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Childish behavior |
Posted on 01/16/2013 8:57:49 AM PST by marshmallow
Wow, it's not often that we see that kind of honest answer on this forum. :-)
However, define *free will*
That is the conundrum, isn't it. In light of the fact that God is omnipotent and omniscient, there really is a question as to whether or not anyone has any kind of unfettered "free will". As long as God is free to interfere with your free will, then of course you really don't have "free will". I have heard the argument that "God is a gentleman and therefore would never interfere with anyone's free will", however, if God would never interfere with our free will in regard to whether or not he is going to drag us kicking and screaming to salvation, then Freewill would be a curse rather than a blessing, wouldn't it?
I will be happy to answer this, if you will answer the previously (twice) asked question: Do you hold that there are three groups within mankind?
1. Those who are drawn and decide to believe
2. Those who are drawn and decide to reject believing
3. Those who are not drawn
If not, please describe what you mean by men cannot choose on their own, but can resist the call.
The word used in 1 Timothy 2:4 is pantas which is used 90 times and not once is it used to mean something less than all as in “some from each group”. Each time it denotes the meaning that every one of each kind is indicated. So in 1 Timothy 2:4 it means every man not just some of each kind.
Barne’s notes on the Bible [http://bible.cc/1_timothy/2-4.htm]
Who will have all men to be saved - That is, it is in accordance with his nature, his feelings, his desires. The word "will" cannot be taken here in the absolute sense, denoting a decree like that by which he willed the creation of the world, for then it would certainly be done. But the word is often used to denote a desire, wish, or what is in accordance with the nature of anyone. Thus it may be said of God that he "wills" that his creatures may be happy - because it is in accordance with his nature, and because he has made abundant provision for their happiness - though it is not true that he wills it in the sense that he exerts his absolute power to make them happy. God wills that sickness should be relieved, and sorrow mitigated, and that the oppressed should go free, because it is agreeable to his nature; though it is not true that he wills it in the sense that he exerts his absolute power to produce it. A parent wills the welfare of his child. It is in accordance with his nature, his feelings, his desires; and he makes every needful arrangement for it. If the child is not virtuous and happy, it is his own fault. So God wills that all people should be saved. It would be in accordance with his benevolent nature. He has made ample provision for it. He uses all proper means to secure their salvation. He uses no positive means to prevent it, and if they are not saved it will be their own fault. For places in the New Testament where the word here translated "will" (θέλω thelō), means to desire or wish, see Luke 8:20; Luke 23:8; John 16:19; Galatians 4:20; Mark 7:24; 1 Corinthians 7:7; 1 Corinthians 11:3; 1 Corinthians 14:5; Matthew 15:28. This passage cannot mean, as many have supposed, that God wills that all kinds of people should be saved, or that some sinners of every rank and class may be saved, because:
(1) the natural and obvious interpretation of the language is opposed to such a sense. The language expresses the desire that "all men" should be saved, and we should not depart from the obvious sense of a passage unless necessity requires it.
read more: http://bible.cc/1_timothy/2-4.htm
Pharaoh hardened his heart...., hardened his heart...., hardened his heart...., hardened his heart....
God hardened Pharaoh's heart.
There appears to be a point of no return.
If God had the ability to save everyone by forcing them, ordaining them, whatever you want to call it because His grace is irresistible, then I can find no explanation in Scripture to indicate why He would not do it.
And the excuse that it brings glory to God to save some and not others, but rather to make them vessels of wrath to display His whatever, falls flat. God does not need to demonstrate anything to anyone to begin with, but even supposing that He did, He can demonstrate His justice by condemning the devil and his angels while demonstrating His mercy and grace by saving all of mankind.
There is some reason that we are not really privy to as to why God acts as He does. And neither extreme works, total free will as defined above and cannot exist, and God ordaining every move mankind makes which makes Him the author and practitioner of evil and sin. Both seem to be more of fitting God into some (dare I say it) preconceived notion of what someone wants God to be and finding Scripture to back it up.
Anyone can state that they know how God works and that God can only work thus and such a way all the time and it just raises red flags all over the place. NOBODY has got God figured out.
(1) the natural and obvious interpretation of the language is opposed to such a sense."
LOL! You said no playing word games? The, "...natural and obvious interpretation..." according to who? Barnes? You? Your crowd of "sick and twisted" Semi-Pelagians? Your college of Arminians?
Go read a Greek lexicon, not some off-breed Bible note. Unfortunately for the resistent, the "natural and obvious" sense of this is that God wants all kinds, some of all types, every kind of man saved. And that is exactly what He gets. Barnes rambles desparately trying to salvage its "free will" position, but cannot inculcate the comprehensive, clear statements of Paul included in Rom. 9.
"So then it does not depend upon the man who wills (chooses) or the man who runs (acts/behaves/performs) but upon God. who has mercy...So then He has mercy on whom He desires and He hardens whom He desires."
And, of course, Paul knows the audience will recoil in shock, "You will say to me then, 'Why does He still find fault? For who can resist His will?'"
Answer, nobody...and that is what mankind must deal with. We are the clay, He is the potter. Get over it, says Paul. But, evidently even that will occur only if God permits a person to get over it.
Luke 5:11 And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed him.
>>Those who are drawn and decide to reject believing<<
Matthew 19:16 And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? 17 And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. 18 He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, 19 Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 20 The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet? 21 Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. 22 But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.
Romans 1:28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
>>Those who are not drawn<<
Revelation 16:5 And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus. 6 For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.
Romans 9:17 For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. 18 Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
I would like to see a scripture reference to anyone being “dragged kicking and screaming to salvation”.
You stated : “Lam. 3:37-38 - Everything which happens is from God (good & evil).” [post 53]
You can sort that out with God on your own.
Oh, by the way. I was using the Greek Lexicon in my reply to you.
Yet, even with the Matt. passage we see incorrect hermeneutics used by associating this with "salvation". This passage is not about the New Covenant inaugurated in His blood (the cross). It does, however, tell part of the story on the way to the New Covenant.
Notice, Jesus is speaking to the Jews and calling the man to obey the "10 commandments" (the centerpiece of the Mosaic Law). The man's response is, "Hey, I've done all that." (But, we know he has not done it as it was meant. Peter notes this in Acts 15. "No one has done the Law.")
So, Jesus turns up the heat. "Well, go do this to gain salvation..." [Now, hopefully, you don't actually teach that men can gain salvation from their actions do you? Do you think the New Covenant begins at Matt.?] Thus, this cannot be Gospel of Grace, yet. But here we finally get the real Jewish man. Too much is demanded. He cannot/will not/does not do what Jesus asks. No one does.
Keep reading, however, and we find the disciples are stunned by this dilemma. After further questioning and finding out that passing a camel through a needle is easier than getting a rich man to heaven, the men blurt out, "Who then can be saved?" Now, we are getting somewhere...
"Jesus looked at them (intently) and said, 'What is impossible with man, is possible with God.'"
What man cannot do for Himself, God can do. We find out further...He does. The New Covenant in His blood.
Jer. 31:31 "This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put my Laws upon their heart, and on their mind I will write them. And no man will say to his brother, know God, for all shall know Him. And their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more." And, where there is forgiveness of sins, there is no other sacrifice possible. (Heb. 9 & 10).
The Apostle Paul does appear to have been knocked down, blinded, and forced to listen.
As God said about healing Paul’s blindness, “Acts 9:15 But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel.”
All that is fine and good but does not support hyper Calvinism.
Paul.
and add to that list
Me.
and possibly
Harley
xzins.
But I will let them speak for themselves. :-)
God dragged me kicking and screaming to the foot of the cross. It was there he changed my heart and I stopped kicking and screaming and started running and jumping and praising God.
I'm sure a lot of Christians have had that experience.
How did you end up getting saved? Were you part of the All Volunteer Salvation enlistment force? Or were you drafted, like I was?
BTW when the bible uses the term that Jesus will "Draw" the implication is that it is an involuntary movement by force. The Greek word translated “draw” is helkuo which means “to drag”.
I'm sure there are some for whom the conversion experience was not quite as dramatic, but in order to overcome our sin nature, Christ must literally drag us kicking and screaming to the foot of the cross.
It seems to me that to impose onto that account the statement “kicking and screaming” is a bit much. Many people are jolted with one form or another that causes them to face the choice. No where in that account does it indicate that Paul could not have refused to listen to Ananias.
Since today is the day we honor Blessed Saint Thomas Aquinas.
Here is a few great writings from Saint Thomas Aquinas...
That the Knowledge of God is not a Reasoned Knowledge
OUR thought is then reasoned, when we pass from one object of thought to another, as in making syllogisms from principles to conclusions. Reasoning or arguing does not consist in seeing how a conclusion follows from premises by inspection of both together. That is not argument, but judging of argument.* Now God does not think of one thing after another in any sort of succession, but of all things at once . His knowledge therefore is not reasoned or argumentative, although He knows the argument and reason of all things.
2. Every reasoner intues principles with one thought, and the conclusion with another. There would be no need to proceed to a conclusion from the consideration of premises, if the mere consideration of the premises at once laid the conclusion bare. But God knows all things by one act which is His essence . His knowledge therefore is not argumentative.
3. All argumentative knowledge has something of actuality and something of potentiality, for conclusions are potentially in premises. But in the divine mind potentiality has no place.
5. Things that are known naturally are known without reasoning, as appears in the case of first principles. But in God there can be no knowledge that is not natural, nay, essential: for His knowledge is His essence.
7. Only in its highest advance does the inferior touch upon the superior. But the highest advance of our knowledge is not reasoning, but intuition (intellectus), which is the starting-point of reasoning. God’s knowledge then is not ‘rational,’ in the sense of ‘argumentative,’ but intuitive only.*
8. Reasoning means a lack of intuition: the divine knowledge therefore is not reasoned.
If any should take it amiss that God cannot make a syllogism, let them mark that He has the knowledge how to make syllogisms as one judging of them, not as one arguing syllogistically.
To this there is witness of Holy Scripture in the text: All things are naked and open to his eyes (Heb. iv, i 3): whereas things that we know by reasoning are not of themselves naked and open to us, but are opened out and laid bare by reason.
That God Knows Individual Things
GOD knows things in so far as He is the cause of them. But the substantial effects of divine causation are individual things, universals not being substantial things, but having being only in individuals.
2. Since God’s cognitive act is His essence, He must know all that is in any way in His essence; and as this essence is the first and universal principle of being and the prime origin of all, it virtually contains in itself all things that in any way whatsoever have being.
5. In the gradation of faculties it is commonly found that the higher faculty extends to more terms, and yet is one; while the range of the lower faculty extends to fewer terms, and even over them it is multiplied, as we see in the case of imagination and sense, for the single power of the imagination extends to all that the five senses take cognisance of, and to more. But the cognitive faculty in God is higher than in man: whatever therefore man knows by the various faculties of understanding, imagination and sense, God is cognisant of by His one simple intuition. God therefore is apt to know the individual things that we grasp by sense and imagination.
6. The divine mind, unlike ours, does not gather its knowledge from things, but rather by its knowledge is the cause of things; and thus its knowledge of things is a practical knowledge. But practical knowledge is not perfect unless it descends to individual cases: for the end of practical knowledge is work, which is done on individuals.
9. As the Philosopher argues against Empedocles, God would be very wanting in wisdom, if He did not know individual instances, which even men know.
This truth is established also by the authority of Holy Scripture, for it is said: There is no creature invisible in his sight: also the contrary error is excluded by the text: Say not, I shall be hidden from God; and from the height of heaven who shall mind me? (Ecclus xvi, 16).
From what has been said it is evident how the objection to the contrary is inconclusive: for though the mental presentation whereby divine understanding understands is immaterial, it is still a type both of matter and form, as being the prime productive principle of both.
That God knows the Motions of the Will
GOD knows the thoughts of minds and the volitions of hearts in virtue of their cause, as He is Himself the universal principle of being. All that in any way is, is known by God in His knowledge of His own essence . Now there is a certain reality in the soul, and again a certain reality in things outside the soul. The reality in the soul is that which is in the will or thought. God knows all these varieties of reality.
3. As God by knowing His own being knows the being of everything, so by knowing His own act of understanding and will He knows every thought and volition.
5. God knows intelligent substances not less well than He knows or we know sensible substances, seeing that intelligent substances are more knowable, as being better actualised. This is confirmed by the testimony of Holy Scripture: — God searcher of hearts and reins (Ps. vii, 10): Hell and perdition are before the Lord: how much more the hearts of the sons of men? (Prov. xi, 11): He needed not that any one should bear testimony of what was in man: for he himself knew what was in man (John ii, 25).
The dominion of the will over its own acts, whereby it has it in its power to will and not to will, is inconsistent with will-force being determined to one fixed mode of action: it is inconsistent also with the violent interference of any external agency; but it is not inconsistent with the influence of that Higher Cause, from whence it is given to the will both to be and to act. And thus in the First Cause, that is, in God, there remains a causal influence over the motions of the will, such that, in knowing Himself, God is able to know these motions
He was not saved by Annanias. He was saved by Christ. (aren't we all)
On the Road to Damascus.
You are really pushing for the idea of an All Voluntary Salvation Enlistment Force, aren't you.
You refuse to acknowledge that even Paul was drafted into the Army of God.
So you would say that all of those you mentioned were saved against their will? I would suggest that many resist but with enough “dragging” or coaxing as it were they are brought to a place where God opens their heart but there as many examples of those who resisted to the point that God “gave them over to a reprobate mind”.
Since the will of the unregenerate man is to oppose God, and the only way to come to Christ is to have your will changed, then I would say YES they were all saved against their will. Once God changed their hearts, then they gleefully submitted their new will to Christ.
The question is are you saved because you choose to follow Christ, or do you choose to follow Christ because you are saved?
Ultimately that is the question.
Why did you choose to follow Christ?
You're referring to this question????...
2) Adam didn't have choice, God ordain.
Hint: Please note xzins correct description above in 474.
Well, I suppose that would depend on how you define “voluntary” wouldn’t it? Given that there were those who “resisted” and stayed with their sin so long that God gave them over “to a reprobate mind” and then there are some like the apostles who simply when asked “left there belongings and followed Him” on would have to decide what they understand is voluntary. Then we see those who believe that those who are saved are only those who were involuntarily enlisted without their consent or even knowledge it would seem.
>> You refuse to acknowledge that even Paul was drafted into the Army of God.<<
Drafted against his will, would you say? Or was he shown is such a dramatic fashion that he willingly accepted? Do you know of anyone who is today married to someone they didn’t like before going on their first date having been coerced by friends or family? Would you say they were drafted unwillingly into that marriage or simply drafted into entering a situation where their now spouse could reveal themselves which led to their opening their heart up to them.
Yes it is. And the answer would be that indeed it was Christ who changes the hearts so that man can accept Him. That however does not change the fact that there have been those who returned to their sin and fell away as those in the parable of the seeds. Some were planted, began to grow but withered away when things got tuff. Where would you put those people in the “predestination” have no choice category?
>>Why did you choose to follow Christ?<<
Joshua 24:15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.
Why? Because the alternative is not very attractive. God opened my eyes and my heart to enable me to accept Him. I praise Him daily for His love and grace. Why did you?
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