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To: Dr Warmoose
Darnedest thing about will is that both God and man have will by Divine Decree. Both God and man choose for those who are believers. God chooses by common grace that the person hearing the Gospel undrestands the message. The man who accepts and believes in Jesus Christ is then by grace provided efficacious grace by the Holy Spirit to make that faith effective for salvation.

Many legalistic Calvinists get the cart before the horse, believing that if man believes in Christ through faith in Him, that this usurps God's Soverignty. Such a theology misses the Soverignty of God because it omits His mandating man to have free will by His decree. God neither usurps His decree nor abandons man, but recognizes faith for righteousness because it isn't a work,..it is nonmeritorious and may then be counted as righteousness. Since Christ has already died in sacrificial atonement for all sin, the wrath of God has already been answered.

If the Calvinist, though, believes in Christ through that theology, then this is not to distract from the Calvinist's faith but to encourage him to further study how God also provides for man to have free will and remain obedient to Him while in fellowship with Him.
196 posted on 08/31/2003 4:23:10 PM PDT by Cvengr (0:^))
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To: Cvengr; Dr Warmoose
Still don't understand a bit of Calvinism I see, Cvengr.
198 posted on 08/31/2003 5:28:54 PM PDT by Frumanchu (mene mene tekel upharsin)
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To: Cvengr
Darnedest thing about will is that both God and man have will by Divine Decree.

Except that God's Will is bound to His Counsel, and man's will is bound to sin and death. Just as much as we would not expect God's Will to change, we have the same expectations for man. Now what does this have to do with the concept of "free-will"? No one here is denying that personal beings have a will, or is that the point, just bring up red herrings?

Both God and man choose for those who are believers

Let's cut to the chase. How many that God chooses do not come to salvation?

The man who accepts and believes in Jesus Christ is then by grace provided efficacious grace by the Holy Spirit to make that faith effective for salvation.

I am well aware of the anthropocentric teachings of man. I choose to get my doctrine from Scripture, not made up by people who are irked by God's Sovereignty. Given that the natural human state hates God (Romans 1:20) is an enemy of God (8:6-8), is a slave to sin, without righteousness, by nature a "child or wrath" in relation to God (6:19-20; Eph 2:1-3) doesn't understand the Gospel message and considers it foolish (1 Cor 2:14) is blinded to the Gospel command to repent of sin by Satan (2 Cor 4:4), and would prefer to be crushed to death by falling rocks rather than bow the knee to God (Rev 6:15-17) is going to overcome all of that from a spiritually dead state and "choose Christ"? Or is your response, in effect, a hand waving denial of clear Scripture?

Many legalistic Calvinists get the cart before the horse, believing that if man believes in Christ through faith in Him, that this usurps God's Soverignty...

First of all, this is a rhetorical question formed out of a presuppositional hypothetical is a logical response to the Free Will Theorist who rejects Scripture and keeps insisting on Free Will as the means of salvation. Since you folks won't accept the Bible, those who believe in the Doctrines of Grace in apparent futility try to reason with you using your own line of argument. (Oh, and the "legalist" Calvinst dig is a nice insertion. Who are these legalist Calvinists? Another strawman fiction?)

Such a theology misses the Soverignty of God because it omits His mandating man to have free will by His decree.

For it to be "theology", it must be a about God. One way in how we know about God is through His revealed Word. Now I know that there is no such Decree in the Canon of Scripture, so I wonder where you discovered this nugget about this alleged Divine Decree of man's Free Will. I could rant about the obvious internal contradiction

Job 15:15-16 "If God puts no trust in His saints, and the heavens are not pure in His sight, How much less man, who is abominable and filthy, who drinks iniquity like water!"

The Bible states right here that God can't even trust Moses, David, Abraham and "the saints". But you want to foist this idea that though God can't trust them, that God is more than willing (by Divine Decree even) to trust His perfect Will and Soveriengty to the wicked and unregenerated man. (excuse me while I laugh)

God neither usurps His decree nor abandons man,

Then may I reaquaint you with Romans 1 which is a chapter that devotes itself to describing the conditions on why God regularly abandons man.

but recognizes faith for righteousness because it isn't a work

That is a red herring also. Faith is a gift from God (see Ephesians 2:8; Gal 2:22-23). Even if it was a "work", it still originates from God. What do you think "God has dealt to each one a measure of faith" means? (Rom 12:3) What kind of self-serving heretic would take something that was given to him by God and claim that he didn't get it from God, but instead made it himself? This question doesn't even address the lunacy of thinking that a person who hates God and considers the Gospel foolish would on his own place his faith in that which he loathes and despises.

Since Christ has already died in sacrificial atonement for all sin, the wrath of God has already been answered.

Then why repent or use free-will for anything if all sin of every person has been paid for? You are saying that God the Father is unjust, in that if His Son paid the price for all sin of every person, 2000 years ago, then if anyone goes to Hell on account of sin then God is demanding double payment for sin. For the wages of sin is death. So riddle me this, how can anyone still be responsibile for the consequences of sin if Jesus Christ paid the price already? You are teaching the worst form of antinomianism in that because of Christ, there is no one who will go to Hell no matter what they think about God.

not to distract from the Calvinist's faith but to encourage him to further study how God also provides for man to have free will and remain obedient to Him while in fellowship with Him.

How arrogant of you! Here you provide absolutely no substantiation for your clearly anti-Biblical claims, then you say that it is the Calvinist's responsibility to make sense out of the irrational babblings of the Free Will Theorist. It appears to me that the Calvinist already has his homework finished and has merely echoed the words of the authors of Scripture. Free Will has no basis in Scripture, (hence the remarkable absence of it in any discussion of it and its hypothetical applicability to soteriology) and has to contradict most of Scripture in order to hold it.

No thanks, I don't need to wrest Scripture, I just need to remain firm.

200 posted on 08/31/2003 6:08:26 PM PDT by Dr Warmoose
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