That's quite a statistical anomaly.
That "innate love of darkness" from the fall sure sounds like total depravity. You sure you're not making a distinction without a difference?
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Predestination
- Thread starter Twiceborn
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That's quite a statistical anomaly.
That "innate love of darkness" from the fall sure sounds like total depravity. You sure you're not making a distinction without a difference?
Yes, as its our fault that we reject!
Depends if there are Multiverses!
atpollard
Well-Known Member
I do believe in total depravity. But, with a distinction between what some call "natural inability and moral inability".
I believe that the only reason that unregenerate men "cannot" come to Christ is that they "will not" come to Christ.
Yet, despite this willful rejection of God by all of mankind (initiated by Adam's libertine free will decision to disobey God), God still chose to save some of us (based on our worthlessness in the world's eyes). He did this to display both His wrath and His mercy toward a wicked world.
Do you see examples of this anywhere in Scripture? Someone making an offer the other doesn't know about, and then blamed for rejecting it?
Would you blame yourself if someone made an offer to you, but not out loud?
But really, I'm looking for biblical support.
So you reject the notion of total inability?
atpollard
Well-Known Member
[John 10:22-31 NASB]
At that time the Feast of the Dedication took place at Jerusalem; it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon. The Jews then gathered around Him, and were saying to Him, "How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly." Jesus answered them, "I told you, and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father's name, these testify of Me. "But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep. "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. "My Father, who has given [them] to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch [them] out of the Father's hand. "I and the Father are one." The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him.
- They heard, but they did not believe.
- They did not believe BECAUSE they were not His sheep.
- His sheep were His sheep because the FATHER gave those sheep to Him.
- His sheep heard and believed and followed.
- Those "not His sheep" heard and picked up stones to kill him.
As for 'blaming' those that rejected the offer because they were not the sheep given by the Father to the Son ...
[John 3:16-21 NASB]
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. "For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. "He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. "This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. "For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. "But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God."
- believe = not judged
- not believe = already judged
- men love darkness, do evil and hate the light (Jesus)
- men do not come to the light (Jesus)
- good deeds WROUGHT IN GOD ... God responsible for the deeds of those that come to the light (Jesus).
Paul agrees:
[Ephesians 2:8-10 NASB]
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, [it is] the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
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if God was "fair" not one of is would have heard and received Jesus as Lord!
Agree. But this doesn't address my question. You said it was fair, initially. Do you have any biblical evidence of this practice of being fair? Or even the practice existing at all in Scripture?
My thinking is, if God says this is fair, I'm with God. I don't need to perfectly understand it. I just need evidence of him saying this or teaching this.
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I reject the notion of total natural inability.
I believe that man's natural ability to come to Christ is still intact, and that his inability is only moral. This quote explains it pretty well:
"The impotence of the sinner does not excuse him in sinning, since it is not involuntary and merely physical, arising from a defect of natural power, but voluntary and moral, arising from a depraved nature.”
So you natural depraved man is completely able to believe the Gospel? There is nothing in his nature preventing him?
That seems a full denial of original sin.
George Antonios
Well-Known Member
The passage says predestinated unto justification? Where?
Those he predestined he called. Those he called he justified.
The calling, regardless of what it is, is limited to the group that's predestined, which is limited to the group that's foreknown.
George Antonios
Well-Known Member
No sir (and you need a verse to prove that "it does mean irresistible"):
Hos 11:4 I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love: and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them. Hos 11:5 He shall not return into the land of Egypt, but the Assyrian shall be his king, because they refused to return.
George Antonios
Well-Known Member
No it doesn't. The Bible nowhere says that our sinful nature prevents us from believing the gospel.
I'm not talking about reasoning, I'm talking about scriptures.
Good points, also,
John 12:32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
One of the many reasons I don't believe drawn and called are the same thing.
George Antonios
Well-Known Member
How is that a mistake?
Well, maybe you haven't finished the book yet.
Jeremiah 17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
1 Corinthians 2:14
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
Ephesians 2:1-3
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
John 6:44
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.
Genesis 6:5
The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Psalm 58:3
The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies.
John 6:65
And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
Isaiah 64:6
We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
Romans 8:7
For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.
Romans 3:10-11
As it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.
Ephesians 2:3
Among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
Jeremiah 13:23
Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil.
Romans 5:12
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
Ephesians 4:18
They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.
Ephesians 2:1
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
Romans 3:12
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
Romans 3:10-12
As it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
Isaiah 53:6
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Romans 6:17
But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
1 Corinthians 2:14
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
Ephesians 2:1-3
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
John 6:44
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.
Genesis 6:5
The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Psalm 58:3
The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies.
John 6:65
And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
Isaiah 64:6
We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
Romans 8:7
For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.
Romans 3:10-11
As it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.
Ephesians 2:3
Among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
Jeremiah 13:23
Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil.
Romans 5:12
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
Ephesians 4:18
They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.
Ephesians 2:1
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
Romans 3:12
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
Romans 3:10-12
As it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
Isaiah 53:6
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Romans 6:17
But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,
George Antonios
Well-Known Member
If you accept that predestinated is unto a Christ-like resurrection body, then your admittedly excellent questions manifest the fact that Romans 8:29-30 are not an ordo salutis. So we are agreeing.
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