It appears you are saying that God makes His "choice" of the elect simultaneously with the elects' choices of Him. If it truly is simultaneous AND God does not cause it, then our God is the luckiest God ever, isn't He? He guessed right every single time.
People choose hell over heaven all the time. By choosing your will over God's will, you are choosing an eternal life without God - hell. Some people prefer life without God.
Again, only those without full information. You say that God loves those from whom He withholds this information (grace). This doesn't make sense.
God is involved in every decision. He doesn't "stand out of the way". We are saying that we do not make decisions ALONE, and we are also saying that God does not overpower our choice to choose.
How does God "involve Himself" in a man's decision to go to Hell? No man would choose Hell with full information. God has full information and the authority to bestow it on anyone He loves. Why does God give it to some and not to others?
FK: "We say our salvation is complete from the beginning of time from God's point of view."
How can you know God's point of view on this issue???
The Bible tells us plainly and without need of any lens:
Eph. 1:4-6 : 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
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FK: "The sinner's prayer just helps us to know it too."
Your own story proves that false, at least absolute assurance.
That depends on your definition of "absolute assurance", which, as of the post I am responding to, you still have not given me.
The "sinner's prayer" is not an objective point that ensures our salvation from that time - since you have said that it might be required to say it again.
I never said that a member of the elect ever needs to say it again. I honestly don't know if it happens that a true member of the elect, predestined by God from before time, ever says the sinner's prayer falsely at first, and then repeats it later so it "counts". I don't really see that it makes any difference. If someone is of the elect, he WILL say some equivalent of the prayer and it WILL count. God has ordained it already.
[Protestantism's theology] ... is really double-talk. "I know I am saved when I say the sinner's prayer" --- "unless I fall away in the future, then I was never saved to begin with". See the theological gymnastics required? Logically speaking, one cannot know they are saved, because nothing guarantees you will die in Christ in the future.
There are no gymnastics. I didn't set it up, but that's how God's promises work. The elect are saved, they can KNOW they are saved, and they can KNOW that they cannot be snatched out of God's hands. God does guarantee that the elect will die in Christ. That's what the unfiltered Bible says.
Paul presumes that those Christians he write to will CONTINUE walking the walk.
Really? I didn't know that. Well, I guess that's proof positive that Paul was a Calvinist! :)
This is a misunderstanding of the word "saved". Saved means to heal. Are you saying that a person who is healed from a sickness was not really healed the first time if he gets sick again? Why is it so difficult to see that a person can be healed of sickness, get sick later and require the healing touch again??? Isn't it clear from life that this is how things work?
"Saved" ALSO means to heal. You left out other, perhaps more prominent definitions. Here is something from a website called "Truth or Tradition?" :
"The Greek word translated “salvation” (soteria) denotes “deliverance and preservation” (Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words); “Safety, preservation from danger or destruction. It is contrasted with death (2 Cor. 7:10) and destruction (Phil. 1:28)” (E.W. Bullinger A Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New Testament). It also means “wholeness” or “health.” Fundamentally, we are saved from two things: sin and death. We are saved from sin and death by justification and the corresponding gift of everlasting life."
"Therefore we define “salvation” as a state of being saved, rescued or delivered from something that threatens death or destruction, that is, being brought to a place of safety. The Hebrew word for “salvation” also means a place of safety (yasha). Logically, if we are still in jeopardy of somehow losing this salvation, we are not in a very “safe” place."
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FK: "Christ paid for all the sins of His elect, past, present, and future."
Again, another shortcoming in this theology...Christ paid for all sins. Not just the elect ...
Once again, 'Yes', the payment Christ made was sufficient to pay for the sins of all mankind, even if God had willed that all would go to Heaven. But since not all go to Heaven, then it really only matters to the elect. That's all I'm saying in the above comment.
Clearly, misinterpreting the Scriptures can lead to some faulty theology.
On that, you and I could not possibly agree more! :)
God Bless.
Still having a problem placing God within time, aren't you! God doesn't "guess"! Think about this. God sees the first day of creation and the last day of the earth's existence as it is as one NOW. So how can God guess anything? He sees your decisions yesterday, today, and tommorrow all at once. He saw this before your birth, and He saw this in 2050.
Again, only those without full information. You say that God loves those from whom He withholds this information (grace). This doesn't make sense.
God gives everyone enough information to be saved or choose the good that they read in their hearts.
How does God "involve Himself" in a man's decision to go to Hell? No man would choose Hell with full information.
Some people do NOT want to love, to serve. Some people do NOT desire to love. What sort of heaven would it be to force someone who doesn't want to love or be loved into the eternal presence of LOVE itself? So God gives them what they want - a "place" where He is not.
Eph. 1:4-6 : 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
Is it your opinion that Paul is including ALL Christians, all who have spoken on a Sunday afternoon the "sinner's prayer"?
That depends on your definition of "absolute assurance", which, as of the post I am responding to, you still have not given me.
Nothing sinister here. Absolute assurance means that there is absolutely no chance of you falling away. We just don't have that level of knowledge. That is why we have hope.
If someone is of the elect, he WILL say some equivalent of the prayer and it WILL count. God has ordained it already.
Over and over, I have said "we don't know absolutely that we are of the elect". What evidence do you have that a person can say, without any possibility of being wrong, that they are of the elect? If you have nothing to respond with, then there is no point in claiming that you have absolute assurance. If you can ever potentially claim that a Christian's sinner's prayer was ineffective and didn't save, then there is NO ABSOLUTE ASSURANCE. How much clearer can I be? If you don't know your sinner's prayer took, where is the absolute assurance?
There are no gymnastics. (regarding the Sinner's Prayer and absolute assurance of being of the elect} I didn't set it up, but that's how God's promises work.
Sorry, you'll have to do something other than assert that you are irrefutably part of the elect without any sort of evidence or proof. God's promises are for those who follow Him, not for those who make a one-time claim and then next month do something totally against God's ways.
Paul presumes that those Christians he write to will CONTINUE walking the walk.
The word "presumes" means that he understands that they as a COMMUNITY will continue - but he realizes that some WITHIN the community will not. We will know who is of the community of the elect by one's CONTINUED walk. As long as we pick up our cross and follow our Lord, we are of the elect (from our point of view). But if we drop the cross and go of and do OUR will and not God's will, are we STILL of the elect? Who can know if it was God's foreknowledge that one would fall away?
"Saved" ALSO means to heal. You left out other, perhaps more prominent definitions. Here is something from a website called "Truth or Tradition?"
Nothing in there suggests permanancy. The word 'saved' does not preclude the necessity of being saved again...
Once again, 'Yes', the payment Christ made was sufficient to pay for the sins of all mankind, even if God had willed that all would go to Heaven. But since not all go to Heaven, then it really only matters to the elect. That's all I'm saying in the above comment.
No, your statement "Christ paid for all the sins of His elect, past, present, and future." only implies that Christ went to the cross ONLY for the elect. This is against the Scriptures. Christ died for all men - but some CHOOSE not to accept this gift. See the tagline below.
Regards