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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: The background of Calvinism
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GreyFace
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# 4682
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Posted
Are you going to answer the question about Peter and Paul? I know you're under attack from all sides here but it's a bit crucial, don't you think?
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daronmedway
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# 3012
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Posted
Mudfrog asked: quote:
God does not, as the scripture clearly states, want anyone to perish and therefore whoever wants to be saved can.
Where?
quote:
Secondly, can you tell me where in the Bible both repentance and belief are gifts of God?
I know that grace is the gift of God - not sure where I can read about repentance and belief being such a gift.
If they don't come from God, where do they come from? Are they just free-floating virtues belonging to no-one and accessible to all? No. Everything belongs to God. Ephesians 1.3 quote:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
I take that to include faith, repentance, joy, peace, prosperity everything. All things come from God and only of his own do we give him.
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by m.t-tomb:
Where?
quote:
Posted way back by Mudfrog:
...'God our Saviour, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.'
1 Tim 2 v 4
'He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.'
2 Peter 3 v 9
He even tried to draw it to your attention again a few posts later. GreyFace referenced one of those verses as well.
[ 19. September 2006, 10:47: Message edited by: mdijon ]
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
m.t-tomb
I just want to say this first of all. It's brilliant arguing (discussing) Christian doctrine with someone who actually wants to defend evangelical belief. Respec' to you my brother!
(Sorry to all those universalists out there)
I'm a Salvationist Wesleyan, you're an Anglican Calvinist. But we are both saved by grace through faith, both redeemed by the blood of the Lamb once and for all slain on Calvary, chosen by God to be holy and welcomed into his family as adopted sons, etc, etc, etc. We could both stand together in your Parish Church or my City Temple and blast out some of the great evangelical hymns at the top of our voices (Do you like brass bands?).
Love it, great discussion ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
- even if you are wrong!
![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif) ![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
Anyway. It is probably as much a caricature of Calvinists that some Arminians have as you have of Arminians. I have often heard it said that Arminians save themselves and therefore have no security.
That's why Wesleyanism is so cool.
We believe in total depravity but we also believe in prevenient grace and assurance - 'he that believeth hath the witness in himself' (ie, if you are saved, you know it and you are secure in it.)
But it is this idea of limited versus full atonement that divides us.
I believe the atonement is for the whole world:
"We believe that by his suffering and death, the Lord Jesus Christ has made an atonement for the whole world that whosever will may be saved."
We also believe that "We are justified by grace through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ..."
OK
That's where I stand.
I would really like to know your take on the two Scriptures I quoted.
Ta.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by m.t-tomb:
Where?
quote:
Posted way back by Mudfrog:
...'God our Saviour, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.'
1 Tim 2 v 4
'He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.'
2 Peter 3 v 9
He even tried to draw it to your attention again a few posts later. GreyFace referenced one of those verses as well.
Apologies if I missed them. Regarding the second quote from 2 Peter, please go the front of each of Peter's Epsitles and read who they're addressed to: I think you'll find that they're addressed to 'the elect' (1 Peter 1.1) and those 'who have recieved a faith' (2 Peter 1.1). Peter is addressing the elect: of course God wants them all to be saved.
As for the Timothy verse. I'll get back to you. I've got a funeral to preach the gospel at. Later!
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Myrrh
Shipmate
# 11483
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Waterchaser:
Myrrh - I knew as I was posting that I could get pulled up for over simplification and you are right! I tend to oversimplify because I'm too lazy to nuance everything I write.
In terms of salvation faith and grace are pitched against works in Paul's letters - I believe that faith and grace combined always lead to us becoming better people and doing good (indeed we have been predesitined to be conformed to the image of Jesus), but it is grace and faith combined that save us rather than our works.
Isn't predestined to be conformed saying that we have no free will? Was that Origens teaching?
Paul is also more nuanced than this argument of faith and grace v works brings out, sometimes by works he means the 613 mitzvot not works of good and evil per se.
For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.
Galatians 2:16
Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
Galatians 3:2
This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
with
2 Timothy 3:17
That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
Titus 1:16
They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.
The problem Pelagius had, and we have, with Augustine was his denial of our capacity for righteousness before Christ, which isn't apostolic teaching:
John 3:12
Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous.
And Paul also understands this, i.e. the choice to do good or evil, as available even to those who weren't given the law as had the Jews, and here he means the the moral law, the commandments, not the mitzvot:
Romans 2:14-16
14For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:
15Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)
16In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.
Myrrh
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and thanks for all the fish
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daronmedway
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# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
Are you going to answer the question about Peter and Paul? I know you're under attack from all sides here but it's a bit crucial, don't you think?
Sorry. Pop up a link to it and I'll try to answer.
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
quote:
I'm a Salvationist Wesleyan, you're an Anglican Calvinist.
.... and I, of course, am neither.
John Spears ... first class!
m.t-tomb ... for you simply to shout "circumcise your heart" at JS as if that answers his arguments astonishes me.
It's no use mre rehashing all the arguments against Calvinism. I know that they are not going to cut any ice here. Calvinists are impervious to them. Calvinism can only break down under its own weight.
Anyway, I am going to offer a different perspective here.
What MAKES a person a Calvinist [of the pre-d(x2) sort}?
I hazard that a common feature will be the conviction born out of experience that "I cannot save myself." I'm drowning and I can't swim. God puts down his hand to me. It's the only way. I see others drowning though. God has not put his hand down to them. QED, double pre-d with fries.
I have a different version of that story.
Indeed we cannot save ourselves but God ORDINARILY requires that we cooperate with his grace to save us. It's the Orthodox synergy thing ... but remember our twist. It's like that old fashioned ballroom dancing thing. Both move in harmony, both have skill but GOD LEADS. God does not drag the hapless dancer limp across the floor though ... USUALLY.
However, SOMETIMES, a soul is utterly bereft of is own powers. This can often happen (and often does happen) in times of personal crisis. An Augustine tires of screwing his way round Milan but can't stop it and is burdened with empty rhetoric and broody Manichaeism. He's paralysed. Luther has a nervous breakdown (remember him fearing the leaves rustling in the trees) and then discovers justification as he evacuates his bowels (allegedly). Calvin sees God as a Cosmic Judge, bound by the law as a diligent lawyer might. The accused has no right to determine the law ... even understand it. His crisis is more intellectual than existential ... but it is a crisis nonetheless.
The mistake, in my view, is to take a crisis driven version of repentance and make it mandatory for all ... then, develop a doctrine of grace, anthropology and mission built on such heresy (literally, selective choice ... Greek) and cripple western Christianity with it for centuries.
These tulips are black. They need burning.
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Fr. Gregory
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Mudfrog
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# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by m.t-tomb:
I've got a funeral to preach the gospel at. Later!
Let's hope there are some of the elect there or else you'll be wasting your time - pearls before unelected swine, and all that.
There's a point. If the churches are emptying, if there are fewer and fewer conversions, what does that say about God's election? Has he stopped electing young people, going for older ones instead? And why does God seem to elect mainly women? And why is it that he's doing a heck of a lot of electing in Africa these days, but in places like France or Denmark, and the UK itself, the election rate is slowing down to a dribble. I mean, even if every church-goer (including Catholics whom some Calvinists would say are never elected ![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif) ) was part of the predestined few, why has God only elected to save 7% of the British population?
He's not doing a very good job!
I can just see the Daily News in Hell.
"New statistics for 21st Century - 93% of humanity to be relocated to the infernal regions! Read all about plans for new asbestos housing on level 9!" ![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
I'd always thought that Luther suffered from constipation myself
[ETA - reply to Fr Gregory re Luther sitting on the job]
[ 19. September 2006, 11:16: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
Father Gregory: quote:
m.t-tomb ... for you simply to shout "circumcise your heart" at JS as if that answers his arguments astonishes me.
You misunderstand me; my point is that God makes us able to love him by circumcising our hearts. We are the subjects of heart circumcision not the exectutors of it.
[ 19. September 2006, 11:16: Message edited by: m.t-tomb ]
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by m.t-tomb:
Regarding the second quote from 2 Peter, please go the front of each of Peter's Epsitles and read who they're addressed to: I think you'll find that they're addressed to 'the elect' (1 Peter 1.1) and those 'who have recieved a faith' (2 Peter 1.1). Peter is addressing the elect: of course God wants them all to be saved.
As for the Timothy verse. I'll get back to you. I've got a funeral to preach the gospel at. Later!
That won't do.
For your interpretation to hold true, you'd need it to read
quote:
'He is patient with you, not wanting any of you to perish, but all of you, the elect to come to repentance
In fact, it reads
....not wanting anyone to perish...
Yours strikes me as a gymnastic way of reading to avoid the obvious meaning of the words.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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Waterchaser
Shipmate
# 11005
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Posted
quote:
Isn't predestined to be conformed saying that we have no free will?
I don't think it does. Being predestined to being conformed to the image of Jesus is based on God's foreknowledge of us and it is what we as followers of Jesus want. However we don't want all of what that means yet but as we both work out our salvation and God works in us it becomes more and more what we want.
I believe God doesn't overrides our freewill to get us there but he works with our freewill - which must be very difficult but he's very wise.
The best simple characterisation of the gospel (from a human individual perspective I am aware that there is much greater richness in the gospel than this) that I've heard is that it gives us the two things we want most - acceptance and change. We want to be accepted as we are - and God accepts as we are through the sacrifice of Jesus but at the same time none of us are satisfied with who we are because we know that we fall short of what we were created to be; and the Holy Spirit works in us so we become who we should be. But while the Holy Spirit works in us we need to participate in this process.
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Dear m.t-tomb
Ah but that's the point of contention isn't it? When God "hardens" a heart .... who is doing the hardening? When God sanctifies / warms / opens (any other appropriate synonymn for circumcision) who is doing the circumcising? You can't answer that simply from the syntax of the sentence. You have to take a rounded whole biblical view.
I should add perhaps that my own conversion points (plural) have often been in and through personal crises but I have always resisted the distortion of supposing that I had no part to play in those moments when I thought I hadn't any part to play OR that my limited and partial experience should be determinative of gospel truth.
Dear Matt
Yes he was bunged up but I thought that his great illumination came when he got unbunged.
[ 19. September 2006, 11:26: Message edited by: Father Gregory ]
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by m.t-tomb:
Sorry. Pop up a link to it and I'll try to answer.
Apologies for being obscure, I was referring to 1 Tim 2:4 and 2 Peter 3:9.
Interesting way you phrase this:
quote:
You misunderstand me; my point is that God makes us able to love him by circumcising our hearts.
Not "makes us love him" but "makes us able to love him."
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Amy the Undecided
Shipmate
# 11412
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by m.t-tomb:
If that's the case then they don't deserve salvation either
Well, no, that doesn't follow. I believe that simply because she is born and is capable of suffering, a child deserves, in the common use of the word, to be fed, changed, protected from danger, and comforted when in distress. Are you saying God disagrees?
And, as others have pointed out, the cruelty (and I would say, diabolic nature) of this God goes back to His utter control of our nature from the beginning. In the two-small-boys-drowning analogy, it would be as if the person who offered the rope had first amputated one of the boys' arms.
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The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love. ~William Sloane Coffin
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Papio
Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
Greyface - thank you for saying what I wanted to but much better than I did! ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
My problem is that I indeed do not understand how injustice can be just even if God says that it is.
ISTM that if one combines Original Sin through Adam with predestination, one arrives at a position that denies both God's love and the Scriptures.
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Papio
Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by m.t-tomb:
Father Gregory: quote:
m.t-tomb ... for you simply to shout "circumcise your heart" at JS as if that answers his arguments astonishes me.
You misunderstand me; my point is that God makes us able to love him by circumcising our hearts. We are the subjects of heart circumcision not the exectutors of it.
So your saying that our sinfullness is not our own fault, instead it is God's fault, completely. Utterly. Yet WE are so blame-worthy that God is justified in behaving in a way towards us, as falen humans, that everythin we know about either justice or love is ostensibly trampled on by your God.
I'm sorry, but not one single part of that position makes sense.
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
quote:
Originally posted by m.t-tomb:
Sorry. Pop up a link to it and I'll try to answer.
Apologies for being obscure, I was referring to 1 Tim 2:4 and 2 Peter 3:9.
Interesting way you phrase this:
quote:
You misunderstand me; my point is that God makes us able to love him by circumcising our hearts.
Not "makes us love him" but "makes us able to love him."
Yes, able to love. You can't resist being given the ability (irresistible grace) but you can resist using it.
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
Regarding 1 Timothy 2.4:
It cannot mean that God sovereignly wills every single human being to be saved (i.e. that God saves everyone). I think that it means that salvation isn't restricted to Israel but extends to all ethnic groups (i.e. God elects from amongst all people, not just Israel). This is wht Paul's argument builds up to verse 7 where he describes himself as 'as teacher of the Gentiles'.
It might be a reference to the fact that God takes no delight in his wrath.
[ 19. September 2006, 13:50: Message edited by: m.t-tomb ]
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
So you can be predestined to have the ability to respond but not predestined to use it?
Wouldn't it then be possible that all are predestined to have the ability to respond and those that are not saved have resisted using it?
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
So you can be predestined to have the ability to respond but not predestined to use it?
Wouldn't it then be possible that all are predestined to have the ability to respond and those that are not saved have resisted using it?
No. Because Paul in Romans 8.30 says: quote:
And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
A person may resist but they will not win.
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
Didn't Christ Himself choose and call Judas?
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Now that's a very strange coincidence. We are dealing with this verse tonight in our parish Bible Study ... John 6:70
Was Jesus' choice and calling of Judas not a justifying act then? Presumably according to pre-d (x2) Judas' demonic apostasy was predetermined in the foreordained purposes of God. Is this the sense then that Augustine can say that the saved rejoice in the pains of the damned?! What absolute crap! What an atrocious doctrine and perception of God. ![[Projectile]](graemlins/puke2.gif)
Go on, tell me now that God is love!
[ 19. September 2006, 14:10: Message edited by: Father Gregory ]
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
Didn't Christ Himself choose and call Judas?
Dis Lazarus choose to come back to life before he came out of the tomb? Did jesus need his cooperation? Was his resusitation a joint effort? No. Jesus gave the imperative: Lazarus was raised; he didn't rise of his own free will. He responded once life had been imparted.
Now in Ephesians 2 we read this: quote:
1As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
Do dead people cooperate? Do dead people need to exercise their will to come to life? Or are they merely the subjects of divine grace?
[ 19. September 2006, 14:11: Message edited by: m.t-tomb ]
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by m.t-tomb:
Regarding 1 Timothy 2.4:
...I think that it means that salvation isn't restricted to Israel but extends to all ethnic groups (i.e. God elects from amongst all people, not just Israel).
It says not wanting anyone to perish... not any race.
quote:
Also posted by m.t-tomb:
It might be a reference to the fact that God takes no delight in his wrath.
Not wanting is not wanting - not absence of delight.
As with the Peter quote, you need to twist the meaning of "anyone" away from anyone and onto "the elect" or "any race"... it doesn't ring true.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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Papio
Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by m.t-tomb:
Thank God it's not my position then!
No, I'm sorry. Your right. It is my interpretation of your position rather than your position per se.
Sorry.
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Yes such dead people DO cooperate! Jesus loved St. Lazarus for a reason and the miracle was related to that. He didn't go around doing non causal party tricks simply to impress.
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Fr. Gregory
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by m.t-tomb:
Do dead people cooperate? Do dead people need to exercise their will to come to life? Or are they merely the subjects of divine grace?
Above you started to hint that predestination might be a matter of grace-granted ability - but that you'd still need to be willing to use that ability.
Doesn't that view contradict this one?
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Yes such dead people DO cooperate! Jesus loved St. Lazarus for a reason and the miracle was related to that. He didn't go around doing non causal party tricks simply to impress.
Was Lazarus lying there waiting for an resistable invitation to came back to life? No. He was dead. He contributed nothing.
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by m.t-tomb:
Do dead people cooperate? Do dead people need to exercise their will to come to life? Or are they merely the subjects of divine grace?
Above you started to hint that predestination might be a matter of grace-granted ability - but that you'd still need to be willing to use that ability.
Doesn't that view contradict this one?
No. Lazarus could have refused to come out. That's when his response of free will would have become possible.
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
I don't think those verses are referring to Lazarus.
I thought you were applying those verses to show that just as the dead have no ability to cooperate in their raising, we have no ability to cooperate in our salvation.
And that's what I thought contradicted your earlier view. But if you only apply them to Lazarus... it's an odd thing to speculate on, frankly, whether he had freedom to rise from the dead - or could have exerted his freedom with a "Well, raise me from the dead if you must, but I'm not comin' out of this bleedin' cave"....
I still think you're stuck on the Peter and Timothy verses, by the way.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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Waterchaser
Shipmate
# 11005
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Posted
If you don't like the fact that Paul says that God wants all men to be saved because it indicates that God doesn't always get his own way what do you make of the passages below:
Luke 7:30 "The Pharisees had rejected God's purpose for themselves because they had not been baptised by John".
Luke 19:41 "Jesus began to cry and said "I wish that even today you would find the way of peace but now its too late and peace is hidden from you.""
Posts: 310 | From: Luton, UK | Registered: Feb 2006
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
That last post of mine was for m.t-tomb of course and had in mind John 11:36. Jesus doubtless didn't weep at every death he witnessed. The love he had for Lazarus (and therefore, the rising) was based on a prior relationship. The rising was not, therefore, a stand alone divine act .... still less was the relationship unilateral .... ANY relationship. If Jesus calls US friends then I suppose it's because of some reciprocity.
The more I read of Calvinism the more I think that secularised Calvinists will become Muslims.
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
Posts: 15099 | From: Manchester, UK | Registered: May 2001
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
mdijon: quote:
I thought you were applying those verses to show that just as the dead have no ability to cooperate in their raising, we have no ability to cooperate in our salvation.
I was; you understood me correctly. I then tried to extend the analogy to accomodate free will. Lazarus had no free will until he was alive; I say that it is the same with regeneration. Dead people don't cooperate; they just lie there, dead.
Posts: 6976 | From: Southampton | Registered: Jul 2002
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Waterchaser:
If you don't like the fact that Paul says that God wants all men to be saved because it indicates that God doesn't always get his own way what do you make of the passages below:
Luke 7:30 "The Pharisees had rejected God's purpose for themselves because they had not been baptised by John".
Luke 19:41 "Jesus began to cry and said "I wish that even today you would find the way of peace but now its too late and peace is hidden from you.""
Yes, hidden by God.
Posts: 6976 | From: Southampton | Registered: Jul 2002
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by m.t-tomb:
I was; you understood me correctly. I then tried to extend the analogy to accomodate free will. Lazarus had no free will until he was alive; I say that it is the same with regeneration. Dead people don't cooperate; they just lie there, dead.
In which case, I'm back to asking how that a) fits with your previous position about predestined ability but not response and b) those pesky verses in Timothy and Peter (which really do say anyone - not any race or any elect)...
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by m.t-tomb:
Yes, hidden by God.
Which makes Jesus' wish it weren't hidden rather difficult to understand.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Dear m.t-tomb
quote:
Dead people don't cooperate; they just lie there, dead.
You have not answered my point on this in relation to St. Lazarus.
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
Posts: 15099 | From: Manchester, UK | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by m.t-tomb:
Regarding 1 Timothy 2.4:
It cannot mean that God sovereignly wills every single human being to be saved (i.e. that God saves everyone).
Here is the heart of your problem. Deciding that the scriptures cannot mean what goes against your theology.
I think it means what it says. God WANTS everybody to be saved. Everybody. Just like it says. God doesn't force people to be saved, however, and that means that some might not be. God is not WILLING that any should perish. If he had his druthers, nobody would perish. But he doesn't have his druthers, because we are able to reject his salvation.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by m.t-tomb:
Regarding 1 Timothy 2.4:
It cannot mean that God sovereignly wills every single human being to be saved (i.e. that God saves everyone).
Here is the heart of your problem. Deciding that the scriptures cannot mean what goes against your theology.
I think it means what it says. God WANTS everybody to be saved. Everybody. Just like it says. God doesn't force people to be saved, however, and that means that some might not be. God is not WILLING that any should perish. If he had his druthers, nobody would perish. But he doesn't have his druthers, because we are able to reject his salvation.
So does God want us to have free will then? More than he wants us to be saved?
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Papio
Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by m.t-tomb:
Regarding 1 Timothy 2.4:
It cannot mean that God sovereignly wills every single human being to be saved (i.e. that God saves everyone).
Here is the heart of your problem. Deciding that the scriptures cannot mean what goes against your theology.
I think it means what it says. God WANTS everybody to be saved. Everybody. Just like it says. God doesn't force people to be saved, however, and that means that some might not be. God is not WILLING that any should perish. If he had his druthers, nobody would perish. But he doesn't have his druthers, because we are able to reject his salvation.
In other words - God chooses people of God's own soveriegn will. The people God chooses are everybody.
So God chooses everybody. Not everyone necessarily chooses God, but hopefully all will - it's just that that isn't a given and any who reject God do not go to Heaven.
So Calvin spotted that God chose, but his reading of that was a misunderstanding.
Is that your position, Mousethief?
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Infinite Penguins.
My "Readit, Swapit" page
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Posts: 12176 | From: a zoo in England. | Registered: Mar 2003
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jinglebellrocker
Shipmate
# 8493
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Posted
quote:
originally posted by Mousethief
I think it means what it says. God WANTS everybody to be saved. Everybody. Just like it says. God doesn't force people to be saved, however, and that means that some might not be. God is not WILLING that any should perish. If he had his druthers, nobody would perish. But he doesn't have his druthers, because we are able to reject his salvation.
God does not want automatons. We are saved by grace alone but we have to have faith, in other words we have to believe in Jesus, which involves a free choice. You can't argue for pure free will or pure predestination based on Scripture, because Scripture supports elements of both.
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For I know that my Redeemer lives,and at the last he will stand upon the earth. - Job 19:25
Posts: 243 | From: Madisonville, Tennessee | Registered: Sep 2004
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
Papio, yes!
Leprechaun, free will is not chosen over salvation, because no such choice is possible. It is the very nature of salvation (this is what is misunderstood by the various heresiarchs) that pre-supposes man's co-operation. Salvation is about man partaking in God, and it takes two to tango.
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
Posts: 11285 | Registered: Apr 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
A contraction of "would rather", Father G. "If I had my druthers" means if I could have what I would rather be true, be true.
Papio, that's exactly what I believe.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
So does God want us to have free will then? More than he wants us to be saved?
You could put it that way. God created us to be free agents that could choose to love Him. If he wanted automatons that automatically loved him, he could have made those, but "love" of that sort is rather cheap. God could force us to be saved, but that would require changing who we are, from free agents, to puppets. God doesn't want the "love" of puppets. There would have been no need to create a world of danger and death if all God wanted was puppet love. But in order to have freely chosen love, we need a world in which we are free to make choices, even choices that have bad consequences. If we are not free to not choose God, then we are not free to choose God.
Also I'm not sure how your question, clearly intended as a condemnation of my position, really is one -- if your position is that God doesn't want to save all people, but only a few. A God that wants all of his free children saved but allows them to reject him seems a far more worthy object of worship than a God who makes nothing but puppets, and then torments some of them for eternity for a choice that He, and not they, made.
[ 19. September 2006, 15:49: Message edited by: Mousethief ]
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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