“I am happy you admit doubt is not assurance.”
As if I ever said otherwise.
“But you give away the game again when you say a Christian can pass from assurance to non-assurance. Flopping between assurance and non-assurance is not assuring at all.”
Is there some reason you habitually frame issues in the most simplistic terms possible? To be in a state of doubt is not assurance at the time of doubt, or for the particular individual who happens in a state of doubt.
That’s irrelevant to other cases where an individual was never in a state of doubt, or in cases where he recovered from a state of doubt.
Why are you unable to bring any degree of sophistication to the analysis? Why do you chronically disregard essential distinctions? You seem to be intelligent, so I’m puzzled by why you find it necessary to invariably revert to the most simple-minded discussion of a complex issue.
“That a Calvinist can lose his assurance and regain it (if he is elect) is something I have maintained all along. I am happy you are finally coming around to my way of seeing things.”
And, once again we’re back to your congenital dissembling. This is not a position which I “finally came around to,” as if you managed to back me down and wring some fatal concession from my dying lips.
I drew the same distinctions in my 1/28 post on “The witness of the Spirit,” and that, in turn, referred back to an earlier exchange in which I also drawing the same distinctions.
Why do you imagine that telling the truth about someone’s stated position is optional for you? Why do you imagine that you’re exempt from Christian ethics?
Is this a reflection of how Lutheran antinomianism conditions the Lutheran to cut corners on morality? How Lutheran theology deadens the conscience? Indeed, that’s a predictable consequence of rejecting self-examination.
“The next step is to admit you look within yourself for assurance you are elect.”
There is more than one basis for assurance, as I’ve explained repeatedly.
“Unfortunately for the Calvinist position, if one does not have psychological assurance there is a real chance there is no promise from God for the individual because experiencing rebirth etc. are in the theoretical realm unless one knows one is elect. So, how can the Calvinist see if God's promises apply to him, that he is elect?”
Why do you keep posing questions I’ve already answered? The promises are conditional. Therefore, the promises apply to every individual who complies with the terms of the promise.
One of your problems is that you begin with your idiosyncratic redefinition of a “promise,” impute that idiosyncratic definition to the Calvinist, then act as though this generates some internal tension for his position. You lack the critical detachment to examine the opposing position on its own terms. Instead, you keep viewing it through the lens of your Lutheran presuppositions.
“You know the answer--look into himself for ‘internal evidence’ as the WC says. No matter how many times you say otherwise, a Calvinist has to look into himself for evidence of his election. It is right in your own confessions.”
i) I was the one who discussed the Westminster doctrine of assurance in my 1/28 post (see above). Don’t pretend that you’re bringing something to my attention that I hadn’t already dealt with.
ii) And the WCF doesn’t limit itself to internal evidence. You act as if the Westminster Divines shared your eccentric definition of what constitutes a promise. Then, based on your extraneous construction, which you impute to them, you proceed to collapse the objective grounds into the subjective grounds. But that’s just an exercise in mirror-reading–as you glimpse your own reflection at the bottom of the well.