It's that NEARLY that makes the difference and places you under #4 (Resistable grace) on the Arminian scale in post 3086. You would say that God leads all men to salvation and then what??? They can choose to reject Him???
This is not what Augustine argued who felt man's will is bound in sin, incapable of doing good. Once the Son sets us free, we can do good. Under your soteriology God shines His light and gives His grace and then what??? We make some kind of "intellectual" decision to go to heaven?
Wow, we are on topic of this thread. How about that?
LOL!!! It only took us 3,000 posts! :O)
Jo, we are never without God unless we choose to be! God is inscribed in every man's heart and has the potential to be saved. God is always knocking on our doors, just as the sun is always shining upon all. We choose to see or we choose to close our eyes and pretend it's not there.
Without God no one gets saved, not even Calvinsits :)
HD You would say that God leads all men to salvation and then what??? They can choose to reject Him???
Yes! And we do all the time. You conclude -- as in the case regarding Judas' lack of repentance -- that our will is not truly free because our choices must conform with "God's will." There are two inherent problems with this thinking.
The first problem is confusing free will with goodness. Augustine tied our will to sin and all those who subscribe to that doctrine (by their own choice, because Augustine was but a mere mortal and what he says is not gospel) must follow logically the same line of reasoning -- namely that we are incapable of repentance unless God grants us repentance.
But, the truth is, God already granted us that ability! He gave Adam every opportunity to repent! At any point, humanity was always free to choose God, and still is.
If we are free, then we are free to choose what comes our way, and that does not determine how Christ-like or how satanic our choices are. To simply say that people who have compassion and who help others but are not religious or are not Christian have no goodness in them is a lie. God is present in everyone's heart. That makes each and every one of us capable of goodness if we choose God to lead us.
This brings up to the second problem: God's sovereignty. Calvinist constantly harp on the theme that anything that is not in God's will is not possible because some (especially Calvinists) deny the it is God's will that we are free to choose.
Instead, you always paint yourself into the same dead-end corner that everything we do, say, act, etc. must conform to God's will -- which is true, of course -- except that your definition of God's will is not.
If God willed us to be free, then making free choices is following God's will. Not making free choices isn't. How good or how bad those choices will be will depend on whether we choose God's goodness and try to follow in Christ's steps or whether we give in to sin; whether we love God or whether we love sin.
Yep. Here is an example of men rejecting the Will of God...
"Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these sayings, that He departed from Galilee and came to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them there. The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?" And He answered and said to them, "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate." They said to Him, "Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?" He said to them, "Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. Mat 19:1-8
It is God's WILL that men and women do not divorce. It was God's intent that men do NOT issue a bill of divorce. Jesus corrects the Pharisees. It is God's Will STILL that men and women do not divorce. Yet, Protestants and non-Christians continue to divorce. They continue to reject God's WRITTEN WILL!
How is it possible that men can do something that is not God's Will? Apparently, God gives men freedom to sin or not to sin, to accept Him or reject Him.
Under your soteriology God shines His light and gives His grace and then what??? We make some kind of "intellectual" decision to go to heaven?
I have come to the conclusion that intelligence has nothing to do with choosing the good over the evil that lays before us. Men can chose or reject God, no matter how smart they are. The decision to reject God is no different then Adam's decision to reject God in the Garden of Eden (for the regenerated). As to the wicked, they will not choose God to inherit heaven. The fruit that will present itself depends on the seed and the soil, God and the man.
Regards