Notice also that the sentence DOES place a qualification on salvation: belief. But notice that the condition belongs to the human, and not (directly) to God. (Of course, the human belongs to God, and does not do what God does not ordain him to do.)
Thanks you make my point here. Jesus saves no one, men save themselves
Now, I'm not advocating the heresy that man is the agent of his own salvation: it is true that no man can believe unless the Holy Spirit moves him to faith. But this verse, and many, many others present believers as making a decision, not being inert receivers.
So then you would say the Holy Spirit is a failure in 50% or more attempts?
if God REALLY wanted the whole world saved, wouldn't he try harder?
The verse could say, "...so that those to whom faith has been given..." It does not. It says, "...so that whosoever believes..."
And the bible tells us that God gives each man a different measure of Faith ..it sounds like maybe He is picking who gets enough grace .As a Calvinist I believe that Faith is a gift .
In scripture God compelled Paul into his service, he also has reaped where he did not sew such as in the case of the centurian's servant and the sydonian greek woman. He was known to pre-ordain Cyrus the king to free the Jews, a hundred years or so before he even ruled, yet he forgave even Ahab who humbled himself before him.
God may directly intervene or he gathers faith where it has not been directly sewn...but where it flowers the Holy Spirit is there to nurture it.
My main conflict with Calvinism is that while God indeed has an underlying plan to destroy evil ans save the saints, there is a mechanistic quality to it that allows a view of God to flourish that he never acts tactically and transtemporally within everday events. Everything is set and providentially written in stone...God sits back and watches it all unfold, almost passive. It is almost an Aristotellian view of creation, in that everything is set in motion and God just watches!
I believe God acts dynamically and tactically within his strategic divine plan as well. Calvinism denies that God does so! It denies that God can do so in the unsaved as well. This is my main arguement against Calvinism!
There is a choice that each person makes somewhere in time, and God is aware of it. God is just but God's ways aren't our ways...as Job certainly found out.
Whoops, sorry... This got moved and got lost...
>>Thanks you make my point here. Jesus saves no one, men save themselves <<
What part of "the human belongs to God, and does not do what God does not ordain him to do" don't you understand?
>>So then you would say the Holy Spirit is a failure in 50% or more attempts?<<
This is what is so annoying with so many of these threads. There's such a focus on identifying Armenianism, that any statement that isn't expressed the way you would choose to express it, you put into one of a couple "heresy" boxes without trying to comprehend it.
We are created by God. When we are in grace, when the Holy Spirit is alive in us, we are *intrinsically* desirous of God. He guides us along a path, that, yes, does occasionally allow us to see the ruinous effects of the sinfulness which he saves us from as well as the forgiveness that will teach us love.
John means to emphasize our Godly nature, and so he places Man as the direct agent in the structure of his sentence. This emphasizes that we must take our own actions, and not content ourselves with passivity towards our own salvation. This passivity has destroyed the Calvinist PCUSA, the Lutheran ECLA, and gravely threatens the RCC.
The fact that our decision to follow Christ is intrinsic does not mean that God is not the author of it. God created those he ordained, and is thus the ultimate cause of that decision.
I forget how the Calvinist terms, but go check with your GRPL. One of them (DrSteveJ?) quoted Calvin about that which God directs, and that which God willfully permits. Nothing of this world contradicts what Christ would have done. But at the same time, that does not mean that God desires that evil be done.
>>As a Calvinist I believe that Faith is a gift .<<
As a Catholic, so do I. And so did the Catholic saints, and so it is expressed in the Catholic liturgy, which you apparently did not understand.