1. Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!

Acts 17:26-27

Discussion in '2003 Archive' started by Jarlaxle, Jan 31, 2003.

  1. Jarlaxle

    Jarlaxle New Member

    Joined:
    May 16, 2002
    Messages:
    112
    Likes Received:
    0
    Who did God make from one man? Every single nation of men; all, every single one, not leaving any person out, etc.

    For what purpose? To inhabit the entire earth.

    When and where? God determined exactly when and exactly where every single person would live.

    Why? So that every single man would seek God and perhaps reach out for him and find him.

    How far away is God from each and every person on the earth? Not far. </font>[/QUOTE]Question: If it is impossible to seek God if one is not predestined to do so, then why does the inspired writer of Acts imply that it indeed is possible for every single person?
     
  2. sturgman

    sturgman New Member

    Joined:
    Jan 25, 2003
    Messages:
    310
    Likes Received:
    0
    It does not say that "all men would seek him." It says that men would seek him. Men can seek God, but not on there own. Men seek God because they are drawn by him. Never did you see the sheep find the lost shepherd. Always the Shepherd would seek out the sheep.
     
  3. Yelsew

    Yelsew Guest

    You obviously have not been witness to transformation of the most vile of men who had reached the bottom and had nowhere else to look but up. I have, and it is a glorious site to see! "Once I was lost but now I am found", blind but now have sight". Like many of illustrations of the Christ at work healing, it is always the sick persons faith or belief in Jesus whereby healing is enabled or the faith of someone associated with the sick. All it took was change of persuasion, from unbelief to belief. Did the sick heal themselves? No, the Christ did the healing, but the sick did need to have a either personal belief or the belief of others in the Christ to bring about the healing. Christ did not go about finding those who had no belief, "the lost", in order to heal them, but rather those who sought out Jesus to be healed. Even the parents faith brought about healing and restoration to life of the child. The belief of the blind, the leper, the lame even on the name of Jesus enabled Jesus to work in their behalf.
     
  4. sturgman

    sturgman New Member

    Joined:
    Jan 25, 2003
    Messages:
    310
    Likes Received:
    0
    Ok, it says "I once was lost and now I am found, I was blind nut now I see." It does not say, "I was lost but now I found myself, I was blind but I corrected my vision."

    Faith or belief is given by God. You asked, "Did God go out and find 'the lost'?" The answer is yes. God came to "seek and saved that which was lost."

    John 9, the blind man was blind for one purpose, for God to recieve glory at that time. Read it, you might like that story. Everywhere that a miracle happens it happens because of faith. I don't disagree with you. Only where did that faith come from? Man or God? The scriptures say God. That is what I hold too. That if there be a difference, God made tge difference, if this is not the case, then man must share in the credit. "My belief AND God's power made the difference. That is arrogance.
     
  5. npetreley

    npetreley New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 20, 2002
    Messages:
    7,359
    Likes Received:
    2
    Haply? Do you know what "haply" means? It means "by chance". Do you think that we find God by chance? The Greek word is "ara". The interesting thing about "ara" is that it is often used when a negative answer is presumed. That is not necessarily the case in Acts 17:27, but it is enough that it means "perchance".

    Do you honestly think God relies on the chance we might seek after Him, especially when God says in black-and-white that no one seeks after Him, no not one? Or do you think God's predestination is so precise that He decides exactly the time and location for every man (Acts 17:26), but His foreknowledge is so limited that He relied on chance to see if they'd seek Him (Acts 17:27)?

    If your interpretation creates such a contradiction, I suspect that you are interpreting these verses incorrectly.
     
  6. npetreley

    npetreley New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 20, 2002
    Messages:
    7,359
    Likes Received:
    2
    [​IMG] [​IMG] sturgman!

    I was blind, but now I exercise my own free will to go to the mall and visit the God Vision Center to get an eye exam.
     
  7. Yelsew

    Yelsew Guest

    Certainly don't see it that way Sturgman.

    On the Cross, Jesus said "it is finished" meaning that divine work for the redemption of fallen man is complete, nothing is left undone. That means that "the work of God is belief" is already accomplished. But God has no reason to have belief, because God is omniscient knowing all. So what remains for man's redemption? Man's belief, because man cannot know all, he must believe. Thus it remains for man to believe to have the redemption that is already accomplished for all mankind, whosoever will believe is redeemed, saved, has eternal life. God does not make that choice for any man! Even Paul could have refused to believe, but he didn't and neither would any of us if we had been likewise recruited.

    It is God's work already accomplished that I believe in, and it is my belief that saves me from condemnation!
     
  8. Jarlaxle

    Jarlaxle New Member

    Joined:
    May 16, 2002
    Messages:
    112
    Likes Received:
    0
    sturgman wrote:
    Exactly where did it change from all men to not all men? Does the context not mean a thing? Come on, you can do better than that, can’t you?? Does the verse say, “God did this so that SOME men …” No, it most certainly does not. And for it to actually mean that it would have to say that because in context the author has just used “men” to mean every person who ever walked the face of the globe. The Author used it that way in the very sentence before you try to add the word “some” in front of men in order to fit your doctrine of predestination.

    nepetreley asked:
    If we indeed have free will, then yes God has chosen to let us freely choose or not choose Him. By definition, this fits the description of chance. So do we have free will or not?
     
  9. npetreley

    npetreley New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 20, 2002
    Messages:
    7,359
    Likes Received:
    2
    If we indeed have free will, then yes God has chosen to let us freely choose or not choose Him. By definition, this fits the description of chance. So do we have free will or not? </font>[/QUOTE]For Jesus knew from the beginning that there was a chance some might not believe, and the chance someone might betray Him. And He said, "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless free will has been granted to him by My Father, and since free will has been granted to everyone by my Father, that means there's a chance any one of you could come to me and a chance any one of you could betray me. Since this is all self-evident and unrelated to what's going on at the moment, then what I just said to you is totally irrelevant. Forget I said it."
     
  10. sturgman

    sturgman New Member

    Joined:
    Jan 25, 2003
    Messages:
    310
    Likes Received:
    0
    Yelsew, I thought when he said, "it is finished" he meant that the wrath of GOd had been satisfied. Read Romans 3:25,26.

    And you just stated in another thread that mans nature is to rebel against God, so now you are speking with both sides. Pick a side, you keep playing leap frog with your theology. Either man can seek God and Romans is incorrect, or he cannot and mans ability to seek God is incorrect. They cannot be both true.

    Jarlaxle,

    When Paul is speaking here he states that from "One man God made MANY NATIONS." So the verse prior to it does not mean every man that walked the face of the earth. Do you read the living bible? man, don't add to it.

    And the answer is no we do not have free will. It is not in scripture. The only time free will is mentioned in scripture it is refering to a free will offering that a child of God can make it is never refering to an unregenrate man,

    Now the next arguement (we have heard it a million times) is that that makes men Robots. No it doesn't. Robots do not have wills. Men do have wills, but they are slave to our nature. A moose can go anywhere on land that he wants to. But can a moose fly? No. A moose cannot fly because he is enslaved to the nature of a moose. Can men be holy and seek God. No because we are enslaved to a nature that rebels against God. Do we have some amount of freedom within that fallen will? Yes, I can be a good looking sinner, or I can be a perverted sinner. That doesn't make me a saint.
     
  11. npetreley

    npetreley New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 20, 2002
    Messages:
    7,359
    Likes Received:
    2
    Well said.
     
  12. Jarlaxle

    Jarlaxle New Member

    Joined:
    May 16, 2002
    Messages:
    112
    Likes Received:
    0
    sturgman wrote:
    If such a deterministic philosophy is true, we could not blame anyone for anything that was ever done. There would be no right or wrong, for people would only be doing what they were “supposed” to do under whatever circumstances. Our behavior would be no different than the “random” collisions of asteroids in space. Humans would be mere animals totally enslaved to their instincts and cultural constraints. There could be no such thing as “awareness.” We would not be aware that 2+2 really equals 4; we would merely “think” that we were aware of the obvious truth that 2+2 = 4. The matter in our skulls would behave as it does, not because we have correctly understood the truth of things, but rather as an inevitable result of the motion of all the other atoms in the universe going back to the beginning of time. We would be under the impression that we could think what we wished, and not merely what blind chance happened to produce in our brain matter. But this belief does not fit consistently with a deterministic philosophy, which states that we could not help what went on in our heads, and that what went on in our heads has NOTHING TO DO with the Truth, but is only the blind, necessary, involuntary, meaningless, mechanically determined fizz that foams under the brims of our brain pans.

    To put it bluntly, if determinism is correct, thought is like a belch. Brain-belching. Thought would literally be a brain fart. Not just bad thoughts, mind you. ALL thoughts. You should no more judge one set of determined, meaningless atomic motions to be able to trustworthily render TRUTH about ALL THE OTHER determined and meaningless atomic motions than any other set. You might as well listen to gorillas pass gas at a zoo and hope to put together a metaphysical theory of Life, the Universe and everything else if determinism is right.

    The proof:

    If D is true, T is unreliable. T is not unreliable. Therefore D is not true. There is a formal name for that kind of argument: Modus Tollens. It is a valid formal argument, and the premises are true, thus the argument is sound, therefore determinism is false. Determinism self-contradicts and thus it CAN'T be true. Determinism is a philosophy that claims to tell the truth of things (namely that all things are determined). But if determinism were true, philosophies could not be relied upon to tell us the truth of things, and thus we could not believe any philosophies, including determinism!

    In laymen's terms, if determinism is true, then there is no such thing as rational thought. The only way to show that it is true, is to “rationally” tell us that there is no such thing as “rational”; which is a self-contradiction.
     
  13. npetreley

    npetreley New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 20, 2002
    Messages:
    7,359
    Likes Received:
    2
    The tiny problem with your argument, Jar, (tiny as in Galaxy-sized) is that you jumped from free will with respect to salvation to determinism and never demonstrated that they are the same. The rest of your argument is based on that false assumption, though.
     
  14. Jarlaxle

    Jarlaxle New Member

    Joined:
    May 16, 2002
    Messages:
    112
    Likes Received:
    0
    To make such a claim, npetreley, you must demonstrate that the issue of salvation is any different than any other freely made choice.
     
  15. sturgman

    sturgman New Member

    Joined:
    Jan 25, 2003
    Messages:
    310
    Likes Received:
    0
    Go read you bible... That is not the case. You jump to conclusions that you really cannot support. If you will look at Romans 9, Paul already answered this arguement. "You will say to us, 'how can God blame us, for who resists his will?' On the contrary, who are you 'Oh Man' to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to that whick formed it, 'why did you make me like this' or does not the potter have right over hte clay?"

    I am getting sick of writing this same thing over and over. Take a pen and write this down. We will call this proof number 1. So when someone feels the need to ask this question, or make the same foolish comment I don't have to retype the whole thing, I can just say "proof number 1" [​IMG]
     
  16. Yelsew

    Yelsew Guest

    Then you misinterpret "it is finished"! God did not send His son to humanity in order to satisfy His wrath! But that man, through belief in God's Son, is Justified before the throne of God.

    We are not in the past, but we are part of this present age, the age or "times of" the Gentiles where the gates of heaven are open to whosoever believeth on the son of God.

    It is the judgment of God that those who believe on His son, even on his name are not condemned, but those who believeth not are condemned already. Judgment is a foregone conclusion. But those who believe in Jesus, even on his name are Justified before the throne of God, and are thus spared from the lake of fire where the self condemned shall be cast.

    I do not pick sides, I don't think either side is correct!
     
  17. Jarlaxle

    Jarlaxle New Member

    Joined:
    May 16, 2002
    Messages:
    112
    Likes Received:
    0
    Hahaha.. yes.. that is soooo funny to call my comments foolish. Thank you, that is so Christian like.

    With respect to Pharaoh, he had a choice. God brought him up as a “spoiled child” in that Pharaoh had everything given to him. If God gives you parents that do not spare the rod, it is a bigger blessing than to give you parents that simply let you get away with everything. We are “molded” as we grow up and live our lives. This has nothing to do with salvation, but rather how hard or easy it is for us to harden or soften out hearts. Who is to question God for the situation He puts us in? God gave Pharaoh lots of power that ended up being a curse to Pharaoh, but Pharaoh still had the free will to choose. Therefore, who is Pharaoh to question God?

    You misapply the passage to fit your predestination doctrine. The proof still stands. We have free will.
     
  18. sturgman

    sturgman New Member

    Joined:
    Jan 25, 2003
    Messages:
    310
    Likes Received:
    0
    I htink you did pick the side of foolishness, because you made youself out to be one with this past post.

    You did not post scripture, you posted what you wanted the scripture to say. That is a very dangerous thing. I wouldn't do that.

    In fact, I don't feel I have to respond anymore to your post for it is already full of whole, I tfear no one will read it withou laughing.
     
  19. sturgman

    sturgman New Member

    Joined:
    Jan 25, 2003
    Messages:
    310
    Likes Received:
    0
    Jarlaxle, you too added quite a bit ofyour own logic to the text. Again, I feel that scripture is very plain. Let's deal with it instead of trying to find a way to disprove the scriptures that we don't like.
     
  20. Jarlaxle

    Jarlaxle New Member

    Joined:
    May 16, 2002
    Messages:
    112
    Likes Received:
    0
    Logic is not owned by either of us, therefore it is not "my" logic that is aded anywhere. Either it is logical or it is not. When you tell me to deal with it instead of trying to find a way to disprove the scriptures that I don't like, you merely beg the question that I am not dealing with the scripture.
     
Loading...