You can lecture Rahab, Namaan, the Queen of Sheba and the Ninevites about their stupid presumptuousness when (and if) you get the chance.
Can We Really Exercise Free Will?
- Thread starter LifelongLearner
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If ‘anything added to grace immediately cancels out grace,’ then belief—whether caused by grace (monergism) or freely responding to it (synergism)—would nullify grace.
The original statement was wrong.
I suppose I should get used to using the X emoji. Rather, I'll tell you the same thing I just told @Rufus. Run your response through a fallacies check. Afterward just realize no matter how much you or anyone makes emotional statements in support of Reformed Theology doctrine, we simply remain in disagreement.
Man is born in transgression and sin (Psalm 51 verse 5, 58 verse 3), dead in transgressions (Ephesians 2 verse 5), his heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure (Jeremiah 17 verse 9), held captive by a love for sin (John 3 verse 19; John 8 verse 34), so that he will not seek God (Romans 3 verses 10-11), because he loves the darkness (John 3 verse 19), and does not understand the things of God (1 Corinthians 2 verse 14), nor can he change himself (Jeremiah 13 verse 23). He suppresses the truth of God in unrighteousness (Romans 1 verse 18) and continues to willfully live in sin because he is totally depraved; this sinful lifestyle seems right to men (Proverbs 14 verse 12); they reject the gospel of Christ as foolishness (1 Corinthians 1 verse 18), and their mind is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. (Romans 8 verse 7).
Its the GIFT that is of grace, Christ. As are the strident exhortations to "receive" Him for salvation, which is of the Spirit and the Scriptures.
You CANNOT have somebody else (which would be God by your theory) do the believing FOR US.
As this would nullify the result.
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3 v 23). There is no one who does not sin (from 1 Kings 8 v 46). No one living is righteous before You (from Psalm 143 v 2). If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1 v 8). Jesus replied, “Truly, truly, I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.” (John 8 v 34) And this is the verdict: The Light has come into the world, but men loved the darkness rather than the Light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come into the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed (John 3 v 19-20). The heart is incurably wicked (Jeremiah 17 v 9). What is evil? Sin is evil. Stop sugar coating it. All men sin, and commit evil in the sight of God. There are none good, no, not one! A bad tree cannot bring forth good fruit.
Jeremiah 17 verse 9 plus John 3 verses 19-20 ~ The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? This is the verdict: The Light has come into the world, but men loved the darkness rather than the Light because their deeds were evil.
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Which part of that is not grace?
There is plenty of reason to believe that in context, this passage was written as describing CARNAL Corinthian Christian BELIEVERS.
This being the case, then your Calvinist theory regarding this passage.......goes right down the drain.
[1Co 2:14 KJV]
But the natural man ("carnal man") receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned.
[1Co 3:1 KJV]
And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, [even] as unto babes in Christ.
[1Co 3:2 KJV]
I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able [to bear it], neither yet now are ye able.
[1Co 3:3 KJV]
For ye are yet carnal: for whereas [there is] among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
[1Co 3:4 KJV]
For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I [am] of Apollos; are ye not carnal?
It wasn't. Belief wasn't added to grace. It results from it.
Grace + nothing = salvation(belief)
You have belief on the wrong side of the equation.
I never said we don't believe ourselves. I've merely stated that faith is the product of hearing, and hearing comes from the word of God.
Word of God yields hearing.
Hearing yields faith.
I don't see:
I listened to the word of God.
I chose to believe.
Salvation is a spiritual transaction.
Lose, retract and then "cool of the marks". Shell and pea soteriology. Bait and switch.
The list goes on......
And that's a semantics game.
And you know what to expect from me in response, 'No you have it on the wrong side of the equation'?
Grace Initiation + Belief Response > Salvation.
or
Grace Initiation > Positive Volitional Belief Response > Salvation.
And each of these can be interpreted with a lens of monergism or synergism.
And I don't like either label for various reasons.
So, again, we go nowhere.
You and I are in disagreement.
You agree with Reformed Theology to whatever degree.
I do not agree with Reformed Theology.
Because you disagree with what Scripture explicitly articulates.
What a waste of time, all those years you spent studying.