NUTS FOR ARMINIANS TO CRACK

I agree that it is possible that the biblical authors did mean exactly as Sproul and Gowens contend in their works. In proving their point; however, they provide great support for understanding other passages that Calvinists often use as proof texts for their doctrine.

For example, 2 Thess. 2:13-14: But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth, 14 to which He called you by our gospel, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Keeping in mind what Sproul said about the inclusion of the Gentiles in God's plan of salvation don't you think it is probable that Paul, as an apostle to the Gentiles, writing to a predominately Gentile church, was thanking God that they, the Gentiles were chosen to be included in God's plan of salvation from the very beginning?

 

I agree that it is possible that the biblical authors did mean exactly as Sproul and Gowens contend in their works. In proving their point; however, they provide great support for understanding other passages that Calvinists often use as proof texts for their doctrine.

For example, 2 Thess. 2:13-14: But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth, 14 to which He called you by our gospel, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Keeping in mind what Sproul said about the inclusion of the Gentiles in God's plan of salvation don't you think it is probable that Paul, as an apostle to the Gentiles, writing to a predominately Gentile church, was thanking God that they, the Gentiles were chosen to be included in God's plan of salvation from the very beginning? </font>[/QUOTE]Dear Skandelon,
I think that is very likely, but I don't think that rules out the truth of the statement to 'believers' throughout consecutive ages either.

I know you did not say that, and you did not perhaps mean for me to think that you implied that, but this passage can truly be applied to every believer, can it not?

God Bless
Bro. Dallas Eaton

 

You have created a falacy of reason here Dallas.

Let me explain. Does God want you to obey him? Of course he does. Do you always obey him? Of course you don't . So according to your reason God failed. You seem to miss the variable that God sovereignly left in the mix. That is human volition. You have a choice. If you don't then God might as well have caused the rocks the cry out in the first place. We are not rocks and we are not animals. We are thinking, reasoning, and decerning beings who God instilled a conscience and the ability to choose within. To deny that is to deny scriptures most basic teachings. </font>[/QUOTE]Now, perhaps my computer will let my 'volition' to respond to this be practiced :D ;)

I believe my volition prior to regeneration is dead in trespasses and sins; I believe I am as dead in that condition as Lasarus in the tomb. Therefore, by my volition I do not come, care, nor wish to hear anything about your Christ. Then, comes regeneration, the quickening of my spirit. This comes because of what? Because all of a sudden I have desire to 'not' be condemned in my unbelief?

If so dear brother, then I am more powerful than God and still have no need of him, I am become my own god, willing myself into the eternal family of God according to my will, my pleasure, my fear, my emotion, my 'volition' which is in bondage to the sinful pleasures of this flesh, bound to this world, and unable to 'see' the spiritual nakedness in which I stand. Justification, election, adoption, all eternal decrees of God, all branches one of another, growing on the same tree, from the same root, having the same source, in eternity, relating to my regeneration, the above three are unable to be separated and made to bow to my 'volition'.

God Bless
Bro. Dallas Eaton

 

Sure this passage applies to every believer who has been chosen to hear the gospel which would include both Jews and Gentiles, not just Jews as once thought.

But even if you apply this passage to mean that Paul is thanking God for the salvation of all believers and not specifically for the inclusion of the Gentiles you still don't have conclusive evidence that Paul support Calvinism. Paul could simply be saying to all humanity that God has chosen them all to be saved "through belief in the truth" but he is addressing those who have already expressed that belief in the truth. In other words, to support the Calvinist premise the verse would have to go on to say, "I thank God he has chosen you and not some others to be saved through...." You get my point.

 

Yes Dear Brother,
I understand your point, but you are leaving out that fact this passage declares those believers of the truth Paul is addressing to have been 'sanctified' by the Holy Spirit to the belief of the truth.

They have been 'separated' set apart to the belief of the truth, see my point? then, if this only applies to the present believers, and not to the ages to come since the statement, what good is it to our edification?

Bro. Dallas

 

I don't get how you could possibly believe in the omnipotent power of God and believe this statement. Do you believe that God is so weak, so uncreative, so lacking in power that He could not create a world where anyone one else within it had a true choice in regard to his or her salvation?

You think that man having a choice makes him "more powerful than God?????" I guess Adam was more powerful than God because even Calvinists affirm that he had a choice in the garden. I guess Satan was "more powerful than God" because he independantly chose to rebell against God. Don't you think its possible for God to have created a world were a created being could act independantly of Him without His compromising His own omnipotence and sovereignty over his creation? Or is that the one thing God couldn't do?

Couldn't it be that God created a world where He remained sovereign while other created being still had free will? Or do you believe that world with such beings would be impossible for God to create?

 

God did create that world, he set man in the garden of Eden in that creation, by man's will, he fell, not God.

Now, we have inherited by natural birth and prior to regeneration, all the benefits of man's 'free-will'.

Bro. Dallas

 

Brother Skandelon,

Good day.

YOU TO BROTHER DALLAS: Do you believe that God is so weak, so uncreative, so lacking in power that He could not create a world where anyone one else within it had a true choice in regard to his or her salvation?

You think that man having a choice makes him "more powerful than God?????... Couldn't it be that God created a world where He remained sovereign while other created being still had free will? Or do you believe that world with such beings would be impossible for God to create?

ME: The calvinists I know believe unregenerated man DOES have a free will in regard to salvation. Didnt leading calvinist Jonathan Edwards himself write his greatest work and entitle it The Freedom of The Will?

It is easy to be a calvinist and still maintain unregenerated man has a free will. Why? Because free will IS the ability to choose what we want. R.C. Sproul stated, "free will is the ability to choose according to our desires." What determines our choices is our desires. So, the problem with unregerated mankind isnt having a lack of choice, but rather having evil desires that produce evil choices. Scripture tells us our, " heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked" (Jer 17:9) and "5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5) and finally, "

"Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one." (Job 14:4)


Saved by grace,

Brother Joe

 

Brother Skandelon,

Hello.

YOU TO BROTHER DALLAS:You think that man having a choice makes him "more powerful than God?????"

ME: Yes IF that choice makes God's will DEPENDENT on mans'. For example, if God willed that every human being go to heaven and some didnt, then this would mean man's will can over rule God's will. That God's will is subordinate to ours. This of course is impossible as the reverse is what acually is true-man's will is subordinate to God's will.


YOU TO BROTHER DALLAS: I guess Adam was more powerful than God because even Calvinists affirm that he had a choice in the garden. I guess Satan was "more powerful than God" because he independantly chose to rebell against God.

ME: Here we have an example of man's will being free, but God forordaining it to accomplish his ultimate goal of redemption. God does this often, such as with Joseph's brothers betrayal of Joseph "But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive." (Genesis 50:20) Another example is God using Judas's choice to betray Christ to bring about the redemption of mankind- the perfect expression of love and mercy. "and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled"(John 17:12) The important thing to remember is that in all these events, none of them would happen unless God allowed it to accomplish his greater purpose.


YOU TO BROTHER DALLAS: Don't you think its possible for God to have created a world were a created being could act independantly of Him without His compromising His own omnipotence and sovereignty over his creation? Or is that the one thing God couldn't do?

ME: Man is free, but within limits and it has to be this way. Why? "Human freedom can never restrict the sovereignty of God. That is what sovereignty is all about. If God's sovereignty is restricted by man's freedom, then God is not sovereign, man is sovereign." (Sproul, Chosen By God). I liken it to a parent child relationship. The child is free, but within limits of his parents boundaries. For example the child may ask to take the car out 5 days in a row and be granted permission. On the sixth day his father refuses. The boy is free, but within the sovereign rule of his father. On the other hand, if the boy could refuse to obey his father, take the car, and get away with it, thus ultimatly controlling the car, then a strong arguement could be made that it is in fact the child who is sovereingly ruling his father.

Saved by grace,

Brother Joe

 

Dear Skandelon,
Do you think man was created and therefore finite? Or did man create God and man is infinite?

Man was created in original righteousness, in this position man possessed a true free will. Because man was created and is finite (Satan also) neither man nor satan has possession of sinlessness.

Precisely because satan and man was given a free will, they freely chose to sin against God. Therefore we are conceived under the same condemnation of the original created man.

Bro. Dallas

 

So you are saying you believe man was created with true free will?

How can that be? You indicated earlier that if man was truely free then God couldn't be completely sovereign. Did God give up his sovereignity in the garden?

 

Dear Brother,
I believe we hold differing definitions of both 'free' and 'will'.

In order to be free, is meant according to one's nature. Man is free to act in accordance to his nature, his nature is enmity to God, not becoming enmity, but enmity because of the fall.

will is that which man desires to perform that brings some type of pleasure or sense of accomplishment.

The two sons, one asked to go and do and he said I will, but did not, the second asked to go and do and said I will not, but later repented, which did the 'will' of the father and which did their own 'will'?

The will is bound by the nature, but it is free to operate within the bounds of that nature. In order for regeneration to occur in a person, this natural will has to be broken, otherwise, even a 'choice' for Jesus so called is enacted from within the bounds of the human will, either way you cut it, this does not produce eternal life, and if it could, would be in direct supervision of the will of God who cannot and does not operate outside his bounds (holiness, justice, mercy, righteousness), but that man has the power to move himself from the bounds of his carnal nature and into the bounds of the new creature in Christ Jesus? Isn't this the deception Eve fell for in the garden? Isn't this the position Adam chose, when he had a perfect viable nature in which to reject being with her in this sin?

Then this is the sin we are born under, conceived of both man and woman we are inheritors of that nature which is at enmity with God.

Bro. Dallas

 

Dallas,

In relation to man having the ability to choose salvation (free will) you wrote: "If so dear brother, then I am more powerful than God and still have no need of him, I am become my own god"

And then you wrote: "Man was created in original righteousness, in this position man possessed a true free will."

So, you believe that if man today had the ability to choose salvation or reject it by their own volition that we would be more powerful than God and without need of him. Yet, you believe that Adam had a free will. So, my question is this:

Was Adam more powerful than God and without need of God because he had a free will?

 

So, God is the one who enables man to choose (or not choose).

The serpent said "your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God , knowing good and evil. Nothing about regeneration. How could it be; they weren't even fallen (and carnal) yet until they bought the deception being offered them!

 

Dear Brother EricB,
Can an unregenerate person know good from evil except to know what they think to be distinctions of these?

Bro. Dallas

 

You're still trying to pair the Fall of Adam with this debate. Adam was not in the fallen state we call "unregenerate", and I do not even know what "knowing good from evil" has to do with the unregenerate today.

 

Brother Eric,

YOU: You're still trying to pair the Fall of Adam with this debate. Adam was not in the fallen state we call "unregenerate"

ME: One interesting thing to ponder (though not directly related to this debate) that I heard a preacher say once and I believe it to be true. He pointed out that Adam before the fall was not in a state of evil, but neither was he in a state of righteousness, rather he was in a state of innoncence. He then went on to assert that it isnt enough to be innoncent ( i.e. sinless) to get into heaven, but rather one must be made righteous. The distinguishment is important. As our Lord said "accept your righteousness exceeds that of the Phariees you will by no means see the kingdom."

It wasnt enough for Jesus to simply die on the cross to take the penalty of our sin, we ALSO NEEDED HIM TO FIRST LIVE A RIGHTEOUS LIFE. Thus, Christ is the ultimate solution in a two-fold transaction he #1 takes our sin, but goes farther, he #2 imputes HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS unto us, thereby making us acceptable to God, both sinless AND righteous. It was for this reason the Christ had to first live before he sacrificed himself.

Adam before the fall had the sinless part down, but I dont believe he had the righteous part down!

Saved by grace,

Brother Joe

 

Brother Joe,
I am in agreement with you, Adam was created without sin, but he was neither righteous nor holy, had he been so, he could not have fallen, imho.

Christ's atonement is threefold;
</font>

• 1. holy life</font>
• 2. vicarious death</font>
• 3. resurrection by the spirit of holiness</font>

This is seen typified in the wave offering of the OT, I believe.

Bro. Dallas

 

I don't believe there's really any difference between "righteousness" and "sinlessness"/"innocence" the way you're making it out to be —in regards to salvation/damnation. If someone is not guilty of sin, God has no reason to refuse them from Heaven. This is an important point, as while your side denies that God condemns people for other than their sin (as in so-called "vessels of wrath" condemned from before they were born and did good or evil), still, what you're telling me now leads to just that.
I would make a distinction of "righteousness" in that case, only in the sense that the additional factor of righteousness was testing. In that case, since Adam failed, so now his resulting sin is a matter of a lack of righteousness.
Of course, Christ was God, so He had natural righteousness. We have His righteousness imputed to us now, and then when we are transformed, we will be forever righteous and sinless.