Quote Originally Posted by Rhyfelwyr View Post
I get the impression you think my church gives some sort of hyper-Calvinist ant-Catholic Puritan fire and brimstone sermons. It's not like that, its all about getting along, John Knox would be spinning in his grave.
No such thing as Hyper-Calvinism. It's a doctrine which contains election, and therefore contains God's damning of souls. A more fuzzy form of Calvinism can be achieved by limiting God's power. You've talked a lot about not believing in double pre-destination but, as I pointed out, this denies the binary of heaven-hell and God's all-powerful and irresitable nature which you proclaim.

As regards your Church, you have been taught that Roman Catholic Saints are somehow special in their relationship to God. This is anti-Roman Catholic invective (it's also anti-catholic, but that's another issue entirely). You've probably also been told that Roman priests are believed to have to some special power from God.

So do you not believe that God could be all powerful and all merciful? I was just thinking the other day that He would have to be all merciful to save even one soul. Which leaves the question over His power... that may be harder to answer, or at least explain why He allows evil to exist.
I would not be arguing with you if I did not believe he was all-powerful and all merciful. When I have time I'm going to write a tract on this and set out my objections systematically but if you look back over this thread you will see that I have ranged accross love, power, mercy and other elements of the Divine.

What you say about the devil is true I suppose. It just seems like an insult to God if I was to think He could be Satan in disguise.
You might think of it as an insult to God that you trust your own judgement so completely and are vain in your self assurence. (I must have read that somewhere, I don't write like that normally.)

Seriously though, if you're going to go in for the "fiery arrows" bit you need to take the "false angel" bit as well.