Can We Really Exercise Free Will?
- Thread starter LifelongLearner
- Start date
-
Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.
If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!
To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
See well I've just wrote 3 pages of why it's important to not make this whole thread about calvinism, because time and again people have said, there not a calvinist preaching Calvinism, and neither do they have this Calvinistic nature you would like them to have
But time and time again Calvinism just keeps getting brought up, and being used against a person for everything that person is saying about God, and there not even the way people thing they are.
You know the people who have said time and time against there not what you think they are.
But it's keeps happening time and time again.
Its pretty sad really that people have to reject the word of God with a make believe fallacy of these make believe isms
For goodness sake where is the compassion here ?
But time and time again Calvinism just keeps getting brought up, and being used against a person for everything that person is saying about God, and there not even the way people thing they are.
You know the people who have said time and time against there not what you think they are.
But it's keeps happening time and time again.
Its pretty sad really that people have to reject the word of God with a make believe fallacy of these make believe isms
For goodness sake where is the compassion here ?
The "according to his deeds" are Christ's deeds, not their deeds. All who claim righteousness based upon their deeds, they will be measured against Christ's deeds and be found wanting. For those covered under Christ, His deeds will be assessed as their deeds.
The failure of their deeds regarding things spiritual is sin.
An assessment or measurement must have a perfect standard for a comparison to be made. Christ, and His righteousness alone provides that standard.
Why do you keep labelling total depravity Calvinism ?
What is your reason ? Did John Calvin start a religion called Calvinist or Calvinism ?
You've even said you believe people are depraved
You know fine well it means no one is worthy not one.
Do you realise you have had the word of God rejected hundreds of times here with isms and made children of God no longer speak to you
in today's vernacular, hope is reduced to something like "wish".
Scripturally ...
faith is the substance of things hoped for ... we are steadfastly confident that what God has promised He will bring to pass.
hope is the anchor of the soul ... both sure and stedfast ... hope is our strong consolation in God's promises and helps us to endure the things we face in this life.
faith hope love ... love energizes faith ... faith undergirds hope ... hope rests in the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is our refuge ... these are enduring realities.
.
Saying that people are called to believe and are born unable to believe the Good News takes nothing away from the glory of God.
What really diminishes the glory of God is making His offer of salvation to all who trust in Him for the free gift, only available to those He has pre-selected.
His glory is also diminished by a doctrine which asserts the God has given man a fallen nature so completely unable to respond positively to the very Good News He has brought to the world.
Jesus states "love your enemies" calling the believer to a higher moral standard than the god of reformed doctrine who I am told hates those he did not pre-select.
The "power of God unto salvation" is to only those who believe (the elect). But to those who suppress the truth in unrighteousness -- not so much (non-elect).
Besides, God doesn't give grace to the proud (e.g. truth-suppressing sinners), nor does He extend any mercy to them since mercy is granted only to God-fearers.
Learn to understand passages not only in their immediate and intermediate contexts, but also in its macro context.
we must always remember that Salvation is grace, not wages.
Believing is not a wage.
Faith/Works
Romans 4:4-5:
Paul asks, "Now to him that worketh, is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness".
There is no boasting because it is the same gate for everyone.
It is actually the pre-selected doctrine that offers a means by which to boast.
Election in scripture is connected to service not personal individual salvation, salvation always was and always will be >>>>> by grace through faith
But substituting human will for God's will is a sin by claiming that the former is the efficacious element to one's salvation.
From 1 Peter 1 verses 3-5 ~ The elect are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by His blood. By His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, reserved in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power for the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
But you FWers substitute the efficacious saving grace of God for the efficacious "freewill" of man so that it is the ultimate cause for believing and trusting in Him. You clearly assign to yourself and the human race a power that only God possesses.
The theology of FWers is based on the opposite of what Scripture says in many places.
They claim everyone sees, everyone hears, the flesh pleases God, man is a good guy, he is free, he does not oppose the spiritual things of God, he will choose to believe what he is inherently opposed to with his God-hating heart which needs to be replaced, before it is replaced. The list of all the Biblical truths they oppose is quite long, and they are not adverse to blaspheming God in order to uphold their idol of self.
Romans 7 v 14, John 8 v 34, Jeremiah 13 v 23, Romans 3 v 10 ~ We know that the law is spiritual; but
I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. Jesus replied, “Truly, truly, I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.” Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Neither are you able to do good - you who are accustomed to doing evil. There is no one righteous, not even one.
Wrong again, belief does not supplant anything.
Salvation is a gift, it given by God's grace and received by those who believe in/trust in God for it.
You are just so used to equating belief with works you cannot see it, sadly