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The worst thing about Calvinism

thecolorsblend

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We are creatures. Being created was not our call. It was His. Your autonomy is a myth.
"Autonomy" and "free will" are different concepts. In a lot of cases, confusion over the challenges of free will can usually be resolved by defining what free will and autonomy mean. The doing of such usually dispels the confusion.

So you are quite right to say that any notion of us having personal autonomy is a myth. But the poster to whom you're replying seems to be referring to free will.
 
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jimmyjimmy

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Libertarian free will is a myth, as well.

Libertarian free will is the position that the unbeliever’s free will is sufficiently self-contained, self-sufficient, and self-caused (without external coercion) so as to be able to accept or reject Christ as Savior, on his own, apart from God's enabling. It assumes that the sinful will is somehow capable, by virtue of being "free", to be able to choose to believe in God and follow him through Christ.

First of all, this violates scripture which says that man is deceitful (Jer. 17:9), full of evil (Mark 7:21-23), loves darkness rather than light (John 3:19), does not seek for God (Rom. 3:10-12), is ungodly (Rom. 5:6), dead in his sins (Eph. 2:1), by nature a child of wrath (Eph. 2:3), cannot understand spiritual things (1 Cor. 2:14), and is a slave of sin (Rom. 6:16-20). Therefore, how is it possible that an unbeliever who cannot understand spiritual things (1 Cor. 2:14), who does not seek for God (Rom. 3:10-12), and who is a slave of sin (Rom. 6:14-20), simply "chooses" God?

Second, libertarian free will promotes the non-Christian idea of independence from God and suggests that the unbeliever's final decision to receive Christ is dependent on nothing than his own self-contained, self-caused, autonomous free will choice. Furthermore, this position attributes to a created thing (human free will) that which belongs only to the uncreated God: autonomous, self-sustained, self-causation.

And...
It would further mean that God's choice to regenerate a person would be based on the sinner's choice to accept Christ. In other words, God's choice of salvation is contingent on the sovereign, autonomous, free-will decision of any particular sinner. This means that God's choices are contingent on man's and this violates the doctrine of God's non-contingency.

Some would say that God looks into the future to see who would choose him. But this would mean that God was learning and t and this violates 1 John 3:20 that says a God knows all things.

Others say that since God knows all things, he knows what any particular choice will be of any sinner in any circumstance and works the circumstances to accomplish his will. But this defeats the libertarian position since it is God who is then predestining them for salvation based on the circumstances that he sovereignly decrees. It would also mean that God has chosen circumstances by which others would not be saved.

Still others say that God gives prevenient grace (grace that comes before) to people to enable them to freely choose him. But this is problematic because God would know how much grace to give to any individual to bring him into salvation. Furthermore, it still does not answer the question of why one person chooses and another does not after being given this "prevenient grace". If they the response is that it is because of a person's free will, then we go back to the first problem of advocating self-contained, self-sufficient, and self caused free will that is independent of God - and this is idolatrous.

Furthermore, if libertarian free will is true, then we would not have verses in the Bible that say that God grants us belief (Phil. 1:29), or "as many as God appointed to eternal life, believed," (Acts 13:48), or that our believing is the work of God (John 6:29), or that we cannot come to Jesus unless it has been granted to us from the Father (John 6:65).

Let's think...

    1. Autonomy - Libertarian Free will violates the autonomous character of God by making God's decisions regarding the salvation of people, conditioned upon sinful man's, sovereign, autonomous free will. God is then not autonomous in all his decisions but who he saves is dependent on peoples' free-will choice. Yet, the Bible says...
    1. John 1:12-13, "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."
    2. Rom. 9:16, "So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy."
    3. Eph. 1:11, "also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will." This demonstrates that God is self-willed and autonomous.
    1. Sovereignty - It m - It means that God is not sovereign over his creation to do as he wishes - including the free will choices of sinners, yet...
    1. Isaiah 46:10, “Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, ‘My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure.’”
    2. Isaiah 55:8-9, "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. 9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts."
    3. Dan. 4:35, "All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, But He does according to His will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth; And no one can ward off His hand Or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’"
    4. Acts 4:27-28, "For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28 to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur."
    5. Acts 13:48, "When the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed."
    6. Rom. 9:16, "So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy."
    7. Eph. 1:11, "also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will."
 
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jimmyjimmy

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God, the only autonomous being, would cease to be autonomous if your view were true, because He *re*acts, rather than acts. You have men leading and God following.

You can't take away His autonomy and give it to men without doing severe damage to the very nature of the Godhead.

Understand that *He* is the Potter, and *you* are the clay, and you will be in much agreement with Calvinists.
 
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Si_monfaith

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Does sin make God angry?

Romans 5: 13 For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

If a person is elected to be saved that is, set free from the law as found in Romans 7: 4, 6, sin is not imputed to that person.
 
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Si_monfaith

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Does sin bend the human will or rule man?

Romans 5:21: "That as sin hath reigned unto death".

Sin rules man.
 
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thecolorsblend

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Does sin bend the human will or rule man?

Romans 5:21: "That as sin hath reigned unto death".

Sin rules man.
It isn't absolute. Our freedom is not destroyed by sin; only compromised.
 
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Si_monfaith

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It isn't absolute. Our freedom is not destroyed by sin; only compromised.

Romans 7

18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.

19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
 
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Si_monfaith

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Romans 5

That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

The human will is not free. It is either ruled by sin or ruled by His grace.
 
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thecolorsblend

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Romans 7

18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.

19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Would you care to offer your thoughts on those passages?
 
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Si_monfaith

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Would you care to offer your thoughts on those passages?

Sure. Please confirm that you are not a muslim but believe Jesus is the Son of God.

Just now I noticed the caption under your name.

Thanks.
 
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RisenInJesus

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God sent Jonah. Did the gentiles join by themselves without the Lord-given knowledge of atonement?
Not sure what your point is. I've never said I believe Gentiles joined by themselves without God giving some kind of knowledge or conviction.
 
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Si_monfaith

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Why do they reject Christ?


Saying, "I received salvation by the faith that I produced and so I am saved", or "I accepted Jesus as my Savior and so I am saved", is not faith. Such a witnessing does not glorify Jesus. Rather it glorifies man.

Saying, "Jesus elected me by His will to understand His work of redemption on the cross, gave me the assurance called faith and saved me" is faith. This kind of witnessing glorifies Jesus.

Thus faith glorifies Jesus by witnessing what "He" did rather than glorify the self by witnessing what man did, like the acts of believing and confessing.
 
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ClementofA

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Nobody is forced to be saved. To keep repeating that is disingenuous.

Do you believe salvation is by irresistible grace?

Do you believe the saving force of irresistible grace can be resisted?

Resistance is futile.
 
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Hammster

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I do believe that we have free will in choosing to repent and obey (we don't "choose Jesus"). We just don't choose whether we are renerate or not (thank the Lord).
 
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Hammster

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God ordains. He doesn't react.
 
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Hammster

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I find it astonishing that you don't see the contradiction.
 
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Hammster

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The atonement in the OT was not limited. It was for the whole nation of Israel and all the people of Israel and anyone who joined themselves to Israel by faith.
So it was limited to those people.

Thanks. That's the point.
 
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Hammster

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Do you believe salvation is by irresistible grace?

Do you believe the saving force of irresistible grace can be resisted?

Resistance is futile.
I believe regeneration is irresistible.
 
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Si_monfaith

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Do you believe salvation is by irresistible grace?

Do you believe the saving force of irresistible grace can be resisted?

Resistance is futile.

Nebuchadnezzar was forced to know amid humiliation that blessings are given by God's will and not man's will. Heb 12:7,8.
 
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thecolorsblend

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Sure. Please confirm that you are not a muslim but believe Jesus is the Son of God.

Just now I noticed the caption under your name.

Thanks.
???

I'm registered here as a Catholic. Because I am a Catholic.
 
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