- Apr 7, 2012
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Not because they believe you are but because they feel that you must think you are.
Kind of a take off on "Spureon's Arminian Prayer" which he coined in order to illustrate the human pride underlying the idea of an unsaved, ungodly, rebellious – and spiritually dead – sinner exercising his “free-will” to choose the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior, i.e. to come to Christ of his own free-will. It was a takeoff on the prayer of the Pharisee that Jesus used as an illustration.
In his sermon Spurgeon says, among other things:
"...Any one who believes that man's will is entirely free, and that he can be saved by it, does not believe the.............But I tell you what will be the best proof of that; it is the great fact that you never did meet a Christian in your life who ever said he came to Christ without Christ coming to him. You have heard a great many Arminian sermons, I dare say; but you never heard an Arminian prayer - for the saints in prayer appear as one in word, and deed and mind. An Arminian on his knees would pray desperately like a Calvinist. He cannot pray about free-will: there is no room for it. Fancy him praying,
'Lord, I thank thee I am not like those poor presumptuous Calvinists Lord, I was born with a glorious free-will; I was born with power by which I can turn to thee of myself; I have improved my grace. If everybody had done the same with their grace that I have, they might all have been saved. Lord, I know thou dost not make us willing if we are not willing ourselves. Thou givest grace to everybody; some do not improve it, but I do. There are many that will go to hell as much bought with the blood of Christ as I was; they had as much of the Holy Ghost given to them; they had as good a chance, and were as much blessed as I am. It was not thy grace that made us to differ; I know it did a great deal, still I turned the point; I made use of what was given me, and others did not-that is the difference between me and them."
I believe their point was to use it as a argument against me. In other words, what make you so good that you can choose Christ but others did. It was just a way to charge me with self righteousness.
Spurgeon's using the same argument I addressed in my post. There is no one who doesn't have some understanding given by Christ. So, his argument, "I was born with power by which I can turn to thee of myself;" starts with a false premise. Can a person choose Christ, yes because Christ has already given them some level of understanding. This is where I believe the Calvinist argument against free will falls apart. They try to make it all about the person. As if they had absolutely nothing to go on. They use the made of argument that people are spiritually dead. Then say what can a dead man do. How can a dead man choose Christ, if he's dead. That's a bogus argument. Firstly, there is absolutely nothing in the Scriptures that says a man is spiritually dead. The whole concept isn't found in Scripture. Paul uses death as a metaphor. In Eph. 2, the passage usually quoted, Paul uses dead in sins as a metaphor for their inability to change their situation. That doesn't mean they can't ask for help.
He also creates room for equivocation and a red herring. He uses the term, "entirely free" without defining what that means, thus setting up room for equivocation. He also uses a red herring fallacy, that being that free will is saving one self. No free will believers I've ever seen claim they save themselves.
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