Fallacy Vol 2

Reply top Rippon

Sometimes we write things with an unintended implication. This is an example, for Rippon is not saying what he seems to be implying. The perversity of our heart is the result of the Fall, and we therefore sin as a result of the Fall, making God the author of sin. To repeat, this is not what Rippon was saying.

Next, we have the rabbit trail, where a strawman is introduced in the form of a question. Hyper-Calvinists accept the logical necessity of their doctrine, God is the author of sin because His curse as a consequence of Adam's sin made everyone sinners. Main-stream Calvinists deny this by evading the logical necessity of the doctrine in several bogus ways. For example, God does not cause fallen man to choose this sin or that sin, therefore He is not the author of the sin the person chooses. But the fallacy is that if a person can only choose varying forms of sin, and is unable to choose to trust in Christ, they are not really choosing to sin, or seek God, they have only the choice of sin. Therefore, that makes God the author of sin.

 

Reply to Siberian

Does Romans 9:14-18 say God punishes man for what He compels man to do?

This passage does not say God causes you to sin and still hold you responsible. Here is what is actually being said, according to the light God has given me:

a) God has mercy on some people and God hardens other people for His sovereign purposes.

b) This is not injustice because those hardened get justice and giving mercy is also not injustice.

c) If God hardens a person, why does He still find fault? This question Paul addresses indirectly, the person is "finding fault" with God saying God should not punish someone whose heart God hardened. But who is the man to judge God. So even if we do not fully understand why God does what God does, we should not suppose God's actions are not just and perfect and holy.

Now, Paul could have answered the question more directly but perhaps he thought the direct answer was obvious and was being ignored on purpose, therefore he answered it as he did. But when God hardens a person's heart to bring about His purpose, the person's opportunity to obtain mercy ends, just like when a person dies, their opportunity ends. They will be punished for the wrath they piled up before God hardened their hearts, at a minimum and so God's action is obviously not injustice.

To repeat what I said, Paul answers the question indirectly with the fact that God has the right over His creation to make some for honorable use and others for common use. This truth does not nullify other behaviors of God such as He is perfect and holy and just. To say God has the right to treat His creation as He pleases, does not nullify that He has chosen to treat His creation with justice.

We were all made vessels of wrath at conception, but God has mercy of those of His choosing, turning them into vessels of mercy.

Yes, I agree your statement concerning Paul's argument from Jacob and Esau is correct, but again that does not suggest God always makes His choices without regard for the beliefs of those chosen. Therefore Romans 9:14-18 provides no support for Calvinism's unconditional election false doctrine, as well as not supporting that God punishes people for what He caused them (directly or indirectly) to do and that is ok because He is the Creator. Any doctrine that nullifies one or more of God's attributes, i.e God is just, because He has the right to treat His creation as He pleases, is false doctrine.

 

Van, while we agree on many things, I don't quite see it this way.

First, a potter never intentionally makes defective pottery. The hearers in Romans would know this.

A potter wants every piece he makes to be good. What profit is there in making defective pottery? That said, sometimes pottery has a defect. The potter might try to reshape the piece and make it into an inferior, but still useful piece. But if the defect is so serious, the potter has no choice but to destroy the defective piece.

Pharaoh was a defective piece. He was rebellious and obstinate. Moses asked him why he wouldn't repent.

Exo 10:3 And Moses and Aaron came in unto Pharaoh, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD God of the Hebrews, How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me? let my people go, that they may serve me.

Moses is giving Pharaoh the direct words of God here. Pharaoh has already seen several miraculous plagues. What more could God do to get Pharaoh to repent? So, Pharoah was an exceptionally proud, stubborn, and obstinate man.

God does not strive with men forever, there comes a point where he has had enough.

Gen 6:3 And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

Rev 2:20 Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.
21 And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not.

So, God didn't pick Pharaoh out and turn him into an evil man. He was already evil, God simply chose him to make his power known. God knew Pharaoh's heart and that he would never repent. His condemnation was perfectly just. God was fully just to make an example and show of Pharoah to the world.

So, Pharaoh was like a piece of pottery that was so defective the potter had no choice but to destroy it.

But no potter intentionally makes defective pottery, that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and those whom Paul preached to would know this, a potter was a very common occupation in Paul's day.

 

Yes, Winman, I think this is another area where we disagree.

Scripture says we were "made" sinners, and we are "conceived in iniquity" so the potter seems to make "defective" i.e. other than perfect, pottery. So I disagree with your first point.

A potter wants every piece to be "good." Well that depends of what you mean by "good." If something fills the bill, meets the need, is suitable for a purpose, then it is "good" in that sense, such as a "bad" example to teach opposite "good" behavior.

"So, God didn't pick Pharaoh out and turn him into an evil man. He was already evil, God simply chose him to make his power known. God knew Pharaoh's heart"

This is correct and so I agree with you on this point. God seems to choose folks who are well suited for the task at hand many times. The Bible does not say what Pharaoh might have done, had God not also hardened his heart, but because God hardened it, Pharaoh's subsequent actions necessarily conformed to God's purpose.

I do not agree that God gives up on any of us. Yes, he foreshortens the opportunity window by either ending the person's life or hardening their heart so no subsequent opportunity for salvation exists, but while we draw a breath, and neither God nor our practice of sin, has hardened our heart, we can seek God and put our faith in Christ.
But, as scripture says our limited spiritual ability is a use it or lose it deal, for if we do not use it, what little we have will be taken away.

"So, Pharaoh was like a piece of pottery that was so defective the potter had no choice but to destroy it. "
Completely disagree. God can save anyone, and will save anyone when He credits their faith in Christ as righteousness, even murders, and gluttons, and (pick your sin.)

 

Well, I know where you get "made sinners" (Rom 5:19), but I believe most people misinterpret this chapter of scripture.

It is like this, "Because of Charles Darwin, many men were made evolutionists"

A person doesn't become an evolutionist by having Charles Darwin's personal beliefs imputed into their brain. No, they become an evolutionist by following his example, by personally believeing his error. And I believe this is what Rom 5:19 is saying, we become sinners by following Adam's example when we personally sin (and his judgment is imputed to us), and we become righteous by following Jesus's example of faith, whereby his righteousness is imputed to us.

So, we will have to agree to disagree on this point.

But I do believe at some point God gives up on some men, the scriptures say so.

Rom 1:24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

I believe that God is very loving and very longsuffering, and not willing that any should perish. But I believe the scriptures show that at some point that only God knows, he decides to no longer strive with that man and gives him over to a reprobate mind. A terrible place to be.

 

Two quick points, (1) scripture says the many were made sinners, not that they followed Adam's example and became sinners volitionally. (2) Yes God does choose to end the opportunity for salvation for some people, but I do not equate that will "giving up on them" but rather with choosing to use some people for a different purpose, i.e. like Pharaoh.

In your passage from Romans 1:24-28, giving a person over to the dark side may or may not indicate God has forever closed the door. Note the guy in Corinthians who was given over to Satan, yet was taken back. But I agree, this looks like they became like the first soil of Matthew 13, and do was closed forever, to fulfil God's purpose of providing a warning to us, rather than giving up on them.

 

I believe the problem with Rom 5 was created when Augustine interpreted vs. 12 using a Latin translation that in error said all men sin in Adam. The Eastern church who used Greek texts never translated this verse this way and have NEVER held Original Sin to be true. I personally believe the Eastern church got this right, Augustine and the Roman church got it wrong. There is much written on this that is easily researched. I could easily show much scripture that I believe refutes OS such as the parable of the prodigal son where Jesus twice says the young man was ALIVE AGAIN. How can you be alive again if you were born dead in sin? Or 1 Pet 2:25 that says we were as sheep going ASTRAY but are now RETURNED unto the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls. How can you go astray from the flock unless you were originally in the flock? How can we return to God if we were born separated from God? There are perhaps hundreds of verses like these that seemed to me to contradict original sin. This is what caused me to question OS, no one taught me this.

 

There is certainly nothing wrong with questioning the doctrines developed by other fallible men, I like to think I went through the same process of questioning all the "so called doctrines" that divide the body of Christ. I came down on the side of agreeing that God made all mankind sinners as a consequence of Adam's sin. But I did not go along with the Calvinist idea that being made sinners, and therefore being dead in sin, resulted in total spiritual inability. I think the idea of being dead refers to being separated spiritually from God and unable to do anything that earns or merits salvation and being united with God.

But lets look at Romans 5:14-19. Our English translations based on the Greek text pretty much read the same, so I do not believe these are all mistranslations.

Here is how I understand it:

Verse 12, and I use the NASB translation as the basis for all my study, starts out with "Therefore." And as the old joke says, what is the "therefore" there for? My answer is "since we have "received" the reconciliation, (therefore) just as through one man [Adam] sin entered the world [mankind] and death through sin [being made sinners we were conceived spiritually dead, which means separated from God] and so death spread to all men [because they all were conceived in iniquity, i.e. in a separated from God sinful state] because all sinned - [now Paul's argument goes on to explain how it is that all men sinned.]

First, Paul states that death reigned from Adam to Moses, i.e before the Law was given, and so they did not sin like Adam in that they did not have the "law" - something that told them what they were choosing to do violated God's command not to do it.

So the "sin" in view in verse 13, the sin that was not imputed, was doing something God had clearly communicated to them not to do, which is the "sin like Adam's sin." But on the other hand we have lots of verses that tell us the people who lived in that era, before the Law was given, clearly sinned, such as killing the innocent Abel, so sin was in the world, mankind was sinning, but the type of sin of Adam was not imputed, because they were not violating God's clear command.

Now in verse 15 is where I support the idea that being "made sinners" also resulted in the same group, the "many" died, not for what they did, but as a consequence of Adam's sin. Thus being conceived in iniquity results in being conceived in a spiritually dead, separated from God, state.

Now if this view is correct, or nearly correct, then how are we to understand any verse or passage that seems to contradict that view. No doctrine should be adopted that requires some other verse to be nullified by saying it does not say what it says. We either submit to God's word or we do not.

So lets go over your list.

(1) The prodigal son. Here I believe the metaphor of being dead, in Luke 15:24, refers to being dead as meaning being separated, even though physically alive. Then it says the younger son has come to life, which again seems to be a metaphorical reference to no longer being separated from his father. So if this is correct, then the son was initially alive when with the father, then was dead when separated from the father, then was alive again when united again with the father. So looking at it this way, I see no conflict with my view of the consequence of Adam's sin.

(2) Return to the flock. Peter is addressing born again believes who are part of Christ's flock. They and all those "in Christ" have been called to suffer, to share in the suffering of Christ as ambassadors of Christ. Since we have been healed, we are to die to sin and live to righteousness, and therefore we should not be like straying sheep, and not living up to our holy calling, but now we have returned to our Shepherd and Guardian [Bishop] of our souls. The issue is being submissive to Christ in our walk, rather than being saved or unsaved, in this passage. Thus this passage does not indicate that we were part of Christ's flock before being saved, and therefore is consistent with my understanding of the consequence of Adam's sin.