Posted on 07/22/2007 7:40:38 PM PDT by xzins
I'm not having it both ways. You are imposing a duty upon God that does not exist. When God creates a reprobate, where is God's duty to either save him or give him the means to save himself? There is no duty, but you guys tax God with it anyway. :) If God intends to use a reprobate and sin is involved, then all God has to do is leave him alone, and he will sin. That doesn't make God responsible. Only if God "owed" something to the person would He be responsible. None on your side have yet told me what God "owes" to all men.
Ah, but you may not be in concert with the Calvinists that have been populating this thread: the Holy Spirit comes upon men and then they believe and then the indwelling occurred. Come on, folks, what is it? Is the Holy Spirit first, or is the Belief first and the Holy Spirit second? I’m waiting on pins and needles.
I have been reading all the posts on this thread and I don't see any problem here. We believe that first Holy Spirit comes into the life of a lost elect and changes his nature, thus enabling him to believe. We might say that the Spirit "touched" the person, but He does not indwell as yet. Then, there is belief. Then, Holy Spirit indwells forever. I don't know if I misinterpreted what you meant by "received", but what I just wrote is pretty standard for our side I think.
If you make a quantitative statement about sin, I’d really like it if you have Scripture to back it up.
OK: :)
Rom 6:1-3 : 1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means ! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
How can we live in it any longer? We can't, so the regenerated heart will sin less.
Assuming you are talking about the Deutercanonicals, not really. I have been on FR for about two years now, and Apostolics have quoted thousands of scriptures to me. I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen a quote from the Deuts. I infer that I'm not missing much.
Man is born with the propensity to sin. No one is born "sinful." As adults, we can choose to sin or choose not to sin. No one is a slave to sin. We can become volunary slaves to righteousness by choosing God whose death on the Cross made that choice possible. But God does not choose for us.
By nature, mankind, after the age of reason, commits sin. Job did, yet in God's eyes he was "perfect." It is up to God to see us as we really are in our hearts, even though we all have sinned.
So, given this overwhelming evidence that man is a sinful creature, where do you think man will go if man does not repent?
But you will say that man cannot repent unless God gives him repentance, so it's not man who is repenting but a robot who is programmed to repent.
FK will have to reply in affirmative because that would be contrary to Calvinist double-predestination myth. It was Luther, after all, who said that we can commit thousands of fornications a day and not worry about them as long as we have accepted Chirst (don't worry be happy religion), because once you accept Christ your past, present and future sins have been atoned for. You are free to sin boldly; your debt is covered with the Blood of Chirst! It's like the story of the Prodigal Son who comes back not to repent and change his ways, but to ask for more money--because it was ordained for him from the beginnng--so he can continue to spend it on anything he wants.
Exactly! It's none of our doing on the one hand and all the blame is on us on the other. Schizophrenic.
No, our nature is still the same, and still drawn to sin. This is manifested by the fact that after Baptism we continue to sin. No one is made righteous and perfect (cf Heb 12:23); only in God's eyes, Who sees the intent of our hearts.
Your theory is that the replacement by the Holy Spirit is "incomplete" and there is a "remanant" of the old nature...it's up to us to work with God to live under grace and not in our nature.
God's sacrifice made it possible for all mankind to be saved. That's God's desire. The sactifice on the cross freed us from the dark pit of eternal darkness brought about by Adam's sin. He pulled us out. Now that we are free, we have a choice.
If we want to jump back into the pit by sinning, that's our decision. If we want to follow Him, that too is our decision.
Those who choose to follow Christ will be saved. He will lead them to salvation. Those who don't will end up in the same pit He pulled them out of.
Love must be free. Forced love is no love.
Very well said.
Show me where does Christ in the NT command that what He taught be written down so that we may believe.
He didn't. Because He was a Jew and He came neither to create a new religion, nor to ordain new Scripture. Nor did He ever command His disciples to preach and carry their ministry to the Gentiles! The Apostles decided to write the NT and to carry the Gospel to the Gentiles based on the fact that the Jews rejected Christ (cf Acts 13:46). Neither was Christ's teaching.
Time for some more Continuing Orthodox Education, FK. God is NOT the author of Death.
“This is evil: estrangement from God.” +Basil the Great, That God is Not the Cause of Evils,
“As many... as stand apart in their will from God, He brings upon them separation from Himself; and separation from God is death.” +Irenaeus Against Heresies 5. 27.2.
“Men, rejecting eternal things and through the counsel of the devil turning toward the things of corruption, became the cause to themselves of the corruption in death.” +Athanasius the Great On the Incarnation.
“For as much as he departed from life, just so much did he draw nearer to death. For life is God; deprivation of life is death. So Adam was the author of death to himself through his departure from God.” +Basil the Great.
The danger of the theology your are espousing is that it quite literally makes God the author/cause of evil. The fact that Death had a salutary effect after the Fall in that it prevented the multiplication of sun completely unchecked does not change this.
Indeed, Jo, the Bible is full of the message that God came to save the world (all), but all will not be saved because mankind loves wickedness more than God. Our choice.
Just as it is the choice of the Reformers to ignore all those parts of the Bible you posted, so they can hold on to their heresy.
Mankind can be saved only through love for God, not by some hocu pocus magic. Those who have no love for God will not come to Him. Love cannot be forced.
It is God's desire (becase He so loveth the world) that all men be saved. It is not His will; it is His desire. I think there is a world of difference there. He offerend salvation to all. His saving grace is for anyone who is willing to follow Him. It is not pre-prgammed "love" or some brain-washing tractor beam attached to the foreheads of the "elect."
He calls us and we have to come to Him on our own. His sacrifice made that choice possible.
FK, the sacrifice is done by Christ. It is a gift. You don't understand the Divine Liturgy (Holy Mass).
I said I would be nice. I will leave it at that.
“God is not responsible for everything.”
WCF:
CHAP. III. - Of God’s Eternal Decree.
1. God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass
Calvin diagrees with you, my friend.
If the belief comes first, then the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, then how does that occur under Reformed theology? I thought that Reformed folks believed that the Holy Spirit hijacked the individual, then the belief occurred.
So we come to the issue of authority.
I find it very interesting that Protestants don’t seem to quibble about the Bible that they use - I know that some cling to whichever version of the King James that they happen to prefer, but they seem in the minority - and don’t really enquire as to the authority of the words and the interpretation that comes from it.
As we know, words mean something. Not you, but several others here are very apt to take phrases within verses as support of their positions; it is very important to understand the words and their positions within the phrases, the verses, and the overall book. I find the NAB to be rather pedestrian, however, I think that it is the best effort to date to translate the original text and intent of the written words that we have into the English of this era.
You may not use the gender-neutral Bibles that seem to be all the rage today, but under what authority do you reject them? How do you know? Is it the Gnostic in you (say ahhhhh and I’ll look for him)? How in the world can you say that this Bible is good and that Bible is bad without the authority of God’s own Catholic Church telling you?
A person who is born again IN FACT, CANNOT fall away permanently. Aside from ourselves, none of us can know who is born again in fact. I have been perfectly consistent with this. The “certitude of salvation” is exclusive to the individual.
How do you know that a born again / elect / believer / whatever cannot fall away permanently?
The “certitude of salvation” is a creation of the Gnostics which predated Christ, by the way.
The prodigal son does include ideas of redemption, but notice there is no Jesus character in the parable at all. How could it be about salvation as you see it?
Ideas? Jesus talked to the crowds about ideas? He lectured and taught the crowds with ideas? I presume that you mean ideas unconnected with His other teachings.
Odd, isn’t it?
On the other hand, if you would consider that Jesus actually meant something important by it (I guess that we Catholics often mistake the Words of Jesus to be of utmost importance, by Reformed standards anyway) then we need to take it into account when trying to believe in Christ’s teachings.
By “ordain” I mean “that which is set into God’s plan”. Many times, our sin DOES fit into God’s plan so it is ordained.
Many times? Either God foreordains everything or He does not.
The Bible is correct because God ordained that God’s Church would and did accept it. There may be minor variations in different translations, but I’ve never come across anything earth shattering. The essence is still there in most major translations. But if you are talking about such things as the Mormon Bible, then it is wrong because God’s Church did not accept it.
What are the standards that you use to judge the Bible by?
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