According to christian beliefs, where's Gandhi now?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I can see how it could be so, although I think the emphasis on total depravity has stopped any such ideas from ever seriously taking hold.

Quite the opposite, I'm afraid. Calvin's original formulation is to be understood as marking man as totally depraved in all his facalties, in that no part of him is free from corruption; neither body, nor mind, nor soul. This formulation is entirely Augustinian. However, because of his rhetoric, Calvin has been taken to mean that each of man's faculties is totally depraved, so that man is utterly without any redeeming features.

So Calvin is misunderstood, and all goodness is transfered outside of the human being and becomes the sole privilage of the divine. In this sense Christians become better people because God imbues them, and only them, with the quality of goodness which only he possesses.

It is the this absense of natural goodness along with the legalistic language of "natural" justification that leads some Calvinistic sects to conclude that their followers are made better than other human beings by God. The issue is then further compounded by deterministic element to Calvinism.

Every commentary I have read agrees this is not what Calvin intended, as evidenced by his unpollemical writings where he praises the many virtues hummanity is naturally capable of.

Rather like Marx the problem is not so much the man as the philosophy he fathered. Though I personally believe that the seed of the error begins in the deficiencies of both men.

While I accept that the doctrine of free will can cast Christians as "better" people because they can be viewed as making better choices, I would argue that this is mitigated by the fact that Christians can still be held accountable for their bad choices and (crucially) are capable of falling away from God; and then coming back to Him.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Quite the opposite, I'm afraid. Calvin's original formulation is to be understood as marking man as totally depraved in all his facalties, in that no part of him is free from corruption; neither body, nor mind, nor soul. This formulation is entirely Augustinian. However, because of his rhetoric, Calvin has been taken to mean that each of man's faculties is totally depraved, so that man is utterly without any redeeming features.

So Calvin is misunderstood, and all goodness is transfered outside of the human being and becomes the sole privilage of the divine. In this sense Christians become better people because God imbues them, and only them, with the quality of goodness which only he possesses.

I would say that these people are showing a misunderstanding of what Calvin means when he talks about depravity, sin etc. Remember my earlier post where I said that righteousness = perfection, whereas sin = anything less than perfection. I think the problem is other people tend to use the definitions where righteousness = something generally good, and sin = something generally bad. Of course, Calvin did not argue that every human was pure evil through and through. The problem is that wherever there is anything that might have been good, the 'bad bits' (which he does say go through every aspect of a person) corrupt these. And as soon as they are in some way corrupt, they are sinful, going by the more absolute definitions of righteousness/sin. And so, every aspect of a person is sinful, and hence total depravity.

I think this is one fundemantal issue in this thread causing the dispute over Gandhi. To HoreTore or Wizard, Gandhi was righteous because his deeds, and perhaps even his character, were on the whole good. But going by the stricter standard I would use, he is not perfect, hence he is sinful.

Such absolutes may seem harsh, but Christianity wouldn't make much sense without them. What if God was just generally a nice guy, and not perfect? Or if he just has a lot of power, without being omnipotent?

It is the this absense of natural goodness along with the legalistic language of "natural" justification that leads some Calvinistic sects to conclude that their followers are made better than other human beings by God. The issue is then further compounded by deterministic element to Calvinism.

Regardless of whether it is God or ourselves that prompts regeneration, the same argument could be used that having been given a heart of flesh over one of stone, we become better than the rest of humanity. In this life at least though, it should be remembered that we do still walk in sin, and depend on the external influence of Jesus to be both made acceptable before God, and to continue to grow in the faith.

Every commentary I have read agrees this is not what Calvin intended, as evidenced by his unpollemical writings where he praises the many virtues hummanity is naturally capable of.

Indeed, I recall a few occasions where he does praise the merits of even 'the heathen'. But at the same time, IIRC he does tend to attribute these as being gifts of God, and very much a different matter from the wider issue of depravity/righteousness.