To Ask Mr. Religion
To Ask Mr. Religion
Hello Ask Mr. Religion ! :wave:
I see your message on my profile page, but I don't know how to respond there, so I'll respond here I hope it's okay.
Ask Mr. Religion said:
Welcome to TOL!
Denomination?
Active in a church?
Monergistic or synergistic soteriologically?
A couple of items you may find interesting to read:
http://www.theologyonline.com/forums...ad.php?t=41620
http://www.theologyonline.com/forums...ad.php?t=63586
AMR
I have no denomination, just a plain Jane Christian.
I am not "active in a church," at least not a traditional, formal church, no.
"Soteriologically," I am monergistic in two senses !
I am monergistic in the sense that the Lord governs all of His Creation, down to the grittiest detail of reality, including who, when, where and through what means each man believes or does not believe. We can only know this in hind sight, and I compare this idea to our scientist's "M-theory" which is only 100% precise in hind sight.
And and I am monergistic in the sense that for us mere men, in our own personal experiences, our experience of being alive moment to moment is as totally unlimited free agents. It is comparable to the idea of free will.
In other words, while the Lord knows and governs every last thing in His Creation, we can only know what the Lord knows after it happens, including our own actions, and the only applicable conclusion I can draw from this is to live as truly free men right now !
I checked the links you provided me and I am first impressed with the civility on theologyonline because I know how important these matters are to many of us, and it's hard to keep our cool sometimes.
I was a staunch Calvinist for many years, and I am still, but I don't know if I will contribute to debating the truth or falsity of the doctrine because, to draw on my earlier analogy, I don't find understanding M-theory to be very pertinent to my moment to moment living - that is better done by focusing upon our liberty as the Lord's sons, IMNSHO, and by then with hind sight gleaning what the Lord's will was for us when we did what we did, and learning from this what to do next.
Even if what we learn is, we need to learn more doctrine !
-Jed