The two big obstacles to admiring Calvin are a chill authoritarianism and his repulsive doctrine of double predestination.
Worse, if true, is a doctrine of predestination that puts men and women in eternal fire by God's long-laid plan. It is not that some kind of predestination is untenable. If people go to heaven by God's grace, his gratuitous gift must have been decided from all eternity. That is different from God creating people with the intention of sending them to hell.
Christopher Howse
Worse, if true, is a doctrine of predestination that puts men and women in eternal fire by God's long-laid plan. It is not that some kind of predestination is untenable. If people go to heaven by God's grace, his gratuitous gift must have been decided from all eternity. That is different from God creating people with the intention of sending them to hell.
Christopher Howse
That can't be laid at the feet of John Calvin as the originator. Rather, it was a 9th century Saxon monk by the name of Gottschalk of Orbais who invented the idea and promoted the teaching. Think of that. Over nine centuries after our Lord departed this world. That isn't of Christ. It is inspired by the other guy. Obviously.
False doctrine breeds false teachers. "Those individuals who end up damned forever in hell are also eternally determined by God for that fate." Ulrich Zwingli 1484-1531
He was a leader of the Reformation in Switzerland and believed in Double Predestination and opposed Baptismal regeneration.
Do we dare imagine the souls lost to such men's false teachings? Then and now?