Originally posted by lighthouse
Here's the issue. You preach that someone must volitionally obey. However, when one is in Christ, He keeps their faith alive. He keeps them in righteousness. Their desires are changed. You also preach that someone can leave God, which shows you do not understand the nature of slavation. Yes, faith is on-going. But it is not we who keep our faith alive. It is Christ. He lives in us. The biggest problem is that you believe that someone can be in God at one time, and out of God at a later time. Would someone who knows Christ cease to believe? Do you really beleive that someone who ceases to believe ever truly knew Christ? I can not cease to believe in Christ, because I know Him. It is impossible for me to cease to believe in Him. It is impossible for me to cease to trust in Him. My faith in Him will never die. And you don't seem to understand that.
Love, faith, knowledge, obedience, trust, etc. are not diametrically opposed concepts. If you love me, you will obey me. If you know me, you will trust me. If you love me, you will trust me, etc.
The NT does not make love, faith, obedience, trust, etc. passive concepts done to us by God apart from being in personal relationship (will, intellect, emotions). We are not robots, dude. It is simplistic to say that all is of God and we are not involved. God wants heart worship, not Calvinistic coercion.
Yes, God keeps our faith alive. We need Him for salvation, sanctification, glorification, etc. Yet, prayer shows that He has chosen to work in and through us cooperatively.
I am on the same page as you. I know Christ and I will not cease to believe (if I do in the future, that does not mean that I did not believe in the past). Just because I know and love my wife, does not mean I did not know and love her if we divorce. Salvation is a love relationship, not a unilateral physical change in our nature that cannot be reversed (who misunderstands salvation? My understanding is in the realm of morals/love/relationship while yours is wrongly in the realm of metaphysics). Peter ceased to trust Christ for a time. This did not mean that he did not love or know Him previously. If he would have persisted in unbelief, he could have went the path of Judas.
My faith in Christ also will never die. Jude 24,25 shows the promise and power of God to keep those who abide in Him.
I have no doubt about my salvation and God's keeping power. However, on an academic, theoretical, exegetical level, I would not use the word 'impossible' when dealing with relationships that must be freely entered into and maintained (God initiates, draws, transforms, keeps, but this does not preclude free moral agents from falling away. This is evidenced in the warnings of apostasy where Jewish Christians were reverting back to Judaism cf. Heb. 6. The ultimate examples are Lucifer and Adam/Eve who knew and loved God and then fell far. Adam/Eve returned to God and accepted His provision, but they could have gone the way of the wicked masses, contrary to God's will and desires for them. This does not make them more powerful than God, but recognizes the double-edged sword of free moral agency).
Either way, don't get your shirt in a knot. We love Jesus passionately with our whole hearts. He is Lord, Boss, #1. We are His servants, saved by grace through faith alone. He transforms us from glory to glory forming us into the image of Christ (character). The exact nature of sinful man's interaction with a holy God before and after conversion is a non-salvific nuance (i.e. we have to reconcile the verses that talk about our responsibility to work out our salvation, live a holy life, do good works, submit to God vs flesh, etc. with the verses that affirm the person and work of the Son and Spirit in our lives).