[Propianotuner1]

Originally Posted by Elmer G. White

While I fail to see the exact connections between piano tuning professionals and academic theology (I'm worried that it is metaphor for self-righteousness) I welcome the chance to engage in educated discussion about the inteicacies of Faith. Classical Arminianism, you say? Do you think your doctrine differs from Calvinism except when you say that God allows His desire to save all to be resisted by an individual's will! Do you also go for open theism and restrict omniscience about the future in that manner? Conditional election, on the other hand, has the undertones of the conditional Love of Jesus that does approach the Truth™ in a promising manner.(John 3:15-18). I cannot say that conditional Preservation is as promising if you vouch for that.

What are your views on Revelation and the Bible? Sacraments? What about the actual hazards of our time when referring to dismissal of Biblical attitudes towards sinning?

Also, personal life! Are you striving to fullfill your quota of Genesis 1:22?

Exodus 12:49
One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you.


Yours in Christ,

Elmer

Hahahaha, I merely enjoy tuning pianos is all. Now onto the meat of this post:

I have ruminated on both sides of this issue of the security of the believer. Peter gives a description of apostasy in his second epistle, warning against it. Yet at the same time one must wonder what it might mean to say that God's work of regeneration in a saved person isn't efficacious. However, I believe the impetus is on us to accept the whole of the Word and do our best to understand it while accepting it all. Hence my riding both sides of this fence throughout my career, ruminating as to whether or not Peter's warning is a hypothetical meant to deepen faith, or it is a dire warning against the reality of apostasy.

After much time studying this issue I have come to the conclusion that Peter can't have been using a mere hypothetical. But that is merely one area of contention between Arminians and Calvinists, and there are numerous gradients in between.

As for God allowing His desire to be resisted, it depends on the relationship model you see in the bible. Does He work through cause and effect, as one might work with a machine, directing all of our thoughts? Or does He work through influence and response, as one might work with in an "I and thou" relationship, with one who fully fits the description of "person".

Considering such, Classical Arminianism as opposed to some of it's variants today, is in favor of conditional election, unconditional love, undecided on open theism (I am not personally in favor of it), and an influence and response relationship when it comes to preservation. In all of this God is still perfectly capable of accomplishing His decrees.

Now to the rest of your questions: do you mean Revelation as in prophecy or are you referring to the book? When it comes to eschatology I am what you could call a Soft Preterist. As for prophecy, or the Bible, I believe the whole of it is inspired and that there are no manuscript issues that call doctrine into question. It is now an issue of translation and interpretation.

On the issue of sacraments I mostly refer back to Romans 14 and Paul's admonishments to the Thessalonians, that such traditional rituals are for the benefit of man, to help him understand spiritual truths and to participate in spiritual processes. While it is good for us to participate in them, there is nothing inherent to the physical acts themselves that makes it a requirement. Otherwise Jesus would have been legalistic, instead of spiritual, about the Sabbath and would not have allowed His disciples to glean during the Sabbath.

On the issue of sin I am sure that the Word is clear when it says that there is only one unpardonable sin: blaspheming the Holy Spirit. What's more, when the scriptures say that Jesus forgave all sin, there is no reason to diminish His accomplishment. Hence the unsaved are the people who reject His Holy Spirit, who blaspheme/deny (the meanings are basically identical) Him.

As for the ethical instructions of the Word, I am committed to obeying them but not dependent on my own efforts to settle my soteriology. My obedience is for the pleasure of God and also for my own benefit, as God designed us and His ethical instructions are thus decreed for our benefit and closeness with Him.

Now, from Mike Miller:

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/False...in_exposed.htm


You follow this man?

Nope.

From Alvin Moss:

What are your own personal beliefs concerning falling from grace? Do you believe that, once saved, a man may lose his way and be condemned to Hell? Also your beliefs concerning predestination seem to belie the concept of free will, which is crucial to Christians. What about that? Are you saved? Have you been washed in the blood, or are you another false, "intellectual Christian"?

I have been saved, and as for "intellectual Christian" I fail to see your meaning. The rest I've already established.

Doesn't that mean you follow the words of Arminius, a theologian who taught universal atonement, partial depravity, resistible grace, and the possibility of a lapse from grace, contrary to the very Words of the Holy Bible? Why not just follow the Words of God as written in the Holy Bible?

I follow the Lord Jesus Christ. As for Jacobus Arminius, there are a number of his ideas that I agree with, a number that I disagree with, e.g. his description of God's relationship with time and the manner of His omniscience. As for the idea that he taught universal atonement, that is plainly inaccurate. As for "just following the Words of God", we're coming to our conclusions reading the same book. Like I've said, just look at Peter's description of apostasy.

Second Peter 2:20-22, & 1

20 For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.

21 For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.

22 But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.

1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.