What Paul said in Romans 10:17, "So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." was only to tell us how faith comes to the man, which is what I was saying to you. Paul, nor I was not saying that everyone to whom the gospel is preached end up having faith. Among those to whom the gospel is preached, there are those appointed for eternal life and there are those who are not. And no man knows who the appointed are, not even Paul, but only God. And so, among them to whom the gospel is preached, as many as had been appointed to eternal life will believe or will have faith.Coming from hearing Gods word doesn't' mean everyone who hears God word has faith, obvious, so where's the dividing line.
Your reasoning there is not necessarily correct. There are a lot of things the believer could ask of God other than for God to increase their faith, such as understanding. What is reasonable to say is that whatever that we ask of God is something that we don't have or something that we lack. And when God gives what we ask, we would have it. And we can't say that we have something to do with having it, other than that we asked God for it. To say that we have something to do with the process, other than that, is obviously coming from ungodly pride and selfish glorification.You claim God just gives some faith and not others, but if faith is something we have to ask God to help us with, we obviously have something to do with the process.
How faith comes to man is a different matter from being faithful or continuing to be faithful.You can split hairs about what part if God's and what part is ours, but there's no denying it takes both to produce and maintain our faith and we can also lose faith, so one can't claim God is losing it for us!
With regards continuing to be faithful, no man can't claim to continue to be faithful to God, if only on and by his own will and ability. For it had been shown that the kind of Adam fails and all have failed. Even the then sinless and uncorrupted Eve and Adam, failed. Needless to say, without help outside of himself, there is no man who could continue to be faithful to God. And only God can help him on that matter. That is part of God's salvation my friend.
Tong
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