You accused the Almighty of some things in that post, Willis.
If the Bible is true, then you ought to apologize to him- Calvinism is taught in the Bible.
Willis, the Bible no where says that God calls all men equally- no where.
You need to make up your mind if you are going to bow to the authority of Scripture or if you are going to believe whatever suits you and try to make the Bible bow to that.
I do not mean to be insulting either, btw. God bless!
A Question Calvinists must Answer REVISITED
Discussion in 'Baptist Theology & Bible Study' started by Skandelon, Mar 6, 2011.
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He didn't accuse the almighty of anything. His accusation is on YOUR understanding of the almighty. Unless you are both one in the same, you need to stop with such foolishness, Luke. -
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Aaron said: ↑So, the man who chooses Christ is less defective than the one who doesn't? Who made the one better than the other?Click to expand...
Our view is that God makes them FREE and your quest to have me define how a free choice is made presumes a deterministic response is required, which is the very definition of the fallacy called "begging the question."
Ciocchi, who debated Feinberg, put it this way: "the choice between available options "is what free will is all about . . ., and it is finally mysterious, beyond full explanation, for full explanations presuppose the very determinism the libertarian rejects" (Ciocchi, p. 94).
So, while there are influenctial "reasons" a person might have for making a choice these cannot necessarily be defined in terms of what "determined" the choice..for the agent himself is the determiner of his choices. That process is beyond our full comprehesion and thus remains mysterious... -
Skandelon said: ↑It makes someone who would otherwise be uninformed, without hope, without truth, a slave to sin, with nothing to believe in; to have information, hope, truth which can set them free, and something to believe in. Truth is powerful. Words have power. That is a common theme supported so much throughout scripture that even Christ is called the WORD. I see no reason to diminish the inherent power in God breathed words...they are after all what brought this world into existence, right?Click to expand...
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Andy T. said: ↑You are the one who brought up "culpability" first, so I think you need to defend your view first. You said that God is not culpable of sin merely because he has foreknowledge and permits it. So I ask again, are you culpable if you allow another man to murder someone else, if you had the full power and means (and even foreknowledge) to stop it? And how is this different from your view of God?Click to expand...
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Andy T. said: ↑I agree that God's Word has power.Click to expand...
But in your system it's relegated to simple information.Click to expand...
Once the hearer responds favorably to that information based on their LFW,Click to expand... -
Skandelon wrote: If you created a man (or robot) with the nature and desire (programming) to kill another man in such a way that he could not have done otherwise, and you have the power and means to stop it, but you do nothing, are you culpable? Yes, much more so than in the analogy you presented, which is the distinction of our views.Click to expand...Andy wrote: You are the one who brought up "culpability" first, so I think you need to defend your view first. You said that God is not culpable of sin merely because he has foreknowledge and permits it. So I ask again, are you culpable if you allow another man to murder someone else, if you had the full power and means (and even foreknowledge) to stop it? And how is this different from your view of God?Click to expand...
See what I mean? Let me try it this way:
1. There are many verses which explain how God is not culpable for evil that he has purposed for his own glory (i.e. crucifixion/hardening Pharaoh/ hardening Israel etc)
2. View 1 makes God appear to be somewhat culpable for those evil things he has allowed to occur.
3. View 2 makes God appear to be very culpable for those evil things he has determined to occur.
4. Both use the same verses to support their views and explain the issue of divine culpability, but only one of them is correct.
5. The one that makes God appear less culpable for evil is probably right considering all the verses that speak of God's holiness and righteous character. One should err on the side of God's holiness, not on the side which impugns his character. -
Skandelon said: ↑Only for those who have first been regenerated, but for most of mankind its powerless. And even for those regenerated, the words themselves have no real power because the real power in conversion was the irresistible call, not the gospel's words....so if your consistent you really don't believe God's words have power.
As if that is any different in your system? Once the elect is regenerated what does the gospel serve to do except to "inform" them? In my system the gospel enables the response whereas in your system the effectual call does that, so in my system the gospel is more powerful than in yours.Click to expand...
And I don't see how in your system that the Gospel can "enable" someone to make a LFW choice - because you state that the chooser is the one who choses - that is the determination, not some outside determinative force.
But the POWER I'm speaking of is the POWER TO RESPONDClick to expand... -
Skandelon said: ↑I thought I did defend my view first. I did so by pointing out the distinction between our views by showing how much MORE culpable your view makes God for evil, while I believe the passages of scripture you all use to justify your view are actually justification for our views.
See what I mean? Let me try it this way:
1. There are many verses which explain how God is not culpable for evil that he has purposed for his own glory (i.e. crucifixion/hardening Pharaoh/ hardening Israel etc)
2. View 1 makes God appear to be somewhat culpable for those evil things he has allowed to occur.
3. View 2 makes God appear to be very culpable for those evil things he has determined to occur.
4. Both use the same verses to support their views and explain the issue of divine culpability, but only one of them is correct.
5. The one that makes God appear less culpable for evil is probably right considering all the verses that speak of God's holiness and righteous character. One should err on the side of God's holiness, not on the side which impugns his character.Click to expand... -
Andy T. said: ↑I don't see the difference between allowing something to occur (when he has the means to stop it) and determining it to occur. If he allows something to occur, then he has determined it to occur by his non-action. So I see the two of us in the same boat together.Click to expand...
If I simply know you are going to shoot a friend and don't stop it, am I more culpable than you for actually doing the shooting?
Except you keep trying to put me in a different boat by creating strawmen that say I believe God actively works evil into people. He doesn't. You're right, he is righteous and holy and perfect.Click to expand... -
Andy T. said: ↑I don't see the difference between allowing something to occur (when he has the means to stop it) and determining it to occur. If he allows something to occur, then he has determined it to occur by his non-action. So I see the two of us in the same boat together. Except you keep trying to put me in a different boat by creating strawmen that say I believe God actively works evil into people. He doesn't. You're right, he is righteous and holy and perfect.Click to expand...
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Skandelon said: ↑You really don't see the different in someone who foreknows evil will occur and doesn't prevent it and someone who determines the evil to occur?
If I simply know you are going to shoot a friend and don't stop it, am I more culpable than you for actually doing the shooting?Click to expand...
Then explain where sin originates if not in God. If in man or satan, then was their evil intent created within themselves? Did the origination of that evil intent inform God of that intent? Expound.Click to expand... -
webdog said: ↑Wow. The fact my wife and I had children knowing they would sin means I determined that they would sin?Click to expand...
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Andy T. said: ↑Bad analogy to compare yourself with the omniscient, omnipotent Creator. His ways are not our ways.Click to expand...
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Andy T. said: ↑I don't understand your last question here. Sin comes from the heart of man.Click to expand...
Satan is a creature. He was created by God. He was declared as good and "no evil found in him." But the intent to "become like God" and "rise" in that sinful way had to begin somewhere. You have indicated you believe that originated in the 'heart of the creature.' Okay so far?
Now, if the sin originated in the heart of Satan, and God foreknew Satan would intend this evil and permitted it, then you have to admit that something (evil) Satan created/originated informed God. God didn't originate or create the evil, but he was informed through foreknowledge of the evil and created Satan anyway.
Now, if you believe that God's foreknowledge and permission of Satan's evil is equal to his determining evil to occur, then why even mess with using the words "foreknow" and "permit?" Why not just say God determined/caused/originated evil? The reason we don't say that is because scripture uses the words foreknow and permit and is CLEAR that God is not the one who even tempts men to evil and that He is completely holy.
By presuming through human logic that God's perfectly knowing something "PRIOR" to creating it means that he must have been it's cause or determiner goes further than scripture ever goes. Even the use of the word PRIOR when speaking of a timeless and eternal being is non-sensical and steps into speculation about mysterious we do not even have the capacity to fully comprehend. Calvinism oversteps its bounds by drawing logical conclusions based upon their limited finite scope. -
Skandelon said: ↑Why not simply acknowledge that it is possible to foreknow something that you don't determine? In fact, why would authors of scripture choose to use the word "foreknow" if the word "determine" was in their arsenal; if indeed "predetermine" is their intent?Click to expand...
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Skandelon said: ↑Let's look at the sin of Satan, since it was the first recorded to speak of, okay?
Satan is a creature. He was created by God. He was declared as good and "no evil found in him." But the intent to "become like God" and "rise" in that sinful way had to begin somewhere. You have indicated you believe that originated in the 'heart of the creature.' Okay so far?
Now, if the sin originated in the heart of Satan, and God foreknew Satan would intend this evil and permitted it, then you have to admit that something (evil) Satan created/originated informed God. God didn't originate or create the evil, but he was informed through foreknowledge of the evil and created Satan anyway.
Now, if you believe that God's foreknowledge and permission of Satan's evil is equal to his determining evil to occur, then why even mess with using the words "foreknow" and "permit?" Why not just say God determined/caused/originated evil? The reason we don't say that is because scripture uses the words foreknow and permit and is CLEAR that God is not the one who even tempts men to evil and that He is completely holy.
By presuming through human logic that God's perfectly knowing something "PRIOR" to creating it means that he must have been it's cause or determiner goes further than scripture ever goes. Even the use of the word PRIOR when speaking of a timeless and eternal being is non-sensical and steps into speculation about mysterious we do not even have the capacity to fully comprehend. Calvinism oversteps its bounds by drawing logical conclusions based upon their limited finite scope.Click to expand...
I think you'll find that I'm more on the "soft side" or lower end of Calvinism. I don't have a problem with the words permit and allow, because I see Scripture speak in those terms. But I also don't have a problem with the word determine, because I see the Scripture speak in those terms, as well. Maybe I'm not as coherent and consistent as you would like, but that's the way I see it. -
Andy T. said: ↑Oh, you mean like in Acts 4:28?Click to expand...
To point to this active work of God in bringing about the redemption of the world as proof that likewise actively determined the evil intent of Jeff Dahmer (for example) to carry out the heinous crimes he committed is unfounded.
This is where the definition of the word "decree" is important to understand. As provided on the other thread, from Easton's Theological Dictionary: "The decrees are eternal (Acts 15:18; Eph. 1:4; 2 Thess. 2:13), unchangeable (Ps. 33:11; Isa. 46:9), and comprehend all things that come to pass (Eph. 1:11; Matt. 10:29, 30; Eph. 2:10; Acts 2:23; 4:27, 28; Ps. 17:13, 14). The decrees of God are (1) efficacious, as they respect those events he has determined to bring about by his own immediate agency; or (2) permissive, as they respect those events he has determined that free agents shall be permitted by him to effect.
See the two different types of decrees of God pointed out here? One is accomplished through God's active and efficacious agency in order to accomplish a redemptive purpose. The other is permissive in that God doesn't actively originate the evil in any way, but only allows it to continue.
Likewise, the sin of rejecting Christ's appeal to be reconciled to God is NOT something God has actively and efficaciously decreed would happen. He permits men to resist his appeal to be reconciled to God. The concepts of eternal unconditional election of certain individuals to salvation and all others left to reprobation undermines that.
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