Can those folks "for whom Christ died" be damned? (1 Corinthians 8:11 & 2 Peter 2:1)

Calvinist believe in a doctrine called Limited Atonement. This doctrine is not so much derived from Scripture, but rather from systematic theology: they reason that if Jesus died for everyone, then everyone would be saved, but since everyone is not saved, then Jesus must only have died for a limited number of men. This false dilemma hinges on a fault understanding of the Cross called Penal Substitution, which I've written about frequently. One way to refute Limited Atonement is to show that Scripture speaks of people whom Jesus died for ended up rejecting him and being damned. 

What do you think is worse than an unbeliever? (Another Calvinist conundrum)

In Calvinism, the fundamental thing that separates the saved from the damned is faith. Those to whom God wants to save will be given the gift of faith, while those whom God does not want to save will never be given the gift of faith. In other words, in the Calvinist world view, there's nothing worse than being an unbeliever. But if this is the case, why does Saint Paul say it's possible to be "worse than an unbeliever"? 

I believe 1 Timothy 5:8 is the scariest passage in all of Scripture, for it gives everyone a lot to think about: "If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." St Paul is talking to Christian parents here, who have a grave obligation to care for their family. For those Christians willfully failing this duty, Paul has a most stern rebuke: they have denied the faith and are worse than an unbeliever. So contrary to Calvinism, what is worse than an unbeliever is a Christian who falls away from the faith.

Anyone who's an adult should have some fear in reading this passage, for they must realize that this could happen to them. But Calvinism expressly denies such a thing is possible. As such, they must try desperately to spin this verse to mean either the person in question was either (a) never really saved, or (b) that a Christian cannot really commit this sin.

The problem with saying they were never really saved is that such an assertion is purely begging the question and even goes against the plain reading of the text. To "deny the faith" in this context is clearly an act of apostasy. While Calvinists believe in apostasy, they just believe anyone who falls into apostasy was never saved, which makes no sense. One cannot fall away if they were never a member to begin with. The language of "worse than" an unbeliever further testifies to the fact this person is not an unbeliever, but rather of another category, that of being saved and not persevering (2 Peter 2:20-21). 

The problem with saying that a Christian cannot really commit this would likewise be begging the question, and even presuming Paul wasn't serious. But even if Paul didn't think a Christian could commit this sin, Paul would still be making an inaccurate theological claim by saying there is such a thing as "worse than an unbeliever."

The Wisdom in Getting Married Young - Part 2 (Should women go to college?)

This is a continuation from Part 1. 

The Church and Natural Law teach that parents are the primary educators of their children (CCC#2223). This includes having the right to send them to the school of the parent's choice. Yet, while every human should be given a basic education, this does not necessitate every human is entitled to a "higher" academic education. The purpose of college is that of educating a person for a certain field of employment. But if someone sees a "career" as an end in itself, then they're naturally going to put marriage on the back burner. So any woman who is going to college should stop and ask themselves what their real goals are. Do they want to be a mother or do they want a career? Most women are torn, because they want both, with nature calling them to motherhood and society calling them to the workforce. 

The Wisdom in Getting Married Young - Part 1 (Shopping Around)

Catholic Answers has a new Blog and I'm very impressed by the quality of the stuff they are posting.  I recommend you follow it on Google Reader. The blog entries are relatively short, less than one page long, but they often touch upon a very important facet of our modern life that Catholics generally have remained silent about. Today an article came out from one of my favorite Catholic writers, Christopher Check. The topic was that of getting married early on in life, which is something I'd had been planning to write about for a while myself. 

Everyone knows that society is crumbling due to high divorce rates and rampant sexual sins. The astonishing thing about this is that few Christians talk about one of the most elegant and time tested antidotes to divorce and sexual sins: getting married at an early age. The reason why Christians don't like to talk about the importance and wisdom of getting married at an early age is because most Christians are caught up in the false ideologies of Liberalism and Modernism. This applies even to faithful Catholics who oppose contraception.

The "unpardonable sin" and Eternal Security

Jason Stellman (former Calvinist, now Catholic) made a brilliant observation a while back about the 'unpardonable sin' that Jesus speaks of in the Gospels. The verse states,

And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. (Mat 12:31-32; Mk 3:28-29; Lk 12:9-10)

Catholics have traditionally appealed to the phraseology of forgiveness "in the age to come" as evidence for purgatory, since this is the only reading that makes sense of the idea of sins being able to be forgiven after death. Some Protestants have tried to dodge this by appealing to the parallel accounts where Jesus says "will never be forgiven," but I call this a dodge because it doesn't get around the wording of "or in the age to come," it merely affirms what's already agreed upon: the sin is never forgiven. 

But that's not what Jason pointed out that I thought was worth sharing. What Jason pointed out was that this verse goes against the Protestant idea that salvation cannot be lost (known as Eternal Security or Once Saved, Always Saved). This is because the text says that Jesus is speaking of all kinds of sins being able to be forgiven, just not this one. This suggests a person can go 'too far' with their sins and thus cross an 'invisible line' of no return. They can sin one too many times or they can sin in such a severe way that they wont be forgiven and thus they will be damned. 

The only counter I can envision a Calvinist making is that this 'unpardonable sin' is simply talking about those who were never saved to begin with. But this makes the unpardonable sin synonymous with being in an unconverted/unregenerate state (i.e. born in original sin), which makes no sense for two reasons. First, everyone is born in the unconverted state, so this cannot be the unpardonable sin. Second, the context Jesus is speaking is that of sins that can be forgiven, just not this one, indicating it's a sin yet to be committed by any particular person.

All believe that there is no sin for which the Cross could not atone for, which means this 'unpardonable sin' has to be something more pernicious than sinful acts in general. The traditional Catholic reading of this text gives two interpretations, which overlap somewhat. The first is discerned by the context, where the Pharisees had seen all these miraculous signs coming from Jesus and yet they continued to refuse to believe in Him. What made this moment especially wicked was that they attributed the miracles to Satan rather than the Holy Spirit! This repeated willful blindness caused them to be permanently blind to seeing the light and thus beyond able to repent. They reached a point where God stopped trying to convert them. The second and more generic interpretation is that the 'unpardonable sin' is the sin of 'final unrepentance', meaning willfully refusing to repent of being in a state of mortal sin up to the moment of death. So someone who is out of communion with God who refuses to repent and dies in that way has put them self in a state that precludes forgiveness. Either way, Eternal Security is refuted by this verse.