Philosophy Archives - Page 3 of 21

Calvinism Has No Connection To Election Or Predestination

January 22, 2022 by EnnisP 2 Comments

God has the power to do whatever He wants, but would He want to do what Calvinists suggest?

Calvinism’s Many Fallacies
Part 1 Of 3

Part 2 – Biblical Election Has Many Applications

Part 3 – Biblical Predestination Not Focused On Individuals Or Minuia

When any person says they don’t believe in Calvinism, the first question they’re confronted with is:

What about Election and Predestination? Both are in the Bible.

It’s true. Election and Predestination are both mentioned in the Bible. What is not in the Bible is Calvinism.

It is also true that while Predestination is a biblical concept, Election does not constitute a subdivision of soteriology. It’s a word. It’s used many times in the Bible to refer to people who’ve been saved but it also refers to some who haven’t been saved and it never represents unqualified selections. I’ll explain more in the next post and as we go along but for now, the word alone carries no special meaning.

The reason people ask about Predestination and Election is they’ve been led to believe that these ideas are somehow connected to Calvinism. Not so! The terms Calvinism and Election are not synonyms and cannot be used interchangeably, although that is the assumption at the ground level.

Calvinism is nothing more than an interpretation imposed on the biblical text. The belief that these separate ideas are intertwined is where the conversation needs to begin. We need to disentangle the mess and one way to start is to disclose the endless number of fallacies implied by Calvinistic thinking.

Calvinism (including all the concepts reflected in the acronym TULIP) is a manmade system that is not biblical, was never biblically based, and those who promote it in this life will be embarrassed for it in the next. They’ll definitely have a lot to apologize for.

Calvinism’s illogical ideas turn grace into cruelty, diminish the potential effect of the Cross, insult the intelligence of humans created in the image of God, and mask one of the most important truths of the New Testament.

Jesus died for everyone, every person, every individual. He left no one out. He loves the entire world and wants all people to come to repentance.

First Steps

I’m taking a good old-fashioned farmer’s approach in this discussion.

To replace Calvinistic confusion with clarity, like the farmer, you must first clear the ground. Planting the good seeds of truth in uncultivated soil is wasteful. We need to break up the ground and remove the foreign matter first.

The initial set of talking points must focus NOT on Calvinism but on the illogical implications of Calvinism. You can’t begin to discuss Election and Predestination with a clear head till you reveal and dispel the fallacies of Calvinistic thinking.

There are many questions to ask and answer before you settle into the privileged armchair of Calvinism.

What is being said?
What are the implications?
How does it apply?
Where does it take us?

To be clear, this is not a study of weeds. I’m not going to discuss the ideas promoted by Calvinists any more than necessary. I’ll start by giving the general definition of Calvinism so we have a base to work from but that’s it.

The point of this series of posts is to look at two things: the implications of Calvinistic teachings and what Election and Predestination actually mean.

I am fully aware that that is a tall order but it isn’t near as ambitious as trying to build a generally accepted version of Calvinism. Many have already tried to do that and failed.

This and the two following posts are long but even with the length, it’s just a beginning. Hopefully, it will encourage the curious, provoke the naysayers, but most of all, stimulate additional thought. [Read more…] about Calvinism Has No Connection To Election Or Predestination

4 Lessons From Moses’ First Forty Years

August 26, 2021 by EnnisP Leave a Comment

The First Forty: Development

The pertinent details of Moses’ life are well documented in the Bible. Thankfully, it doesn’t include his entire bio. Just the important details.

Moses lived long enough (120 years) that a full-length bio would arguably be longer than the Bible and that length would make it difficult to isolate important lessons.

Instead, his life is divided neatly into three separate stages of 40 years each and only the most important details from each stage are included. The first two stages provide very little detail but it’s enough to gain important insights.

The Broad Strokes

Before we get into the lessons, let’s look at the details of the first stage in broad strokes.

STAGE ONE: THE DEVELOPMENT STAGE
(Infancy to adulthood in Pharaoh’s house, Exodus 2:1-10).

Here’s what happened:

Israel was enslaved.
Death was decreed for all male born Israelites.
Moses was miraculously saved from destruction.
And was adopted into Pharoah’s house, enjoying the privileges of a family member.
Tradition (Josephus) says he successfully led military campaigns.

The Book of Exodus only provides ten verses on this stage but several lessons emerge.

Growth Is The Only Option

The first stage of life for everyone is the growing stage or to put it differently, the stage at which people tend to balk. Growth starts on day one. It’s the only option but we generally find it uncomfortable.

People want to be grown but they don’t enjoy the process of growing.

They want to be well informed but that achievement requires hard work, the kind we tend to avoid.

No one starts at the end.

The beginning, or the bottom, is the only starting point, which in real terms is nowhere yet. [Read more…] about 4 Lessons From Moses’ First Forty Years

20 Reasons Every Person Should Increase In Wealth

July 6, 2021 by EnnisP Leave a Comment

Money Is Not The Enemy
But It Can Be

Let me start with a disclaimer. Money is not evil.

Earning money, receiving money, making money, spending money, and enjoying the benefits of money are not evidence that you are misaligned with God or His purposes.

The LOVE of money is the root of all evil, not money but the obvious next question is what does it mean to love money. We all need it, we all enjoy having it, and we dread the idea of being short. Do any of those ideas qualify as loving money?

Money Is Beneficial

Although we should never love money, we should develop a healthy appreciation for it.

The truth is everyone benefits from having money. It keeps the electricity on, puts food on the table, keeps the roof over our heads, and provides us with clothes. It pays for a slew of other necessities too like education, medical care, and recreation.

Those are good things, all allowed in the Bible.

A few religions disallow the ownership of property for some while at the same time accepting large donations from others. That stance sends a confusing message. It seems a bit suspicious that property ownership is good for some but not others.

The Catholic Church, for example, does not allow members of Orders to possess material things. The motivation is not spiritual elevation, as some presume, but something more suspect. It’s a gimmick to maintain the financial heft of the church as this article reveals.

Catholicism isn’t the only religion to take this approach but they do have a large footprint. If they are wrong, they are spreading their philosophy widely. Should we consider their approach the norm? Better yet, if property ownership is wrong for so many, should it be disavowed for everyone else? Should wealth be shamed?

Those are fair questions. If property ownership is wrong, if wealth building is disallowed, then everything we do to earn money and manage it is implicated too.

Money Is A Necessity

Money is NOT a necessary evil or a bad thing we tolerate.

Money is an important part of our lives. In fact, I would say it is a core issue. How we relate to money – how we earn it and manage it – is motivated from within and says a lot about us as individuals. [Read more…] about 20 Reasons Every Person Should Increase In Wealth

4 Reasons Your Good Works Aren’t Enough

May 3, 2021 by EnnisP Leave a Comment

We are equally hopeless if not equally sinful.

Do All The Good You Can
By All The Means You Can
In All The Ways You Can
In All The Places You Can
At All The Times You Can
To All The People You Can
As Long As Ever You Can
But Don’t Expect That To Get You Into Heaven

Two facts most people know but rarely think about or understand fully are:

One, we aren’t all equally sinful. Some people are excessively sinful while others are much less so. We’ll call the really bad ones the 95 percenters. Everyone else will scale somewhere between 95% and 1%. They could be 50 percenters or 30 percenters or on the odd occasion, 1 percenters. Mother Theresa types would fit in the lowest category.

The second misunderstood fact is, regardless the difference in scale, everyone is still a sinner and that makes us all equal in one respect. No one can earn or deserve heaven. No one deserves eternal life on their own merit.

We Are Equally Hopeless If Not Equally Sinful

You may be good. You may be very good. I have no doubt that most who read this are better than me. At best, I might be a 50 percenter and there are plenty of people who rank better than 50% but that in no way suggests they have a better chance of getting into heaven than I.

That isn’t my idea. The Bible actually teaches this. There are three verses that suggest every person is hopelessly sinful if not equally so. [Read more…] about 4 Reasons Your Good Works Aren’t Enough

The Line Connecting Anti-Trust And Public Benefit

March 5, 2021 by EnnisP Leave a Comment

Competition And Fair Pricing
Are Alive And Well With Big Tech

Apple is being investigated in the EU, UK, and the USA regarding anti-trust rules. Investigators are focused on Apple’s App platform, motivated specifically by the allegation that Apple manipulates the platform to reduce competition with apps developed by Apple. The biggest (but not the only) complaint behind the allegation comes from Spotify.

A second developer, Epic, is stirring the pot with the same complaint. Now that they have gained momentum, they no longer want to pay for the right to sell on the store. Apple gets 30% of the first year’s subscription price. Developers agree to this upfront and then when they gain traction, it hurts losing all that money to Apple.

The reading gets a bit thick at times but I found Apple’s response to Spotify thought-provoking.

Addressing Spotify’s Claims, dated March 14, 2019.

I can see both sides but lean heavily toward Apple. Both complaints come from industry hefties whose growth was made possible by the Apple gateway.

And it’s true. Apple offers a great option for developers to get their brand before the public. The fees associated with being in the store are agreed to upfront and the rules are clear. At this point, the suit seems like a “he said, she said” sort of scenario but hopefully, the angst will be sorted soon and the rest of us can get on with life.

Apple, of course, is just one of several being targeted by Anti-Trust investigations. Google, Amazon, and Facebook are all under pressure.

Personally, I don’t use Facebook much but many people do, not only for social benefit but for business promotion also. All these companies serve useful purposes that benefit a large number of people.

The Public Benefit

Data indicates that 197 million people worldwide visit Amazon every month. More than one billion people use Google’s products and services. And Facebook has roughly 2.8 billion active users every month, more than a third of the world’s population. I might add that many of the people using Facebook, Google and Apple are in third world cultures. The benefit is astounding.

CORRECTION: I was recently notified by a “good neighbor” from FRACTL that the numbers have radically changed. Instead of 197 million, Amazon now boasts 2.7 billion monthly searches as of the end of 2021. You can find many other very interesting numbers for Amazon’s amazing growth at CouponFollow.

Personally, I do use Amazon, a lot, and Google, and I’m writing this post using my trusted Apple desktop computer which I consider one of my primary tools for daily productivity. I used PC’s for years before converting but now I can’t imagine anything but Apple.

Sorry, Mr. Gates. I mean no insult. You brought personal computing to the world and I can’t say how much that changed my life so you’re among the heroes too.

I’m not alone, though. In fact, I would venture to guess that the investigators are probably using Apple devices of one kind or another to write their reports and more than likely employing Google search to access data all while munching on snacks they ordered from Amazon. And, of course, keeping in touch through Facebook or one of many varied social apps offered on Apple. [Read more…] about The Line Connecting Anti-Trust And Public Benefit