I've been expecting some kind of response to this point. Well, to a number of points set out on a number of threads, but this one in particular there still seems to be a lot of denial on.
If there are no responses to this point, I'll take it as accepted.
For the record again, the five uses in 1 John are:
No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.
For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world— our faith.
We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him.
These results are dependent on being born of God. There's reason to include 1 John 5:1 among them. It's what John's attributing to New Birth.
And he attributes faith there.
It already has been responded to, some pages back I believe. Did you miss the post?
It was actually cited there. Was that your mistake? Is there no response to my response? So you haven't answered the posting -- there's no posting after it.
I point out again John's comprehensive assessment of the New Birth as being the source of each attribute he discusses. It's clear this hasn't been responded to. 1 John's pervasive on this point. There's no reason to consider 1 John 5:1 an exception -- certainly a habit that really, as we'll see, doesn't exist. But let's take the tiers one at a time as to why this isn't a reasoned argument.
John's not in a habit about talking in one tense to the point of making false statements. John knows Greek. If everything you said about John's habit were true, he'd still be using grammar to come up with a false statement. Greek grammar is being contradicted to make this kind of argument.
But I'll continue. I'll extend this argument, because it deserves extending.
...habit of putting believing in the continuing action, and being born (again) as a one time action, always in the past...
This is dismissive of what John is saying. To conclude this is a habit, and not a fact, doesn't make a whole lot of sense actually. You'd have to conclude John's temporal (or ontological) grammar doesn't reflect the exact facts he's trying to establish and communicate. In other words, what John's primary focus is -- this argument dismisses as not the case.
It dismisses the exact thrust of John's assertion. Someone who is believing in Jesus has already been born of God, and you see the continuing effect of New Birth appearing in the continuing participle of "
believing". The whole idea of this being John's habitual statement is actually based on the fact that John is pervasively talking about New Birth as the past continuing cause of believing -- the participle indicates what's continuing, the verb indicates something is continuing after New Birth.
Slip this knot, and John's sentence ends up meaning nothing at all, actually. In concluding against this verse, the assertion must be made that belief is
not related to New Birth as a source or really as anything else. Belief doesn't cause New Birth in non-Calvinist theology. The relationship isn't merely deprecated. It's not true in nearly any sense. Not until New Birth is restored
as a source of believing.
The "habitual" use of continuing tense for "belief" doesn't even hold up. In fact it doesn't hold up under even light scrutiny. The use of "belief" as purely continuous is actually not the case in 1 John 3:23, 4:1, 4:16. John isn't obsessed with this construction. So dismissing John's temporal grammar on the basis of some habit doesn't carry.
Finally, even if you were to force this habit argument, John's habit of basing each attribute on the New Birth is completely pervasive. To assert a non-pervasive habit prevails over a pervasive habit, that would be inconsistent: to conclude against the grammar
and the habits of John.
Taking it just as it reads, believing could have begun BEFORE being born of God, CONCURRENTLY with or AFTER. 'Believing' is continuing action. HOWEVER, if a student approaches the text with a presupposition that regeneration precedes faith, then there is the danger of eisegesis. Instead, it is good to take the text exactly as it reads, without any agenda.
As a result, it is not credible to assert that John's using Greek grammar poorly, and assert that this is taking "
the text exactly as it reads, without any agenda." The fact is, taking the grammar "
just as it reads", believing Jesus is the Christ
cannot have occurred before New Birth.
- John's major point is that the two are related.
- John's grammar puts New Birth in precedence. Say it's logical -- then believing is dependent on it, and can't have preceded it temporally. Say it's temporal: then believing isn't prior to it in time.
The point is carried. 1 John 5:1 is thus assessed to the Calvinistic side on basis of grammar and John's habit of declaring New Birth the precedent for each personal attribute he relates to it.
