Predestination, is it coercive determinism ?

ToBeLoved said:

I like the way you cherry-pick scripture. It doesn't do much for learning and theology but I can see why it would be to your advantage psychologically to do it.

No person that wasn't saved would back predestination.

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Thanks, back atchya.

Thursday said:

Some people don't think God is almighty enough to create human beings with the ability to choose and love.

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I know, right? What's up with that?

ToBeLoved said:

There are plenty on CF who don't think we have the power to choose. Really?

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If you're not interested enough to pay attention, you must just be here to waste time.
Being able to choose is not proof your choices are free from coercion or fraud.
We are fooled and forced by internal as well as external forces.
If you think you are saved because of your free will decision to accept Christ, God help you.

Job8 said:

God can be (and is) Almighty without predetermining everything as relates to men (and possibly other creatures and plants). His almightiness is so great, that it has already factored in all the free choices which men will make, without interfering with His own plans and purposes. It actually diminishes God by claiming that He has predetermined every action (which is not even true). Indeed, it makes God entirely responsible for every sin and evil deed on this earth, and that is blasphemous.

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All you did with your semantics is add another layer to support the illusion.
God is responsible for, not guilty of.
Until one actually address the issues, one is only talking to himself.

BornAgainChristian1 said:

Did Jesus deny Peter? The fact is you do not comprehend the verses you posted. To deny Jesus means you rejected salvation nothing more and nothing less.

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If a person denies Jesus, he immediately loses his salvation.

But, he has until he dies to repent of his sin of denial. If he does not repent before death, Jesus will then deny him before His father.

Peter repented of his sins and he asked for forgiveness; otherwise Jesus would not have forgiven him.


https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+8:50&version=GNV

Luke 8:8:50
When Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, Fear not: believe only, and she shall be saved.

Acts 16:31
And they said, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thine household.

Romans 10:9
For if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart, that God raised him up from the dead, thou shalt be saved:

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Jesus saves every person who repents and believes in Him.

What must a person do in order to continue in his faith in Jesus after he has been saved by Jesus?

1 Corinthians 15:2
And whereby ye are saved, if ye keep in memory, after what manner I preached it unto you, except ye have believed in vain.

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How do you think a person "holds fast"?

How do you think a person "believes in vain"?

John 10 : 28-29 28 And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of mine hand.
29 My Father which gave them me, is greater than all, and none is able to take them out of my Father’s hand.

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Before the foundation of the world, God placed into His hand the people who He knew would still be faithful/obedient to His commandments at the time of their death. That is why these faithful-until-death people cannot ever be taken out of His hand.

We Christians do not know for sure who these faithful-until-death people are, but God knows!

ToBeLoved said:

Yes! foreknowledge. That's my new word in the Calvin conversation. Thanks or bringing that back to my attention. Knew I was looking for a word.

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You are welcome.

God wants all mankind to be saved, but, unfortunately many people will choose for themselves to not love Him.

keltoi said:

Take a look at the screenshot, how many of these translations say evil?View attachment 173984​

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Makes no difference at all. You read this verse and then you believed that it was meant to be understood in an exact literal manner. But, God cannot possibly create evil. It is against His divine nature to do evil because He is good. God therefore does not literally create evil.

It is impossible for God to create evil and so there has to be another explanation for this verse instead of what we literally read.

In other words, Jesus is asking, "Since you believe that I am good, do you also believe that I am God?"


God does not literally create evil.
God's permissive will allows evil to be done.

The early Israelites, in this manner of writing/speaking, attribute everything that mankind does to be God's own doing and that is because He is the creator of all mankind. Since people do evil, and God allows them to do it, God is responsible.

But, in reality, it is people who literally do their own evil. God has no part in their evildoing except that He allows them to do it.

God can literally do no evil. God is literally all good. There is no room for evil in Him.

Man can be good, but no one is good like God is good. Man has evil in him, but God has no evil in Him.

God is love. God literally does evil to no person.

Even in the OT, the people who were killed by the Israelites were better off being killed by the Israelites instead of being allowed to continue to live.

If these evil people had continued to live, they would have continued to heap sins upon sins against God and so they would have received even greater condemnation for their continued sinning than what they actually did. It was a blessing from God for them to die sooner instead of later.


God does not literally create evil. God is good and so He can do not evil. God's permissive will allows evil to be done.

BornAgainChristian1 said:

Do you just make things up as you go along because you can't admit you disagree with the bible?

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I don't disagree with the Bible at all.

I simply disagree with your own understanding/interpretation of the Bible.

yep there is much room for opinions when you read the bible but some people don't seem to realize that their own perceptions of God is based on their own conditions of their soul. it can become quite the burden to bare after a while because even natural reality is what it is and words and thoughts that describe it are a product of our brain. for instance when a tree falls in the forest it does not make a sound as sounds are something that humans or other things that can hear sound hear. the tree just makes vibrations when it falls. so the healthier the condition of the soul the more it will be able to properly understand.

John 3:6 (YLT)
that which hath been born of the flesh is flesh, and that which hath been born of the Spirit is spirit.

reality is far more than we can tell. simple truths of innocent children are the best things to hold to... such as to have faith that God orders all things in the best possible of ways. heaven is connected to the world and this adds even more complexity to the problems of this thread.

Hoghead1 said:

Your remarks show a complete and total ignorance about church history and the history of doctrine. So let me clue you in. The Bible is not a work in systematic theology or metaphysics. it tells us very little about how God is built. it provides snap shots and these often conflict,. It is up to the reader to put these together into a unified whole. The early fathers looked to Hellenic metaphysics for help here. Now, there were many schools of Hellenic philosophy, but those which predominated the scene tended to stress the unreality of time and change and the material universe. The truly divine, the "really real," was taken to be something wholly immaterial, simple, immutable. The Greeks enshrined the immune and the immutable. Incorporated into Christianity, this meant God was understood and described as a wholly simple, passionless, immutable, nonrelational being, a monad. Then the fathers tried to introduce the highly complex, relational machinery into this monad. The result was contradiction and confusion.
I don't believe anyone has infallible judgment. I respect the church fathers, Catholic and Protestant, but still reserve the right to think critically about what they have to say.

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You can choose to do and believe whatever you wish to do and believe.

However, some Christian doctrines/truths were infallibly decided by the early church fathers with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. No doctrines/truths, once defined, can ever be changed. Truth is the same truth: yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

No one has any authority from God to change the doctrines that the Holy Spirit taught to the Church Fathers. No one at all. And, no one will ever be given authority from God to change the doctrines of His Church. Truth never changes.

If a doctrine can be changed, it was never truth. If truth can change, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are liars and we're believing in a phony religion called Christianity.

You can have your own church if you want to and you can have whatever doctrines you want to make for your own church according to your own interpretations of the Scriptures. But, you have no authority to do this and so you will be preaching a perverted gospel instead of what Jesus taught and authorized His bishops and their successors to teach.

Jan001 said:

You are welcome.

God wants all mankind to be saved, but, unfortunately many people will choose for themselves to not love Him.

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God wants all kinds of men to be saved, not just Israel.
Men choose what is in their nature to choose - good or evil.
God chooses (elects) to be graceful and have mercy on a remnant.

A statement wherein all mankind actually does mean each and every human individual, would be : All mankind sufferers the consequence of Adam's sin.

Jan001 said:

If a person denies Jesus, he immediately loses his salvation.

But, he has until he dies to repent of his sin of denial. If he does not repent before death, Jesus will then deny him before His father.

Peter repented of his sins and he asked for forgiveness; otherwise Jesus would not have forgiven him.



Jesus saves every person who repents and believes in Him.

What must a person do in order to continue in his faith in Jesus after he has been saved by Jesus?
Nice try but you ignore that last verse I posted which is why all you excuses above are meaningless.

by which you are saved, if you hold it fast—unless you believed in vain. rsv

by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. nkjv
​

How do you think a person "holds fast"?

How do you think a person "believes in vain"?


Before the foundation of the world, God placed into His hand the people who He knew would still be faithful/obedient to His commandments at the time of their death. That is why these faithful-until-death people cannot ever be taken out of His hand.

We Christians do not know for sure who these faithful-until-death people are, but God knows!

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Nice try but you ignore that last verse I posted which is why all you excuses above are meaningless.

John 10 : 28-29
28 And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of mine hand.
29 My Father which gave them me, is greater than all, and none is able to take them out of my Father’s hand.

The fact is Christ died for our sins past, present and future. Or do you not comprehend Christ died for ALL of our sins?


1 Corinthians 15:2-41599 Geneva Bible (GNV)
2 And whereby ye are saved, if ye keep in memory, after what manner I preached it unto you, except ye have believed in vain.
3 For first of all, I delivered unto you that which I received, how that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures,
4 And that he was buried, and that he arose the third day, according to the Scriptures,

1 Peter 2:241599 Geneva Bible (GNV)
24 Who his own self bare our sins in his body on the tree, that we being dead to sin, should live in righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

1 Peter 3:181599 Geneva Bible (GNV)
18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, and was put to death concerning the flesh, but was quickened by the spirit.

So which sins didn't Christ die for?

Jan001 said:

I don't disagree with the Bible at all.

I simply disagree with your own understanding/interpretation of the Bible.

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Interpreters fall into two categories: those who seek to interpret the passage objectively with respect for the original meaning of the authors, and those who have an agenda. I have no agenda how about you?

BornAgainChristian1 said:

Interpreters fall into two categories: those who seek to interpret the passage objectively with respect for the original meaning of the authors, and those who have an agenda. I have no agenda how about you?

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I keep mine all locked in a cage in the basement and have them on a starvation diet of all the free will theology they can eat.

Hope your having a wonderful day.

the truth is a deeper part of reality and by connection to it we speak about it in our own language. this is how art and science and ect are all parts of heaven and flowings of various spirits whispers their contemplation best they can and the artist might be inspired by something it was thinking about because of the nearness of her soul to that kind of reality.

there are very many different things that various good spirits do to help humans. as one saint said and I paraphrase "the angels work harder for our salvation than the saints on the earth do because the saints must sleep." and one saint spoke this about angels: "a gathering of evil men means that also the evil angels over those men are gathered together. a gathering of those at church means all the good spirits that surround them are also gathered together."

thus knowledge and wisdom of the bible is one of those things that various angels are set over and learning about it requires relationship in the kingdom of heaven. that means that we understand the bible according to the good or evil spirits that are around us and which we take heed to. they know more than we do for "the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than the greatest on the earth" and we understand according to our souls receptivity to God.

Hoghead1 said:

Your remarks show a complete and total ignorance about church history and the history of doctrine. So let me clue you in. The Bible is not a work in systematic theology or metaphysics. it tells us very little about how God is built. it provides snap shots and these often conflict,. It is up to the reader to put these together into a unified whole. The early fathers looked to Hellenic metaphysics for help here. Now, there were many schools of Hellenic philosophy, but those which predominated the scene tended to stress the unreality of time and change and the material universe. The truly divine, the "really real," was taken to be something wholly immaterial, simple, immutable. The Greeks enshrined the immune and the immutable. Incorporated into Christianity, this meant God was understood and described as a wholly simple, passionless, immutable, nonrelational being, a monad. Then the fathers tried to introduce the highly complex, relational machinery into this monad. The result was contradiction and confusion.
I don't believe anyone has infallible judgment. I respect the church fathers, Catholic and Protestant, but still reserve the right to think critically about what they have to say.

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You see little. We see a lot.

But God says those without spirit would not see.

Rick Otto said:

I keep mine all locked in a cage in the basement and have them on a starvation diet of all the free will theology they can eat.

Hope your having a wonderful day.

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Thanks but I hope my day goes well knowing I'm going to rebuild my Yamaha Venture Royal carbs which isn't an easy job considering it's my fist time taking on a job like this. As for your free will theology

keltoi said:

I can pull scripture out of context as well. You know only a few verses later Paul says
"So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful natured a slave to the law of sin." which indicates we are puppets. Do you believe we are puppets? It is most certainly an easy way out but remember Matthew 7 specifically verse 23 where Jesus says "I never knew you, go away from me".

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Puppets is an unfair word. Our nature is simply a program...code that when executed results as its Creator intended to fulfill a purpose. He can alter the code whenever He chooses (think Ezekiel 36:26).

keltoi said:

Ah yes here it is the typical Greek thinking, it must be "logical" to the Greek mind, it has to fit in with the thought patterns of the western world. If it doesn't it can't be logical therefore it can't be true thus it can be reality. Now you have sunk again to giving options in an attempt to trap people into denying God's abilities. Sorry not falling for that little trick.

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Not a trick, and don't you think you may simply be deflecting in order to ignore the elephant on the table?

keltoi said:

Everything includes freewill.

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Does it? I have given Scripture directly refuting that claim.

keltoi said:

It has been answered by being ignored, you didn't like it so you kept harping on about it. When it was answered with a reply you didn't like that either so you are still harping on about it. What is the major problem here? Is it people answering your question by ignoring it, or is it people answering with a reply that you don't like?

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Nope, I just want someone to directly acknowledge and answer the question with the facts in direct consideration. That has YET to be done.

98cwitr said:

Puppets is an unfair word. Our nature is simply a program...code that when executed results as its Creator intended to fulfill a purpose. He can alter the code whenever He chooses (think Ezekiel 36:26).

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Puppets is an apt word. The problem is you are thinking with human logic even your example here shows this.

98cwitr said:

Not a trick, and don't you think you may simply be deflecting in order to ignore the elephant on the table?

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I don't see an elephant on the table. God does what God does I do not have a right to question his reasons, that has already been explained to you but you just keep going on and on like a broken record.

98cwitr said:

Does it? I have given Scripture directly refuting that claim.

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Yes, when you use the word everything it must include everything.

98cwitr said:

Nope, I just want someone to directly acknowledge and answer the question with the facts in direct consideration. That has YET to be done.

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Your question has been directly acknowledged. I gave 2 references to scripture why I will not answer it in the way you want me to. If you have a problem with that it is your problem not mine. The next problem is you keep harping on about it. I went shopping yesterday and there was a young mother with her children. At the very front of the store is chocolates and the kids wanted some, she said no. They kept harping on about it all the way around the shop. By the end the kids were crying because she stuck to her guns. Guess what, I'm sticking to my guns. You can either accept the answer you have been given and stop harping on about it or you can be like the kids I saw yesterday and end up getting very upset that things are not going the way you want. The choice is yours.