I have some great news. Friday, we'll have a guest speaker in class by way of Skype. (I'll of course have to learn how to use Skype between now and then.) In response to Anna's request from a couple of weeks ago, I lined up a fire-breathing Southern Baptist to answer questions about Calvinism. His name is Travis Kerns and he's a professor of apologetics at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, for heaven's sake!
So, your job between now and then is to begin formulating questions that we might ask him. What do you want to know? What about Calvinism or Evangelicalism doesn't make sense to you?
Submit questions as "comments" to this post. We'll pick a few to have him address.
This will be utterly cool.
Prof. Fluhman
These are probably the same questions he always gets but I would like to know the following, and I would like to know how to ask these questions tactfully because they kind of sound combative but really I just want to know:
ReplyDeleteIn terms of free will, is there a difference between Calvinism and determinism? If noone has free will and everyone's fate is determined, seeing as life is painful for most people most of the time, what's stopping us from doing like the Jonestown folks? How is there meaning in any human activity or "decision"?
Why does evil exist? What is the purpose of life? Do Calvinist's believe in any particularities about the afterlife? Is there a difference between the nature of Calvin's inspiration and say, Paul's? Why did Calvin institute such a strict program of church discipline in Geneva when salvation is already determined? If my mind is utterly depraved and Fallen, how can I even trust my ability to discern God or recognize Him in any way?
What is the current position of Calvinists on missionary work? How has that changed overtime?
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DeleteI'd like to hear his conversion story. Has he always been so staunch in his faith?
ReplyDeleteHow does predestination influence moral choices?
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