Kleinecke wrote:
> qquito{at}hotmail.com (Quito Quito) wrote in message
news:...
> > Does your behavior, physical as well as psychological, in this life
> > determine whether you will go to Heaven or Hell?
> >
> > In other words, if you choose to follow, physically as well
> > psychologically, what the church teaches, will it be guaranteed
that
> > you will go to Heaven?
>
> There are, of course, many answers to this question.
>
> I was raised as a Calvinist. A Calvinist, if you can find a real one,
> will tell you that NOTHING you do, physical or psychological, will
> impact at all on "whether you will go to Heaven or Hell". You are
> either of the elect or you are not of the elect and whether you are
or
> not was determined by God long before you were born.
>
The problem with this reductionism of Calvinism, it that it only grants
one point of view.  What I mean is, what you say is true from the
Divine point of view.  The scriptures declare, "chosen from the
foundation of the world."  The elect are a determined number.

But we do not consciously operate from that vantage.  Who knows, other
than God, who the elect are?  We are commanded to go out into the world
to proclaim the gospel to all people, non-elect as well elect, because
who knows?  The gospel offer of salvation to the non-elect is sincere.
The problem does lie in the offer.  The problem lies in sinful man's
inability to respond to that offer without the prevenient grace of God.

Nothing you can do?  Acts 27.  God promised Paul than no one on the
ship would be lost and yet there were individual
actions/responsibilites  which followed to assure that promise.

No one has to do anything to go to hell.  Everyone is headed in that
direction as John notes in ch 3, "already judged."  Salvation is being
pulled out of that wide stream of humanity headed for that final
destination.
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