Posted on 02/25/2002 11:01:41 PM PST by fortheDeclaration
Have the Arminians a one-sentence objection to the Doctrine of Total Depravity?
Yes. We would rewrite it as follows:
Total Depravity means that Natural Man is totally sinful AND HE CAN ONLY ever WANT in his own spirit to know Christ DUE TO GOD'S foreplanned divine intervention and preceding divine grace.
We object because calvinists leave out prevenient grace and the remaining vestiges of God's image. We've discussed this before. My saying this isn't a surprise to you is it?
AGAIN, YOU HAVE MY RESPONSE. That was the condition you set forward as to your assistance in editing the calvinistic tulip definitions. Will you or won't you honor your word?
These definitions are all either offered by calvinists on this thread or are condensations of definitions on this site recommended by JerryM: Calvinist Tulip Definition Site recommended by Jerry
T - - Total Depravity means that Natural Man is totally sinful and does not ever WANT in his own spirit to know Christ.
U - - Unconditional Election means that God has elected for His own glory, in accordance with His own will and without regard for the merit of those elected, some for salvation and some to be left in their sins.
L - - Limited Atonement means that Christ died specifically and only for the sins of those who would ever truly believe in Him.
I - - Irresistible Grace means that the elect are incapable of resisting the Holy Spirit's inward call to repentance and salvation.
P - - Perseverance of the Saints means that all those who are truly saved will certainly be brought to heaven and to glorification and will never be lost.
These Arminian definitions are found in the Wycliffe Dictionary of Theology and are condensed in that work by a Calvinist, Roger Nicole(Gordon Divinity School). I will take some liberties with them for the sake of clarification. They are the views of Jacob Hermann (Armin) a former student of Calvin who came to doubt Calvin's theology.
1. - - God elects only on the basis of foreseen faith and condemns only on the basis of resistance to grace.
2. - - Christ provided a universal opportunity by dying for all men and for every man such that ALL those who turn to him as true repentant believers are saved.
3. - - Man is so depraved that foreplanned divine intervention and preceding divine grace are necessary to bring about faith or any good deed.
4. - - According to the foreplanning of God, man was created with the ability to resist Divine Grace.
5. - - It is not certain that all who are truly regenerate will necessarily persevere in the faith.
See I hapen to thing the two answers are connected:>)
See ya after work Shadow ...
That said, we now acknowledge that Scripture NEVER states that "those who die in infancy are elect", or that "Infants are innocent".
And I asked you this last night and I'm still waiting. My question precedes yours. WHERE IS MY SCRIPTURE?
Ahem:
That said, we now acknowledge that Scripture NEVER states that "those who die in infancy are elect", or that "Infants are innocent".
You "LIE" ABOUT THE WORDS OF JESUS according to your definition of lie. (In my definition, you simply have a faulty interpretation, but then again, Arminians believe in exercising grace not just talking about it.)
Nope. I never lied.
I never claimed that Jesus "declared all who die in infancy are elect". Why? 'Cause he never did say these words.
You, however, did claim that Jesus "declared infants are innocent", despite the fact that Jesus never once said these words.
You knew that Jesus never once said these words... and yet, you lied.
About the very Words of the Son, you lied.
To protect your religious "beliefs" from the hard truths of the Bible, you lied.
Hmmmmmmmm........
A late bump to Jerry so he can stay with the discussion..Hey X don't you have to write a sermon......we could help you..What say you OP..got any reform topics ??*grin*
X could you give me scripitual references for Prevenient Grace? ( I think reform folks would call this common grace) and if you have an opportunity I had asked for scripture references from Wesleyan doctrine that original sin is not "activated" untill the child sins
Now to this post..Your dismissal of total depravity on the basis of grace does not really address the issue though..What is mans spirital condition as he enters the world?
Hmmm...
So let me get this straight:
If I understand your "objection" in the light of Proverbs 21:1, it becomes "false".
Why is that? Do you "object" to my reading your "objection" in the light of Proverbs 21:1? I mean, your theology IS able to include Proverbs 21:1, ISN'T IT??
And if we DO include Proverbs 21:1, we see that you still have not offered an objection to the Calvinist Doctrine of Total Depravity:
I'm sorry, but that's a very Calvinist statement. Did you have an objection to the Calvinist Doctrine of Total Depravity, perchance? Any?
OrthodoxPresbyetrian,
This is a honest question regarding the Calvinist view of Total Depravity. If man is totally sinful and never wants to know Christ, is he then totally evil, vile, corrupt (insert really bad adjectives here) - then does that put unregenerated man on the level with Satan and his minions?
If not, why not, and
If so, could they be redeemed, even if we "know" they won't?
This isn't a set up. I have no snappy retort (or unsnappy retort for that matter), but if we retain none of the image of God, and no ability to choose other than evil, would this then put us on that level?
Winston what makes one will to come to Christ and not another?
Two different questions.
First, You have narrowly construed Jesus' comment about causing others to sin, choosing to limit it to causing "a child" to sin. That may not be justified and in any event misses the import of the warning.
Of the three synoptics, only Matthew (whose arrangement of gospel materials is often not chronological) mentions the account in the context of a disussion of a child. Mark places it after a discussion of non-followers casting out demons in Jesus' name and Luke places in the context of a discussion of causes of sin. As I mentioned in the earlier post, Matthew and Mark recount the statement as applying to those who cause those "who believe in me", while Luke does not add that qualification.
Both the express qualification (those "who believe in me") of Matthew and Mark and the context of Mark and Luke suggest that the reference to "little ones" was not to children but to guileless, childlike believers -- perhaps those young in the faith and thus most prone to damage. [As I have previously expressed to you privately, that is the only reason I spend the time to rebut the Calvinist construct here whenever I do. The minds of the Calvinist defenders of the construct are well-closed and double-locked with pride, but I worry of the non-believers and the young believers in Christ reading their nonsense and perhaps, thereby, being deterred from following or continuing to follow Christ because of their hurtful arguments.]
But the more important lesson here is that one person can be a cause of another's sinning. In an age which was prone to ascribe all bad things to "demons" and "spirits", Christ gives a stern warning: we can cause evil results in others' lives.
But your question presumes that we are free to legalistically restrict the warning to its narrowest possible application, i.e. that our actions can cause others to sin, but not sufficient sin to cause them to withdraw from following Christ. Yet there is no textual support for such a restriction.
Ans since sin (willful violation of known moral law) and salvation (the gift of God resulting from a (willful and ongoing) belief in Jesus Christ) reflect the basic nature of our relationship to God, there is no reason to apply a limitation on human capacity to cause evil -- or upon Christ's warning to us about its consequences.
Moreover, I think it is dangerous (and only concurrent with the beliefs of our legalistic Calvinist brethren) to limit every injunction of Christ to the express terms of the example given on the premise that "if He had intended to apply the injunction to other circumstances, He would have given us those." Without trying to be pejorative, that was one of the modes of reasoning of the Pharisees: that which is not express forbidden is permissive.
So, the precise answer to your first question is "no", there is no reason to believe that Christ had to provide all possible applications of the injunction to beware of "interferring" with the Christian life of others.
As to the second question of "what makes (sic) one will to come to Christ and not another?", your questions presumes a "compelled" will (a distinctly Calvinist fallacy) and is therefore self-contradictory as phrased. One can only be said to exercise a "will" if it is free of compulsion.
But the resulting question, "why does one, in the exercise of free will, choose Christ and another, in the exercise of a similarly free will, does not?", is, in my view, unaswerable from the human perspective.
Certainly, we can discuss the "pleasures of sin", the almost gravitational 'attraction' which we feel toward sin, which the Bible tells us is somehow the result of the fall of Adam. But how it actually works, and the nature and quantum of 'pull' it exerts, is so essentially of the nature of God's omnisicience that we cannot (and frankly need not) know.
We do know, however, that God is not arbitrary or unfair and that He provides "sufficient" grace (going-before or pre-venient grace) to insure that all have the capability to choose belief in Christ. [Of course, the provision of that pre-venient grace assures that we have no reason for pride or self-satisfaction that we have 'achieved' anything of our own strnegth.] And yet because God loves us so much He sent His Son to die for (all of) us, He desires that we will to believe in His Son. That decision makes all the difference. And, should we choose not to believe in Christ (call it the world, sin, whatever you like) no one is responsible for our fate but us.
Having said that, all the fooolish claims of some on these threads that "only they" know "how" we come to believe, etc, is just so much prideful preening that they can recite some construct of a long dead writer. It has, of course, the same kind of appeal as the 'secret lodge' with the 'secret handshake' and the 'secret password.' It is a nature human condition to want to assert our superiority over our fellow men because we "know" something they don't know. But, of course, just making such foolish claims doesn't make it so.
Paul had to wean the Ephesians of their deisre to parade their "knowledge" of the "mysteries" of the pagan mystery religions. The appeal of such "only my group knows the true secret" didn't start with the Calvinists or the pre-trib rapturites. It is as old as human nature -- indeed as old as sin.
What sin has your infant committed?
Changed a diaper recently? ;-)
If you believe as I do in sola scriptura ..we have to look to see how God sees us
Rom 1:21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified [him] not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
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;
29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
Romans 3 10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
13 Their throat [is] an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps [is] under their lips:
14 Whose mouth [is] full of cursing and bitterness:
15 Their feet [are] swift to shed blood:
16 Destruction and misery [are] in their ways:
17 And the way of peace have they not known:
18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.
This sounds like evil to me!
But does that put unregenerate man on the level with Satan and his minions? or is there a distinction?
I have a great sermon line on that
When showing the humanity of Christ a Priest noted that those were not roses in Jesus's diaper :>)
The meaning of the passage is not fully caught unless one does as Jesus does: assume an innocency about Jesus. Therefore, the word becomes "symbol."
Other words conjure up images in the bible as well: "dogs" for example, symbolize "the unworthy" and "the outcast." Even Jesus uses it in this way. "It's not proper to take the children's food and give it to dogs." Here we have both the "helplessness" symbology accompanying the "unworthy" symbology.
Jesus specifically indicates that he personally rejects the "unworthy" symbology. He assists the Syrian woman.
He again affirms the "helpless" and "innocent" symbology of the word "children," by again allowing it to stand....as he does in all instances that I can remember where the word is used.
Yeah, that reality does sort of fly in the face of the Sunday School image of Jesus always dressed in white walking around holding a lamb all the time!
If we se ourselves in relationship to God then there is no goodness in us at all.
So then what does that list compare us too? We really do "look " like our father the devil.....I do believe that without Gods grace ..we can not ever look like anything but Satan. When we are saved we put on Christ..He is our righteousness
See I hapen to thing the two answers are connected:>)
OK, then--I'll answer, then expect your answer.
I realize the error of my ways, I am sincerely sorry that I have done wrong--not just got caught, but that I have committed the sin. I beg forgiveness from God and accept that He will be ruler over my life.
How does an infant perform these steps?
Yes, evil but not robotic. Don't miss that it is culpable evil. What the defenders of the construct forget is that it is our will which makes us culpable. If those Paul describes in Romans 1 and 3 had no will to will to commit the acts he describes, he might as well have written about trees that did not grow straight or crippled people who refused to walk straight. The difference -- and it is all the difference -- is that those Paul describes (in describing the unregenerate state, by the way) willed to do the things they did. I won't bore you by counting them, but notice the number of active verbs -- they 'professed,' they 'exchanged,' they 'burned.' In short, they did willful things and that is why they were culpable.
The construct folks paint a play-acting world where nothing is real -- no salvation, no real sin, no will, no culpable acts. Just a bunch of moral cripples who can't walk straight -- because they were made that way -- but God made them and then decided to kick them down the celestial stairs. [One of the things that makes it fun to be a playwright is that you know the whole story -- because you made it up.]
No, Paul rails against the sins of those he describes, precisely because their sin was willful. And, of course, when he turns to that part of his message, so was their opportunity for salvation in Christ.
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