Is Calvinism a form of Gnostic Christianity?

I don't read it that way, and I think you are reading into it something that isn't there in Calvin's mind.These are people who would conceive mischief, their own mischief, their own plans to do mischief except fot the fact that they can't if God doesn't will it. This is their inclination and God's role is to rule it, govern it, shape it, arrange it, to use words in other passages you've quoted. You are reading the idea into it that God puts the very idea into their minds. This is where what he said about the Fall applies: the corruption is in the heart of man; but God either commands its expression or prevents or limits it, rules it, arranges it, makes use of it. Yes I know you want to insist the whole thing comes from Him but I am not reading Calvin that way.But now I'm exhausted thinking about all this stuff.

Here. You are imagining that they might NOT think mischief, but these are fallen creatures. Whatever was the cause of the Fall ultimately, they ARE fallen and once fallen "mischief" is their normal mode of being, as is said in many ways throughout scripture. Related to the principle of Total Depravity no doubt. There is no need to PUT a sinful thought in their minds, those are the thoughts that will simply be there, though they can't really think them or work them out or plan them unless God wills it. Like flight is in the bird and headbutting is in the lamb and spitting is in the camel. But they only do it as God commands it.Something like that.I need sleep.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Well, so far so good. It is Calvin's view that if there was no God, which there is, and if I had free will, which I don't, then I'd think all sorts of naughty things on my own account. But it is also Calvin's view that there is a God, that I don't have free will, and that God decides what I think. "By his providence, not heaven and earth and inanimate creatures only, but also the counsels and wills of men are so governed as to move exactly in the course which he has destined." --- Calvin, InstitutesAnd how else is God to maintain the complete sovereignty that you credit him with --- that you boast of crediting him with? If I can think something that he didn't make me think, then there is one part of the universe which is free and independent, and that one part, of all un-Calvinistic things, the will of a man. In which case, you should be an Arminian.

I know of no Calvinist who actually believe in what Calvin wrote. Mik Faith they weasel the words to mean what they want them to mean. Calvin's writings do not fit well in modern society. It is interesting that right in the USA have atheist ayn rand as their role model not Calvin.

You must be looking in the wrong places. Calvinism has been growing among Christians for a couple of decades now, it could even be called a movement of sorts. You'll find it is the theological system followed by all the Reformed seminaries and even influencing the preaching in churches that didn't start out Calvinist, because despite its difficulties it is the most thorough theology of the Bible out there.There are of course people who say they are only partial Calvinists, believing in one or more but not all five of the TULIP principles, that's pretty standard. Calvinism is hard to grasp unless you really spend time thinking about it and learning the terminology behind it. On first encounter with the TULIP principles people are often simply bewildered because they don't have the theological context that makes sense of those principles. This isn't weaseling, this is always the case with any kind of education, you have to LEARN it.Even after learning them you can be thrown by people who come at you with their own raw system of terminology, that's basically what I'm encountering in this discussion.ABE: After reading Dr. A's latest I'm throwing in the towel at least for a while. This is why I hate getting into these discussions, communication is impossible. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

And here you are, disagreeing with the straight-forward ramifications of Calvin's position. Actually, that's called Cognitive Dissonance... you're finding yourself not believing in the ramifications of something that you think you believe in.

Its kinda like the concept of hell.Its not so bad in passing, but when you get it down on paper and really look at it, its awful and people don't want to talk about it anymore.

It certainly IS odd. Man's nature was also part of creation. God gave the man his nature and called that nature good. Calvin then says that this good, God-given nature was corrupt and that it was this corrupt nature that is the cause of sin. This answer is simply a dodge that goes round and round the issue and doesn't actually address the problem. I don't see how I am misreading this. It is plain and simple. It is you who insists that Calvin is absolutely right and so are forced to manipulate what he clearly says to fit your own notion. Just read what he says.HBD

I think the problem is more that communication is possible. That's why I can quote Calvin at you 'til the cows come home:* The sum of the whole is this,since the will of God is said to be the cause of all things, all the counsels and actions of men must be held to be governed by his providence.* Satan and all the wicked are so under the hand and authority of God, that he directs their malice to whatever end he pleases, and employs their iniquities to execute his Judgments. The modesty of those who are thus alarmed at the appearance of absurdity might perhaps be excused, did they not endeavour to vindicate the justice of God from every semblance of stigma by defending an untruth. It seems absurd that man should be blinded by the will and command of God, and yet be forthwith punished for his blindness. Hence, recourse is had to the evasion that this is done only by the permission, and not also by the will of God. He himself, however, openly declaring that he does this, repudiates the evasion. That men do nothing save at the secret instigation of God, and do not discuss and deliberate on any thing but what he has previously decreed with himself and brings to pass by his secret direction, is proved by numberless clear passages of Scripture.* God was the author of that trial of which Satan and wicked robbers were merely the instruments.* With regard to secret movements, what Solomon says of the heart of a king, that it is turned hither and thither, as God sees meet, certainly applies to the whole human race, and has the same force as if he had said, that whatever we conceive in our minds is directed to its end by the secret inspiration of God. And certainly, did he not work internally in the minds of men, it could not have been properly said, that he takes away the lip from the true, and prudence from the agedtakes away the heart from the princes of the earth, that they wander through devious paths.* But nothing can be clearer than the many passages which declare, that he blinds the minds of men, and smites them with giddiness, intoxicates them with a spirit of stupor, renders them infatuated, and hardens their hearts.* Satan himself performs his part, just as he is impelled [...] Satan is also said to blind the minds of those who believe not (2 Cor. 4:4). But how so, unless that a spirit of error is sent from God himself, making those who refuse to obey the truth to believe a lie?* God not only uses the agency of the wicked, but also governs their counsels and affections.* These things, which men do perversely, are of God, and are ruled by his secret providence* God both directs men’s counsels, and excites their wills, and regulates their efforts as he pleases.* I admit that by the will of God all the sons of Adam fell into that state of wretchedness in which they are now involved; and this is just what I said at the first, that we must always return to the mere pleasure of the divine will, the cause of which is hidden in himself.* The sum of the whole is this,since the will of God is said to be the cause of all things, all the counsels and actions of men must be held to be governed by his providence.

Yes, this is exactly the case. They may actually agree with, in principal, all 5 ideas but they don't take them to the extreme that Calvin does. For those that do, they must justify it by skirting the problems and proclaiming that you simply must believe it without trying to explain it because it is just too difficult to understand... because, well God's ways are not our ways.That's not an answer to the problems of Calvinism.HBD

Now, the only difference between me and Calvin --- so far as this conversation goes --- is that he thinks he is pious in saying this, whereas I think he is unwittingly presenting a reductio ad absurdum of Christianity. He writes: "Whatever we conceive in our minds is directed to its end by the secret inspiration of God". Let us leave aside the genocides and the serial killers for once, and consider this: in that case, every time a teenager conceives of a dirty little fantasy to masturbate over, God thought of it first. Before the foundations of the Earth were laid, before the heavens were spread, God's sublime wisdom and infinite holiness were dedicated to thinking out what little Johnny would think about his hot cousin while he was jerking it. And in his infinite wisdom he came up with a detailed fantasy of anal rape. God thought of it first."Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory."

Brilliant! Yes, I think you hit the nail on the head there. There is something about the very nature of a created being, that exists as a separate entity apart from God that is flawed. One of the main points of the creation story is that creation was not made from the essence of God, or created out of God, but was brought into existence without using pre-existing materials. He brought it all into existence and declared it good - not perfect, not without flaws, but as good. It is this very fact that allows decay, entropy, death, etc.But then you go on to state this: Calvin is not the ultimate authority. Calvin is not infallible.I thought of another analogy to help illustrate this. When we pour a glass of hot water it has a limited amount of heat, there is not an infinite level of heat within that container. If it did have an infinite amount of heat, it would never cool off, it would remain hot. But, since the amount of heat IS limited, it will gradually cool. In order to keep the water in the glass hot, it needs a constant source of heat. You don't input cold to the glass in order to cool it off (even a freezer works by removing heat, not by adding cold), but instead, you simply need to remove the heat source.So because creation was made apart from God and therefore does not have an infinite amount of "good," it begins to "cool off." The creation constantly needs input from God to sustain it. However, mankind has decided that they no longer need God's input and so God begins to withhold his "good." There is no need for God to interject evil into the creation since it naturally tends towards that. Romans 1: 26 - "That's why God abandoned them to degrading lust." Rom 1: 28b "God abandoned them to a defective mind to do inappropriate things."There is no need for God to cause evil in this world. Calvin, however, requires that he does. Calvin is wrong.HBD

You are misreading this as you've been misreading everything all along. You misread the phrase "directed by God to its ends" to mean something entirely different, that God Himself originated the thought, which is not what this is saying. It's saying that the thought is there and God directs it.Throughout you give quotes that speak of God's "governing, ruling, directing, arranging" and so on and misread those to mean God originated what He is governing, ruling, direct and arranging. You have been completely consistent in this misreading.I've argued this in many ways on this thread and you continue in this misreading. God created everything and everything has its nature that God gave it, but once it has that nature it has it, God doesn't recreate the creature every moment. God directed the Fall but once the Fall has taken place human beings are characterized by it, it's in our nature. God doesn't have to put fallen thoughts into our minds, they are there by nature, all God does is govern, rule, direct, allow, disallow, arrange them.God does not reinvent the wheel with every event that occurs, He works on what is already there by nature. Islam is an ideology that seeks to destroy "infidels" and the "Great Satan." God doesn't need to put this idea afresh into the minds of Muslims, nor the various ideas about how to execute such ideas, as in stealing passenger planes and crashing them into icons of "The Great Satan," but this is how you seem to picture what Calvin is saying. Which he couldn't possibly be saying. The ideas are already there, they follow from the nature of the thing, in this case the ideology which is already possessed by Muslims, and God allows or disallows them expression, directs them, rules them arranges them, governs them, all those words you keep quoting but misconstruing.I've done all I can do with this discussion. I'm not a theologian and Calvinism is not a simple system of theology. So there's no point in my continuing the argument. Probably with all my opponents on this thread there is no point in directing you all to better sources either, but there are plenty to be found online that no doubt do a better job of this than I do. I posted a source back on the thread somewhere that I can't find now, but there are plenty of others.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Remember, HBD, that the Bible itself says God created evil. In the sense of calamities, destruction, and that sort of thing. Not sin, it explicitly says that God does not commit sin. But evil in the sense of disasters He does create:Isaiah 45:7: I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.Amos 3:6: ... shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?This is the sort of text that Calvin elaborates that ends up being the core of "Calvinism" that people have so much trouble with. But the one thing Calvin is credited with being by those who study him is a detailed and thorough exegete of the Bible. No, of course he's not infallible, but to dismiss his conclusions just because they don't sound right in the context of how we ordinary nontheologians think of the meaning of God as good and God as love, is just a kneejerk reaction based on emotion. Calvin takes TIME to understand because he is elaborating scriptural principles that we all have trouble with. The Bible has some difficult concepts you know; the Trinity is another one people have trouble grasping. And I can't just dismiss Calvin's thoughts when I know that he is considered by many to be the most able theologian who has ever lived.Yes I liked that idea about the opposition being inherent in the Creation too, but Calvin, who IS smarter than I am and DOES know the Bible better and had training in thinking these things through that I haven't had, said otherwise, was in fact at pains to say the problem couldn't have been in the Creation itself, which God said was good. So I dropped that idea. And now that you bring it up again I see another problem with it: if opposition were somehow inherent in the Creation itself it wouldn't be expressed only by human beings but by all the creatures. The Fall of humanity did bring about huge changes in the Creation, but all of it points back to humanity and not the Creation itself. ABE: And even so, no other creature but mankind is capable of sin, or opposition to God. /ABEYour idea about how it could be inherent in the Creation has similar problems. For one thing if it hadn't been for the Fall I don't think there would be the problem of things losing heat.So I end up seeing Calvin's point, the opposition had to be inherent in the human being himself. And that further suggests to me that the problem could be related to our having been created "in the image of God," which I've thought before. If we're made in the image of God we will have a propensity to think of ourselves as having some of God's attributes that in fact we don't have We do have creative power ourselves, and we do have the ability to originate our own thoughts, but we aren't God, we are just likely to think we are, and the devil played on that propensity in his seduction of Eve. Just as God does everything for His own glory, so in a sense do we who have the image of God in us. But you can't have two deities competing for glory. And clearly we're not equipped with God's omniscience and power, just some of His moral character, which was subject to corruption. So if we continue trying to "be God" we come into conflict with God.Something like that.Something similar happened with Satan too. But God has provided us a salvation from its effects that He didn't provide for Satan. It was Satan who provoked us into his sin too which may be related to the fact that God had mercy on us and not on him.Something like that.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

If God doesn't cause sin, how did he engineer the Fall. Isn't that scripturally due to the sin of Adam ?