Evidence for God from Science

Philip wrote: ↑Mon Oct 08, 2018 9:04 am

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.

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?"

Philip wrote: ↑Wed Oct 10, 2018 9:03 am 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 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 10, 2018 3:33 pm 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

Philip wrote: ↑Mon Oct 08, 2018 5:34 pm

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!