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To: Kolokotronis
Scripture teaches us about God and ourselves. Sin reminds us of how far God brought us from. It gives us the humbling knowledge of how WHOLLY UNWORTHY of God's grace we are. It destroys the pride which says that we can do it in any respect on our own.

As to the early church not teaching this that you have read, I would submit the apostolicity of the doctrines. The Orthodox and Catholics repeatedly push the idea of what the early church taught -- while subverting the views of the EARLIEST church as inspired by the Holy Spirit. Predestination is a Scriptural Teaching. John Crystostom's views do not TRUMP Scripture. And, in spite of the assertion that it wasn't taught, such an assertion can not be sustained when exposed under the light of Scripture. With that said, Augustine's views, while imperfect, were nevertheless Predestinarian and had more in common with Paul's teaching (and the Reformers) than not. He saw even the beginning of the faith which saves as a gift of God and believed that God would give His saints the gift of perseverance to the end. These views were most fully developed late in his life, and I would not make the claim that He was a Predestinarian in the Calvinist sense; nevertheless, He was heading that direction. That some were predestined and others were not and that such was completely at God's initiative was very apparent in his writings. Augustine didn't pull this out of the air. He pulled it from the teachings of Paul and Peter. He pulled it from the teachings of Christ. So, where Chrysostom aligns with Scripture, he is found to be quite instructional. Where he does not (which predestination is one area where I believe he and the Orthodox/Catholics go astray) he is to be rejected.
10,034 posted on 02/10/2007 6:06:10 PM PST by Blogger
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To: Blogger

"Scripture teaches us about God and ourselves. Sin reminds us of how far God brought us from. It gives us the humbling knowledge of how WHOLLY UNWORTHY of God's grace we are. It destroys the pride which says that we can do it in any respect on our own."

That doesn't cut it in your theology. Its meaningless. If the elect are predestined for santification from before all time, if they are so firmly in God's hand that there's no way out, why would any of the elect care about sin, unworthiness, etc? Conversely, why would the damned "give a damn"? They're toast, burned toast, anyway.

I understand that one would argue that election means that one will care about sin, unworthiness, pride or do good works, but absolutely none of that leads to election to the ranks of the sanctified. That's predestined from before all time. And since free will plays no part in any of this, there's no response to God's grace on the part of a person, then there is no conformance to God's rules which in any way stems from the study of scripture. And, as I have said, the damned can do anything they want, try anything they want, but they are doomed, so clearly there's nothing in the bible for them except true predictions of their own eternal torment because they didn't make the cut.

So again, what's the point of having the scriptures in your system?


10,035 posted on 02/10/2007 6:24:57 PM PST by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!)
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