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Name calling WITHOUT A CAUSE is against the rules.
There is CAUSE to call you lazy... you are.
Does man naturally have ability to Seek God ?
- Thread starter beloved57
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There is CAUSE to call you lazy... you are.
beloved57
Well-known member
I have put more work into this thread than anyone. So its a derogatory remark.
Yes it does, as Clete explained above.
If you think it doesn't, then the ball is in your court to explain how it does not contradict.
Like I said, you clearly have no idea what was said, otherwise you wouldn't say that.
Explained by Clete in his post, which you clearly didn't read.
I'm not calling you derogatory names. I'm calling you lazy. Big difference.
Calling out bad behavior is a good thing. Jesus Himself did it a lot.
What you've done is constantly push your beliefs without being challenged by anyone, and now that someone has challenged your beliefs, you want to just ignore them, and do so. Intellectual laziness.
So was "whited sepulchre" and "viper."
beloved57
Well-known member
No it doesnt. And I know you would justify your behaviour by calling me a derog !
I answered that question already in anticipation of your refusal to answer the question at all.
My question was asked in the context of this thread's specific topic. Now....
ANSWER THE QUESTION!!!!
Well then straighten us all out here B57! If it doesn't mean that the pharisees and lawyers successfully rejected the will of God, which is what it explicitly says and which would crush your entire thesis, both for this thread and your entire theological construct, into dust, then what does it mean?
Clete
Oh yes! It does!
Great verse! I love that verse!
It can only have any meaning whatsoever from within MY theological paradigm. For you it means nothing.
God picks and chooses and we have no responsibilities?
What a terrible doctrine.
Who can have any hope that they are the ones God has picked?
How could you tell that you were picked?
I'm losing my marbles. I thought I was responding to something B57 had written! How ridiculous is that!
It's no wonder I couldn't figure out what would have made him point out such a verse!
I've got to start paying closer attention!
@beloved57,
What does it say about a man who either will not or cannot defend his beliefs?
If someone came to me with a passage they believed explicitly contradicted my core beliefs and challenged me to explain it, I quite literally could not resist doing so. I'm not just able to do it, nor am I merely willing but there is something inside me that makes me NEED to respond, especially if I detect even the slightest amount of sincerity on the part of the one asking the question. If someone is asking a real question and not just talking like an idiot for some sort of effect, it seems almost immoral, like I'd be doing the person real harm, if I refused to at least make some attempt to address the issue that he has presented. Even if it as feeble as "I really don't know the answer but will look into it and get back to you.", then at least I've acknowledged that the issue exists and that I understand the question.
This, it seems to me, ought to be how any intellectually honest person should conduct themselves. I don't have to agree with even 10% of what someone believes but if they are intellectually honest enough to both acknowledge when someone has challenged their belief and to at least make some attempt to address the issue, then I can respect that person as at least being a human with a mind that he isn't afraid to use.
But what about the man who literally does not care what anyone else says. What about the man who refuses to answer ANY question or address ANY challenge to his beliefs? Worse than that, what about the man who refuses to even acknowledge that there's been a question asked?! Is such a man to be respected? Is that man's behavior what we ought to expect if his beliefs are true? Isn't that sort of behavior what one would intuitively expect from a con artist or a liar, who knows for a fact that what he claims to believe is false? Isn't that also the sort of behavior that one might expect from someone who doesn't know what they believe or why they believe it? And finally, isn't that the sort of behavior one would expect from someone who is either deceived or delusional, someone who is a member of a cult or who is mentally ill (or both)?
So, I've put to you yet another question that you will likely never answer on this public forum but hopefully, in the evenings when you've laid down to go to sleep and your mind gets quiet, the question will echo in your mind....
"Why can't I defeat ANY challenge that is ever put to me about my doctrine?"
Clete
P.S. Don't be stubborn! While there's life, there's hope!
What does it say about a man who either will not or cannot defend his beliefs?
If someone came to me with a passage they believed explicitly contradicted my core beliefs and challenged me to explain it, I quite literally could not resist doing so. I'm not just able to do it, nor am I merely willing but there is something inside me that makes me NEED to respond, especially if I detect even the slightest amount of sincerity on the part of the one asking the question. If someone is asking a real question and not just talking like an idiot for some sort of effect, it seems almost immoral, like I'd be doing the person real harm, if I refused to at least make some attempt to address the issue that he has presented. Even if it as feeble as "I really don't know the answer but will look into it and get back to you.", then at least I've acknowledged that the issue exists and that I understand the question.
This, it seems to me, ought to be how any intellectually honest person should conduct themselves. I don't have to agree with even 10% of what someone believes but if they are intellectually honest enough to both acknowledge when someone has challenged their belief and to at least make some attempt to address the issue, then I can respect that person as at least being a human with a mind that he isn't afraid to use.
But what about the man who literally does not care what anyone else says. What about the man who refuses to answer ANY question or address ANY challenge to his beliefs? Worse than that, what about the man who refuses to even acknowledge that there's been a question asked?! Is such a man to be respected? Is that man's behavior what we ought to expect if his beliefs are true? Isn't that sort of behavior what one would intuitively expect from a con artist or a liar, who knows for a fact that what he claims to believe is false? Isn't that also the sort of behavior that one might expect from someone who doesn't know what they believe or why they believe it? And finally, isn't that the sort of behavior one would expect from someone who is either deceived or delusional, someone who is a member of a cult or who is mentally ill (or both)?
So, I've put to you yet another question that you will likely never answer on this public forum but hopefully, in the evenings when you've laid down to go to sleep and your mind gets quiet, the question will echo in your mind....
"Why can't I defeat ANY challenge that is ever put to me about my doctrine?"
Clete
P.S. Don't be stubborn! While there's life, there's hope!
3:08 long.
beloved57
Well-known member
Man naturally doesnt seek God because he cannot, simply because a person that is dead cannot do anything. Just like in physical death, a person in that condition cannot make any physical decisions, he or she will not because they cannot being dead. A physically dead person cannot and will not walk, or talk physically, and unfortunately cannot, and cannot desire to do those things, activities. So its the same with men naturally spiritually dead to God. Rom 3:11
11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
Jn 6:44, 65
44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.
The inability is because man is dead spiritually to God, though much alive in the physical sphere of things.
11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
Jn 6:44, 65
44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.
The inability is because man is dead spiritually to God, though much alive in the physical sphere of things.
Jesus will draw all men unto Himself. No sinner will ever come to God before God draws the sinner, but all men everywhere are commanded by God when He draws them to repent and come to Jesus for forgiveness. Will all come? No. Will God make sinners come? No.
I wonder what percentage of the bible b57 has never read, or worse, chooses to ignore in order to maintain his belief in the unjust god of Calvin?
Deuteronomy 4:28 And there you will serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. 29 But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him IF you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.
1 Chronicles 28:9 “As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a loyal heart and with a willing mind; for the Lord searches all hearts and understands all the intent of the thoughts. IF you seek Him, He will be found by you; but IF you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever.
2 Chronicles 15:12 Then they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul; 13 and whoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.
2 Chronicles 19:2-3 And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to King Jehoshaphat, “Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord? Therefore the wrath of the Lord is upon you. Nevertheless good things are found in you, in that you have removed the wooden images from the land, and have prepared your heart to seek God.”
2 Chronicles 30:18-20 For a multitude of the people, many from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet they ate the Passover contrary to what was written. But Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, “May the good Lord provide atonement for everyone 19 who prepares his heart to seek God, the Lord God of his fathers, though he is not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary.” 20 And the Lord listened to Hezekiah and healed the people.
2 Chronicles 34:3 For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father David; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the wooden images, the carved images, and the molded images.
Psalm 69:32 The humble shall see this and be glad; And you who seek God, your hearts shall live.
Isaiah 65:1 “I [God] was sought by those who did not ask for Me; I was found by those who did not seek Me. I said, ‘Here I am, here I am,’ To a nation that was not called by My name.
Amos 5:14 Seek good and not evil, That you may live; So the Lord God of hosts will be with you, As you have spoken.
Matthew 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
B57 won't even read those passages now, much less respond to them! If he did, all it would be is one attempt after another to tell us that none of those passages mean what they say because if even one of them does then b57's entire theological construct falls into dust.Clete
He is very familiar with a handful of verses Calvinists have historically misinterpreted, misunderstood, and maligned in order to make those verses seem to harmonize with false Calvinist doctrine.
That's right. It started with Augustine's veritable worship of Aristotle and Plato who taught that God was immutable and Augustine's bishop who taught him how to interpret the bible in the light of Aristotle. It is literally a case of bringing a preconceived doctrine to the bible and reading that doctrine into the text. The entire thing is predicated on the immutability of God. If God changes IN ANY WAY (e.g. becoming flesh, dying on the cross, raising from the dead with a new glorified physical body, etc) then the whole of Calvinism's distinctive doctrines are false.
Clete
beloved57
Well-known member
Sorry it does no such thing, those folk just didnt want to be water baptized. They didn't see any need for repentance . They were just people left to their own devices, had nothing to do with Gods Sovereign will not being done, in fact, it was Gods Sovereign will being done. Many in israel was appointed to disobedience to the word 1 Pet 2:8
8 And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.
Lk 2:34
And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against;
Yes, it does, B57!
The word used in Luke 7:30 is boulemai. It is the very sovereign will of God you are referring to.
It says, quite literally, that the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the counsel (boulemai) of God.
In spite of the boulemai of God being that they repent and/or be baptized.
Interacting with their very Creator is "being left to their own devices"?
Blatantly and obviously false.
Wrong.
Regardless of what specifically the boulemai of God is referring to in that verse, be it baptism or repentance, they still rejected it, b57!
Completely irrelevant to the text being discussed.