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Notes -
As a Calvinist, it's the case that:
For everyone, if they were to repent, would be saved. Not everyone will in fact repent, but only those whom God predestines.
This isn't unique to the Calvinists, though. You'll see the same thing here among the more predestination-leaning Roman Catholics (like those following Thomas Aquinas) or Lutherans (like Luther or Walther, but not like Gerhard, if I remember correctly).
(Also, the TULIP acronym isn't ideal, especially in that the L is considerably more optional within the Reformed tradition than the other four. But it's a popular characterization, and frequently used by those within.)
Predestination-leaning Roman Catholics are just "Roman Catholics". God perfectly foresees the free choices men make within time, and thus has perfect knowledge of who will be saved. This, in the Catholic view, does not infringe on the agency of the sinner in responding to/failing to respond to grace. Some people see this as a logical contradiction: "If God already knows I'll steal cream from the office fridge on Tuesday, how do I have a free choice?" But the teaching makes good sense to me, as God exists outside of time; an easier way to conceptualize it might be to imagine that we made choices at the beginning of time, but are now experiencing them linearly.
Which leads to the core difference:
Per Total Depravity and Irresistible Grace, the very choice to repent is motivated purely by God, and the choice not to repent is likewise compelled by God. Agency does not exist. The sinner who will not repent was never free to repent, and the elect who repents was never free not to repent. The universe is a clockwork contraption devised for a glorious divine drama.
If God designed it that way, Lily Philips could never not sleep with 100 men, nor repent for sleeping with 100 men. It was all a plan, scripted by God, for God's greater glory.
I do not see the calivinist view as inherently ridiculous (or even monstrous, as people often describe it), but it is a real difference from other denominations.
Sure, but there's a difference as to what extent God's will is seen as posterior vs. prior to the decision, right?
I know there were big controversies between Jesuits and Dominicans at some point, and the Franciscans had still another position, I believe.
Yes, it does depend upon God giving us a new heart, etc. etc.
Well, not in the same way. It's not a direct action on the part of God; it's the inevitable result of our fallen state barring divine grace.
Sure it does. We're just, in our fallen states, bad agents, at least in the respects relevant in these instances.
This depends pretty heavily on what you mean by free.
Well, I'm not necessarily committed to that. I'd be fine with, for example, direct action by God in determining how quantum states collapse each time. I'm not actually endorsing that position specifically, but I have no problem with it. But sure, I have no problem with a deterministic world, and it is for God's glory. Just don't use determinism as a grounds to minimize it.
Depending on what you mean by "could," sure. But surely you also would agree that conditional on God's knowing that Lily Philips would sleep with 100 men, that would necessarily happen? And not only knowledge, but as part of God's decrees in ordering the world—his will, not just his knowledge? I mean, Molinists would affirm that, not just Thomists, correct?
Are you aware of the Dominican-Jesuit debate? Do things like "physical premotion" mean anything to you? (Note that I am not sufficiently knowledgeable on these myself.) Are you aware that the esteemed Thomas Aquinas is thoroughly on the more strongly predestinarian side of these himself?
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