Does the Word Teach All Will Be Saved? (translation, believers, doctrine)
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Plad, I still make my own decisions every moment of everyday...God does not control me, or anyone, Christian or Jew or atheist.
Think of it this way. If as a Child I love my parent, and obey them, am I their puppet? Do I have less freewill than the disobedient child?
If I am a disobedient child do I have more free will, or am I just exercising it in a different way?
MBG
Ooh, I just saw this post and it's too much for me to resist.
I have heard ignorant ministers and theologians repeat like a broken record as if it were a Scripture, that: "God will NEVER MAKE a person do anything against his OWN WILL"! Oh really? And what Bible do you suppose they are reading? "God is operating ALL according to counsel of His OWN WILL" (Eph. 1:11)!!
What is God's will? Trying to turn I Tim. 2:4 from God's "will" to His "desire" changes nothing! The Scriptures themselves prove that God's "desire" "good pleasure" "counsel" "word" etc., are just as strong as His "will." God says that if he has so much as "spoken it" it WILL come to pass.
It is the Church that teaches that it is up to each and every individual to come to Christ and accept His gift of salvation. Yet, Jesus plainly tells us that "NO MAN CAN come to Him except the Father draw him" [Greek: "drag him"].
Even our faith is not of ourselves but it is the gift of God (Eph. 1:8), and hundreds more such Scriptures. We make "CHOICES": we do not have "free will" (See Eph. 2:13). Did Paul suddenly "see the error of his ways" on the road to Demascus, or did God MAKE HIM repent in an instant of blinding light? Did the King of Babylon "choose" to become a beast in the field for seven years in order to "BREAK" his own carnal will, or did God FORCE HIM TO DO SO?
It is worst than error to try and compare God's ability to accomplish a task as compared to a man's ability to accomplish a task. "...no man CAN say that Jesus is the Lord, but BY THE HOLY SPIRIT." Besides, God did not send His Son to "offer" salvation to the world, but "To BE the Saviour of the world." To "be" a Saviour one MUST SAVE. To be the Saviour of the whole "WORLD," one must SAVE THE WHOLE WORLD!! This is axiomatic.
Does Jesus truly "...TAKE WAY the sin of the WORLD" (John 1:29), "And He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours ONLY, but also for the SINS OF THE WHOLE WORLD" (I John 2:2), but then TORTURE most of the "whole world" for all eternity AFTER He takes away ALL OF THEIR SINS?
Even computers can "make choices." That is, in fact, ALL that they can do--they make millions of choices a second. Are you going to argue that because a computer can and does make choices, that it has a "free will?"
Plad, I still make my own decisions every moment of everyday...God does not control me, or anyone, Christian or Jew or atheist.
Nope! Not if your god is omniscient you don't. Your decision on any matter will be what your god has always known it will be. You can't choose anything that will prove him wrong so your "choices" are illusions.
Nope! Not if your god is omniscient you don't. Your decision on any matter will be what your god has always known it will be. You can't choose anything that will prove him wrong so your "choices" are illusions.
You have it backwards. If God is omniscient, He knows our choices because in His realm, they have already transpired. Of course, as I have pointed out before, not all conservative theologians believe that God is omniscient in the sense that He already knows our choices.
Right, some think otherwise.Noted theologian John Hick finds that all will be saved. I rather put my trust in reason and right knowledge than in any god.I saved myself from religion. Gee, I receive blessings all the time: I have no right to complain much.
Of course, as I have pointed out before, not all conservative theologians believe that God is omniscient in the sense that He already knows our choices.
Oh No!! Not another thing you dudes can't agree on!!!!!!!!
You have it backwards. If God is omniscient, He knows our choices because in His realm, they have already transpired. Of course, as I have pointed out before, not all conservative theologians believe that God is omniscient in the sense that He already knows our choices.
So in what sense is He omniscient?
There is a distinction between: inherent omniscience the ability to know anything that one chooses to know and can be known, and...
total omniscience actually knowing everything that can be known.
Many modern theologians argue that God's omniscience is inherent rather than total, and that God chooses to limit his omniscience in order to preserve the freewill and dignity of his creatures.
To me, IMHO, inherent omniscience is another cop-out so that God doesn't appear evil instead of good to His creation. I believe most Christians believe this way: It is not possible for God to know the result of a free human choice. Omniscience should therefore be interpreted to mean "knowledge of everything that can be known". God can know what someone will do, but only by predetermining it; thus, he chooses the extent of human freedom by choosing what (if anything) to know in this way.
But isn't that another way of saying that God DOESN'T know everything? And that He ISN'T in control of everything?
Yes, it would be away of saying God doesn't know everything. Check out Dr. Greg Boyd's "God of the Possible..." I'm not sure I agree with him, but it raises some interesting questions/possibilities.
Yes, it would be away of saying God doesn't know everything. Check out Dr. Greg Boyd's "God of the Possible..." I'm not sure I agree with him, but it raises some interesting questions/possibilities.
No offense kay, but I don't think I'll bother, as that those questions/possibilities contradict the Bible, IMHO. Not trying to start anything! Promise!
No offense kay, but I don't think I'll bother, as that those questions/possibilities contradict the Bible, IMHO. Not trying to start anything! Promise!
Well, my point is that it really isn't a black and white issue about God's omniscience- what He knows and when He knows it. Even conservative theolgians are not in total agreement about what His omniscience actually entails or means. I think it may be one of the mysteries we will not fully understand this side of heaven. Deuteronomy 29:29 "The secret things belong to the Lord..." as I've become so fond of quoting as of late!
The older I get, the less I feel the need to totally understand everything. I'm more content to just trust God with some issues. I don't have to know everything. In the popular vernacular, it's on a "need to know" basis and many things concerning spirituality, I just don't "need to know."
You have it backwards. If God is omniscient, He knows our choices because in His realm, they have already transpired. Of course, as I have pointed out before, not all conservative theologians believe that God is omniscient in the sense that He already knows our choices.
Excellent KayKay...
MBG
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The secret things
