Predestination, timetravel, and werewolves

[Kessie]

Firestorm: That's a good point. That's the fun of a Wonderful Life scenario, because one life touches so many others, for better or for worse.

[newburydave]

Hmmm, I'd be really careful about the alternative timeline thing Kessie. That whole Metaphysical thread as it's written today (the modern canonical multiverse paradigm) is based on the philosophical position that mechanistic cause and effect is the god of existence. (My degree is in Philosophy, so this is an area I've thought about a lot.)

That plot device about a person being saved in one timeline and not another is another gnarly thing. Consider that Peter tells us in the last chapter of 2nd Peter that Time is God's forbearance (patience) waiting for a soul to come to repentance and Faith. Thus Time (Chronos) is the collective "Space" that God has given each human to come to Him or be lost. Since Heaven is the Transcendent "place where He dwells" "in whom we live and move and have our being". I would conclude that since dimensionality is part of created space, then Heaven must be outside of, Transcendent to, dimensionality. How would you reconcile the same person being both saved and lost in any kind of ultimate way.

Especially since Redemption is God's chosen work, it trumps everything else. One redeemed soul is worth more to God that the whole universe. Also consider that Salvation is "The life of God (Transcendent and Eternal) in the Soul of Man." I'm sure you will find a way to harmonize this in the story, but please think carefully. Historically, heresy (things that divide the church) usually grows from plausible Speculation.



I'd also think very carefully about presenting the conflict between the theological Deterministic Predestination and the theological Radical Free grace as any kind of intellectual debate on the merits of the Theological positions. Theology is always three or four steps removed from experiential truth and in the Bible the word for know/Knowledge always means "to experience".

ie. We believe because somehow Jesus "Met" us in our selfish paths of sin. We experienced His healing/redeeming love and that changed us. Therefore we have come to "know" God and his Son.



When I read my first theology book in Bible School my gag reflex kicked in. I'd spent five years learning the tools and processes of rigorous Philosophical inquiry. As I told my wife, "This theology is just very poorly done Philosophy about God." (It had none of the rigor and logical development I was used to in secular (godless) Philosophy.) She replied, "God is the most interesting person in the universe, Theology makes Him dull and uninteresting."

After 41 years of studying the major theologies from the standpoint of a pastor and preacher caring for souls I'm convinced that, though the major Theologies contain truth, ultimately all schools of Theology are false as a reliable, comprehensive systematization of truth. They are all the attempt of depraved human reason to categorize and "predict" God.

I say they are all false because each and every one reasons itself around to some position/dogma that it ends up contradicting or ignoring the plain sense of some scripture. IMHO if we honestly look at our human capabilities we will have to confess that we cannot rationalize the practical revelations of a wholly Trancendent God in terms of our own propositional logic. All we can do is take notes at his mouth and hope we got the important parts right. (Thank God we're saved by Faith and His grace, not by knowledge.)

After assisting in the new birth (midwifery) of numbers of souls I've come to believe that the three dominant threads which manifest themselves in God's relationship to man are His inconceivable Love and Desire for us, His burning hunger to redeem us to Himself as His own Bride and His determination that our love for Him must be our own free choice without duress or compulsion. I can't categorize things any finer than that; except in the plain literal words of Scripture.

Were I trying to write this story I'd try to stay as close to the practical words of scripture as possible and avoid the intellectual arrogance of Theological "reasoning" to resolve my characters conflicts.

When I was a pastor I was about to counsel someone according to my Theological perspective and the Lord stopped me cold. He told me, "Don't you dare give anyone a theological answer to a practical question of faith, morals or practice! My Word is the only truth that has life in itself to give life. If you can't give them an answer from scripture, keep your mouth shut."

(My theological perspective at that time was the one which I felt, after much study, harmonized the greatest percentage of Scripture out of all of the major systems of systematic theology. Later on He showed me places where my theology had me saying things that contradicted what He said in His word. I'd already found the flaws in the other theologies out there so I had to take a long hard look at the true nature and proper role of theology itself.)

*************************

This being said, I think I can empathize very strongly with your characters plight on a very personal level. My people (Welsh Celts) seem to be born with a unique sense of the spiritual world, much more than most other tribes of man. (To quote one Christian Bard of my lineage, "The veil is very thin for us to the other world.") I suspect we are not the only ones with this predelection.

I've been aware of movings in the spiritual world since I was a child. I never understood what it was till I met Jesus; it was just an extension of the natural world that I somehow could sense. It made me different and you know how kids treat different.

That spiritual sight doesn't ensure we all serve God. Rather it seems to heighten our potential in anything involving spiritual sensitivity. We are known for our immortal drunkards, sensualists, powerful witches and warlocks, fearless warriors and great orators, poets, play writes, actors, preachers, seers (in the old biblical sense) and Saints (people wholly devoted to God and His causes). (Well, not to the English. I fear that most of them still hold Celts as an inferior race.)

The sensitivity is another part of the personal weapons of our soul which supercharge us to work for good or evil. God gave me an actual vision of Heaven right after He saved me from my death in sin and that has kept me pulling in His direction for 41 years of the hottest fires of spiritual battle that I could have ever imagined.

When I needed assurance on what I thought was my dying bed he took me to Heaven for another glimpse then sent me back. (It's not like what the popular press says. It is like what Paul said it was in the Bible; and he's right it can't be described by human thought or language.)

Before my adoption into God's kingdom/family I had great insights into how to practice sin and evil to my advantage.

Therefore, IMHO Spiritual Sight/Power/Giftedness is not in itself evil, it is another natural gift. What makes it good or evil is which God/god it serves to exalt and whether it establishes God's Righteousness in those who are touched by it or whether it confirms/comforts them in fleshly selfishness and rejection of God's authority and rule.

The Prophet Samuel did nothing more than the Witch of Endor did. They both channeled the Spirit of their sovereign Lords. True Prophets channel God's spirit to create righteousness. Witches and False Prophets channel a demon spirit, usually Baal, to establish selfishness, wantonness and rebellion against God. (Some of them channel their own Carnal pride I fear, but the results are the same.)

Just a few thoughts off the top of an old preacher's head.

Bear His Flame; Be the Light!
Write on Sis

SGD
dave

[Kessie]

Great thoughts, Dave! I'm glad you dropped by to contribute your 2 bucks. (It used to be two cents, but with inflation and all ...)

Anyway, I've been eavesdropping on the theological debates going on. I've decided I'm not smart enough to understand theology. But I can search the scriptures to see if these things be true. I've been studying through the Amplified, and I've found answers that satisfy all my theological questioning.

(Did Israel forfeit the promises and the Church is now in place of Israel? Explained in Ephesians 2. Is Hell forever? In light of the passages about the sheep and the goats, and the return of Christ, and the zillion parables about people being cast into outer darkness, I don't find any mention of anyone coming back from Hell. Only Jesus did that, and He's God.)

As for the debate about time travel, alternate timelines, predestination and freewill, well, there's this video about how ten dimensions actually work.

youtu.be/JkxieS-6WuA

It's long, and by the end your brain will be cramping. But as far as measurable science goes, this is how the universe works. Multiple dimensions dealing with probabilities that hinge on choices.

The entire universe runs on our choices. Deciding what to have for breakfast sends cause and effect ripples through all ten dimensions.

Applying that to the predestination vs. freewill argument, it suddenly takes on a whole new, dare I say it, dimension. God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Therefore, out there in the probabilities that only God can keep track of, every human being who ever lived had the potential to be saved.

But not all human beings get saved, because not all human beings choose to be. But God knows all the probabilities, and which route our lives will take, and that is predestination. Because even though we all have the choice, God knows which way we will choose.

So saying that some people can be saved and some people can't is narrowminded. Everyone can be. But will they choose to be? That's where the parables about the narrow road come into play, and about how many are called, but few are chosen. That's Jesus using metaphor to explain probabilities, freewill, and a ten dimensional universe.

When Madeline L'Engle said that the theologians almost drove her to atheism, and it was science that rekindled her faith in a loving God, I knew exactly what she was talking about.

[Bethany J.]

This is a neat and thought-provoking idea! Interesting to speculate about. "If there were alternate timelines in which I wasn't saved..." etc. I actually had an idea recently for a novel in which an evil organization sends one of its members to the past, and accidentally sends her to an alternate timeline in which seeing herself from the future is a catalyst to her becoming saved. Then, of course, she won't become a part of the evil organization anymore, and their plans will fall apart...so they're after her.

[Kessie]

There's a new Christian spec fic book that just came out, called Rift Jump, that I believe deals with the problem of a person having alternates on other worlds, and what happens if only one of them is saved.

[newburydave]

Kessie;

I actually utterly reject the predestination dogma as it is commonly proposed, based on what I find in scripture. Jesus said "If any man will come, let him come" at the end of Revelation. In Matthew he said "Whosoever will may come to me and I will in no wise cast him out." Jesus and God wouldn't say we have a choice if we don't.

Jesus said that God made his truth easy to understand for babes and people who were nothing and hid it from the wise and Prudent.

Our God doesn't play word games with the ones he Loves enough to die for. Most of the explanations I've read sound like deceptive huckstering. My God's not like that. That is how carnally minded men reason when they are trying to deceive someone. And that deductive logic driven abomination of the Limited Atonement is about the worst academic blasphemy against God's character and loving nature that I've ever heard. The bible says Jesus died for the sins of the whole world.

One of the things that really gets me upset at Theologians is that all of them think they can "reason out" the relations between time and eternity. If I can't describe what I saw during my moment in heaven then no logic monger, who hasn't even glimpsed eternity first hand, can define the complex relationships between human free will in time and God's eternal sovereignty.

How much can a four year old understand of the workings of a jet plane and the air traffic control that carries him home to his parents? I don't think we can understand the time/eternity dynamics at all, we just have to believe all that we've been given in the word, obey what Jesus told us and trust him to make the things work that we cannot understand.

I'm convinced that if Jesus could have explained the interrelationship of free will, grace and sovereignty to our broken intellects he would have. The fact that he didn't even try speaks volumes. He just told us to repent, believe, utterly give ourselves to Him and his work and live pure by his grace. That's really all we need to know.

**************

Okay, I'll simmer down.

I too am using a mutliverse model for one of my novelization projects. Maybe you saw some of my "Elysium Wars" chapters when I put them up in the Sandbox a while ago. So I understand some of the things you're dealing with.

I think I'm going to resolve the issues by the idea that God is drawing all of the dimensions (multi-worlds) to a convergence point where wholeness and righteousness will be restored. One of the results is that each of the personalities, fragmented between the worlds, will be reintegrated into the whole person they would have been if they hadn't been shattered by the fall.

I don't base this resolution on any Theological perspective. I feel it fits with the practical Christianity that God has led me to live for the last 40 years. God's hunger is to redeem and make whole; not just us, but the whole of creation. This universe is to be his Wedding bower, that was his plan from the beginning, and He's not about to let our sin and Satan turn it into a slum.

Well, mabye I'm a different breed of cat, but as an old lady preacher, who was a formative influence on us, once said, "The stuff I do know, I know as well as the smart fellah's do."

At the end of the day (and the discussion), it's your story; I expect you'll write it as you feel led. I'm sure you'll do a creditable job. If you pitch it for the modern presdestinarians you'll probably have a larger potential audience.

Write on Sis
Bear His Flame; Be the light!

SGD
dave

[newburydave]

Kessie;

I just watched to the first two videos in that series "Imagining" the tenth dimension.

WOW, I knew they had made some breakthroughs on this stuff but this vid is amazing. It'll take me a while to digest the metaphysics that the author was discussing.

I've dimly percieved some of this stuff in the place o inspiration but to see it mathematically described and put into a practical analogy is totally awesome.

Now I can't wait to see what you do with this in your story. This should be interesting.

Write on Sis

Make Him real to others in this world.

SGD
dave

[Kessie]

Gee, Dave, you're really interesting when you go on a rant. I'm going to have to ponder a lot of your points.

As for the theology angle in the story, I can't very well deconstruct a certain theology if I don't know what it says. I didn't even know it was called Limited Atonement until just now. Research!

I imagine Wikipedia's not the best resource for theological questions, though. :-D

[newburydave]

Thank you for your graciousness Kessie, I was feeling badly for going off on that rant.

They might have something on Wikipedia about five point Calvinism and it's theological subtopics, you never know what you'll find.


My (possibly limited) understanding of these things:

The limited atonement is one of the logical corollaries that some old school hyper-Calvinists adopted to round out their hyper-logical approach to constructing their theology. The limited atonement says that Jesus only died to provide atonement for the Elect, He did not die for the Reprobate who will be lost.

I believe it is the extreme logical application of the whole "predestined before the creation, by God's sovereign choice alone, regardless of any attribute or action of the persons involved" doctrine. If I were to subscribe to the deterministic Atonement schema that underlies this kind of thinking, logically I would be forced to accept this as dogma.

IMHO, it is in the same league as the whole "Infant damnation" dogma that goes with that brand of systematic theology. Infant Damnation states that non elect infants are damned if they die in their innocence. This position is demanded by logical consistency with the whole Sovereign Election doctrine as they define it.

If I accepted the underlying assumptions of this theological position and were only following theological logic, instead of the Bible and the Spirit, I would be compelled to believe this dogma as well. Logically it is necessary to assert Infant Damnation in order to maintain total internal logical consistency with the Sovereign Election dogma as they state that doctrine.

However, in my training as a Philosopher, I learned that the first principle of valid philosophical inquiry (inquiry aimed a discerning truth, not just debating) is to state all of your assumptions so everyone will know where you're starting from. Until you establish the validity of your assumptions any logical argument you may present is "Built on Sand" to borrow a phrase from Jesus.

(This is equivalent to making sure the math facts you use to develop an equation are valid and applicable to the situation you are trying to model mathematically.)

IMHO this kind of dogma, based on human logical speculations about the relationship between time, eternity, fore-knowledge and fore-ordination is fatally flawed on the face of it because we cannot truly know or even comprehend some of these things except from the Eternal side of the Veil between worlds.

Unfortunately, many people on all sides of the Theological divide, blithely go ahead and reason from unprovable assumptions about these relationships, totally unaware of the "sandy foundation" under the arguments they construct. Their logic appears unassailable until you look at the legitimacy of the assumptions which are at the foundations of their reasoning.

This all too common lack of deep introspection and self knowledge is the sort of thing that makes me shy away from theological dogma as a guide to truth. To my ear it has the flavor of the Talmudic Legalism that Jesus rebuked and Paul fought against throughout his ministry.


My "Faith Position" on these matters:

I'm perfectly willing to "dogmatically" accept revealed truths in the scriptures which, to my flawed and temporally limited logical faculties, may appear to be inconsistent, or at least incomprehensible to me. My God is Transcendent, beyond what I am capable of understanding with my rational faculties. (Who can understand the mind of the Lord so he can instruct (or even debate) Him?)

God doesn't have to explain everything to my satisfaction for me to love and obey Him. He rescued me from temporal misery, hopeless darkness and pain; not to even mention from eternal death and misery. His presence is my highest pleasure and Joy of my heart, soul and body. He loves me unconditionally, blesses me when I least expect or deserve it (though it's always when I need it) and gives me deep assurance for the future in His own person. I am persuaded by long experience that I can safely leave the stuff I don't understand to His wisdom and loving providence.

=================

Re: The Points you raise about dimensionality;

Assuming that subatomic physics does give us clues into God's nature and the fundamental nature of the Creation, the video's you linked to about "imagining dimensionality" have set me to thinking.

Specifically, "Shroedingers Cat" paradox and the "Single Photon Photogate" experiment that proved the Wave / Particle duality of the nature of light have gotten me percolating on the Metaphysical nature of our existence. (Well, that was a mouthful of mush, wasn't it. ;D)

Schroedinger postulated that the unfortunate cat was both alive and dead simultaneously. The Photogate Experiment "proved" that human congnition interracts with something to fundamentally change the "objective" (ie. measureable) nature of reality.

Let me summarize the latter:

This is a real, physical experiment which has been repeated numerous times. A single photon is released into an apparatus in which it has a 50/50 chance of taking either of two paths. Both of the possible paths direct the photon through the same diffraction grating (the kind used in spectrographic analysis).

When no one knows which path the photon takes, when it hits the diffraction grating it diffracts into a spectral pattern. This proves that light (the photon) is a wave.

When a non-intrusive photo detector is introduced into one path, so the experimenter knows which path the photon takes, the photon passes through the diffraction grating and is not diffracted. It hits the detector as a single point of energy. This proves that light (the photon) is a discrete particle.

Both are true, proved experimentally.

Illogical? Totally. True, Completely. "Facts are stubborn things."

In fact technology uses both the wave properties of light and the particle properties of light in actual manufactured products that we have come to rely on.


My (incomplete) Speculation:

What if God's Foreknowledge and total Soveriegnty are like the nature of Light. (God is Light after all.)

C.S.Lewis seemed to float an unusual concept about predestination in his book "Mere Christianity" (If you haven't read it I highly recommend it.). He appeared to say that before we "Pass through the door of faith" it is "free grace to all who believe" and nothing more related to us. After we "pass the door" it is "predestined from before the world."

If one accepts the "premise" that Lewis appears to put forth then it could be characterized as a case where "human congnition" (faith) interracting with God's consciousness actually changes the fundamental nature of the created universe (as happened in the photo gate experiment).

I also ran into something similar to Lewis' argument in the testimony of a rather famous Welsh evangelist (famous in Wales anyway) about how he dealt with people who thought they were reprobate when he urged them to believe and be saved.

This universe is not objective reality after all. James says we are but vapors, Paul says this world is shadows of the true reality which is Christ.

What if...

Think on Sis. Open yourself to His inspiration, only His doings are reality.

Write what He shows you, The entrance of His word gives light and life.

SGD
dave

[newburydave]

Kessie;

Just a quick thought before I start packing to go to Campmeeting (I'll probably be off the net for the next 10 days or so).

Have you read Ted Dekker's "Blink of an Eye"?

My wife did and she tells me that his POVC is gifted with the ability to "see" the 5th dimension, all the potential outcomes of a choice yet unmade. Dekker is a bit off the map ( ;D ;D) but he does have insights that many lack. That may be because he grew up in the middle of the Indonesian revival.

Write on sis

SGD
dave

[Kessie]

I read Blink back before Dekker rewrote it, and it remains one of my favorite of his books. (Once he started the Circle his work went downhill quality-wise, IMO.) I do enjoy the MC's ability to glimpse multiple futures. There's a scene where they reinact the Elijah on Mt Carmel scene, where they need the futures to change. So he prays to Allah and nothing happens. Then he prays to God and the futures change, and he freaks out. It's all about the power of prayer and it's GREAT.

I'm trying very hard not to rip that off, so my chronomancers scry the future quite a bit differently (with water and mirrors and the traditional fantasy trappings). What the MC does in Blink is known as Metavisioning and it's illegal. :-)

Also, thanks for your explanation about the pitfalls of limited atonement. The more I learn about it, the more I want to contrast it with SCIENCE. And ... well, magic. Because magic is such a great vehicle for making points. I'm pondering what kind of pastor I can write without making him a stereotype. I'm so tempted to make a Mike Duran caracature, of a pastor who writes sci fi in secret and really does have lots of questions he's not allowed to ask.

[newburydave]

Hey, that sounds like me !

Careful, I'm copyrighted (I think)

Seriously, I've known a few "Stereotype" pastors,... . If you want interesting characters I don't think you want to go there.

Start with a real person (male or female):

-add in the explosive, life giving power of the Holy Spirit (think growth and life springing up like a jungle where grows so explosively that you couldn't keep it trimmed back if you wanted to),

-almost daily draughts of Divine Inspiration that shake up his/her thinking and sometimes world (the Lord never let me get too comfortable with my "settled orthodoxy"),

-someone who used their Theological and Pastoral training as a launching pad not a road map or an intellectual prison (one of my 'well schooled' ministerial friends once told me "they didn't teach me any of the stuff in Bible School that I need to know to be a pastor"),

-add in the awake and inquisitive nature that the Holy Ghost always fosters in those whom He possesses fully (we always were asking edgy questions and exploring forbidden areas, hey that's what life throws at you when you live in the parsonage. Nobody who lives close to his/her people drowns in the mudane.)

-finish it all off with a person who prays about everything and searches the scriptures on their knees until the Lord gives light in the Word that deals with the latest emergency; then prays desperately for God to manifest His power to fix it (pastors are more like EMTs than surgeons, nothing you have to deal with is ever neat and orderly; it's always messy confused and 'God, help us or we're gonna' crash and burn here.')

Now take that kind of person and throw your plot devices at them, see what they'll do with it.

(Secret, the only reason that pastors look like they have it all together is: 1) because the Lord is actively holding them up on the inside, 2) because it's their job to "minister faith and grace" to their people, 3) because they prayed through on "it" and they know what the Lord want's them to do, so they press ahead even though they may be scared silly.)

In short write them as a real person with the same doubts and fears that you have, who has the guts and faith to grab hold and hang on no matter what the Lord sends them or does through them.

One time I prayed for a man in the hospital with an "inoperable" spinal condition. Only one surgeon in the entire world would even attempt to operate, here in Mass General Hospital. I met him and his wife at the airport and took them to the hospital. After they got him settled into a room we went up and I felt led to pray. God came on us while I prayed.

The nurse was outside knocking the whole time we prayed, impatient because she had some important thing to do in the night time hospital routine. We persevered.

The next morning when they took him in for preoperative testing they couldn't find any trace of the spinal problem left in him.

Sometimes God surprises you like that. I don't have a gift of healing, I didn't even know it was happening just that God settled down on my heart while I prayed with that man. I don't really remember what I prayed, I think I asked for healing but it's not clear in my memory.

I guess you could call it a surprise miracle. It seems like there's been quite a few of those while I've been trying to serve my Savior.

Is this any help? Hope it is.

Write on Sis, be his amanuensis.

SGD
dave

[Kessie]

Yeah, my mom always says that that's why pastors are the only people with any spiritual growth, because they have to study the Word on their own every week.

So, if I'm writing a pastor who ascribes to Calvinism and Limited Atonement and all that fun stuff, how do I tackle that? Of course he'd be a human being, just with certain narrow views about things.

[newburydave]

Kessie;

Since I'm not a Calvinist by any way shape or manner, I don't know if I can speak to this meaningfully. My background is primitive Methodist, I was introduced to Christian thought by solid Wesleyan Arminian scholars after my conversion at 22 years of age. I saw the Glory of God on them and never questioned that it was the right way. The absolute supremacy of Scripture over Theological dogma was stressed by the pastors and evangelists who formed my earliest Christian character after my conversion.

I honestly don't know if a Calvinist pastor would be intellectually free enough to follow the kind of edgy spiritual discovery process that I described. With the exception of one very exceptional Presbyterian minister that I was associated with, most of the Calvinist clerics that I've known seemed to be totally constrained by their Theological dogmas. More than once I've been involved in discussion and when I brought up a scripture whose plain literal sense, in context, flatly contradicted Calvinist dogma their response was something along the lines of, "No, that's wrong. Because it's once saved always saved so you can't lose your salvation." As far as they were concerned the conversational thread we were following was over because crashed into the wall of inviolate Theological dogma.

I've experienced this repeatedly. They seemed to treat their Theology as the ultimate touchstone of truth rather than the Scriptures. On the other hand when the Lord forced me to see that some of my Theological dogma contradicted what I had to admit was the plain sense of Scripture (after I researched the meaning of the scriptures to a reasonable extent) I had to back off from viewing my Theology as a reliable touchstone, or final test, of truth. For me that wasn’t catastrophic since the theological system I was taught said up front that it was an attempt to harmonize the Scriptural teaching, and Scripture was paramount. I sometimes feel that the Calvinists I know feel that if they concede that one dogma isn't true, then the whole structure comes apart. The old 5 point Calvinists relied on rigorous internal logical consistency for validation of their truth claims; however for modern “neo-Calvinists” that isn’t exactly the case.

When a close Calvinist brother of mine found out I didn’t share his “once saved always saved” dogma he became very concerned and asked me, “Well how do you know you’re really saved then?” Practically, he was one of the most consistently Godly living men I've ever known. He didn't need that particular dogma for assurance, he bore the fruit of the Holy Ghost's presence in his life all over town.

I think that this is both sad and dangerous. John Calvin, and his source, Augustine of Hippo, never once framed the doctrine of "Unconditional Perseverance in Grace" in the manner which modern "neo-Calvinists" state their dogma. The original framers of this doctrinal system considered "Grace" to be power to live a holy life. Unconditional Perseverance to them was the fact that when one of the Elect believed and entered into the Christian Life they would never permanently deviate from a life of increasing Christian Righteousness "regardless of their Outward Conditions of Life" which may hinder and test them.

The theological divide also wasn’t there the way it is today, practical godliness was the measure of reality back then. Augustine recommended Pelagius (his theological opponent) as a tutor to young people in the Christian faith because “he is one of the godliest men I know.”

The Calvinist fathers held that this consistent Christian Righteousness would be maintained until they died with a testimony of victory. If someone was truly elect then even if they stumbled in the way, they would be fully restored before death. The early Calvinists, including my Massachusetts Pilgrim ancestors, taught that this was the only conclusive proof that one was Elect.

If someone "Backslid" from this into a life of persistent sin and died that way, they taught that that person, though they made a show of religious conformity for a time, was really a reprobate and their true nature revealed itself in the end. The state that a person died in was taken as God's testimony to their actual eternal state.

I believe that is why John Wesley said that there was no practical difference between a devout, born again Methodist and a devout born again Calvinist aside from the definition of a few words. Both sides of the theological debate folowed the dictates of Scripture and sought to live holy lives and cultivate the presence of God in their hearts.

Wesley and Whitfield both worked together and even traded pastoral responsibilities though they were on opposite sides of the theological divide. Wesley recommended the Calvinist pastor, Jonathan Edward’s book, “Life of David Brainerd” to his Methodist preachers. Methodist and Presbyterian preachers commonly worked together and shared preaching duties on the American Frontier because their practical Gospel preaching was essentially the same.

However, things have changed since their day. Much of the modern "neo-Calvinism" that I’ve seen recently, seems to me to be an attempted synthesis of Weslyean Arminian free grace with Unconditional Perseverance; but it's Unconditional Perseverance turned on its head so that going through a ritual, that’s equated with making a start to be religious, is equated with dying in the faith after a life of consistent Christian character. This negates the necessity that we strive to live holy as Jesus commanded us to do in order to enter Heaven.

The church we attend now has a majority of people from modern Calvinist backgrounds. I’m not sure how they would react under the kinds of stresses that I talked about in my last post. The truly spiritually minded ones would probably struggle the way I did, but they might just shrug it off because it really doesn’t matter since their eternal destiny is secure regardless of what they do.

I assume based on your comments that you know spiritual Calvinist people, so you may have a better read on the practicalities of spiritual struggle in their worldview that I do. But the characterization that you mentioned of preachers being ordinary people should be a good starting point. Just throw in a measure of Oracular vision in the Holy Ghost and more than average leadership from God and I expect you’ll hit pretty close to the mark. Those are a given among the spiritual preachers I’ve known regardless of their Theological perspective.

Again, I’ll be interested to see how you work it out. Your story may give me some insights into the thinking of some of my Calvinist brothers and sisters.

Write on my sister.

SGD
dave