saved; always saved, according to
the Bible, but the point of contention is, When are disciples of Christ
actually saved?
Paul elaborated on that as well: “Receiving the end of your faith, even the
salvation of your souls” (1 Pet 1:9). “Safety,” or preservation, is until
salvation, and the souls of Christian saints are saved when faith ends with
either the death or the rapture of Christian saints.
Thereafter, eternal security is promised. When still alive, saints must
watch and pray, “Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a
roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet 5:8). How could you
be cut off by the Devil, if you are alive but already saved? That is
irrational and the belief of mindless people. If you are a Christian, you are
in jeopardy of the machinations of the evil one. God will keep you in a state
of safety, but the Devil may cut you off!
[1]
With that hypothesis, Adam’s woman surely had carnal knowledge with some “thing”
that was not part God, but part Lucifer — a Neanderthal perhaps with Satan in it.
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