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To: Forest Keeper; kosta50
Any time I say that we have free will concerning salvation, I mean it is meaningful because we experience "normal" free will. It is fully real for us, regardless of what is going on behind the scenes in God's reality.

There's always hindsight, we never are totally aware of all factors and motivations. But if you're saying we can't trust our experience, that it's not real, but an illusion..

Then I can just as validly say: "Actually, FK, you experience your free will now as an illusion, as God's will, but that's just your 'experience' of it." And, of course we can't place any reality in that.

It might as well all be a dream.

Your position fails in a performance contradiction: Your experience proves you can't trust your experience.

5,264 posted on 09/03/2007 9:46:32 AM PDT by D-fendr
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To: D-fendr; Forest Keeper; blue-duncan; Alamo-Girl; wmfights; P-Marlowe; irishtenor; xzins
It might as well all be a dream.

Ah, but it is "all a dream," everything in life making up the thoughts and purpose of God alone.

"Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:

Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.

For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that." -- James 4:13-15

For those who remain condemned of their sins, their lives are evidence of God's perfect judgment.

For those who have been acquitted of their sins by Christ on the cross, their lives are evidence of God's merciful, unmerited grace. And those men live in and by and through the spiritual world, by the will of God.

"For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.

Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.

For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ." -- 1 Corinthians 2:11-16

Do you have the mind of Christ, D-fendr?

5,288 posted on 09/03/2007 12:07:04 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg ("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
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To: D-fendr; kosta50; Dr. Eckleburg
But if you're saying we can't trust our experience, that it's not real, but an illusion... Then I can just as validly say: "Actually, FK, you experience your free will now as an illusion, as God's will, but that's just your 'experience' of it." And, of course we can't place any reality in that. It might as well all be a dream.

If the only reality for you is God's reality, then you are indeed living in a "dream" (as you say). Do you really think you understand God's reality? Do you think that what is real for God is explainable to your mind? What you are doing is compartmentalizing God's reality into human reality so that you can understand it all. I don't want to ruin the ending for you, but you're not the first to try, and the results have always been the same. :).

God gave us the reality He wishes us to experience here on earth. Intermixed with this are SOME Heavenly/spiritual truths, but not all of them. We should be thankful for what He HAS given us, which is, EVERYTHING we need to know.

The parent-child analogy is useful here. With our small children, all of us parents have created specific realities for our children, such as "helping" with a project. The child really believes he has been a great help in the accomplishment, yet the truth is ...... Is this a horrible thing? Is the parent guilty of lying and cheating the little one? No, of course not. It is done out of love and it is a good thing. For the child it is real enough and he actually enjoys the real benefits of the experience (for real). It is the same with God and us.

Your position fails in a performance contradiction: Your experience proves you can't trust your experience.

I do not require God's omniscience to have faith in and appreciate what God has made real for me. God's reality is not my reality.

5,435 posted on 09/05/2007 5:45:21 AM PDT by Forest Keeper (It is a joy to me to know that God had my number, before He created numbers.)
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