Yes or No... Please Participate in Above Poll
Is Love Genuine if it is Forced instead of Chosen?
Is Love Genuine if it is Forced instead of Chosen?
ECT Evil Poll ... (3 of 5) ... Choice in Love?
- Thread starter Evil.Eye.<(I)>
- Start date
Ask Mr. Religion
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The moral state of the non-believer is that he or she is deceitful and desperately sick (Jer. 17:9), full of evil (Mark 7:21-23), loves darkness rather than light (John 3:19), is unrighteous, not seeking for God (Rom. 3:10-12), helpless, ungodly (Rom. 5:6), by nature a child of wrath (Eph. 2-3), a slave of sin (Rom. 6:15-20).
No one so described will choose to love God until their moral inability is changed (Eze. 36:26). When that change happens, a principle of grace and habit of holiness is imparted, thus, most assuredly he or she will then choose to love God. It all begins with the quickening (John 5:21; John 6:63) from death to life wrought by the power of the Holy Spirit. All are but the walking dead until so quickened by God (John 3:8): the lights are on, but no one is home.
AMR
No one so described will choose to love God until their moral inability is changed (Eze. 36:26). When that change happens, a principle of grace and habit of holiness is imparted, thus, most assuredly he or she will then choose to love God. It all begins with the quickening (John 5:21; John 6:63) from death to life wrought by the power of the Holy Spirit. All are but the walking dead until so quickened by God (John 3:8): the lights are on, but no one is home.
AMR
I appreciate your input... Would you please add your input to the Poll?
I will ask these questions...
Quickened... "spring to life; become animated."
Reconcile... "restore friendly relations between."
Where do you place this "Quickening"... in light of 2 Corinthians 5:19 ... "that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation."...
And... Why does it use the word "Trespasses"... instead of "Trespass"?
Lastly... Inability... ... What distinguishes a person from being "Disabled" and "Enabled" to "Choose Love"?
Could you please explain how a "Disabled" individual could have their "Guilt" imputed against them?
How does God "Choose"... "Who Love's Him?"
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Ask Mr. Religion
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I will be happy to do so as soon as you unpack what you mean and presuppose in the question asked. The same goes for the other polls which are all pregnant with unstated assumptions.
I am happy to vote Yes as long as that Yes is accompanied by my explanation given above and not some presuppositions unbeknownst to me or others.
AMR
Sir... The question is a "yes" or "no". I specifically kept matters simple to keep this poll simple.
It's a yes or no... go... no go... question.
Wouldn't you say that the question ... "Is Love Genuine... if it is forced and not chosen"... is straight forward?
No, of course not.
Excellent, Thank you!
nikolai_42
Well-known member
I would agree with AMR on this one. It is asked as a universal (always or not at all) rather than Can love be genuine if forced and not chosen. One person's love for another may well force them to do something against the other's will...if for their good.
And the assumed forced/chosen dichotomy seems...well...forced. It can suggest something that is clearly not love when in other contexts love absolutely is unilateral. The love of God, in the end, is not the love of man. So when we are told this :
Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
I John 4:10
...it becomes clear that love is from God to us. He goes on to say that because He loved us first, we ought to love others. But it is clear (ignoring the whole "dead in trespasses and sins" issue) that we only have love because He gave it to us. We are only able to love because He loved us first. This love is a unilateral love, not a back-and-forth. Not in salvation. Once saved, of course, we will love Him - but this love is only realized in Christ. God's love is not a feeling - nor is it so expressed. It is understood in terms of obedience (e.g. John 14:15, John 14:21, I John 5:2 etc...). And that is impossible if one is an enemy of God and child of wrath (see Eph 2).
"Yes" or "No"... ? The question... "Is Love Genuine... If it is forced and not Chosen?"
:idunno: I appreciate your attempt to frame the question... but someone once said... let your "yes" be "yes" and your "no"... "no".
This didn't seem difficult when I generated the 5 point poll. Your vote would be appreciated... anyhow. I'm doing my best to keep my dialogue on the matter mum. Some slips out... but a poll is a "poll".
Follow?
nikolai_42
Well-known member
The question about charging sin to infants is more cut and dried than this is. The way a question is asked is important and the assumptions it carries are critical as well. I've been through a referendum - I know whereof I speak. This is not one I can answer as is until (at the very least) the universal requirement is dropped.
Ask Mr. Religion
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(1) Christ is God's way of reconciling the world to himself,
(2) we (the ordained servants addressed in the passage) are to continue to carry forth that message of reconciliation, which is the essential gospel, i.e.,
(3) be ye reconciled to God--and Christ is the only way.
God was not counting the sin of his people against them (eternal, instantaneous death) because of Christ--even as far back as Adam and Eve. That eternal suspension falls on Christ at the cross. The specific ruling that removes my guilt (liability to punishment) on the basis of that sacrifice occurs when I believe.
Unregenerated or regenerated, respectively, assuming the "love" in question here refers to our love for God, and not some earthly notion of love, as in my love of my wife, which is just one of the issues with the wording of this poll.
Is "disabled" here now someone mentally deficient or is it the "disabled" of the previous question? If the former, it has no bearing upon the guilt imputed to all Adam's progeny by ordinary generation. The Spirit works when, and where, and how He pleases (John 3:8) quickening those so appointed per the means of the outward call of the gospel. Ao also are all other appointed persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.
God's choice to set His preference upon another (to love) was made according to His eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, out of His mere free grace and love, without any foreseeing of faith, or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions or causes that would be claimed to motivate His choosing (Rom. 9:11, 13, 16, Eph. 1:4, 9).
AMR
I for one would never have chosen salvation. Having experienced regeneration the word that would perfectly describe the grace (love) by which I was saved is 'revealed' and not forced. The revelation of His loved revealed in Messiah and the power of the evangelism.
If your poll asked, Is love revealed to a helpless sinner who couldn't possibly imagine it in his unregenerate state I would answer YES.
If your poll asked, Is love revealed to a helpless sinner who couldn't possibly imagine it in his unregenerate state I would answer YES.
darkruned13
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No
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