• to exist independently of God’s sustaining power


• to attain righteousness without God’s underserved grace


• to act independently of all influences (i.e., it is not uninfluenced free will)


• to do good apart from the Spirit’s enabling presence...

quote:

---

RD: Arminians are compatibilists.

Tom: I rest my case.

RD: ?? Non-sequitor.

---

quote:

---

Some of you are very wordy and that tends to make me lazy and not read every word of what is written. After skimming through all of this, I don't know that anyone has mentioned that Satan cannot be "snuffed out". He is an eternal being just as we are eternal beings. The major difference is our being created a little lower than the angels for the time and there is no change in existance for angels like there is for humans. We will be changed in the twinking of an eye and put on that incorruptable form whereas angels won't change form. That we will judge the angels implies a change to a superior position over them.

The second thing is the necessity for Satan to continue to the end, because the Bible says he will. He will be chained for 1000 years after the tribulation, loosed for a season and then be cast into the lake of fire. If this isn't true, the book of Revelation isn't true and we know that isn't the situation. Rev. 20.7 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, There isn't anything open for change when it's prerecorded.


upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Will the gates of hell not prevail against the rock or the church? What is the time frame for not prevailing? Is it now or is it in the future? Obviously, the ultimate defeat comes after the tribulation period, when we shall come with Christ in His glory or after the 1000 years when death and hell are cast into the lake of fire. Rev. 20 14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. Does "prevail" imply a single incident or is it an on going event that ultimately brings about its demise? If the church should/could destroy the gates of hell, would there be a need for Christ to return to accomplish that feat?

---

quote:

---

And, by the way, I raise a serious objection, and it should be treated as such. I've read many theologians who find the difficulty in beings possession libertarian (radical) freedom for a time, but not having it in heaven - asking the question if freedom is so important that it outweighs evil, why are we not free in heaven. And if we were free in heaven, wouldn't it turn into another earth, and so on.

---

quote:

---

St. Gregory of Naz., Oration XXV.

There have been in the whole period of the duration of the world two conspicuous changes of men's lives, which are also called two Testaments, or, on account of the wide fame of the matter, two Earthquakes; the one from idols to the Law, the other from the Law to the Gospel. And we are taught in the Gospel of a third earthquake, namely, from this Earth to that which cannot be shaken or moved. Now the two Testaments are alike in this respect, that the change was not made on a sudden, nor at the first movement of the endeavour. Why not (for this is a point on which we must have information)? That no violence might be done to us, but that we might be moved by persuasion. For nothing that is involuntary is durable; like streams or trees which are kept back by force. But that which is voluntary is more durable and safe. The former is due to one who uses force, the latter is ours; the one is due to the gentleness of God, the other to a tyrannical authority. Wherefore God did not think it behoved Him to benefit the unwilling, but to do good to the willing. And therefore like a Tutor or Physician He partly removes and partly condones ancestral habits, conceding some little of what tended to pleasure, just as medical men do with their patients, that their medicine may be taken, being artfully blended with what is nice. For it is no very easy matter to change from those habits which custom and use have made honourable. For instance, the first cut off the idol, but left the sacrifices; the second, while it destroyed the sacrifices did not forbid circumcision. Then, when once men had submitted to the curtailment, they also yielded that which had been conceded to them; in the first instance the sacrifices, in the second circumcision; and became instead of Gentiles, Jews, and instead of Jews, Christians, being beguiled into the Gospel by gradual changes. Paul is a proof of this; for having at one time administered circumcision, and submitted to legal purification, he advanced till he could say, and I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? His former conduct belonged to the temporary dispensation, his latter to maturity.

http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-07/Npnf2-07-46.htm#P4606_1453815

---