Why are you challenging people... in your heart, do you disbelieve it and are looking for good reasons not to... or are you just spoiling for a fight? In any event, I can’t help you cause I believe in it also.
I have yet to see a good argument against Total Depravity. Those opposed to the idea still suggest God enables men to believe. I've also seen silly arguments (a baby crying, a toddler being "selfish", etc.).
How can Romans 1 be true if we are totally depraved in the way some Calvinists assert we are. Romans 1:19, 21
Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God has showed it unto them.
Because, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
I would propose that if total depravity is true then it conflicts with vs. 21 of Romans 1.
I also believe in the Doctrine of Total Depravity but if someone who has knowledge of God Totally Depraved anymore?... Brother Glen:)
Hebrews 8:10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
8:11 And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
8:12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
8:13 In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.
No, sir. You're looking for someone to try to change your mind. You have no intention of changing your mind, just like I have no intention of changing my mind. Like you said, you're already "convinced."
That being said, I also believe in the total depravity of man. Romans 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. (KJV)
That God would save a little kid that rode each Sunday on a rusty, old church bus to a Southern Baptist Church in central Illinois, then call him to preach, and give him the honor of serving Him now for four decades, is beyond my ability to understand. We serve a great God!
He has free will - so he can choose or not choose to change his mind.
He is asking that we provide compelling evidence to see if he will allow evidence to be a valid reason for changing his mind.
But as you point out he is not saying that he has chosen to allow evidence to do that -- rather his statement is that he has chosen not to allow anything to change his mind no matter the evidence, and so "can we force" him to change his mind against his will.. Which of course - we cannot.
If you knew every word , every thought you would think for the next 24 hours and could not stray from that not even one inch... would you view yourself as having 'free will'?
I think you would not. Yet that is how God views Himself.
Free will does not apply to God. "Free will" is the mistaken concept that lost mankind is NOT in bondage to the law of sin and death and has the innate ability to come to God on his own.