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To: Blogger
The fall was understood and allowed and perfectly within God's sovereignty but Adam and Eve CHOSE to sin because God gave them free will

That is orthodox, not Calvinist. Calvinism denies free will. If they chose to sin (I agree), then Mary could have chosen not to sin as well.

And how dare you say God tempts man to sin

"And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."

Indeed, how dare we say to God not to lead us into temptation?

4,353 posted on 01/07/2007 8:10:32 PM PST by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
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To: kosta50

James 1:13
Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man


4,354 posted on 01/07/2007 8:13:57 PM PST by Blogger (In nullo gloriandum quando nostrum nihil sit- Cyprian)
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To: kosta50; Blogger

'Indeed, how dare we say to God not to lead us into temptation?"

Come on kosta, Blogger said "And how dare you say God tempts man to sin" not "lead us into temptation". God does try His children but (James 1:13) "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:" God takes His own through the "Valley of the shadow of Death" but He is still with them. He knows that since we are left in the world there will be trials but Jesus has said (John 17:15) "I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil."

Paul says that God knows our being and has taken that into consideration with the trials He has prepared to mature us (1 Cor. 10:13) "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.". Peter reiterates God's escape plan for us (2 Pet. 2:9) "The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:"

So how can we say that God tempts His own with evil? Comparing scripture with scripture it shows that what Jesus is talking about are the trials given (His prayer "not my will but thine be done")not sin.


4,361 posted on 01/07/2007 8:41:05 PM PST by blue-duncan
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To: kosta50

Not correct Kosta. It is very "Calvinist" and I ARE one :)

Here are a few early confessions from the Reformed tradition to help with where they stood.

The Scottish Confession (John Knox)
Chapter 2 - The Creation of Man

We confess and acknowledge that our God has created man, i.e.., our first father, Adam, after his own image and likeness, to whom he gave wisdom, lordship, justice, free will, and self-consciousness, so that in the whole nature of man no imperfection could be found. From this dignity and perfection man and woman both fell; the woman being deceived by the serpent and man obeying the voice of the woman, both conspiring against the sovereign majesty of God, who in clear words had previously threatened death if they presumed to eat of the forbidden tree.

Chapter 3 - Original Sin

By this transgression, generally known as original sin, the image of God was utterly defaced in man, and he and his children became by nature hostile to God, slaves to Satan, and servants to sin. And thus everlasting death has had, and shall have, power and dominion over all who have not been, are not, or shall not be born from above. This rebirth is wrought by the power of the Holy Ghost creating in the hearts of God's chosen ones an assured faith in the promise of God revealed to us in his Word; by this faith we grasp Christ Jesus with the graces and blessings promised in him.



Canons of Dordt:
The Third and Fourth Main Points of Doctrine

Human Corruption, Conversion to God,

and the Way It Occurs

Article 1: The Effect of the Fall on Human Nature

Man was originally created in the image of God and was furnished in his mind with a true and salutary knowledge of his Creator and things spiritual, in his will and heart with righteousness, and in all his emotions with purity; indeed, the whole man was holy. However, rebelling against God at the devil's instigation and by his own free will, he deprived himself of these outstanding gifts. Rather, in their place he brought upon himself blindness, terrible darkness, futility, and distortion of judgment in his mind; perversity, defiance, and hardness in his heart and will; and finally impurity in all his emotions.

Article 2: The Spread of Corruption

Man brought forth children of the same nature as himself after the fall. That is to say, being corrupt he brought forth corrupt children. The corruption spread, by God's just judgment, from Adam to all his descendants— except for Christ alone—not by way of imitation (as in former times the Pelagians would have it) but by way of the propagation of his perverted nature.
Article 3: Total Inability

Therefore, all people are conceived in sin and are born children of wrath, unfit for any saving good, inclined to evil, dead in their sins, and slaves to sin; without the grace of the regenerating Holy Spirit they are neither willing nor able to return to God, to reform their distorted nature, or even to dispose themselves to such reform.




Belgic Confession 1619
Article 14: The Creation and Fall of Man

We believe that God created man from the dust of the earth and made and formed him in his image and likeness— good, just, and holy; able by his own will to conform in all things to the will of God.

But when he was in honor he did not understand it^21 and did not recognize his excellence. But he subjected himself willingly to sin and consequently to death and the curse, lending his ear to the word of the devil.

For he transgressed the commandment of life, which he had received, and by his sin he separated himself from God, who was his true life, having corrupted his entire nature.

So he made himself guilty and subject to physical and spiritual death, having become wicked, perverse, and corrupt in all his ways. He lost all his excellent gifts which he had received from God, and he retained none of them except for small traces which are enough to make him inexcusable.



The Heidelberg Catechism

. Q. Did God, then, create man so wicked and perverse?

A. No, on the contrary, God created man good[1] and in His image,[2] that is, in true righteousness and holiness,[3] so that he might rightly know God His Creator,[4] heartily love Him, and live with Him in eternal blessedness to praise and glorify Him.[5]

[1] Gen. 1:31. [2] Gen. 1:26, 27. [3] Eph. 4:24. [4] Col. 3:10. [5] Ps. 8.

7. Q. From where, then, did man's depraved nature come?

A. From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in Paradise,[1] for there our nature became so corrupt[2] that we are all conceived and born in sin.[3]

[1] Gen. 3. [2] Rom. 5:12, 18, 19. [3] Ps. 51:5.

8. Q. But are we so corrupt that we are totally unable to do any good and inclined to all evil?

A. Yes,[1] unless we are regenerated by the Spirit of God.[2]

[1] Gen. 6:5; 8:21; Job 14:4; Is. 53:6. [2] John 3:3-5.

9. Q. Is God, then, not unjust by requiring in His law what man cannot do?

A. No, for God so created man that he was able to do it.[1] But man, at the instigation of the devil,[2] in deliberate disobedience[3] robbed himself and all his descendants of these gifts.[4]

[1] Gen. 1:31. [2] Gen. 3:13; John 8:44; I Tim. 2:13, 14. [3] Gen. 3:6. [4] Rom. 5:12, 18, 19.



Westminster Confession:
1. Our first parents, being seduced by the subtlety and temptation of Satan, sinned in eating the forbidden fruit.a This their sin God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory.b

a. Gen 3:13; 2 Cor 11:3. • b. Rom 11:32.

2. By this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion with God,a and so became dead in sin,b and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.c

a. Gen 3:6-8; Eccl 7:29; Rom 3:23. • b. Gen 2:17; Eph 2:1. • c. Gen 6:5; Jer 17:9; Rom 3:10-19; Titus 1:15.

3. They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed,a and the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation.b

a. Gen 1:27-28 and 2:16-17 and Acts 17:26 with Rom 5:12, 15-19 and 1 Cor 15:21-22; 1Cor 15:45, 49. • b. Gen 5:3; Job 14:4; 15:14; Psa 51:5.

The Westminster Confession of Faith: Chapter 9



Chapter 9. Of Free Will.

1. God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that is neither forced nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined to good or evil.a

a. Deut 30:19; Mat 17:12; James 1:14.

2. Man, in his state of innocency, had freedom and power to will and to do that which is good and well-pleasing to God,a but yet mutably, so that he might fall from it.b

a. Gen 1:26; Eccl 7:29. • b. Gen 2:16-17; 3:6.

3. Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation;a so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good,b and dead in sin,c is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.d

a. John 15:5; Rom 5:6; 8:7. • b. Rom 3:10, 12. • c. Eph 2:1, 5; Col 2:13. • d. John 6:44, 65; 1 Cor 2:14; Eph 2:2-5; Titus 3:3-5.

4. When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, he freeth him from his natural bondage under sin,a and by his grace alone enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good;b yet so as that, by reason of his remaining corruption, he doth not perfectly, nor only, will that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil.c

a. John 8:34, 36; Col 1:13. • b. Rom 6:18, 22; Phil 2:13. • c. Rom 7:15, 18-19, 21, 23; Gal 5:17.

5. The will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to good alone, in the state of glory only.a

a. Eph 4:13; Heb 12:23; 1 John 3:2; Jude 1:24.


4,370 posted on 01/07/2007 9:35:35 PM PST by Blogger (In nullo gloriandum quando nostrum nihil sit- Cyprian)
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