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To: Campion
"I assume you're talking about 6:37-39?"

No. Read on. John 6:43, 44 "Jesus answered and said to them, 'Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws Him; and I will raise him up on the last day." 6:64, 65 " 'But there are some of you who do not believe' For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. And He was saying, 'For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me, unless it has been granted him from the Father.'" This does have to do with those being elect before the foundation of the world.

Your error is that you view God as a very big man. Smart, adaptive, creative...but a large man. He is not that, but the Catholic Church has revised man's role into godlike creatures. That is why they pray to men and women. They view them as equals to God. The Scriptures disagree. That, however, does not stop Rome. Rome has authority over all...or so it thinks. Lucifer, too, was self-deceived.

Think carefully about your argument. If men were really free, then God could not possibly know what it is that they were going to do tomorrow. Why not? Because they may change their minds and act apart from Him. If He knows what will happen tomorrow, then those events are fixed and unchangeable. The Scriptures state that they are fixed because He is managing their occurrence. Even the roll of the dice.

That this bothers Rome is inconsequential. They are bothered by almost anything that paints them as the buffoons they are. They strain to supplant God at every turn. Nevertheless, there is a God of Heaven and Earth, the Holy One of Israel, who directs all, bringing calamity when necessary and rescue to those whom He chooses.

66 posted on 10/11/2011 8:13:53 AM PDT by Dutchboy88
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To: Dutchboy88
Interesting.

No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws Him
That's the one-verse refutation of semi-Pelagianism, which I already explained is not Catholic belief.

Your error is that you view God as a very big man.

Actually, I think that's your error, when you write stuff like this:

If men were really free, then God could not possibly know what it is that they were going to do tomorrow.

God is outside time. He is supreme over time. He is Lord over time; he created time out of nothing. He sees tomorrow just as perfectly as he sees today and yesterday. How he intervenes in it is completely up to him.

If He knows what will happen tomorrow, then those events are fixed and unchangeable.

"Unchangeable" is a nonsensical term in this context. Change implies progression in time. If God is outside of time, then change is meaningless for him. He sees present, and past, and future, and is free to allow us to be as free as he likes. If I'm going to change my mind, he sees that. He can see it without causing it, or he can cause it, as he so pleases.

That you do not grant him that freedom, ironically, means that you are cutting God down to size, despite your slander:

They view them as equals to God.

Nothing could be remotely further from the truth.

68 posted on 10/11/2011 9:50:55 AM PDT by Campion ("Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies when they become fashions." -- GKC)
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