"DAMNABLE HERETICS" : "Hyper-Calvinists of the Hardshell type..."
A man said:
I must admit I was once a Hyper-Calvinist of the Hardshell type, but through the grace of our Lord was brought back again to believe once more the Bible by correct and scientific exegesis, especially in rightly dividing the Word of truth. While actually answering you by and bye, I would like to show Hardshell Hyper-Calvinism is characterized by the following common presuppositions: (*** see 11 statements below)
And I inquired:
I have a question: are there different types of Hyper-Calvinists - the Hardshell type, and the non-Hardshell types? The first time I ever heard about H-Cs was in the late 80s when I heard some Calvinists denouncing the PRC as H-Cs. And what's a Hardshell type? Honest questions.
The man answered:
"Actually, I do not like to call those people Hyper-Calvinists, I like to call them Damnable Heretics." [verbatim]
I replied:
Brother Rocky, you said, "I must admit I was once a Hyper-Calvinist of the Hardshell type, but through the grace of our Lord was brought back again to believe once more the Bible by correct and scientific exegesis, especially in rightly dividing the Word of truth."
What happened to you is NOTHING new. Hordes of old school calvinists (mistaken by new school calvinists as hypercalvinists) degenerated into, and defected to the new school calvinism. It is very easy to slide down from old calvinism to moderated calvinism...
It takes much grace for God's children to move upward from the valley of arminiansim all the way up to the peak of old school calvinism. Your calvinism is a half-way between arminiansim and old school calvinism.
Many of your 11 points above leveled against what you called hyper-calvinism are actually the truth summarized in your WCF... what a tragedy!!!
When I have time... I will demonstrate them to you one by one."
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My interest was deeply piqued by that very strong term - why would this man denounce H-Cs of the Hardshell type as DAMNABLE HERETICS? I have no idea who he is referring to at all, but I know they are STRONG words. I requested him to give names of the damnable heretics he has in mind, but none is forthcoming. Since he stated that he was once among them, surely he would have known some of them!
I'm wondering, what if the beliefs he denounces as damnable heresies happened to be the truth of the Bible, and what if the beliefs he cherishes as truth turn actually out to be fables, what then? Himself a damnable heretic? Just wondering!
I do believe that God's children may be very messed up in their heads for various reasons... may be misinformed by a poor ministry, being deceived by the devil, having itchy ears for fables and doctrines of demons... but they are children of God still... and not damnable heretics. God's children, if not watchful and vigilant, do make shipwreck of their faith, some do fall from faith... even though none of God's children ever fall from grace and eternal salvation.
*** The followings are the 11 statements purporting the DAMNABLE HERESIES of those Rocky denounced as DAMNABLE HERETICS!
found here: http://things-new-and-old.blogspot.com/2012/09/calvinists-logical-fallacies.html=========================
1. That God’s decree of election or and reprobation or divine foreordination is not distinguished from Divine Providence; in other words there is not distinction in the mind of Hyper-Calvinists between potentiality and actual.
2. Hyper-Calvinists understand passages such as Rom. 8: 29 as purely decretive rather than providential.
3. Since Divine Providence is confused with God’s decree, evangelical graces necessary to salvation such as preaching of the Gospel, faith and repentance are mooted, and, therefore, unnecessary.
4. Hyper-Calvinism is making an absurd and unscriptural hypothesis, to wit, that since man is incapable to believe the Gospel on his own due to total depravity and spiritual death, God cannot demand him faith; and the preaching of the Gospel with an earnest pleading with sinners to believe on the risen Christ is necessarily Arminianistic. This logical fallacy is often, if not always, shared by Arminians, hence God commands him to believe on the ground of his ability to believe on his own.
5. Since regeneration is independent of the written Word and of the preaching of the Gospel, it must be an inner and interior operation of the Holy Spirit and always APART from the ordinary ministry of the Word. While true Calvinists believe that regeneration is not dependent on the ordinary ministry of the Word but may take place, on and with it, and in some cases before and without it, simultaneously in the moment of faith, Hyper-Calvinists make an unnecessary deduction that to believe that regeneration can take place simultaneous in the moment of faith, it makes the Word preached to be the cause of regeneration.
7. Hyper-Calvinists do not usually respect the ordo salutis or order of salvation and fail to put distinctions of them, namely, foreknowledge, predestination, regeneration (effectual call), justification, sanctification and glorification. They make a false assumption that since a person is foreknown and predestinated to salvation, that person must be already justified and glorified. There is no such thing as Saving Faith and evangelical repentance in time. To affirm the necessity of these graces to salvation is to deny God’s decree in eternity.
8. Most Hyper-Calvinists are Supralapsarians. They put the priority of the decree of election of the elect before the decree of the fall; but assuming their logic is correct, the decree of the fall makes God’s election changeable and absurd.
9. Hyper-Calvinism in separating justification from the ordinary ministry of the Word, has given way to unbiblical assumption that a man can be justified without hearing the Gospel preached in a pagan country, while believing and practicing the best light of his pagan religion as long as he is one of God’s elect.
10. Hyper-Calvinism, in separating justification from the ordinary ministry of the Word, has usually made a neglect of the duty to preach the Gospel of Christ to everyone.
11. Hyper-Calvinists fail to put distinction between the inner and irresistible call of the Spirit in regeneration and the outward call of the Gospel. Every Gospel call or divine summon is always an inner activity which cannot be resisted.
12. Calvinists believe that all are commanded to repent, and this is ordinarily carried out by the ordinary ministry of the Word in obedience to the Great Commission; this can be often resisted and will always be resisted by the reprobates. But there is also an inner call and irresistible and interior in the soul of the elect which shall unfailingly take place in due time, and the effecting of the same cannot be done by the preaching of the Word but by the powerful operation of the Spirit. This inner call is distinguished from, but not separate in, the preaching of the Word. In cases where the ordinary ministry of the Word is not possible, like those elect who, by the pleasure of God, should be regenerated in infancy and the like, the Spirit of God, in His unquestionable sovereignty, is at liberty to regenerate and justify without the ordinary ministry of the Word.
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