One of those Calvinism debates, this time in the comment section of Mark Shea's blog. It started when I commented in one of Mark's posts making fun of James White. I mentioned that I like James White, and ultimately I was asked by one of Mark's readers:
Does God Love me?
Now in reality, witnessing never begins this way, but I was being baited, which of course I knew. If I said yes, then the line of questioning will go down the path of "well then I can be sure to be of the elect, right?" (Actually, I would agree with that conclusion.) Anyway, though I knew from painful experience what would happen, I gave my honest answer to the question:
I don't know.
I added that, if you believe in Him you will be saved, but that was lost. Immediately everyone zeroed in on the fact that I don't believe the Bible teaches that God loves everyone. (He exhibits a benevolence to all, which you might call love if you choose to, but clearly not the same kind of love toward all, and scripture does say He hates certain people or types of people, so I don't why it pushes so many buttons to say He doesn't love everyone.)
That then resulted in this post, and the fight took off.
If you like this sort of thing, enjoy. The only thing missing in this round is my friend garver hasn't joined in apologizing and explaining how I represent the crazy-aunt-in -the-attic lunatic fringe of the Reformed, Karl hasn't called me a heretic, Wayne hasn't said I am no better than the god-hates-fags nazis, and Josh S. hasn't labeled me a crack head!
No comments:
Post a Comment