Both are wrong.
Posted on 03/17/2012 7:26:45 AM PDT by GonzoII
You know the secret of gratitude, Harley. How fortunate you are. God bless you always.
Whatever exegesis you arrive at, we can know that:
A god that dooms some to eternal hell before birth is not the Christian God.
A god that created man without free will choice is not the Christian God (in addition to making Christ’s ministry nonsensical and devoid of meaning.)
Salvation by election is not Christian doctrine.
God desires that all be saved and He has provided sufficient grace to overcome all sin, yet all are not saved. Why?
Some attempt to answer that by claiming the tenets of Irresistible Grace and Unconditional Election. That God picks winners and losers based upon whim. I reject that because I refuse to believe that God subjected His Son and mankind to a cruel, meaningless joke.
Adam and Eve were NEVER given a "choice" about eating from the tree of life. God knew what their choice would be knowing what they had just lost. In fact, not only did God prevent it, God placed some pretty tough dude angels around it just so they COULDN'T partake of the tree of life.
You can only come to the wedding feast if you're invited. Those are the biblical facts.
Is your free will choice, here for example, to reply or not, an illusion?
God never picks anyone on a "whim". There is a reason and a plan for everything. God would be perfectly righteous to toss the lot of us into the burning, tormenting flames of hell. And don't feel sorry. I am totally convinced as C.S. Lewis stated, that mankind would rather reign in hell than serve in heaven. Like Lazarus looking at the feast of Abraham, he never begged forgiveness or repented even as he looked on that wonderful feast. He only asked for a drop of water. That is our nature unless God replaces it. We are rebellious, stubborn and evil.
Saying we are "winners" and the unbelievers as "losers" is simply the wrong terminology. Christians have too high opinions of themselves to think they won anything. We haven't. We are promised trials and tribulations. And unbelievers haven't lost anything because they never had it in the first place. Frankly, they don't care about salvation. Just ask any atheist.
The real mystery isn't why God would cast anyone into hell. The real mystery is why God would bother to save any of us.
I believe the Westminster Confession makes it clear that salvation of the elect is most certainly not based on anything we would recognize as 'just'. Would you agree?
Frankly, they don't care about salvation.
But that is irrelevant in terms of election, yes? God decides that before we are born.
And unbelievers haven't lost anything because they never had it in the first place.
Why didn't they have it and why do the elect?
The non-elect gain eternal torment; the elect gain everlasting life. Why?How is your answer different than: "Fate." ?
Christian scripture and teaching is salvation by grace through faith, not salvation by election.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Can you choose to believe in Him? Are you only posting what you have no choice but to say? Could you change your mind and your theology?
And, finally:
If it could be demonstrated to you that you had free will choice, would you believe it is true?
Because He chose to love us first, before we loved Him.
That’s why gratitude is our proper attitude.
As usual, great post,Harley, which gives all glory to God and to Christ, our Savior.
God is omnipotent and omniscient, He could, and would be perfectly righteous in doing anything......and yet He doesn't. Mankind is unique among the mortal creatures because of the knowledge of the fruit of the tree of knowledge and the accompanying free will.
I think it largely comes down to what purpose God had for mankind and each of us. Some would have you believe that we are nothing more than Playdough, shaped, toyed with and eventually either discarded or put on a shelf so that God could admire His own work. I reject that. Not because it violates any personal notions of what God ought to be or do, but because it violates both reason and Scripture.
Evil exists, not because God created it and authored all evil deeds, but because it is the natural consequence of free will. There can be no free will to choose good if evil does not exist. There can be no Salvation without voluntary damnation.
Death exists only as an affirmation of the purpose of life in an otherwise meaningless existence. The world could carry on its Godless plan for eternity if there were no death. Archbishop Fulton Sheen said it best:
"Death proves also that life has meaning because it reveals that the virtues and goodness practiced within time do not find their completion except in eternity."
Very good.
“... life has meaning...” Yes. It would seem an oxymoron to posit a religion of meaningless.
To “ it violates both reason and Scripture” I would add “basic human experience.” Calvinism results in a cosmos devoid of meaning where the human experience is an illusion.
But you’ve been shown countless times you do not have free will and yet you ignore the fact.
You can’t fly by flapping your arms; you can’t see if you are blind and if God has chosen you for salvation, you will be saved because the Holy Spirit is stronger than you.
God is in control since before the foundation of the world.
Thank God. I trust God’s will more than my own.
And I can't become a cheetah and run down a gazelle. All of which have nothing whatsoever to do with free will choice.
But you’ve been shown countless times you do not have free will
No, I'm shown every waking minute that I do.
Question: Why do you believe you do not have free will?
Because God creates the heart.
Why does this cause you to believe you do not have free will?
I can't completely accept the role of "basic human experience" because too often experience is shaped or warped by human thought and error. It also leads to error in that my perception of it can be similarly distorted and would go against my need to a greater authority in these matters.
I can't completely discount Calvinists and Calvinism because I know many who sincerely love God with all of their heart and soul. I also know many Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus who are true to their concepts of God and justice. Do they err? Of course, some significantly, but we all do to one degree or another. The finite human mind is just not capable of understanding the infinite.
The Church teaches that all are called to God because that is where we all came from and that within each human heart is a void that can only be filled by God. All major religions and denominations contain a ray of light and truth and that truth is from God. It is our mission as Christians to spread the Word and help to remove the error. I have found that a sharp tongue, a cold shoulder and a crooked finger only hinder the process. As I have witnessed in my own life light can shine through even a broken and dirty window.
Our perceptions and experience are not perfect nor unlimited. We do not have completely free will, but neither do we have no free will.
In Christian terms and experience, Christ tells us to love God and neighbor as ourself. Without free will, this commandment- and his ministry - are nonsense, absurd.
And without any free will at all, what is repentance?
Both are wrong.
There is no "free will". There is just the will of God and the will of men. The will of God is absolutely fixed on righteousness and holiness. The will of men is bent towards doing bad things. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
This is the plight of all men. The ONLY thing that separates Christians from non-Christians is that we serve the law of God with my mind, but with our flesh we serve the law of sin.
And I'm sure God won't mine me plagurizing Romans 7:18-25.
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