It's like the difference between forming clay in your hand and watching clay form itself.
Robots and Will Worshipers
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It's like the difference between forming clay in your hand and watching clay form itself.
I enjoy how it shows that God is God over the liar yet is not the liar himself.
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I used to get mad and walk away from Him, to my own detriment. However, He cured my backsliding when He showed me His love for me. Though I didn't know the scripture at the time, I responded by loving Him back. This came out of me as the desire to help...period. His love is perfect and is what we all need, to be loved just as we are. I haven't turned from Him since and I'm glad to report that He hasn't turned away from me. He is my everything, my reason for being.
Have you ever felt so full of gratitude that you think you might burst? If you are a Christian, I know you have. Our job is to keep that ember alive and hot. And to keep moving forward, to keep gaining new ground. What a faithful God we have!!!
Prayer Warrior
Well-Known Member
Very will said, @Ron Coates !
I didn't grow up in a Christian home, but when I was in college, God reached out to me and showed me His incredible love. I ended up giving Him my life. As a baby Christian, I would get so excited about Him, all of the little things I was thankful for, that I couldn't get to sleep at night. So...I know what you mean.
Yes, God is good and He is faithful!
Some doctrine does consist of a lie, particularly if it defends mere vested interests rather than God-honouring truth to the pilgrim believer.
Thanks for responding.
If God chose to not foreknow something, then He was not all knowing.
Why would our universe have been destroyed a long time ago? Do you perhaps figure that God's power is only destroying and not sustaining?
Genesis says that God rested on the seventh day, but Jesus taught that Him and His father have not stopped working in reference to the Sabbath day.
John 5:16-17
And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day.
But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.
Do you think it is possible that God never stopped using His power since the beginning of creation?
Foreknowing is not foreordaining. Whether or not God knows everything about the future or just all possible futures, says nothing about what he causes or does not cause.
BARNEY BRIGHT
Well-Known Member
I'm saying that when God used his power to destroy the World of wicked mankind during Noah's day he didn't use all his power but instead used it selectively. If God had used all his power when he destroyed that wicked world of Noah's day all creation would have been destroyed. In other words God can use his power selectively choosing only to use the amount of power that is necessary and not use every bit of his power and he's still all-powerful. So just as God can use his power selectively and still be all-powerful God can also use his all-knowing abilities selectively and still be all-knowing. For you or anyone else to say that God hasn't ever used his power selectively then you ignore the scriptures that show that God has consistently used his power in a selective way and you want me to believe that God can't use his other ablities selectively.
You said, "nothing spectacular in being sovereign, when you have everyone hard-wired to do your will".
My question for you is whether or not it is spectacular for God to do something when there is no one around Him that has a free will from Him.
If the answer to my question is negative, then it is necessarily not as spectacular as creating free-will agents. If the answer is positive, then it is not necessarily as spectacular as creating free-will agents.
My point is, when you say, "it is not as spectacular", you are not telling me whether it is spectacular in itself or not, which is precisely my question.
Good to remember that Ephesians 1.11 says that God "worketh all things after the counsel of his own will".
I figure we're probably about to see a discussion unfold about what "all things" are relative to.
@Rudometkin God never acts against His own Word, but He is certainly not constrained with what humans may think is supposedly "fair" or not: God is indeed God.
Ronald Nolette
Well-Known Member
False dichotomy!
Man does think apart from God. That happened at teh fall.
God knows all things, approves all things but does not control all things.
Man does not have free will- it is enslaved to sin.
Determinism is simply god decided who He will save.
As the Scripture says,
Romans 9:11
For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;
Romans 9:15
For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
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@Rudometkin Searching verses, reminding us that God is indeed God and we should be prepared to bow to the sovereignty of our compassionate God.
Thanks for joining the discussion, Ronald.
Apart from God, as in, not controlled by God. When it is understood this way, it is seen that there is no false dichotomy here.
No, I cannot find you any Scripture that explicitly states that God has asked us to do something, outside of our capability, and that he will kill us if we don't comply.
But, there is Scripture that states how feasible and attainable God's precepts are;
Romans 10:5-11
10:5. For Moses writes that the man who practices the righteousness which is based on law shall live by that righteousness. 6. But the righteousness based on faith speaks as follows: "DO NOT SAY IN YOUR HEART, 'WHO WILL ASCEND INTO HEAVEN?' (that is, to bring Christ down), 7. or 'WHO WILL DESCEND INTO THE ABYSS?' (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead)." 8. But what does it say? "THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART"--that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, 9. that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10. for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. 11. For the Scripture says, "WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED."
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