He who began a good work

[Ignatius21]

Maybe we are talking past each other.

When Paul says "in you", does that imply the Philippians (and by extension all believers), or something else?

(.)

I would agree...he means in the Philippians and by extension in all believers.

And I'm very easy to talk past!

 

[Hammster]

I would agree...he means in the Philippians and by extension in all believers.

And I'm very easy to talk past!

Does include those who will never believe?

 

[Ignatius21]

Does include those who will never believe?

Yes. They can talk past me easily too!

 

[Hammster]

Yes. They can talk past me easily too!

So in what way does He start something in them that He also completes?

 

[Ignatius21]

So in what way does He start something in them that He also completes?

Definition of sarchasm :. 1. (n.) The abyss between the creator of witticisms and the intended recipient who does not find the humor in it. -- sarchasm Definition - The Unword Dictionary

All my attempts at humor have failed. Maybe I should hang up my cape and go home

So to seriously answer your question, no, it does not inlcude those "who will never believe." I would say that it does not include any but those who have already believed. That is the audience to whom he is writing--to those who share his faith and his burdens. By extension, I believe, whenever someone comes into that same community (i.e. the Church), then he or she too becomes one in whom God has begun a good work, and in whom Paul would be confident that God will bring it to completion in the day of Christ (and again I'm paraphrasing).

In time and space as we experience it, wherein salvation is a past and present reality, but in which we still are awaiting the future completion and consummation of all things...there are those who have not yet believed. God has not yet begun a work in them (at least not in the sense in which I believe Paul was speaking), although we simply cannot say whether or not God is at work in their lives. All are called to the Gospel, and people come to faith from some incredibly unlikely circumstances, and only in hindsight (like with Joseph and his brothers) can we or they see the working of God in it.

As to those who will "never" believe. We can't know who they are. Neither can they. So I would not speculate or attempt to draw a distinction between them and anyone else who has not yet believed.

I sense you're leading me somewhere with this line of questioning...

 

[MamaZ]

Of course I believe that men are sinners and separated from God.

What I don't believe is that this is equal with the Calvinist doctrine of Total Depravity.

So if all men are born sinners and seperated from God how are they not in total depravity?

 

[Ignatius21]

So if all men are born sinners and seperated from God how are they not in total depravity?

If by "total depravity" we mean that there is no part of a man that is untouched and uncorrupted by sin, then I'm happy to use the term. I believe this is the Scriptural view and the consistent view of the historic church.

If we mean that man is incapable of responding to the Gospel without God working in him, I believe this is the Scriptural view and the consistent view of the historic church.

If we mean that man's will is incapable of responding to the Gospel at all, e.g. Calvinism, then I do not accept the term. I do not believe it's the correct interpretation of Scripture, and certainly not the view of the historic church. At least not the earliest church, nor the vast majority ever since.

I'm happy to discuss it more, but it's falling outside the bounds of the specific thread topic...although we did agree that every discussion comes back to total depravity anyway

 

[MamaZ]

I believe that we are to preach the good news of the gospel and those who the Father draws will come and those He does not will not. For scripture does say that no one can come to Jesus lest the Father draw him..

 

[janxharris]

I believe that we are to preach the good news of the gospel and those who the Father draws will come and those He does not will not. For scripture does say that no one can come to Jesus lest the Father draw him..

Do you have any good news for the reprobates?

John 6:45
It is written in the prophets: 'They will all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him will come to me.

Being drawn by the Father is synonymous with hearing and learning from from the Father, so those the Father draws is anyone who hears and learns. Nobody is excluded.

Propagating such a view as you have is easy if it's someone else that is being excluded.

 

[Ignatius21]

I believe that we are to preach the good news of the gospel and those who the Father draws will come and those He does not will not. For scripture does say that no one can come to Jesus lest the Father draw him..

And I agree with all parts of your statement. What I don't agree with is the underlying philosophical assumption that God's working in the drawn person, necessarily precludes the active cooperation of the drawn person.

If God's sovereignty is understood as a zero-sum game, where any action of the part of the saved person detracts from the action of God (i.e. God only does 99% of the saving, etc.), then the only way for God to be fully responsible for the person's regeneration is for the person to be entirely passive in it. But if it is understood in light of the Incarnation, which is the epitome of divine-human cooperation, then the person need not be passive in order for God to be working his will in and through that person. In fact, it becomes precisely the opposite.

I often hear Calvinists say "God does 100%, man does 0%." I do not accept this.

I often hear non-Calvinists say "God does 99%, man still has to do that 1%..." and then I hear analogies to the doctor sticking the spoon of medicine in the patient's mouth, but the patient still has to swallow it... And here I break with this strand of evangelical thought also.

God 100%. Man 100%. Incarnation.

 

[Hammster]

Do you have any good news for the reprobates?

John 6:45
It is written in the prophets: 'They will all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him will come to me.

Being drawn by the Father is synonymous with hearing and learning from from the Father, so those the Father draws is anyone who hears and learns. Nobody is excluded.

Propagating such a view as you have is easy if it's someone else that is being excluded.

How about addressing the OP first?

 

[Hammster]

All my attempts at humor have failed. Maybe I should hang up my cape and go home

So to seriously answer your question, no, it does not inlcude those "who will never believe." I would say that it does not include any but those who have already believed. That is the audience to whom he is writing--to those who share his faith and his burdens. By extension, I believe, whenever someone comes into that same community (i.e. the Church), then he or she too becomes one in whom God has begun a good work, and in whom Paul would be confident that God will bring it to completion in the day of Christ (and again I'm paraphrasing).

In time and space as we experience it, wherein salvation is a past and present reality, but in which we still are awaiting the future completion and consummation of all things...there are those who have not yet believed. God has not yet begun a work in them (at least not in the sense in which I believe Paul was speaking), although we simply cannot say whether or not God is at work in their lives. All are called to the Gospel, and people come to faith from some incredibly unlikely circumstances, and only in hindsight (like with Joseph and his brothers) can we or they see the working of God in it.

As to those who will "never" believe. We can't know who they are. Neither can they. So I would not speculate or attempt to draw a distinction between them and anyone else who has not yet believed.

I sense you're leading me somewhere with this line of questioning...

Not leading, just examining.

So your view is that God doesn't begin the good work until someone believes. Is that about right?

 

[Hammster]

And I agree with all parts of your statement. What I don't agree with is the underlying philosophical assumption that God's working in the drawn person, necessarily precludes the active cooperation of the drawn person.

If God's sovereignty is understood as a zero-sum game, where any action of the part of the saved person detracts from the action of God (i.e. God only does 99% of the saving, etc.), then the only way for God to be fully responsible for the person's regeneration is for the person to be entirely passive in it. But if it is understood in light of the Incarnation, which is the epitome of divine-human cooperation, then the person need not be passive in order for God to be working his will in and through that person. In fact, it becomes precisely the opposite.

I often hear Calvinists say "God does 100%, man does 0%." I do not accept this.

I often hear non-Calvinists say "God does 99%, man still has to do that 1%..." and then I hear analogies to the doctor sticking the spoon of medicine in the patient's mouth, but the patient still has to swallow it... And here I break with this strand of evangelical thought also.

God 100%. Man 100%. Incarnation.

I've never said that man doesn't do anything. Man just doesn't do anything that God doesn't enable him to do. That way, all credit goes to God.

 

[elman]

I've never said that man doesn't do anything. Man just doesn't do anything that God doesn't enable him to do. That way, all credit goes to God.

Man is evil. God has enabled man to be evil. All credit goes to God and man is not responsible. Is that it?

 

[Hammster]

Man is evil. God has enabled man to be evil. All credit goes to God and man is not responsible. Is that it?

How about sticking to the context of the conversation before asking questions. Maybe start with the OP.

 

[A New Dawn]

Do you have any good news for the reprobates?

John 6:45
It is written in the prophets: 'They will all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him will come to me.

Being drawn by the Father is synonymous with hearing and learning from from the Father, so those the Father draws is anyone who hears and learns. Nobody is excluded.

Propagating such a view as you have is easy if it's someone else that is being excluded.

Where do you get that drawing is synonymous with learning about? References please.

 

[Ignatius21]

I think this is a productive exchange. Let's see where it goes.

Not leading, just examining.

So your view is that God doesn't begin the good work until someone believes. Is that about right?

We interacted on your "Were they saved" thread, and the topic shifted quickly to how we can understand categories of time with respect to God. For instance, "from God's perspective," what does it mean for someone to not yet have believed? And so forth. It's very problematic to attempt to impose a linear timescale on divine matters, and yet without it we really have no basis for attempting to understand. I've heard Calvinists and non-Calvinists argue about how God elected people "before time began." What does "before the beginning of time" mean? Without the concept of time, "before" is a meaningless word.

So to address your immediate question above, I do not believe that God doesn't begin the good work until someone believes. This imposes, again, a linear time scale. Something like, At time = T1, God acts to place a person into certain circumstances...then waits. At time = T2, man chooses to believe. At time = T3, God acts to regenerate the person and join him to Christ. Etc.

From our perspective--the only one we can understand--we live our lives for a certain time and in certain circumstances. Perhaps baptized at birth and raised in a Christian home, perhaps raised by atheists, who knows. But at some point in time, the decision to accept (or continue accepting) the gospel, or to reject it all as a load of hooey, comes upon us. And the day-to-day, minute-to-minute choices to follow our passions into sin, or to follow Christ into self-denial through repentance, are also ours. We act in time. We can't act without it.

Now from "God's perspective,"--which we cannot understand and which will always be obscured by language and our creaturely existence--what? It all happens at once? Maybe better to think that it's all laid out before him "as if in a single moment of time?" It's hard to come up with words even to show why it's hard to come up with words

So to even speak of when God begins a good work in someone is problematic. Who knows? How does this relate to a person's first choice to accept Christ? How does it relate to his continual choices to keep accepting Christ? How does it relate to the moments when he chooses to reject Christ and run back to the pigsty?

The best I can say is this: God's beginning of a good work in a man, and a man's decision to believe, are the same event. The work was 100% God's, and without it the man would whither and die, cut off from the vine. And the choice was 100% man's, because that man is a volitional creature in the image of God. That moment of first belief (if in fact it can be reduced to a single moment...for this discussion I'll assume that it can) is that man's first participation in the Incarnation, and as such, that saving event is all the work of God, and all the participation of man. I keep coming back to that. To even speak of this requires that we blend categories of eternal and temporal, of uncreated and created. Things that necessarily are separate...except for the Incarnation. We can no more explain "when" God begins a good work in a person, and yet how this is still the person's active choice, than we can explain the union of two natures into the single person of Christ. It is the same mystery. The Incarnation is our salvation.

I've never said that man doesn't do anything. Man just doesn't do anything that God doesn't enable him to do. That way, all credit goes to God.

Again, it seems we're talking of a linear timescale. Time = T1, God enables. Time = T2, man does stuff. We are creatures. We cannot exist apart from God. At every instant (there's that time stuff again!) we exist only because God sustains our existance. Clearly we can't do anything that God doesn't enable us to do.

What I don't get, from the monergist position, is that they are happy to agree that "sanctification" is cooperative between God and man...God enables, man responds, and all the glory goes to God. But that very "first instant" of belief on man's part absolutely cannot be synergistic or else God is robbed of his glory

So again, from the "moment" when God first "begins a good work" in someone, to "the day of Christ" when God "brings it to completion," the working is 100% God's, and 100% man's.

 

[elman]

How about sticking to the context of the conversation before asking questions. Maybe start with the OP.

How about dealing with the issue presented that indicates your post was incorrect instead of sidestepping it.

 

[Hammster]

How about dealing with the issue presented that indicates your post was incorrect instead of sidestepping it.

I'm not going to rehash the total argument just because you don't want to read the thread, or interact with the OP.

 

[elman]

I'm not going to rehash the total argument just because you don't want to read the thread, or interact with the OP.

You are avoiding the issue--again.