What's Wrong With Reformed Theology/Soteriology?

tdidymas · Dec 17, 2019

BNR32FAN said:
It’s basically the same scenario. God gave an impossible commandment, man is incapable of meeting God’s expectation, God provided a way for all to be saved but only allowed some to partake of it, and the rest burn in the lake of fire for all eternity.

Exactly which part of this scenario is not correct according to Calvin’s theology?

Your logic is essentially the same as what Pelagius, Cassian, and Finney reasoned, that if God gives a command, that anyone is able to obey it. This logic is humanistic in nature, and is contrary to the teaching of the apostle Paul in Rom. 3:10-18. Also, in Rom. 8:7-8, he says that the natural thinker cannot please God. This is a statement of inability. So your problem is with Paul's teaching.
TD

tdidymas · Dec 17, 2019

BNR32FAN said:
No because he talking about those whom He has called to righteousness as a group as a whole. That is how He is being patient with the vessels of destruction.

“For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; for " WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED." How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, " HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE THE FEET OF THOSE WHO BRING GOOD NEWS OF GOOD THINGS!" However, they did not all heed the good news; for Isaiah says, " LORD, WHO HAS BELIEVED OUR REPORT?" So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. But I say, surely they have never heard, have they? Indeed they have; " THEIR VOICE HAS GONE OUT INTO ALL THE EARTH, AND THEIR WORDS TO THE ENDS OF THE WORLD." But I say, surely Israel did not know, did they? First Moses says, "I WILL MAKE YOU JEALOUS BY THAT WHICH IS NOT A NATION, BY A NATION WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING WILL I ANGER YOU." And Isaiah is very bold and says, "I WAS FOUND BY THOSE WHO DID NOT SEEK ME, I BECAME MANIFEST TO THOSE WHO DID NOT ASK FOR ME." But as for Israel He says, " ALL THE DAY LONG I HAVE STRETCHED OUT MY HANDS TO A DISOBEDIENT AND OBSTINATE PEOPLE."”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭10:12-21‬ ‭NASB‬‬

Here Paul makes it clear that belief comes from hearing the gospel and choosing to believe.

It doesn't say "choosing to believe." This is what you add to it based on your bias. What it says is "faith comes..." which means it comes to a person from outside of that person, namely as a supernatural gift of God. But of course, you will refuse that, too.
TD

tdidymas · Dec 17, 2019

renniks said:
That's exactly what it says. If he ordains everything, it certainly includes all evil deeds. You are trying to believe a direct contradiction.

Either you don't know what you are talking about, or you are trying to hoodwink me. Let's see what the context of it actually says:

"I. God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established."

What you claim it says is not what it says, as can clearly be seen by the bolded text. So did you take it out of context by purpose, or by ignorance?
TD

tdidymas · Dec 17, 2019

renniks said:
Nope, he will say to those that were not really his that he never knew them. They were never in him. The ones cut off were in him.

It doesn't say he knew these people, you are presuming that.
TD

Charlie24 · Dec 17, 2019

tdidymas said:
This is one single verse that Arminians like to quote because it appears to be a stand-alone statement. But let me point to other scriptures which indicate that Arminians might not be fully understanding what the apostle is trying to teach in this statement.
1. Jesus gave his life as a ransom "for many" - not all in this context.
2. Jesus blood "purchased men from every tribe, tongue, and nation" - not all.

So then, what if "all men" does not refer to every person on earth? What if it refers to all nations, all kinds of people? It would fit the context, if we understand that Timothy was a Jew and very possibly had a prejudice against gentiles. You could claim that my idea is just speculation, but so is yours. Therefore, you can't base a whole soteriology on this one verse of scripture, and call this verse a "slam dunk." My point is that if the interpretation of this verse is contrary to what Paul clearly teaches elsewhere, then that interpretation doesn't hold water.

Of course it doesn't hold water. LOL

renniks · Dec 17, 2019

tdidymas said:
Either you don't know what you are talking about, or you are trying to hoodwink me. Let's see what the context of it actually says:

"I. God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established."

What you claim it says is not what it says, as can clearly be seen by the bolded text. So did you take it out of context by purpose, or by ignorance?
TD

Does everything not mean every thing? That sentence is self-contradictory. No amount of explaining away, or putting more Domino's in the row changes determinism into something else. If I am an all-powerful being, and I ordained whatever comes to pass, then the buck stops with me. It would mean I was the true cause of every man's or spirits actions.

renniks · Dec 17, 2019

tdidymas said:
It doesn't say he knew these people, you are presuming that.
TD

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.
You can't remain in Christ if you were never in Christ.

BNR32FAN · Dec 17, 2019

tdidymas said:
Your logic is essentially the same as what Pelagius, Cassian, and Finney reasoned, that if God gives a command, that anyone is able to obey it. This logic is humanistic in nature, and is contrary to the teaching of the apostle Paul in Rom. 3:10-18. Also, in Rom. 8:7-8, he says that the natural thinker cannot please God. This is a statement of inability. So your problem is with Paul's teaching.
TD

Not even close, Pelagius taught that man could live a sinless life and that man did not inherit Adam’s sinful nature. The natural man cannot please God because his works are tainted by his sin. After we are justified we can please God.

Romans 3:10-18 Says the fool in his heart. That’s how the verse begins. It’s an Old Testament reference from psalms 14 and another psalms I can’t remember off the top of my head.

“The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds; There is no one who does good. The LORD has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men To see if there are any who understand, Who seek after God. They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; There is no one who does good, not even one. Do all the workers of wickedness not know, Who eat up my people as they eat bread, And do not call upon the Lord?”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭14:1-4‬ ‭NASB‬‬

I can’t even count how many times Paul talks about believers doing good and how it pleases God.

tdidymas · Dec 17, 2019

bling said:
These verse will take a lot to explain, but it also has to be consistent with all these verse showing a child is innocent:

Now Ps. 51:5 "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me."

You do realize a careful read of this verse says: “…in sin my mother conceived me.”, and the iniquity is in the being brought forth”, so the fault is with the mother’s sin and being brought forth conception, so what sin is he talking about?

David talks about how he was treated as an outsider by his brothers: David describes quite literally in the psalm, “I was a stranger to my brothers, a foreigner to my mother’s sons . . . they put gall in my meal, and gave me vinegar to quench my thirst.” So does this have something to do with David’s mother?

This verse is a Hebrew poetic parallelism, with the second line of the verse saying the same thing as the first line in a slightly different way. The first verb, of which David is the subject, is in the Pulal tense (as is "made" in # Job 15:7 ), which is an idiom used to refer to creation or origins, and is the 'passive' form of Polel ("formed": # Ps 90:2 Pro 26:10 ). TWOT, #623, 1:270.

The subject is, as the verse clearly states, the 'circumstances' of his conception- the sexual union which produced him was an act of sin, and addresses the unrighteousness of his mother's act.

Looking at David’s Mother

Exodus 34:7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”

Matthew 1:5 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse

Torah specifically forbids an Israelite to marry a Moabite convert, since this is the nation that cruelly refused the Jewish people passage through their land, or food and drink to purchase, when they wandered in the desert after being freed from Egypt.

But this has to do with Jesse a Moabite descendent marrying a Jewish woman not the opposite, so is she condemned?

There is another twist to the story: 1CHR 2:13-16 13 “And Jesse begat his firstborn Eliab, and Abinadab the second, and Shimma the third, 14 Nethaneel the fourth, Raddai the fifth, 15 Ozem the sixth, David the seventh: 16 Whose sisters were Zeruiah, and Abigail. And the sons of Zeruiah; Abishai, and Joab, and Asahel, three. 17 And Abigail bare Amasa: and the father of Amasa was Jether the Ishmeelite.”

….and the father of David’s half-sisters was not Jesse, but Nahash: 2Sam 17:25 “And Absalom made Amasa captain of the host instead of Joab: which Amasa was a man’s son, whose name was Ithra an Israelite, that went in to Abigail the daughter of Nahash, sister to Zeruiah Joab’s mother.”

So, David’s mother was previously married to Nahash a gentile, so does that make her unclean?

I commend your very complex study here. However, I don't agree that the Ps. 51 is talking about the sin of David's mother, because the whole psalm is a confession of his own sin.

Again, it does not say death came to all people because Adam sinned, but because all sin. All mature adults need the reality of death hanging in their future to help them to realize they need forgiveness now and may not have tomorrow. It says nothing about humans inheriting anything, but they will eventually sin.

So then, with this logic, God created people with an inclination to commit sin, since everyone does so. It has to mean that you think the original human nature has an inclination to commit sin. If people are born sinless, and by their natural human nature have the ability to not sin, then why don't we see at least some small percentage of people not sinning? Why does Paul declare "all sinned," and Solomon declared "there is no one who always does right and doesn't sin"? If people are created in the image of God in the same way that Adam and Eve were created, then why do we all feel naturally naked? Why don't mature sinless individuals "not know" they are naked?

But it is obvious that from a very young age children are aware of their nakedness, and they start to sin before they even know what sin is. Children must be taught to do right, but they do wrong by nature. Sin is embedded in the nature of man, and to say that we haven't inherited it from Adam and Eve is to say that God is the author of sin.

This is saying nothing about inheriting sin? In fact read the whole section Ro. 7: I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.

Paul says he was alive to begin with but died only after he sinned and not after Adam sinned.

It says "sin, seizing the opportunity..." which means the sin was already in Paul before he broke the commandment. Don't confuse acts of sin with the principle of sin in operation.

No, the preponderance of verse suggests the opposite:

Spiritual consequences of sin cannot be transmitted from father to son but only falls on the one who committed the act: Ezek 18:1-4; 18-20; Jer 32:29-30

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These verses are talking about God holding them accountable. It's not denying that the sinful nature is inherited.

Sin is committed by individually breaking God's law: 1 Jn 3:4

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You are confusing a sinful act with the sinful nature. 1 Jn. 1:8 is talking about the sinful nature.

The spoken and written gospel message is God's power for salvation: Rom 1:16; 1 Cor. 1:18

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Ok, but it doesn't say that the sinful nature isn't inherited.

God said that the king of Tyrus was "blameless in your ways from the day you were created, until unrighteousness was found in you." Ezek 28:15

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You're misinterpreting this. If you claim that the literal human king was literally blameless, then you have to expand that same literal interpretation to the whole context. It would mean that he was a cherub, lived in Eden, was covered with jewels, he was on God's mountain, and walked on stones of fire (all literal). The correct interpretation of this verse is that it is poetry, and that it is a poetic way of saying that he was fallen from a great height. In fact, many interpret this "king of Tyre" to be Satan. Therefore, your argument here doesn't hold water.

"God made men upright but they sought devices" Eccl 7:29 (plural can't refer only to Adam)

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This verse can't mean what you are making it mean, since it is contradicting Paul's teaching that "no one is righteous." Therefore, this verse has to mean either that God made mankind to be upright, as the NLT translates, or that it means upright in the sight of men, but not in the sight of God. Again, it doesn't say that men aren't born with a sinful nature. "But they sought devices" implies they are sinful to do so.

Jer 19:2-6 human sacrifices of children to Baal is called the "blood of the innocent"

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Innocent doesn't mean not having a sinful nature. Children are always considered innocent, though they sin by nature.

Jesus teaches us that we must become as little children to enter the kingdom of God (Matt. 18:3- 4; Lk. 18:16-17)

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It means humble and willing to listen, not sinless.

Apostle Paul: Rom 7:9-11 "Once alive" "sin killed me"

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He is describing the experience. You can't dig sinless out of "once alive."

Our discussion has been on inherited sin not just inevitably sinning sins I agree all mature adults will sin, but that is not because of Adam and Eve doing something they could have kept from doing.

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I think you don't understand the nature of the fall. Adam had the ability to not sin before he sinned, but afterward did not have the ability to not sin, and no one has the ability to not sin today, therefore all people inherited the inability to not sin. This is proven by the fact that none are righteous, and all sin. Your idea is a contradiction to what Paul teaches.

Satan did say some true statements to Eve and Jesus.

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So you disagree with Jesus, since He said "there is no truth in him." I do not agree with you. All he spoke was lies, and all his speech was permeated with untruth.

Eph. 2: 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.

Just as the prodigal son in his “dead” state by Christ’s definition of “dead” could come to his senses and for selfish reasons turn to his father, there is nothing in Eph. 2 which states man does not have the ability to reject God’s salvation, just those Paul is addressing accepted God’s salvation.

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Man has the ability to reject God's salvation, since all do indeed reject it when merely offered to them. "Many are called, but few are chosen." The many called but not chosen are all who reject salvation when merely offered. This is the general calling that does not include the special grace of the gift of eternal life. Those chosen are the few that are gifted with the special calling, in which all these are justified and glorified (Rom. 8:30).

And Eph. 2 is about what God does to a person in saving that individual. Your idea of a person having the ability to reject God's salvation doesn't fit in the context. Your idea implies that after a person has been raised to life and seated in heaven with Christ, that he might say, "I think this is B.S., therefore, I'd rather die spiritually and take the consequences." How ludicrous.

Again, the person who does not reject God’s invitation will be saved, but they certainly did not “resurrect themselves”?

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You assume that an unregenerate person has the wisdom and wherewithall to accept God's invitation, which exalts that person to a state of righteousness, since only the righteous can make a righteous decision to obey the message. This is against what Paul teaches.

Adam and Eve were not “born with sin” and yet they sinned, so if there are a lot more ways to sin every mature adult will sin.

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Paul acknowledges that Adam sinned a very great sin because he was "not deceived" and people normally do not sin "in the likeness of Adam." He knew exactly what he was doing and did it deliberately, knowing he was incurring spiritual death. But people who inherit the sinful nature commit sins long before they know the wrong they are doing, and often not knowing the consequences.

We do have knowledge of good and evil, so there is a choice, but we cannot keep from every sin all the time (our knowledge produces way too many ways to sin). Paul in Ro. 7 was alive and doing great with the first 9 commandments, but coveting was his down fall. So was Paul making free will choices to keep the first 9 commandments?

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No, that's not the point of the context. He is merely using coveting as an example. I'm sure that he tried his best to keep the commandments, but the fact he was doing what he did without faith, he was sinning in all of them.

NO! They just need to be willing to accept pure charity (like a poor true bagger) as pure charity for even selfish reasons (selfish reasons are not righteous since being unselfish is righteous).

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A person with an ego doesn't have the attitude of a beggar to accept pure charity. In fact, to the one who thinks naturally and has no faith in a Savior, to suggest he needs a savior is an insult to his self-esteem. One can only seek to be saved after the Spirit has convicted him of his sinfulness and his need for saving, and this is the very process of transitioning a person from death to life. It's an act of God.

I never said: “a person by himself can make the worthy choice of accepting Christ”, but they just need to be willing to accept pure charity (like a poor true bagger) as pure charity for even selfish reasons (selfish reasons are not righteous, since being unselfish is righteous). What “worthy” thing did the prodigal son do?

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I already told you that he had hope to be accepted by his father at least in a low state. This is just a parable, but it is a picture of what happens when God bestows His grace on a person. That person awakens to the true condition of his heart, gets hope that he can be saved by Christ, and seeks to be saved. This is the very process of God transitioning a person from death to life.

God is always gracious with everyone, but some accept His grace and others reject His grace.

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This statement simply identifies who God has chosen and who He hasn't.

I do not think all people see their autonomy as being that “precious”.

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Anyone who rejects Christ has to see that, since they loathe surrendering to God's will.

So satan was always conceited?

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Ez. 28 is often attributed to Satan. Since God isn't the author of sin, Satan had to come up with that himself, and according to that passage and one in Isaiah, he got prideful, which is conceit.

So does the person predestined to go to hell, glorify God?

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This is much like Rom. 3:5-6 "But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is He? (I am speaking in human terms.) May it never be! For otherwise, how will God judge the world?"

So, people were objecting to what Paul taught, claiming that if people are judged and cast into hell that it glorifies God's justice, then why are they being judged, since they are glorifying God? This is the kind of circular logic that human reasoning comes up with, because of a refusal to surrender to God the way He is and the way He presents Himself.

God has the right to hold people culpable for their sin and to judge them accordingly, and His judgment is exact and true. He has no obligation to save any of them even if He does save some.

If “autonomy” is the essence of sin is God autonomous and thus the essence of sin?

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No, because God is righteous by nature, and we are unrighteous by nature, since our nature is corrupted by the sinful nature. Autonomy of human beings is corrupt, because we were designed by God to live in the faith that God works His works through us. Since that was lost in the fall, it makes autonomy the essence of sin, since all sin comes out of it.

Just very limited autonomy allows humans to Love not like a robot, but Love like God Loves us.

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Don't confuse natural love with love that comes from God. (1 Jn. 4:7)
TD

tdidymas · Dec 17, 2019

renniks said:
Does everything not mean every thing? That sentence is self-contradictory. No amount of explaining away, or putting more Domino's in the row changes determinism into something else. If I am an all-powerful being, and I ordained whatever comes to pass, then the buck stops with me. It would mean I was the true cause of every man's or spirits actions.

It clearly has exceptions, one of which is "God is not the author of sin." You should read it carefully.
TD

tdidymas · Dec 17, 2019

renniks said:
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.
You can't remain in Christ if you were never in Christ.

I already talked about those who are "in Christ" are members of His body. This fact is taught by the apostle Paul in 1 Cor. And since Paul acknowledges that not every person in the body is born again necessarily, the body of Christ contains both children of God and the children of the devil. He alludes to the parable of the wheat and tares by saying they are "God's field." He states in ch. 6 that whoever continues to practice the sinful behavior that they had been doing will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. This is proof positive that Paul is warning these people that they better check themselves out, as they might not be born of God after all, since Jesus said "by their fruit you shall know them." Yet, he says they are "in Christ." So being "in Christ" does not constitute regeneration. Jesus talks about bearing fruit in that context, and since He already said "you shall know them by their fruit," he is saying that the fruit they bear will show that they are God's sons, and so if they don't bear fruit, they are cast out because they aren't God's children. It fits well in this context.
TD

renniks · Dec 18, 2019

tdidymas said:
It's becoming obvious that you cannot correctly understand what you are reading. It clearly has exceptions, one of which is "God is not the author of sin," which you are purposely avoiding, so your response is disingenuous.
TD

If God ordains that men sin, then how is he not the ultimate author of man's sin? And keep in mind, in Calvinism, it's not due to his foreknowledge that he ordains things, but only due to his will.

renniks · Dec 18, 2019

tdidymas said:
So being "in Christ" does not constitute regeneration.

You are talking about two different things. Being part of a church body is not the same as being in Christ.

bling · Dec 18, 2019

tdidymas said:
I commend your very complex study here. However, I don't agree that the Ps. 51 is talking about the sin of David's mother, because the whole psalm is a confession of his own sin.

That is your support for saying: “two cells coming together is a sinner”.

tdidymas said:
So then, with this logic, God created people with an inclination to commit sin, ...

Yes! All mature adults including Adam and Eve are not only “inclined” to sin, but will sin eventually. For us today with the knowledge of good and evil there are just too many ways to sin, while for Adam and Eve their one way to sin was going to be the one way they would sin.

Mature adults today know they are naked because they have knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve did not have that prior to sinning.

Unfortunately and to God’s great sorrow, sin has purpose in help nonbelieving sinners with fulfilling their earthly objective, so God will allow humans to sin.

Answer me this: Would you prefer to be in a place where your eternal close relationship with God was dependent on your personal ability to obey God (the Garden) or in a place where your eternal close relationship with God is dependent on your just accepting His charity as charity (where you are now)?

tdidymas said:
But it is obvious that from a very young age children are aware of their nakedness,....

Babies do not realize they are naked or care if they are naked. Yes, as children grow older their knowledge of good and evil does kick in.

No! saying we did not inherit sin from Adam and Eve does not mean God is the author of sin. The knowledge of good and evil provides lots of ways to sin and we just do not have the power within ourselves to keep from sinning at some time. We can keep from a sin at a particular time by doing something else, but not all sins at all times, so we are guilty of every sin we commit.

tdidymas said:
It says "sin, seizing the opportunity..." which means the sin was already in Paul before he broke the commandment. Don't confuse acts of sin with the principle of sin in operation.

Paul was alive prior to sinning, so he was not always a sinner because only sinning brings death as Paul explains. You are trying to make this passage say: Paul was already and always a sinner, yet he writes of a huge contrast between life and death which came with his sinning and not Adam and Eve’s sinning.

Ro. 7:9 Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.

tdidymas said:
Ok, but it doesn't say that the sinful nature isn't inherited.

I am not saying our inherited “nature” can keep us from being a sinner, just as Adam and Eve’s nature did not keep them from sinning, but again do not “blame” our sinning on God giving us a bad nature any more than you would blame God for the nature Adam and Eve had that caused them to sin.

tdidymas said:
You're misinterpreting this.

I did not say this is talking about a humans, but what it shows is: God can create sinless beings who later sin.

tdidymas said:
This verse can't mean what you are making it mean,.

We are talking about beings (including humans) which start out without sin (upright) and later sin which is something Paul said about himself in Ro. 7. The “no one is righteous” in context the “one” does not include new born babies and would mean: “not one of you”, being addressed.

tdidymas said:
Innocent doesn't mean not having a sinful nature. Children are always considered innocent, though they sin by nature.

We might be in agreement here, but they would not be innocent if there are in anyway guilty of Adam and Eve’s sin?

tdidymas said:
It means humble and willing to listen, not sinless.

tdidymas said:
He is describing the experience. You can't dig sinless out of "once alive."

The contrast Paul is drawing is between before and after he sinned, so what does that contrast for you include?

tdidymas said:
I think you don't understand the nature of the fall. .

Where does it ever say: “Before Adam and Eve sinned, they had the ability to keep from sinning eternally?” The knowledge of good and evil just gave them a ton of other ways to sin.

The fact that Adam and Eve did sin in less than 1000 years with only one way to sin, suggests they did not have the ability within themselves to keep from sinning.

Lots of times “you” refers to the people being addressed (adults) and not little babies. There is a ton of stuff “you” must do, which a baby cannot do.

tdidymas said:
So you disagree with Jesus.

Just because a liar says something true does not mean he is not a liar. The “truth” is part of his lying. Was the scripture satan quoted a lie? 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:

“‘He will command his angels concerning you,

and they will lift you up in their hands,

so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’

tdidymas said:
Man has the ability to reject God's salvation, since all do indeed reject it when merely offered to them. "Many are called, but few are chosen." (Rom. 8:30).

Why can the “chosen” not be the ones who accept the call, since that is what is happening? God can decide before time began to make all those who accept the call, His chosen.

tdidymas said:
And Eph. 2 Your idea of a person having the ability to reject God's salvation doesn't fit in the context.

People reject the good news most of the time. People have a real hard time humbly accepting pure charity as charity.

What God does to “save” a person comes after they are willing to humbly accept His pure charity.

The soldier who surrenders is still dead in his transgressions (deserving of a torturous death due to previous war crimes) and he hates his enemy, but he is just willing to accept pure charity from his enemy. That surrender is then showed with gifts. Eph. 2 has no issue with that explanation?

tdidymas said:
You assume that an unregenerate person has the wisdom and wherewithall to accept God's invitation, which exalts that person to a state of righteousness, since only the righteous can make a righteous decision to obey the message. This is against what Paul teaches.

What “wisdom” would it take for a homeless street person to accept a compelling invitation to a huge wonderful everything provided banquet? It really takes a lot more foolish pride and wherewithal to reject such an invitation, but some do.

tdidymas said:
Paul acknowledges that Adam sinned a very great sin because he was "not deceived" and people normally do not sin "in the likeness of Adam." He knew exactly what he was doing and did it deliberately, knowing he was incurring spiritual death. But people who inherit the sinful nature commit sins long before they know the wrong they are doing, and often not knowing the consequences.

Adam was to be over Eve, suggesting his sin was not as grave as Eve’s. This takes time to explain but briefly: “With” in Gen. 3 most likely means Adam is not against Eve, but with her, so was one “with” her as a wonderful husband and wife team. Adam was supportive of Eve and if he had been at the tree in close proximity to Eve would have spoken up (Adam was made very good, which for God would most likely mean as good as a person could be made, so not timid). Adam had a huge love for Eve greater than his love for God and at that point felt he could not live without Eve (like we see with true love). If Eve was going away Adam would have wanted to go where ever she went including death.

That kind of concern a man can have for a woman would allow him to be over the woman.

tdidymas said:
No, that's not the point of the context. He is merely using coveting as an example. I'm sure that he tried his best to keep the commandments, but the fact he was doing what he did without faith, he was sinning in all of them.

Paul describes himself before the sin of coveting alive.

tdidymas said:
A person with an ego doesn't have the attitude of a beggar to accept pure charity. In fact, to the one who thinks naturally and has no faith in a Savior, to suggest he needs a savior is an insult to his self-esteem. One can only seek to be saved after the Spirit has convicted him of his sinfulness and his need for saving, and this is the very process of transitioning a person from death to life. It's an act of God.

Paul describes himself prior to having the Spirit as: I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. …What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?

tdidymas said:
I already told you that he had hope to be accepted by his father at least in a low state. This is just a parable, but it is a picture of what happens when God bestows His grace on a person. That person awakens to the true condition of his heart, gets hope that he can be saved by Christ, and seeks to be saved. This is the very process of God transitioning a person from death to life.

Undeserving grace was shown the young son throughout his life, but he was not accepting it as charity. The story does not say servant were sent to the son to bring him back, but the son was brought to his senses by his own selfish actions. God’s grace is extended to all mature adults even today, but few accept it as charity. You seem to suggest the father (God) somehow changed the mind of the son in the foreign land when nothing suggest it and it talks only about the son himself changing.

tdidymas said:
God has the right to hold people culpable for their sin and to judge them accordingly, and His judgment is exact and true. He has no obligation to save any of them even if He does save some.

God obligates Himself to be fair, just and Loving with all humans, since this is the way He describes Himself.

What would you think of a rescuer who could just as easily and safely save everyone, but knowingly will only save a few? God is not like such a person, since God saves everyone willing to accept His help. Those who refuse God’s Love, charity, mercy, grace and forgiveness would not like to be in heaven, since there is only Godly type Love (charity) which they do not like.

What do you see as man’s earthly objective and remember you can take any Biblical command and say “ This is man’s objective” and have Biblical support for it?

The reason you have free will is because it is required for you to complete your earthly objective.

This messed up world which includes satan roaming around is not here for your pleasure, but to help you become like God Himself in that you have the unique, unbelievable Godly type Love (God himself is Love).

God has created beings to shower them with the greatest gifts possible, the greatest gift being having a Love like His.

If there is this Creator of the universe out there, His “creations” could not really “do” anything for Him, so this Creator would have to be seen as a Giver (Unselfish Lover) and not trying to “get” something from His creation.

Why would God have a totally unselfish type of Love, since He personally would not get anything out of it? If God’s “Love” is some kind of knee jerk reaction, then it is really meaningless (something like; gravity which is nice to have, but everyone automatically has it). God Loves us in spite of what we have done, who we are or what we will do, so it has to be by His choice.

God would create the right universe for the sake of the individuals that will accept His gift (the most powerful force [Love] in all universes, since that force [Love] compels even God to do all He does) and thus we become like He is (the greatest gift He could give).

What keeps the all-powerful Creator from just giving whatever He wants to his creation, eliminating the need for free will and this earthly time yet:

There are just something even an all-powerful Creator cannot do (there are things impossible to do), like create another Christ since Christ has always existed, the big impossibility for us is; create humans with instinctive Godly type Love, since Godly type Love is not instinctive. Godly type love has to be the result of a free will decision by the being, to make it the person’s Love apart from God. In other words: If the Love was in a human from the human’s creation it would be a robotic type love and not a Godly type Love. Also if God “forces” this Love on a person (Kind a like a shotgun wedding) it would not be “loving” on God’s part and the love forced on the person would not be Godly type Love. This Love has to be the result of a free will moral choice with real alternatives (for humans those alternatives include the perceived pleasures of sin for a season.)

This Love is way beyond anything humans could develop, obtain, learn, earn, pay back or ever deserve, so it must be the result of a gift that is accepted or rejected (a free will choice).

This “Love” is much more than just an emotional feeling; it is God Himself (God is Love). If you see this Love you see God.

Let me just give you an example of How God works to help willing individuals.

All mature adults do stuff that hurts others (this is called sin) these transgressions weigh on them burden them to the point the individual seeks relief (at least early on before they allow their hearts to be hardened). Lots of “alternatives” can be tried for relief, but the only true relief comes from God with forgiveness (this forgiveness is pure charity [grace/mercy/Love]). The correct humble acceptance of this Forgiveness (Charity) automatically will result in Love (we are taught by Jesus and our own experience “…he that is forgiven much will Love much…”). Sin is thus made hugely significant, so there will be an unbelievable huge debt to be forgiven of and thus result in an unbelievable huge “Love” (Godly type Love).

If the nonbeliever had knowledge of God's existence that person would not need faith in God's existence, but faith is needed for humility and humility is needed to humbly accept pure charity and the only way to get Godly type Love is through accepting it as pure charity in the form of forgiveness.

That is an introduction to a huge topic.

tdidymas · Dec 18, 2019

renniks said:
You are talking about two different things. Being part of a church body is not the same as being in Christ.

Rom. 12:5 "So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another."

Obviously, the term "in Christ" does not mean the same thing everywhere, but as quoted above, it means the same thing as a church body. Therefore, Jesus could well have meant church body, speaking to His disciples when he said "every branch in Me." Since Judas was one of His disciples and was the son of perdition, that's a prime example that not every person "in Him" had to be a true believer. Therefore you cannot formulate doctrine on this one verse, but proper interpretation examines the preponderance of evidence.
TD

renniks · Dec 18, 2019

tdidymas said:
Rom. 12:5 "So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another."

Obviously, the term "in Christ" does not mean the same thing everywhere, but as quoted above, it means the same thing as a church body. Therefore, Jesus could well have meant church body, speaking to His disciples when he said "every branch in Me." Since Judas was one of His disciples and was the son of perdition, that's a prime example that not every person "in Him" had to be a true believer. Therefore you cannot formulate doctrine on this one verse, but proper interpretation examines the preponderance of evidence.
TD

The church didn't even exist when Jesus said this.

tdidymas · Dec 18, 2019

bling said:
That is your support for saying: “two cells coming together is a sinner”.

IMO your wording is ludicrous. "two cells" doesn't constitute a whole human being, and you are confusing the natural with the spiritual. The point is the psalm is speaking of David's sin, not his mother's. And to say "in sin did my mother conceive me" is a poetic way of saying "I was a sinner from birth," the same way Job poetically curses the day he was born. So I think you're missing the point of it. I still say that verse strongly supports inheritance of the sinful nature.

Yes! All mature adults including Adam and Eve are not only “inclined” to sin, but will sin eventually. For us today with the knowledge of good and evil there are just too many ways to sin, while for Adam and Eve their one way to sin was going to be the one way they would sin.

To be inclined to sin is a guarantee that human nature will be sinful. You must realize that you imply here that God is the author of sin, if He created Adam and Eve with the inclination to sin.

But I think you are misunderstanding the scripture. Adam and Eve were created in a state of sinlessness, and they had the Holy Spirit guiding them, so their lives were pleasing to God, as expressed by the statement "He saw it was very good" (after creating man).

When Adam sinned that very great sin (in which he was not deceived, but he just had some reason to do it, knowing the consequence was spiritual death), he lost the ability to be guided by the Spirit, and thus became autonomous, that is, an authority unto himself. So then, he contracted the spiritual disease of the sinful nature, and passed that on to all his progeny.

Mature adults today know they are naked because they have knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve did not have that prior to sinning.

The knowledge of good and evil is not mere information and experience. It's a self-determination when people decide for themselves what is good and bad without regard to God's will or guidance. It's a detachment from God and a disconnection where people can't hear God speak, which is the condition of the heart. It's another term for autonomy.

Unfortunately and to God’s great sorrow, sin has purpose in help nonbelieving sinners with fulfilling their earthly objective, so God will allow humans to sin.

"sin has purpose in help nonbelieving sinners with fulfilling their earthly objective" - you better explain this and what scriptural basis you have, because it makes no sense.

Answer me this: Would you prefer to be in a place where your eternal close relationship with God was dependent on your personal ability to obey God (the Garden) or in a place where your eternal close relationship with God is dependent on your just accepting His charity as charity (where you are now)?

Why are you asking me this? Do you think I've rejected His charity?

Babies do not realize they are naked or care if they are naked. Yes, as children grow older their knowledge of good and evil does kick in.

Yes, by nature.

No! saying we did not inherit sin from Adam and Eve does not mean God is the author of sin. The knowledge of good and evil provides lots of ways to sin and we just do not have the power within ourselves to keep from sinning at some time. We can keep from a sin at a particular time by doing something else, but not all sins at all times, so we are guilty of every sin we commit.

So you admit that you cannot keep from sinning at all times. This is known as "sinful nature." And God did not create Adam and Eve with it. They got it by losing connection with God and their innocence, and every person has it, so we inherited it.

Paul was alive prior to sinning, so he was not always a sinner because only sinning brings death as Paul explains. You are trying to make this passage say: Paul was already and always a sinner, yet he writes of a huge contrast between life and death which came with his sinning and not Adam and Eve’s sinning.

Ro. 7:9 Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.

Paul is describing the experience of the sinful nature, according to the context of Rom. 7. You cannot take this one verse from its context and build a doctrine that he was once innocent and sinless and then became sinful after committing one sin. That doesn't follow the teaching of scripture.

I am not saying our inherited “nature” can keep us from being a sinner, just as Adam and Eve’s nature did not keep them from sinning, but again do not “blame” our sinning on God giving us a bad nature any more than you would blame God for the nature Adam and Eve had that caused them to sin.

This is where you err, IMO. You said "the nature that Adam and Eve had that caused them to sin." The nature they had was created by God, and if that nature caused them to sin, then indirectly God caused them to sin, because He created it that way. This makes God the author of sin.

The fact is, the nature that Adam and Eve was created with was "very good," which means they had a sinless nature. This is why it is said that in that condition Adam had the ability to not sin. Then after eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he lost that ability, so his nature changed, that is, his spiritual nature. He then did not have the ability to not sin. And this is the nature we are all born with.

I did not say this is talking about a humans, but what it shows is: God can create sinless beings who later sin.

So what? Satan was created without sin, but he sinned, too. But that doesn't prove that humans aren't now born with a sinful nature.

We are talking about beings (including humans) which start out without sin (upright) and later sin which is something Paul said about himself in Ro. 7. The “no one is righteous” in context the “one” does not include new born babies and would mean: “not one of you”, being addressed.

Paul is talking about spiritual righteousness, which comes to a person (as a gift from God) by means of faith in Christ. This has nothing to do with the innocence of new born babies or God's mercy on them because they don't have the capacity for faith. With that said, when he says "no not one," he is not talking just about the people he is writing to, he is talking about every man, woman, and child on the face of the earth.

We might be in agreement here, but they would not be innocent if there are in anyway guilty of Adam and Eve’s sin?

Here is where I can't answer your question, because I haven't checked out this part of reformed doctrine (that is, assuming it is reformed doctrine). I remember someone saying once that Augustine taught in the doctrine of Original Sin that even babies are guilty of Adam's sin. This is something I'm suspicious of, and haven't studied it. But it might be based on Paul's statement "nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses" (that is, without the Mosaic Law). It may be meaning that babies can die because they are born with a sinful nature. However, it might be confusing the physical with spiritual. We can't know if a baby is spiritually alive until they become able to exercise faith and bear spiritual fruit. Like I said, I haven't studied this, so I have to leave this open.

The contrast Paul is drawing is between before and after he sinned, so what does that contrast for you include?

It includes Paul's knowledge of the gravity of his sin by reason of his conscience. He feels dead in his conscience (not "free" and innocent as before), because he now knows that he has broken God's commandment. It doesn't mean that he was literally and ontologically alive spiritually, and then spiritually died when he sinned. Like I said, he is describing experience for the benefit of the less educated people he is writing to.

Where does it ever say: “Before Adam and Eve sinned, they had the ability to keep from sinning eternally?” The knowledge of good and evil just gave them a ton of other ways to sin.

The preponderance of evidence in scripture tells us that humans have a sinful nature. And since God is not the author of sin, when He said His creation of them was "very good," we infer they were sinless, and without the inclination to sin. After they sinned, they had the inclination, as we all do. Therefore, I disagree with your 2nd statement that it "just gave them a ton of other ways to sin."

The fact that Adam and Eve did sin in less than 1000 years with only one way to sin, suggests they did not have the ability within themselves to keep from sinning.

Eve was deceived into sinning by the serpent, so this implies she wouldn't have sinned if she hadn't been deceived. Adam wasn't deceived, but he sinned anyway because Eve was now a sinner, and she was his precious one joined at the hip. It implies that if Eve hadn't sinned, he wouldn't have either.

Lots of times “you” refers to the people being addressed (adults) and not little babies. There is a ton of stuff “you” must do, which a baby cannot do.

ok

Just because a liar says something true does not mean he is not a liar. The “truth” is part of his lying. Was the scripture satan quoted a lie? 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’

No, I disagree. This quote from Satan was a big fat lie, not because of the words, but because of what he was trying to make it mean. Just because Satan quoted the Bible doesn't make what he said true. And the same with anyone. People quote the Bible all the time and try to make it mean something different that what it originally meant.

Why can the “chosen” not be the ones who accept the call, since that is what is happening? God can decide before time began to make all those who accept the call, His chosen.

Because it's a confusion between cause and effect. We glorify God by saying it was God's choice for these reasons:
1. Man is dead in sin, and a spiritually dead person can't accept any call that is spiritual in nature.
2. God's grace transcended His justice by means of Christ's sacrifice, in calling to Himself those whom He chose.
3. Therefore God gets to glorify Himself before all creation in both justice and mercy.
4. After God bestows mercy on those of His choosing, we then glorify God with our acceptance and praise of Him.

In addition to this, to claim that God looks ahead to see who will accept His call is effectively making predestination not predestination, because then it would be prediction. The Bible says we are predestined, not predicted well.

People reject the good news most of the time. People have a real hard time humbly accepting pure charity as charity.

This is not because they don't theoretically have the capacity to accept charity. But it is because they are in spiritual rebellion against God, and it insults their natural self-esteem being told they are sinners in need of a savior. This is why it takes an act of God to change anyone's attitude.

What God does to “save” a person comes after they are willing to humbly accept His pure charity.

This is where our paths diverge. IMO you have cause and effect confused. By the time a person is willing to accept God's charity, God has already done a great spiritual work in them.

The soldier who surrenders is still dead in his transgressions (deserving of a torturous death due to previous war crimes) and he hates his enemy, but he is just willing to accept pure charity from his enemy. That surrender is then showed with gifts. Eph. 2 has no issue with that explanation?

Your analogy doesn't fit because it confuses the natural with the spiritual. If a captured soldier hates his enemy while captured, then his attitude hasn't changed. Surrendering to God means the whole attitude and disposition of the heart is changed. There is a wide difference.

And if you say that surrender to God results with gifts from God, then surrender becomes your work to obtain salvation. But I suppose you will deny that.

What “wisdom” would it take for a homeless street person to accept a compelling invitation to a huge wonderful everything provided banquet? It really takes a lot more foolish pride and wherewithal to reject such an invitation, but some do.

It's a picture of how people can't accept the gift of life, because the disposition of their heart is depraved. It takes an act of God to overcome it.

Adam was to be over Eve, suggesting his sin was not as grave as Eve’s. This takes time to explain but briefly: “With” in Gen. 3 most likely means Adam is not against Eve, but with her, so was one “with” her as a wonderful husband and wife team. Adam was supportive of Eve and if he had been at the tree in close proximity to Eve would have spoken up (Adam was made very good, which for God would most likely mean as good as a person could be made, so not timid). Adam had a huge love for Eve greater than his love for God and at that point felt he could not live without Eve (like we see with true love). If Eve was going away Adam would have wanted to go where ever she went including death.

That kind of concern a man can have for a woman would allow him to be over the woman.

Actually his sin was much more grave than hers, since he wasn't deceived and she was.

Paul describes himself before the sin of coveting alive.

This cannot mean spiritually alive and connected to God. He is describing an experience.

Paul describes himself prior to having the Spirit as: I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. …What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?

Not sure your point, as it seems to agree with the doctrine of Total Depravity, that is, that everyone has the inclination to sin.

Undeserving grace was shown the young son throughout his life, but he was not accepting it as charity. The story does not say servant were sent to the son to bring him back, but the son was brought to his senses by his own selfish actions. God’s grace is extended to all mature adults even today, but few accept it as charity. You seem to suggest the father (God) somehow changed the mind of the son in the foreign land when nothing suggest it and it talks only about the son himself changing.

It's a parable, not an allegory. If the Father God is in a distant land, then how does the son get hope of being accepted? It takes God (who is omnipresent) to convict the heart of the sinner and give him hope of being accepted. The parable is merely a picture of how much God loves. This is my point.

God obligates Himself to be fair, just and Loving with all humans, since this is the way He describes Himself.

God doesn't obligate Himself to anything, and I think you'll have a tough time proving that from scripture. God describes Himself in many ways other than loving. In each context there is an aspect of God that is distinct to that context. God describes Himself also as jealous and wrathful among other things.

What would you think of a rescuer who could just as easily and safely save everyone, but knowingly will only save a few? God is not like such a person, since God saves everyone willing to accept His help. Those who refuse God’s Love, charity, mercy, grace and forgiveness would not like to be in heaven, since there is only Godly type Love (charity) which they do not like.

Your analogy lacks Biblical support, and is a straw man, since it doesn't include what scripture says that God intends to do with the wicked. Your assessment tries to put God in a mercy box of your making wherein He has to have the same love, mercy, and grace on everyone alike. This simply is not the case.

Furthermore, you claim that those who refuse it would not like to be in heaven, but that is also a bad assessment, since people of all religions including Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, etc. are all trying to get there.

What do you see as man’s earthly objective and remember you can take any Biblical command and say “ This is man’s objective” and have Biblical support for it?

I've seen you say this several times, but now I'm not sure what you are driving at.

The reason you have free will is because it is required for you to complete your earthly objective.

Well, it depends on what you mean by "free will." If a person has a gun pointing at him and is told to get in a car, then if he gets in the car, he did it with his own free will. So, perhaps you should explain what you mean by free will, as I did several times before. Does it mean none of your choices are directed by God?

This messed up world which includes satan roaming around is not here for your pleasure, but to help you become like God Himself in that you have the unique, unbelievable Godly type Love (God himself is Love).

God has created beings to shower them with the greatest gifts possible, the greatest gift being having a Love like His.

If there is this Creator of the universe out there, His “creations” could not really “do” anything for Him, so this Creator would have to be seen as a Giver (Unselfish Lover) and not trying to “get” something from His creation.

I'm in agreement with these statements.

This post was limited to this point, so I had to make a part 2.

TD

tdidymas · Dec 18, 2019

Part 2:

bling said:
Why would God have a totally unselfish type of Love, since He personally would not get anything out of it? If God’s “Love” is some kind of knee jerk reaction, then it is really meaningless (something like; gravity which is nice to have, but everyone automatically has it). God Loves us in spite of what we have done, who we are or what we will do, so it has to be by His choice.

It sounds like you are agreeing with me here.

God would create the right universe for the sake of the individuals that will accept His gift (the most powerful force [Love] in all universes, since that force [Love] compels even God to do all He does) and thus we become like He is (the greatest gift He could give).

Are you agreeing with me by this statement? A big part of God's purpose for us is that we believe that God is working His love through us, that is, through our actions.

What keeps the all-powerful Creator from just giving whatever He wants to his creation, eliminating the need for free will and this earthly time yet:

There are just something even an all-powerful Creator cannot do (there are things impossible to do), like create another Christ since Christ has always existed, the big impossibility for us is; create humans with instinctive Godly type Love, since Godly type Love is not instinctive. Godly type love has to be the result of a free will decision by the being, to make it the person’s Love apart from God. In other words: If the Love was in a human from the human’s creation it would be a robotic type love and not a Godly type Love. Also if God “forces” this Love on a person (Kind a like a shotgun wedding) it would not be “loving” on God’s part and the love forced on the person would not be Godly type Love. This Love has to be the result of a free will moral choice with real alternatives (for humans those alternatives include the perceived pleasures of sin for a season.)

This Love is way beyond anything humans could develop, obtain, learn, earn, pay back or ever deserve, so it must be the result of a gift that is accepted or rejected (a free will choice).

This sounds like great philosophy, but it's not Biblical. No person has the wherewithall to love God and his neighbor with the kind of love that pleases God, unless God works that love in them, since "love comes from God." Therefore, it cannot be expressed by a "free will choice," but rather by faith, and that is not the same thing. A "free will choice" is something that is generated by man, this is my understanding of it. But faith is generated by God as a gift, and man exercises that faith in the choices he makes. It is "free" in the sense that it is no longer enslaved to sin because it is made in "the freedom of the sons of God," and is energized by God Himself. And it is "not free" in the sense that it is not generated by the man alone, but in service and connection to God, IOW performed by God Himself.

This “Love” is much more than just an emotional feeling; it is God Himself (God is Love). If you see this Love you see God.

Let me just give you an example of How God works to help willing individuals.

All mature adults do stuff that hurts others (this is called sin) these transgressions weigh on them burden them to the point the individual seeks relief (at least early on before they allow their hearts to be hardened). Lots of “alternatives” can be tried for relief, but the only true relief comes from God with forgiveness (this forgiveness is pure charity [grace/mercy/Love]). The correct humble acceptance of this Forgiveness (Charity) automatically will result in Love (we are taught by Jesus and our own experience “…he that is forgiven much will Love much…”). Sin is thus made hugely significant, so there will be an unbelievable huge debt to be forgiven of and thus result in an unbelievable huge “Love” (Godly type Love).

I see you describing experiences here, of which I concur. But it doesn't negate the doctrine Paul teaches about how we are transitioned from death to life. His teaching about that transition causes us (yes, specifically me) to love God more and trust Him more so that the love you are talking about is expressed more in my life. This is my experience.

If the nonbeliever had knowledge of God's existence that person would not need faith in God's existence, but faith is needed for humility and humility is needed to humbly accept pure charity and the only way to get Godly type Love is through accepting it as pure charity in the form of forgiveness.

That is an introduction to a huge topic.

That topic is called "systematic theology."

TD

tdidymas · Dec 18, 2019

renniks said:
If God ordains that men sin, then how is he not the ultimate author of man's sin? And keep in mind, in Calvinism, it's not due to his foreknowledge that he ordains things, but only due to his will.

I'm not sure I can answer this question on the basis of Calvinism, because I haven't studied Calvinism, I've only studied the scripture, and I am in agreement so far with Reformed Theology insomuch as I know of it.

However, it seems to me that this is posing the same question as "If God is perfect and sinless, why is there evil in the world? Why did He allow evil? Why did He create a world which contains evil? It seems the same question as, if God ordains a world that is now sinful, then how can God not be the author of sin?

We know that God can create a world where there is no sin, since it is prophesied there will be a New Jerusalem where everyone will be righteous. So then, what's the reason for the exercise of creating a world that contains sin in it? And does that make God the author of sin, or does it make Him evil that the world He created has evil in it? And the ultimate question is, where did evil come from?

I propose that God can create a world of men that has the potential of sin, and yet He is not the author of sin. I propose that God can create a world that contains evil, and that He is not the author of evil. I realize this is controversial, and philosophers, theologians, atheists, and clergy have been debating this question for millenia. I've no doubt that God has this all figured out, since He is all-wise. Since He has not chosen to spell it out to us, it will continue to be controversial and a mystery to mankind until this world is put to an end.

But we find ourselves in this sinful condition, amidst a world full of evil. This is what we have to deal with, and according to scripture Christ is the only answer. Furthermore, I find it very satisfying to accept what Paul has to say, unlike some who objected to his teachings, saying things like "he teaches that we should do evil that good may come," or "if my life glorifies God no matter what, then why am I judged as a sinner?"

It appears to me that those who oppose scripture by trying to reinterpret it according to their limited human reasoning, are merely trying to hang on to the illusion of control. They want to think they have control of their eternal destiny, and think they can do it by their reasoning. "If I can understand it, I can control it" is the idea.

I think it's much better to just accept what God says about the nature of our relationship with Him by accepting what scripture says about it. That means letting go of what we think is knowledge and reasoning, and embracing what the scripture says is wisdom and knowledge. So then, understanding of the Christian life becomes a matter of familiarity with the word of God.

With that said, there is a difference between the will of man in the natural sense, and the will of God in the spiritual sense. It's multidimensional. This is why the question you asked probably won't be answered to your satisfaction.
TD

tdidymas · Dec 18, 2019

renniks said:
The church didn't even exist when Jesus said this.

If the church didn't exist, then how did the disciples know what He meant?
Actually, the term is "ekklesia." It means "assembly," and this is what "Ecclesiastes" means. The church is a body of believers, and so yes, it did exist.
TD

What's Wrong With Reformed Theology/Soteriology?

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