by David Jack » October 18th, 2006, 10:59 pm
Sometimes i use 'calvinism' in quite a vague way to mean a certain atmosphere of gloominess and intolerance which has always attended it in my experience and which i certainly see in its teaching. But even if I was to use the term in its stricter sense, I am still at odds with it.
True, the mechanics of predestination (as understood by reformed theologians) don't rule out universal salvation but Calvin himself believed-and probably taught though I haven't studied him enough to know for sure-that not everyone is part of God's 'elect'. I realise that this belief is based on scripture, but then so is Calvin's understanding of predestination itself, so the two things can't be separated. Of course I believe he interpreted scripture wrongly.
Christ's teaching about the narrow way is not one I had yet thought of in terms of its bearing on universalism. Certainly the 'narrow way' part poses no difficulty as far as i can see, since it simply describes the difficulty of following him. As for 'few entering in', I'm not sure. I wonder whether it might mean 'enter in directly?' That is just speculation since I am very new to entertaining the idea of purgatory (used to be firmly reformed in that sense!) and haven't looked at the verse in context or traced it to the original greek. One thing that universalist link showed me was that i had unwittingly been fed a party line by many verses supposed to disprove their standpoint.
"This is and has been the Father’s work from the beginning-to bring us into the home of His heart.” George MacDonald.