[HarleyD]

Augustine had difficulties reconciling the following verses:

Eze 18:31 "Cast away from you all your transgressions which you have committed and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! For why will you die, O house of Israel? (free will)

Eze 36:26 "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. (God's sovereignty)

Augustine reasoned that if Ezekial 18 was correct on face value, that man could give themselves a new heart, that would make Ezekial 36 wrong. Why would God have to give us a new heart when we can do it? Therefore Augustine correctly reasoned that Ezekiel 18 must be interpreted in light of Ezekiel 36. God must give a person a new heart for man to be able to follow God's command. Pelagius said that Augustine was wrong essentially ignoring Ezekiel 36. Pelagius believed that God commands and it is up to man to carry out His will.

To complete Augustine's logic you have to conclude that when God states that He will give us a new heart and spirit and cause us to walk in His statues, He means just that. Since God is perfect, His "new heart and new spirit" gift to us will also be perfect.

You can post all sorts of "free will" verses just as I can post all sorts of "God's sovereignty" verses. However, you will never get past the Augustinian logic above. You will never be able to satisfactorily explain Ezekiel 36. All I'll ever here is "yeah but this verse over here says...".

OTOH, for Ezekiel 18 I would simply answer as Augustine would answer, that God commands what He wills and gives what He commands. He gives us a new heart and spirit as He states in Ezekiel 36 and then He commands us to use it as in Ezekiel 18. God promises that this new heart and spirit will allow us to walk in His statues man. It's all because of God's working. If God so empowers us, it will happen.

This is exactly the way He works with all your verses.

[bornacatholic]

St. Augustine

‘He was handed over for our offenses, and he rose again for our justification.’ What does this mean, ‘for our justification?’ So that He might justify us; so that he might make us just. You will be a work of God, not only because you are a man, but also because you are just. For it is better that you be just than that you be a man. If God made you a man, and you made yourself just, something you were doing would be better than what God did. But God made you without any cooperation on your part. For you did not lend your consent so that God could make you. How could you have consented when you did not exist? But He who made you without your consent does not justify you without your consent. He made you without your knowledge but He does not justify you without your willing it.

*Augustine was a Christian Catholic.

Get your own saints and leave ours alone. Stop trying to expropriate our Saints. It ain't working