Originally posted by turmeric
How do I know that what I believe per the Reformed faith is true, rather than just being what I want to believe? For instance, in discussing Arminianism or Dispensationalism, if someone asks me what I believe, I don't know if I believe in the Reformed faith or if I just desperately want it to be true. "Maybe" the other person argues " you don't agree with me because you don't really want the truth..." etc.
Meg:
I've got to respond to this one.
This marks the difference between Christianity and every other religion, even between Christianity and all the less-than-true forms it takes. The Word of God offers certainty; others, even those who use the Word of God, offer their own interpretations.
We have the witness of the churches throughout the ages. That's what the confessions represent. They don't even come close to representing man-made doctrines, or regional or time-founded interpretations. They are the witness of the living Spirit in the churches as each era, each church, struggles with the philosophies and "new truths" of their age. That is why you find the same truths said in so many different ways, but yet all bearing witness to the willing submission of those who have embraced Christ.
When the Word becomes subjective interpretation, then there is no longer any certainty. For people turn from their dependence upon God to dependence upon themselves. They trust their own intellect rather than making themselves, even their intellect, captive to grace. Be very careful of those who say that everything depends upon interpretation, upon a predisposition, and then ground it in their own philosophies. They may claim to have the foundation of
sola scriptura, but if that were truly the case then they would respect that Word as the authority even for themselves. And they would surely treat that Word in such a manner as to clearly demonstrate that respect for it, and for those who are under the banner of Christ. Instead, it is their aim to capture you under their own banner, which they have named after Christ, but is in fact dependent, in part if not wholly, upon their interpretations.
That is the position of Dispensationalism. It has marked out eras in the history of redemption that are not explicit in Scripture. You, as Reformed, have no such encumbrances in your theology. (If you do, hold them in abeyance, in obedience to the sure and certain doctrines which are amply spelled out by the churches' witness in their confessional standards. You need no personal interpretation to have before it; only obedience which is willing.) There is always something that is proposed prior to Scripture, and that is a give-away. We do not hold the Confessions in that manner at all. Every doctrine has been scrupulously proven from the Word of God; and whatever is grounded, or dependent, even in part, upon man's intellect is not doctrine. That is the position you own when you hold to the Reformed faith.
The question, then, is turned around upon them, but they revel in what has deceived them, or upon their dishonesty.
You may have noticed that no Reformed church worth its standard officially lays claim to Calvinism as its system of soteriology. That is because it isn't Calvinism; if the church confesses it then it is Biblical soteriology. If it were Calvinism, then that would reduce to an admission that this church is dependent upon a man's theology, even if it were only in part.
That does not mean that we show any disrespect to Calvin as a servant of God. Not at all. In fact, we hold him higher than being a man upon whom we depend for doctrine: we hold him as a faithful minister of God's Word. And so we listen to what God has said to us through the Word through his preaching and writing. He was a witness to the same things we believe. So we are not dependent upon Calvin, but thank God for sending to us a faithful servant to lead His people back into true worship.
Do you see how we are not at all dependent even upon our own perspectives or presuppositions, but repudiate such dependence in our faith? We have no man-made predispositions which we place before theology, but depend wholly upon the Word. Yes, the Confessions bear witness to this same dependence for themselves.
I just had to say something, Meg. I read some of the PB every day. I don't want to post anymore, at least for a while. But I still remember my friends.
to that! 
