Islam and Christianity A Common Word: ONCE SAVED ALWAYS SAVED ? DISCUSSION WITH EVANGELIST DAN CORNER.

This was an interesting article that was posted discussing the doctrine of eternal security.My comments are in red.

It seems that an issue that always comes up when Arminian and Calvinist have their theological clash is on the problem and question of evil.

Agreed!

I personally find Dan Corner to be a very sincere gentleman and when I listen to him I don't detect deceit and treachery when he speaks. I believe the man to be a true and faithful Christian and I also found it striking that when the host ask him questions he gives the response 'I believe WHAT JESUS SAYS' and than he quotes the scriptures. He also will say 'I believe what the Bible says' and than he quotes the relevant passages.

This is very different than people today who drag in allot of exegesis, and philosophy and you hardly ever hear them quote the Bible. To my understanding Dan Corner is a former Roman Catholic. I am not sure of his church affiliation. 

I agree that Dan Corner seems like a nice guy. However I believe in eternal security and I don't believe what he says I believe. Neither does anyone I know who accepts eternal security. More on this later. I would like to know who the blog author has been conversing with about eternal security who does not think its important that their view be scripture based. Also I wonder if the author knows anything about what "exegesis" is. "Dragging"  in exegesis means looking at scripting and drawing out your understanding from the text. Eisogesis is reading into the text something that is not there.  I think eisogesis is more important than philosophy.

For example was Lucifer 'saved'? Did Lucifer loose his salvation? Where did Lucifer get the inclination to rebel from? Did God create an imperfect program? If the program or creation had within its design and capacity to rebel why be so harsh upon it? After all anyone who is a computer programmer knows that a program only does what it's programmed to do.

The Bible says that "iniquity was found in" Lucifer (Ezekiel 28:15). The Bible does not say where the rebellion in Lucifer came from. What I think is more important where is the rebellion, iniquity and sin came from within our own hearts!? We know that this is what makes us unable to come to God on our own. Even Islam is about bridging that gap between us and God. At least we all admit that there is a gap. We disagree on how to overcome that Gap. This is why I prefer Calvinism over Arminianism: Calvinism has an answer. The suffering and crap we see in the program is not a bug....it's a feature...in a larger plan. I've written software myself where I purposely allow it to fail at certain spots so that I can force other parts of the program to do things as I see fit. Why? Because I want to. Is it it Efficient? Not your call. It's my program! Same thing with God except on a much larger scale.

Christians talk about God's 'justice' needing satisfaction. So did it satisfy God to create beings destined for hell? If so than why is sin such a big deal? If not than who programmed the creation to have the ability to sin? Why would God allow a creation to have an ability that he hates soo much?

It's a big deal because sin really is that bad. Thumbing your nose at the one who made you and outright rebellion deserves infinite and final punishment. And again neither you nor I know the complete picture in order to figure out if God could have done things differently in order to make sure all the "t's" God wants crossed are crossed. We can't know. God does. That is where trusting God is so important.

For the Calvinist if God already had a special elect group of people who were saved in Christ before the foundation of the world than why the need to incarnate and die for this saved group since they are already 'in Christ' (see: regeneration before faith). This seems a bit redudant.

It seems redundant because the author does not understand if Jesus had not incarnated and died the elect would not be saved,.

Christians need to answer these questions. The Manichean view of good verses evil seems appealing but people will ultimatley ask where the will to do evil or rebel came from.

The Manichean view of good verses evil is wrong. It gives evil too much credit and God not enough control. The truth is that evil can do nothing unless God allows it. 

You can see further my blog entry:

Fall of Man, Doctrine of Original Sin and Islam

Okay let me see about answering Corner's video statements now.

I think Dan Corner is really concerned with making sure that we know that God requires repentance and a holy life. Eternal Security does not mean that you get live any kind of way because you are going to heaven.When I use the term I mean that if you are born again, you will repent and continue to follow Jesus no matter what. What will happen is if you flub up and if you turn your back on God you will be restored - like David and Peter. However if you are never restored then you were never saved or elect in the first place.

Islam and Christianity A Common Word: ONCE SAVED ALWAYS SAVED ? DISCUSSION WITH EVANGELIST DAN CORNER.