Posted on 02/18/2002 8:54:15 PM PST by rwfromkansas
Ah, but if rwfromkansas is correct, then your post is easy to account for.
(My point is that rwkansas is correct. You manifestly don't know the God of the Bible. Moreover, you don't want to know Him. You've admitted this.)
Oh, really? Explain Satan. Did God pre-ordain his enemy?
However, I am a Christian. I am interested in what God has to say and using logic to UNDERSTAND SCRIPTURE....NOT REPLACE IT.
If I may presume to speak for my brother rwfromkansas, your false notion concerning the nature of man's will is what he is attacking. Gosh, Jim, what you have postulated as free will in an unregenerate sinner doesn't exist anywhere in the universe.
Man has the same free will as God has. But our holy God can't embrace a Lie. In the same way, an unholy sinner cannot embrace the Truth.
(See 1 Corinthians 2:14 for one of the best statements of the Calvinistic position.)
One who is elect cannot change his status as elect, regardless of how one lives one's life.
Any other answer other than "true" or "false" will be scored as "false".
Thanks in advance.
Thanks for answering succinctly - I always see people on these threads running around in circles trying to deal with that issue.
If you are reprobate religionist, you will try to get to heaven by "how you live your life."
You will be justly damned for that presumption, of course.
What if the religionist reprobate in your example is elect?
As for logic vs the Bible, to the non-believer logic trumps the Bible. The believer uses logic but starts from an assumption that the Bible contains the Word of God and thus limits logic: Reason is subservient to Divine Revelation. The non-believer does not accept that premise. The argument will quickly devolve into a debate about the authority of Scripture.
Yes, these posts quickly become polemics and opportunities to hurl contumelies. The very first response the original poster received was someone telling him that his God was a demon. I agree that we should keep our dialogue respectful, but that goes both ways. Deliberate misrepresentations of each other's positions does not add to the debate.
As for why Calvinists hang out at freerepublic.com, my guess is that it's because there is a long tradition of industrious free enterprise among Calvinists. The term 'Puritan work ethic' is sometimes used to describe this correlation.
Jeremy the law was given to us so we could see what sinners we are...God knew that we could never keep it perfectly .It was intended to show us that we are sinners in need of a Savior.Any man that believes that he can restain himself and some how earn the approval of God by his "obedience "to the law makes the word of God a lie. for it tells us two very important things
Isaiah 64:6 All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
Romans 3: 3:10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: 3:11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. 3:12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
John 1
17 For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
Galatians 3
19 Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.
If men are " trying " to earn heaven by their own righteousness they are deceived. Gods regenerating grace changes the heart of man..a heart of flesh instead of a heat of stone..a will to seek Him and love him and honor Him. The desire of your heart is changed by Gods grace. It is that grace that keeps you and preserves you .
As St. Paul says
Romans 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Personally I've never truly understood all the hoopla around free will and predestination myself. If I witness to someone and they choose to accept the Gospel of Christ down the line, was I destined to witness or not and were they destined to accept or not? Never really did care. I was carrying on the commission as the Bible teaches us to do, so what does it matter one way or another if it was predestined
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