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RenewingMinds
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Human Volition and Conversion
Much has been written earlier regarding the divine call, which call not only invites with a gospel appeal, but inclines the mind and heart of the one called to accept divine grace. Here the human will--a secondary cause--is recognized. The will of man is guided by what he knows and what he desires.
The divine method of reaching the will is by increasing man's knowledge and by stimulating his desires, while on the divine side of this method there remains not the shadow of possible failure. The end is as certain as any eternal reality in God.
On the human side, man is conscious of doing only what he actually does: he chooses as an act of his own volition to receive the grace God offers in Christ Jesus. It is a problem to the mind of man how God can predetermine and realize the eternal salvation of a precise number which no human being has ever counted, and guarantee that not one will fail, and yet each one of that company is allowed the free exercise of his own will, and could, if he so determined, reject every offer of divine grace.
By persuasion and enlightenment God realizes His purpose to the point of infinite completeness; yet no human will has been coerced, nor will one ever be. God's call is efficacious, for all who are called are justified and glorified.
- Dr. Lewis S. Chafer
- Systematic Theology
- Vol. III, p. 350
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