Thanks for your kind words and reply. I do see your point. It's more subtle than I saw at first; it's a good one.
I'd like to focus on the example you gave, your experience with the clueless young man.
I don't think he's doomed. And I doubt either of us think he was doomed from birth.
For two reasons.
First, we are given certain capacities. Nature, nurture, in some manner we have limitations of capability and capacity. The best we can do is the best we can do within our limitations. Being a thief and not a robber was this young man's expression of this: "I don't scare and hurt people, I just take the stuff from stores."
That this was important to him I think may go beyond trying to express he's a lesser criminal - he recognizes it is a lesser crime, less harmful. I know that honor among thieves is a joke, but that theives know anything about honor is evidence of some conscience. And conscience comes from God. God works even on theives and robbers and murders. I think He may work even harder.
What may be easy for us, may be incredibly difficult for him. How do we determine the worth of an action? I think scripture gives us guidance. And one act of kindness from this young man is greater than a hundred from you or I. If his capacity makes it more difficult for him, he would not be the first to make a virtue of necessity.
Second, I don't think he is doomed because there is always hope. We may have looked at the snide enforcer before Damascus as hopeless. I know you know this also, I'm just pointing it out in context of this example.
But yes, he suffers the cost of his sins, his "self-destruction". But he knows he has choices and he knows, or will soon, that his choices aren't working very well.
In terms of paying a price for our wrong choices, it does not even take a judicial system. Justice is immediate and unavoidable. Without Rikers, the young man is paying a price. The murderer loses, for himself, the value and sanctity of life. The theif loses security of his possesions. The adulterer the gift of faithful love...
Repentance and forgiveness are the only way to regain what is lost here. And repentance is always possible, hope is never lost. Even for those we see as the most hopeless, to Jesus they were most valuable.
These are my views, FWIW.
thanks again for your reply..
When I say "doomed" , in this case I mean, "The way the smart money is betting." And I love to see the smart money be wrong, even if it's my money.
Even my "booster" of goods from stores (who was also proud that he had no children, interestingly) had SOME sense of morality. You are right: there is a spark there which the divine afflatus (LOVE that word!) could blow into a fire some day. And since my efforts at piety and generosity must seem laughably puerile to the Holy Ones, I'm in no position to misunderestimate what is indicated and what can be done with the gentleness of someone who eschews felony robbery for felony shop-lifting.
And yes, I LOVE the idea of the thieves act or, even, policy of gentleness being like the widow's mite. He gives all that he has.
At this point we need an eirenic Calvinist to help us see where he can agree and where he must disagree. Are there any eirenic Calvinists?
Thanks again.