Decisional Regeneration: Stated and Refuted

I finally noticed that you were answering my post in this. It would have helped if you had mentioned my name here.

So please clarify. Are you disagreeing with what I quoted from JM? Are you saying that one does not decide to believe, it just "happens?" Then are you saying people not only don't have a free will, they don't have a will at all? Because that's the only way I can see that one can believe without deciding to.

Also, can you give me a quote from someone you believe teaches "decisional regeneration" that shows they believe the decision is what regenerates, that man regenerates himself as opposed to being regenerated by the Holy Spirit? The only quote given in the article you linked to was from Jack Hyles, and whatever you may think of his methods, he didn't say these things.

Jack Hyles often preached on the Holy Spirit and His power to help the personal soul winner and to save the sinner. I know. I heard him preach about it many times. He wrote in one place, "What a motivation this is for the believer to yield himself to that Christ Who lives in him, as the Holy Spirit has wrought the amazing work of regeneration!" (Jack Hyles, Meet the Holy Spirit, p. 20).

 

That's double-speak.Folks do not have the "capacity to believe" from birth.You contradict yourself by saying in your next breath that because of our sin nature we do not seek after God and can't understand anything spiritual.Then you back away from that and claim that man can and does believe but only as far as he is able of himself"."Via his sin nature is a puzzling comment.The word 'via' means by way of.The sin nature (TD) is not an access-route.Perhaps you meant "despite the sin nature."

"Restrictions his sin nature forces upon him" is kind of biblically weak view of our bondage in sin before the new birth.Man is just sick in sin as far as you are concerned.

That capacity to believe only extends as far as man of and by himself can go." And that would be -- Nowhere! Your explanations are bearing-out what I have said before.You really don't believe in TD.Your allegiance is toward Partial Depravity.Man has the capacity to believe (from birth)you contend.

You got decidely more biblical near the end of your post.That's where you said that God needs to seek us out -- to convict us to believe -- to be saved through a work not of ourselves ( monergistically?) --but through God who is mighty to save.I can endorse that with a caveat that the Lord will save all of those of His choosing.

 

You're pretty much "muddling up" the whole issue, aren't you? :laugh:

Perhaps I might get through to you this way: In the OT, a decision was still required in order to receive "the righteousness of God" -- JUSTIFICATION, eternal life, salvation -- all these come via MAN'S decision about what he is going to do with his knowledge of God (which has been already concluded from Rom 1:19-20 that he has) which is why God says they are "without excuse.

But in the OT, there was NO regeneration, no Holy Spirit indwelling, no new birth, no born again, etc. Why? Because it is God that confers it in God's own time. They will be "regenerated" in the resurrection to earth. One (Mt 19:28) of only 2 times the word regeneration is used in the Bible describes regneration as the resurrection.

The other, Titus 3:5, explains that we are regenerated while we live. This is the one your theologists cling to as if it were just always so. Well, it's not. In the ordo saludis it never occurred during this life way in the OT (much less could they have been regenerated BEFORE they had faith!).

So you see, the basic "framework" on which you hang your "decisional regeneration" is a total misunderstanding of a) what the Bible says and b) of what non-Cals believe.

As to "ordained before the foundation of the earth" -- again, you make it out that God chose irrespective of what He in His omniscience could foresee regarding each of us. If you weren't so totally committed to "fate" over free will, you would never be able to hold such a view by reading the Bible. As someone has already pointed out, there is not "all-encompassing decree" that Covenant Theologists presume to "see" whilest they ignore 7 others that do appear in scripture.

skypair

 

To Allan and John of Japan,

I'm glad both of you acknowledge the role of the Holy Spirit in conversion. The only reason I even brought this up is that your views in this area seemed to vary from most non-Cals.

The impression I get is that most non-Cals present the gospel to the lost as solely their choice, independently of any work by the HS. Thus soul-winning is reduced to strategies, methods and powerful tools, designed to bring the lost person to a "decision." Or, to lead them to the point of praying a prayer.

Now i could be wrong about that, but that's the impression I get. And I hasten to say that, given what you have written, it certainly is not true of you, John, or Allan.

And I'm sure that non-Cals will say that my impression is wrong. They do believe the HS has a role. Yet their soul-winning methods don't seem to reflect that belief.

And John, I'm curious. I know you rely on the Scriptures to guide how you present the gospel to the Japanese. My question is, has your experience in Japan had any effect on how you witness to them? Are you doing the same things today that you did at the beginning of your ministry there? No agenda here, just asking.

 

Seems to me decisional regeneration is the same as baptismal regenerations, works, not grace.

 

RB,
Does not the Reformed belief of regeneration preceding salvation stand primarily on a "logical order" than a scripturally stated one? I have looked a great deal into this and found that though phrases like 'born-again' are used to hold to something pre-salvation they are hard to pressed on this issue since it holds the same characteristics of one who 'is' saved but also at the same time. Thus most Reformers/Calvinists will agree that they are simultanious as this is the closest thing given scripturally and that it being pre-salvation is based primarily upon 'logic' and not so much scripture.

I wouldn't mind even doing e-mails or PMs with you on it - to sharpen both our views and to take a look at something in a different perspective. Not with the intent of maligning one another. As I have said, it has been very hard to get anyone to actaully debate on 'this' topic. I understand (fairly well - though I'm sure I can be corrected on some things) the position of Calvinists/Reformers on what regeneration is supposed to be and what it primarily is supposed to do, but it is the 'how it does this' that always 'seems' to be avoided.

 

That is because there is no such thing a 'Decisional Regeneration'.

 

I quite agree, no such thing as regeneration because of a decision.
Grace.

 

You remind me alot of Skypair anymore.

A person isn't regenerated because they 'chose' to be so, but because they 'chose' to believe God and HE regenerated them.

Do you believe that a person must choose to believe before they will:
1. Love the Lord God
2. Obey Him
3. Cleave unto him
4. To be placed into Life, (Christ/God) since He is life

OR

Do you believe one must be rengerate first so that the above 4 will take place and therefore you will believe?

Let us look at Duet for a short but detailed look at the truth:

Notice in verse 29 it states "Choose" and in verse 30 it states "that you may or might.."

God told them to choose Life so that they might Love Him..cleave (or cling) to Him as He is their life - (spiritual not physical).., obey His voice.., live long (no temporal judgments against your life)..

And guess what - They "Choose" to live.. and took the land.

Notice also that unless they choose to believe or choose life.. they were not 'alive in Him', for He is life and they would not have it unless they choose life as says the passage explictly.

 

I have close about 50 books on evangelism in my library. Very few were written by Calvinists. Among those are: James Kennedy, J. I. Packer, Spurgeon. I would that more Calvinists would write about the subject. At any rate, I don't find much difference between Cal. and the best non-Cal. writers on the subject (there are some lousy books by non-Cals.), when Cals. do write. But the fact that so few Cals. write on the subject does indicate that in general they lean more towards God's work in salvation than the human side, Christians working. And without going into detail, that hurts the Cal. position. We can do nothing about God's side, but we can do much about our side (and I do know that many Calvinists are active in evangelism).

Wow, it would take a whole essay to answer that one! But in brief, I do the same things spiritually that I did when we came 27 years ago: I pray, I seek the Holy Spirit's fullness, I witness (though I am getting less and less zealous as time marches on, and that saddens me), I look for the Holy Spirit's work in the life and heart of the sinner before inviting them to salvation.

Practically speaking, over the years I've tried many different "methods," tracts, programs, etc. But Japan is a country of less than 1% Christian after 140 years of evangelism, which is much less than Iran and other Islamic countries. I am resigned to never seeing many saved here. But I praise God for those precious Japanese souls He brings to Himself. (See my thread in Missions/Evangelism on this.)

 

Brother, I wasn't saying that 'you' were avoiding it..

Order is important for the understanding of the operation or process of salvation.
I'm sure you would agree that if you believed regeneration actaully preceded faith you would have to change much of your theological understanding, would you not?

I do believe that scripture teaches faith precedes regeneration but that also they happen almost instantaniously but that faith can only be accomplished by the work of the Holy Spirit in revelation and conviction.

 

this would be what I said, yet you want it to say something else, obviously, so you make it up.

 

You seem to misunderstand, Deut was written to a jewish audience, not to unbelievers. quite different.

 

No, it is a presupposition to assume it does not when the context and explictness of the passages dicates otherwise.

What I showed is exactly what God stated. It is stated plainly "choose.. that you may..." Nothing in the passage declares that man can not choose as God is revealing and convicting but in fact states they 'can' and that only when they choose to believe they will love Him, obey Him, have life, ext..