Having watched the following video, I decide to blog a response:
Atheist grills Calvinist on Salvation
https://youtu.be/_a3eMTy4mAw
I posted the following in the video comments:
//I'm a Calvinist. There is a sense in which we can "do" something for our salvation. I'll explain that in multiple posts. But some preliminaries. God is within His rights not to save any sinner. If anyone ends up in hell, it's because they deserve to be there on account of their sins. God doesn't send innocent people to hell. They will be there justly/in justice. That anyone is saved from hell is a matter of mercy and grace. Grace and mercy, by definition, are not obligated. If it were obligated, then it would be justice, not mercy or grace. If a human governor pardoned only 10 out of 1000 prison inmates, he is not doing any injustice toward the rest who weren't pardoned.
It is true that we could only truly desire to be saved only if the efficacious and irresistible special grace of God works in a sinner. Does that mean we can't do anything to be saved? Yes. Does that mean we have nothing to do? no. We have a duty to believe, and to strive to believe even if we can't. Indirect doxastic voluntarism is true, even though the grace of God is necessary to bring about genuine faith. Under normal circumstances direct doxastic voluntarism is usually [or always] false. We cannot, by an act of the will, choose to believe something. Say, contrary to the evidence etc. However, INdirect doxastic voluntarism is true. We can exercise our wills so as to incline our minds toward believing X, Y, or Z. For example, we can immerse ourselves in apologetical material that will incline us to be willing to believe in Christianity. Which may eventually lead to our believing [in a non-saving way] the truth of Christianity. Or immerse ourselves in anti-theistic and anti-Christian literature that will incline us toward unbelief or even eventually disbelief in Christianity. Unless one believes in the Sandemanian heresy [which a minority of Calvinists believe [e.g. Clarkians]], then faith is not mere assent to the true propositions of the gospel. Saving Faith involves notitia, assensus and fiducia [knowledge, assent, and Spirit inspired genuine trust and recumbency in the promises of the Gospel] . That's why it's possible to believe in the truth of Christianity without being truly saved and regenerate [cf. the Parable of the Sower]. It's a carnal belief, not a saving and spiritual belief. Given that, see my next post which is taken from one of my blogs.
Here's an excerpt from one of my blogs to finish where I was going above given the necessity of regeneration [I couldn't link to the blog on YouTube, but I can here: https://gospelcrumbs.blogspot.com/2013/07/detecting-and-finding-god.html]:
//Does that mean that humans can't affect their eternal destinies by looking for God and examining the various evidences for God? No, it doesn't. One CANNOT CHANGE their pre-ordained destiny, but ONE CAN AFFECT IT because God ordains both the ends as well as the means; all the while upholding causal relations. In other words, God providentially predestines not only what will happen, but how they will happen.
So, if God ordained that a person will be saved, then God also ordained the means to their salvation. That can include things like their 1. seeking for God, 2. examining the evidences, 3. praying, 4. reading the Bible, 5. studying apologetics et cetera.
It will be argued, "Sure, God may also ordain the means, but people will not actually seek God unless and until God first regenerates them so that they can genuinely and sincerely seek after God." The charges and assumptions being, that it's not possible for people to initiate a search for God. And that therefore there's no point in admonishing people to search for God. Also, unless they first have reason to believe they are regenerated (and/or numbered among the elect), they have no reason to have confidence or expectation that their search will be fruitful and that they will, in the end, actually find God. But those are false inferences. God's promise that those who sincerely seek Him will find Him stand (e.g. James 4:8; John 6:37b; Matt. 11:28-30; Isa. 55:6-7; Jer. 29:13; Ps. 145:18; cf. James 1:8.; Luke 11:9-10; Heb. 11:6). That's true whether one is regenerated or not. Moreover, God doesn't require either the elect or non-elect to know they are regenerated or elect before they can seek after Him. Humans are free moral agents (even if they don't have libertarian free wills as Calvinism implies). Being free moral agents created by God, all humans have the duty to seek after God and believe in Him regardless of the possibility of their success in that search.
Given Calvinism, both the elect and non-elect can "search" for God, but only the elect will sincerely, honestly and persistently search for Him because of regeneration. Since a knowledge of one's regeneration isn't essential to saving faith, everyone can have personal psychological hope that they might find God by searching for Him.
Therefore, regarding those who are currently non-Christians, for all they know, God will use their search for Him (whether it's currently sincere or insincere) to eventually lead to their finding Him. Their search which may have begun insincerely may end up being sincere by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. So, we are all without excuse if we fail to search for God.//
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