Discuss Theology

Scripture is “God breathed” and thus fully inspired from Genesis 1 through the end of Revelation. According to Francis Schaeffer, Scripture is one of the three mysteries in Christianity that will always puzzle rationalists:
1.Scripture is simultaneously the words of men and the Word of God.
2.God is simultaneously Trinity and unity, thus Christ is God and man simultaneously.
3.The universe is ordered with both unity and diversity, thus God is absolute sovereign and nothing happens by chance and man is absolutely responsible and is not a zero.

A friend asked me yesterday what I thought about the whole Creation/Evolution debate. I believe in specific creation of the order from Genesis 1 with each category created after its kind. I therefore do not believe in Darwinian style evolution. Neither do I believe that agreeing with me is necessary for salvation on these points.

I believe that God does things he would not otherwise do, if I pray. Contrariwise, I believe that God stops things he would not otherwise stop based on my prayers. This does not rule out his foreknowledge in these actions, He still knows in advance what I am going to do and what He is going to do before it all happens.

On google we are ranked number 7 out of 22,000 web sites on open theists. We rank number 16 on the openness of God out of 21,300 sites as of July 16, 2008.

This doctrine has taught through the years that if a person is truly born again that they will not ultimately stray–and thus once they are saved, they are always saved. This was the only point in which Arminius agreed with Calvin. I believe this about 3 or 4 days a week on the other 2 or 3 I wrestle with passages like Hebrews 6.

C.S. Lewis stated that God loved him into a corner and saved him. I think this is a good literary picture of irresistible grace. I suppose Paul could have resisted Jesus meeting him on the Damascus
Road in AActs 9. In Acts 26:19, Paul states that he was not disobedient to the heavenly vision on the road to Damascus. So, that implies that it would have been possible for him to be disobedient. Paul could have looked up to heaven from the ground, blinded and said “i am not going to do what you have told me to do.” He could have done that, but it is fairly non-credible to believe that any human being would have responded that way to a heavenly interception from God himself. So, yes, I believe in irresistible grace with the Acfts 26:19 proviso.

Calvinists through the centuries have discussed this one as Jesus died only for the elect. That being written, some have stated that they questioned whether Calvin himself actually believed this. I actually ask this question about Calvin as well. Instead of limited atonement, some have re-labelled it as a definite atonement-that is that Jesus died for a specific group of people. These Calvinists point to the elect as that “definite” group in favor of limiting the atonement. On this one, I part company with historical Calvinists and plead for 1 John2 where John writes that Jesus did not only die for our sins but for the sins of “the whole world”.

Both historical Arminians and Calvinists have agreed that man is fallen in every part of his being. He is not as depraved as he can possibly be but every part of mankind and evry part of the personalities of the individuals therein are touched negatively in every part of their being. We are totally depraved. Catholics have held this also all the way back in church history.

There are very few theological hills worth dying on. Paul wrote about the 4 most important points of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15. That is a hill worth dying on: Christ died for our sins accoriding to the Scriptures, He was buried, was raised in accordance with the Scriptures, He appeared to people. Those 4 points are hills worth it. As well, the Trinity is a theological hill worth dying on [I already died on this one]. After those 5 things about everything else is up for grabs.

Church History and the Bible have agreed that Christ will return to the world physically sometime in the future to claim His Bride-the church. the details have varied based on varied interpretations of prophecy but the big picture has always been the same for Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox believers. This return will be physical.