Originally posted by Scott J:
Those two answers contradict one another.
Only within the fallacious logic of Calvinism.
But to your point, it is partially your merit if you use your hands to hold on.
In the scriptural sense all men are given this ability. It is a gift of God, not something to boast of.
You contributed to the salvation.
Unmeritoriously through the God given ability of choice.
You made a good choice in a situation where you might have been confused and clung to something else instead... or believed that your swimming ability would save you.
Not good in the sense of earned merit, but certainly good in the sense of preferably from our perspectives.
Yes... if you had stopped breathing, could offer no assistance to helping yourself, were pulled out of the water, and given mouth-to-mouth... then it would be completely and totally the merit of the lifesaver.
My analogy was a drowning man, not a man that had already drowned. Of course your new analogy breaks down if the man had been dead for days in the sense that a lifeguard could not resuscitate him.
I have heard rescue people give credit to victims who held on... recognizing that they would not have been able to save them otherwise. Merit- shared.
So you have an example of one of these being honored as a hero? Even if you do I think my point is clear and valid.
No. That is precisely what I am arguing against.
No. That is precisely the flaw in your logic. Choosing to love God is not in any way meritorious in the since of earning.
You choose a person (good choice) or deny Him (bad choice).... thus the choice warrant merit under the arminian/non-calvinist model.
Again, this notion of good as you are using it is a preferential model you are working in. Choosing to love someone who has poured out love on you all the days of your existence does not constitute merit.
You just denied any sense to the analogy of new birth.
Only in the twisted Calvinistic sense.
Are children born because they choose to have parents
That is why the scripture uses the term born
again. We do not need to reenter our mothers womb. You already exist as a person, with an eternal soul and all, before the new birth. The new birth is a supernatural work of God where the
earnest of the spirit is implanted into you and you receive the imputed righteousness of God almighty, but you do not come into existence again. The scripture does not equate the natural birth and new birth as an exact analogy. Just like your twisting of my analogy above, so now you twist the one in scripture.
or are children born because parents choose to engage in an act that results in conception?
Two of my three children started that way. On second thought, maybe it was all three.
We are born of the Spirit by the will of God... not man.
Right. No bone to pick here. The new birth is provided for and implanted completely by God. Even the conditions He set forth must be strictly met. Salvation is all of God.
I don't think that you are seeing the inconsistency in your thought. If you "choose" to have faith (good) while someone else chooses not to have faith (bad) then it was a decision, an act, by you that initiated and empowered God to save you. That is a description of a meritorious decision/act.
Again, you are assigning merit to choice to eliminate choice by making it a work. It should be evident to others by now the error in your reasoning and that your intent is to make scripture fit Calvinism.
Love is a choice. Not to love is a choice.
Agreed.
If it is not then the love comes from somewhere. Where do you say it comes from?
It is a choice and it comes from where the Bible says it comes from, the heart.
agree ... and those who so choose were born of the Spirit (John 3:3-9) so that they were able to "see" the kingdom of God.
But the issue at hand is
when did they choose, or logically, in what
order did they choose. Biblically, choice comes before the new birth. From what I can tell, you do not believe this.
Then it is a choice... and that choice ultimately meritorious since it is not "forced".
Yes sir, it is a choice. No, it is not meritorious.
Does the fact that you were "forced" to be conceived and born mean that your parents didn't love you?
Now you are
forcing a false analogy.
BTW, I don't believe it is force. Man's sin causes him to be "dead" in sin. This nature/state dictates a man's choices.
So the biblical use of the word “dead” always means inability as you infer here? Also, if choices are
dictated by something outside one’s control, then by definition it must be force.
Dictate: a : to issue as an order b : to impose, pronounce, or specify authoritatively c : to require or determine necessarily Merriam Webster Online
Perhaps a more accurate way of looking at the "force" issue is that man's 'dead in sin' nature FORCES him to be God's enemy while God's gracious act of regeneration FREES him to be reconciled to God as a child.
And of course Romans 6 states that the saved are
dead to sin. But of course we can still choose to sin. Death here is figurative in the since that we are no longer under sin’s condemnation. But of course you know this. Sinners are dead in trespasses and sin in the sense that they are
under the condemnation of sin, not in the sense that they are unable to respond to the gospel. Sinners can decide to love God. His granting of the new birth is conditioned upon this.
[ June 09, 2005, 08:50 AM: Message edited by: Fact, Faith & Feeling ]
