JoeK states,
People begin to look at the Gospel through "Dirt lenses" and you know as well as me, this is the wrong approach. One must read the Scriptures, and if the fruit that falls is explained as calvinism, well that is fine.
Everyone looks at the Scripture through lenses of some type. None of us have a
tabla rasa approach--not even you. All of us bring something to look at the Holy Writ with, whether it be our experiences, education, or even the English language, etc. Everyone --Arminian and Calvinists alike--claim that the Holy Spirit directs them in their interpretation of Scripture. Thus, the only question that remains is what hermeneutic we are going to bring to interpret Holy Scripture with. Of course, we desire the most biblical.
That said, anyone reading Calvin and his Institutes are richly blessed. Am I saying Calvin was perfect--no, Is he God--no, Is he to be deified--no, however what he did was give us a hermeneutic that has been further developed through the epoch of time. This hermeneutic assists us in interpreting the Scripture to its fullest and most excellent form. The correct heremenutic assists us in understanding the Trinity and their eternal plan more clearly. Calvinism, the Reformed faith, or whatever you desire to call it is the Gospel in the purest form that we have available today!
What you have failed to realize in your little rant is that
most individuals when they attack the person of Calvin are really attempting to discredit the theology of Calvin. Once they get done with their villianization of Calvin then they will
falsely claim that their Arminian doctrine has no such murderous villains attached to it (how they like to forget their skeletons).
