Dear Joe,<br><br>IRT:<br>"If your only defense is to take things out of context than the Arminian in you but treads into the deep waters of the abyss."<br><br>I pulled nothing out of context, as any rational person can see. I repeat: "force" means "to produce with effort and against one's will." do against the will." So while no power on earth can force me away from Christ, there is nothing implying that I cannot willfully walk away. For my will to drag (and I do mean forcefully drag) me away from Christ, my will would have to drag me against my will (?). Also, I was under the impression that the abyss was hot (little joke).<br><br>Concerning Exodus 32, if God can plan in advance to pronounce a sentence and then recant it (as your article implies), then could He not put a person's name into the book of life (knowing that such a man will not endure to the end), and then later remove it if He so chooses?<br><br>That was quite a long article on Hebrews 6, but two things about it go against your case. For one, his argument is based on the idea that the people spoken of passed up the opportunity to be saved.<br><br>"...who may even have made some profession of faith in Him, yet turn around and walk away from full acceptance, are given the severest possible warning. Persistent rejection of Christ may result in such persons’ passing the point of no return spiritually, of losing forever the opportunity of salvation."<br><br>If I understand Calvinism correctly, those who are eternally lost never had an opportunity to be saved. So the hinge of his argument contradicts the second main point of your doctrine. Secondly, the passage in question could only refer to those that are saved; for it says that "it is impossible to renew them again to repentance." Why would God grant a person repentance to life (Acts 11:18) and not save them? <br><br>Additionally, the author's whole argument:<br><br>"People can go to church for years and hear the gospel over and over again, even be faithful church members, and never really make a commitment to Jesus Christ. That kind of person is addressed here."<br><br>Is clearly contradicted by vs 9, which says,<br>"But beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation (literally: 'that you are holding fast salvation'), though we thus speak."<br><br>IRT:<br>"And all those that truly believe will be secure for they are in the hand of God--NO POWER--being able to remove them.....unless of course you believe in a God that is less powerful than mankind."<br><br>I do believe that if He so chose, He could unstoppably compel as many as He wished to willfully accept Him and like it; and then keep them from falling away, even if they wanted to leave Him. I also believe that if He so chose, He could draw a man, but give him the ability to reject or accept Him; keep a man secure from being snatched away from Him, but let this transformed creature decide whether he will abide by the power of the Spirit in the One that saved him, or surrender to his still-present sinful nature and depart from his Lord. So as I stated before, it is not about sovereignty, but method. All evidence considered, I believe the latter to be true.<br><br><br>In Christ,<br>Josh