Featured Limited Autonomus Will

You can fix it. Hit EDIT(if you still can) and move your text outside the quote brackets.

 

Thanks for the help Brother

 

Van said: ↑
Romans 9:16 teaches men can will and work to be saved​

The men who will and/or run are those seeking salvation. Thus Romans 9:16 teaches that some people seek salvation proving "total spiritual inability" is unbiblical.

What must man do to be saved?

John 20:31 But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his name. Make sure you get the name right.
Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith (therefore belief); and that NOT OF YOURSELVES, it is the gift of God,
Phil 1:29 For unto you IT IS GIVEN (the gift of God) in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but to suffer for his name.

If they run or work according to the truth, it is the gift of God and not of man.

 

Unbelievable.

@DaveXR650, you still think this is 'kosher for Baptists'?

 

Romans 9:16 is literally teaching just the opposite.

 

As long as I have been on this board I have heard the word saved... Saved from what?... Saved to what?... Saved how?... Anything involving the grace of God relating to eternal Salvation is the Sovereign Act of God alone... Any work that a man does relating to Salvation and any aspect to keep it or lose it... Is in the here and now not the later... I will give you an illustration that has been misapplied on here more times than I can count and I ask how can some do something unless they already have it?... Can you work a job you don't have?... The following are SAVED disciples that The Apostles Paul is addressing, don't put more into it than what it says... You need to rightly divide the word of truth... Not you Kentucky, you know what it means... Brother Glen

Philippians 2: 12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

 

I think I said in an earlier post that I did not understand that particular line of logic. But I'll say it again. Post 55 by Van, if you leave out the Romans 9:16 reference is pretty much similar to the way regular Baptist non-Calvinist believers would describe their understanding of the interactions between man and God in regards to man's free will. Now I don't want to defend Van because he often sharply disagrees with me and I might be misunderstanding him but while I have a lesser view of our free will than he does in that post and a different understanding of "autonomous" I do not think there was anything that was stated in that post that was unorthodox.

As for Romans 9:16. I am guessing that he is just saying that if you have a verse that says "It is not of man that willeth" then that shows man has a free will. I would think a non-Calvinist would stay away from Romans Chapter 9 altogether.

 

Just curious here Dave, why would you think non-calvinists would stay away from Romans 9?

 

Roman chapter 9 has several strong examples of predestination, and makes it clear that God will do what he wants with his creatures according to his own counsel. If you think of free will like I do, where we do indeed choose to believe but only after the Holy Spirit enlightens and convicts us it's no problem. If you think of free will as truly operating independent of anything but your own sovereign choice (autonomous free will), where God has to wait on you to choose, and His plans or election or choice or anything actually is contingent on what you choose - then you are going to have trouble with Romans chapter 9.

 

Well since we know that the Holy Spirit convicts people of their sin to that point I can agree with you but the person under conviction must still freely choose to accept or reject the conviction regarding their sin. This is the same with trusting in Christ Jesus. When one hears the gospel they must decide if they will trust in Christ or not. Man can not save himself but then again God does not save those that do not believe. That is why we are told that it is by grace through faith that we are saved.
God knows all that will trust in Him, He is omniscient after all, but He still waits until one freely trusts in Him before He saves that person. And contrary to your comment I do not have any problem with Romans 9 as it does not cause a problem with my understanding of salvation. God shows mercy to those that trust in His son and will harden those that refuse to trust in His son. So where the Jews thought they should be included because of being Jews or could be because of their works they were rejected and the Gentiles who by faith trusted in Christ were saved. That is the message of Romans 9 so why should I or anyone else that freely trust in God have a problem with it?

 

@Silverhair . Best thing I would recommend is "Saved By Grace" by John Bunyan. This is available free on line and it details better than anything else I have seen how the Holy Spirit works in a persistent, relentless, sovereign way to bring everyone who is ordained to salvation to come BY THEIR OWN FREE WILL. Have your Bible ready when you read it because he has probably 30 scripture references and some are quoted but not all. What makes this work special and relates to a lot of the arguments on here is that the methods Bunyan described would sound very familiar to a Baptist or Arminian preacher - God's patience and gentle persuasion and persistence in calling. He even uses the door knocking reference we were discussing on another thread. But in the same paper Bunyan makes it very clear that God is sovereign in this, that faith is a gift, and he even states without apology what some of the more extreme Calvinists on here say - that there is a sense in which the elect are saved from eternity past.

Regarding Romans Chapter 9. I read where Martyn Lloyd-Jones said once that he had a problem with the note taking of sermons because sometimes it was better to listen prayerfully and come away with one lasting impression rather than notes on detailed exegesis. The impression I get from Romans chapter 9 is that God is God and we're not. I think at some level you just have to bow to that.

 

@DaveXR650 you do realize that "ordained" and free will really do not go together. That would be like saying night and day are the same thing. I have no problem with the persistent sovereign conviction of the Holy Spirit. But that is just what it is, conviction. A man may be convicted of his sin but that does not require that he change his ways.

If as Bunyan says a man is ordained to salvation then God really has to do nothing as at some point in time that man would just start to believe for no other reason than he just started to. That is unless you think ordained really does not mean what Bunyan implies it does.

Faith is not a gift of God it is a response to the information that man have available to him. He can either believe it or reject it. Romans 1:16 says that the gospel has the power to change a person just as Ephesians 1:13 tells us those that hear and believe will be saved. Romans 10:13 is clear that it is only those that call on the Lord that will be saved.

The flip side of the determined who will be saved is the determined who will be lost, that is the part of calvinism that calvinists balk at but it is the reality of their theology. If the "elect" were saved from eternity past then the lost were lost from eternity past and thus they are condemned before they have done anything.

 

This is where you get to the end of the argument. My definition of free will where you do what you are inclined most to do does work with "ordained". It's an uncomfortable philosophy but true. But here is where you are correct. The man above can be under conviction many times over many years and still reject salvation until he dies. Bunyan would say, you guessed it, he was not elect. Now you can dismiss that as what we used to call a "cop out" but it's right in the Westminster Confession of Faith. God ordains everything yet does no violence to the will of the creature. You can accept it or reject it.

The other response - that God sets up a plan and has to wait on your truly autonomous free choice doesn't work either. There are too many scriptures saying that God doesn't do that. I'm going with the WCF and my definition of free will which matches Edwards. Let me just say there are scriptures which indicate both I think. I do not elevate it to a test of orthodoxy. But we have to realize that most people who lean to free will think that Calvinists are slandering the nature of God and so are probably demonic. Most people who follow the Calvinist system think free willers are turning faith into a meritorious work, thus taking credit for part of their salvation and so are possibly "barely saved" but most likely lost.

 

Typical...Calvinists have to go back to "Confessionals" and "this person says that." UGH! Also, you state that people who lean to free will (most) believe that Calvinists are "slandering the nature of God and so, are probably demonic." HOGWASH! You're opinion, and that alone.

 

Somehow, I don't think I can win with you. You start out by knocking me for citing someone else's opinion. Then go right into complaining that I'm just giving my own opinion.

You illustrate the point I was trying to make with Silverhair above. A huge component of saving faith involves the "liking" of God verses the natural animosity that we all have until the Holy Spirit goes to work on us. When a Calvinist says you were "given" faith as a gift it means that once that animosity is removed you begin to think and with your own free will are now enabled to come to Christ. Your inclination has changed. I only use the WCF confession because on this site are a lot of Calvinists who don't like the WCF and have an even more deterministic view of things.

You probably are a Baptist and I imagine you have read Pilgrims Progress. Well that's by John Bunyan, who I quoted above. You probably are familiar with some of Charles Spurgeon's sermons. He was a Calvinist. My first knowledge of him came from a sermon they had printed on the cover of Sword of the Lord, the fundamentalist paper out of Tennessee. If you start reading the Puritans you will find in practice they sound more like an old fundamentalist preacher than a modern Calvinist internet warrior.

 

Dave, on some level you make me smile as you try to mix oil and water. You keep attempting to argue that two opposing assumptions can somehow merge and mix. You rarely, if ever, appeal to scripture, but instead try picking familiar names from the past where you attempt to argue that these folks were mixing assumptions like a skilled alchemist. For me, personally, you lose legitimacy when you ignore scripture to make general comments from some past Christian. I know why you do this as you have told me, but your tactic leans not on scripture, but on secondary sources, thus it is weak. I know that causes you to imagine myself to be more "extreme" than the writers of the past and it bothers you. Well, it will bother others when they read your writing as it looks like you carry a rubber sword that flops and flips around with each swing. Best wishes with that.

 

@AustinC . I'm not mixing and merging philosophies. I am citing the primary original English speaking users and inventors of this stuff we call Reformed theology. If you can blow them off without actually refuting them that should bother you and anyone who reads these posts. It's actually possible that you are mishandling reformed teachings.

As for scripture references, most people won't read a lengthy post with 20 references. People complain about that. I explained that the writings of Bunyan average about 1 scripture reference every 2 sentences. Folks can look them up or not. But if they do, they can see the reference right along side a solid reformed explanation by Bunyan rather than me or you posting a list of scriptures by themselves. Besides, look a couple of posts back on this thread. We all have the same scripture and we can't even get everyone to agree that Romans chapter 9 argues for God's sovereignty.

And I don't really care if what I say bothers others but I hope I'm not carrying a sword at all. I can tell that you and a lot of others on both sides here view themselves as doing so.

 

False...I'm making mention that you are trusting in something other than the Bible. Being a minister, I have read all of what you've mentioned. In fact, I used to live less than 200 feet from the Sword of the Lord buildings here in Murfreesboro, Tennessee from 1995-1997. And, yes, I go to a Baptist church, was Independent Baptist at that time, and now attend a Southern Baptist affiliated church, though I am probably more a Bible church or non-denominationalist in doctrine. I can tell you that I don't have to go to any "confession"...Westminster of otherwise. I hold to the Bible, not man's opinion....And to be frank, I don't care what your opinion is or isn't...I'm concerned whether or not it lines up with Scripture.

 

Your background sounds similar to mine. And my attitude toward confessions was similar to yours. Do me a favor. Next time you're in the area of the Sword of the Lord building, go in and slap them for me for introducing me to Spurgeon on the front page of the Sword of the Lord. Sword of the Lord was pretty good when John R. Rice was still around, by the way.