Why do some people believe and some do not?

posthuman · Tuesday at 6:39 PM

that's me looking ay myself in the glass,

before anyone gets ideas lol.

i just think for this discussion it's better we look at some early thought as it actually is, 2nd generation from the apostles. because now, thousand years later, we have an awful lot of absolute bunk coloring the discussion.

Of Grace and Free Will

let's see what we think about this.

GRACE_ambassador · Tuesday at 6:50 PM

OP: some believe and some don't?:

Simply, God Has Given, Under His Amazing GRACE, The Same Offer [ Death, Burial, and
Resurrection Of ] His Precious SON To all, and When Grace Is Over, He Teaches This:

"Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs

and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them

that perish; because they received Not The Love Of The Truth, that they might

be saved.

And for this cause God Shall Send them Strong Delusion, that they should believe

a lie: That they all might be damned who believed Not The Truth, but had pleasure

in unrighteousness." (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12 AV)

Amen.

ps. If necessary, Please, Today, Receive God's Grace, Peace, Mercy And Love!

GWH · Tuesday at 6:54 PM

Magenta said:

Re "there are those who claim God is unfair if He does not reveal Himself to everyone in the exact same way as He reveals Himself to any one person": Just in case "those" might be deemed to include me I want to clarify that I believe God reveals Himself in various ways to everyone who seeks Him, and that He fairly judges folks on the basis of the opportunity they had to repent per the Parable of the Talents, and thus hell is the just consequence for those who chose I-dolatry instead per DT 30:19.

Cameron143 · Tuesday at 7:01 PM

sawdust said:

There's alot here.
First, a fallen nature is different from the original nature man was created with. Since you brought up animals, when God placed the fear of man into animals, did this change the nature of animals? Of course it did. In like manner man was changed as a result of sin. One has only to compare man before sin and after sin to see this difference. Adam was able understand God, but now, according to Romans 3, there are none who understand. Adam spent time with God every day, but now none seek after Him. Adam was made good, but now none do good. Even Jesus said only God is good. Regardless of what you call it, man is greatly different than what he was created. And we all inherited this vastly different nature. We aren't trapped. We are changed. The image of God has indeed been marred and corrupted in man. This is why man was removed from the garden so Adam and Eve did not partake of the Tree of Life and all humanity life forever in a corrupted estate.
Like many here, you assume what others believe. I have never said man is born evil, but broken and corrupted.
On what basis can't evil be redeemed? Did something become impossible for God?

Magenta · Tuesday at 7:14 PM

Cameron143 said:

Assume, and lie. Don't forget that part.

Cameron143 · Tuesday at 7:23 PM

Magenta said:

I don't know that she has lied.

posthuman · Tuesday at 7:31 PM

posthuman said:

meaning:

i've had my fill of the same well-rehearsed but woefully un-examined arguments thrown at each other uselessly, threads.

how about we take some time and actually study this topic, instead?

so i keep posting links to one of the most important documents in Christian thought about it, outside of the Bible, hoping we will take a day or two to read it and think about it, and then revisit the thread....

always hoping lol.

Happy new year!

Magenta · Tuesday at 7:47 PM

posthuman said:

Happy new year! I hope you and yours are well...

Mem · Tuesday at 7:52 PM

studier said:

We are given choices from which to (freely) choose, and directed toward the choice we should make, i.e. "I put before you, life and death, choose life." There's no option c, neither anything like a half-life nor anything like an almost death, or it would have been permitted that we could continue forever in our current state, where we are either alive but dead or dead but alive. This must have something to do with how a hardening works. God sees our choices coming, knowing each individual as intimately (in the sense of omniscience) as He knows Himself and prepares accordingly, as perfectly as His will determines it, whether for destruction or preservation.

This is the best summary that I have arrived, and remain at, that I can offer at this time, unless you can see any particular disturbance in the harmony of the omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, and all other attributes of God, that might need be brought to my attention.

GWH · Tuesday at 8:50 PM

Mem said:

I agree that MFW only exists when there is the possibility of choosing between two qualitatively opposite moral options that we call good and evil. These options are opposites because of essentially different consequences for choosing them. Choosing good results in blessing, life and heaven; and choosing evil results in cursing, death and hell (DT 30:19).

This is why hell as well as heaven exists. It is the just consequence for choosing evil rather than God. The Spirit of God is good: love, peace and joy (GL 5:22-23). Therefore, whoever rejects the Lord is spiritually separated from Him (IS 59:2) and thereby chooses the evil or satanic spirit of hatred, strife and misery and reaps the just consequence called “hell” in the afterlife (GL 6:7-9, HB 9:27-28). These options were presented by Moses to the Israelites (DT 30:19), and Jesus referred to this fundamental choice in terms of a fish or egg versus a snake or scorpion (LK 11:11-13). Life… or Curse? (GN 3:24, RV 22:1-2)

God created theoretical evil or the possibility of rejecting Him as an option that actualizes MFW/free human personality. As such it is necessary and even good (GN 1:31). Of course, it was wrong for Satan (1JN 3:8) and humanity (RM 5:12) to make evil actual by choosing to Sin or reject Faith in God’s Lordship.

God loves a cheerful giver (2CR 9:7), which means He desires people to cooperate with Him happily because of love and gratitude for His grace rather than to cower before Him because of fear of hell. Love must be evoked; it cannot be coerced. And again, when souls sin or do NOT choose to love God freely, it is perfectly just (loving and logical) for them to reap the appropriate consequence (GL 6:7-9) or hell.

Magenta · Tuesday at 9:29 PM

posthuman said:

Many seem incapable of acknowledging that there is a difference between free will and any ability to make choices. In fact, any suggestion that the will is not free (as per Scripture), and the free willers start accusing you of saying/believing people are robots, because they have a nasty habit of condemnation prior to investigation, preferring to jump all over you with their ridiculous assumptions, erroneous premises, illogical reasoning abilities, and false accusations. Yes, willingly they (I am not saying all) do this of their own free will! Some (for the most part) further refuse to deal with any verses that address the estate of the natural man, to whom they ascribe abilities only the spiritual man has. They will say such verses are misunderstood and/or taken out of context, and refuse to deal with the fact that a bad tree cannot produce good fruit (Jesus said so!). They go further and claim that the natural man is actually a really a good guy/not such a bad guy, and that adhering to what Scripture says of him makes you wrong, plain and simple. This I believe is tied to their own pride of life. They cannot, like Paul, or you, or I, proclaim themselves to be the worst of sinners. What they are saying amounts to them making the natural man on a par with Jesus with His ability to lay aside His human will to submit to the will of God. I get it. What need of God for such a person?

In effect the free will claim is that the natural man, in his inherently hostile-to-God mind with his stony heart that needs replacing, can of his own volition, with no help from God, lay aside his human will like Jesus did, to submit to the will of God, while they are unable to even receive or understand the spiritual things of God. All despite being dead in their trespasses, lovers of darkness, captive to the will of the devil, slaves to sin, suppressing the truth in unrighteousness, and incapable of submitting to God's laws... The Bible tells us that the gospel message is foolishness to such a person. To suggest God acts unilaterally is to them (free willers) an injustice and a violent encroachment upon their imaginary free will. Your friend there says for God to act unilaterally makes Him an unjust tyrant, and a hoax of repentance and salvation. Don't ask me how or why they come to these conclusions... but clearly they are deceived. I know a lot of vitriol gets spewed by some when anyone challenges their ideas of the will being free. Man acts out of his nature. So the person spewing hatred and lies? Their nature. When they say things like according to me God raped Mary, they are acting out of their nature to blaspheme God and attribute it to me when I have never said I believe anything that anywhere near approaches or resembles that. In fact your friend says such blasphemous things in lieu of admitting he is wrong. It's really quite a cover story he fabricates to hide behind his mistaken beliefs. Any ways...

Good luck. Since this has been an issue for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, I doubt it will be resolved any time soon. In the meantime, I am going to stick with what Scripture says of the natural man, and that it is out of His great and everlasting love for us that God has made salvation available to us, by grace through faith in the shed righteous blood of Jesus Christ, Who willingly laid His life aside that we may have a life more abundant and escape the second death... that He draws us with loving kindness, which I can attest to and have testified of many times in my years here... circumcises our hearts so we may love Him, opens our eyes, unstops our ears, and raises us to new life in Christ. None of this is forcing me as others claim. I am not fooled when someone tries to characterize having a personal relationship with God as "gnosis" as HeIsHere continually does. Their behavior simply informs me that they have never met the risen Living Lord.

cv5 · Tuesday at 9:52 PM

studier said:

@GWH @posthuman @Mem re: YHWH hardening Pharoah's heart:

NKJ Exod. 4:21 And the LORD said to Moses, "When you go back to Egypt, see that you do all those wonders before Pharaoh which I have put in your hand. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.

3 "And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt.

NKJ Exod. 8:15 But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and did not heed them, as the LORD had said.

NKJ Exod. 8:32 But Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also; neither would he let the people go.

NKJ Exod. 9:12 But the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh; and he did not heed them, just as the LORD had spoken to Moses.

NKJ Exod. 9:34 And when Pharaoh saw that the rain, the hail, and the thunder had ceased, he sinned yet more; and he hardened his heart, he and his servants.

NKJ Exod. 10:1 Now the LORD said to Moses, "Go in to Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his servants, that I may show these signs of Mine before him,

NKJ Exod. 10:20 But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the children of Israel go.

So, how does this hardening work?

Then, when Paul writes his commentary about this, what does he mean by this statement:

NKJ Rom 9:18-22 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens. 19 You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?" 20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, "Why have you made me like this?" 21 Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? 22 What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared (this is a passive verb, so someone or something had prepared them) for destruction,

You forgot the most critical passage of all:

Exodus 3:19
"And I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not by a mighty hand"

That's the set up.
No Twilight Zone episodes required.

cv5 · Tuesday at 10:00 PM

Magenta said:

Many seem incapable of acknowledging that there is a difference between free will and any ability to make choices. In fact, any suggestion that the will is not free (as per Scripture), and the free willers start accusing you of saying/believing people are robots, because they have a nasty habit of condemnation prior to investigation, preferring to jump all over you with their ridiculous assumptions, erroneous premises, illogical reasoning abilities, and false accusations. Yes, willingly they (I am not saying all) do this of their own free will! Some (for the most part) further refuse to deal with any verses that address the estate of the natural man, to whom they ascribe abilities only the spiritual man has. They will say such verses are misunderstood and/or taken out of context, and refuse to deal with the fact that a bad tree cannot produce good fruit (Jesus said so!). They go further and claim that the natural man is actually a really a good guy/not such a bad guy, and that adhering to what Scripture says of him makes you wrong, plain and simple. This I believe is tied to their own pride of life. They cannot, like Paul, or you, or I, proclaim themselves to be the worst of sinners. What they are saying amounts to them making the natural man on a par with Jesus with His ability to lay aside His human will to submit to the will of God. I get it. What need of God for such a person?

In effect the free will claim is that the natural man, in his inherently hostile-to-God mind with his stony heart that needs replacing, can of his own volition, with no help from God, lay aside his human will like Jesus did, to submit to the will of God, while they are unable to even receive or understand the spiritual things of God. All despite being dead in their trespasses, lovers of darkness, captive to the will of the devil, slaves to sin, suppressing the truth in unrighteousness, and incapable of submitting to God's laws... The Bible tells us that the gospel message is foolishness to such a person. To suggest God acts unilaterally is to them (free willers) an injustice and a violent encroachment upon their imaginary free will. Your friend there says for God to act unilaterally makes Him an unjust tyrant, and a hoax of repentance and salvation. Don't ask me how or why they come to these conclusions... but clearly they are deceived. I know a lot of vitriol gets spewed by some when anyone challenges their ideas of the will being free. Man acts out of his nature. So the person spewing hatred and lies? Their nature. When they say things like according to me God raped Mary, they are acting out of their nature to blaspheme God and attribute it to me when I have never said I believe anything that anywhere near approaches or resembles that. In fact your friend says such blasphemous things in lieu of admitting he is wrong. It's really quite a cover story he fabricates to hide behind his mistaken beliefs. Any ways...

Good luck. Since this has been an issue for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, I doubt it will be resolved any time soon. In the meantime, I am going to stick with what Scripture says of the natural man, and that it is out of His great and everlasting love for us that God has made salvation available to us, by grace through faith in the shed righteous blood of Jesus Christ, Who willingly laid His life aside that we may have a life more abundant and escape the second death... that He draws us with loving kindness, which I can attest to and have testified of many times in my years here... circumcises our hearts so we may love Him, opens our eyes, unstops our ears, and raises us to new life in Christ. None of this is forcing me as others claim. I am not fooled when someone tries to characterize having a personal relationship with God as "gnosis" as HeIsHere continually does. Their behavior simply informs me that they have never met the risen Living Lord.

Is that what happens to a person after you bang your head on Augustin and Pelagius too many times?

Ouch. At my age I can ill afford a concussion and traumatic brain injury.

posthuman · Tuesday at 10:34 PM

cv5 said:

chapter 29 of the letter you by your free agency prejudge while refusing to read:

Now if faith is simply of free will, and is not given by God, why do we pray for those who will not believe, that they may believe? This it would be absolutely useless to do, unless we believe, with perfect propriety, that Almighty God is able to turn to belief wills that are perverse and opposed to faith. Man's free will is addressed when it is said, Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts. But if God were not able to remove from the human heart even its obstinacy and hardness, He would not say, through the prophet, I will take from them their heart of stone, and will give them a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 11:19 That all this was foretold in reference to the New Testament is shown clearly enough by the apostle when he says, You are our epistle, . . . written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart. 2 Corinthians 3:2-3 We must not, of course, suppose that such a phrase as this is used as if those might live in a fleshly way who ought to live spiritually; but inasmuch as a stone has no feeling, with which man's hard heart is compared, what was there left Him to compare man's intelligent heart with but the flesh, which possesses feeling? For this is what is said by the prophet Ezekiel: I will give them another heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh; that they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, says the Lord. Ezekiel 11:19-20 Now can we possibly, without extreme absurdity, maintain that there previously existed in any man the good merit of a good will, to entitle him to the removal of his stony heart, when all the while this very heart of stone signifies nothing else than a will of the hardest kind and such as is absolutely inflexible against God? For where a good will precedes, there is, of course, no longer a heart of stone.

wow, all from scripture, not denying free will, not suggesting God authors evil, but 100% praising God's sovereign action in the heart of the free-agency human with zero hint of pagan philosophy?

huh.
not what people who talk about him without ever even reading him would lead you to believe he would say.

weird.

posthuman · Tuesday at 10:35 PM

posthuman said:

new years resolution:

don't believe what the willfully ignorant say about things they refuse to learn anything about.

posthuman · Tuesday at 10:37 PM

posthuman said:

@cv5

yup, i am poking you on purpose.
read this, you'll like it more than you think you will - -

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1510.htm

posthuman · Tuesday at 10:41 PM

@cv5

chapter 30 - -

In another passage, also, by the same prophet, God, in the clearest language, shows us that it is not owing to any good merits on the part of men, but for His own name's sake, that He does these things. This is His language: This I do, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name's sake, which you have profaned among the heathen, whither ye went. And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which you have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle you with clean water, and you shall be clean: from all your own filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and the stony heart shall be taken away out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and will cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgments, and do them. Ezekiel 36:22-27 Now who is so blind as not to see, and who so stone-like as not to feel, that this grace is not given according to the merits of a good will, when the Lord declares and testifies, It is I, O house of Israel, who do this, but for my holy name's sake? Now why did He say It is I that do it, but for my holy name's sake, were it not that they should not think that it was owing to their own good merits that these things were happening, as the Pelagians hesitate not unblushingly to say? But there were not only no good merits of theirs, but the Lord shows that evil ones actually preceded; for He says, But for my holy name's sake, which you have profaned among the heathen. Who can fail to observe how dreadful is the evil of profaning the Lord's own holy name? And yet, for the sake of this very name of mine, says He, which you have profaned, I, even I, will make you good, but not for your own sakes; and, as He adds, I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which you have profaned in the midst of them. He says that He sanctifies His name, which He had already declared to be holy. Therefore, this is just what we pray for in the Lord's Prayer — Hallowed be Your name. We ask for the hallowing among men of that which is in itself undoubtedly always holy. Then it follows, And the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you. Although, then, He is Himself always holy, He is, nevertheless, sanctified in those on whom He bestows His grace, by taking from them that stony heart by which they profaned the name of the Lord.

posthuman · Tuesday at 10:43 PM

good stuff IMO.

and please note he ain't quoting Plato ((as many ignorant seem to be led to believe)) he is quoting the Bible, both OT and NT like it's all one dang book.

which it is. good on him, for that.

Poinsetta · Tuesday at 10:46 PM

posthuman said:

good luck 🍀👍

posthuman · Tuesday at 10:47 PM

@HeIsHere

you may particularly like chapter 31, where he goes on to argue from scripture ((note: not from Greek philosophy)) that free will and God's sovereign intervention in our lives necessarily coexist - -

Lest, however, it should be thought that men themselves in this matter do nothing by free will, it is said in the Psalm, Harden not your hearts; and in Ezekiel himself, Cast away from you all your transgressions, which you have impiously committed against me; and make you a new heart and a new spirit; and keep all my commandments. For why will you die, O house of Israel, says the Lord? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dies, says the Lord God: and turn ye, and live. Ezekiel 18:31-32 We should remember that it is He who says, Turn ye and live, to whom it is said in prayer, Turn us again, O God. We should remember that He says, Cast away from you all your transgressions, when it is even He who justifies the ungodly. We should remember that He says, Make you a new heart and a new spirit, who also promises, I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit will I put within you. Ezekiel 36:26 How is it, then, that He who says, Make you, also says, I will give you? Why does He command, if He is to give? Why does He give if man is to make, except it be that He gives what He commands when He helps him to obey whom He commands? There is, however, always within us a free will — but it is not always good; for it is either free from righteousness when it serves sin — and then it is evil — or else it is free from sin when it serves righteousness — and then it is good. But the grace of God is always good; and by it it comes to pass that a man is of a good will, though he was before of an evil one. By it also it comes to pass that the very good will, which has now begun to be, is enlarged, and made so great that it is able to fulfil the divine commandments which it shall wish, when it shall once firmly and perfectly wish. This is the purport of what the Scripture says: If you will, you shall keep the commandments; Sirach 15:15 so that the man who wills but is not able knows that he does not yet fully will, and prays that he may have so great a will that it may suffice for keeping the commandments. And thus, indeed, he receives assistance to perform what he is commanded. Then is the will of use when we have ability; just as ability is also then of use when we have the will. For what does it profit us if we will what we are unable to do, or else do not will what we are able to do?

Why do some people believe and some do not?

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