So who does the work? God or man?

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"Fill us, O Lord and Father of us all, we beseech Thee, with thy gentle Spirit, and dispel on both sides all the clouds of misunderstanding and passion. Make an end to the strife of blind fury...Guard us against abusing our powers, and enable us to employ them with all earnestness for the promotion of holiness." - Ulrich Zwingli at the Marburg Colloquy

Well I can tell you without a doubt the verse says "ye believe". It does not say God believes. Nowhere in Scripture does it say God has faith in Himself through us.

We are saved by grace, through faith. Nobody is saved by grace, without faith. Faith is necessary for salvation. So, if you insist that faith is works, you are the one saying we are saved by works.

Who's the Arminian?

I believe you are the one who stated that faith is THE work. I agree that it is a work but it is a fruit of salvation. We are not saved by faith. We are saved through faith. There is a huge difference.

It has been a while since I have been accused of being an Arminian.

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"Fill us, O Lord and Father of us all, we beseech Thee, with thy gentle Spirit, and dispel on both sides all the clouds of misunderstanding and passion. Make an end to the strife of blind fury...Guard us against abusing our powers, and enable us to employ them with all earnestness for the promotion of holiness." - Ulrich Zwingli at the Marburg Colloquy

Really? Because one proof-text says "saved BY grace THROUGH faith," you are going to uncharacteristically argue verbally?

What do you do with this one?

Romans 5:2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Where you are hung up is the order, because you are placing one before the other. But Romans 5:2 places the order of the door of faith providing access to that grace. It even used "BY" faith for ya! <cluck>

I have already cited many Bible passages where the text uses "by faith." The truth you refuse to handle is that your Calvinism is nothing less than idolatry that glorifies humanistic logic and denies the plain scriptures in favor of mortal men.

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Coming from the person who authored the internet article, "I Want To Be Gay", authors soft core adult sites, makes lewd underground films, introduces young girls into a life of pornography and abuse, and promotes himself as a former media coordinator for Atheists United, is it any wonder his chosen screen name is about a dark pentecost?!

Pappa,

I don't think this is a problem for my position. Help me think through this. Faith is a gift from God. Without that gift we have no access to the grace. Faith is the instrument through which grace is accessed. I don't see a problem. I am willing to be corrected.

I totally agree and I would say the same about you. This is an Ordo Salutis issue. I do place one in front of the other and I believe you do also. The question is which order is correct?

I tend to disagree with your assessment of Calvinism. I have heard others actually allege the same thing of non-Calvinists. Non-Calvinists seem interersted in giving man some role in his own salvation. Calvinists see man as having no role without first being regenerated by God who receives all of the glory.

I see what you are saying with regards to logic but I don't think that all logic is humanistic logic. I believe that there is Godly logic and I think we ought to pursue it.

I hope you can see that we believe that salvation is all of God and that we can take no credit for it. We believe that by requiring unregenerate man to exercise faith before he has been made alive spiritually is not only illogical but gives some basis for man to glory in his own salvation.

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"Fill us, O Lord and Father of us all, we beseech Thee, with thy gentle Spirit, and dispel on both sides all the clouds of misunderstanding and passion. Make an end to the strife of blind fury...Guard us against abusing our powers, and enable us to employ them with all earnestness for the promotion of holiness." - Ulrich Zwingli at the Marburg Colloquy

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't "faith in Christ" the same as "trust in Christ"? And isn't "faith" and "trust" an atribute of God that is a part of his image and likeness? (can you see where I am going with this?) So when Adam and Eve we created, they were created with the ability to trust, and that was never taken away from man, even after the fall. All men have the ability to trust, but since the fall, man has lost trust in God. Why is that? I believe it is because of this:

When God told Adam that he would die if he ate of the fruit, and Eve did not physially die (although she was spiritually separated from God), Adam probably thought that God lied to him and ate out of rebellion. Trust was broken, but not because God lied (becuase God can never lie), but because of Satan's lie man broke the trust bond with God.

God wants to restore the trust between himself and man (becuase there can be no fellowship without trust), so he sent Christ into the world so that through Christ, man would see that God is trustworthy and turn back to him. Paul says in 2 Cor 5:11- "Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men;" and Isaiah says in Ch 1:18- "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD:" Through the Gospel God is drawing us through persuasion to show himself trustworthy so that we will trust in him.

Faith is something all men have, and they can nurture it or throw it away. We are called to exercise an atribute that God gave us. How can man take credit for believing when they had to be persuaded? I know I can't. God gets all the glory because he is the one who persuaded you.

Just because I believe that I believed in Christ before I was regenerated does not mean that I can glory in anything other than Christ. God alone gets the glory, as I stated above. I trusted Christ who persuaded me through his love for me and after I trusted in Christ I was born again (regenerated) by God's grace. How on earth can I glory in salvation when I had to be persuaded to believe? I lost the argument when I stood before God, I was found guilty, and God showed me his love for me through Christ. I can not glory in anything other than Christ for my salvation.

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Other religions are religions of two letters.
Christianity is a religion of four letters.
One says "DO."
The other says "DONE."

Yes.

No.

No.

Any verses of scripture that support this assertion?

Any verses of scripture that support this assertion?

Pure speculation so far with absolutely no scripture references.

Still no scripture passages.

Sounds like an incredibly weak God.

Any passage of scripture?

Any passage of scripture?

Any passages of scripture?

But, you are the one on which the finality of the transaction rested. God did all he could do and needed to do but in the end you are the one who finalizes it all.

But you were the one smart enough or tender enough or sensitive enough to give into the persuasion unlike your neighbor who is still unsaved.


What you seem to be flirting with is a particular view of the atonement that is called Moral Influence. It was what Abelard and Finney, I believe, taught. It teaches that His death showed how much he loved us and by doing that we are influenced into following him.

The Moral Influence view is in contrast to the view I hold which is the Satisfaction view. This teaches that God had to have Christ put to death to satisfy his wrath for the sins of his people. Anselm, Aquinas and Calvin also held to this view.

Most non-Calvinists hold to the Governmental view of the Atonement in which it is taught that Christ atonement was an example to the world as to how much God hates sin but does not necessarily bear the sins of any individuals as the Satisfaction view holds.

I have to say I am a little surprised you are going down the Moral Influence view. That way is usually reserved for liberals.

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"Fill us, O Lord and Father of us all, we beseech Thee, with thy gentle Spirit, and dispel on both sides all the clouds of misunderstanding and passion. Make an end to the strife of blind fury...Guard us against abusing our powers, and enable us to employ them with all earnestness for the promotion of holiness." - Ulrich Zwingli at the Marburg Colloquy

Excuse me, but the above posts read like the musings of college students who are still wet behind the ears. Allow me to straighten you out.

Faith is not a work--because the Bible says it isn't! All one has to do is read Rom. 4:1-5, especially vs 5. You are wasting your time fooling around with all this intellectual baloney you picked up in school instead of simply reading the Word. You should understand that Calvinism is a heresy that can easily be disproved by any on-the-ball layman.

I see you are your usual humble self. Sorry, at almost sixty years old, and with no college background, I don't fit your mold.

I believe that faith is a work...... a work of God. John 6:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

So here's my take..... by God's grace we get a heart to perceive, ears to hear, and eyes to see............. The result is acknowledgement of the truth of Christ. Gods grace results in faith, and faith results in salvation.

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So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. Isa 55:11

"NOT by works of righteousness which we have done, BUT according to His mercy He saved us."

Why call faith a work, when it's a GIFT? (Eph. 2:8) - Because it's a gift that works!
But the working (daily living) part of faith, are those works God 'ORDAINED that we should walk in' (Eph. 2:10). ie., they are of GRACE (2:8).
HE is the the REAL worker! "For we are HIS workmanship" (2:10)

The initial event is our Regeneration, the sovereign act of God, as with the natural creation. Then He gives us Repentance and Faith. We are saved (not regenerated) by faith/through faith, which saved ('Sozo') isn't talking about our being 'born from above', but is a word applying to our whole life, ie., our being saved from out of the perverse generation.
We confuse 'saved' with regenerated, and thus we make faith PRECEDE regeneration, which it does not.

"Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of GOD." (John 1:13)