Brian, on our ongoing discussion of Free Will...
"How about this :-} The whole Bible supports My position :-} Cute !"
-cute. but not accurate ;)
John 5 clearly states that those who hear His word AND believes will be saved. Your interpretation of the idea of Free Will not existing does not account for an AND situation. If we had no Free Will the phrase would be "he who here's My word SHALL believe" which we both know is not necessarily the truth in everyone that hears. This is also NOT the way it appears in the scripture.
I guess the problem we are having coming to a concensus is that you see God's part it in and make the interpretation that man has no ability to do good. I disagree, however.
And this is my reason: Why did God create man? To be good and serve Him? For the whatever length of time man lived before the apple he was GOOD and God loved him. Why? BECAUSE this is how God made us. What is the next to last sentence in Gen 1? "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. " So we are not just Good, we are VERY GOOD!!!
Was God wrong? Is scripture wrong? How can we take this except to say that ORIGINALLY man, in God's image, was a GOOD IDEA and was VERY GOOD.
For a time man multiplied and this was GOOD. Man was given dominion over the earth and this was GOOD. Man was doing GOOD. Doing what God told "him" to do! Without FAITH! BECAUSE THEY KNEW HE WAS GOD! This has been my second contention, that man can CHOSE to do good based upon Knowledge of GOD. This is the original state of man.
My reason for believing Adam did not have the gift of faith, but did have this ability to chose we call Free Will: If Adam had faith in what God had told him he would not have believed satan, or his wife. Death was something that he did not know(and thus would need faith to believe). AND he CHOSE not to believe God would cause him to die(because he lacked the Gift of Faith). Add to this that FAITH is NOT EVEN MENTIONED in Genesis. Because man did not need it and did not have it in the beginning(WHICH IS WHY IT CAN BE ONLY A GIFT OF GOD!!!). Man did not need Faith to be GOOD. To be VERY GOOD even. Nor to be saved (originally). But, because of the sin of Adam those who don't know need the GIFT of faith. Those who KNOW can still chose to do GOOD and VERY GOOD in God's name (if you can show me where he took this ability away from all mankind PERMANENTLY I'll email you an ebuck). If this was not the case satan could not have tricked them into sinning. If they could not choose then God would not have blamed them. If they could not choose they would not have gone from being GOOD/VERY GOOD to being CURSED! They would have had NO POWER TO DO THIS. Logically this would conclude that only satan would not be saved in the end. But we both know this is not true.
So the above Biblical FACTS (easily proven and cannot be disproven - go ahead and try if you wish) SUPPORT MY VIEW. Whereas your Biblical INTERRETATIONS are only that, your Interpretations.
-maouse
ps. If you put faith in Genesis then you can come to believe that what I say is what it/He says. If you do not have faith in it then you can chose to do what you will. I, for one KNOW what I say is true and it is not a matter of faith. I have been given faith for believing in scriptures I CAN'T comprehend(like most of the NT which is MUCH more open to man's interpretation as this thread obviously shows).
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