Dave are you an Arminian? And can you explain the fall and sin for me. Please be detail as possible, thanks.
Hey ladodgersfan
No, I'm not Arminian. To answer your question. This is how I understand it. And I'll elaborate for anyone who cares to try to understand what it is that they are arguing against.
God alone is good. God cannot deny Himself. He cannot create man as He is. He did the next best thing. He created man dependent on Him. Created by design to live through Him. I like to think of us as a lamp. We were created to be plugged into Him. Everything bit of light (good) that comes from us is sourced in Him. When sin entered the picture, God could not be joined to that which is unholy, so He had to separate Himself from us. Separated, or, unplugged, if you will, man is left with no source of good (by righteous standards), and slowly deteriorating. Physical death entered the scene. Adam and Eve would have never experienced physical death had they never sinned. Some of the long term effects of the physical part started slowly. In the beginning man lived for about 900 years. That slowly deteriorated to what we have today. The physical effects can also be seen in the Law added by Moses, to curb the effects of birth defects from from mistakes in the DNA. Death also entered the scene spiritually. Now man is born unplugged from God. Did the spiritual side of the fall have the same long term effects? I can't see anything like that long term, that is, what we call man being as bad as he can be. Maybe smaller contexts like Sodom and Gomorrah. Heck, look at the U.S. today. Our enemies are injecting sin into this country to destroy it. But, back to the topic at hand. I do see that spiritual slide in the life of an individual. It's a gradual slide that progresses to the end of, what we would call, that person being as bad as he could be. All the while understanding that anything that he does, by righteous standards, is not good. It's tainted by sin somewhere, probably in the motives.
So, as you know, God had a plan to save us while at the same time not compromising who He is, since He cannot deny Himself. This is where Jesus enters the Picture. The second Adam. Through Him, as a result of being in Him, we have peace with the Father and are plugged back in and can then begin to become what God already reckons us to be, legally, in Christ. So, when we are
placed into Him, we are given life. With Him (indwelling of the Holy Spirit), we have life. Without Him (No indwelling of the Holy Spirit), we don't have life. The Scripture speaking of faith as being a gift, could just as easily be argued, and I believe it's even a better argument, as speaking from the indwelling forward, after initial faith and conversion. And then as Paul argued in Galatians, this begins our being perfected as a result of that initial faith. That's were life happens, that were we begin to be sanctified through faith, becoming what God already reckons us to be in Christ. What I do know is there is a faith before the indwelling, and the indwelling is necessary, among other things, to be born again.
Now, what of the faith that gets us there? There are two possibilities that I see.
If the faith before conversion is from God, it's the same faith, but it's different in power from the faith received as a result of being born again. It's the same faith, but not yet empowered from the conversion. If you say that isn't possible, I offer the OT believers as proof. They believed, but were not indwelt, and not born again. And their power and understanding were limited as a result. If, you're going to explore this, I would suggest that you start with the difference between the the Holy Spirit being upon a believer, as He was in the OT, and the NT indwelling that is the result of the NT conversion. I believe that the NT pre conversion work of a person being called effectually by the Holy Spirit would parallel the OT believers relationship with the Holy Spirit being upon them.
If it's from the flesh. If we are entertaining the idea that the faith that gets us there is from the flesh, because scripture allows for that possibility until questions get answered, then the best way that I know how to explain it is this. Think of our faith as needing to be born again also. A carnal faith, that desires good, (though not according to righteous standards as to be called good...tainted with sin), and acknowledges that he's sick and needs a doctor, and knowing that it is sin that has making him die, and hearing that Jesus offers the cure. He steps forward in faith, not good, or pure, but faith none the less. Maybe on top of that he fears hell. Isn't it the fear of God that motives a new convert? Why is it that the person who comes to faith must have a five start faith, while the new convert must be motivated to obey God because he fears chastisement? Romans 2, among other places plainly states that what that they know God, and what must be known of Him, but they suppressed the truth. Can a carnal faith (though not good by the standards of the Law), still selfishly want to be be delivered from the power and the penalty of sin.
If we see faith in two stages, yet it's still the same faith. We can also see how Jesus can be the Author and finisher of our faith, the true faith, the one that has the power to do something. When Scripture is speaking about that, it could be argued that it's speaking of conversion forward. That's the "through faith" that saves us, meaning sanctifies us practically, meaning us becoming what God already reckons us to be in Christ legally. Life begins in Christ when we receive the Holy Spirit. That's the result of faith (brings us to Christ), and also results in through faith (finishes the sanctification).
I don't' have time to reread this, so if it's a bit scatter brained, sorry.
Dave
). Just kidding. There are a hundred million ways to misread scripture. Only one truth. Given his misrepresentation of monergism it's not a mystery how he left It's easy to leave that which is not correctly understood.
