The rational licentiousness of Reformation theology’s total depravity doctrine is this: those who are totally depraved simply cannot be saved. That is the metaphysical conclusion of this idea. There is no man beyond his depravity, and implicit in this is the notion that the very core of man is wicked. Calvinists will be the first to holler to their high “undeserved” heavens that there is not one sole molecule within man himself that is not hell-bound, and rejoicing in it. There is NOTHING within man that is “good”. Nothing. The root of him is evil. Man IS evil. The only rational and logical conclusion of this belief is what I have said since the early days of my break with the rank heresy that is Reformed Theology: Calvinism demands that the singular evil of man is his very existence; his creation. This can be the ONLY conclusion about the nature of man from Calvin’s ideas. IF there is NO good in ANY part of man so that he is totally depraved, then man’s very BEING, yes…even the very IDEA of man in God’s mind must logically be wicked. If God speaks the word in order to create, and the word is “MAN” (“Let man be made in Our image”), then the very word of God by which man is made–man, who IS wholly and resolutely evil, perpetually turning away from God–is also then, logically to be considered the very inception of the evil itself. And what does this say about God? Things that should terrify anyone who accepts the doctrine of total depravity.
Do you see now the evil that is implicit in the thousands upon thousands of church “Statements of Faith” which affirm total depravity? This wicked doctrine is found in almost every American church in the nation, and we wonder why, more and and more, Christians are becoming the pariahs of the world. They have been duped into celebrating a God that created evil personified.
People, we need to run, horrified and reverent, from this dreadfully insane doctrine.
And do not be tempted to say to yourself, as the Calvinists do: “I’m sure, that man was born pure, created good by God, but fell of his own volition.” This bit of logical fantasy cannot hold water. The fact is that if man is wholly and totally depraved then he could NOT have been anything else. Ever. By their own definition the very base and core of man is EVIL; his root existence thus is evil. He could no more have once been good than green could have once been red. If the thing IS red, and that is the utter root essence of it, and it could not ever have been green. Because, for obvious reasons of logic and common sense, the color red cannot become the color green. (I know people fight me on this point; they cannot get their heads around it…they constantly think of a THING which is colored, instead of the color itself…the color being the utter end of the concept; there is NO thing beyond the color, is what I mean.) An object which can be colored can be red and then become green, sure, but the color red itself ceases to exist if it is anything BUT red because the complete truth of this color is: red is red. Likewise, the truth of man who IS evil, according to total depravity is: evil is evil; there is nothing beyond it. But if we say good has now become evil, then the human being we are talking about, who forms the platform for the moral dichotomy, must be a separate thing altogether. That is, there IS something beyond the evil; and thus, man cannot be totally depraved.
So, again…to reiterate, because this MUST be understood: If the root of man is evil, then he could never have been good. For if, as the Calvinists say, man IS evil, it means that he could never have, by definition, been good. If man was once good, but is now evil, then the root of man which can make this moral positional shift must be something else entirely. And the truth is that at his root man is God’s child; his crowning omnipotent achievement. Man’s creation by God is thus “good”, and “very good”. This is the root of man: a child of God Indeed, Jesus is the Son of Man; not because man is evil, but because at his root, man is GOOD. He is redeemed because he is supremely WORTH redeeming. If man was worthLESS, he could not be God’s creation.
Man cannot be totally depraved at all. For the root of man is man himself; his independent consciousness which is the pinnacle of his being; his very REASON for being created. And the ability of man to be self-aware and to know and apprehend and grasp and see cannot be held morally accountable to any standard. Ability is not subject to morality; only volition and desire and action. All of these stem from man’s ability to be self-aware. The ability of creation to do what it does is from God, and thus, the root of all in Creation, especially man, is GOOD. NOT evil. And the fact that man represents the singular object of our existential reality which God can LOVE means that man cannot ever be considered something God cannot love, as the Calvinists declare. And this means that anyone who proclaims total depravity as “sound doctrine” is a liar. If man is totally depraved, the God is the author of evil. There is no way around this logical conclusion. Calvinism is the traditions of men, nullifying the commands and metaphysics of God by their irrational hermeneutics.
So, having said all of the above, we can now understand, following Calvin’s logic to its inexorable conclusion, that there is nothing in the totally depraved human to save, even if the Lord wanted to (which…why would He? because logically He would have had to CREATE man ALREADY totally depraved). Yes, even if He wanted to save man, there is nothing in the human being which can do anything except reject God, hate God, regardless of anything God does, or even, ironically, regardless of whether man “wants” to hate God or not. For not even God can change a totally depraved person into a good person–a worthy person–for the same reason, again, that green cannot become red.
Now, one might suppose that what we mean by a “new creation” in Christ is that God replaces the “elect” man with a “new man”. And what is really meant by this is that the old one, being totally depraved, is destroyed so that the YOU that is elect is no longer really YOU at all; but you are irrelevant, a divine utter redundancy. A cosmic, divine, perfectly determined MISTAKE. And what I mean by this is: God created YOU in order to destroy you to replace you with a new YOU, or a “new man” [and thus we have: contradiction #1].
This “new man” just happens to look like you and have the same thoughts as you and the same consciousness as you. So even though YOU were elect from birth…you, er, really weren’t [contradiction #2]; but the new YOU is really the one who is elect, and he/she then was somehow both predestined and foreknown from before birth and at the same time was not [contradiction #3] because this new YOU both is and is not YOU at all and so he/she both must have and could not have been elect from birth and predestined before time [contradiction #4].
Unfortunately this completely rational and vividly clear answer to the the question of how God saves the totally depraved (yes, that was sarcasm) falls short when we remember that, according to the doctrine, ALL men are equally totally depraved; so new man or old, they are both totally depraved by definition, and thus, new or old, neither can be saved because both are irrelevant. The old IS the new and the new IS the old [contradiction #5].
Therefore the only possibly solution is that whether before you accept Christ or after, you are equally totally depraved. Your salvation does nothing, in fact, to rectify your sinful nature. Not even Christ can make YOU “good” positionally; instead Christ can…well, effect no change in you whatsoever. You see, it’s really quite simple: you need Christ to realize that you don’t really need Christ at all, because you are totally evil at the core, and He cannot change this; and this is why you are elect, because you MUST be, because Christ’s sacrifice really can do nothing for you. And because you are elect, your depravity, which somehow condemns you, doesn’t really condemn you…because you’re elect [contradictions #6, 7, and 8]. And, lo and behold, this is exactly what the neo-Calvinists of our day teach. If you are a Christian, guess what? You are just as horribly wicked, and devoted to and slavishly following evil as you were the day you were shaking your fists at God and declaring that you wanted nothing to do with him. And even if you never really did this, you really did…because you are not you, you see, and your mind doesn’t know what you are doing because your mind is totally depraved, and you then are not you, but only whatever force is compelling you, so whatever good you think you did you must think you didn’t [contradiction #9], and whatever evil you think you did not, you must think you did [contradiction #10]. But then if you agree that you only think you did good but did not really do good, you acknowledge that you did a good thing by reversing your thoughts about the good you could not possibly have done that you thought you did; and this of course is impossible because you cannot think anything good because you are depraved and thus cannot know good and so you must go back to believing that you did good instead of trusting that you did not, which is the good which you cannot do, according to your depravity [contradiction #11]. And so whether you think you are evil or think you are good, and both and neither, it is all irrelevant because whatever you think, you can’t possibly be really thinking [contradiction #12]. If you think that you think, then you are a liar. And if you think that you don’t think, so that you are not really culpable for your evil thoughts, you are a liar [contradiction #13]. Your thinking is a lie. And if you think that, you are a liar [contradiction #14] because you cannot think anything true, which means you cannot think. And this is the obvious (?) and clear(?) and sound(?) doctrinal proof of your depravity. So remember, believe in Jesus, and remember that you cannot really believe in Jesus, because you are depraved [contradiction #16]. And thus you are both you and NOT you, but merely your depravity, which isn’t you at all, because that makes you an abstraction [HUGE CONTRADICTIONS # 17, #18 AND #19…three points for this idiotic Calvinist doozy].
If man is totally depraved then there can be no “new man”, and this is my point. Indeed, in light of the doctrine, we can only draw one conclusion. God must BE man for man. God must elect man for man, and must then sanctify man for man, because man is evil and does not and CANNOT change according to the very description of the doctrine by Calvinists themselves. Okay…fine, you might accept that. But what is so alarmingly common these days is the willingness of people to simply accept that the “logic” stops there. That there is no other link remaining in the metaphysical chain. People…this is just flagrant insanity.
I mean, think about the next step in the doctrinal equation. Just think! I’m not the only one who can see this, believe me! It’s right there, in front of your face! Stop looking at the stupid Calvinist trees and SEE THE FOREST. What does it logically mean if God has to do EVERYTHING for man so that man, who is totally depraved, can be saved (which, he can’t BY DEFINITION because he was created fundamentally depraved).
Do you have it. Yes? Yes! Great.
Okay, let’s see if you are right. What I am saying is this: only God can really be saved. God came as Christ to save Himself, so that He may sanctify Himself, in order that He may dwell eternally with Himself, to make remission for His OWN sins….[contradiction #20].
Ahh…oops. Sounds a littler, er…blasphemous-like, huh?
Yes, it does. Why? Because Calvinism is EVIL, and its acolytes are PHARISEES!
And the more you dig into this insane hole of morbid and putrid doctrine the darker and more incestuous the tunnel becomes. What this crusty bit of reformed doctrine teaches, further, is that God creates wicked, evil man so that He may save Himself through the vehicle of that very same wicked, evil man. Man is thus a created act of divine apostasy, determined according to the doctrine of unconditional election and limited atonement, and thus usurped from himself so that he may be utterly controlled by God, which, as a determined creation, was never really itself at all. This means that depraved man is an extension of God, Himself [contradiction #21], which then somehow IS sin, and thus God sins against Himself, by Himself [massive contradiction #22] and sends Christ so that He may be saved by Himself [contradiction #23]. And thus God somehow, though determined, manages to “fall” away [contradiction #24], so that He might send Himself to die as a sacrifice for Himself; and the part that He is dying for was always elect to salvation, and thus not really in need of Christ at all, thus making the sacrifice pointless, [contradiction #25].
It is “reasonable” to conclude, then, that the “elect” part of God was always then fundamentally good, because God is, of course, good…but the problem is that even the “good” part of God is in man, and thus is also still totally depraved and wicked [contradiction #26]. But this doesn’t really matter because the depravity of the “elect” doesn’t lead to any sort of need to repent or change because they are both elect and totally depraved, both of which utterly preclude the possibility or even option of repentance or change [contradiction #27].
Further, we can “reasonably” conclude from Calvin’s peculiar doctrine that the part of God which is not elect [contradiction #28] is doomed to hell to be eternally separated from Himself [blasphemous contradiction #29]. For Christ, who came to save sinners, cannot really save sinners, but only the elect, because sin is irrelevant: irrelevant for those elect before they were born (whether they repent or not they are still elect, by definition), and irrelevant for those who were already going to hell before they were born (whether they repent or not they are still going to hell, by definition); and so Christ cannot save the part of God which is unelect [contradiction #30], but only the elect part of Himself, which was always elect even before it accepted Himself [contradiction #31]. Thus, the elect part of Himself which He, Himself came to save, and for whom the sacrifice of Himself is alone efficacious, finds Christ, Himself, utterly irrelevant to Himself, because He must, unequivocally be saved by His own election, not His own sacrifice [contradiction #32 and #33].
Now…if that is “paradox”, then religion is for fools.
“Tell me, friend. When did Saruman the Wise abandon reason for madness?”
-Gandalf the Grey
“The Cross does not make election possible, but election makes the Cross pointless.”
-Argo
unreformingtheology 
Argo, With your position in mind, I go back to Genesis and see some things that help us.
First of all, the command was with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. that implies that evil already existed. Yet man was made in the “image of God” and declared good.
The eating of the fruit “opened their eyes” obviously to this evil or that there was such a difference from good as evil as it seemed they only knew good. Now they knew evil existed?
Where exactly do we see this total depravity that wipes out the image of God and renders man totally incapable of discerning any good choices?
Then we get into the curses. Man is not cursed directly as in his body except for death. The land and the serpent are cursed. What I see for humans is hard labor and death on a corrupted earth.
Lydia,
Great observations. As I mentioned in my post, TD is utterly impossible if we accept the Genesis account (whether literally of allegorically). As you rightly point out it was the knowledge of evil AND good which condemned man. His ability to acknowledge both and will both is NOT a function of ethics but existence. Thus, man cannot be totally depraved. If he is depraved then by definition he cannot know good. And if he cannot know good he cannot know evil, because moral components of the dichotomy are RELATIVE to one another. Man is not condemned because he cannot help but sin–sin as an influence is utterly ABLE to be resisted. Man is condemned because he is now no longer defined by the actuality of himself, the tangible flesh and blood creation of God, but by the abstraction of the moral dichotomy. His heart always operates on the understanding that there is now an evil about him that, though he may not be DOING or WILLING IT, it is contributing in equal measure to the truth of his self awareness, which is the cornerstone of his existence. In other words, without Christ, good is now only good as it is defined by what is not good. This has absolutely nothing to do with the gnostic abomination of Total Depravity. Which says that man IS sin. That’s a lie.
just curious, how do you explain Romans 3:10-18,
Pajo,
Hi. Really, you have to look no further than verses 21-23; that explains Paul’s entire point in Romans 3, I think. Essentially, Paul is making the argument that the Jews cannot claim righteousness by having the Law any more than the Gentiles can claim to have righteousness from not having the Law. Merely “being a Jew”, or being of the “circumcision” does not make one righteous any more than NON-circumcisions makes a Gentile righteous. He uses the quotes from the Torah to emphasis his point in 10-18, where Jews, even though they have the Law, are still condemned because they are not obedient to it. The point is that righteousness comes from obedience to the Law (or, it did, prior to Christ), and that one who is not obedient to the Law is guilty by it, whether Jew or Gentile. Prior to Christ, there was righteousness in obedience to the Law (if not, then all of Israel is condemned before they leave Egypt…obviously, it is hard to think of Moses or Joshua in hell because they didn’t believe in Jesus, who wasn’t alive at the time). But Paul is speaking to the Jews who claim righteousness simply BECAUSE they are Jews. Paul uses OT references in 10-18 as a way to prove that that kind of thinking is irrational. These are Jews who are decidedly NOT obedient to the Law they claim is their righteousness (2:28 “For, he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh”). They are hypocrites, condemning Paul for his forsaking of the Law in favor of Christ, while at the same time rejecting the very Law they claim makes them righteous. Paul then goes on to defend HIS rejection of the Law as the basis for his righteousness by saying “But now the righteousness of God apart from the Law is revealed…” vs. 21.
Obviously, Paul is talking about Christ.
With respect, I understand your point; this is the problem with prooftexing. We use verses like 10-18 as a defense for ideas that are false. To say that Paul is attempting to indicate that all are totally depraved, and worse, are ALL engaged in and guilty of rank and active wickedness is a gross misrepresentation of the text. You cannot understand ANY of the Bible unless you first understand WHO the author is speaking to and WHY in THAT specific context. Using the Bible as a talisman to support a pagan, gnostic Augustinian/Calvinist metaphysic is precisely why the American Christian church is so abusive and despotic.
Friend,there are none righteous,no not even one.
Romans 8:7 because 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,
1 cor 2:14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
God’s word explains how depraved man is and without the NEW birth given by God Himself by His Grace,spoken of in Eph 2:4-5,none could be saved.Most of the Bible is God’s testament to us of man’s depravity and God’s holiness.We find that if God promises good for obedience or evil for disobedience,Israel could do no good no matter what punishment loomed over their heads.
Isaiah pleads with God to return and put His restraint on the people because without it every evil act imagined man will do,They were burning their children alive at this time doing exactly as God told them they would if they followed pagans,here is Isaiah’s plea IS 63:17 O LORD, why do you make us wander from your ways and harden our heart, so that we fear you not? Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your heritage.
So to deny total depravity is a denial of God’s word and teachings,not the other way around.
God Bless
Tim,
I stand by my argument presented in my article. There is no way to rationally argue Total Depravity in any way. Every argument will, at its root, be completely contradictory…impossible according to the very existential, metaphysical and physical reality which God, Himself, has designed. “Because it is in the bible” is not a rational argument; it will not stand in the arena of ideas. This argument, too, relies on assumptions that cannot be rationally defended. The Bible itself is not above consistent and logical interpretation…context matters, and you did not provide any for those verses.
Be that as it may, even proof-texted, those verses by no means necessitate that one accept the never-mentioned-in-the-bible doctrine of Total Depravity. Men do both good and evil. This is the entire point of the Torah. The Law was given so that Israel knew how to please God. When they obeyed of their own volition, God was happy; when they disobeyed by that same volition, He was angered. The MAN did not change, but what he did or did not do changed. This reality is denied by your false doctrine.
Was Daniel totally depraved? Deborah? Ruth? David? Jonathan? Samuel? Moses? Caleb? Joshua? Israel when they went to destroy Benjamin for violating the concubine? Esther? Elisha? Josiah? Abraham? Rachel? Sarah?
It seems to me that ascribing such a crude concept as total depravity to these stalwarts is an affront to both reason and the Faith.
If man is totally depraved, he cannot be saved, because there is no “man” to save. That is the folly of total depravity. The end of man is evil, and as such, the “evil” of man is absolute. There is no man at all which exists to change because man is merely a form (contradictorily) of a theoretical and therefore LIMITLESS absolute: depravity. Because depravity is (redundantly) qualified by the word “total”, it can have no end, nor can it have a beginning. You cannot add to or change or save or take away from what is, by definition, something which is infinite. Depravity, it if is total, is YOU. You cannot be saved because you do not exist. Again. All that exists is depravity.
You may attempt to argue that God destroys the “old man” and replaces him with the “new”. The problem with this idea is that the root of each is YOU. You, being the totality of yourself, mind body and soul, ARE God’s creation. It cannot be remade without usurping man’s utter being himself. To attempt to argue that God destroys a man who IS evil and replaces him with one who IS good are functional equivalents. In both cases, man has no will of his own; and this being the case, man does not exist. Man, in both cases, is merely an extension of God.
The truth is that your theology denies that God is the God of the living, and proclaims Him the God of the dead, and the non-existent.
THE TOTAL DEPRAVITY OF MAN
There are those who teach that the sin of Adam was imputed to all men causing total depravity, rendering, all men, incapable of free-will, the inability to perform any righteous act, unable to respond to the gospel unless God imputes him with faith so he can believe, totally morally corrupt, and under bondage to his evil nature, and that he has no free-will.
ARE MEN BORN TOTALLY DEPRAVED
Ecclesiastes 7:26 And I discovered more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are chains.One who is pleasing to God will escape from her, but the sinner will be captured by her.
How could a totally depraved man ever be pleasing to God?
Ecclesiastes 7:29 “Behold, I found only this, that God made men upright, but they have sought out many devices.”
God made men upright. Not totally depraved. Men choose to sin of their own free-will.
Psalm 37:17 For the arms of the wicked will be broke, But the Lord sustains the righteous.
Where would the Lord find any righteous men, if all men are born totally depraved and not capable of doing anything good? Does God force men to become wicked so He can break their arms? No, men have free-will.
Psalm 37:37 Mark the blameless man, and behold the upright; For the man of peace will have a posterity.
Was the book Psalms not inspired by God? Blameless and upright men do not seem to be an example of men who are totally depraved and incapable of doing good.
Job 1:1 There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and that man was blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil.
I guess Job was granted a total depravity waiver.
Genesis 6:9 These are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God.
How was it possible that a totally depraved, corrupt man could attain righteousness? Noah was not totally depraved. Noah had free-will.
MEN ARE NOT TOTALLY DEPRAVED—THEY HAVE FREE-WILL!
Romans 10:13 for “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Whoever includes all men who hear the gospel.
Romans 10:17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
Faith comes from hearing . Faith does not come because God imputes faith to a chosen few, so they might believe and be saved.
If man are so depraved that they cannot come to God unless God forces them, then, why did Jesus send men to preach the gospel? (Matthew 28:19-20)
Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also the Greek.
The gospel is the power for salvation. Salvation is for all who believe. God did not select a few; whom He eradicated their depravity so they could believe and be saved. God gave free-will to all men so they could enter His kingdom.
Acts 10:1 Now there was a man at Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what is called the Italian cohort, 2 a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, and gave many alms to the Jewish people and prayed to God continually.
Does this describe a totally depraved, corrupt man? Cornelius was neither a Jew nor Christian, however, he gave alms and prayed to God continually. Cornelius had free-will. Cornelius did not inherit total depravity because of Adam’s sin.
Mark 1:14-15 Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
If, in fact, man is totally depraved and not capable of choosing between good and evil, why did Jesus tell men to repent? Jesus preached the gospel because men do have free-will.
Mark 10:46-52….52 And Jesus said to him, “Go your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and began following Him on the road.
How could the blind beggar be totally depraved, and still have faith in Jesus? Jesus said the faith of Bartimaeus had made him well. Jesus did not say ; I impute faith to you, Bartimaeus, so your sight my be restored.
Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please Him, forhe who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.
How can men who are totally depraved, morally corrupt, and are under bondage to their evil nature come to God or seek God? How is this possible? It is possible because men have free-will to do good or evil. It is possible because all men have the free-will to accept the gospel of Jesus Christ. IT IS POSSIBLE BECAUSE GOD IS A REWARDER OF ALL WHO SEEK HIM!
SAVED BY “GRACE ALONE” IS NOT A DOCTRINE BASED ON THE SCRIPTURES.
THAT GOD SELECTS AND FORCES CERTAIN MEN TO BE SAVED AND ALL OTHER TO BE LOST; IS, IN A NUTSHELL, THE DOCTRINE OF “GRACE ALONE.”
(All Scripture quotes from: NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE)
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Steve,
Extremely well-argued. Of course I completely agree. Your appeal to your own ability to observe your environment correctly and rightly discern truth from falsehood has allowed you to properly interpret the Bible. You have approached it from the plumb line of man’s LIFE.
If man is indeed totally depraved then man’s entire epistemology is flawed. Total depravity means that man’s very physical body, down to the physical components that make up his brain and thus his rational faculties, is utterly flawed. The very means by which you apprehend ANYTHING-any idea concerning anything at all-is deemed to be broken. You are always looking through a “lens” of moral corruption and so you have no legitimate, working frame of reference from which to BEGIN to observe anything, and then of course from that, to form any understanding of it.
If this is true, then man is completely unable to recognize any truth at all. Which means that man can never KNOW anything. Man’s entire epistemology is determined purely by his “depravity”, which remains nothing more but an unknowable, unobservable, all-determining force which compels him forward through his blind existence. Thus, the very idea of “total depravity” must completely remove man from himself and God by removing from him any ability to apprehend reality. Again, ALL man perceives is seen through the lens of moral corruption. Of course, this precludes ANYONE from declaring ANY truth, even “Jesus is the way to Salvation”. If your entire epistemology is flawed,then how do you know ANYTHING, much less that “Jesus is Lord”?
Total Depravity is not only unbiblical (the term does not exist in Scripture), but it also cannot be rationally defended. It, like any form of determinism, makes it impossible for man to know anything, and therefore, if one believes in total depravity, he cannot, according to his own “logic”, actually argue that it is true. The DEATH of truth is a direct consequence of such a doctrine.
Total Depravity is just a term to summarize what man really is, in contrast to the Holy God–like filthy rags. Dirty. Unable to clean himself. A dirt here makes it not perfectly white as snow. And that man, no matter how less depraved he is, is still depraved and cannot save himself. No matter how you put free will and prevenient grace in it, we can still say that man cannot save himself. So, how is that different from Total Depravity? It is not contradiction and unbiblical, but a mystery that the Apostles themselves believe. The danger with Arminianism, Absolute Free Will, and Prevenient Grace, is that you put too much merit on man. And with such, you’ll argue that God in his infinite wisdom and knowledge will “elect” those that he will foresee, will believe. Will that be a sovereign God? No, that is not a sovereign God, but a conditional God who can’t seem to decide who to save but rely on futuresight and not sovereign will.
Remember Job? He is righteous right? But why did the Lord tell him “Were you there when I laid the foundations of the Earth?”.
I think the whole soteriology situation will never be answered. Not in this lifetime. Maybe we’ll just ask God when we’re there? Or is this a waste of time arguing the mysterious? Much like understanding fully the Trinity (which apparently, does not appear in the Bible?)
Let’s agree to disagree and stop this apologetics for each other (C vs A), but rather Go and Make Disciples. Satan is a great time waster, and by giving us things to fight for would mean less time to spread the Gospel. 🙂
It’s a special kind of religious cognitive dissonance which asks us to “go and make disciples” BEFORE the fundamental basics of the belief system are defined or understood.
If the soteriology is something even CHRISTIANS cannot understand, then how do we suppose that they shall convince men that they are right about salvation?
The only people who can be convinced are those who disregard the truth as being fundamentally meaningful. In which case they aren’t actually being convinced of anything at all.
Your strategy is to let the blind to lead the blind. Good luck with that.