My New Favorite Quote of WM Forums

[theway]

Originally Posted by Billyray

Really? A person who has faith doesn't really have faith?

Not any faith developed on their own.
According to the Calvinist/Faith-Alone heretics over on CARM, faith first came from God, and once a person is given that faith they are regenerated, which means they are saved.
I have asked dozens of times whether one can be regenerated and not saved? or if one can be saved and not have faith?
I have yet to get an answer.
In any case, the important point is that to a Calvinist, God does it all... Faith, Regeneration, Salvation.
Therefore there is nothing a person does on his own, God gives you all, and does it all for you based on no criteria whatsoever, because if God did base Salvation/Regeneration/Faith on anything required by a human, then in their minds it becomes a works-based theology.
If there is no criteria which God uses to determine which one He saves/gives faith to/regenerates then all you are judged by is a luck of the spin on the Salvation Lotto Wheel.

Originally Posted by Billyray

I don't think you quite have a grasp of what Calvinists believe.

No!!! I don't! Nobody does! That is the whole point.
It is so contradictory and paradoxical that it is impossible to make sense out of the Faith Alone nonsense.
However when people like me who dares to say that "The King has no clothes" I am told that it is because I am not fitting of my station and can not understand it because I am unregenerated, unsaved, and faithless.

However I boldly proclaim again...

THE KING HAS NO CLOTHES ON!

Originally Posted by Billyray

Does faith really come before regeneration according to Calvinism?

Yes... This is the exact same game they play over at CARM. They want to argue a unending paradox as to "which came first, the chicken or the egg"?

So I'll ask the same unanswered question I ask them...

Can there be a regenerated person who is not saved?
Can there be a saved person who does not have faith?
Can there be a person who has faith who is not saved or regenerated?

If your answers are no, then it doesn't matter a hill-of-beans which came first.

[Billyray]

Originally Posted by theway

Not any faith developed on their own.

So which is it? Does a person who has faith according to Calvinism have faith or not?

Originally Posted by theway

According to the Calvinist/Faith-Alone heretics over on CARM, faith first came from God, and once a person is given that faith they are regenerated, which means they are saved.

Faith does not come first. Here is your homework--google Ordo Salutis and see what comes first according to Calvinism. In fact I will spoon feed you since after all of this time you still don't have your facts straight. Here is a link that gives you the order and it even numbers it for you.

http://www.monergism.com/directory/l.../Ordo-Salutis/

Originally Posted by theway

I have asked dozens of times whether one can be regenerated and not saved?
or if one can be saved and not have faith?
I have yet to get an answer.

Really? Nobody has given you an answer? I find that hard to believe.

I will give you an answer that you so desperately seem to be seeking. Those who are saved are those who place their faith in Christ for salvation. One cannot be saved without faith. Regeneration precedes faith which you should have learned by the link that I provided above. Those who are not regenerated (born again) will by their own choice reject Christ and because they reject Christ and do not place their faith in Him they will not be saved. They are not forced to reject Him--they do this by their own choice. If they would place their faith in Him they would be saved.

[Billyray]

Originally Posted by theway

Originally Posted by Billyray

Does faith really come before regeneration according to Calvinism?

Yes... This is the exact same game they play over at CARM. They want to argue a unending paradox as to "which came first, the chicken or the egg"?

It is not a paradox at all and the answers are clearly available if you really wanted to know, but I suspect that you don't really want to know about Calvinism, rather you want to try and discredit something that you don't seem to have a clue about. Here is the link again and the order is clearly identified--it is even numbered for you.

http://www.monergism.com/directory/l.../Ordo-Salutis/

[Pa Pa]

Originally Posted by Sir

"Small sins like telling a[n] ugly person how good they look is as serious before a Holy God as murder or adultery." - James Banta

This shows a lack of understanding of a loving God and an attempt to make horrible sins trivial. I am sure a murderer or someone who commits adultery would hope so, but by do so would stunt their ability to take responsibility and repent.

[Billyray]

Originally Posted by Pa Pa

This shows a lack of understanding of a loving God and an attempt to make horrible sins trivial.

Horrible sins are not trivial--nor are "small" sins trivial. Mormons seem to trivialize small sins and give a rank order of different sins but all sin is an offense to God.

[nrajeffreturns]

Originally Posted by MacG

Speaking of fallacious...

What fallacy do you think you see? If no sin is really worse than another because all sins are equal in severity, then the scenario I described is accurate.

[Pa Pa]

Originally Posted by Billyray

Horrible sins are not trivial--nor are "small" sins trivial. Mormons seem to trivialize small sins and give a rank order of different sins but all sin is an offense to God.

We do not trivialize small sins, we just have common sense and know the difference between the two. My bio-father had a wife and three children, married a woman he was having an affair with whom he got pregnant...while married to my mother. We his first family ended up homeless when he stole money for house payments to flee the State to avoid jail for bigamy. That is why when my mother remarried after she divorced, my step father adopted myself, brother and sister, my last name is Lee and not Nation. My minster father who divorced his first wife because she committed alultury and would not reconcile was denied the pulpit in the Baptist Church in which he was ordained...the very Church his family established in 1840. So if God sees telling a woman a dress does not make her look fat, if someone thought so as the same as what my bio-father did or what the Church did to my adopted father...to hell with him.

[James Banta]

Originally Posted by Pa Pa

We do not trivialize small sins, we just have common sense and know the difference between the two. My bio-father had a wife and three children, married a woman he was having an affair with whom he got pregnant...while married to my mother. We his first family ended up homeless when he stole money for house payments to flee the State to avoid jail for bigamy. That is why when my mother remarried after she divorced, my step father adopted myself, brother and sister, my last name is Lee and not Nation. My minster father who divorced his first wife because she committed alultury and would not reconcile was denied the pulpit in the
Baptist Church in which he was ordained...the very Church his family established in 1840. So it God sees telling a woman a dress does not make her look fat, if someone thought so as the same as what my bio-father did or what the Church did to my adopted father...to hell with him.

Sounds like your bio-father was not Christian at all.. But what is a small sin? All sin is rebellion against God. Yes your family was treated terribly treated by a horrible man. Is his rebellion more serious before a holy God than anyone "small sins"? No.. What difference how much excrement we smear on ourselves. Just a little make us totally unclean, a lot again makes us unclean.. Look at three gl***es of clean water. One you keep clean the second you add one small drop of filth, to the third you one add a full tablespoon of filth.. Which one would you drink? The first of course. Even the one with a "small" amount of filth would cause you to reject it.. Those you would see a "small sins" are just as serious to God as those you would see as more serious sins, such as those your bio-father committed..

You believe the BofM. Even there the "small sin" of lying, something we all have done and continue to do, has serious consequences. Remember what it teaches about the results of lying?

2 Nephi 9:34
Wo unto the liar, for he shall be thrust down to hell.

Ask yourself. What is a liar? Isn't a liar a person who has lied? How many times must a person lie to become a liar? 100, 50, 10, or 1? Even in LDS scripture James 2:10 is proven to be the truth.. IHS jim

[Pa Pa]

Originally Posted by James Banta

Sounds like your bio-father was not Christian at all..

IHS jim

He grew up in a very good Christian home, so it was a Calvinist home. His father we called Pa Pa which is why my grandchildren call me Pa Pa. My Pa Pa when we lived close to him would come over apologizing all the time. Even when my bio-father lived at home we read out loud the Bible almost every night. Some of the few times we went to his home after my parents divorced we did the same thing. He finally called my mother many years later to apologize, but had no desire to apologize to his three children. Of course at that time he called from Texas, because if he came back to Georgia he would be arrested for not paying child support. He called to tell my mother he was saved, but felt no need to make res***ution for anything. Tell me Jim, you just say you are sorry to God and he requires nothing of you; right? I had to forgive him because God commands it and warns that if I did not in me lies the greater sin...in short God does require us to do his will to be "saved". If you think otherwise, you are lying to others and yourself. True we may fall short, but if we are moving forward and seeking to do his will, his atonement will fill the gaps. If we think "well I said I'm sorry to God, now I can do as I like...you are lost. Jim; "Come unto Christ and be perfected in him". Please! You were not chosen from the beginning while others were ****ed...all can choose to come unto him. As Christ said, "I was lifted up that I might draw ALL men unto me".

[theway]

Originally Posted by Billyray

Horrible sins are not trivial--nor are "small" sins trivial. Mormons seem to trivialize small sins and give a rank order of different sins but all sin is an offense to God.

YOU are the one who is trivializing large sins.

For instance, under your Calvinist/Cheap Grace beliefs, a person can be a saved Christian even if two or three times a year he might of spoken an unkind word to someone; just as much as a person can be a saved Christian who rapes and murders two or three times a year.
It is religions like the LDS which treat every unrepented sin as needing to be dealt with.
We just believe different sin are more serious than others. And as I have shown, the Bible points this out quite clearly.

[Pa Pa]

Originally Posted by theway

YOU are the one who is trivializing large sins.

For instance, under your Calvinist/Cheap Grace beliefs, a person can be a saved Christian even if two or three times a year he might of spoken an unkind word to someone; just as much as a person can be a saved Christian who rapes and murders two or three times a year.
It is religions like the LDS which treat every unrepented sin as needing to be dealt with.
We just believe different sin are more serious than others. And as I have shown, the Bible points this out quite clearly.

Paul lists the sins that will keep people out of the "Kingdom of heaven"...believing otherwise this requires quoting Paul in single quotes out of context.

[Billyray]

Originally Posted by theway

YOU are the one who is trivializing large sins.

Not at all. All sin is an offense to God.

Originally Posted by theway

For instance, under your Calvinist/Cheap Grace beliefs, a person can be a saved Christian even if two or three times a year he might of spoken an unkind word to someone; just as much as a person can be a

Someone who is truly born again will not "rapes and murders two or three times a year". So this is a straw man argument.

[James Banta]

Originally Posted by Pa Pa

He grew up in a very good Christian home, so it was a Calvinist home. His father we called Pa Pa which is why my grandchildren call me Pa Pa. My Pa Pa when we lived close to him would come over apologizing all the time. Even when my bio-father lived at home we read out loud the Bible almost every night. Some of the few times we went to his home after my parents divorced we did the same thing. He finally called my mother many years later to apologize, but had no desire to apologize to his three children. Of course at that time he called from Texas, because if he came back to Georgia he would be arrested for not paying child support. He called to tell my mother he was saved, but felt no need to make res***ution for anything. Tell me Jim, you just say you are sorry to God and he requires nothing of you; right? I had to forgive him because God commands it and warns that if I did not in me lies the greater sin...in short God does require us to do his will to be "saved". If you think otherwise, you are lying to others and yourself. True we may fall short, but if we are moving forward and seeking to do his will, his atonement will fill the gaps. If we think "well I said I'm sorry to God, now I can do as I like...you are lost. Jim; "Come unto Christ and be perfected in him". Please! You were not chosen from the beginning while others were ****ed...all can choose to come unto him. As Christ said, "I was lifted up that I might draw ALL men unto me".

I don't see the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross as nothing.. That is a MAJOR work of redemption.. I hear your anger that you hold for your father and what he did is not justifiable. What I did is not justifiable. Jesus is in the business of justifying the unjustifiable. Can God do that from your bio-father, YES.. Has He done so.. I really don't know.. That is because I don't know you bio-father or his state of mind.. Tell me what could I have done to make my sin right to anyone.. I didn't lie about it, I confessed and turned to Jesus.. I have forsaken such sins through His power. I don't blame anyone but the one responsible.. That was me. Tell me what can I do? NOTHING! It all had to be done by God.. Only He had the power to fix my life and my relationships. It took time but it is done.. Papa I sinned and I hate that. I have heard LDS say that "Oh you can say you are sorry and then do what ever you want".. Papa I can't do what I want.. I want to live a sinless life. I fail all the time.. I don't want to sin and yet sin still lives in my flesh (Romans 7:17-19). Unlike the limits you feel you MUST put on God, I trust Him that He knows all things from the beginning to the end.. That includes knowledge of all who will come to Him by and through their own will.. He was lifted up to draw all men to Him. He also knew that many would reject His provision for salvation. IHS jim

[Billyray]

Originally Posted by theway

We just believe different sin are more serious than others.

And you believe that some sins such as murder cannot be forgiven which means that the blood of Christ is insufficient to cover these sins. Right?

[theway]

Originally Posted by Billyray

Not at all. All sin is an offense to God.

Someone who is truly born again will not "rapes and murders two or three times a year". So this is a straw man argument.

Wait a minute... I have heard your type say that one can be a saved Christian and still do things like lie and run their car past the speed limits. If you believe all sin is on the same level then that means that someone can rape and murder and still be a saved Christian.

This is what I meant when I said that the vast majority of "Faith Aloners" preach faith alone, but almost none of them actually believe in it.

[theway]

Originally Posted by Billyray

And you believe that some sins such as murder cannot be forgiven which means that the blood of Christ is insufficient to cover these sins. Right?

still trying to get people to play on your merry-go-round rides I see. Sorry but I already answered this.

[theway]

Originally Posted by Pa Pa

Paul lists the sins that will keep people out of the "Kingdom of heaven"...believing otherwise this requires quoting Paul in single quotes out of context.

The bottom line is that ANY unrepented of sin will keep you out if Heaven.

[MacG]

Originally Posted by nrajeffreturns

What fallacy do you think you see? If no sin is really worse than another because all sins are equal in severity, then the scenario I described is accurate.

"Fred Johnson, once, at a time when your wife was feeling depressed and unappreciated, you committed the mortal sin of cheering her up by telling her she looked pretty, but she really wasn't that pretty. For that lie, you shall spend eternity in hell with Hitler."

It is fallacious because Fred has already broken the law way before this scenario. How do I know this? Fred was a teenager before he got married. I do not know any teens that have not sinned but if that was not enough, Fred then being married had probably heard one of these questions: "Do you think she is pretty?" "Do you like my new perfume?" "Do these pants make my but look big?" "What do you think of my mother?" "don't you just love what I've done with your den/shop?" Yeah I am sure that he sinned way before this 'ugly' comment. The only way it sends him to hell is for those who believe in works based salvation, like Father Guido Sarducchi. If it was the one sin on the balance of works that was not countered and tipped the scales, yeah, then sure he would then go to hell - for those who believe that works balances out sins. To be sure this is not what I believe, nor what Jim believes that the scripture teaches and you know this. Which is why I said it is fallacious. It was clear to me that he was demonstrating the absurd by being absurd. You have been here long enough you ought to have known better than to use it as a straw-man.

Now as far as all sins being equal there are two facets to this: qualitative and quanti tative. Jesus said he who stumbles at one point of the law is guilty of breaking all of it. Like a single log bridge over a crevas se - everyone's log breaks at some point before reaching the other side. This is the qualitative, think qualified/disqualified. This leaves quanti tative, think sum total, Pol Pot, Amin, Stalin, Columbus, you and me. Certainly we have not done the things as those nefarious individuals but our log snapped under our own weight and we cannot get to the other side no matter how hard we try (yes even with a wing suit), what does it matter what 'they' have done? , for all are in a free fall and ought to be concerned first with our own fate (taking the log out of our own eye) lest we become like the guy driving along gawking at the wreck alongside the road and rear-ends the next stopped car.

[MacG]

Originally Posted by theway

The bottom line is that ANY unrepented of sin will keep you out if Heaven.

Then can anyone get in?

[theway]

Originally Posted by MacG

Then can anyone get in?

Sure... I thought the solution was self explanatory in my first statement... You must first REPENT.
However that is merely the first step... Salvation is a process, not an event.

[nrajeffreturns]

Originally Posted by Billyray

Not at all. All sin is an offense to God.

But that is not in dispute. The issue being debated is whether ALL sins offend God EQUALLY, or whether some sins offend Him more than other sins do.

If you really think that telling one's wife she's pretty offends God as much as genocide does, then (congratulations, you might be a Calvinist)
THAT is what needs to be discussed.

[nrajeffreturns]

Originally Posted by Billyray

And you believe that some sins such as murder cannot be forgiven which means that the blood of Christ is insufficient to cover these sins. Right?

Do you believe that the blood of Christ is sufficient to cover the sins Satan has committed and continues to commit?

[nrajeffreturns]

A major problem with Calvinism's soteriology is the idea that if Fred Johnson and Jeffrey Dahmer each committed only one sin--Fred tells his wife one time that she's pretty, and Dahmer murders only one teen-aged boy--that God would send both of them to the same hell, with the same torture, for the same amount of time.

There's no way God is that unfair.

[theway]

Originally Posted by nrajeffreturns

But that is not in dispute. The issue being debated is whether ALL sins offend God EQUALLY, or whether some sins offend Him more than other sins do.

If you really think that telling one's wife she's pretty offends God as much as genocide does, then (congratulations, you might be a Calvinist)
THAT is what needs to be discussed.

This is merely Billy's MO and how he creates his merry-go-round rides.
He'll conflate two separate arguments at the same time. Then when you catch him on one, he'll simply jump to the other argument and pretend that's what the argument was really about all along.

This is a perfect example of degrees of sins, God says he would rather you be hot or cold, because being lukewarm is worse. Billyray takes no stand on anything, and sits around in the middle trying to argue both sides at the same time.

[RealFakeHair]

Originally Posted by nrajeffreturns

A major problem with Calvinism's soteriology is the idea that if Fred Johnson and Jeffrey Dahmer each committed only one sin--Fred tells his wife one time that she's pretty, and Dahmer murders only one teen-aged boy--that God would send both of them to the same hell, with the same torture, for the same amount of time.

There's no way God is that unfair.

I was invited by Jeffrey Dahmer for dinner, but I lost my appe***e when I saw what was on the menu.
I saw Fred's wife and for me is would do. Now as for God being unfair, that is not for us to judge.
I just hope God of the Holy Bible has a sense of humor.