Posted on 01/21/2011 2:42:59 PM PST by wmfights
He survived the encounter, but not all survive. Job’s family, for instance, got smoked. Our salvation is protected. Our lives are not.
SnakeDoc
Knowing the end of the story is not the same as dictating the outcome. Our free will dictates the outcome, God simply already knows how each story ends.
That the logic escapes you does not the logic is unsound.
SnakeDoc
We make choices every day -
Do I wear the green shirt or the blue shirt today? Should I buy a Chevy or a Ford...
In this I will grant that we have a free will. We can choose at any given circumstance whether to do one thing or another, even to the point of whether to sin or not. We do have those choices. Where we do NOT have a choice is to honor, glorify, rejoice in, or seek God. There is no choice in that. We (before regeneration) are sinners dead to God. We cannot choose to become alive in God. Not on our own action, decision, desire or in any other way. God chooses us. Then he paves the way for us to believe in him.
“Free” in this case simply means the ability to choose a path — for instance, whether you are a slave to sin, or a slave to righteousness. Salvation is a gift that must be accepted by choice.
SnakeDoc
What then is "Original Sin" if not the knowledge of the difference of good and evil and the ability to choose our own path?
I am sorry you are confusing things here. Please read my post more carefully. you are making assumptions and reading more into what I said, than what I said.
The fact that God knew ahead of time He would have to redeem us through Christ’s death, does not mean His original creation was supposed to die. The fact He knew we would use free will and turn against Him doesn’t mean we weren’t orignally perfect and originally designed NOT to die. Death only came about because man sinned. Before that everything was very good and death did not exist.
2Ti 2:25 correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth,
God has to grant to us repentance. Until we are granted repentance, we will NEVER come to the knowledge of the truth. Our Lord Jesus said something very similar:
Luk 5:32 I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance."
Obviously not everyone is called to repentance.
...there is no place in scripture that describes faith as a gift of God
I would disagree with you version of Ephesian but there are other verses.
1Co 12:8-9 For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit,
It states very clearly that faith is given as a gift from the Spirit and there are even degrees of faith. And, of course, there is always this verse:
Rom 10:17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
Faith "comes" to us. It isn't something that each of us has. It is a gift from above.
2Th 3:2 and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith.
I suspect that God created time so that from time to time he could be surprised by something. Things would be frightfully dull otherwise.
Time is a man-constructed invention based upon events that surrounds him. The scriptures talk about how we even worship the seasons-that is how far we’ve fallen.
Creation did not come into existence because God was bored. Creation came into existence to give God glory.
Now if we have been brought to repentance, given wisdom of the knowledge of Christ, acknowledge that He has given us our faith and filled us with His Spirit; what is it exactly that we do?
I'll tell you, in testimony after testimony I hear, it is always, “God spoke to my heart though [fill in the blank] and I asked Him in.” It is ALWAYS God initiated the action. I have yet to hear one testimony that says, “I just decided that God exists and I wanted to follow Him then I read the scriptures and found I was correct.”
You are an Arminian. Calvinism states that man has no “free will.” A man’s decisions are predestined and formed by the Almighty. The Almighty is in control of everything.
Because knowledge does not mean action.
Are you saying that God is the author of evil and sin? Are you saying that the path chosen by Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot were not of their choosing, but willed to exist by God?
I am saying we have the choice to accept Salvation, or to not accept Salvation. A sinless life is not possible, though a less sinful life is possible ... that is also a choice.
SnakeDoc
I’m not saying it, HE is: Isaiah 45:7 “I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things.”
God did not create evil, but in a mystery known only to Him He permits it to exist. Faith gives us the certainty that God would not permit an evil if He did not cause a good to come from that very evil, by ways that we shall fully know only in eternal life.
Look, if he says he created calamity, I believe him. Can evil exist without his permission? Can evil do anything that he doesn’t know about? Is evil greater than God? No. God is in charge of ALL things, because he CREATED all things. I have no problem with him creating evil, because it suits his purposes, which we cannot fathom. I have faith that he uses evil for our betterment. I have faith that He is in control of evil, and not the other way around.
Why then do you suppose that calamity is mentioned 75 times in the Old testament, but not once in the New Testament?
Jesus.
Are all Christians predestined to be Calvinists?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.