"If my understanding of predestination is not correct, then my sin is compounded, since I would be slandering the saints who by opposing my view are fighting for the angels." (RC Sproul, Chosen by God, pg. 14)
"Answer all [the Calvinists'] objections, as occasion offers, both in public and private. But take care to do this with all possible sweetness both of look and of accent...Make it a matter of constant and earnest prayer, that God would stop the plague."
"God sovereignly decreed that man should be free to exercise moral choice, and man from the beginning has fulfilled that decree by making his choice between good and evil. When he chooses to do evil, he does not thereby countervail the sovereign will of God but fulfills it, inasmuch as the eternal decree decided not which choice the man should make but that he should be free to make it. If in His absolute freedom God has willed to give man limited freedom, who is there to stay His hand or say, 'What doest thou?' Man’s will is free because God is sovereign. A God less than sovereign could not bestow moral freedom upon His creatures. He would be afraid to do so." A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy: The Attributes of God
"Besides, even true and living faith in Christ precedes regeneration strictly taken, and consisting of the mortification or death of the old man, and the vivification of the new man...For Christ becomes ours by faith, and we are engrafted into Christ, are made members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones, and, being thus planted with him, we coalesce or are united together, that we may draw from him the vivifying power of the Holy Spirit, by which power the old man is mortified and we rise again into a new life." [Works Vol.2 pg. 233, Wesleyan Heritage Collection].
By that logic, God cannot even command (obligate) men to love him. Also, by the same logic, God cannot get all the credit for our loving him.
Blessings,
Stephen
Stephen,
If you are going to make claims like that it would be helpful for you to carefully explain how you came to those conclusions. Of course, you are not obligated to do so 😉
God Bless,
Ben
Stephen,
“By that logic, God cannot even command (obligate) men to love him.”
Not necessarily, Craig’s logic was that a love relationship demanded a possibility of rebellion, a command to love doesn’t preclude any such possibility, since commands can be violated.
“…by the same logic, God cannot get all the credit for our loving him.”
In the grain of the sanctification by works question that Ben posed, God works to sanctify us, yet we often resist His work. If ability to resist loving God means that God doesn’t get all glory, would ability to resist God’s working in our hearts imply that He doesn’t deserve all glory for the degree to which we’re sanctified?