Pipergrace76

RB Pastor. Sovereign Grace. Bank Regional President. Mariners Fan. Conservative

[Pipergrace76 @pipergrace76]

@DineshDSouza There is no dispute over whether we must believe. The question is: what is the decisive cause of a person coming to believe? Your answer is libertarian free will. Ours is sovereign, awakening grace.

[Pipergrace76 @pipergrace76]

@DineshDSouza You quoted the condition required - and everyone agrees - faith is required. Verse 13 supplies the reason faith is born in heart of dead sinners

[Pipergrace76 @pipergrace76]

The problem with this argument is not that the conclusions are emotionally difficult. They are. Every Christian parent who believes hell is real feels the weight of an unbelieving child or spouse. The problem is that several conclusions here simply do not follow from Calvinism.

First, no consistent Calvinist would claim to know that his living wife or children are non-elect. He may say they are presently unbelieving. He may fear they could be non-elect. But Calvinism expressly denies that we can identify the reprobate in advance. So if a man actually said, “I know my wife and children are non-elect,” he is claiming knowledge his own theology does not give him.

And Jenna actually concedes that in the next paragraph: “Strictly speaking, even Calvinists would say he cannot know that while they are living.”

That concession defeats the anecdote. You cannot use a man’s violation of Calvinist theology as evidence of what Calvinist theology entails.

The assurance argument is an even clearer non sequitur.

Calvinism does not say, “Because we cannot know whether an unbeliever is elect, believers cannot know whether they themselves are elect.”

Those are entirely different questions.

We cannot know that a living unbeliever is non-elect because he may yet believe. But Calvinism has always taught that election becomes evident through its fruits: faith in Christ, repentance, regeneration, perseverance, love for God, the witness of the Spirit.

So when she asks how someone can have assurance “even if we express and experience regeneration,” she has effectively supplied the answer herself.

On Calvinism, genuine regeneration is evidence of election. The non-elect are not regenerated.

There is also a great deal of emotional force packed into the statement that someone might discover Christ “did not die for” his family. But definite atonement does not mean a sinner could come to Christ and discover that Christ’s blood was insufficient for him. No Calvinist believes that. Everyone who comes to Christ will be saved.

And finally, bringing the doctrine to “the family dinner table” does not change the argument. Of course it hurts to contemplate someone you love dying in unbelief. Calvinists feel that every bit as deeply as anyone else.

But unless one is a universalist, every Christian system has to say, “My child may finally be lost.”

The real dispute is not whether that possibility exists. It is what ultimately explains why one sinner believes while another does not.

Emotion should make us handle that question carefully. It cannot substitute for answering it accurately

[Mike Riccardi @MikeRiccardi_]

Ought does not imply can.

“It might be objected that if man has no ability to turn to God or to do good, then he has no free will, and God would not be just to command and judge sinners. … If God does not at least supply what each person needs to be saved if he so chooses, then God is unjust.

“This is an old Pelagian argument.

“In reply, we note that the Word of God teaches both human responsibility and human inability to please God apart from saving grace.”

— Beeke and Smalley, RST, 2:411

Indeed, Scripture repeatedly holds men responsible for that which Scripture says he is morally unable to do.

Inability: “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit” (Matt 7:18).

Responsibility: “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matt 7:19)

——

Inability: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (John 6:44).

Responsibility: “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy laden” (Matt 11:28).

——

Inability: “For this reason they could not believe...” (John 12:39).

Responsibility: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).

——

Inability: “I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go” (Exod 4:21).

Responsibility: “How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me? Let My people go, that they may
serve Me” (Exod 10:3).

——

Inability: “For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, That fierce and impetuous people Who march throughout the earth To seize dwelling places which are not theirs” (Hab 1:6).

Responsibility: “Then they will sweep through like the wind and pass on. But they will be held guilty, They whose strength is their god” (Hab 1:11).

——

Responsibility: “Why does He still find fault?” (Rom 9:19a).

Inability: “For who resists His will?” (Rom 9:19b).

——

Ought does not imply can. Responsibility does not imply moral ability. God’s commands expound our duty, not our capacity.

“The mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”

— Romans 8:7–8

[Pipergrace76 @pipergrace76]

@RScottClark Jenna went to Cedarville??😳

[Pipergrace76 @pipergrace76]

But biblically fallen man isn’t Bob.

Bob knows he’s falling.
Bob recognizes Jesus as his rescuer.
Bob understands that taking/submitting to the hand means life.
Bob presumably wants not to die.
Bob’s problem is simply whether he will permit the rescuer to rescue him.

That is a radically different condition from the biblical descriptions of fallen humanity.

Paul doesn’t describe us as drowning men deciding whether to grab a life preserver. He says:

“You were dead in the trespasses and sins…” — Eph. 2:1

“The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.” — Rom. 8:7

[Pipergrace76 @pipergrace76]

@BrockHuard This is the one Brock. You will love it! Guaranteed. Fearless.

[Pipergrace76 @pipergrace76]

@realJennaEllis @DineshDSouza 1. Attribute a harsher argument to White than he made.
2. Accuse White of attacking Dinesh’s credentials.
3. Attack White’s credentials.
4. Imply insufficient academic credentials deprive him of authority to discuss the issue.
5. Never answer White’s actual question.

[Pipergrace76 @pipergrace76]

@mstevens73 @D_B_Harrison I’m not sure but I think you need to read the quote again.

[Pipergrace76 @pipergrace76]

@thewakeninq Double double machine

[Pipergrace76 @pipergrace76]

@realJennaEllis I think the first answer is because God said that he is. “What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction…” — Romans 9:22

[Pipergrace76 @pipergrace76]

@DineshDSouza “God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth.” — 2 Timothy 2:25

[Pipergrace76 @pipergrace76]

@todd_thacker If prevenient grace universally restores every fallen sinner’s ability to believe, where does Scripture teach that universal restoration from the inability described in Eph. 2, Rom. 8:7–8, 1 Cor. 2:14, and John 6:44?

[Pipergrace76 @pipergrace76]

So prevenient Grace has overcome all bondage of the will? So the Ephesians 2 man is essentially non-existent? How do you answer verses like all that the Father gives me will come to me? Or They do not believe because they are not my sheep. My sheep hear my voice and they know me.” Or as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. What do predestination, election, chosen to salvation actually mean in scripture? Seems weird words to use if it works as you describe

[Pipergrace76 @pipergrace76]

@beready4rapture @DrJackHughes @wichman_matthew God commands:

“You shall not murder.”

Yet Christ was:

“delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” — Acts 2:23,

and Herod, Pilate, Gentiles and Israel did:

“whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.” — Acts 4:28.

[Pipergrace76 @pipergrace76]

The original post constructed an argument against a proposition Calvinism does not affirm.

This isn’t some obscure qualification invented to escape Acts 7:51. The Canons of Dort themselves distinguish the gospel call from God’s efficacious work of regeneration. Reformed theology has never meant by irresistible grace that every encounter with the Holy Spirit is irresistible.

That’s why these exchanges become circular:

“Calvinism teaches X.”
“No, it doesn’t. Here’s what it teaches.”
“There you Calvinists go again saying we don’t understand Calvinism!”

Well… sometimes people really don’t understand Calvinism.

[Pipergrace76 @pipergrace76]

@beready4rapture Easy! Calvinists don’t believe all grace is always irresistible. They believe sovereign grace is finally irresistible at the time chosen by God for the elect. Elementary my dear Watson.

[Pipergrace76 @pipergrace76]

@todd_thacker @DineshDSouza there may have been a pre-fall freedom Adam possessed that fallen man no longer has, but I would hesitate to identify that neatly with libertarian free will.

[Pipergrace76 @pipergrace76]

Adam was created upright and genuinely able to obey God. His sinful desire was his own, not created as evil by God. He willingly fell. The Fall nevertheless occurred within God’s eternal, certain decree. Scripture does not tell us enough to map that into a modern libertarian/compatibilist schema with total precision.

[Pipergrace76 @pipergrace76]

I’d said what is clear is that 1) God created the world with the fall in mind as part of his plan as evidenced by “crucified before the foundation of the world”. 2). All man are culpable for their actions and willingly choose to sin. They are not forced to sin against their wills. 3). How that works out fully philosophically or metaphysically is not given to us to know. And if God and his works were fully comprehensible to me he would not be God so I’m good with that. Mine is to accept 1 and 2 because they are played and directly revealed.