Total Depravity

Are you reformed in your soteriology or no`? Not here to label you, but here to understnad

https://hebrew.billmounce.com/BBH.1st.17.pdf

This chapter from Mounce should help you. If you look at an interlinear Hebrew-English text of Gen. 4, you should note which verbs have a waw prefix and which verbs do not. Where there is a perfect verb without a waw prefix, it is beginning a sequential chain of actions or states that includes the subsequent imperfect verbs with waw prefix. If a new perfect verb not having waw prefix is introduced into the narrative, the sequence is broken and the perfect verb without waw prefix is NOT temporally sequential to the previous chain, but begins a new temporal chain. followed by as many imperfect verbs with waw prefix as follow it.

You will see that Gen 4 verses 1, 2 and 3 give a single chain of waw + imperf3ct verb forms following the perfect verb from at the beginning, the verb "knew", in "And-Adam knew Eve..."Therefore all the verbs in vv 1-3 are temporally sequential.

But verse 4 has a perfect verb form without waw, so iit is NOT sequential to verses 1, 2 and 3. It happened not after, but some time before the last verb on the previous chain. So, Abel had brought his offering before Cain had.

Verse 5 introduces another perfect verb without waw, so is introducing a chain that is temporally disconnected from the previous chain in the narrative. "[God] did not respect...." This indicated that the narrative is jumping to a another event that was not narratively sequential to Abel's offering. The narrative is jumping back to the events of verse 3, making verse 4 parenthical to verses 1-3 and 5.

That is why I undertand Abel made his offering first and Cain took his lead lqter. It is cnjecture how Cain recognised that Abel's offering was accepted and his was not. My theory is by the productivity of their labours in the year following each of their offerings.

Read Ezekiel 18. Sin is not inherited. We did not inherit Adam’s sin. We suffer the CONSEQUENCES of his sin—an evil world, a cursed earth, hard work, pain in childbearing; but we are not BORN SINNERS because of Adam’s sin. God says a son does NOT inherit the sin of his father. The one who sins is the one who dies.
Also, Psalms 106:38 talks about those people who offered their children to idols, God says they shed INNOCENT blood. Babies and children are innocent Jesus used a little child as an example of purity and innocence and said we must become like them if we want to go to heaven.
GOD DOES NOT SEND BABIES TO HELL.

Luke 1:6
And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.

Ecclesiastes 7:29
Truly, this only I have found: That God made man upright, But they have sought out many schemes.”

That verse completely destroys total depravity in my view. God made man UPRIGHT, its us who are seeking out many schemes and making crooked our paths which are infact straight (and narrow!)

I wonder if the people are aware that calvinism would be better called augustinianism. As Augustine was the one who originally brought this idea to the church, some say from manichean gnosticism, I haven't looked into the topic enough to make that judgment. What I do know is: Before he shows up, no church father ever talks about determinism. In fact, they ALL unanimously agree on FREE WILL, despite them disagreeing on a multitude of topics.

For the sake of the readers I will post a few of these:

• 110-165AD Justin Martyr "We have learned from the prophets, and we hold it to be true, that punishments, chastisements, and rewards are rendered according to the merit of each man's actions. Otherwise, if all things happen by fate, then nothing is in our own power. For if it be predestined that one man be good and another man evil, then the first is not deserving of praise or the other to be blamed. Unless humans have the power of avoiding evil and choosing good by free choice, they are not accountable for their actions-whatever they may be.... For neither would a man be worthy of reward or praise if he did not of himself choose the good, but was merely created for that end. Likewise, if a man were evil, he would not deserve punishment, since he was not evil of himself, being unable to do anything else than what he was made for." (Justin First Apology chap. 43)
• 190 AD Clement of Alexandria "A man by himself working and toiling at freedom from sinful desires achieves nothing. But if he plainly shows himself to be very eager and earnest about this, he attains it by the addition of the power of God. God works together with willing souls. But if the person abandons his eagerness, the spirit from God is also restrained. To save the unwilling is the act of one using compulsion; but to save the willing, that of one showing grace." (Clement Salvation of the Rich Man chap. 21)
• 190 AD Clement of Alexandria "Neither praise nor condemnation, neither rewards nor punishments, are right if the soul does not have the power of choice and avoidance, if evil is involuntary." (Clement Miscellanies bk. 1, chap. 17)
• 250-300 AD Archelaus "All the creatures that God made, He made very good. And He gave to every individual the sense of free will, by which standard He also instituted the law of judgment.... And certainly whoever will, may keep the commandments. Whoever despises them and turns aside to what is contrary to them, shall yet without doubt have to face this law of judgment.... There can be no doubt that every individual, in using his own proper power of will, may shape his course in whatever direction he pleases." (Archelaus Disputation With Manes sees. 32, 33)
• 260-315 AD Methodius "Those [pagans] who decide that man does not have free will, but say that he is governed by the unavoidable necessities of fate, are guilty of impiety toward God Himself, making Him out to be the cause and author of human evils. " (Methodius The Banquet of the Ten Virgins discourse 8, chap. 16)

Quoted from here: https://www.bible.ca/H-Freewill.htm

More quotes and discussion on the topic here: https://soteriology101.com/2014/12/16/did-the-early-church-fathers-teach-calvinistic-doctrine/

I think the concept of 'total depravity" is a required to tenet (by taking verses out of contexts) as a rational for the other tenets.

Man is a sinner because he sins, not because he is inherently depraved or born a sinner.
Yet because of the weakness of his carnal nature, man cannot overcome sin.
Only in Jesus Christ can man be freed from sin’s power which wars against his soul.
Romans 6 explains this.

However, this does not mean that man is incapable of responding in faith to the Truth of the Gospel message.

For sure, calvinism is part of the "domino-theology" family. One falls down and it all comes crashing down.

I agree with you. This debate should never exist, but thanks to Augustine it does. I am personally invested in this because of God's holiness and righteousness. I don't like it when they compare my Father to the islamic god who has just predestined everything to be the way that it is, while clearly many many things are in violation of God's laws here on earth.

If you've spent some times watching debates on the subject, you can tell how cold the calvinists tend to be, cold, condescending....

I stated this as well on different thread.
Interesting his thinking being given so much weight after the Protestant Reformation via Calvinism.

The Early Church was continually defending the doctrine of the will free to make choices which are not always predetermined and refuting the Gnostic's who held to the doctrine of total inability and determinism or fatalism.

Having stated this John Calvin did not teach saving faith was a gift, this is a more recent permutation to make the tenets of the reformed movement more cohesive.

In his commentary on Ephesians, John Calvin said, Paul’s “meaning is, not that faith is the gift of God, but that salvation is given to us by God.”
John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul to the Galatians and Ephesians (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1855), 228–229.

John Calvin understood it properly.

Sadly these ideas are ubiquitous .. they have made their way into Baptist Churches and non-denominational churches.

I have an article on file somewhere how young Calvinists have been trained and sent out to become pastors of churches across North America.
So yes this debate would never exist for the fact but some people somewhere seem to want to keep promoting it.
A different god than the God of scripture.

Yes, and they use the Saul Alinsky tactic sometimes.
There is a study on the psychological profile of people drawn to this view and those who adopt it, it is very interesting.

I have had friends in the Reformed Church, and I will say they were quite nice, friendly, but they do have a sense that they are the 'elect" above the fray.
I will say some of their scholarship is very good when it not overly tainted with with their "tulip" tenets.

Glad you are here we need more balance on this board.

wrong

... the doctor smacked your bottom to make you breathe

this is a perfect piece of nonsense

high blown nah de dah, meaningless philosophy.

Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation.... to everyone who believes.

A Magentaist

I agree completely with that part of your post.

Even when they did that the baby was not dead.

The doctor suctions the nose and mouth, they do not need to be slapped to breathe, once they have been suctioned they breathe.
They are not dead, they still receive what they need via the placenta.
As well, my first hand experience also supports this.
Babies are not born dead unless they are still births.

This is not really debatable it is a fact.

Funny! If it was that easy to raise the dead, doctors in hospitals would be slapping flat-liners' bottoms instead of using the electric paddles.

Exactly!

Molinism? I have to look into that. I have heard it mentioned by James White when talking about William Lane Craig. It seemed really complicated so I never looked into it. I will now.