Sinners cannot respond to God unless he first saves them. They only choose idols otherwise.
That’s a somewhat skewed gospel. God’s been patiently working on the will of man since the Fall, when, by an act of the will, the first man chose wrongly. The very reason that we have so much time, so many centuries of grueling human history in a world where the evil of sin and death may be contrasted against grace and the life only the Creator can provide is precisely because God
wants the human will involved and deems it right and good to educate, appeal to, and draw it without totally overriding it. Man is lost, dead, sick and cannot possibly find, raise, or cure himself, but he can still refuse all that; grace is resistible.
We have to understand that God has a
plan behind this work of creation, a plan that’s worked out over
time. He’s not merely endeavoring to save a certain group of otherwise worthless wretches while damning the rest, but to
produce something in this work of His creating, something grand, something better than He began with. God seeks to have man learn the value of love above all created things in this universe, so that we’ll ultimately choose it, choose
Him, and grow firmer and more fully in that choice that
defines righteousness for man. Because love, in order to truly
be love, always involves the element of choice and that’s where man’s potential purpose, perfection, and greatness lie. Due to the size, the magnanimity, of Gods love, He wishes to share, to glorify
man by transforming him into His very own image. To the extent that creation gets on board with His perfect will we reflect His glory, and thus glorify Him. Love begetting love, which will make life truly worth living, eternally.
