# God as a Debtor to Synergistic Views



## Ask Mr. Religion (Apr 3, 2015)

A typical comment seen in free-will discussions related to the depravity of the lost in soteriological topics is that "man possesses the ability to respond to God's offer of grace" along with the accompanying "some will respond rightly and others wrongly".

At that juncture I want to probe more deeply into exactly the synergist made the right choice while his or her neighbor did not. What usually follows is more pointed questioning from me and my interlocutor eventually dismissing my questions with some desperate pointers to poorly understood Scripture verses.

It would seem to me that to avoid the rabbit trails related to proper interpretation of the offered verses, a reasonable response to the statements given in my opening sentence above would be a question along the lines:

*What specifically was it about your ability to respond correctly and another's to not do the same that absolves God from being a debtor, per your** choice, thereby having God giving you what you merited by your perceptive ability to choose correctly?*
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I am hard pressed to find a response from the Arminian, open theist, etc., that would absolve God from being a debtor. That said, knowing my own limitations, I would be interested in any possible examples that would be a suitable answer to my question.

As more background, I think the approach of using "reasons to boast" as a tactic with a synergist fails too often with their claims that they are not doing any "work" that would given them "reason to boast". It seems to me that another approach would be to approach the topic from a "making God a debtor strategy" as the "wiggle room" the synergist may lay claim to related to "reasons to boast" is much more narrow and explicitly didactic within Scripture.

Am I all wet here or is there any cheese down this tunnel?


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## ZackF (Apr 3, 2015)

It goes back to the notion of prevenient grace where God supposedly sets the stage for the possibility of salvation for all. Mathematically this notion can be illustrated by taken the human race from -1 to 0 where each man would have a free choice to accept the grace to get to +1.


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## Sovereign Grace (Apr 4, 2015)

I wrote a blog post once that's quite similiar to the theme of the OP...





> *Free will makes God appear impotent*.
> 
> 
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> ...




https://hardshelloldregularbaptist.wordpress.com/2014/06/21/free-will-makes-god-impotent/


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## ZackF (Apr 4, 2015)

Another thing, 

Arminianism, RCism and so forth never can escape the house of mirrors, that philosophical infinite regression quicksand where no matter how many kinds of "grace" you add to the will in salvation it doesn't solve the problem of their inherent humanism. You end up with man as the arbiter in salvation and not God.


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## senjui19 (Apr 5, 2015)

To tell the truth, I can very well see how an Arminian wiggles out of the dilemma proposed in the OP. "God is not a debtor, because that's what He has called me to (my salvation), as He has all men. Therefore I just respond to His call, using my own free will (with maybe just some help from the Holy Spirit ),so God is in no way indebted to me,etc,etc". Maybe I'm mistaken, though. Anyway, I'll try out the stratagy when I have a chance.


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## Ask Mr. Religion (Apr 7, 2015)

I appreciate the responses everyone.


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