So let's try it this way:
Quote my specific words that you think say or mean "Void of God, the dead justify the dead..." Maybe we can work from there...
It's your entire point, my friend....
You insist that the whole thing hinges on a Dead Atheist - with NO faith, NO Holy Spirit, NO life, NO nothing from God - specially repenting, which you insist is the good work which that Dead Atheist does entirely void of ANYTHING from God, ANY activity of God - and which leads us to the next step, where presumably God first becomes active.
Again, MANY times - many, many times - I have suggested to you that IF you will permit God to be active here..... IF you will affirm that with the "Call" (as you put it) God is supply stuff...... IF you will affirm that with this "Call" (as you put it) comes faith, life, Holy Spirit, Justification (in the narrow sense) - then you are just affirming the Lutheran view (and yup, now make yourself the object of the RCC's condemnation, rebuke and pronouncement of anathema). I have (at least 4 times) even offered one way of looking at this (from a Baptist, with "Decision" theology and "altar CALLS") but you have always ignored it (to reject it). So, your whole point is the DEAD brings all this about - with an inert God. Yes, you seem to imply that AFTER the Dead Man performs the good work - God comes into the picture but only to reward the Dead Atheist for performing the good work all on his own, flowing from his lifeless conditions, void of faith and the Holy Spirit. You have had many posts without so much as a mention of Christ or the Savior or the Holy Spirit or even spiritual or life. Yes, at times you give a verbatim statement of the Lutheran position.... but then boldly denounce it in ways no Catholic ever has been so bold as to do.
I have told you three times now that God in not inert, that without Christ we can do nothing...
So..... I'll asked ONCE AGAIN, then how does the Dead Atheist supply the "START" the "FIRST STEP" the PRIMARY CAUSE as MC puts it, or the required "preparation" as you put it? How does this Dead Atheist perform THE critical good work which means God THEREFORE grants to him what he earned and deserves: Life, faith, the Holy Spirit? Thus making Justification a good work Dead Atheists achieve - BEFORE God enters the picture, thus making the Savior every Dead Atheist, thus making the Dead the Giver of Life, thus making Jesus and mercy and grace and the Incarnation and the Cross and the Resurrection and the Holy Spirit irrelevant. You have NOTHING from God until that Dead Atheist performs the good work which is the CAUSE of his being rewarded with life, faith, the Holy Spirit, Justification. Your whole point is that God is INERT until the Dead Atheist performs the saving good work (which he cannot and will not do).
THAT call is unto REPENTANCE...
AFTER repentance THEN comes Justification BY God...
Thus, your whole point: Dead Atheists save self and give self life - BEFORE God enters the picture AT ALL. The Dead Atheist acts out of his complete LACK of faith, life, Holy Spirit..... God. God ONLY enters the picture (ceases to be inert) AFTER the Dead Atheist has adequately performed a spiritual act, a good work, when (I presume in the NEXT step) God simply rewards (but doesn't give because the Dead Atheist already gave it all to himself).
For the third time now I say again, God is NEVER inert...
Yet your whole premise is that God is. The Dead Atheist does the first step, the critical thing, the very thing that means he is justified - and he does it ENTIRELY on his own because God is not yet active in ANYTHING, God is entirely void in this "first step" (as MC puts it) or "preparation" as you put it, this CRITICAL step upon which eternity depends. You have a Dead Atheist performing a spiritual fact of faith - with an inert God who offers NOTHING to him until AFTER he has adequately performed this spirtual act of faith and life - and then only to reward it with faith and life (which the Dead Atheist already gave himself).
Again, many times, over and over, I have offered to you the possibility that the "CALL" brings with it God (so that He is not inert in the Call) but you always ignore this even as a theoretical possibility - because it would mean the Dead Atheist does NOT make the "first step' or the "preporation", and that Dead Atheist does NOT give life to himself and save himself - God does. To reject my position that a wonderful, mysterious MIRACLE is happening there, which GOD (and not dead atheists) performs. To reject the Lutheran position that JESUS is the Savior (not dead atheists) and that the Holy Spirit is the Lord and GIVER of Life (not dead atheists).
God is the miracle worker. God is the life-giver. God is the Savior. Not dead atheistic man.
Sola Gratia - Solus Christus - Sola Fide. Soli DEO Gloria!
- Josiah
