Originally Posted by MikeL
"If it was a law in Geneva to attend church, it can hardly be supposed unique to that city in that time. There were similar laws all over Europe with respect to religious duties and beliefs. This is not to argue that such laws are good. But to attribute to Calvinism some inherent favorability toward force is absurd."

If? It sounds like you don't know for sure. Similar laws? Please let me know which cities and which Protestant leaders you are referring to.

The Roman Church levied taxes across Europe for the support of her priesthood & other ecclesiastical institutions. Many Protestants in Catholic domains were persecuted to the point of death. Or look at the treatment the Anabaptists received in Zwingli's Zurich or in any number of Lutheran states. Look up "crypto-Calvinism" & see how the Lutherans would treat the Calvinists. You might also consider the causes of the Thirty Years' War. Religious toleration was not widely practiced until after the Reformation, and it would be another 100 years or so before the concept of a separation between church & state become a widespread idea. The civil enforcement of religious law was not unique to Geneva.

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I never realized this before, but I now see a very strong link between Calvin, Marx, and Freud...possibly Darwin, too. They all wanted to blame their lives on something else. Calvin's "nature" is Freud's "unconscious" is Marx's "ideology" based on "class structure", which is like Darwin's "environmental constraints."

Each philosophy attempts to bind man. The Bible says we should beware we are not taken captive by hollow philosophies.

You are quite mixed up. Our sinful nature does not absolve us of guilt, but rather establishes our guilt before God. And have you ever read Calvin? The idea that Calvin was trying to "blame his life on something else"! The way you so insolently & ignorantly babble on about him should embarrass you.

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"Yes. Your mind is set on the things of man rather than the things of God - at least in this particular matter."

And what if I say your mind is set on things of one man, Calvin? How do we argue these things, if our arguments are said to spring from this unconscious "nature" you have somehow been able to detect from simply books?

Oh, if you were able to rise above the situation and detect your (now previous I presume) nature, you'd say it was due to God's sovereign will.

To which I respond: your nature made you say that. And I think your nature is focused on the things of man, especially John Calvin.

Do you see how this regress into nature destroys thought?


All I see is that you have an unthinking devotion to your so-called "free will" & ignorant disgust of Calvin and the scriptural doctrines which he championed. The idea that you are not in ultimate control of your destiny seems to trouble you. Why is that? But if you want to know how we shall resolve this dispute, let us make recourse Scripture, and not your vain philosophical objections to Calvinism on the supposed grounds of a predilection to force, a desire to pass the buck, or mental ineptitude.

Last edited by CovenantInBlood; Sun Oct 18, 2009 2:21 PM.
Kyle

I tell you, this man went down to his house justified.