• AMR's Randomata Blog •

We are just not as free as we tend to think we are. So when "free will" is bandied about, persons need to carefully define what that really means to one another before the conversation can even proceed.

The Reformed view of free will is that all men possess the liberty of spontaneity, the self-determined freedom to choose according to one's greatest inclinations at the moment they choose, and that man's choices are always in keeping with man's nature.

Reformed...

AMR

At the moment of our justification there is the view that our sanctification is definitive, that is the procuring cause of our sanctification is by Christ's work, never to be repeated. This however does not mean we are actually made spotless in God's eyes such that no sin in us is seen by God. While we are accepted as righteous in God's view upon justification, we are certainly not viewed as possessing Christ's perfect holiness. We must always view justification as dealing with the penalty...

AMR

Herman Bavinck, John Bolt and John Vriend, Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 3: Sin and Salvation in Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), writes:

• Sanctification is as much a benefit of Christ as justification. Inasmuch as the good works in which believers must walk are prepared by God in Christ [Eph. 2:10], faith cannot stop at the forgiveness of sins but reaches out to the perfection that is in Christ, seeks to confirm itself from works as from its own fruits, girds itself with courage

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AMR

It matters not whether we speak of sinners or saints on the matter of concurrence, for the term means: "...the cooperation of the divine power with all subordinate powers, according to the pre-established laws of their operation, causing them to act and to act precisely as they do." (Src: Berkhof, Systematic Theology) Berkhof goes on to warn against the following...

AMR

Truth is what God knows, as all truth is God's truth, since God is the metaphysical foundation of all that is true. Hence, truth should equal, represent, and match the way things really are, that is, reality.

Reality is the way things really are, independent of human subjective experience and man-made conventions. This reality does not rule out the need for subjective application of truth in one's life. In other words, truth is discovered, not invented.

I am not implying...

AMR