What do you believe is required for Salvation?

God said that, and last I checked you were not Him. God reasons with man whether you do or don't. Reason: the power of comprehending, inferring, or thinking especially in orderly rational ways: Exercise of the mind.

 

But indeed O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why have you made me like this? Does not the potter have power over the clay

 

I called her first - take your place in the line!

 

You said it...

Part of me wishes He was - then I wouldn't do some of the things I still do - but either way your belief seems to suggest that we are not free agents - we are either Satan's pawns or Christ's - and, remember, a puppet has no moral culpability. Therefore, your conundrum for Thursday is: how can any of us be condemned to Hell if we have no such moral responsibility?

 

A lion cannot choose a salad. He can only choose meat. A choice of one thing and one thing alone is no longer a choice.

 

And they say Im sick LOL

 

thats a question for the God intoxicated not me... I get yelled at for saying BS while you guys are calling prostitutes & doing other such roguish things. But God does not have complete fix on you so you two are going to hell. Besides all I said is you cant go to God and ask for salvation ...he chose you before the beginning of time & wrote you in the lambs book of life. He chose you. Well me I know but since your both ringing up whores....:tongue3:

So now what happens... the God Squad has banished to the hinter land all the Catholic & those suspicious of being that ilk, so your beating up on poor defenseless Calvinists, who next? Hmmmm

 

What is required for salvation?

When I saw this thread, this one verse came to my mind immediately.
2 Cor.7:10For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.



I truly believes it takes a "Godly sorrow" to be set up in one's life to bring them to Christ. Sure, one must first be drawn, and by that "drawing power", I believe one becomes sorry for what they have done. Just like the prodigal son, when he saw where his life had led him, he came back wanting to be only a hired servant. By him humbling himself before his father, his father put a ring in his hand, put the best robe upon him, put shoes on his feet, IOW, he dressed him from "head to toe", and told them to kill the fatted calf, and let us rejoice, for my son has come back home. Because I also believe that unless you feel remorse(sorrow) for what you have done, you wouldn't want to make a change in your life. This is all MHO.

i am I am's!!

Willis

 

Luke 10: 42But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.

I know this is only one verse, Jesus said Himself, that Mary HATH CHOSEN that good part.

i am I am's

Willis

 

I agree with your sentiment. It is a good anecdote. But free will is really a misnomer. It is not necessary to defend it. God's will is the only will worth defending. Who cares if man has "free" will or not? Why does it matter? Especially since he doesn't.

It is the CORNERSTONE of Arminian doctrine and it doesn't even exist.

Natural man CANNOT receive the things of the Spirit of God. Men love darkness and they will not come to the light.

Natural men are NEVER able to choose righteousness. There is no good thing in man's flesh. He can no more do right than a leopard can change his spots.

He is not free to do right. He cannot. He lacks the ability. So he really has no choice but to do what his nature tells him to do. He must be given a new nature before he can do right. That new nature comes with new life in Christ which is the new birth or regeneration. Now he does what his new nature tells him to do.

 

This is a very good argument and accurate, but why even posit free will. Why not toss it out? The Bible doesn't teach it. The Bible teaches as you yourself pointed out here that man CANNOT receive the things of the Spirit of God; that his mind CANNOT BE SUBJECT unto God.

Then he is not free- period. Leave it at that. Let the Arminians worship at the altar of Free Will without so much as a nod from us. We don't have to grant them that man is free- nor should we.

Man is not free to do righteousness- he cannot. His will is utterly bound by sin. This is the clear teaching of the Scripture. He can no more do right than a leopard can change his spots or an Ethiopian his skin.

 

God decreed it. Free Will is a hoax.

It is the CORNERSTONE of Arminian doctrine and it doesn't even exist.

Natural man CANNOT receive the things of the Spirit of God. Men love darkness and they will not come to the light.

Natural men are NEVER able to choose righteousness. There is no good thing in man's flesh. He can no more do right than a leopard can change his spots.

He is not free to do right. He cannot. He lacks the ability. So he really has no choice but to do what his nature tells him to do. He must be given a new nature before he can do right. That new nature comes with new life in Christ which is the new birth or regeneration. Now he does what his new nature tells him to do.

 

There is none that understandeth- explain to me how the natural man can reason concerning spiritual matters when he is totally dead spiritually and he is utterly incapable of receiving the things of the Spirit of God and his mind CANNOT be subject unto them.

 

I am SO saddened by the tone that this thread has taken as we proceed. Are we not brothers and sisters together in the Lord? I am seeing a lack of charity as the "debate" becomes a mud-slinging argument. Shame on those who carry forth in such a way. Let your propositions do the talking, not attacks against a man, lest we do the work of the enemy and become accusers of the brethren. We CAN have this conversation without personal attack.

On free will... I mentioned above that I did a Bible-length topical study on the issue. One has to read between the lines, so to speak, to arrive at he position that free will in any or all cases, especially salvific, is a right of humankind.

I DO see total freedom of will in the beings created in God's image before the fall. They were slaves to no one, God or sin. God granted them sovereignty over all creation as they stood next to Him in the Garden, powers we seem to no longer posses. We cannot walk and talk with God the way those sinless persons did. We cannot command creation the way they did. We also cannot choose our own salvation like they did.

When Adam chose to sin against God, he broke his freedom and willfully gave it away. All those born since are born slaves of sin. We are "redeemed" (bought back, so to speak) from this position of slavery and are in turn made "slaves of Christ our King, to whom we owe total allegiance.

The remnant of free will that we still possess cannot "save" us (by allowing us to make or not make a decision for salvation) but it is enough to make us morally culpable (responsible) for our sin. That is what the Bible says. We do not have free exercise of will to effect creation. We do not have free exercise of will to walk and talk in the presence of Holy God (He hid Moses in the cleft of the rock so as not to kill him). And, we do not have free will unto salvation, that being a work of God alone.

But, for those already up in arms about what I just wrote, there is this... God is also not "deterministic" as is often the slippery slope fallacy that is applied to this theological point. Those who argue against God's election (as if ANY of those demonstrated elected by God in the entirety of the Bible had a choice in what they ultimately did for God -- read Jonah...) often argue a logical conclusion that IF God elects and is sovereign over all things, then God has also deterministically "fixed" every possible thing and there is nothing at all that we can or should do, for nothing would or could make a difference. Arguing that way side-steps the plain revelation of Scripture, where God TELLS US that is not the truth. He allows us to operate as agents in this world, within certain bounds, but those bounds do not extent to the point where we can exercise our freedom in a way that God has not decreed. It is as simple as that. To argue otherwise is to ignore half of what the Scriptural text has to say about the issue, which is what both sides often do in these cases.

At the end of the day, we probably have to "decide" (yes) which side of the debate we are going to take. I decided a long time ago that if I had to err on one side or the other, I would err on the side of God's ultimate sovereignty. I cannot find the total expression of free will in the Scriptures that many pout forth in their theologies, and I find that free will expression to be more one of "I wish for God to act this way" than the fact that He actually does allow we humans to trump His sovereign Kingship.

Also, this seems to be the crux of humanity's issue with God. Since the temptation in the Garden, we have, in our sinful desires, wished "to be like God, knowing good and evil..." We continue to be in rebellion against God's sovereignty when we put forth theological concepts that attempt to whittle away at God by elevating human beings to god-like status, including but not limited to OUR deciding if we attain salvation.

Sorry if the concept is distasteful... God, and the writers of Scripture tell us that it is, and truly, we see it every time we get into a debate of this nature. We simply do not care to bow to God and surrender to His Kingship. God have mercy on us for our disobedience!

 

I don't understand your thinking process here? Being created in the image of God is a pre-fall condition. By bibical definition "the fall" refers to that pre-fall condition having changed and that change is total depravity or that image becoming tarnished and defect.

The Gentiles becoming a "law unto themselves" simply means that they are judged by the light they are given rather than the Mosaic law. Ability to discern light does not mean they have ability to submit to that light. In fact, Jesus plainly says the condemned man will not (Jn. 3:19-20; Rom. 8:7)


19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.


and anyone who does is proof that God has performed a work within them (Jn. 3:21).

21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.


Jesus makes it very clear to the rich young ruler that in the sense of intrinsic righteousness there is "none good but one and that is God." Paul makes the same point (Rom. 3:9-11). Only grace makes men "good" in God's sight.

It plays out in reality! Do you watch the news? Have you looked in the mirror lately and come to know who you are even as a redeemed man? How much worse as an unredeemed person.

Lost men cannot and do not lay down their lives for others for the right motive - the glory of God. Sin is coming "short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23).

No unregenerate will sacrifice his own life unless he believes the cause MERITS the value he places on his own life. For example, he may not choose to give his life to save a dog or a bad person but may chooses to give his life for what he considers to be a NOBLE cause (save a child from a burning house, die in battle for his country or cast himself upon a handgrenade to save his friends). The bottom line for his motive is simply a higher level of selfishness as all causes for self-sacrifice are evaluated by the value he places on his own life.

He will choose to sin in every instance because God defines sin in regard to what motivates every action - something less than "the glory of God." God looks upon the heart and if sacrifices done for man is not motivated for love of God than it is merely a higher form of selfishness. The Great Commandment places love for God as the first and preeminent motive for everything else you do. The unregenerate man is INCAPABLE of doing ANYTHING from that preeminent motive.

Therefore, "there is none good but one, and that is God" as the fall destroyed that "God motive" behind all that sinners do.