Every once in a while, I think it’s a good thing to test your own beliefs by asking questions, mining the scriptures, and making sure that what you hold to be truth is scriptural, and fitting for God’s people. Nothing is off limits. If you have the truth on your side then you have nothing to fear. Keeping an open mind isn’t about accepting anything and everything, but it is a humble thing to do, if you are willing to grow in your understanding of scripture, or at least come to a fresh understanding of what you already know, and why you believe it. It can also help your discourse with other people, Christians, sects, and maintain respectful engagement over hot button issues. And perhaps, it will help overcome obstacles or road barriers. Certainly, it was through such wrestling with scripture that I came into contact with who God really is, and how he changes me, and continues to change me.
One important thing that I have learned in the growth of my faith is to be patient with myself, with God and with others. It seems whenever someone holds onto a new set of propositions they enter the cage stage and become impatient with everyone else. I imagine them holding their presuppositions like prison bars, and occasionally ringing the cuffs across them to make noise. It’s just creating a stir to get a negative reaction. It makes me wonder if that’s why Jesus told the demons to stop proclaiming him as the Christ, since the people’s expectations still needed to be reformed. And perhaps, there is something to be learned from that. But I find for the most part, people aren’t going to listen right away, and that includes myself.
But it was a fateful night, when one such staunch Calvinist, burst my little Sunday-School-Bible-Stories-Bubble. Predestination? What? I had never even heard of predestination, let alone considered it. Once saved always saved? You’ve got to be kidding me! I soon realized, I hardly read my Bible. Yet at the same time, it completely baffled me how a Christian can come to so many different conclusions than me. And is this really what God is like? I soon realized I hardly, if ever, opened my Bible. But through this experience, I became so tortured by certain scriptures that I came to a place where I started reading the Bible for my own benefit.
From there, it took me four years to really understand what I managed to get myself into. I went from being an Arminian/Lutheran to an Arminian, to being a Lutheran, then to being an Arminian again, to a Calvinist and back to a Lutheran. On that point, I definitely did a lot of “converting.” Sure, I might have flipped and flopped a lot, I was still growing up. But on the positive side, I learned a lot from being on both sides of the spectrum. And I came across a lot of things that I didn’t expect to find in the Bible. I still find that to be true.
One of the things that I learned by going around in circles: the benefits and weakness of both positions. Arminianism makes a solid confession that God wills the salvation of all, and that he is truly love for all humanity. Calvinism, on the other hand, makes a clear confession that God should receive all the glory for our salvation - there is no room for boasting, even in our own choices. And yet on the downside, all the assurance in election is lost in a limited atonement. And Arminianism has a downside too, and leaves the most ultimate choice that there is resting on our own sinful devices - and there have been a lot of crazy things done in the name of growing the church to appeal to the sinful nature, ironically to make converts.
In each instance, I came to both positions through the magisterial use of reason. That is to say, if you find any one of the five points of Calvinism to be true then the rest of the 5 points will be true. Find any one of them to be false, and the rest of the points will be false, and you’ll be an Arminian. It’s that simple really. Or so I thought. But I came back to Lutheranism because I found out that I didn’t have to do this logic chopping with scripture.
Theology doesn’t need to be as intellectually satisfying as much as it needs to be faithful to all of the scriptures. In this way, reason needs to take a ministerial function in theology and serve under scripture; whereas the magisterial use of reason would have itself imposed above scripture, and that I find to be dangerous. I also find it attractive that the Lutheran Confessions foresaw this significant debate, but of both positions upheld some of these unparallel points in polar tension. It is clear that such a position was not in order to compromise or take “the middle” way (like the Anglicans), but rather to affirm what scripture affirms and take the “paradoxical” way.
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