Sounds like Al was not a big fan of God.

[claysmithr]

Clay: I got saved in a very calvinistic way. If God doesn't elect people, they remain dead in their sins. Dead people can't really reach out to God.

This is an unScriptural belief! Ever read in Acts about the very first Gentile to come to Christ? He was seeking God WELL before He was saved. In fact, Scripture tells us that God sent him a vision of an angel who told Him that God was honoring his seeking: "“Your prayers and your alms bhave ascended as a memorial before God."

Read this thread: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=41572&p=226018&hil ... m#p226018

You can respond on that thread linked.

That scripture doesn't prove that God didn't elect him. God had to do something for him before he was able to be saved. Also, I'm not authorized to read your link, so there's that too.

If you are talking about the Ethiopian Eunuch they even have this conversation...

Then the Spirit said to Philip, "Go over to this chariot and join it." 30 So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?" 31 He replied, "How can I, unless someone guides me?" And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. 32 Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this: "Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. 33 In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth." 34 The eunuch asked Philip, "About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?" 35 Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. 36 As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, "Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?"

God quite obviously sent Philip to him in order to give him understanding get him saved. Without God's intervention he would be willing, but lost.

While I struggle with the idea of Calvinism, I can't help but see in real life where God sovereignty acts to save his people. On the basis of the election I do not know, only God. I was deep into New Age when God elected me, and he did it in a very strange, powerful, supernatural way. Without God's intervention I would be lost.

If you do not agree that God elects, then you are essentially saying God is not sovereign over all.

[PaulSacramento]

The only "karma" that applies to a Christian is what "goes around comes around" and the understanding that God judges ALL.

The reason that very smart people MAY not seek God ( many do of course), is because to seek God is to give faith and trust unto another and most of the higher intelligence group don't put much faith ( trust) in anyone but themselves.
Ego and Pride.

[Philip]

Clay, yes, God must FIRST make it possible for a person to believe, and his enlightening is effective upon those so WILLING to listen to His prompting. But God clearly gives men a choice to accept or reject Him. Scripture teaches BOTH of these are true - and there is no contradiction between them. Certainly, NO one could believe if God didn't enable them to. And he enables the willing. But the choice of being willing and open to knowing about God and having faith is possible but not certain for EVERYONE - it depends upon their own heart and mind and whether they are permanently and deliberately resistant to God or whether they are open and willing to hear and eventually obey His prompting. The Scriptures are clear, God offers man a choice and He wants ALL to come to faith in Christ - but He absolutely will not force that - and so much of the world will die unsaved. And so God is the one who framed AND made possible the choices, and tied each to one's eternal fate.

Hana / K - why can't Clay read the link I posted for him to read?

[PaulSacramento]

God gives all equal access to the HS so that all may have the choice to accept or reject Him.
God can't play "favorites" or "pre-ordain anyone to destruction" because that would go against His nature of love.
That said, God KNOWS who will or will not accept Him and he is under NO obligation to extend grace to those that He KNOWS will reject it.

[RickD]

Clay, yes, God must FIRST make it possible for a person to believe, and his enlightening is effective upon those so WILLING to listen to His prompting. But God clearly gives men a choice to accept or reject Him. Scripture teaches BOTH of these are true - and there is no contradiction between them. Certainly, NO one could believe if God didn't enable them to. And he enables the willing. But the choice of being willing and open to knowing about God and having faith is possible but not certain for EVERYONE - it depends upon their own heart and mind and whether they are permanently and deliberately resistant to God or whether they are open and willing to hear and eventually obey His prompting. The Scriptures are clear, God offers man a choice and He wants ALL to come to faith in Christ - but He absolutely will not force that - and so much of the world will die unsaved. And so God is the one who framed AND made possible the choices, and tied each to one's eternal fate.

Hana / K - why can't Clay read the link I posted for him to read?

Philip,

You linked an irrelevant thread in the moderator forum. He can't see the thread because it's in the mod forum.

[Philip]

ClaySmithr - go to my last post on this page to read or respond about Calvinism: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=41572&p=226018&hil ... sm#p226018

[LittleHamster]

ClaySmithr - go to my last post on this page to read or respond about Calvinism: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=41572&p=226018&hil ... sm#p226018

Err.....Philip, we still can't access that thread.

How about quoting it here

[Philip]

OK, you guys can FINALLY respond to a re-posting I did on Calvinism here:

viewtopic.php?f=40&t=42672

[LittleHamster]

It really doesn't matter how smart you are.

OTHER THAN, often people who are - or at least seem to be - very smart, are rather full of themselves. Which leads to God's least-favorite sin: Pride! Such people are exceptionally impressed with themselves, and often think their intellect makes them superior in judgment and understandings. And so they are quick to dismiss anything one might assert that they disagree with. And such people tend to actually be rather close-minded, which no truly smart person should be. And so they get blinded by their own narcissism and pride, to the point that, often, many illiterate dirt farmers have more true wisdom. Lest one forgets, excepting the Apostle Paul, none of the rest of the original disciples/apostles were what we would consider scholars or well-educated. But God used them to spread true wisdom that changed the world!

As well as intellectual pride, the not-so-intellectual people also suffer from various forms of Pride, i.e., the Pride associated with accumulation of material possessions (wealth), the Pride associated with the way they look (vanity), the Pride involved with the position they hold in their Jobs (status), then there are other, more destructive Prides, like how some people take great Pride in stealing or swindelling from their fellow man, the Pride of "look how much I can drink" or "I can take copious amounts of drugs and I can handle it", the Pride of sexual conquests, the Pride of one-up-man-ship, the Pride of "I can knock this guy out with one punch", etc.. (all egotism of course)

Now, I suspect the wealth-Pride could be one of the worst since it gets a bad wrap in the NT. i.e., it being easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle and all that. But I haven't quite worked out why wealth is such a big disadvantage. Mammon?