Thou shalt not commit logical fallacy!
Thursday, September 6, 2012 at 1:43pm ·
https://www.facebook.com/#!/notes/sing-f-lau/thou-shalt-not-commit-logical-fallacy/10151797791023484
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| God saves. Faith saves. Both God and faith saves. THEREFORE Salvation by God's free grace = Salvation by man's faith. They are One and the SAME salvation. Faith, man's act of believing is the God-given means whereby we are saved by Him. Faith is the God-given means to appropriate that salvation from God! Add caption |
The above is a very popular logical fallacy among both the Calvinists and the Arminians.
Here is a popular shibboleth, or theological jargon... spouted by BOTH the Arminians as well as their supposedly superior cousins, the Calvinists.
It goes something like this:
"Notice we are saved, not by faith, but through faith. Faith is the God-given means / the conduit / the conveyance vehicle through which salvation comes to us sovereignly. It is not our work."
We hear them often enough from both sides."Come, and let us reason together" a bit, and see the obvious logical fallacies inherent in such talks.
Dear Calvinist and Arminian brethren, let me suggest to you THE solution to harmonize the inevitable logical fallacies inherent in the typical Calvinistic notion encapsulated in the words above. I do understand where you are coming from... and I do appreciate your great attempt at reconciling the place of faith and believing in their relation to the salvation by God's free and sovereign grace.
I struggled through those logical fallacies for a long time until the gracious Lord taught me to rightly divide the word of truth from the Scriptures.
Ok, back to the popular statement above.
There is no need to qualify that we are not saved by faith. That's not the point of dispute.
There is great need to explain 'we are saved through faith.' - because this is where the problem lies.
It is true, faith is not our work... it is the work of the Spirit, a fruit of the Spirit. He works this saving grace in the child of God. This saving grace DOES NOT save, this saving grace is an EFFECT of salvation already bestowed, freely and sovereign by God.
So, how are we saved through faith? The Calvinists say, "Faith is the God-given means / the conduit /the conveyance vehicle through which salvation comes to us sovereignly." By that, the Calvinists mean, "Believing is the God-given means / the conduit / the conveyance vehicle through which salvation comes to us sovereignly." Am I right?
You are still STUCK with the logical fallacy no matter how you qualify your position! Believing is an effect and fruit of salvation already freely and sovereign bestowed upon us. That being so, it CANNOT CANNOT CANNOT be at the same time be the God-given means / the conduit / the conveyance vehicle through which the SAME salvation comes to us sovereignly.
But if you protest and insist that the faith spoken of is the potentia (a terminology used by the PRC) part of faith, you still have the logical fallacy. Faith (potentia) is ALSO an effect of salvation already bestowed freely and sovereign by God. Believing (actus) is a manifestation of faith (potentia).
And please be very clear in our mind that BELIEVING IS WORK... the Lord Jesus Himself declares so.
John 6: 28 ¶ Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? 29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
There is indeed a salvation that is through the means of believing. Believing saves... repenting saves... obeying saves. Saves from what? The works of God's children save them. Saves from what? There is a salvation that God's children (ALREADY saved with eternal salvation in Jesus Christ, applied to them by the free and sovereign grace of God) must work out for themselves. And believing is one such work. And believing is work indeed! Believing requires the activities of reading or hearing and understanding... these are works.
But the salvation that God's children must work out for themselves is completely distinct and different from the salvation that God, through His Son's FINISHED redemptive work and applied by His Spirit, had freely and sovereignly bestowed upon each of His elect personally.
If you rightly DIVIDE and DISTINGUISH the two salvation, the inherent logical fallacies in the Calvinistic notion is somewhat resolved.
God saves. Faith saves. But the salvation by God's free and sovereign activities is entirely distinct and different from the salvation through the believing activity of God's children. Both the Calvinists and their Arminian cousins made the fatal mistake of believing faith as the mean to obtain the eternal salvation by the righteousness of Christ ALONE.
Salvation that is the CAUSE... and salvation that is secondary effects are two different and distinct matters.
Faith is the God-given means to the latter... through believing the truth of one's salvation by God's free grace, a child of God is saved from lies and superstition and fictions and fables, he experiences assurance, joy, peace, hope, etc. from the gospel of his salvation by God's free and sovereign grace.
Faith as the God-given means is an effect of the former, and has NOTHING to do with being saved with the former.
May our Lord grant us understanding, and deliver us from lies and fiction and fables!
Biblical distinction is the essence of sound theology. Thanks for listening.
