BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc HollidayDoes one have to "take up their cross daily", confess and repent daily, "offer sacrifice" daily in order to be saved? said:

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You have to be CLEAR in what you say. And what is the "sacrifice" that we must offer daily, exactly?

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Ah, I see, so we can be total, degenerate, unrepentant sinners...oh, wait, no, "a real Christian WILL produce fruit and repent." Got it.

So the real question isn't whether fruit is required, it's about free will.

EVERYONE who has ever conquered a sinful passion, addiction or sinful behavior has to use their free will to say yes to grace. You don't wait around and hope God controls you like a puppet. When you get tempted, you reach out to Christ and say "Lord help me". That's synergy. To you, asking Christ for help is works-righteousness and or its God making you ask for help: both ridiculous and don't comport with reality.

This is the degeneracy that monergism creates on full display.

How do you personally handle sin in your life?

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This doesn't answer the question. It only presents a false dilemma. The issue is NOT free will. Whether or not one uses their free will to "cooperate" with grace does not answer the question. Mischaracterizing my position (that asking for Jesus' help during temptation is "works righetousness"), still does not answer the question. How I personally handle sin in my life does nothing to answer the question.

Instead of clarity, we're getting more avoidance, diversion, non sequiturs, and straw men.

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I'm not mischaracterizing your position at all. I'm working with your once saved, always saved logic and that fact that dead faith doesn't save, so it absolutely is about free will.

If you don't have fruit ( taking up your cross, repenting, struggling against sin), you won't be saved. So the question is how does fruit come to fruition?

If you think I'm strawmanning you...then state your denomination and theological positions. You know I'm Eastern Orthodox, but you could be any one of the 40,000 denominations.

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I have repeatedly stated here that I belong to no denomination, that I'm simply a non-denominational, Bible-believing Christian. I HAVE BEEN stating my theological positions here, endlessly. Saying that my view is that it's "works righteousness" when you ask Jesus for help to defeat temptation, is a complete mischaracterization. You have a strong tendency towards mischaracterizing/straw manning like this. You do it quite often.

And this still has nothing to do with free will. That's something you're shoe-horning into the discussion. Again, the question is regarding whether the aforementioned "fruit" (taking up one's cross, confessing, drinking wine, etc) is required for salvation - whether this is by one's free will or not, is immaterial. Whether this "fruit" comes to fruition by one's free will or monergistically isn't what I'm asking. I'm simply asking if it is required according to your belief system. The answer is simply a "yes", "no", or even an "I don't know".

Asking for divine help to defeat sin is what all Christians who are already saved should always do. It becomes "works righteousness", however, when you believe that achieving it, which involves your own will, is how one becomes justified, i.e. righteous before God. You're essentially saying that you play a part in your righteousness, through your own will. And hence, you believe you save yourself in part by your own will. Not only is this completely antithetical to the true gospel, it is completely untenable as a soteriology. Because you WILL FAIL at times. Everyone will. And that means you can NEVER achieve righteousness this way, because perfection is God's standard, and you will always fall short. If salvation is even a tiny bit dependent on OUR own free will righteousness, then no one can be saved. The only solution, then, is to have Jesus' perfect, 100% righteousness given (imputed) to us, freely by grace, which we receive through faith alone and not by our works/merits. This is the gospel. The belief that our salvation is in part dependent on our own free will accomplishment is a rejection of the gospel.

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I don't think you actually believe what you're saying.

You just said asking for divine help is something all Christians should do. But asking is an act of will, it's effort. If exercising your will or any effort at all toward God doesn't compromise grace at the asking stage, on what basis does it compromise grace at the cooperating with the answer stage? Either the will's involvement is compatible with grace, or it isn't.

Synergy isn't 'Christ does 99%, I do 1%'. not. If God unilaterally overrode the will to produce faith and repentance, that's not cooperation, that's coercion. Your framework is coercion.

'Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself' (Mt 16:24)

You said you will fail, therefore you can never achieve righteousness this way, so the whole system collapses. That objection only lands against a system where failure is fatal and un-recoverable. We've been given the gift of repentance for this very reason. 'A righteous man falls seven times and rises again' (Prov 24:16). The point was never sinless performance; its continual return.

The root of every objection you've raised and your whole framework runs on binaries that don't exist in reality: either God does 100% or you do, either performance is perfect or it's worthless, either it's monergism or it's works-righteousness, either the will is free or grace is real.

When a doctor heals a patient and the patient does physical therapy to recover, did the patient contribute to their own healing, taking credit away from the doctor? Or is the patient cooperating with treatment just…what healing looks like? I'm not asking you to agree with Orthodox soteriology. I'm asking whether you think cooperation with a gift is even a coherent category, or whether you think it always collapses into merit. That's the actual disagreement, not whether fruit is required.

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In the "asking stage", you're not compromising God's grace, because you're simply asking for his help without thinking you have to do your part in "earning" his help. The help you receive is a free gift that you receive simply by asking. However, in your view of salvation, this is not the case. You ask for salvation, but believe that receiving it is contingent upon your free will effort. You DON'T receive it simply by asking, you have to do your part in "earning" it. See the huge difference? In the former, grace is not compromised, but in the latter it is.

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No, not unless you believe your efforts entitle you to something.

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"Entitlement" has nothing to do with it. If your belief is that your efforts are required, without which you would NOT receive anything, then it is no longer grace.

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If you're not entitled to it, it's still grace.

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You mean if you believe you're not entitled to it, then it's still grace, because that's what you stated. Which is still incorrect either way, because 1) you don't have to believe something is an entitlement for it to be one, and 2) the part that makes it cease to be grace is not that you have a "right" to something, it's simply that you had to work to bring it about. "Entitlement" doesn't need to be in the equation.

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You cannot work to "bring about" grace. It's the free gift of God. The only work required is to get out of its way.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Just FYI guys, Paul in Romans 4 quotes Genesis 15:6 ("Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness") as his proof text for justification by faith. But Genesis 15 is not Abraham's first act of faith.

By the time we get to Genesis 15:6, Abraham has already: responded to God's call in Ur (Acts 7:2-4), left everything on that word, journeyed to Canaan, and built altars worshiping God (Gen 12:7-8)… that's not a man having his first flicker of faith in Genesis 15.

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In those passages, we are only told that Abraham obeyed what God commanded, not that he believed in a promise. It wasn't until Genesis 15 when we are told that Abraham "believed" God, and thus when he had actual faith.

EVEN IF Abraham had earlier faith that we weren't told about, still, that doesn't change the point of that passage in Genesis, or even Paul's point - that it was Abraham's mere faith that was accounted for righteousness, not his actions.

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Faith isn't an opinion. It's an activity.

You can't seriously think your ticket to heaven is punched just because you think the gospel is true. Your heart has to be in it for real, which means your free will and effort has to be in it.

You can't be a degenerate, unrepentant sinner with no desire to change and you can't just think the gospel is true and that somehow changes the former.

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Faith is neither a mere "opinion" nor an "activity". And no one is saying that merely believing the gospel is factually true is what saves. Why do you persist in your straw men and false dilemmas?

Scripture defines faith for us, and it says faith is an "assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." There is no activity there. It's a disposition in the heart towards Jesus. There is nothing for a person to "do" in order to have faith. Also note that faith means assurance. This means that any belief system which doesn't allow for assurance is a system NOT based on biblical faith. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox belief systems do not allow for assurance, because in their view salvation is contingent upon the successful efforts of the individual as well. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox "gospel" therefore is NOT the biblical gospel.

The biblical definition also says faith is a "hope". It's not just believing something is factually true, there's an investment of one's heart, a placement of one's trust in it. Degenerate people are exactly who the gospel is for - and if they have an invested faith in the gospel, it means they have agreed to the truth of being a sinner in need of saving (which is repentance) and have trusted in the assurance of Jesus' promise that by their faith, they are saved, no matter how degenerate they were. There is literally nothing procedural that they have to accomplish, no "good works" they must do in order to be saved, outside of their having faith. It is freely given to them out of pure grace, because they had faith and nothing more - just like the thief on the cross and the house of Cornelius. This is the simple gospel.

Salvation happens directly between the heart of an individual, and Jesus himself. Don't let man with his institutions and "authority" act as the go-between, the "middle man" that must broker the deal between you and Jesus, and complicate the matter with all of his man-made rules and procedures.

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You quoted Hebrews 11:1 but skipped what happens for the next 39 verses. The author defines faith in v.1, then spends the entire rest of the chapter illustrating it, and every single example is an action: 'By faith Abraham obeyed and went out… by faith Noah, being divinely warned, built an ark… by faith Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter… by faith the walls of Jericho fell down' (Heb 11:8, 7, 24, 30).

Is keeping Christ's commandments optional for a Christian, yes or no? If you say 'no, it's optional,' you're contradicting 1 John 2:4 directly. If you say 'yes, it's required,' then commandment-keeping is required of a Christian…which is obedience, which is something you do, which is exactly the 'activity' you just told me faith has no room for.

He who says, "I know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in hi" (1 Jn 2:4).

Are you aware that you hold an extremely minority view on this? Arminians agree with you on sola fide and salvation by grace alone, but they think the will has to freely receive that grace rather than being unilaterally regenerated first. If you're rejecting even that as too synergistic, then your position isn't just 'anti-Catholic/anti-Orthodox,' it's a position where the human will contributes literally nothing at any point in the entire process…not in coming to faith, not in persevering, not in producing fruit, nothing. That's not mainstream Reformed theology.

Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc HollidayDoes one have to "take up their cross daily", confess and repent daily, "offer sacrifice" daily in order to be saved? said:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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You have to be CLEAR in what you say. And what is the "sacrifice" that we must offer daily, exactly?

---

Ah, I see, so we can be total, degenerate, unrepentant sinners...oh, wait, no, "a real Christian WILL produce fruit and repent." Got it.

So the real question isn't whether fruit is required, it's about free will.

EVERYONE who has ever conquered a sinful passion, addiction or sinful behavior has to use their free will to say yes to grace. You don't wait around and hope God controls you like a puppet. When you get tempted, you reach out to Christ and say "Lord help me". That's synergy. To you, asking Christ for help is works-righteousness and or its God making you ask for help: both ridiculous and don't comport with reality.

This is the degeneracy that monergism creates on full display.

How do you personally handle sin in your life?

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This doesn't answer the question. It only presents a false dilemma. The issue is NOT free will. Whether or not one uses their free will to "cooperate" with grace does not answer the question. Mischaracterizing my position (that asking for Jesus' help during temptation is "works righetousness"), still does not answer the question. How I personally handle sin in my life does nothing to answer the question.

Instead of clarity, we're getting more avoidance, diversion, non sequiturs, and straw men.

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I'm not mischaracterizing your position at all. I'm working with your once saved, always saved logic and that fact that dead faith doesn't save, so it absolutely is about free will.

If you don't have fruit ( taking up your cross, repenting, struggling against sin), you won't be saved. So the question is how does fruit come to fruition?

If you think I'm strawmanning you...then state your denomination and theological positions. You know I'm Eastern Orthodox, but you could be any one of the 40,000 denominations.

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I have repeatedly stated here that I belong to no denomination, that I'm simply a non-denominational, Bible-believing Christian. I HAVE BEEN stating my theological positions here, endlessly. Saying that my view is that it's "works righteousness" when you ask Jesus for help to defeat temptation, is a complete mischaracterization. You have a strong tendency towards mischaracterizing/straw manning like this. You do it quite often.

And this still has nothing to do with free will. That's something you're shoe-horning into the discussion. Again, the question is regarding whether the aforementioned "fruit" (taking up one's cross, confessing, drinking wine, etc) is required for salvation - whether this is by one's free will or not, is immaterial. Whether this "fruit" comes to fruition by one's free will or monergistically isn't what I'm asking. I'm simply asking if it is required according to your belief system. The answer is simply a "yes", "no", or even an "I don't know".

Asking for divine help to defeat sin is what all Christians who are already saved should always do. It becomes "works righteousness", however, when you believe that achieving it, which involves your own will, is how one becomes justified, i.e. righteous before God. You're essentially saying that you play a part in your righteousness, through your own will. And hence, you believe you save yourself in part by your own will. Not only is this completely antithetical to the true gospel, it is completely untenable as a soteriology. Because you WILL FAIL at times. Everyone will. And that means you can NEVER achieve righteousness this way, because perfection is God's standard, and you will always fall short. If salvation is even a tiny bit dependent on OUR own free will righteousness, then no one can be saved. The only solution, then, is to have Jesus' perfect, 100% righteousness given (imputed) to us, freely by grace, which we receive through faith alone and not by our works/merits. This is the gospel. The belief that our salvation is in part dependent on our own free will accomplishment is a rejection of the gospel.

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I don't think you actually believe what you're saying.

You just said asking for divine help is something all Christians should do. But asking is an act of will, it's effort. If exercising your will or any effort at all toward God doesn't compromise grace at the asking stage, on what basis does it compromise grace at the cooperating with the answer stage? Either the will's involvement is compatible with grace, or it isn't.

Synergy isn't 'Christ does 99%, I do 1%'. not. If God unilaterally overrode the will to produce faith and repentance, that's not cooperation, that's coercion. Your framework is coercion.

'Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself' (Mt 16:24)

You said you will fail, therefore you can never achieve righteousness this way, so the whole system collapses. That objection only lands against a system where failure is fatal and un-recoverable. We've been given the gift of repentance for this very reason. 'A righteous man falls seven times and rises again' (Prov 24:16). The point was never sinless performance; its continual return.

The root of every objection you've raised and your whole framework runs on binaries that don't exist in reality: either God does 100% or you do, either performance is perfect or it's worthless, either it's monergism or it's works-righteousness, either the will is free or grace is real.

When a doctor heals a patient and the patient does physical therapy to recover, did the patient contribute to their own healing, taking credit away from the doctor? Or is the patient cooperating with treatment just…what healing looks like? I'm not asking you to agree with Orthodox soteriology. I'm asking whether you think cooperation with a gift is even a coherent category, or whether you think it always collapses into merit. That's the actual disagreement, not whether fruit is required.

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In the "asking stage", you're not compromising God's grace, because you're simply asking for his help without thinking you have to do your part in "earning" his help. The help you receive is a free gift that you receive simply by asking. However, in your view of salvation, this is not the case. You ask for salvation, but believe that receiving it is contingent upon your free will effort. You DON'T receive it simply by asking, you have to do your part in "earning" it. See the huge difference? In the former, grace is not compromised, but in the latter it is.

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No, not unless you believe your efforts entitle you to something.

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"Entitlement" has nothing to do with it. If your belief is that your efforts are required, without which you would NOT receive anything, then it is no longer grace.

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If you're not entitled to it, it's still grace.

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You mean if you believe you're not entitled to it, then it's still grace, because that's what you stated. Which is still incorrect either way, because 1) you don't have to believe something is an entitlement for it to be one, and 2) the part that makes it cease to be grace is not that you have a "right" to something, it's simply that you had to work to bring it about. "Entitlement" doesn't need to be in the equation.

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You cannot work to "bring about" grace. It's the free gift of God. The only work required is to get out of its way.

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I didn't say that you're working to bring about grace, I said you're working to bring about something, and you're trying to call that receiving it by "grace". And it isn't.

And I would not call sacramentalism and obedience to the Law, which RC requires for salvation, "getting out the way".

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc HollidayDoes one have to "take up their cross daily", confess and repent daily, "offer sacrifice" daily in order to be saved? said:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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You have to be CLEAR in what you say. And what is the "sacrifice" that we must offer daily, exactly?

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Ah, I see, so we can be total, degenerate, unrepentant sinners...oh, wait, no, "a real Christian WILL produce fruit and repent." Got it.

So the real question isn't whether fruit is required, it's about free will.

EVERYONE who has ever conquered a sinful passion, addiction or sinful behavior has to use their free will to say yes to grace. You don't wait around and hope God controls you like a puppet. When you get tempted, you reach out to Christ and say "Lord help me". That's synergy. To you, asking Christ for help is works-righteousness and or its God making you ask for help: both ridiculous and don't comport with reality.

This is the degeneracy that monergism creates on full display.

How do you personally handle sin in your life?

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This doesn't answer the question. It only presents a false dilemma. The issue is NOT free will. Whether or not one uses their free will to "cooperate" with grace does not answer the question. Mischaracterizing my position (that asking for Jesus' help during temptation is "works righetousness"), still does not answer the question. How I personally handle sin in my life does nothing to answer the question.

Instead of clarity, we're getting more avoidance, diversion, non sequiturs, and straw men.

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I'm not mischaracterizing your position at all. I'm working with your once saved, always saved logic and that fact that dead faith doesn't save, so it absolutely is about free will.

If you don't have fruit ( taking up your cross, repenting, struggling against sin), you won't be saved. So the question is how does fruit come to fruition?

If you think I'm strawmanning you...then state your denomination and theological positions. You know I'm Eastern Orthodox, but you could be any one of the 40,000 denominations.

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I have repeatedly stated here that I belong to no denomination, that I'm simply a non-denominational, Bible-believing Christian. I HAVE BEEN stating my theological positions here, endlessly. Saying that my view is that it's "works righteousness" when you ask Jesus for help to defeat temptation, is a complete mischaracterization. You have a strong tendency towards mischaracterizing/straw manning like this. You do it quite often.

And this still has nothing to do with free will. That's something you're shoe-horning into the discussion. Again, the question is regarding whether the aforementioned "fruit" (taking up one's cross, confessing, drinking wine, etc) is required for salvation - whether this is by one's free will or not, is immaterial. Whether this "fruit" comes to fruition by one's free will or monergistically isn't what I'm asking. I'm simply asking if it is required according to your belief system. The answer is simply a "yes", "no", or even an "I don't know".

Asking for divine help to defeat sin is what all Christians who are already saved should always do. It becomes "works righteousness", however, when you believe that achieving it, which involves your own will, is how one becomes justified, i.e. righteous before God. You're essentially saying that you play a part in your righteousness, through your own will. And hence, you believe you save yourself in part by your own will. Not only is this completely antithetical to the true gospel, it is completely untenable as a soteriology. Because you WILL FAIL at times. Everyone will. And that means you can NEVER achieve righteousness this way, because perfection is God's standard, and you will always fall short. If salvation is even a tiny bit dependent on OUR own free will righteousness, then no one can be saved. The only solution, then, is to have Jesus' perfect, 100% righteousness given (imputed) to us, freely by grace, which we receive through faith alone and not by our works/merits. This is the gospel. The belief that our salvation is in part dependent on our own free will accomplishment is a rejection of the gospel.

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I don't think you actually believe what you're saying.

You just said asking for divine help is something all Christians should do. But asking is an act of will, it's effort. If exercising your will or any effort at all toward God doesn't compromise grace at the asking stage, on what basis does it compromise grace at the cooperating with the answer stage? Either the will's involvement is compatible with grace, or it isn't.

Synergy isn't 'Christ does 99%, I do 1%'. not. If God unilaterally overrode the will to produce faith and repentance, that's not cooperation, that's coercion. Your framework is coercion.

'Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself' (Mt 16:24)

You said you will fail, therefore you can never achieve righteousness this way, so the whole system collapses. That objection only lands against a system where failure is fatal and un-recoverable. We've been given the gift of repentance for this very reason. 'A righteous man falls seven times and rises again' (Prov 24:16). The point was never sinless performance; its continual return.

The root of every objection you've raised and your whole framework runs on binaries that don't exist in reality: either God does 100% or you do, either performance is perfect or it's worthless, either it's monergism or it's works-righteousness, either the will is free or grace is real.

When a doctor heals a patient and the patient does physical therapy to recover, did the patient contribute to their own healing, taking credit away from the doctor? Or is the patient cooperating with treatment just…what healing looks like? I'm not asking you to agree with Orthodox soteriology. I'm asking whether you think cooperation with a gift is even a coherent category, or whether you think it always collapses into merit. That's the actual disagreement, not whether fruit is required.

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In the "asking stage", you're not compromising God's grace, because you're simply asking for his help without thinking you have to do your part in "earning" his help. The help you receive is a free gift that you receive simply by asking. However, in your view of salvation, this is not the case. You ask for salvation, but believe that receiving it is contingent upon your free will effort. You DON'T receive it simply by asking, you have to do your part in "earning" it. See the huge difference? In the former, grace is not compromised, but in the latter it is.

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No, not unless you believe your efforts entitle you to something.

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"Entitlement" has nothing to do with it. If your belief is that your efforts are required, without which you would NOT receive anything, then it is no longer grace.

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If you're not entitled to it, it's still grace.

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You mean if you believe you're not entitled to it, then it's still grace, because that's what you stated. Which is still incorrect either way, because 1) you don't have to believe something is an entitlement for it to be one, and 2) the part that makes it cease to be grace is not that you have a "right" to something, it's simply that you had to work to bring it about. "Entitlement" doesn't need to be in the equation.

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You cannot work to "bring about" grace. It's the free gift of God. The only work required is to get out of its way.

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I didn't say that you're working to bring about grace, I said you're working to bring about something, and you're trying to call that receiving it by "grace". And it isn't.

And I would not call sacramentalism and obedience to the Law, which RC requires for salvation, "getting out the way".

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The question is whether we need to follow. For a Catholic, the sacraments are just another part of that.

The fatal flaw of sola scriptura

Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Just FYI guys, Paul in Romans 4 quotes Genesis 15:6 ("Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness") as his proof text for justification by faith. But Genesis 15 is not Abraham's first act of faith.

By the time we get to Genesis 15:6, Abraham has already: responded to God's call in Ur (Acts 7:2-4), left everything on that word, journeyed to Canaan, and built altars worshiping God (Gen 12:7-8)… that's not a man having his first flicker of faith in Genesis 15.

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In those passages, we are only told that Abraham obeyed what God commanded, not that he believed in a promise. It wasn't until Genesis 15 when we are told that Abraham "believed" God, and thus when he had actual faith.

EVEN IF Abraham had earlier faith that we weren't told about, still, that doesn't change the point of that passage in Genesis, or even Paul's point - that it was Abraham's mere faith that was accounted for righteousness, not his actions.

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Faith isn't an opinion. It's an activity.

You can't seriously think your ticket to heaven is punched just because you think the gospel is true. Your heart has to be in it for real, which means your free will and effort has to be in it.

You can't be a degenerate, unrepentant sinner with no desire to change and you can't just think the gospel is true and that somehow changes the former.

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Faith is neither a mere "opinion" nor an "activity". And no one is saying that merely believing the gospel is factually true is what saves. Why do you persist in your straw men and false dilemmas?

Scripture defines faith for us, and it says faith is an "assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." There is no activity there. It's a disposition in the heart towards Jesus. There is nothing for a person to "do" in order to have faith. Also note that faith means assurance. This means that any belief system which doesn't allow for assurance is a system NOT based on biblical faith. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox belief systems do not allow for assurance, because in their view salvation is contingent upon the successful efforts of the individual as well. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox "gospel" therefore is NOT the biblical gospel.

The biblical definition also says faith is a "hope". It's not just believing something is factually true, there's an investment of one's heart, a placement of one's trust in it. Degenerate people are exactly who the gospel is for - and if they have an invested faith in the gospel, it means they have agreed to the truth of being a sinner in need of saving (which is repentance) and have trusted in the assurance of Jesus' promise that by their faith, they are saved, no matter how degenerate they were. There is literally nothing procedural that they have to accomplish, no "good works" they must do in order to be saved, outside of their having faith. It is freely given to them out of pure grace, because they had faith and nothing more - just like the thief on the cross and the house of Cornelius. This is the simple gospel.

Salvation happens directly between the heart of an individual, and Jesus himself. Don't let man with his institutions and "authority" act as the go-between, the "middle man" that must broker the deal between you and Jesus, and complicate the matter with all of his man-made rules and procedures.

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You quoted Hebrews 11:1 but skipped what happens for the next 39 verses. The author defines faith in v.1, then spends the entire rest of the chapter illustrating it, and every single example is an action: 'By faith Abraham obeyed and went out… by faith Noah, being divinely warned, built an ark… by faith Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter… by faith the walls of Jericho fell down' (Heb 11:8, 7, 24, 30).

Is keeping Christ's commandments optional for a Christian, yes or no? If you say 'no, it's optional,' you're contradicting 1 John 2:4 directly. If you say 'yes, it's required,' then commandment-keeping is required of a Christian…which is obedience, which is something you do, which is exactly the 'activity' you just told me faith has no room for.

He who says, "I know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in hi" (1 Jn 2:4).

Are you aware that you hold an extremely minority view on this? Arminians agree with you on sola fide and salvation by grace alone, but they think the will has to freely receive that grace rather than being unilaterally regenerated first. If you're rejecting even that as too synergistic, then your position isn't just 'anti-Catholic/anti-Orthodox,' it's a position where the human will contributes literally nothing at any point in the entire process…not in coming to faith, not in persevering, not in producing fruit, nothing. That's not mainstream Reformed theology.

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In the Hebrews verses you cite, faith is not being defined. It is only giving examples of faith being put to action. It's not saying that faith is defined by the action.

Are you asking if keeping Christ's commandments are optional or required... with regard to salvation? If it's required, then to what degree? What is the cutoff point between going to heaven and going to Hell? How can anyone have assurance this way?

Regarding 1 John 2:4 - people with true faith will keep his commandments, though obviously not perfectly. But the keeping of the commandments is not what saves them, it is the evidence of a true faith that saves them. You simply refuse to understand this.

Are you able to objectively and read/process what I'm saying to you, or are you on autopilot, constantly projecting your Calvinist angst onto me so you can punch at your straw man? Do you even understand that your emphasis on "free will" vs monergism isn't even relevant to the issue I'm addressing? It has no bearing on whether we're saved by our faith alone vs our faith PLUS our cooperative effort. You can insert monergism OR free will into that question, whatever you want, it doesn't change anything. You're having trouble focusing on the heart of the issue, you just keep wanting to shoe-horn in your gripe about Calvinism/monergism. And you have absolutely no idea what you're taking about (or what I'm talking about), if you believe that my view is an "extremely minority" view. And EVEN IF it was, it doesn't make it wrong. The belief that Jesus was the Messiah was an "extremely minority" view in Israel 2000 years ago. You're making an appeal to the majority fallacy.

Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc HollidayDoes one have to "take up their cross daily", confess and repent daily, "offer sacrifice" daily in order to be saved? said:

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You have to be CLEAR in what you say. And what is the "sacrifice" that we must offer daily, exactly?

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Ah, I see, so we can be total, degenerate, unrepentant sinners...oh, wait, no, "a real Christian WILL produce fruit and repent." Got it.

So the real question isn't whether fruit is required, it's about free will.

EVERYONE who has ever conquered a sinful passion, addiction or sinful behavior has to use their free will to say yes to grace. You don't wait around and hope God controls you like a puppet. When you get tempted, you reach out to Christ and say "Lord help me". That's synergy. To you, asking Christ for help is works-righteousness and or its God making you ask for help: both ridiculous and don't comport with reality.

This is the degeneracy that monergism creates on full display.

How do you personally handle sin in your life?

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This doesn't answer the question. It only presents a false dilemma. The issue is NOT free will. Whether or not one uses their free will to "cooperate" with grace does not answer the question. Mischaracterizing my position (that asking for Jesus' help during temptation is "works righetousness"), still does not answer the question. How I personally handle sin in my life does nothing to answer the question.

Instead of clarity, we're getting more avoidance, diversion, non sequiturs, and straw men.

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I'm not mischaracterizing your position at all. I'm working with your once saved, always saved logic and that fact that dead faith doesn't save, so it absolutely is about free will.

If you don't have fruit ( taking up your cross, repenting, struggling against sin), you won't be saved. So the question is how does fruit come to fruition?

If you think I'm strawmanning you...then state your denomination and theological positions. You know I'm Eastern Orthodox, but you could be any one of the 40,000 denominations.

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I have repeatedly stated here that I belong to no denomination, that I'm simply a non-denominational, Bible-believing Christian. I HAVE BEEN stating my theological positions here, endlessly. Saying that my view is that it's "works righteousness" when you ask Jesus for help to defeat temptation, is a complete mischaracterization. You have a strong tendency towards mischaracterizing/straw manning like this. You do it quite often.

And this still has nothing to do with free will. That's something you're shoe-horning into the discussion. Again, the question is regarding whether the aforementioned "fruit" (taking up one's cross, confessing, drinking wine, etc) is required for salvation - whether this is by one's free will or not, is immaterial. Whether this "fruit" comes to fruition by one's free will or monergistically isn't what I'm asking. I'm simply asking if it is required according to your belief system. The answer is simply a "yes", "no", or even an "I don't know".

Asking for divine help to defeat sin is what all Christians who are already saved should always do. It becomes "works righteousness", however, when you believe that achieving it, which involves your own will, is how one becomes justified, i.e. righteous before God. You're essentially saying that you play a part in your righteousness, through your own will. And hence, you believe you save yourself in part by your own will. Not only is this completely antithetical to the true gospel, it is completely untenable as a soteriology. Because you WILL FAIL at times. Everyone will. And that means you can NEVER achieve righteousness this way, because perfection is God's standard, and you will always fall short. If salvation is even a tiny bit dependent on OUR own free will righteousness, then no one can be saved. The only solution, then, is to have Jesus' perfect, 100% righteousness given (imputed) to us, freely by grace, which we receive through faith alone and not by our works/merits. This is the gospel. The belief that our salvation is in part dependent on our own free will accomplishment is a rejection of the gospel.

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I don't think you actually believe what you're saying.

You just said asking for divine help is something all Christians should do. But asking is an act of will, it's effort. If exercising your will or any effort at all toward God doesn't compromise grace at the asking stage, on what basis does it compromise grace at the cooperating with the answer stage? Either the will's involvement is compatible with grace, or it isn't.

Synergy isn't 'Christ does 99%, I do 1%'. not. If God unilaterally overrode the will to produce faith and repentance, that's not cooperation, that's coercion. Your framework is coercion.

'Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself' (Mt 16:24)

You said you will fail, therefore you can never achieve righteousness this way, so the whole system collapses. That objection only lands against a system where failure is fatal and un-recoverable. We've been given the gift of repentance for this very reason. 'A righteous man falls seven times and rises again' (Prov 24:16). The point was never sinless performance; its continual return.

The root of every objection you've raised and your whole framework runs on binaries that don't exist in reality: either God does 100% or you do, either performance is perfect or it's worthless, either it's monergism or it's works-righteousness, either the will is free or grace is real.

When a doctor heals a patient and the patient does physical therapy to recover, did the patient contribute to their own healing, taking credit away from the doctor? Or is the patient cooperating with treatment just…what healing looks like? I'm not asking you to agree with Orthodox soteriology. I'm asking whether you think cooperation with a gift is even a coherent category, or whether you think it always collapses into merit. That's the actual disagreement, not whether fruit is required.

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In the "asking stage", you're not compromising God's grace, because you're simply asking for his help without thinking you have to do your part in "earning" his help. The help you receive is a free gift that you receive simply by asking. However, in your view of salvation, this is not the case. You ask for salvation, but believe that receiving it is contingent upon your free will effort. You DON'T receive it simply by asking, you have to do your part in "earning" it. See the huge difference? In the former, grace is not compromised, but in the latter it is.

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No, not unless you believe your efforts entitle you to something.

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"Entitlement" has nothing to do with it. If your belief is that your efforts are required, without which you would NOT receive anything, then it is no longer grace.

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If you're not entitled to it, it's still grace.

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You mean if you believe you're not entitled to it, then it's still grace, because that's what you stated. Which is still incorrect either way, because 1) you don't have to believe something is an entitlement for it to be one, and 2) the part that makes it cease to be grace is not that you have a "right" to something, it's simply that you had to work to bring it about. "Entitlement" doesn't need to be in the equation.

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You cannot work to "bring about" grace. It's the free gift of God. The only work required is to get out of its way.

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I didn't say that you're working to bring about grace, I said you're working to bring about something, and you're trying to call that receiving it by "grace". And it isn't.

And I would not call sacramentalism and obedience to the Law, which RC requires for salvation, "getting out the way".

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The question is whether we need to follow. For a Catholic, the sacraments are just another part of that.

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The question is whether you need to follow..... for salvation. Sacramentalism and Law keeping being necessary for salvation is NOT salvation by grace through faith. It is NOT "getting out of the way". On the contrary, it is exactly the kind of "middle man" institutionalism I described earlier.

"Nor can it be denied that the souls of the dead are benefited by the piety of their living friends, when the sacrifice of the Mediator is offered for the dead, or alms are given in the church. But these means benefit only those who, when they were living, have merited that such services could be of help to them. For there is a mode of life that is neither so good as not to need such helps after death nor so bad as not to gain benefit from them after death. ... When, then, sacrifices... are offered for the baptized dead, they are thank offerings for the very good, propitiations for the not-so-very-bad [non valde malis], and, as for the very bad-even if they are of no help to the dead-they are at least a sort of consolation to the living."

Augustine

So much is lost by choosing to be protestant, but we do what we can to teach and help those who will listen.

Luther and Calvin did a huge eternal disservice to so many. Prayers.

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Doc Holliday said:

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Just FYI guys, Paul in Romans 4 quotes Genesis 15:6 ("Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness") as his proof text for justification by faith. But Genesis 15 is not Abraham's first act of faith.

By the time we get to Genesis 15:6, Abraham has already: responded to God's call in Ur (Acts 7:2-4), left everything on that word, journeyed to Canaan, and built altars worshiping God (Gen 12:7-8)… that's not a man having his first flicker of faith in Genesis 15.

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In those passages, we are only told that Abraham obeyed what God commanded, not that he believed in a promise. It wasn't until Genesis 15 when we are told that Abraham "believed" God, and thus when he had actual faith.

EVEN IF Abraham had earlier faith that we weren't told about, still, that doesn't change the point of that passage in Genesis, or even Paul's point - that it was Abraham's mere faith that was accounted for righteousness, not his actions.

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Faith isn't an opinion. It's an activity.

You can't seriously think your ticket to heaven is punched just because you think the gospel is true. Your heart has to be in it for real, which means your free will and effort has to be in it.

You can't be a degenerate, unrepentant sinner with no desire to change and you can't just think the gospel is true and that somehow changes the former.

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Faith is neither a mere "opinion" nor an "activity". And no one is saying that merely believing the gospel is factually true is what saves. Why do you persist in your straw men and false dilemmas?

Scripture defines faith for us, and it says faith is an "assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." There is no activity there. It's a disposition in the heart towards Jesus. There is nothing for a person to "do" in order to have faith. Also note that faith means assurance. This means that any belief system which doesn't allow for assurance is a system NOT based on biblical faith. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox belief systems do not allow for assurance, because in their view salvation is contingent upon the successful efforts of the individual as well. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox "gospel" therefore is NOT the biblical gospel.

The biblical definition also says faith is a "hope". It's not just believing something is factually true, there's an investment of one's heart, a placement of one's trust in it. Degenerate people are exactly who the gospel is for - and if they have an invested faith in the gospel, it means they have agreed to the truth of being a sinner in need of saving (which is repentance) and have trusted in the assurance of Jesus' promise that by their faith, they are saved, no matter how degenerate they were. There is literally nothing procedural that they have to accomplish, no "good works" they must do in order to be saved, outside of their having faith. It is freely given to them out of pure grace, because they had faith and nothing more - just like the thief on the cross and the house of Cornelius. This is the simple gospel.

Salvation happens directly between the heart of an individual, and Jesus himself. Don't let man with his institutions and "authority" act as the go-between, the "middle man" that must broker the deal between you and Jesus, and complicate the matter with all of his man-made rules and procedures.

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You quoted Hebrews 11:1 but skipped what happens for the next 39 verses. The author defines faith in v.1, then spends the entire rest of the chapter illustrating it, and every single example is an action: 'By faith Abraham obeyed and went out… by faith Noah, being divinely warned, built an ark… by faith Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter… by faith the walls of Jericho fell down' (Heb 11:8, 7, 24, 30).

Is keeping Christ's commandments optional for a Christian, yes or no? If you say 'no, it's optional,' you're contradicting 1 John 2:4 directly. If you say 'yes, it's required,' then commandment-keeping is required of a Christian…which is obedience, which is something you do, which is exactly the 'activity' you just told me faith has no room for.

He who says, "I know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in hi" (1 Jn 2:4).

Are you aware that you hold an extremely minority view on this? Arminians agree with you on sola fide and salvation by grace alone, but they think the will has to freely receive that grace rather than being unilaterally regenerated first. If you're rejecting even that as too synergistic, then your position isn't just 'anti-Catholic/anti-Orthodox,' it's a position where the human will contributes literally nothing at any point in the entire process…not in coming to faith, not in persevering, not in producing fruit, nothing. That's not mainstream Reformed theology.

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In the Hebrews verses you cite, faith is not being defined. It is only giving examples of faith being put to action. It's not saying that faith is defined by the action.

Are you asking if keeping Christ's commandments are optional or required... with regard to salvation? If it's required, then to what degree? What is the cutoff point between going to heaven and going to Hell? How can anyone have assurance this way?

Regarding 1 John 2:4 - people with true faith will keep his commandments, though obviously not perfectly. But the keeping of the commandments is not what saves them, it is the evidence of a true faith that saves them. You simply refuse to understand this.

Are you able to objectively and read/process what I'm saying to you, or are you on autopilot, constantly projecting your Calvinist angst onto me so you can punch at your straw man? Do you even understand that your emphasis on "free will" vs monergism isn't even relevant to the issue I'm addressing? It has no bearing on whether we're saved by our faith alone vs our faith PLUS our cooperative effort. You can insert monergism OR free will into that question, whatever you want, it doesn't change anything. You're having trouble focusing on the heart of the issue, you just keep wanting to shoe-horn in your gripe about Calvinism/monergism. And you have absolutely no idea what you're taking about (or what I'm talking about), if you believe that my view is an "extremely minority" view. And EVEN IF it was, it doesn't make it wrong. The belief that Jesus was the Messiah was an "extremely minority" view in Israel 2000 years ago. You're making an appeal to the majority fallacy.

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I understand the cause vs. evidence distinction you're drawing, but there's a huge problem with it, because in practice it doesn't actually change anything. Without the fruit, you have zero basis to call your faith "real" instead of fake. So call it "cause" or call it "evidence," it's doing the exact same job either way: it's the thing that determines whether your faith counts as saving faith or not. Relabeling it "evidence" doesn't make it any less necessary. This is why I keep bringing up free will, because works are necessary no matter how they come to fruition. We need to establish how they manifest since dead faith (no fruit/works) doesn't save.

Your main gripe is assurance of salvation. You want your ticket punched now, fully settled, no further input needed. nobody wants to sit with the possibility that they could still fall away. That fear is a good thing and isn't solved by declaring the issue closed, it's solved by trusting the One who's holding you as you go. That's why we work out our salvation with fear and trembling. There's no tension between ongoing faithfulness and real assurance. 1 John 5:13 doesn't say 'know you were saved, past tense, done.' It's 'that you may know you have eternal life' present tense, to people John is in the same breath telling to keep abiding, keep walking in the light, keep testing themselves. He's not worried that ongoing faithfulness undercuts assurance. You are.

"I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call" (Phil 3:14), "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith" (2 Tim 4:7)

Here's the thing about the 'what's the cutoff, how much fruit is enough' question…that's up to God to judge. That's God's call, not ours. Nowhere does scripture hand us a formula for calculating the exact threshold, it just tells us to abide, to press on, to keep turning back when we fail, and trust that He's the one who weighs the heart. You're in the same boat as me, you just don't realize it. You can't tell me what percentage of imperfect fruit is consistent with true faith vs what amount proves it was fake all along.