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To: kosta50
Your reason is free to choose God or to choose sin. So, the root of sin is in the free will. But without it, we would only be robots.

Then why does every purely human man who has ever lived always chosen sin over God without His help? (For stuff like this, I'll just agree to leave Mary out of it :) It's 100% to zero, right? How can that be if free will could theoretically lead anywhere?

Why do you equate God's full control to our being robots? In the normal use of the word, robots are incapable of love and are not sentient beings. We all know that humans clearly are the opposite. As I have said, we truly do experience the free will you speak of, but it is God who is in full control, irrespective of our "wills".

Your reason is not driven by God. Your heart may be, but not your reason. That's why the crux of the faith (no pun intended here!) is love and not intellect.

There is good reason and bad reason, right? When we use good reason, where does that come from? From where is it driven? Ourselves? I would disagree. Anything with "good" in front of it comes only from God. Even if you say that we were born with good reason, where did THAT come from?

3,359 posted on 03/08/2006 3:02:07 AM PST by Forest Keeper
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To: Forest Keeper
Then why does every purely human man who has ever lived always chosen sin over God without His help?

It is in our nature to believe that which we can see, taste and feel.

When we make a decision, we make a decision that we believe is good for us first and foremost. In doing that, we exclude God, and without God everything we do, even our life, is meaningles -- it's a Lie (and therefore the domain of satan); as opposed to God, who is Truth.

I would dare say that even those who go to church do so because of selfish reasons -- they believe it is good for them; certainly God doesn't need us. Apostolic Christians (Orthodox/Catholic) go to church to receive sacraments, in line with Church teaching that we need to.

Protestants, on the other hand, have no sacraments to receive from valid clergy, so why do they even go to church? To glorify God, we all say. But is it?

Take out salvation and count the number of people who come to church on the fingers of one hand. No one goes to church to glorify God, but to seek favor, to assure salvation, life everlasting.

So, you see, even when you think you are doing good, if you are doing it for yourself, you are committing evil because your motives are not to glorify God, but to profit from Him. Take out the profit and the churches would empty in a blink of an eye.

The 100% to zero is simply true because we do not love God with all our heart, mind and soul; nor do we love our nieghbor as oursleves. Not because we can't but because we won't; because we choose not to.

When I asked you a hypothetical question if you would kill your children on God's command, you answered wisely -- hoping it would be the same as with Abraham! But I doubt that you would ever honestly raise a sword to kill your children in good faith without questioning God (and thereby committing sin).

That's what +Paul means when he says that none are righteous, not one. Not one of us can say "Thy will be done" and accept whatever comes our way in peace and complete tranquility knowing that whatever happens to us will be infinitely merciful anf just. We all doubt God, FK, and we all seek assurances because of that doubt which we do not like to admit. But, doubt it is. No one, not one, has complete confidence in God or else we would never choose evil.

3,372 posted on 03/08/2006 3:53:37 PM PST by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
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