Calvinism in America

OwO

The Calvinist Puritans were the first to come over. Then you have the Dutch coming soon after that, and they were often reformed. Then you have the rise of Princeton in the late 1800's. Finally you got the major influx of conservative Dutch theologians in the early 1900's with conservative denominations forming (the PCUSA is heretical and modernist).

No

Wait, who's trolling whom here?

Third Great Awakening soon fellow Reformed brothers

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Idk but that old Calvinist hymn really gives me peace

" ''Jesus probably hates me this I know,
For John Calvin told me so'' "

In addition to that the Second Great Awakening also gave rise to many movements that even most Protestants would recognize as heretical, like Mormonism and Seventh Day Adventism.

Not entirely sure why you would be looking forward to a movement that seems to produce lots of heresy and "strive to right the wrongs of society" (which today would probably mean social justice).

The True Second Great Awakening soon bros!

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Even as a Protestant, I feel the next Great Awakening in America will be one of traditionalism. The lack of rigorous discipline and rituals within the Protestant churches is starting to get to people.

What does that mean exactly? Obviously there are wrongs in society, so why would striving to fix those wrongs necessarily lead to SJWism (which I'd argue has little to do with fixing problems and has much more to do with simply attacking straight white men).

Because it gives seemingly straight answers to the mysteries and gives its followers certainty in matters of eternal life. Everything is predetermined so you don't have to worry about a thing. It strongly appeals to people who see the flaws of Protestantism when it comes to its endless diversity where one church teaches way differently than other churches and wants hardline answers without turning Cathodox.

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Lying is a sin user

If anyone is in hell, it's John Calvin.

What did Calvin do that would damn him more than someone like Judas Iscariot?

Say what you want about Judas, at least he wasn't a Protestant

Kidding, kidding. Obviously John Calvin was a much better man than Judas. Catholics should at least respect him for killing Servetus after he slipped from their hands.

This thread rules

What makes OP think Calvinism is ascendant when the presbies are smaller than everyone else??
I think it's ascendant because evangelibeanism has kinda run its course and become weak and feeble, as all revolutions eventually do, with too many liberals joining in. Whereas Piper and MacArthur are espousing that ye good olde tyme Christianity of the pre-liberal era where men were men, and faith had rigour, the gospel actually meant something, and men fell on their faces and worshipped God for who He is, not who we want Him to be, and not getting excited about the latest rock concert worship session emotionalism.
Frankly, it is kinda tapping the same reason Jordan Peterson is a thing now. So, in that sense there is a cultural rejectionism going on with Calvinism rising, but the centrality of solid Biblical teaching is the real core to it. And on that score, I frankly just consider it yet another move of the Holy Spirit just as, say, the Wesleys were in the 1700s. If it brings some misguided theology, big deal, it won't be the first nor last time the Church was off the core tracks Christ laid. And yet, no matter how far we stray, we're always perfected in Him.

What do you actually think that means? Is it the hats or something? Not your colour?

The entire question of Calvinism all boils down to one question: Do you feel lucky? Well, do you punk? no, really, that's kinda it
Is
God
Sovereign
Over
All?

That's it. There's nothing else. It comes down to whether you can swallow your pride good and hard enough to accept that YOU could not possibly decide, against your own perception of your best interests, to believe on Christ. There's no extra Bible, no other revolutionary ideas to accept, just accept that God controls everything and stop trying to tell Him what He can and cannot do in your life with your free-will according to your man-made philosophies. I think the Psalmist's Such knowledge is too wonderful for me sums up our relationship to the full truth of such things. Just do what He commands, endure to the end, and stop fretting over things we cannot control. I just don't get why people get so butthurt over this topic.

They're in a separate "lesser books" section all by their lonesome for good reason, user

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I think ole Spurgeon summarises best my embrace of the Calvinist ideas

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Calvinism is a sin

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I find that a very condescending and "humble-brag" type statement, almost Jewish in its nature.
God doesn't become any more or less sovereign by granting man free will to reject Christ and live a life of sin.

You had me listening until that statement
>God doesn't become any more or less sovereign by granting man free will to reject Christ and live a life of sin.
uh-huh

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embarrassingly dumb post

This is truth. Because sovereignty is still about love at the end of the day. By allowing us to make our own mistakes, we can learn and grow to become closer to God. He gives us a choice in life:
Heed my commandments or suffer the harvest of your sins.
Take the Book of Jeremiah:
Israel was the chosen people that God made covenant with; that He would love them unconditionally. Yet throughout the book Jeremiah says how God is sending Babylon to punish them. Curseing Israel for disobeying the word of the Lord even though amidst their confusion they thought they were praiseing Him the entire time. They knew not God because they thought their works would save them. So He punished them hopeing they learn from their mistakes.

If we as Christanons don't REPENT from our sins, our sins will consume us in the heart. But we can conquer our sins through the acceptance of Jesus Christ as our sovereign. For when he died on the cross and rose again on the 3rd day he proved to us that he was God's only son. He conquered sin so we may follow in His footsteps and have a seat along side the Father.

Please, Mr. Calvinist, tell me more about the celestial psychopath bean counter God of Calvinism who waxes delight in anticipation of tossing unelect children into eternal hellfire.

How do I know if I'm elect? I'm exceedingly smug, intolerant of people who disagree with me, suffer from an extreme case of Dunning-Kruger and secretly hate my fellow man. Are those signs of election? Please respond.

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Is this supposed to be a witty observation? It reads like babby's first description of "person I don't like or know very well."

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I love the irony of you thinking that you've saved your time by ignoring him, when you're the one who has done that favor for him when you've shown off your limited leftist idea of who the elite is.

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It's a description that could certainly apply to many kinds of people, but that doesn't make it incorrect.

That graphic needs a better pic of Wilhelm II

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If only you knew how bad things really were.

embarrassingly dumb reply

First off
Second
'Fraid I can't. Wasn't predestined to.

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Because Saint Jerome was a Grecophobe and got tricked by a bunch of Jews when he went to the Holy Land in the 4th century to ask them what was in the Old Testament. They handed him a set of books in Hebrew that represented 4th century Jewish canon, not the 1st century Jewish canon that Jesus would have been reading from– and even back in the 1st century, the Jews had encampments bickering with each other about what was and wasn't scripture. On top of that, and because he wanted nothing to do with the perfectly good Greek translation of the Old Testament, he didn't think as highly of the books that people found in the Greek tradition. Even so, those books were decided to be Divinely Inspired Scripture in 393, 10 years before the Vulgate was published.

Learn your church history, you doubletalking clown.

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There is no way to truly know how much they have. The ones overseeing everything is at least clear, before you reach the spiritual wickedness in high places.

I shopped that image but i couldn't find the right font, yes, those images are better though, thank you.

I'm mostly replied because of that image, porky is an irrelevant ghost hunt. both capitalism and communism is compromised, but at least capitalism gives you the chance to escape you poverty while communism takes complete control. Communism is basically a world government Jr.
I'm not blaming them for the sins of humanity, however they're leading a massive campaign to promote it while using all their stolen power to leading us into the world government. They will bring the apocalypse, and anti-christ.
I don't really know where you're getting this from, God's will is clear that he will bring the 2nd coming once the world government is established.

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Ohhhh, but then you woke up
You extol the patriarchs with those fingers, too?

Since it is abundantly clear you have no actual interest in whom God is, I won't be responding. Frankly I think you're just so triggered by my relaxed statement of facts and seem to have no arguments to defend yourself, you resort to ad hominem by attacking my intellect and mental state.
But, this does seem a common affliction. Maybe we've all been on Zig Forums too long.

my
has absolutely nothing to do with the thread. Admit it, Zig Forums, you didn't see the word "porky" anywhere in that meme, but you saw it in the filename and got yourself an excuse, an easy way out:
It doesn't matter WHO the devil uses to bring about his final "victory", we won't stop it. But, that's the point: Zig Forumslacks think they can. Zig Forumslacks think if they warn enough people about the Jews and the apocalypse they'll allegedly bring, we can all band together and stop it.
Pathetic Materialists!!
Thinking they can forestall the plans of God!!

All that matters about the end times is that we endure.

But, most of all, all this has been a great way of derailing a thread about Calvinism and the sovereignty of God, the absoluteness of God, by starting a lengthy distraction talking about jews again.
Good sport, Satan's little helpers.

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Everything in this post is historically laughable, pick up a book, kid

If you have a passing curiosity in Calvinism or the doctrine of Election, I highly recommend reading Charles Spurgeon's Election and Holiness. It's a good, fairly brief read but a bit too long to split across several posts so I'll post a segment of it below and leave a link to biblebb.com/files/spurgeon/0303.htm

shit meme

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I didn't even mean that in a conspiratorial way, but more like the stereotypical Jewish mother ("If only you loved your mother you would do…")

It's more like God giving you a test and you can either succeed or fail. That doesn't mean that God is powerless in the second case, just that you are no longer in a state of grace and God will judge you accordingly, if you die in that state.

Fairness was never the issue to me. I don't believe that God is constraint by such limited and earthly concepts like "fairness" or our secular ideas of morality.
I would not even dispute that God helps some more than others or creates more difficult challenges in life for some, according to his own will. The problem arises with Unconditional Election, the idea that Calvinists are God's new chosen people. In fact, Paul admonishes the Jews for thinking exactly that: catholicnick.blogspot.ch/2012/03/does-romans-9-condemn-unconditional.html

There's a huge difference between the concept of a bloodline granting free tickets to eternal life and an infinite, all-knowing being outside time and space knowing and deciding which men will be saved and which will be damned. Believing in unconditional election does not magically make one part of God's elect either, nor does disbelief in unconditional election forbid one from entering God's kingdom.

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That's not Unconditional Election (that's not even a Reformed idea). Unconditional Election is the idea that God chooses who will ultimately be saved on His own good pleasure, not on anything they do. It is merely the doctrine of free grace, because it means God's grace is not dependent on human action.

Also, I feel a need to reply to that article. The claim "For centuries, Protestants (especially Calvinists) continue to be unaware that they are guilty of not heeding St Peter's warning, twisting Paul's lesson on God's sovereignty to teach almost the opposite of what he intended to teach" "As we proceed to analyze the context it will be shown that not only does the Protestant interpretation become weak, it actually is causing Paul to say the opposite of what he's really saying" is an extremely weighty charge, and will require similarly weighty exegesis. He continues to correctly note that Romans 9-11 is one thought about Israel's place in the world. He then incorrectly describes judaizing doctrine. The judaizers did not claim to be justified on the basis of their birth, but on the basis of their lawkeeping. They obviously did not deny the savability of Gentiles, since their goal was to modify the gospel to what they saw as the only way to be saved, so the Gentiles could be saved. The Jewish arrogance toward Gentiles was on the basis of their sinfulness and wickedness, not the fact they were Gentiles (Rom 2:1-5). This is the reason why Paul asked "or is God the God of the Jews only", because only the Jews performed those works of the law.

Continuing on, he incorrectly describes the purpose of Romans 9. He's close, but it isn't about if God has broken His promise, but why Israel has fallen away while the Gentiles are being saved (the question of breaking promises is just a possible implication). Then, he incorrectly describes the Jewish opinion of being blessed simply because they were Abraham's children as Unconditional Election. This is equivocation. It was unconditional (in their thinking) for those who met the condition of being Abraham's seed. It's important to note the error in his methodology of interpreting Old Testament quotation, it requires that an apostle cannot refer only to the small part they quote. Though there are parts where we are clearly intended to see the whole passage they quote, it is illogical and dangerous to attempt to force this into every citation. It is also important to point out that if an apostle quotes from scripture, and then we jump back into that scripture, form our own interpretation apart from the apostle and use it to argue that the apostle didn't actually mean what they said in the passage surrounding their quotation, all we are doing is arguing against the apostle. We should believe the apostle's (not only, but even the Holy Spirit's) interpretation of scripture, not argue against it.

Now then, with the text of Romans 9, Paul starts by saying that he would rather be damned if it meant his people would be saved. This is soteriology. Not only will Paul continue using the soteriological terminology he has used in the other chapters (as 9-11 is built on the foundation of 1-8), but the whole intent of his discourse is to answer the question of why the Jews apostatized and the Gentiles converted? This is his point in verses 6-13. Certainly he would have no argument without it, but it is the foundation for his actual argument, not the argument itself. Paul's point is that the Jews were not the people of God, the Church was, and Israel was simply the only Christian nation under the old covenant. God is not breaking His promise because His promise was to His covenant people. Now I found this line really telling
Is being the covenanted people of God merely a temporal blessing? Is having the promise of unending grace and mercy merely a temporal blessing? Is having the very Son of God die for you merely a temporal blessing? I should certainly hope not, since then we of all people are most to be pitied.

The argument that verse 11 is about what means God will use and not salvation is preposterous, considering the verse uses the words election, call and work, each of which already has an established soteriological meaning in the epistle, especially in the immediately preceding chapter. This interpretation requires us to isolate the passage as though it were a different book (indeed, a different author, since the meaning of these words is consistent throughout Paul). Now before I address his dealing with verses 14-18 I feel I must deal with what I have thus far left untouched. Central to this person's argument is that Paul is arguing against the judaizers. This was concluded in Romans 8, now Paul is working out the implications of all this as regards the people of Israel. Paul is dealing with nations, yes, but the question of why some are covenanted and why some are apostate. Are we to suppose that mercy has nothing to do with salvation? Does being hardened against Christ have nothing to do with salvation? I wonder what salvation is with such a perspective.

The leap all the way back to Romans 3 annihilates the context and flow of the passage so we will take no notice of it. Regarding the objection, we must ask the question, is this not the very objection raised most against the doctrines of grace? Do we not see synergist after synergist argue that God is unjust to damn sinners if He is sovereign? That is why this is an objection, not because of God using our sins, but of God determining our ends. The objection is that it isn't their fault that they were so wicked (in this case, unbelieving) because they were so due to God's eternal decree. That is why Paul's mocking hypothesis of a pot asking a potter "why have you made me like this" is raised. Did the pot make itself dishonorable, and then the potter use that for something? Or did the potter make it for dishonorable use for his own purposes? Paul's point in utilizing the motif is to show that the creator has a right to determine the purpose of His own creation, even if that purpose is to be destroyed "that I might show my power in you". He is wrong when he says the clay is Israel. The clay is obviously creatures. The reference to 2 Timothy 2 is totally fallacious, since the contexts are completely different; there is nothing about God as creator, nothing about Israel, nothing about election, nothing about mercy, nothing about hardening, the analogy is about cleansing oneself from false brothers in the church.

I can think of few things more directly contrary to Romans 9:16-21. Rather than it not being depended on "human will or exertion" but He "who has mercy", making "out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use", it is dependent entirely on human will, not on He who has mercy, even acting in defiance of the use for which He made them. I suppose the clay does say to the potter "What are you making?" or "Your work has no handles".

I think this is a good place to conclude and say that this person has failed to establish their claim, and that the passage shows the sovereignty of God over salvation, who has mercy on whom He will have mercy, and hardens those whom He will harden.

Because it makes people feel good about themselves and is the traditions of men.
A combination of tradition and government re-enforced version of good goy christianity that ignores the (((babylonian))) problem.
Mainly because of those off shoots of catholicism splitting because they disliked the pope of their times, some doctrine they didn't like, and matthew 12:30
with me scattereth abroad.

watch out, we have a heretic here.

Yeah, thank you Luther, you are a genius

What are you even talking about? The Bible, the word of God, sacred and inspired scripture that God said He would preserve forever in 1 peter 1:25, is scripture. It is possible to discern what that is based off of the fact God alone is good in matthew 19 and mark 10 and that God can not lie in titus 1:2. Therefore scripture, all of which is given by inspiration of God in 2 timothy 3:16, wouldn't make God a liar. As the inspired scripture's fruit would not be of lies but of truth, for by their fruits ye shall know them in matthew 7:15-20. Christians are followers of Christ who read the Bible, the word of God, to better serve and worship God and His Son Jesus Christ. What are you even implying with that statement? If you believe the apochrepha to be inspired scripture, then make a version of the Bible yourself that includes those as canon/part of the Bible and let us see your fruits to see if they are of God. As either make the tree good and his fruit good or make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt, for the tree is known by his fruits matthew 12:33. Yes this is circular logic/faith, deal with it.

They make great quality videos on youtube and promote eachother. McArthur, Paul Washer, John Piper, Tim Conway, etc. are all very easy to listen to and are calvinists.

The problem with your interpretation is that it is one that hasn’t existed before the reformation and is not any more or less valid than any other. You come with a theological framework that tells you what election, works, etc. are and then interpret passages in a way to make it fit your theology.
Even if you want to count the Waldesians as „proto-Calvinists“, you would have to recognize that for close to 1000 years no Christian interpreted the bible the way you do. Unless you want to get all conspiratorial about some weird „shadow-history“ that the Catholic church supressed (like that one Baptist meme), there is simply no historical precedent for reformed theology. That leaves you with two choices: Either nobody was among the elect for that period of time or people were born again/ saved even though they were completely wrong on theology. The first case seems almost non-sensical (God letting all of humanity fall into apostasy for a millenium, shortly after Jesus died and was resurrected) and in the second case, we have to wonder what that means for today. If people could be saved without the „correct theology“ before, wouldn’t that mean that in theory a staunch Catholic could be among the elect? It is completely in line with Catholic doctrine to trust completely in Christ as your means of salvation, be worried that your sin offends God, work towards becoming more holy, etc.

And nowhere in the bible is it written, what books are part of the bible. In fact, the only way you know this is through the traditions of men. Very famously, Luther wanted to remove several books from the bible. You could also start making a case for adding into the canon books like the Shepherd of Hermas or the Epistle of Barnabas. They have all been preserved and you probably realize yourself that this promise only tells you what isn’t part of scripture (all writings that are lost) and not what has also survived that isn’t supposed to be included.
The Catholic bible does and the Church is the largest charitable organization in the world, helping more people across the globe than anybody else. Meanwhile your bible without them has brought forth every heresy under the sun, from Mormons and Jehova’s Witnesses to Charismatics and prosperity preachers. In fact, Moldbug once made the case that today’s secular progressivism is just a morphed version of „ultracalvinism“ by taking as its defining trait not predestination or total deprevatiy or faith alone, but the desire to build God’s kingdom on earth.
„The "calvinist" half of this word refers to the historical chain of descent from John Calvin and his religious dictatorship in Geneva, passing through the English Puritans to the New England Unitarians, abolitionists and Transcendentalists, Progressives and Prohibitionists, super-protestants, hippies and secular theologians, and down to our own dear progressive multiculturalists.“
„Ultracalvinists are perfectly free to be atheists, or believe in any God or gods - as long as they don't adhere to any revealed tradition, which would make them "fundamentalists." In general, ultracalvinists oppose revelation and consider their beliefs to be pure products of reason“

The reason they were removed in the first place, is because the Jews don’t have them as part of the Hebrew bible. Even then, the earliest versions still had the apocrypha as part of the bible (typically in a separate section between OT and NT).

That’s correct. They are good performers on stage and at first it seems like they are really genuine, deeply emotional, bible-believing Christians. The first time you see Paul Washer break down in tears and get really serious & emotional is quite something, but then you look around on youtube and find out that he gave that same talk (or one very similar to it) in other places and the inflection of his voice is exactly the same, his emotional response is the same… He is an actor, not a preacher. Type „sermon jam“ into youtube and you can find some of these performances even further amplified by underlining them with emotional music to make you really feel. They understand by showing emotions themselves and being good at rhetoric, they can be a lot more convincing and make people feel like this is „true Christianity“.
And by the way people talk about Charles Spurgeon, he was probably an even better actor than all of those preachers today.

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The problem with your interpretation is that you didn't give one and instead gave reasons why to believe "God hath surely not said"
Demonstrate it. Show some counter-exegesis, or this claim is baseless.
Or maybe I can choose not to join you in pretending to have knowledge of the interpretation of EVERY Christian for thousands of years (because a man with a pointy hat said so). I've seen this claim made about countless clear passages of scripture with their appropriate interpretation, and seen the claim subsequently refuted by prompt citation of the real historical precedent.
Well now, haven't we made quite a leap from the interpretation of Romans 9 to the whole of Reformed theology. I protest that in those ancient centuries a neat systematic theology as we know it was unheard of, and when one stops looking for Reformed theology as it was put by the reformers it is not hard to find their doctrines in those centuries (vid somewhat related).
No (a staunch Catholic could be among the elect, and many have been, but that is different from being among the regenerate). What determines someone's relationship with God is not their theology or religious affiliation, it is their faith in Christ. Because Roman Catholics do not rely solely on Christ, but also act to be saved by their cooperation with grace, a faithful Roman Catholic does not have saving faith as defined by scripture.
Not if it is Catholic doctrine to avoid mortal sins lest one be damned by them. To do anything to be saved, in any way, is to seek to be justified by works.

I would like to remind you what the purpose of an interpretation is. An interpretation is not supposed to fill a text with the desired meaning as you seem to think, but to discern the intended meaning of the author. If you are understanding my words, you are interpreting them. We should not show more respect for the words of men than the words of God. We must recognize that Paul's context was not 1,000 years of church history, and be unwilling to read those later centuries into him and force him to conform to them. I also suggest that whatever meaning Paul intended, is divine truth and revelation of the Holy Spirit. When we come to Romans, we should begin by asking "What are you trying to tell me, Paul?" and once we have grasped his teaching we should believe it unashamedly. You may think this difficult, but keep in mind scripture is not less articulate then me. I am sure you have understood what I am communicating up to this point, was it difficult? Did you struggle with thousands of alternative plausible interpretations? Or was I perfectly clear in what I wished to communicate?

Arminianism and all other beliefs are sin.
See what I did there? I made a statement without backing it up.

yup

Let's start at the end here:
Of course, but you are trying ot extrac the original purpose out of a text written in a different language 2 millenia ago. Any kind of interpretation you make is coming out of a completely different context and is obviously informed by the type of theology you studied. You didn’t just pick up a bible one day without a past or cultural context and upon reading it just came up with reformed theology yourself. You were first thaught the theology and then read scripture to support those believes, not the other way around. When you see a word like „elect“ or „works“ in the bible, you immediately jump to your Calvinist understanding of those terms, even though Paul most likely meant something completely different.
As for „interpreting your post“, well we both are writing in English and live in the same time period for one. If somebody two thousand years in the future, speaking Chinese, would try to understand what you were talking about, things might look a little different. This is why Church history and tradition are important, because if people who lived closer in time to Paul and possibly even spoke Greek natively don’t seem to interpret that text that way and all of a sudden people are extracting doctrines out of it that have never been thaught before, maybe you are just wrong.

If you want, I could type Romans 9 into google and give you a dozen links that give you a different interpretation. For crying out loud, the majority of Protestants don’t even agree on the doctrine of election. The point is that sola scriptura as such is a fruitless endeavour, because you can end up with the hundreds of Protestant denominations you see today. I am sure you would say that yours is the only truly biblical and correct understanding of scripture, just like every other Protestant would.
The only real example of somebody talking about Unconditional Election or predestination prior to the Reformation would probably be Augustine (although he affirmed free will), but at the same time he also believed in apostolic succesion, a visible Church of Christ, the perpetual virginity of Mary, sacraments, etc.
Of course, you can find individual elements of something resembling Reformed theology here and there, but you could just as much find these same elements of Calvinims in the Catholic catechism today. But you then agree that nobody before the Reformation held what you could call a kind of reformed theology, so either the elect all held mostly incorrect believes or there were no elect at all.
We understand that we are justified only through Christ with no merit of our own, but we could in theory lose that justification by falling into mortal sin. I assume that even Calvinists try their best not to sin, it‘s just that you have that Catch-22 of „you don’t have to live that way but if you don’t, you were never saved to begin with“.
And I am not sure what exactly „beign among the elect but not have saving faith/ be among the regenerate“ is supposed to say. I know that Calvinists make a distinction between sanctification and justification but my understanding was the two go together on some level. So, somebody could be justified before God without ever being regenerated during his life or vice versa? Interesting, I did not know that was possible according to Reformed theology.

That doesn't mean we can't understand it today. If we can understand Plato and Aristotle, why can't we understand God, who gave us a bible for a purpose that is lasting till the end of days?
It doesn't matter what my context is if I am willing to step out of it and into the historical context of scripture. Believe it or not, it is possible to avoid anachronism, if it wasn't, we wouldn't be able to understand anything, even written just a century ago. I certainly hope you never cite the bible as an authority on any issue whatsoever, since if your claim is true, the sodomite argument that the condemnation of sodomy in Leviticus 20:13 is just my interpretation is perfectly valid. I should hope you will not deny this position denies any authority at all to the bible, since in practical effect we have no bible if it is so inarticulate. But why does this alleged problem only affect the bible? Why is this not a problem for the pronouncements and traditions of your church? Perhaps Unam Sanctam actually meant that everybody will be saved, regardless of their submission to the Roman pontiff, who knows, after all, it was written in a different language and in a different time period.
Why? Why can't I follow Christ's command to test tradition by what God has revealed? Why can't I set my theology aside when I come to the bible and say "how does it measure up?"
You presume too much. The theology I was first taught was Roman Catholic, and I converted because I was convicted by the New Testament.
That is not true either. Understanding what one meant by a word is not difficult, we may test it by attempting to use possible synonyms until we find some that makes sense, and examining the surrounding context to see what their point was. I did not derive my understanding of Pauline vocabulary from anyone but Paul himself. I studied his epistles before I read any of the reformers, and found they agreed with the understanding I already had. It is not hard to understand what someone is saying if you simply put in the effort.
The question is not what Paul meant by elect or works, we know that he meant elect and works. The question is how Paul used those words. If I truly want to know what Paul means by the word works, I won't go running off to some bishop 2,000 years later, I will go to Paul himself. Let Paul speak for himself.
Koine Greek is not an unknown language. Neither of us may be able to speak it, but there are men who can and who also speak English, and can translate. This isn't Islam.
In the 1st century, few people in Judea, if any, were native speakers of Hebrew. Does your argument not lend validity to the claims of the Jews that their tradition was similarly important? How arrogant was Jesus to attack their traditions, how dare He claim to understand the torah better than the elders who spoke Hebrew natively and who lived closer to Moses' time.
How do we know what they meant? See this is the problem with these arguments against the authority of the bible. They all rely on double standards.

And if they wrote it, that would be relevant. Maybe those who didn't had the same or similar biases to those today who wish to maintain a facade of believing it while finding a way around it.
How do we know they've not been taught before, we can't interpret anything in the past remember?
There are two men, one is a sedevacantist, the other affirms the authority of 2nd Vatican council. If they were to argue against each others' positions, they would go to the same documents and provide differing interpretations. So, by your logic, does this prove the magisterium can not speak to us? You say that the bible can't have authority so a man has to be in charge instead. But why does this person have to be the bishop of Rome? Why not the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints? Why not the governing body of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society? These three organizations are practically the same, since each of them deny biblical authority and affirm themselves as the supreme authority of the Christian religion. But what do they have in common? Absolutely nothing. The only thing they have in common is they are theistic. Now let us compare three groups that affirm the authority of the bible, Baptists, Lutherans and Presbyterians. What do they agree on? The oneness of God, the trinity, the deity of Christ, the incarnation, the atonement, the resurrection, the gospel, etc etc. Unity proceeds from having a common epistemic source, and that is why those in submission to the word of God will always be more united than those who usurp it. The differences which remain between them are due to most Christians only believing the parts of the bible they agree with.
I didn't know you were so well read in pre-Reformation theologians.
Of course, that would be an example, but not just him. I think it's probably either a majority position of the early church, or a substantial minority.
Not in the same way you do.
I don't think you know what that means.
We've never denied the sacraments.
No you really can't.

And I clarified that, explaining that saying so would basically be true but be incredibly anachronistic.
There certainly was a time when most of the elect held mostly incorrect beliefs.
Those who can't tell the difference between the Protestant and Catholic doctrines of justification might do well to take it as a sign that they are misunderstanding one or both that nobody of any kind during the Reformation thought they were saying the same thing.
The differences about this are both theoretical and practical even as you formulated it. The theoretical differences should be blatant and undeniable even to one who has not studied either very much. Catholicism proclaims an internal righteousness through baptism, and the necessity of retaining that righteousness to be saved, Protestantism an external righteousness through faith, remaining even with gross sin. The practical differences are numerous and complex. Firstly, the "Catch-22" is incorrectly implied to be practically the same as the Catholic position. That fails to take into account that fact that it takes just one mortal sin to be condemned, whereas one requires a lifestyle of sin to be judged unbelieving, that a mortal sin causes one to actually lose their justification before God, whereas sinfulness simply discredits their profession of faith, that one is to work out their spiritual life in light of the possibility of committing a mortal sin and being condemned, whereas one is not to examine their own standing with God on the basis of their life, and many other differences. In my opinion, having spent years of my life studying Reformed theology, the only practical parity between Protestant and Catholic doctrines of justification is that both motivate one to do good, but even that is for different reasons.
You misunderstood, my apologies, allow me to clarify. Election, regeneration and justification are strictly distinct categories. Election is one's predestination to eternal life. The elect are elect even before the world is created. Regeneration is when the elect are raised to spiritual life and cease to suffer the misotheistic nature caused by the fall (thus bringing them to repentance and faith). Justification is the status of rightstanding with God. One cannot possess any of these three without ultimately having all three. I was saying a Roman Catholic who is among the elect is one who has not yet experienced regeneration, a consequence of this being a lack of saving faith, and thus a lack of justified status.

Also, important to point out now that the discussion has shifted to epistemology is that you totally conceded the field of Romans 9 and refused to even engage on that ground. Instead you attacked it by proxy, arguing that the bible does not have authority over doctrine. I believe that adds weight to my point.

The opening to this explainer offers some solid advice about this whole topic, imho

Calvinism is the Wahabbi Islam of Christianity. It is cold, brutal, and pseudo-intellectual. It is popular and becoming popular because it attracts the narrcissistic, egotistical, and self-absorbed.

It teaches that all life and all events good or evil was all predestined since the dawn of time. That every little detail in your life was predestined because of misinterpretations in scripture. As a result, it bypasses the love of Christ and God. It bypasses the teachings of submission and humility by Christ. It bypasses the teachings of obedience to the death.

It gives tickles the believers ear that he/she is elect and can never lose that salvation and position in life NO MATTER WHAT! As a result, this gives the Calvinist permission to do any thing he/she wants because he cannot lose that position and if he misbehaves it was God's will to do so.

This makes them egotistical because besides their belief of their special position they can never lose they also believe that all those around them are damned and therefore inferior. This therefore discourages the Calvinist from obeying the command to "make disciples" and "think lesser of oneself".

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I've come to realize that "Calvinism" as its popularly called, is actually just the same story, attempted to be told from God's perspective. I don't think it serves humans, living in this time-space continuum, to try to think from God's perspective outside of time, anymore than it serves the driver of a vehicle on the highway to think about quantum physics. Just keep your eyes on the road and follow the traffic rules provided.

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

Calvin's man-made religion is all well and good but God's desire for the salvation of all men contradicts your predestination to damnation heresy. Your reformed churches will die out soon enough, as all man-made heresies and ideologies do.