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To: GiovannaNicoletta; HarleyD
"Would God condemn men to everlasting torment for a decision that He made for them?"

That statement can only come from a person with a horrible understanding of God and zero understanding of the Gospel. Since the Fall, all men, without exception, are wicked from the womb (Ps 58;3), hating God, loving Sin, unwilling and unable to seek or even please God and incapable of understanding the Scriptures (1 Cor 2:14) because their minds are blinded by both Satan and God.

Thus everyone deserves Hell and without God's personal and specific intervention, would surely be condemned, not only by Adam's sin, but by each man's own sin. There isn't a decision about it. The default state of man is condemnation. There isn't a limbo where God sits around and waits for a "decision" to accept or reject and then, and only then sends man to heaven or hell based on that decision. Hell is what every single person deserves, decision or not. For you to not even see this foundational truth means that you are alien to the Gospel for you don't even understand why man is condemned or why he needs a savior.

What does the word "whoever" mean there?

You are asking the wrong question. The question is "why would anyone believe"? 1 Corinthians 2:14 says that you hate the Gospel and consider it foolish - fully incapable of understanding the Gospel. Now if you hate the Gospel, don't understand it, and consider it foolish, exactly what is it that you are believing in? Logically you can't embrace and have faith in that which you don't understand and despise. Yet here you claim that any belief or faith is sufficient to obligate God into saving you.

How is the above verse reconciled with the Calvinist belief that God creates some people for the express purpose of going to hell, and those people, contrary to Scripture like what is posted above, have no choice in accepting or rejecting Christ?

First of all, it isn't just a "Calvinist belief" it is plainly taught by Isaiah (29:16), Jeremiah (18) and Paul (Ro 9:14-20). What I find interesting is that you acknowledge fully that your interpretation is hostile to other passages in Scripture. You admit that your free will interpretation contradicts the Potter and Clay picture of God and mankind - yet you are not only comfortable with creating a contradiction, but you despise those who have reconciled these passages and remain faithful to the Doctrines of Grace.

Jesus told the Pharisees in John 10:26 that they can't believe BECAUSE they are not His sheep. We are told in the Scriptures that God is the one that dispenses faith to His elect (Ro 12:3) We are told that the world has been made blind to the Gospel. (Isa 6:10; John 12:40; 2 Cor 3:14; 4:4)

You boast that people are naturally knowledgeable about the Gospel but somehow you have completely missed John's teaching of the blinding in his Gospel (12:37-41) where he quotes from the prophet Isaiah "He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them..

When you make it policy and template of yours to reject in totality the Bible's teaching of man's spiritual death and inability, then you will come to this foolishness of natural man having a complete and saving knowledge of Christ and the only thing left is to make a "choice".

What does the word "world" mean? Does that refer to the entire globe, or just a select few whom God has picked out?

That is truly a sophism. Later on in John's Gospel (15:18-19) he writes that the "world hates you and has hated Me" and "they were chosen out of this world". Can you harmonize those passages with that insipid definition of "world" that you hold? Of course not. You must define "world" differently to fit your anthropocentric soteriology. It has been explained to you countless times that "the world" is meant "out of every tribe and nation" (Rv 5:9; Acts 10:35; Col 1:6), so it must be willful ignorance for you to act as if we have no answer.

My guess is that you have never been taught proper theology and this explains why you don't understand nor accept the Gospel. There is still time. HarleyD is a good teacher.

236 posted on 08/28/2011 9:22:28 PM PDT by The Theophilus (Obama's Key to win 2012: Ban Haloperidol)
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To: The Theophilus
you don't understand

Reading the mind of another Freeper is a form of "making it personal."

Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.

238 posted on 08/28/2011 9:38:28 PM PDT by Religion Moderator
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