mnkbdky

Now you are just being difficult. Of course the bible is literature and should be taught as such. But I do believe we were talking about the the discipline. For instance, in a very loose or strinct sence--depending on which way you look at it--everyone is a philosopher or a(n) (a)theologian. Everyone has an opinion about God, metaphysics, epistemology, etc. However, not everyone is a philosopher or theologian by training. It was in this latter sense that we were using the term literature. I cannot immediately disect the structure of a book; pick out thematic or envolved chiastic structures. I have little training in this area.

What you really should be talking about is how someone can be talking about competency and not even spell it correctly or even complete a sentence.

What?

Thanks,

--mnkbdky

Wiploc

And religious themes will keep coming up because so much of literature is based on religion. The suggestion (made in another post) that you avoid teaching religion in literature class is laughably wrong-headed.


Yes, double predestination. Luther did single predestination, believed that god chose from the beginning of time (and for no reason) who would go to heaven. There was no hope for the others, but that is sort of byproduct, accident.

Calvin believed in double predestination: God not only chose who goes to heaven, but he chose who goes to hell. And if you are hell-bound, you should act like it. If you aren't one of the elect, and you try to behave well, that is an attempt to thwart god's will, which is exactly the kind of thing that proves you are deserving of hellfire. For such wrongheaded behavior, god will darken your councils (make you stupid) and harden your heart (make you wanton) and send you out to do rapes and stuff.


Yup.


You have to look to Catholocism if you want a free will that gives human decisions influence on whether you get to heaven. Luther and Calvin thought we are all garbage unless god justifies us. That is, if you are one of the elect, god can purify your soul. Even the heaven-bound have no choice in the matter; it is entirely god's choice, and he chooses for no reason at all, certainly not because of anything you do or think.


This doesn't mean you got it wrong. Religious people get miffed even when you get it right. Traditionally they kill each other over this stuff.
crc

smeagle

Mnkby, I thought Calvin believed differently then you have presented. Shouldn't you stick to Theology, not Calvinism.

mnkbdky

This is not what was said. Perhaps, the statement came off harsh because of the way I worded it. If so, I apologize. What was meant was that no one, regardless of what they are teaching, should venture into unknown territory. That is, if a teacher is asked a question about that which they know very little, the best thing to do is to say, "I don't know." Blind speculation is not a respectable tool for teaching. If the person feels that they know enough about the topic to make an educated response, then it is alright to field the question--this includes literature and theology/philosophy. By no means should you avoid teaching theology in a literature class in which it is pertinent, that would be wrong-headed. But it would also be wrong-headed to teach something you don't know or merely researched on the internet.



This is exactly what I am talking about. Does wiploc offer any proof that this is what Calvin or Calvinism teaches? No. Certainly he is an educated man, but is he educated enough about Calvin(ism) to make such sweeping claims? I do not know. He very well may be. However, he certainly offers no proof.

I am no Calvin scholar but I know this is not what he teaches.
In fact, Calvin teaches quite the opposite. In chapter 21, section 12 in book III of Calvin's Institutes he discusses this very problem. He states, "To overthrow predestination our opponents also raise the point that, if it stands, all carefulness and zeal for well-doing go to ruin. . . . God knows what he once for all has determined to do with us: . . . if he has destined us to death, we would fight against it in vain." This objection to predestination sounds much like what wiploc has said above. How does Calvin respond? He says, "They [the objectors] say they [the evil doers] go on unconcerned in their vices; for if they are of the number of the elect, vices will not hinder them from being at last brought into life. Yet Paul teaches that we have been chosen to this end; that we may lead a holy and blameless life [Eph 1:4]. If election has as its goal holiness of life, it ought rather to arouse and goad us eagerly to set our mind upon it than to serve as a pretext for doing nothing. What a great difference there is between these two things; to cease well-doing because election is sufficient for salvation, and to devote ourselves to the pursuit of good as the appoint goal of election!" In other words, the person who is entrenched in evil actions should seek to do good works and thereby secure the knowledge of their salvation. Predestination is a doctrine about security, not about doing whatever you please.



Perhaps you should read up on your Catholic theology, too. The Catholic catechism teaches in Part Three, section 1996, "Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and underserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life" (italics theirs, bolded mine). Furthermore, the Catholics and the Lutherans have signed a joint statement on the doctrine of justification, which allows them to articulate a common understanding of justification. It is true that Lutherans and some Catholics--Catholic theology is very diverse--do differ on sanctification. For some Catholics works are a required sign to demonstrate that you are a person who has chosen and been chosen to cooperate with grace. Where as for some Lutherans signs are no indication of grace imparted. Both Protestants and Catholics agree that salvation is by grace and grace alone, works have no part in our deserving to be saved. As St. Bernard of Clairvaux once said, "There is no way for grace to enter, if merit has taken residence in the soul . . . whatever you impute to merit you steal from grace. I want nothing to do with the sort of merit which excludes grace. Grace restores me to myself, freely justified, and thus sets me free from the bondage of sin" (Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs, 4 vols. trans. Irene Edmons & Kilian Walsh, Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1980, 46.5).

Works have no place in either Catholic or Protestant theology concerning whether or not one passes through the heavenly gates. According to both, salvation is unmerited and undeserved; salvation is by grace, not of works.


Let me paste the Calvin quote again about the definition of predestination. According to Calvin himself predestination is, “God’s eternal decree, by which he compacted with himself what he willed to become of each man. For all are not created in equal condition; rather, eternal life is foreordained for some, eternal damnation for others. Therefore, as any man has been created to one or the other of these ends, we speak of him as predestined to life or to death" [Inst. 3.21.5] (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, London: Westminster John Knox Press, 926).


Thanks,

--mnkbdky

p.s. I am certainly no Calvinist. If I were to be measured by their point system, I would be a half of one point or .5 point Calvinst out of 5 points. However, I will allows those who are to represent it and not construct a straw man to burn. While we cannot respect ideas, we can respect those who proclaim them. To twist someone's words is disrespectful. Therefore, we should re-present their ideas with integrity. To do so requires patients and hard study--two of the things I could use more of.

Wiploc

The extent of my education on this subject is a single introductory class on Western Humanities.


I have read arguments that Luther was a Calvinist, and that Calvin wasn't. I'm sure Luther and Calvin contradicted themselves as much as, say, the bible and I (and certainly you) do; so quoting Calvin as saying that something isn't true falls way short of establishing that he didn't often claim the opposite.

A literature teacher asked about Calvinism. I presumed, based on no evidence, that early historical Calvinism was the Calvinism alluded to by his literature. So that's what I wrote about. Your discussion of what modern (again, I infer without evidence) Calvinists believe isn't on point, I think.


This doesn't seem right to me, but I don't see how that contradicts anything I've said yet.

I'm with you this far. I'm only interrupting here by way of setting off what follows.


How wonderfully wrong. If works have no part, then you have no need to repent, or to confess, or to do the other sacraments.


True enough, according to Luther and Calvin anyway, but, also according to them, neither does faith have any part in our deserving to be saved.



Are you citing this as proof that Christians are whacko? Or are you agreeing that faith is not meritorious?


Again, this is blatantly absurd. If you don't have faith (which is an internal work) and don't do the sacraments (which I assume even you would call a work), you aren't going to get to heaven, at least according to a great many Catholics, and probably a great many protestants.


The protestants said salvation was something god did to you, all on his own. The Catholics said you had to cooperate with him. The Protestants said we are totally corrupt; the Catholics thought we were slightly less corrupt than that. In either case salvation can be said to be unmerited and undeserved, but in the Catholic view there still had to be some goodness in you that tried to meet god halfway.


Do I correctly infer that you think I made a straw man, and burned it, and disrespected Calvin or Luther or the Calvinists or Lutherans, and represented them without integrity?
crc

Luiseach

Wiploc:

Thanks for your input about predestination...again, I'm very much obliged to those of you who have offered such great information on the subject...my poor student will be overwhelmed with the data on the religion she subscribes to!

I've snipped out these excerpts from your post, because you guessed rightly as to the kind of Calvinism I was discussing during the tutorial.

Now, for clarification purposes:

The tutorial involved a study of Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and focused on the characterisation of a teacher (ahem) whose personality is shown to be of calvinistic formulation.

Now, this is a Scottish novel, set in Edinburgh, whose Protestant Cathedral (St. Giles) squats heavily and darkly in the Old Town of the city. I've visited said cathedral, of course, and as you walk in, a rather cumbersome statue of John Knox greets you with a disapproving glare (I must confess to having tweaked the statue's nose).

The plot of Spark's novel is set in the 1930s, and is rather complex; one strand of the narrative, however, is about the effects of Scottish Calvinism on the character of a charismatic modern Scottish teacher, Miss Jean Brodie.

Spark, who was raised Presbyterian, and converted to Catholicism as an adult, sees Calvinism as a dodgy version of Christianity, for precisely the reasons we are discussing here: the doctrine of Predestination.

Spark is adept at summing up her thoughts in what another literary critic called a 'nutshell of an image.' To quote directly from the novel, then:

These are the words of her student, Sandy Stranger:

'She [Miss Brodie] thinks she is Providence, thought Sandy, she thinks she is the God of Calvin, she sees the beginning and the end' (MJB 120).

And elsewhere:

'[Sandy] began to sense what went to the makings of Miss Brodie who had elected herself to grace...' (MJB 109).

Finally, this is the narrator's voice:

'She [Miss Brodie] was not in any doubt, she let everyone know she was in no doubt, that God was on her side whatever her course, and so she experienced no difficulty or sense of hypocrisy in worship while at the same time she went to bed with the singing master. Just as an excessive sense of guilt can drive people to excessive action, so was Miss Brodie driven to it by an excessive lack of guilt' (MJB 85).

It was this last excerpt that I focused on during the tutorial, to encourage discussion of Spark's views on Calvinism and Predestination.

N.B. Excerpts are taken from the following text:

Spark, Muriel. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. London: Penguin, 1965.

smeagle

The extent of my education on this subject is a single introductory class on Western Humanities.


It is amazing what little knowledge you need to make such broad sweeping generalizations, Wiploc. Let me guess, you now are a teacher in our public school system as well. Mnkby is dead on in questioning a persons right to educate fertile minds from a position of ignorance. It is just that no one so far other than him gives a crap about that. Shame, shame shame....

Nothing wrong with prefacing your statement Luiseach to your student that you are largely uncertain because you haven't studied Calvinism, except, of course you are admitting you don't know everything. Wiploc I don't expect you to make this admission though, it appears from your posts without any evidence you have answered some of the finer mysteries of religion and are well on your way to being a coffee-house scholar!

keyser_soze

1. teaching is about learning as well
2. No one knows everything
3. His "sweeping" generalizations would be bad...if they were very far from the mark. They're not, in my experience very far off at all. In fact, read dm's post thoroughly.
4. At least he started researching to LEARN what he needed to know what to teach.
5. If we limited ourselves to only what we currently know...IT WOULD BE A BORING WORLD. Plus, it would probably stop revolving.

mnkbdky

From one humanities class you gained enough sureknowledge about both Calvin and Luther to claim this? Wiploc, such weighty claims require proof. Seeing as this is a philosophy forum, proofs should be the first things offered. Stating that Calvin contradicted himself does not prove that he did. Furthermore, people change their minds. For instance, I was once an atheist, which means I thought the statement, "God does not exist", was true. Now, I am a theist, which means I believe the statement, "God does exist", is true. It is true these are contradictory statements, but does the fact that I once held the former and now adhere to the latter mean that I contradict myself. No. In order to contradict myself I must hold both beliefs simultaneously. So, in order to prove Calvin and Luther contradicted themselves you would have to show that they didn't merely change their opinions on the matter at hand, but rather the much harder task of demonstrating that they held the two contradictory positions simultaneously. I wish you the best of luck on that endeavor; it would certainly be a fascinating read.

Also if you are going to make ad hominem attacks against your debating opponent, namely me, then you might want to offer proof of that as well. I cannot remember contradicting myself, but if you can show me that I did I will be eternally grateful.


In discussing how Calvinists describe free-will, yes, I was talking about modern day Calvinist arguments. However, when it comes to Calvinist doctrine, I went directly to the source, Calvin himself. You cannot get any more early for Calvinism. You may read later historical movements into early history, such as the arguments you alluded to about Luther or Augustine being a Calvinist, but this may only be done analogically. Now what should be notice is that the novel the teacher is discussing is set in the 1930s and therefore is probably not referring to early Calvinism, but rather later Calvinism. Calvin lived in the early 16th century; the novel is a good 400 hundred years later--hardly early Calvinism.

Wiploc, you stated, "If you are hell-bound, you should act like it." My quote suggests that Calvin believed and proclaimed the exact opposite. If you are hell-bound, you should seek faith and do good deeds to come to a sure and absolute knowledge of your salvation. For Calvin and Calvinists alike, doing good deeds if you are presently hell-bound does not mean you are attempting to thwart God's will. Quite the contrary, attempting to have faith and doing good deeds is trying to fulfill God's will, that you become one of the elect and fulfill your destiny to lead a holy and blameless life. Your statement about living like you are hell bound is in complete contradiction to Calvin's and Calvinist teaching. It may be your opinion that if predestination is correct then the hell-bound person should behave so, but it certainly is not the Calvinist's. If you can support that claim by offering proof of a Calvinist theologian stating that this should be the case, that would surely be a fantastic read. I, however, cannot think of one--but that doesn't mean there is not.

Traditionally, repentance and confession, which are aspects of faith, are not considered works deserving merit. The Catholic catechism states in Part III, section 2006- 2010 says that, "the term 'merit' refers in general to the recompense owed by community or a society for the action of one of its members experienced either as beneficial or harmful, deserving reward or punishment. . . . With regard to God, there is no strict right to any merit on the part of man. Between God and us there is an immeasurable inequality . . . The merit of man before God in the Christian life arises from the fact that God has freely chosen to associate man with the work of his grace. . . . Man's merit, moreover, itself is due to God . . . Since the initiative belongs to God in order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification, at the beginning of conversion."

In other words, man has done nothing to deserve his salvation. He has no ability in and of him or herself to merit faith or grace. According to some Catholics and most Arminians God has given humanity what is call prevenient grace, which allows us to choose him. We did nothing to merit this ability and, therefore, faith cannot be considered a work which is deserving of reward. Faith is a free gift given to us by God. The main difference between Catholics, Arminians and Calvinist is on this issue. Calvinists deny that this ability was given to humanity. Man has no ability to choose God. God does the choosing. Catholics and Arminians, on the other hand, hold that grace was extended to all humanity and God gave all man the ability to believe. Faith is a free gift to humanity, which was totally underserved.

Concerning sacraments, they are other gifts from God. Taking the sacrament is not a work. The sacrament is a means of God's grace toward us. There is nothing meritorious about taking them. Sacraments are the power of God working in the one who participates in them. They are not the work of the participant.


Our faith is not deserving of salvation because that would mean you merited salvation and/or faith. But as seen above, salvation and faith are not merited. With that said, faith is the means by which people are saved. In both Catholic and Protestant theology faith is given as a free gift. Free gifts are neither worked for nor merited; to say that faith is not a work and not deserving of merit does not preclude that we are saved by faith. If I invited all my enemies to a party on the moon and provided them with the rocket to get there, it was not their ability that got them to the moon allowing them to attend the party. Rather it was the free gift of the rocket. Just as the rocket is the means to the moon, so too is faith to heaven.


Bernard was a medieval Catholic theologian. I am quoting him as proof that faith is not considered meritorious in either Protestantism or Catholicism. Why would you say he is wacko?

As you can see, I consider neither faith nor sacraments as works. But it is not my opinion that matters as to whether or not Calvin or Luther or any Catholic theology thought they were. I will merely represent them as they thought--to the best of my ability.

Protestants, some at least, said that salvation was all God because men have no ability to choose God--at least this was Calvin's position. The doctrine is officially called, total inability. Catholic and Arminian Protestants, on the other hand, believe man does have the ability to choose God. However, that ability is not innate to man. That ability was given by God. Without this prevenient grace, which stopped man from become totally unable to have faith, all of mankind would be doomed. Again, for both Catholics and Protestants faith is given by God.

I believe you are giving your opinions about certain beliefs and people. You could not misrepresent Calvin, Luther or any Catholic theology because you have not tried to represent them, yet. You have merely given what you think their positions were. You have heard arguments, but offer no proof for either position or for your own position. I hope to hear some arguments.

Thanks,

--mnkbdky

Wiploc

I see that I have excited you to scorn. May I ask how? Was it
a) that I told where I got my information, or
b) that I shared the information I got there?

You and mnkbdky both take a condemnitory tone for no reason I can see. Do you think I got some of my "sweeping generalizations" wrong? If that's the issue, I'd like a more helpful response than insult.

mnkbdky also confessed to ignorance, but he gave opinions. I don't see you attacking him.

Which doesn't mean I won't attack him: He's a revisionist; his answer, dealing with something like how protestantism and Catholocism could be harmonized if we read the bible a certain way, was not an appropriate answer to the question asked.

Quote:

Nothing wrong with prefacing your statement Luiseach to your student that you are largely uncertain because you haven't studied Calvinism, except, of course you are admitting you don't know everything. Wiploc I don't expect you to make this admission though, it appears from your posts without any evidence you have answered some of the finer mysteries of religion and are well on your way to being a coffee-house scholar!

Again, I described positions. I didn't take a position myself. I didn't solve anything. My generalizations were clearly generalizations --- which is what the question called for. And, by confessing the scope of my ignorance, I did disclose my fallibility. What more did you want from me?
crc