Not when you actually understand what sanctification is Biblically. See the thread on sanctification here in the Baptist forum. And I am not interested in reading articles. If you want folks to read something that you wrote post it here so that you can defend it.
Right, so I should read the entire thread you recommend on sanctification so I can get a proper Baptist understanding of it like you, but you can't be bothered to go off site and read posts or articles I wrote. And of course, I can defend those things here just as well even if one has to go through the terrible effort of clicking a link and leaving the site for a few minutes to read the material. There is no rule that says you can't cut and paste from the article to challenge me with what I wrote here, or even paste the whole post or article here. And if I posted an entire article here, why should I think you would not just dismiss it as just too much to read (with a few insults thrown in for good measure), as you did earlier when I took the time to give a careful and detailed response to your misrepresentations of what I believe. Remember that? Here was your very insightful and helpful "interaction",
If you can't dazzle them with brilliance confuse them with lengthy [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]. I don't have the time to respond properly to your long and tedious posts.
For this one let me say that it is utter nonsense and anyone who has read my post to which you are responding knows it. Comparing Calvinists to the Pharisee is blatant and utterly absurd bombastic claptrap intended to stir the pot and make the discussion about something which is false. It is a red herring and you know it.
And this was followed up by another very humble, loving and Christlike response from JM,
I'm convinced that it is nothing more than pride. Everyone [sic.?] is dumber than an Arminian who claims total libertarian freewill. Proof texting, lack of understanding, lack of nuance are all attempts to create a smoke screen.
And yet, I am supposed to think that if I paste a detailed article here instead of leaving a link, it will be given a fair hearing and will be fairly "interacted" with. Really?
For those who are not afraid to click a post and follow it to read materiel off site, I have addressed the Calvinist prooftexting of John 3 and Ezekiel's "new heart" at my site (along with just about every other significant Calvinist prooftext),
https://arminianperspectives.wordpress.com/category/ezekiel-3626-27/
https://arminianperspectives.wordpr...hat-regeneration-precedes-faith-in-john-33-6/
The new nature must come before faith. God making us willing is not mind control in the sense that you describe it but giving us a new nature and a new mind. Of course the analogy isn't perfect but it does illustrate the fact that we can be made to love without it being against our will.
No it doesn't. If we were God haters that wanted
nothing to do with Christ prior to His
irresistible act of "giving us a new heart" that "
makes us willing", then it was certainly "against our will" because our will was to hate and reject God prior to His irresistible working in us. It would be like a man meeting a girl at a bar and the girl doesn't like him and wants nothing to do with him. In fact, she finds him repulsive. So the man slips a pill in her drink that removes her inhibitions and causes her to begin to find him attractive, even to the point of "making her willing" to sleep with him. Now if this incident was brought before the court, would the court say that the man is not liable for violating the woman against her will, since the pill he put in her drink "made her willing"? Of course not. Nobody would say that she
freely chose to be with the man under such circumstances, and no one would say that her will was
not violated. As distasteful as this illustration might be, it illustrates the exact same principle behind your claims that while God "
makes us willing" this
making us willing by "giving us a new heart" is not a violation of the person's will. Instead of dropping a pill into our drink, God drops a "new heart" into our God hating chest. The only difference would be that in your view of how God works, the "effects" of the "drug" would never wear off. But that doesn't change the fact that a person's will has been obviously violated in the process.
It really is pretty simple. If God's working faith into us is not resistible, but
irresistible, then it
certainly violates freedom and the will. That is so obvious, it shouldn't even need to be pointed out. If you want to say that God irresistibly brings sinners to faith and love and devotion to Him (by irresistibly removing their "hate God heart" and putting in a "love God heart") because you think the Bible teaches that, then fine. But trying to then claim that God does this in such a way that we
freely come to him in such a way that our wills are not violated is clearly incoherent. You can't have it both ways. Sorry.