RESISTIBLE GRACE = AMBULATORY MODEL?

I just realised these passages might support the notion that God intends to save everyone, but some actively reject His appeals to be saved – like a patient bleeding to death who runs away from the paramedics instead of staying still and receiving medical attention.

NB: I’ve previously never given much thought or support to this model.

(In context, I view each of these passages as referring to ultimate salvific status.)

YOU CAN, BUT YOU WON’T

Why is this such a difficult concept to grasp for some? Am I missing something?

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. – 1 Corinthians 10:13

👆 A) This states that we CAN always make a real choice to choose not-sin.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God – Romans 3:23
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. – 1 John 1:8

👆 B) These state that we WON’T actually always choose not to sin. And God with His perfect knowledge, knows this about us.

A & B are not contradictory. The fact that B happens (we choose sin in at least one circumstance in our life) does not negate the truth of A (we have the ability to choose not-sin in every circumstance). At no point are we ever forced to choose sin.

To give an everyday example, I CAN throw some bread to the pigeons at the fountain. Nothing stops me from doing this. But I WON’T throw bread to those pigeons. The latter fact does not negate the former possibility.

Again:

For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. … But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it. – Deuteronomy 30:11,14

👆 C) The Israelites CAN keep the law.

Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? – Acts 15:10

👆 D) The Israelites WON’T keep the law.

C & D are not contradictory. The Israelites had the ability to keep the law, but they did not actually keep the law. At no point were they forced to break the law.

God states A & C genuinely – commands imply ability to carry out the commands.

God knows B & D without making them happen – certainty does not equate to necessity.

PS. Related meme, Total Inability was the logically strongest petal of TULIP to me. If people never want to respond positively to God, then they simply wouldn’t ever choose God even if offered a real choice! It took actual Scripture to debunk that proposal for me.

NEPHILIM, DEMONS & MIDDLE KNOWLEDGE

Dr Michael Heiser refers to the Second Temple Jewish belief (based on certain word linkages) that demons are the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim, cursed to roam the earth after dying. That’s why they’re called ‘unclean spirits’, because they’re a forbidden mixture (bastards, to use a more vulgar term) – the offspring of The Sons of God and the Daughters of Men from Genesis 6:1-4, as expanded upon in 1 Enoch.

At first glance it seemed to me that these Nephilim got the short end of the fairness stick – it’s not like they could pick their lineage, and there’s no possibility of salvation for them.

But if God has Middle Knowledge, then He would know which souls would reject God and goodness and lawfulness in any possible world – and match them up with Nephilim bodies.

Or to put it another way, TRANSWORLD DEMON DAMNATION.

When You Read the Bible and it Does Gnostic

Ironically, this is EXACTLY correct for many Calvinists who tell me that the reason I don’t interpret Bible passages they way they do to derive TULIP is because God hasn’t supernaturally revealed those truths to poor little unenlightened me.

Whereas when they read the Bible, God DOES ‘Gnostic’ the correct understanding into them!

ISAIAH 30:33 IS ABOUT GOD DECREEING TOPHET CHILD SACRIFICE?

Passages in Jeremiah refuting that God would ever do such a thing aside, I have never come across this idea until recently. The whole chapter seems to be in the context of righteous judgment and punishment of the wicked, with nothing about burning babies in v33.

Zero commentaries I looked at take this view.

WHAT DO CONSPIRACISTS SAY TO EXPLAIN A DIVINE HOLY SPIRIT?

Question: I can see the reasoning that conspiracists use to say “Jesus was never considered divine until the Romans manipulated/coopted the Christian movement and made Jesus into God”.

But what rationale do they give for adding the Holy Spirit in to make a Trinity? It doesn’t seem necessary and if it was back-edited into the New Testament, not nearly as much effort seems to have been made to prooftext for the Holy Spirit’s divinity.

Feels like a major weakness and oversight of the conspiracy theory to me.

CALVINIST IS DISHONEST ABOUT SCRIPTURE… IN ORDER TO ACCUSE DR FLOWERS OF BEING DISHONEST ABOUT SCRIPTURE

Calvinist:

Flower is not honest here

the verse did not say through your faith

the verse says through the faith of the operation of God

///

My reply:

Flowers: “you were raised with him through your faith”

Colossians 2:12 NIV: “you were also raised with him through your faith IN the working of God”

You: “through the faith OF the operation of God”

I think Flowers is closer to the text than you are here. Whether Flower’s shortened version “your faith’ or the fuller text “your faith in the working of God’, it is still YOUR faith.

Your “through the faith OF the operation of God” implies that it is God causing the faith, which is consistent with Calvinism but inaccurate to the actual Bible passage.

In any Case, Joel himself opens the Bible himself and reads out: “you were also raised with him through faith IN the powerful working of God”. That he still is flummoxed shows that the full verse with the correct word IN (not OF) stumps Calvinist presuppositions.

Also, another comment… WEIRD FLEX BUT OKAY

Calvinistic Eisegete Warns Me Not to Eisegete

Youtube commentors are somehow a step below even regular Internet commentors.

This particular example throws out a bunch of passages ripped out of context to argue for Irresistible Grace, and then warns ME not to eisegete!

I guess they’d be the PRO at recognizing eisegeting after all!

OCCAM’S KINDERGARTENERS

A kindergarten teacher notices that her class of 20 kids seems to be taller at the end of the year compared to the start. Two explanations are possible:

1) All 20 kids grew taller over the course of the year. Or,

2) The teacher shrunk.

USING OCCAM’S RAZOR, I CONCLUDE THAT 2) IS MORE PROBABLE.

NB. An object lesson in why Occam’s Razor does not automatically mean the Trinity is untrue.

HOT TAKE ON THE CHOSEN

If you take umbrage at The Chosen having Jesus say or do things that aren’t recorded in the Bible…

But also use anything from John 7:53 – 8:11…

You might want to reconsider your stance about extra-Biblical events that might or might not have happened but are consistent with Jesus’ character and the sociohistorical setting.