Samie Posted March 30, 2012 Posted March 30, 2012 Always an interesting issue. I hope I am not getting way off topic. If I am, please let me know and I'll delete this post. As Seventh-day Adventists, we understand the holistic nature of humans. Spirit, mind and body are all connected in a sense and function together to make a soul. So, what does it mean when some one has a major injury to their mind, and after the operation they come back a different person? Whether for good or bad, they have definitely changed. What will count in God's eye, the first or the second behavior? Quote
dialoguewithus Posted March 30, 2012 Posted March 30, 2012 Always an interesting issue. I hope I am not getting way off topic. If I am, please let me know and I'll delete this post. As Seventh-day Adventists, we understand the holistic nature of humans. Spirit, mind and body are all connected in a sense and function together to make a soul. So, what does it mean when some one has a major injury to their mind, and after the operation they come back a different person? Whether for good or bad, they have definitely changed. What will count in God's eye, the first or the second behavior? To me, what matters is whether or not that person was set by God for eonian life. Acts 13:48. If so, they will believe at some point in their life; generally the latter portion of life is a time of faith, but this could differ in the case of brain injury. Quote
rodgertutt Posted March 30, 2012 Posted March 30, 2012 People who don't think salvation is 100% by God, not just 100% “provided” by God like to be in the hands of their own "free" will. That is where they feel most secure. IMO, that is the most basic difference between ETers and URs. Just like in the case of Lydia, and Saul of Tarsus, our cooperation to be saved is the result, not the cause, of God laying hold on us by His sovereign grace and causing Jesus to be "choice" in our heart. The timing of the salvation of everyone is under God's sovereign control. HIS ACHIEVEMENT ARE WE - James Coram CHOOSING WHAT IS CHOICE http://concordant.org/expohtml/HisAchievement/HisAchievement009.html "No one to whom Christ is not yet choice can choose Christ. And Christ cannot be choice to anyone to whom He has not yet been made choice. When He is made choice He becomes choice and so is choice; or to say the same thing, He is chosen. This first act of the believer in which Christ is consciously chosen, is merely a consequence of his new mental preference which has been graciously granted to him by God." “It is not of him who is willing, nor of him who is racing, but of God, the merciful.” –Verse 16. Verse 23 informs us that the vessels of mercy are made ready before for glory. Romans 8:28-30 further describes God’s working in those He chooses to enjoy life during the oncoming eons. Therefore, we read in Acts 13:48, “Now on hearing this, the nations rejoiced and glorified the word of the Lord, and they believe, whoever were set for life eonian.” You might ask, “By whom were they set for eonian life?” God leaves no doubt in that regard; It is God’s choice in grace. The purpose of God remains as the choice of Him who is calling- Ro. 9:11. See also Ro. 11:5; Eph. 1:4; John 12:37-40. This separation, or election, which God makes, is concerned with eonian salvation, during the present wicked eon and in the two oncoming, glorious eons. God chooses final and unending salvation for all universally after the eons have run their course. John 12:32; Ro. 11:32; 1 Cor. 15:20-28; Col. 1:15-20; Phil. 2:9-11; 1 Tim. 4:9-11. Quote
Dr. Rich Posted March 30, 2012 Posted March 30, 2012 Always an interesting issue. I hope I am not getting way off topic. If I am, please let me know and I'll delete this post. As Seventh-day Adventists, we understand the holistic nature of humans. Spirit, mind and body are all connected in a sense and function together to make a soul. So, what does it mean when some one has a major injury to their mind, and after the operation they come back a different person? Whether for good or bad, they have definitely changed. What will count in God's eye, the first or the second behavior? You mean like what happened to EGW and Saul/Paul? Perhaps God should give all of us a frontal lobotomy? Nope, God will not work this way--as He only wants those who love Him and show Him this love by obeying Him--just as He wanted Adam to do. Only a few will actually do this so it would be a good idea to stay away from the way the majority believe. Jesus said His yoke is easy, but it still is a yoke. Quote
rodgertutt Posted March 30, 2012 Posted March 30, 2012 ”Tradition has taught that God will not save a person against their will. I agree. However He has the power to orchestrate whatever circumstances are necessary to effect one’s will to change. Once a full revelation of God is received in the ages to come (Eph. 2:7), men will bow and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord just as Isaiah and Paul prophesied (Is. 45:21-25; Rom. 4:11; Ph. 2:9-11). Who would want to continue in active and persistent rebellion knowing God only wants what is best for them? Knowing the great goodness and love of God, along with the Holy Spirit working in their hearts, these hardened hearts must melt before His glorious being. It is impossible that an omnipotent God can fail in His purpose so that some would forever resist unconditional love opting for annihilation. This would be totally irrational. And even if one were that irrational, such resistance would not arise out of a ‘free’ will, but an ‘enslaved’ will, a will in bondage to an enslaved mind.” GERRY BEAUCHEMIN MAN IS NOT A FREE MORAL AGENT - J. Preston Eby http://www.godfire.net/eby/freeagent.htm Quote
rodgertutt Posted March 30, 2012 Posted March 30, 2012 THE RESTORATION OF ALL THINGS OR A VINDICATION OF THE GRACE OF GOD TO BE MANIFESTED AT LAST IN THE RECOVERY OF HIS WHOLE CREATION OUT OF THEIR FALL – JEREMIAH WHITE "O my God, Thou art love and canst no more cease to be so than to be Thyself. Take Thy own methods with us, and submit us to them. Well may we do so in an assurance that the beginning, the way, and the end of them all is love. I must believe then that Thy grace will super-abound wherever sin hath most abounded.” Jeremiah White and Ellen White may have been related, but they sure were an infinite distance apart in their perception of what God is like! Quote
Dr. Rich Posted March 30, 2012 Posted March 30, 2012 The act of coercing: use of force or intimidation to obtain compliance. So, are you saying that God's nature is to force or intimidate people into compliance? Isn't this what Jesus alegedly did with Saul of Tarsus? On the other hand, Jonah had already made the commitment, so the worm eating the sunflower would not have forced him into compliance. Can anyone find any place else where God used coercion to get people to obey Him? Man may not be a free moral agent, but he sure has a free will to choose! Quote
dialoguewithus Posted March 30, 2012 Posted March 30, 2012 1 Timothy 1: 12 Grateful am I to Him Who invigorates me, Christ Jesus, our Lord, for He deems me faithful, assigning me a service, 13 I, who formerly was a calumniator and a persecutor and an outrager: but I was shown mercy, seeing that I do it being ignorant, in unbelief. 14 Yet the grace of our Lord overwhelms, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. 15 Faithful is the saying, and worthy of all welcome, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, foremost of whom am I. 16 But therefore was I shown mercy, that in me, the foremost, Jesus Christ should be displaying all His patience, for a pattern of those who are about to be believing on Him for life eonian. As for me, I wouldn't say that God's nature is to force or intimidate people into compliance, nor that Jesus did so with Saul of Tarsus. One might equate the teaching of annihilation or especially, eternal torment, with using intimidation, perhaps. The grace of our Lord overwhelms, because He is love. Is the subjection of all described in Philippians 2:9-11 a forced acclamation? http://www.concordant.org/expohtml/QuestionsAndAnswers/Q&AIndex3.html#69a Quote
rodgertutt Posted March 30, 2012 Posted March 30, 2012 I think you might have meant http://www.concordant.org/expohtml/QuestionsAndAnswers/Q&AIndex3.html#68a It still doesn't come out right. Anyway, it's the section #68. Does God force His will on man? You can scroll to where it begins. Quote
dialoguewithus Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 Both questions are good IMO, rodgertutt. As for Adam and Eve being free moral agents, God could very well have made each of us free moral agents if that's how He wanted to do things- we could each be individually tested, and death would only pertain to those who failed their test. Nevertheless, as Paul explains in Romans 5 and 1 Cor. 15, God subjected the creation to vanity in one man (Ro. 8:20); the only choice involved was Adam's and that was well known by God from before his creation. Paul continues, THUS ALSO, that is, through the choice of Christ as outlined in Phil. 2, does God's grace superabound. THUS ALSO, we are saved as we were lost, through God's determination. And He does it in two main stages or classes (1 Cor. 15:20-28; Ro. 9; Acts 13:48; 2 Thes. 2:13), which He has decided beforehand to exist until the consummation at the end of the eons. Quote
dialoguewithus Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 God tenders us all things richly for our enjoyment, RLH. :) Quote
dialoguewithus Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 Our ALL powerful God stumbles again, and it is Satan who emerges victorious !! Despite all our religious, pious platitudes, SUCH IS THE CASE if Jesus Christ came only "to OFFER salvation to those who would receive it." Satan DID NOT come to "Offer damnation", but rather, men are brought into this world as his slaves, WITHOUT CHOICE !!! According to the creeds of orthodox Christendom, the "VICTORY" of Christ is thousands. The "VICTORY" of Satan is tens of thousands !! If this is in fact true, than the scripture SHOULD NOT read, "Oh Death, where is your sting," but rather, "Oh Christ, where is YOUR VICTORY ???" http://www.gtft.org/Library/jenke/aejenke.htm Quote
rodgertutt Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 Our ALL powerful God stumbles again, and it is Satan who emerges victorious !! Despite all our religious, pious platitudes, SUCH IS THE CASE if Jesus Christ came only "to OFFER salvation to those who would receive it." Satan DID NOT come to "Offer damnation", but rather, men are brought into this world as his slaves, WITHOUT CHOICE !!! According to the creeds of orthodox Christendom, the "VICTORY" of Christ is thousands. The "VICTORY" of Satan is tens of thousands !! If this is in fact true, than the scripture SHOULD NOT read, "Oh Death, where is your sting," but rather, "Oh Christ, where is YOUR VICTORY ???"http://www.gtft.org/Library/jenke/aejenke.htm I wish the link worked for me but it doesn't. Sonds like a very interesting writing! :-) Does it work for anyone else? Quote
dialoguewithus Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 Me either, rodgertutt; sorry, it worked a few weeks ago. Check CHAPTER FOUR in http://www.tlchrist.info/universl.htm Quote
Tobiwan Posted April 6, 2012 Posted April 6, 2012 On this world the numbers are on Satan's side. But only on this world. One lost sheep ... I too have questions about my free will to choose and just how much God knows about the (my) future. He knows the plans He has for us, good and not evil. Two options are necessary for there to be a choice, Trust God and Choose the all inclusive package He offers with Life, liberty and ..., or say no and reject all that is offered. To attribute to God what you (RT and DWU) are suggesting, sounds very much like what the snake told Adam and Eve, You don't really die, God is lying to you. You have as many chances till God gets you where He wants you, and you will choose his way. He is going to back you into a corner and force you to choose His way. And by the way it is for your own good, because He is so good. The idea that God is going to set us up to take away our options of choice makes me very uncomfortable, and the implications put God in a very bad light, as well as it eliminates my responsibility for my actions. To me what you are suggesting is dangerous perversion and a distortion of what God is like. God is all for FREEDOM OF CHOICE. choices have consequences. Lucifer in heaven, Adam in the garden, they both made a choice without really understanding the end results. They choose to not trust God, they did not believe the end results He presented and told them about. One of the Godhead made the choice to accept the consequences of giving the universe "freedom of choice" , should anyone take option B. Jesus said that He would give a demonstration of the end results of this choice. Jesus would have died for just Eve, I believe He would have shown Lucifer and the angels also, and asked "is this what you want"? In a nutshell, Adam made the choice for all his generations of children, sold us out to another, not of our choice. I say that is not fair, and Jesus says "I agree". Here is what I propose, 1. I will settle that account, 2. I will heal the damage done to you, 3. I will compensate you richly for pain and suffering 4. I will restore to you the option to choose for yourself who you will trust 5. I will forget the harmful actions (sins) done in that other service The Cross is offered as the evidence that what I said about Sin is true and If you trust I will do more for you then you can even imagine To me it so easy Quote
miz3 Posted April 7, 2012 Author Posted April 7, 2012 Looks to me like we have two views: One view is "God Centric" in that God does it all because He is God and owns everything. God is active, humans are passive. Second view is "human centric" in that the human entity decides the human's destiny apart from God and/or anything else because their "free will" trumps all things. In this view it appears that God is just an impotent lump that waits around for humans to make their "free and all powerful choice". This puts the true power in the hands of humans rather than the power being in the hands of God. God is passive, humans are active. COMMENTARY: Does the FACT that humans are sinful by nature lead us to question whether our natural bent to elevate the human above God should give us pause as to our theories of "free will"? How can a totally sinful being be a "free moral agent"? By definition a "free moral agent" would have no moral bent one way or the other, but be totally/completely "neutral". It is obvious from the Bible that humans are not "neutral" but have a total/complete slavery to sin. Thus, by definition they cannot be "free moral agents" and/or have even a scintilla of "free will". The "will" must be in a neutral and/or unbiased condition and from the Bible it is clear that humans are not in this "neutral" condition. Quote
Dr. Rich Posted April 7, 2012 Posted April 7, 2012 Both questions are good IMO, rodgertutt. As for Adam and Eve being free moral agents, God could very well have made each of us free moral agents if that's how He wanted to do things- we could each be individually tested, and death would only pertain to those who failed their test. Nevertheless, as Paul explains in Romans 5 and 1 Cor. 15, God subjected the creation to vanity in one man (Ro. 8:20); the only choice involved was Adam's and that was well known by God from before his creation. Paul continues, THUS ALSO, that is, through the choice of Christ as outlined in Phil. 2, does God's grace superabound. THUS ALSO, we are saved as we were lost, through God's determination. And He does it in two main stages or classes (1 Cor. 15:20-28; Ro. 9; Acts 13:48; 2 Thes. 2:13), which He has decided beforehand to exist until the consummation at the end of the eons. Yep, here we go again debating an issue because of the conflict caused by Paul's writings which do not agree with the words of Jesus. Nothing changed! We are all free to choose to obey and live or not! You might as well obey the words of everyone else, such as Joseph Smith and Mohummad as following the words of Paul! This is the reason Jesus was SOOO serious about building your foundation on the right type of ground. You either build it on the words of Jesus or build it on the words of others who NEVER knew Jesus! It's just that simple. Quote
Dr. Rich Posted April 7, 2012 Posted April 7, 2012 Looks to me like we have two views: One view is "God Centric" in that God does it all because He is God and owns everything. God is active, humans are passive. Second view is "human centric" in that the human entity decides the human's destiny apart from God and/or anything else because their "free will" trumps all things. In this view it appears that God is just an impotent lump that waits around for humans to make their "free and all powerful choice". This puts the true power in the hands of humans rather than the power being in the hands of God. God is passive, humans are active. COMMENTARY: Does the FACT that humans are sinful by nature lead us to question whether our natural bent to elevate the human above God should give us pause as to our theories of "free will"? How can a totally sinful being be a "free moral agent"? By definition a "free moral agent" would have no moral bent one way or the other, but be totally/completely "neutral". It is obvious from the Bible that humans are not "neutral" but have a total/complete slavery to sin. Thus, by definition they cannot be "free moral agents" and/or have even a scintilla of "free will". The "will" must be in a neutral and/or unbiased condition and from the Bible it is clear that humans are not in this "neutral" condition. And thus your will always run into trouble by blaming 'it' on the bible! Why are so many people blind as to what Jesus prophesied about in regards to the wheat and the tares? Sure the bible (Pauls writings) teach that man is not neutral. However, that is NOT what Jesus said or ever taught. God/Jesus has always taught that Man Kind is totally neutral and free to make a choice without being forced one way or the other. Check it out for yourself. And your false 'fact' that humans have a sinful nature is what is causing this whole mistaken idea. Paul said that the flesh was always evil but the spirit was good. This is Gnostic through and through. It is false as there is NOTHING sinful about the body or the spirit because they both work together all the time. Therefore it is impossible to 'die daily' as Paul said. All of that thinking is totally against what Jesus said and taught. Why people can't see this is because they have been brainwashed into believing that the whole bible that was 'invented' and put together by a Pagan Evil man because of politics and not for spiritual correctness, is the inearant word of God or the inearant inspirid word of God. Shoot, that goes against what Jesus warned us many times about being deceived by those wearing sheeps clothing. What does a wolf in sheeps clothing look like anyway? Quote
Raphael Posted April 13, 2012 Posted April 13, 2012 I choose Number One. Because people have the capacity to project themselves out of their direct personal circumstances and rationalize in 'detach mode' matters needing attention. Also Number Two would make God become unfair. Quote Test me with thy might but grant me safe passage. Now, who said that?
miz3 Posted April 13, 2012 Author Posted April 13, 2012 I choose Number One. Because people have the capacity to project themselves out of their direct personal circumstances and rationalize in 'detach mode' matters needing attention. Also Number Two would make God become unfair. Can you tell us how Number Two would make "God become unfair"? Quote
Raphael Posted April 14, 2012 Posted April 14, 2012 #2. Do humans make the choices they do because of what they are? .. because of what they are would mean they have no other choice because of being fully by 'what they are' already.. Quote Test me with thy might but grant me safe passage. Now, who said that?
miz3 Posted April 14, 2012 Author Posted April 14, 2012 #2. Do humans make the choices they do because of what they are? .. because of what they are would mean they have no other choice because of being fully by 'what they are' already.. Exactly! How does such a state make God unfair? Quote
Raphael Posted April 15, 2012 Posted April 15, 2012 How about being blameless because what ever I do is not my choice but because of what I am. Even human laws in any country on the UN list won't make do with such excuses and simply jail anyone in offense. Quote Test me with thy might but grant me safe passage. Now, who said that?
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