To: Mr Rogers; HarleyD; CynicalBear; GiovannaNicoletta; OKSooner; aruanan; smvoice
>>Where does faith come from? From us.<<
So you did it on your own did you! Well, how magnanimous of you. Im sure you feel very superior to those who dont have faith. Will you also gloat when you get to heaven?
To: CynicalBear; Mr Rogers; HarleyD; GiovannaNicoletta; OKSooner; smvoice
>>Where does faith come from? From us.<<
So you did it on your own did you! Well, how magnanimous of you. Im sure you feel very superior to those who dont have faith. Will you also gloat when you get to heaven?
You do know, don't you, that according to Calvin (and many of the leading Calvinists) people are regenerated prior to "having" faith? That faith is a marker of regeneration, not the way into the relationship through which regeneration occurs. As far as sense of superiority and gloating over having received the "gift of faith," I've seen far more of it in Calvinists than in others (an extreme version of it on display in Fred Phelps and company).
And, for that matter, that which is fundamental to faith is in the heart of every human being and it works out in one of two different ways: either throwing oneself down before God or turning away to one's own devices (and this is how the relationship of man to God has been characterized by God throughout the Old Testament and with special distinction in his covenant with Israel after departing Egypt). Consequences follow either way. It is something that has been inherent in our nature since creation. It was manifest in our first parents prior to the Fall. Though Eve was snookered, Adam deliberately turned away. So we're saved by grace through faith and have no reason to boast. Who can boast about having anything special when everyone else in the world is similarly equipped?
Turning one way, it's called faith or belief; the other way, disbelief. Those who are not Calvinists claim that the turning toward or away from God is the seat of man's moral nature and the basis for moral responsibility. For a fallen man, turning back to God, acknowledging his moral responsibility for his fallen state, doesn't undo the effects of his sins or eliminate the guilt of his sins or effect regeneration and his transformation into something else--all that is the overwhelming wealth of God's grace entered into freely through faith; even the liberty from the bondage of sin to make the choice is part of that grace. Calvinism posits that the appearance of turning toward or turning away is simply appearance and is nothing more or less than an exigency imposed externally by God. There is no good news in that nor is there any liberty (Luke 4:18), just one color of determinism changed into another. In other words, it is a way of denying moral responsibility and laying the entire onus on God himself. And how faithless is that?
245 posted on
08/29/2011 4:44:05 AM PDT by
aruanan
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