Well, it's not true for me. The Bible says if you don't choose Jesus freely of your own will and believe He is the Son of God who died for your sins then you don't know him. You can't "inherit" real faith.
I don't know if it matters exactly
why you believe. Most christians I know have never had much of a "salvation experience," they've just continued in the faith they grew up in.
Anyway, the bible also says faith is God's
gift, I'm not so sure it's anything we choose. Either you're convinced or you're not. But you can choose what to do with what you believe is true. Further, the bible says we were
chosen before the foundation of the world (I believe that refers to us believers, but correct me if I'm wrong). So the idea that salvation is our choice only is incomplete at best.
How can you be a man if you don't have free will? Do you know what people without free will are called? They're called prisoners.
So maybe we're God's "prisoners" then. As is the rest of His creation. Personally, I'd much rather have God run the entire show than us getting to mess it all up against His will.
By the way, will we still have "free will" in heaven? If we do, it must be possible to sin there
Don't misunderstand those passages. God works through the hearts of men and turns evil intentions into His good.
But that's what the passages do say, though. Anyway, in effect it doesn't matter if it's God Himself doing it or He's just allowing the devil to do it. He is almighty.
So now your position is that God forced mankind to be evil?
God works all things according to His own plan, He's got the whole world in His hand, to put it that way. Like I said, I don't know how to reconcile God judging people for evil when ultimately it's God's own decision that we be evil.
God turns evil into good, he doesn't create the evil in the first place.
He did create the devil, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
It's not his plan but he knew it would happen and planned for our salvation before he made us, yes.
I find it hard to believe that God didn't plan for it, but knew it would happen anyway. Couldn't He have chosen differently?
Do you have a better version of creation perhaps? There is no other version of reality other than the one God created. The potential for sin is a side effect of our spiritual imperfection alongside a holy and righteous God.
Sure, if I was to create the world I'd do this and that. I'm not accusing God, just questioning His work because I don't understand it.
If God was to eliminate sin, he'd have to eliminate you and me. And everybody else.
And that's what He did on the cross, where you and I were crucified with Christ
Your understanding of these concepts is incomplete.
Probably. What about yours?
Those are common questions but faith in Jesus Christ should be your convincing factor.
What do you mean?
I think it works the other way around. You're no longer scared of hell (because you don't think it has eternal significance) and therefore you're free to question.
I fought long and hard to get to the point where I even dared to ask the question if the whole hell thing might be different than the belief I grew up with. Seeing how little support you can find for that in the bible, learning about the word
aion and so forth, and not least trying to make it fit in with what the bible otherwise says about God being righteous and such, I was happy to find that I'd been wrong.
Some christians automatically get alarmed when they hear preached a message that is better than the one they already believe. Like when someone says God's grace extends further than they thought, that we're not under the law, or that eternal torment thankfully enough just isn't true. They instinctively oppose "good news" because they see it as a watering-down of the True Gospel(tm).
Fear is the beginning of wisdom. If you don't fear God, you won't be wise. End of story.
Fear of God doesn't mean to be scared of God. Fear of hell isn't the beginning of wisdom.
You're struggling with those questions but a lot of people aren't. That's because they've accepted that fear is the beginning of wisdom - and their relationship with God and appreciation of his love is deeper for it.
My appreciation for God's love grew 423809752039485703294 times bigger when I realised He's not the ultimate sadist. It's wonderful not having to try to reconcile the idea of an ultimately loving God with the idea that He's also going to torture most people forever. My whole relationship with God was based on terror. For people who believe in hell as eternal torment, escaping that neverending torture is their best reason for seeking God in the first place. Think about it - people are seeking God not because He's good, but because if they don't He's going to punish them worse than you can imagine if they don't.
It's his will to be unjust then? Why don't you just apply what we consistently know about God. Start with the fact that he's good and just and he is love and wrath and work backwards. Don't accept any position that you know is inconsistent with his unchanging character. But don't ignore any aspects of his character either. You can't have God's love without his wrath and his justice.
Sure you can, He's already provided that for everybody. I'll have all of His love and none of His wrath.
If you start with the fact that God is love and just you can't possibly come to the conclusion that He is also hate and infinitely unfair.
It's never about the object in question or about "stealing". God doesn't distinguish between sins for a clear reason: because all sins amount to rebellion against God. God set a "way" for man. To choose to sin is to choose your own "way". If you choose your own "way," you're making yourself God. However God only has room for himself being God, so what sin basically represents is waging war on God, becoming his enemy.
Sure God distinguishes between sins. Some He bears over with, and sometimes in the bible we see God punishing people when their sin reaches "their full measure."
The child stealing a candy bar isn't making him- or herself God.
God did all that voluntarily because he chose to, to save us. That has nothing to do with whether God's character accepts sin. God humbled himself to human form to achieve this.
I was thinking about the argument that "God can't be near sin," which when coupled with the idea that we all have eternal life whether we get saved or not, results in the idea that God is forced to expel us from His presence forever. But God isn't afraid of sin, He's not allergic to it, He can stand it more than any human ever could. He washed the feet of sinners and ate with them.
Doesn't it just show you how desperate God is to give his children a chance?
To me it shows the exact opposite. That the creator of the world, the most powerful being imaginable, is in fact unable to save any but a few of the ones He loves unconditionally but instead is forced to torture them, because one man destroyed God's perfect work.
I personally believe all the sin has the potential to be blotted out on the cross, but if you don't believe in it and you don't honor it - it will not be applied to you. It can't be - because you have to CHOOSE to respond to the Holy Spirit calling you to repentance. It is all a work of God but God does not force any one to accept His son.
As I mentioned above, I think that's at best an incomplete view of things. I don't see Paul, for example, choosing to respond to God's calling, or Judas or the Romans/jews having any choice (someone had to do it).
Doesn't follow the scriptures though, unfortunately. The Bible is fraught with mention of people being unsaved.
Yes, but maybe "saved" doesn't only mean where you go when you die.
1 Timothy 4:10
That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe.
It may be that we all will be saved eventually (and some of us even while we're on earth), especially if punishment in hell isn't eternal. It would make sense in light of God being God and His will being done and God reconciling all things to Himself.
1 Cor 15:21-28
For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For he “has put everything under his feet.” Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.
