I do not know how many elephants fit inside the glove compartment of a VW Bug, but I believe the number is seventeen
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If what Calvin taught reconciles with what the Holy Spirit teaches the two are not mutually exclusive conditions. They would be identical.
What makes you think choice is relevant prior to being changed?
I have been reading you assert your belief in what the Holy Spirit reveals and, relying thusly on the Spirit an apprehension embracing Calvinism, partly because Calvinism is not yet adequately understood.
Perhaps that is why the Spirit brought you here! Think about this last post I quoted. In one sentence the inability to the sinfully dead and enslaved sinner to choose God is acknowledged..... but the last sentence then asserts the relevance and salience of choice. Think that through. If a person cannot choose God in the sinful state, then what makes you think volition is relevant? It was not the Holy Spirit that told you this contradiction. That was learned from some other source. So be cautious. Be careful. Be discerning, BUT
be discerning with your own beliefs and not just what we post.
Some clarification is in order because TULIP uses language in an unusual way.
The T stands for Total Depravity but that does not mean sinners are totally depraved. It means sin has a totally depraving effect on people, particularly and specifically in the arena of salvific good. Unregenerate sinners can help an old lady across the street, give to charity, and generally be kind to others but none of that is salvifically meritorious. What this means is that salvation must be by grace. It can't be about the faculties of the sinner because s/he has not faculty by which s/he might save him/herself or come to God unaided for salvation.
The U in Unconditional Election simply means God did not base His decision who He would save on any quality, character trait, or action of the sinner. God is not dependent on sinners. The Righteous One is not dependent on the unrighteous, the Creator is not dependent on the creature when He saves the creature from the creature's sin. That's all that means.
The L simply means only those saved receive atonement. Sometimes there is a set of views called sufficiency/efficiency accompanying UC. The work of Christ is sufficient enough to save everyone but clearly not everyone gets saved. Why, if the power of the cross, the almighty power of God, is sufficient, why then is not everyone saved? The answer is because the atonement is realized or manifested only in the life of the saved person. I could write you a check for some large sum, but you do not get the money until you go to the bank and cash the check. UC was asserted because there were bunches of Christians running around saying everyone was atoned for and, therefore, everyone is saved when simply everyday observation and basic logic tells us that simply is not the case. The effects of the atoning work of Jesus occur only in those God saves. That's all that means.
The I simply means God's grace accomplishes the task God set it to accomplish. It does not mean God is coercive, that God forces salvation on a sinner. The "I" is confusing because it sounds like the "I" is saying grace cannot be resisted. While it is true no creature can resist the almighty Creator one fraction of a nanosecond longer than the Creator permits..... that's not what IG are about. God is a fruit-bearing God. He never fails. He always does what He says He is going to do. IG simply means God saves, and when He sets out to save someone that person will be saved. That's all that means.
The P stems directly from IG. Because God is always faithful, always perseveres, always wins, and always what He accomplishes what He sets out to do, the sinner who has been saved can rest assured that s/he is, in fact, saved and will, in fact, be saved and will remain saved because his/her salvation is not up to the sinner. Salvation is the work of God and God is almighty. Once God has wrested a person from sin and death nothing is powerful enough to wrest you or I from His grip of salvation. We will persevere because it is God who is at work in you, both to desire and to work for His good pleasure.
If you re-read those explanations, you will find all five points are God-centric, not human-centric. Keep this in mind when reading criticisms of TULIP because the biggest problem is that most people - even Cals - do not understand TULIP correctly. They define the terms beginning with the sinner, not God. God saves by grace, His atonement is manifested in the lives of those He saves, He doesn't rely on the sinner when He saves a person from their sin, He always accomplishes His objectives when He saves a person and He insures the sinner's eternal destiny when He saves the sinner who cannot, otherwise, save himself.
Now let me address this problem of choice. Two questions for you:
- Can you find the two-word phrase "free will" anywhere in the Bible? The word "freewill" occurs in the Bible, but is the two-word phrase "free will" in there anywhere?
- If you found a person washed up on the shore who was on the throes of death, unconscious and barely breathing, would you ask for their permission before you began performing rescue breathing? If you vigorously shook them and they remained unresponsive, would you resuscitate them without getting their consent or would you walk away and let them die? Let's say you were able to resuscitate them, and they revived. Would you then say you forced yourself upon them? Or were you giving them what they needed and what they would have requested had they had the ability to understand their plight, know what they needed, and ask for it?
After answering those questions can you now see why the debate over volition/will/choice has always been a red herring?
