Ring ring -- reality calling.

And your point is.......what?

Yes, sinful men love darkness and yes their deeds were evil. How does that address their inability to respond to God's genuine call of the gospel? Which, let me remind you, is "the power of God unto Salvation."

 

Don't you understand? It's not about man, it's about God. Everything God does, He does for His glory.

There is *NOTHING* good in man, and you saying that there is a 'shred' of goodness left, is not found in scripture. </font>[/QUOTE]But it is about man else there is no need for Holy Scriptures! God who is Spirit needs no written word, He is the author! He knows all, why is there a bible?

Your position is simply wrong!

 

Don't you understand? It's not about man, it's about God. Everything God does, He does for His glory.

There is *NOTHING* good in man, and you saying that there is a 'shred' of goodness left, is not found in scripture. </font>[/QUOTE]Oh those arminians are just being silly. They point to the things that people do in seeming obedience to God thogh unsaved as evidecne of some sort. They don't ever cosider it seems that partial obedience is just disobedience and further proof of the calvanist position. </font>[/QUOTE]Oh those Calvinists are just being silly. they point to the things that fly in the face of actual life experience, claiming it to be the absolute last word of proof. They never question the absolutes, because words in the bible say it is so! They never attempt to apply those absolutes to their own lives. They make the Holy Scriptures strictly black and white with their absolutes. They cannot provide one iota of proof that substantiates their claim. They bombard everyone who does raise questions about their beliefs with all kinds or "supporting" scripture. and when all else fails, they raise barriers such as "the bible says it, I believe it, that settles it.

Many of them even go so far as to say it's not about man at all, it's all about God. Well, does God need a bible? Do the animals read the bible? Do the Mountains, the Prairies, and the oceans and rivers read the bible? No you say? Well who reads the bible? It is MAN ALONE who reads and needs the bible. So it is not about God, God is completely self sufficient and has been from infinity to infinity. It is about God's created man, and has a definite beginning and has definite milestones, and will culminate in God living among men, those whosoevers that believe in God's only Begotten Son, Jesus, throughout the rest of eternity.

It is not foolish to see that this is all about man, because now is the hour of thy salvation, if you reject it during this hour (natural life), you will not get a second chance and you will be lost for all eternity.

 

No apology needed, your perception of what I said is wrong only in your mind.

 

Yelsew,

You are obviously as devoid of integrity as you are of sound theology. (So much is obvious by the way you do not deal with the fact that your experience based theology is of no account, and the fact that you refuse to deal with the substance of my remark that the partial obediecne you thjink is so important is really just disobedience which further prvoes the truth of the calvanist position.) By theri fruits you shall know them.

If you can't take responsbility for your actions then you are not worthy of further consideration.

 

Bible-belted posted February 18, 2003 06:55 PM

Your opinion is accepted, but it is your opinion and not the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth! Therefore you impugn my integrity openly based on your opinion. There seems to be some sin associated with that.

If my theology is faulty it must be due to my extensive Baptist training. As a child I was trained in Baptist churches, as an adolescent in Baptist churches, as a teenager in Baptist churches, and at various extended periods of time as an adult in Baptist churches, including SBC, CBC, ABC, and FREEWILL Baptist churches. I was a good student, I learned to not like Catholic Doctrine, or Lutheran Doctrine, or Methodist doctrine, or Presbyterian doctrine. I also learned how to read the bible in a way that opens the whole of the bible to my beliefs, and to discern truth where dogma prevails. In my 40+ years of adulthood, I have encountered many like yourself, so you are not unique, and your accusations are empty.

I do not post to please you, the person; nor do I post to confront you, the person. So if you think that I do, you are simply mistaken. I post concerning the words that others post, and could care less about the who that posted them. In all likelyhood I will never come face to face with any of them until we are in that place where none of this matters.

 

So our perception of our life experiences trumps scripture in the determination of truth? All I can say is, "Yikes!" There are major problems with your theology that go way beyond this Calvinism vs Arminianism thing.

 

No Russell55, that is not what I am saying. The following is my opinion, and I Contend that Calvinism rejects life experience because it is not specifically spelled out in scripture.

Therefore Calvinism is invalid by its own limitations.

Calvinism does not consider the evidence readily available everywhere in the creation that man is present.

Calvinism fails to understand the image of God in which we are created.

Calvinism is rigid to the point of being unbelievable.

Calvinism is selective of scripture to an extreme.

Calvinism extracts verses of scripture out of the context that establishes meaning, in order to support a portion of its doctrine.

 

That's because I was responding in particular to Yelsew's post, and assertion that since the fall men are still somehow "very good", but lost because of sin, and using those two passages to refute that notion. The list is directly from those two passages.

No, it's not only those who are hardened by God. It's all those who live according to the flesh. (Romans 8:5-8):

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh...For the mind set on the flesh is death...because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the Law of God, for it is not even able to do so; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Those who are living according to the flesh are unable to please God. It is not within their ability to submit themselves to God, because they are God haters. And Ephesians 2--one of the passages the list came from--tells us that walking according to the flesh is part of being dead in sins, the condition we were all in up until God made us alive together with Christ. Up until the time God's merciful hand raised us up we were hostile to God and unable to please Him, because we could not overcome our hostility and submit ourselves to Him.

Any compliance we have toward God, any positive response to the genuine call of the gospel, is a direct result of His merciful kindness toward us, kindness that intervenes while we are still hostile, while we are still dead in sin, while we are still fulfilling the desires of our flesh, while we are still following Satan. That kindness takes people enslaved to the lusts of the flesh, and saves them by regenerating them and renewing them, by making them alive with Christ.

 

Life experience and the evidence in creation ought to be filtered through the lense of scripture, rather than filtering the scripture through the lense of life experience and the evidence in creation. Your view of scripture is way too low, Yelsew, and I am sorry for you.....

 

Scripture says the carnal mind is enmity

this is more than just hostile it is open
hostility.

Thanks for reminding me, so it seems Arminiamism, or "Free-Willism" wants to remove that power which Scripture establishes.
God Bless.
Bro. Dallas

 

With over fifty years of filtering life experience through the lens of scripture, I believe I am at least partially qualified to do so! I believe that also qualifies me to filter scripture against the life experience filter.

 

With over fifty years of filtering life experience through the lens of scripture, I believe I am at least partially qualified to do so! I believe that also qualifies me to filter scripture against the life experience filter.

Stick to filtering life experience through scripture and the partiality will lessen.

God Bless.
Bro. Dallas

 

Remove the beam from thine own eye before removing the splinter from mine.

 

My comfort is that if I know anything, it is because God chose to reveal that knowledge to me; I find no comfort in believing otherwise.

God Bless Yelsew,

Bro. Dallas

 

Do you think we believe otherwise? All things we have been given have come from God. This in no way contradicts the biblical teaching of man's responsiblity to respond to the call of God through the gospel message. He reveals knowledge and we must respond. Don't you agree?

Bill

 

We respond according to His enabling power. Otherwise, the gospel message is nothing more than noise pollution to the natural man.

God Bless.
Bro. Dallas

 

Once again I don't disagree. We do respond by his enabling power.

"For the gospel is the POWER OF GOD UNTO SALVATION FOR EVERYONE WHO BELIEVES."

He has enabled us through the power of the gospel.

With Respect,
Bill

 

EVERYONE IS QUALIFIED BY "WHO" not everyone, (which by the way is singular) believes, those who do not do so because the power of God was not in the Gospel message in which they heard, though they may have been sitting next to one, who received that power of God and by that power believed, the unbeliever remains in his lost condition, because the Gospel was effectually applied to him by the Holy Spirit.

I think we do disagree brother.

God Bless.
Bro. Dallas