In this verse it says that the god of this world has blinded the minds not the people were in a blinded condition from birth. If the god of this world has to actively do in order for the blindness to exist then it is not an inability from birth.
No, the blindness happened at the fall of man with Adam. According to Rom. 5-7, spiritual death is in everyone, proven by the fact that everyone sins. Therefore, the sinful nature is passed down from parents and ultimately Adam. This is why Paul said in Rom. 3 that no one understands or seeks God. Therefore every unregenerate person is blind of spiritual truth from birth.
Yet that is how it happens so many times throughout Acts, people hear the preaching of the gospel and they repent.
If a person repents and believes the gospel, then God has done a work in them, so that they are enabled to repent and believe. In Col. it says that God translated us from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of His dear Son. Therefore, everyone starts out in the kingdom of darkness. The metaphor "darkness" tells us they can't see the light of the gospel, which 2 Cor. 4:4 is about. So if someone repents and believes the gospel, then God has done a supernatural work in that person such that He has translated them into Christ's kingdom. To assume that mere words or preaching hype, even though quoting the Bible, is all that is needed to enlighten someone to repentance and faith is not Biblical, as I have shown.
Being a slave to sin does not equal you cannot recognize your slavery and accept an offer of freedom when it is provided.
Not according to the apostle Paul in various places I have cited. He repeatedly says things like "cannot," "not even able," "blinded," etc. in which they think the gospel is foolish or offensive.
If I use this reasoning with Adam it would be; So if Adam commits sin, then sin is in Adams nature. Adam was addicted to sin by nature. Since this reasoning produces the wrong conclusion, it needs to be discarded in the case of Adam and everyone else today.[/quote]
Your logic appears faulty. Paul clearly states that Adam was not deceived. Therefore, he knew that sin was not a good thing, unlike everyone else who think that sin will benefit them in some way (especially to gratify their conceited pleasures). He states clearly in Rom. 5 that through Adam, sin (and thus spiritual death) entered the world through Adam. From this we infer that Adam was created with a good human nature, not a sinful one. So Adam had the ability to "not sin." But after his fall, since the sin nature was in the world, no one (including Adam) had/has the ability to "not sin." Addiction of the sinful nature came after the fall, not before, which is how your reasoning is bad here.
Like babies, Adam did not know right from wrong and had to taught by God. He then did wrong. Sounds like their nature is not different to what Adam's was prior to the fall.
More faulty reasoning. Adam was created as a mature man, not as a baby. He had the Holy Spirit guiding him, which was the reason he operated in the will of God. It was only after his fall that the Holy Spirit left him, and he was guided by his own reasoning and sinful heart.
Being in sin or addiction now does not automatically equal having always been in sin or addiction from birth.
The sin nature is every person by birth, as I showed earlier. Sin is an addiction by nature, not by choice. Jesus proves that by saying "he who sins is a slave to sin." This is a statement describing addiction to sinful pleasures.
Not accepting is the cause
And cannot understand is the effect.
No, "natural man" (who can't understand) is the cause, and "does not accept" is the effect, because "natural man" is the unregenerate who is a slave to sin and under the control of the evil one.
This inability to understand the things of God, results from the lack of acceptance that preceded it. How many Christians understand the things of God when they accept the gospel as true. They don't know understand the basics like the triune nature of God or the incarnation of Jesus Christ.
1 Cor. 2:14 is about the gospel. "The things of the spirit," and "spiritual thoughts with spiritual words," is Paul's description of his teaching in regard to the gospel, as he had been discussing since ch. 1. He is talking about how God releases a person from the bondage of sin, and illuminates their spirit by making them a spiritual person. He defines being "saved by grace" in this way (Eph. 2:5): "even while we were dead in sin, God raised us to life in Christ." Therefore, God must make a person into a new (spiritual) creation before they can understand the gospel enough to believe and repent.
Claiming it does not make it so.
I already showed that the apostle Paul made that claim in 1 Cor. 1-2.
These scriptures do not show a pre faith regeneration. Sinners are dead in their trespasses and sins. When they repent and trust in God, it is God that chooses to make them a new creature in Christ. If God had not said He would make repentant sinner's new creatures in Christ, He could have justly sent every repentant sinner to hell. It is His mercy that means He did not do this but instead chooses to accept people on the basis of repentance. It was God's choice alone to do this.
No, God does not accept people on the basis of repentance, if you mean repentant behavior. Paul is clear that faith alone is what justifies a person before God.
I agree that if God was just toward every person that everyone would go to the lake of fire, since everyone sinned against the ultimate holy and righteous God. But God is rich in mercy, and chose to save some, and this is His provision in Christ. It doesn't matter if someone tries very hard and thinks they have repented. God does not accept people on that basis. God accepts people only on the basis of Christ, His own grace, and our faith in Christ.
Since Eph. 2:5 is Paul's definition of grace, pre-faith regeneration is easily inferred from it. Also in John 3, Jesus said that without spiritual regeneration, one "cannot see the kingdom of God," which implies that a person must first be born again before they can see enough of the gospel to believe and repent.
I provided the term and the definition. Some words or phrases have multiple definitions. Contend with the one provided by either; rejecting the term as being correct for the definition, rejecting the use of the definition or by accepting both the term and the definition then arguing against it.
I don't know what you're talking about here, it looks very muddy.
Peer pressure is irrelevant to free will as defined in my opening post.
I don't operate on your defs, I operate on the defs in scripture. The Bible is clear on it, but you have to examine the contexts where the term is used.
Influence does not equal the one who is influenced has lost their ability to choose or not do what the influencer was influencing them towards. If it did, Christian's would not sin and God's influence on Adam would have caused him to not sin.
Your reasoning is bad, because Christians still have a sinful nature. Paul wrote "the body is dead because of sin," which means everyone, including Christians will still die, because their physical nature still contains the sin nature. Christians are a new creation spiritually, not physically. So we still have the flesh to deal with. God gives Christians the power to overcome, and it is an ongoing process and character building, and is the reason that repentance is an ongoing lifestyle.
You are now starting to see the point of contention. I contend that pre fall and post fall, human beings did not have a change of their ability to refrain or not refrain from a given more action which means I reject the Calvinistic regenerate and unregenerate categories of people as being unbiblical and not found anywhere in scripture.
I already showed where scripture is clear about it, so you don't find it because you don't want to find it. Since our paths diverge here, we probably should part ways.
No, my reasoning does not make Paul's statement figurative. See previous comment in this post on Eph 2:1-5.
We both agree that God causes a person to be born again. It is God's choice, God's action and in God's timing. When God does this and why He does it, is where we differ. See previous comment in this post on Eph 2:1-5.
I believe you are mistaken in your interpretation as per previous comment in this post on 1 Cor 2:14.
Claiming people cannot believe the gospel when presented with it does not make it so and I am not convinced that you have provided scriptures that agree with the claim.
Based on your responses, it appears to me you don't really want to examine the scripture carefully. IMO you seem to just want to argue about it, so I think we should part ways at this point.