If you see me here: I was formerly the All-American AIPAC Tracker.
Due to the loss of the election of Thomas Massie, I will be directing my focus to a more all-around purpose on X.
I will still be tracking the money of Politicians.
I have changed my direction so I can discuss more topics. I will continue to track AIPAC and other foreign lobbies.
I will also continue to make the All-American AIPAC Tracker posters for other people's elections.
It comes from Appalachian Signal now.
https://t.co/yTCa9eGhaU
Grace is God's unmerited favor, mercy, and active work toward mankind fulfilled by the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ as an offer to all Men.
Scripture describes grace as something that teaches us, strengthens us, saves us, and can even be resisted.
"For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men." (Titus 2:11)
"And with many other words did he testify and exhort..." (Acts 2:40)
"Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost." (Acts 7:51)
If grace that brings salvation has appeared to all men, and people can resist God, then grace is universally offered even though not everyone accepts it.
That's the difference between our positions. I believe grace is available to all, but man can cooperate with it or resist it.
@ChadWigintonX There is a choice. People can reject the Holy Spirit. People can choose to hide but they can also be convinced to not hide. You can evangelize and persuade stubborn people to have faith in Jesus.
Valuable Learning Lesson Incoming.
Pay attention.
Here is the typical imaginary autonomous free will idol worshippers paradigm. "Christ didn't require..."faith." And, "Abrahams "faith" was his own."
This is the lie of 99% of Christiandom.
Follow this thread and interaction, to see the outcome, and LORD willing...you'll discover the Truth.
The debate is really about soteriology.
As an Eastern Orthodox Christian, I believe the earliest Christian writers were overwhelmingly proto-synergistic.
Grace + faith + cooperation.
The earliest Greek-speaking Christians taught that salvation involves a genuine human response to God's grace, not an unconditional predestination where some are chosen and others passed over before they are even born.
Historically, this way of thinking was brought to the forefront much later by Augustine, the first major Latin theologian. Augustine's later writings on predestination had an enormous influence on the Western tradition. Centuries later, John Calvin took those themes and pushed them even further, developing a much stronger doctrine of monergism and double predestination.
Your position seems to reduce human beings to passive recipients, with no real choice or responsibility in whether they believe.
Anyone can be saved. The question is whether they will freely respond to God's grace.
The debate is really about soteriology.
As an Eastern Orthodox Christian, I believe the earliest Christian writers were overwhelmingly proto-synergistic.
Grace + faith + cooperation.
The earliest Greek-speaking Christians taught that salvation involves a genuine human response to God's grace, not an unconditional predestination where some are chosen and others passed over before they are even born.
Historically, this way of thinking was brought to the forefront much later by Augustine, the first major Latin theologian. Augustine's later writings on predestination had an enormous influence on the Western tradition. Centuries later, John Calvin took those themes and pushed them even further, developing a much stronger doctrine of monergism and double predestination.
Your position seems to reduce human beings to passive recipients, with no real choice or responsibility in whether they believe.
Anyone can be saved. The question is whether they will freely respond to God's grace.
Nobody is denying that Christ is the Seed.
The problem is that Paul still says:
"Abraham believed God..." (Gal. 3:6)
and
"We have believed in Jesus Christ..." (Gal. 2:16)
You don't seem to believe belief is something people actually do.
Every time Paul mentions someone believing, you reinterpret it so that the believer disappears from the text.
Your interpretation keeps removing the believer from passages that explicitly speak about believing.
Historically, it also sounds much closer to later Augustinian predestinarian theology and, later, Calvinistic monergism, where the elect are chosen before birth and faith is effectively predetermined, than to Paul's actual argument in Galatians or the earlier Greek Fathers.
Paul says Christ is the Seed.
Paul says Abraham believed.
Paul says we have believed.
I believe all three.
@realUglyLies Yeah, I was kind of implying the "Jews" that killed Jesus, the elite priests, might not have been real Levite Jews.
So in a way, the Jews who accepted Jesus may have been the real ones.