Security of the Believer Beliefs

Dustin, You need to listen real close to this discussion. You are on the cutting edge of the possible discovery of the beliefs of #2 position of Drfuss that sound exremely close to the very beliefs that Pelagius was charged with that you called 'heresy' and 'damnable theological slop.'

Stay tuned.

 

I don't know whether to be flattered or offended by your posts, HP.

If calling heresy what it is calls for a new name for "evil" and "intolerant" theology, then count me a "Dustinist" all the way.

The plain fact is, we have absolutly none of Pelagius' writings today. In fact, there is no historical mention of him aside from this controversy. He kinda just shows up, starts debating Augustine, then falls off the face of the earth. After he disappeared, one of his followers, a man named Celestius, I believe, took up the pen against Augustine. But the fact that jsust about everyone but Pelagius and his followers called it heresy says a whole lot.

So, the only historical evidence we have of Pelagian beliefs are the letters against them. In the light of what I've already read on it, (a lot, trust me) I have concluded that the doctrine Pelagius and his friends peddled were not in line with Scripture at all. So in light of what we have at hand, I have NO PROBLEM AT ALL with calling it a heresy. If you want to know more about Pelagianism, read up on Charles Finney. It's basically the religion of natural man. It states, "we don't need anything from God, we can do it ourselves".

That's slop in my book.

Damnable slop.


Soli Deo Gloria,
Dustin

 

Quote:
Drfuss: The list of beliefs is about man's involvement in God's grace being applied for salvation. In belief #2, man must accept grace. Man has a choice. Even though God draws man to himself, man can initially reject grace and not be saved. God's election list is a conditional electional list based on his foreknowledge of who will accept His grace and who will not.


HP: I would like to ask Drfuss the same question again, just in case my post got lost in the the pile. Drfuss, are you saying that man's will is the determining factor of who gets saved in the #2 viewpoint you listed?

 

Let me preface my remarks with the following. I am NOT, I repeat NOT, debating from my perspective whether or not Drfuss is accurate or correct in the beliefs concerning #2 at this time. I am NOT, I repeat, NOT saying that Drfuss is wrong in any way either at this time. I am simply going to interact AS IF THOUGH I do not agree, to examine and test the belief for its consistency. I trust everyone will understand this before they jump to any conclusions about #2, Drfuss’s beliefs, or my own. This is strictly a test.

What do you mean, “mans’ response to God’s drawing and grace is a factor in his salvation?” Is not man dead, i.e., totally unable to do anything on his own, including responding to any gospel message, without first being regenerated by God?

 

HP: Let’s see if I am understanding your #2. View #2 claims that man is born in a totally depraved state, and that in that state can do nothing of his own. God then has to come along and regenerate you so that you can then accept or reject the salvation He is offering.

IF that is the case(I may not understand you yet), either God chooses to regenerate all or His salvation is indeed limited, for without this regeneration there is no hope of salvation at least for those not regenerated. Is my assessment correct?

How can this regeneration be anything other ones natural God given abilities, if in fact it is universal to all men? If it is not universal and natural to all men, how can this view not be seen as a view necessitating a limited atonement?

 

HP: I do not believe that answers my questions in the least. The question is not whether or not God draws men, or by what means He draws them. You said that in order to receive this offer of salvation man must be regenerated by an act of God. The question I am asking is NOT about the actual drawing, but deals with the ‘regeneration’ antecedent to the drawing that you say God has to do to man in order for man to accept or reject the gift of salvation.

I ask you again. Is this regeneration, this which you say is 'the ability granted to accept or reject the gospel,’ universal to all men, and if so, why is it not considered simply natural to man, part of his universal natural abilities or makeup? If it is part of his natural abilities and makeup, why is here any need of special grace other than the grace granted to man at creation as part of his natural makeup? How is this ‘universal regeneration ability’ any different than the universal ability to reason or breath? How could this universal regeneration ability be seen as some ‘special grace’ needed for God to save man? Would not man simply need to act upon the universal abilities, this universal regenerating grace granted to everyman from birth? If this generation ability is not granted from birth, and ones dies prior to receiving it, how is this not the very essence of pure fatalism, having been damned due to the fact that God never granted to that person the necessary regeneration abilities to accept or reject the gospel?

If God does not regenerate all men universally, then all men do not have the possibility to accept or reject the gospel, for you said they had to be regenerated by God to do have the abilities necessary to accept or reject the gospel. This would establishes a necessitated limited atonement, and again, establish necessitated fatalism.

 

HP: Could you explain to us in what sense you are using the word ‘regeneration, and how that differs from an ordinary Calvinist? What can regeneration mean other than the granting of the necessary abilities to either accept or reject the gospel if regeneration must precede salvation?

When does this regeneration happen as you see? Again, is it natural to all men? You said, when I asked you before,

How does this answer speak to it being universal or not?? I asked you concerning the scope of it being universal or not. I did not ask you anything related to your answer which dealt with another issue not addressed, i.e., the ‘extent’ or measure by which he draws an individual. If you desire to answer this question forthright, it would be a simple yes or no. It is universal or it is not. Now which is it?

Is it possible for a man to die in his sins before he receives this regeneration in the sense you are using it? If it is, he never even had the possibility of escaping his fate.

You have not given any indication that #2 varies one iota in its logical ends common to any other Calvinistic fatalistic viewpoint.

 

May I pause here and say that I sincerely appreciate your spirit and effort you are putting forth in this discussion? Thank you.

May the reader understand once again that when I ask Drfuss direct questions, even if it sounds as if though I am asking or directing my questions at Drfuss personally, it is to be understood that in reality it is the views, particularly of view #2 I am addressing, whether or not that is the view of Drfuss or not. Drfuss is just being kind enough to defend and or explain that position as I understand it. I thank Drfuss again for doing that.

On to the substance.

HP: The point is whether or not this ‘regeneration' is absolutely necessary in order for man to have the abilities needed to reject or accept salvation, and if this is granted universally. I still have not heard a yes or a no in whether or not it is universal.

HP: Now here I feel as if though you once again avoid the questions. Now you tell me that it is not regeneration as I evidently described it, i.e., a granting of the necessary abilities to accept or reject the gospel message. You tell me it is God’s drawing of man. Can the reader sense the switching of focus here by Drfuss, back and forth between God granting necessary abilities to man, and now to simply ‘drawing’ man?

What does this 'drawing' you now speak in reference to consist of? Does it include any notion of the granting of abilities needed to accept or reject the salvation offer? Can you answer yes or no to this simple question? If not, are you going to agree then that man must already possess all needed abilities to respond to the gospel without being granted any special abilities via regeneration?

 

As a side not to this discussion, while waiting for Drfuss’s response, it might help the reader to understand the import of this discussion.

In the day that Pelagius lived, there was no dogma of constitutional depravity in the Church until Augustine. Augustine injected an idea foreign to the church until that time of constitutional depravity, know by the term of original sin. Not only did he inject this thought into the Church, but wielded his powers to silence and destroy, reduce to ashes, any and all that would stand in his way of making this novel invention of his ‘necessitated dogma’ within the Church. Augustine’s heathen philosophical background, in which he was steeped, played a large role in this novel notion of original sin and the granting of abilities by God to overcome this novel manufactered malady. From his heathen studies and writings as a heathen philosopher, he brought into the Church the notion that sin lied in the constitution of the flesh and not in the will of man.

Along came a man named Pelagius well know for his pious demeanor. Pelagius obviously understood clearly that such a notion as original sin also lead Augustine to develop the notion that God must regenerate the soul in order to have the necessary abilities to gain salvation. This Pelagius obviously understood to mandate a fatalistic and deterministic system of thought that Pelagius believed was not only contrary to what had been doctrine in the church for hundreds of years, contrary to reason, and contrary to the Word of God. Pelagius believed that man was endowed by his Creator with the necessary abilities to obey, and that it was not necessary for God to bestow special abilities to do so. Pelagius never denied grace at work in salvation, or that once a man had sinned that it took grace to gain salvation, but rather denied that God had to grant special grace for a man in his natural state the abilities to choose benevolence, or special grace for a sinful man to accept or reject the gospel. Pelagius obviously felt that Scripture and reason depicts man a willful rebel and rightfully blamed by God, not because he could not help himself, but rather denoted a sinner and guilty before God, because he could do something other than what he did but willfully rejected his God given powers to do right and willfully chose to do wrong.

Pelagius obviously understood clearly, as I have attempted to bear out in these discussions with Drfuss, that when one makes one a sinner from birth, and then mandates that in order to do right or to accept the gospel, God must grant to man the abilities to do so, you cannot logically avoid the trap of determinism and fatalism. You cannot logically avoid the logical end of limited atonement and unconditional election. I believe, as did Pelagius, that such notions are absolutely contradictory to Scripture, reason, and experience.

What this debate is about is whether or not one can logically escape the notions of limited atonement and unconditional election, both of which are fatalistic and deterministic notions, and cannot avoid the trap of making God the author of all evil, if carried out to their logical ends. This debate is about whether of not one can hold to the notion of original sin and the necessitated regeneration of the sinner by God in order to act benevolently or accept or reject the gospel message, without landing in the same trap of determinism that has plagued the Augustinian/Calvinistic viewpoint since Augustine’s introduction of these ideas into the Church.

The twist that this debate is now encountering is due to the fact that the object is now being shifted away from regeneration of the soul with a distinction Drfuss calls a ‘drawing of God.’ The burden of proof now lies upon Drfuss to explain just what the ‘drawing’ he speaks of consists of, and whether or not man possesses the needed abilities to act benevolently or accept or reject the gospel message apart from the granting of abilities the Calvinist is known to believe. The question is simple. Does this drawing of God Drfuss claims to be of a different nature than the granting of abilities of the Calvinistic viewpoint entail the granting of abilities as well? If so, how can View #2 support any other logical end than the purely Calvinistic held position?

If the position of viewpoint #2 rejects the position that abilities must be granted by God to man in order to accept or reject salvation, how can this differ substantially from the view point of Pelagius that believed that God did not have to grant some special grace or ability for man to act benevolently or accept and reject salvation?

 

HP: The question is not whether or not one answers a question, but does the individual answer the question directly or does one answer in a way designed to obviscate the import of the original question. I will let the reader decide for themselves.

Let me say that regardless of the untimely end that Drfuss has placed upon this debate, I none the less am very pleased as to Drfuss’s spirit in this debate as long as the debate lasted. There was never an unkind word or spirit that I detected, and I feel Drfuss conducted the discussion in a spirit befitting a believer in Christ. THANK YOU!

 

Just to set the record straight on the hijacking of this thread, I would like to point the reader to the first post. In the first post Drfuss listed six views, later revised I believe to seven views, that were presented as differing views. I entered this discussion due to the fact that I believe that Drfuss was not completely accurate in his devised distinctions. It has been and was one of the objectives of all my posts, i.e., to expose the real beliefs of certain views by careful examination of the logical ramifications of those views to the end of showing the reader that ‘in real import or reality’ such views differ in no meaningful way from the standard Calvinistic deterministic fatalistic views that have existed since Augustine.

What I see attempted in this list is an attempt to re-package the old dogmas under new names via sophistic argumentation and meaningless distinctions. I believe the posts I made in no way hijacked this thread, and that they were indeed needful to fairly examine if in fact Drfuss was accurate in listing them as beliefs distinguished in real import from Calvinism.

Just to set the record straight on the hijacking of this thread, I would like to point the reader to the first post. In the first post Drfuss listed six views, later revised I believe to seven views, that were presented as differing views. I entered this discussion due to the fact that I believe that Drfuss was not completely accurate in his devised distinctions. It has been and was one of the objectives of all my posts, i.e., to expose the real beliefs of certain views by careful examination of the logical ramifications of those views to the end of showing the reader that ‘in real import or reality’ such views differ in no meaningful way from the standard Calvinistic deterministic fatalistic views that have existed since Augustine.

What I see attempted in this list is an attempt to re-package the old dogmas under new names via sophistic argumentation and meaningless distinctions. I believe the posts I made in no way hijacked this thread, and that they were indeed needful to fairly examine if in fact Drfuss was accurate in listing them as beliefs distinguished in real import from Calvinism.

Let me ask the reader. Is it in keeping with a thread to challenge the distinctions made in the OP of the thread?

 

HP: You say of #2 that God draws these individuals, is that not correct? When in life does God draw? Can it come at any time, and if so is it possible to die before such drawing takes place?

You told me the means by which God can use to draw, but what is the essence of the nature of this drawing? Is it merely passive in nature, i.e., best understood as an influence that can be resisted, or is it coercive in nature, granted initially as an ability needed to accept or reject the offer of salvation granted initially apart from the will of man?

If it is important to understand how others view our positions, it is just as important for one to be open in answering needed questions necessary for the sound and proper formation of ideas concerning another's views. The questions I am asking are indeed pertinent to the discussion, without which no real understanding of the positions can be gained.