OK, I looked it up:

From The Sovereignty of God by A. W. Pink, page 95. Empasis points are by A. W. Pink:

What is will? We answer, the will is the faculty of choice, the immediate cause of all action. Choice necessarily implies the refusal of one thing and the acceptance of another. The positive and the negative must both be present to the mind before there can be any choice. In every act of will there is preference - the desiring of one thing rather than another. Where there is no preference, but complete indifference, there is no volition. To will is to choose, and to choose is to decide between alternatives. But there is something that influences the choice; something which determines the decision. Hence the will cannot be soverereign, because it is the servant of that something. The will cannot be both sovereign and servant. It cannot be both cause and effect. The will is not causative, because, as we have said, something causes it to choose; therefore that something must be a causative agent. Choice itself is affected by certain considerations, is determined by various influences brought to bear upon the individual himself; hence, volition is the effect of these considerations and influences, and if the effect, it must be their servant; and if the will is their servant then it is not sovereign, and if the will is not sovereign, we certainly cannot predicate the absolute “freedom” of it.

I say, Fyne Jr., that if you and I get the opportunity to meet in heaven that we take a walk down the golden street to the river, take a bite of whichever fruit is in season, and have a good chuckle over how neither of us had a complete understanding of these things while on earth.

How do you fit that in with universalism?

Destruction is not necessarily the same thing as eternal damnation.

However, I’m not interested in defending this in detail in blog comments. It’s much too complex. I will recommend the books The Evangelical Universalist, by Gregory MacDonald, and The Inescapable Love of God by Thomas Talbott, and leave it at that.

If you’re not interested enough to read a book where the argument is made slowly, carefully and thoroughly, then there’s no point in my trying to convince you 100 words at a time.

so you choose to say that Jesus did not die for all sins.

the unforgivable sin is not unbelief. it’s blasphemey against the holy spirit. I don’t want to derail the thread into this, i just wanted to point out how Jesus used the phrase.

In trying to follow your logic, if Christ died for all sins of the elect, and the unforgivable sin is not pardonable, then the elect did not commit the unforgivable sin. Since they have all put their faith in God it could not be that sin, so that seemed to be a good interpretation of Christ’s phrase. But that is working backwards and I agree that it is not worth debating in this thread.

Fyne, Jr. said:

Free will is the beginning of personal responsibility.

I never said that people don’t choose and aren’t responsible for their actions. I know that you call this free will. I am told that I live in a ‘free’ country but there are freedoms that I do not have. The answer to the question about whether or not I am truly ‘free’ in my country is analagous to me regarding free will. So I opt to say it is not free. To me this falls into the scope of Andree’s original post. I’m sorry you see it differently and I’ll drop the discussion.

That is really really sad, but not new. Right from Eden. Adam blaming the wife (and God). The wife blaming the snake. Free will is the beginning of personal responsibility. A lack of it, and… well, you know the rest. Like I said before, it has a definition. Agree or disagree with it. Just don’t feed me this garbage about how you have your own (conveniently) custom made definition of free will. Nobody cares, since it applies to nobody in the real world.

“As concernedcitizen said in 45, if your soul is in bondage to sin is that influence or coercion? If your answer is different than mine, I’m OK with that.”

See my response to CC above.

The above church fathers believed in eternal punishment. It does appear that Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Didymus were universalists; but all of them were part of the Catechical School of Alexandria that also diverged in other areas such as amillenialism, an allegorical interpretation of much of the Bible, and transmigration of the soul, a philosophy of reincarnation. This was largely because they incorporated pagan Greek philosophy from Plato into Christianity.

I’m motivated by my arminianism by the glory of God and teachings of the Bible. There I guess it’s settled.

“Yes God is omniscient, he knows all things actual and possible including the future.”

I asked you what it means to “see the future.” I am not doubting the lack of limit to God’s power, just your comprehension of certain statements you (and people in general) make.

My other point may be “too easy to refute, but you sure didn’t do so.

“Isaiah 53:6 says ” the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.”

But then there is the why. Did he primarily come to eliminate sins, or did he come to rescue sinners?

“He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for[a] the sins of the whole world.”

How is this a refutation of my point? It seems more like a clarification of my point. That Christ came and died for the world (hmmm… notice the word “whole” in front of the word “world” wonder what that does to Calvinism’s limited atonement shtick), and not for sin itself.

“We have a will, but it is not free. It is in bondage to sin.”

This doesn’t even make any sense. It is true that man cannot rescue himself. However, when rescue comes, man can accept it, or refuse it. That alone, constitutes free will, and both choices have been made by different people.

“The Bible says men love darkness rather than light. Left up to our own we will choose sin over God every time. God has to change what we prefer in order for us to repent and believe in him.”

Yes. But even after all that is changed, we will have to step through that door. God will open every eye to see the extension of his glory to us. But he will not force any man to choose it. Try again.

“Just because God requires men to repent, does not mean they have that ability apart from him. Faith is a gift from God.”

So? Yes faith is a gift from God. We all know and agree with that. What’s your point? That God programs repentance into men?
Try again.

Which again, is a dumb comment because it pretends to be a response to my previous statement without actually addressing it. All you just did was repeat yourself. My point was that in atonement, something is offered TO MAN. Unless you disagree with that, you have no other point. The fact that Christ offered himself to God does not add to, or withdraw from my point. And my point, is what you must address. Not some random crap that had no relation to my comment.

“universalism was also the majority position of the church until the 5th century.”

Please cite some sources on that.

Jesus said the road to destruction is broad and many find it. the road to life is narrow and few find it.

How do you fit that in with universalism?