Faith

[Salamander]

is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.

Since many Calvinists think that one cannot have faith without God first planting that seed for faith to be conceived at some point in time in the life of the "elect", why is it so easily seen and understood that for one to have faith that person must first choose what he believes?

I hope for that which is not yet seen, and the evidences of that faith are prevelent in my life. I also choose to believe that it is the workings of God to my benefit and His glory as things either happen or don't happen.

Then if I do things according to my will it is by my conscious choice to do so, so how then is it not my choice but yet was His choice all along?

I choose to take illegal drugs, per se, does that then become that God made me choose to take those drugs and thus become the originator of all sin? God forbid.

 

[Salamander]

Bump back to the top.

I see no Calvinist can answer their quandry they love to hold to.

 

[Dr. Bob]

Or nobody cares to deal with such a ludicrous subject? Your entire post is wrong on so many levels it is laughable. Sorry no one takes it seriously.

 

[webdog]

I take that as an "I don't know" or "I can't answer".

 

[Dr. Bob]

You can take it anyway you want. God gives faith and repentance as His gifts that will lead to salvation. Man has "faith" within himself, but it is a temporal, non-saving faith.

For ANYONE to truly repent/believe there has to be an outside interjection of both. Our minds alone cannot save. We cannot "cooperate" with God since we are unable to "do" anything, including believe.

God must reach down. To believe in anything else begs the pelagian heresy and is ludicrous to anyone reading this forum.

 

[Salamander]

You have an awfully critical spirit about you in the way you respond to people, you do that by choice or not?

For a person to repent he first must be given space in time to repent, but that person must want to repent and he does that by his conscious choice.

You might better re-read Hebrews 6 again.

To renew some one again unto repentence is to allow them to have that space in time beforehand and they make a conscious choice to forsake that mercy. They had saving faith but chose otherwise.

I know that smacks Calvinists in the face with Scriptural truth, but what the hay, they need further enlightenment.

No one ever said there isn't God's outside influence, you introduce an impossibility.

God gives gifts of faith and repentence that doesn't always lead to salvation:Romans 12:3 (King James Version)
King James Version (KJV)
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Romans 12:3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.

Now either paul was only speaking to believers and the Book of Romans can only apply to belivers, or just as the passage proclaims, God has given every man the measure of faith and it is up to that man to decide to either excercise that faith or let it die; and that alternately as the Lord has given multiple times for sinners to repent and excercise faith at different times, because although every man is under the condemnation for sin, not all men are under conviction perinially.

God has already reached down. His Son has already paid the price for the sins of all men, if He didn't pay the price for all men, then sin has dominion where God never allows it to.

I "co-operate" with the Lord everytime I acknowledge Him. He directs my paths in that acknowledgment. Just as Baalim co-operated with the voice of God through the donkey, else he would have met an angel with a flaming sword.

I cannot form corperation with God is what you probably refer to, God isn't partners with anyone.

Obedience is still better than sacrifice, well it is in my Bible, and trhat requires co-operation to the call to obedience from God for men everywhere to repent!

If as you have tried to say, one cannot believe until God allows or forces that believing, then you would have God imputing sin until that specific time, God FORBID!

 

[webdog]

God gives faith and repentance as His gifts that will lead to salvation.

Not Scriptural. Your view is in the minority if you base this off Eph. 2:8-9.

Man has "faith" within himself, but it is a temporal, non-saving faith.

Not Scriptural and found nowhere in the Bible.

For ANYONE to truly repent/believe there has to be an outside interjection of both.

Not Scriptural.

Our minds alone cannot save.

Now we're getting somewhere...

We cannot "cooperate" with God since we are unable to "do" anything, including believe.

...at least I thought we were. Again, not Scriptural.

God must reach down.

He already has, He sent His Son.

To believe in anything else begs the pelagian heresy and is ludicrous to anyone reading this forum.

To believe in anything that is not Scriptural and has injected man's knowledge, wisdom and arrogance into Scripture is ludicrous.

 

[Salamander]

I see when the Doc thinks himself right, but he has been proven wrong, he has nothing to say.

The ideal of Calvinism doesn't make it far past what some scholars try to interject, and that supposedly by a faith that doesn't require belief!

 

[genesis12]

Dr. Bob must have been having a bad day. Take care, lest we resort to the same sort of biting response.

 

[Salamander]

Please don't try to turn my post into anything of the like. My laughing is at the pun intent that faith doesn't require believing.

Dr. Bob knows how I feel about him, and I have also advised him in a couple of things. I understand his position and how it requires a stern response and would never refer to him having a bad day as you have.

 

[Me4Him]

Let's "walk" through the "Steps" of being saved.

Ro 10:14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?

Ro 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

The "Hearing" is the "Spirit" (God's Calling) in the "words of the preacher.

1. Hearing

the next step is "BELIEVING" what you hear, this is the "CHOICE" given to man.

Lu 16:31 And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

Joh 5:47 But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?

Here Jesus offer "physical proof" to convince them to believe. (Jews require a sign)

Joh 10:38 But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.

Just as personal "Faith" in Jesus healed the sick, personal faith will heal the sickness of "Sin".

Mr 10:52 And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; "THY FAITH" hath made thee whole.

Lu 18:42 And Jesus said unto him, Receive thy sight: (spiritual vision) "THY FAITH" hath saved thee.

Joh 8:24 I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.

"IF" ye believe not, I think is pretty clear about the choice/consequences, and so is the opposite, "IF" ye believe.

Ac 8:36 And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?

37 And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

Ro 10:10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness;

Ro 10:8 But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;

De 30:14 But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.

15 See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil;

16 In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.

17 But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, (Faith comes by hearing) but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them;

18 I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish,

"IF" we don't believe what we hear, it will "close our ears/heart" to God's words, so "hearing/believing" Jesus leads to God's GRACE" of salvation.

Mt 13:15 For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; (no faith, remain blind) lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand (believe) with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.

The plan of salvation is based on "our personal faith" of believing Jesus was who he said he was and could do what he said he would do, save us.

Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

"Sovereign will" eliminate the need for us to "Hear/Believe by faith", plus all the above verses.

 

[Salamander]

Little mixed up in application of God dealing with Israel and the Gentiles? Yes.

I can have faith in something and it be false, but if I place my faith in Jesus Christ it is by choice according to what I believe and KNOW is truth.

I have had faith in false things before. I had a faith in my salvation before I was actually saved. Now did God's Sovereign will decide for me to live a life in a false belief? No. His Sovereign will is for all to comwe to repentence and for all to be saved, but since God gave each and every man a will of his own, man either chooses to believe God or not, for God chose the foolishness of preaching to save then that believe.