Heavenly Pilgrim
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DHK: I believe that God has sent the Holy Spirit to convict the world of sin, of judgment, of things to come. "Of sin because they believe not on me." When the gospel message is presented, and the Holy Spirit convicts of sin, the sinner certainly is able to respond to God's message of salvation.
Yet at the same time salvation is all of God.
HP: DHK, my point is not to be unkind, but you move from one contradiction to another. If there is a contradiction in ones theology, it does not suffice to simply say I am not a Calvinist or simply ignore the contradiction. Neither does it suffice to simply restate ones position. The stark contradictions need to be removed.
What you fail to realize concerning Calvinism is that when you accept the same premise as Calvinism, in this case original sin, logic necessitates it other points. When you say I believe this point and that point of Calvinism, yet try and stop short of the logical ends necessitated by its original premise, you are fighting as one that beateth the wind to separate yourself from that system of thought. The only thing you will be seen as is inconsistent and illogical and at times clearly contradictory. The same goes for any Arminian that accepts the Calvinistic/Augustinian dogma of original sin, yet tries to separate themselves from the errors of the Calvinistic system. Although they see the error in the ends of Calvinistic thought, much the same you do at least in some measure, yet their counter arguments, although in some small measure point to some relevant truth, still fail to ‘logically’ escape the traps original sin has necessitated. I view Arminians as logically inconsistent as well, although I do say,”Oh those blessed inconsistencies!”
Let me try again. You stated first, “A man that is spiritually dead (separated from God) is still able to respond to God. He needs to be reconciled to God.”
Then you make a statement contradictory to that statement by saying, “The natural man does not do good. He cannot.” Hence my question to you if responding to God is good? If responding to God is good, you cannot have it both ways DHK. Either man CANNOT do any good, or he can. Why not respond something like the following: ‘Yes, man in his natural state is capable of doing good as he can respond to God when God speaks to him.’ Why not simply admit that the word ‘cannot’ was not in keeping with your true sentiments, and that man can at least under one situation. If you would answer in that manner at least I could see you are attempting to eliminate the contradiction between your two statements.
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