let me try to say it this way, its not so much we cant come to God, its that we wont come to God, we all hate God, we All sin, break his commandments and if God himself were to go to hell right now and tell every soul in hell "heres your second chance, if you believe in my Son, I will get you out of here, and into eternal Glory" they would shut the proverbial door right in the face of God, men are evil, we Hate God. and will always hate God, until or unless HE Regenerates us.

CorpulentCripple wrote:

let me try to say it this way, its not so much we cant come to God, its that we wont come to God, we all hate God, we All sin, break his commandments and if God himself were to go to hell right now and tell every soul in hell "heres your second chance, if you believe in my Son, I will get you out of here, and into eternal Glory" they would shut the proverbial door right in the face of God, men are evil, we Hate God. and will always hate God, until or unless HE Regenerates us.

Alright, then I shall refute with this:

Romans 10 (Codex Sinaiticus)

1 Brethren, the good pleasure of my heart, and my prayer to God for them, is for their salvation;
2 For I bear them testimony that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
3 For, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.
4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes.
5 For Moses writes that the man that does the righteousness of the law shall live in it.
6 But the righteousness that is of faith speaks thus: Say not in thy heart: Who shall ascend into heaven? that is, to bring Christ down:
7 or, Who shall descend into the abyss? that is, to bring Christ up from the dead.
8 But what says it? The word is near thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith which we preach.
9 Because, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth that Jesus is Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved;
10 for with the heart faith is exercised in order to righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made in order to salvation.
11 For the Scripture says: Whoever believes on him shall not be ashamed.
12 For there is no difference between Jew and Greek; for the same is Lord of all, rich toward all that call upon him.
13 For every one that calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
14 How, then, shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?
15 And how shall they preach unless they be sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of them that bring glad tidings of good things.
16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says: Lord, who has believed that which was heard by us?
17 So, then, faith comes from what is heard, and that which is heard comes through the word of God.
18 But I say, have they not heard? Yes, verily, Their sound went forth into all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.
19 But I say, did not Israel know? First Moses says: I will provoke you to jealousy by that which is no nation, by a foolish nation I will excite you to anger.
20 But Isaiah is very bold, and says: I was found by them that sought me not, I became manifest to them that asked not after me.
21 But of Israel he says: All day long I stretched forth my hands to a disobedient and contradicting people.

It says it right up there that we choose God, not God chooses us. It says faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, and it is up to us to either ignore it, or choose it.

There is NO Scriptures that back up what you said, yet it says that faith comes from the Word of God.

As the Gospel has shown, God has already put the pieces into place so that way ALL will be saved! The problem, is that some DON'T want it! However, as God made the faith possible through Christ, it puts the blame on us rather than on God when concerning salvation.

If what you say is True, then it's God's fault why the unsaved are unsaved. Then it looks like God is the screwed up one afterall, not the human. It breeds contradiction, because there is nothing that supports this Calvinistic view unless it is taken out of it's context.

In addition, this talks about people who believe. Believing is our fault and responsibility, not God's.

LastFirstborn wrote:

I ask again, do you Calvinist folk believe it's possible for someone to reject God after regeneration? If not, I was still technically right with my first post; there's really little to no difference between being forced to choose God and being divinely reprogrammed. (I'm not trying to be combative.)

I ask myself this question frequently, whether or not someone can reject God after regeneration. When I was a Christian, my beliefs where generally in line with Calvinism. If my regeneration was true, then according to what I believed, at least, I could not have turned away from God. This leaves me with only to possible answers if what I believed regarding Calvinism was to be correct:

1. I was not truly regenerate (which is definitely a possibility, since the main reason why I decided to drop Christianity was because I desired sin more than God).
2. I am to return to Christianity at a later time. (This one is a less satisfying answer to the problem, since, according to the spirit of Calvinist doctrine, the saving work God does cannot be undone or temporarily hampered, etc., etc.)

Anything aside from those two answers leaves what I believed as far as Calvinism goes to be false. And, as a Calvinist, I did not believe humans had any ultimate choice in the matter of salvation since I also believed that absolutely every action and moment was predetermined and that there was absolutely no free will. (I still affirm the idea of "no free-will" now, although I do so because I believe there is nothing beyond the material realm and that we exist purely in the transfer of physical energies (kinetic, etc.) - so everything we do is the direct physical result of what happened beforehand. From our perspectives we have "choices", but what we end up "choosing" is the product of everything beforehand and is out of our control.)

I only got back in town last night and have taken only the briefest glance at what's happened to the thread since my trip, but I wanted to chime in here. Davis was spot on with #1, as that's what John speaks of in his first epistle about false brothers leaving the assembly in order for it to be made manifest that "they were not truly of us". And #2 is correct (in reference to the Calvinist view) except for something in the parenthetical quote:

Kan-o-sushi wrote:

2. I am to return to Christianity at a later time. (This one is a less satisfying answer to the problem, since, according to the spirit of Calvinist doctrine, the saving work God does cannot be undone or temporarily hampered, etc., etc.)

True, God's saving work cannot be "undone" in an ultimate sense (as having power over "God" would make him cease to be God), but a true-born believer *can* rebel and be restored. It happens quite often, and the Bible speaks to it on many occasions. One needs look no further than the parable of the prodigal son. If falls and subsequent restoration were unheard of, then Paul would have never told the Galatian believers to restore transgressors with a spirit of gentleness.

Some might immediately think: "Well, then let's just sin and we can come back later and be all the more thankful for God's grace". Which, of course, Paul addresses rather directly.

Since you have come back, have you checked out the book with any quotes?

Also, since looking back, part of my problems with Christianity in the past was pretty much about how we come to differing views with the same Bible and then everybody is the heretic sort to speak.

Pretty much, rather than attempting to challenge or indoctrinate, I need to just accept the Truth that humans will never see eye to eye on anything and everything.

It goes to show that there really is no True absolutes within humanity.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to dive into my copy of The Apostolic Fathers In Modern English as much as I'd hoped. As a corollary to that, I had done a brief search for other articles from others that had done the leg-work before me in looking for "monergistic" quotes from patristic sources, but I didn't want to just throw-up a link to an article and say "here, just read this kthxbye". I may borrow heavily from such a source if I don't get the chance to do the book-work myself soon, but I don't want to just do a copy-and-paste job.

I will say that I believe citing church fathers will be kind of moot in the end, because many of them could be cited by both sides in one instance or the other and unlike Scripture, the early Christians (like believers today) are quite capable of error.

Again, I believe that well-meaning, well-intentioned, truly-regenerate brothers in Christ can and do often come to differing convictions and doctrinal views with neither side being deserving of the "Scarlet H" brand. I'll admit that in my "cage stage" I threw the h-word around willy-nilly, and more often than not it's those on the Calvinist side of the aisle that are all too quick to use that word when it's undeserved (though we're often the recipients of it undeservedly, ourselves as well). HSAT, I do believe that it's possible to arrive at an objectively biblical and "more correcter" understanding of weighty theological issues via discussions like this, to the praise of God's glory, because... well, heck, that's the whole point.

Kan-o-sushi wrote:

LastFirstborn wrote:

I ask again, do you Calvinist folk believe it's possible for someone to reject God after regeneration? If not, I was still technically right with my first post; there's really little to no difference between being forced to choose God and being divinely reprogrammed. (I'm not trying to be combative.)

I ask myself this question frequently, whether or not someone can reject God after regeneration. When I was a Christian, my beliefs where generally in line with Calvinism. If my regeneration was true, then according to what I believed, at least, I could not have turned away from God. This leaves me with only to possible answers if what I believed regarding Calvinism was to be correct:

1. I was not truly regenerate (which is definitely a possibility, since the main reason why I decided to drop Christianity was because I desired sin more than God).
2. I am to return to Christianity at a later time. (This one is a less satisfying answer to the problem, since, according to the spirit of Calvinist doctrine, the saving work God does cannot be undone or temporarily hampered, etc., etc.)

Anything aside from those two answers leaves what I believed as far as Calvinism goes to be false. And, as a Calvinist, I did not believe humans had any ultimate choice in the matter of salvation since I also believed that absolutely every action and moment was predetermined and that there was absolutely no free will. (I still affirm the idea of "no free-will" now, although I do so because I believe there is nothing beyond the material realm and that we exist purely in the transfer of physical energies (kinetic, etc.) - so everything we do is the direct physical result of what happened beforehand. From our perspectives we have "choices", but what we end up "choosing" is the product of everything beforehand and is out of our control.)

It is very hard to understand what exactly happened when someone who held to, and affirmed Calvinism so deeply suddenly becomes either a non believer, or starts living a life of unrepentant sin.

you have been one of my best friends for a long time. Davis, Do I believe your faith was sincere? absolutely. I truly believe you held to and believed every word you said and every thing you studied as a believer.

Were you saved? I dont say this in a rude manner, or to question your sincerity or how real your failth was to you, but I honestly dont know, Why? because I am not God. I pray that one day you may come back and be convicted to the Gospel that I know you once held to so dearly.

that being said, I will not EVER outright say that you were not saved. Call it me being bias, but I learned alot from you when you were a believer. you encouraged my faith, and you helped me through alot. but besides that, I saw some real fruit in your walk with God, I saw some genuine change and desire for repentance....overtime things happened, yes, that doesnt change the other times, and the word does say that a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.