I can agree with the general principle you are stating, but relating back to our discussion of necessity and Christ on the cross, what would you say about a poor man who leaps off a building so that his family can collect on a life insurance policy? Assume he genuinely thought he was doing it out of love. Did he sin?
So when Paul says we are a new creation, and that we have the ability to live in the Spirit, he really means we are puppets and can do no good? Hardly. Paul makes it pretty clear that the old man and the new man in Christ have different capabilities.
I agree with Paul (or is it Luke? :) . I don't think of us as puppets because none of us experiences it like that. After regeneration, we do have new abilities. One is the ability to please God. Another is the ability to be sanctified. I just see it as God working through us, when before regeneration, He did not work through us to please Him or become sanctified. We still experience it as making choices to do so.
I don't know, but he isn't too smart, because life insurance doesn't pay out in suicides...
I don't think of us as puppets because none of us experiences it like that. After regeneration, we do have new abilities. One is the ability to please God. Another is the ability to be sanctified.
Well, this is not classic Protestantism, to my knowledge. It sounds Wesleyian. Luther and Calvin claimed that man continued to be "sin", even after regeneration, since he had no ability to participate in salvation, even after regeneration. God did everything. No free will. No responsibility. No perseverance. No obedience expected. What you say makes more sense than Luther and Calvin claims that man is spiritually dead and must take on some sort of legal, external justification to be saved. This sounds a bit different than FK from a few weeks ago...
Regards