Sabine Grant

I guess my answer is in in my previous post.... let us assume that God wants us to experience that love response....that He wills to see mankind experiencing a relationship with Him as He intended for it to be.
The problem we have here is that the Ot God is so " inhumane"... He commands, delivers wrath, destroys, zaps people left and right.... then .. comes Christ considered to be the essence of the divine ... profoundly humane. He teaches principles which challenge the very character of the Ot God. He carries the alternative to how to relate to God.... the way to God then is not thru the law but thru Grace. Did God change? or did He plan to touch the mind of mankind by offering proof of His love?

I am careful to not use the word " heart" to avoid the usual comments that the heart is only an organ. Christians use the word heart to symbolize the most intimate part of a human being's emotions. As a matter of fact I wonder if non theists who consider the use of the word " heart" as erroneous have also banished the endearing term " sweetheart" from their vocabulary. I guess " sweetmind" is cute too.

So... it pleases me to consider God or entrust Him to will to have a relationship based on love with mankind.

Opera Nut

Yep, that's typical Calvinist crap.
The Presbys stopped believing in predestination in 1905.

Why bother?

AJ113

Yes, but why?
Don't you think that this makes your god a meglomaniac? Besides, why can't man have this experience with god in Heaven, instead of going through the whole rigmarole on Earth, since god already knows those are going to heaven?

He knows those who are going to hell too, and as those individuals aren't even going to have a relationship with god, why doesn't he send them straight to hell?
But why does it all have to be so utterly unfathomable? You're a christian, if you don't know, how are we poor infidels supposed to know?
But it's simply not true is it? Where is the love from a god that is prepared to damn his children to an eternal hell fire on the basis that they didn't turn out quite as he hoped?

BadBadBad

For Sabine Grant, I want to post some verses that say God predestined us to salvation or damnation, honor or dishonor, mercy or hellfire. The reason is given as well. Not because God has foreknowledge of our free will choices, but to purely to show the glory of God. "Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth."

You assert that: "The choice to believe or not believe is not imposed by God. There is no fate factor involved in that choice. The choice remains personal. The cause for faith is not a telepathic act from God on human beings. " That assertion is contradicted by these verses in the Bible. Can you show us where this doctrine is clearly laid out in the Bible? I don't mean all the verses that say believe, believe, believe, choose to believe. I mean choose to believe even in the presence of God hardening your heart; in the presence of predestination to dishonour and damnation.


You assert that: "God has knowledge of what choices a person will make. But He does not control those choices." Can you provide us with the verses that this doctrine is based upon? Where does it say in the Bible that God has foreknowledge of your choices, but you're still free to fool God?


Acts 13:48
And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed

Romans 8:29-31
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?

Rom.9:11-22 "For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth .... For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction."

Eph.1:4-6 "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.

2 Th.2:11-13 "God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned. But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:"

2 Tim.1:9 "Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began."

Jude 1:4 "For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation."

Sabine Grant

BRETTC : thank you for quoting those verses... before we can continue to deal on that predestination ordeal, where did you get the notion that I advocate that " we are still free to fool God"? Or I mentionned anywhere that men is free to fool God? That is definitly not what I personaly believe Romans expands on. Is that what YOU read into those verses?

BadBadBad

I read these verses, particularly Romans 9, and it's pretty clear to me what it means. "God" predestines us to either salvation or damnation. There's no wiggle room for Free Will. It says God hardens our heart, and who are we to question God. It doesn't say anywhere, and I challenge you to find it, that God knows in advance what our Free Will choices will be. It doesn't say that that is why he hardens our hearts and predestines us to damnation. The reason is given in Romans and Exodus over and over.

"Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth."

"And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD"

"for to shew in thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth"

"that I might shew these my signs before him: And that thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son, and of thy son's son, what things I have wrought in Egypt, and my signs which I have done among them; that ye may know how that I am the LORD

Stephen T-B

Q: why was it necessary for those verses quoted by bretic to have been written?
A: because Infidels have always been around.

Even in Bronze Age Judaea, there were some who didn’t go along with the Yahweh thing, which was a bit tricky for the priests (who taught that un-belief wasn’t an option) to explain.
How did they do it?
They said that the reason people didn’t believe in god was because God DID NOT WANT them to.

Same with the New Testament writers when referring to those who didn’t believe in Christ.
In effect they are saying this: “Since it is a known fact (as far as we and our fellow believers are concerned) that Jesus was the Son of God, the reason why 99.9 per cent of the Jewish population, plus a proportion of Gentiles who hear the News, don’t believe it is because God never intended them to. They are the chaff which will be burned
“The mere fact that we believe shows that we are the chosen.”

Explaining why it was possible for people not to believe in God necessitated the doctrine of Divinely-ordered predisposition. Hence the passages which deal with this subject. ( It’s a bit like the Soviets who explained dissidents by saying they were mad.)

The writers of the Bible, however, had other considerations also, like “Why are we being punished for the disobedience of Adam and Eve?” And in answer to this quite different question, they came up with the idea that Adam and Eve exercised their free will when they chose to disobey God - thus the doctrine of Free Will.

The reason the Bible is not coherent is because the stories in it addressed the political and religious imperatives which were contemporaneous with a variety of audiences at a variety of times.
Seen in these terms, it all falls into place, but for the many Christians who regard the Bible as being something completely different, the inconsistencies and contradictions in it call for mind-bending explanations which generally rely on the fall-back position of: “God is a mystery beyond human understanding.”
Which doesn’t prevent them, nevertheless, from assigning all sorts of complicated and wonderful motives to him.

twisted brother

So was it Alice who chose to step through the mirror, or the mirror that chose to allow Alice into Wonderland.
Was it Humpty-Dumpty who leaned back too much, or did he just fall because he was an egg?
Was it Paul Bunyan who found Babe the blue ox, or was it Babe who found Paul?
Was it Curious George who smoked the pipe or the pipe that smoked Curious George?

What's tragic is that the belief system upon which so many christians are dependent is not a "stand alone" belief system. It requires the addition and subtraction of verses from the bible story which in itself is a conglomeration of stories collected by various publishers.

Thank goodness there is only one version of the Wizard of Oz, or this world would be a crazy, mixed up place.

BadBadBad

Stephen, I absolutely agree with everything you said. I did a search on the bible for believe, belief, believing, and faith. What I read is basically an unrelenting sales job. I see rationalizations for people that believe, people that will never believe, people that believe for a while, and people that believe the wrong things. I see what you're going to get for believing. I see what your going to get for not believing. I see what to do if your wife, your brother, your child, or a stranger doesn't believe. It goes on and on and on.

IMO, they made up God, Jesus, and a tailored sales job to manipulate different peoples along their way, and the christians today are still doing it. In this instance it's with rationalizing the free will verses and the predestination verses, and I've got news for them. If God has foreknowledge of a single timeline into the future, there is only one possible future just exactly like there is only one past. So either God knows the future, and the future is entirely predestined, or the future is unknown, unpredictable, and we have free will to pursue our destiny.

BadBadBad

More predestination verses for Sabine:

“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.” -John 6:44

“Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again: He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.” -John 12:39-40

“You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit....” -John 15:16

“There is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God.” -Romans 3:11

“But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” -1 Corinthians 2:14

“Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.” -1 Corinthians 12:3

“But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is in the image of God, should shine in them.” -2 Corinthians 4:3-4

“You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit....” -John 15:16

“...And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.” -Acts 13:48

In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will." -Ephesians 1:11

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is a gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” -Ephesians 2:8-10

“But these, like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of the things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption.” -2 Peter 2:12

“Blessed is the man You choose, and cause to approach You, that he may dwell in Your courts. We shall be satisfied with the goodness of Your house, of Your holy temple.” -Psalm 65:4

“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.” -John 6:39


“But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” -John 10:26-27

“Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul.” -Acts 16:14

“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” -Romans 8:14

“For the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.” -Romans 11:29