You wrote:
“You need to study more, to understand that humans do not seek out God. We are SINNERS.”
That’s WHY we seek out God. And if we had no desire to seek God, we could not even know we were sinners.
And nothing in Ephesians 2 says anything against what I said.
Look at the VERY NAME of John Piper’s website: http://www.desiringgod.org/
“Feel free to show me where scripture teaches we have a built-in desire to be saved.”
First, show me a verse that says everything has to be in the Bible. Can you do that?
Then look up Deuteronomy 4:29-31; 1 Chronicles 28:9; Psalms 63:1-2; 84:3; Proverbs 8:17; Song of Songs 3:1-4; Isaiah 26:9; Isaiah 55:6; Matthew 7:7; Acts 17:26-28.
“You keep asserting it, but not showing where God agrees with your assessment. God desires that all men repent, yet only a small minority do - why is this if we all desire God?”
Because we often go against what is best for us. Ask Tiger Woods about that.
“If man has a free will - required if we are to be sons and not just servants - then we have the ability to reject God.”
Yes. But that doesn’t mean we weren’t given the desire to be His Sons. No one would come to Him if they didn’t have a desire to do it!
“Again - you keep asserting that we all have the desire to seek God and be saved. You even write, “I seek out God and always have.””
Yes.
“God call you a liar.”
No. You are calling me a liar and you’re twisting God’s word to do it. How sad. Look again at the verses I posted above and know that YOU are the one calling God a liar.
So you think St. Paul didn’t believe that people desired happiness?
“Wrong again. Grace does not improve us. Grace transforms us.”
I am not wrong. We do not cease to have concupiscence after conversion. Thus, grace builds on our nature. It does not destroy the fact that we are purely human on this earth.
“Nope. I didn’t look for God. God looked for me. “According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope...” 1 Peter 1.”
And if you had no desire for happiness, no desire at all to know or love or serve God in you you could not have responded to God’s call because He does not force Himself on people. Grace builds upon nature it does not destroy it.
“God initiated everything. I accepted his revelation.”
Which you could not do unless you had been built to receive Him. That’s why you were created in His image and likeness after all.
“I did not claw my way to salvation. I wasn’t looking for it. I didn’t seek God. And God says NO ONE seeks Him - not even you.”
St. Paul - nor the Holy Spirit - meant that we have no desire for God or happiness. If we had no such desire we could never have it, ever.
As Proverbs 16:4 says, “The Lord hath made all things for Himself.”
“First, show me a verse that says everything has to be in the Bible.”
I’ve shown you verses that directly contradict your assertion that men seek God. That is more to the point.
“Look at the VERY NAME of John Piper’s website: http://www.desiringgod.org/";
What does that have to do with anything?
“Then look up Deuteronomy 4:29-31; 1 Chronicles 28:9; Psalms 63:1-2; 84:3; Proverbs 8:17; Song of Songs 3:1-4; Isaiah 26:9; Isaiah 55:6; Matthew 7:7; Acts 17:26-28.”
Let’s look together...and I type this without having looked first...
“27And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD will drive you. 28And there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. 29 But from there you will seek the LORD your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.” - Dt 4
So we find that those who belong to God will be disciplined if they go astray, yet He will bring them back. Hardly the same as teaching that all men seek God!
“9”And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever.” - 1 Chron 28
So we find that the king chosen to be in the lineage of Jesus is promised that if he seeks, he will find. Hardly the same as teaching that all men seek God!
“A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.
1O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” - Psalms 63
So we see that David, a man after God’s own heart, a man anointed at God’s direction, hungered for God...as do those born again. Hardly the same as teaching that all men seek God!
“2My soul longs, yes, faints
for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and flesh sing for joy
to the living God.” - Psalms 84:2
Those who follow God hunger for him. Hardly the same as teaching that all men seek God!
“I [wisdom] love those who love me,
and those who seek me diligently find me.” - Prov 8
So wisdom can be found by those who seek her. Hardly the same as teaching that all men seek God!
I could go on, but why bother...you are 0-5 so far! Those given a new heart WILL hunger and thirst for God. Those who are born again WILL desire God. But while we are rebels, we need God but do not seek Him. What part of “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God” do you not understand?
This isn’t subtle. This isn’t a hidden teaching. It is explicit.
“Thus, grace builds on our nature.”
We have the same intelligence, etc after conversion as before. But God replaces a heart of stone with a heart of flesh. As Martin Luther put it, “That is why faith alone makes someone just and fulfills the law; faith it is that brings the Holy Spirit through the merits of Christ. The Spirit, in turn, renders the heart glad and free, as the law demands. Then good works proceed from faith itself.”
“And if you had no desire for happiness, no desire at all to know or love or serve God in you you could not have responded to God’s call because He does not force Himself on people.”
When men are confronted by God, they can reject him - as they rejected Jesus Himself - or they can believe He is who He claims. When the serpent was lifted up, they could look or turn away.
But we do not seek God. We do not deserve his grace. We have no good within us. We need the new birth, a new heart, with God law written on it, and only God can give that to us. The debate between Calvinists and Free Will types seems to be whether we are given a new heart when we believe, or we are given a new heart and then believe. That may be an oversimplification, since I’m not a learned theologian...but this Free Will Baptist would never claim we seek God out, or do good in advance to prepare us for salvation.
And as wrong as it is to suggest we are all seeking God, it is even more wrong to suggest that the institutions of unsaved men can or will advance the will of God by their design! God’s will shall prevail, but not because unsaved men or governments or states seek to advance it!
I see this phrase pop up from time to time in different forms. It bothers me. First, the early church fathers knew that man could NEVER write anything as perfect and infallible as the scriptures so much that they separated their writings from the Bible. Second, it presumes that God "left out something" that requires us to go stumbling around in the dark since we are unable to perfectly divine God's will. Everything in scripture is given for our edification and training. We don't need more than what God has given to us.
It is reckless presumption on our part to tell God that we are capable of writing theology that He never intended. The early church fathers never made this mistake.