Argumentation on Reddit
[015] 5,000 Planets
Username: Repulsive_Grand4746:
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Redditors: Redditor26
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Subreddit: DebateAChristian
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Preface:
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Discussion
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Redditor26:
Obtaining Faith Requires Works:
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Hello friends,
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Many (most?) Christians maintain that faith in Christ is all that is necessary for salvation. I would suggest that obtaining faith requires some form of work, thus making it impossible to have faith in Christ without performing work on our part.
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If your explanation of how one obtains faith in Christ uses any action words, you are saying that specific work is necessary for salvation. For example, one needs to learn who Christ is in order to have faith in him. Learning is a form of work.
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Thanks for reading! Looking forward to your replies.
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Repulsive_Grand4746:
Anything you do is caused by God. Salvation is God's work. He gives you faith.
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Redditor26:
What role do we have in this? Are we pawns or free agents?
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Repulsive_Grand4746:
What role do we have in this? Are we pawns or free agents?
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What is a pawn?
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Redditor26:
I mean pawn as something that can’t make decisions and is only acted upon.
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Repulsive_Grand4746:
I mean pawn as something that can’t make decisions and is only acted upon.
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People make decisions every day. So we can't be pawns.
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The decisions people make are caused by God.
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Redditor26:
Do we make decisions or are our decisions caused by god? It can’t be both.
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Repulsive_Grand4746:
Do we make decisions or are our decisions caused by god? It can’t be both.
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It is both.
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We make decisions in a relative sense. God causes us to make our decisions in a metaphysical sense.
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I can make an effective but imperfect illustration: When your chess pawn attacks your opponent's knight, your pawn attacks a knight. But it was you who grabbed the pawn and moved it, 'causing' it to attack the knight. Just because you 'caused' your pawn to attack the knight, does not mean your pawn did not attack the knight. Your pawn attacked the knight precisely because you 'caused' it to.
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You make decisions precisely because God causes you to. God causes you to do everything you do. You still do your things. You still make your daily decisions to eat one meal over another. But you have no metaphysical power to do anything yourself. You are not self-existing. Otherwise you would be able to choose to live forever with your self-existing power. In this metaphysical sense, you are the pawn. It is God who causes you to exist. It is God who causes you to move in one direction and another. You are more than a wooden chess piece. You have emotions, thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, and so on.
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The illustration is imperfect because God actually causes both you and all of the chess pieces to move. Where God metaphysically causes everything, you merely 'cause' things in a relative sense. It is simpler to say, "You punched Tommy in the face and gave him a bruise!" than it is to say, "God caused your arm to strike Tommy in the face, and then He caused Tommy's face to become bruised!".
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I speak of God who is all power. There is no metaphysical power that causes anything to exist or change beside God. That is what it means to be God. He controls everything within His creation. He is God of His creation. God is making atoms move; all of them, precisely where He wants them when He wants them.
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But I am just explaining to you basics of actual intellectual Christian metaphysics. This itself gives some answers to how Salvation logically must work by design.
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Who chooses your fate? God does, you do not. You make decisions, but God first decides what you will decide. Your decisions are not your decisions alone. He is totally before you and over you. That is what it means to be God.
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A simple way to put it... Your daily experiences are only part of what is really happening with you. God is behind it.
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So, yes you make decisions. I made a decision to go to work today. But it was God who first decided I would wake up this morning, go to work, and go back home after a productive day. Our decisions are not the deciding factor of what changes reality. Just as a tree falls in a forest, we make decisions. God causes and works it all to happen for His purpose to Glorify Himself in Jesus Christ.
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There is a real Christian answer for you.
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What about this makes sense to you? Are there any parts that don't make sense to you? I basically worded it and reworded it several times over so you will hopefully understand me without a doubt on the first read-through. It is simple, but I would rather be clear than confusing.
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Do you have any more questions about what I say?
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[Redditor26 left the chat]
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Next: [002] The Impossible Stone Argument
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Enter: Additional Writings