The Pleadings of God

Exactly. God's chosen system caused all man to inherit sin. We both agree to this.

But Calvinists add to that by saying this sin causes Total Depravity, which is unfounded and causes God to appear unjust even to those who believe and follow Him. It makes his pleas for all mankind to choose salvation to seem disingenuious and it lead people to first believe that it is their choice to make, only to later find out that it wasn't there choice, it was God's. And if that is true then those who get to hell who also were told it was their choice will learn it was also God's in which case they would have an excuse.

Righteousness in God's eyes has never been by keeping the Law, you know that. It is about faith. The faithful attempt to keep the law is why Abraham was considered righteous according to Paul, not because he actually kept the law perfectly. The motive and desire of the man is what was in consideration.

Its the same with your kids I'm sure. You may have a standard you set for them that they may not reach at times, but if you see that they are really trying and their motives are good, you accept it. I believe the same is true of God. He desires obeidence above sacrifice. In the same way as parents we desire obeidence above having to clean up their messes.

Do you believe desires to have mercy on all that he has bound over to disobeidence? If not you are doing an great injustice to the obvious meaning of this text.

Yes, I'm fimiliar with the term imputation and I agree with this.

What? I don't follow how you went from the last paragraph to this conclusion. How does having Adam's disobedience imputed to our record not have anything to do with the sin nature and total depravity?

I agree. This is well stated. But, you believe that their is no condition that must be met by which "the elect" will be represented by Christ. The scripture clearly teaches that the condition of faith must be met. Calvinism must cover this base so they teach that it is God who actually accomplishes faith for us thus making the majority of the NT pure nonsense.

When Jesus rebukes people for their lack of faith, He should be rebuking Himself for not giving them enough faith.

 

Nope. Imputed sin is not the cause of being unwilling, the sin nature is the cause of being unwilling. Imputation has a "legal" standing effect. </font>[/QUOTE]You all play the semantical game well.'

Please explain the difference between God imputation of Adam's sin and the imputation of the sin nature.

Regardless of how you explain this God is the one who decided that we would be born Totally Depraved in your system. Who else could have made that decision but God? I'm willing to admit that we are imputed with a sin nature because of God's decree, I'm just not willing to say that the sin nature causes Total Depravity. Why?

1. It's not supported in the text.
2. It's not consistant with the doctrine of hardening.
3. It's contradicts all logically or reasonable understanding of God's demand for us to do that which He has not enable for us to do, and then judging us based upon our not doing what we never could do.
4. It makes God seem unjust in his treatment of mankind in regard to showing mercy to some and not others. (No, he doesn't owe it to anyone, but that doesn't change the fact that it causes even believers to question God's justice. And if his plan is what imprisoned men over to disobedience it seems more likely that it would be his plan to provide a means to excape that prison for all that he bound over. (Romans 11:32)
5. Did I mention Total Depravity is not supported in the text?

 

Not at all. It is man's fault that he fell into sin in the Garden of Eden and man is responsible for all of the woe this has caused him, including his spiritual death and inability to contribute anything to his own salvation. </font>[/QUOTE]You're avoiding the issue. You say faith is only given to the elect by God, yet we have Christ rebuking and ultimately condemning people for their lack of faith.

If what you believe is true, God has no one to blame for man's rebellion but himself. He should have given more faith. He should have opened more eyes. If you are right, God has no right to say, "O Jerusalem! Jerusalem that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, yet you were not willing!

Instead, if you were right, He should have said, "O Jerusalem that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I thought about granting you faith and repentance to so that you could be willing to come to me, but I was unwilling."

This is absurd!

 

The difference is simple. Imputation of Adam's sin means that we all now bear the guilt that Adam had. In other words, we are all have a legaly guilty standing before God. We are all guilty of Adam's sin before God.

Imputation of the sin nature means that we are all now predisposed to sin. As Augustine put it, we are not able not to sin. Sinfulness and sinning is our default position.

Hope that helps. BTW, I will try to compose something against your 1-5 points that you listed. However, time is at a real premium right now!


Blessings,

Archangel </font>[/QUOTE]Archangel, The question has more to do with who decided that man would be imputed with the sin nature and who decided that the sin nature would infect men in such a way that caused them to be totally unable to respond to God's revelations of himself as taught by Total Depravity.

Whose plan was it that Adam's sin would cause all to become Total Depraved? The answer must be "God".

Therefore God has not only bound all men over to disobedience, he has bound all men over to complete and total depravity making them unable to respond to his demands. How then can God geniunely call them to come to himself when he has disabled them from coming. Once more how can he justly judge the man for doing that which God bound him over to do from birth?

BTW, Don't go to Romans 9 for you defense because that is not talking about man's being bound from birth into Total Depravity. That is talking about the temporary hardening of a group of people who God has been longing to save and holding out his hands to for generations.

 

That's right because people are responsible for their lack faith. If they had not sinned in Adam, then they would not be in that predicament. </font>[/QUOTE]Ken, can you please find me in scripture where it teaches that Adam's sin (or anyone's sin) causes all of mankind not to have the capasity for faith?

 

I understand this, but where does it ever teach that Adam's sin causes all mankind to be unable to believe?

Guilty is one thing, but unable to believe is another. Let's not talk about what we agree with, but instead on the issue in which we disagree.

Again, I don't have a problem with any of this. I affirm that God is the one who bound all man over to disobedience. I have a problem with the fact that you all link that to man's inablity to believe to gospel.

Yes, it was Adam's choice, I agree. But it was God's choice to make it where Adam's choice would cause the rest of us to become unable to believe (if TD is correct). Again, I affirm that it was God's choice to have Adam's choice represent us all and cause us all to become guilty of sin. I just don't agree that there is any link to that 'original sin' and Total Depravity in scripture.

It's clear in scripture that God's plan to bind men over to sin was for the purpose of showing them all mercy which comes through faith. But by making the original sin cause us not to have the ability to believe either it makes God responsible for what he demands from his creation and then judges them for. This is not only unreasonable and illogical but unbiblical.

As you point out, the same criticism could be applied to you or just about any one on this board who "holds tight" to his interpretations.

I do "listen" to others thoughts. So much so that I once believed Calvinism and was persuaded to believe otherwise because I listened. Can you be more specific as to what passages I have picked and chose to the neglect of others?

And if Romans 9:18-21 is not about hardening, can you offer your interpretation.

Thank you and God bless you as well.

 

Imputed or inherited it really doesn't matter to this point, it was God's choice for Total Inablity to be the consequences of Adam's eating from the tree (if you are correct). So, God's choice for the consequeses of Adam's sin to be TD for all mankind makes his demand's for all mankind to believe proposturous.

Look at it this way. A judge determines that a man's crime will cost him 5 years in prison. Once the man is in prison he tells the man he must get a job or he will be put to death. The prison offers no jobs and the man can't get out of the prison to get a job and fulfill the judges demands. The judges 5 year sentence keeps the man from fulfilling the very demands of the judge which will cost him his life. How is this just by anyone's standards, much less God's gracious standards?

Oops, you made a boo-boo here. You said, "God set things up so that because we become legally guilty by represention." Which I agree with, but you continued:

"...we can also become legally not-guilty by representation." You really don't believe this. "WE CAN'T DO ANYTHING" according to Calvinism. You should have wrote, "God can make some of us legally not guilty." Why do I nit-pit? Because it is God who set things up for all to be bound over to sin, therefore if all men aren't show mercy as Rom. 11:32 says they are, then God is left holding the bag for man's condemnation. The only way man is without excuse is if he is the one who makes the choice to rebell. You try to maintain that he does make this choice, but that can't be if God's sentence of Adam's sin upon all mankind bound them over to Total Depravity.

Here you really show my point of contention. If all mankind is condemned by representation, it is only just for all to have the ability to be saved by represenation. You say its an act of mercy to be imputed with Adam's sin and I would agree if you were an Arminian saying that. But it's not an act of mercy if you are a Calvinists because you believe that Christ didn't represent the world but only the elect. It was an act of mercy for the elect, but it was an act of gross injustice for the rest of mankind. The only passage you have as a defense for this accusation in Rom. 9 which is clearly a rebuttal toward those who object to Israel's being hardened while Gentiles were being ingrafted.

"Us" in your view are those whom God selected to the neglect of those "non-elect" people, who were represented in death but were neglected when it came to life?

The question here is how does one get Jesus as a representative? We didn't choose Adam, but then again we were never asked to. We are asked to choose Jesus through faith. Faith is the means by which we become represented. "If you deny me before man I will deny you before my father." It sure sounds like there is something that can be done to gain a representative for us to the Father. "Repent and believe and you will be saved."