"Realize" is ambivalent. It can imply causation, or it can imply "we find out". Don't pretend otherwise.
Garbage. Move on. Not having a good argument to begin with is no justification for resorting to a crummy one. But if you prefer to view it as ambivalent, have at it.
Yes, I am a rather on the offensive. I don't like God's plans being discredited. Our very lives are his to do with as he pleases. Our eternal destiny was decided before we were born.
Yes, I admit to knowing the feeling -I really dislike much of your theology and see it as a stifled shallow perversion of the gospel as received at the beginning and understood and taught by the church in the east and west and the ECFs.
This does not negate the reponsibility of our choice. It only negates our being credited for our own salvation. THAT is GOD's doing, like I said, actually, from the foundation of the world. You want God to have made a pool of possibles, from which only those worthy ones who somehow choose him though dead in sin, and at enmity with him, were somehow able to do something on their own in the matter. Like you yourself quote below, "Apart from me, you can do nothing!" Is that an absolute statement, or not?
Together with Him, through Him, we can do all things, (Phil 4:13). Apart for Him we can do nothing. You might prefer to be a puppet but that's simply not God's preference for you. But this is how you distort the gospel. The conscious willful act of turning to God, to whatever extent we’re able, in faith, of making God our God again, is the basis and essence of man’s justice.
HOW in any possible scenario can anyone at enmity with God, unable to submit or to please God, dead in their sins, be able to somehow do anything to the contrary?
He draws and moves them, giving them the grace, without pushing them over the edge, because He
wants it to be our choice,
that's the whole point! Free will-or the abuse of it- of created beings is the cause of moral evil (sin).
With God nothing in creation would ever sin-and all sin is intrinsically opposed to His will by its nature. Adam thought otherwise; he'd be his
own god, preferring and relying on himself. We're here to learn he was wrong. It's simple. And it takes time and struggle and revelation and grace, and God's patience, over centuries in steering His beloved creation back to Himself, to willfully rising, with His help, as Adam willfully fell. And we
still may fail. Because the drama is all
about the human will responding to and moved by grace, or not.
Of course we can refuse to be saved. And yes, God's incredible forebearance and even his —what is it you guys call it— "prevenient grace?" can be resisted. In fact, we can even try to resist his saving grace, but if he "installs" his Spirit within us, it is not by our permission. Our new birth is no more our choice than our first birth into flesh. Do we choose? —most certainly we do. But only when he has enabled us by "re-making" us. IN HIM.
You just insist on putting the cart ahead of the horse for some reason. God calls, God knocks. We may or may not answer. Thats what we know.
Why must we insist on Self-Determination??
Self-determination caused the fall, away from God, to begin with and self-determination to the extent possible and totally with His help causes us to rise,
back to union with God. It’s not either/or but both/and because that how Gods wants it, a partnership, for our highest good.
He has already placed us on board.
Nope- He invites us, and enables our boarding, but does not place us on it.
He made the ark. Did Noah build it? Of course! Why? Because GOD chose him. Did Noah climb on board? Of course. WHY?? HOW?? You want it to be part God and part Noah. Did Noah 'cooperate'? Or did Noah do what God did to him? If Noah had not, he would not have been saved. Agreed. But Noah DID —was that not predestined? Did not God do to Noah what God had planned all along? "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord". Does that mean that Noah did anything of himself, or does it mean that GOD had grace on Noah? Did Noah earn something???
Noah didn’t have to do anything. But he did. Adam didn’t have to sin. But he did. Abraham didn’t have to believe. But he did. That’s why God was so greatly pleased with him. Because few, from Adam until Christ, and even to this day, simply believe, in Him, as existing first of all, and as their God. It’s all about a connection between man and God, which Adam opted out of. God made you in His own image to begin with after all. Humans are potentially great and noble beings,
and morally accountable. Yes, God can
do that! He doesn’t need us to even
exist, but He
wants us to, and He puts moral obligations on man, first of all to bow before Him. Everything else begins to fall into place after that as we break ranks with the world, and turn to
Him whom we were made for communion with. Love ends up the authentic bonding agent.
Yes, Noah stepped up. WHY??? What was the difference between Noah and the rest of humanity? He himself, or God?
Both, God used Noah for His purposes. He’ll grace some more than others for the advancement of His kingdom in some way but that changes nothing. Man must still comply. And He knows who will and who won’t.
WHY? for crying out loud, would we jump ship?
Why did Adam sin to begin with? Why did Lot’s wife turn back and look at Sodom? Why would people be a branch grafted in, then cut back off? Why would anyone taste of the heavenly gift and then later reject it? Why would anyone deliberately go on sinning, returning to the flesh, after coming to the knowledge of Christ? Why would the bible warn us about these unless for the very real threat and possibility that they
can happen-and destroy our relationship with Him, killing us, all over again?
Why must you insist on self-determination? It seems very odd to me.
Why would you insist on puppet hood? Nothing in our experience suggests that such is true, nor does the bible and gospel even make sense, or be at all necessary, if it is.
We have no ability, apart from him.
Yep, that the point-that’s what were here to learn, and grow in understanding and conviction of. We must turn back to Him-and we need help even with that. So I’ll list a few core teachings of the church on grace, and man’s role, from the council of orange some 15 centuries ago. Here are a sample of the 25 canons, which are all similar in nature:
CANON 5. If anyone says that not only the increase of faith but also its beginning and the very desire for faith, by which we believe in Him who justifies the ungodly and comes to the regeneration of holy baptism-if anyone says that this belongs to us by nature and not by a gift of grace, that is, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit amending our will and turning it from unbelief to faith and from godlessness to godliness, it is proof that he is opposed to the teaching of the Apostles, for blessed Paul says, "And I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 1:6). And again, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God" (Eph. 2:8). For those who state that the faith by which we believe in God is natural make all who are separated from the Church of Christ by definition in some measure believers.
CANON 6. If anyone says that God has mercy upon us when, apart from his grace, we believe, will, desire, strive, labor, pray, watch, study, seek, ask, or knock, but does not confess that it is by the infusion and inspiration of the Holy Spirit within us that we have the faith, the will, or the strength to do all these things as we ought; or if anyone makes the assistance of grace depend on the humility or obedience of man and does not agree that it is a gift of grace itself that we are obedient and humble, he contradicts the Apostle who says, "What have you that you did not receive?" (1 Cor. 4:7), and, "But by the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Cor. 15:10).
CANON 7. If anyone affirms that we can form any right opinion or make any right choice which relates to the salvation of eternal life, as is expedient for us, or that we can be saved, that is, assent to the preaching of the gospel through our natural powers without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who makes all men gladly assent to and believe in the truth, he is led astray by a heretical spirit, and does not understand the voice of God who says in the Gospel, "For apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5), and the word of the Apostle, "Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God" (2 Cor. 3:5).
CANON 8. If anyone maintains that some are able to come to the grace of baptism by mercy but others through free will, which has manifestly been corrupted in all those who have been born after the transgression of the first man, it is proof that he has no place in the true faith. For he denies that the free will of all men has been weakened through the sin of the first man, or at least holds that it has been affected in such a way that they have still the ability to seek the mystery of eternal salvation by themselves without the revelation of God. The Lord himself shows how contradictory this is by declaring that no one is able to come to him "unless the Father who sent me draws him" (John 6:44), as he also says to Peter, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 16:17), and as the Apostle says, "No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:3).
Then the council concludes:
“According to the catholic faith we also believe that after grace has been received through baptism, all baptized persons have the ability and responsibility, if they desire to labor faithfully, to perform with the aid and cooperation of Christ what is of essential importance in regard to the salvation of their soul. We not only do not believe that any are foreordained to evil by the power of God, but even state with utter abhorrence that if there are those who want to believe so evil a thing, they are anathema.”
