Does man naturally have ability to Seek God ?
- Thread starter beloved57
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That's because you're stuck in your little box and not even trying to see out of it.
And my point is that man CAN seek after God after He calls them, John 6:44.
If you disagree, answer my question:
If God calls, can a man respond?
beloved57
Well-known member
If God calls them, He has made them alive, they arent no longer in the flesh. pretty simple. Otherwise naturally they are dead in sin and dont seek after God. They are also in the flesh and carnal when they arent spiritually alive.
Please provide the chapter and verse where it describes someone who is called but does not believe as someone who has been made alive.
Because I can provide PLENTY of verses that say the exact opposite, where God calls people and yet they continue in their deadness.
How is it possible to cling to dogma that is so totally crushed into powder by the very Man that these fools claim to worship as the Creator God Himself?
Matthew 23:37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!"
John 5:40 But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.
AMEN!!!
beloved57
Well-known member
Man is dead to God otherwise. If man isnt Spiritually alive when the call of the Gospel goes out, hes in the flesh dead and carnal. The carnal mind is enmity against God, and they which are in the flesh cannot please God.
I repeat:
Please provide the chapter and verse where it describes someone who is called but does not believe as someone who has been made alive.
Because I can provide PLENTY of verses that say the exact opposite, where God calls people and yet they continue in their deadness.
Just for the sake of the argument, please post some of those verses!
beloved57
Well-known member
Man is dead until he made alive ! You can call a dead man all day and night and he cant hear you ! He has no life
I repeat:
Please provide the chapter and verse where it describes someone who is called but does not believe as someone who has been made alive.
As per Clete's request, here are some of the verses that say the exact opposite, where God calls people and yet they continue in their deadness.
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! - Matthew 23:37 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew23:37&version=NKJV
Then the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just like the love of the Lord for the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans. ” - Hosea 3:1 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hosea3:1&version=NKJV
For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: “In returning and rest you shall be saved; In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.” But you would not, - Isaiah 30:15 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah30:15&version=NKJV
Is that why Jesus spoke in parables, to make doubly sure that they couldn't hear what he said?:
Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: ‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, And seeing you will see and not perceive; - Matthew 13:13-14 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew13:13-14&version=NKJV
Oh wait... that's not everything that the passage says...:
He answered and said to them, “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: ‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, And seeing you will see and not perceive;For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.’ - Matthew 13:11-15 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew13:11-15&version=NKJV
Yes, being separated from God results in deadness.
But that doesn't make a person incapable of hearing God's call.
beloved57
Well-known member
I repeat, man is dead to God. Thats why scripture says Eph 2:1
And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
No spiritual activity until man is made alive.
Dead means separated from God. It does not mean incapable of responding to the gospel.
I agree with Scripture. Scripture does not agree with you.
Please provide the chapter and verse where it describes someone who is called but does not believe as someone who has been made alive.
beloved57
Well-known member
Yes, dead means separated from God. So he has no ability, desire for the True God, hes dead to God !
This is all any Calvinist does or can do!
They do not give an answer to any biblical argument because there is no answer! All that they've got, once confronted with the plain reading of scripture, not to mention a simple common sense understanding of justice, is to repeat their dogma as though nothing has been said to refute it. All they can do is to tightly close their own eyes and ears so as to make them function as though they were the dead ones, as perhaps they are.
Here b57 does worse than to close his eyes and ears to God's word, he flatly, knowingly and intentionally lies about what the verse he quotes is talking about. Don't tell me he believes it. He doesn't. No one that stupid could use a computer keyboard to type up the three sentence post.
"No spiritual activity until a man is made alive." he claims on the basis of Ephesians 2:1. Well, lets just look as see what the very next verses say...
Ephesians 2:1 2 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 2 in which YOU ONCE WALK according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.
Sounds like spiritual activity to me! Unrighteous activity to be sure but activity nonetheless. And of course that's the case anyway because people who are completely incapable of spiritual activity cannot sin any more than they can do rightly. But then the Calvinist doesn't believe the unsaved are dead because they sinned, they believe they're dead and headed to Hell because of the sins of their ancestors which the bible explicitly contradicts (Ezekiel 18) and when confronted with that biblical truth, they reject sin as the cause for Hell fire altogether and say that it is simply God's own arbitrary will that sends men to eternal punishment.
“God is moved to mercy for no other reason but that he wills to be merciful.” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 22, Paragraph 8)
“… predestination to glory is the cause of predestination to grace, rather than the converse.” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 22, Paragraph 9)
“Therefore, those whom God passes over, he condemns; and this he does for no other reason than that he wills to exclude them from the inheritance which he predestines for his own children.” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christia/n Religion, Book 3, Chapter 23, Paragraph 1)
“We cannot assign any reason for his bestowing mercy on his people, but just as it so pleases him, neither can we have any reason for his reprobating others but his will.” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 22, Paragraph 11)
Calvinism is not rational, it is not biblical, it is not Christianity. It's God is unjust, by definition, and it's dogma is heresy of the highest order, even blasphemous, making the living God of love and justice into an arbitrary tyrant.Clete
beloved57
Well-known member
Man not seeking the one and only True God is an evidence that man naturally is dead in sin, that is dead to God, separated from the life of God alienated from God, this so much so, man has no desire for the True God Rom 3:11
11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
I'm glad you finally admit it!
Chapter verse that says/shows that dead men have no ability to accept or reject the things of God once they are shown to him by God/through God's calling.
Only those who have not heard the gospel have no desire, and those who have rejected God.
beloved57
Well-known member
Without Hope and Without God in the World !
Eph 2:12
12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:
All of us when left in a state of nature, born dead in trespasses and sins, without spiritual life, the indictment is we are in and of ourselves without hope, that is without Christ, without God, and without life.
In this condition we dont seek or even desire the True God Rom 3:11, and there's absolutely nothing a person can do to change out of this spiritually dead state, no not even his so called freewill ! No matter what we do naturally, as moral or religious persons, we are still without hope and spiritually dead to God.
The only hope a person has from escaping this spiritually dead plight is the True God ! That is God must out of pure Mercy quicken one Eph 2:1,4-5
And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved)
Other than this, man is without hope !
Eph 2:12
12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:
All of us when left in a state of nature, born dead in trespasses and sins, without spiritual life, the indictment is we are in and of ourselves without hope, that is without Christ, without God, and without life.
In this condition we dont seek or even desire the True God Rom 3:11, and there's absolutely nothing a person can do to change out of this spiritually dead state, no not even his so called freewill ! No matter what we do naturally, as moral or religious persons, we are still without hope and spiritually dead to God.
The only hope a person has from escaping this spiritually dead plight is the True God ! That is God must out of pure Mercy quicken one Eph 2:1,4-5
And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved)
Other than this, man is without hope !
CUP 2 from the right in the above video.
Free will is not a superpower.
Again, CUP 2 from the right in the above video.
Now provide your evidence for total inability from birth.