That being said, let me introduce Point 1: Total Depravity.
Taken from www.Reformed.org...
The unregenerate (unsaved) man is dead in his sins (Romans 5:12). Without the power of the Holy Spirit, the natural man is blind and deaf to the message of the gospel (Mark 4:11). This is why Total Depravity has also been called "Total Inability." The man without a knowledge of God will never come to this knowledge without God's making him alive through Christ (Ephesians 1:2-5).Basically this doctrine teaches that man is so wicked, so thoroughly depraved, that were the Gospel to be presented to him clearly and intelligently, his depraved mind would be unable to comprehend it, and thus would be utterly unable to be saved. The caveat is (in Calvinistic thinking), that the only way, then, to be saved is to hear the gospel while simultaneously receiving divine revelation from God as to it's meaning. Only with this intervention of Divine wisdom can any person truly hear, understand and accept the gospel message and be saved. Conversely, without this revelation from God, one will never understand the gospel message, and thus never be saved.
What makes this doctrine difficult to utterly reject, is that there are strands of truth running through it. After Peter made his famous confession, "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God," Jesus immediately responded with, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven" (Matt. 16:13-17). Clearly, Jesus connected Peter's confession with revelation from God. The simple truth is that revelation from God is necessary for us to acknowledge Christ's identity. Another passage says, "...no one can say, 'Jesus is Lord,' except by the Holy Spirit" (1Cor. 12:3).
Here is the problem. Calvinism insists that what man needs is an immediate revelation from God at the time that the individual hears the Gospel. The concept that is far more consistent with scripture is that Christ's teachings, example of life, and sacrificial and atoning death are themselves God's revelation to man. We don't need some sort of supernatural and immediate revelation from God to embrace the message of Christ's atoning death, we just need to hear the message and believe it.
In Romans 10, Paul talks about the Christian's duty to preach the gospel because, "Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But how can they call on Him in whom they have not believed, and how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard, and how can they hear without a preacher?" According to this verse the only thing necessary for salvation is to believe in the message preached, not an immediate, direct revelation from God.
Conclusion: though our minds may be depraved, and though revelation may be necessary in order to believe the gospel and be saved, that revelation has already been given and is available to all who will believe.
Practical application: everything God has revealed is yours. You don't need some fantastical revelatory experience in order to own it. God has already given it. Furthermore, everyone of your friends, family members, loved ones, acquaintances can be saved if they hear the truth and believe. Shouldn't you be telling them the truth?
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2 comments:
I'm hoping I can be helpful here (rather than argumentative or confrontational). I think you missed something about the basic concept of "Total Depravity". It isn't a "divine revelation from God as to it's meaning" that is needed. No one doubts that the Gospel is readily available and essentially understandable. The problem is "dead in sin" (Eph. 2:1). The problem is "hostile to God" (Rom. 8:7). The problem, as Paul puts it, is this: "The Natural Man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. 2:14).
It's not an inability to mentally grasp the truth. It is a problem of being spiritually dead, intrinsically an enemy of God, and, being spiritually dead, an inability to grasp spiritual things. The "fix" is not some divine revelation, but spiritual life.
I hope that was helpful for your understanding of "Calvinism".
Yeah and if you wanna challenge a doctrine of Calvinism you should start elsewhere, like irrisitable grace or Limited Atonement- even some Arminians hold this doctrine. Saying that man doesnt need divine intervention to respond to God puts you in the pelagian camp which says man has the ability to respond to God in and of himself. Perhaps you need to rethink your definition of Sin to understand its effects? After you've done that and have read Jonothan Edwards' Freedom of the will - come back and talk about Total Depravity.
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