Questions to pose to Calvinist regarding the topic in order to illuminate Calvinist doctrine!
Before Satan fell, he was an angel.
Did Satan have free will?
If God for-knew Satan would fall, could Satan have done anything but fall?
Did God cause Satan to fall?
I think this would get to the heart of the matter in showing how a Calvinist would explain these questions!
Also a discussion of what is meant by free will, would be helpful!
No Catholic would say that man can choose God apart from His grace already working in him/her!
God saves sinners out of Grace, Love and Mercy. We cannot earn salvation. Apart from grace there is no salvation. In terms of conditions, as a Catholic I could say that it is by Divine Mercy alone.
By grace God touches the sinners heart, and calls him towards repentance. This grace cannot be merited: it proceeds solely from the Love and mercy of God. Man may receive or reject this invitation of God, he may turn towards God or remain in sin. Grace does not constrain mans free will.
Thus assisted the sinner is disposed for salvation from sin; he believes in the revelation and promises of God, he fears God’s justice hopes in his mercy, trusts that God will be merciful to him for Christ’s sake, begins to love God as the source of all justice hates and detests his sins.
This disposition is followed by justification itself, which consists not in the mere remission of sins, but in the sanctification and renewal of the inner man by the voluntary reception of God’s grace and gifts where as a** man becomes just** instead of unjust.
First of all, a quick overview of what free will is.
We are not free to will what we want freely. For example no matter how much I will myself to breathe underwater, I will never be able to breathe underwater! Free will has its limitations, in which I can only freely choose things according to my capacity as a created being!
I am free to do what I was set apart for as a human being to do, Love and Worship our Creator! How? By the mercy and grace of our Creator!
Before the fall, Adam freely chose to do what he was Created to do, Love and Worship God!
After the fall, sin entered man, because of sin we were in bondage to sin, it turned us ever inward towards ourselves and away from our Creator! We freely chose to turn ourselves over to that bondage! Through Christ, we are now freed from bondage and no longer turned inward, now we have been given the grace needed to freely choose what we were made for again, love and worship God! If not for the grace merited by Jesus Christ, we would still be in bondage to sin.
I think another thread may be helpful to understanding the Development of the Doctrine of Substitutionary Atonement. Moral Influence, Ransom View, Christus Victor, and Satisfaction, Penal Substitution, Governmental, and Scapegoating views.
The prevailing view of Eastern Orthodox and to a degree Eastern Catholics is the Christus Victor view of Atonement. “Eastern Catholics correct me if I’m wrong please!”
The Latin Rite (Roman) Catholic view is the Satisfaction view of Atonement!
Penal Substitution is the one Developed by John Calvin
Governmental View is one developed by Jonathan Edwards.
Scapegoating was the view of William Tyndale
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonement_in_Christianity
