The alternative is worse, FK, because it suggests that God prizes our mindlessness more than our freedom. I have no doubt that God values our freedom of choice in His own way because anything else is coerced or compelled. And true love must well from within and not be created from without.
Why does God causing our salvation suggest our mindlessness? No one on my side ever experiences that. We just recognize who gets the credit for our salvation, God alone. We know that the true love that wells from within didn't come from within, it came from God. You are free to call that coercion if you like. I'll take it any way I can get it. :)
For if we love God, we will obey His commandments. The reverse is not true necessarily.
Yes, and Yes. To love God is to obey, and lost people have followed Commandments, although it is not accredited to them. Our difference is where our love for God comes from. Even if you say we are born with it, where did THAT come from? Our parents? Dr. E. recently posted this quote:
1 John 4:19 : "We love because he first loved us."
It is causal, our love for Him comes not from us, but from God
Can we fall in love on our own? Yes, of course we can. The more you learn about something, the more you feel drawn to it. Thus, God draws us to Him by love, but he does not violate our freedom. We are free to choose and He knows what our choices are.
Doesn't satan also have a lot to teach us? Doesn't he also draw us to him? We seem to have two opposite poles drawing us. Why is it that only some are saved, and the majority are lost? Is satan's pull stronger? Does God draw different people to different degrees?
And who gets the credit for our fall, FK?
Why does God causing our salvation suggest our mindlessness?
You believe that we are programmed for salvation or perdition from all eterntiy, that whether we are St. John the Baptist or Judas Iscariot we are just tools in his workshop.
Doesn't satan also have a lot to teach us? Doesn't he also draw us to him?
Satan teaches us nothing except to hate God, FK. He doesn't draw us to him. No one wants to be close to him. But, we all follow his deception. Few worship satan. He is not a god, for sure. Evil has no power unless we give in to it. It's that old addage "I am not violent, but I can be driven to violence." Satan knows that very well.
Great question. The logical conclusion of Arminian free will demands that satan be stronger than God.