A Few Questions For The Calvinist To Ponder

WarrenW said:

If you reject Calvinism then why do you pray for someone's salvation? He is not saved because he rejected God. What do you ask God for when you pray? It seems to me that when you pray you are asking God to do something which assumes that God will be active in bringing the person to salvation.

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O_O

So you think Arminians don't believe God is active in bringing someone to salvation?

Perceivence said:

You just supported my point.

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Only if your point is the opposite of what you actually said.

In the Calvinist model, absolutely no exercise of free will can result in a person being saved if God has not chosen him (which is what you're apparently getting at).

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Au contraire! If you Freely Will to keep the Law perfectly, and in fact do so, then you'll be saved on your own merits. That's all you have to do for Free Will to save you.

As I said, let us know how it turns out.

So you can't blame man's perdition on his free will in the Calvinist model.

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You can't blame it on anything or anyone else in any model, or at least any model that has anything to do with reality. You sins are your own, Freely and Willfully committed. And if you end up in perdition, it was precisely through the result of the exercise of your own Free Will.

I'm not sure what you're getting at.

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That much is obvious.

Do you think Arminians think we don't need God's grace and mercy to be saved?

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Why would you? There's nothing God can do for you, at least in your soteriology. The poor guy has done all that He can do, and now it's up to you and your Free Will to get 'r done, or not. All He can do is sit back and watch, you have to make the choice. God's really out of the picture at that point. After all, if He actually coerced you or pressured you or, as some might say, rescued you, then that just wouldn't be fair, now would it?

"For by Free Will are we saved..." This speak the Arminians.

Perceivence said:

So you think Arminians don't believe God is active in bringing someone to salvation?

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Why, that wouldn't be fair, now would it? What, would you have God change someone's heart against their Free Will? How dare we even contemplate praying for someone's Free Will to be violated in such a cruelly manipulative manner! Why, the whole concept is positively Calvinist!

From A.W. Tozer
Arminianism vs Calvinistic

"Imagine two men reading the same passage of Scripture, one a Calvinist who has been brought up on Calvinistic theology from his youth, the other reared in the Arminian tradition and thoroughly indoctrinated in Arminianism. The passage they read is Hebrews 6:4-6, "It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance". The impressions the Calvinist receives from these words will differ radically from those received by the Arminian, yet neither one will be conscious of adding to, subtracting from or otherwise altering the passage in any way. Each will understand the words to mean exactly what he has been taught that they mean. The meaning he sees there will appear to him so natural, so logical and right that he will wonder how anyone can see any other. (And sadly enough each will more than likely think the other a hypocrite who receives his teaching from the devil. But that is not pertinent to this particular argument.)"

Jipsah

*sigh*

Man, talking to you is fruitless...and on top of that, you're as (un)charitable as a petulant child.

Good night.

Perceivence said:

Man, talking to you is fruitless.

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Especially when you have nothing to say in the firstplace. See ya.