You ask some good questions.
These are my words. They're drawn from experience and common sense.Note the part I italicizes above. Where are you getting this from?
I agree wholeheartedly with Paul. If I understand your post correctly, you appear to be taking an extreme position--that there is literally no good whatsover in a human being. [Forgive me if I've misrepresented you.]Paul also said, "For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not" (Rom 7:18, NASB). It IS true that we at times do what is required by the law, even in our fallen states (Rom 2:14-15), but that certainly doesn't make us "good." Again, as Paul says, in the flesh, there is NO good.
As I think I stated in an earlier post, the Calvinist notion that the flesh represents in Paul's thinking [or in reality] an actual, literal state is a logical impossibility because the only characteristics that can arise from an actually unregenerate spirit are those things associated with evil: badness, rebelliousness, chaos, death, etc. In fact, the contradistinction between "flesh" and "spirit"--referred to in the NT by Jesus, Paul and Peter--refer to a good/evil dualism within being. I believe this to be an unavoidable conclusion based on a number of logical considerations as well as from Scripture itself. Why would Paul warn to walk after the Spirit and not the flesh (Rom 8:4, Gal 5:16) unless both were ontologically present to choose from?
I respond to the error of the wholly animated or wholly "dead" spirit in a downloadable article, The Error of the Wholly Animated Spirit toward the bottom of this page...
http://www.rationalesotericism.com/Rati ... icles.html
You might also check out the article The Fragmented Spirit, which posits the simultaneous existence of good and evil as properties simultaneously inherent in human spirit. BTW, I've posted the former article in a variety of formats on several bulletin boards and have made it available on the internet for over three years. To date, no one has been able to refute it. I don't say this from false pride, only in earnestness that I think it has a firm foundation in the truth.
I believe your comparison of Rom 7 with 1Jn 3:9 is reconciled in the two articles mentioned above. When you consider the concept that human spirit is not an either/or, actual state regarding regeneration, that "flesh" and "Spirit" represent internal states which can not only be interpreted as two distinct, simultaneous and opposite properties (true/false, good/evil, regenerate/unregenerate), but the New Testament distinctions between this very orthodox theological dualism (good/evil) match with much more clarity experience with Scripture.
There is no reasonable explanation in viewing regeneration as either wholly present or absent for why human experience is fragmented into good and bad behaviors. Because spirit is the cause of prescriptive behavior (Mark 7:21), if spirit were wholly regenerate, only good would follow from its dynamic. Same for the notion of wholly unregenerate, as mentioned above. Good simply does not arise from evil, not evil from good. Jesus explained this logical principle in His teaching that bad fruit doesn't come from good trees, not vice versa (Mat 7:16-20). He again teaches the same principle in Luke 11:17-20.....contraries simply do not produce opposite fruit.
Actually, Jac3510, if you follow through what I posted above, I believe my arguments stand quite solidly. Believers have no evil in a forensic and judicial sense, not an actual sense. Those who are saved are those whose falsity (evil) has, to the extent Christ is followed in the regeneration of human spirit to the forging of faith, been replaced in some real ratio sufficient to create faith. Faith isn't just created in the mind, you know. It's an actual, inner process (sanctification). The process requires actual change. I believe all inner change from evil to good is regenerational. Regeneration is fragmental and progressive. This model explains the fragmented admixture of good/bad thoughts, acts, and words that springs from every human being. In this light, the cumbersome and vague Calvinist doctrine of conversion is proven to be unnecessary and illogical. Everything is regeneration; regeneration is accomplished by sword (Ezek 21:2-5) and hail (Isa 28:17) and fire (Mal 3:3) Truth is fire, fire is sanctification . All are salted with regenerational fire (Mark 9:49) and illumined (Jn 1:9).If this paradigm is true, then your argument falls apart, because there is NO good in the unregenerate man (cf. Heb. 11:16). Those who are saved are those who have NO evil. How is it, though, that we, as believers, have no evil? The answer is that in the Resurrection, we will cast off this corruptible, immoral body and put on the incorruptible, moral body (1 Cor. 15:53-54). We will then have a body that matches our nature.
If God's word is true and truly serves Him perfectly and sovereignly (Isa 55:11), and if all are salted with fire and in some ratio awakened spiritually, and if Jesus truly will not despise the dimly burning wick (Isa 42:3) or the one whose free gift (Rom 6:23), indestructible seed (1Jn 3:9, 1Pet 1:23), is present, even if only in small measure....then anyone should be able to do the math.
All other stumbling blocks that I can see are overcome by recognizing God's dualistic structure woven into His creation, that in perfect love He has by Christ Jesus' outstretched, bloodied arms deflected His wrath from particular to universal (from the individual to the property of evil within the spirit of every individual), which is amazingly consistent in the principles of both Testaments, and no other logical conclusion can be drawn than that all will be saved, even the unbelievers who go to hell. This is the rationally esoteric sense of Scripture. It does not deny the literal but fulfills it.
Hell is fire, an esoteric term for cleansing, purging, refining. Metaphor is spiritual language that corresponds to underlying spiritual principles. We don't have a language of spiritual phenomena because our eyes are fastened to the realm of particulars, sense experience. This is recognized by virtually everyone, on some level. Jesus' teachings practically all exhort the reader to look beyond the literal signifiers used in teaching spiritual principles--as when Jesus said to gouge out eyes and cut off hands that sin, etc.--to their deeper signification. But Truth in its final and absolute form are perfectly and ultimately rational and reasonable....meaning spiritual truths will never dismiss literal truths, but give them new, expanded meaning. Many modern "mystics" and Gnostics use esoteric meaning to destroy literal truth, and I reject this firmly. Rational Esotericism has never once denied a literal truth, but it places the literal in its proper perspective.As an aside, in your view, how is anyone cast into Hell? All people, according to you, have some measure of good, so how does this work? Along with the verses that IRQ cited, we also have Rev. 20:15, which says, "If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire." Doesn't this refer to people being thrown into the Lake of Fire?
Think universally and generally rather than in specifics. Who are the "unbelievers" denied entrance to the kingdom? On one level, we see them as people. On a higher level, lies, murders, etc. are acts committed by individuals which finds its dynamic interiorly....in spirit. When the Lord says the evil will be cast into the lake of fire, He means it. Human spirit is a field in which tares will be gathered and burned (Mat 13), in which goats and sheep will be separated (Mat 25), in which the unrighteous will be cut off from the righteous (Ezek 21:2-5), where some branches will be burned and others pruned (Jn 15). We can do it the easy way by being salted with fire to sanctification, resulting in the imputed righteousness of Christ to protect from the lake of fire after physical death, as in Daniel's friends in the furnace, or as per those saved by the blood of the lamb on the doorpost, or we can find our cleansing in the 'lake effect', or second death. Either way, God's love is perfectly fulfilled.
Believe the Lord when He says all things are possible. Even the camel, reduced to its constituent atomic components, can easily pass through the eye of the needle.
