Calvinists have a "higher" view of mankind than Non-Calvinists

It's a paradox

 

Play scriptural zing my friend. No thanks.

I have said it before. It is a paradox. The bible supports both views. Neither side is heretical.

 

My friend. You are getting ahead of yourself. This is not begging the question. I am not asking you to define what determines your freedom nor am I putting forth an argument. That is your interpretation.

This is a simple question. Why do you believe and others don't believe?

My friend. You say, Calvinists take it too far, but are you not doing the same with "believers being dead to sin"? My friend. Spiritually dead means void of the Holy Spirit which is the only way one can respond.

My friend. Paul saw the light but he also heard God's voice the same voice Lazarus heard when he was called forth from the dead. If God sends means to change men as you say. Change what? That doesn't explain how does God get men to love Him that are born hating Him

When Lazarus was dead. How did he hear the voice of God? Wouldn't Jesus have to enable a dead Lazarus to hear him so he could come forth?

What about when Jesus healed the lame. He told him, "rise up and walk". He was lame. He couldn't walk. Was there not power in God's voice as well to enable the man to walk; bear in mind without any physical therapy to build strength in his legs?

 

Heretical?? Not as long as Calvinism like freewill both agree that Christ died for our sins was burried and rose again on the third day both are saved. How ever Iron sharpens iron. I come here to be sharpened and to sharpen. No man has a perfect doctrine other than Christ's doctrine. Christ death, burrial, and resurrection. Is that perfect doctrine. The rest is just semantics.
MB

 

Honest question here. Where is there undeniable reference to the position that one must be "regenerated" as in an act of election by in order to have a faith that "saves"?

 

I think this is the paradox Christus Doulos is speaking about. It simply doesn't exist.
MB

 

Actually, it all starts in the Election of God, as it He that determined whom would become predestined to become saved and into the Body of Christ, the Church...

Then next question would be , on what basis would God make his election?

Either His own will/purposes, directly involved, or limiting Himself to waiting upon how we would decide to accept/reject christ?

We are FORCED to conclude that God chose option A, as we are unable to come to Christ due to sin natures....

2 fundemental disagreements here...

HOW God does His Election, the basis of it...

WHAT the effect of the fall was on man!

 

How about on the basis of foreknowledge?

 

Once again, IF we were so devastated by the effects of the fall that we cannot come to Jesus by own violation, then God could not chose that basis as means to His election, for IF He was to wait upon our decision to accept Jesus in order to get saved, NONE would get saved!

 

What I mean is..God knows the heart. Just like Jesus knew what was in men's heart and what they were thinking. Doesn't foreknowledge mean that God knows something beforehand? In other words, God knows every outcome of every circumstance before it happens and can know beforehand if a person will receive Him given a certain circumstance. Take Paul's conversion for instance. God knew that given a certain set of circumstances that Paul would believe and therefore could He not have elected Paul on that basis?

Edit: Strike that. I just looked up Rom 8:29 in 2 commentaries and I think I messed up. Whoops.

 

The answer to your question is nuanced throughout the Scriptures, just like th Trinity. If you are looking for a single "proof text" you will never find it. But neither will you find a proof text that says that man's free will belief is salvific. In fact, a search for "free will" will turn up nothing. It too is assumed from context nuanced throughout Scripture.

That is why we are still debating these points 2000 years later.

So, because of that, we apply theological propositions to what is written in Scripture in order to discern the mind of God. Both sides in this debate do the same thing. To say anything else is 1) to divide God or God's Word in a way that God does not divide, and 2) to spin, warp, take out of context, and/or mis-handle the Word. Will and sovereignty is "yes." in Scripture. Yet, so is God as "author and finisher of faith," our culpability for our own sin, justification as an act solely by God (adoption, regeneration, sealing of the Spirit, etc.), and the big elephant in the room, the plain fact that IS expressed in the Word that God will not have any competition for His throne. He decides, He prepares, He plans, He wills, and He acts. We get to go along for the ride based purely on His manifold grace and mercy.

 

Since both sides are polar opposites on twin issues of basis of the Election of God, and effects of the fall on man...

We will debating this until either death or rapture or second coming!( depending on ones Eschatology!)

 

But that is not what it says in Scripture. You are applying human logic to the problem and arriving at a satisfactory conclusion, well enough, but if God says otherwise all the human logic applied to the issue is of no consequence.

We not only see "examples" of God's election in Scripture (based on the recorded history of God's dealing with individuals and nations, and yes, even animals and the physical universe) but also passages that confirm that God does indeed "elect." Unlike the greater issue of sovereignty versus will, election is sure in Scripture. We can take a stand, and the stand is not for what God sees us doing after the fact, but rather that God elected us before the foundation of the world.

Deut. 7:6-8 (ESV)
"For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. [7] It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, [8] but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.


Deut. 7:15 (ESV)
And the Lord will take away from you all sickness, and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you knew, will he inflict on you, but he will lay them on all who hate you.


Psalm 65:4 (ESV)
Blessed is the one you choose and bring near,
to dwell in your courts!
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house,
the holiness of your temple!


Isaiah 45:4-5 (ESV)
For the sake of my servant Jacob,
and Israel my chosen,
I call you by your name,
I name you, though you do not know me.
[5] I am the Lord, and there is no other,
besides me there is no God;
I equip you, though you do not know me,


Mark 13:20 (ESV)
And if the Lord had not cut short the days, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he shortened the days.


John 1:13 (ESV)
who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.


John 6:44 (ESV)
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.


John 6:65 (ESV)
And he said, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father."


John 15:16 (ESV)
You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.


John 17:2 (ESV)
since you have given him [Jesus] authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.

Acts 2:39 (ESV)
For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself."


Acts 11:17 (ESV)
If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way?"


Romans 8:28-30 (ESV)
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. [29] For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. [30] And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.


And, perhaps the grandest of all the passages (tons that I have not cited that are similar to above) this from Paul that seems to answer EVERY objection raised here:

Romans 9:10-26 (ESV)
And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, [11] though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call— [12] she was told, "The older will serve the younger." [13] As it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
[14] What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! [15] For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." [16] So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. [17] For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." [18] So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
[19] You will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?" [20] But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" [21] Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use? [22] What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, [23] in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— [24] even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? [25] As indeed he says in Hosea,
"Those who were not my people I will call 'my people,'
and her who was not beloved I will call 'beloved.' "
[26] "And in the very place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,'
there they will be called 'sons of the living God.' "

 

gl, see my edit in my previous post.

 

of course, you wil get back that either it makes God "unfair, picking sides", or else that we misunderstood, was JUST refering to those 2 people. period!

And they will say He chose based upon what he foresaw them doing in the Future!

 

I appreciate your honesty here. This is why we have calvinists and arminians, democrats and republicans, chocolate and vanilla.

 

I know that I am often painted into a Calvinist corner, but I really disavow the term, for it has come to have perjorative connotations along the line of "gay" (which used to mean happy) and other hijacked terms.

As for honesty, as a serious student of the Bible and theology based on that Bible, honesty is a first level requirement. That is often overlooked or forgotten in these debates. I really have no ax to grind here, just speaking forth what I sincerly believe the Word to say. I have to stand before God one of these days and give account for my words and thoughts. I tremble at that thought, in that I might have something wrong or might lead someone astray. That is why, if anything, I tend to give a higher creedence to God's sovereignty than to man's free will. Both may be true, but if I have to come down on one side or the other, I will choose God every time. I will bow as a slave to my Lord before I usurp His authority by suggesting that somehow in some way I am worthy of His attention. I am not. It is pure grace!

 

:thumbs::thumbs::thumbs: