Category: Sovereignty/Choice
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Debate between Molinism and Calvinism
Here’s a very instructive debate fairly calmly argued with mutual respect. My take is that James White doesn’t really understand Molinism and doesn’t stick to the subject–which perspective best explains the existence of evil.
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Romans 9 and Unconditional Election
These are my observations on Romans 9 as presented at a seminar in June 2010.
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Is Faith a Work?
Faith, whether chosen or determined, is not a work that earns salvation. In either case, salvation is a free gift of God’s mercy and grace.
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God’s Sovereignty and Man’s Responsibility to Choose
The purposes of this paper are: 1. My goal is that pastors in our movement will emphasize in their teachings both biblical truths–that God is sovereign and that man has responsibility to respond to Him. 2. My second goal is to help build unity. There are a number of different views in our movement on,…
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Is Faith the “gift” in Ephesians 2:8?
Many Christians believe that the word “that” in Ephesians 2:8 refers to the word “faith” as its antecedent. The following comments from various commentaries on the passage show that the Greek language does not allow this. Rather, the word “that” modifies the previously presented concept of “salvation.”
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Is regeneration by faith or is faith by regeneration?
Some pastors and teachers teach that regeneration precedes faith and is necessary for it. They believe that mankind is so fallen that his heart is unable to respond to the gospel or believe in Christ. They say that we must first be regenerated before we can believe. In the following pages I will present verses…
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Dead Men Can Believe!
I’ve often heard the argument, based on Ephesians 2:1-3 that since fallen man is dead in sin, he is incapable of seeking God, doing good, desiring God, responding to the call of God, or believing in Christ while in this dead state. The argument is that man must first be regenerated before he is able…
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Does 1 John 5:1 teach that faith is caused by regeneration?
In summary, John is not addressing what causes someone to initially believe. Rather he says that present and ongoing (present tense) belief that Jesus is the Christ is an evidence that a person has been born of God (perfect tense).