New to the forum

[FiremanWes77]

Hi everyone,

I'm a reformed Christian from TX. I believe in the absolute sovereignty of God and in the fullness of deity and sovereignty of His one and only son Jesus, the Christ. I believe in mans total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace and the perseverance of His saints. I'm looking forward to some interesting conversations and debates that I'm sure are to come from just a few of the threads I have read

[Divine Insight]

Welcome to the forums. I'm sure you'll find a lot of people willing to debate your topics of interest.

[OnceConvinced]

You seem to have a very negative view of human beings. I hope you do not look down your noses at us people here.

Welcome though and I hope to see you in the forums. Especially when it comes to debating just how depraved we all are.

[Bust Nak]

[Replying to post 1 by FiremanWes77]

Cool, a full blown Calvinist. You say reformed Christian, what was your previous stance?

[FiremanWes77]

[Replying to Bust Nak]

I was like most, raised Arminian by default. If you had mentioned Arminian to me I would have thought it was somebody from Armania . It wasn't until roughly 3 years ago that I was confronted with election. I was bound and determined to prove that it was not what the bible meant. The more I deeply studied, the more I found that I just couldn't prove it wrong, and the more I read the more I found that it's so deeply woven into all scripture that there was no way I could ever go back to believing in mans free will. Once I understood election, everything else fell right into place.

[FiremanWes77]

[Replying to post 3 by OnceConvinced]

It's not so much a negative view of humans nor do I look down my nose at anybody. I just see from scripture mans standing before God and mans total inability "depravity" to understand the things of God or his ability to do anything pleasing towards God without God intervening in mans life first. "No one can come to Me unless the Father draws him" John 6:44. Isaiah states all our righteousness is "filthy rags". When God looks at Christs redeemed, His sons imputed righteousness on our behalf, is what he sees.

[Kenisaw]

Welcome to the site. I think you will find some interesting conversations here.

[Divine Insight]

It's not so much a negative view of humans.

I would argue this with you.

nor do I look down my nose at anybody.

When we're talking about a paradigm of the "elect" and "non-elect" you could hardly look down your nose at anyone unless you were convinced that you were among the elect and someone else was among the non-elect.

I just see from scripture mans standing before God and mans total inability "depravity" to understand the things of God or his ability to do anything pleasing towards God without God intervening in mans life first.

I would argue that this is a very "negative" view of our reality.

"No one can come to Me unless the Father draws him" John 6:44. Isaiah states all our righteousness is "filthy rags". When God looks at Christs redeemed, His sons imputed righteousness on our behalf, is what he sees.

It would seem to me that this view of Christianity basically tells us that we have no choice in the matter at all. Therefore it would be silly for us to actually choose to go to God through Jesus because we'd just be kidding ourselves to think that our choice in the matter was "God drawing us in".

To the contrary the only way we could be certain that "God was drawing us in" would be to reject Christianity and totally ignore it. Then if we are mysteriously drawn to it after that we can believe that some supernatural God was "drawing us it".

So yes, I would have many arguments against this paradigm of Christianity.

And finally, not to debate it here, but just to give you a heads-up on what would be coming, even this view of Christianity does not resolve the countless contradictions that I have recognized in the Biblical Canon. This idea of "depravity" and people being elect or non-elect does absolutely nothing to resolve the self-contradictions of the Biblical canon.

So I don't see where it helps anything at all in terms of my rejection of this religious paradigm.

In fact, this goes to the heart of the story of Adam and Eve and the original "fall from grace". If Adam and Eve were "depraved" then they can't be justly held responsible for having been "depraved", and if it was their own Free Will choice that caused them to sin, then this pretty much destroys the very concept of "depravity".

So I don't see where this concept of "depravity" helps the paradigm of Christianity at all. This seems to me to be an extremely troubled offshoot of this religion.

[FiremanWes77]

[Replying to post 8 by Divine Insight]

In a reply without striking up a full blown debate, it all depends on your view of the bible. What's the purpose of everything? What's the purpose of any of us being here? I believe the we are here for the glorification of God and His Son. The bible says Christ was the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. Gods purpose in everything was to glorify His son with a redeemed body of believers that worship Him in spirit and in truth. All plans were laid before anything was created. It's all about the redemption of Gods people and their justification to Himself. If you want to look at it through fair or not fair, the bible says we all deserve Hell forever, and it's God's mercy upon those who He has chosen. And we are not chosen by any form of merit or righteousness of our own. It's all salvation by grace through faith.

[FiremanWes77]

[Replying to FiremanWes77]

I would also add that it's not such a low view of man, it's a very high view of God.