LJ Idol 8 - Reprobate
According to Calvinist doctrine, there are two kinds of people; the Elect and the Reprobate. These two types, the sheep and the goats, were chosen by God at the beginning of time as part of His Ineffable Plan. The Elect are those bound for salvation. The Reprobate are not.
The odds that you are a member of the Reprobate are overwhelming; God's wisdom may be infinite, but His grace and the dimensions of Heaven are, apparently, not. There is no real way of knowing whether you fall into the doomed camp and there is nothing you can do about it anyway, not really. You won't know for certain until you die and your soul is delivered or else left to perdition.
How unappealing. How misery-inducing. How very awful, terrible and unfair. As a former student of Reformation History, it was easy to see how many would have rejected this doctrine but naturally far more difficult to ascertain why anyone would choose to abide by it.
Yet they did so, in droves. People still do so, adherents of a variety of faiths. Not all of them are hideous misanthropes and depressives by any stretch of the imagination. Certainly not all of them are or were judgmental fucktards. Not all are or were self-satisfied and unimaginative.
Many peoples have designated themselves the Chosen over the course of history and have even fought wars on that account; that would be a simple explanation of the appeal of Calvinism. However, with Calvinism in its many forms, the kicker was that one could not simply designate oneself Chosen because one was a member of a Calvinist church, however active, upright and Godly one may be. Not even John Calvin himself could count himself among the Elect with any assurance. Taking his doctrines to their logical extent, the most blameless and charitable member of the parish could well be Reprobate, whereas a Hindu infant, dying at the age of 3 months and living somewhere where he would never hear of the Bible could be a member of the Elect. The most learned Divine could be damned, but a cutthroat in a Rookery could be saved. This was not a faith for the smug by any means.
The believer, Elect or Reprobate, could be expected to suffer many trials throughout his or her life. We call this phenomenon 'LIFE' in modern parlance, but each vicissitude was naturally subjected to scrupulous examination. Your house burns down. Much worse was done to Job, but that would be bad enough. How do you react? How do your neighbours react? Is God testing you, or did you merely leave a candle unattended? Would such a careless act bear testimony to your sinful nature? Was God trying to teach you something or not? Sinful and foolish behaviour from which one did not learn was often seen as a sign that one could well be damned, behaviour which had corollaries for others especially.
This idea bore many strange fruit.
First we have the depressives. One Divine wrote extensively of his regret that his life had, thus far, been too easy, surely a sign that God was not paying attention to him and the progression of his soul toward salvation. His parents had given him puppies and kittens, a good education and feather beds when he had been a boy. There had been no beatings, penury or tragedies to test his mettle.
Secondly, we have the devil-may-care hedonists
Sin hath its conception only in the imagination…. What act soever is done by thee in light and love is light and lovely. Lawrence Claxson wrote in 1650. He meant, for example, that there was no such thing as theft, that there was no such thing as adultery and so on and so forth. There were groups of people who, due to what were fundamentally Calvinist beliefs, had decided that if one was damned if they did or did not, they may as well do as they wished. If God had provided alcohol, sex, tobacco, you name it, then it couldn't be bad and they were going to indulge in it. Such fun!
Lastly we have the strivers, those who chose to make everything a trial and move ever onwards and upwards. Taking God to be the stern father, he who would not show his satisfaction or pride in the acts of his children, they worked hard to ground businesses, enterprises, charitable foundations, missions, to establish the law, to learn and overcome endlessly. Setbacks were grist to their justified mills and taken as signs that God was paying attention and that they must overcome and guide others to do so. Annoying, worthy and horrendously driven, but not heartless.
Me? I take Claxson's point of view, but not to its extremes of course. If it all turns out to be true and I am a Reprobate, then que sera sera. I enjoy making my own journey.
The odds that you are a member of the Reprobate are overwhelming; God's wisdom may be infinite, but His grace and the dimensions of Heaven are, apparently, not. There is no real way of knowing whether you fall into the doomed camp and there is nothing you can do about it anyway, not really. You won't know for certain until you die and your soul is delivered or else left to perdition.
How unappealing. How misery-inducing. How very awful, terrible and unfair. As a former student of Reformation History, it was easy to see how many would have rejected this doctrine but naturally far more difficult to ascertain why anyone would choose to abide by it.
Yet they did so, in droves. People still do so, adherents of a variety of faiths. Not all of them are hideous misanthropes and depressives by any stretch of the imagination. Certainly not all of them are or were judgmental fucktards. Not all are or were self-satisfied and unimaginative.
Many peoples have designated themselves the Chosen over the course of history and have even fought wars on that account; that would be a simple explanation of the appeal of Calvinism. However, with Calvinism in its many forms, the kicker was that one could not simply designate oneself Chosen because one was a member of a Calvinist church, however active, upright and Godly one may be. Not even John Calvin himself could count himself among the Elect with any assurance. Taking his doctrines to their logical extent, the most blameless and charitable member of the parish could well be Reprobate, whereas a Hindu infant, dying at the age of 3 months and living somewhere where he would never hear of the Bible could be a member of the Elect. The most learned Divine could be damned, but a cutthroat in a Rookery could be saved. This was not a faith for the smug by any means.
The believer, Elect or Reprobate, could be expected to suffer many trials throughout his or her life. We call this phenomenon 'LIFE' in modern parlance, but each vicissitude was naturally subjected to scrupulous examination. Your house burns down. Much worse was done to Job, but that would be bad enough. How do you react? How do your neighbours react? Is God testing you, or did you merely leave a candle unattended? Would such a careless act bear testimony to your sinful nature? Was God trying to teach you something or not? Sinful and foolish behaviour from which one did not learn was often seen as a sign that one could well be damned, behaviour which had corollaries for others especially.
This idea bore many strange fruit.
First we have the depressives. One Divine wrote extensively of his regret that his life had, thus far, been too easy, surely a sign that God was not paying attention to him and the progression of his soul toward salvation. His parents had given him puppies and kittens, a good education and feather beds when he had been a boy. There had been no beatings, penury or tragedies to test his mettle.
Secondly, we have the devil-may-care hedonists
Sin hath its conception only in the imagination…. What act soever is done by thee in light and love is light and lovely. Lawrence Claxson wrote in 1650. He meant, for example, that there was no such thing as theft, that there was no such thing as adultery and so on and so forth. There were groups of people who, due to what were fundamentally Calvinist beliefs, had decided that if one was damned if they did or did not, they may as well do as they wished. If God had provided alcohol, sex, tobacco, you name it, then it couldn't be bad and they were going to indulge in it. Such fun!
Lastly we have the strivers, those who chose to make everything a trial and move ever onwards and upwards. Taking God to be the stern father, he who would not show his satisfaction or pride in the acts of his children, they worked hard to ground businesses, enterprises, charitable foundations, missions, to establish the law, to learn and overcome endlessly. Setbacks were grist to their justified mills and taken as signs that God was paying attention and that they must overcome and guide others to do so. Annoying, worthy and horrendously driven, but not heartless.
Me? I take Claxson's point of view, but not to its extremes of course. If it all turns out to be true and I am a Reprobate, then que sera sera. I enjoy making my own journey.