re: Pope, we must avoid rigid ideologies

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TULIP cannot possible be clearly revealed in the Holy Bible. If it were possible, then all of the Protestant sects would believe in TULIP.

They would all believe it because the perspicuity and clarity of the Bible itself would be revealed to all Bible believing Protestants who asked the Holy Spirit to interpret Scripture for them.

But only the Calvinists believe TULIP and only a minority of Protestants are Calvinists

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Seems like you don't understand how that works. The perspicuity of Scripture doesn't mean that the Bible is equally clear in all respects.

I'll quote the Westminster Confession of Faith on this matter:

All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them. (WCF 1.7)

With that said, the doctrines of grace are clearly revealed in Scripture as they are revealed throughout all of Scripture. The entire Bible is saturated with the teachings that once you see it, you can't unsee it. From the fall of man to the flood to the hardness of Pharoah and the people of Israel to Prophets to Christ's teaching in the gospels to the epistles of the Apostles, the depravity and inability of man go come to God on his own is clearly revealed. God is sovereign over the hearts and wills of mankind. Same for every doctrine that logically follows from that.

What I believe keeps so many Christians from seeing and believing these doctrines in action is the sinfulness of the heart that desires to contribute something to our own salvation. That desire is why every other religion in the world has a works-based righteousness that earns salvation. It's also why so many Christians desire to exercise their "free will" to come to God on their own.

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The Pope is evil. Catholism is the Great Whore of Revelations.
Many will be lost following the evilness of the Catholic Church.

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Fancies himself a biblical scholar. Gets the name of the book wrong. I love you people.

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True, but that's not the Catholic position. We must be given grace in order to come to faith.

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And again, you believe that God gives grace to everyone in order to make it possible for them to believe, yet not enough grace so that everyone does actually believe. It's that middle place of everyone having the ability in themselves to obey and believe perfectly without God (Pelagianism) and God effectually calling and regenerating sinners so they are both able and willing to obey and believe (Calvinism). Catholics and some Arminians insert the unbiblical doctrine of prevenient grace to navigate those two logical conclusions.

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You're arguing that (1) grace is irresistible and cannot be rejected, (2) that not everyone will be saved, and therefore (3) not everyone is given grace. This goes against Scripture. God wills for everyone to come to a saving knowledge of the truth, but man's will doesn't always align with what God wants for us.

...Matthew 23:37

The entirety of Calvinism hinges on presuppositions.

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All theological frameworks "hinge" on presuppositions, yours included. My presuppositions are based on the holiness of God, the sinfulness of man, and the need for a savior to do what man cannot do for himself for the glory of God.

My arguments do not go against Scripture. God has two wills, a secret will of decree and a revealed will of desire as expressed in His word and law. God did not desire to have His only son be tortured, ridiculed, and killed in a horrible death, but He did desire that to happen in order to save His people. Is that a contradiction? No, because God decrees things that He doesn't want in and of themselves to accomplish the things that He does want in and of themselves, like His own glory. We see this clearly even in passages that you later cite like 1 Tim. 2:4, where God expressly desires (wills) something that doesn't come to pass. If God is sovereign over all things (including the wills of man), then He must desire something that He doesn't actually bring about (salvation for all people). So the two wills of God are inescapable in the Scriptures, so the question is how to best tie them together. Calvinism does this in a way that preserves the freedom of God's will over man's and gives God the most glory.

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This is false. The younger Augustine did hold to a more deterministic outlook due to his views on man's fallen nature contrasted with divine grace. This is seen in his work "Confessions".

The older Augustine took a more nuanced approach in showing that grace and free will do co-exist, as seen in "On Grace and Free Will". Neither of these works denied human free will though.

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You're wrong about this. Augustine's defense of free will occurred earlier in his Christian life as a defense against Manichaeanism, since he converted to Christianity from that religion. Later in life, he shifted his focus to arguing against the Pelagians, who taught the completely free will of man. Augustine argued against that by teaching that God gives grace that results in faith. There's a reason why Calvin and many of the Calvinist Reformers saw Augustine as a major influence in their views of grace, and they were not ignorant of his beliefs/teachings throughout his life (both early and later).

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This is literally not found in any of the Genesis passages, or any of the NT passages which speak of Abraham and his justification. It literally says he left his home and followed God by faith, which prots would say justifies, was justified again when he believed God's promise of fathering a nation, and according to James, was justified again when he offered his son Isaac.

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This is the very interpretation of James. James used Abraham as an example of how works proved faith. Hebrews 11 combines Paul and James together, showing that it was by faith that Abraham did the good works of obedience. When Abraham was willing to sacrifice his only son, he proved his faith that he already had. Abraham proved his faith to God, but also to Isaac, his servants, and his progeny as the story was recounted by Moses to Israel and even to Christians unto this very day.

Abraham was justified in God's sight by his faith, and he proved his faith through works. That's what James was talking about, how some claim to be Christians by a profession alone but then do works that are contrary to that profession, and yet we are supposed to "prove" our faith by our works. Jesus talked about this in regards to good trees bearing good fruit. The fruit isn't what makes the true good, but the good tree is what brings about good fruit.

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Again, you're starting with a presupposition that Justification is a one-time event. Paul is simply saying that Abraham was justified prior to circumcision, by faith, not by the works of the law itself (circumcision). He is not saying this was the only time Abraham was justified. You're reading that into the text. He's simply highlighting how justification was applied to Abraham for this one moment in the greater process.

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It's not a presupposition but the logical connection of the Scriptures that teach it. The point Paul was getting at was that man is not justified by works but by faith. He didn't say faith and works, but contrasted justification by works with justification by faith. He was very clear about that.

Justification as a legal declaration of righteous standing before God is certainly taught as a one-time event; it's a declaration that our sins are pardoned and forgiven. Rom. 5:8-11 teaches the past justification and reconciliation of current believers in an ongoing sense. 1 Tim. 2:5-6 speaks of Christ's ransoming in a singular and particular extent. Rom. 3:23-26 speaks of Christ's justification of those who have faith in Him, with justification being a past and present reality to his audience, not something that has to be renewed or reattained by works apart from grace.

The context of Scripture shows that justification is God's gracious declaration of pardon for sin for those who believe.

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As regards the rest of your post, total depravity suggests that humans are completely corrupted by sin, rendering them incapable of choosing God or doing anything good apart from divine intervention. So, man is only capable of mortally sinning.

Humans are not entirely devoid of goodness or the ability to make morally upright choices. The presence of sin in man is a reality that I can't deny, but God gave humans moral conscience, empathy, and altruism. These prove that humans are not utterly corrupt.

I would also argue that being created in the image of God implies an inherent goodness or divine reflection in humanity. While this image may be marred by sin, it is not completely eradicated, so the possibility of choosing good still exists in humans.

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You seem to be speaking out of both sides of your mouth here. Yes, we are made in God's image but that image is marred and broken. That's precisely the point of total depravity in that Adam did have a completely free will to choose good and evil and his fall made it so that mankind can no longer choose good apart from God's grace. That's what being "born again" is all about.

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Another presupposition. You're assuming God doesn't give some manner of grace to everyone, because not everyone is going to Heaven, which somehow thwarts the creature of God if we're able to reject Him. It doesn't.

God desires that all sinners be saved

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In this case, if something is going to be asserted (prevenient grace), the onus is on those making the assertion to provide positive evidence for it. I don't see that in the Bible.

God does desire that all men be saved in some sense, yet He also does not save everyone. This was mentioned about by the two wills of God.

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Roman Catholic church of today would be unrecognizable to the early church.

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This is an absolute lie.

The articles make it clear that you are absolutely wrong.

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This is an absolute lie.

The articles make it clear that you are absolutely wrong.

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Saying I'm lying doesn't make it so.

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Pope, we must avoid rigid ideologies
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Roman Catholic church of today would be unrecognizable to the early church.


This is an absolute lie.

The articles make it clear that you are absolutely wrong.

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Tell us you've never actually read the New Testament without actually saying it.

For starters, there is not one example of an infant being baptized in the New Testament. Not. One.

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The early church referred to itself as "the church" and "the catholic church" in opposition to the Gnostics and others who perverted the true faith.

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#5. This is the 5th time you have supported with your own words evidence that the RCC is the same now as it was from the very beginning.

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The Roman Catholic church of today would be unrecognizable to the early church.

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Anyone who believes this but is willing to follow the facts can research for themselves.
Read : “Eusebius, The History of The Church”. Penguin Classics Barnes and Noble.
Written in the year 330.
Eusebius is recognized as the Father of ecclesiastical history.
He was born in Palestine and educated in Cesaria.
This is the book that settled the argument for me about which Christian Faith tradition was the true church that Christ founded.

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For starters, there is not one example of an infant being baptized in the New Testament. Not. One.

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not one?

Acts 16:15

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After she and her household had been baptized, she offered us an invitation, “If you consider me a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my home,” and she prevailed on us.

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They baptized households could have included infants, or at-least children

Acts 16:31

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And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you and your household will be saved.”

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again the household was saved.

Acts 18:8

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Crispus,* the synagogue official,d came to believe in the Lord along with his entire household, and many of the Corinthians who heard believed and were baptized.

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I could go on.

The evidence from scripture that households were baptized points to the possibility that children too were baptized, even if they couldn't profess their own faith in Jesus, because they had yet to reach the age of reason as we call it now.

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#5. This is the 5th time you have supported with your own words evidence that the RCC is the same now as it was from the very beginning.

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I think you misunderstood me (again?), as my point was that the terminology used by the early church was in contrast to heretical groups, not as a means to identify the church as “Roman Catholic”. Such a term would have had no meaning early on as there were bishops in several places other than Rome that had authority that did not require the approval of the Roman bishop. The bishop of Rome as having supreme authority didn’t develop for a few hundred years. Paul established churches that had elders/bishops (same thing) ruling locally and the Jerusalem Coucil in Acts 15 showed an example of the Presbyterian government that was initially put in place. Things changed quickly after that, with certain bishops having more authority and then one bishop having the primacy.

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Anyone who believes this but is willing to follow the facts can research for themselves.
Read : “Eusebius, The History of The Church

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Yes it is a very good history. What you are failing to do is connect the church that the Apostles founded to the modern day Church of Rome as a lot of changes and dogmas have happened since even Eusebius in the 4th century.

When a church apostates, their lamp stand is removed.

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so he desires that all be saved but he predestines some to hell, meaning that not all are saved?

How is that not a contradiction?

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It is not a contradiction in the same way that God did not want His only son to suffer and die while at the same time sending Him for that very purpose. God has a will of desire yet also a will of decree. He doesn’t rejoice in the destruction of the wicked (Ez 33:11) while He is the one destroying them (Ez 5:15-17).

God has a general love for mankind exhibited by His common grace but a special, saving love for His chosen people. He punishes the wicked to show mercy to His people.

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Good, so you believe in free will?

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Not as you do, it seems. Man has the freedom to choose according to the desires of his will, but his desires are contrary to God without being born again. His will is in bondage to sin and must be liberated by the work of the Spirit. That only occurs during regeneration.

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Romans 8:29-30 teaches that God preordains damnation and salvation?

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Yes. It is a chain of causality starting from those whom God foreloved being chosen to salvation, brought to salvation, and then preserved for glory.

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How exactly does this logically flow? How can God desire that none should perish, yet ordain that some perish?

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I already answered this. God has a revealed will and a will of decree. God ordains things for our good and His glory that include pain, suffering, and death, including for the Son that He loves.