Sovereignty of God & No Free Will: Islam

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I think it's a matter of which mainline denominations you're talking about. I am critical of my own Lutheran Church Missouri Synod for the leadership taking hardline social positions, but as mainline denominations go,I have to concede we haven't been hemorrhaging membership. Possibly that's due to shying away from ecumenical relations with not only other denominations, but also other Lutherans as well, for the sake of preserving our doctrinal position. But neither are we growing at the moment.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Sorry coming in late here; just wanted to comment that I love your comment Ouinon. I don't know much about the details of religion but I guess that is more what I believe in is what you describe as Taoism Dantac; which does seem to reflect what ouinon describes. It seems natural for me; I don't see a book as a way to get there, if you will.

That makes sense. Secularization and religious membership are not usually compatible. Denominations should look at history. Mergers usually lead to further declines.

I'm not a Calvinist, but I'm curious what you mean by this. A Calvinist once told me that even an atheist like me could be saved, which sounded pretty generous to me. If it is completely up to God, then my beliefs or behaviour don't matter.

Classical Calvinism teaches the doctrine of double election. Not only are Christians chosen to be saved by God, non-Christians are chosen by God to be damned.

Maybe he means to say that those who are atheists now may still be among the elect and eventually come to God by faith because God decreed for them beforehand that they would do so and be saved.

But there is also unconditional election and irresistable grace, which is interpreted by some as meaning many of the True Believers will not be saved, while some of the faithless will be. Of course there are also denominations that believe everyone outside of their own church will go to hell. One person even told me that, he said everyone in the room would go to hell except for him. I live on the fringes of the Dutch Bible Belt, and it seems like every town has their own version of Protestantism/Calvinism. There was an article in the paper a years ago about some local Reformed church that believed even most of their own members were damned and only a handful of people would make it.
I don't know much about theology though. My main interest in religion is its role in history.

Unconditional election is what nominalist was referring to. And no, according to the doctrine, true believers will be saved for sure. The key is that not all those who profess the faith are saved.

Last edited by MCalavera on 23 Jul 2013, 5:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

That seems to be what the person I talked to believed. He did not know exactly how it would happen, but if someone was among the chosen God would intervene and make them believe, possibly just before their death.
Somehow that makes sense to me (not that I believe it), because I think people cannot consciously choose what they believe. For example, I cannot force myself to believe in the Roman deities. You either believe something or you don't, getting punished or rewarded for that seems unfair to me.

But Calvinism isn't really fair and is way more unfair than someone being punished because he "chose" not to believe.

All of Christianity is unfair. Salvation is very arbitrary in most denominations. I don't see how switching your religion/beliefs could in any way help to endear yourself to an all-knowing God, especially since beliefs are largely a result of environment. As I said before I don't think people can really choose their beliefs. And I also don't believe in free will. I might make a good Calvinist someday.
Of course my main problem with religions isn't that they are unfair, but that I think the existance of any gods is unlikely.

Unconditioned election is double election with irresistible grace. Lutherans believe in single election only.

No matter who the elect and the damned turn out to be, God still creates people with the intention that they will be damned. A creator is a being infinitely worse than the most awful mass murderers. Who would worship such an entity? That is the problem, as I see it.

I think the God in the bible is horrible. There are all sorts of arbitrary rules and punishments for victimless crimes. But that is beside the point: since God made the rules, he is the judge of what is good and evil, even though it may make no sense to humans. There is especially bad stuff in the Old Testament. Killing all the firstborn in Egypt, the flood and so on. But since God decides what is good and evil, apparantly innocent people suffering and dying is No Big Deal.
And why people would worship an "evil" deity? Because they believe he exists. As I said before I'm an atheist, but I don't think a godless worldview leads me to believe in a "fair" universe. I think the universe we live in is extremely unfair to people, but that's just how it is.

I am now reminded of a discussion I once had with an atheist/agnostic about whether hell was more or less preferable than being totally annihilated for good after death. He kept going on about how he'd rather suffer eternally in hell than have his consciousness switched off and never experience any pain or suffering ever again. And to this day, I still can't fathom how anyone would prefer the former to the latter. But anyway, back to the topic you and I are discussing.

Salvation is arbitrary among most Christian denominations, but in most of the non-Calvinistic ones, it is assumed that there is at least some form of free will that allows for sinners to choose to believe in God for salvation or not to believe. So he has a say in whether or not he wants to be saved. And based on such an assumption, it is definitely (at least for me) much fairer for someone who refuses salvation to be punished than it is for someone who ends up being punished because God decided from the very beginning he was going to be damned and because the poor guy could not have a say in the matter. But maybe that's just the way I see it.

Not that I believe in free will (as I find the concept ridiculous), but even Calvinism does not preclude the existence of free will. What Calvinism is about is that men are so totally depraved that they could not choose to come to God by their own will as they are slaves to sin and would rather serve sin, but that is not the same as saying that these individuals do not have any free will at all. They are still free to choose to sin in various way for example.

At least there's a naturalistic reason for it, but many Christians go on about how God loves us all and this, to me, is why I like to keep pointing out how this is inconsistent with the nature and the dynamics of this universe we live in.

As a Baháʾí, I think that the God of the Bible, the God of the Qurʾān, and the God of all revealed religions is a wonderful, loving Being Who would offer mercy to anyone who desires it - whether in this world or in the worlds after death.