Subject: Re-inventing the Wheel |
Bible Note: Apparently for the majority of users of this forum, the archives are worthless. Instead of doing a topical search, they insist on reinventing the wheel daily. For example, the person bearing the user screen name "humpy" has been urged to avail himself of the archives instead of launching into a series of posts involving the ages-old debate on Calvinism vs. Arminianism. True enough, he was not an active user during the Calvinism/Arminianism Wars that were waged for so long a time on this forum, but he has been apprised of their existence and invited to use Search in order to acquaint himself of what has already been said on this matter. His views on the Calvinism perspective have been aired many times over and thus far he has said nothing new, and it is most unlikely that he will ever be able to add anything new. All that such efforts will accomplish is to drive the stake deeper, wherein Calvinists become more rigidly Calvinistic and Arminians more Arminian, and during the process reek havoc on the forum that leads to divisiveness and bitter invectives being thrown at one another. On the current thread concerning who Christ died for, I have already been accused of not believing the Bible simply because I happen to believe that "world" in John 3:16 means "world" and not "the elect." ...... As Tim Moran has wisely and correctly observed, the two camps have very slim chance, if any, to come to agreement, because they don't even speak the same language. Commonly understood words such as all, everyone, whoever, and world mean one thing to Calvinists and something fundamentally different to everyone else. ..... What is it about a soteriological system that leads its adherents to spend countless hours trying to explain away what 'all' means or what 'world' means? Why is it necessary for them to invent a whole new vocabulary, a different set of meanings of common words, in order to give their doctrine a ring of truth? Is this the proper way to teach a lost and dying world the saving message of the gospel of Christ? ..... I do not make this post with any intent to re-ignite the flames of bitter debate. Quite to the contrary, it is being submitted in the hope and expectation that the smoldering ashes of the long and bitter debates on Calvinism/Arminianism will be allowed to cool and fade away. They were anti-productive of peace and good-will when they were in the vanguard on this forum months ago, and there is no reason to believe that the resumption of these debates will serve this forum any better now. ..... And there is any number of long-time users of this forum who are resolved to see to it that this fiasco does not happen again. --Hank |