[Dionysiusdecordealcis]

The only fit response to your continual changing of the parameters is silence. You have no logic, you do not know how to read, you do not know how to conduct an argument, you do not know how even to repeat accurately the argument you claim to disagree with.

You have a lot of gall. You have yet to respond coherently to me. You have never engaged my arguments but merely made lateral moves.

Don't give me any of this "your silence is deafening" business.

When you respond to my original point coherently I'll respond to your last piece of incoherence.

[HarleyD]

Dion -

You (Harley) wrote: "1)Faith is a gift of God. 2)Not all men have faith. 3)Therefore God doesn't give faith to all men. Augustine saw this clear logic. Cyprian taught it to Augustine. Even I understand it. But understanding and wisdom are also gifts from God."

My (Dion) comment: I'd be cautious with claiming logic for your position, dear HarleyD. The very nature of a gift is that it can be refused. You left out the fourth point: God can give a gift but a gift is not truly a gift until a recipient accepts it. If someone forces something on you it ceases to be a gift. If the Bible truly means "gift" then it has to mean a refusable offer.

My point about faith has nothing at all to do with God's gift as much as it does with the nature of faith. That is why you will not be able to answer my question; "Do you receive faith before or after you believe?". We can’t have faith in God before believing in Him simply because faith is a gift from God. Therefore we must have faith in God and then believe on Him which means God gives us this gift unasked for simply because we don't have faith up unto this point. If we then have this gift of faith we will believe.

You feel that a "gift is not a gift unless people can freely accept it". I've pointed out illustrations in scripture where this is not the case. God gives everyone the gift of life and substains us each day and not one of us ever asked to be born. If you had to "freely accept" everything that God gave you, you would be a very busy person.

Once we have faith we don't lose it simply because the nature of faith is precisely what it states: faith. If you "cease" having faith then you couldn't have had it to begin with. You will always be faithful (relatively speaking) simply because you have the gift of faith.

It's like intelligence. If God has given someone intelligence why would they want to refuse that intelligence? It goes against the very nature of the thing they now have.