Wondering:
(Part 3 of 4)
If "determination" means "determinism", then you would be wrong in your assessment of Reformed Theology. Predestination of the elect does mean that God determines the elect to believe and be saved (Eph. 1). But it does not mean that God determines the acts of sin that men commit. I know that some people believe that, but I do not see the Bible teaching it. Men are culpable for the sins they commit, and God does not make them do it. Unregenerate mankind is autonomous, which means "self-determining," and that is the essence of the sinful nature, because he acts on the impulses of the flesh and has no regard for God's will.
Could you please explain why my assessment of reformed theology is wrong?
Predestination, in Christian theology, is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God, usually with reference to the eventual fate of the individual soul.[1] Explanations of predestination often seek to address the "paradox of free will", whereby God's omniscience seems incompatible with human free will. In this usage, predestination can be regarded as a form of religious determinism; and usually predeterminism, also known as theological determinism.
source: Wikipedia
Can I trust John Piper or John MacArthur?
They believe God controls everything that happens...everything, even evil.
This is an interesting article:
Does God Always Control All Things?: A Response to John Piper | Free Thinking Ministries
John Piper is founder of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary. For over three decades he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, MN.
freethinkingministries.com
I disagree with you. Describing who we might be slaves to or what we might choose does not constitute a teaching on free will as you use the term. Your idea of free will is that unregenerate man has the capability to make right choices in the eyes of God, which is contrary to what Paul taught in Rom. 3:10-18 and elsewhere.
John Calvin even believed that every person has some light....
1. THAT there exists in the human minds and indeed by natural instinct, some sense of Deity, we hold to be beyond dispute, since God himself, to prevent any man from pretending ignorance, has endued all men with some idea of his Godhead, the memory of which he constantly renews and occasionally enlarges, that all to a man being aware that there is a God, and that he is their Maker, may be condemned by their own conscience when they neither worship him nor consecrate their lives to his service.
Institutes of the Christian Religion
Book 1
Chapter 3
Paragraph 1
I also disagree with your assessment of what the Bible teaches about the will of man. In fact, the term "free will" or "freewill" in the Bible refers to a natural ability of man to choose something freely against any coercion, peer pressure, or legal obligation. That's a natural ability.
I agree on your description of free will being the ability of man to choose something freely.
So what are we debating here?
But unregenerate man is not able to make a right moral decision in the eyes of God, according to Paul in his teaching on total spiritual depravity in Rom. 3:10-18 and elsewhere. In addition to this, John denied that the will of man is involved in being born of God, according to John 1:13.
Again? The unregenerate man? I think there's a nuance to this idea of unregenerate man not being able to choose that you don't quite get. Really.
Answered before, more than once.
What do you think Paul means by "useless" in Rom. 3:12? It says "no one does good, not even one." Your assessment of "good" appears to be some relativist term compared between people. But when Paul teaches what is good in the eyes of God, it is spiritual truth he is talking about. It is the ultimate goodness of God, that only comes from God that he is talking about. It's based on Jesus saying to apparently righteous Jews "if you, being evil..." So if Jesus called them evil who thought they were righteous compared to others, then I think you might not know what you're talking about.
Jesus said only God is good.
He also said to be perfect as the Father is perfect.
I think we agree on what the term GOOD means.
It does have to be good in the eyes of God.
HE is the supreme authority on good and evil and God makes those rules. (as to what is good and what is evil).
If someone is a slave to sin, they can't get out of it by themselves, even by what seems like a strong will. The term "slave" signifies stuck and can't get out, and also signifies that the will (the power of choice) of man is in bondage.
See what Calvin wrote above.
See what John 1 wrote.
ALL MEN have some light.
Enough to know God if they want to.
I don't care what other people believe, I care about what the Bible actually says. I disagree with the corporate salvation idea, because corporations, such as the body of Christ, is made up of individuals. You cannot separate individuals from the body, otherwise you have no body or corporation.
Corporate salvation is not what other people believe. It's believed by theologians and scholars that study the bible.
Do you really think you know what Romans 9 to 11 is referring to better than they do?
Corporations are made up of individuals...agreed.
But these chapters are speaking about how God choses HIS PEOPLE..the Hebrews, Israelites and then Jews for HIS PURPOSES...
to use THEM to let the whole world know about Himself....
Did God fail?
Did the Jews fail?
These chapters are referring to this.
I do not subscribe to the idea that God saved everyone in general but no one in particular. I think that idea stinks of God not loving anyone in any special way. It makes "God so loved the world" an idea that God loves the concept of a good world, but doesn't love any individual in it enough to save any individual out of his hopeless plight. I see the NT teaching quite the contrary.
What I get from you and your cronies is a hate for Rom. 9-11, such that you have to make up something to impose on it (such as "it's talking exclusively about Israel", or "it's talking about corporate salvation"), because you just can't accept the clear simple statements that are in it.
Take up this argument with those that study the bible.
God created humanity and loves His creation...we are all His creation and He loves the whole world.
But God loves His children in a special way.
If someone loves a son of yours....you also love that person.
Your arguing in circles. Exactly WHAT don't we understand?I don't care what this guy likes or doesn't like. I care about what the Bible actually says and teaches. It is likely that what people don't like about Reformed Theology is what they misunderstand about what the NT teaches.
(Cont'd)
Post some scripture.
Why did reformed theology not appear till 1,500 years after Jesus died?
Were all those that came before wrong?