"I see no evidence in the Word that faith and repentance are gifts from God."

[spiritual warrior]

The Apostles had no qualms about thanking God for the faith of Christians , why would they thank God for the faith of Christians if faith didn't come from God ? (again the Arminian view fails)

I Thess 2

[13] For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.

Your question fails because it is misplaced. He is not thanking God for faith, he is thanking God that the hearers received the Word of God AS the Word of God...NOT the words of men.

The Apostle here is thanking God , why ? "because " the preaching of the Gospel was made by God effective , these believers accepted the word of God IN FAITH , and the reason we thank God for the faith of believers is because God has everything to do with it !

No, that is not why he was thanking God. The reason he was thanking God is explained to you above.

If God merely presented the opportunity for faith then the results cannot be traced back to God and thanksgiving would be vain , empty , feigned Praise .

This is not even logical...

2Thes.1

[1] Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
[2] Grace unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
[3] We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly,

again , The Apostle looks in thanks to the source* and grower of men's faith , The Lord , if not Him then fake Praise is being rendered. Such Praise would be nothing but a sham.

You aren't even in the ballpark here...and your logic is lost. God does not grow men's faith, that is utter nonsense. Your faith grows as you walk with God and experience Him, whereas if all you do is post on boards like this, and do nothing for God, your "faith" slowly ebbs away into nothingness.

Faith is a choice, and whether you like it or not, that is the fact. What you are spreading is not accurate, you make all that happens to us totally, 100% God's doing, and that is NOT scriptural.

*Heb 12

[2] Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith;

Yes, the author and finisher of the system of faith called Christianity. You are twisting scripture again to mean something that it does not.

 

[spiritual warrior]

What we have seen is very cursory, surface readings of select scriptures, taken out of context, and an ignorance of language idioms, leading to misinterpretations of what is said. We have also seen a very militant unwillingness to be corrected, . . . ones attempting to offer correction.

Careful...this very same thing can be said of the calvinistic side of the board as well.

The thing that gets me the most, as I have stated before, is that there seems to be very few on these boards who are here to actually see if they can learn anything. Most come here only to say "you are wrong, and I am right"...and when I am not careful, I have also fallen into this trap.

It is very apparent here that no one will change no one else's mind on anything because no one wants to be shown anything...it is a waste of time being here.

 

[spiritual warrior]

My few posts to you have resulted in you not being able to decide what those scriptures I posted mean !

So , uncertainty of what texts mean verses Calvinist certainty .... you get my drift ?

You haven't got any strong arguments for why Calvinism is wrong apart from you feel it is based upon your own logic based upon your own uncertainty of the meaning of relevant texts ...

Perhaps, but I have shown you the many errors of what you choose to espouse...the out of context passages, the twisting of the meanings of the passage, just in today's answerings that I gave you, you have done this several times. That is fine...but you had better make sure that your bias and pride isn't in the way of you seeing truth, because we are all going to be held accountable for the false things we teach to others, which is why James uttered his warning...


James 3:1-2
My brothers, let not many become teachers, knowing that we shall receive greater judgment. For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a mature man, able also to bridle the whole body.

 

[Terene]

Anyone with Calvinistic beliefs whom deny human responsibility are in error. From such errors have come beliefs denying the need to evangelize to the lost. Such an error makes prayer pointless. Have you read the section in the Westminster Confession of Faith On Free Will?

Of Free Will

I. God has endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that is neither forced, nor, by any absolute necessity of nature, determined good, or evil.

II. Man, in his state of innocency, had freedom, and power to will and to do that which was good and well pleasing to God;but yet, mutably, so that he might fall from it.

III. Man, by his fall into a state of sin, has wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation: so as, a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.

IV. When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, He frees him from his natural bondage under sin; and, by His grace alone, enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good; yet so, as that by reason of his remaining corruption, he does not perfectly, or only, will that which is good, but does also will that which is evil.

V. The will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to do good alone in the state of glory only.

Good to hear from you. Thanks for pointing me to the Westminster Confession, let me go through one point by one point.

I. I believe God has given us a conscience to determine good and evil, not the will. As we can see, Adam and Eve were created with free will, that is liberty of will to choose good or evil (spiritually).

II. Yes, that's how God designed man. We do have the liberty of will to choose good or evil and act upon them. But as to the fall, does it mean the corruption of the will? I believe otherwise. First, I do not see anything in the Word that points to the corruption of the will after Adam and Eve's offense. Second, Abel, who was born AFTER Adam and Eve sinned, did have the liberty of will to worship God and offer sacrifices pleasing to Him. Abel was not corrupted in his will in any sense, he still could choose spiritual good, even though he was born after the Fall. Abel did have faith in God, but his brother Cain did not. This alone should tell us that man is still able to choose spiritual good despite the Fall, whether this ability is from God or not I don't know, but the ability to choose spiritual good was always there, even after the Fall.

III. Abel proves this wrong, and so does people like Noah, Abraham and many patriaches who were all born AFTER the Fall. None of them were born with a corrupted will, neither did their lives show us that their will is corrupted. The idea about inherited sin is false. Abel did not inherit his parents' sin and thus he was still able to respond to God in faith. Neither did Noah, Abraham or anyone inherit the offense of Adam and Eve.

IV. Bondage of sin comes when one yields himself to obey sin. Paul demonstrated this clearly in Romans 6:16. No one is born a slave to sin, we only become slaves when we persistently yield to sin and entangle ourselves in them. Again, there is no indication anywhere in the Word that says our will is corrupted. We are all born free, but as we willfully yield to sin, we slowly become its slave. It is not a matter of corruption of will, but rather, it is yielding our will to accept sin as natural by constantly sinning against our consciences.

V. The will has always been free, and never was in any way corrupted.

Presbyterians (such as I) affirm the WCF, and it states plainly, "by His grace alone, enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good" qualifications notwithstanding. Presbyterians are indeed Calvinists, so I do believe you have some facts wrong somewhere in your thinking concerning Calvinism. Please do not impose a philosophical fatalism upon Calvinism which is clearly not there.

Yes, free will to choose and do spiritual good is given to us by God, and has never in any way be thwarted by the sin of Adam and Eve. Abel, Abraham and Noah all demonstrate this fact clearly to us by their faith in God. I believe I did not misunderstand Calvinism, since many posters here have shown to me what Calvinism teaches. I have also shown why Calvinism is wrong and in error, and I did so after considering what people are telling me about it.

In philosophical terms, historical Calvinism's view of the Sovereignty of God and the responsibility of human beings in terms of the will, is called compatibilism. I first learned about this middle view between libertarian free will and determinism through Calvinist Matt Slick's site. Here is how Matt states it:

"Within Christian theology, compatibilist free will is the philosophical position which states that a person who is a sinner and an unbeliever is not capable by an act of his or her free will to choose to receive Christ as Savior. Compatibilism states that the biblical revelation restricts a non-saved person from being able to freely choose to receive Christ of his own free will, because his free will is enslaved to sin (Romans 6:14-20) and is incapable of understanding and receiving spiritual things (1 Cor. 2:14).

Thanks for that source. The error I see in this philosophy is that it views the sinner as being unable to exercise free will when the truth is, the sinner does not have the necessary conditions to exercise his free will. What I mean is, as a sinner and unbeliever in Christ, he/she cannot believe in Christ unless he/she first hears the Gospel. Without the knowledge of the Gospel being preached to this sinner, it is natural that he/she has no opportunity to exercise his/her free will to believe the Gospel. But having no opportunity to choose the spiritual good does not imply any inability to choose spiritual good. Just because a sinner has not believed in the Gospel because he/she did not hear it yet does not mean the sinner cannot believe in the Gospel. The conclusion is fallacious in this sense because it mistakenly associates a lack of circumstances for free will to be exercised to a lack of ability.

Romans 6:14-20 proves exactly that we are free (or have the liberty of will) to yield ourselves to sin OR righteousness. Gentiles will naturally choose to yield themselves to sin, because first, they do not have the knowledge of God, second, the world they live in is full of sin and lawlessness. But that does not mean they did not possess free will to choose righteousness. Cornelius, for instance, lived as a Gentile, but yet he feared God and chose righteousness. It is the knowledge of God that gave Cornelius the opportunity to choose a life of righteousness, and he did. Does the will become enslaved to sin? I would rather say that the will becomes more accepting of sin as it yields itself to sin more and more.

1 Corinthians 2:14 only says that we are unable to understand spiritual things, but it does not say we cannot have liberty to choose righteousness. Spiritual things are the things of God, and yes, we need the Holy Spirit to understand. But once we understand, it is still within our power (or the power given to us by God) to actively accept the truth or reject it. God does not force anyone of us to accept His truth.

Libertarian free will
Free will is affected by human nature but retains ability to choose contrary to fallen nature and desires

Compatibilist free will
Free will is affected by human nature but person cannot choose contrary to the fallen nature and desires

Logically, someone could not make a choice contrary to his own nature. Furthermore, a person cannot make a choice if a person is not aware of the options. First of all, a person must be made aware of the concept or idea before a choice can be made. However, the Scriptures do declare that the unbeliever is a slave of sin and cannot receive spiritual things. Therefore, compatibilist free will is the biblical position." - Matt Slick owner of CARM (he also has a messageboard)

Much needs to be said about what the fallen nature consists of. While it is true that the flesh has the law of sin in it, it is equally true that God has given us a conscience to distinguish between good and evil. If our fallen nature is such, then we are equally able to choose good and evil.

Moreover, God has given men an ability to know Him and His righteousness, and thus they (even with their fallen nature) are without excuse for not wanting to know Him and obey His righteous decrees. Paul wrote it out clearly in Romans 1. As much as sin abounds and is able to bring men into bondage, grace of God abounds even more to save men from its bondage. So logically, men have much more on their side to be free from sin than to be under its bondage. So despite having a fallen nature, men have so much grace from God that if they were to use this grace, they could well escape the enslavement of sin and choose spiritual good. So in the logical sense, men are not unable to choose spiritual good (since God has given them abounding grace), but they refuse to, and they refuse to with their free will in assent.

Now, there is yet another aspect of Calvinism which has a role in the discussion of "free will" and that is what is in theological terminology is called "common grace". Without going into great detail, because of common grace, (part of which is being made in the image of God) the unregenerate can within their nature will to do good, at least in man's eyes, however there is a catch, nothing they do can please God, because they lack saving faith in Christ. As such their good works are dead because they are spiritually dead. It is also because of common grace, the law of God written on the hearts of men that evil is restrained, and the unregenerate sinner though evil and corrupt, is not utterly corrupt, nor as evil as they could be. On that note, "total depravity" is somewhat of a misleading phrase, but it is properly defined from a compatibilist perspective of the will, the type of compatibilism we find in Scripture.

Finally, I see someone who does acknowledge that God has given grace to ALL and does enable them to will to do good in their nature, despite them being unregenerate. I do hope to illustrate two groups of the unregenerate who does good:

1) A group of unregenerates who do good but denies God and Christ
2) A group of unregenerates who do good because they fear God

You are right that those in group 1 cannot please God, because they do not believe in Him and His Christ. But it is a different case for those who are in group 2. Cornelius, for instance, never heard about the Gospel, but yet he believed and feared God and he led a life in the fear of the Lord. God was well pleased with him and even sent him a vision to show how his family will be saved. I have been told that Cornelius was already regenerated even before he heard the Gospel, but we know all very well that this could not happen. It is in the Name of Jesus that we believe and receive the Holy Spirit and become regenerated, so how can a man like Cornelius be regenerated when he hasn't even heard about Christ?

All these proves that there is no such thing as "total depravity", and what Calvinism asserts under this title is wholly in error and contrary to the Word.

So, on doing good, we should make a Creator-creation distinction, that is, how "good" is defined by God per Bible, and how "good" is defined by man per self. From the biblical perspective concerning good works, as the Apostle Paul say's "for whatever is not from faith is sin." And as the author of Hebrews say's "But without faith it is impossible to please Him." So, while we might see non-Christians performing "good" works by human standards, they are considered sin to God and they cannot please Him. I recommend reading the section in WCF on good works. I know these truths are difficult to accept, but they are taught from Scripture, and we should accept all of the teachings of Scripture as if we heard them from the mouth of God Himself. As the popular contemporary Christian music artist Rich Mullins sang in the song "Creed", "I did not make it, no it is making me, it is the very truth of God and not the invention of any man." May we humble ourselves before God and be open to learning by the Spirit of truth, His truth preserved for us in Scripture. Oh God please have mercy on us, by your grace, give us understanding, that we may give you all the glory, you so deserve, amen.

I agree with what you said that unless good works are done in faith, it is sin. I agree with that totally, because that's what the Word teaches. But do you not realise that even those who do not know the Gospel can also have faith in God? Mark what Paul wrote here:

For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. (Romans 2)

Yes, even the unregenerate Gentiles can indeed do by NATURE the things that the law requires, and though they have no knowledge of the law, yet they are a law to themselves by what they DO. The law of God is but in essence to love Him and to love our neighbors, and those who obey God and fear Him already fulfill the law, even if they are unregenerate.

May our God bless you much!

 

[cygnusx1]

Your question fails because it is misplaced. He is not thanking God for faith, he is thanking God that the hearers received the Word of God AS the Word of God...NOT the words of men.

and you don't recognise this as saving faith ?

and you don't see God's hand in it ?

The Apostle is thanking God for the response (faith) of the Christians to the Gospel .

 

[cygnusx1]

You are misinterpreting what I said. I did not say that all men have faith, I said that God has delivered the common faith (the system of belief - Christianity) to the availability of all men. In other words, the faith that leads us to God is made known to man...it is available to all men...in that regards, it is common - being available to all men.

it is not the common faith , neither is it the availability of faith that is given .

millions have never even heard of Christ throughout history.

strange how a gift always reduces to mere availability in these forums

 

[cygnusx1]

Heb 12

[2] Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith;

clearly faith is sourced by Christ . Faith comes (arrives) by the word of God .

 

[cygnusx1]

On the contrary, I have not heard ANY reasoning on YOUR side to refute what I daringly argued with my reasoning and understanding. I am still waiting, and seeing no reasoning from you only affirms that I have spoken what is plainly true and obvious.

really ? go back to the last interaction , you admitted not even being sure what those scriptures meant , BUT YOU WERE SURE IT COULDN'T BE ANYTHING LIKE CALVINISM .

I call that prejudice .

 

[Terene]

14And he called the people to him again and said to them, "Hear me, all of you, and understand: 15 There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him." 17And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18And he said to them, "Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, 19since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?" ( Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20And he said, "What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person." Mark 7

7What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet." 8But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. 13Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. 14For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. Rom 7

1There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.[a] 2For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin,[c] he condemned sin in the flesh, 4in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. Rom 8

The Lord tells us in Mark 7 what defiles a man, and He mentioned a few things that can come out of the heart that are evil. But there is nothing in the Word that tells us about "total depravity", and how far corrupted we are in terms of our will, desires and inclination BECAUSE of the Fall. In fact, the Word did not mention anything about the will being corrupted by the Fall itself. It is no doubt that our flesh is corrupted by the Fall, but how far (to what extent) are we corrupted by the Fall of Adam and Eve? The Word has not told us that clearly, has it? If not, isn't Calvinism making a great and dangerous leap trying to invent a doctrine called "total depravity"?

Romans 7 describes a situation when one is under the bondage of sin. But mark what Paul writes:

For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

Paul did have the desire (will) to do what is right, and that desire (will) was present even under the bondage of sin. So isn't it clear that the will is in no way corrupted by sin?

How does Romans 8 tell us the extent of our corruption caused by the Fall? It only say those minds that are set on the flesh cannot and will not submit to God. The mind in itself can submit to God, but when it decides to set itself on the things of the flesh, it chooses not to submit to God and naturally, it loses the chance to submit to God and therefore cannot submit.

Oh, it keeps going. Isaiah 59 comes to mind. Romans 1-3 -- from which you quote shortly a couple of verses.


Actually, any theology that doesn't sufficiently account for these passages -- that indeed asserts they don't exist -- is more liable to error than one that accounts for them.

I am talking about the Fall itself, and its effects on us, not the effects of sin. Sin came into the world through the Fall, but how far the Fall affected us is not known. Isaiah 59 and Romans 1-3 talks about the SIN of mankind which came after the Fall, not the effects of the Fall itself. Sin has been in this world since the Fall, but the Fall only happened in Adam and Eve's time. There is a failure on your part to distinguish between the two, because the effects of the fall is wholly DIFFERENT from the effects of sin.

I did not neglect those verses, but none of those verses prove anything about what you said.

And quite clearly Paul points out that those without law perish without law. It's only the law come to them "by the Spirit" (2:29) that is actually worth praise.

No. He didn't. Just read him: "9What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 10as it is written ..." Rom 3:9-10

Paul has said no such thing. Paul has merely pointed out that Gentiles with the law written on their hearts are capable of such judgments -- and who writes it there? God does. "... circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God." Rom 2:29

I plainly said what Paul wrote in Romans 2:14-15 and you say he did not write what he wrote? I did not even try to paraphrase much of what Paul wrote, I only added the words "unregenerate" and "can", and the rest I pretty much copied what Paul already wrote. Yet you deny that Paul wrote it in that way?

I did not imply at all that Jews and Gentiles are not under sin, all I said was that unregenerate sinners are ABLE to do the law of God because God does write His law upon their hearts. What you try to say here is totally irrelevant and off course to the points of discussion.

First off, trying to predict exactly when Cornelius was regenerated according to a Calvinist is a provocation to flaming. Quit telling me what I believe. You wouldn't appreciate my putting words in your mouth, and frankly, you're once again in error in the one case I can confirm: what I would say. So quit it. You're bearing false witness. That's a sin. Jesus came to take away sin.

Are you taking me for a fool? I did not tell you what you believe, YOU told me what you believe:

Cornelius was regenerate.

Highlighted in bold red and underlined is EXACTLY what YOU told me in one of your previous posts when I said Cornelius was an unregenerate sinner living in the fear of God before he heard the Gospel. But you said I was wrong and that Cornelius was regenerate. It is without doubt that you predicted that Cornelius was regenerated before he heard the Gospel and that is why he lived in the fear of God. YOU made a prediction about the time of Cornelius' regeneration and now you say it is a provocation to flaming? Sorry, looks like you've just fallen into your own net. I did not bear any false witness, neither did I put words in your mouth. Look who is talking here.

But second, we follow the Spirit of God. John 3:8. Read it. You're trying to say Cornelius was not born of the Spirit of God. I've no reason to specify whether Cornelius was born again prior, during, or immediately after hearing the Gospel. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that "no one can say "Jesus is Lord" without the Holy Spirit" 1 Cor 12:3. So you're simply quite wrong in thinking that accepting the Gospel and thus accepting that Jesus is Lord, can be done without being born of the Spirit of God.

Being born of the Spirit of God is totally different from just having the Spirit of God's influence. It is completely possible for the Holy Spirit to be with a person and yet the person is not born again. Those Jews who killed Stephen were resisting the Holy Spirit, they clearly had the Holy Spirit, but yet they were not born again. The Holy Spirit is the One who testifies about Jesus, thus one can only confess Christ when he/she receives the testimony from the Spirit. But being born again only happens after one receives the Holy Spirit, and no one can receive the Holy Spirit unless he/she first is baptised. No one can be baptised unless he/she first believes in Christ.

No, Romans 6 has it -- people have willingly presented themselves to obey sin, and on that count they are dedicated, self-willed slaves. There's no chopping up of Paul's letters. Paul is speaking in a context.

You said it, people have WILLINGLY yielded themselves to obey sin, so at the start, their will was totally free to choose between sin and righteousness. They become self-willed slaves to sin, because they chose to yield to sin with their free will. You've just proved my point.

The Spirit of God, as Paul has been saying from Romans 2 onward, awakens us spiritually using the Law, which is spiritual. In this way our thinking becomes aware of spirituality, and can't but conclude that our neglect of spiritual reality and return to sin at its mere mention means that we're dead, spiritually.

How is this relevant to the argument? I am saying that it is sin in the flesh that compels people to rebel against God, not the corrupted will (which in fact does not exist). Now you are talking about the spiritual law and being spiritually dead? Where's the link?

They "were appointed" to "disobey the Word".

You got the logic wrong. I do believe that they were appointed to stumble at the stumbling stone (which is Christ), and this is because they disobey the Word.

There are profound inconsistencies in what you're saying, and yet when they're confronted there is but denial.

In fact you've lumped some responses of mine together without answering them. You said, "Fallible conclusion here. No one is good does not mean no one can do good." I reiterate the question: You seem to have missed this point applied in Calvinism. Why is it that this blindness is only toward what you oppose? In point of fact, a refusal to apply reasoning to your opposition with the purpose of understanding is a refusal to understand the opposing viewpoint.

In short -- we've been listening. You've been getting accurate evaluations of what's going on. What you do with it is your prerogative.

You have only implied inconsistencies into what I say because you CANNOT find the evidences to refute my arguments. Let's face this fact and not live in denial.

Blindness occurs when there is a reluctance to admit a lack of knowledge and a reluctance to admit that the opposing view may have some logic and sense in it. I see this from the Calvinists' side most of the time. Not even once did I hear a Calvinist say "Yes, perhaps you may have been right.", not once. Is this due to pride? Stubbornness? Unwillingness to admit the facts? I don't know, but that's what I observe most of the times.

When I do give reasoning, there is much dodging and swerving of the arguments to something irrelevant. I see this in your replies quite a lot. Don't blame me for not applying reasoning, I did, but most of my reasonings are ignored because none cannot refute them.

You call all of this "accurate evaluation"? You call this constant "blaming and ignoring of my reasoning" an "accurate evaluation"? Well, nothing can be further from the truth than this.

How about a question in return: Why is it so difficult to prove with reasoning that Calvinism is true if it is indeed so?

 

[oworm]

there seems to be very few on these boards who are here to actually see if they can learn anything.
It is very apparent here that no one will change no one else's mind on anything because no one wants to be shown anything

Such is the nature of online forum discussion boards.

 

[DeaconDean]

there seems to be very few on these boards who are here to actually see if they can learn anything.
It is very apparent here that no one will change no one else's mind on anything because no one wants to be shown anything

That is a two-way street you know.

God Bless

Till all are one.

 

[Apologetic_Warrior]

Good to hear from you. Thanks for pointing me to the Westminster Confession, let me go through one point by one point.

Thank you for your response. I am so not awake at the moment, but I will try to respond point by point as well.

I. I believe God has given us a conscience to determine good and evil, not the will. As we can see, Adam and Eve were created with free will, that is liberty of will to choose good or evil (spiritually).

Yes, thanks to Adam and Eve's free choice, in our conscience we have an intuitive type of knowledge of good and evil, which becomes more and more apparent as we mature and grow older in age and understanding. Through a kind of freedom within the will Eve and Adam willingly disobeyed God their Creator, and the conscience became aware of knowledge of evil, and this innate knowledge of evil by with we determine is experiential personal evidence of that doctrine of original sin.

II. Yes, that's how God designed man. We do have the liberty of will to choose good or evil and act upon them. But as to the fall, does it mean the corruption of the will? I believe otherwise. First, I do not see anything in the Word that points to the corruption of the will after Adam and Eve's offense. Second, Abel, who was born AFTER Adam and Eve sinned, did have the liberty of will to worship God and offer sacrifices pleasing to Him. Abel was not corrupted in his will in any sense, he still could choose spiritual good, even though he was born after the Fall. Abel did have faith in God, but his brother Cain did not. This alone should tell us that man is still able to choose spiritual good despite the Fall, whether this ability is from God or not I don't know, but the ability to choose spiritual good was always there, even after the Fall.

It is how God designed man, but with one act of disobedience, the curse of sin fell to all of mankind. As David say's in the beloved Psalms; "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me." As to corruption of the will, when mankind fell, it was a complete fall, sin became a part of mankind's nature, effecting the entire being of a person. Surely the will is part of the soul, connected to the heart and mind. We would do well to rememeber the Prophet Jeremiah's words "“The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?" If this is indeed an accurate account of the heart, and I believe it is, how can such a heart not corrupt the will? Now as for Abel, I think you could be speaking beyond what the texts say's, that is reading into it your own interpretation, which if I may say as gently as I can, doesn't agree with the greater context of Scripture. For example, within the same book of Genesis, just a short time later, in the days of Noah, we read, "Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." How many good will'ed people did God spare from the flood in Noah's day? None that I know of. He spared only Noah, whom He made a covenant with.

III. Abel proves this wrong, and so does people like Noah, Abraham and many patriaches who were all born AFTER the Fall. None of them were born with a corrupted will, neither did their lives show us that their will is corrupted. The idea about inherited sin is false. Abel did not inherit his parents' sin and thus he was still able to respond to God in faith. Neither did Noah, Abraham or anyone inherit the offense of Adam and Eve.

Abel does not prove it wrong. There are but 10 verses pertaining to Abel in Genesis telling his short story giving very little detail about him. Nothing in those verses suggest what you are suggesting. It would be erroneous to think the patriarchs chose God, rather than the other way around. It would also be erroneous to think God chose them because of something in them. No, God alone made them the patriarchs they were, and that He did for His glory. For without God, they would have been no different than any other fallen human, and even so they were not without sin. In many places of Scripture we read about the imperfections of our heroes of the faith. If the idea of inherited sin is false explain the following Scriptures:

“None is righteous, no, not one;
​​​​​​​​no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
​​​​​​​All have turned aside;
together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”

and "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

I believe part of our difference in understanding has to do also with one of the motivations behind the Protestant Reformation, namely Justification by faith alone. The reason I bring JBFA into the discussion of the doctrine of original sin, is because 1.) despite their unrighteousness, they were made righteous by faith in YAHWEH, and 2.) they had faith in YAHWEH because YAHWEH authored faith in them by replacing their hearts of stone with hearts of flesh and placing HIS Spirit upon them. Hear the words of the Psalmist David:

​​​"Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
​​​​​​​​Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
​​​​​​​​Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit."

Notice the words "create", "renew", "restore" and "UPHOLD", and the dependence upon God in his plea. God creates a clean heart, God renews a right Spirit, God keeps His presence, God restores joy, God upholds willingness of spirit.

I am an hour and a half into this response, and need to take a break. Hopefully I will get around to finishing a response. May we by grace trust in the Lord, and lean not on our own understanding, and acknowledge Him in all our ways for His glory alone. amen.

 

[Skala]

Yes, and when correctly interpreted, this states that those who disobey the Word are destined to stumble, yet you make it appear to be what it is not.

You mean "as interpreted by you"? Because correctly interpreted, their disobedience is grammatically what they were "destined" for.

 

[Skala]

The Lord tells us in Mark 7 what defiles a man, and He mentioned a few things that can come out of the heart that are evil. But there is nothing in the Word that tells us about "total depravity", and how far corrupted we are in terms of our will, desires and inclination BECAUSE of the Fall. In fact, the Word did not mention anything about the will being corrupted by the Fall itself. It is no doubt that our flesh is corrupted by the Fall, but how far (to what extent) are we corrupted by the Fall of Adam and Eve? The Word has not told us that clearly, has it? If not, isn't Calvinism making a great and dangerous leap trying to invent a doctrine called "total depravity"?

You couldn't be more wrong my dear sister.

1) Your own argument works against you, in particular, the part where you reminded us that the Lord told us what defiles a man: it's what comes from the heart.

This proves that the heart is already evil before it causes the body to do evil actions. I wonder where this evil heart came from?

"In sin I was conceived"

2) You are viewing sin the way the Pharisees viewed sin, sister. Christ was constantly trying to correct them. Christ's argument was that sin is not mere actions that you do, but a condition we are in. The pharisees were known as being moral law-obeyers. They were outwardly righteous. They never actually commit the physical sin of adultery, for example, but Christ told you don't have to actually commit the physical sin to be guilty of sin, you just have to have lust in your heart. (there's that pesky heart again) Simply having lust is enough to be guilty of the sin of adultery, you don't actually have to commit the sin physically. This is why Jesus told the pharisees that they were outwardly beautiful yet ugly inside, like a whitewashed tomb, but inside it had a dead man.

It seems you view sin the way the pharisees did. Only as physical actions. You seem to deny that man's core, his nature, his heart, is fallen and corrupted because of what Adam passed down to us.

3) the problem is, if you deny original sin and the fact that what Adam did affected you, then you also must be consistent and deny the doctrine of salvation, for Adam was a type of Christ. If what Adam did didn't affect you, then what Christ did couldn't have affected you either. That is Paul's argument in Romans 5, which you seem to deny. Adam is a type of Christ. so tell me, Terene, in what way does Adam represent you, if at all? You cannot claim Christ as your federal head and representer if you do not also claim Adam as your federal head. Long story short: you can't embrace the doctrine of salvation if you deny the doctrine of original sin.

4) You are missing the Biblical teaching of nature. For example, Jesus says a good tree does not produce bad fruit, nor a bad tree good fruit. In Jeremiah we learn that those who are accustomed to doing evil cannot, then, do good. In Romans we learn that those in the "flesh" (ie, not born again) cannot do anything pleasing to God. In the gospels we learn from the Lord that "those who sin are a slave to sin"

In other words, a thing always acts in a way consistent with his nature. Your idea of "Free will" implies that a man's nature has nothing to do with what decisions or actions he will make/commit. This goes against everything the Bible teaches about man's enslavement to sin and his inability to do that which is spiritually good until revived by our Lord. To you, man's will was never affected by the fall, it is not in bondage to the corruption of the sinful nature, it just free as a bird, neither incliend towards sin and rebellion or away from God and holiness.

Where do you learn this doctrine in scripture Terene? Where did any Apostle argue that such a thing exists? Where does the Bible attribute this almighty power to the fallen creature? It is the grand assumption by many Christians, and I'm afraid they learn more theology from Burger King than the Bible (Have it your way) The Bible knows nothing about this so called free will. It teaches enslavement to sin, corruption, and a biased against God (not freely being neutral towards God)

Yet here come the Calvinists with their "Bible" and their "doctrine" and their emphasis on "God's sovereignty" and "man's sinful nature" and suddenly we are the bad guys, false teachers, and we are twisting the plain words of the Bible.

The thing is, it's hard to twist something the Bible never mentions in the first place. Where does it mention free will/ Where does it mention that man is not a slave to sin and simply has the ability to choose good over evil the way you choose vanilla over chocolate ice cream?

Where's the ladder to this soapbox, I need to step down

 

[DeaconDean]

I'm afraid that I have to agree with Arthur W. Pink when it comes to Adam and "free will".

In unfallen Adam the will was free, free in both directions, free toward good and free toward evil. Adam was created in a state of Innocency, but not in a state of holiness, as is so often assumed and asserted. Adam’s will was therefore in a condition of moral equipoise: that is to say, in Adam there was no constraining bias in him toward either good or evil, and as such, Adam differed radically from all his descendants, as well as from "the Man Christ Jesus." But with the sinner it is far otherwise. The sinner is born with a will that is not in a condition of moral equipoise, because in him there is a heart that is "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked," and this gives him a bias toward evil. So, too, with the Lord Jesus it was far otherwise: He also differed radically from unfallen Adam. The Lord Jesus Christ could not sin because He was "the Holy One of God." Before He was born into this world it was said to Mary, "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35). Speaking reverently then, we say, that the will of the Son of Man was not in a condition of moral equipoise, that is, capable of turning toward either good or evil. The will of the Lord Jesus was biased toward that which is good because, side by side with His sinless, holy, perfect humanity, was His eternal Deity. Now in contradistinction from the will of the Lord Jesus which was biased toward good, and Adam’s will which, before his fall, was in a condition of moral equipoise—capable of turning toward either good or evil—the sinner’s will is biased toward evil, and therefore is free in one direction only, namely, in the direction of evil. The sinner’s will is enslaved because it is in bondage to and is the servant of a depraved heart.

7. God's Sovereignty and the Human Will

God Bless

Till all are one.

 

[DeaconDean]

Abel does not prove it wrong. There are but 10 verses pertaining to Abel in Genesis telling his short story giving very little detail about him. Nothing in those verses suggest what you are suggesting. It would be erroneous to think the patriarchs chose God, rather than the other way around. It would also be erroneous to think God chose them because of something in them. No, God alone made them the patriarchs they were, and that He did for His glory. For without God, they would have been no different than any other fallen human, and even so they were not without sin. In many places of Scripture we read about the imperfections of our heroes of the faith. If the idea of inherited sin is false explain the following Scriptures:

If Abel proves it wrong, why is it recorded that Abel was sacrificing Terene?

God Bless

Till all are one.

 

[Skala]

Could you respond to this:

...I have had a bit of discussion with you, but some of my posts earlier on was not tackled by you. For instance, I said that believing God has chosen us to be saved can also be a source of boasting because it can make some of us think we are "special" in God's sight simply because we are the "elect". This, you never addressed.

The thing is, Terene, the Bible is what says we are chosen and predestined, in several places. Romans 8, 2 Thess 2:13, Acts 13:48, Eph 1:4-11, 1 Corinthians.

So if you hate the doctrine so much, then your problem isn't really with any system of theology, it's with the Bible itself. The first step is coming to terms with those passages. Then after that, you can tackle the implications. You seem to be operating backwards from this model. You raise questions based on the implications without ever actually admitting that the Bible is what talks about these things.

Secondly, in many of these same places, such as the Eph 1:4-11 passage, and in Romans 9 in particular, we learn that election is UNconditional. Hence the U in TULIP. Unconditional election means that God's choice of you had nothing to do with any good qualities or attributes in you. His choice to save you was based on His own will, his own purpose, his own grace. There were no conditions that you as a person fulfilled in order to attract God's eye towards choosing and saving you. No conditions, hence "unconditional"

Since nothing in me is what caused God to save me, there's no possible way I can boast for "being special", because the exact opposite is true. I'm not special, I deserve hell the way hitler does. "Special" would mean somehow I deserved more grace or less hell than someone else, but the Bible doesn't allow for such a thing.

Further, in 1 Cor we learn that God chose the weak, foolish, and the base. He didn't choose the strong, wise, or the special. So here again the BIble refutes your assertion that the chosen ones are special. In 1 Cor we learn that God chooses the non-special. then Paul tells us he did it this way on purpose to remove room for us to boast.

This is a huge elephant in the room for your theology, Terene, because you believe that your smarter choice is what resulted in God's choice of you. You believe God foresaw that you were smart enough to choose Christ (when another wasn't), and so God chose you based this knowledge. That means it is your theology/soteriology that has sinners with room to boast because their own actions or attributes is what caused God to choose them. This is the Arminian doctrine called "Conditional election"

So you see, the very thing you believe is what you are arguing against, Terene, yet you fail to see it.

I do believe God chooses and brings things to pass, the matter of dispute is not whether God chooses or brings things to pass, but HOW and WHY He chooses and brings things to pass. The Calvinism viewpoint makes it seem that God chooses and brings EVERY SINGLE THING (be it good or evil) to pass solely based on His desires and will. But here is the problem:


God can never desire or will for something evil to happen. I repeat, God never desires or wills evil things to happen in His universe. Saying that He does is accusing Him of being responsible for the evil things in this world, because God is responsible for His willful actions and desires as well, since He is the Ruler of the Universe. If God has a will for evil things to come to pass (which Calvinism asserts), then surely God is at least partly responsible for the evil in this world and He wouldn't be a judge anymore since He Himself is responsible for things He judges. Delving into the logic behind Calvinism exposes easily the contradictions that it poses against the Nature of God and His Word. God's will is always to do good, and always to bring GOOD things to pass. He has no will or part in the evil in this world, He allows evil to happen, but that has nothing to do with Him wanting the evil to happen. This is the true and holy nature of God. Willing and allowing things to happen are two TOTALLY different things - Willing is deeply connected to an innate desire, but allowing does not mean desiring. I believe you are confusing the two here, Skala. If my will is to bring a stealing incident to pass, then I am already considered responsible for the stealing because my will approve of stealing. Are you now going to say God is responsible for all the evil in this world because it is His will to bring them to pass? Does God approve of the evil in this world through His will? God forbid!

This entire section is based on your own reasoning, opinion and has no scriptural foundation. Here are some examples of God bringing to pass wicked things:

Act 4:27 for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel,
Act 4:28 to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.


Here we clearly see that the murder of Christ was God's predestined plan. You would have me believe that God simply "allowed" Christ to be murdered, but that would make our entire religion foolish. It would mean Christ's death on my behalf was not ordained/planned by God, but was simply an accident. Christ was plan B, not Plan A, according to this reasoning. It means my salvation is simply a byproduct of what God "passively allowed".

So right off teh bat your assertions are meaningless. Christ's murder at the hands of wicked men was predestined by God. So while you assert and claim that God does not on any level desire evil to happen, here is the best example that yes, he does. He desired that the only innocent man to walk this earth be murdered. You heard it: God desired murder to happen. Murder is a sin. God desired that sin happen.

What else can be concluded from this bible passage?

A second example (there are hundreds, believe me), is when God sends Assyria against Israel to murder and plunder their goods:

Isa 10:5 Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger; the staff in their hands is my fury!
Isa 10:6 Against a godless nation I send him, and against the people of my wrath I command him, to take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.

Think about the implications of this. People were minding their own business, and they got attacked. They got murdered. Their guts were spilling out. It was horrific. Husbands watched as wives were murdered right before their eyes, and probably raped. Little kids were brutally killed. They were murdered, then their goods were stolen.

Yet the whole thing was God's doing. He is the one that sent Assyria to attack. He was behind the entire thing. Don't you dare sit there and tell me that God wasn't involved. He says it himself, he takes credit for it. He is the one that was behind this.

And again:

Jos 11:20 For it was the LORD's doing to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle, in order that they should be devoted to destruction and should receive no mercy but be destroyed, just as the LORD commanded Moses.

Here yet again , it is a sin to kill people, yet God caused men to come against other men in battle for the purpose of killing them and destroying them. Don't you dare tell me that God doesn't ordain evil to happen.

He ordains evil, but he does it for his own righteous purposes. Don't get me wrong, God doesn't sin, but he can ordain sin for a good reason. God is not sinning by ordaining that sin happen.

And again:
1Ki 22:23 Now therefore behold, the LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; the LORD has declared disaster for you."

Lying is a sin, yet here it is commissioned/ordained/purposed by God.

Over and over the Bible tells us that God is absolutely sovereign, especially over sin and evil. You would have us believe that God is completely helpless and just wringing his hands that this evil force exist in his universe, and God is doing everything he can to stop it, but it cannot be controlled, and worse, God has no purpose for it, it just exists arbitrarily, without God's decree.

What comfort can Christians have from this? For we learn that all things happen for the good of the saints. How can this promise be true if God has nothing to do with the "all things that happen", seeing that the "all things' includes sin and evil?

Don't you sit there Terene and tell me that God doesn't desire or ordain sin or evil any level. Because the Bible tells me he does, and my own salvation DEPENDS on it. He ordained Christ's murder, to save me. All things work together for my ultimate good (Romans 8). Do they work together on accident? Or is God in control of every single thing that happens on this earth? By asserting the things you are asserting you are making God powerless in this universe, and you are making my salvation a byproduct and not God's plan, and you are making God's promise to me meaningless because all things work together for my good.

You are emotionally driven, rather than scripturally driven. You have as et of "facts" in your mind and every single Bible verse you quote here is employed only to prove your facts true. You don't consider the other Bible verses and draw conclusions from them. If they contradict your assertions, you claim they are being used wrongly and you just move on. You never stop to explain how or why.

 

[Skala]

Deacon: thank you for your AW Pink quote, it is right on.

The mistake many have is equating post-Adam humans with Adam himself.

Adam was not fallen, as his posterity is.

Terene is arguing that all men after Adam have the same ability and the same will that Adam had. With all due respect, she is wrong.

 

[Brother Chris]

Brother Chris, I do agree that no one can come to Christ unless he/she hears the Gospel and God works upon his/her heart to convict him/her. But that's not what Calvinism said, at least that's not what I heard from some posters on here. According to what I heard on these forums, no one can come to Christ unless he/she is regenerated (born again) first. But we all know clearly from the Word that regeneration (through receiving the Holy Spirit) happens only after baptism, and baptism only happens after one decides to have faith in Christ. Calvinism states the exact opposite, and say regeneration (receiving of the Holy Spirit) must happen before faith in Christ, this is found NOWHERE in the Word.

Furthermore, Calvinism also asserts that God sent Jesus to save only a few elect and dooms the rest. This idea of "limited atonement" is totally false, and Paul refutes it as below:

For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe. (1 Tim 4:10)

Since Paul writes that God is the Savior of all people, ESPECIALLY of those who believe, logic will tell us that "all people" refers to every single sinner in this world who ever lived. Thus, God did not send Jesus to be a "limited atonement" as Calvinism teaches, but as an atonement for the whole world.

Clearly, what Calvinism asserts is contrary to what the Word teaches. So which one is right? You decide.

Just two points I want to make:
1.) Read Colossians 2:13, "When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins,"
2.) Read Ephesians 2:4-5, "But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved."

Sister, the bible clearly teaches that while you and I were still dead in our sins, in rebellion against God, because of His great love and mercy for us, He made us alive in Christ. We didn't make ourselves alive in Christ. You're right, the sinner has to hear the Gospel, but as he hears the Gospel, the Holy Spirit comes and illuminates his mind and changes his heart, and he is able to respond to the Gospel and he repents and believes and is saved. Again, according to John 3:8, "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit," God the Holy Spirit blows like the wind wherever He pleases saving those whom God has chosen.

I personally do not believe in Limited Atonement. I believe that Christ died on the cross for the sins of the world, but I also believe that only those who repent and trust in Christ will have the atonement applied to them. God is the Savior of all in a temporary sense. This means that God withholds His justice and wrath on sinners and does not take their lives immediately for their sins. He allows them to continue to live and rebel against Him. He saves them temporarily from their due punishment, but may not save them in an eternal sense. God is our eternal Savior for those of us who believe, because we are saved from His eternal wrath. That's how He is the Savior of all people [temporary], but especially to those who believe [eternally].

 

[heymikey80]

The Lord tells us in Mark 7 what defiles a man, and He mentioned a few things that can come out of the heart that are evil. But there is nothing in the Word that tells us about "total depravity", and how far corrupted we are in terms of our will, desires and inclination BECAUSE of the Fall.

The Fall is not the same as Total Depravity. Jesus tells us the human heart is the source of all evil.

The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Gen 6:5

"The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately wicked; Who can understand it?" Jer 17:9

Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you. Ps 143:2

Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. Eccl 7:20

Romans 7 describes a situation when one is under the bondage of sin.

Actually, I'd say Paul is describing a situation of becoming knowledgeable about what sin is.

But mark what Paul writes:

For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

Clearly the will is not free, then. For he has the desire, but not the ability. Hm, inability. It's interesting, isn't it? Here's inability described, and yet you're objecting to inability. Hm.

Paul did have the desire (will) to do what is right, and that desire (will) was present even under the bondage of sin. So isn't it clear that the will is in no way corrupted by sin?

No, it's not clear, Terene. What is clear is that there is some internal desire to do what's right, yes. There's clearly an overwhelming ability to continue to do what's wrong.

How does Romans 8 tell us the extent of our corruption caused by the Fall? It only say those minds that are set on the flesh cannot and will not submit to God. The mind in itself can submit to God, but when it decides to set itself on the things of the flesh, it chooses not to submit to God and naturally, it loses the chance to submit to God and therefore cannot submit.

And you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you; and if any one does not have the Spirit of Christ -- this one is not His Rom 8:9

Instead the Spirit is the point, not human choice.

I am talking about the Fall itself, and its effects on us, not the effects of sin. Sin came into the world through the Fall, but how far the Fall affected us is not known. Isaiah 59 and Romans 1-3 talks about the SIN of mankind which came after the Fall, not the effects of the Fall itself. Sin has been in this world since the Fall, but the Fall only happened in Adam and Eve's time. There is a failure on your part to distinguish between the two, because the effects of the fall is wholly DIFFERENT from the effects of sin.

Sinfulness is the effect of the fall.

I did not neglect those verses, but none of those verses prove anything about what you said.

Yes, they did.

I plainly said what Paul wrote in Romans 2:14-15 and you say he did not write what he wrote? I did not even try to paraphrase much of what Paul wrote, I only added the words "unregenerate" and "can", and the rest I pretty much copied what Paul already wrote. Yet you deny that Paul wrote it in that way?

You inserted exactly the words that made the verse relevant to your argument: because they weren't there. That's interpolating your position into Scripture, Terene. I pointed out the context, in which the heart is circumcised by the Spirit (2:29), and verses under which Paul already stated, "For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law." Rom 2:12 and "For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written" Rom 3:9-10a No, Paul didn't say the unregenerate are capable of being acquitted by the law; on the contrary, even Paul said "their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing ... them." One is never acquitted by the law based on what they did right. One is always condemned by the law based on what they did wrong.

I did not imply at all that Jews and Gentiles are not under sin, all I said was that unregenerate sinners are ABLE to do the law of God because God does write His law upon their hearts. What you try to say here is totally irrelevant and off course to the points of discussion.

The law written on hearts is regeneration.

Are you taking me for a fool? I did not tell you what you believe, YOU told me what you believe

"Cornelius was regenerate."

Highlighted in bold red and underlined is EXACTLY what YOU told me in one of your previous posts when I said Cornelius was an unregenerate sinner living in the fear of God before he heard the Gospel. But you said I was wrong and that Cornelius was regenerate. It is without doubt that you predicted that Cornelius was regenerated before he heard the Gospel and that is why he lived in the fear of God. YOU made a prediction about the time of Cornelius' regeneration and now you say it is a provocation to flaming? Sorry, looks like you've just fallen into your own net. I did not bear any false witness, neither did I put words in your mouth. Look who is talking here.

Did you read what I said? What I've said is consistent with what I said, previously. The fact that you can't tell the difference explains that you didn't even read what I said and simply leapt to this conclusion.

But second, we follow the Spirit of God. John 3:8. Read it. You're trying to say Cornelius was not born of the Spirit of God. I've no reason to specify whether Cornelius was born again prior, during, or immediately after hearing the Gospel. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that "no one can say "Jesus is Lord" without the Holy Spirit" 1 Cor 12:3. So you're simply quite wrong in thinking that accepting the Gospel and thus accepting that Jesus is Lord, can be done without being born of the Spirit of God.

Maybe you didn't notice: "already regenerate" is a false allegation about my position. It's false, and you wrote it. Take it back. And don't predict what I'm going to say, because I didn't say it. What I said was "Cornelius was regenerate". It's clear from Scripture that Cornelius had to be regenerate by the Spirit in order to submit to Jesus as Lord.

It's quite apparent that you're not answering to the challenges to your position. It's not organized the way you want it to be, according to your categories and your theological musings. And so you're making crucial mistakes.