(May 4, 2012 at 6:38 pm)Engel Wrote:(May 4, 2012 at 4:11 am)Godschild Wrote:The church at the time of the writing of the NT did not want to control people. It was during this time that Christians actually did very admirable works. Once the Church became the state religion under Constantine, then it started to want to dominate people's lives within the Roman Empire and expand itself into pagan areas to the north and east. And yes, I will acknowledge that Luther was a Christian, and a theologian no less. While I may not agree with the sentiment expressed in his writings, I find his works to be well written and thoughtful nonetheless. In fact, many who have influenced my thoughts, from Descartes to Newton to Alexandre Dumas and Dickens and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, were Christians, some devout even.
Did the rest of my statement answer your question, or do we need to have more discussions on the issue.
God loves those who believe and those who do not and the same goes for me, you have no choice in this matter. That puts the matter of total free will to rest.