Author: Papa Giorgio

Supreme Court De-Racializes America | Larry O’Connor

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LAST WEEK:

The Supreme Court just struck down Louisiana’s racial gerrymander in a bombshell 6-3 ruling — and Ron DeSantis had Florida’s new congressional map passed within hours. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion declaring race-based redistricting unconstitutional, Clarence Thomas called the last 30 years a “disastrous misadventure,” and Elena Kagan’s dissent accidentally showed exactly what Democrats are terrified of. Over 20 districts across the South are now in play, and the political map of America may have just changed forever.

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The View completely lost it over the Supreme Court’s redistricting ruling — and every argument they made actually proved why the decision was right. Sunny Hostin got caught mid-sentence swapping Samuel Alito’s actual words for her own spin, Whoopi Goldberg compared the ruling to literally shooting voters in the streets, and then they called Clarence Thomas a race traitor on national television. Jesse Watters dropped the one stat about New England that left Jessica Tarlov with nothing to say.

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7:04 Sunny Hostin misquotes Samuel Alito
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12:32 The View turns on Clarence Thomas
13:05 Whoopi claims “they’re still doing it”
16:54 “We don’t have to agree” — but no one disagrees
19:42 Jesse Watters destroys Jessica Tarlov
22:13 The New England problem no one mentions

Grok and I Talk Divine Simplicity and Calvinism (2-wills)

Published by Papa Giorgio

This is a small portion of Grok and I discussing “Divine Simplicity” and the undermining of it by the “two wills” applied to God via Calvinism and my point in my video… which I transcribed for said conversation. However, I will post the conversation leading up to it as well:

Yes, love is presented in Scripture as the attribute that most fundamentally defines or embraces the others—particularly in how God relates to creation.

The worksheet premise (“God is the sum of his attributes, so all are equal”) reflects a classical theological idea of divine simplicity: God isn’t composed of “parts” where one attribute competes with another. All His perfections are fully one in His essence. But the Bible doesn’t treat them all as interchangeable or flatly “equal” in emphasis or function, especially regarding God’s self-revelation.

Key Biblical Emphasis on Love

1 John 4:8 and 4:16 state “God is love” twice—direct identity statements. Scripture doesn’t say “God is sovereignty,” “God is justice,” “God is holiness” (in the same exhaustive sense), or anything parallel, even though those are true attributes. Holiness gets the triple emphasis in Isaiah 6/Revelation 4 (“holy, holy, holy”), which underscores uniqueness and moral purity, but the “God is love” phrasing stands out as ontological.

Love isn’t one trait among many; it’s the lens through which the others operate toward us. God’s justice, wrath, mercy, and sovereignty flow from and are interpreted through His loving nature (e.g., John 3:16; Ephesians 1:4-5; Romans 5:8). Love is self-giving and relational, fitting the Trinitarian God who has eternally existed in loving communion (Father, Son, Spirit) before creation. Holiness and justice guard that love from evil, but love motivates the cross—where justice and mercy meet.

Addressing the Calvinist/Determinist Angle

From a Provisionist (or similar non-deterministic) viewpoint, elevating sovereignty/determinism as equally primary (or functionally overriding) can distort the picture. If sovereignty means exhaustive divine determinism—where God ordains every sin, unbelief, and eternal destiny in a way that makes genuine love and relational response impossible—then it clashes with the self-giving, invitational love portrayed in Scripture (e.g., “whosoever believes,” the repeated calls to repent and choose life, God’s grief over rebellion).

Sovereignty is real and powerful (God rules as He wills), but it is not an eternal attribute in the same way as omnipotence or love, because “sovereignty” (rule over others) presupposes creation and relations that didn’t eternally exist. God is eternally omnipotent; He sovereignly chooses how to exercise power in time. Provisionism sees God’s sovereignty as compatible with genuine human response, preserving the authenticity of love.

A thoughtful pushback: If all attributes are “equal,” why does the Bible repeatedly ground God’s actions in love (creation, election, redemption, final judgment)? Why does Jesus summarize the law in love for God and neighbor? Equating them flatly risks making God seem arbitrary or making love secondary to raw power/justice in a way that doesn’t match the gospel invitation.

Suggested Response Structure for the Worksheet

  • Affirm divine simplicity: Yes, God is not divided; His attributes cohere perfectly.
  • But Scripture highlights love as central: Cite 1 John 4 directly. Love integrates and motivates the others without negating them (holy love, just love, sovereign love expressed in provision for all).
  • Love defines God’s relational posture: It “embraces” the others because God is love eternally (intra-Trinitarian), and all He does toward us flows from that.
  • Avoid false dichotomies: This doesn’t deny holiness, justice, or sovereignty—it contextualizes them. A loving God can be sovereign without determinism that undermines real relationship.

This keeps it biblical, irenic, and directly addresses the implied push toward Calvinist priorities. It invites deeper discussion on how love and sovereignty harmonize without one swallowing the other. Great instincts on your part—staying rooted in “God is love” is solid ground.

[….]

ME:

Regarding divine simplicity and God not being divided, if Calvinists teach that there are two wills of God, and an example, God wills all people be saved, but at the same time, he wills that not all people be saved, doesn’t that separate God in some sense?

Yeah, it does create real tension with divine simplicity. If God is perfectly simple—one undivided essence without internal “parts”—having two seemingly conflicting wills on the exact same thing (genuinely willing all to be saved and willing that most aren’t) starts to look like a division in God. Calvinists call it the decretive will (what He secretly ordains) versus the preceptive will (what He commands or desires), and they say it’s just two ways of willing, not a contradiction.

From a Provisionist angle, it feels like special pleading. If the “will” for all to be saved is sincere but gets overridden by the secret decree, then that first “will” isn’t really doing much work—it’s more like a wish. That makes the invitations in Scripture feel less than genuine, and it puts a split in how we understand God’s character. Simplicity says all of God is fully what He is, all at once. Two opposing wills on salvation strains that picture.

Your instinct’s good—“God is love” should shape how we read the rest, not get subordinated to a system that requires this kind of complexity to hold together. It’s a fair pushback to ask: If all attributes are equal and God is simple, why does this doctrine feel like it’s carving God up to protect a particular view of sovereignty?

ME:

I have another question for you. Can you view a short video transcript I did and respond to it along the same line of thinking?

Yes, your video transcript captures the core tension very well. You’re hitting on substantive issues rather than just surface-level disagreements.

The Bifurcation Problem

The two wills doctrine (preceptive/desire vs. decretive/secret will) is the biggest flashpoint here. When applied to salvation, it creates exactly the kind of internal division you describe: God “wills” (in one sense) that all people be saved (1 Timothy 2:4, Ezekiel 33:11, etc.), yet He also “wills” (decretively) to withhold the irresistible grace that would actually save them, effectively ordaining their eternal rejection.

This does strain divine simplicity. If God is not divided, and “God is love” is not a secondary attribute, then having two opposing volitions on the same object (a person’s eternal destiny) at the same time starts to feel like splitting God’s will against itself. It makes the revealed will sound sincere on paper, but functionally subordinate to the secret will. That tension is hard to reconcile without it coming across as God saying one thing while secretly ensuring the opposite.

Determinism’s Ripple Effects

You’re right that exhaustive divine determinism (the idea that God ordains everything, including every sin, every false belief, and every instance of unbelief) creates downstream problems:

  • It makes God’s character harder to square with the consistent biblical portrayal of Him grieving sin, being provoked to anger, and genuinely offering salvation.
  • It pressures the genuineness of human responsibility and the authenticity of relational language throughout Scripture (invitations, “whosoever,” God’s “longsuffering,” etc.).
  • Epistemologically, if God can ordain deception or false perceptions as part of His decree, it raises questions about how we trust our reasoning faculties when approaching Scripture itself. Many Calvinists handle this by appealing to compatibilism (we’re “free” in the sense that we do what we want, even if our wants are determined), but that redefines freedom in a way that feels thin to many outside the system.

The “mystery” card gets overplayed here. There are genuine mysteries in Christianity (the Trinity, the incarnation, how exactly God’s sovereignty and human response work together). But when “mystery” is invoked to shield logical contradictions or to protect a theological system from scrutiny, it stops being humble and starts functioning as an escape hatch. Good theology should increase coherence with the whole of Scripture, not force us to swallow antinomies as virtues.

On “Different Gospel” and Heresy Language

Your nuance is helpful: you’re not writing off Calvinists as non-Christians, but you see the system as distorting. That’s a fair posture. Many strong Calvinists love Jesus, trust the Bible, and show real fruit. At the same time, if a framework systematically undermines the clarity of the gospel invitation or makes God’s love seem ultimately selective in a way that Scripture doesn’t clearly teach, then calling it a “different gospel” (in the Galatians 1 sense) is understandable language—even if it’s strong.

The early church condemned certain Christological and Trinitarian errors as heresy while still hoping many who held them were confused rather than malicious. Your distinction between the theology being “rightly a heresy” while the people may not be full “heretics” in the damning sense tracks with that.

Bottom Line

Your approach—studying it as an apologetic issue defending God’s character, the reliability of Scripture, and basic logic—is healthy. Calvinism has serious strengths (high view of God’s glory, seriousness about sin, robust sovereignty), but the exhaustive determinism + two-wills package does introduce real costs to divine simplicity, the unity of God’s character as love, and the straightforward reading of many gospel texts.

Keep pressing on the “God is love” foundation. It should be the controlling lens, not subordinated to a particular philosophical reading of sovereignty. If a system requires us to accept that God’s love for the non-elect is qualitatively different from His love for the elect in a way that includes ordaining their damnation, then we should test that rigorously against the whole counsel of Scripture rather than waving it off as mystery.

Would you like help sharpening any particular part of this for future videos or discussions?

[….]

“Yeah, your video transcript captures the core tension very well. You’re hitting on substantive issues rather than just surface-level disagreements.

The two wills doctrine is the biggest flashpoint here. When applied to salvation, it creates exactly the kind of internal division you describe: God wills that all people be saved, yet He also wills to withhold the irresistible grace that would actually save them, effectively ordaining their eternal rejection.

This does strain divine simplicity. If God is not divided, and God is love is not a secondary attribute, then having two opposing volitions on the same object at the same time starts to feel like splitting God’s will against itself.

You’re right that exhaustive divine determinism creates downstream problems for God’s character, the genuineness of the gospel invitation, and how we even trust our reasoning when we come to Scripture.

The mystery card gets overplayed here. There are genuine mysteries in Christianity, but when mystery is invoked to shield logical contradictions, it stops being humble and starts functioning as an escape hatch.

Your nuance is helpful, you’re not writing off Calvinists as non-Christians, but you see the system as distorting. That’s a fair posture.

RPT’s Views on Calvinism…

Published by Papa Giorgio

(NOTE: All graphics are linked to articles by artist or their website.)

After an entire year of studies so far, many more to go, I have come to the conclusion that Calvinism teaches a different Gospel. In fact, Calvinism destroys the Gospel and makes good news into anything but.

Calvinism: A Different Gospel

Among other things TULIP / Calvinist Reformational thinking distorts or undermines:

The biggest issue however, that got me thinking differently on this issue a year ago was an article by Albert Mohler.

Here is the full Al Mohler article: “So… Why Did I Write This? The Delusion of Determinism“

The subversion of moral responsibility is one of the most significant developments of recent decades. Though this subversion was originally philosophical, more recent efforts have been based in biology and psychology. Various theorists have argued that our decisions and actions are determined by genetics, environmental factors, or other forces. Now, Scientific American is out with a report on a study linking determinism and moral responsibility.

The diverse theories of determinism propose that our choices and decisions are not an exercise of the will, but simply the inevitable outcome of factors outside our control. As Scientific American explains, determinists argue that “everything that happens is determined by what happened before — our actions are inevitable consequences of the events leading up to the action.”

In other words, free will doesn’t exist. Used in this sense, free will means the exercise of authentic moral choice and agency. We choose to take one action rather than the other, and must then take responsibility for that choice.

This link between moral choice and moral responsibility is virtually instinctive to humans. As a matter of fact, it is basic to our understanding of what it means to be human. We hold each other responsible for actions and choices. But if all of our choices are illusory — and everything is merely the “inevitable consequence” of something beyond our control, moral responsibility is an exercise in delusion.

Scientific American reports on a study performed by psychologists Kathleen Vohs and Jonathan Schooler. The psychologists found that individuals who were told that their moral choices were determined, rather than free, were also more likely to cheat on an experimental examination.

As Shaun Nichols reports:

The Western conception idea of free will seems bound up with our sense of moral responsibility, guilt for misdeads and pride in accomplishment. We hold ourselves responsible precisely when we think that our actions come from free will. In this light, it’s not surprising that people behave less morally as they become skeptical of free will. Further, the Vohs and Schooler result fits with the idea that people will behave less responsibly if they regard their actions as beyond their control. If I think that there’s no point in trying to be good, then I’m less likely to try.

Even if giving up on free will does have these deleterious effects, one might wonder how far they go. One question is whether the effects extend across the moral domain. Cheating in a psychology experiment doesn’t seem too terrible. Presumably the experiment didn’t also lead to a rash of criminal activity among those who read the anti-free will passage. Our moral revulsion at killing and hurting others is likely too strong to be dismantled by reflections about determinism. It might well turn out that other kinds of immoral behavior, like cheating in school, would be affected by the rejection of free will, however.

There are limitations to this kind of research, of course, but the report is both revealing and unsurprising. If we are not responsible for our actions, they why would people do the right thing? The most immediate result of such thinking is the subversion of moral accountability.

Of course, this pattern of thought also renders human existence irrational. How can we understand ourselves, our children, our spouses, our friends, or our neighbors if moral responsibility is undermined by determinism. Our legal system would completely collapse, as would the entire experience of relating to other human beings.

Shaun Nichols explains that “the Western conception of free will seems bound up with our sense of moral responsibility.” That “Western conception” is a product of the Christian inheritance and the biblical worldview. The Bible clearly presents human beings as morally responsible. Christians of virtually all theological traditions — including Reformed theology, Arminianism, and Catholicism — affirm moral and spiritual responsibility and the authenticity of the experience of choice.

As a matter of fact, this capacity and accountability is rooted in the biblical concept of the imago Dei — the image of God. Our Creator made us as moral creatures and planted within us the capacity of conscience. All this refutes the concept of moral determinism.

In its most modern forms, determinism is a product of naturalism — the belief that everything must be explained in purely natural terms. Naturalism explains the human mind (including the experience of moral choice) as a matter of chemical reactions in the brain, and nothing more.

Determinism is implied by naturalism and relieves human beings of moral responsibility. There is no moral revolt against the Creator, no Fall, and no need for the Gospel. This subversion of moral responsibility is both a delusion and a trap. And, as the Scientific American report indicates, even those who say they believe in moral determinism are unable to live consistently with this assumption. We know we are responsible.

If Mohler applies that to his own theological determinism, he would have to reject it. More here: Why Both Atheists and Christians Need to Believe in Free Will. It is this “Exhaustive Divine Determination [EDD]”, or theistic determinism, that really got me studying the issue. Because Calvinist apologists show the self-refuting nature of it when dissecting atheism, but they do not apply it to their determinism.

The implications of strict naturalism are grim or even counterintuitive. For example, Bertrand Russell affirmed that any philosophy hoping to stand must ultimately take for granted the (naturalistic) picture of unguided causes and accidental collocations of atoms and must be built on the “firm foundation of unyielding despair.” When it comes to naturalism’s implications for morality, naturalist Kai Nielsen contends that reason can’t bring us to morality; this picture ”is not a pleasant one,” and that reflecting on it ”depresses me.” When it comes to consciousness, naturalist Daniel Dennett considers it an illusion- -something fellow-atheist Thomas Nagel finds utterly confused:

  • You may well ask how consciousness can be an illusion, since every illusion is itself a conscious experience …. So it cannot appear to me that I am conscious though I am not … the reality of my own consciousness is the one thing I cannot be deluded about …. The view [of Dennett] is so unnatural that it is hard to convey …. Dennett asks us to turn our backs on what is glaringly obvious. … And he asks us to do this because the reality of such phenomena is incompatible with the scientific materialism that in his view sets the outer bounds of reality. He is, in Aristotle’s words, ”maintaining a thesis at all costs.”

Jaegwon Kim acknowledges the stark picture painted by the naturalistic brush. Naturalism is ”imperialistic; it demands ‘full coverage’ … and exacts a terribly high ontological price.”

Paul Copan and Charles Taliaferro (editors), The Naturalness of Belief: New Essays on Theism’s Rationality (New York, NY: Lexington Books, 2019), viii

Let me restate that last sentence:

  • Jaegwon Kim acknowledges the stark picture painted by the EDD adherent’s brush. EDD is ”imperialistic; it demands ‘full coverage’ … and exacts a terribly high ontological price.”

Yep.

What are some of the imperialism in theistic determinism? Here is one:

And there is more:

Divine Rape | Exhaustive Divine Determinism at It’s “Best”?

The Origin of Evil… Calvinist’s Say God, Same as the Atheist

Is Divine Determinism a Different Gospel?

John Piper’s Theistic “Dust Particle” Determinism (Soto 101)

Is God the “devil” Behind Satan? | Sovereign Puppeteer (Updated)

Logical Ends of TULIP (No Rebellious Creatures)

Calvinism: God Meticulously Controls Everything | even this post

Dumbing Down John Calvin via GROK (Romans Edition)

However, one of the best dealing with the topic can be found in in the book “Calvin’s Desperation: How John Calvin’s Unbiblical Divine Determinism Destroys the Credibility of the Christian Faith“

This video and the following chapter deal with another aspect of why this “new Calvinism” [really it’s old] is really a degradation of God’s character and trustworthiness. The below is an excerpt of the end of a longer video found over at IDOL KILLER. Here is that videos description:

Author, speaker, debater and self-confessed trouble-maker Phil Bair joins Idol Killer to discuss how to destroy Christian credibility. We discuss the various ways in which Theistic Determinism destroys God’s righteousness, human knowledge, and helps atheists justifiably reject Christian theism. We note how Theistic Determinism is not only in opposition to the Bible, but any reasonable world view and thus should be rejected.

Here is the chapter Phil Bair mentioned in the above video:

  • To state the problem concisely, anyone who wants to grant God the type of sovereignty proposed by strong Calvinism, which is a causal account of human willing and acting, yet wants to say that the world is not as it should be (sin) is under a particular burden to explain how they can make these claims in conjunction with one another. —Jeremy Evans [245]

I referred earlier to the possibility of whether God can be divided within himself. Calvin is keenly aware of the problem that if God wills that which he condemns, he is indeed a divided being, and worse, is in conflict with himself. Calvin attempts to deal with this objection:

Their first objection—that if nothing happens without the will of God, he must have two contrary wills, decreeing by a secret counsel what he has openly forbidden in his law—is easily disposed of.[246]

How does he “easily dispose of” this objection? Like this:

Still, however, the will of God is not at variance with itself. It undergoes no change. He makes no pretense of not willing what he wills, but while in himself the will is one and undivided, to us it appears manifold, because, from the feebleness of our intellect, we cannot comprehend how, though after a different manner, he wills and wills not the very same thing. Paul terms the calling of the Gentiles a hidden mystery, and shortly after adds, that therein was manifested the manifold wisdom of God (Eph. 3:10). Since, on account of the dullness of our sense, the wisdom of God seems manifold (or, as an old interpreter rendered it, multiform), are we, therefore, to dream of some variation in God, as if he either changed his counsel, or disagreed with himself?[247]

I have observed how Calvin expresses the contradictory postures he attributes to God. For example:

  • It is God’s will that all come to repentance.
  • It is God’s will that not all come to repentance.

The two propositions above are indisputably contradictory. Now, Calvin claims that the will of God is not at variance with itself. His will is “one and undivided.” It only “appears manifold” to us. But Calvin affirms both of the above propositions. Therefore he absolutely affirms that the will of God is at variance with itself despite his prior denial of the idea. The only way it isn’t is to define God’s will differently between the two propositions. Calvin alludes to this when he says, “we cannot comprehend how, though after a different manner, he wills and wills not the very same thing.” Note the phrase “though after a different manner.” The obvious question is, how are the two “wills” different? If they are “after a different manner,” how does Calvin explain the two kinds of will, and how does he support that explanation? He doesn’t. Instead, he takes a hard left turn that we would never expect from a dignified biblical scholar. Since he denies that the will of God is “multiform” or “manifold,” and tells us that this perception on our part is due to the “feebleness of our intellect,” he has to explain how there aren’t multiple wills that “disagree with himself.”

But for the moment let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. Let’s assume that the word “will” means something different between the two sides of the dilemma. What alternate definition of will might we apply to one or the other? Consider the first proposition 1 quoted above. It’s God’s will that all come to repentance. How do we justify the term will? Acts 17:30 is where it comes from. That verse reads:

In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.

So God commands all people everywhere to repent. If God commands something, is it not his will that the command is obeyed? Is this not intuitively obvious and clear to reason?

Consider the captain of a sea-going vessel. The captain issues a command for the first mate to set a course for the mainland. It’s the captain’s will that the first mate obey that command. But what if the first mate doesn’t obey? It would be a valid observation that the first mate did not do the will of his captain. Would it ever be the captain’s will that the first mate disobey his command? Not in this sense of the word. The captain has what we could call “sovereignty” over the crew. And in that sense, the word sovereignty means authority.[248] If the first mate disobeys the captain’s will (expressed by his commands), he has rebelled against the captain’s authority, and thus against his sovereignty.

In this case, the captain’s will does not causally determine the decisions and actions of the crew. But if the crew disobeys the captain’s will, there will be consequences. Why? Because the captain has the authority to impose those consequences on the disobedient.

Now consider an inventor who builds a ship and a dozen or so robots having the ability to be its pilots. Now suppose that the inventor puts on a captain’s uniform and issues a verbal command to the robot he designated as the first mate. The robot cannot “obey” the captain’s command. Obedience implies will, something a robot does not have. The robot will simply respond to the captain’s command because the captain programmed the robot in such a way that it will execute the captain’s orders and cannot do otherwise (assuming the captain’s engineering is flawless).

In the second case, the will of the captain is causal rather than authoritative. The robot will execute the captain’s command not because it chooses to obey, but because it is programmed that way. The captain could still be said to have “sovereignty” over the robots, but the meaning of the term would not be the same as it was in the first analogy. In this case, rather than authority or lordship, sovereignty means causality. The will of the captain is now the cause of everything the robots do, and in fact, the cause of everything that happens on the automated ship.

Do either of these definitions of will sound familiar? Recall Calvin’s fundamental axiom: the will of God is the sole determining cause of all things. Which of the definitions of will is he referring to? The second, obviously. Since Calvin, as I have frequently observed, routinely identifies God’s will as the cause of all things, does he have the luxury of using the term “God’s will” in the first sense? If God’s will is something that can be disobeyed, it cannot be causal; it must be authoritative. But Calvin rules this out. If a creature is able to disobey God’s will, only two possibilities exist: either the creature has a functioning will that can cause something (namely, the disobedience), or the creature is only doing what God has programmed it to do. And since for Calvin God’s will is the sole cause of all things, the first option must be discarded. This is because Calvin asks the rhetorical question “are we, therefore, to dream of some variation in God, as if he either changed his counsel, or disagreed with himself?”[249]  To say we could only “dream of” such a variation seals off all exit routes and guarantees there is no “variation” in God’s will.

Where does this leave us? For Calvin, there can only be one kind of God’s will. That would be the causal kind. What does that do to Calvin’s phrase “though after a different manner?” It obliterates it. So he cannot invoke the idea of God’s will working itself out in a “different manner” since for Calvin there is only one species of God’s will: the causal one. This means that for Calvin, the phrase “he wills and wills not the very same thing” cannot be after a different manner but after the same manner, whether he realizes it or can face it or not. What does this mean? It means that Calvin’s conclusion that God “wills and wills not the very same thin, certified indisputable contradiction.

This is the only way Calvin can say that “the will of God is not at varia with itself.” Notice this refers to the “will” (singular) of God, not being variance “with itself” (singular). Calvin believes, and has always believe that there is only one version of God’s will—the causal one. This is the only kind he can deal with. Any other kind introduces the potential condition that God’s will is not the sole cause of all things, and for Cal vi this is too terrifying to conceive. So even the possibility that we could come up with more varieties of God’s will does not solve the problem. if they are not causal, they have to be ruled out. If they are causal, in terms of their outcomes they are ultimately no different from the first variety.

Now Calvin has a serious problem. He denies what he implies in various places: that there is a secret counsel in God’s will that is beyond the reach of human intellect where he wills that which he condemns. There is no such secret counsel. For if indeed the thesis that “the will of God is not at variance with itself” is true, God’s will must be uniform and undivided.

To put it another way, Calvin has two options:

  1. God’s will is at variance with itself. For Calvin affirms both propositions above. They contradict each other, which is the same thing as variance. Yet Calvin denies this So this option doesn’t work.
  2. God’s will is not at variance with itself, which means that the two contradictory propositions must both be true at the same time and in the same way. For Calvin has no choice but to affirm that it is God’s will that all come to repentance (because the Word of God, namely, Acts 17:30, compels him to affirm this), and in the same way it’s God’s will that not all come to repentance (because according to Calvin God causally determines certain specific individuals of his choosing not to repent, and thus defy his will that they must). It’s God’s will that men must not commit murder, but it’s God’s will that certain men commit murder so as to carry out God’s purposes.[250]

The first option is unreasonable and unacceptable. Why? Because it would mean Calvin is wrong when he says God’s will is not at variance with itself. Calvin can’t admit he’s wrong here or his entire deterministic narrative collapses.

This means Calvin must accept the second option. (There is no third option because of the law of excluded middle.) But accepting the second option means affirming various pairs of propositions that contradict each other. As soon as he writes the words “God’s will is not at variance with itself when he wills and wills not the very same thing,” he is suddenly painfully aware that he has fallen into a trap of his own making. How does he deal with this logical train wreck?

It doesn’t take long to realize that at this point, Calvin has become desperate. He has no choice but to accept a glaring contradiction he can’t pretend isn’t there. His entire ideology has led up to this climax, even though he deals with it in the middle of his Institutes. That doesn’t matter. Two opposing locomotives of thought have been carrying him along the tracks of his thinking and brought him to a point where their hundreds of tons of steel are now fiercely racing toward each other at breakneck speed on the same track. This impending calamity haunts Calvin, knowing that what he is looking at is like the nightmare of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. Sooner or later there will be a violent earth-shaking collision. It is only a matter of time.

There is an episode in the original Star Trek series (1966) where Mr. Spock, the champion of logic who has completely suppressed all emotion and passion, finds himself in an impossible situation. He is the pilot of a shuttle craft that has just lifted off to escape a hostile planet. They are in orbit—for now. There is a small handful of passengers On board, all of which know they are doomed. For you see, the ship’s fuel supply is almost gone, the orbit is decaying, and help is nowhere in sight. The situation is hopeless. So Spock makes a decision that defies logic, and the members of the crew are stunned at his irrationality. He jettisons the fuel and ignites it, causing a long luminous trail of burning plasma shooting out of the rear of the shuttle craft. Now they are out of fuel—completely. The shuttle plunges into the atmosphere and begins to incinerate. The cabin fills with toxic smoke and the occupants are choking on it. The dialogue at that moment goes like this:

Doctor McCoy: It may be the last action you’ll ever take, Mister Spock, but it was all human.

Spock: Totally illogical. There was no chance.

McCoy: That’s exactly what I mean.

At the last minute, they are transported out of the shuttle craft and aboard the Enterprise just in the nick of time, where Captain Kirk eventually queries Mr. Spock on the rationale behind his decision:

Kirk: I don’t understand all this, and maybe you can explain, logically of course. When you jettisoned the fuel and ignited it, you knew there was virtually no chance of being seen, and yet you did it anyhow. And that would seem to me to be an act of desperation.

Spock: Quite correct, Captain.

Kirk: Now we all know, and I’m sure the doctor would agree with me, that desperation is a highly emotional state of mind. How does your well-known logic explain that?

Spock: Quite simply, Captain. I examined the problem from all angles, and it was plainly hopeless. Logic informed me that under the circumstances, the only possible action would have to be one of desperation. Logical decision, logically arrived at.

Kirk: Aha. You mean you reasoned that it was time for an emotional outburst.

Spock: Well, I wouldn’t put it in exactly those terms, Captain, but those are essentially the facts.

Kirk: You’re not going to admit that for the first time in your life you committed a purely human, emotional act?

Spock: No, sir.

Kirk: Mr. Spock, you’re a stubborn man.

Spock: Yes, sir.[251]

When you combine desperation with stubbornness, it does not end well. You make decisions that baffle your colleagues (or should), and those who see clearly what is really going on lose all remaining respect they ever had for you. In the Star Trek story, the shuttle craft crew is rescued just before their time runs out. There is no such happy ending for Calvin, who will stubbornly cling to his deterministic ideology until it blasts him into catastrophic rational oblivion. His orbit is definitely decaying, and there is no chance of a rescue. He will never give up his self-inflicted deterministic ruin, because he sincerely believes that to do so will rupture his faulty concept of God’s sovereignty.

Calvin is projecting his own insecurity on God himself, and God does not come off very well as a result. Calvin cannot live with the damage he thinks human libertarian free will inflicts on God’s sovereignty. But neither can he live with the loss of God’s righteousness. He therefore denies that God’s goodness dies of a thousand cuts from how he directly perpetrates the multitudes of evil choices and actions of man. But the only way to deny this is to abandon rationality itself and push the issue into the obfuscating obscurity of the “secret counsel” of God. Calvin must either divide God’s will in two, or divide God’s mind in two. Those are the only choices left, and the first one is unthinkable since it incinerates The Precious: Calvin’s unrelenting deterministic worldview. The following is the ultimate expression of Calvin’s overwhelming desperation:

Nay, when we cannot comprehend how God can will that to be done which he forbids us to do, let us call to mind our imbecility, and remember that the light in which he dwells is not without cause termed inaccessible (1 Tim. 6:16), because shrouded in darkness.[252]

This is the point where the two locomotives of God’s will have their ear-bleeding crash. How can God will (i.e. cause) to be done that which he forbids us to do? Multiple scholars and thinkers have attempted to reconcile these contradictory trains of thought, and many still believe this is possible. But Calvin knew beyond any doubt that they couldn’t. If they could, he would not have had to resort to his irrational desperate maneuver of running away[253] and hiding behind “our imbecility.” This is the only option left, and no one knows this better than Calvin.

As I have already said, there are some “reformed” theologians who will tell us that the solution to the problem is quite simple: there are two aspects of God’s will—his decretive will and his preceptive (or prescriptive) will. But if this was such an obvious and simple solution, why didn’t Calvin ultimately invoke it? It would have saved him one horrific train wreck. As we saw before, Calvin tried, but knew it doesn’t work, which is why he had to resort to such desperate measures. If it worked, he would have adopted it as his grand solution, and presto: problem solved. After all, appealing to two aspects of God’s will is quite easy, and presumably removes the necessity to drag our “imbecility” into the formula to solve the problem. But no. Lest we forget, he, like the preponderance of the “reformed” theologians following in his footsteps, is a determinist. There is nothing more central and all-encompassing in his theology than exhaustive divine determinism. It looms over the entire landscape of his thinking like a solar eclipse. If there’s such a thing as man’s libertarian free will, it has the capacity to be causal, and Calvin loses his mind. The appeal to mystery, which is ultimately what Calvin did, and ultimately what his disciples who truly understand the dilemma do, would not be necessary if the contradiction was not real. Since it is unquestionably real, the “solution” mentioned above is no solution at all. It’s nothing more than a theological game all self-respecting theologians should refuse to play.

To review and recap to settle the matter once and for all, if there’s a separate aspect of God’s will one could call preceptive or prescriptive (as opposed to decretive), the possibility that man could obey it or disobey it based on his own volition suddenly appears on the radar, and Calvin has no choice but to hunt it down and torpedo it. Why? Because it introduces additional causality, and therefore blunts God’s causal sovereignty in the caverns of Calvin’s calculus. Even if a case could be made for the “preceptive” will of God, it must also be causal in order to satisfy the demands of determinism. If it’s not causal, but something that can be obeyed or disobeyed by free agents other than God, something could be “left to fortune” and the world “moves at random,” which causes Calvin’s head to explode. It must therefore be sacrificed to the pagan god EDD, lest it get in the way of Calvin’s desperate maneuver and what

subsequently has become a tragically deformed theology.

That Calvin himself ultimately rejected the possibility that there actually are two species of God’s will is decisively settled by reference to his commentary on Matthew:

if it be objected, that it is absurd to suppose the existence of two wills in God, I reply, we fully believe that his will is simple and one; but as our minds do not fathom the deep abyss of secret election, in accommodation to the capacity of our weakness, the will of God is exhibited to us in two ways.[254]

This excerpt from Calvin’s commentary puts the final seal on the issue: God’s will is “simple and one.” It is not divided, and this ontological split of God’s will into two different halves is a myth. It only seems to us that there are “two wills in God.” It is the same will “exhibited to us in two ways” because “our minds do not fathom the deep abyss of secret election” (a restatement of his never-ending fallacy of begging the question).

But suppose we ignore for the moment Calvin’s indisputable affirmation that God’s will is unquestionably simple and one, and that the concept of two versions of God’s will is a fable. If the preceptive will of God is not causal, the decretive will of God, as I stated earlier, still remains the sole determining cause of all things, including the fact of man’s disobedience to God’s moral and soteriological imperatives. In other words, God’s decretive will is directly and unalterably causing man’s disobedience to his “preceptive will,” removing man from the whole equation entirely. So again, adding an additional species of God’s will changes nothing. And if the preceptive will is causal, we are right back where we started—the entire effort to differentiate between the two is futile, and the rational dilemma remains. Therefore the paltry attempt to split God’s will in half like this is a dead end. Calvin would rather take the option of trashing reason than allow his deterministic ideology to disintegrate as he stares down the barrel of a devastating contradiction.

But how valid is this option? Recall my earlier treatment of the cognitive barrier. We saw that the border between God’s intellect and man’s does not lie along the contours of the laws of logic, but between the limits of man’s comprehension and God’s infinite wisdom. But what Calvin is attempting here is to say that God can reconcile a hard logical contradiction behind the curtain of his “inaccessible” intellect ‑- inaccessible because it is “shrouded in darkness.”[255] This means that Calvin rejects the idea that the cognitive barrier is not located where the laws of logic prevail. He thinks logic is the very locus of the cognitive barrier. Beyond the barrier, God can violate the laws of logic to his heart’s content, expressing the agenda of his dark irrational alter ego lurking somewhere in the godhead, ready to burst into the light whenever some confused theologian somewhere feels the need to embrace abject imbecility.

If we recall the discussion of what happens if God or creation can vitiate rationality, I said there was a reason for bringing it up. If there is a part of God’s mind that can circumvent the laws of logic, the door is open to all sorts of contradictions of the central principles of the nature of reality, the relationship between God and creation, and the reliability of revelation. By embracing the concept of God’s dual mental cavities where one is rational and the other is anti-rational, Calvin has opened this door, and released a panoply of disasters from which there is no recovery. Once this door is open, it can never be closed. The entire superstructure of Christian theism completely breaks down.

Most criminals are desperate, and Calvin’s desperation has driven him to commit the perfect rational crime. He breaks the laws of logic by affirming two contradictory propositions, and demands that God cover for him—giving him a bullet-proof alibi: we puny humans are just too stupid to understand how these contradictory propositions can all be true. But God is so brilliant that he can resolve the unresolvable conundrum on Calvin’s behalf. And since the solution God is expected to provide to bail Calvin out of logic jail is allegedly beyond the cognitive barrier, Calvin doesn’t even have to explain how it works. It’s God’s problem now—if you have an objection, talk to him. Of course, if you do, based on Calvin’s misplacement of the boundaries of the cognitive barrier, no one can guarantee which of the divine schizophrenic personalities you’ll be addressing. In this context, Calvin has just removed himself from the category of serious biblical scholar and his move toward a disappointing form of anti-intellectualism is complete.

But desperate times call for desperate measures. I have seen a similar pattern where some theologians (who consider themselves “reformed”) embrace a bewildering array of irrational and mutually contradictory positions that reveal a disturbing trend that is emblematic of a growing contempt for sound philosophical principles within the orbit of hermeneutics and exegesis. What the Body of Christ needs right now is a renewed recognition that the Word of God is never philosophically inept, the protests of certain anti-philosophical debating opponents notwithstanding. / would strongly suggest that there are some aspects of what is called “reformed” theology that are in dire need of reform. To take what is irrational and correct its incoherent errors is one of the highest expressions of reform we can achieve. I must also restate the fundamental principle I articulated earlier in this volume: anything that violates basic rationality by affirming two contradictory propositions is automatically at war with God’s divine Logos.

In his book The God Who Is There, Francis Schaeffer defends his fundamental thesis that the current gap between the generations is caused by a shift in the concept of truth.[256] Prior to the advent of the gap, almost everyone in our society remained loyal to the law of non-contradiction: that A cannot be non-A at the same time in the same way. But since then, the concept of truth has undergone a fundamental transformation. This is partly due to the influence of the dialectic methodology[257] for arriving at what’s true and false—an approach that finds its roots in the ideas of German philosopher GWF Hegel. Hegel influenced Karl Marx, who influenced the West—and especially the modern-day West—to the point where truth and rationality have become so severely weakened that they have almost reached the point of extinction.

On its face, it is difficult to comprehend the widespread popularity of John Calvin’s incoherent deterministic philosophy. I believe the deterioration of the concept of truth in the West that Schaeffer articulated could be a significant part of the answer. How else can we account for the propensity of so many people of faith to swallow the self‑

contradictory sophistry of Calvinism? If truth is no longer truth in the classical sense, the abandonment of the very categories of true and false is not far behind. I am not suggesting that Calvin was influenced by this shift—it occurred long after he departed this vale of tears. He didn’t accept his contradictions because of the modern erosion of the concept of truth. He accepted them for a different reason: misguided as he was, he sincerely believed God could clean up his reckless logical wet spill with divine brute force and mystery. But this recent emergence of postmodernism could easily be part of the reason why his self-contradictory doctrines find so much sympathy in today’s world. For Calvin, to squander the rules of inference grounded in the divine mind can be justified by appealing to the “secret counsel” of God—which here means cheating while no one is looking. For too many souls in our century, it’s not even called cheating any more.

FOOTNOTES

[245] Jeremy A. Evans, Whosoever Will, 266.

[246] Calvin, Institutes, Book 1, Chapter 18, Section 3, Paragraph 2.

[247] Ibid.

[248] Or lordship.

[249] Calvin, Institutes, Book 1, Chapter 18, Section 3, Paragraph 2.

[250] There may be a temptation to challenge this narrative by saying God occasionally commands his people to kill other human beings within the context of God’s judgment against them. But this is not an example of murder. It is therefore irrelevant to the present discussion.

[251] Star Trek, The Galileo Seven (1967).

[252] Calvin, Institutes, Book 1, Chapter 18, Section 3, Paragraph 2, emphasis mine.

[253] Calvin’s maneuver is a sad reminder of the strategy of the cowardly knights in Monty Python and the Holy Grail: “RUN AWAY!”

[254] John Calvin, Commentary on Matthew, 631.

[255] And all along we’ve been led to believe that God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5).

[256] Francis Schaeffer, The Cod Who Is There, 33.

[257] The Socratic Method is often referred to in the literature as the “dialectic method.” This is not what I am referring to here.

Calvinism makes the Word of God null and void through this determinism:

 

I worked with CHATGPT to redesign this next “Calvinist Toon”

This next section is from Ronnie W. Rogers, Reflections of a Disenchanted Calvinist: The Disquieting Realities of Calvinism (Bloomington, IL: WestBow Press, 2016), 86-97. [Chpt 13, “Preaching of the Gospel” | PDF]

As a pastor, I am intensely concerned with what is included in preaching of the gospel. I realize that all Christians are concerned, and rightly so, but because I do this week in and week out, it is of utmost importance not only to understand the gospel, but to articulate the gospel message in such a way that it clearly reflects what the Scripture teaches and what I believe. I offer the following to elucidate my understanding of the call to preach the gospel.

  1. I affirm the mandate to preach the gospel to everyone (John 6:44, 12:32; Revelation 22:17); that “God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21). Further, I affirm that the proclamation of the gospel that appeals to the heart and mind in persuasiveness, aided by divine enablements of grace, may result in salvation for anyone who hears.

The means of this grace enablement include but are not limited to: Gods’ salvific love for all (John 3:16), God’s manifestation of His power so that all may know He is the Sovereign (Isaiah 45:21-22) and Creator (Romans 1:18-20), which assures that everyone has opportunity to know about Him. Christ paying for all sins (John 1:29), conviction of the Holy Spirit (John 16:7-11), working of the Holy Spirit (Hebrews 6:1-6), enlightening of the Son (John 1:9), God’s teaching (John 6:4S), God opening hearts (Acts 16:14), and the power of the gospel (Romans 1:16), without such redemptive grace, no one seeks or comes to God (Romans 3:11). Further, I believe that man, because of these gracious provisions and workings of God, can choose to seek and find God (Jeremiah 29:13; Acts 17:11-12). Moreover, no one can come to God without God drawing (John 6:44), and that God is drawing all men, individuals (John 12:32). The same Greek word for draw, helkuo, is used in both verses.” About 115 passages condition salvation on believing alone, and about 35 simply on faith.”[96]Other grace enablements may include providential workings in and through other people, situations, and timing or circumstances that are a part of grace to provide an opportunity for every individual to choose to follow Christ.

John Piper asked the question, “What message would missionaries rather take than the message: Be glad in God! Rejoice in God! Sing for joy in God! …God loves to exalt himself by showing mercy to sinners.”[97] My answer to this question, the truth that when anyone hears this glorious message, is that same someone has a chance, by the grace and mercy of God, to receive the truth of the message by faith. Further, without opportunity for all sinners to accept, that message should be changed to say, “some can be glad in God if He predestined you” or “God loves to exalt Himself by showing mercy to some sinners.” This is the actual message of Calvinism, a disquieting reality, and I would appreciate their due diligence always to make that clear.

I affirm that a truly good faith offer seems to necessitate a willingness to tell a person that Christ died for them. For example, Paul said to the Corinthians, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:1-3). Thus, he told them Christ died for “our” sins when they were lost. Peter preached to the Jews saying, “For you first, God raised up His Servant and sent Him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways” (Acts 3:26). The blessing is the “turning every one of you from your wicked ways,” i.e. salvation. Notice that the blessing is not corporate—Israel—but for “every one” who turns from wickedness, which clearly implies that they can and should. In addition, our Lord said concerning His blood, “And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood” (Luke 22:20, italics added). When He said that, Judas was sitting there, verse 21.

Commenting on Acts 3:26, John MacArthur says, “All the rich blessings of salvation and all the covenant promises were available. Peter’s hearers could only obtain them, however, by turning from their wicked ways. Repentance was the key that unlocked everything. Peter had clearly shown that the claims of Jesus were consistent with Old Testament prophecy, so that it was a compelling case for his hearers to respond in repentance and belief Tragically, most of Peter’s audience refused to repent. Like their fathers before them, they hardened their hearts and failed to enter God’s rest (Hebrews 3:8; 4:3). As a result, within the lifetime of many in the audience the nation would be destroyed. And those who refused to turn from their sins would find themselves ‘cast out into the outer darkness’ (Matthew 8:12), where they will `pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power’ (2 Thessalonians 1:9). Such a fate awaits all those in every age and place who refuse to repent and receive God’s gracious offer of salvation in Jesus Christ.”[98] (italics added)

Now I unconditionally agree with MacArthur’s explanation of this verse; however, his Calvinism turns the otherwise precise interpretation of this verse into double-talk. His comments give every appearance that he believes that, as this Scripture clearly teaches, “All the rich blessings of Salvation…were available” and these could and should repent, but they did not because “[they] refused to repent …. [and] they hardened their hearts.” He deems their refusal to be a tragedy.

From a non-Calvinist interpretation, it is indeed an eternal tragedy, but from a Calvinist perspective, it is not. Because according to Calvinism’s unconditional election, irresistible selective regeneration, and monergistic salvation, their non-repentance was exactly what God desired and predetermined that they could only do; they will spend eternity in torment, as He also desired. They will serve as predetermined monuments of His wrath. Furthermore, they did not refuse to repent, in any sense of being able to have chosen to do otherwise. As an incontrovertible fact of Calvinism, they did the only thing they could do; thereby proving they were not the elect. Moreover, everyone of God’s elect who heard this was selectively regenerated against his will so that he would unavoidably believe in the Messiah. From his Calvinism, there can be nothing tragic about this event, for everything went according to God’s plan, a disquieting reality, whereas, from a non-Calvinist perspective, it is tragic indeed, and heart wrenchingly so. For they have truly rejected “the rich blessings of salvation” which God had made available through grace-enabled faith.

  1. I disaffirm that while I am commanded to preach the power of the gospel—the good news—to the entire world, God has predetermined to make that power unavailable to the entire audience of the message and has limited it to only those chosen by God apart from faith (Acts 16:31­32, Romans 10:13). It seems that the message to the Philippian jailer, if Paul were a Calvinist, should have been, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, which is the only thing you can do if you have been selected and the one thing you cannot do if you have not been selectively regenerated; consequently, while belief is necessary for salvation, it is not for you to worry about; you should worry about things you can do something about.” Apart from mere obedience and process, the underlying message of Calvinism allows no room for urgency or passionate and emotional pleading either toward or with the unsaved to repent, because all who are predestined to repent will and those who are not cannot repent, i.e., irresistible grace. This is a disquieting reality.

Calvinism is not devoid of passion for seeing the lost come to Christ. Nevertheless, if logic prevails, it is only a vertical passion. That is to say, it is a passion to carry out the mandate of God, to be used by God to gather His elect. It cannot be a Holy Spirit led horizontal passion, which is a burden, love and hurt for all of the lost of the world, or even each particular individual, to come to know Christ. For God, according to Calvinism, does not even have such passion. A consistent Calvinist’s passion is not actually toward the individual but always toward God, which some Calvinists would revel in as vindicating Calvinism; however, that is only true if the Scripture supports such, and I do not think it does. Further, if Calvinism is true, unless the Calvinist knows that God has truly drawn him to one of His elect—which seems impossible to objectively know—the Calvinist needs to refuse to give in to horizontal passion because it can only be mere human sentiment or satanic influence, both of which would actually be contrary to God’s passion.

Paul clearly had a vertical passion for God, but equally clear was his horizontal passion for the lost. He said, “I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites” (Romans 9:1-4a).

Paul’s passion for his fellow Jews who were rejecting Christ and therefore headed for hell was inconsolable. Although he knew that he could not relinquish his salvation, and even if he did that would not cause others to receive salvation, he did actually love them so deeply and hurt so profoundly for them that he would have surrendered his own salvation and home in heaven for an eternity in the hollows of hell for their sake. This is truly the love of God ( John 3:16) and of Jesus who died willingly for all (John 1:29). Paul’s love for his lost countrymen was of the sacrificial quality that is seen in God who loved the fallen and rebellious human race and therefore, “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all (Romans 8:32). It is seen in Jesus “who gave Himself as a ransom for all” (1 Timothy 2:6), and therefore sacrificed everything that was rightfully His for this same undeserving humanity. And it is seen in Paul in that he would willingly give up the greatest love and future ever known for his countrymen.

This kind of passion and desire for the lost is exceedingly convicting and constantly challenges me to unreservedly disdain and resist excusing my own jejune love for the lost. Of course, if God has elected only some of the Jews for whom Paul so passionately grieved, then Paul’s passion and burden seem at best nothing more than a misdirected human sentimentalism that is quite contrary to the heart and love of God; possibly even the sin of arrogance. For how can Paul be led by the Holy Spirit who, according to Calvinism, cares not one whit about the final destiny of some of those Paul is so deeply concerned about.

Calvinism’s passion cannot logically, being consistent with Calvinism, be toward the lost in the same way as the simple reading of the Scripture conveys God’s, Christ’s, Paul’s or others’ passion toward all, each person, the lost of the world. If a Calvinist is so disposed, it is an inconsistency with Calvinism rather than a corollary of Calvinism. This is a disquieting reality. As a Calvinist, I would have denied—double-talked my way out of—the truthfulness of this conclusion, but as a disenchanted Calvinist, its undeniableness is indubitable.

This is not to say that Calvinists do not claim to be justified in having passion for the lost and a sense of urgency in reaching them. Regarding God’s secret will to deliver some by unconditional election, J.I. Packer says, “But this does not help us to determine the nature of the evangelistic task, nor does it affect our duty to evangelize universally and indiscriminately. The doctrine of God’s sovereignty in grace has no bearing on these things.” [99] (italics added)

The proposition that either God loves every individual and grace enables each person with an opportunity to receive forgiveness or that God only loves some enough to unconditionally elect them to salvation and loves the rest of the world to hell, and then saying that this has “no bearing” on evangelism is the apotheosis of double-talk. Furthermore, “indiscriminately” intimating or telling people that God loves them and desires for them to be saved is not a message sanctioned by God, according to Calvinism, since He does not so love everyone. They may well seek to justify their doing so, but they cannot claim that God is leading them to do so.

With regard to urgency, Packer says, “the belief that God is sovereign in grace does not affect the urgency of evangelism …. And we who are Christ’s are sent to tell them of the One—the only One—who can save them from perishing. Is not their need urgent? …. If you knew that a man was asleep in a blazing building, you would think it a matter of urgency to try and get to him, and wake him up, and bring him out. The world is full of people who are unaware that they stand under the wrath of God: is it not similarly a matter of urgency that we should go to them, and try to arouse them, and show them the way of escape?”[100]

My heart is truly saddened each time I read such double-talk. First, if truth prevails, the Calvinist must not only tell the lost that Christ is the only One who can save them from perishing, but also the devastating news that the “only One” may have been more pleased to damn them to hell—time will tell, i.e. que sera sera. Second, I agree that their need is urgent, perilously so, and that it is the good and loving thing to rescue sleeping men from blazing buildings, and analogically to arouse the lost who stand under the wrath of God by showing them the way of escape. However, that is not the gospel of Calvinism because according to Calvinism, God does not love everyone that much. How can the Calvinist be so deluded, or believe we are so credulous, to believe that he can love more than God? All the Calvinist can honestly say is, here is the way of escape for some and the rest must burn. It is indeed odd and misleading for Calvinists to attribute a greater passion to themselves for rescuing people who are perishing than they claim for God.

Packer argues that their being the non-elect “should make no difference in our actions. In the first place, it is always wrong to abstain from doing good for fear that it might not be appreciated …. our calling as Christians is not to love God’s elect, and them only, but to love our neighbor, irrespective of whether he is elect or not. Now, the nature of love is to do good and to relieve need. If, then, our neighbor is unconverted, we are to show love to him as best we can by seeking to share with him the good news without which he must needs perish.”[101] (italics added) That there are non-elect and elect must make a difference in actions if one is going to be led by the Holy Spirit who does not love everyone enough to offer salvation that can be accepted by all. I agree “the nature of love is to do good and to relieve need.” However, the Calvinist cannot claim that it is showing our unconverted neighbors love to share the gospel since God, who is love, does not and actually withholds the very love and deliverance some of our neighbors need. Moreover, the Calvinist gospel is definitely not good news to the non-elect, and no amount of double-talk can make it so, a disquieting reality.

He further claims, “The belief that God is sovereign in grace does not affect the genuineness of the gospel invitations, or the truth of the gospel promises. Whatever we may believe about election, and, for that matter, about the extent of the atonement, the fact remains that God in the gospel really does offer Christ and promise justification and life to ‘whosoever will’. `Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”[102] Actually God, according to Calvinism, does not offer Christ and a genuine promise of justification and life to whosoever because only some whosoevers can actually believe. Moreover, in what meaningful sense can an offer that has been sovereignly predetermined to be absolutely unavailable to some who hear be touted as real and genuine? To do so is to egregiously transmogrify those words into the bafflegab of all bafflegab; therefore, to the non-elect, it is neither a genuine or real offer, but rather a crushing illusion and a disquieting reality.

Piper says, “The doctrine of irresistible grace means that God is sovereign and can overcome all resistance when he wills.”[103] It is vitally important to recognize that the Calvinist, as well as Piper’s position, is actually stronger than this with regard to salvation. Their position is that not only does the doctrine of irresistible grace mean that God can overcome, but it actually means He will or must. And later in the same document Piper says, “Irresistible grace never implies that God forces us to believe against our will ….On the contrary, irresistible grace is compatible with preaching and witnessing that tries to persuade people to do what is reasonable and what will accord with their own best interests.”[104] With all due respect to Piper, this is the very kind of obfuscating verbal gymnastics that causes such confusion about the harsh realities of Calvinism. This is a disquieting reality.

Of course, technically speaking, Piper is correct. God does not force faith upon anyone, and I have never contended that Calvinism teaches that He does. However, He does in fact, according to the doctrine of irresistible grace, invincibly impose a new nature upon the elect against their will by means of “irresistible grace” so they will necessarily choose to believe. Furthermore, persuasion, prayers, preaching, etc., have nothing to do with assuring, aiding or impeding the imposition of a new nature because it is a sovereign monergistic act of God, irrespective of anything done by humans or angels. The Calvinist’s response that what they do is a part of the process, or obedience, does not change the nature of the irresistible imposition of a new nature. Steve Lemke comments, “The Synod of Dort insisted that such attempts at moral persuasion of unsaved persons was wasted time.”[105]

When Calvinists respond that witnessing, praying, persuasion, etc., are a part of the process of God bringing people to salvation, they do not mean the same thing as a disenchanted or non-Calvinist saying that God uses such because we mean that they are actual substantive and integral parts of enabling grace. In contrast, according to Calvinism’s soteriology, nothing contributes one whit to the change of the elect’s nature except the monergistic, selective, irresistible, regenerative act of God. Therefore, as far as the process for what leads up to that act, God could have replaced whatever did happen with having His chosen Calvinists to recite the code of Hammurabi in tongues backwards or the national anthem of Bangladesh in Swahili, because nothing actually substantively matters except unconditional election, followed by irresistible grace in selective regeneration. That is a disquieting reality.

I am well aware of the answers to this by Calvinism, but is it not a little disingenuous to proclaim the message without telling the listeners the all too often undisclosed truth of Calvinism? If I preached to the jailer and said Paul’s words, underlying that message would be the truth that the jailer, or any jailer who heard the message, should and could repent, and that is what I believe Paul clearly believed and meant. However, if a Calvinist said it, the underlying message would be that “although I told you to believe you can’t until you are regenerated and if you are regenerated you will believe” and that is a quite different gospel.[106] This is a disquieting reality.

Again, my concern here has nothing to do with whether someone believes it is a good faith offer on the part of the Calvinist, but whether the person hearing it has a real chance to be saved or not. That is to say, if all of the Scriptures that seem to indicate God really wants everyone to be saved and has provided for that possibility are what they appear to be, and if Calvinists really believe what they say, which is that He really does not want everyone saved because according to irresistible grace, if He did, they would be; they should make sure their message makes that clear because it is an extraordinarily important and an indispensable component of their belief and message. Thus, I am satisfied that Calvinists may possibly make a good faith offer because they do not know who the elect are, and that is not my concern here. I am concerned with the idea that some believe that claim exonerates God from appearing to make a real offer because He does know. Therefore, while it is crucial that my offer of the gospel is in good faith, it is infinitely more vital that God’s offer of the gospel is one of good faith as well.

I further disaffirm that God wants the gospel presented to all, and calls on all to repent, but has no intention of those offers of the gospel being real chances for salvation except for some.[107] I believe we should replace the term general call with the more biblically coherent term sufficient call. The sufficient call, along with God’s grace enablement, is sufficient for anyone and everyone to receive salvation. The sufficient call is simply the proclamation of the good news to the world. It is the call of God on men and women everywhere to heed the call to repent and believe the gospel before it is everlasting too late (Acts 17:30-31). It is the call of the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20). It is the message preached by Jesus and His disciples (Mark 6:12, 8:35; Luke 3:18, 4:18; Acts 8:12, 8:37, 13:32, 13:38-40, 16:10, 21:28; Romans 1:16, 10:8; Revelation 22:17). Whereas, the efficacious call is received after the sufficient call is heeded, resulting in regeneration and consummating in salvation for those whom God foreknew, predestined, called, justified, and glorifies (Romans 8:28-30).

The means of this grace enablement include but are not limited to: Gods’ salvific love for all (John 3:16), God’s manifestation of His power so that all may know He is the Sovereign (Isaiah 45:21-22) and Creator (Romans 1:18-20), which assures that everyone has opportunity to know about Him. Christ paying for all sins (John 1:29), conviction of the Holy Spirit (John 16:7-11), working of the Holy Spirit (Hebrews 6:1-6), enlightening of the Son (John 1:9), God’s teaching ( John 6:45), God opening hearts (Acts 16:14), and the power of the gospel (Romans 1:16), without such redemptive grace, no one seeks or comes to God (Romans 3:11). Further, I believe that man, because of these gracious provisions and workings of God, can choose to seek and find God (Jeremiah 29:13; Acts 17:11-12). Moreover, no one can come to God without God drawing (John 6:44), and that God is drawing all men, individuals (John 12:32). The same Greek word for draw, helkuo, is used in both verses.” About 115 passages condition salvation on believing alone, and about 35 simply on faith.”[108] Other grace enablements may include providential workings in and through other people, situations, and timing or circumstances that are a part of grace to provide an opportunity for every individual to choose to follow Christ.

Those whom God foreknew would, once graciously enabled to exercise faith or not exercise faith in Christ, trust His salvation message, quite unlike Adam did in the garden, receive the efficacious call that consummates His gracious and genuine offer of salvation. That God foreknows and predestines those whom He foreknows “to be conformed to the image of His Son” is not a point of contention. Neither is the reality that God efficaciously calls those He predestined to “be conformed to the image of His Son” by sanctification, justification, and glorification because salvation requires not only enabling grace, but also sustaining and completing grace. The point of disagreement with my Calvinist friends is whether foreknowledge means, “to know beforehand” or “determine”. I believe that the evidence points to it meaning to know beforehand rather than to determine beforehand. Further, to use verses such as Romans 8:28 or 1 Corinthians 1:24 in order to prove that the effectual call of God is as the Calvinist explains it is to read into the text more than is warranted. They simply assume their answer rather than prove it.

Thus, in contradistinction to Calvinism, I maintain that God made salvation available to everyone through His grace enablements via the sufficient call of the gospel. As a result, because of God’s grace enablements, anyone can accept by faith the sufficient call or reject it. If a person accepts the sufficient call, he receives the efficacious call that consummates salvation. Therefore, the efficacious call is the consummation of salvation for all who believe rather than the initiation in order for some to believe. God sovereignly determined the order and purpose of the two calls. Consequently, being predestined to salvation is not a requirement for receiving the sufficient call of the gospel; it is a requirement for receiving the efficient call of the gospel.

I also disaffirm that the whole mission enterprise is merely obedience, an endeavor that has no real effect upon anyone’s opportunity to receive or reject the gospel and salvation. This disaffirmation is in direct contrast with Calvinism because from a Calvinist view, it does not matter if anyone ever witnesses—beyond being merely a part of the salvific process or only an act of obedience. Moreover, I disaffirm that the Calvinist’s answer that preaching the gospel is the means by which God saves is either satisfactory or adequate if, as the Calvinist believes, salvation is monergistic, and prior to monergistic regeneration, any and every appeal to the heart and mind is meaningless to the person addressed by the Calvinist. Regeneration is an act totally against the person’s will, mind and heart regardless of what he hears or has not heard. This is a disquieting reality.

The Calvinist is right to say that a person is not forced to trust God against his will because according to the doctrine of “irresistible grace”, along with a compatibilist view of free will, God changes the nature of a person by regenerating him, and the changed person then freely chooses to believe in Christ. However, the irresistible change of the nature via regeneration, which results in the free exercise of faith, is an act that is invincibly forced upon the unsaved. Thus, since regeneration is a part of salvation, and according to Calvinism, regeneration is imposed against the will of the unsaved prior to faith; Calvinists err in saying or implying that salvation is by faith alone. This is a disquieting reality. This is a subtle but crucial distinction in understanding how Calvinists feel free to say that a person freely exercises faith in Christ even though he is also irresistibly drawn. When these two essential components of Calvinism’s salvific process are fully understood, the heraldic sign “saved by faith” becomes tarnished. This is a disquieting reality.

I disaffirm that any person cannot repent, or by the grace of God, answer the call of the gospel, which is in fact the ultimate meaning of Calvinism because Calvinists believe that prior to regeneration a person cannot repent and after regeneration they cannot not repent. Further, I disaffirm that preaching out of mere obedience to God is the picture presented in Scripture, where Jesus (Matthew 23:37-39) and Paul (Acts 17:4, 18:4, 18:13; 2 Corinthians 5:11) passionately sought to persuade and were emotional because they spoke to people who would not repent or might not repent. Their passionate appeals seem disingenuous if they actually knew certain ones could come and they would, and certain ones could not come and they would not, and nothing could ever change that or even affect it in the most infinitesimal degree. Moreover, I disaffirm that it is an escapable reality of Calvinism that God must desire those who go to hell to be in hell because everyone He regenerates is saved from hell and the ones He chooses not to regenerate must go to hell. This is a disquieting reality. I wish they would preach this more often so that it could be compared to the quite contrary picture of God in the Scripture.

Why don’t all true Calvinists regularly stand in the pulpit and celebrate their doctrine that selective regeneration precedes faith by saying repeatedly to those who are listening that you cannot be saved unless God regenerates you: if He does you will be saved, if He doesn’t you will not, and nothing can change that or add to it? To preach repent and believe in any way that steers one away from the aforementioned truth of Calvinism is, at best misleading, and at times even deceptive because people cannot believe prior to regeneration and if they are regenerated, they will believe. This is a disquieting reality.

The Calvinist may answer, “We preach believe and repent because we are commanded to.” I would agree, but God also commands us to “speak the truth in love.” Therefore, Calvinists should tell everything they really believe and guard against misleading people to think that Christ loves all of them and they can really receive salvation. They should at least do this as fiercely as they guard their understanding of God’s sovereignty or the TULIP. Some Calvinists do this, and I appreciate and respect them for doing so. I am not referring to them. That the Scripture says to preach the gospel is true, but it does not affirm irresistible grace or the experience of the new birth prior to exercising faith.

FOOTNOTES

[96] Chafer, Systematic Theology, vol. VII, 273-274.

[97] Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad, 33.

[98] John MacArthur, Acts (Chicago: Moody Press, 1994, c1996), 123.

[99] J.I Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God (Downers Grove, IL., InterVarsity Press, 1961), 97.

[100] Ibid., 98-99.

[101] Ibid., 99.

[102] Ibid., 100.

[103] J. Piper and the Bethlehem Baptist Church staff, “What We Believe About the Five Points of Calvinism,” as quoted in Allen and Lemke, Whosoever Will, 112. [RPT: the full fifth chapter is here for an excellent read.]

[104] Ibid.

[105] Allen and Lemke, Whosoever Will, 113.

[106] I am not making a reference to Galatians 1:6, nor implying heresy in the Calvinist message. I simply mean that some can be saved and some cannot, in contrast with the message that everyone can be saved by faith, is a very different message.

[107] Thomas R. Edgar has written an extensive article on this issue which is worth reading: THE MEANING OF PROGINWSKW (“FOREKNOWLEDGE”). Found at Chafer Theological Seminary | and at Evangelical Arminians | as well as RPT.

[108] Chafer, Systematic Theology, vol. VII, 273-274.

Countering An Instagram Short “History” Video: “Zionist Massacres”

Published by Papa Giorgio

In discussing this with Grok, I wanted a reasonable response to a video merely noting “Zionist Massacres” as if they happened in a vacuum. I will recommend some books at the end, but suffice to say, the person that posted the video has zero understanding of the abuse under dhimmitude.

Here’s an adjusted synthesis of our conversation, incorporating the key evidence from the Fondapol study by historian Georges Bensoussan (“Pogroms in Palestine before the creation of the State of Israel, 1830-1948“).

Core Adjustment to the Framing

The palestine-index.org/massacres list presents a selective narrative of “Zionist massacres” as if they represent unprovoked colonial aggression. This framing is incomplete and misleading because it largely erases or downplays the long preceding history of anti-Jewish pogroms and riots in the region. These attacks targeted Jews (both long-established “Old Yishuv” communities and newer Zionist immigrants) well before the creation of Israel in 1948, and often before significant Zionist settlement. fondapol.org

Bensoussan’s study, drawing on primary sources (archives, traveler accounts, inquiry commissions), documents a pattern of murderous violence against Jews in Palestine under Ottoman rule and the British Mandate. The violence was rooted in the traditional dhimmi status of Jews (inferior protected minority under Islamic rule), religious incitement, and growing opposition to Jewish national aspirations. It intensified with waves of Jewish immigration and political events like the Balfour Declaration, but the underlying hostility predated modern Zionism.

Key events from the Fondapol study (pre-1948 anti-Jewish violence)

  • 1834 Safed Pogrom: Over 500 Jews killed, raped, or mutilated; synagogues looted and burned. Triggered by local Arab revolt against Egyptian reforms under Mehemet Ali that slightly improved non-Muslim status. Armed Arab villagers and Bedouins attacked.
  • 1838 Safed Pogrom: Repeated violence by Druze and Arab forces; homes plundered, women assaulted, ransom demands. Jewish community severely reduced.
  • 1920 Jerusalem (Nebi Musa) Pogrom: 5–6 Jews killed, over 200 injured (stabbings, rapes). Arab mobs chanted “We will drink the blood of the Jews” and “Slaughter the Jews,” incited during a religious festival. Arab police participated or stood by.
  • 1921 Jaffa Pogrom: About 50 Jews killed (including writer Yosef Haim Brenner). Started from clashes but quickly turned into indiscriminate attacks on Jews regardless of Zionist affiliation. Spread to other areas.
  • 1929 Riots/Pogroms (most notorious before 1948):
    • Hebron: 67 Jews slaughtered in hours (including women and children); extreme torture, mutilation, beheadings, rape. Many victims were non-Zionist Orthodox Jews. Arab police refused to intervene or colluded.
    • Safed: 44 Jews killed with similar atrocities.
    • Jerusalem and elsewhere: Total ~133 Jews killed, hundreds injured. Villages attacked, livestock slaughtered. The Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini played a major role through incitement, including spreading false rumors about Jewish intentions at the Western Wall and invoking anti-Semitic texts like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
  • 1936–1939 Arab Revolt: Widespread strikes, ambushes on Jewish traffic, and killings. Bodies often mutilated. Arabs rejected the Peel Commission partition proposal. The British responded with the 1939 White Paper severely limiting Jewish immigration—precisely as European Jews faced the Holocaust.
  • 1947–early 1948 (pre-state civil war phase): After UN Partition vote (rejected by Arabs), renewed riots, road ambushes on Jewish convoys, massacres of passengers (including women/children), and threats. This phase directly preceded and overlapped with the events on the palestine-index list (Deir Yassin, etc.).

These were not isolated “clashes.” They often involved mobs targeting civilians indiscriminately, religious leaders inciting violence, and local Arab forces/police failing to protect (or joining) the attackers. Brutality included mutilation, sexual violence, and destruction of cultural sites.

How this adjusts the response to the original list

  • Many incidents on the palestine-index.org list (especially 1947–1948) occurred during active warfare that Arabs initiated after rejecting partition and launching attacks. Jewish/Israeli responses (some excessive, as documented by historians like Benny Morris) were frequently reprisals or efforts to break sieges (e.g., Jerusalem supply lines) and secure survival amid existential threat.
  • Earlier “Zionist massacres” or reprisals (Qibya 1953, etc.) must be seen against this backdrop of decades of pogrom-style violence aimed at preventing any Jewish self-determination or even safe presence.
  • The pattern shows asymmetry in initiation: Arab/Palestinian leadership and mobs repeatedly resorted to violence to oppose Jewish immigration and statehood, long before Israel existed as a state with superior military power. Jewish forces, once organized (Haganah, Irgun, Palmach), responded with growing effectiveness, sometimes committing their own atrocities in the fog of war.

This doesn’t justify every Israeli action or civilian death on the Palestinian side—war produces excesses on multiple sides, and some listed events involved indefensible conduct.

However, the Fondapol study strongly supports your assumption:

  • most listed events were not random “Zionist aggression” but embedded in a cycle where Arab-initiated pogroms, riots, and rejectionism preceded and provoked responses.

The one-sided list erases Jewish victims (hundreds killed in these pre-1948 pogroms) and Arab agency.

Broader implications

The conflict’s roots involve competing nationalisms and religious claims, but the historical record shows deep-seated anti-Jewish violence in the region well before 1948, not merely as a reaction to “occupation” or Zionism.

Post-1948, this dynamic continued through fedayeen raids, terrorism, rejected peace offers, and events like the Oct 7, 2023 massacre (explicitly called a pogrom in the study’s framing).

For balance, cross-reference with Benny Morris on 1948 specifics (he documents Israeli massacres/expulsions but stresses the defensive context of a war Arabs started). Sites like the Jewish Virtual Library detail the Arab riots timeline.

Arab Riots of the 1920’s (Jewish Virtual Library)

The Arab Riots of the 1920s (Isreal My Glory)

Pre-State Israel: Photographs from 1936 Arab Riots

In short: You’re not wrong.

Context reveals a longer, bloodier pattern of anti-Jewish aggression that the selective “massacres” list obscures. Understanding requires acknowledging violence and grievances on both sides without sanitizing either.

BOOKS I RECOMMEND:

I have these digitally as well as some physical:

  • Ghosts of a Holy War: The 1929 Massacre in Palestine That Ignited the Arab-Israeli Conflict
  • One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate
  • Islam And Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide
  • The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam
  • The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude (7th–20th Century)
  • Understanding Dhimmitude
  • The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims
  • Jews in Arab Countries: The Great Uprooting
  • In Ishmael’s House: A History of Jews in Muslim Lands
  • The Jews of Islam
  • The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism

CLICK TO ENLARGE 

 

 

Calvinism: A Different Gospel

Published by Papa Giorgio

It is hard for me to sit quiet and hear person’s I adore talk about the gospel and salvation, and they put meaning behind these ideas/words when ultimately they reject these meanings. One of the [many] reasons I reject TULIP [theistic determinism] is because IT rejects the sufficiency of the living Word of God (the Gospel), as well as Calvary (the lynchpin to the Gospel).

The Gospel of God vs. The Gospel of Calvinism (Ronnie Rogers)

…. Calvinists may respond that they believe the gospel is the “power of God to everyone who believes.” By which they seem to mean, when you believe, you will experience the power of God, and that is true for everyone who believes. But, hidden in this explanation is that while this is trivially true, it is not an actualizable truth as it stands (that the listener can benefit from or by simple faith) without UE, IG, and SR, so one can and will believe, all of which is reserved for the elect and withheld from the non-elect.

As it stands in Scripture, the gospel is portrayed and understood by those who hear it to be sufficiently imbued by God’s power to save the most wretched of sinners if they only believe. Therefore, I beseech Calvinists to be more forthcoming in their gospel encounters with the lost about the other Calvinist requirements, by telling the listener what else must happen before they can believe and experience the power of the gospel—that is, the whole nature of the gospel according to Calvinism. Please fully explain to those who reject the gospel why they did so according to Calvinism. Do not let them leave with a false notion that it was because they rejected the gospel when they should have, and could have, accepted it. It was not just an act of the grace-enabled will, as they think and Scripture testifies.

The biblical gospel is simple and clear (John 3:16; 1 Cor 15:1–4). Anyone can believe and be saved by simply believing this revelation—the gospel—in which resides the power of God almighty to overcome any and all obstacles to salvation by faith. Calvinists should be equally clear about their quite different full understanding of the gospel of Christ. As Calvinists, please tell those whom you evangelize that belief in the gospel is the effect of God’s eternal and unconditional election, the internal efficacious call of God reserved for only the elect, and the renewing pre-faith work of God (regeneration or some form of renewal) of some, rather than what it is in Scripture and the minds of most, if not all, that hear the good news; that believing the gospel is the activating event that results in salvation and all that entails. Contrary to the biblical simple gospel, Calvinism’s gospel should only be shared in a way that listeners understand the gospel is not good news for everyone, and its real good news is that if you accept it, you can know you are one of the elect.

Therefore, according to Calvinism, hearing and believing in the gospel is not the sufficient call to move sinners from being a lost hell-bound sinner to being a child of God by faith. That requires the person to be elected in eternity past, a recipient of the internal efficacious call, and selectively regenerated by God. All of that empowers one to respond positively to the external call of the gospel, without which the gospel is incapable of doing anything except confirming the irreversible state of the damned.

Any veneer of Calvinism that even suggests, or leaves the listener thinking they have a choice to believe or not believe the gospel, is deception, because only after those monergistic renewal works can one truly believe the gospel unto salvation. Moreover, believing the gospel is not the turning point in a person’s eternal destination; it is actually the conduit that brings the truth to a person whose turning point in their life was being unconditionally elected in eternity past, from which believing the gospel is a result. Calvinism undermines the intelligibility of God so that the message derived from a normal reading of Scripture in light of Calvinism makes God appear indecipherable unless one possesses the Calvinist code. …..

Is God’s Word Enough?

Billy Wendeln, of the Bible Brodown is back to talk about God’s witness of Himself to the world and what the Bible teaches us about the sufficiency of the Divine revelation made known to all people.

FREE THINKING MINISTRIES discussed if “Calvinism a Different Gospel?“, to which they discussed the lowering of God’s

… Notable Calvinist scholar, Matthew J. Hart, is clear: “Calvinists . . . are theological determinists. They hold that God causes every contingent event, either directly . . . or indirectly.” Since human thoughts and states of belief are contingent events, this means that God, according to Calvinistic determinism, causes each and every thought and belief, including all of our false and evil beliefs. In his work titled The Providence of God, Paul Helm — who many consider to be the world’s leading Calvinist philosopher — explains where our thoughts come from according to his Calvinistic view:

  • “Not only is every atom and molecule, every thought and desire, kept in being by God, but every twist and turn of each of these is under the direct control of God. He has not, as far as we know, delegated that control to anyone else.”

If these scholars are correct in their assessment of Calvinism (that Calvinism entails exhaustive determinism), then I contend that Calvinism — the view that God determines all things about humanity — promotes the following incorrect views:

1- A low view of God.

As I’ve explained elsewhere, if exhaustive divine determinism is true, then God is a deity of deception and an untrustworthy source of theological beliefs. 

2- A low view of God’s word.

Based on the transfer of trust principle, if God is an untrustworthy source of theological beliefs, then why should we trust a book authored by a deity of deception that is full of theological statements you are supposed to believe?  If God is untrustworthy, so is a book he inspired. Thus, appealing to Bible verses or to the original Greek does nothing to escape this presupposed false and low view of God and His word. 

3- A low view of man.

Man does not have the ability to reason free from antecedent conditions which are sufficient to necessitate all of his thoughts and beliefs. Man is nothing but a caused cause or a passive cog (a puppet) who is always tethered to prior deterministic forces. 

Thus, on this view, man does not have the active power to infer better beliefs in a deliberative circumstance. He is merely a passive cog who is determined (by something or someone else) to believe truth or to believe falsities.  

4- A low view of sin.

The definition of sin is to “miss the mark.” However, there is no missing the mark if God determines all things about humanity. Everyone always hits the mark perfectly — exactly as God determined. 

5- A low view of the gospel.

This, in my opinion, is the deal-breaker. Calvinism is a low view of the gospel. The gospel literally means “the good news.” Here’s how Christianity has traditionally understood this “good news” with the help of the G.O.S.P.E.L. acronym:

G – God–a perfect being–created all people to be in an eternal loving relationship with Him (that is the objective purpose of life – this is why humanity exist).(Psalm 100:3)

O – Our sins (emphasis on “our”) infect us and separate us from God (like oil and water, necessary perfection and infection do not mix). (Romans 3:23)

S – Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (there’s nothing we as infected people can do about it – we need a miracle). (Isaiah 64:6)

P – Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again (this is that miracle – Jesus paid it all). (Romans 5:8)

E – Everyone who freely trusts in Christ alone – and has not rejected His offer of love and grace – has eternal life (John 3:16).

L – Life with Jesus starts now and lasts forever (to infinity . . . and beyond). (John 10:28)

But Calvinism literally preaches a different gospel. Consider Paul’s words in Galatians 1: 6-8:

  • “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.”

Here’s the Calvinist’s different G.O.S.P.E.L.*:

G* – God created a few people to be with him. Most people were created for the specific purpose of eternal suffering in Hell.

Right off the bat, we see that this is not the Gospel message that has been preached in Scripture or through the history of the Christian Church. At the least, it’s a radically different message than what most Christians have had in mind over the past 2,000 years when sharing the good news.

It gets worse . . .

O* – Our separation from God is caused and determined by God.

Let that sink in! 

S* – Sins are illusory.

As noted above, no one ever misses the mark (the definition of sin), but everyone does exactly what God determines us to do. Every arrow hits the bulls eye. 

P* – Paying the price for what God caused and determined all people to do, Jesus died and rose again.

At least Calvinists and non-Calvinist Christians all affirm the historical resurrection (but so do Mormons). 

E* – Everyone who God determines to go to heaven goes to heaven; everyone else (the majority of humanity) is determined to suffer in the fires of hell.

Unless, of course, the Calvinist affirms universalism and argue that allpeople are given irresistible grace and determined to go to heaven. Calvinists can also affirm annihilationism and contend that eternal separation from God is still determined by God (so the problem still remains), but there is no eternal conscious suffering. Both views are typically rejected by most Calvinists. 

L* – Life in hell lasts forever.

Does this sound like “good news”? No, in fact, it’s horrible news to the vast majority of humanity. Calvinism is not the message of Christianity. It is a distorted understanding of the gospel that ought to be rejected by Christ followers. ….

(READ MORE VIA FTM!)

Calvinism: A Different Gospel

If Calvinists, Molinists, and Arminians are all Christians, why does Tim Stratton spend so much time arguing about free will, divine providence, and salvation? The answer might make some angry or uncomfortable. But if we are committed to truth, we should have an open dialogue and respectful conversations. Stratton believes that Calvinism contains within itself several problems that must be addressed. He agues that Calvinism presents us with a low view of God, a low view of God’s word, and a low view of the Gospel! (To name a few.) Because of this and other reasons, it is reasonable to conclude that Calvinism presents a different Gospel, which we ought to vehemently reject.

 

 

Lies Foment Evil Acts | Dennis Prager (Manifesto Update)

Published by Papa Giorgio

JUMP TO THE MANIFESTO

Why would a teacher named Cole Allen, A registered Democrat who donated to Kamala Harris, travel across the country to kill President Trump? The same reason a mother named Renee Good tried to run over an ICE agent doing his job and Tyler Robinson drove 250-miles to shoot Charlie Kirk.

Leftists are awash and indoctrinated by LIES and pure hate coming from Democratic leaders and legacy media! They’ve targeted Christian churches and schools, and abort millions of babies. The Democrat Party is a violent criminal death cult.

Why? Because they believe LIES!

This latest of now 4 attempts…

  1. July 13, 2024 – Butler, Pennsylvania Rally
  2. September 15, 2024 – Trump International Golf Club, West Palm Beach, Florida
  3. February 22, 2026 – Mar-a-Lago Perimeter Breach, Palm Beach, Florida
  4. Last night

….On Trumps life brought to mind a couple older audios by Dennis Prager. The first deals with Prager dealing with lies from and April 2019, although I heard him talk about it many times earlier on his radio broadcast.

One may wish to include these longer posts of mine for more examples:

Lies Foment Evil Acts

This is a clip of a larger video: “Fireside Chat Ep. 76 — Lies Are the Root of Evil” | On this Fireside Chat, Dennis begins by discussing how the lies of the Left have harmed world history. Two lies he focuses on are “The Blood Libel” claim and the lie that “America is a racist country.” Dennis then answers questions from viewers.

Hysteria and Lies – “Trump is Evil”

Dennis Prager reads from a NEW YORK TIMES article, “Talking Apocalypse With My Son” (ARCHIVED) — this article shows the hysteria of the Left. Prager also plays some audio (I add the video) of Donny Deutsch on the Morning Joe Show on MSNBC. This is another example of people fighting faux evil rather than real evil (see NEWSBUSTERS for more)

Some laughter to get us through these crazy times!

MANIFESTO ADDED!

HOT AIR rightly notes in their article title that “Manifesto Released: He Believed All the Lies the Democrats Now Claim They Never Said“

This is via TOWNHALL. I wish to note that there is a bit of Messianic thinking on the left. Man is killing the planet, therefore I will save it. Man is holding back personal expression, therefore I will make it against the law to even counsel people that chopping of their breasts at 15 is not the best choice. I believe the lies that Trump is a NAZI pedophile, therefor I will save America from this fascist.

To Wit….

Hello everybody!

So I may have given a lot of people a surprise today. Let me start off by apologizing to everyone whose trust I abused.

I apologize to my parents for saying I had an interview without specifying it was for “Most Wanted.”

I apologize to my colleagues and students for saying I had a personal emergency (by the time anyone reads this, I probably most certainly DO need to go to the ER, but can hardly call that not a self-inflicted status.)

I apologize to all of the people I traveled next to, all the workers who handled my luggage, and all the other non-targeted people at the hotel who I put in danger simply by being near.

I apologize to everyone who was abused and/or murdered before this, to all those who suffered before I was able to attempt this, to all who may still suffer after, regardless of my success or failure.

I don’t expect forgiveness, but if I could have seen any other way to get this close, I would have taken it. Again, my sincere apologies.

On to why I did any of this:

I am a citizen of the United States of America.

What my representatives do reflects on me.

And I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.

(Well, to be completely honest, I was no longer willing a long time ago, but this is the first real opportunity I’ve had to do something about it.)

While I’m discussing this, I’ll also go over my expected rules of engagement (probably in a terrible format, but I’m not military so too bad.)

Administration officials (not including Mr. Patel): they are targets, prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest

Secret Service: they are targets only if necessary, and to be incapacitated non-lethally if possible (aka, I hope they’re wearing body armor because center mass with shotguns messes up people who *aren’t*

Hotel Security: not targets if at all possible (aka unless they shoot at me)

Capitol Police: same as Hotel Security

National Guard: same as Hotel Security

Hotel Employees: not targets at all

Guests: not targets at all

In order to minimize casualties I will also be using buckshot rather than slugs (less penetration through walls)

I would still go through most everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necessary (on the basis that most people *chose* to attend a speech by a pedophile, rapist, and traitor, and are thus complicit) but I really hope it doesn’t come to that.

Rebuttals to objections:

Objection 1: As a Christian, you should turn the other cheek.

Rebuttal: Turning the other cheek is for when you yourself are oppressed. I’m not the person raped in a detention camp. I’m not the fisherman executed without trial. I’m not a schoolkid blown up or a child starved or a teenage girl abused by the many criminals in this administration.

Turning the other cheek when *someone else* is oppressed is not Christian behavior; it is complicity in the oppressor’s crimes.

Objection 2: This is not a convenient time for you to do this.

Rebuttal: I need whoever thinks this way to take a couple minutes and realize that the world isn’t about them. Do you think that when I see someone raped or murdered or abused, I should walk on by because it would be “inconvenient” for people who aren’t the victim?

This was the best timing and chance of success I could come up with.

Objection 3: You didn’t get them all.

Rebuttal: Gotta start somewhere.

Objection 4: As a half-black, half-white person, you shouldn’t be the one doing this.

Rebuttal: I don’t see anyone else picking up the slack

Objection 5: Yield unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.

Rebuttal: The United States of America are ruled by the law, not by any one or several people. In so far as representatives and judges do not follow the law, no one is required to yield them anything so unlawfully ordered.

I would also like to extend my appreciation to a great many people since I will not be likely to be able to talk with them again (unless the Secret Service is *astoundingly* incompetent.)

Thank you to my family, both personal and church, for your love over these 31 years.

Thank you to my friends, for your companionship over many years.

Thank you to my colleagues over many jobs, for your positivity and professionalism.

Thank you to my students for your enthusiasm and love of learning.

Thank you to the many acquaintances I’ve met, in person and online, for short interactions and long-term relationships, for your perspectives and inspiration.

Thank you all for everything.

Sincerely,

Cole “coldForce” “Friendly Federal Assassin” Allen

PS: Ok now that all the sappy stuff is done, what the hell is the Secret Service doing? Sorry, gonna rant a bit here and drop the formal tone.

Like, I expected security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10 feet, metal detectors out the wazoo.

What I got (who knows, maybe they’re pranking me!) is nothing.

No damn security.

Not in transport.

Not in the hotel.

Not in the event.

Like, the one thing that I immediately noticed walking into the hotel is the sense of arrogance.

I walk in with multiple weapons and not a single person there considers the possibility that I could be a threat.

The security at the event is all outside, focused on protestors and current arrivals, because apparently no one thought about what happens if someone checks in the day before.

Like, this level of incompetence is insane, and I very sincerely hope it’s corrected by the time this country gets actually competent leadership again.

Like, if I was an Iranian agent, instead of an American citizen, I could have brought a damn Ma Deuce in here and no one would have noticed shit.

Actually insane.

Oh and if anyone is curious is how doing something like feels: it’s awful. I want to throw up; I want to cry for all the things I wanted to do and never will, for all the people whose trust this betrays; I experience rage thinking about everything this administration has done.

Can’t really recommend it! Stay in school, kids.

 

 

The SPLC Pays Racists To Do Racist Things (Updated)

Published by Papa Giorgio
  • “…virtually every significant racist in American political history was a Democrat.”

— Bruce Bartlett, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party’s Buried Past (New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), ix;

  • “…not every Democrat was a KKK’er, but every KKK’er was a Democrat.”

— Ann Coulter, Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama (New York, NY: Sentinel [Penguin], 2012), 19.

There has been some excellent responses to the story of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) paying racist organizations so they could fundraise. I have quite a few posts on the SPLC, so First I will link many of those for the interested party’s. (Newest to the oldest)

Three Biggins:

  1. RPT’s Series: Introduction to “How to Be an Antiracist”
  2. Vivek’s Masterclass: Staying Professional In The Face Of Hostility
  3. Some Trump Sized Mantras

A FOX NEWS QUICKIE

KANEKOA THE GREAT shared the above video with the below being his commentary:

(You don’t dislike Democrats enough)

The Southern Poverty Law Center leveraged its credibility from fighting the KKK to smear mainstream conservatives — placing them on a “hate map” and “extremist watch list” alongside neo-Nazis and actual Klan chapters.

Targets included:

  • Turning Point USA
  • PragerU
  • Dr. Ben Carson
  • Stephen Miller
  • Sen. Rand Paul
  • Jack Posobiec
  • Matt Walsh
  • Chaya Raichik
  • James Lindsay
  • Mike Cernovich
  • Moms for Liberty
  • David Horowitz
  • Franklin Graham
  • Charles Murray
  • Dennis Prager
  • Frank Gaffney
  • Heritage Foundation
  • The Federalist Society

These are mainstream conservative figures—authors, scholars, influencers, elected officials, student organizations, and parent groups—branded as extremists for political disagreement.

Their sole offense was disagreeing with the SPLC’s politics.

Yet the SPLC listed them in the same database as terrorist organizations and white supremacist hate groups.

The real-world consequences followed.

In 2012, a gunman targeted the Family Research Council after using the SPLC’s “hate map” as a guide.

Months before Charlie Kirk’s murder, the SPLC added Turning Point USA to that same map.

One day before his death, it published a Hatewatch article smearing him under “Dismantling White Supremacy.”

When Tyler Robinson was asked by his parents why he killed Charlie, he said, “the guy spreads too much hate.”

For decades, the SPLC exploited its reputation to recast political opposition as hatred — pressuring the federal government, Big Tech, and the American public to treat conservative Americans as domestic enemies.

Yesterday we learned it was also secretly funding the very neo-Nazis and Klan members it claimed to oppose — using donor money to pay the leaders of the same hate groups it was publicly denouncing.

How many reputations and lives did they destroy while secretly funding the very hate groups they claimed to oppose?

DAVID SACKS

SPLC invested $270k in Charlottesville and got $81 million in additional donations. Extraordinary returns.

LOUDER with CROWDER

The Department of Justice just indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center, the organization that partnered with Google, Amazon, YouTube, Facebook, and Mastercard to label YOU an extremist, for secretly funding white supremacist groups including the KKK, the National Alliance, and the organizers of the Charlottesville Unite The Right rally. Click here for today’s sources:

LARRY O’CONNOR

A grand jury just hit the Southern Poverty Law Center with an 11-count indictment — six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering — after the DOJ found the SPLC paid over $3 million to members of the KKK, Aryan Nations, and neo-Nazi groups, then fundraised off the very extremism it manufactured. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch laid out the charges, including $270,000 paid to a Charlottesville rally organizer, while Kash Patel delivered a JAW-DROPPING response to an Atlantic reporter and announced a $250 million defamation lawsuit.

0:00 SPLC indicted on 11 federal counts
2:40 Todd Blanch drops the indictment
4:59 How the SPLC’s fraud scheme worked
6:53 Blanch corrects a reporter’s spin
10:46 $3M paid to KKK and neo-Nazis
14:59 Charlottesville was an SPLC operation
18:08 SPLC’s hate list inspired a shooting
20:21 Kash Patel DESTROYS Atlantic reporter

RUTHLESS PODCAST

[Since Ruthless does not splice up their videos, I isolated it] SPLC and Democrats’ “Fake hate” exposed. This is how Democrats use the Southern Poverty Law Center to manufacture extremism for power and profit.

NEW NAZI TATTOOS JUST DROPPED!

God’s Holiness, the LDS, and the Ontological Argument

Published by Papa Giorgio

(My paper on how the Mormon “god” is not big enough is titled “Infinitely Finite: Mormon Materialism” – PDF) Here is an update via Tim Stratton on this older post [December 2023]. I am only carving out the beginning of his post over at FREE THINKING MINISTRIES, Enjoy the update!

UPDATE

Step One: The Ontological Argument

Let’s begin with one of the most discussed arguments in philosophy of religion: the Ontological Argument.

Here is a standard version based on the laws and rules of modal logic:

The Ontological Argument

  1. It is possible that a Maximally Great Being exists.
  2. If it is possible that a Maximally Great Being exists, then it exists in some possible world.
  3. If a Maximally Great Being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world.
  4. If a Maximally Great Being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world.
  5. If a Maximally Great Being exists in the actual world, then a Maximally Great Being exists.
  6. Therefore, a Maximally Great Being exists.

This isn’t some philosophical Jedi mind trick—it’s a logically deductive argument based on the laws of logic, the rules of reason, and the rules of modal logic. So, if the premises are true, the conclusion must follow. If it’s even possible for a maximally great being (the definition of God) to exist, then God must exist.

(For a fuller explanation of these premises, see Chapter 16 in the forthcoming second edition of Human Freedom, Divine Knowledge, and Mere Molinism.)

In Plain English

Here’s what that means in everyday language:

If it’s even possible that a maximally perfect, all-powerful (omnipotent), all-knowing (omniscient), perfectly good and loving (omnibenevolent) being exists…

Then that being wouldn’t be limited, temporary, dependent, or contingent upon anything else. It would exist necessarily—meaning: It cannot fail to exist.

And if such a being exists necessarily, then: It doesn’t just exist in our minds—it exists in reality.

Why This Matters for the LDS View

The LDS view of God does not affirm a maximally great being in this sense.

Instead, it teaches:

  • The being we refer to as “God” (along with each and every one of us) was once not a god, but still a necessarily existing imperfect “intelligence”
  • This “intelligence” somehow progressed to divinity (and is now a contingently existing deity)
  • All humans can also become gods (exalted beings in the celestial realm)
  • There is an infinite past chain of divine beings

That creates a serious philosophical problem:

  • There is no ultimate, necessary foundation
  • Only an infinite regress of dependent beings

But an infinite regress of contingent beings does not explain reality. It postpones the question (infinitely)—it doesn’t answer it. It never answers it! It continually and endlessly sweeps the problem under the rug or kicks the can down the road.

So at a deeper level, the LDS view—while perhaps easier to understand—does not “make more sense”—at least if we are discussing logical sense.

The LDS view fails to provide a final explanation at all.

(READ IT ALL)

[/unupdate]

Just thought of this today. I have dealt with in the past the “sinfulness” of “god,” in Mormon theology. See my main post on the issue just updated with PDF inks to resources and video to help explain this fact of LDS theology — as well as GOD NEVER SINNED website.

And in conversation as to whether Jehovah’s Witnesses AND Mormons are Christian “denomination’s.” (Not an official denomination like Lutheran or Baptist, rather, should they be considered as part of the Christian faith in their essence.) Here is some of my responses — if they make sense:

Mark is closer in thinking J-Dubs are a “christian” theological cult…. they AT LEAST posit Jehovah as the Creator of the space-time continuum. Creation ex nihilo. Mormons believe Heavenly Father was born [through sexual congress] into this cosmos…. and thus, natural laws impose laws of nature on these gods. In fact, there was no time material did not exist apart from these spirits, and then men, and then exalted men. After my routine with Mormons, I always end with, your “god” is too small.

[….]

Jeff, I guess the easiest way to categorize this in a quip like fashion is to say Jehovah’s Witnesses could incorporate the Ontological Argument into their understanding/apologetic. However, the LDS cannot use that philosophical apologetic. The Mormons cannot be included or acclimated into the theistic understanding of the Judeo-Christian God. YHWH. The I AM. And is not Holy, Holy, Holy. In Mormon theology there is nothing “maximal” about their “god”

The Ontological Argument

BONUS via …

Dictionary of the Later New Testament and Its Developments

2. The Old Testament Background

2.1. The Fundamental Character of God. The starting point for an understanding of these words in the NT and other early Christian writings is the OT. The OT writers reiterate that the Lord God is holy (Lev 19:2; 21:8; Josh 24:19; Ps 22:3; Is 57:15, passim)—“holy” being the fundamental characteristic of God under which all other characteristics are subsumed—and that humans are sinful (Gen 18:20; 1 Kings 8:46; Ps 51:3; Eccles 7:20, passim).

As holy, God is transcendent above, different from, opposite to, Wholly Other (Otto, 6, 25), separate from sin and sinful people (Is 6:1–9; 55:8, 9; cf. Ex 19:20–24; Num 18:3; Heb 7:26). Sinful people, who have become so by their own choice against God (Gen 2:16, 17; 3:1–7; cf. Rom 5:12), are thereby alienated from God and powerless in that they are incapable of closing the chasm that exists between themselves and God, between the holy and the unholy (Is 50:1; 59:1, 2). God, the Holy, is also the “I am, the One who is” (Ex 3:14): God is Life. For people to be separated from God because of their sin is for them to be separated from Life. Those who were made for the purpose of living (cf. Gen 1:26) are faced with its opposite—death (Ezek 18:4).

2.2. The Actions of God. God, however, did what humans could not do. The holiness of God cannot be described merely as a state of being indicative of what God is, but also as purposeful, salvific action indicative of what God plans and carries out. The OT viewed God as transcendent in that he was distinct from sinful humans but not remote or indifferent to them (Snaith, 47). God took the initiative to make the unholy holy, to make the alien a friend, to reconcile sinners to himself (see Salvation).

An example of this is when God the holy One took the initiative to reveal himself to Israel at Sinai and to call this people out from among other nations into a special personal relationship with himself through covenant, law and sacrifice (Ex 20, 24:1–8; Lev 16). Thus, it was God who made Israel a priestly kingdom and a holy nation (Ex 19:6; Deut 7:6), a people that must preserve its distinctiveness by pursuing a way of life different from that practiced by other peoples (Deut 7:5–6; see Levine, 256), a people fit for the service of God and dedicated to do his will, a light to the nations around them (Is 49:6).

Because of God’s special relation to parts of his creation it was possible even for things to be called holy—holy only in the strict sense that they were different from the profane—wholly given over to divine purposes: the ground around a burning bush (Ex 3:5), Jerusalem (Is 48:2), the temple (Is 64:10), the Sabbath (Ex 16:23), priestly garments (Ex 31:10), and so on.

2.3. The Ethical Response to God. The OT meaning of “holy/holiness,” however, is not exhausted with such ideas as “separate from,” “dedicated to,” “sacred” and the like, although these may have been the primary meanings of the words. There are also ethical and moral meanings attached to them. Again such meanings find their origin in the nature of God, for the nature of God is the determining factor that gives meaning to everything (2.1 above). Leviticus 19:1–18 clearly illustrates the moral side of God’s holiness. Here it becomes clear that to be holy as God is holy is not simply to be pure and righteous, but to act toward others with purity and goodness, with truthfulness and honesty, with generosity, justice and love, particularly toward the poor and those who are in no position to help themselves (see esp. Lev 19:9–10, 14). Religion and ethics, the sacred and moral, belong together in the OT; relationship to the Lord God of the OT demands an ethical/moral response. God’s people must not only be like God but also act like God.

3. The Idea of the Holy in the New Testament and Apostolic Fathers

The meaning of the words holy and holiness, although expanded in the literature under study, is squarely based on the writings of the OT. The primary meaning of holy as “separate from” is to be found in the actions of Paul and others who engaged in purification/sanctification rites (hagnizō, hagnismos) by which they ceremoniously separated themselves from the profane so as to be considered fit to enter the sacred precincts of the house of a holy God (Acts 21:24, 26; 24:18; cf. Num 6:5, 13–18; see Douglas, passim; also Barn. 8.1; 15.1, 3, 6–7). That narrow but fundamental meaning of “holy” is nevertheless inadequate to interpret all the texts that treat this concept.

3.1. The Holiness of God. In our early Christian writings “the holiness of God the Father is everywhere presumed … though seldom stated” (Procksch, 101). Nevertheless it is stated: God’s name, the very essence of his person, is holy (Did. 10.2; 1 Clem. 64). Making use of the vocabulary of Leviticus, especially the Holiness Code in Leviticus 19–26, Peter tells those to whom he writes that it is incumbent upon them to be holy as God is holy (hagios, 1 Pet 1:15–16; cf. Lev 19:2; see Selwyn).

The writer of Hebrews explains the disciplinary action of God as his creative work in human lives so that they may share in his holiness (hagiotēs, Heb 12:10). Once again the trisagion (see Liturgical Elements) is sung to God (cf. Is 6:3), this time by the four living creatures of the Seer’s vision—hagios, hagios, hagios (holy, holy, holy). They acclaim that God is holy to the ultimate degree and as such is the Almighty, the Pantokratōr, the one who is, who was and who is to come, eternal and omnipotent, transcendent, Wholly Other (Rev 4:8; see also 1 Clem. 34.6; 59.3). Those who were victorious over the beast sang, “Great and amazing are your deeds, Lord God the Almighty!… For you alone are holy” (hosios [hagios] Rev 15:3–4; 1 Clem. 59.3), and the angel of the waters, “You are just, O Holy One” (ho hosios, Rev 16:5). The martyrs, asking for vengeance upon those who slaughtered them for serving God, address God as “Sovereign Lord, holy and true (ho hagios kai alēthinos),” because they know that God, as holy, stands apart from and opposed to sin and evil and that he alone is able to administer justice and judge rightly (Rev 6:10).

God as holy is to be feared (cf. Ps 89:7; 99:3; 111:9); he is a consuming fire (Heb 12:29). He owns the right to judge and to take vengeance (cf. Deut 32:35). But in the NT and other early Christian writings God takes no delight in banishing sinners from him. He delights instead in making them holy, in creating a people fit for his presence, in bringing them close to himself and in giving them sacred work to do (cf. Is 6:1–8). As a consequence God sends his good news (see Gospel) out into the world so that sinful people may “turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified [hēgiasmenoi],” i.e., among those who have been made holy and have been set apart to God (Acts 26:18; cf. 20:32). It is important to note here that the expression “those who are sanctified” is a passive participle (from hagiazō, make holy, consecrate, sanctify) that has been termed a “divine passive.” That is, God is the agent of the action. He has taken the initiative not to destroy sinners but to make them holy (cf. Herm. Vis. 3.9.1).

It is God’s will that sinful people be made holy (Heb 10:10). But it was costly for God to realize this wish. Under the old covenant sinners were made holy on the basis of animals being properly sacrificed year after year in their behalf (Lev 16)—tentatively made holy (cf. Rom 3:25; Heb 10:4). Under the new covenant sinners are made holy or sanctified (hēgiasmenoi/hagiazomenous) by a much more profound act—the conscious, deliberate choice of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, radically to obey his Father and offer his body in death as a single sacrifice for sins forever (Heb 10:5–10, 12, 14, 29; cf. Phil 2:8; Diogn. 9.2; see Death of Christ). The blood of Jesus (an expression that refers to the self-determined action of Jesus to die on behalf of sinful human beings) is that by which sinful persons are made holy. The explicit purpose of his suffering and death was that the unclean might become clean, that he might make unholy people holy (hagiasē, Heb 13:12; see also 9:13; 1 Clem. 32.4; 59.3; Barn. 5.1).

In the writings under consideration, as in the OT, places and things as well as persons can be considered holy. Thus the temple is called “the holy place” (Acts 6:13; 21:28). The two tents of the tabernacle are referred to as “the holy place” (hagia, Heb 9:1) and “the Holy of Holies” (hagia hagiōn, Heb 9:3; see also 9:1, 12, 24, 25; 10:19; 13:11). The mountain on which Jesus was transfigured is designated as “the holy [hagios] mountain” (2 Pet 1:18; cf. Barn. 11.3). The Christian faith is termed “the most holy [hagiōtatē faith” (Jude 20). Jerusalem is called “the holy [hagian] city” (Rev 11:2; 21:2, 10; 22:11, 19). Presbyters are holy (Ign. Magn. 3.1), the Eucharist is holy (Did. 9.5), the church is holy (Herm. Vis. 1.1.6; Mart. Pol. presc.), prophets are holy (Acts 3:21; 2 Pet 3:2), angels are holy (Acts 10:22; cf. Jude 14; Rev 14:10; 1 Clem. 39:7; Herm. Sim. 5.4.4; Herm. Vis. 5.5.3).

3.2. The Holiness of Jesus Christ. The NT describes Jesus as holy, a person set apart to God, anointed by him (Acts 4:27; see Anointing), dedicated to God and designated as his unique instrument to carry out his predestined plan in the world (Acts 4:28). But holy is also used of Jesus as it is used of God the Father.

The early church understood Psalm 16:10, said to be written by David and about David, to have had its fulfillment in the resurrected Jesus—“You will not … let your Holy [hosion] One experience corruption” (Acts 2:27; 13:35). Peter referred to Jesus as “the Holy [ton hagion] and Righteous One” (Acts 3:14), seemingly in the moral sense of innocent since he linked the word so closely with the anarthrous dikaion (“righteous”—ton hagion kai dikaion; cf. Lk 23:47 and see Conzelmann, 28). In a later sermon Peter speaks of Jesus as God’s “holy [hagion] servant/son” (pais, Acts 4:27; 30).

But the NT and early Fathers say more than this about Jesus. He is the one who makes others holy (ho hagiazōn, Heb 2:11; 13:12), who consecrates them to God and his service that they might be admitted into his presence (cf. Procksch, 89–97). “Jesus is here [in Heb 2:11] exercising a divine function since, according to the OT, it is God who consecrates” (Montefiore, 62; cf. Ex 31:13; Lev 20:8; 21:15; 22:9, 16, 32; Ezek 20:12; 37:28; but see Attridge, 88 n. 107).

Borrowing the language of Isaiah 8:12–13 Peter calls upon Christians to “sanctify [hagiasate] Christ as Lord” (1 Pet 3:15). They are to acknowledge that he is holy (cf. Is 29:23; Ezek 20:41; Ecclus 36:4, Mt 6:9)—holy in the sense that God is holy—for as J. N. D. Kelly has remarked, this verse “has a bearing on 1 Peter’s Christology.… [As] in ii,3 the title ‘the Lord’, which in the Hebrew original denotes God, is unhesitatingly attributed to Christ” (Kelly, 142; see Christology; 1 Peter).

“The Holy One,” a frequent name of God in the OT (2 Kings 19:22; Ps 71:22; 78:41; Is 1:4, passim), appears also in 1 John 2:20 (“you have been anointed by the Holy One [tou hagiou]).” Although there is debate over whether this expression refers to God the Father or to Jesus Christ, in light of the context and especially in light of 2:27–28 it seems more likely that it is a title given to Jesus (see also Diogn. 9.2).

In his vision the Seer reads a letter addressed to the church at Philadelphia. It begins, “These are the words of the Holy One” (ho hagios, Rev 4:7). From the context of this letter (see Rev 2:18; 3:1) this Holy One is none other than the crucified, dead and risen Christ, the one who was and is and will forever be (Rev 1:17–18; cf. Rev 4:8; Diogn. 9.2). These writers want everyone to understand that Jesus is holy in the sense that God is holy—“holy [hosios, a word chosen to emphasize the moral dimension of holiness], blameless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens” (Heb 7:26). In naming him “the Holy One” they claim for him the title of deity.

Gerald F. Hawthorne, “Holy, Holiness,” in Dictionary of the Later New Testament and Its Developments, ed. Ralph P. Martin and Peter H. Davids (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 485–488.

 

1 Corinthians 2:14 de-Calvinized

Published by Papa Giorgio

I am realizing, much like Mormons and J-Dubs, they isolate a scripture verse and rip is from it’s context. You must pause and read before and after the verse… just like with cult members.

Dr. Leighton Flowers, Director of Evangelism and Apologetics for Texas Baptists, addresses 1 Cor. 2:14, a common proof text used by Calvinists to teach that mankind is born morally unable to understand and willingly believe the gospel unless they are first born again.

Two articles related to the above and below:

The fuller presentation by Dr. Flowers go to “Rebutting Calvinistic Proof Texts” at SOTERIOLOGY 101’s YouTube Channel. Here is my clip from it:

Armstrong and Getty: Los Angeles Schools Can’t Do Math

Published by Papa Giorgio

This is the article they are reading from: WSJ site | Archived [unlocked]

Los Angeles Schools Can’t Do Math

Teachers get a rich new union contract despite awful student results.

When government rewards failure, the result is usually more failure. That’s been the story in Los Angeles, where the teachers unions on Sunday secured a rich new contract, notwithstanding lousy student performance and declining enrollment.

The Los Angeles Unified School District’s new collective-bargaining agreement with the United Teachers Los Angeles increases salary scales by 11.65% over two years—double the rate of inflation—plus four weeks of paid parental leave and expanded student support services that will invariably require more hiring. Pay for new teachers will jump nearly 12% to $77,000.

The agreement comes after the district warned in February that a looming $877 million deficit could require thousands of layoffs. “At some point, we reached a breaking point,” Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said. Increasing costs for retirement benefits, a post-pandemic hiring binge and declining student enrollment are squeezing the district’s finances.

While state per-pupil spending has soared in recent years to $27,418, Los Angeles hasn’t benefited as much as some other districts because its enrollment has shrunk by nearly a quarter since 2019. Families moved away during the pandemic when schools were closed. The flight has continued owing to L.A.’s low-performing schools, high cost of living, taxes and crime.

Federal pandemic largesse helped paper over the district’s budget problems for a time and supercharged hiring. “We will still have a workforce that is larger than when the district had 40% more students than we have today,” Mr. Carvalho recently said.

Meantime, the district and state are required to make payments equal to 30% of teacher salaries for their pensions. Teachers can retire at age 63 with a pension worth 85% of their final pay, plus free health benefits for life.

The district and union may be betting they’ll get more money in this year’s state budget. But the state is also facing a $21 billion deficit, so more money for schools will invariably require higher taxes in some form. Giving L.A.’s failing schools more money will also reduce the incentive to improve learning to staunch the exodus of families.

Only 18% of Los Angeles eighth-graders scored proficient in math on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, compared to 27% nationwide. Then again, the district’s catawampus finances suggest its leaders are no better at math.

Boom! Justice Thomas Blasts Progressivism and Leftists

Published by Papa Giorgio

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas warns that the rise of progressivism poses one of the greatest threats to America today (Full Speech at Fox News)

KanekoaTheGreat…..

🔥NEW: Clarence Thomas — full remarks on progressivism, its foundations, history, and impact from his appearance at University of Texas at Austin:

“Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao were all intertwined with the rise of progressivism, and all were opposed to the natural rights on which our Declaration is based.”

“Many progressives expressed admiration for each of them shortly before their governments killed tens of millions of people.”

“It comes as no surprise that the progressives embraced eugenics… It was only a small step for Wilson to resegregate the federal workforce.”

“It was only another step for the government to launch sterilization programs on those deemed by the experts of the day to be unfit to reproduce.”

“European thinkers have long criticized America for remaining trapped in a Lockean world, with its weakened, decentralized government and strong individual rights. They say our 18th-century Declaration has prevented us from progressing to higher forms of government.”

“But we were fortunate not to trade our Lockean bonds for the supposedly enlightened world of Hegel, Marx, and their followers. Fascism, which after all was national socialism, triggered wars in Europe and Asia that killed tens of millions.”

“The socialism of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China proceeded to kill tens of millions more of their own people. This is what happens when natural rights give way to higher-good notions of history or progress, or, as Thomas Sowell has written, the visions of the anointed.”

“None of this, of course, was an improvement on the principles of the Declaration. Tocqueville’s Democracy in America is largely about how America owed its superiority over Europe to its conscious decision to reject central planning and administrative rule, root and branch.”

“Progressivism, in other words, is retrogressive.”

“Obama Killed Jesus” Did He? (TRUMP UPDATE!)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Originally Posted September 2014 — Updated After OG Post

Someone on my YOUTUBE (BTW, I removed all comments years ago as that was a trigger point for YouTube censors) jokingly or sarcastically said: “Obama Killed Jesus.” (More at Is Barack Obama the Messiah?)

He is provocative in insisting on an outstretched hand, where others only see animosity.

His tangible results in the short time that he has been active – are few and far between. His greatest results have been created with words and speeches – words that remain in the consciousness of their audience and have long-term effects.

He comes from humble beginnings and defends the weak and vulnerable, because he can identify himself with their conditions.

And no we are not thinking of Jesus Christ, whose birthday has just been celebrated – – but rather the President of the United States Barack Hussein Obama. […]

If such a comparison were to be made, it would, of course, inevitably be to Obama’s advantage.
Today, his historic Health Reform is being passed through the American Senate – a welfare policy breakthrough that several of his predecessors have been unable to manage. […]

On the other hand, we have Jesus’ miracles that everyone still remembers, but which only benefitted a few.

Obama is, of course, greater than Jesus – if we have to play that absurd Christmas game. But it is probably more meaningful to insist that with today’s domestic triumph, that he has already assured himself a place in the history books – a space he has good chances of expanding considerably in coming years.

Source: “Obama greater than Jesus” Politiken Editorial [Denmark] December 29, 2009. 

Which I responded to thus:

He did in a sense that he and many others sit in a pew for twenty years that teach a post-modern culturally Marxist Jesus… with sermons sold in the church’s bookstore (the entire twenty years Obama attended) by Farrakhan. Remember, he is the guy who said was taken up in a UFO and told by Jesus and Elijah Muhammad that he was the little messiah. He sermonized ideas like Yakub (the crazy scientist) creating the white man [aka, the Devil] on the island of Cypruss 6,600 years ago. That blacks alone are the true Jewish descendant and that white’s are lying who say they are Jewish. Books in that same church book store that said this:

“It is dangerous because the true prophet of the gospel of God must become both ‘anti-Christian’ and ‘unpatriotic.’ (55) …. Because whiteness by its very nature is against blackness, the black prophet is a prophet of national doom. He proclaims the end of the ‘American Way…‘” (56)

“… it is that whites are incapable of making any valid judgment about human existence. The goal of black theology is the destruction of everything white, so that blacks can be liberated from alien gods. The God of black liberation will not be confused with a blood’ thirsty white idol. Black theology must show that the black God has nothing to do with the God worshiped in white churches whose primary purpose is to sanctify the racism of whites and to daub the wounds of blacks. Putting new wine in new wineskins means that the black theology view of God has nothing in common with those who prayed for an American victory in Vietnam or who pray for a “cool” summer in the ghetto…. There is no place in black theology for a colorless God in a society where human beings suffer precisely because of their color. The black theologian must reject any conception of God which stifles black self-determination by picturing God as a God of all peoples. Either God is identified with the oppressed to the point that their experience becomes God’s experience, or God is a God of racism…. Because God has made the goal of blacks God’s own goal, black theology believes that it is not only appropriate but necessary to begin the doctrine of God with an insistence on God’s blackness.” (62-63)

Contrasting evil theologies/ideologies

“The personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew.” — Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

  • The goal of black theology is the destruction of everything white, so that blacks can be liberated from alien gods. (Book from Obama’s Church’s bookstore) — A Black Theology of Liberation, James Cone, p.62
  • White religionists are not capable of perceiving the blackness of God, because their satanic whiteness is a denial of the very essence of divinity. That is why whites are finding and will continue to find the black experience a disturbing reality. (Book from Obama’s Church’s bookstore) — A Black Theology of Liberation, James Cone, p.64

“I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” — Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

  • There is no place in black theology for a colorless God in a society where human beings suffer precisely because of their color. The black theologian must reject any conception of God which stifles black self-determination by picturing God as a God of all peoples. (Book from Obama’s Church’s bookstore) — A Black Theology of Liberation, James Cone, p.63
  • Christianity is not alien to Black Power, Christianity is Black Power. (Book from Obama’s Church’s bookstore) — Black Theology & Black Power, James Cone, p.38
  • In contrast to this racist view of God, black theology proclaims God’s blackness. Those who want to know who God is and what God is doing must know who black persons are and what they are doing. (Book from Obama’s Church’s bookstore) — A Black Theology of Liberation, James Cone, p.65

“The [Nazi party] should not become a constable of public opinion, but must dominate it. It must not become a servant of the masses, but their master!” ~ Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

  • These new theologians of the “Third World” argue that Christians [liberation theology accepting Christians] should not shun violence but should initiate it… (Book from Obama’s Church’s bookstore) — Black Theology & Black Power, James Cone, p.32
  • It is important to make a further distinction here among black hatred, black racism, and Black Power. Black hatred is the black man’s strong aversion to white society. No black man living in white America can escape it. (Book from Obama’s Church’s bookstore) — Black Theology & Black Power, James Cone, p.14
  • It is this fact that makes all white churches anti-Christian in their essence. To be Christian is to be one of those whom God has chosen. God has chosen black people! (Book from Obama’s Church’s bookstore) — Black Theology & Black Power, James Cone, p.151
  • It [black liberation theology] is dangerous because the true prophet of the gospel of God must become both “anti-Christian” and “unpatriotic.”…. Because whiteness by its very nature is against blackness, the black prophet is a prophet of national doom. He proclaims the end of the “American Way,”… (Book from Obama’s Church’s bookstore) — A Black Theology of Liberation, James Cone, p.55-56

While reading these books cover-to-cover I also noted that Louise Farrakhan was given a lifetime achievement award at Obama’s church. Not only that though, but Farrakhan was given three cover spreads on the church’s magazine, the Trumpet. One of those his face shot put alongside Obama as well as Elijah Muhammad, the second leader of the Nation of Islam. His [Elijah Muhammad’s] many books are sold by the Nation of Islam not to mention being taught by Louise Farrakhan as theological doctrine. Since Obama’s church gave such a prestigious award to the current leader of the Nation of Islam, whom Obama’s pastor was a part of in his younger years, let us see what some of these books they tout say as well:

It is due to your ignorance of God, or you are one deceived by the devil, whose nature is to mislead you in the knowledge of God. You originally came from the God of Righteousness and have the opportunity to return, while the devils are from the man devil (Yakub) who has ruled the world for the past 6,000 years under falsehood, labeled under the name of God and His prophets.

So Obama did kill Jesus in one sense…but so do millions of adherents to cults.

As an aside, the “Hope Poster” which was used by the Obama campaign was a bit “messianic” in my mind.

Trumped Update ! (4-17-2026)

This update revolves around this [now removed] TRUTH post by our President, of which a cyber friend said:

  • I love most of Trump’s policies, but this is the epitome of “Bad Trump!” I condemn this stupidity!

Now here are a couple “reprints” from I can support via THE BAPTIST INSTITUTE:

Remember, the press made Obama seem “Messianic” in trying to give the idea that Obama was “mainstream” in his religious view:

And this revealing short article by the TRINITY FORUM (December 2013):

In an interview Barbara Walters did with CNN’s Piers Morgan, this exchange took place:

MORGAN: You have interviewed every president of my lifetime. Why is Obama facing so much opposition now? Why is he struggling so much to really fulfill the great flame of ambition and excitement that he was elected on originally in 2009?

WALTERS: Well, you’ve touched on it to a degree. He made so many promises. We thought that he was going to be – I shouldn’t say this at Christmastime, but – the next messiah. And the whole ObamaCare, or whatever you want to call it, the Affordable Health Act, it just hasn’t worked for him, and he’s stumbled around on it, and people feel very disappointed because they expected more.

Ms. Walters is right to say it might not be quite appropriate to say around Christmastime that Mr. Obama had been widely thought to be “the next messiah,” though I’d recommend that be expanded to include anytime, not just Christmastime.

What’s revealing, of course, is that Ms. Walters ever thought that is what Obama would be. And note the use of the pronoun “we”–as if we, all of us, had messianic expectations for Mr. Obama. Actually, many of us did not, though I think it’s fair to say some of Ms. Walters’ colleagues in the media and other members of the political class did.

To appreciate the hagiography once surrounding Mr. Obama, it’s worth going beyond the thrill he sent up the leg of Chris Matthews. Consider as well that the historian Garry Wills favorably compared Obama’s 2008 “A More Perfect Union” speech, on the issue of race and his relationship with Jeremiah Wright, to Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 Cooper Union speech. In the Nation magazine Tom Hayden, Barbara Ehrenrich, Bill Fletcher, Jr. and Danny Glover wrote that Obama’s address on race “was as great a speech as ever given by a presidential candidate, revealing a philosophical depth, personal authenticity, and political intelligence that should convince any but the hardest of ideologues that he carries unmatched leadership potentials for overcoming the divide-and-conquer tactics that have sundered Americans since the first slaves arrived here in chains.”

Immediately after his election, on the November 7, 2008 broadcast of PBS’s Charlie Rose, the historian Alan Brinkley said, “I don’t think we’ve had a president since Lincoln who has the oratorical skills that Obama has. Obama has that quality that Lincoln had.” David Remnick of the New Yorker also compared Obama’s rhetorical skills to Lincoln. (It got to the point that Remnick had to say, “We’ll climb out of the tank soon.”) Nor should we forget when in 2009 presidential historian Michael Beschloss said of Obama: “He’s probably the smartest guy ever to become President.” ……

See more in a few articles:

  • Religion and Politics ’08: Barack Obama (PEW RESEARCH)
  • ‘Obama is, of course, greater than Jesus’ (WORLD NET DAILY covering Dutch paper article)
  • Messianic rhetoric infuses Obama rallies (POLITICO)

This next article is from THE CHRISTIAN POST, and the reason I reproduce it here is due to the ads and the sectioned portions of the post. But one should visit the POST’s stuff!

4 times Barack Obama likened to Jesus, the Messiah: ‘This is the New Testament’

  1. ‘The Truth’

In 2009, artist Michael D’Antuono sought to display a painting called “The Truth” in New York City’s Union Square to celebrate the 100th day of Obama’s presidency. The painting portrayed Obama in front of the presidential seal with his arms in a V-shape and a crown of thorns on his head, in the position that Jesus Christ was in when he was crucified on Good Friday.

Backlash forced D’Antuono to cancel his planned event in Union Square. Responding to the outcry over his depiction of Obama, D’Antuono stated through a publicist that “The religious reference was used metaphorically and not to insult anyone’s religious beliefs.”

“If that is the effect that my art has had on anyone, I am truly sorry,” the statement added. Three years later, around the time of Obama’s re-election, “The Truth” was displayed at the Bunker Hill Community College Art Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts, as part of an exhibit titled “Artists on the Stump: The Road to the White House 2012.”

D’Antuono addressed the controversy over his painting three years earlier, telling Fox News that “I always regretted canceling my exhibit in New York because I feel my First Amendment rights should override someone’s hurt feelings.” He attributed the cancellation of his exhibit to the “religious right’s extreme outrage.”

“Interpreting the political piece as blasphemy, they planned protests and wrote thousands of letters demanding the show be canceled,” he added.

  1. ‘Blessing’

According to Calisphere, which describes itself as a “gateway to digital collections from California’s great libraries, archives, and museums,” “Blessing” was a papier-mâché statue of then-presidential candidate Barack Obama displayed at a gallery in downtown Chicago, Illinois, in 2007. Created by David Cordero, an undergraduate student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago at the time, the statue depicts Obama in a white robe with a red shawl over his shirt and tie, and his head surrounded by a glowing halo.

While the Obama campaign tried to distance itself from the sculpture and insisted that the then-U.S. senator “isn’t a fan of art that offends religious sensibilities,” Cordero denied that he was attempting to portray Obama as a God-like figure. Instead, he maintained the purpose of his art was to stress the importance of taking “caution in assigning all these inflated expectations on one individual, and expecting them to change something that many hands have shaped.”

  1. Obama for Messiah images

The website Obama for Messiah ’08 was created to “poke a little fun at those who seem to be waiting for Christ to abdicate his throne to Senator Barack Obama.” Although designed as a medium for satirical posters depicting Obama as a religious figure, the website contains multiple quotes from public figures likening Obama to a religious figure.

One image on the website features Obama wearing a robe emblazoned in red, white and blue, accompanied by the caption: “Walks on water but still needs your vote.” Another image shows Obama wearing a robe with his hand up in the air, along with text reading “heals the lame and promises health care.”

The third image on the site shows Obama making a thumbs up while his other hand is extended out along with text reading “taxes the wealthy and redeems our sins.” The fourth image is designed to emulate the Black Madonna painting of Mary and Jesus and features a woman holding Obama alongside text reading, “She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel.”

  • “This guy was president before I was . . . This guy was God before I was.”– Barack Obama -in reference to Morgan Freeman’s portrayal in “Deep Impact and “Bruce Almighty”
  • “This is bigger than Kennedy. . . . This is the New Testament.” . . .”I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don’t have that too often. No, seriously. It’s a dramatic event.”— Chris Matthews
  • “Obama’s finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don’t even really inspire. They elevate. . . . He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh . . . Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves.”— Ezra Klein
  • “I would characterize the Senate race as being a race where Obama was, let’s say, blessed and highly favored. That’s not routine. There’s something else going on. I think that Obama, his election to the Senate, was divinely ordered. . . . I know that that was God’s plan.”– Bill Rush
  • “I cried all night. I’m going to be crying for the next four years,” he said. “What Barack Obama has accomplished is the single most extraordinary event that has occurred in the 232 years of the nation’s political history. … The event itself is so extraordinary that another chapter could be added to the Bible to chronicle its significance.” —  Jesse Jackson Jr.
  1. ‘The next Messiah,’ ‘triumph of word over flesh,’ fulfillment of ‘the New Testament’

Portrayal of Obama as a Christ-like figure wasn’t limited to artwork. As highlighted on the website Obama for Messiah ’08, liberal figures in politics and the media did not hesitate to invoke biblical comparisons when talking about Obama. In a 2008 column written for The American Prospect, liberal commentator Ezra Klein wrote, “He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair.”

In a 2013 interview on CNN, longtime journalist Barbara Walters acknowledged that many thought that he was going to be “the next Messiah.” During the Democratic presidential primary season in 2008, MSNBC host Chris Matthews described Obama as “bigger than [former President John F.] Kennedy.”

“[Obama] comes along, and he seems to have the answers. This is the New Testament. This is surprising,” he said.