Gazza

Hi Cheryl
In Post 259 you said “God is not confined to time so He lives with us in the past, present and future so there has never been a doubt about who or how many will be saved.”
Yet in Post 244 you expressed sadness that people believe “that God deliberately and unconditionally creates people to go to hell.”
I struggle to put these together. If God indeed had no doubt about who or how many will be saved then at the point he creates those who will rejet Him is He not knowingly creating someone who will go to hell?

In post 260 you said “At some point it had to be David’s own faith. He could not inherit his faith from God.” I agree fully. I would put along side that statement that everything about David was created by God. David didn’t create himself God created Him. So even though the faith is Davids own faith, it is also and expression of who God created David to be. This is different to the blessings of growing up in a Christian family etc – three are plenty of examples where brothers and sisters grow up in a Christian home some reject Christ while some accept. Their different responses are due to the fact that God created them as different people. Each makes up their own mind but it will always be a mind that God created for them.

You also said “The consistent message of Scripture is that we must trust in God and then He will do it.” I might surprise you at this point but again I fully agree with you. Indeed failing to trust in God is why people go to hell. Yet just because that is the right thing to do it does not mean that everyone will do it. What do you see is the difference between believers and non believers? To phrase it another way why do you believe some have faith while others do not?

I really appreciate the way in which you foster an environment in which people of different stances can open the bible together and endeavour to better understand scripture in love. This is the way it should but unfortunately so often is not.