Featured 1 Corinthians 12:3

Paul is not speaking to non-believers is he? You are reading into the text what is not there. Context does not support your claim. He is making a contrast between those who claim to be saved and those who really are.

Paul here gives a test, stated both negatively and positively, for determining the source, demonic or divine, of spiritual gifts. Many spiritual gifts had been paralleled by demons in the false worship of pagan deities in Corinth, with which these Gentile Christians had been most familiar (1Corinthians 12:2), they needed a test to distinguish false spirituality from the true.

Those that are truly saved can never say "Jesus is accursed" but can and will say "Jesus is Lord".

I gave you five quotes that show your error and yet you continue to hold to a false reading of the text.
Your view that the Holy Spirit is essential for each and every person to be saved to be ABLE to say “Jesus is Lord” leading to salvation is not supported by the text, it is something that you have to read into those verses to support your Calvinst/reformed/PB theology.

Your view is in disagreement with scripture. You may have other verses that you think will support your view but these verse do not.

 

I don't know. I only know what they preached and some of them were heavyweight Calvinists (Spurgeon, Bonar, Lloyd-Jones,Owen, Edwards.) None of them would probably have had the same view of free will as you but neither did they think it was a myth. My guess is that the guys I listed were all actual preachers, not just theologians, and although Owen and Edwards did, most of them probably didn't give much thought to the metaphysics of whether all events were necessary or whether the Stoics were more correct than the Manicheans.

It funny to me when some of you guys go on about the importance of the Bible, as if Calvinists don't know what that is. I got into Calvinist literature because I was personally starving to death spiritually listening to my semi-Pelagian pastor use up his sermon time with silly vacation stories and sentimental tales of war heroes or someone's mom. When I discovered that reformed Baptists were going through whole books of the Bible verse by verse and that the old preachers preached a religion that was to be lived (they called it "experiential" or "experimental") I was all in.

I was never particularly impressed with the metaphysical aspects and as I said before I am interested in Wilson's ideas on where Augustine got his views and I am waiting for a serious rebuttal from the Calvinist side. (I do not think James White's dismissal of Wilson's work is sufficient in my opinion). But my overall point is that for most Calvinist preachers, what they insist on is that man's main problem is his natural free will, and that God has a plan to save people and is going to do what it takes to save them. This much you can get from scripture without referring to Greek philosophy.

 

I have also had my fill of preachers that love to tell stories just as I have no time for preachers that abuse scripture so as to hold to a pet theology rather than the word of God.

I do not doubt that those Calvinists' then and now used the bible but when you read many of the comments from Calvinists you have to wonder if the text of their bibles is different than what the rest of us have.

What is a semi-Pelagian pastor? Someone that does not follow the Calvinist line of thinking? It would be just a reasonable to call those Calvinist preachers Gnostics' for the way they misuse scriptuire to support unbiblical views. But what would that accomplish.

Free will is both the best and the worst gift that God could have given to mankind. God does have a plan and He has provided various means for man to know Him. But in the end it is man that has to make the choice whether to trust in or reject God.

And I agree we do not need to understand Greek or resort to Greek philosophy to know God. The scriptures give us all we need.

 

Someone who believes that the human race, after the fall of Adam and Eve, does have a nature prone to sin and is damaged but is completely able, naturally, to at least repent and come to Christ without any direct aid from the Holy Spirit. I think a Pelagian would believe that we are born no worse off than Adam in respect to our natures, although of course our circumstances have changed.

You're going to have people nuance those definitions just like we do with Calvinism but if you are going to get on a theology site and argue you need to try to understand the terminology. I would say, and not intending any offense because they may be right, but I would say you are a semi-Pelagian. The reason this is important is that the classic non-Calvinist Arminians, like Wesley, Baxter, and of course Arminius all insisted that direct action of the Holy Spirit is essential and prior to anyone coming to Christ. What makes it even more difficult is that when some of the Calvinists argue in tough terms against Arminianism they are really talking about semi-Pelagianism. But we're talking about how people think so lines are always blurry. Just look at how Wilson thinks Augustine changed over the years. He was all over the place if Wilson is correct in his thesis. Baxter for a while had a view that justification is partly by works, yet he's one of the great Puritan pastors.

Personally, while I find this all very interesting, I don't think these issues are of importance as far as salvation is concerned.

 

So all who believe the doctrines of Grace (which includes people like Charles Haddon Spurgeon, George Whitfield, Jonathan Edwards, all churches whose statements of faith are based on the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith) were/are basing their belief on pagan philosophy?

 

They all did and still do read scripture through the lens of Augustine/Calvin philosophy which can be traced back to pagan philosophy. So there understanding of scripture has been colored by that philosophy.

 

When you say direct aid I have to conclude that you mean the Holy Spirit, as you have said before, makes the decisive choice. The Holy Spirit in effect causes the person to believe. But that is not what the bible says does it. Scripture says He convicts the whole world of sin so if your decisive action view were correct then the whole world would be saved. The bible says we can hear the gospel which we are told is the power of God for salvation and when we believe it we are saved by the Holy Spirit. So man is making the decisive choice.
Actually we are born worse off than Adam was prior to his fall. We do not have the same relationship with God that Adam had. But even though we do not have the same relationship we can respond to the various means God has provided for us to know Him and we will be held responsible for how we do respond.
So it seems what you would see as a Pelagian is just someone that believes the bible but does not follow Calvinism. On the other side I see those that stick to the TULIP/DoG as more Gnostic in their view.

I agree the labels are really not important but rather do muddy the water. My concern when speaking to someone is that they know God and Him crucified as Paul said. To me the bible is clear that man has to make the real choice and I see in Calvinism that that option is taken away.

 

I'm done here but I just would like to say that people wouldn't get so frustrated with you if you would just once make some kind of response that doesn't start out by restating what you think the other person must mean even though they never said anything even resembling that, and then refuting that with a high handed "you only believe the Bible response".

 

You give your view from your particular perspective and you want me not to respond to it. You make an unbiblical claim re the work of the Holy Spirit and think I should not point out the error from a biblical perspective.

Why would I not state that I just use scripture, you continue to refer to Owen, Edwards etc as the foundation of your view. Do you not like that fact that the bible is mine?

Calvinists' seem to think that Calvinism should the standard by which the bible is judged. They read the bible through the lens of their Calvinist theology.

It seems most Calvinists on this board want compliance with Calvinist philosophy rather than truth from the bible.

 

That is the way to earn death in scriptures.

 

That is the way to earn death in scriptures.