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To: stfassisi; MarkBsnr
FK: I would say that regardless of the number or nature of the sins of any two given people, if they both repented of all of them and then both loved God the same, that is, in the Biblical sense (truly), then they would both be saved. Therefore, God would contradict His own word if He sent one to Heaven and one to hell.

Good answer,FK. Then you would agree that God wills all to be saved(1 tim 2:4) and gives us the free will to repent? Thus, we are all given sufficient Grace to follow His will.

Thanks for the compliment, but you might not think it's so good when you hear my explanation. :)

Reformers hold that God does not will all people to be saved to the extent that He will cause it to happen, which causing is fully within His power. When God wills it to rain, it rains, etc., but this doesn't apply to saving people. Therefore, it cannot be said that God gives saving grace (grace sufficient for one to come to Him) to all people. This relies on the idea that when God gives saving grace it isn't potential or partial grace but real and full grace that works in a Godly manner, that is, perfectly (or all the time).

Relating this back to my statement, then, would mean that if any two people did repent and did love God the same, the reason is that God had decided to give saving grace to both of them. And for all God decides to give saving grace to, none is lost (John 10:25-30), so neither of these goes to hell.

4,997 posted on 12/08/2010 9:46:17 AM PST by Forest Keeper ((It is a joy to me to know that God had my number, before He created numbers.))
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To: Forest Keeper; MarkBsnr

“”Reformers hold that God does not will all people to be saved to the extent that He will cause it to happen, which causing is fully within His power.””

The Reformers are wrong because God would have two wills -one that wills bad and the other that wills good. Also God would be moved from being all things good

From Aquinas

That God is the Good of all Good

GOD in His goodness includes all goodnesses, and thus is the good of all good.

2. God is good by essence: all other beings by participation: therefore nothing can be called good except inasmuch as it bears some likeness to the divine goodness. He is therefore the good of all good. Hence it is said of the Divine Wisdom: There came to me all good things along with it (Wisd. vii, 11).

And

That the Will of God is His Essence

http://www2.nd.edu/Departments//Maritain/etext/gc1_73.htm

GOD has will inasmuch as He has understanding. But He has under- standing by His essence (Chap. XLIV, XLV), and therefore will in like manner.

2. The act of will is the perfection of the agent willing. But the divine being is of itself most perfect, and admits of no superadded perfection (Chap. XXIII): therefore in God the act of His willing is the act of His being.

3. As every agent acts inasmuch as it is in actuality, God, being pure actuality, must act by His essence. But to will is an act of God: therefore God must will by His essence.

4. If will were anything superadded to the divine substance, that substance being complete in being, it would follow that will was something adventitious to it as an accident to a subject; also that the divine substance stood to the divine will as potentiality to actuality; and that there was composition in God: all of which positions have been rejected (Chap. XVI, XVIII, XXIII).*

That God cannot will Evil

http://www2.nd.edu/Departments//Maritain/etext/gc1_95.htm

EVERY act of God is an act of virtue, since His virtue is His essence (Chap. XCII).

2. The will cannot will evil except by some error coming to be in the reason, at least in the matter of the particular choice there and then made. For as the object of the will is good, apprehended as such, the will cannot tend to evil unless evil be somehow proposed to it as good; and that cannot be without error.* But in the divine cognition there can be no error (Chap. LXI). 3. God is the sovereign good, admitting no intermixture of evil (Chap. LXI). 4. Evil cannot befall the will except by its being turned away from its end. But the divine will cannot be turned away from its end, being unable to will except by willing itself (Chap. LXXV). It cannot therefore will evil; and thus free will in it is naturally established in good. This is the meaning of the texts: God is faithful and without iniquity (Deut. xxxii, 4); Thine eyes are clean, O Lord, and thou canst not look upon iniquity (Hab. i, 13).


5,005 posted on 12/08/2010 3:18:54 PM PST by stfassisi ((The greatest gift God gives us is that of overcoming self"-St Francis Assisi)))
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