Does man naturally have ability to Seek God ?

[stunnedbygrace]

Stunned, when Jesus was here, didn't the blind see and the deaf hear?

Yes! That’s us! One day I just suddenly saw that He was! He healed my blindness. So now the correct thing is to say I chose to see and that blind man over there is choosing not to see?

 

[DancesWithGnostics]

In the case of Lazarus of Bethany, didn't even the DEAD hear Him?

 

[stunnedbygrace]

In the case of Lazarus of Bethany, didn't even the DEAD hear Him?

Yes! I was blind, deaf AND dead!

 

[DancesWithGnostics]

So now the correct thing is to say I chose to see and that blind man over there is choosing not to see?

It's correct to say you chose to see, it is not correct to say whether the blind man over there is choosing not to see or not - how would you know what is going on in the mind of another?

 

[DancesWithGnostics]

We all were dead as a doornail, and so blind and deaf also - then God sends us his Prevenient Grace enabling us to believe - we believe and then are regenerated.

 

[Ronald Nolette]

This would make God culpable for the impenitent when He is not. Those who are lost are so for their own free will choice in choosing to not repent. Then on judgment day, God will hand them a sentences of eternal condemnation which fits the free will choice those men made not to repent.




You tried to use Romans 9 to "prove" the Calvinistic idea of salvation by election when Romans chpts 9-10 show elect Jews being cast off and once non-elect Gentiles being saved. Now you are backing off that when you post "God had a covenant relationship with teh nation of Israel! that did not mean every Jew born in th eold covenant was automatically saved.'??? So now just some Jews were elected and not all???

-- I demonstrated from the Bible giving examples that "hate" does not refer only to an emotional type of hate in the Bible but does refer to less favor or less love. Paul quotes From Malachi 1 and the individuals Esau and Jacob had been dead fro centuries by this times. So the words 'hate' and 'love' are being directed at the descendants of Jacob and Esau not at the two individuals. In the context, the Edomites are the ones "hated" and they are being called by the name "Esau" (Genesis 36:1; Genesis 36:8). It is not uncommon in the OT for a nation (Edom) to be called after its progenitor (Esau). There is no "hate" to be found in Malachi 1 for the individual Esau.

-- if the choice of Jacob over Esau implies Esau being eternally lost and Jacob saved, then that holds true for their descendants....all Edomites are lost for none were chosen and all Israelites saved for they were all chosen. Yet Calvinistic election contradicts Paul for Paul goes on to point out most of the CHOSEN Israelites were lost, just a remnant saved. So most of Jacob's elect descendants were lost. And the thrust of Romans 9 is Paul arguing and justifying God in casting off elect people. Then we have God choosing to save the once non-elect Gentiles.
Romans chpts 9-10 is very anti of Calvinisms' idea of salvation by election.

-- even though Esau and his descendants, Ishmael, the Gentiles were not of God's chosen under the OT law, even though they were alienated from the chosen commonwealth of Israel and were excluded from that "covenant of promise "(Ephesians 2:12) this did not mean they were all automatically, unconditionally lost. For we know that believing Gentiles at that time, though not of the elect, found justification from God as Rahab, James 2.

-- God made a distinction between children with the same father but different mothers (Isaac and Ismael). God made a distinction between children with the same father and mother (Jacob and Esau) and God made distinctions between Jew and Jew. And God's distinction is nowhere said to be based upon merit, not based upon physical descent, not based upon a random, unconditional choice God made before the world began but based upon faith (Romans 9:32) and it was within the free will control of each and every Jews to have faith or not. Again, faith is the dividing line between God's chosen (those who choose to have faith) and the lost (those who choose not to have faith) and not a random, unconditional choice God made for each man before the world began. Not a hint of Calvinism in Romans 9 - 11.

Well now you are confusing an elect nation with those elect for salvation from the foundation of the world. The word elect when it appears is not always referring to the same election!

Romans 9 Paul used Jacob and Esau to show that it always is based on Gods election.

Romans 9:15-22
King James Version

15 For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

16 So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.

17 For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.

18 Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.

19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?

20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?

21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:

This part of Romans 9 has nothing to do with Jacob and Esau but whom god chooses for glory and whom is fit for destruction (all of us apart from His mercy)

But as for the gentiles being elect:

Ephesians 1:

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:

4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

chosen =eklogomai- which is based on the root ekletos= elect.

As jesus said no man can come unto me unless the Father draw Him! and Jesus also said, you did not choose me, but I chose you! Paul and Jeremiah also recognized this when the Lord said one was chosen before coneption and one was separated in HIsmother womb!

 

[atpollard]

There are also many verses that say variations of "choose ye this day". choose life", etc.

Yet the result (in the OT) was always the same ... "THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME."
I (personally) think that is why "the Father draws" ... nothing else worked.

 

[Oceanprayers]

Like I said Faith is the result of God giving one a new birth.

Didn't you also say God gave that faith?

 

[Oceanprayers]

In the case of Lazarus of Bethany, didn't even the DEAD hear Him?

Did dead Lazarus choose to hear?

 

[Oceanprayers]

We all were dead as a doornail, and so blind and deaf also - then God sends us his Prevenient Grace enabling us to believe - we believe and then are regenerated.

How are we all made dead?

 

[stunnedbygrace]

It's correct to say you chose to see, it is not correct to say whether the blind man over there is choosing not to see or not - how would you know what is going on in the mind of another?

Tsk. I need to immediately go to the school for the blind two towns over from me and give them this good news that if they just decide to see then they can!!

 

[stunnedbygrace]

How are we all made dead?

In a nutshell…Adam died on the day he ate and since all things were made to bring forth of their own kind, the dead cannot give birth to the living.

 

[Oceanprayers]

Tsk. I need to immediately go to the school for the blind two towns over from me and give them this good news that if they just decide to see then they can!!

Do actual blind people two towns over deserve your sarcasm?

 

[Oceanprayers]

In a nutshell…Adam died on the day he ate and since all things were made to bring forth of their own kind, the dead cannot give birth to the living.

Why did Adam die?

 

[stunnedbygrace]

Do actual blind people two towns over deserve your sarcasm?

No. I’m talking about a spiritual matter of great importance to men so they will not say they chose to see.

 

[stunnedbygrace]

Why did Adam die?

Because he disobeyed an explicit command from God.

 

[Oceanprayers]

Because he disobeyed an explicit command from God.

Adam possessed the requisite understanding between obedience and disobedience, good and evil? In order to choose to disobey?

 

[stunnedbygrace]

Adam possessed the requisite understanding between obedience and disobedience, good and evil? In order to choose to disobey?

I…don’t know. All I know is he was told he would die if he did it and he became convinced God was not telling the truth so he did it.

 

[Oceanprayers]

I…don’t know. All I know is he was told he would die if he did it and he became convinced God was not telling the truth so he did it.

How would he know to judge that about God?
What does it mean to have the knowledge of good and evil?

 

[atpollard]

Adam possessed the requisite understanding between obedience and disobedience, good and evil? In order to choose to disobey?

I believe we all possess the requisite "understanding" ... it is only when it comes to actually choosing obedience that we fail rather consistently.

When you ask a two year old with chocolate stains around their mouth if they ate the Oreos you told them were for after supper, and they tell you "No." ... was the issue an inability to understand or an unwillingness to obey?