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Thread: God is and has always been selective.

  1. #61
    at this time, I officially give up on this discussion. (I fully realize this will come around again and I will, once again give it a go.)

    Apparently, either I'm not able to communicate what I mean, or it's impossible to crack the code to have other folks understand it.
    Not sure why.. maybe preconceived ideas?.. but I'm not going to continue since it's only making me crazy.

  2. #62
    Quote Originally Posted by Femme* View Post
    at this time, I officially give up on this discussion. (I fully realize this will come around again and I will, once again give it a go.)

    Apparently, either I'm not able to communicate what I mean, or it's impossible to crack the code to have other folks understand it.
    Not sure why.. maybe preconceived ideas?.. but I'm not going to continue since it's only making me crazy.
    Understanding the deep ways of God is always going to be controversial. People want an easy theology that is compatible with human reasoning. Alas, divine reasoning is beyond our ability to fully grasp. That doesn't stop people from try to make God's dealings with man compatible with human reasoning.

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  4. #63
    thank you.. I'm taking that as encouragement.

  5. #64
    Let's look at one's will first.

    Do you support a sport's team? Each coach commands his team to win. They go out wanting to win. But each week one team loses. Why? Because it takes more than will you also have to have ability, and if the other team's ability is greater than yours no matter what the coach commanded you to do, no matter how much you "will" to win, you lose. (Unless the ref's on your side but that's another matter).

    No matter how much a one legged man wants to run he can't, he can only hop.
    No matter how much a person of low IQ wants to be a genius, he can't. (and to get topical)
    No matter how much a man wants to be a woman he can't, he's forever a man with bits cut off.

    Your will only allows you to do what you can do. You can choose to not do things you can do but you can't choose to do things you can't.

    Are we clear on that?

    Quote Originally Posted by Ezekiel 33 View Post
    I'll bite.

    It seems that folks of the "Calvinistic persuasion" have a hard time separating God's foreknowledge from our free will.
    Your answer is in the first line of the passage which you quoted:
    "For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son"

    Our heavenly Father, being omniscient already knows who will call upon Jesus. And these He has predestined to be conformed into the image of Jesus.
    Ezekiel the Bible says somewhere that we were chosen in him before the foundation of the earth (Eph I think). That was before anyone (including Adam) existed and before human will existed. Unless there was only one way God could have created the earth that cannot hold.

    Besides predestine means to determine (an outcome or course of events) in advance by divine will. If God only predestined people's outcomes after knowing they would call on Jesus could He have decided to predestine those who DIDN'T call on Jesus to be conformed to His image?

    Quote Originally Posted by Ezekiel 33 View Post
    This scripture does not however claim that God forced or chose anyone outside of their own free will to be saved.
    There is a big difference between forcing someone to do something and choosing them. As I showed above having a will doesn't mean you can do everything. After God chose us he gave us the ability to believe, something we don't automatically have.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ezekiel 33 View Post
    Until you can settle the matter of free will and of foreknowledge in your own mind, you will continue to pursue the idea that it is God who chooses/has chosen who will be saved and who will be damned.

    God will send no man to hell. They will however send themselves because they did not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
    All men deserve to be damned. God chose to save some of us. What does He say in Romans?

    What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! 15 For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." 16 So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth." 18 So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.

    Notice God says two things "it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy" and "He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires". There's nothing in there about God doing things based on what he foresaw people doing; it's based on what HE desires.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ezekiel 33 View Post
    The Father has thrown the Life Preserver out to all who are drowning in their sins. Just because He already knows who will grab hold of Him ahead of time does not mean in any way that He forced/chose them to be the ones.
    You've got to get over this idea of God forcing people to do things. He doesn't. They can't so He gives them the ability then they do.

    Parallel: your kid wants to take a girl to the movies but has no money. As much as he "wills" he hasn't the ability to. You choose to give some money, now he can take her and he does. Have you forced him to take her?

  6. #65
    Senior Member Nikos's Avatar
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  7. #66
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nikos View Post
    Gotta give him a point for that one.

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  9. #67
    I'm reading an autobiography now of a famous editor. He was raised a non-practicing Jew by his atheist parents. Here's what he says about his beliefs:

    "I've simply always lacked even the slightest religious impulse--when people talk about their faith, I can't connect with what they're talking about. This isn't a decision I came to, or a deep belief or principle; I'm just religion-deaf, the way tone-deaf people hear sounds but not music. I suppose my religion is reading."

    I maintain Scripture and human experience confirms that some people are never drawn and thus never deliberately reject God. They simply are never drawn to Him in the first place. Hugh Downs says the same thing. He says as far as he knows, he has never once in his life prayed. There is a spiritual blindness in operation in such cases. And odd that he used the words "religion-deaf." It brings to mind Jesus's words, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Not all have ears to hear.

  10. #68
    Quote Originally Posted by Bookman View Post
    I'm reading an autobiography now of a famous editor. He was raised a non-practicing Jew by his atheist parents. Here's what he says about his beliefs:

    "I've simply always lacked even the slightest religious impulse--when people talk about their faith, I can't connect with what they're talking about. This isn't a decision I came to, or a deep belief or principle; I'm just religion-deaf, the way tone-deaf people hear sounds but not music. I suppose my religion is reading."

    I maintain Scripture and human experience confirms that some people are never drawn and thus never deliberately reject God. They simply are never drawn to Him in the first place. Hugh Downs says the same thing. He says as far as he knows, he has never once in his life prayed. There is a spiritual blindness in operation in such cases. And odd that he used the words "religion-deaf." It brings to mind Jesus's words, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Not all have ears to hear.


    John 3:16-20 (Amp.)

    (16) For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.

    (17) For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him.

    (18) He who believes in Him [who clings to, trusts in, relies on Him] is not judged [he who trusts in Him never comes up for judgment; for him there is no rejection, no condemnation--he incurs no damnation]; but he who does not believe (cleave to, rely on, trust in Him) is judged already [he has already been convicted and has already received his sentence] because he has not believed in and trusted in the name of the only begotten Son of God. [He is condemned for refusing to let his trust rest in Christ's name.]


    (19) The [basis of the] judgment (indictment, the test by which men are judged, the ground for the sentence) lies in this: the Light has come into the world, and people have loved the darkness rather than and more than the Light, for their works (deeds) were evil.

    (20) For every wrongdoer hates (loathes, detests) the Light, and will not come out into the Light but shrinks from it, lest his works (his deeds, his activities, his conduct) be exposed and reproved.
    This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity (futility) of their mind, having the understanding darkened...
    (Ephesians 4:17-18)

    Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly...
    (Psalm 1)

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