Do ALL Calvinist Say that faith Itself Comes From God, is A Gift Directly?

Certainly!

That is, in essence, how total depravity works out.

 

How are they going to see it unless it is revealed? And who can reveal it, save God?

They can know "of" salvation, but knowing of (head knowledge -- which seems to be your requirement) and becoming born again from above are two different things. Or, do you disagree? To paraphrase Nicodemus, "How can we be born again?" Of course, Jesus took him to task for asking such a silly question. God can do anything God wants to do, when He wants to do it, and to whom He wants it done to. And more, we won't kick and scream. We will bow down and worship Him for allowing us the chance!

A thought... How do you deal with Romans 14:11. Surely God will be dragging every single sinful human being into His divine presence, and He WILL exert His divine sovereignty, whether or not they like it. Or, perhaps you side with Rob Bell here, and see human freedom existing to the levels where we can elect ourselves into or out of heaven or even hell...

 

How can they confess Jesus is Lord except by the Spirit of God?

 

Well, I *believe* the answer to that is yes. There might be some fringe calivinists that understand the truth of free will, but if so, it would be a very small minority.

Probably 98% of the calvinist are blinded to the truth of free will.

Their truth standard is Calvin, rather then the scriptures.

God help them.

 

I certainly do.

 

Im with you brother....praise God:thumbs:

 

Sorry, but youve been told a thousand times that Calvin is not a godlike figure to us but we follow Christ & Scriptures. In turn, I sincerely pray to God to assist you in your own blindness.

 

What do the scriptures show?

John 20:29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

Do you see any magic here? Jesus himself said Thomas believed because he saw him.

John 1:50 Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou? thou shalt see greater things than these.

How about here? Do you see some magical regeneration that caused Nathanael to believe?

John 4:39 And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did.

How about here? Did the woman at the well have the supernatural ability to make the men of her town believe?

John 4:40 So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them: and he abode there two days.
41 And many more believed because of his own word;
42 And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.

Again, anything magical here, or does it say they believed Jesus simply because of his words?

John 2:23 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did.

It does say Jesus performed miracles here, but not that he supernaturally regenerated these persons, it says they believed because they saw his miracles.

John 8:30 As he spake these words, many believed on him.

What caused them to believe?

Acts 9:42 And it was known throughout all Joppa; and many believed in the Lord.

Peter had just raised Dorcas from the dead, and the news of this spread through Joppa. Did those who told others have power to regenerate others?

Acts 18:8 And Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized.

Again, anything magical here?

I could probably show you at least ten more examples, but I think you get the drift.

Men have the ability to believe, although no man could possibly believe in Jesus unless they have heard of him. Men can believe by seeing miracles, men can believe by being convinced or persuaded by sound arguments from scripture, men can believe by hearing the testimony of others.

Men cannot believe in a vacuum, but men can believe in Jesus when he is revealed to them. This revelation comes from God, therefore God gets all the credit. Without this revelation all men would be in utter darkness and could not possibly believe. But God doesn't have to magically change a man's soul to believe, all men are created with the God given ability to believe.

 

EWF....

I have no doubt that you sincerely believe that.

I appreciate your concern.

 

Exactly! And who sent the powerful gospel if not God?

I agree. They are two different things, but what keeps something as powerful as the truth of the gospel, that is known in your head from affecting your heart?

 

One's own "affecting your heart" is not the same as God in-dwelling (causing one to become born again from above in a supernatural sense) that individual. Can you not see the distinction, or is your system so centered on the actions of man that God is irrelevant, save for giving us a word and an example? You are drifting again into Pelagian waters... And that is not offered as some derogatory moniker. The more you argue FOR anthropocentric salvation the less you need God.

 

Reply to Skandelon

This is just yet another word game, a "moving the goal posts logical fallacy."

God arranged the Fall, and caused via the curse, as a consequence of Adam's sin that we were (1) made sinners and (2) were corrupted such that we are predisposed to sin. What Calvinism does is add to these biblical truths, that our corruption results in "always" desiring sinful stuff and "never" desiring God.

Now to create the illusion in the minds of the mislead, that the Calvinism view does not make God the author of sin, they say all mankind makes a "free-will" "choice" to sin. But if God's curse makes us unable to choose something other than sinful stuff, that just "moves the goal post" and attempts to hid the obvious in a cloud of arcane verbiage, i.e compatibilism.

 

Reply to AresMan,

Did not God create mankind and "give" mankind the capacity to rely and trust in what we believe is true? Yes.

Did not God give us the revelation of Himself and His Christ, and implore us to believe in Him? Yes

Thus "faith" used as a noun and meaning that which we put our trust in, the information, i.e the name of Christ, is "gift" and the capacity to trust in that revelation is a gift, but we autonomously "choose" to trust in Christ or not if we (1) are exposed to the gospel and (2) our heart is not so hardened that we cannot understand the gospel.

The NASB renders 2 Thessalonians 3:2, "and that we may be delivered from perverse and evil men, for not all have faith." So the actual idea is some men do have faith but not everyone.

The same Greek word, in verb form is usually translated "believe" (believed, believing) and refers to our autonomous choice to trust in the "faith" (noun meaning information provided by the gospel).

And finally the same Greek word is also translated as faithful when the context seems to indicate that is the idea, i.e the fruit of the Spirit is faithfulness.

 

Reply to Savedbymercy

Actually two presalvation gifts are spoken of in scripture, before salvation we have the gifts of God's revelation and the gift of being able to autonomously rely and trust in that revelation.

And then when we are saved, by God spiritually placing us in Christ, and sealed in Christ with the Holy Spirit, we get more gifts. The fruit of the Spirit, applicable to all believers, is faithfulness. Every saved, born again, regenerated child of God gets this gift which provides not only our eternal security (1 Peter 1:3-5) but also enables us to bear the fruit of faithful service. We strive to utilize that part of the gift to an ever greater degree.

Additionally some but not all saved people are gifted with "faith" meaning they provide the body of Christ with solid examples of what we all strive to be, powerful servants of God whose reliance on God provides a lesson for all. 1 Corinthians 12:7-9 is talking about separate gifts of the spirit after salvation, and since the gift of faith in view here is not given to everyone, it can have nothing to do with salvation. Based on 1 Corinthians 13:2, the gift of faith appears to be strong trust and no doubt, so that (using Jesus’ hyperbole) they could move mountains. These people would lead the way in training others to grow in faith and lean not on their own understanding.

Regeneration, rebirth, being made spiritually alive, occurs when we are spiritually placed in Christ and not while we are outside of Christ in a spiritually dead state. That is the meaning of regeneration. Calvinism tries to say we are somehow made alive, regenerated, quickened before we are spiritually placed in Christ. But no support for that false premise will be forthcoming. So the order of salvation is God gives all the capacity to believe, and then provides the revelation for us to believe in, and if we autonomously choose to believe in Christ with all our heart, then God credits our worthless faith as righteousness and spiritually places us in Christ where we are made alive together with Christ, with a new heart and as a spiritual child of God we have the right to become physical children of God, our predestined inheritance, at the second coming of Christ.

 

I agree. However, faith effectually comes from hearing (listening).

Jas 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
Jas 1:18 Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

James 1:18 says that God regenerated by using the word of truth. "Of his own will" is a participle which means "counseling." Counseling (determinately, he brought us forth. Yes, God uses His Word! He does it effectually according to His own will.

Yes, everyone's experience is different. The simplest way to say it is "God did it all!"

 

Van, you have missed the mark in both directions with your comments on Calvinism. And, no, this is not just some put down because you have it all figured out -- it is a call for you to ACTUALLY figure some of this stuff out before you go and place your foot in your mouth once again.

Calvinism DOES NOT stipulate that "our corruption results in "always" desiring sinful stuff and "never" desiring God." You misunderstand total depravity. Calvinism does stipulate, however, that our choices will be in line with our nature, which is sinful. In any case, even if a great and godly "choice" is made by a person, that choice is of no consequence in the hierarchy of God, for God has made plain that our works are nothing but "filthy rags." (Isa 64:6, a concept picked up by Paul and carried forward into the NT era.)

Neither does Calvinism "say all mankind makes a "free-will" "choice" to sin..." We do not advocate "free-will" in that manner. Mankind sins because we are sinners. Really no choice in the matter at all. We just do what comes naturally. Also, God is NOT the author of sin. To even suggest such -- for the sake of argument or otherwise -- is blasphemy! No person claiming the name of Christ can say that there is ANY darkness within God! Using this as a means of argument means one of two things... 1) You need to repent, for you are carrying on the work of the enemy, becoming "the accuser of the brethren; or 2) You are simply misinformed and need to first learn the truth, then recant and make public the truth.

 

Splendid commentary AresMan:thumbsup:

simplest way to say it is "God did it all!"