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Yeah, predeterminism, along with limited atonement, and perseverance of the saints, combines to form, IMO, a theology that is toxic at best, abusive at worst. If I can massively oversimplify, it's a theology where Jesus came to redeem only the Elect that God had already chosen to be saved while he had chosen to send everyone else to hell, so that the Elect could see His mercy (to them, not those poor bastards on the down escalator). And, perseverance of the saints is the icing on the cake, because it came to mean that if you ever disagreed with your church or its elders, well, you obviously weren't one of the Elect at all, enjoy the hellfire. So it's a great theology if you want to run a small, obviously better than everyone else, in-group of the Saved, vs. all the unsaved sinners God has already condemned. To see how perverse it could become in the extremes, look at the role it played in apartheid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaner_Calvinism |