You mean 80% of Christians ? Well glad your not one of them. But I still disagree with the whole Christ abolished the law thing which antinomians and you have in common.
Strange isnât it? Iâve seen Christians defending Christianity and theology and morals that come with it WITH THEIR LIFE(not literally of course). I mean dogfighting faith it seems.
Yet behaving like (not so good people) in their everyday life. They sure seem to love God . But do as they please? Naahh. Strange behaviour indeed
Hypocrites ? Maybe .
But that doesnât explain their dog fighting faith
The law is there to keep them in check. It prevents this kind of behaviour.
In one sense he did though, and in the most important sense, and that is our redemption does not depend on our works, our successfully obeying the law âenoughâ to merit salvation. Our salvation does not depend on us but on him!
In the other sense, he did not abolish the law, which is what we are talking about. People can think they are Christians without truly believing in their hearts, and thatâs one of the things that Paul is talking about when he says to test yourself to see if you are in the faith. Itâs hard to pass a self-test without something to grade yourself against. There is a place for public confession when our failings are public, and also a place for public discipline, depending.
(I donât see how antinomians can really identify with Psalm 119 except in maybe a theoretical sense that yeah, Jesus has taken care of all that for me and now rules are irrelevant.)
Hmmm. I would say "completed " rather than âabolishedâ.
As for salvation. Ancient philosopherâs did agree that at least a percentage of action was required for man to enter the metaphysical . Or afterlife.
Hence I would argue for percentages. God is doing 80%(or majority) of the work Iâd agree but the rest is on us. [IF]We have free will you are capable to some extent of buying your own salvation with your virtues in this life.
Can you elaborate further on this one? Are you talking about cultural Christians? Thatâs what I understand from this. However keep in mind that some people however bad they are ,they indeed do believe in God in my suprise. Iâve encountered some of them. I mean real belief. But their actions show otherwise unfortunately. How would you explain that?
Hahaha I do agree on that one. Great point Dale
The church has failed on this. As Iâve said in previous threads public shaming sometimes is necessary
How about that, @RichardG? Do you recall verse 75?
I know, LORD, that your laws are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.
Psalm 119:75
What the Bible says does not change reality. You aught to know that. Genesis 1 saysâŚ
Now get off this.
Richard
âAncient philosophersâ were not faithful Christian theologians?
In other words, Jesus is insufficient. I donât think so. You did not get that from reading the NT! That is a worldly way of thinking, sorry.
âCultural Christiansâ is an apt term, for both those regularly involved in churches and those who are unchurched (except for maybe 2x/year. It is very possible to have had an emotional experience or even an intellectual one in which the truths of Christianity are affirmed but without giving Jesus lordship over your life. Maybe the person thinks they have, but not maybe in their heart of hearts? Testing our desires is an important thing to do â the first petition in the Lordâs Prayer is pretty significant to that end.
It is hard to comprehend and no, I do not have a good explanation. If I have encountered any, it would have been on the order of six decades ago, someone who believes in God but figures âMeh, Iâll just take my chances and do what I want. Iâll endure whatever happens later.â I have at least heard of such before.
Maybe itâs you who knows aught. 
Reminding you these pagans philosophers (some of them)spoke about the oneness of God (or God beign one) centuries before our Christians theologians.
If Jesus were to be revealed at their time they would have definitely become Christian in my opinion.
Remember that Christianity used Platonic philosophy for apologetics as well.
Well no. He is sufficient. But if he gave us free will we have a say in our salvation no?
An atheist living like a Christian will grand him a seat in heaven and Iâll gladly call him my brother.
A Christian living like an atheist will not .
Thatâs my understanding of it. Pure salvation without works is stupid
Most Christians fall on this category. Thatâs why I said what I said about salvation. I donât know how God will judge but I donât want these kind of people anywhere near me in heaven,however much love they have for God
Itâs really interesting though. These people can gaslight themselves into literal believing in God yet donât want to act like it in their everyday schedule .
Even if I needed your reminder, How is that necessarily relevant to Christianity?
That could lead us into a discussion about Godâs omnitemporality. 
âŚand the applicability of time-based words like predestined and election which Paul uses. Hey! Ask @Richard â he preached his best sermon on Romans 8 (but not while in his right mind ).
Well, I guess the repentant thief had âworksâ since he acknowledges Jesus but couldnât do anything else. And then there are other âdeathbedâ conversions. Are they stupid?
Related to that, it is stupid to think theyâll have time later to repent, those who say âIâll wait and repent and become a faithful Christian later after Iâve had my [vain] fun.â As mentioned, hearts and consciences can become hardened.
Donât you think that mindset is wrong? Iâm really disturbed with that mindset. It literally treats God like a free get out of jail card of monopoly. Like when you have the card as a backup and you play recklessly and when you land on jail you like"ohhh well itâs time to save my money from now on". This is wrong sorry. You canât expect heaven if you treat God like that.
Waste of time in my opinion.
Yes, I answered that :
I expect to meet some. But as above, those who count on it should think again!
I know of one man who came to Jesus late in his years and said something to the effect âMy whole life! Iâve wasted it!â (speaking of wasting time). There is reward in serving God â works wonât get you âthrough the gateâ, but there is reward (here and now, now and then). Read about Paulâs strivings and why he strove.
How do we tackle the argument that the OT seems to believe that the Mosaic covenant is eternal?
I am not a big fan of covenant theology in general, but I donât see a problem. I donât see why Christianity requires that covenant to be terminated, even if you believe in a new covenant brought by Christianity.
Examples:
Deuteronomy 29:29
1 Chronicles 16:15-16
And where does it say God cannot make any other covenant with any other people?
But personally I do not believe God can be held by some legal contract. So, at the very least, it must be understood these covenants are nothing like legal contracts, which are great tools for lawyers to manipulate. That sort of thing leads to a delusion of entitlement which changes religion into something dangerous or even evil. Perhaps it is the difference between a promise of good faith and a guarantee of specific results. I can believe in the former but not the latter.
Maybe I misunderstood something but here seems to be some amount of cultural difference involved.
Although Nick is following his own thinking rather than Orthodox doctrine, there appears to be a hint of Eastern (Orthodox) Christianity in his approach.
The opinions of Dale follow more closely Reformed thinking.
Reformed and Orthodox theology use different approaches and language, which may lead to misunderstandings and disagreements even where the basic ideas would converge.
As far as I have understood, Orthodox theology lifts up the cooperation (synergy) between The Holy Spirit and the believer. God saves and guides the believer but it happens in cooperation with the believer who has free will. So it can be said that it is not 100% God, 0% man.
Reformed theology stresses the role of God, God saves and the man is predestined to salvation or hell. It is 100% God, 0% man. Yet, there is an expectation that the believer lives according to her/his faith, guided by the Holy Spirit. If someone does not live according to the faith although (s)he is called Christian, the conclusion may be that the person is perhaps not predestined to salvation or have not yet been lifted by God from the world to salvation. So, there is an expectation that the believer is somehow cooperating with God. It could be claimed that there is de facto an expectation that the human contributes or goes along (synergy) although God saves. This would make the story closer to what the Orthodox understanding is.
There seems to be a great difference in theology but when the theory is brought to real life, some differences may be smaller than they seemed to be. Orthodox faith is more focused on living the life with God than having the correct doctrine, if I have understood it correctly.
I donât have too much (any?) problem with the synergy idea because it fits the omnitemporallity/free will âinterfaceâ and instantaneity of choosing cooperation or rejecting it. Of course all the language we use is timebound, so using @St.Roymondâs initialisms, the VFA is 100% Godâs predestination, so to speak, and the VFB is 100% our free will.
That doesnât eliminate the need for testing ourselves though, because it is possible to not be âin the faithâ even though we think we are a Jesus follower and look like it too, maybe as a Judas. He didnât test himself and his desires against the first petition in the Lordâs Prayer, at any rate â we know what his true desires were.
You are right. Legally Iâm still a baptized member of the Eastern Greek Orthodox Church even though I do not follow the orthodox doctrine per say as youâve pointed out. HOWEVER.Im very much influenced by eastern Christian theology.
That is right. Cooperation between the divine and man is the orthodox way of going.
However
No entirely. Orthodoxy boasts itself by claiming to be THE CHURCH that has THE DOCTRINE. Not CORRECT DOCTRINE but THE DOCTRINE. They do genuinely believe they have the only view possible. The orthodox faith is focused on living life for God. Everything ought to be done in order to reach âTheosisâ or âdivinationâ. Itâs a misunderstanding term at least for the non greek speaking world.
So the orthodox goal is to reach Theosis . To become like God in any way but not his essence.
Some orthodox even believe this can happen to this life as well without reaching heaven. Hence the multitude of saints the church has and ENCOURAGES everyone to take example in their ways.
This of course needs the cooperation of believer and God. Trough Theosis Gods glory is revealed to the divine man .
Does the divine man become like God immortal out of time etc ? No.
But he becomes enlightened, and sinless.
Yes the church holds the position that one can reach a sinless state even on this life. Thatâs why you become like God but not God.
Pretty cool huh? Although I do not accept it 100% it still an interesting theological position
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I can say that Reformed theology is not 100% God, 0% man. People can say anything they want. This doesnât make it true let alone make it helpful in understanding the theology. Frankly this use of percentages is not helpful.
Consider how bread is made. What percentage of the work is done by the baker and what percentage is done by the ingredients? If you donât think that makes any sense, then I donât see how it makes any more sense to ask this sort of question regarding salvation. Does this change the fact that the baker requires the bread dough to rise? No. Does any of this double talk by the Reformed change the fact that God requires us to repent and have faith? No.
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