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Calvinist Worldview

 The recent topic is Deconstructing Christianity. "Push hard on your faith and question everything."

But only do this, says Calvinist Alisa Childers, if you're not looking for objective truth.   Post-modernism says that if objective truth exists, it can't be known - especially when it comes to the areas of morality and religion.


So if those kinds of truths can't be know, but the Christian comes across with claims to know the truth about things like Heaven and hell, they look like they are engaged in a power grab, or controlling through fear.  


The claim is that Deconstruction is about removing toxic beliefs, the beliefs that are oppressive to me.  But this exploration is framed in terms of how things affect the individual.  So it appears very subjective - that rule doesn't both you, but it bothers me.

 

But here is where things begin to become shady.   

"If we are just trusting our own internal moral compasses, first of all we're assuming that what we're going to be finding inside our own hearts is going to be something good.  And as Christians, we know that there is something broken in us, it's called fallen nature.  We have a sin nature that we inherited.  So we're not always going to have it right what is going to be good for us, or bad for us.

"We all have the Holy Spirit who is convicting us of our sin. and we're having to repent and turn from our sin every day in our process of sanctification."


Two things are happening here.  The first is a perfect encapsulation of the  reformation of Augustine, the major innovation that he brought to Christianity.  Prior to his  discussion, Christianity focused on personal moral responsibility.  Each of us was charged with doing good and being good, and we were given libertarian moral free will to accomplish this monumental task, along with the teaching of the scripture and the guidance provided by the indwelling Holy Spirit.  What Augustine said was that because of our fallen nature, our curse that caused an irredeemable sin nature to forever blind us, individuals were not able to make proper moral choices.  Because you have a sin nature, you aren't equipped to make moral choices.  Instead, you need to rely on a cleric hierarchy and a system of rituals and sacraments to ensure your proper standing with God.

What then of the role of the Holy Spirit, to perfect your sanctification?  The Holy Spirit's role is now only to convict us of our sin by pricking our conscience.  Don't even try to make moral choices, because it's impossible.  Even after you've accepted the gift of salvation, your moral compass remains broken by "the curse".  What you need is a professional clergy, and a system of rituals administered by specially identified priests, and creeds to recite and the whole trappings of religiosity.

Because of this, you shouldn't ever question your faith.  You don't have the qualifications for intellectual inquiry because of your fallen moral nature.  Remember that you are cursed.

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