If all outcomes are known as the calvinist believes, whats the point?

Question

If we are predestined or not, why minister, why win souls for Christ, why the commandments? Where does 'For god so loved the world... that WHOSOEVER believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life' fit in. Where's the joy in a known outcome. How can a pre-programmed heart possibly compare in sincerity to one that comes of its own free will? I truely would like to know.

Answer 1

Calvin was wrong.

Calvin's TULIP principles... ALL of these are wrong and not supported by scripture. The concept of "limited atonement" is probably is the easiest to fell using the scriptures.

2Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow to keep his promise. He is not slow in the way some people understand it. He is patient with you. He doesn’t want anyone to be destroyed. Instead, he wants all people to turn away from their sins.

1Timothy 2:3 That is good. It pleases God our Savior. 4 He wants everyone to be saved. He wants them to come to know the truth.

Both passages clearly teach that God WANTS everyone to be saved. If that is true, then God would not CHOOSE anyone to be lost. The same passages also debunk "unconditional election" and "irresistible grace" for the same grounds.

On to "total depravity:"
See Ezekiel 18. God does not charge children with their parents' sins.
Ezekiel 18:1 A message came to me from the LORD. He said, 2 “You people have a proverb about the land of Israel. What do you mean by it? It says, “‘The parents eat sour grapes. But the children have a bitter taste in their mouths.’

3 “You will not use that proverb in Israel anymore,” announces the LORD and King. “And that is just as sure as I am alive.

4 Everyone belongs to me. Father and son alike belong to me. People will die because of their own sins. 5 “Suppose a godly man does what is fair and right.
...
19 “But you still ask, ‘Is the son guilty along with his father?’ No! The son did what was fair and right. He was careful to keep all of my rules. So you can be sure he will live.

20 People will die because of their own sins. The son will not be guilty because of what his father did. And the father will not be guilty because of what his son did. The right things a godly person does will be added to his account. The wrong things a sinful person does will be charged against him. 21 “But suppose a sinful person turns away from all of the sins he has committed. And he keeps all my rules. He does what is fair and right. Then you can be sure he will live. He will not die. 22 None of the sins he has committed will be held against him. Because of the godly things he has done, he will live. 23 “When sinful people die, it does not give me any joy,” announces the LORD and King. “But when they turn away from their sins and live, that makes me very happy.

And the last, "perseverance of the saints:"
The simple approach here is to ask who can fall and how they can fall.
Galatians 5:4 Some of you are trying to be made right with God by obeying the law. You have been separated from Christ. You have fallen away from God’s grace.
1Peter 4:17 It is time for people to be judged. It will begin with the family of God. And since it begins with us, what will happen to people who don’t obey God’s good news? 18 Scripture says, “Suppose it is hard for godly people to be saved. Then what will happen to ungodly people and sinners?”
1John 1:7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

Viewed as a whole with a correct understanding, the scriptures do not support Calvin's teachings.

Answer 2

I guess when Jesus commanded us to go out and make disciples of all nations he was telling us to win souls for Christ. I don't believe its that black and white. The fact that God knows the future and the outcome in advance do not mean that he makes the choices for us as is clearly seen from the beginning with Adam and Eve.

There are many mysteries we cannot fully understand until we meet God and I think taking a calvinist view to the extreme could possibly lead to a lack of compassion in the areas you have mentioned as far as ministering etc The bible says that it is not His will than any man perishes and our God is a God of compassion, justice and second chances.

Answer 3

This is the $64,000 question. "whosoever" in your quote above, would seem to deny the Calvinist's position of limited atonement. Christ died for all of humanity, that they might be saved, not just for the elect. Whosover WILL may come. It is a matter of free will. God's grace can be resisted.

Many passages of the Bible can be used to support or refute predestination, and divine exhaustive foreknowledge. Yes, God can take complete control whenever He chooses. But He allows us to choose much of the time. We form our own futures within the confines of God's permissive will.

Just my opinion. We spread the Gospel because Christ told us to in what we often call the "Great Commission" (end of Matthew 28) Maybe Jesus gave us a purposeless task, but I just don't think so.

Answer 4

I'm not a Calvinist or any other type of "ist" but while I believe that outcomes are known, I also believe that we have free will that operates within the limits that God puts around our lives and that we are responsible for the choices we make. So since we are created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God has ordained that we should walk in them, we would be acting in rebellion if we didn't follow the command of Christ to preach the gospel to all nations, baptizing people in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, and teaching them to obey God's commands. God doesn't need a particular person to accomplish his will here on earth, but He chooses to use people and woe unto the Christian who would seek to shirk his duty to our Father.

Answer 5

Calvin was wrong. His goid is a mean and angry goid.

Eph. 1:5 - Paul teaches that God “predestined” us in love to be His sons through Jesus Christ. "Predestination" means that God knows what we will do before we do it (it does not mean that God determines what we do; otherwise, we would have no freewill).

Predestination is taken from the Greek word "prooridzo" which means to know or declare in advance by God’s foreknowledge. See, for example, 1 Peter 1:2 where Peter writes about the “elect according to the foreknowledge of God.”

The terms “predestination” and “the elect” always refer to God’s knowledge (not human knowledge) because God is outside of time (and humans cannot predict the future).

There are two types of "predestination," to grace and to glory. In this verse, Eph. 1:5, Paul is teaching about predestination to grace, which means becoming a Christian.
http://www.scripturecatholic.com/salvation.html#salvation-III
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

"By his incarnation the Son of God has united himself in some fashion with every human being." This saving event reveals to humanity not only the boundless love of God who "so loved the world that he gave his only Son”, but also the incomparable value of every human person.
The Church, faithfully contemplating the mystery of the Redemption, acknowledges this value with ever-new wonder. She feels called to proclaim to the people of all times this "Gospel", the source of invincible hope and true joy for every period of history.

The Gospel of God's love for man, the Gospel of the dignity of the person and the Gospel of life are a single and indivisible Gospel.
*Evangelium vitae
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25031995_evangelium-vitae_en.html

Answer 6

Well nobody knows for sure if this is all just preprogrammed or not right? The idea of predestination is not that you should be depressed about it...it is that you did not have any choice about your parents,,,,and they did not have choice about theirs. No choice about your friends or your school or even your attitude about school and stuff. You pile all those factors on top of your so-called-free-will and pat it down with a spade....what are you left with? You might say ...well I could do ANYTHING I WANT..but you'd be lying to yourself....and you know it. You can only pick one road...and that is your predestined road. If you decide that you are going to jog across america ...like forrest gump...then that is what you were always going to do ... It is no accident that you came to this crisis in life right now....but don't worry...you'll always feel like you have a choice...you're predestined to think like that....or not. (just trying to make you feel better) Things being predestined is not you grinding to a halt....unless that's what you do ...you see??? One thing is for sure ...we are all going to die...eventually. Everything in between is circumstantial........now go and do the dishes!!!

Answer 7

Because God cannot reach them otherwise? While His Spirit is always on the earth if He suddenly spoke to a person they'd get medication so therefore we must reach them for Him. It's our job. Without us doing it no one, predestined or not, would be reached. I mean, how did you learn about God? Someone told you right?

A good outline from a calvinistic church:
http://www.hofcc.org/hofcc-articles/the-essential-reforms-of-hofcc-3.html

(Their belief of calvinism is at the bottom)

Answer 8

Predestination flies in the face of free will. It makes no sense and whoever dreamed it up was living in a fantasy world.

Answer 9

properly you like Jesus via fact of gratitude and His surpassing life and coaching and care. So in case you do besides the fact that purely via fact of punishment or reward you could hardly be mentioned to be solid. Mayve scared or grasping yet not solid. Calvinism grow to be a strike at Catholicism, organic and easy. all the super instructors of Christendom rejected that slop, esp St Robert Bellarmine. "In writing on the Holy Eucharist, Bellarmine defended the actual Presence from the assaults of John Calvin who argued that the actual Presence is mindless. The gist of Calvin's argument is that as quickly as a new child is baptized interior the call of the daddy and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, we don't say that the Holy Trinity is interior the water. In different words, Christ who's God would not would desire to be contemporary interior the Eucharist to furnish us grace, so why concoct a actual Presence to offer grace that Christ can bestow without incredibly being contemporary. Bellarmine refutes Calvin by potential of asserting that if we measured God's goodness by potential of what He has to do, none human beings would exist. Nor did God would desire to grow to be guy. He would have redeemed the international without transforming into to be guy – using potential of an act of the Divine Will. And after transforming into to be Incarnate neither did He would desire to go through and die for our salvation. The least act of Christ's human will would have been sufficient to keep 1000 worlds. Bellarmine mentioned that Calvin's subject grow to be that he did not comprehend how plenty God loves us. If Christ mentioned, "he that eats my flesh and beverages my blood, has life in him" then who's John Calvin to contradict the Son of God?" All i've got ever been waiting to think of charitably of Calvin is that he grow to be unaware that he grow to be being the POPE himself after denouncing the Church. finished loss of self-wisdom interior the guy.

Answer 10

It's not about the destination, it's about the journey. However, you're correct there is no point. This answer was already given before you even asked the question. Thus, the answer you're looking for is already there, you just didn't know the question.