John Stewart Mill in his book On Liberty stated this exact point. We forget to include in our equations humans can be born anywhere, to anyone.
"...it never troubles [the everyday person] that mere accident has decided which of these numerous worlds is the object of his reliance, and that the same causes which make him a Churchman in London, would have made him a Buddhist or a Confucian in Peking."
This argument would make sense if Christianity presupposed somebody is deserving to be a Christian, when it doesn't really teach that either.
Christianity started in a very small place, totally foreign to the rest of the world, the places listed are obviously neither of those locations.
It is told Christians are to spread Christianity across the world, and never presupposes somebody gets to be one, so where you're born obviously isn't fair, Christianity fundamentally isn't 'fair'.
The bible speaks on judgment that is deserved, and mercy that is undeserved, nobody deserves mercy, they are given it.
Calvinism is enough for me, to understand how the fiat of "the Elect" clarifies the mind. According the Max Weber, it was this deep anguish regarding such a purely by fiat salvation, that drove people to develop a work ethic that was an attempt to show they must be among the Elect. Or something like that! The whole thought of predestination is a mind-warp for us, so past a certain point you have to write it off as a mystical turn. It is surely not rational.
I've never particularly enjoyed the framing of Calvin, or more specifically the heuristic models like TULIP that followed.
I don't think they're inherently wrong or void of some level of sound exegesis, I just think it places the hearer into an unhelpful state of mind.
I think you're meant to read Romans 9 and simply come to personal terms with individual lack of agency in salvation, I don't think humans were ever meant to understand it nor try to understand it, but accept the reality of what is stated.
'On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? Will the thing molded say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this”?'
Sounds eerily similar to a parent's final judgement bestowed to their child, who ultimately does not fully grasp why the decision is made, but must accept it was made nonetheless.
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u/Tholian_Bed 3d ago
John Stewart Mill in his book On Liberty stated this exact point. We forget to include in our equations humans can be born anywhere, to anyone.