Yeah, yeah, maybe some day I will your address your ignorance in repeating this "Bogey-man" term used by determinists. Perhaps after that we can go into the roots of Augustine's heretical Gnostic denial of the freedom of the will. But, once again, that ("Pelagianism".....is just a cuss-word invented by determinists to slander their opponents.") was not the subject of this thread and bringing it up is merely a fallacious smokescreen to avoid the explanation I gave on the subject of "divine foreknowledge and human volition". Frankly,...I tire of answering this bogeyman accusation and have heard it all before:
"You don’t understand, God is Sovereign, He foreknows all things therefore in creation He predetermined all things. Nothing happens the He did not ordain to happen. God is not surprised when something happens, He planned all things. He made all conditions.
Grace is a gift and all of God. Grace is something that no one deserves, you can’t earn it. If someone has faith it’s because God gave it to them before the foundation of world. If you love God it’s because He made you that way. If a person comes to God it’s because they had no choice to do otherwise.
God doesn’t need your help for anything.
God knows all, He knows the number of hairs on your head because He put them there, He knows the formation of your dandruff and He formed all the molecules that formed it before the foundation of the world. God is in control of all things. God picked the color of my socks I put on this morning before the foundation of the world.
God is Sovereign!
Man is saved by God’s Grace alone. God doesn’t need your help, He is Sovereign, He says come and you come – unless, of course, it was an ineffectual call, then you don’t come. See that’s how us Calvinist explain God calling “all” men, He has a “special call” for those He predetermined to come and He has a “general call” for all those He predetermined not to come. Both calls are unconditional, one to salvation the other to damnation.
Faith is a gift from God that He gives for no reason whatsoever, that is how He demonstrates His Glory and Mercy.
Grace is a non-meritorious gift which means that “faith” is also non-merited.
No man is capable of faith on his own, God has to give it to them as He planned for His “special elect” before the foundation of the world. Whether God gives one faith or not is based on nothing concerning the man himself, it all dependent upon what God decided before creation of that man. Jesus only came and died for those whose names were written in the book according to God’s foreknowledge and purposes of predestination.
You seem to think God needs your help to decide things like He doesn’t already know what He has planned. I'm sorry to tell you but your doctrines are rooted to the heretical teachings of Pelagianism. Any variation from the teachings of Calvinism or disbelief in that God is not sovereign in all things leads to Pelagianism.
Pelagians try to take the glory from God and claim credit for their own faith whereby they presume to earn their own salvation. The saving of souls is God’s domain alone.
I understand how you can have difficulty excepting these things. It sometimes takes years after finding out that we had no choice in the matter for us Calvinist to get to the place where we can accept the things of God. You need to leave those typical man made Pelagianistic free will teachings before you will come to understand the TULIP and the ways of God.
The preaching of a man made condition of faith is a false gospel, Calvinism is the Gospel! God is Sovereign!"
