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Then you don't even know if YOU'RE reprobate or not.
Which things are you saying I'm not listening to? I answered your smaller list, and your only response has been to question my salvation, but, interestingky, not to question my biblical points. So who's actually the one cherry-picking here?
Thanks QvQ!
Of course the chatbot could be wrong...
Instant Theology cooked and condensed by a machine.
Sounds like you got a bit irritated on the chatbot. Sorry about that! Like I wrote, the chatbot can be wrong, even on pure factual questions. Anyhow, thanks for the time! I am not super interested to study the theories of Aquinas, some interest sure, so we will see in the future. Right now I read the Apostolic Fathers. The problem is even if Aquinas has reasonable theories, there is no guarantee he is correct in his arguments. But it can be interesting enough anyway, and give you some ground for philosophy.
Thank you for that information. I have been looking for a book about the earlier church theologians. I will give it a look.
I have no idea what libertarian free will is.
What is it you don't understand? It's being able to choose different options without any option being predetermined. In other words there are actual possibilities of different choices for a person, not only apparently so.
At the synod of Dort there was a disagreement about the width of the atonement. One fourth held to universal atonement.
I have been considering that is not the modern view. We have whole fields of study into the nature and substance of man's psyche (soul) and what predetermines man to certain actions. Nurture vs nature, education, social position, rich or poor, genetics and biological chemical factors
That was an interesting story. The good thing is we can have an absolute certainty there is no God, and still be wrong. Being certain is a sense of knowing. I have had both the knowing of no existence of God and the knowing of the existence of God, but both can't be true right? Such experiences you describe gives you a better understanding how people can be Atheists or be of other religions. It can be very humbling. I do have to say, when it comes down to very core, what I know from Christianity has a lot more weight than other religions or philosophies. The case for Jesus is very strong to me, from historical sources, moral aspects of good and evil, and from experiences. Some ten years of Eastern religion could never do what Jesus did for me in an instant.
I believe in free will, but I don't think it's possible if God can tell the future from before we exist. That means somebody determined our future for us, and we have no say in it.
That was the only time. It was not a thought as you say, but a feeling. Cold and hard. There was an absolute certainty, not a thought, but a knowing that God did not exist. It was mine alone to answer because all the faith in God was gone, erased by that certainty. "
Sort of like the same reason you don’t get to give yourself a nickname.
Why does the question of "if no one else ever gets to make a decision" come up? Nobody is saying that nobody else but God decides.
I expect this is where you got that idea: "Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass, upon all supposed conditions; yet hath He not decreed any thing because He foresaw it as future, as that which would come to pass, upon such conditions." It is not saying that the only way he foresees is by causing, but that his decree (and I will add, 'his causing') is not dependent on his ability to see the future.
Notice you say, "...if we... reflect on it,". The "we" there does not include the Reformed, nor the Calvinists, nor others of that sort. As I have said before, you have a completely different worldview, that I call self-determinism, that does not consider that God is a completely different order of being, self-existent, which necessarily implies a different reality from what we know and deal with here. It is FROM him that we, and time, and all the other principles to which we are subject, come. HE is the default fact. He is not subject to our 'reality'.
The problem with the idea of a God who created a world where he doesn't know the future exhaustively is simple contradiction of omnipotence and omniscience. But you're not the first who attempts to say it is no contradiction if he doesn't know what hasn't happened yet.
Does God mean what he says, when he claims omniscience? Does God mean what he says when he claims omnipotence? Do you believe he is those things? Because if god is less than Omnipotent, he is not God.
Well, there is, Synodism. ...er, wait —"Monergism, Synerg..."— ...oh! Nevermind....
I'm glad you touched on assurance as the only assurance for the Arminian comes from their ability to have faith in their faith and their perseverance in that faith whereas those who are truly regenerated by God know that they justly deserve God's wrath and are His children not because of who they are or anything that they do but solely because they are granted the gift of faith to trust Christ alone, in who He is and what He has done for them. This genuine assurance is evidenced by the Holy Spirit within them and manifested in them becoming new creations (2 Cor 5:17) who die daily to self and live in grateful obedience to Him who died and rose again for them.
