Bird, You guys seem to be 'heavy' on the election side of the fence and so I'll pose my thoughts about the doctrine of election to see what y'all think. I don't disagree with your post at all (how can I, you cut and pasted it from the Bible), but I more want an intelligent conversation about the topic more than anything else. Please correct any flawed statements below as I do not have an MDiv and I'm just a regular lay person.

I recently read A Case for Faith by Lee Strobel and it has an underlying 'freewill of man' tone about some of the explanations as to why evil & suffering exists and why God would send someone to hell. I don't agree with everything the professors say within the book, however there is a certain 'logic' with the free will of man that is intellectually satisfying for not only a believer but also a skeptic to overcome some big picture barriers they have with God.

I don't disagree with the doctrine of election - it is biblical and if you trust in God's Word, it is what it is, however, the responsibility of man has to fall in there somewhere, does it not? Could it be like an inexplicable 'marriage' between man's soul and God. And to say the role of husband is better than the role of the wife within a marriage would cause the wife to have 'heartburn'?

More to the point, is emphasizing this doctrine helping anyone? To exacto-knife, frame and put this doctrine on a wall - is it not helping anyone accept maybe an MDiv student for a bullet point or 2 on his/her final exam? To the general non-believer, it can be distracting to the Gospel and to certain believers, could it not be discouraging for the big picture of life? Or is this an exercise in strengthning one's faith muscles - well you just have to trust God wink, wink.

Both sides would probably agree that God 'turns on the lightbulb' in one's mind and creates the seed of faith within a new believer (all good things come from God), but the crux of the issue is if that seed of faith can be rejected. Is God's grace irresistable or not. If God's grace is irresistable than believers without the gift of faith (generalizing of course) will be left burdened theologically?

Do believers who proudly wear the doctrine of election 'badge' (those who emphasize) have the spiritual gift of Faith and/or could they not be thinking deeply enough about the topic? Do us forest thinking Christians without the gift of faith have to continually 'pick of the pieces' of tree thinking / faith bearing theologians chopping down trees in the forest (yeah the analogy isn't 100% correct but I'll throw it out there).

I would make the same argument if one held up their 'free will of man' sign as well. Also, if you cornered me and stated that I have to choose one over the other - I would choose the doctrine of election over the free will of man.

Tony,

Great points. I am not a Calvinist, per se, but I'm a huge fan of God's sovereignty.

As to why it matters . . . I've often wondered that. I've come to the following conclusions.

- The Bible, smoothly and without expressing much difficulty, teaches as true, sometimes in the same sentence, both God's absolute sovereignty and man's responsibility.

- I think that, in general, (again, generally speaking) those who hold the Reformed view tend to have a higher view of God than those who hold a more "it all depends on me" view. The extremes, though, are bad, both from the "we don't need to evangelize" hyper-Calvinists to the "we're doing a youth drama where if that kid goes to that party JESUS WILL BE CRUCIFIED AGAIN, right in the midst of his silent, weak, and trembling begging of the kid to please, please not go."

I think it matters because the Reformed view tends to have a balancing effect on people, keeping us from the "it all depends on me" mindset, even if the Reformed view is not embraced.

But I know plenty of 3 and 4 pointers (and 1 pointers) who are marvelous Christians and love and revere the Lord with everything they've got.