From Fundamentalist Baptist to Catholic

“Try getting away from Jimmy Swaggart for 5 minutes.”

I’ve never seen that guy once, but have heard of him.
Your posts reference him non-stop. It is quite peculiar.

Never listened to the guy.

Catholics just can’t wrap their minds around the fact that believers don’t follow men.

“Nobody has free will. We are slaves to sin or slaves to God. Nobody is a free and independent moral agent”

The dumbest statement I have ever read in my life and this coming from an EVANGELICAL who claims she knows her Bible. How “Calvinist” of you.......... Man is truly free and God calls him to freely choose to serve or not to serve the Lord. From the famous Old Testament charge of Joshua to “choose this day whom you will serve . . . but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,” (Jo 24:15) to the very words of Jesus Christ himself, “If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink” (Jn 7:37), man’s freedom to choose to obey or disobey the will of God for salvation is absolutely central to the teachings of Sacred Scripture.

"...if anyone makes the assistance of grace depend on the humility or obedience of man and does not agree that it is a gift of grace itself that we are obedient and humble, he contradicts the Apostle who says, "What have you that you did not receive?" (1 Cor. 4:7), and, "But by the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Cor. 15:10). (Council of Orange: Canon 6)

While you shamelessly lambaste Metmom for something your ignorance of Scripture demonstrates, consider this... I guess you would call the Apostles Peter and Paul the authors of the "dumbest statement" you have ever read? Here's what they wrote - under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit:

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin — because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 6:5-23)

They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of sin and corruption. For you are a slave to whatever controls you. (II Peter 2:19)

Of course, then we have Jesus, Himself, asserting:

Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. (John 8:34)

Scripture IS clear that we are servants/slaves to sin and we would continue to be if not for the grace of God. The humanist idea that man is able to execute his own free will to either turn away or towards God is a myth. Martin Luther in his tome The Bondage of the Will disputing the doctrine with Erasmus, states:

It is a settled truth, then, even on the basis of your own testimony, that we do everything of necessity, and nothing by `free-will'; for the power of `free-will' is nil, and it does no good, nor can do, without grace. (Unless you intend `efficacy' to be taken in a new sense, as implying completion, and are suggesting that `free-will' can actually will and begin a thing, though it cannot complete it. This I do not believe; I shall say more on the point later.) It follows, therefore, that `free-will' is obviously a term applicable only to the Divine Majesty; for only He can do, and does (as the Psalmist sings) `whatever he wills in heaven and earth' [Ps. 135:6]. If `free-will' is ascribed to men, it is ascribed with no more propriety than divinity itself would be—and no blasphemy could exceed that! So it befits theologians to refrain from using the term when they want to speak of human ability, and to leave it to be applied to God only. They would do well also to take the term out of men's mouths and speech, and to claim it for their God, as if it were His own holy and awful Name. If they must at all hazards assign some power to men, let them teach that it must be denoted by some other term than `free-will'; especially since we know from our own observation that the mass of men are sadly deceived and misled by this phrase. The meaning which it conveys to their minds is far removed from anything that theologians believe and discuss. The term `free-will' is too grandiose and comprehensive and fulsome. People think it means what the natural force of the phrase would require, namely, a power of freely turning in any direction, yielding to none and subject to none. If they knew that this was not so, and that the term signifies only a tiny spark of power, and that utterly ineffective in itself, since it is the devil's prisoner and slave, it would be a wonder if they did not stone us as mockers and deceivers, who say one thing and mean another —indeed, who have not yet decided what we do mean! For, as the wise man says, 'he who speaks sophistically is hateful' [Pr. 6:17], especially if he does so in matters of religion, where eternal salvation is at stake.

Funny how some RCs think they should be able to post conversion stories of Protestants turning Catholic as “Catholic Caucus” threads that disallow ANY non-Catholic to comment, but if a non-Cath posted a Caucus thread about a former Roman Catholic who converted to Protestantism/Evangelicalism, they'd have a hissy fit if they weren't permitted to reply.

LOL! I remember that one! I noticed several are no longer “with” us.

Man is not truly free in the least. He cannot choose God unless drawn by the Holy Spirit.

Jesus said so Himself.

Tell Him He’s wrong and that He spoke the dumbest statement ever.

If man were able to FREELY choose God, then there’d be no need for the Holy Spirit drawing him.

Blah, blah, blah. Quit putting down and making fun of my faith. You do this and you will never hear a word from me.

but if a non-Cath posted a Caucus thread about a former Roman Catholic who converted to Protestantism/Evangelicalism,

Your list of those people, would be a mile long

Your post is so ridiculous I’m not going to bother answering it. But suffice to say you are dead wrong......as usual.

Well, that’s not a compelling rebuttal.....

If you believe in total free will have you completely and totally avoided sin? If not why not.
Because I am not God DUH!
If you believe in no Freewill, do you sin? Why hasn't God programmed you to make sure you never sin?

BTW if you are keeping score metmom has yet to respond to this, as usual.

Cool, thanks I learned something new today.

It says quite a bit about the prot position when Quix is such a prominent poster on that thread. I noticed you had to go all the way back to 2011 to find that thread.

Catholics just can’t wrap their minds around the fact that believers don’t follow men.

No prots just shoot there mouth off randomly posting with out sourcing.

Can you read? If you can read is you comprehension over 10%. There is a huge difference between being the mindless automations with no free will and not being perfected.

Well, that’s not a compelling rebuttal.....< P>It is not like the prots would bother reading a rebuttal and the two that might probably wouldn't understand most of it.

It is not like the prots would bother reading a rebuttal and the two that might probably wouldn't understand most of it.

I'm all ears, and I'm even a college grad-ur-wate, nyuk nyuk.

Let's see it.

Post 1144.

LOL, and Catholics won’t even answer questions, just pronounce the poster wrong and run off with no backup (proof source)

See a few posts up.

Can you read? If you can read is you comprehension over 10%.

That is what you writ...no comprende