Thanks all for your interaction. This has been my first real interaction with LDSaints, and it’s changed my perception significantly and sparked great interest.

Thanks especially for non-divisive non-condescending tone.

Bradley

Your post does help, and I think you’re right; we do disagree on that point.

Also just wanted to say it’s been great having this conversation. I appreciate all the time and energy you spend asking genuine questions about what Mormons believe and giving well thought-out explanations of your own beliefs. I hope you find the blog helpful in the future if you ever have any questions.

Thanks for the response. The reason why I assume we still disagree is because of statements like the one’s you just made. For God to “prompt” us is one thing, like Mother prompting her son to “do the right thing” by all the means of persuasion she has access to. For a Mother to supernaturally change her son’s heart so that he actually desired to do the right thing—this is something different. It goes beyond persuasion.

Also I assume we disagree because of the clarifying comments made whenever I describe how I understand God to work. The clarifying statements go something like this: But if God works that way, people who don’t choose him could say it’s God’s fault since God didn’t “grant” them to believe. Other clarifying comments go something like the one you just made: I believe God gives everyone equal chance to choose or believe in Christ.

I understand the starting point of all sinners (that’s everyone) as worthy of nothing but God’s wrath. Thus, God is not obligated to do anything for anyone—not even “equal opportunity” (as we are used to in America). God doesn’t seem to work that way in the Bible. He chose the Jews from among the nations of the earth and let the others go their own way. He draws some and not others (see verses I quoted previously, “no man can come to me unless …). God’s never been “fair” in the sense of choosing everyone equally or revealing himself equally to all people. God didn’t choose the Jews because they happened to be the only people on the face of the earth who were willing to “let” him reveal himself. That’s not the way the story goes. In Deut 10-11 God makes the point that he chose them from among the nations NOT because anything they have done.

Thus, I hold to free will AND God’s infallible grace. I believe that all people naturally do not choose Christ, but rather they naturally harden their hearts. Thus, if anyone comes to Christ, it is because the Father who sent Christ grants to them to believe and gives them a heart that chooses Him. If anyone ends up not being saved, it’s because of their own hard hearts. Thus, God effectually intervenes on behalf of some (but not because of anything they did), and leaves others right were they always were—hardened (cf. Romans 9:16).

Sorry my thoughts are so rushed; trying to get to bed on time.

Hope that helps explain why I still sense a difference in they way we understand salvation. However, many of my Christian friends hold the same notions you do, so I don’t believe this is essential to the gospel. What is essential to the gospel is the incarnation, death, burial, resurrection, and Lordship of Christ.

Does that help?

Bradley

I get the impression that when we talk of ultimately having to choose Christ, you think that we are claiming some credit for our own salvation. We don’t. We agree with you “that God is to be given the credit whenever someone chooses to come to Christ.”

“Every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ” (Moroni 7:16 ).

This is why almost every time I’ve heard LDS people describe having done something good, they almost always describe being “prompted” to do it by the Holy Ghost. We don’t claim credit for the good things we do. In that sense, God is the “cause” for exercising our free will.

To answer your question, I interpret the scriptures you have quoted as a description of the change of heart that God gives you during the process of being converted to Christ and his gospel; a process that comes about as we accept the invitation that He gives us through his spirit, and allow him to work in our hearts.

I’m willing to accept that we disagree on free will, but I’m still not sure we do. We think that God invites, entices, and persuades, but we definitely believe that, as Nephi said,

“there are many that harden their hearts against the Holy Spirit, that it hath no place in them; wherefore, they cast many things away…” ( 2 Nephi 33:2 , see also Acts 19 , Jer 7)

So just to restate my question from earlier: why are there people who do not accept Christ?

We would answer that God gives everyone an equal chance to accept him, and that those people have hardened their hearts, and chosen not to let God work in them. What do you think?

I believe all this, and also believe that if someone ever comes to choose Christ, it’s only because the Holy Spirit has healed their will, only because God has replaced their heart with one that would be willing to freely choose Christ.

So … anytime someone hears what I believe, and says “Yeah, but I believe you have to make a choice, etc,” I realize that they are defining free will and free choice differently than I do, for I see no tension between God being the sufficient cause of one’s choosing freely, and their choosing freely. I see no contradiction in saying that each person must choose for him or herself, yet if they choose, it’s because the Spirit of God has effectively moved their hearts to choose, and that God is to be given the credit whenever someone chooses to come to Christ.

“This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” – Jesus (John 6:29)

It’s someone’s choice, yet, it’s God’s work.

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.” – Jesus (John, 6:44).

“But there are some of you who do not believe. This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is grated him by the Father.” – Jesus (John 6:64-65).

The only way anyone could choose to come to Jesus is if the Father “draws” him. If the Father “draws” him or her, this same person will be raised on the last day. None are lost.

“Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.” – Jesus (John 6:45).

So much for those who have “heard” from God and refuse to respond. Jesus say’s if you’ve heard, you will respond by coming to Jesus.

That’s the way I understand Jesus teachings, Paul’s teachings, and Jewish Monotheism’s soteriology.

Any thoughts on these verses? (cf. previous comments on Jewish soteriology and language about God making people do the right thing and granting them new hearts)

I am pleased that you don’t think God waits for us to respond, but that he begins to work on the heart before we ever respond. I am also pleased by the “Salvation in a Nut Shell” post you guys did. I am both shocked to hear you sharing the gospel in the same basic way we evangelicals do, and curious whether there is not some major difference between our beliefs that just hasn’t come out through that post. You guys have really peaked my interest.

Bradley

This is a topic that isn’t frequently raised among Mormons. Rather than focusing on who does what for salvation, our eyes are on the goal: becoming like Christ.

I agree with Jan, who posted earlier that our efforts and Christ’s efforts to make us holy aren’t compartmentalized, but represent a continuum. It means knitting our hearts together with God’s and yielding to the influence of the quiet whisperings of the Holy Ghost.

His grace can have an impact on us; He can influence us, but He will not force our hands. Our decisions are our own, for happiness or for misery.

The choice to follow God is always ours to make. As Joshua declared, “Choose you this day whom ye will serve;…but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15

Thank you too!

I must read your article in due time. Perhaps if you read my comments and agreed, this is a difference also among different brands of Mormon’s, and not something which defines Christian Protestant dogma or Mormon dogma per se. So … perhaps I can end on a note of agreement after all!

I’m still trying to get over the fact that Mormon’s believe in Jesus. Your posts on soteriology seem strikingly parallel in my opinion to Christian thought. I want to say Mormon’s really are my brothers and sisters in Christ, but I suppose I need more time to elucidate what may be a deeper disagreement in our understanding of God, salvation, etc. As should be clear from my recent interaction with Thaddeus, sometimes we can be thinking that we are agreeing and really be holding views quite at odds. Interesting how that works.

Thanks for your gracious comments. I can feel the love on this blog.

Bradley

Thanks for your clarification.

“I’m saying that God does not change our hearts until it becomes our desire. God respects our right to choose for ourselves, and then He facilitates the change.”

Well … I guess after all of my attempts at making my question clear (to which I thought you were agreeing before you made that clarification), we don’t agree after all. Shucks. I really, really badly wanted to end on a basic agreement.

However, perhaps it is encouraging to note that this is a debate/disagreement that Protestants are quite used to having, only not with Mormon’s, but with one another. In other words, Christian friends of mine would hold the same thing you do about the limits of God’s gracious power, and would understand grace to come as a result of their choice for it rather than their choice for it coming from grace.

Reviving the interesting discussion …

I tried to make clear in my comments (I could use some pointers on how to make it more clear) that I see the notion that God waits on our hearts to desire Him in the right way before he gives us grace and changes us as imposing extra-textual, non-Jewish categories on soteriology that seem at odds with Jewish soteriology. Rather, I see the biblical witness as teaching that God actually gives us new hearts that desire after Him, to love him and keep his commandments. This seems to be the inevitable conclusion from the biblical material of Jewish thought and language surrounding ideas of God’s intervention in the hearts of his people.

Whereas you believe that God “waits” for us to make the decision, then moves in with grace to change the heart, I see the decision itself as God’s grace also. I see the biblical Jewish witness (which Jesus adopted and the Apostles followed and amplified even) advancing a notion that God first moves in the heart with grace (giving new hearts) and our desire and choices to love and follow him come as the result of that grace—-not the other way around.

As I understand, although you guys have other writings which define your dogma, you also believe the Bible to be part of your authoritative canon. If so, perhaps you can take a second look at the sample verses I offered (along with the analysis of Jewish thought in general) and help me understand how you guys would see me as misunderstanding these verses:

“Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances” (Ezekiel 36:26-27).

“I will MAKE them walk by streams of waters, on a straight path in which they will nto stumble; For I am a fatehr to Israel, and Ephraim is My firstborn” (Jeremiah 31:9).

“For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake. … for it is God who is at work IN YOU, BOTH TO WILL AND TO WORK for His good pleasure.” – The Apostle Paul (Philippians 1:29, 2:13).

I can think of another 14 or so verses off the top of my head that speak to this same effect, but I don’t find it necessary to pile on verse after verse.

What do Mormon’s make of these notions found so readily within Jewish soteriology? How does your tradition understand these verses? How do you guys understand them?

Appreciating your elucidation,

Bradley