1.Salvation is wholly an act of God. 2. God chooses who is saved. 3.Saving grace is irrisistible

And with that, I will address my opponent’s negative case and then move on to defending my own affirmative case. NEGATIVE CASE Marauder: “The resolution we are debating is not my opponents first 3 contentions. We agreed beforehand to debate a Methodist-Presbyterian difference in belief, Predestination Vs Free Will. So the resolution should be treated as ‘Predestination (pro) Vs Free Will (con). ’ I do not have to necessarily deny the truth of all my opponents’ contentions just to argue against predestination. I could do that, or I could make augments that a contention does not confirm or deny predestination doctrine. ” FACT: I’m afraid that is not the case. It is true that this debate will probably come down to the competing positions of predestination and free will, but that is because of how the Resolution is framed. It certainly doesn’t mean that we can ignore the Resolution and instead debate something else as my opponent suggests. We must always remember that this debate is about the Resolution. If it were not, what point would there be to even have one? And so my opponent does indeed have to deny the truth of my contentions, especially the first three, because if I win those, I have won the debate. Marauder: “Contention 1: There is no such thing as sin without free will. ” FACT: This assumes that someone can only be held responsible for an offense which they willfully committed. This is not the case, although this idea is unfortunately becoming increasingly popular. If it were true, a man who ran over an old woman crossing the street because he was focusing on the billboard for an adult movie store rather than the fact the light was red would be guilty of no crime. After all, he certainly didn’t intend to run over the woman. And so, despite the Biblical fact that God ordains and knows all of our actions beforehand (“the very hairs of your head are numbered”), if you murder someone, you have still violated God’s moral commandment’s and have thus sinned. Marauder: “Contention 2: The problem of evil” FACT: The problem of evil does not simply go away if you accept the unbiblical position of salvation based of man’s own choice. Even the free will position, as far as I know, accepts the omnipotence and benevolence of God (although one wonders how all-powerful he can be if he can’t even determine what his own creations will do), and thus the question still stands: how can an admittedly omnipotent and benevolent God allow evil in the world? This is not an argument solely against the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, but against Christianity itself. However, I will answer it based on the doctrine of predestination anyway, despite the fact that this is a difficult and complex question, and I can by no means do complete justice to it in the incredibly short space we have here. God allows evil in the world because it brings more glory to Him to do so than if he simply created us a perfect, sinless race. For example, which man would deserve more honor and glory, one who was phenomenally rich and successful by birth, never knowing or being capable of anything less, or one who rose to the same status from a life of poverty in the projects, by his own blood, sweat, and tears? Obviously, the latter man would receive more respect. Similarly, God is better glorified by the unfortunate reality of evil and the struggle against it in this world. I’m sure this explanation is unsatisfactory to some people, and my opponent is welcome to offer an alternative one, but remember that this debate is about the Resolution, NOT the problem of evil. Also remember that the problem of evil applies to any system of belief that contains any sort of omnipotent deity, not just the doctrine of predestination. AFFIRMATIVE CASE Marauder: “C1: Salvation is wholey (sic) act of God. I do not contend that salvation is of Gods merits and not my own. the stance that I can accept (sic) or reject a free dounut (sic) offered to me is not the same as saying I in some way paid the fee required (sic) to aquire (sic) that said dounut (sic). Salvation is a free gift, paid for in full by christ on the cross offered to all as a gift we do not deserve. For some reason that is beyond me, predestinationist consider the choice of that acceptance (sic) of the free gift of salvation part of the fee for getting it. as if acceptance (sic) was something that made us earn salvation. they like atheist (sic), put so much stock in the process of cause and effect to the point that they deify it to be greater than god himself. ” FACT: This is a position that I have encountered all too often in debates such as these. My opponent begins by saying that he admits salvation is of only God’s merits, and then turns right around and says salvation is dependent upon man’s merits (the free choice of salvation). The inconsistency here is glaring. You can’t have it both ways. Another common mistake committed here is my opponent’s donut analogy. It is overly simplistic to compare the metaphysics of the Almighty to free donuts. If a random mortal man offers you a donut, sure you can refuse it. But we are not talking about a man in a donut shop. We are talking about God, the all-powerful, all-knowing eternal being that created the universe and holds it together with his supreme will. And if He wants you to accept salvation (or a donut), then you are going to accept it. Marauder: C2-C5: I rope the other contentions (sic) together because they basically take the same response to oppose. with the exception of the C5 they are all simply scripture quotes, and scripture in a christian debate is not something that can just be argued away as wrong in some way, I accept (sic) I must either explain the scriptures meaning to be different via context of passage or accuracy of its translation. FACT: My opponent says that he accepts his obligation to offer an alternative interpretation of the myriad Scriptural warrants I offered for my position or to argue that the translation I used was faulty. However, he has done no such thing. However, I will defend my case against these wholly unsubstantiated attacks nonetheless. The translation I used was the New King James Version, which is pretty much universally accepted as accurate and used by Christians all over the world. And even if my opponent could somehow prove the NKJV to be unreliable, virtually every other translation of the Bible translates the verses I cited in almost the exact same way. Secondly, the verses I cited are pretty self-explanatory (You did not choose Me, I chose you, etc. ). I don’t see how there’s any other way they could be interpreted. But if there is, it is my opponent’s obligation to offer it. He has done nothing of the sort. In conclusion, my opponent has failed to meet even the obligations he laid out for himself, as well as failing to address my several Scriptural warrants in any way at all. In short, I have more than met my obligations, and my opponent has failed to meet his, and so the Resolution stands affirmed.