Repentance comes from within us when the gospel is preached to us, and we yield our hearts to the witness of the Spirit which testifies of its truth, and make a voluntary decision to repent and turn to God. God does not force anybody to believe or to repent. We make that decision. God only witness to our spirits that the gospel is true.
I think your answer is wrong according to the Scriptures. And don’t say these verses are not correctly translated (Mormon defense for rejecting biblical revelation). Feel free to look up these verses in the KJV Bible too.
Calvinists twist the scriptures, or do not understand them. They pick one scripture and focus on it in isolation, and ignore 100 other scriptures which clarify or modify it.
That just proves your extreme ignorance of the scriptures. In Acts 11:18, “God has granted them repentance” does not mean that God has made them to repent. It means that God has granted them to be saved through repentance like the Jews. Until that time the Jews believed that only Jews could be saved. Gentiles had to become Jews (through circumcision) to be saved. Now they realized that that was no longer the case. Gentiles could remain Gentiles (i.e. uncircumcised) and still be saved like the Jews through faith and repentance. It does not mean that God made them to repent. The same principle applies to 2 Timothy 24–25. “God granting them repentance” simply means that God grants them salvation though repentance. It does not mean that God makes them to repent.I think your answer is wrong according to the Scriptures. And don’t say these verses are not correctly translated (Mormon defense for rejecting biblical revelation). Feel free to look up these verses in the KJV Bible too.
Acts 11:18
When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”
2 Timothy 2:24-25
And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth,
Did you ever get to read these verses by any chance:
Romans 9
God’s Sovereign Choice
I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.
But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.” And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls— she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? As indeed he says in Hosea,
“Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’
and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’”
“And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”
And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved, for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.” And as Isaiah predicted,
“If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring,
we would have been like Sodom
and become like Gomorrah.”
Israel’s Unbelief
What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written,
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense;
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
Please pass the butter!
So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace. - Paul
In what way do I misunderstand? Do you think the Reformed members of CAF that told me that Jesus had very little to say about salvation were misunderstanding?
I am not sure how you conclude that Paul was given the task to expound the gospel more than any other Apostle. I guess you do this because you believe what is written is all there is?
By what criteria do you make this assertion?
Yes, this has been my observation. However, right doctrine was never extracted from the pages of holy scripture in isolation from the Apostolic teaching. This is not the manner in which Jesus set up the teaching He committed to the Church.
By whose standards?
This one reallly gave me a guffaw! I think I am going to save this in my archive of Reformed traditions. Congratulations! One reason it is so funny is that I was taugtht early on by my Evangelical brethren that “scripture interprets scripture” and that each passage needs to be understood in the light of all the others.I think this is your way of justifying the approach of developing theology from Paul in isolation of the other scriptures. I can certainly concede that the sheer volume of Paul’s writings is very significant. I will also support that he preached “my gospel” as he called what had been committed to him. However, it was not different from what was taught by the others.
He said that he committed the authority for teaching to them. He said that they were the foundation of His One Church, and gave them the authority to bind and loose, and to remit sins. They were given all the gifts of the Spirit.
A useless challenge. Separation and division is the fruit of the reformation, and a poison fruit that I have learned to avoid. It is just as inappropriate to take on such a challenge as it is to derive theology only from the letters of Paul.
This is easily done.
God’s sovereignty is such that He permits man to choose whether or not we wish to spend eternity with Him. God’s love, and the image of Himself in which we are created is one of the fundamental principles that was lost in Calvanism. Love is fully and freely self giving.
Yes, this unbelief is a sin. God gives everyone the grace to come to the knowledge of the truth. Those who choose not to put their faith in Him have no excuse.
As usual, it is not “either/or” but “both”. God gives man the ability and responsibility to come to repentance. He provides the grace that, when responded to by man, mixes with faith to produce salvation. The spirit of repentance comes from God. It is received and embraced by a person.
Neither of these scriptures indicate that man has no responsibility to respond. If you look at the context of Acts 11, it is clear that it was the RESPONSE of the Gentiles to the gospel that convinced everyone it was genuine.
All Reformed Christians believe that every man is morally responsible for his choices and actions. All will give an account which is clearly taught in Scripture. Man’s inability to respond on his own power to come to Christ in an effectual way does not give mankind an excuse. Unbelief in the gospel of God is a sin with eternal consequences. Moral accountability and inability to come to Christ apart from the work of God is a paradox, but God reconciles both truths. In all honesty brother, you never really deal with the Scriptures, but come back with personal opinions and philosophy apart from Scripture. Your views don’t really have Scripture foundation behind them. Take this as a challenge and state your views with Scripture proofs if you can. You can post all you want that Catholics on Catholic Answers know Scirpture, but I have yet to see it. Maybe you might know just more verses that the typical Catholic, but they are usually pulled out of context when applied. Words like chosen, predestined, Elect, are all biblical words used for biblical doctrine.
This is one of the most baffling aspects of Reformed theology for me. I can’t shake off the implication that God has created most people for damnation.
It is certainly true that we have different perceptions of Scripture. Catholics view it according to what the Apostles believed and taught. It seems like you use Calvanistic or at least TULIP lenses. Thus the origin of your statement “Jesus taught the truths of Calvanism”.
It is true that Catholics do not attempt to build theology by extrapolating it from Scripture. Instead, we recieve the doctrine from the Apsotles, then understand what we are reading in the light of it.
2nd, The Holy Scriptures were never meant to be used as some kind of “proof text”. They are a reflection of the faith of the Church, not a scientific study. Matters of faith are not conducive to the scientific method. On the contrary, our faith is based upon the revelation of God in Christ, not “scripture proofs”. You hopefully will never see any Catholics here using scripture the way you do . It would be a gross departure from what the Apsotles believed and taught.
Yes, I agree they are all biblical words. What I disagree about is that there is such a thing as “biblical doctrine”. This is a modern innovation that emerged during the Reformation. Sound doctrine is received from the Apostles, not distilled from the pages of the holy writings. Using that approach is what has caused the splintering of christendom.
LOL! That was a good laugh!
I will defend Catholicism against Calvinism any day!I will pray that God will grant you repentance in His abundant mercy and grace, converting you to the Catholic Faith… leaving the false religion of Mormonism. I would rejoice with you if you became a regenerate Christian through the Catholic Church! God the Holy Spirit is in the historic Christian Churches and not the Mormon Church. Christianity does not stand or fall with Calvinism. I have many brothers and sisters in Christ who are not Calvinists. You don’t need to be a Calvinist to be united to Christ.LOL! That was a good laugh!
I defend true doctrine, whether it comes from Catholicism, Mormonism, or anywhere else.
Mormonism is true; Joseph Smith was a prophet; the Book of Mormon is scripture.
##Gottle## I continue to be confused? Which Gospel is weak, or are you a non-Christian, which clearly explains your question? Your remark about the fondness (a liking or weakness for something), what does this mean with your continuing statement, (Where apologetics is - the Cross and its power are not.) While I am not a scholar, what does this mean? Yet, if you are someone else looking for answers from this forum, a question is preferred versus an understandable remark. You are in my prayers!A Gospel that needs defending is a pretty weak Gospel - which says something about the fondness of some Churches for apologetics
Where apologetics is - the Cross and its power are not.
Philippians 1:7A Gospel that needs defending is a pretty weak Gospel - which says something about the fondness of some Churches for apologetics
Defending the gospel is obedience to the revealed will of God. Christians are commanded to proclaim the gospel and defend the gospel for the joy of it
You are on the wrong Forum. This is a Catholic Christian site.
Mormonism is true; Catholicism is honorable; Calvinism is abominable.