Featured Line Between Heresy and Difference of Opinion

These two statements contradict each other.
Your statement about "total omniscience" It is the orthodox doctrine taught through the ages even throughout the OT. It is your view that is totally unorthodox and without merit both in the OT, the NT, and in history. Thus you have contradicted yourself.

Romans 11:33 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
34 For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counseller?
35 Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?
36 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

Psalms 139:1 [SIZE=-1]To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.[/SIZE] O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.
2 Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.
3 Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.
4 For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.
5 Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.

 

Pitchback

If the view was indeed the view held in the past, their would be evidence of it. Instead, we find recent revisions to the statements of faith, revising the statement to agree with total omniscience. However, if you look at the prior statements, they are ambiguous. Therefore you are using faulty logic to claim as doctrine what was in fact never accepted explicitly.

What can be found is God is omniscient, all-knowing, but you will not find statements that God knows the future exhaustively.

Your problem is that you have no explanation as to how, if God's knows the future exhaustively, how any other outcome than the foreknown outcome is possible. Therefore you say folks can freely choose to seek God and trust in Christ, but have no rational explanation in light of total omniscience. Therefore the use of governmental authority to defend your view.

Heresy is a term used by those wielding governing authority to suppress alternate views. And if the views cannot stand up to biblical study, the quicker the sword is unsheathed.

 

You have omitted the Scriptural teaching of the Omniscience of God!

Psalms 147:5. Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.

John 16:30. Now are we sure that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that thou camest forth from God.

 

It appears you are chasing your tail. If God is omniscient then He is omniscient. And He does know the future! Otherwise He is not God! And there is Scripture to support His knowing the future. Just what do you think prophecy is?

But then there are some who want to make a god in their own image, sort of a demigod!

 

I am very skeptical of what you just said.
We had a Charismatic on the board who declared that early Christians changed all the statements of faith for 1900 years. They spoke in tongues in the first century and then they started "this biblical practice" again in 1905. The church abandoned it and was in darkness for 1900 years.

Do you believe that?
I don't think you do. But your statement is along the same line of reasoning. Give evidence that the orthodox teaching of the omnipotence of God was somehow changed in history. Who changed it? When? Where? Give the facts.

 

In my search of truth of doctrines, whether it be Calvinism or Arminianism i ask this one question, what i believe, does it give God all the glory or does it give man all the glory. Does what i believe share the glory God of with man. If a person will apply this question to his heart it makes it easier to understand truth from a lie.

 

Romans 8:17
Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory


Thessalonians 2:14
He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 5:1
[ To the Elders and the Flock ] To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder and a witness of Christ’s sufferings who also will share in the glory to be revealed:

We should praise God for what He has given us the ability to do within our free agency.

If God gave me the ability to fly by will, God gets the glory for without Him we could not in the first place. I am sorry for those who try to take the glory for what God has given him the ability to do. Don't let man make you ashamed or guilty for doing what God gave you the ability to do and you can still give Him all glory. Why make the one suffer for those that abuse it.

 

Then again;

From A Baptist Catechism with Commentary...by W.R. Downing

 

Someone upthread made the point that the creeds and so forth are a guide and are good but scripture is the final authority. It seems as Baptist this is the perferred position. It also seems as if you would not agree because as a general rule you seem to put lot of faith in historical documents.

 

Thomas,

The wise and Godly men who put together the statements always list scripture as the only rule of faith and practice;

So...in light of this i find the objection of some baptists and others to be quite foolish and unlearned. I do not think anyone on this board can improve upon what these men say here as it is scripturally clear.

 

It is an arrogant and misinformed person who believes they are the final word on the interpretation of scripture. I am not going to allow my friend, Iconoclast, to be misrepresented. He is does not believe that the writings of men trump scripture. He understands that creeds and confessions are lesser documents. The same goes for commentaries and the notes in study bibles. There is a tendency among some to swing the pendulum so far the other way they that they look down on the labors of godly men from the past. Many of these godly men are dead, but some preach from your pulpits each Lord's Day, or teach in bible colleges and seminaries. They labor hard at rightly understanding the Word of God. To the extent that their words (written or spoken) are true to scripture, they should be heeded. It is foolish for those who are deceived by their own ego to think that they are masters of biblical interpretation.

I consult the writings of learned men often. Why? Because as smart as I may think I am, I am really not. I am a finite person. I sometimes need to read a different opinion on a passage. When I reference the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith I am encouraged that my understanding of scripture is not alone. There are others who have gone before me and done much of the theological heavy lifting. That is the value of creeds, confessions, commentaries, and other thoughtful opinions of men. The alternative is a church full of people with their own private interpretations. That is a recipe for chaos.

 

I cannot even begin to recount the many times trying to struggle and work through many scripture passages, and then open up some puritan or reformer and learn that they were already taught the correct passage of scripture to open up the other section so easily.
To despise these learned men is tragic. I only regret that I cannot squeeze in more reading to grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.:wavey: Everyone of them to a man, prized the scriptures as the sole rule of faith and practice:thumbs::thumbs:

 

Puritan or reformed? But that is the problem isn't it? What about John Wesley? Dave Hunt? and others such as them.