I confirm that on your own; you can't have Faith in Christ, you can't freely Will to believe that the Gospel is true while you remain in Cognitive Dissonance; and that God doesn't make you believe but rather makes you Alive, and then you exit your State of spiritual Cognitive Dissonance...
While we're Lost before we believe the Gospel, we CAN believe the Law of God, and that God exists, because his Invisible Attributes are clearly seen. You should use this point when you argue against Calvinism, and force us to deal with our natural ability to believe there is 'a' God. But our Ability is like when Jesus healed the blind man with slober and clay, at first the man saw men like trees. He saw, but not clearly; he may as well have not saw at all, right? The Signs and Wonders in the Bible all have some kind of Redemptive meaning. If at first, the man had said 'I see one who looks like the Son of God', Christ wouldn't have needed to try again to heal his Blindness. We know there is a God, but we Suppress the Truth through Cognitive Dissonance; IE, a Hard Heart. That's Total Inability due to the Unconditional Consequences of Original Sin; IE, Total Depravity...
Says the Dog Catcher, one of the Chosen weaker things, and the Chief of Sinners; a prince of Heaven...
I saw your quote on the atheist thread, I thought I would acknowledge your reply here, hope you don't mind. I hope I have not said anything in a way that seems abrasive, you have been very respectful. If I have not been, I appologise, that was never my intention.
I confirm that on your own; you can't have Faith in Christ, you can't freely Will to believe that the Gospel is true while you remain in Cognitive Dissonance; and that God doesn't make you believe but rather makes you Alive, and then you exit your State of spiritual Cognitive Dissonance...
So God makes you born again, before you can believe on the gospel. I can accept that, given my own experience, for me that is true. I can't speak for others, but seems to make sense to me, that you can't truly believe until God gives you the faith to believe in him, but I can't be sure, I have heard people testimonies that seem to contradict that.
While we're Lost before we believe the Gospel, we CAN believe the Law of God, and that God exists, because his Invisible Attributes are clearly seen.
That would account for the many religions and false Christian belief systems. So yes agreed. However you do have people who believe in the gospel and believe they are Christians and will worship Jesus and they fall away and say they never really believed, so who was they trusting? In themselves, after all you can believe in the gospel, but that faith isn't likely to last. JW's believe in the gospel, but they don't know who Jesus is, so they have just gone from one prison to another one, the truth has not set them free. Jesus is the truth and they at the end of the day put their trust not in Jesus, but a man made religion. Same for the catholics, some catholics actually do believe in Jesus and the gospel, but their trust is in the RCC and Mr pope, although they must all be struggling with Francis at the moment. Then you have the Benny Hinn type followers, who believe in Jesus, but who are they putting their trust in, Hinn or Jesus? We both understand why they are entering the wide gate and not the narrow one. It's about where you put your trust at the end of the day. Is God really going to fill someone with the Holy spirit, when that person has no trust in him at all? I don't think so. And that is the reason why all these people have gone from one prison to another, some from birth, they never put their trust in God, they found it easy to just trust what man tells them to believe. The devil is the god of this world and he has plenty of false religions to guide people into, after all it's quite easy for him to do that, they are blind.
Now we agree on quite a lot, the question is, can man do anything to reach out to God, it seems you think not. I was an atheist and whatever faith I had in God, vanished in school, when one day a teacher said Jesus miracles could be explained, I didn't even know Jesus was God, I thought Jesus was just a man, schools in Britain don't teach you about the gospel, so I was free to grow up being an atheist. One day in my late 30's with a business struggling and middle age approaching, I had come to the point where this world held no more mystery for me, no more excitment, I was seeing the injustice in it, I was beginning to hate it. Then one night I remember (without going into a long story) deciding to look deep within myself and see what made me unhappy, I finallly admitted to myself, lying made me unhappy, I lied a lot, I equated it to running from one father who was the father of truth to the father of lies and I always returned to the father of lies, because I didn't want to be judged, but I was never happy with him and it dawned on me at that moment I was a sinner, the moment I said it to myself I am sinner and I was shocked because I believed it, I knew God existed, my whole personality changed in an instant, I would swear or say smutty things all the time. I now had the fear of God in me and stopped all these things. I believed in God, however I was so angry with the fact the world had deceived me, there was a God and the world had lied to me, I no longer trusted anything I was told.
I then set out to find out who God was, I bought all kinds of religious books, flicked through them, couldn't get into any of them, this went on for year and I was seeing the world in a different way, adverts showed their true meaning. Some would say, be greedy, be selfish, love yourself, that's how I saw them, not all of course, but I could see the hidden messages behind them, I just saw evil and it was everywhere. I was even aware of the devil, but even then I could not equate all that knowledge that the devil, God, Jesus meant the bible was true. I didn't even give it a thought the best I could figure out was that God would believe in two things, love and truth. That's all I could figure out about God. I couldn't trust anything, I was like in no mans land.
I spent a year in total torment and very alone, like living in two different worlds, then one day I remember like it was yesterday, it was raining and I was walking to work and the whole thing was getting to me, I just couldn't work out who God was and in the end I cried out, Lord I can't do this no more I want to know who you are and the next thought I had which was almost instant, I said in my head, Jesus is God and I knew it. I wasn't even thinking of Jesus, I couldn't figure out how I couldn't see it before, but the scales had fallen from my eyes. The joy was overwhelming and the peace I found was amazing at that moment. I found my God, but of course he was there all the time.
I went home and started reading the bible the NT, all of a sudden, where nothing made sense before each word felt like a rock hitting my soul.
I didn't know I was born again, until I read it, no one told me, I knew what it meant when I read it.
I believe God requires us to put some trust in him, I trusted God, even though I didn't know who he was, I knew there was nothing else I could do. I had no option, in the end, but to trust him, I realised it and cried out. I look back now and realise God was giving me loads of signs, but I still couldn't figure God out. Now this experience fits with your calvinism, but the fact I called out, doesn't.
How God gets you there, well that is his business, not anyone elses. I believe there is only one way to God and that is through Jesus, but how you get there is clearly with a helping hand from God. So I believe a person must put some trust in God, before God decides to fill you with the Holy Spirit and make himself known to you, because up until that moment, you can't know God, you can believe, but believing and knowing are two different things.
I don't believe that God picks people out of a lucky dip with no reason, I am not saying that is what calvinists believe, but if it's for some other reason, what, is it the bloodline, is it you, you have something special he wants, or was it because you had some trust, a spec, enough for God.
I don't think we will ever be able to prove it one way or another with scripture, because a strongly held belief is hard to shift, calvinists believe what they do by assembling various scripture, but don't forget, it was John Calvin who did that for you.
For me I have a relationship with Jesus, lots of testimony and that is the evidence I am saved. People can quote scripture all day long don't mean anything.
For me calvinism throws up too many issues, like for instance, if someone cannot do anything to be saved and God has decided to send them to damnation from the beginning, that brings into question the justice in that. You can argue that God is soveriegn and has the right to do that and he can, but do you actually believe he would condemn people to hell, when their only option was to sin, he condemns them for not believing in him, for not turning to him, when they could do nothing else? Our God is Holy and Just, it's like saying I made you into a car and you should have been a motorbike, why didn't you become a motorbike, I am going to destroy you because of that.
