Posted on 08/13/2003 6:04:31 PM PDT by OrthodoxPresbyterian
nobdysfool - Funny you should ask that. In reality, I have no absolute control over my life, because God is sovereign over all. Since He has chosen to shed His Grace on me, I am no longer resisting that control in any great way, and the areas where I find that I am, he and I deal with it. But regardless of whether I cooperate or not, God is still in complete control. You see, it does not matter whether I resist or not. His will is being done in my life either way. My will is now to do His Will.
ctd - ***Funny that you answered a question I did not ask. The question was concerning total control, not absolute control***
Please define the difference for me between total and absolute control. Your question was actually taking a swipe at my salvation. I chose to ignore that and make a statement of my condition before God, and the rest that I have in trusting in His Sovereign control over my life. That more than answered your question. You just didn't like the answer because you can't negate it, or speak against it in any way. If I have yielded my life to Christ, does it make a difference whether I have submitted to His Total or His Absolute control? That was your question.
You have no understanding of Total Depravity, or you would not make such an absolutely assinine and idiotic statement implying that Calvinists are not regenerate. I am beginning to have clear reason to question whether or not you're in need of the Saviour. I would prefer to give you the benefit of the doubt, but more remarks like this will give me pause to re-consider.
Acted passively? Isn't that an oxymoron?
You and others are misconstuing what I have said. I never said that there was the possibility of God the Father and God the Son rejecting each other. After all, doesn't the Bible say if you have seen me, you have seen the father?
Waht I did say is that God loves all men and desires that all men be saved and because God loves man, he sent his Son to die on the cross. I said that a person can choose to reject/spurn the love offered by God by rejecting the Gospel message. Gos does not force anyone to love God and accept his free offer of salvation. This is similar to a person who loves someone else and in doing so takes the risk that the object of ones love might not return it.
Are you and the others so dense you cannot see this?
This attitude illustrates the major problem with many Calvinists. They take scripture that is clear on its face and then start 'taking it one step further', and then one more step after another. Pretty soon you wind up with a perversion of the Gospel.
You just did this yourself. You left out the words 'possibility of' in front of the word 'rejection'. Another poster claimed I said that Jesus could reject the Love of the Father when I said no such thing. I actually said that man can reject the love of God. The fact that God loves man does not mean that all men will respond by returning the love shown by God.
Only a hyper Calvinist is capable of such faulty reasoning that would even embarass a Mormon.
No; it isn't. Decided not to act is an action, moron!
I see you admit it wasn't a quote. Now would you please be honest enough to cite the quotes which served as the premises for this alleged 'logical conclusion'. Please keep in mind that logic based on misconstructions of even true premises does not result in a correct or true conclusion.
Your ability to reason logically is severely limited if your comments are a fair example.
Didn't you read the post that once a man becomes a Christian, he is no longer totally depraved and that he can then choose whether or not to obey God. My question is if this is the case, how is it that the Calvinist can then continue with the claim that God predestined/foreordained all sins? Can it be that man has no free will prior to salvation, but then has one after salvation?
The problem with hyper Calvinists is that they so misapply and twist scripture that they cannot come up with simple answers to very basic questions. The Gospel really isn't all that complicated.
As you can see, they now must resort to luing and misconstruing statement make, though they couch their statements as be 'logical conclusions' even though their conlusions require them to insert words into or out of what I axctually stated. Not very honest if you ask me, but what else do they have available when they blindly attempt to maintain a theology that is in disrepair.
Typical statement of a hyper Calvinist.
Logic derives conclusions from provable premises. If A ~ B, and B ~ C, then it follows that C ~ A, and that A,B, and C are all equivalent to each other. Your premises must be correct to arrive at a correct conclusion. If one or more of your premises are wrong, then the conclusion cannot be said to be true.
Having said that, the logical extensions of statements you made were based on the logic contained within the statements you made. They may have stated things you didn't intend to say, but that is not because their logic was faulty, it was because yours was. Your original statements contained logical fallacies which you may not have intended, but were there nonetheless. One of those is that "God loves all men" when it is clearly stated "Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated". One could argue that this refers to nations, and not individuals, but nations are composed of people, so it doesn't answer the argument. At best, you exchange the statement that God hated one particular individual for a statement which, in effect, says God hates an entire nation of individuals. That actually compounds the problem, it doesn't solve it.
It is our contention that Arminianism is full of logical inconsistencies, and logical and doctrinal fallacies which we are attempting to address, but meeting with resistance from people like you, who, while claiming to love the truth, will not listen to anyone who challenges your view.
Did Doug pee in your cheerios again? :o)
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