Chesrton; answer this; if God wanted all men to be saved, meaning every single person that ever lived, what could prevent this from happening? In other way to put it would be; who is more powerful than God? or Who can thwart His purpose?
Your post may not contradict Catholic doctrine; shouldn’t the flag go up here? Does Catholic doctrine teach that all men are led to justification; whatever that actually means?
A Catholic… just kidding.
God wanted all men to choose to accept his grace but knew in advance that many would reject this grace.
Here’s what the Church teaches:
What would be adequately IYO? You do not understand how God or grace works; a sign of the spiritual deficient. The only freedom you have is to sin; unless the Father moves first and compells one to come to Him, which He does only to those whom the Father has decided in eternity past to reveal the Son. Once the Son removes the veil, then one is truly free and can and will choose what is good, while still battling the evil sinful flesh. Look at human nature, you don’t have to teach children to do bad, they already master it; you have to teach them to do good.
Why do one love God according to Scripture? because He first what? loved us.
1992 They have a strange way of saying Jesus died and fully paid the price for sin to whosoeverwill? Perhaps this is not what that is saying?
I don’t understand your point.
I understand the position of the Church perfectly. We can’t seek God without his grace. We need his gift of grace in order to be able to follow his will. Where you differ from Church teaching is that you believe God withholds his grace from some people.
God’s will is that we use our freedom to choose to follow and love him. His grace is offered to each of us as an undeserved gift. God cannot simultaneously want us to love him and then force us to do it. That’s not love by definition.
Absolutely.
Again, that’s not the point at issue. The third sentence raises the question of what it means for Jesus to draw all or for God to show mercy to all or for the Holy Spirit to convict the world of sin. If you mean by this that God shows mercy to all in exactly the same way and to the same degree, so that differences in the final destinies of human beings are purely due to their actions, then I see the appeal of this position and would not categorically disagree with it (I’m more of an “agnostic” on the subject given its complexity and mystery), but you have a lot of work to do in reconciling it with a number of Scriptural texts which appear to teach the opposite, of which our Calvinist friends will be happy to remind you. You can’t just quote some rather general prooftexts and sit back comfortably–that’s what the Calvinists and OSAS folks do with regards to perseverance.
When you say things like that you reveal how completely you misunderstand the issue. The elect (those who are elected to eternal life) will not be unsaved. The elect, as I said, will fulfill the conditions and be saved. What is so hard to understand about that? Salvation is still conditional on certain things.
I’m not really interested in defending Calvinists here, since I find their doctrine of the perseverance of the regenerate one of the more obviously mistaken parts of their theology. But in the Augustinian Catholic position it is indeed possible to shipwreck our faith. This doesn’t mean that grace is inefficacious (what you or I would mean by “resistable”–i.e., God’s decision to give it may not coincide with a human decision to receive it). Rather, it means that God has chosen to give people regenerating grace but not the gift of final perseverance.
No evidence for that.
Too strong. The burden of proof is on you to show that it means something more restrictive, such as “some from every kind” or whatever. It’s clearly a term describing human beings as a whole, which no matter the numbers involved goes against the whole idea of a “massa perditionis” from whom some are chosen.
If salvation means a state of regeneration
Unconvincing prooftexting, making the passage mean far more than it reasonably means in context. The claim that regeneration cannot be lost goes against both the plain sense of Scripture and the consensus of Christian tradition.
A point I also made.
Which leads to “departing from the living God.” It is strained special pleading to claim that the use of the word “unbelief” means that the person never was a believer.
Standing here clearly refers to a stable spiritual condition.
Your theology compels you to interpret it that way.
No, it does not follow. Augustine and Aquinas thought that people could receive regenerating grace but not the gift of final perseverance. You have given no reason why they are wrong.