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Okay.Forgive me, but I just can't take seriously your and jimmyjimmy's argument when your standard line for what you cannot counter is 'the other person doesn't understand Calvinism and/or shouldn't be arguing what he/she doesn't understand.'
If I was judging this debate, Open Heart would have already been declared the winner based on that one point alone.
Forgive me, but I just can't take seriously your and jimmyjimmy's argument when your standard line for what you cannot counter is 'the other person doesn't understand Calvinism and/or shouldn't be arguing what he/she doesn't understand.'
If I was judging this debate, Open Heart would have already been declared the winner based on that one point alone.
Although God externally offers the gospel to everyone, he only truly offers the gospel along with grace through the Holy Spirit to the Elect. Therefore the elect alone respond to the gospel. Any resistance on their part is eventually worn down. This is because the Holy spirit can overcome any resistance and make grace irresistible. The truth is that we are not free to accept God. It is our nature to resist God and reject him. It is only because grace is irresistible that we are brought to God.
Worn down? Nope. Which sites said this? Maybe I'll learn something.
You are skirting the issue. We clearly disagree. You believe in Total depravity -- that on his own, man cannot respond to the gospel, his entire being is corrupt. I reject that. God offers grace to all, and man is free to choose to cooperate with that grace or not.
What questions have been dodged? I try not to dodge any, so maybe I've missed some. The links to the posts would sure be helpful.Not at all. But you sure dodge a lot of questions by insulting your opponents with that line.
Not at all. But you sure dodge a lot of questions by insulting your opponents with that line.
However, the idea of irresistibility conjures up the idea that one cannot possibly offer any resistance to the grace of God. However, the history of the human race is the history of relentless resistance to the sweetness of the grace of God. Irresistible grace does not mean that God’s grace is incapable of being resisted. Indeed, we are capable of resisting God’s grace, and we do resist it. The idea is that God’s grace is so powerful that it has the capacity to overcome our natural resistance to it. It is not that the Holy Spirit drags people kicking and screaming to Christ against their wills. The Holy Spirit changes the inclination and disposition of our wills, so that whereas we were previously unwilling to embrace Christ, now we are willing, and more than willing. Indeed, we aren’t dragged to Christ, we run to Christ, and we embrace Him joyfully because the Spirit has changed our hearts. They are no longer hearts of stone that are impervious to the commands of God and to the invitations of the gospel. God melts the hardness of our hearts when He makes us new creatures. The Holy Spirit resurrects us from spiritual death, so that we come to Christ because we want to come to Christ. The reason we want to come to Christ is because God has already done a work of grace in our souls. Without that work, we would never have any desire to come to Christ. That’s why we say that regeneration precedes faith.
That's accurate. Regeneration precedes grace. No wearing down.
I don't want to go back through all the posts. I am just making an observation. Every time I have asked a specific question I am either presented with a non answer, a link to scripture that does not address the question, or get some version of the I don't understand so I am not qualified to participate answer. It was done to Open Heart just today though so that shouldn't be hard to read back and find. And he/she has simply been making a better case for her point of view, or at least nothing s/he has presented has been rebutted so far as I have seen--I can't say I've read every post. That's all.
