Can someone WANT to be saved but not be?

[Winman]

Of course it does. A person cannot do what he does not desire to do. That is not "my doctrine" that is just plain logic and reason.

Oh yeah? What if a fellow stuck a gun in your face and demanded your wallet? Do you truly desire to be robbed?

I would give the guy my wallet to save my life, but I would not desire to give him my wallet it all. My greatest desire would be that a police officer would come along and catch this guy in the act of robbing me and arrest him.

 

[Havensdad]

Oh yeah? What if a fellow stuck a gun in your face and demanded your wallet? Do you truly desire to be robbed?

I would give the guy my wallet to save my life, but I would not desire to give him my wallet it all. My greatest desire would be that a police officer would come along and catch this guy in the act of robbing me and arrest him.

Actually, you are making a choice based on your available options, which is determined by your greatest desire. While you certainly would like to keep your wallet, your desire to preserve your life is greater. Thus, you choose your greatest desire.

 

[Havensdad]

In truth, HD, even your side of the theological aisle has room for this so called "boasting",...... "Look at me.....I was chosen" Boasting, or the attitude of such is not relegated to one side OR the other, but can sadly be a characteristic of both.

Not at all. Mercy is not a matter of boasting. Being wiser, or more righteous IS a matter of boasting. One is saying that God gave you something, based on nothing inherently better in you. The other is saying the opposite; that God is giving something to you that He did not give to others, because of a self induced status of greater _________ (intelligence, wisdom, righteousness, etc..whatever caused you to choose, when others did not).

 

[jbh28]

Oh yeah? What if a fellow stuck a gun in your face and demanded your wallet? Do you truly desire to be robbed?

I would give the guy my wallet to save my life, but I would not desire to give him my wallet it all. My greatest desire would be that a police officer would come along and catch this guy in the act of robbing me and arrest him.

Yes you would desire to give the man your wallet if you gave him your wallet. You, in that moment, want to give that man your wallet more than any other option that's available to you. You only choices are: Die or give the man you wallet. Your desire to give the man your wallet is much greater than dying, so you give the man your wallet.

 

[jbh28]

Actually, you are making a choice based on your available options, which is determined by your greatest desire. While you certainly would like to keep your wallet, your desire to preserve your life is greater. Thus, you choose your greatest desire.

Ah, I should have checked to see the other replies. well said and very true. we always choose our greatest desire at any given moment of the options available to us.

 

[Havensdad]

If they were born with a mental disorder that made it impossible for them to willingly work (i.e. retarded etc) then sure they would have an excuse. They were born that way, and our society would certainly excuse them.

Moral wickedness cannot be equated to mental illness.

That is your doctrine...you have most of humanity born rejected and unloved by their maker and not granted what they need to willingly follow Him. What better excuse is their than that?

Not an excuse. You are not excused from something, simply because you want to do it.

In our doctrine, the unbelievers are much worse than in yours. They rebel despite God's loving and gracious provisions. They spit in his face even after he calls them and appeals for them to be reconciled. He gives them all they need yet they still choose to reject him. Their condemnation is well deserved. Your doctrine has much too high of a view of man.

Not at all. You give man a free-will greater than God's, and a sovereignty that overrides His, and call MY view a "high view" of man? Funny.

 

[Skandelon]

Actually, you are making a choice based on your available options, which is determined by your greatest desire. While you certainly would like to keep your wallet, your desire to preserve your life is greater. Thus, you choose your greatest desire.

Winman, he virtually believes we are mere animals who react to stimuli. Like a lion offered a salad or a steak. He will always choose a steak because that is his greatest instinctive desire. Animals don't have the ability to discern between available options and choose among their desires. Animals don't make determinations, as a free moral agent would, but yet there are some, like HD, who reduce us to mere animals who do as we have been preprogrammed to do.

In his system the desire is the agent, not the person. The desires are set up as the determiner who makes the determinations. But in our system, WE, the PEOPLE are the determiners who choose from among our many desires and influential factors.

 

[Havensdad]

Winman, he virtually believes we are mere animals who react to stimuli. Like a lion offered a salad or a steak. He will always choose a steak because that is his greatest instinctive desire. Animals don't have the ability to discern between available options and choose among their desires. Animals don't make determinations, as a free moral agent would, but yet there are some, like HD, who reduce us to mere animals who do as we have been preprogrammed to do.

In his system the desire is the agent, not the person. The desires are set up as the determiner who makes the determinations. But in our system, WE, the PEOPLE are the determiners who choose from among our many desires and influential factors.

So WHY do you choose one option over the other?

 

[Skandelon]

Moral wickedness cannot be equated to mental illness.

No, but they can be compared and your view lines up directly under that comparison. A person born with a mental illness who commits a crime is declared 'not guilty' by reason of insanity. Why? Because he was born unable to do otherwise. The same is true of your dogma. Men are born unable to willingly do otherwise thus giving them the perfect excuse for their wrongdoings. Your view of man is much much too high.

Not an excuse. You are not excused from something, simply because you want to do it.

I would be if I was drugged and made unable to willingly do otherwise. Again, that is ultimately what your view does. It has God punishing mankind for the sin of Adam by making them unable to willingly come to Christ and be reconciled even when God is supposedly genuinely inviting and appealing for them to come. With one hand God is making an appeal for reconciliation and with the other He is condemning them in blind unbelief by making them unable to be willing.

You give man a free-will greater than God's, and a sovereignty that overrides His, and call MY view a "high view" of man? Funny.

What is funny is that straw man. God's will is always greater than mans. In our view it is God's will that man be responsible (response-able) for his own choices. In HIS Sovereignty HE chose to allow for men to make free choices, so there is no OVERRIDING of God's will. You are assuming your premise and applying to our doctrine, which creates a false straw man fallacy....that is funny.

 

[Havensdad]

God's will is always greater than mans.

O.k., you are too all over the place, and I am too sleepy. I want to concentrate on this statement. You say that God's will is "greater than man's."

That being said, could you please define what you mean by "free will" in one sentence that I can respond to? Thanks.

 

[Skandelon]

So WHY do you choose one option over the other?

What determined that I choose one option over another? I do.

You may not realize it but this question is the fallacy of "question begging" because you assume a deterministic response is necessary. We believe an actor determines an action. A chooser determines a choice. A determiner makes a determination. Thus, to answer WHY a determination is made presumes something besides the determiner makes the determinations.

This fallacy can be easily seen by simply asking you what determines God's determinations. I think your answer would be the same as mine. HE does. He is a free moral agent and makes his own determinations. Nothing determines his choices except HIM. Likewise, mankind, created in His Imagine, are free moral agents who have the ability of first cause choices, which is what separates us from the animals. That is why we are punished for our crimes and they are not.

 

[Skandelon]

That being said, could you please define what you mean by "free will" in one sentence that I can respond to? Thanks.

Sure. I believe in contra-casual freedom..."A choice to act is free if it is an expression of an agent's categorical ability of the will to refrain or not refrain from the action (i.e., contra-causal freedom)."

:sleeping_2:

 

[Winman]

Yes you would desire to give the man your wallet if you gave him your wallet. You, in that moment, want to give that man your wallet more than any other option that's available to you. You only choices are: Die or give the man you wallet. Your desire to give the man your wallet is much greater than dying, so you give the man your wallet.

I most certainly would not desire to give him my wallet, and neither would you. You will do it to save your life, but in no way do you desire to give him your wallet.

If your view is correct, there would be no such thing as robbery. You could tell the judge, "Judge, I didn't rob this man, he wanted to give his wallet to me. He wanted to give his wallet to me more than anything else in the whole world!"

Try that out in court sometime and see if it works for you.

Another example of how Calvinistic thinking warps the brain.

 

[jbh28]

I most certainly would not desire to give him my wallet, and neither would you. You will do it to save your life, but in no way do you desire to give him your wallet.

you do desire to give him your wallet and it's evident by the fact that you gave him your wallet.

If your view is correct, there would be no such thing as robbery. You could tell the judge, "Judge, I didn't rob this man, he wanted to give his wallet to me. He wanted to give his wallet to me more than anything else in the whole world!"

Try that out in court sometime and see if it works for you.
[snip]

Now, leave the childish comments out. We are discussing basic logic. You always choose that which you desire the most with the options that you have available to you. You have two choices when being robbed.

choice 1: keep you wallet and die
choice 2: give him you wallet and live.

So yes, you desired to give him your wallet when the gun came to your head because your desire to live was much greater than to die. so in that sense, yes you did desire to give him your wallet more than any other option available to you at the time.

btw, you "anything else in the world" shows you didn't understand/read what I said. Which may be why you are not understanding what is being said. Nobody is saying that someone wanted to be robbed, but while the gun is pointed at their head, you desire to give him you wallet more than keep it.


Let's look at another example.

A parent sacrificed for their children. They may want the new TV, but they desire to have something for their children. So they put their money on the children instead of the new TV. they choose that which they desired most. In this case, their desire for their children was greater than the TV.

 

[jbh28]

What determined that I choose one option over another? I do.

Yes, you do. And your choice was based on what you desired the most in the given situation with the options available to you at the time of the choice.

 

[Luke2427]

Calvinists often equate God's choice to bless Jacob over Esau with to God's choice to save Jacob and not Esau, but Hebrews 12:16 says, "See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears."

He desires the blessing with tears and yet he was rejected. How do Calvinists explain this if indeed only the elect would want to be saved?

Everyone wants the blessings- only the regenerate want the Blesser.

 

[convicted1]

Everyone wants the blessings- only the regenerate want the Blesser.

The regenerate HAS the Blesser. :jesus::godisgood::jesus::godisgood:

 

[convicted1]

Do you believe someone can genuinely want to come to Christ and find salvation but not ever be saved?

Defend you position.

Now to answer the OP's question, I say emphatically NO.

I love the last three stanza of the song, "Beside the Gospel Pool",


But whither can I go?
There is no other pool
Where streams of sovereign virtue flow
To make a sinner whole.

Here then, from day to day,
I’ll wait, and hope, and try;
Can Jesus hear a sinner pray,
Yet suffer him to die?

No: He is full of grace;
He never will permit
A soul, that fain would see His face,
To perish at His feet.

 

[Luke2427]

The regenerate HAS the Blesser. :jesus::godisgood::jesus::godisgood:

You missed the point.

The sinner who cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God, who "WILL NOT come to the light," whose imaginations of his heart is evil only continually, who "is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be," who even his "plowing is wickedness", who even his RIGHTEOUSNESS is but filthy rags-
HE DOES NOT WANT GOD AT ALL.

He hates everything about God.

This is EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON EARTH until the Spirit of God by the Word of God brings life to the dead spirit of such a sinner.


ALL sinners want the blessings of God- but only those made alive by the Spirit can ever WANT the Blesser.

 

[Winman]

you do desire to give him your wallet and it's evident by the fact that you gave him your wallet.

Now, leave the childish comments out. We are discussing basic logic. You always choose that which you desire the most with the options that you have available to you. You have two choices when being robbed.

choice 1: keep you wallet and die
choice 2: give him you wallet and live.

So yes, you desired to give him your wallet when the gun came to your head because your desire to live was much greater than to die. so in that sense, yes you did desire to give him your wallet more than any other option available to you at the time.

Like I said, go rob someone and use this argument as your defense in court and see if it works.

btw, you "anything else in the world" shows you didn't understand/read what I said. Which may be why you are not understanding what is being said. Nobody is saying that someone wanted to be robbed, but while the gun is pointed at their head, you desire to give him you wallet more than keep it.

And I am telling you I would not "desire" to give him my wallet at all, though I would give it to him.

Let's look at another example.

A parent sacrificed for their children. They may want the new TV, but they desire to have something for their children. So they put their money on the children instead of the new TV. they choose that which they desired most. In this case, their desire for their children was greater than the TV.

Their greatest desire is a choice. They want both, but they reason the child's need is more important than having a new TV. Their greatest desire is determined by reason, not brute passion.

If I hand my wallet to the robber, it is not because I have this overwhelming desire to give him my wallet. I don't desire to give him my wallet at all. My desire is to keep my own wallet. But I reason that it would be wise to give the robber my wallet to preserve my life.

A person controlled by their desires would be nothing but an animal. A man would attack every beautiful woman he sees. You would steal whatever you desired, etc...

Go down your street and ask every neighbor if they desire to go to hell. Not one will tell you they desire this. The problem is their thoughts have been deceived by lies from Satan. They believe they are good enough as is to merit heaven.

It is like the old children's rhyme,

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, all good children go to heaven.

Folks believe this stuff. They have been taught this lie since childhood. They are taught you have to earn heaven, to merit it. Try convincing a Roman Catholic that salvation is simply a free gift, they won't believe you. They have been taught by whom they trust the most you must merit heaven, their parents, and their church since they were born. They have been taught that as long as they don't commit serious sin they will be ok.

The reason these folks don't believe the gospel is not because they desire to go to hell, but rather because their minds have been blinded by falsehood.