If God can call you His child but then revoke your adoption
You don't have the Gospel of Jesus Christ, you have a different gospel, one of works - of your efforts - and stand condemned.
Salvation is in Jesus Christ and Christ Jesus alone. He alone was necessary, enough, and capable of redeeming you from your sins. There is no collaboration with you for your salvation, nor are any mediators - such as will be suggested - needed: His mother, any saints, any church leaders, any angels even...no one but Christ can save you, no one who professes Jesus as Lord and Savior should think that anyone else can or should.
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y'all the responses after Melinoë finds the fates is so freaking funny to me because everyone's like "oh the fates are found but now we have free will bc they're retiring" and then Odysseus is just like, "idk about you, but I've always had free will"
and it's just reading like a lot of the Calvinism vs. Arminianism debates and discussions i was surrounded by all through college
I'm curious— what are your thoughts on calvinism versus arminianism?
In the Calvinism vs Arminianism debate, Calvinism is correct and Arminianism is utterly wrong send post.
(Okay jk I will slightly elaborate on this)
But actually, I'm not the best person to. My pal John Piper is.
Here's an exerpt from that article:
1. Depravity
Calvinism says people are so depraved and rebellious that they are unable to trust God without his special work of grace to change their hearts so that they necessarily and willingly — freely — believe.
Arminians say, with regard to depravity, that people are depraved and corrupt, but they are able to provide the decisive impulse to trust God with the general divine assistance that God gives to everybody.
2. Election
Calvinism says that we are chosen. God chooses unconditionally whom he will mercifully bring to faith and whom he will justly leave in their rebellion.
Arminians say God has chosen us — elected to bring to salvation — all those whom he foresaw would believe by bringing about their own faith and providing the decisive impetus themselves. In those, God doesn’t decisively produce the faith that he foresees.
3. Atonement
Calvinism says that in the death of Christ, God provided sufficient atonement for all but designed that it be effective for the elect — meaning that Christ’s death purchased for them the new-covenant promise that God would bring about in his people faith and perseverance.
Arminians say that in the death of Christ, God provided sufficient atonement for all and designed that it would become effective by virtue of faith for which we — not Christ — provide the decisive impetus. Meaning, faith itself is not purchased by the cross, but that it is the human means of obtaining what the cross purchased — namely, forgiveness of sins.
4. New Birth
Calvinists say that the new birth is God’s work of renewal in our hearts that necessarily brings about the act of willing, hearty, saving faith.
Arminians say the new birth is God’s work of renewal in our hearts in response to our act of saving faith.
5. Perseverance
Calvinists say God works infallibly to preserve us in faith — all of us who are truly born again — and that no one is ever lost who was truly born of God.
Arminians say God works to preserve his people, but he does not always prevent some who were born again from falling away to destruction.
[LATER]
And the key difference is this: Calvinists believe that God has to produce in us the decisive desire for Christ. Arminians believe we must produce in ourselves the decisive desire for Christ. The Arminians say that God helps us. He helps all people, but we provide the last, decisive impetus and desire for that belief.
Boom shakalaka. The reason I agree with Calvin on all of this is because every single one of these things specifically have their exact basis in Scripture, especially in Paul's letters, while the Ariminian belief goes directly against it.
I'm going to be a little blunt and my words may seem antagonistic here. But no hate, please. I'm just trying to analyze and provide my analysis based on the very simple facts. Now.
I've never quite understood the anger at C. S. Lewis for how he ended Susan's tale. Mainly, I suppose, because I had the whole story.
Everyone gets angry that Susan is "banned from Narnia" because she likes lipstick and nylon stockings and being a teenage girl in the 1940s, but no one seems to understand that that's not quite how it went, much less that Susan still has a chance.
Let me work backwards a moment and explain the latter. You see, to quote Lewis himself, in a letter to a girl called Marcela in 1955,
"...Haven’t you noticed in the two you have read that she is rather fond of being too grownup? I am sorry to say that side of her got stronger and she forgot about Narnia... ...She is left alive in this world at the end, having been turned into a rather silly, conceited young woman. But there is plenty of time for her to mend, and perhaps she will get to Aslan’s country in the end—in her own way. I think that whatever she had seen in Narnia she could (if she was the sort that wanted to) persuade herself, as she grew up, that it was ‘all nonsense’”
Now, there's a lot to unpack here, but first and foremost, my point is quite simple. "Perhaps she will get to Aslan's country in the end-in her own way." It was always meant to be open ended, for Susan. Narnia is not forever closed to her, unless you and she choose so.
"But Peace!" I can hear you saying, "There's that whole 'too fond of being grownup' phrase!" Why yes, yes there is, how clever of you to notice. The whole point of the latter portion of Susan's arc is that she chose that- lipstick and nylons and "being grownup"- over Narnia. She grew and she chose to forget Narnia.
After all, what sort of modern teenage girl (in England, during WW2) would be so interested in medieval times and what they probably explained to their friends to be a good old game of pretend? No, no, she can't remember Narnia right now - she's going to the cinema with a few girl friends, she's going to a party, she's focusing on everything but there and inevitably, after pushing it away for so long, Narnia let her be.
You see, C. S. Lewis was a very Arminian (and yes, I spelled it correctly) Christian theologian. And while I'm sure most of you here on this hellsite would like to ignore that, it is relevant to how Lewis wrote his fiction. After all, it's at the core of his basic beliefs, despite his being a staunch atheist in college and into his adulthood, and despite what you may like to think, it crept into his writing even when he did not intend it. For example, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is called an allegory for the story of the Resurrection, despite Lewis' arguments to the contrary. He insisted that it be seen as what it is, very heavy symbolism. Very heavily used Christian symbolism, that is all over the Chronicles whether you like it or not.
Let me explain why this is relevant to Susan, what Arminianism even is, and how that term applies here. Susan is, so to speak, a symbol of an atheist left behind, after all of the Christians she called family died. In a situation where you regard Christianity as true, she is left on Earth while they have gone on to heaven. And this doesn't mean that the gates of heaven are closed to her, quite to the contrary! They would be closed on the day she died insisting that Jesus Christ was not Lord, plain and simple. She has a choice to make, so long as she is alive.
Now, to Calvinist theologians and Christians, Susan never had a choice. Either Aslan, the God symbol here, chose to bring her in, or he didn't. Calvinists believe in a thing called predestination, the concept that every believer that would ever be brought to heaven is chosen specifically by God. Arminianism declares the opposite. It's a whole thing in Christian theological circles, but that's irrelevant to this discussion. In any case, the core of Arminianism is that you and I have a choice in whether or not we believe in God, and in whether or not we go to heaven.
To an Arminian theologian, God, or Aslan in this symbolic case, can influence our choice, Susan's choice, up to a point. Once we reach that point, once Susan forgets, God, or Aslan, steps back. He accepts our choice, allows Susan to forget. It's up to us, up to Susan after that.
Lewis was an Arminian theologian. He made the point, repeatedly, in his theological works, about people having a choice.
He repeats that point with Susan.
One last thing, before you go. You see, there was another letter about Susan, after The Last Battle was released. He'd been asked if he ever intended to finish Susan's story.
This was his answer.
“I could not write that story myself. Not that I have no hope of Susan’s ever getting to Aslan’s country; but because I have a feeling that the story of her journey would be longer and more like a grown-up novel than I wanted to write. But I may be mistaken. Why not try it yourself?”
Well, my people? Now that you've heard what I had to say (and say through quite the essay, my apologies), why not? Go, do what you do and tell her story for yourself. The author has encouraged fanfiction, so go on! And don't worry about Christianity and symbolism too much. It may help you understand how and why Lewis wrote what he did, but unless you're determined to have your tale in his style and overlapping seamlessly with canon, it's unnecessary. Unless you choose to make it a part of your life, you don't have to be concerned about it.
Feel free to ask questions, and I'll answer to the best of my ability, with Google by my side!
Also, I nearly forgot. There are absolutely other problems with Susan being the last of her family, left alone in the aftermath of WW2. This is not the place to talk about those, however, merely to help you understand why she "is no longer a friend of Narnia" and to remind you that there's always hope.
Oh, and besides that, don't forget that I'm talking about the books and not the movies thank you very much, while The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was absolutely perfect to canon the other two were not and I'm not going to consider them in this post. I do appreciate them, but when dealing with book canon they're both nos.
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I’m imagining a statement or something that deals with the Arminianism/Calvinism struggle over free will and whether that’s possible with the Christian God, THEN connect that to the Web. Perhaps a Calvinist preacher/web avatar manipulating people through the concept of predestination, using the fear of “not being chosen by God” and being helpless in your salvation? Or maybe an Arminianist (not a word i know) theologian so wrapped up with the concept of free will and the terror of not being able to choose anything in your life, that he loses it? Just some ideas :]
The two theologies thus conceive the plan of salvation in quite different terms. One makes salvation depend on the work of God, the other on a work of man; one regards faith as part of God’s gift of salvation, the other as man’s own contribution to salvation; one gives all the glory of saving believers to God, the other divides the praise between God, who, so to speak, built the machinery of salvation, and man, who by believing operated it.
Thanks for watching. Quick admonishment, any comments that are highly divisive and disrespectful by either Calvinists, Arminians or non-Calvinists in general...
