The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Is man required to "choose" in order to be saved?

1. Welcome to the Discussion Board.

2. Yes, the historic and confessional Calvinist view denies an inherent "free-will", i.e., a denial that man can choose contrary to his nature.

3. Any choice a man makes is partly determined by outside influences. Choices are also partly and predominately determined by inside influences, i.e., one's nature. The natural man CAN only choose that which is contrary to God due to his inherited depravity of nature. The spiritual (regenerated) man has a new nature which seeks after God and desires to be conformed to the image of Christ. But since there is a remaining influence of sin within the regenerate man, he can also sin. cf. Rom 7.

4. ALL choices made by man, whether unregenerate or regenerate are "free", i.e., no one or any thing can force the human will, not even God. Man, as Edwards pointedly wrote, always chooses that which is most important to him under any given circumstance. The ONLY way that any man can even desire to seek after God and do that which is good is by a radical change of nature; the recreation of the will which occurs in regeneration.