Predestination??

[woobadooba]

The pride I see in here is horrendous!

 

[Catholic Dude]

Reformationist-

Um...so man has a will that is free, yet that free will requires the help of God?

Yes, as the Council of Orange says.

What would that free will choose "without the help of God?"

Its not really in a state to "choose" without the help of God.

You acknowledge that grace is necessary to lead the person to Christ so, clearly, you acknowledge that, apart from the grace, the man cannot come to Christ. If that be so, what about that will seems "free" to you?

I dont get what your saying. The person can reject the grace or work with it.

If something about the constituent nature of that will makes it unable to come to Christ, is that a truly "free" will?

I think we are talking about different things here. Free will means you can choose good or evil when given the choice. After the fall man needed God's help. Without that help nobody would be saved.

Also, what does it mean for the will to be "weakened?" What is the result of a will in a "weakened state?"

From what I understand, weakened is attributed to the result of Adam's fall:
-man subject to death
-subject to pain
-inclined to sin
-cant save himself
in short, grace is needed.

In terms of what is a result of a weakened will, it means the will cant choose good unless given the grace. It is opposed to pre fallen adam's no need for grace, and also opposed to no will at all where man is unable to choose good or bad.

To whom does God dispense this "help" that leads to Christ?

From what I understand, its given to all.

In the case of Baptism, we clearly see the person accepted the grace and was regenerated.

If it be to everyone without exception, why does it actually lead some to Christ and others it has no affect upon?

I dont get what your saying. It looks to me like it would have no effect upon an individual because the person chose to reject the help.

 

[strengthinweakness]

The ones who say they chose God may be closely related to the ones who invented gods.

All those people in the past who invented gods, chose their gods.

This statement is simply going too far. I do firmly believe, from the teaching of the Bible, that God chooses us, and that our choosing Him is the result of our having been chosen before the foundations of the world. However, to insinuate that believers in Christ who think that they chose God (with God merely acknowledging that choice by "choosing them" based on their choice) "may be closely related" to pagans is uncharitable and unloving to fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Charles Spurgeon stood strongly for the Biblical teaching of God's sovereignty in salvation. However, he also acknowledged the genuine Christian faith of John Wesley, who disagreed with Spurgeon about the Biblical basis for this teaching. One can hold strongly to the Biblical beliefs of the Protestant Reformation without insinuating that Christians who do not hold to every one of these beliefs, in the exact way that Reformed Christians do, are close to paganism.

 

[cygnusx1]

I think you and I have discussed this before and got to prettymuch the same point as we are now. It is obvious that we disagree on the love of God but I do not deem it to be all that important. It really isn't something I wish to publically debate a brother over. If you feel it is important enough I would prefer we discuss it by PM.

ok brother.

 

[Reformationist]

I have tickets for a concert...I offer tickets to both two poor men....one accepts and another says no....if the one who goes to the concert later states he did something to earn the ticket I gave him I might give him a piece of my mind later. He did nothing at all...I gave them to him....for him to boast just because he received them of his own free will would be nonsense and I don't know anybody who would do that....

Did the one who accepted the ticket have the ticket because you offered him the ticket or because he accepted the ticket? If it's the latter, which it surely is, then why did he accept the ticket when the other, to whom you also offered a ticket, refused? Was the one who accepted just smarter and realized that he would like the concert?

Where lies the difference Bobber?

 

[Reformationist]

He stated whosoever will may come....whosoever means whosover....and he that comes to me I will in no wise cast out....

Okay. Great. He said that anyone who would come to Him is allowed to come to Him. Who will come? Are we told that little piece of information? Oh yes. We are:

John 6:37
All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.

All Bobber. That means that if a person doesn't come, they weren't given. Very simple.

To send somebody to hell who was born a sinner by nature, who had no say in it being this way and not in a very real way allowing for such a creature a way of escape but you punish them for somethng they had no power to make different is insanely unjust and showing favortism .

Romans 9:11-21
for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls), it was said to her, “The older shall serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.” What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.” So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.” Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens. YOU will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?

It's amazing how often Scripture explicitly refutes these ideas that are propagated by free will activists. You say this very thing. If God has compassion upon someone simply because it is in accordance with His elective purpose, and not according to what they've done, whether it be good or evil, then man naturally takes issue. He says, "Hey!! How is that fair???!! If you harden someone and then they act in rebellion to you then you should not blame them because they are only acting the way you made them act by hardening them!!" Such a sad, sad view of God's relationship and obligation to man. The response of the Apostle makes the arrogance of such questioning apparent. He explicitly states that we have no right to question God's dealings with His creation and we are to understand that it is God's divine perrogative to create one for honor and another for dishonor.

Because Calvinists think this way id be absolutely terrified to see one ever become a judge in natural law. If their understanding of righteousness can consider that just then somebody else committing the same crime as I gets off....and that's considered just? It would bring a legal system into confusion and I'll never understand for the life of me how men can reason this way.

LOL! It's pitiful that you'd take issue with someone "getting off for committing the crime" when you, yourself, are pardoned on the basis of Christ's work on your behalf and the iniquity of your sins, the same sins for which many will stand condemned before the judgement throne of God, are remitted and instead of punishment you are counted as righteous because of someone else's works.

 

[Reformationist]

Yes, as the Council of Orange says.

To claim that man has a will is fine with me. To claim that he freely makes decisions in accordance with his will is fine with me. To say that a creature has a will that is "free" but, according to you, isn't even capable of choosing without the intercession of God is to purport a contradiction. If it is "free" then, by its very nature, it has no limitations.

Its not really in a state to "choose" without the help of God.

This is nonsense. Man is a volitional creature regardless of whether his will is in bondage to sin. As a volitional creature he chooses because that is what the will does. It chooses. In fact, the will is the mind's act of choosing. When the Bible speaks of the nature of unregenerate man, it doesn't say that it is incapable of choice. It says that it always and only chooses that which is evil and contrary to God's Law because that is what it desires. It's not coincidence that the pattern for unregenerate man's volitional acts is described as "only evil continuously."

I dont get what your saying.

I'm not being cryptic. You acknowledged that grace is necessary for man to come to Christ. If it is necessary for man to come to Christ then, without it, man cannot come to Christ. My confusion is the result of your incessant need to refer to a will as "free" that, without the grace of God, is incapable of coming to Christ. Such a will seems nothing so much as a slave to sin.

The person can reject the grace or work with it.

Then you contradict yourself. You stated, "Its not really in a state to choose without the help of God." So, first you state that the will of man, without the grace of God, cannot even choose. Here you state that the will that cannot even choose, actually chooses whether or not to reject the grace or work with it. If man, in his natural state, is incapable of choosing, what causes him to choose to work with the grace? Is there a prevenient prevenient grace which man has only the ability to accept which frees his nature and makes him capable of then choosing whether to "reject the grace or work with it?"

I think we are talking about different things here. Free will means you can choose good or evil when given the choice.

Which is an ability that, up until now, even you deny is inherent to man. You see CD, to say that man's will is naturally free would mean that he is naturally capable of choosing either good or evil when presented with the choice. If man is naturally capable of choosing either good or evil when presented with the choice, then man has no need of God's grace to make him capable. On the other hand, if God's grace is necessary for man to choose good when presented with the choice of choosing either good or evil then his will is not naturally free to do so.

After the fall man needed God's help. Without that help nobody would be saved.

Does God help everyone without exception? And, if so, why is that help efficacious in bringing some people to salvation while it has absolutely no positive effect in the lives of all who go to hell? Is it man's will that determines the efficacy of the dispensation of God's "help?"

From what I understand, weakened is attributed to the result of Adam's fall:
-man subject to death
-subject to pain
-inclined to sin
-cant save himself
in short, grace is needed.

So you purport that grace is "needed" but not necessarily "effective," right?

In terms of what is a result of a weakened will, it means the will cant choose good unless given the grace.

So this "free" will of which you speak can make choices but, without the grace of God, it can only choose to do evil?

It is opposed to pre fallen adam's no need for grace, and also opposed to no will at all where man is unable to choose good or bad.

Um...two questions. First, who says that Adam's pre-Fall state required no grace from God to be obedient? And secondly, when has man ever lacked a will? The will is a constituent element of man's nature, before the Fall and after it.

From what I understand, its given to all.

In the case of Baptism, we clearly see the person accepted the grace and was regenerated.

I dont get what your saying. It looks to me like it would have no effect upon an individual because the person chose to reject the help.

CD, the point you've just made is that God dispenses this grace to choose good to all without exception. I assume that you think He had a reason for dispensing this grace and that it wasn't just some arbitrary, meaningless dispensation. According to you, the efficacy of God's purpose in dispensing His grace is regulated by the whims of man who, according to you, is inclined to only evil apart from the grace of God. Tell me, if man is inclined to only choose evil apart from the grace of God, how does he ever choose to accept the grace of God, an act that is clearly not evil? It seems as if you believe that this man that is only capable of choosing evil makes a good and righteous choice to "accept" God's grace prior to receiving the grace that you say is necessary for him to choose good. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

 

[MarkT]

This statement is simply going too far. I do firmly believe, from the teaching of the Bible, that God chooses us, and that our choosing Him is the result of our having been chosen before the foundations of the world. However, to insinuate that believers in Christ who think that they chose God (with God merely acknowledging that choice by "choosing them" based on their choice) "may be closely related" to pagans is uncharitable and unloving to fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Charles Spurgeon stood strongly for the Biblical teaching of God's sovereignty in salvation. However, he also acknowledged the genuine Christian faith of John Wesley, who disagreed with Spurgeon about the Biblical basis for this teaching. One can hold strongly to the Biblical beliefs of the Protestant Reformation without insinuating that Christians who do not hold to every one of these beliefs, in the exact way that Reformed Christians do, are close to paganism.

The problem is you don't understand or believe in reveal truth sir. Your arguments reveal the workings of the scholars and I can guarantee you they did not receive the truth.

What I'm saying, I'm saying to those who possess the Spirit.

The Day will be revealed with fire and it will test the teachings of the scholars and the false prophets and everyone who has built on the foundation with false teaching.

"The Lord has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may sustain with a word him that is weary. Morning by morning he wakens, he wakens my ear to hear as those who are taught." Isaiah 50:4

 

[JayJay77]

I think there is a balance between extreme thoughts on this board that seem rational to me.

Scripture obviously teaches God's soveriegn choice. We cannot even question Him because we are the made, not the Maker.

However, scripture obviously teaches choice, as well...and we'll find both in Romans 9.

Our Salvation is found only in God's choice according to Romans 9:6-29 (not all of us are "free-will activists," Reform), as well as many other scripture verses given throughout this MB that also back that up.

Now, according to Romans 9:30-33, Israel's "damnation" is a result of her not pursuing God by faith, but rather by works (v. 32). So, God will reject her because of her "choice."

So it seems that if we're Christians, non of us can boast...we can only say it's God's fault.
And if we are evil, and are not saved, then it is our fault.

But in the Summer of '95 when I received Christ, who changed my life, would God have "saved" me had I not responded? As the scripture says, "How can they call on whom they have not heard? And how can they hear unless they are preached to?" Is God bound by my "choice?" No, I am.

To all who say of us "you free-will activists," I am not denying God's sovereign choice, or will. But there is a balance. God chooses me. If I choose Him back, it is because of His grace. If I choose sin, it is my sinful desire that has entangled me down the path to hell, and ultimatley the lake of fire, as Romans 9 is trying to tell us.

 

[MarkT]

The flesh can choose, but the heart can not. The flesh chooses what it can see. The heart believes what it can not see.

We can not choose what we can not see.

If you can accept for a moment that none of it has to do with your choosing it and that no one chooses what they believe but what they believe is what they believe in their heart is true.

And out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

And it comes by hearing. But when anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in his heart. If this is so, it is God's will.

It may be that this is why we are in our present form. So that all can hear but more importantly so that we can hear. So that God can give us understanding. As the Psalmist said, "The unfolding of thy words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple." Ps. 119:130

The flesh can choose.

God knows them. He knows who the wicked are. And being in the flesh, God can send a stupor of sleep upon them so that they can follow in their passions and be taken and trapped and be consumed in the Day of the Lord.

So that the predictions come true.

As Isaiah said, "Behold the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the earth a desolation and to destroy it's sinners from it. Isaiah 13:9. "The earth shall be utterly laid waste and utterly despoiled; for the LORD has spoken this word." Isaiah 24:3

If this is so, it is God's will.

 

[JayJay77]

I'm not sure I follow you, MarkT. And where does the "flesh can choose, but the heart cannot" come from?

 

[Reformationist]

But in the Summer of '95 when I received Christ, who changed my life, would God have "saved" me had I not responded?

But that is just it JayJay. You responded because God worked in you the desire and ability to do for His good pleasure. Your response it the result of His work of regeneration, not the means to it.

To all who say of us "you free-will activists," I am not denying God's sovereign choice, or will. But there is a balance. God chooses me. If I choose Him back, it is because of His grace. If I choose sin, it is my sinful desire that has entangled me down the path to hell, and ultimatley the lake of fire, as Romans 9 is trying to tell us.

And we are not denying any of this either. What we are saying, that many seem to want to avoid saying, is that the grace of God will always accomplish whatsoever God purposes it to accomplish when He dispenses it. If He gives His grace through the work of regeneration so that you would come to faith and live in obedience then you will come to faith and live inobedience. As I previously stated, the Bible explicitly states that ALL that the Father gives to the Son come to Him.

God bless

 

[cygnusx1]

The pride I see in here is horrendous!

You mean like this ...

The person that taught me exegesis would spin theological circles around both you and your pastor put together.

In fact, I would love to see the strongest theologian in your faith go up against him. I assure you that he would cease being a Calvinist to avoid facing the humiliation of defeat before his fellow Calvinists if this happened.

and this ...........

You know, maybe we should go at it if you think you know your stuff so well. If you want to challenge me to a debate I will gladly accept the invitation.

I will go up against anyone that you can throw at me, even Sproul. I don't need Leathermann. I only need my Bible and the Holy Spirit to guide me along the way.

 

[Reformationist]

You mean like this ...

and this ...........

Hello pot...meet kettle.

 

[woobadooba]

You mean like this ...


[/i]

and this ...........

Do you want to quote my posts, or do you want to challenge me?

 

[cygnusx1]

Do you want to quote my posts, or do you want to challenge me?

one suffices for the other ....

 

[Normann]

Rev. 22:17
And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.


Joshua 24:15
And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.


Man is free to make a choice, God does not choose who will not be saved.

 

[MbiaJc]

The flesh can choose, but the heart can not. The flesh chooses what it can see. The heart believes what it can not see.

We can not choose what we can not see.

If I may disagree with you, because you way off the mark.

Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

According to your theory man can have no faith? Even thoe it is not our faith, but His faith we rely on. All we need to do is believe on Jesus or believe on his name. However we can't see Jesus, so according to you again, we can't be saved.

If you can accept for a moment that none of it has to do with your choosing it and that no one chooses what they believe but what they believe is what they believe in their heart is true.

And out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

Man has free will, and there by has a choice to make. Either accept Jesu Christ or reject Him.

And it comes by hearing. But when anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in his heart. If this is so, it is God's will.

No! Its God's will that all be saved. If man when he hears the word rejects it, it is his choice, not God's will.

It may be that this is why we are in our present form. So that all can hear but more importantly so that we can hear. So that God can give us understanding. As the Psalmist said, "The unfolding of thy words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple." Ps. 119:130

The flesh can choose.

You can call it anyway you like. It still boils down to every man has a choice to make. Either for or against Jesus Christ

God knows them. He knows who the wicked are. And being in the flesh, God can send a stupor of sleep upon them so that they can follow in their passions and be taken and trapped and be consumed in the Day of the Lord.

So that the predictions come true.

God does know the ones that truly believe. However predestination is simply this. God determined before the foundation of the world was laid, that He would give the ones that believed on His Son Jesus Christ, power to become Sons Of God.
Eph 1:4According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:Joh 1:12But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

As Isaiah said, "Behold the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the earth a desolation and to destroy it's sinners from it. Isaiah 13:9. "The earth shall be utterly laid waste and utterly despoiled; for the LORD has spoken this word." Isaiah 24:3

If this is so, it is God's will.

Its not a if, it is because it is so.

1

 

[JayJay77]

from Reform:
What we are saying, that many seem to want to avoid saying, is that the grace of God will always accomplish whatsoever God purposes it to accomplish when He dispenses it. If He gives His grace through the work of regeneration so that you would come to faith and live in obedience then you will come to faith and live inobedience. As I previously stated, the Bible explicitly states that ALL that the Father gives to the Son come to Him.

Now hold on a sec. I've read most (if not all) the scripture verses talking about God doing this and that in Romans 9 and 10, but your argument contradicts some other scriptures Normann has been so graciously and tirelessly giving us.

I still think there is a balance. It's not all our choice, but like Normann said, God doesn't choose who's not going to be saved...why? Because when judgement comes, God won't say, "Hey, my bad. I made you a sinner and didn't ever dispense my grace to you, buddy. There's the door to the lake of fire! See ya!" On the contrary, according to Romans 9:32. As I said earlier, Israel is rejected because she didn't pursue God with faith. She pursued Him with works. There's a balance, I'm tellin' ya!

 

[JayJay77]

BTW, (reading in Romans) it says in Romans 5:18

18 Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men.
(NIV)

I've read on here some posts about Jesus not dying for all men? Well according to this verse, He did.

What if God's grace is "dispensed" every time the message is preached? What if His grace was dispensed once for all time at the cross? Could that be possible?