Let's start with this one:
That argument is so ridiculous that no one uses it except you, and for good reasons. The simple, observable facts are that there does not exist an equity of opportunity and circumstances that give everyone a fair chance at coming to Christ.
You've already departed from Calvinist teaching. Way to go! It took you one single sentence!
And I'm not even close to being the only one who uses that argument! LOL!
That's why, if you look at atheist vs Christian apologist debates you find that is the chief atheist argument against Christianity.
And rightly so! There are many times more people in Hell today than will ever see heaven because of Augustinian doctrine and Calvinism in particular.
The way they put it is that God either is unable or doesn't care about the plight of men or else things would be observably different.
That is an altogether different argument that barely even over laps the argument that says that Calvinism's theology proper makes God to be unjust. It is, however, an argument that no Calvinist could answer in a manner that was consistent with his own doctrine. It is one of the many times when you'll see Calvinists talk out of both sides of their mouth and intentionally ignore how their left cheek contradicts their right.
A non-Calvinist free will system may give your ego a boost but it does not explain the inequities in life or in opportunity for salvation.
Of course it does! That is, however, a topic for another thread.
Indeed, it is the Calvinist who has to borrow from MY doctrine or else flagrantly admit that God is arbitrary. It's a total coin toss as to which way a particular Calvinist will go.
Calvinists start with the assumption that all of us are truly guilty and God would be just if we were all condemned.
That is not a Calvinist distinctive doctrine nor is it the premise upon which they base ANY of their distinctive doctrines. In fact, they take this doctrine well beyond what the biblical material will support precisely because of their actual premises, is absolute divine immutability. Some of them will insist that their primary premise is their version of divine sovereignty (another doctrine which the take well beyond the biblical material, not to mention the definition of the term) but when pressed it become clear that their understanding of even that doctrine is informed by (i.e. predicated on) immutability.
We are born guilty in some sense and then personally guilty if we live long enough to engage in sin voluntarily.
The doctrine of original sin is the brain child of Augustine and it cannot survive even a surface casual reading of Ezekiel 18 nor can it survive the acknowledgement of the fact that God is just, as Ezekiel 18 clearly establishes, by the way.
Tell me again how this is supposed to be refuting my argument?!
And this is because of our free will, which you so highly value.
Again, you depart from Calvinist doctrine. Ask Alen, He'll tell you. Calvinists DO NOT believe that there is any such thing as a free will. Every thought word or deed that anyone performs was immutably predestined by God for no reason other than God wanted to do it.
Here it is from the horse's mouth (i.e. from Calvinism's own source documents)....
“The devil, and the whole train of the ungodly, are in all directions, held in by the hand of God as with a bridle, so that they can neither conceive any mischief, nor plan what they have conceived, nor how muchsoever they may have planned, move a single finger to perpetrate, unless in so far as he permits, nay unless in so far as he commands, that they are not only bound by his fetters but are even forced to do him service” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 17, Paragraph 11)
“thieves and murderers, and other evildoers, are instruments of divine providence, being employed by the Lord himself to execute judgments which he has resolved to inflict.” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 17, Paragraph 5)
Now, I am not a Calvinist in the strict sense some are and so I go in the common Reformed Baptist direction when it comes to salvation.
This only means that you are not as rationally consistent as whatever it is you think "the strict sense" of Calvinism is. This may or may not be intentional, the point being merely that Calvinist soteriology follows logically from their theology proper. You can cherry pick doctrines if you want but just understand that this is what you are doing, even if unknowingly.
Most Reformed Baptist churches teach that contrary to what you claim, that God is just, and therefore that is the biggest problem for us. How can we be saved as sinners, if God is just. Do you see from that how stupid your argument is that if God is just, Calvinism can't be true?
The problem with your line of thinking here is the fact that you just got through distancing yourself from actual Calvinist doctrine!
There are LOTS of actual Calvinists who give lip serves to God being just, practically all of them do, in fact, but it is only just that, lip service. You simply don't get to say out of one side of your mouth things that make God arbitrary and then declare to the world that you believe that God is just and not be called a lunatic by people like me who can think clearly. God is either arbitrary or He is just! He cannot be both no matter how badly someone what's it be that way! Contradictions do not exist! Show me a god that is arbitrary and I'll show you a god that does not exist.
So without going into every detail, which books are written on, since the problem is our free will and where it got us, we need divine help beyond the gospel message, which is also needed. Again, reams are written on this. Since, divine help is needed, it must be selective, and sovereign in application or else you have universalism, which we deny. Now personally, I tend to view this divine enlightening or quickening as resistible but I admit that by definition, if it is necessary, and decisive, it could be called "effective" or even "irresistible" in one who gets saved.
Either you have very different definitions of several words, most notably the term "sovereign" than any Calvinist I've ever met or you just stated so many self-contradictory things that I don't even know where to begin to respond to them.
In short, if God is "sovereign" in the way Calvinists redefine that term, then there isn't any such thing as free will. If you think otherwise then you are confused.
Bottom line is this. No one who has a correct view of man's natural condition uses the "unjust" or "unfair" argument.
Saying it doesn't make it so!
Ezekiel 18 by itself blows you "correct view of man's natural condition" (a.k.a. original sin / total depravity) into dust.
All those who do are basing it upon a false view of man without God as neutral towards God, which is incorrect.
This is an over statement. The choice you present between total depravity / original sin vs. "neutral towards God" is a false dichotomy.
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