Why do people reject the gospel?

Scott: Bible calls it a gift yet you say it isn’t.
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That is untrue Tim. You should apologize for mischaracterizing my statement like that. I said it was a choice between gifts... which is pretty much what you've been arguing. The difference is that you think somehow the saved figure out to choose the seemingly less attractive gift with great promise while I say that God miraculously instills the good will and "sight" in us beforehand.

Timtoolman: sorry Scott I am right on. Choose your words differently then if you want to portray something else. And we are not talking about choosing between gifts as if that really makes a difference.

Scott: Which way should I go, Bible or Scott?!
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False dichotomy in this case.

Timtoolman; nope it is scripture or you Scott I pick scripture.
F

Scott: You were first given the will... the sight to see that gift as desirable. Many were offered the same gift. Many knew that their lives were filled with sin... and turned away.


Timtoolman: answered ad nausea. You are argueing against your own case and don’t even know it.


Scott: You will have to prove it illogical... your declarations fall well short of proof.

But to the point, God does a work in us first... that work manifests itself in the "acts/choices" of faith and belief.

Where you have a human process of deliberation... I place a divine miracle.

Timtoolman: nope Scott wrong again where does it state that God does a work first that makes a man accept. You are lost because there are none. The call is clear, it is clearly too all and it is sincere. I do not accept your terms that accepting a gift while other turn it away is a work. That is yours and Calvinist alolne. Keep it and be happy. I willl not drink the coolaid.

Scott: I heard the gospel... and it wasn't nearly the first time. But God acted on me. I had a conviction and desire where there had been none before... then submitted and accepted in the faith of a child.


Timtoolman: Lets look at all thworks you have done. First you heard, that is a work.Then you had a desire, your desire is also a work and then you did the work of submitting and accepting. Sound rediculus! You bet, welcome to Calvinist theology!

Scott: I don't know how typical I am of calvinists everywhere... I seem to be pretty consistent with most of the ones here.

Timtoolman: You are and I would say that what you say is very trypically received as I do. You don’t like it but it is the words you use.

Scott: But you do Tim... you won't admit it but when you assign the critical factor in an individual's salvation to their independent, reasoned good choice... that is a work. I know that it is tempting to try to change the definition so that this act isn't work... but it still is by any legitimate treatment.

Timtoolman: when I ask others who are saved or not saved about this logic of Calvinism the laugher is deafening! Carry on with your redefining of terms just don’t expect rational. Intelligent and logical people to buy it.

Scott: If it isn't functional until you make a choice... then it is NOT finished. It is always open-ended and dependent on someone's good choice to believe.

Timtoolman: it is functional and complete. Just like any other gift. The gift is finished completed and me receiving it does not allow me to glory in the producing of the gift. You logic is crazy here. If I choose to drive a car and get in it doe my choice allow me to take credit for the building of the car. Nope. Your logic not mine!


Scott: You still make the critical thing in salvation human good will. You say the offer is there but completely ineffectual til the magic potion of man's good choice is applied.

You work in cars so you probably know that some adhesives activate with a catalyst. The catalyst isn't the largest part... it isn't even the part that does the bonding... but it is the most critical part. Without the catalyst, the glue is worthless.

I believe that regeneration is the catalyst. You seem to be arguing that a sinner's good choice is the catalyst.

Timtoolman: no Scott your redefining of terms has led you down this path of strawmen and false hood. I know that I have said that God gave of His son freely. I did not will Him too. That God has done all the work for man to be saved and to believe. That is bible. It is done and choice allows no man to glory in the finished product. The difference is none other then free will. lAll have that freedom to choose. The answer you are looking for has lbeen in front of you and all Calvinist and yet you reject it for this nonsense that recieiving allows man to take credit for the igift.

Scott: Why do you believe that? If you were good enough to make that initial good decision then why aren't you good enough to sanctify yourself. You have the Bible. Why do you need the Holy Spirit working within you since the good needed to make

Timtoolman: Scott now you are better and deeper then that. That really is kids stuff. Lets keep this on an adult level. Do I really need to even acknowledge that as a legit questions?!!!

Scott: I can only speak for myself Tim. However, John appears to me to have a better biblical basis for what he believes than most of his opponents here.

Timtoolman: so you agree that God is the author of sin. Answer that for me if you answer no other question. The fact that you would even say that leds me to believe that you are pretty much hopeless. I am sorry but Johnp has declared God responsiable for sin. YHou even come close to agreeing with that then my friend you are in need of a real heart check!!


Scott: Because you correctly said before that man could not do any good that God would recognize. He is the only standard of good that counts.

Timtoolman: nope you did not take time to read the post. I said compared to Christ who is the only perfect man without sin and alwys dong the Lords will all our rightouesness is as filthy rags. Including yours and mine.


Scott: Then why do you believe it was the catalyst in your salvation rather than God being the initiator?

Timtoolman:Answered over and over!

Scott: You haven't demonstrated that it is a straw man... just because your position cannot provide a biblical answer isn't a reason to disqualify the question.

Timtoolman: sure I have. I will take logice and Bible everytime. If you say it is dark out and its 1 in the afternoon and the sun is shining britely I cannot convince you other wise because you refuse truth and logic. Y our Calvinist theology has done the very thing that you claim God does to the non elect. Blind them!

Scott: I gave that to you Tim. You are invited to take my comment line by line and answer.
Timtoolman: I already did and showed you that spiritual death shows a broken fellowship not a God does not know man or man does not know God thing. You def. if it goes further is not biblical. Again you will never win anyone without an honest defining of terms and words.

 

Romans 3:9-12 </font>[/QUOTE]Gen 6:5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart where continuelly evil.

So is this in contrast to the fact that man's thoughts and actions where no always "continuelly wicked or evil" hmmmmm?

Lam. 3:26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.

Of course this is not int he calvinist bible is it? It should read that "He should sit and wait quietly for the election of God"

That was a little off subject came across it and liked it.

Prov 13:22
A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.

Prov 17:22
A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones.

Rom2:10
But glory and honor, and peace to everyman that worketh good, to the Jew first and also to the gentile.

I Peter 2:18 Servants be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the forward.

Luke 6:33
And if you do good to them that do good to you, what thank have you? FOR SINNERS DO EVEN THE SAME.

Roms 16:18
For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but tgheir own belley: and by good words and fair speeches deceive ghe hearts of the simple.

Gen. 26:29
That thou wilt do us no hurt, as we have not touched thee, and as we have not done unto thee nothing but GOOD, and have sent thee away in peace: thou art now the blessed of the Lord.

God sees even the wicked can do good...
Gen 31:24
And God came to Laban the Syrian in a dream by night,and said unto him. Take heed that thou speak not too Jacob either GOOD or BAD.


Compared to Christ, yes all our rightouesness is as filthy rags. </font>[/QUOTE]Tim, Rather than answer these individually as others may do... or I may do later, I just wanted to comment that most of these passages have been stripped of their context.

Romans 2 in context for instance does not help your cause. It is only when you strip it of context that you find things that you can manipulate.

Romans 2 is part of a 2 and half chapter indictment of all men as sinners culminating with Romans 3:9-12.

You can't ignore the context just because it is inconvenient to your position. </font>[/QUOTE]You may be right Scott I did a concordance check on good and may have put some in that are not in context. YHou will not knock them all down though lbut give them your best shot. Remember it is always better to interpt scripture with scripture. If you read that all our good is as filthy rags yet God says men can do good then you might want to search the context and realize what is really being said. For instance God is saying that next to the Christ all our works are as filthy rags. Does it say we can do no good? You will not be able to prove that if you say yes.

 

God is not willing that any should perish, yet has provided a way for only a few. Does not this type of teaching just boggle the mind.

 

Guys, I started out really engrossed in the discussion between the two of you. But after a while my eyes just glazed over trying to slog through those long posts, much of which rehashed what had been said before. I know the subject is deep and complicated. But I'm losing interest. Help!

Tom B

 

Sorry Tom.

I often find it necessary to repeat things because the same mischaracterizations keep appearing over and over.

 

You are demonstrating one of the problems that anti-calvinists persistently engage in... YOU don't get to tell me what my case is.

It is NOT inconsistent with calvinism nor scripture to say that man is 100% responsible for his own sin. Get that out of your head. In fact, grace depends on this being true. Man by necessity must be guilty beyond his ability to self-justify if grace is to be grace.

You keep trying to argue with me like I am making God responsible for man's sin or unbelief. I am not. I am giving God full glory and credit for each helpless sinner that finds grace.

 

Tim, Can man thwart the perfect will of God?

That kind of teaching does indeed boggle the mind. Put the text back into its context.... and it is no longer so mind boggling.

Who is being spoken to? What occasion?

 

Tom I would have you read "chosen but free" by Norm Geisler. I read the book and honestly and truely it was almost exactly as I found in the bible on election and calvinism.
I had to answer the same question over and over again, and my last two post where just repeats,of already answered questions. Just not the ones wanted to be heard.

 

Tim, Perhaps you don't understand the questions if you think you are answering them.

I am not asking "how" the experential aspect of salvation works... I am not asking "why" the lost are condemned... this debate is specifically about "why" some make the choice to repent and believe.

What is the primary catalyst?

What was it about you that made you believe while someone who has heard the gospel even more clearly and often rejects? What is the difference?

We can agree that those who are lost are condemned by their own sin and unbelief. I think that is a give between us.

Where you disagree with me is on why some actually come to believe. I say you disagree with me... because I can't say that I disagree with you until you actually give a clear answer to the question.

What is it that ultimately causes/enables/motivates a believer to believe/hear/see?

Is it a work of God that changes the nature of the man so that he in "free will" may believe?

Or, is it purely volitional... dependent on some good in the individual?

There has to be a differentiator between those who believe and those who don't.

 

Yep and those are all choices, yet God gives all the oppertunity too repent. Dead means they can do no spiritual good not that they can't reconize God. Yes they are led by a carnal mind but not unable too respond to the gospel. And yes the natural man cannot understand the things of God. The spiritual things that come from a relationship with HIm. However they can understand from the power of the gospel that Christ died for them. As many did in the Bible, but knowing this walked away from Christ of their own choice. It's really quite simple if you calvinist would quite mucking up the gospel. </font>[/QUOTE]So people choose to be born dead in sin?
How's this for mucking up the Gospel:

Jhn 6:65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.


Jhn 6:66 From that [time] many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.

 

I think it also boils down to total depravity is not total inablility. I think that is where Calvinist are again miss- defining terms.
What do we know about depravity. It touches every aspect of the human. What it does not mean is total inability. Why can I rule that out? Because it make sense that if God had to blind, close the ears and speak in parables so that some would not be able to come to the knowledge of Christ I can be certian that man can indeed respond.
To me the problems lie alot with calvinist defining of terms. We really should let the Bible define how it uses them even more so the the dictionary, eh?

 

Why won't you give direct answers to the question I asked in about 10 different ways to eliminate opportunity for confusion?

Just answer the question why some believe while others don't... either God ultimately causes it (election-regeneration) or man ultimately causes it (human decision-regeneration).

I haven't disagreed with your first statement above. In fact, if you had read my posts you would know that I said man has plenty of ability (better termed potential).

Again about the blindness- cite the scripture you are referring to. I suspect that placed in context it is talking about the corporate blinding of the jewish nation... which is qualified by the fact that most of the earliest Christians were individual Jews.

 

Oh... and before you go off on some generality. I am specifically talking about an individual salvation event. What made YOU believe while others didn't?

 

Scott, choice, free will. This is the answer. It is what you don't want to face. It flies in the face of your teaching. I am saying the very fact that man has choice is why some choose and some don't. How much clearer can I make it.

 

Everyone will reject the Gospel until they are regenerated by the Holy Spirit and given the Faith to believe. [Ephesians 2:1-10]

 

That is the worst paraphrase of Ephesians 2 I have ever seen. You might as well just said everyone who has two nostrils will be given magic pixie dust for salvation.

REPEAT: FAITH IS NOT GIVEN AS THE GIFT IN VERSE 8.

You calvinists misuse the word "regenerate" like nothing I have ever seen.

Regenerated
REGEN'ERATED, pp.

1. Reproduced.

2. Renewed; born again .!!!!!!

Let's see...you are "born again"...then given the faith to really seal the deal and become even more "born again".

 

For heaven's sake... THAT IS NOT AN ANSWER TO WHY A PERSON ACTS IN THEIR FREE WILL ONE WAY OR THE OTHER.

That answer is equivalent to:

Waiter: Would you like fresh ground pepper?

You: "Choice"

Waiter: What? I asked if you wanted pepper.

You: I answered. Choice.

Waiter: A simple yes or no will do.

You: (Angrily) I already answered your question.

Your "answer" is a statement of the condition. Man does have a choice.

The question that you keep evading is: Why do some act on this choice/free will be accepting while others reject?

I gave you potential answers. Those or variants of them are the only options I know of.

Either God is the source of the good that caused you to choose as you did or you are. Fairly simple question... that none of you guys want to answer.

No it doesn't... and I have to wonder again if you have actually been reading my posts.

That is completely non-sensical... it isn't clear because it is not an answer to the question.

The "fact that man has a choice" is not a reason for why some choose yes and others choose no.

If you asked me why I voted for "Senator Smith" and I said "Voting rights"... you'd be either puzzled by my answer or think I was a flaming idiot.

I don't think you are an idiot but I find it stupifying that you think that "free will" was an answer to the question.

 

I believe in an inerrant Scripture. Unfortunately, as the above post shows, much interpretation is flawed.

I would point out the passage from John 3 where Jesus Christ talks about regeneration or the new birth:

John 3:3-7
3. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
4. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?
5. Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
6. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

Note that when Nicodemus asked how he could be born again Jesus Christ said nothing about faith, He said: That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

By the way any correct grammatical reading of Ephesians 2:8 shows that faith is a gift.

And then the Apostle Peter states in 1 Peter 1:23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

Jesus Christ states that we are born again of the Spirit. Peter states that we are born of an incorruptble seed. Certainly no one could argue that man is incorruptible.

 

One who is spiritually dead can no more make himself spiritually alive than one who is physically dead can make himself physically alive.

 

(ESV) For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
(ASV) for by grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
(DRB) For by grace you are saved through faith: and that not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God.
(HCSB) For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God's gift--
(KJVR) For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
(LITV) For by grace you are saved, through faith, and this not of yourselves; it is the gift of God;

On the contrary, this (or that) is singular referring to God's grace. If faith were a "gift" along with God's grace, the text would have read "these".