Featured A divinely determined view or the RIGHT view?

If it were predetermined by God for you to be enslaved by futility, then arguing against you would be, in essence, telling God that He doesn't know better.

The one who holds a deterministic view, then argues against the one perceived to be in error, really demonstrates that:
1) he merely holds an intellectual assent to his position, and
2) his heart is actually devoted to the contrary.

 

....iluvit...

 

Says who....who believes this?

 

We are all born into the same state of unbelief, not predetermined by God, but determined by Adam when he fell. It takes God to change us, or we're left in that same state of unbelief.


Don't blame God, blame Adam. God gave Adam the "keys to the car", and he drove it into a rock cliff and killed us all via free will. Only God can undo what free will did.

 

Taking my two index fingers and rubbing them together, saing "shame shame"....

Thou shalt not steal...:tonofbricks::tongue3::smilewinkgrin:

 

Not that I particularly care for helping my determinist brethren out, but..........

If indeed God has pre-determined the "means" to both bring man to salvation, and also presumably to engage in the process of sanctification, then, it stands perfectly to reason (logically) that debating with an Arminian might be one of those methods....

As per the O.P. though....

It's simply absurd within a Determinist schema that God would DESIRE to leave anyone who sought to know the truth in a state of Arminian ignorance.

"Seek, and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you."

Inasmuch as Skan is a former Calvinist, what is absurd is the thought that God would have chosen or determined for one of his former Calvinists to DEVOLVE into an Arminian....

This would, in essence, be God DE-SANCTIFYING one of his children. It would be God taking one of his children to whom the Spirit had divulged the great sanctifying truths of Calvinism, and determining that he be then convinced otherwise to his personal detriment...

That, is, of course, insane. And it demonstrates one of the myriad ways in which the Calvinist schema is un-tenable, and utterly un-Scriptural.


Personally, I am always floored when I meet un-saved non-believers who are completely CONVINCED of the TULIP, who maintain that the Scriptures clearly teach it, but are no more Christians (even by admission) than the man-in-the-moon.

This always makes me chuckle when some (usually rather arrogant) Calvinist suggests that it will be only by the grace of "The Spirit" that we will learn the "truth" of these matters. :laugh::laugh:

Oh, o.k.....sure. :laugh:

I know plenty of professed non-believers who maintain that the Bible teaches Calvinism. (one of whom, who's father is a missionary, debates it with me quite ably actually). <----even pulls out those tired Romans 9 / God hated Esau arguments all the time.:tongue3:

 

God truly reveals Himself to His own. There's a natural revelation of God that the non-elect know there is God and will be held accountable for that knowledge(Psalms 19 & Romans1). But God doesn't intimately reveal Himself but to His own...and they will know the Truth, and the Truth shall set them free.

Look, God placed Adam in the Garden, with dominion over it. They could freely choose, and they chose poorly, and we reap those benefits. God allowed Adam to choose. People are supporting free will, and free will got us in this mess to begin with.

 

Only if God determines that that is so, Convicted.

You must accept and admit, that ultimately, it is GOD who determined that:

1.) Adam's sin would be attributed to all mankind

and

2.) That due to that man would be incapable of believing.

You want to blame man...

Man did NOT decide nor decree that Adam's sin would result in a situation whereby all persons were inescapably foreordained not to be able to believe, or bound over into sin. Skan is right...that's what you refuse to address.
As he said:

You must admit that, or you new-fangled Calvinism is a sham...

A SHAAAAAM.

Be honest with yourself and go Arthur Pink on us, and admit that God just hates a whole lot of people.
It will be refreshingly liberating.

You can't make man the Sovereign over his own destiny within Calvinism, Convicted.....
God is Sovereign, and he chose whether he saves some, or whether it is impossible for some to be saved....

...And if those who are not saved were ones whom God simply "hated" then admit it, and stop with the games.

 

I'll dance a jig B.T.W....

When we all find out that Esau (the person) is a saint in heaven...

Divulged of his Earthly blessing, but, who's heart was changed by God.

I think the Calvies around here will poo themselves when the (entirely likely) scenario comes about when Esau personally introduces himself and shakes their hand in glory.

 

They are accountable for their sins. They know they do wrong, yet they do it anyways.

God made man to be accountable to Him. Adam, even with free will, was still accountable to Him. Even in his uprightness he was accountable. We are in the same boat.

 

I am not as deterministically deterministic as others may be. I would fall under the sub-, or infralapsarian group. I believe God knew the fall and allowed it...which we're both in an agreement with here.

I agree with what Brother Jim1999 says about a permissive will w/i the will of God, "this far and no further"...

I also believe God has a love for all, but a special love for His own children...

 

Both sides say that man must "respond" to the gospel. The only difference is whether he's godly first, or ungodly.

That's why I've said elsewhere that Calvinists are Arminians in disguise. Different package, but the same surprise in the box - no response, no salvation.

I don't agree with the response doctrine, and there is absolutely a biblical way to reconcile the seeming tension. Problem is, it steps on some doctrinal toes.

But in this particular debate, Arminians have scripture on their side. Romans 4:5 says clearly that God justifies the UNgodly, not the godly.

Calvinist view is that God must give man a new heart first. Or in other words, make man godly enough to make the right choice. Antiscriptural.

 

Let me give you MY beliefs in a nutshell...

Adam is our fountain head, and we being in his loins, fell with him...I know you don't agree with that but...tough...lol...j/k

Mankind since the fall, has had no desire to come to God. I see examples of God conversing with Adam and Eve and also Cain, post-fall, shows God instigating the conversation by coming to them first.

God sent His Son to save His people from their sins.

Jesus took their sins, and their sins only, and atoned for them.

Those who were given to the Lamb, were chosen from the foundation of the world, and their names were already recorded in the Lamb's book of Life.

 

Before I begin, I have to point out that this statement:

is both ridiculous, false, offensive, and demonstrative of a myriad of things that, out of Christian deference, are better left unsaid. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

It's more than "incapable;" it's unwilling. Man desires, and greatly so, to persist in his rebellion against God, taking his own heart as a law unto itself, rather than God's Law.

The problem here is that man doesn't become a sinner. He is, by nature, a sinner.

All this rant demonstrates is that you don't understand the love of God as He Himself reveals it.

One of the things we do in our church--and intentionally so--is that whenever we sing about the love of God, we sing about the cross--simply because the Cross is where God's love is ultimately demonstrated.

His love is further demonstrated by causing the rain to fall on both saints and sinners. But, His love does not have to look the same for everyone. After all, I love my own children differently from how I might "love" other children.

Judging from your semi-raging rant, I doubt you'll care or even interact with these comments in any charitable ways. But, Willis isn't your punching bag--and that just needed to be pointed out to you.

The Archangel