who said anything about mans free will being perfect?....... but at least now you have admitted man has free will... imperfect .. flawed... or filthy as it may be.... but it is there..... i have heard other calvinists claim there is no such thing as free will at all.... that it doesn;t exist.... so which one of you is right?..... do you think they would agree with you that man has a free but imperfect or flawed free will?...
Most Calvinists I know of or have ever dealt with believe that man has a free will but that his will is corrupt meaning that his desire is against God. I do not believe I am deviating from the Calvinist position one bit!
It is the rabid anti-Calvinists who tout the notion that Calvinism teaches we are nothing but mindless robots who cannot help what we do or think. The scriptures certainly say otherwise! Man has a free will for which they will stand before God and give account.
Any Calvies here want to disagree with me and call me a looney free-willy for insinuating that man has a free will?
and who said anything about man being able to preempt God;s sovereignty?...... God is absolutely soverign which.. among many things.. means He is not bound by your black and white logic or feable attempts to define Him with a flawed and finite human brain..... He is capable of both allowing mankind a free will and also remaining sovereign...
I do not disagree with any of this. The fact still remains that mankind is totally depraved, dead in trespasses and sins, and that man's natural inclination is to reject God and remain in darkness. They do so of their own free will.
so what keeps man from drowning himself every time he is in the water?... or from doing any number of other things every time he has the chance that would certainly lead to his death?... ..i have faced that kind of darkness and i know what led me there..... ..but why does man not always seek darkness in that and every other regard... as well as the darkness away from God?...
Completely not my point! Man has a natural survival instinct and a desire to LIVE barring mental duress and emotional issues where they should seek and hopefully find professional help!
i believe God extends his grace to everyone... but many.... most in fact.... reject it.... and i believe they reject God of their own free will..... just as those who accept the grace God extends to them choose to do so of their own free will..
There is a great deal of misunderstanding regarding Irresistible Grace so hopefully I can bring some clarification. God extends his
Common Grace to all men which includes things like the rain falling on the just and unjust, and pretty much every good thing you receive in life comes from God (Jas 1:17). It is everything that brings attention to the fact of God's existence and of his power, majesty, and his love (Rom 1:20). It is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance (Rom 2:4). Such grace is given to all and is resisted and rejected by most as you have stated. The Grace that Calvinists call "Irresistable" is
Efficiacious Grace (also known of as an
"effectual calling" which is synonymous with regeneration and being
Born Again (Eph 2:5)! You may not have asked to be born but once it happens, you naturally desire to live and instinctively take that first breath!
.. love cannot exist without freewill.... ...... . i could give any number of scriptures to back that up.... and others that back up grace being extended.... in one way or another.. to everybody....
Let me try to keep things as simple as I can. You can love a dead corpse all you desire but it will never love you back! A dead corpse does not have the capability to love anything. It is perfectly content with being dead! John tells us "We love him because he first loved us" (1 Jn 4:19). We understand that he loves us when he makes us alive in him!
i have been involved in personal evangelism for almost 2 decades.... every week.. for many hours... ... and to many different demographics...
My point is that man's natural reaction is to reject the gospel and to not have anything to do with Christ. As you have stated, this is something you have seen yourself and I am simply bringing this to your attention. There may also be few times when you get to deal with someone who is very much "ripe" and "receptive" to the point that they come under conviction and gladly receive the gospel message you are communicating! Such a response to the gospel you are proclaiming is purely the power of God and it is a very blessed and precious experience when it does happen! It also only happens if you are faithful to be a witness for Christ!
but i have a question for you.... just how much personal evangelism are you actually involved in?.....
I am actually quite involved with our Church's personal evangelism and outreach. I head up our involvement with the Texas Port Ministry where we witness to seafarers and truckers down in Freeport, TX. I try to get down there at least on a weekly basis and am training others in our Church to do the same. We also do witnessing in our community wherever possible and wherever God gives me opportunity.
I believe I mention personal evangelism quite often here! I am certain I bring it up far more than I bring up Calvinism of which you have brought up here, not me.
well i guess that makes you one of the lucky ones then... doesn;t it?.... since God decided to save you and chose you "from before the foundations of the world" while deciding so many others would be condemned to hell without a real choice or the freewill to turn to God and avoid the lake of fire...
Ephesians 1:4 says he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world. What are we supposed to do with this? I have found it much easier these days to just believe what God says rather than try to make it not say something I do not particularly care for! Hopefully you are thankful you also have been chosen in him from before the foundation of the world right?
I do not think I need to waste my time with the second part of your statement. I have tried the best I know how to explain my position to you. I do not ask that you agree with me or become a Calvinist yourself. All I ask is that you do not slander or misrepresent what it is I am saying.
... by the way isn;t that before the foundations of the world - thing a supralapsarian doctrine?..
No. If you are interested, Supralapsarian means that
"God decreed the fall in light of his elect" meaning that God first decreed his elect then brought about the fall. This is not my position. I consider my position to be Infralapsarian (and sympathetic to Amyraldism) which states that "God decreed his elect in light of the fall" meaning that the fall came first then God decreed his elect. The lapsarian views are an academic exercise in an attempt to understand the decrees of God and how they are ordered based upon our understanding of the scriptures and the nature of God. Since God dwells in the eternal present, everything occurs at the same time and there is no way to fully understand the mind of God on this matter.
... the belief that God decided all this.. decreed the fall of man... and decided who would and would not be saved before He even began His work on creation? ..... correct me if i am wrong but i thought i saw you write somewhere that the supralapsarian belief was heresy...
Not Supralapsarianism but equal ultimacy of which the Supralapsarian position often leads. Equal ultimacy means that as God actively elects some to salvation, he is also active in the reprobation of the non-elect. Such a position makes God the author of sin plus it also contradicts the actual Calvinist position of man's total depravity as such insinuates that man could turn to God in repentance and faith on his own but that God is preventing them from doing so!
Hyper-Calvinism is fatalism. It denies man's responsibility and leads one to believe that they have no say so either way in their eternal destiny. The scriptures clearly say otherwise that we are to make our calling and election sure!
do you think it;s possible that since God knew in advance who would accept Him or reject Him... since he sees and exists on the whole length of the timeline and doesn;t just plod through it a day at a time like we do...
Of course I do but there are also the verses I have to deal with concerning man's total depravity and inability! Jesus did say that "No man can come to me except the Father draw him..." Am I to just ignore this or pretend it says something else?
.. but the argument about who God draws and what kind of ability they have to resist or reject His grace is what this whole thing is about, in my opinion..... it;s the whole reason i have backed the concept of free will..... 