Something that's hard to get across is the idea of non-meritorious works. So that believing in Christ itself isn't considered a work, which is the thing that's often thrown back at you with the accompanying claims of semi-Pelagianism. If somebody knocked on your door and put a gift on the ground for you, nobody in their right mind would claim any kind of credit for picking up the gift. I don't mean for this thread to turn into me complaining about Calvinism as I was genuinely curious if there was an answer and if there is a solid one then I'm fine with accepting like I said.God alone causes someone to be born again - but before that happens the person must choose the gospel which is a synergistic work - with the God drawing and convicting the person - enabling their choice and the person choosing to respond.
How I view assurance now is that continual willful sin means that you will end up rejecting God for the world and that He always remains faithful (2 Timothy 2:13). The ironic thing is that I have more assurance now than I did as a Calvinist. On top of that is that the warnings for willful sin in scripture actually have weight now rather than me essentially being an actor in a play reading my lines. I still don't believe in a free will but I believe in real choice and I feel like it makes all the difference in the world.The problem with the assurance of salvation in classic 3 and 5 point Calvinism is that you get 100% of your assurance today - "retro-deleted" if 10 years from now - you fail to persevere. In that case - no matter your strong claims to assurance today - it all goes up in smoke when 10 years from today you fail. Which means you were never saved to start with so you could not have had any assurance at all no matter all your claims to the contrary and even the one who claims it today will confess that truth when he/she sees their failure 10 years from today.
The Arminian can know for certain he/she is saved today within the Arminian logical framework - .- but can't know today - that he will still be saved 10 years from today (given that same framework).
However the 3 and 5 point Calvinist cannot logically know even that much given the 3 and 5 point Calvinist logical framework - all they can do is say "well I know that I know that I know -- no matter that the logical framework for 3 and 5 point Calvinism does not provide for that certainty".
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