Indoctrinated first?

[Carbon]

An Arminian made this statement:

"No one who reads the bible without 1st being indoctrinated into Reformed theology will come to a Reformed interpretation. No one."

Agree?
Disagree?

Arminians, if you agree, would you elaborate on this statement a bit? What makes you so sure of that?

Calvinists, would you show scripture proving the opposite? Or, do you have some logic proving the opposite?

 

[John Bauer]

It was the rigorously logical application of Scripture that led me to Reformed theology, scriptures like

• John 6:44, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.”
  
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• John 8:47, “The one who belongs to God listens and responds to God’s words. You don’t listen and respond because you don’t belong to God.”
  
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• John 10:26, “You do not believe because you are not my sheep.”
  
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• Acts 13:48, “All [the Gentiles] who had been appointed for eternal life believed.”
  
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• Romans 8:28-30, “Those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, … And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified.”
  
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• Acts 16:14, “The Lord opened her heart to respond to what Paul was saying.”

And so many others (e.g., Isaiah 10:5-19).

 

[Arial]

An Arminian made this statement:

"No one who reads the bible without 1st being indoctrinated into Reformed theology will come to a Reformed interpretation. No one."

Agree?
Disagree?

Arminians, if you agree, would you elaborate on this statement a bit? What makes you so sure of that?

Calvinists, would you show scripture proving the opposite? Or, do you have some logic proving the opposite?

Disagree. It is more likely that they would see it the way of Reformed theology, if they had not first been indoctrinated with what is known as Arminianism today.

Reformed theology is the plain sense of the words.

Because I was first indoctrinated with Arminianism, when I began to read the Bible through the lens of Reformed, I realized there were whole words and phrases that are automatically skipped over, but that are all over the place. Words like "called" "the elect" "chosen". How often does Paul begin a letter with "To the called of God" or to the "elect"? And that is just the little words. There is also "foreknew" and "predestined". There are passages that say Jesus saves those God has given him. That say certain people don't believe because they are not his sheep.

Not to mention there is not a place in the Bible where God is not doing the choosing of everything. Times, places, people, events.

 

[makesends]

An Arminian made this statement:

"No one who reads the bible without 1st being indoctrinated into Reformed theology will come to a Reformed interpretation. No one."

Agree?
Disagree?

Arminians, if you agree, would you elaborate on this statement a bit? What makes you so sure of that?

Calvinists, would you show scripture proving the opposite? Or, do you have some logic proving the opposite?

I've heard it said by more than one Reformed/Calvinist, that most of them came from outside Reformed/Calvinism. I can't speak to that, but I'm certainly one that came from outside the 'indoctrination', though I still maintain that I'm not exactly Reformed nor Calvinist. I'm 70 years old, been a believer from before I remember being alive, brought up in a continuous Bible atmosphere, of the Fundamentalist/Dispensational/semi-Wesleyan/'Bible Church' style, and for well over 40 years was not Reformed/Calvinistic in my beliefs.

Truth is, I didn't even know what Calvinism was, except by caricature, nor what Reformed Theology taught. By desperation, need, prayer (funny how easily those words come out, compared to what it was like!) and Bible study and reasoning I came to the conclusions I now believe without any such 'indoctrination', but only found out later that people thought I was Reformed or Calvinist. I had never even heard the word, 'monergism', till maybe 15 years ago, but was already a committed monergist.

 

[makesends]

Calvinists, would you show scripture proving the opposite? Or, do you have some logic proving the opposite?

Scripture is replete with typical statements that Calvinism merely repeats, or tries to explain. I saw these few and so many more, long before I became Calvinistic.

"In the beginning GOD"

(While I was still a teenager, I realized the implication of God being God, that "omnipotent" implies First Cause, and even reality itself, therefore, is of his making. The resulting confusion at being taught that God was dependent on us to accomplish his purposes was a problem for me till I finally had to give that up.)​

"We love him because he first loved us"

(one of my favorites, meaning a lot more than the surface reading I used to apply)​

"There is none good. No not one."
"What do you have that you were not given?"
"For it is God who works in you both to will and to do according to his good pleasure."
"Apart from me you can do nothing."
"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever."
“For I, the Lord, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed."
"For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this.
How can I let myself be defamed?
I will not yield my glory to another."
"Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—"
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him."
"It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy."
"Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden."
"One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?"
"What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory...?"
"All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made"
"For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen."

 

[JesusFan]

I've heard it said by more than one Reformed/Calvinist, that most of them came from outside Reformed/Calvinism. I can't speak to that, but I'm certainly one that came from outside the 'indoctrination', though I still maintain that I'm not exactly Reformed nor Calvinist. I'm 70 years old, been a believer from before I remember being alive, brought up in a continuous Bible atmosphere, of the Fundamentalist/Dispensational/semi-Wesleyan/'Bible Church' style, and for well over 40 years was not Reformed/Calvinistic in my beliefs.

Truth is, I didn't even know what Calvinism was, except by caricature, nor what Reformed Theology taught. By desperation, need, prayer (funny how easily those words come out, compared to what it was like!) and Bible study and reasoning I came to the conclusions I now believe without any such 'indoctrination', but only found out later that people thought I was Reformed or Calvinist. I had never even heard the word, 'monergism', till maybe 15 years ago, but was already a committed monergist.

I was a crad carrying atheist intil saved by the Lord in college, and went to an AOG and then to AOG school to learn their doctrines and practices, became a teaching Elder in their ranks, but all I knew that that always had issues with their understandings in certain doctrines, and listening to likes of a MacArthur or a Sproul made more sense that a Hinn or Copeland