Calvanism and Hell

You mean were done?

 

aww poor wes.

don't worry..there are others to agree with.

 

Yes it is. Without man "A"'s willful act, the life preserver is useless to him.

The prime cause is the choice made by the individual who grabbed on.</font>[/QUOTE]
This is simply not correct - you are not being true to a reasonable construal of what "prime cause" means. It is of course true that the grabbing of the preserver is a necessary act in respect to the rescue of the man, but it is clearly not the prime cause. Consider a more extreme analogy - a man is trapped in a burning building. Rescuers arrives and perform a well-coordinate ladder rescue. The victim merely "grabs on". Of course, he needs to grab on, but any reasonable interpretation of what the prime cause of his rescue is points clearly to the actions of the rescuers, not to the actions of the victim.

You are assuming that a necessary action in the accomplishment of an objective is necessarily the most significant of all the actions that collaboratively accomplish the objective. There is no logical warrant for making such an assumption.

 

Does it stretch your "innate sense of justice" too far to buy into the notion that you are blessed in salvation by the actions of someone born in the distant past??? I bet it doesn't.

First, I wouldn't trust your "innate sense of justice." The Bible tells you that your heart is deceitful, hardened, ignorant, and calloused. Trust God's word.

Second, it never ceases to amaze me that people who don't want to be sinners in Adam because that is "so unjust" do want to be righteous in Christ. When you think about, it is more unjust that Christ be punished for our sins then that we are made sinners in Adam. Our sinfulness in Adam resulted in actual sin. Christ was punished for something he never did, and in fact, never will do. You don't mind that injustice because you benefit from it. You are inconsistent on this.

The teaching of Romans 5 is clear: You become righteous in the same way that you become sinner. For all of you who want to become a sinner by your own act of sin, you are doomed to becomign righteous by your own act of righteousness. There is a word for people who believe that. They are called "unsaved." I am glad that I am a sinner without doing anything. That way, I can become righteous without doing anything.

I am fairly sure that you are not qualified to call God's truth "inarguably bizarre." Take comfort in that you were half right. It is unarguable. Fortunately for all of us, it isn't bizarre. It is the only way by which we can be saved.

Both are true. We are sinners becasue of Adam and because of us. We usually say, "Sinners by nature and by choice."

This is an old argument in this thread. We still have some spouting the nonsense that in election God "pre selects" people for hell. We have demonstrated biblically that that is not true. We hvae demonstrated logically that that is not true. There is absolutely no legitimate reason for it to be repeated.

God doesn't elect anybody for hell. All mankind is born going there.

Secondly, God doesn't send anybody to hell without a choice. The unbelievers have the choice to turn to Christ. Becuase of their sinful nature, they refuse to do that. They are not coerced into rejection. They willfully reject. They can turn at anytime they so desire.

There will be no one in hell who was forced there. They are there of their own accord, because they willfully chose to reject Christ.

 

This is simply not correct - you are not being true to a reasonable construal of what "prime cause" means.</font>[/QUOTE] The problem is the analogy, not my answer. It simply doesn't fit the course of events that occur in individual salvation.

The basic question boils done to who chooses who first. Does God choose the individual by His sovereign will or does man have sovereignty in that case?

We agree that a decision of belief is made, right? What I am trying to get you to answer is why the MAN did what the MAN did.

Did God provide the "life preserver"? Yes. Does the man have a choice to grab it or not? Yes.

The question is why do some grab it while others do not?

Without correcting the flaw of the analogy further, if the man's act is "necessary" then it constitutes "action" on his part. "Action" (mental/physical) that results in an outcome is "work".

Even if you deny that it is "work", you cannot deny that there is "merit" in the act of grabbing the preserver... especially considering that others reject such an obvious means to save their lives in favor of trying to save themselves.

You have still created a system of "merit", not grace.

Perfect. Why does he grab? Is that not a meritorious choice? He could have decided to try and save himself, right?

If he didn't grab it and died as a result, wouldn't we say, "Wow that was stupid... he did it to himself". That means that if he did grab it... he was smart to accept the help of another.

That ladder while an absolute necessity was not the critical or "prime" cause for the man's rescue. In that analogy, all of those efforts are powerless to save without the "grabs on" part.

The better analogy however is that the man is unconscious. The rescuers go inside, rouse him, and lead him into salvation. The prime cause was not the man's willful act but the rescuer's. The man was not forced to do anything against his will but something very much agreeable to his conscious nature once aroused by the rescuers.

 

Correct - the Bible decribes our unsaved condition as dead, not merely maimed or sick. That's why whenever I hear the deriding comment that I use God as a crutch, I say, "No, He's my life support system, because without Him I would be dead."

 

Hello Scott J and Pastor Larry:

You both raise good questions. By sincerely examining the content of received doctrine with an honest goal of discovering truth, we all benefit.

I beleive that I will be able to respond to both your posts, but probably not immediately.

Blessings to you both.

 

Well how far do you want to take this prime cause thing? I think the prime cause involves directly the tax collector for without the tax collector there would be no rescue team!

The thing that saved the individual was the individual's participation in doing what the rescued needed to do to be saved.

In man's salvation, ALL of the work has been finished by God. There is no more work to be done, your individual salvation is dependent upon your response to what has been done, and your response which is exclusively faith,is based upon your knowledge of what has been done.

 

Only to the point where it is relevant and involves the subject of salvation directly.

So, since some refuse to participate, it is by human merit that one is saved.

Then precisely what is it that he must participate in? If the work is finished then your participation in completing the "rescue" is meaningless.

If your salvation is dependent on you responding then obviously there is more work to be done. You must evaluate the offer and render a decision as to whether you will accept or reject.

 

Then precisely what is it that he must participate in? If the work is finished then your participation in completing the "rescue" is meaningless. </font>[/QUOTE]God says that man must have faith. Faith is not a work, it is a condition of man's spirit based on the knowledge that the man possesses. So man's participation in Salvation according to Ephesians 2:8,9 is THROUGH FAITH!

If your salvation is dependent on you responding then obviously there is more work to be done. You must evaluate the offer and render a decision as to whether you will accept or reject. </font>[/QUOTE]NO, you must hear the word of God, and believe. Neither hearing nor believing is a work. No energy expended, no wage can be earned for hearing, and none for believing, so you cannot earn your salvation that way. Your salvation is there for you...IF you believe the Word of God and have faith in God!

 

Then precisely what is it that he must participate in? If the work is finished then your participation in completing the "rescue" is meaningless. </font>[/QUOTE]God says that man must have faith.</font>[/QUOTE] Faith without works is "dead", eh?

Saying someone must have something by no means indicates that they must produce it themselves. In fact, when someone throws a party people often must have an invitation that was produced by the host in order to get in.

The process of converting knowledge into faith is an evaluation... a work.

Spin all you want Wes... You are always going to ultimately come back to that decisive moment when a person "decided" to accept Christ... and the question of why they did it.

Faith is the means. Grace is the motive... God's grace.

If your salvation is dependent on you responding then obviously there is more work to be done. You must evaluate the offer and render a decision as to whether you will accept or reject. </font>[/QUOTE]NO, you must hear the word of God, and believe. Neither hearing nor believing is a work. No energy expended,</font>[/QUOTE] Not true. Physical hearing and the thoughts required to develop a belief do expend energy.

I heard the job offer. I believed that it was a good choice for me... and now I am being paid.

You are simply wrong.

True. So if their belief and faith did not result from a new nature that God had already given them... where did it come from and why doesn't everybody possess it?

 

Wes, I could probably ask you the same question with different wording a million times and you would evade it every time.

You refuse to believe that the decision is because of something God changes within the person but know that to give the credit for the change to the individual puts you at odds with scripture.

Your position is in default.

 

Does it stretch your "innate sense of justice" too far to buy into the notion that you are blessed in salvation by the actions of someone born in the distant past??? I bet it doesn't.

First, I wouldn't trust your "innate sense of justice." The Bible tells you that your heart is deceitful, hardened, ignorant, and calloused. Trust God's word.

Second, it never ceases to amaze me that people who don't want to be sinners in Adam because that is "so unjust" do want to be righteous in Christ. When you think about, it is more unjust that Christ be punished for our sins then that we are made sinners in Adam. Our sinfulness in Adam resulted in actual sin. Christ was punished for something he never did, and in fact, never will do. You don't mind that injustice because you benefit from it. You are inconsistent on this.

The teaching of Romans 5 is clear: You become righteous in the same way that you become sinner. For all of you who want to become a sinner by your own act of sin, you are doomed to becomign righteous by your own act of righteousness. There is a word for people who believe that. They are called "unsaved." I am glad that I am a sinner without doing anything. That way, I can become righteous without doing anything.</font>[/QUOTE]This is a compelling argument probably due to its “symmetry” – if Christ’s righteousness can be imputed to me, then why can’t Adam’s sin? I think there is a problem with this argument, however.

The problem as I see it involves the means by which “imputation” is effected in the two cases. In the case of imputing Jesus’ righteousness to us, I think it can be reasonably said that Christ has earned the moral authority to “distribute” his righteousness to all men. It is specifically because Jesus lived a sinless life that He has the “right” to cover our sins with his righteousness. So Jesus, through an act of His free will, attributes his righteousness to us, having effectively earned the right to do so by virtue of his sinless life.

By contrast, the notion that we can inherit Adam’s sin involves a mechanism of inheritance and not one of the free action of an agent who is in a position of moral authority to impute.

At the end of the day, I fully admit that my view rests on what to me is a rock-solid intuition that it is simply unintelligible to hold someone morally accountable for the acts of another. I suspect that all humans share this intuition, but some Christians choose to defer to what I will even admit appears to be a fairly clear Scriptural teaching. Fair enough.

However, the imputation of Jesus righteousness does not seem similarly unintelligible. Why? Because Jesus has earned the “moral authority” to impute his righteousness as he sees fit – his specific moral perfection gives Him “license” to bear our sins and apply his righteousness to us. I can discern no analagous "license", no justification for "transfer" if you will, in the case of imputing Adam's sin to each human

I am not even arguing the point Biblically. I am simply asserting that the idea that we are held accountable for the actions of Adam cannot be made sense of. One “honest” option that I see is to reject the doctrine and admit that one is taking a position that stands in clear opposition to some Biblical texts. Another “honest” option is to accept the doctrine. However, and this point cannot be overemphasized, I don’t think one can “have one’s doctrine and eat it too” – one cannot argue for imputation of Adam’s sin to all men and then "trust" your intuition about what is right and what is wrong - all your judgements need to based solely on the Word, without the application of any "human" reasoning at all - since one would be using the very same faculty that you deemed defective by virtue of its "rebellion" against the idea of imputation of Adam's sin. I am not sure that this latter position is really workable.

 

Not to mention it is exactly what Paul says in Romans 5. As symmetrical as it is, and as appealing as logical symmetry, biblical revelation far outweighs that.

The same is true with Adam. He had a perfect life and chose to sin as our representative. He was the federal head, living in a perfect world. Adam's sin imputed to us guarantees that we will be sinners by action as well.

Rock solid intuition is a far cry from biblical revelation. Given that those are our options, we should definitely go with the revelation. It has the added advantage of making sense once you work throught it. Secondly, if it is morally unintelligible (not really a solid ground for argumentation anyway), but if it is morally unintelligible to hold someone morally accountable for the acts of another, then there is no salvation. In salvation, Christ is held morally accountable for our acts of sin, and we are held morally accountable for his perfect life. Why doesn't your "rock solid intuition" reject that?

So when Scripture is clear, why do you reject it?

 

Not of works lest any man should boast!

Behold, I stand at the door and knock, if any man hear and open the door, I will come in...
The invitation has been extended, and remains a standing invitation until God removes his Grace from mankind!

Choosing between options is not a work in the biblical sense of the term! You don't get paid for making a choice, you get paid for the results of your choice.

Who's motive?...God's motive. Who's faith?...Man's faith. Yes, God in his grace accepts all who have faith in Him.

breathing expends energy, do you consider breathing to be a work?

You are being paid as the result of making the choice, not by making the choice itself. No one gets paid for accepting a job offer, it is only when one does the job that one gets paid for it. Yes some receive "sign-on bonuses" but that is prepayment for expected results, not payment for making a choice.

Belief comes from knowledge, the same place that faith comes from. Every human possesses belief and or faith in at least one "something". Those who do not have faith in God either do not have sufficient knowledge of God, or they have deliberately rejected or done nothing with the knowledge of God they received. God tells us "For lack of knowledge my people perish". "Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God".

 

Both are true. We are sinners becasue of Adam and because of us. We usually say, "Sinners by nature and by choice."

This is an old argument in this thread. We still have some spouting the nonsense that in election God "pre selects" people for hell. We have demonstrated biblically that that is not true. We hvae demonstrated logically that that is not true. There is absolutely no legitimate reason for it to be repeated.

God doesn't elect anybody for hell. All mankind is born going there.

Secondly, God doesn't send anybody to hell without a choice. The unbelievers have the choice to turn to Christ. Becuase of their sinful nature, they refuse to do that. They are not coerced into rejection. They willfully reject. They can turn at anytime they so desire.

There will be no one in hell who was forced there. They are there of their own accord, because they willfully chose to reject Christ. </font>[/QUOTE]Perhaps some clarification and careful use of speech is needed. Let's assume that "Fred" believes the following:

1. All men are born with a sinful nature which they simply cannot resist. They will sin by necessity - no amount of "free will" effort can possibly prevent them from sinning.

2. If you die with any sins "unpaid" for, you spend eternity in the torment of hell.

3. God pre-determined that a subset of all people will be saved. By "pre-determined" I mean that God was the one and only agent that "caused it to be so", not simply that He foreknew.

I claim that Fred's belief system effectively entails that those not in the "elect" class have precisely zero control or choice over both their sin and their ultimate fate. You are right to claim that this may not mean that God is the agent who "sends them to hell". However, it most certainly does mean that they are hell-bound and they have no degree of freedom to act morally or to accept Christ in order to escape such a fate.

This does not sound like what you believe. You use expressions like "The unbelievers have the choice to turn to Christ" and "They can turn at anytime they so desire". Presumably, therefore, you believe that men have "freedom" to choose Christ. I am therefore confused by why it seems that you think I would oppose such a view. I oppose the "Fred" view which clearly denies some men even the possibility of avoiding hell, even if they try to act as morally as they possibly can.

 

Not of works lest any man should boast!</font>[/QUOTE] Correct. So scripturally, you are still wrong.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock, if any man hear and open the door, I will come in...
The invitation has been extended, and remains a standing invitation until God removes his Grace from mankind!</font>[/QUOTE] The context of that scripture is the letters to the 7 churches... not individual salvation. While it may or may not provide an illustration, it is hardly the basis for a doctrinal argument concerning the nature of salvation.

Choosing between options is not a work in the biblical sense of the term!</font>[/QUOTE] Choosing between options is work in any sense of the term. Deny all you want but mental processes that move one from input to a conclusion is work.

Even if one agrees with you- if you get paid for the results of your choice then that choice has merit.

Who's motive?...God's motive. Who's faith?...Man's faith. Yes, God in his grace accepts all who have faith in Him. </font>[/QUOTE] Zig...zag....Zig...

Where does that faith come from Wes? Why do some believe while others don't? Are they better?

breathing expends energy, do you consider breathing to be a work? </font>[/QUOTE] Breathing is by definition work.

Belief comes from knowledge, the same place that faith comes from. </font>[/QUOTE] Nope. Won't work. If that were true just as you have stated it then someone with equal or greater knowledge would always believe and have faith.

BTW, you just changed from one non-answer to another. Where does this "knowledge" come from?

So? What are you saying? That believers are saved because God recognizes their "good" faith?

Why? Aren't they as good as you and me?

Not a reference to eternal salvation.

Round and round we go. You use the same wrong arguments without ever correcting them.

IF... this is referring to physical hearing and is in fact a cause-effect relationship then all who physically hear the Word of God will get faith.

IF... on the other hand, this is a reference to spiritual hearing then only those who God cures of their deaf ears will hear and have faith.

Even your own scripture citation doesn't introduce your choice into the equation until after the Word is heard... Who controls who hears the Word whether spiritually or physically?

 

Scott J says:
True. So if their belief and faith did not result from a new nature that God had already given them... where did it come from and why doesn't everybody possess it?
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Wes says:
Belief comes from knowledge, the same place that faith comes from.
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Scott J says:
Nope. Won't work. If that were true just as you have stated it then someone with equal or greater knowledge would always believe and have faith.

BTW, you just changed from one non-answer to another. Where does this "knowledge" come from?

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HINT HINT: It ALL leads back to GOD.