re: Paging Aubie101 re: "Once saved always saved"

I agree. these are deep questions and may not be answerable except by Jesus Himself.

As someone who struggles with addiction I have issues reconciling my salvation in what sometimes feels like a constant state of disobedience. IE was I never actually saved if I don't have the power to overcome these things now?
Maybe I do have the power through Him, but I can't tap into it because I'm living in disobedience. But how do I become obedient if I can't tap into the power. So... I'm not saying we do that from similar "triggers" on similar topics but I 100 percent feel you with the circular reasoning.

People can certainly take issue with this theory.. but I think we make things more complicated than they need to be out of a lack of faith. And some sort of attempt to prove to ourselves that His unbelievable promises can be believed.

And perhaps OSAS doesn't DEPEND on the theory you mentioned? We just make it depend on it because other arguments are more difficult to justify? Does God rank sins like we do? Would lying have any different eternal consequences for an unbeliever than attempting to kill an entire race of people? We accept that Christians are capable of sin but then determine which ones those are. We make ourselves the authority on what "fallen away" looks like.

I take back my argument that Hitler couldn't have been saved as evidenced by the sins he committed (because I just don't know if that's true or not). I simply contend that he couldn't have been saved because there was no evidence that he was.
You'll know them by their fruit....
Not their sins.