***The doctrine of irresistible grace has to do only with salvational grace, the grace that changes the heart.***
The frogmarching grace you mean. :)
***If we had free will with regard to salvational grace, then no one would ever be saved,***
Really? Then why does Jesus spent most of the Gospels instructing us on what to do and what not to do?
Rom 11:
22
See, then, the kindness and severity of God: severity toward those who fell, but God’s kindness to you, provided you remain in his kindness; otherwise you too will be cut off.
23
And they also, if they do not remain in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.
24
For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated one, how much more will they who belong to it by nature be grafted back into their own olive tree.
Paul is saying that it is possible to lose one’s salvation and that it is possible to be lost and then to regain one’s salvation.
***Apples and oranges. You can’t compare when the starting positions were so opposite.***
They started without sin and they disobeyed - which is the first definition of sin in the OT - disobedience to God.
***If you would say this then you must have hatred for the Reformed God.***
I find it difficult to hate something that doesn’t exist. Global warming comes to mind.
***Perhaps this is evidence of your efforts to be like the Catholic Christ? :)***
We are all called to imitate Christ. My imitation is a rather poor one and I would not like all Christians to be judged according me.
1 Corinthians
Chapter 11
1
Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.
2
1 I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold fast to the traditions, just as I handed them on to you.
Really? Then why does Jesus spent most of the Gospels instructing us on what to do and what not to do?
Every word of scripture is God's revelation to us. They are His tools to accomplish His preordained plan. For example, God ordains that His elect persevere. Now, He COULD just zap all believers with that knowledge and how to do it magically, or, He can reveal it to us in scripture, which is what He did. But here we have to remember that all the words of the Bible are completely meaningless UNLESS salvational grace has become effective. The scriptures lead to faith, but without salvational grace FIRST the scriptures are nothing to that person.
[Re: Rom. 11:22-24] Paul is saying that it is possible to lose one’s salvation and that it is possible to be lost and then to regain one’s salvation.
No he's not. This passage has to do with the Gentiles and the nation of Jews. All the "you's" are groups of people in general, not so much individuals. In all of his writings, Paul certainly acknowledges that true believers fall away for a time, but I don't know where he ever says that their true salvation is ever lost. In fact, he never says that. It's not Biblical. The crux is over whether a true believer can fall away permanently. The Bible says no, and if that was possible it would make God a liar:
Phil 1:6 : ... being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
Does God's good work get accomplished EVERY time or only SOMETIMES?
FK: ***Apples and oranges. You can’t compare when the starting positions were so opposite.***
They started without sin and they disobeyed - which is the first definition of sin in the OT - disobedience to God.
Like I said, we don't start without sin, we start totally depraved. Huge difference. Theoretically, Adam and Eve had a meaningful choice. We do not.