Is unconditional election biblical?

[John146]

I am not sure it is correct to say he believed the scripture

John 5:46
For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me.

What Jesus says about believing the scripture seems to indicate that Agrippa definitely did not believe them.

26 For the king knoweth of these things, before whom also I speak freely: for I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him; for this thing was not done in a corner.
27 King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest.
28 Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.

 

[John146]

Ephesians 1:3-6
Blessed [be] the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly [places] in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.

It does say what is written above

A pelagian will argue that what it meant to say is that He chose a generic group of people which may or may not be an empty group and that the reality is each individual person chooses for themselves to be chosen by Him.

But the Scripture here says He has seated us in heavenly places with Him 'just as' this predestination it speaks of. So I question whether the pelagian view would also mean that He has only predetermined that a generic class of people are seated with Him, which may or may not include anyone, but it is up to each person even after choosing for themselves to be chosen by Him to effectively seat themselves in glory with Him.

Jesus says take the lowest seat and let someone else choose move you to a higher one.

Reading correctly, the spiritual blessings in heavenly places are what have been chosen in accord before the foundation of the world. These blessings would be given those that are found in Him.

It does not say, He chose us to be in Him. That’s how a Calvinist reads it. He makes “us” the focus instead of “in him” which is Christ.

 

[ForestGreenCook]

What saint the Scripture? Almost became a Christian. Almost is still a no.

I'm not saying that he was or wasn't. I guess I am just not as smart as some that can determine who the elect are and who they are not.

 

[posthuman]

Reading correctly, the spiritual blessings in heavenly places are what have been chosen in accord before the foundation of the world. These blessings would be given those that are found in Him.

It does not say, He chose us to be in Him. That’s how a Calvinist reads it. He makes “us” the focus instead of “in him” which is Christ.

It doesn't say "He chose spiritual blessings in Himself before the foundation of the world"

It says He chose "us" in Him.

I am not a Calvinist. I just believe what is written.

 

[posthuman]

King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest

Do you think that this make Jesus wrong when He says if you believed the prophets you would believe Him?

How do you reconcile the two?
Does Paul know Agrippas heart? What is Paul referring to? Why does Paul ask whether he believes if Paul knows he does?

 

[Grandpa]

thats what i meant to say. its very cultic. thats what i mean when i said they all talk the same way, have teh same personality(or lack of it) and use the same language. its either a cult of personality because i notice they all even talk with same tone of voice as james whitelie. they are true fanboys
i can actually tell someone is a calvinist pastor from hearing how they speak. not joking they dont need to say anything "calvinistic". i can just tell from the rhythm of what they speak, maybe they are taught to speak that way.

People who know and understand their bible, and also understand Salvation and where it comes from, have no choice but to understand Calvinism.

It is only those who don't understand their bible, don't understand Salvation or Who it comes from, and would rather worship their own will and strength instead of God, who fight so hard against Calvinism.


"Calvinism doesn't make any sense because it destroys the will that I worship" - That's all I hear when someone starts whining about how Calvinism can't be true.


Why does it matter so much that there are people who think ONLY God Saves people and no one chooses God or chooses to be GOOD because of their own will?????


Is it because it comes against that which you truly worship? Your own will?

 

[Melach]

People who know and understand their bible, and also understand Salvation and where it comes from, have no choice but to understand Calvinism.

It is only those who don't understand their bible, don't understand Salvation or Who it comes from, and would rather worship their own will and strength instead of God, who fight so hard against Calvinism.


"Calvinism doesn't make any sense because it destroys the will that I worship" - That's all I hear when someone starts whining about how Calvinism can't be true.


Why does it matter so much that there are people who think ONLY God Saves people and no one chooses God or chooses to be GOOD because of their own will?????


Is it because it comes against that which you truly worship? Your own will?

meanwhile in the real world no one is worshiping their will. lolz.

the reason people fight against calvinism is because it destroys the gospel, makes people lazy in evangelism no matter how much they lie aand say no btw. it causes people to doubt "am i really elect?". it causes people to become cold like the father of the doctrine, since most of humanity is just reprobate trash with no chance. it causes people to twist the bible and change it and re-interpret it to fit the tulip.

point in case is changing all men to all elect men, or all kinds of men, depends on who is deceiving at the time. it causes people to start entire websites promoting the doctrine of calvinism and makes it of utmost importance while it couldnt be less important. it causes people to look down on everyone else and use like you did "dont understand" or my personal favorite is "misrepresentation" because calvinists would never do that??? you just said destroy the will i worship. nobody has ever said that if i was a calvinist debater i would cry misrepresentation and say "can you point to a time when i said that?" or something ridicilous like that, but im not that nitpicky like james whitelie so i realize you are just using hyperbole to make a case.

there are many reasons for why people reject calvinism, all of them biblical, none of them worshiping the will.

 

[John146]

It doesn't say "He chose spiritual blessings in Himself before the foundation of the world"

It says He chose "us" in Him.

I am not a Calvinist. I just believe what is written.

You left out “in accordance”

 

[John146]

Do you think that this make Jesus wrong when He says if you believed the prophets you would believe Him?

How do you reconcile the two?
Does Paul know Agrippas heart? What is Paul referring to? Why does Paul ask whether he believes if Paul knows he does?

King Agrippa knows what the scripture says, yet he failed to trust Jesus as his savior.

 

[posthuman]

You left out “in accordance”

My, excuse me!

Yes, He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world and predestined us to adoption because it accorded with His good pleasure to do so.

 

[posthuman]

King Agrippa knows what the scripture says, yet he failed to trust Jesus as his savior.

Now it's knowing what scripture says vs. actually believing it

I agree

 

[PennEd]

Now it's knowing what scripture says vs. actually believing it

I agree

Sooomething was missing with Agrippa. He had knowledge of the Truth. He aaalmost believed the Truth, but couldn't quite get there.

What was that element that was missing? FAITH!!!!!

At least at that point he didn't have the faith gifted to him to believe. It's why I'm not crazy about apologetics for unbelievers. I think it has a great place for Christians, in strengthening their faith, but for unbelievers I think we need to Give the the Gospel, pray for them and love them. We stay right in our lane at the proper speed limit when we do that.

The moment we start in with who the elect are, is God fair, are some predestined for this or that, we veer into God's Sovereign Eternal Lane.

 

[John146]

Now it's knowing what scripture says vs. actually believing it

I agree

He believed the Scripture but just didn’t trust that Jesus was the fulfillment of the Scripture.

 

[John146]

When does God know someone?

Galatians 4:9 But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?

 

[Whispered]

is Romans 1:28-32 "gnosticism" ?

is it about all people or is it only about 'some people' who - thank God - you are not like?

or Romans 5:10 -- "we were haters of God" -- is that only certain people?
why does he write "we" instead of "they" ?
because, gnosticism?

Those verses have not a thing to do with my remarks.

 

[Whispered]

It’s an entire study on the forbidden fruit and the consequences thereof. Way too long for me to post.

Your study?
We're told in scripture the life is in the blood.
When God finished with His creation , the Adam, we're told God breathed into Adam's nostrils and Adam became a living soul. And then God fashioned the woman, Eve, from Adam's rib.
Adam was bone, flesh, and blood.

 

[Whispered]

why not?

For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all​

(Romans 11:32) ​

​

is that verse true?
what does it really mean?

You should read the entire chapter rather than cherry pick and think that verse sustains Total Depravity.
Total Depravity, if TULIP were true, fashions a god that plays wicked games with himself.
It is straight out of the pit of Hell.
TULIP tells us of a creature that makes people to be totally immoral, totally depraved, absolutely incapable of righteousness, right-ness, any good thing at all. Pure evil at birth incapable of knowing the god that fashioned them that way.
Then the rest of the TULIP doctrine tells us that the god that made all the worlds people to be that way did so with malice of forethought and premeditation.
Because prior to that creation he made a list of names of those future depraved one's whom he would put into his grace. Being he didn't show grace when he made them. And in the process of that, he would also let them to have faith in him, the creator of a totally depraved human race. All of whom would enter the Hell he had created first for his first and most beautiful and intelligent angel, Lucifer, and those angels that followed him. But actually, he had to premeditate sending humans there too because that god does not change. So if he decided to send humans to Hell at any point in scripture, it had to be that he had made that decision before he created the world. Just like the entire predestination, pre-planned creation he made after he fashioned that list of people he'd "save" to his irresistible grace.

This means before the heavens and the earth came to be, that TULIP god predetermined total depravity of all future created humans.
Which means, that condition did not pass to humans through Adam. It means that TULIP god predetermined the fall, prearranged total depravity. Because otherwise why would he need a list of people whom he'd elect to save in that condition he'd made them to suffer unable to choose to have faith of their own accord?

Calvin was a demon. A sadist and an egoist. And those that follow his teachings are lost in error.

Calvinists like to dismiss John's part in the murder of Servitus. Oh, he wanted him to be put to the sword instead of being burned alive. No, John Calvin wanted him dead. And it happened. Slowly.
From the letter John Calvin wrote to Thomas Ferrell dated February 13, 1546 :"If he [Servetus] comes [to Geneva], I shall never let him go out alive if my authority has weight."

Calvinism doesn't save. It damns.

 

[Whispered]

Whispered you are very funny.... so far the theologians, the philosophers, the neuroscientists, the physicists, the psychologist etc., have been unable to prove or disprove its existence.

Choice and free will are not synonymous, in scripture does the term/concept "free will" occur I think not, because it was developed in classical Greek philosophy.

Well, if it hasn't been able to be disproved, what's the problem?

"But man, being endowed with reason, and in this respect similar to God, having been made free in his will, and with power over himself, is himself his own cause that sometimes he becomes wheat, and sometimes chaff." -Ireneus (130-202 A.D.).

BING search criteria: has science proven we have free will

• Study Tackles Neuroscience Claims to Have Disproved ‘Free ...
  https://news.ncsu.edu/2018/03/free-will-review-2018
  Some researchers have argued neuroscience studies prove that free will is an illusion. But a new analysis of these studies shows that many contained methodological inconsistencies and …
• Free Will Exists and Is Measurable - The Atlantic
  https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/06/free-will-exists-and-is-measurable/486551
  Jun 10, 2016 · Free Will Exists and Is Measurable. The physical brain does not produce consciousness, so much as serve as a filter that allows primordial consciousness to trickle into our awareness in a very limited fashion, which is the “here-and-now” that we experience in normal waking reality. As I have argued elsewhere,...
  • Author: Stephen Cave
• The Creativity Post | A Scientist's Defense of Free Will
  https://www.creativitypost.com/article/has_neuro_science_buried_free_will
  Jan 27, 2015 · Since the cause-effect relationship is the fundamental tenet of science, if you are in one fashion or another defending free will, then you are wasting your time and giving in to this anti-scientific nonsense, saying that here is something which has not been caused. When talking about free will, the one thing that is almost invariably brought up by free will deniers is the famous Libet experiment.
  • Author: Mahir S. Ozdemir, Ph.D.

 

[John146]

Your study?
We're told in scripture the life is in the blood.
When God finished with His creation , the Adam, we're told God breathed into Adam's nostrils and Adam became a living soul. And then God fashioned the woman, Eve, from Adam's rib.
Adam was bone, flesh, and blood.

Actually Adam said she is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. They had immortal, incorruptible bodies until they ate of the forbidden fruit. The forbidden fruit was the grape, the blood of the grape as Scripture describes it. Blood entered their bodies, corrupting their bodies and making their bodies mortal, therefore, the life is in the blood because of mortality. Take the blood out, the body ceases to live.

 

[posthuman]

You should read the entire chapter rather than cherry pick and think that verse sustains Total Depravity.
Total Depravity, if TULIP were true, fashions a god that plays wicked games with himself.
It is straight out of the pit of Hell.
TULIP tells us of a creature that makes people to be totally immoral, totally depraved, absolutely incapable of righteousness, right-ness, any good thing at all. Pure evil at birth incapable of knowing the god that fashioned them that way.
Then the rest of the TULIP doctrine tells us that the god that made all the worlds people to be that way did so with malice of forethought and premeditation.
Because prior to that creation he made a list of names of those future depraved one's whom he would put into his grace. Being he didn't show grace when he made them. And in the process of that, he would also let them to have faith in him, the creator of a totally depraved human race. All of whom would enter the Hell he had created first for his first and most beautiful and intelligent angel, Lucifer, and those angels that followed him. But actually, he had to premeditate sending humans there too because that god does not change. So if he decided to send humans to Hell at any point in scripture, it had to be that he had made that decision before he created the world. Just like the entire predestination, pre-planned creation he made after he fashioned that list of people he'd "save" to his irresistible grace.

This means before the heavens and the earth came to be, that TULIP god predetermined total depravity of all future created humans.
Which means, that condition did not pass to humans through Adam. It means that TULIP god predetermined the fall, prearranged total depravity. Because otherwise why would he need a list of people whom he'd elect to save in that condition he'd made them to suffer unable to choose to have faith of their own accord?

Calvin was a demon. A sadist and an egoist. And those that follow his teachings are lost in error.

Calvinists like to dismiss John's part in the murder of Servitus. Oh, he wanted him to be put to the sword instead of being burned alive. No, John Calvin wanted him dead. And it happened. Slowly.
From the letter John Calvin wrote to Thomas Ferrell dated February 13, 1546 :"If he [Servetus] comes [to Geneva], I shall never let him go out alive if my authority has weight."

Calvinism doesn't save. It damns.

If you think Romans 11:32 is best understood in context why don't you talk about that scripture instead of all that stuff you wrote?

I asked you what you thought a verse means and you wrote a couple hundred words about how much you hate Calvinism instead of even one word about the Bible