It's not an ad hominem, Daisy. I said "if" on purpose. Other than that, I don't see the value in repeating myself any further. I've already said that there is no such thing as "how much" you believe. Belief is binary. Either you believe or you do not, and at this point, I'm not going to entertain you any further on this particular matter. I told you, I am 100% certain that I have eternal life. Absolute deductive certainty--the certainty of faith, which the highest kind that there is. And I am equally certain that if you do not have that same level of certainty, then you are not a believer in Jesus Christ. But what that means for you, for your salvation? That's between you and God. Not my place to judge. I'm just appealing to you to believe, and that's why I won't engage you any further. I won't give you any excuse not to believe, to ask questions to get away from the words of Jesus Christ Himself, God in the Flesh, as if His Words were not good enough. No, you deal with Him and not with me.

If you want to further study the matter, I refer you to a book titled Absolutely Free by Zane Hodges.

God bless

Fair enough. Someone may want to address these words, though.

Presumably Jack you are praying that I will "see the light" and place my faith in Christ (and not something such as praying that I will win the lottery next week).

You can pray for me if you want, Jack, but I doubt that your prayers will have the affect that you are praying for?

Jack, do you believe that praying for me will have the affect you are praying for? Or do you have some doubt about it? You must believe at least to some extent that praying for me will have the affect that you are praying for, otherwise it would be pointless for you to pray for me, your prayers for me would be meaningless. But you say it's impossible to believe to some extent, that you either believe with complete certainty or you don't believe at all. So in praying for me, do you believe with complete certainty that praying for me will have the affect that you are praying for, or do you have some doubt that your prayers for me will have the affect you are praying for?

If you don't believe that praying for me will have the affect you are praying for, why are you praying for me?

If you believe that praying for me will have the affect you are praying for, then according to you, you must believe it with complete certainty. Do you honestly believe WITH COMPLETE CERTAINTY that your prayers for me will have the affect that you are praying for?


Jack it's absurd for you to say that you are 100% convinced that you'll be alive tomorrow. I can easily show that it is absurd, though it's obvious anyway:

If you are 100% convinced that you'll be alive tomorrow, are you 100% convinced that you'll be alive the next day? If you are 100% convinced that you'll be alive tomorrow and the next day, are you 100% convinced that you'll be alive in three days from now? Are you 100% convinced that you'll be alive in a week from now? Are you 100% convinced that you'll be alive in a month from now? Are you 100% convinced that you'll be alive in a year from now?

At some point you have to say that you are not 100% convinced that you'll be alive. I'm not asking you to state when precisely that point is, but I am asking you to state WHY YOU WOULD LOSE YOUR COMPLETE CERTAINTY AT THAT PRECISE POINT and not at the point of the previous day, or the previous week, or the previous hour, etc? What would change at some point to take away your complete certainty?

I don't expect you to have a good answer to that question, and if you don't want to engage any further in this discussion that's entirely up to you, nobody is going to try to force you. But that doesn't mean that I cannot continue to express my opinion. I am asking that question to highlight the absurdity of your belief that you are 100% convinced that you'll be alive tomorrow, and the absurdity of your "black or white", all or nothing, total certainty or no belief whatsoever conception of belief.

To say that you are 100 per cent certain about something, but that you could be wrong is plainly a contradiction.

You seem to be so afraid of doubt that you are in denial about it. Doubt is nothing to be afraid of. It's part of being human to have doubt. Doubt can helps us to be honest with ourselves and think more deeply and thereby become closer to God. We cannot become closer to God by refusing to be honest with ourselves.


I also think that you don't quite understand what is meant in the bible by the word "believe". What does the Greek word mean in other contexts?

For example, you said: "every single person who believes that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, has eternal life." What exactly does "believe" mean in that context. A person could intellectually believe that "Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God" but at the same time believe that it's nececessary, for example, to follow all the teachings of the Catholic Church to have everlasting life, but because he has failed and continues to be unable to follow all the teachings of the Church, he believes that he will not have everlasting life, and yet he believes that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, but he just doesn't trust that Jesus will save bad Catholics like himself. Or maybe he's not a Catholic but he's just a pessimist with very low self esteem and does not believe that he is one of the "elect"! So does that person who "believes" have everlasting life, if he believes that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, even though he does not trust that Jesus will save HIM from everlasting damnation. In other words, what exactly is meant by the word "believe" by which people who believe have everlasting life?

There's not much I can address in your post that I haven't already, Daisy, without continuing to engage in material we've already discussed. You say things like, "To say that you are 100 per cent certain about something, but that you could be wrong is plainly a contradiction." I already talked about that explicitly. You ask me about when I won't be certain that I'll still be alive. I've already addressed that. And so it's like I said to CC, you're just being disrespectful at this point. If you aren't going to interact with what I've already written, why should I think you'll be honest enough, and why should I take any further time, to continue this with you?

The only thing I see in your post worth addressing is my praying for you. And the short answer is that I am absolutely convinced--I have no doubt--as to the efficacy of my prayers. I have no belief (and therefore no doubt) as to what you will do with God's leading, but that's a rather unrelated matter (and it gets into more philosophical matters about efficacioius grace). I'll only add this, then: I believe (which means no doubt) that if God wills something, then it will be done. If God wills that through my prayers, you "see the light" (to use your words), then you will. And if He does not will it, then I believe (which means no doubt) that I am still meeting my Christian obligation to pray for you. Again, what you do with it is on you.

Also note that I'm not about to waste my time talking Greek with you. I'm just going to appeal to authority and leave it at that. I know Greek. I prepare all of my NT lessons out of Greek. I preach out of my Greek New Testament. I read stuff on Greek grammar for fun. You don't, and I am literally not going to waste my time trying to address this with you. I'll only say this: your English Bible renders the word "believe" for a reason. That is what it means. You don't need to talk about Greek. Your Vulgate uses the word credo (conjugated here credit). It just means "believe." Your Spanish Bible uses creo. It just means "believe." Your German Bible uses glauben. It just means "believe." All these translations just say "believe." Your own Catholic DR uses the word "believe." Now, if you're really going to try to say that all of those scholars are wrong and the word just has to mean something else, then talking to me isn't going to do you one bit of good.

Is Free Grace the same as Hyper Grace?

Even if you believe God will discipline those who simply believe, a person could utterly destroy the world to the point where God destroys him as punishment...but he'd still go to heaven. Correct?

I've never heard the term "Hyper Grace." Sounds like a pejorative term that someone came up with for a position they disagree with. As to the second part of your question, "could" implies logical possibility, so the answer is, "yes, of course." There might be some underlying assumptions in the question that need clarified, but just for the sake of making sure that I don't sound like I'm trying to be difficult, I'm perfectly fine just answering in the affirmative.

edit:

According to this article, "hyper grace" and free grace are not the same thing. I certainly would not sign on to the position as detailed in that article, anyway.

...


EDIT: Nevermind, deleted.

No, it is not. I didn't say to read Mark into John. I said let's ignore John. My argument is as follows (in Mark 16:16, not John):

1. Those who do not believe will be condemned.
2. People who have stopped believing do not believe.
3. Ergo, people who have stopped believing will be condemned.

Thus OSAS is disproved, by Mark 16:16 alone.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

I seem to remember a self-righteous person state something earlier about ad hominems.

And I understand your argument, and I'm not entertaining it for reasons I've already stated. You are moving the goalposts. You don't get to say, "Ok, forget the argument we were just having. Let's talk about this instead!" It's dishonest. What makes me think you won't do the same thing when I demonstrate how Mark 16:16 does not contradict OSAS? You won't even concede on John 3, so I'm not discussing other verses with you.


Back at ya.


There's no personal attack in there at all. That's nothing more than a valid assessment. Your position on God "forcing" something is a category error. On the most generous assumptions, it is heretical because it is semipelagian. I've already explained why. (Your hand-waving doesn't constitute a rebutal, but I will take your refusal to interact with my argument as an inability to do so and thus as a concession.) You can, of course, claim that my assessment is wrong in that my reasons do not support by conclusion, but it isn't a personal attack.

On the other hand, calling someone self-righteous is a personal attack. I'll be interested to see if I get the respect of an apology for that. I'm not holding my breath.

Well, you can't. The verse clearly states that those who do not believe will be condemned. And you have already conceded my second point, that people who have stopped believing do not believe. Then it follows logically that those who have stopped believing will be condemned, lest they start believing again.

u iz funnay

Translation: I have no arguments left.

If it makes you feel better.

At least we know that you are willing to endorse logical contradictions to keep faith in that OSAS idol of yours.

No, we just know that you're willing to lie about people's positions with whom you disagree. Very uncharitable. But hey, as I said, if it makes you feel better about your inability to answer my arguments, it doesn't affect me in the least.

Please do point out this alleged 'lie.'

Sure


When I said,


And before that


To claim, then, that I am embracing contradictions requires that I concede your contradiction and embrace OSAS all the same. And yet I've stated multiple times that I do not accept your interpretation of Mark 16:16. I have chosen not to explain my rejection of your interpretation (but I have referred those interested to a place they can find such a refutation), and I've told you why I am not defending my rejection: because the entire enterprise rests on your moving the goal posts and not responding to arguments I've already made. All of that is just another form of dishonesty.

In short, you've intentionally misrepresented my position. To intentionally misrepresent my position is to lie, and ergo, you lied about my position. But you're also the same one who insists on moving goal posts, ignoring the work I have put in to respond to you, and attacked me personally by accusing me of being self-righteous. So your fallacies are stacking up and revealing what is hard not to interpret as a basically dishonest approach to discussion regardless. So what more should I expect from you?

As, then, I said before, I'll say again: if it makes you feel better to tell lies about what I believe so that you can burn down straw men, to refuse to respond to what I've actually said, and to personally attack me . . . if doing that helps you feel like you "won," then be my guest. Tell some more lies and throw in some more personal insults. We both know the truth, which is that I have more than a few responses to your "arguments" and you've simply decided not to respond to mine.

So go on. You quit making substantive remarks a while ago, so at this point, you may as well keep up the nonsense.

You are right. I misrepresented you. I didn't see the reference to faithalone.org. But I didn't intentionally do so.

I appreciate that much of you, though ut I have to highlight that I explicitly said, "What makes me think you won't do the same thing when I demonstrate how Mark 16:16 does not contradict OSAS?" At absolute minimum, this tells you that I don't see Mark 16:16 as contradicting OSAS. Obviously YOU think it does. But I do not. And therefore, you cannot say that I'm willing to accept contradictions in order to embrace OSAS. The faithalone reference is helpful, but it was only included for people who are curious about how we interpret Mark 16:16. If you recall, I made a similar move when you raised Rom 1:5. I'm not hiding the interpretations. They are easy to find, but people who are not free grace might not know about them. I'm just not going to engage in a conversation with you about those verses right now because that is just allowing you to move the goal-posts.

One problem with the reference is that when I search for Mark 16:16, they seem to assuming that baptism is what I'm there for.