Posted on 02/06/2025 5:31:38 PM PST by OneVike
Bring what on?
Lots of words, very little scripture. Happy for you that you’re satisfied.
When the author starts out with a blatant falsehood in the very first sentence, it's a handy clue that reading the rest of the article is a waste of time.
Catholica do not believe free will is heresy.
If free will is heresy, then God is forcing us to sin?
They teach what Augustine taught
Who does?
Bump for later
“the Church has always held to the doctrine of total inability.”
I have studied church history and doctrine extensively. I have taught year-long Sunday School classes on the subject from a basically Baptist position. BTW: I was on a team of four missionaries who travelled to Guatemala to teach Nazarene pastors how to preach. An online group of pastors from Ecuador asked us to repeat the four days of training online TWICE! I have never seen this doctrine expressed ANYWHERE in Protestant or Roman Catholic sources!
I thought same exact thing.
As far as this argument, in all honesty it’s pretty illogical. We are all descended from Adam and Eve who lost their ability to be “good”. Mankind has been forever cursed and born into sin by sinful parents. We are wholly unable to be “good” ourselves. Only God is good.
Catholic church. Calvin, Luther, all adhere to the same teaching of original sin, which leads to election.
The Council of Trent defined original sin as “the death of the soul.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church reaffirmed this definition (403) and added a key nuance: original sin is called sin “only in an analogical sense: it is a sin ‘contracted’ and not ‘committed’—a state and not an act”
Another way to look at it… Adam & Eve lost what they could not regain; kinship with God. They knew no other Father than God. In their free will—there can be no love outside of free will—they failed and broke this bond.
God didn’t abandon them but pronounced the Protoevangelium and set about salvation history… restoring humanity to communion with Him. Step by step and covenant by covenant, He drew humanity to Himself in a process of unveiling and revelation.
*****
9What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin;
10as it is written, “THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE;
11THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD;
12ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.”
Romans 3:9-12
Exactly, many fail to realize that Augustine agreed with the Gnostics that man’s nature was sinful and corrupt and that man did not have a free will, but he said that God made it that way on account of Adam’s sin. While the Gnostics said that flesh was sinful and therefore Christ did not have a flesh, Augustine said that concupiscence in the flesh was sinful and that this sin was hereditary or transmitted from parent to child through the physical passions of intercourse, but that Jesus avoided this hereditary sin by being conceived without physical passion and being born of a virgin. Therefore, Augustine agreed with the Gnostics in principle, but he differed from them in explanation. In this way, Augustinian theology was a modified Manichaeism or a semi-Gnosticism. Consider the following facts:
The first and loud response to the idea of Calvinism is:
THAT’S NOT FAIR!!! Don’t I get a say in my salvation? Don’t I get a choice?
Every believing Calvinist has said that including me. Then the thinking and Bible reading begins.
Another way of saying it is, “Did God choose you or did you choose God?”
If you do the choosing, your salvation depends on how you feel that day or what you ate for supper last night. If you have the power to choose, you ALSO have the power to unchoose. You cannot have assurance of salvation if you do the choosing.
If God chose you it is a lock. His word is good.
Personally, I am glad God does the choosing. Being honest with myself, I know I would never choose God.
He does things at His great pleasure.
thx for the post. lots of interesting new terminology for me.
for me, freewill (limited by circumstance and physics of course), was/is obvious from my own personal experience and experience of others around me, including close observation of pets and animals. reading the Bible simply confirmed men and women everywhere acting on their freewill, i.e., their moral agency. e.g., Pharaoh deciding against himself and everything he thought he knew to let go of the Jews, then God hardening his heart to get them back. just the fact that people change their minds, change course, is prima facie evidence of freewill.
that someone could convince themselves that freewill doesn’t exist is stunning to me personally. it bespeaks of a great amount of self delusion, imho.
Dittos
Yep....that's the common response isn't it?
Yet, when one reads Romans 3 one quickly realizes that no....we don't even want the choice.....and that's what we don't realize.
Agreed.
Why did Christ have to die if all that is needed is to make a good choice?
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