Monotheism vs. Predestination

The only spiritually alive are those in Christ.

The Creation does give us no excuse to acknowledge God as Creator. However, redemption and restoration are in Christ Jesus.

I really don’t see the connection of what you described in the OP relating to Predestination.

friend of said:

I ask because I talked with someone today and they told me that they DID believe in God. To me, I do not believe it can be said then that this person is completely spiritually dead, since his affirmation displays Theism, albeit, at its most fundamental level.

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Agreed. This is something like the Fathers' idea of semina Verbi (seeds of the Word).

Yet most Predestination Christians would believe that this counts for nothing and would say that he is still utterly dead and unregenerate since this is not a positive belief on Christ.

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The basic idea revolves not around predestination, but rather prevenient grace, one interpretation of which is the idea that God prepares a Christian for justification by graces given earlier in their lives. Many Protestants reject such an idea.

friend of said:

Simply, Predestination camp would argue that there is no Spiritual life in the one who acknowledges God, albeit, an indiscriminate Monotheistic one. I'm arguing that they show vital signs of Spiritual life and this shows that we do have our part in investigating the matter in order to find Christ as that Monotheistic God.

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It’s not a Predestination issue. It’s just Biblical fact we are dead in our trespasses and sin, children of wrath until God makes us alive in Jesus Christ.

friend of said:

Ah, but then what happens to that Theist who does not ever fully come to Christ, but remains with the idea of Monotheistic deity of no particular religion?

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Speaking for Catholics I would say that it is possible that God would give someone real preparatory grace and yet the person would remain unconverted for their entire life, despite these aids from God. Speaking generally, a person who does not convert and dies in their sins would be damned.

It is more than possible to be spiritually aware but not to know Christ. God does not have anything to do with belief in false gods, whether that's one only or hundreds at once. This is not a complicated proposition.

Albion said:

It is more than possible to be spiritually aware but not to know Christ. God does not have anything to do with belief in false gods, whether that's one only or hundreds at once. This is not a complicated proposition.

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So when an atheist comes to believe that God exists and is one, is this evidence that they are not "utterly dead and unregenerate," to quote the OP?

Satan believes in God.

zippy2006 said:

So when an atheist comes to believe that God exists and is one, is this evidence that they are not "utterly dead and unregenerate," to quote the OP?

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No, it's evidence only of an intellectual commitment. It does not mean at all that there is Faith in the only true God, the only one who can forgive sin.

friend of said:

So you don't believe that a positive Theism is evidence of spiritual life at it's most fundamental? I would argue it still comprises the primacy of Spiritual life.

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It’s an awareness not spiritual regeneration.

Romans 1: NASB

18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness. 19For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.20For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse.

21For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

zippy2006 said:

The basic idea revolves not around predestination, but rather prevenient grace, one interpretation of which is the idea that God prepares a Christian for justification by graces given earlier in their lives. Many Protestants reject such an idea.

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I certainly believe God through common grace does build our faith before one is justified. You can see it in some children.

friend of said:

But to even have that awareness in the first place I dont think it could then be said that they are completely spiritually dead. Vitals signs show life, even if they are faint.

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To be aware does not equal being in Christ.

Ephesians 2: NASB

1And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.3Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. (NASB)

The gospel accounts show the Pharisees believed in God and most of them probably knew Jesus was the Son of God promised in Scriptures. Believing and having faith and trust in the only Son of God are not the same.

redleghunter said:

I certainly believe God through common grace does build our faith before one is justified. You can see it in some children.

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Children definitely pose an interesting case. I always thought that common grace--at least in the Reformed sense--was separate from saving grace (and saving faith).

zippy2006 said:

Children definitely pose an interesting case. I always thought that common grace--at least in the Reformed sense--was separate from saving grace (and saving faith).

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Yes common grace would be like an atheist genius who denies God. You know the rain falls on the righteous and unrighteous.

My opinion God uses common grace to build the foundations of future (to us) conversion is my subjective opinion. At age 4 I had the knowledge of God because I went to church and my mother prayed and read her Douay–Rheims Bible every night before bed. At that age I faced what a 4 year old would reason was a life or death situation where I felt an evil presence, cried out to Jesus to save me, and there was immediate deliverance. For all I remember it could have been a bad nightmare but for a 4 year old who was taught God hears our prayers and delivers us from evil, that was my first personal experience where what I heard taught was manifested in answered prayer.

friend of said:

I'm wondering, does the belief in a singular God by an uncommitted person (one without a religion like Christianity) actually evidence that we are not as dead as predestination doctrine would have us believe? To me, the nonreligious belief in God at all would seem to show a semblance of wakefulness and Life even in those who are unconverted to Christ.

I ask because I talked with someone today and they told me that they DID believe in God. To me, I do not believe it can be said then that this person is completely spiritually dead, since his affirmation displays Theism, albeit, at its most fundamental level. Yet most Predestination Christians would believe that this counts for nothing and would say that he is still utterly dead and unregenerate since this is not a positive belief on Christ. They use verses from Romans 5:6 and Ephesians 2:1 and Colossians 2:13 and the like, to back up their take on the matter.

To me, this evidences at least the vital signs of Spiritual life.

I find this interesting, don't you? What does it say about the state of those who have not fully come to saving knowledge of Christ as savior and Lord? Are they really dead in spite of acknowledging a Creator/Monotheism?

God bless,

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There are not levels between death and life. They are not sort of dead, or sort of alive. Nor does anyone belong to God over anyone else by their ability, but by the will of God. The elect are brought from death to life. There is reason to believe that the walking dead are no more alive spiritually than a rock is. Maybe even less, since the rock has done nothing wrong, and has never opposed God.

There are many people who believe in First Cause, and that, First Cause with Intent. God. It is logically impossible that such a being would not have positive purpose for his creation. The problem, for us, is deciding whether this we conceive of as his creation is the whole ball of wax, or does he maybe have a result, an effect caused by this creation. A final creation, we might call it.

I see no point in attributing validity to what God does not. We are only what he has in mind for us --what he has made us for.

friend of said:

But to even have that awareness in the first place I dont think it could then be said that they are completely spiritually dead. Vitals signs show life, even if they are faint.

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I think you are hung up on the term "spiritually dead." When a Christian speaks that way, he means that the person in question does not know the true God and so has no prospects of salvation. That status could reasonably enough be termed "dead" in a spiritual sense.

You are using the term to mean a person who has no spiritual sense of any kind.