Roman, I said I get the feeling, and ask if this is correct. I didn't say this WAS your position.
That is good that you double checked if it is correct: a lot of people don't (I don't mean just Calvinists, I mean people in general). So its good you did that.
However, the fact that you had this kind of "feeling" is an indication that you might not know much about other faith systems. Because the vast majority of Christians of all persuasions know that we have sin nature. If you have a "feeling" to the contrary to that, it says that you don't fully understand other persuasions. Again its not just Calvinist thing; its a human nature in general to misunderstand people you disagree with. But that is where you have to actually put more effort into learning what they have to say, which sadly most people (whether Calvinist or not) tend not to do.
The reason I said I get the feeling is because you said you don't believe people are forced into believing because they do have a free-will, do I have this correct?
They are not forced into believing, but they are forced to be sinful. It seems like you have either/or dichotomy: either we have a free will to do anything and everything, or we don't have free will to do anything at all. Nobody said we have unlimitted free will. For example, we don't have an ability to lift 1000 pounds. The point is that we have a free will in "some" things but not others.
1) Do we have a free will to become completely sinless? No. Thats why we need Jesus to be saved.
2) Do we have a free will to sin less? Yes: most of us sin less than Hitler. But that doesn't save us since God's standard is perfection. So, again, thats why we need Jesus to be saved.
3) Do we have a free will to either accept or reject the free gift of Jesus' blood that covers our sins? Yes. And our having free will on this one area is what ultimately allows our salvation or damnation to be the result of our free will -- despite us not having free will in "1".
Now, you might ask: why is it we have an ability to do 3 and not 1? The answer is that God set it up this way so that nobody would boast (Eph 2:9) In other words, yes it was "possible" for God to enable us to do "1" (after all, God is all powerful) He just chose not to so that we won't boast. But at the same time He DID choose to enable us to do "3". And granting us free will to do "3" is His ultimate gift to the whole world (1 Tim 2:6)
I have encountered plenty who deny original sin, depending on what one means by original sin, right?
What are their denominations?
So for clarity what is original sin?
Its when Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the tree, and as a result all their descendants became sinful by nature.
So, I will ask again. In your view does sin affect the human will at all?
Yes it does. It causes humans to "sometimes" make bad decisions, such as to sin. Yet it still enables them to "other times" make good decisions such as come to Christ.
Without Christ, being "sometimes good and sometimes bad" isn't good enough: God's standard is perfection. But with Christ making the decision for Christ would enable them to cover with His blood the times when they made bad decisions.
Can they decide to always be good? No. So yes, their sinful nature did limit their free will in SOME aspects. But it didn't remove it completely.
I say this because you make no mention about Grace.
Here is where grace figures in my argument. Jesus gave an offer of His blood on the cross. That was grace. Now we have a free will to either accept the offer or reject it.
If we are not given the offer on the first place, we can't accept the offer we weren't given. So the fact that we were given it on the first place is grace. But after we were given that offer (which is by grace) then comes the free will part: we can either accept it or reject it.
Think of your friend giving you a gift. The transaction has two parts. The first part is your friend actually offering it to you. The second part is you accepting the offer. The first part is grace. The second part is free will.
Or think of a mountain climber who would fall into the abyss if not given a rope. The person that giving him a rope is offering him grace. Then his choice to either hold on to that rope or reject it is a free will choice.
Now, let me outline where we agree and where we disagree. Consider the following statements:
a) Whoever is not offered a gift, can't possibly take something they weren't offered
b) Whoever is offered the gift will always take it
c) Some people are not offered the gift
I assume you agree with all three of those statements. Well, in my case, I agree with a, but I disagree with b and c. The reason you agree with c is logical consequence of your agreeing with b. If whoever is offered the gift will always take it (part b), yet clearly there are some people who didn't take it (the non-believers) then it logically follows that those people weren't offered the gift (hence part c). So the source of our disagreement is we disagree on b. However, I told you that we agree on a. So the point is that statement a doesn't imply statement b. That is logically tied to the fact that "necessary" is not the same as "sufficient". The statement "a" is saying "being offered a gift is a necessary condition to take it". The statement "b" is saying "being offered a gift is a sufficient condition to take it". These are clearly two different statements, which is why I agree with "a" without agreeing with "b". However, despite the fact that I agree with "a", I still say that everyone have free will to take the gift. And the reason I am saying it is because I think everyone is offered the gift (thus, the "if" clausure of the statement "a" is a hypothetical that never happens). And the reason I say this is, in turn, because I disagree with "c" (which, in turn, is a consequence of my disagreeing with "b").
So what is sin in your view?
Sin is a violation of the law (1 John 3:4)
No Grace is needed in your view because sin doesn't deprive sinner of a free-will, do I have this right?
Grace is needed because having free will won't allow you to accept the gift you weren't given to begin with. The fact that you are offered the gift is grace.
But Grace is not needed to illuminate their minds or hearts to understand and believe, right?
Yes it is. But like I said, everyone receives grace, they just choose not to accept it.
How do deal with this passage:
1 Cor. 2:
14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
That is basically the same as statement a. It says IF God didn't illuminate that person THEN that person won't be able to see the light. Yet, at the same time, John 1:9 says that this light shines on every child that comes into the world. Therefore, nobody is completely "natural man" since everyone received that light, at least at birth. So why does it talk about "natural man" then? Because people can make a CHOICE to reject the light that they received. And then they would become "natural man" by their own choice.
As an example, consider an atheist who backs up his atheism with science. Lets say God is calling that man to come to Him, but he ignores that calling. An atheist might actually acknowledge he experiences a set of emotions, but he would attribute it to "chemistry in the brain" rather than God. In other words, his belief system won't allow him to attribute anything to supernatural. And that is where he would become "natural man". But that would be his own choice.
Now, if God wanted to force him to accept the supernatural, He could: just like He knocked Paul from his horse. But, for the most part, God chooses not to do it, and instead He chooses to allow us to have our own choices. God gave enough evidence for the above atheist to change his mind (Romans 1:20). But said atheist made a choice to ignore it. So God waits on him to either change his mind or face the consequences -- which is ultimately the choice said atheist has to make.
Or this passage: John 8:
47 Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”
Whether to be of God or not is a choice though. I chose to study physics. So after many years of pursuing my choice, I became a physicist. Because I am a physicist, I can understand physics books. But the statement "only physicists understand physics books" doesn't deny free will, because people have free will on whether to become physicists or not. It is just that their free will choice is removed in the past. Being able to understand physics books today has to do with free will choices made for the past several years.
Similarly, being able to hear God today is also a consequences of free will choices in the past. Going to the context of that passage, what Jesus was ultimately faulting the Pharesees with, was the fact that they thought he was false messiah when He was actually true Messian. Now, an ability to distinguish true Messiah from false messiah is basically a multiple choice test. And sometimes we do get presented with false messiahs (Deuteronomy 13 warns of it). So you can't fault them for not blindly answering "true" to every question. What you CAN fault them, however, is that they didn't study for the test. Thats why they failed it. Now, whether or not you study for the test IS a free will choice. But thats not a choice you get to make at the test. That is the choice you get to make at the time leading to the test. So the Pharesees, within the decades prior to Jesus arrival, made a set of choices that resulted in them not being ready for the test. Thats why they failed it. Could they pass a test they didn't study for? Probably not. But could they have studied for that test? Yes. And thats where free will comes in.
The other illustration of that same concept is "strong delusion" warned about in 2 Thes 2:11 (although this time it is about failing multiple choice test in the opposite way, and answering true when the answer is false). Do people whom God sent strong delusion to have a free will to resist said strong delusion? No. But did they have free will in the past to prevent God from sending them strong delusion on the first place? Yes.
The question should be why was Abel's offering accepted, while Cain's was rejected. Answer: Hebrews 11:
4 By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.
It should be both. Both Hebrews 11:4 and Genesis 4:7 are in the Bible. So both verses need to be taken into account. Now, what would you get if you pull those two verses together? You would get that Cain had a free will (Genesis 4:7) yet he was faulted for not having faith (Hebrews 11:4). This implies that him not having faith was his free will choice. And that is precisely what I was getting at: that faith is a choice. Why is it a choice? Like I explained earlier: because the gift is offered to everyone. Hence we have a choice to either accept it or not.
Again I will ask you, What is the gravity of sin in your view. It is time-out; an example not to follow; is it not serious enough to separate humanity from God.
The consequence of sin is eternity in hell, UNLESS we accept Jesus paying the price on our behalf with His blood. Now, this offer is given to all. Whether we accept it or not is a free will choice. If we make a free will choice not to accept it, we will spend eternity in hell, since that is how much our sin would cost if we were to pay for it ourselves. If we accept it, then we go to heaven since then Jesus paid for it. But fact remains: our choice to accept the sacrifice or not is a free will choice.
First of all why would anybody need or want Jesus?
Need: because even though we have free will, our free will is limitted in a sense that we can't become completely sinless. We can sin less but we still sin. So we need sacrifice.
Want: because even though we don't have complete free will, we still have "some" free will. And we have enough free will to be able to accept Jesus.
The concept that we have some free will yet not complete free will should be easy to grasp: nobody claims we have free will to lift 1000 pounds, yet most people agree we have free will to lift 10 pounds.
Why does God need to lead to Jesus, if you have a free-will?
Again, because it is not absolute. I don't have free will to lift 1000 pounds, but I have free will to lift 10 pounds.
Why would anyone want to seek God?
Same as above. Ask yourself why Luke 1:6 mentions people that were righteous in the sight of God desite the fact that Jesus didn't come to earth yet.
Did you understand what radical depravity is? Is not utter depravity being as evil as you can possibly be. But that radical depravity is the umbrella virus of sin, that has affected every part of the human body. Especially the heart and mind. We have no relationship with the Father that has been severed by sin and rebellion. The only way to the Father is through the Son.
In the Old Testament there are plenty of examples of people that pursued relationship with God without the son. Now, the son revealed Himself afterwords (in John 8:56 Jesus said He appeared to Abraham) but that was probably AFTER Abraham proven himself worthy, not before.
Last question, if everyone has a free-will, and sin has no affect on them to choose to accept or reject God. What makes a person accept God? Or even reject him. What's the cause that makes one accept or while the reject in your view. And please don't just say their free-will. Because something has to draw them, or there has to be a desire too. Something has to drive this person to believe or not. What is it?
In John 3:19-21, Jesus explains that people who do evil hate the light but people that do good come to the light so their deeds can be fully seen. This is a clear cause and effect statement. They FIRST did either good or evil and as a CONSEQUENCE of this, they either wanted to come to light or to get away from it. So how could they "do good" without the light? That is precisely what I am getting at. We are not "completely" evil.
Now, we are all "evil enough" to deserve hell unless our sins are paid for. So people who "do good" in those verses only "do good" by human standards. They are still sinners deserving of hell by God's standards. Yet, at the same time, those verses explain why they choose to come to Jesus while other people choose not to.
