Featured PB's monergism vs. Reformed's monergism.

So What makes the difference between God choosing to credit one person's faith as righteousness and not another's?

Is the something different about the person?

Or is it merely God's choice?

 

Hi 12 Strings. Why not look to scripture to answer your question? Does our faith need to be rooted in our heart, or simply an intellectual view?
Rooted in our heart. Does it need to be half hearted, i.e. sharing our heart with worldly treasures, or is our commitment to Christ not diminished by worldly concerns, i.e. possessions or relationships? Christ not only needs to be our highest priority, at its core, Christ is our only priority.

Do we need to understand all doctrine correctly? Nope, if we love Christ with all our heart, mind and body, we can be mistaken, thus perhaps hindering our ministry, but we still get to heaven, even if as one escaping from a fire.

God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. 12 Strings, your errant view has God giving grace to the proud, causing them to be humble. Not how it reads.

 

And the beat goes on...

1) Scripture says we are by nature, children of wrath. Winman rewrites it to read, we become children of wrath when we volitionally sin. But, by nature, refers to how God made us, not how we became.

2) Scripture does not say we became children of wrath because we walked in sin. It says we walked in sin because we indulged our nature, our desires.

3) Yes, babies are not dead (separated from God) because they did anything good or bad. They are dead because they were made sinners, thus separated from God at conception.

4) Yes Paul says he was alive, then died but contextually the idea is he thought he was alive, then learned he was dead. So his awareness is in view.

5) And once more the absurd "returned" meaning started out alive, when it has been shown the word means to turn around, to go in another direction, and has nothing to do with point of origin.

These 5 falsehoods are posted and re-posted by Winman at every opportunity. Folks, please study these positions carefully, rightly dividing the word of truth.

 

So when you say this:

What you are really saying is that: God has decided to credit everyone who has true faith with righteousness? Not that he simply decides to credit one person's faith as righteousness, and not another person's who has the same type of true faith?

Is the point you are trying to make that God could have justly decided not to credit anyone's faith as righteousness?

 

Hi 12 Strings, I think you are pretending to have difficulty understanding the obvious. You ask one question and I answer it. Then rather than address the answer with I agree, or disagree because..., you just as another question.

I said our salvation is monergistic because it depends on God and not upon the man that wills to be saved. Nothing we do merits salvation, but God can credit our faith as righteousness, and therefore choose to place us "in Christ". This is not rocket science, it is simple, something a child could understand.

Next, you insert "true faith" after we have discussed this error at length. Our faith has no merit. Now repeat after me, our faith has no merit. We can believe all sorts of error. Now repeat after me, we can believe all sorts of error. What we have is our faith, worthless, and error riddled which God evaluates based on His knowledge of our heart.

Do we love Jesus with all our heart in His eyes? Only God knows, but He knows. All we can do is throw ourselves upon the mercy of God, with heart-felt remorse for our wretchedness. God saves us, we do not save ourselves with "true faith."

I have made my point. God tells us to love our God with all our heart. Is that so difficult you must rewrite it to God saves some who love Jesus with all their heart? I doubt it. You are just pulling my chain.

Calvinism is a mistaken doctrine without any support from scripture. Words like choice have meaning and choice does not mean non-choice.
Regeneration means being born again, made alive together with Christ. No one is regenerated except by being spiritually placed in Christ. If we had total spiritual inability no one would be hardening their hearts by the practice of sin.

12 Strings, your errant view has God giving grace to the proud, causing them to be humble. Not how it reads.

 

You may believe whatever you want about me pretending. You are assuming too much, and are in error on that point, at least.

And I agree with this paragraph...

My primary question is this: when you say God "CAN" Credit our faith as righteousness, would you say that he could have decide not to credit anyone's faith as righteousness, but has promised in his word to credit EVERYONE'S faith as righteousness who as you say below, throws themselves on his mercy? And if so...why use the language of "God chooses to", or God "Can" credit their faith as righteousness...why not just say he DOES it.

You say "love the lord with all our heart...faith rooted in the heart...Christ as our only priority..." I'm simply using different terminogy to describe the same thing.

You are correct that God tells us to do that. But can we really do it? Can you or I love God with ALL of our heart? It seems that no one in scripture could, they all had other loves and temptations that drew them away...and yet many were saved.

 

God requires faith for us to be able to acces his grace thru it in order to get saved, where does that faith come from?

 

Hi Convicted, our soul is part of our human spirit which God forms within us. It is God and not ourselves who decides if our faith, as flawed as it may be, is credited as righteousness. Our faith alone is worthless. We are saved by grace through faith, but it is God who decides to save us on the basis of His acceptance of our faith.

 

I say God can credit our faith as righteousness, because God is not compelled to accept what we claim is "true faith" or some other level of meritorious faith.

What does it mean to love Jesus with all your heart. God knows and He is the one to decide who does and who does not. For you to claim no one can meet His standard of acceptance is to deny God's word. He has promised a kingdom to those who love Him and He chooses people He has decided met that requirement. This is black letter scripture. God chooses people for salvation through faith in the truth.

Calvinism denies the entire basis of salvation through faith. It says we are saved through election and given faith. Not how it read.

God gives grace to the humble but opposes the proud. Calvinism denies anyone can humble himself before the Lord, and rewrites it God gives grace to the proud which compels humility. Not how it read.



No you are not saying the same thing. "True faith" puts merit in the faith. God accepting our worthless faith and crediting it as righteousness puts the merit in the grace of God.

 

All of scripture shows that no one can meet his standard of acceptance...if they could, Jesus would not have had to die on a cross. If there were people who were capable of loving God with all of their heart, soul, mind, & strength, they would not need to be redeemed. That is not even a Calvinism issue.

We are saying the same thing here...You say only God knows and determines what real faith is or isn't, what really loving God with all your heart is or isn't. I would not disagree. That's simply what I'm calling true faith...It's not putting merit in the faith any more than your putting merit on the person's love.

 

No, I absolutely hold to a clear distinction between regeneration and salvation.

 

First of all as a PB I will point out that not all PB's believe the same things. Personally, I believe that the Scriptures alone are our only rule of faith. All the elect have been or will be regenerated and have faith, just because we may not be able to discern this in elect infants and the mentally "infirm" doesn't mean these two events haven't occurred. In the economic group I have certainly seen people who have the fruit of the Spirit evident in their lives.

Van like usual, makes up his own wacky view, claims that it is scriptural, and ignores what the text clearly states. This is what the spiritually dead do. Physically dead people cannot respond physically. Spiritually dead people cannot respond spiritually.

Compare these two passages to his last two paragraphs if you have eyes to see and ears to hear. Notice in the second passage that grace AND faith are the gift of God.

Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answered, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit."

And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

 

convicted1,

The Primitive Baptists arrived on the scene long after the 16th and 17th century English Particular Baptists (today's Reformed Baptists). Their Monergism was anything but inconsistent. Their great confession, the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, states:

10.3. Elect infants dying in infancy are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit; who worketh when, and where, and how he pleases; so also are all elect persons, who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.
( John 3:3, 5, 6; John 3:8 )

Besides elect infants there are those elect who are incapable of being outwardly called. This would include those with cognitive or physical impairments that make an outward call impossible.

 

Exactly right, kind of like starting a car without turning the key.

 

I did not think you disrespected the Primitive Baptists. My point is that the Primitive Baptists view of Monergism was inherited from the 16th and 17th century Particular Baptists. If you read the portion of the confession I posted you will see that the Particular Baptist view of monergism is about as consistent a form of Monergism as you can get.

 

That can Be done also:smilewinkgrin: