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Now this ^ is a man who knows how to exude wisdom in the simplest of statements. You're a wise soul, Oakback!
Re-read Oakback's statement...If one is unable to respond due exclusively to having a 'carnal mind' then where's the hope, Trettep? Explain to June how anyone could possibly come to believe?
If it's not MY response, then whose is it!? WHO is responding to WHOM???
P.S. June: Still confused, and still hangin' on to that carnal mind of hers!
June He does it by softening our hearts towards Him.
The amplified bible says
God's kindness is intended to lead you to repent ([a]to change your mind and inner man to accept God's will)?
God works on our heart until we respond , until that which is deep within our being responds to Him and says Lord i believe.
It's so unfortunate that many of us respond out of fear to the gospel , which is a strange way to respond to good news.
Ok seem you have changed your stance a little brother, because before you said (and it may have been my reading of what you were saying) God planned for man to be disobedient from the get go.
I do believe that. I can't get you to understand my viewpoint of "choosing". God planning for man to disobey does not mean that man ceases to choose.
Does a curious child choose to explore? Yes. Did he choose to be curious? No. You are contending that because a child was made curious that whenever he chooses to explore he is not making a choice. I contend that a curious child still chooses to explore.
Now take out "curious" and put in "earthy"
Now take out "earthy" and put in "heavenly"
When God causes people to obey Him by changing their heart, they do not cease to make choices.
Ezekiel 36:26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
Last edited by Thy Kingdom Come; 08-14-2009 at 07:15 AM..
I do believe that. I can't get you to understand my viewpoint of "choosing". God planning for man to disobey does not mean that man ceases to choose.
I do see your point Bob and it does not make any sense with your conclusions.
Could Adam NOT have eaten from the tree? Yes or no.
Your stance is NO Adam had to eat because God planned for Adam to eat; therefore, Adam did not have a choice.
Quote:
Does a curious child choose to explore? Yes. Did he choose to be curious? No. You are contending that because a child was made curious that whenever he chooses to explore he is not making a choice. I contend that a curious child still chooses to explore.
I do not contend that brother, I am the one who has been saying all along Man has a choice and God responds to the choice man makes.
You have been saying man has a choice, but could NOT choose life because he was earthy. Therefore, man does not really have a choice.
Quote:
When God causes people to obey Him by changing their heart, they do not cease to make choices.
Ezekiel 36:26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
Did Adam have God working within his heart to walk in His statutes?
If yes, how come Adam did not obey His command not to eat?
Are you going to say because Adam made the choice not to obey His commandment?
If so than how is it you see that God planned out Adams disobedience and no choice of Adams could change that plan?
Two trees were in the midst of the garden correct?
Did Adam have the ability to choose from the tree of life or could he only choose to eat from the tree OKOGE?
I believe scripture says he could eat freely from the tree of life, but you are saying he could not eat from the tree of life because that is not what God planned for him to do.
You believe God planned for Adam to eat, planned for Adam to be disobedient, which than makes God putting the tree of life in the midst of the garden and telling Adam he could freely eat of it null and void because Adam could not choose to do anything other than he did, which was to be disobedient to God.
I do see your point Bob and it does not make any sense with your conclusions.
Could Adam NOT have eaten from the tree? Yes or no.
Your stance is NO Adam had to eat because God planned for Adam to eat; therefore, Adam did not have a choice.
I do not contend that brother, I am the one who has been saying all along Man has a choice and God responds to the choice man makes.
You have been saying man has a choice, but could NOT choose life because he was earthy. Therefore, man does not really have a choice.
Did Adam have God working within his heart to walk in His statutes?
If yes, how come Adam did not obey His command not to eat?
Are you going to say because Adam made the choice not to obey His commandment?
If so than how is it you see that God planned out Adams disobedience and no choice of Adams could change that plan?
Two trees were in the midst of the garden correct?
Did Adam have the ability to choose from the tree of life or could he only choose to eat from the tree OKOGE?
I believe scripture says he could eat freely from the tree of life, but you are saying he could not eat from the tree of life because that is not what God planned for him to do.
You believe God planned for Adam to eat, planned for Adam to be disobedient, which than makes God putting the tree of life in the midst of the garden and telling Adam he could freely eat of it null and void because Adam could not choose to do anything other than he did, which was to be disobedient to God.
Which than makes choice null and void.
From Augustine of Hippo:
From these statements of the inspired word, and from similar passages which it would take too long to quote in full, it is, I think, sufficiently clear that God works in the hearts of men to incline their wills wherever He wills, whether to good deeds according to His mercy, or to evil after their own deserts; His own judgment being sometimes manifest, sometimes secret, but always righteous. This ought to be the fixed and immoveable conviction of your heart, that there is no unrighteousness with God. Therefore, whenever you read in the Scriptures of Truth, that men are led aside, or that their hearts are blunted and hardened by God, never doubt that some ill deserts of their own have first occurred, so that they justly suffer these things. Thus you will not run counter to that proverb of Solomon: “The foolishness of a man perverts his ways, yet he blames God in his heart.” Proverbs 19:3 Grace, however, is not bestowed according to men's deserts; otherwise grace would be no longer grace. Romans 11:6 For grace is so designated because it is given gratuitously. Now if God is able, either through the agency of angels (whether good ones or evil), or in any other way whatever, to operate in the hearts even of the wicked, in return for their deserts,— whose wickedness was not made by Him, but was either derived originally from Adam, or increased by their own will,— what is there to wonder at if, through the Holy Spirit, He works good in the hearts of the elect, who has wrought it that their hearts become good instead of evil?
Now if faith is simply of free will, and is not given by God, why do we pray for those who will not believe, that they may believe? This it would be absolutely useless to do, unless we believe, with perfect propriety, that Almighty God is able to turn to belief wills that are perverse and opposed to faith. Man's free will is addressed when it is said, “Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” But if God were not able to remove from the human heart even its obstinacy and hardness, He would not say, through the prophet, “I will take from them their heart of stone, and will give them a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 11:19 That all this was foretold in reference to the New Testament is shown clearly enough by the apostle when he says, “You are our epistle, . . . written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart.” 2 Corinthians 3:2-3 We must not, of course, suppose that such a phrase as this is used as if those might live in a fleshly way who ought to live spiritually; but inasmuch as a stone has no feeling, with which man's hard heart is compared, what was there left Him to compare man's intelligent heart with but the flesh, which possesses feeling? For this is what is said by the prophet Ezekiel: “I will give them another heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh; that they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, says the Lord.” Ezekiel 11:19-20 Now can we possibly, without extreme absurdity, maintain that there previously existed in any man the good merit of a good will, to entitle him to the removal of his stony heart, when all the while this very heart of stone signifies nothing else than a will of the hardest kind and such as is absolutely inflexible against God? For where a good will precedes, there is, of course, no longer a heart of stone.
From these statements of the inspired word, and from similar passages which it would take too long to quote in full, it is, I think, sufficiently clear that God works in the hearts of men to incline their wills wherever He wills, whether to good deeds according to His mercy, or to evil after their own deserts; His own judgment being sometimes manifest, sometimes secret, but always righteous. This ought to be the fixed and immoveable conviction of your heart, that there is no unrighteousness with God. Therefore, whenever you read in the Scriptures of Truth, that men are led aside, or that their hearts are blunted and hardened by God, never doubt that some ill deserts of their own have first occurred, so that they justly suffer these things. Thus you will not run counter to that proverb of Solomon: “The foolishness of a man perverts his ways, yet he blames God in his heart.” Proverbs 19:3 Grace, however, is not bestowed according to men's deserts; otherwise grace would be no longer grace. Romans 11:6 For grace is so designated because it is given gratuitously. Now if God is able, either through the agency of angels (whether good ones or evil), or in any other way whatever, to operate in the hearts even of the wicked, in return for their deserts,— whose wickedness was not made by Him, but was either derived originally from Adam, or increased by their own will,— what is there to wonder at if, through the Holy Spirit, He works good in the hearts of the elect, who has wrought it that their hearts become good instead of evil?
Seems Hippo agrees with me.
The foolishness of a man perverts his ways, yet he blames God in his heart.”
Now this ^ is a man who knows how to exude wisdom in the simplest of statements. You're a wise soul, Oakback!
Re-read Oakback's statement...If one is unable to respond due exclusively to having a 'carnal mind' then where's the hope, Trettep? Explain to June how anyone could possibly come to believe?
If it's not MY response, then whose is it!? WHO is responding to WHOM???
P.S. June: Still confused, and still hangin' on to that carnal mind of hers!
June if you respond then it is Christ in you doing the responding. He has the copyright on ALL GOOD works.
Consider this June, if someone didn't believe that I could jump 50 feet in the air then we could call them an unbeliever. But if I then jumped 50 feet into the air and they believed then who gave them that belief? - was it them or was it me?
The foolishness of a man perverts his ways, yet he blames God in his heart.”
Good then you believe God steers our wills as He desires whether to good or evil. Just like Hippo says there:
"I think, sufficiently clear that God works in the hearts of men to incline their wills wherever He wills, whether to good deeds according to His mercy, or to evil after their own deserts"
Good then you believe God steers our wills as He desires whether to good or evil. Just like Hippo says there:
"I think, sufficiently clear that God works in the hearts of men to incline their wills wherever He wills, whether to good deeds according to His mercy, or to evil after their own deserts"
Paul
Well that what you understood of what Hippo was saying but that is not what I see in his qoute. Espeacially this part
The foolishness of a man perverts his ways, yet he blames God in his heart.”
You want to blame God for the foolishness of man who perverts his own ways, go ahead.
Well that what you understood of what Hippo was saying but that is not what I see in his qoute. Espeacially this part
The foolishness of a man perverts his ways, yet he blames God in his heart.”
You want to blame God for the foolishness of man who perverts his own ways, go ahead.
Augustine also says:
"For the Almighty sets in motion even in the innermost hearts of men the movement of their will, so that He does through their agency whatsoever He wishes to perform through them—even He who knows not how to will anything in unrighteousness."
Paul
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