I've gone back and deleted a reply or two that were especially stupid. Mostly I've left them alone. I've never minded being 'wrong', and I trust the readers of the forum understand we grow or we die. If I'm too much in doubt or the question has been answered sufficiently without my rambling, I'll more likely just stop and not hit 'post'. That happens a whole lot.
Gary and lauriellen, I was so flustered by the notion that there was no free-will that I was almost literally completely paralyzed for days. I couldn't so much as scratch my nose (literally) without wondering and worrying about how it fit into the plan of God. Did God want me to scratch my nose? Or is it me wanting to scratch my nose and God doesn't really care one way or the other? What do the scriptures say about God and my nose-scratching? Can I alter the course of the universe by scratching my nose? How about by not scratching my nose? What if God actually wanted me to scratch my nose, and I refused? On and on and on. I just didn't like the thought of living so "passively". I felt like I had
lost something precious, though I was willing to let it go if need be.
It was actually more the forum than an article by Ray that got me to understand just enough to stop being so paralyzed by confusion. For a while, I just accepted it as if it were part of a creed. As empty as that sounds, it was that tiny bit of belief/faith that made it possible to 'see' just how loudly and clearly this truth is declared in Scripture (something that still astounds me), and how blind I had to be to not see it.
Now, many hundreds of hours of learning and of contemplation and meditation later, I just about almost can see a point at which I might just 'get it'. Whew! This false doctrine of 'free-will/free moral agency' is the main living quarters of the Beast, I believe. It does not go easy for anybody, I don't believe, once it's been built in us. It's been the small, incremental and ongoing destruction of this doctrine that has made most of what difference exists in my life from my cynical and depressed recent past. I'm gladder and gladder that Jesus is Lord.
As far as living "passively" goes...Ray Smith believes in the Soveriegnty of God over the will of Man. Would you describe Ray as 'passive'?