<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]It is not correct that a man must have this essential part of him in heaven as well, so you can not go down this line of reasoning. Because all God is asking you to do first and foremost is believe, not just with words, but with your heart to the effect "I have come to the cross as a helpless sinner and receive the Lord Jesus as my Savior". If you can affirmitively believe this, you are saved, and noone can ever take that away from you. This requires no special part in heaven, for you are on earth right now, and that is what matters, and it is from earth that God is asking for you to receive Him, not from heaven. God will take care of the latter after that.</font><hr></blockquote><p><br><br>You state that the will is not an essential part of man in heaven, but how exactly do you justify that belief?<br>Dr. Robert Picirilli of the Free-will Baptist Bible college stated in his response to me concerning this very question, that freewill is an essentiall part of man's personality and to deprive him of this mars the image of God - what you are arguing calvinists do in their theology. <br>Picirilli at least admits that he is unsure of man's will in heaven, but as a consistent Reformed arminian, he maintains that he will have freewill.<br>Be that as it may, then what you are suggesting with your reply to my inquiry is that man's nature is changed in heaven, that his power of contrary choice is done away with. Can you not see the blatant inconsistency in your core presuppositions?<br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]The reason why Christians will not reject heavenlies is because they are saved. The choice was already made the day they were saved. Think of the movie, The Matrix. Neo asks the Oracle, why am I here? And the Oracle says, You are not here to make a choice, for you have already made the choice, but rather you are here to understand why you made that choice. They do not go back on what they have already decided. Angels, those fallen already made their choice and thus fell, but men of God have no ability to reject God once saved unto eternal life because once that decision is truly made it is so incredible it is not up for negotiation later on. This is what it means to be truly saved.</font><hr></blockquote><p><br><br>That is a rather lame illustration for your point, because if you remember that when Neo reaches the Archetic guy, that he reveals to Neo that he had essentially been lied to by the oracle (she only programmed the power of choice into the Matrix to make certain that humanity would not reject the core program and die, but remain docile and enslaved to the machines), and that his destiny had been pre-programmed to replay a series of programs that had been replayed six times previously. How this Sci-Fi take on atheistic philosophy is even relevant to Biblical truth is yet to be seen from your pen (keyboard). <br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]That free-will does remain in tact when in heaven but you must realize it is a free-will in alignment with God never upsetting God, that is what we are men of God, never to reverse. I know that is hard for you to accept us with free-will, but that is what a free-will that accepts the life of Christ has, is a free-will that is overcome that can as Revelation says for those of the 1st resurrection, we can no longer be "hurt by the second death". Amazing huh! Scripture said it, not me. Well, I said it doo.</font><hr></blockquote><p><br><br>In alignment with God? Are you saying that God "forces" himself upon those who choose? Sort of like, to borrow a phrase from Norm Geisler, commits cosmic rape upon the minds of men? You have yet to show us any scriptural support for a free, libertarian will. At least when I pointed out the philosophical, humanistic presuppositions of free-willism to Dr. Picirilli, he recognized that, yes, belief in freewill is presupposed and that the only "exegesis" a person needs to see the reality of freewill is to look at all the passages that say believe on Christ. Of course, like all freewillers, he sort of glosses over those passages that state man has no ability to believe in the first place unless God changes his heart.<br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]Those with a life in Christ have no ability to reject God because we have already made our decision, and that decision is locked forever when we came to Christ. This is a very profound truth but if you want to know the true Christ you will have to accept this basic tenent as well.</font><hr></blockquote><p> <br><br>So, it is your position that man's personality is altered after he chooses? That he forfeits his "freewill" the moment he believes the gospel and is saved? Even the Neo-socianians recognize such lunacy.<br><br>I will leave the rest of your comments for others to address. All I see is an individual who has only demonstrated an unabashed ignorance of what Calvinism actually teaches, and an overall ineptitude of handling the text of scripture. <br><br>I still didn't catch where you stated you went to church? Are you affiliated with any particular denomination, or are you one of those "lone" ranger Christians?<br><br>Fred

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