Posted on 10/15/2004 1:04:27 AM PDT by OrthodoxPresbyterian
Are persons who die in infancy saved? Holy Scriptures do not directly address this subject. But various indirect declarations give us every reason to rest assured that they are indeed saved.
The goodness of God suggests the salvation of those who die in infancy. We read in Job 38:41 that He provides food for newborn ravens when they cry unto Him. Surely He will not turn a deaf ear to the cries of infants and permit them to be cast from His presence! We read in Psalm 145:15f that He provides food for "every living thing," even the most loathsome of creatures. Surely He will provide salvation for those made in His own image who die in infancy!
In various passages, the number of the redeemed in glory is so large as to suggest the salvation of those persons who died in infancy. For example, they are described in Revelation 7:9 as "a great multitude which no man could number." It is thought by many theologians that the number of souls in glory will be greater than that of the souls in the regions of the damned on the grounds that Christ must have the preeminence. This certainly will be true if the number of the redeemed in glory will include all those who died in infancy and childhood, which was a vast part of humanity in former times when a great percentage of children did not live long enough to reach adulthood. This number would also include the untold millions who today are snatched from their mothers' wombs and sacrificed by abortionists.
In Ezekiel 16:21, God called the children sacrificed to heathen gods "My children": "you have slain My children and offered them up to them by causing them to pass through the fire." God's children are received in glory, not consigned to hell.
In Jonah 4:11, we read that God had great pity on the citizens of Nineveh, especially upon its "more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left." Such pity suggests these infants would be received into glory if they died in infancy.
In Mark 10:14, Jesus Christ said, "Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven." He then admonished adults in the next verse, "Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it."
In 2 Samuel 12:23, David expressed his own assurance that his own departed infant was received into heaven, and that he himself would later be forever reunited with him there: "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me."
The great question before us not is not whether persons dying in infancy are saved and received into glory. Holy Scriptures would seem to assure us that they indeed are. Rather, the question before us should be whether the parents and loved ones of those who die in infancy will be reunited with them in glory.
How are persons who die in infancy saved?
Arminians err when they aver that persons dying in infancy are saved because of their supposed innocence. Arminians are driven to this view because of a fatal flaw in their scheme of salvation. Arminians believe that God has done all He can to save sinners, and that the success of His desire and endeavor rests solely upon those sinners exercising their supposed "free will" in making what they call a "decision for Christ." Arminians declare that if sinners do not make such a conscious and deliberate decision to let God save them, God cannot do so.
This Arminian heresy mercilessly shuts the door of salvation to infants who are in every way incapable of their own will to make a "decision for Christ." Arminians admit this fatal flaw to their scheme of salvation, but they are not willing to concede that persons dying in infancy are forever lost and damned. Arminians therefore must devise another scheme by which God saves infants, thereby averring that God saves adults in one way, and infants in another.
This Arminian dilemma is compounded for Campbellites, the disciples of Alexander Campbell (1788-1866). Campbellites are not only Arminian, but also among the most strident proponents of the heresy of baptismal regeneration. They emphatically deny that anyone can be saved apart from baptism. This Campbellite heresy also mercilessly shuts the door of salvation to unbaptized infants — unless another scheme of salvation can be devised for them.
Arminians generally believe the scheme for the salvation for infants involves their innocence and/or the fact that they have not reached the age of accountability – whatever that is!
This Arminian scheme for the salvation of infants contradicts Holy Scriptures in at least two ways. First, it denies that God has but one plan for salvation, and posits instead that He saves adults in one way and infants in another.
Second, this Arminian scheme for the salvation of infants denies the Biblical doctrine of the sinfulness of the whole human race, including infants.
Romans 5:12-19 teaches us that we all, infants included, sinned and died in the fall of Adam, the first man.
Job (14:4) declared the sinfulness of infants when he said, "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one!"
The psalmist David declared the sinfulness of infants when he, speaking for us all, said in Psalm 51:5, "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me."
And he poignantly declared the sinfulness of infants when he said in Psalm 58:3, "The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies."
Solomon includes infants when he teaches us in Ecclesiastes 7:20 that "there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin."
And Jesus Christ includes infants when He teaches us in John 3:1-7 that "That which is born of the flesh is flesh" and in need of being "born again" by the Holy Spirit if he or she is to see or enter God's kingdom.
Another flaw of the Arminian view is that it in reality denies infant salvation. There is no need of salvation for those who are innocent! "Infant salvation" is a misnomer for Arminians.
Roman Catholics err when they aver that persons dying in infancy are saved if they are baptized. One of the first great heresies to plague the church of Christ was the mistaken belief that salvation is obtained through baptism. Since those who embraced this heresy wished to prevent their children from dying unbaptized, and therefore unsaved, they baptized them as soon as they were born. Scriptures deny both the heresy of baptismal regeneration and of the baptism of infants.
Nevertheless, the Roman Catholic Church emphatically declares that infants and young children dying unbaptized are forbidden to enter heaven. According to the article "Infants, Unbaptized" in A Catholic Dictionary, "The Church has always taught that unbaptized children are excluded from heaven .... Heaven is a reward in no way due to their human nature as such."
Calvinists rightly teach that persons dying in infancy are saved in the same manner as are saved adults. God has only one plan of salvation. It teaches that sinners are saved by God's free and sovereign grace in Jesus Christ, totally apart from any works of righteousness they perform or any supposed virtue in them. Everyone who is saved — including all persons dying in infancy — is saved through being elected to salvation by God the Father, redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, and regenerated or born again by the Holy Spirit (as set forth in preceding messages).
Calvinists believe persons dying in infancy are saved in this manner. Contrary to the slanders of Arminians and Romanists, Calvinists do not believe any persons dying in infancy are damned.
One of the most glorious aspects of the Calvinist doctrine of infant salvation is that it magnifies the goodness and grace of God in salvation and in no way contradicts Holy Scriptures. To the contrary, Arminianism denies the need of God's grace for the salvation of infants. And Romanism exalts the work of parents in having their infants baptized, and bars from heaven the departed infants of those parents who did not do so.
We Calvinists alone can rightly assure the parents and friends of departed infants that they are saved and received into glory.
But we also exhort these same parents and friends to trust in Jesus Christ for their own salvation. None but such persons can say with assurance the words of David regarding his own departed infant, "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me."
Most Calvinists whole-heartedly affirm that all persons dying in infancy are saved, even though they acknowledge the Bible has no definitive doctrine on this subject. Some Calvinists will go only so far as to acknowledge that the Bible definitely teaches that at least some persons dying in infancy are saved. But no representative Calvinist theologian declares that any person dying in infancy is damned. (See the preceding message, #171.)
Arminians nevertheless deliberately misrepresent Calvinists as believing persons dying in infancy are damned. Let the following quotations from some of the most renown Calvinists suffice to show that the Arminian accusation is false.
John Calvin, the sixteenth-century Reformer for whom Calvinism is named, asserted, "I do not doubt that the infants whom the Lord gathers together from this life are regenerated by a secret operation of the Holy Ghost." And "he speaks of the exemption of infants from the grace of salvation 'as an idea not free from execrable blasphemy'" (cited by Augustus Strong in Systematic Theology). He furthermore declared that "to say that the countless mortals taken from life while yet infants are precipitated from their mothers' arms into eternal death is a blasphemy to be universally detested" (quoted in Presbyterian and Reformed Review, Oct. 1890: pp.634-51).
Charles Hodge was a 19th-century professor of theology at Princeton Seminary, which was in those days a foremost American bastion of Calvinism. He wrote: "All who die in infancy are saved. This is inferred from what the Bible teaches of the analogy between Adam and Christ. 'As by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.' (Rom. v.18,19.) We have no right to put any limit on these general terms, except what the Bible itself places upon them. The Scriptures nowhere exclude any class of infants, baptized or unbaptized, born in Christian or in heathen lands, of believing or unbelieving parents, from the benefits of the redemption of Christ. All the descendants of Adam, except Christ, are under condemnation; all the descendants of Adam, except those of whom it is expressly revealed that they cannot inherit the kingdom of God, are saved. This appears to be the clear meaning of the Apostle, and therefore he does not hesitate to say that where sin abounded, grace has much more abounded, that the benefits of redemption far exceed the evils of the fall; that the number of the saved far exceeds the number of the lost" (Systematic Theology, vol.I, p.26)
John Newton, author of the favorite hymn "Amazing Grace," became a Calvinistic Anglican minister in 1764, serving the English parishes in Olney, Buckinghamshire, and London. In a letter to a friend he wrote, "Nor can I doubt, in my private judgment, that [infants] are included in the election of grace. Perhaps those who die in infancy, are the exceeding great multitude of all people, nations, and languages mentioned, Revelations, vii.9, in distinction from the visible body of professing believers, who were marked in the foreheads, and openly known to be the Lord's" (The Works of John Newton, vol.VI, p.182)
Alvah Hovey was a 19th-century American Baptist who served many years in Newton Theological Institution, and edited The American Commentary. He wrote in one of his books: "Though the sacred writers say nothing in respect to the future condition of those who die in infancy, one can scarcely err in deriving from this silence a favorable conclusion. That no prophet or apostle, that no devout father or mother, should have expressed any solicitude as to those who die before they are able to discern good from evil is surprising, unless such solicitude was prevented by the Spirit of God. There are no instances of prayer for children taken away in infancy. The Savior nowhere teaches that they are in danger of being lost. We therefore heartily and confidently believe that they are redeemed by the blood of Christ and sanctified by His Spirit, so that when they enter the unseen world they will be found with the saints" (Biblical Eschatology, pp.170f).
Lorraine Boettner was a 20th-Century Presbyterian who taught Bible for eight years in Pikeville College, Kentucky. In his book The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination he wrote at some length in defense of the Calvinist doctrine of infant salvation. We here quote from his remarks: "Calvinists, of course, hold that the doctrine of original sin applies to infants as well as to adults. Like all other sons of Adam, infants are truly culpable because of race sin and might be justly punished for it. Their 'salvation' is real. It is possible only through the grace of Christ and is as truly unmerited as is that of adults. Instead of minimizing the demerit and punishment due to them for original sin, Calvinism magnifies the mercy of God in their salvation. Their salvation means something, for it is the deliverance of guilty souls from eternal woe. And it is costly, for it was paid for by the suffering of Christ on the cross. Those who take the other view of original sin, namely, that it is not properly sin and does not deserve eternal punishment, make the evil from which infants are 'saved' to be very small, and consequently the love and gratitude which they owe to God to be small also.
"... Calvinism ... extends saving grace far beyond the boundaries of the visible church. If it is true that all of those who die in infancy, in heathen as well as in Christian lands, are saved, then more than half of the human race up to the present time has been among the elect."
B.B. Warfield, born in Kentucky in 1851, was along with Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck one of the three most outstanding Reformed theologians in his day. He wrote concerning those who die in infancy: "Their destiny is determined irrespective of their choice, by an unconditional decree of God, suspended for its execution on no act of their own; and their salvation is wrought by an unconditional application of the grace of Christ to their souls, through the immediate and irresistible operation of the Holy Spirit prior to and apart from any action of their own proper wills... And if death in infancy does depend on God's providence, it is assuredly God in His providence who selects this vast multitude to be made participants of His unconditional salvation.... This is but to say that they are unconditionally predestinated to salvation from the foundation of the world" (quoted in Boettner's book).
Charles Haddon Spurgeon is perhaps the most-widely recognized name among Calvinists next to John Calvin. He served many years in the 19th-century as pastor in the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, England. He preached on September 29, 1861, a message entitled "Infant Salvation" (#411 in Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit). In this message, Mr. Spurgeon not only convincingly proved from Holy Scriptures the belief of Calvinists that all persons dying in infancy are saved, but also soundly rebuked those Arminians and others who wrongly accuse us otherwise:
"It has been wickedly, lyingly, and slanderously said of Calvinists, that we believe that some little children perish. Those who make the accusation know that their charge is false. I cannot even dare to hope, though I would wish to do so, that they ignorantly misrepresent us. They wickedly repeat what has been denied a thousand times, what they know is not true.... I know of no exception, but we all hope and believe that all persons dying in infancy are elect. Dr. Gill, who has been looked upon in late times as being a very standard of Calvinism, not to say of ultra-Calvinism, himself never hints for a moment the supposition that any infant has perished, but affirms of it that it is a dark and mysterious subject, but that it is his belief, and he thinks he has Scripture to warrant it, that they who have fallen asleep in infancy have not perished, but have been numbered with the chosen of God, and so have entered into eternal rest. We have never taught the contrary, and when the charge is brought, I repudiate it and say, 'You may have said so, we never did, and you know we never did. If you dare to repeat the slander again, let the lie stand in scarlet on your very cheek if you be capable of a blush.' We have never dreamed of such a thing. With very few and rare exceptions, so rare that I never heard of them except from the lips of slanderers, we have never imagined that infants dying as infants have perished, but we have believed that they enter into the paradise of God."
Whom will you believe: Calvinists speaking for themselves? or Arminians deliberately misrepresenting them?
That is still the teaching of the Church. God always makes the first step; the Call; He knocks on your door. But thereafter it is up to you to either follow Him or shut the door.
This illustrates semantic obstacles to our otherwise not so distant teachings, and Kolokotronis always brings up the subject of semnatics and how they affect us. I couldn't agree more.
In your case, the "free will" is interpreted as humans choosing God. Fat chance! OP explains that Calvinsits believe in the free will as well, but following regeneration, which is essentially Orthodox belief (and I suppose Catholic, correct Tantumergo?), but the very term -- regerneration (and when it happens) becomes a stumbling term since the Orthodox/Catholic understand regeneration differently from Protestants.
"OP explains that Calvinsits believe in the free will as well, but following regeneration, which is essentially Orthodox belief (and I suppose Catholic, correct Tantumergo?)"
Correct, though we still see the regenerated will as being dependent on co-operating (synergistic) grace to choose the good.
"but the very term -- regerneration (and when it happens) becomes a stumbling term since the Orthodox/Catholic understand regeneration differently from Protestants."
Careful! If you tell them that the Orthodox have always believed in baptismal regeneration, you'll be accused of having been corrupted by papist doctrines!
;)
"OP explains that Calvinsits believe in the free will as well, but following regeneration, which is essentially Orthodox belief (and I suppose Catholic, correct Tantumergo?)"
Correct, though we still see the regenerated will as being dependent on co-operating (synergistic) grace to choose the good.
"but the very term -- regerneration (and when it happens) becomes a stumbling term since the Orthodox/Catholic understand regeneration differently from Protestants."
Careful! If you tell them that the Orthodox have always believed in baptismal regeneration, you'll be accused of having been corrupted by papist doctrines!
;)
Is that what John means when he says God is Love? Is it self-love? Self-mutilation for self glorification? Maybe I am missing something OP. Maybe it's just how we express ourselves.
Naive or not, knowing the difference between Good and Evil or not, they did know this: "Thou shalt not eat of it"
If they were perfect they would not have disobeyed. They were therefore not perfect. They were mentally children, provided for, with no needs and no shortages. And children must come of age by leaving their childhood home.
They simply did what they were predestined by God to do to fall from Grace. Why punish them if theirs was not to decide? Where is the sin in that?
The Elect Angels never Fell at all. Nor were the Reprobate Angels offered any possibility of Redemption
Angels are rational beings but since they lack body they also lack bodily passions. Those who were elect (called upon by God) and who turned to God on thier own afterwards remained (naturally they were all elect). Those who fell from God fell on their own -- and for the same reason -- to be "like God."
It's late. Thank you for interesting and challenging viewpoints.
"It is also God's privilege to know that if a 6-month fetus is going to be aborted to complete that child through the Holy Spirit to take him/her home to Him if that is what God desires."
Yes, and God can fill donkeys with the Holy Spirit if He wants to, but the point I was getting at is that it is a huge leap of speculation to go from the example of the Baptist to suggest that all aborted babies or children who die in infancy will be dealt with by God in this way.
"If it is not God's will to take that child home do you think that child would be redeemed by merit that he/she is a child?"
Not at all - all men have been redeemed by Christ's saving work on the cross. However, to be saved, faith and baptism are necessary. How God chooses to deal with the unbaptised is His prerogative, and I am happy to let Him sort it out.
Kosta50-"That is still the teaching of the Church. God always makes the first step; the Call; He knocks on your door."
Huh??? The early church believed in monergism (God choosing man). The church today, at least most of the church, as you've pointed out believes in synergism (man choosing God).
Man has free will within the confines of God's eternal plan. God wanted Jonah to go to Nineveh. Jonah wanted to go to Tarshish. Jonah ended up going to Nineveh because that's where God wanted him to go. How he got there was his decision.
It is NOT a leap of speculation. It is consistent with the way God operates and the way He redeems people as revealed in scripture.
What IS a leap of speculation is thinking all children are automatically heading for Heaven because they look cute and cuddly or because they haven't reached some magical "age of accountability". There is NOTHING in the scriptures about this and if that isn't pure speculation I don't know what is. And to say some are saved one way and some are saved another is, to put it bluntly, nonsense.
David, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, and Paul all are recorded as being chosen before they were born. God revealed Himself to Abramham, Jacob, Noah, on and on. Samuel was called before he knew God or heard His word (1 Samuel 3:7). That doesn't fit with coming to God through faith and certainly Samuel wasn't baptized. So now we have another method of salvation.
God saves all people in the exact same fashion. It is clearly revealed through the scriptures for those who are interested.
"Kolokotronis and kosta50, can you confirm that this is consistent with Orthodox belief as well? "
You are right on the money, Deacon! And the implications of this are extensive when it comes to theosis.
"What IS a leap of speculation is thinking all children are automatically heading for Heaven because they look cute and cuddly or because they haven't reached some magical "age of accountability". There is NOTHING in the scriptures about this and if that isn't pure speculation I don't know what is."
Agreed. You'll certainly never get such speculation coming from me!
As for the Baptism issue, obviously that doesn't necessarily apply to the saints of the Old Covenant, but it is certainly normative in the New Covenant.
"God saves all people in the exact same fashion."
Which is why there were so many covenants I suppose!
Sure.
Catholic Encyclopedia, in its article on "Traducianism" (note: within the terms described in the article, I would describe myself as a "Generationist" Traducian rather than a "Materialist" Traducian) notes several prominent Fathers amongst the Traducians, most notably Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine himself. Further, Jerome relates that Traducianism was the majority view of the Eastern Fathers, although CE reserves that his opinion may be exaggerated:
One problem with this approach is found precisely when you come to deal with Jesus Christ.... It seems to me that you are saying that in the incarnation, the Divinity of the Word replaced the soul of man rather than assuming it. This would be Apollinarianism as condemned by Pope Damasus in the Council of Rome, 381:
No. I think if you'll examine what I am saying, you'll find that I am advocating the polar opposite of Apollinarianism.
Let us begin by considering what a "Man" is, according to Scripture: a "Man" is a Personal Spirit made in the Image of God which is enfleshed in a Personal Body (As to his "soul", I am a Bipartite anthropologist and generally consider the term "a living soul" to refer simply to Man's whole personal entity, spirit and flesh; but we may also understand that term in a Tripartite anthropology to mean the "immaterial" functions of Mind, the Emotions, etc., which exist at the nexus of spirit and flesh).
Now then: let us consider further that the Second Person of the Godhead, the Son, is THE original, only-begotten Imago Dei (Hebrews 1:3). When we remember this, it becomes evident that the Race of "Man" was always designed as a Vessel for the Incarnation. God had the Incarnation in mind when He designed the nature of Man as an Imago Dei Personal Spirit enfleshed in a Personal Body.
Thus, when the Son -- being Himself THE original, only-begotten Imago Dei was enfleshed in the body formed for Him of the flesh of Mary, He by definition was a True Man:
Of course, the Personal Bodies and Minds and "Souls" of Men being subject to limitations (finite brains, finite powers, mortality after the Fall, etc.), the Bible teaches that the Son undertook these limitations upon Himself when He became enfleshed as a Man:
Now, don't ask me to explain precisely how the omnipotent, omniscient Second Person of the Godhead chooses to voluntarily "self-limit" Himself within a finite vessel for thirty-odd years or so -- but the Bible teaches that He did; and a cross-reference of Genesis 1,2 and Hebrews 1 suggests that the Race of "Man" was always designed from the beginning as a Vessel for precisely that Incarnational Purpose; so, we must simply believe that it is so.
Not so the Heretic Apollinaris. Teaching that "Christ had a human body and a human sensitive soul, but no human rational mind, the Divine Logos taking the place of this last", I have no idea how he would address such Scriptures as Luke 2:40,52 -- which clearly indicate that Christ did have a "human rational mind", the Omniscient Son somehow choosing to voluntarily self-limit His native Omniscience (or, at least, His expression thereof) within a human physical brain such that He was able to "increase in wisdom and stature" as to His humanity.
However, the difficulty of reconciling the heretical Apollinarian teaching with Luke 2:40,52 isn't even the main issue, as I see it.
Catholic Encyclopedia strikes at the root of the issue when it informs us that:
As you can see, this is the exact opposite of what I am saying:
Thus, Apollinaris fell into the Heresy of denying Christ's True Humanity, because he assumed that God and Man are, by nature, Two essentially-incommensurate spiritual entities -- and did not stop to consider what "Man" simply is: The Imago Dei enfleshed.
That being said, I heartily agree with the Anathema (properly and correctly) pronounced against the Apollinarian Heresy:
It was simply absurd for the Apollinarians to speak of "the Word of God is in the human flesh in lieu and place of the human rational and intellective soul". When one understands the Biblical teaching of the Nature of Man, the "human rational and intellective soul" of Man, as simply being an Imago Dei Personal Spirit enfleshed in a Personal Body -- one understands that when THE (original, only-begotten) Imago Dei was enfleshed in the Personal Body prepared for Him of the flesh of Mary, He was by definition a True Man:
The Race of Man, his whole entity, his "soul", being designed *by nature* for the Incarnation, being designed *by nature* as a Vessel for the Enfleshment of the Imago Dei -- then how could Jesus be anything BUT a True Man?
Hope that helps to clear things up.
Best, OP
No. The Calvinist maintains that infants are, by nature after the Fall, part of the same Massa Damnata "lump of perdition" as the rest of us.
John Calvin and other great Calvinists simply maintained, and we believe that they had Scriptures to warrant it, that God has ordained to regenerate unto Salvation those Infants whom He ordained would Die in Infancy.
"John the Baptist was no more "naturally" capable of the exercise of faith than you would expect of any six-month-conceived (not even yet born) late-term fetus." ~~ Granted, but surely you are not suggesting that the Baptist represented the norm, are you?
No... but if God *can* do as much with John the Baptist, the case does illustrate God's power to monergistically and unilaterally regenerate unto Salvation those Infants whom He ordained would Die in Infancy.
"Not being capable of making a verbal profession of the Faith which was supernaturally implanted within him, he exhibited his rudimentary Faith the only way he could. :-)" ~~ I wondered why those chaismatics did those things....! ;)
No, they make a verbal profession of Faith also... it's just usually offered in Drivgibberlish.
Best, OP
God speaks to the unregenerate through the creation that surrounds them. He also uses circumstances in our lives to draw us to the truth. His sovereignty resides in the fact that He draws us and that we are not drawn naturally. It is also true that when a person crosses a line, as did pre-flood civilization, Pharaoh and those of Sodom, He stops His persuading. He went to great lengths in all these cases at persuading them towards belief in Him. Otherwise His character of "longsuffering" would be false. You guys are limiting His longsuffering to only special cases, namely those who are pre-chosen.
Thanks for taking as much time as you have with my arguments.
However, since you have advanced the theory that (I summarize) "The Fall and Redemption, etc., were necessary in order for Men to become Spiritual Grown-Ups", I must repeat my question regarding the Elect Angels -- who never underwent a Fall, and will never undergo Redemption:
Is it, then, your contention that the Archangels Saint Michael and Saint Gabriel are, well -- "not Spiritual Grown-Ups"?
You are absolutely wrong to maintain that Cornelius was Spiritually Dead in Acts 10:1-2.
Of course, we do know that -- just like the Hebrew Believers of the Old Testament -- whenever Cornelius first believed on God and trusted on Him for his salvation, he did so because God had monergistically and unilaterally Regenerated him to Spiritual Life in order that he could believe. For we know that the Bible adamantly teaches that, while they are yet Spiritually Dead, no Unregenerate Man ever "reaches out to God" or "exhibits Faith" or believes that which is God-pleasing or any performs action of Free Will except always and only that which is ENMITY against God. Romans 8:5-8, and that puts the Kibosh on the whole "Dead Men choose God" Arch-Heresy.
That's just silly.
"Regeneration" is simply another word for "Born Again" -- and Jesus told Nicodemus that as a Master Teacher in Israel, Nicodemus should have already known all about being "Born Again" from the Old Testament. How could Jesus have upbraided Nicodemus for his ignorance, if Regeneration was a brand new thingamajiggie just then introduced to the world?
Look, no offense -- but now you're just making up self-generated speculative junk in service of your "Dead Men choose God" heresy, and not even bothering with Scripture at all.
And people wonder why I say Arminianism is actually *hateful* to Scripture. The reason is, in order to maintain the humanistic Arminian belief system... you have to be willing to subject the Bible to more torture and evisceration than Torquemada hopped up on methedrine and steroids.
The Pharisees came up with lists of laws just like in your post #81. I understand that you are trying to base these formulas on scripture, but it is not needful. The Holy Spirit uses the Word in each individuals life to accomplish differing tasks. Clearly the standards always line up, yet the methods will and do vary.
P.S. A retarded person can't understand your formulas, but that doesn't stop the Holy Spirit from using them. It is, after all, an intimate personal relationship. I am basing my beliefs on scripture, which ,most importantly, reveals the character of God. The Bible is a love story, written in blood!
No, I understand perfectly. I'm saying there is no cooperation (monergism). Man’s heart is evil and only God can give him a new heart and make him a new creature so that he can accept our Lord Jesus’ salvation.
As soon as you enter the field of "cooperating" with God between grace and “free will” then you get into the thorny problems. It creates problems in determining what happens to those who can’t cooperate with God such as babies or to those on an island somewhere that never hear the message and don’t they get a chance to cooperate.
But that isn't nearly as bad as the underlying belief in synergism which you touched upon. “Cooperation” implies works. YOU are responding to God’s call. YOU are making a choice. YOU are going to determine your salvation. YOU are cooperating with God. And the further down on the free will scale you go the more you feel you need to work for your salvation.
The very reason some don’t like the monergism approach is because they WANT to feel like they did something for their salvation and this is ABSOLUTELY not true.
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