The Black Vault

At1 my dear friend, peace and blessings to you kind sir!

We can't simply choose to believe and we can't simply choose to have saving faith. If we could simply choose, then how foolish humanity is on a grand scale for simply choosing to reject God and immortality. Saving faith is by the grace of God and therefore an act of God. God acts, the Holy Spirit quickens, we regenerate, we become faithful, and then -- getting back to a prior post of yours -- our choices change in a major way as we conform to the image of Christ. Do we become perfect? Far from it. But we change. Big time. Ask my friends. Former friends, I should say.

frrostedman wrote:At1 my dear friend, peace and blessings to you kind sir!

We can't simply choose to believe and we can't simply choose to have saving faith. If we could simply choose, then how foolish humanity is on a grand scale for simply choosing to reject God and immortality. Saving faith is by the grace of God and therefore an act of God. God acts, the Holy Spirit quickens, we regenerate, we become faithful, and then -- getting back to a prior post of yours -- our choices change in a major way as we conform to the image of Christ. Do we become perfect? Far from it. But we change. Big time. Ask my friends. Former friends, I should say.

Wow!!! Frostedman...Exactly...precisely and well stated.

My former friends as well. It was they who noticed the change in me at first...not me..but they.

In His Name...

Orangetom

Faith is something we can choose to not have. Just look at the fair weather fans of God that are out there who renounce God when their life starts sucking. I'm sure you've heard of people who lose their faith. We can also choose our beliefs. That transformative experience you had, another person may not let themselves believe it was the Christian God who was responsible. About my awakening, I am still free to choose what I think it means and whether or not it has to do with the Christian God or just electrochemical processes in my brain. You have the choice as to believe or not believe that people can choose to not have faith. If my life starts to suck, I can lose my faith most definitely.

Romans 10:9

King James Version (KJV)

9That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

at1with0 wrote:Romans 10:9

King James Version (KJV)

9That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

And how do propose one can force their own heart to go from a state of unbelief, to a state of faith?

Example: I tell you that in order to be saved, you must believe in your heart that 2+2=6.831

Can you do it, no matter how hard you try? You can profess it all you want, but do you really believe it? Could you possibly, even if you meditated on it for 50 years?

And no, this metaphor should not be twisted into me saying that faith is in opposition to truth and logic. Don't go there. The metaphor is only to say that saving faith seems to oppose truth and logic when one is unregenerate. A more apt example might be, the unbelieving person is convinced that 2+2=6.831, and it take an act of God to ultimately convince them that 2+2=4. I didn't use it that way because then the unbelievers get insulted and complain.

I never said you could choose to have faith. I said only that it is possible to decide to not have faith.

Logic is based on assumptions which are not provable.

If you want to prove 2+2=4, you must assume something. Many things, in this case.

There are different assumptions one can make which a priori are not "better" than other assumptions. Under different assumptions 2+2=6.

Now what about my experience of twoness, fourness, and sixness?

Have I ever collected apples and suddenly had 6 apples when I combined two bags of two apples? No. I have always gotten 4.

So it makes 4 sound like the correct answer.

Do you believe the human sensory apparatus is infallible? I don't. Maybe in the quantum world, 2+2 could be 6, or maybe when I add two apples plus two apples, there really are six apples I just can't see two of them for some reason.

So can I convince myself that 2+2=6?
Not really, but I can say that 2+2 is not written in infallible stone.

Likewise, my mind certainly is free to change regarding Jesus' death and resurrection. And it has changed back and forth a few times.

What Romans 10:9 is doing is offering a way for people to be saved and it rests upon a person's choice, not this nonsense OT is espousing that our actions and thoughts and souls have absolutely no bearing on our destiny in the afterlife.

at1with0 wrote:I never said you could choose to have faith. I said only that it is possible to decide to not have faith.

Interesting. Ok let's explore this another level deeper.

Let's presume that God, through the use of the Holy Spirit, reveals to you in your heart that He exists. Your heart is now regenerate, and soon, your mind is also completely convinced.

Then later, something bad happens and you don't understand, as a faithful believer, how it could happen to you.

Do you think you could force yourself to stop having faith and belief?

Put in metaphor. You go through life always believing that black people are hateful and untrustworthy. Then you meet a black person, and you become close friends. The black person shows you love, genuine concern, integrity, and generosity. Then after some time, the two of you split apart and never see each other again. The next black person you meet is mean and insults you.

Is it even possible for you then to convince yourself again that all black people are hateful and untrustworthy?

The point is, once you have saving faith and belief, it can't be taken away. It's a powerful, truly "born again" experience. It is as real of an experience as anything else you can think of. It's unforgettable. Now, that's not to say you won't get angry with God now and again, but, you're not going to just up and drop the faith and belief. Ever. When it comes to true, touched by the Holy Spirit, born-again, saving faith and belief... there is no flip-flopping. I can assure you of that. (and that is my personal view and there will be some here who would disagree)

Your going back and forth as you've described, to me sounds like someone basically saying, "I think this," and then saying "I think that." From experience I can tell you that when you have true, saving faith and belief, it instead becomes, "I know." And once you know, that can't be reversed by any personal decision. You can't just decide not to know anymore. Maybe that makes more sense than all the rest of my rant.

Yes I do think someone can lose faith.

You think today that the Holy Spirit was involved.
It is humanly possible to think differently later.

at1with0 wrote:Yes I do think someone can lose faith.

You think today that the Holy Spirit was involved.
It is humanly possible to think differently later.

Based on the Holy Scriptures:

We are all enemies to God until we are born again. We're born that way. What that means is... left up to ourselves, we reject God every time. Our salvation is through God's grace which is a fancy word for Him doing the work in our hearts to change our disposition and turn us toward Christ. Now then. If Christ died on the cross for the salvation for the faithful, reborn believers, and if our faith was based on our own decision making (being an enemy and naturally opposed to God in the first place), then in all likelihood Christ died for nothing. None of us, in our natural state, would ever embrace God. Look around you. E_H and H are not alone. Every single mortal human being that ever lived, was at least at one time, the faith-equivalent of E_H and H. So in a sense, they represent the entire world.

I don't buy into the statement that God has enemies. If God has enemies, it doesn't need our help to defeat them.

But it has been said on this board that God decides who is saved regardless of what we do or believe, so, in that sense, Jesus did die on the cross for absolutely nothing. It's a rather tragic pathology that he thought doing so would save mankind when, in fact, only God chooses some people to save.