You will need to define what you mean by 'power in himself.'
Would you consider someone who is confronted by the powerful, Holy Spirit inspired Gospel appeal to trust in the righteousness of someone else for his salvation as having power in himself?
You will also need to define what you mean by 'without divine sovereignty.'
Is God means of sending the Holy Spirit inspired gospel appeal for reconciliation into all the world a work of divine sovereignty?
And do you believe sovereignty is better illustrated as God playing both sides of the chess board to ensure victory, or as God being so wise, knowing and powerful that he can soundly defeat any autonomous opponent who comes against Him?
Grace has everly been with God, seeing that Noah found it in the sight of God. However, Grace was finalized from the cross to the tomb and His ascension.
MB, not so sure it would. Are we not as frail and prone to error as the expositors of doctrine that each of us read and relish in?
We should (IMO) humbly recognize that there are, and always will be many questions and tensions that we simply will never resolve in our present estate.
Evangelist,
I think you are casting an extremely wide net here.
I don't know Mark Cahill, but I have read some of Geisler, no where in anything I have read do I find him questioning God's soveriegnty.
Now, he may cast questions and doubts as to HOW YOU ( and others) view that sovereignty.
God has chosen the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. That's how salvation works. We preach, and those who believe are saved, and those who don't shall be damned.
Also, God has chosen the Gospel as His appeal to lost mankind.
Here is the bottom line when it comes to the issue of Pelagianism:
If you affirm that the Gospel IS a powerful work of the Holy Spirit then YOU can't believe that someone who believes the Gospel is doing so apart from a powerful work of the Holy Spirit, can you???????????
How does one go about responding to a powerful appeal of God without being affected by the power of that appeal?
They cannot.
Thus if one accepts it then they certainly didn't do so apart from it's power and if they reject it they certainly didn't do so because anything was lacking in the power of the gospel appeal.
Am I right?
If not, show me my error????
I am not sure what you are asking.
The bible does teach that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Rm 1:16) and I believe there is enough evidence to suggest that the gospel appeal enables the individual to respond to it, after all; why else would they be held response-able if they are not able-to-respond?