Comments on: Blink If You’re a Calvinist

By: pentamom

pentamom — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 14:07:38 +0000

It’s only mildly funny, and I don’t find it sad, because I think it must be a joke.

By: Steve Drake

Steve Drake — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 00:11:16 +0000

Tom said:
“My daughter, who had no idea this discussion was going on, emailed me this link an hour ago. What is Calvinism?

It’s kind of funny, kind of sad.”

Steve Drake: Really sad that our young people are not being taught the philosophical and cultural and economic heritage that came from John Calvin’s teaching and writings.

By: Tom Gilson

Tom Gilson — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 21:52:30 +0000

My daughter, who had no idea this discussion was going on, emailed me this link an hour ago. What is Calvinism? It's kind of funny, kind of sad. (I can't promise the answer this comment will still make sense tomorrow, since the link could change. It's there for now, at any rate.)

By: Orthodoxdj

Orthodoxdj — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 18:19:47 +0000

Tom,

I was just going to say the same thing. Apparently what people believe they are arguing against really doesn’t exist. Libertarian freedom is uncoerced freedom.

By: Tom Gilson

Tom Gilson — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 17:28:42 +0000

pentamom, libertarian freedom is not uninfluenced freedom.

By: pentamom

pentamom — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 17:18:50 +0000

Actually, as a Calvinist, I can see both sides — I can see the overanalytical bent that sees the trees and misses the forest, but critiques (or worse) of Calvinism that stress the high-mindedness and fascination with the secret and eternal also abound — and there’s merit there, too.

In some ways both can be true, but to the extent that neither is absolutely true to the exclusion of the other, neither is a sound enough “given” to then spin other theories off of.

By: Truth Unites... and Divides

Truth Unites... and Divides — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 17:17:51 +0000

I have always thought that Liberals were great at hugging trees, but missing the forest and what’s surrounding the forest and missing … and missing ….

By: david carlson

david carlson — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 17:03:11 +0000

I have always thought Calvinists were great at identifying a tree, but missing the forest.

By: pentamom

pentamom — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 17:02:13 +0000

That may be true, but it doesn’t exist. Try making a choice influenced neither by who you are, your past history, or your present desires.

By: Orthodoxdj

Orthodoxdj — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 16:28:17 +0000

The only genuine freedom is libertarian freedom.

By: Truth Unites... and Divides

Truth Unites... and Divides — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 15:39:16 +0000

Maybe someday a case will be made for adding Liberalism to the DSM. Then perhaps the drug companies will offer Liberals a remedy. Some chemist will surely earn a Nobel Prize.

By: C. Ehrlich

C. Ehrlich — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 15:36:03 +0000

Maybe someday a case will be made for adding Calvinism to the DSM. Then perhaps the drug companies will offer us a remedy. Some chemist will surely earn a Nobel Prize.

By: Jeremy Pierce

Jeremy Pierce — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 15:31:48 +0000

Yes, free. Calvinism, of course, does indeed insist that we have genuine freedom, just not libertarian freedom. See, for example, Jonathan Edwards’ robust defense of compatibilism not only as true but as the best way to package Calvin’s theology in the light of subsequent philosophical analysis. (Unless, of course, we’re talking about hyper-Calvinism’s insistence on hard determinism. But then we’ve left the realm of Calvinism.)

By: orthodoxdj

orthodoxdj — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 15:04:48 +0000

“People are free to have their opinions based on a superficial analysis of a theology they haven’t had close experience with…”

Free?

By: pentamom

pentamom — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 13:09:17 +0000

I usually find sociological analysis of Calvinists to sound like they are coming from people who have no idea what they are talking about, as well as contradictory with other similar analyses, and this is no exception.

For every “Calvinists are trained from birth to focus on a narrower, rather than a bigger context,” you can find one, or maybe five, sociologists or historians who claim (with equal plausibility) that Calvinists think only of the big, eternal picture and have no idea of what’s in front of their noses. People are free to have their opinions based on a superficial analysis of a theology they haven’t had close experience with, but to take opinionated reactions like this that aren’t even generally agreed upon and then claim they’re doing “science” is just silly.