1. Re: TD & Common grace. Two things. 1 I think it is a category error to put them into this kind of relationship. That there is common grace is (to me) without dispute. But that says nothing about the basic state of fallen man’s soul any more than the sun shining brighter has any effect on the blindness of one born without eyes. 2. TD is by most sound Calvinistic theologians I read virtually ALWAYS explained so as to defray the notion that man is as sinful as he can be – and simply stating that man’s fallen condition is in every point corrupted by sin, and renders it impossible for him to reverse his own condition. In fact, he doesn’t want to apart from God working something in him. No one denies fallen men do noble and wonderful things. There are still amazing flashes of the image of God he was created in. But it is shattered, and beyond human repair. But every act is tainted with sin. Every motive is still coming from a soul severed from God’s Spirit. The human heart is desperately wicked and self-deceived says the Scripture. We do not want to imagine ourselves truly worthy of an eternal Hell.

2. When we speak of the inability of man to believe and be saved, we are not speaking of a natural inability – but of a moral inability. Many a man knows he is empty inwardly. Many a man wants to be freed from his pain. But no man desires God naturally as God. It takes the Spirit to work the love for God into our hearts. Since the Fall, we have demonstrated universally we love ourselves above God in our present state. I have no argument that Gospel appeals are aimed at the will, and that man is under a duty to believe. He is also under a duty to “be holy even as I am holy.” And he can no more do that than the other. Why? Because in Adam we fell so as to make our fall irreversible by the same will that brought on. Like a man willing to leap from an airplane without a parachute may certainly wish to – and may in fact truly reverse his will afterward. but he finds his will powerless in this regard. He has made one decision which precludes his freedom to make the other. In fallen man it is worse. We do not want to reverse our decision, until the Holy Spirit works within us.

3. With regard to faith – we disagree. Faith works by love. And in Jesus’ assessment – men love darkness more than the light. Hence, we do not listen. Men do not believe why? At least part of the answer is – 25 Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock. 27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of tthe Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.” The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001 (Jn 10:25-30). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

Write anytime!

1. Total Depravity is a statement concerning the true sinfulness of man. But,to me, TD does insufficient justice to the common grace that God has given to his creatures and which often finds expression in willing and outstanding acts of heroism , self-sacrifice, generosity, arts, skills, wisdom , scientific discoveries,engineering,communications, etc., all done for the benefit of mankind by people who are not part of the elect. Many persons also choose to live faithfully and to deal honestly in their family and business affairs. They show kindness, gentleness and humor, more than can be found sometimes even in parts of spiritual Israel to-day. (Matt.8:10). We acknowledge that these good people are still sinners in need of salvation, but they are not so totally depraved and in such mental and spiritual bondage that they are absolutely incapable of exercising their wills to do the good deeds we observe and appreciate in their lives. Nor would they be incapable of becoming as little children, willingly and humbly putting their trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, at the point when they are cut to the heart on hearing the Gospel(Acts 2).
It seems to me the human cry for spiritual help and salvation is as much a God-given survival instinct as is the desperate cry of one in great physical danger ( Ps. 107). Man is sinful by nature and by choice. The Gospel gives him a free, full and correct diagnosis, prognosis and remedy for his condition. But he still has to be willing to take the medicine by putting his faith in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Belief involves knowledge and assent, followed by persevering trust, willing obedience (repentance)and confession with the mouth. All the peaching by Jesus and by the Apostles was in anticipation of the possibility and hope of such a personal, volitional response from the hearers. The offer of everlasting life implies the ability to exercise the mind and will to choose either to receive or to reject the offer. This cannot make the recipient the author of the gift of salvation but rather the grateful beneficiary of God’s grace. To me, it seems the proponents of TB need to modify their limiting views of the bondage of the will to accommodate the Savior’s injunctions to exercise the will to seek diligently, to knock , to ask, to believe, to love, to follow, to go. The Kingdom of God is for those who diligently and energetically apply their hearts and mind to acquiring it (Matt. 11:12)

With regard to the word “faith”, it is not generally used as an abstract noun but as a transitive verb which requires an object, stated or implied. So, for example, “Abram believed IN THE LORD and He counted it to him for righteousness ” (Gen.15:6). Again, “Believe ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST and you will be saved “(Acts 16:31). Anyone can have, and does have, innate faith of the abstract sort. But the important question is , what is the object of your faith; in what do you put your faith for salvation ? In idols, in the Law, in religious rituals, in the stars….. or in the person and work of Jesus Christ ? ( John 20:31). In all the references to people not having faith ( in Jesus Christ,implied) the situation is so, not because God has chosen not to grant them faith but because they will not believe in Him. God does not save anyone against his/her will.(John 5:40; 8:45; Matt 23:37 )

Eph 2:8 The gift of God: saved..by grace..through faith
1. It is possible the neuter form of “that” embraces the entire sense of all three elements of the clause.
2. It is more probable the word “that” refers to the act of being saved in Christ because this is the theme and context of the verses. “You have been saved” is the predicate of the sentence, while “by grace” and “through faith” are subordinate adverbial clauses of manner, telling us how the gift of salvation is acquired. Christ is the salvation gift and this must take precedence over the manner in which we receive the gift.
3. To limit the “that” to faith as being the gift of God, is the least likely of the interpretations because nowhere else in Scripture do we find a verse to support the view that faith in Jesus Christ is a gift sovereignly bestowed on the elect.

That is all for the moment. May I at a later stage take up the other points of TULIP ?

Thanks again for your fellowship in the Gospel.

Gordon Batt

while appeals are made everywhere to Scripture to the will of man, there is nevertheless a fallen un-willingness which renders it so that apart from God’s Spirit men cannot overcome their own wills TO believe. 43 xWhy do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot ybear to hear my word. 44 zYou are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. aHe was a murderer from the beginning, and bhas nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. cWhen he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. 46 Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? 47 dWhoever is of God hears the words of God. eThe reason why you do not hear them is that fyou are not of God.” The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001 (Jn 8:42-47). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

These are the types of passages your theory would have to overcome.

Blessings: Reid

…Would you say then, that this would be a reasonable logical order of the decrees?;

1)Create
2)Permit Fall
3)Elect some, pass over rest
4)Provide salvation fully sufficient/provisional for all
5)Call all(general call), call elect effectually.

I can’t help thinking, too, that there’s a bit of impious, anthropomorphic probing often going on with that sort of thing, especially considering God’s thoughts are way above ours, and our logic runs on the same track as our chronology as time-bound creatures. Still, God’s revealed things for us according to our mental capacities, and it kinda reveals whether we have the stresses where God puts them.I have another question…why is there a tendency to bifurcate God’s decretive will, so-called, from his will of desire, his hidden will from his revealed? ‘Cos when there is, everything tends to be drily collapsed onto a hidden will that ultimately rules, and may even run counter to the revealed, in a hyper-esque, fatalistic fashion.Is my comment correct, that God’s sovereign control is but another name for the perfect,purposeful,congruous exercise of all his attributes, according to his unchanging nature? Which congruity we obviously cannot discern. And too, in reality, God has but one will.
Lastly(!) does Romans 5 teach Adam’s actual sin of disobedience in eating from the the tree was imputed to each of us following, or that it just brought total depravity, and, by way of our own sin, death for all those “once born only”?

I’ll give you a break now, if you like. Be as short as you like. I could talk a lot, but I know your busy.Thanks for the mp3.

Phil

Would I call myself an Amyrauldian? No. While I share a common point with with Amyrault in terms of not strictly limiting the atonement, the leading feature of Amyrauldian thought – that of hypothetical universalism – I reject. In his system, it is was hypothetically possible for men to be saved by virtue of natural revelation alone. This is what got him into trouble the most, and rightly so. Even though he defended himself by saying it had never happened and never would happen, he left it as a hypothetical possibility.

Right now I am calling myself a six point Calvinist, holding that there we dual intentions in the atonement. A strict 5 is too little. But I am slowly modifying that, in that I fear we are committing a category error over and over. That is, there is nothing in the atonement itself which is limited. As I mentioned in my last post, the atonement did not function ex opera operata. Even if I take a strictly limited view, I still have to reckon with the fact that a man is not saved until he believes. The atonement is the provision – but salvation itself (for the creature) is in the application. This I still hold occurs within a strict unconditional (in the creature) sovereign election/sovereignly bestowed gift of saving faith paradigm. This would be most in line with say John Bunyan & Albert Barnes and close to John Davenant and Bishop Ussher.

For an excellent lecture on this, I would highly recommend that by my friend and Calvin scholar, Curt Daniel. You can find that lecture here – along with some other extremely valuable lectures on the entire history and theology of Calvinism.

http://faithbibleonline.net/MP3s/The%20History%20and%20Theology%20of%20Calvinism/11%20-%20Amyraldism.mp3

Phil

When do some of us leave off faith, and make, as I’ve seen JGR say, doctrine perform the same function as the decisionist’s “decision?” Surely it must be dead orthodoxy. And surely, when doctrine is REALLY good, it must not evangelize with a “come to Christ” while inside there’s a “I know something you don’t know…you may not be one of the elect and so the invitation I’m sending out to you as an “ambassador for Christ” is really, if you did but know, just a testimony against you so that you reject it to your appointed doom…which, by the way, was appointed logically BEFORE God considered you a sinner. I’m an ambassador to God’s secret decrees, which Christ is subordinate to, and which are most definitely contrary to His revealed character.”
Isn’t God’s sovereignty just another name for the perfect, congruent exercise of all His attributes?And surely, a good grasp of God’s grace in Christ should be the best motivator to the best evangelism, even when people’s brains are not perfectly logically consistent? I wonder how many “calvinists”, if there were such a thing as levels of rewards in heaven, would (I speak as a man!) be happy to come some way behind a Wesley or an early Berridge?

I saw this earlier…according to Phil’s definitions, would you call yourself (if we have to use human labels with all their problems) , Amyraldian? It seems to me labels mean differnt things to different people somewhat!

http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/articles/sup_infr.htm

Salvation is NOT ex opera operato, or the need to repent and believe would be off the table.

We are not here discussing HOW one comes to believe. We understand the sovereign work of God in that process, the Word producing faith in us. But we dare not leave that out, lest we make all evangelism a mere show, a sham. Lest we be bound up in our thinking, and fail to call men to faith in sincerity.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001 (2 Co 5:20). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

If we are already reconciled, what is this ambassadorship doing?
If God is not actually appealing to all who hear our message, then how do we understand this passage at all?
If this is not an example of God’s desire toward all men, what is it?
If God is commanding all men everywhere to repent (Acts 17) and yet there is no provision for them – on what basis is that call at all genuine?

On a side note – you will begin to get a real sense of the breadth of this controversy WITHIN the Calvinistic camp when you read Thomas’ book. My former days of thinking this was all monolithic are gone. And as Calvinists need to own this.

Good talking to you!

I think you’re dead right. I don’t understand and grasp these things as clearly as you, and my ‘conscience apparatus’ has not yet fully caught up with where my head’s going, but I still think you’re right. And your comment on assurance was personally very helpful.

It stands out to me that Christ died one death, His own, on the behalf of sinners. I have fallen into the trap of making logic my master, rather than servant, in viewing the atonement as payment of equal worth to the long list of sins. I’ve come to the conclusion that I really don’t understand the atonement very well….I suppose I sort of assumed a kind of transfer of my sin to Christ on the cross(in what amounts to some sort of mystical scheme), without really understanding the real HOW. Was it not (in basic) that Christ died one death as the last Adam, making a sacrifice of infinite worth and provision…on faith in repentance the sinner is baptized into that death such that God counts Christ’s as his own, and hence Christ’s resurrection as his own, in whom he now stands, alive in the second Adam, His Living Head? I still don’t REALLY understand much of the HOWS.

That book you recommended, G. Michael Thomas’ “The Extent of the Atonement – A Dilemma for Reformed Theology from Calvin to Consensus” came in the post this morning