Just to clarify since maybe I am not reading this correctly.. is the initial act of faith upon hearing the
Good News towards and IN Christ given by God?
Thanks for asking to clarify. I see Scripture saying an unbeliever retains the functional volitional capacity to interact with God, His Gospel, His Spirit and choose to believe what God says. IOW I fully reject the deterministic corpse-man.
I don't think God gives a man faith so he can believe, and I don't think God gives a man faith when He believes.
I do think there is a confusing element to this in that God gives volitional man WHAT to believe, and if man chooses to believe it and not reject it, then
in effect -
logically - it could be said that God gives man faith. But if you take into account what I said just above, this reasoning does not negate those 2 statements.
With that said, there are a few things to work on. I, and some other students of the Word of whom I mentioned earlier, have come to question this whole translation of pistis as "faith" issue. And they and I know how deeply imbedded in theology and translation history it is.
As I mentioned earlier, John does not even use the word in his gospel. Of course this is just one consideration in the study, but IMO it's indicative that a man believing in God and believing God is most significant.
Understanding pistis on the other hand is another level of work. If it's used in conjunction with pisteuo (verb) translated as believe, maybe it should just be translated as belief or trust to track directly with believe. When we really get into pistis and want to understand how extensive a meaning it carries and how it ties back to pisteuo, for one thing I think we have to begin with Paul and how he bookends Romans with "obedience [of] pistis". That bookending and him saying it is his God commanded mission in the nations is not a minor thing. And this phrase not only helps define what he thinks pisits is, but it takes on a life of its own when we use it throughout Romans and consider it throughout Scripture and how pistis is used in relation to Jesus Christ - His pistis.
To say pistis and obedience [of] pistis is pregnant with meaning is an understatement to say the least. I can tell you there is sufficient ambiguity in the phrase itself that points to it needing to be studied in a very focused manner. At the surface level there are 30+/- ways to translate the phrase just to clarify the "of" which is being simplistically inserted in translating.
I don't know if I've answered your question specifically, but I have considered you and I to understand initial faith - or belief - similarly if not the same. If anything, maybe you'll see that I think we've only scratched the surface on the matter. I do think determinism only points us away from properly understanding pistis and pisteuo for that matter.
