Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!psuvax1!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: bnr-fos!bmers58!davem@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mielke) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Free will/Election Message-ID: Date: 15 Nov 89 08:55:29 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada Lines: 38 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article convex!cash@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu (Peter Cash) writes: (actually our moderator commented) >... If our will is working properly, why would >we ever reject God's love? Adam and Eve were created in an absolutely perfect state. Their wills would have been functioning flawlessly. In this wonderful state, one which none of us is even remotely close to, they exercised the free will to reject God. Do you, or anyone else for that matter, really believe that you can make better choices than they? I, for one, know without a doubt that I, were I given the free will to either accept or reject God, would choose to reject Him. I may have a healed soul but I still have sinful flesh. Adam and Eve even had sinless flesh. I am less perfect than they and must assume that I would choose to sin quicker than they. The beauty of God's election program is that He, knowing full well that none of us would want to implicitly trust Him with everything, still chose a people for Himself, and that He paid such an unimaginably enormous price to accomplish HIs goal without compromising His integrity. Dave Mielke, 613-726-0014 856 Grenon Avenue Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2B 6G3 [Perhaps I was not clear in what I said. I do not mean to imply that if people are left alone without God's grace, I think they are going to accept God. I believe, as you do, that grace is needed before we can respond to God. What I was trying to point out is that the result of grace is to enable us to make decisions that are in accord with our nature as God intended it. I was concerned that people not interpret election in a mechanical fashion, with God as a sort of master manipulator who forces people into making choices that don't reflect real decisions on their part. Election should be seen as God freeing us, not constraining us. My reaction on Adam and Eve would have to be that they obviously were not given this grace. (Note that I am a supralapsarian.) --clh]