The Narrow Path Ministries

There is nothing more in my heart notwithstanding your seeming certitude as to my motivations. It is you that seem intent on ascribing some inherent value to me for having made such a decision, not I.

Then tell me Darin, why did you make the right decision when confronted with the gospel, while your lost neighbor didn't?

seer wrote:

There is nothing more in my heart notwithstanding your seeming certitude as to my motivations. It is you that seem intent on ascribing some inherent value to me for having made such a decision, not I.

Then tell me Darin, why did you make the right decision when confronted with the gospel, while your lost neighbor didn't?

Why did God choose you over your neighbor? (anticipating your response, but on what basis? was it arbitrary?)

seer wrote:

There is nothing more in my heart notwithstanding your seeming certitude as to my motivations. It is you that seem intent on ascribing some inherent value to me for having made such a decision, not I.

Then tell me Darin, why did you make the right decision when confronted with the gospel, while your lost neighbor didn't?

Oh, yeah -- I forgot to answer your question -- (other than "I don't know"), I'd say in part because of my life circumstances and personality and challenges and timing and other things by the grace of God. Others may have had the same (or similar) situation and didn't respond that way -- I don't know why they didn't -- no doubt some were hardened due to repeated rejections, others probably not, but I believe we all have opportunity (even if not equal) -- we are both left with a degree of mystery, but you seem intent on ascribing motives that don't exist.

If you are right, Seer, then we can make no decisions to submit to God, no decisions to trust in Him ---- everything people do, every decision people make, has been forseen, forordained, predestined by God, and could not have been otherwise, since all decisions were part of God's overall plan.

If that is the case, why bother to even discuss it? We can't do otherwise than what we have been predestined to do. We may as well make no choices at all, and let God's plans from the beginning of time run their course. Indeed, we can't do anything contrary to His plan anyway.
His will is being accomplished daily down to the minutest detail.

Jesus must have been mistaken when He taught us to pray, "Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." He must not have known that God's will is always being done on earth ----every rape, every torture, every murder ---- all part of God's Great Plan which gradually unfolds and which ultimately serves a deeper purpose.

Seer

You wrote:

1. Sean, I think for this to work for you would have to deny that "Christ and Him crucified" is a spiritual truth. At least not one of importance. I don't know if there are many spiritual truths that are more important - do you?

That Christ was crucified is more than a "spiritual truth", it is a fact. Facts are stubborn things - they are always true. Facts can be believed, or not believed, based on testimony. People believe all sorts of things, many of them fantastic. Probably the vast majority of what we "know" is based on testimony that we decide is credible; we have no other way to know whether they are true or not. God has given us rational minds to allow us to decide whether to believe testimony. And there is power in the testimony concerning Christ: "it (the Gospel) is the power unto salvation" (read that somewhere).

The Gospel contains testimony about facts. Paul certainly did not act as though he thought those facts were incredible:

Acts 26:8 (KJV) "Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?"

Why indeed.

seer wrote:why did you make the right decision when confronted with the gospel, while your lost neighbor didn't?

I answered this already. There are different types of people. Some believe and some do not. Scripture even gives some of the reasons why. Interestingly, they are not all the same reasons and are tied to the choices they made. I certainly agree that not all have the same opportunity to be saved (but that was not your question). Faith is a gift given by God and is exercised by man. The apostle John said this:

John 20:31 but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

Why were these things written? Were they to inform the elect how they got that way (since they are the only ones according to you that can accept this spiritual truth)? John tells us that his gospel account was written that the hearer/reader may believe and then receive the gift of life. That's it's purpose.

Asking why some people make the choice and others do not would require I know the innermost secret parts of that man.
1 Cor 2:11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him?
Since only God knows the heart of man, it would be foolish for me to claim to know why someone refused to believe, unless he told me why and was honest about it.

Seer, do you claim to know what's in my heart, or my neighbors heart? Unless God has revealed it to you, you cannot know. Nor can you know that man will not one day believe.

If you are right, Seer, then we can make no decisions to submit to God, no decisions to trust in Him ---- everything people do, every decision people make, has been forseen, forordained, predestined by God, and could not have been otherwise, since all decisions were part of God's overall plan.

If that is the case, why bother to even discuss it? We can't do otherwise than what we have been predestined to do. We may as well make no choices at all, and let God's plans from the beginning of time run their course. Indeed, we can't do anything contrary to His plan anyway.
His will is being accomplished daily down to the minutest detail.

Jesus must have been mistaken when He taught us to pray, "Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." He must not have known that God's will is always being done on earth ----every rape, every torture, every murder ---- all part of God's Great Plan which gradually unfolds and which ultimately serves a deeper purpose.

Well of course Paidion. I believe that the future is open to God. He knows all that will come about. And God "works all things according to His will" "He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth." Even using secondary causes like our sin.

When Job lost all he had, did he blame the weather? The Chaldeans? The Sabeans? No - he pointed to God - "The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away" -"Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?"

See Paidion, you are in the "it's all about us" mentality. It's not about us, it is about God and His Glory and Honor.

Oh, yeah -- I forgot to answer your question -- (other than "I don't know"), I'd say in part because of my life circumstances and personality and challenges and timing and other things by the grace of God. Others may have had the same (or similar) situation and didn't respond that way -- I don't know why they didn't -- no doubt some were hardened due to repeated rejections, others probably not, but I believe we all have opportunity (even if not equal) -- we are both left with a degree of mystery, but you seem intent on ascribing motives that don't exist.

Well darin, if you don't know, then it is as least possible that the Calvinist is right. Perhaps circumstances, personality, upbringing etc were all arranged by a Sovereign God to produce the result of belief in you.

Why did God choose you over your neighbor? (anticipating your response, but on what basis? was it arbitrary?

Would it be bad for God to make arbitrary choices? Why? But of course, I don't know why God chose me or you - except to say that it was according to His good pleasure. That's enough for me - is it enough for you?

Sean wrote:

seer wrote:why did you make the right decision when confronted with the gospel, while your lost neighbor didn't?

I answered this already. There are different types of people. Some believe and some do not. Scripture even gives some of the reasons why. Interestingly, they are not all the same reasons and are tied to the choices they made. I certainly agree that not all have the same opportunity to be saved (but that was not your question). Faith is a gift given by God and is exercised by man. The apostle John said this:

John 20:31 but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

Why were these things written? Were they to inform the elect how they got that way (since they are the only ones according to you that can accept this spiritual truth)? John tells us that his gospel account was written that the hearer/reader may believe and then receive the gift of life. That's it's purpose.

Asking why some people make the choice and others do not would require I know the innermost secret parts of that man.
1 Cor 2:11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him?
Since only God knows the heart of man, it would be foolish for me to claim to know why someone refused to believe, unless he told me why and was honest about it.

Seer, do you claim to know what's in my heart, or my neighbors heart? Unless God has revealed it to you, you cannot know. Nor can you know that man will not one day believe.

Sean, I don't see how these quotes change the discussion. Of course they were written so we may believe. And the elect will believe. And have I claimed to know your heart? I do know men and women who have rejected Christ unto death. And I do know that it logically follows - if you have a part in your salvation then you have room for boasting. It was something you did. A choice your lost neighbor did not make. But if it was all of God then all boasting is removed. I find it hard to understand why such mature christians like you fellows would even want keep any glory for yourselves...

Just admit it, it's ALL of God...

seer wrote: Just admit it, it's ALL of God...

I do, including the revealed will of God to create free agents with the ability to choose so that He may be glorified even more by their choices.

seer wrote: And I do know that it logically follows - if you have a part in your salvation then you have room for boasting. It was something you did. A choice your lost neighbor did not make. But if it was all of God then all boasting is removed.

Since you keep saying this, and since I don't see it taught by Scripture but being said to somehow logically follow (from something, I know not what), I believe we need you to provide the syllogism, because I don't see the logical necessity.

seer wrote: find it hard to understand why such mature christians like you fellows would even want keep any glory for yourselves...

We don't - we fail to see how mature christians like you Reformed types seem intent on declaring our position as self-glorifying.

seer wrote: Well darin, if you don't know, then it is as least possible that the Calvinist is right. Perhaps circumstances, personality, upbringing etc were all arranged by a Sovereign God to produce the result of belief in you.

It is, indeed, possible, but not likely based on my understanding of the Scripture available to us. I used to be a Calvinist, but I stopped reading Reformed authors and started reading my bible.

I agree that the Sovereign God arranged these things to produce the result in me, but He also arranged the circumstances, etc. in others who didn't so choose and some who for some reason have fallen away and left Christ.

seer wrote: Would it be bad for God to make arbitrary choices? Why? But of course, I don't know why God chose me or you - except to say that it was according to His good pleasure. That's enough for me - is it enough for you?

I don't think it is His good pleasure that any be lost. I think it was God's "good pleasure" to make free (not completely free, but free enough to blame or to rejoice in) moral agents.

Take a given tree -- God created it -- it brings Him pleasure to see the leaves fall -- do you believe He purposefully directs each leaf to fall and dictates its path or do you think God derives joy from the unexpected - if so, is God powerful enough to "not know" something particular if it brings Him "personal" pleasure to see the outcome (or is He some all-powerful force de automaton) ? At what point does your view of God's meticulous providence end ?