Is unconditional election biblical?

God made people totally depraved so that he could save only those he'd predetermined worthy by forcing them into his grace and then forcing them to have faith in him, and this he called grace and salvation.

What would be the point of that?
If TULIP were of God, why would God's word have so many verses in scripture referring to people being able to choose to follow Christ?
When Irresistible Grace, if TULIP were of God, would necessarily require that no such scriptures exist. When man is totally depraved and cannot come into faith on their own a teaching that invites listeners to come into faith would be counter to God's working in Irresistible Grace.

1 Timothy 2:3-4—“For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

1 John 2:2—“And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.”


John 3:17—“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”


2 Peter 3:9—“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is long suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”


Acts 10:34—“God shows no partiality.”


Romans 2:11—“For there is no partiality with God.”


God Hardens Whom He Wills?

... One major cause of unbelief among those who have concluded that Christianity is false has been the advocacy of Calvinism. The rational, logical mind recognizes that a perfect, infinite God would not create beings in His own image (Genesis 1:27) that are not free moral agents responsible for their own decisions. Nor would He allow them to be subjected, through no fault of their own, to a condition of depravity, inherited from their parents, that makes them incapable of exercising their free moral agency to choose to accept or reject Him. Since a substantial segment of Christendom has promulgated Calvinism for over five centuries, multitudes of people unfortunately have assumed that the New Testament endorses Calvinistic tenets.


One passage that has been alleged to teach that God’s sovereignty means that He is free to override human will or do whatever He pleases (see Miller, 2003), though His actions interfere with human choice, is found in the New Testament book of Romans:



The parenthetical material is typically interpreted to mean that God decided to save Jacob and reject Esau before either was born, and without regard to any action of good or evil on their part. Of course, such an interpretation rips the verse from its context and places God in an unfavorable light. https://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=11&article=1432

That is incorrect. TULIP is thoroughly refuted by Scripture, since it contradicts the Gospel of Grace.

But those ensnared by this false gospel will never give up it as a lie. It takes a genuine love for the truth to abandon false teachings.

That's a ridiculous response filled with many false accusations. Thanks?

You're right though, you don't understand it.

Thanks for stepping in to call those of us who know and believe that God elects based on nothing good in us, but only by unmerited favor, a thing we call grace, arrogant people as you suggested.

1 Corinthians 1:26-31? Study it out.

The only reason any are saved is because God predestined and elected to save whom he wills, Romans 8:26ff, Ephesians 1 &c; Romans 9. Since you've claimed the classic "anti evangelistic" accusation you may want to read and study how Paul the Calvinist saw and was confident in evangelization because God has his people, the elect, out there whom he will save; Acts 18:9-10; 2 Timothy 2:8-10.

In your diatribe you've called all those who died violent deaths for the cause of Christ arrogant, for they preached this same message, being Reformed, died for preaching this message of Christ you've assaulted.

You may want to go read some on Whitefield, John Bunyan, John Hus, Justyn Martyr, William Tyndale, all who embraced election, some died violent deaths for preaching this Gospel.

Your claim of arrogance, and anti evangelism, fear, doubt, they are all unfounded. Oh, and one last thing, we are more interested in him, not our belief system, something that has driven us to seek him out, and these truths he's revealed about himself. Its really sad seeing you take such swipes at us as you have.

My first post. Probably my last. This is an important and interesting topic. However what caught my attention in the first few posts and later is the aggressive tone with an underlying feeling of hate. On a Christian chat site? What happened to love?

On the actual topic I am still undecided after 13 years. Scripture can take you either way as can be seen above. To me as a humble believer it seems to me claiming scripture proves one way or the other with out any doubt is insincere.

I do wonder where my personal experience fits in. Brought up by atheist parents and atheist grandparents I was an 'evangelical atheist' founding a humanist association, religion is evil, etc. At 20 I had a near death experience before being given CPR. This is involved a visit to heaven which is still vivid in my mind 40 years later. I denied it as a hallucinatory experience brought on by chemical changes. After campaigning and vitriolically arguing against religion all my life I was saved and baptized at 49 years old.

If I say " I believe the Patriots will beat the Dolphins" although I believe that is true and will happen, there is an element of a possibility that they WON'T beat the Dolphins. The outcome, although I believe it to be true, is NOT certain. So therefore, for instance my following actions wouldn't be to sell my house, gather every penny I had, and bet it all on New England. My "belief" doesn't rise to the level of faith, because I'm not willing to risk all.

Whereas faith involves CERTAINTY. I have faith that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who died for my sins, and rose to Life, and will come again to judge the living and dead. These are things I have CERTAINTY (Faith) in. So, as a result, without any reservation, I can say with CERTAINTY, that I am a born again Child of God.

Hebrews 11:1 New King James Version (NKJV)
By Faith We Understand
11 Now faith is the substance (realization) of things hoped for, the evidence (confidence) of things not seen.

Well I guess it's a step in the right direction that you admit your faith is a gift from God!

That IS what you are admitting right?

How people vote on Scripture is now going to determine it's interpretation?

Hmm....
Romans 3:4 King James Version (KJV)
4 God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.

Still didn't explain the difference in context to the scriptures I posted.

Do you not read my replies? There is faith from God and belief from man. Often English translations use faith interchangeably but in study of the original language as I have posted the words are very similar but there is definitely a human response in context of certain scriptures that call for belief.

Your right but what it does show is this belief isnt so simple as zealots like it to be.

IMO,unconditional election Is true If you mean whosoever believes In the WORD of GOD might have Eternal Life.
JESUS sacrifice made It possible for whosoever believes the WORD of GOD might have Eternal Life.

So that would mean,there Is no physical condition that man could do with his own strength to Inherit Eternal Life but the question somebody might ask Is Is mans ability to repent unconditional or conditional and I would say every man has the right to choose to believe or you would HAVE to conclude this [someone who believes In conditional election] sounds like someone would be trying to make JESUS a respecter of some and not the other ACCORDING to their physical ability.
Of course we know that HIS sacrifice made It where coming to GOD IS unconditional not based upon anything man could do but based upon man choice to believe.

If Jesus "bled out" His Blood to represent purging of sin, why would we be told to drink His Blood? I thought God/Jesus didn't have any Blood in His resurrected body?

Yes it did. Abram demonstrated that he had moved from belief to faith by obeying, thus proving that the righteousness God imputed him for his belief was justified.

So we are right back to square one.

Why do YOU believe? You pretty much said it was your reasoning and intellect. Then when I pointed that out using those terms, you saw the problem with that being the reason you believe, and merely scoffed them off, but NOT denying it.

So if it is NOT YOUR great reasoning and intellect that made you believe, WHAT WAS IT?

I agree.

Well if being a zealot means I believe that ALL aspects of Salvation are of the Lord, then you can pencil me in as a zealot!

I did already, but here it is again:

Numbers 6
3 He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink, and shall drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of strong drink, neither shall he drink any liquor of grapes, nor eat moist grapes, or dried.
4 All the days of his separation shall he eat nothing that is made of the vine tree, from the kernels even to the husk.

You are making unwarranted assumptions and trying to set up a strawman that you can defeat within your interpretation of theology.

God found me and I responded. I dont hold puppet theology and I am accountable for my sin. The knowledge and guilt of sin arose and Christ was the answer.

Did He have blood? Was it pouring out of the holes in his hands, feet and side? Maybe we do it in remembrance of the sinless sacrifice Jesus was for us? His righteousness that we know have?

Christ will not save someone in unbelief.