Gheez. Try
here for starters. Again, I say
millions.
But you have zero basis for the claim of mere thousands of open theists. Drop this AMR point AMR. It is irrelevant and you know it. If one man is right and the rest of the whole world is wrong, then so be it. I'm not interested in winning popularity contests.
You missed my point which is that when there is a reformation the response should be dramatic. Open theists claim a new reformation is underway. Yet the response is lukewarm at best.
I did not miss the point. You just made the exact same point again! The expectation of a "dramatic response" does not follow! At least not the expectation of a positive one anyway. Jesus' ministry ended with not only His execution but the subsequent rejection of Him by the nation of Israel to the point that God cut them off and turned instead to the Gentiles. Hardly a warm response, that's not even lukewarm! And such has been the case throughout the Scriptures, the exceptions to which are few and far between.
The bottom line is that the response to a truth is not a valid test of that truth. It just isn't. You know what is a test of a truth claim, especially Biblical truth claims? Scripture and sound reason. NOTHING ELSE!
Reformed doctrine emerged more fully as a response to the five points of the Arminian Remonstrant Articles published at Dort.
Unresponsive.
Do you believe that what we call Calvinism today was a NEW revelation or do you believe it to have been a return to the true Biblical faith that had existed all along? Did Paul believe the TULIP doctrines? Would Paul have endorsed the Westminster Confession?
WAS CALVINISM TRULY NEW?
If you say no then your entire 'newness' argument is destroyed because open theism is no more new than Calvinism was in the 1530’s. If you say yes then you are an odd bird indeed. No one other than you believes that Calvinism had been hidden by God and divinely revealed to Luther and Calvin.
You took away from my words something unintended. I am saying that you and all open theists are hastily casting aside too much heavy lifting without proceeding with caution. I make this statement from observation of the casual manner in which you and others dismiss so much out of hand with no attempt at reasoned dialog.
You assume too much. You do not know me AMR. Why do I have to keep reminding you of that? You don't have any idea how I came to believe in open theism. You don't know what I studied, you don't know how long it took, you don't know what I believed before, nor why I believed it. You just don't know anything about me. You make wild assumptions about a person’s whole life based on the narrowest context of interaction. You are on the internet AMR! You simply have no basis upon which to make such assessments about why people believe what they believe.
I've said it seemingly a million times and I say it now once again. I do not flippantly dismiss anything. I reject Calvinism on the basis that it is not Biblical, it is irrational, it is pagan, and it is blasphemous, all of which I can establish. I do not just make up accusations out of thin air and casually ignore all of history. Many of my arguments are based on history for crying out loud. All of which arguments you have systematically ignored or else refused to respond to in any substantive way.
As noted above, tens of millions versus thousands, suggests, but does not affirm, that something bears careful consideration.
I have never suggested otherwise. This entire argument of your is stupid AMR. Where have I or any other Open Theist anywhere in the world ever suggested that these matters be taken lightly and that careful consideration should be cast to the wind? Where? Quote me one instance where anyone has ever suggested anything remotely like that. Just one quote AMR!
That Luther had faults is a non-issue, else you ignore the sins of many of the biblical authors.
Talk about missing the point. You have to have known that this was not my point. But likening Luther to Biblical authors is laughable in any case.
My point was that the proliferation of Lutheranism is not evidence that Luther was right. A whole society bought Luther's antisemitism hook line and sinker and every last one of them was wrong for doing so. Popularity is not a test for truth. In fact suggesting otherwise the ad populum fallacy.
1. Most (or more) people believe X
2. Therefore x is true.
or the converse.
1. Fewer people believe X
2. Therefore X is false.
The ad populum argument is fallacious because the mere fact that most (or more) people believe something does not make it correct, moral, justified, or even reasonable.
You would do well to read the book entitled "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" by Charles Mackay. It would put an end to your use of this argument in favor of Calvinism.
Please take some formal courses on these matters. You don't have a grasp of the Reformation at all. Or start another thread and I will be happy to deal with the topic in full.
Whatever AMR. Is this going to be your normal rejoinder? “You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Is that all the substance you can muster?
I am asking you point blank. Do you or do you not believe that the spread of the Reformation doctrines was miraculously accomplished?
Yes or no.
Theology is all about what we believe. It is the study of God's revelations, which by definition includes the bible. In effect, all believers are theologians. Yet some believers have devoted many more years studying what they believe and teaching others, hence, making a career of their study of God's revelations.
Why do you use the plural “revelations”? Do you hold to Sola Scriptura or not?
Most career theologians have not made a career out of studying the Bible but rather the study of their chosen theology and you are no exception. Professional theologians spend their entire lives entrenching themselves into a particular theological paradigm, not studying the Bible itself.
Please review Acts 8:27-31. You have often taken cheap shots at the highly educated.
As did Jesus.
The message (unintended?) you send is that you feel you are not being treated as an equal in any discourse. You do yourself a disservice by this behavior.
STOP TRYING TO READ MY MIND!!!
You suck at it, okay?!
I’ve never in my life had any such thought occur to me in the slightest. I’ve never thought that being treated as an equal with some theological big wig would be cool. NEVER!
As we learn from Mt. 18:16, the charge brought by two or three witnesses is established. I don't throw around the rationalism accusation lightly. In your case it is warranted and I have said as much only
recently. But you have heard it before, within these forums from others. More importantly, you have heard it
elsewhere. It seems that you need only enter into a new dialog with someone and the charge is inevitably laid at your feet. Why then do you reject the charges when so many make the same ones as I have done? If I am being told something negative about my behavior from all walks of life, I am compelled to pause and consider my behavior. Yet you seem to only redouble your efforts while ignoring the consequences. That behavior is inexplicable to me, especially since I think you have so much potential.
I reject the accusation because it makes no difference who says it or how many say it or how often they say it, they always simply say it. They NEVER make any attempt to establish the accusation and they universally ignore any refutation of the accusation and simply repeat the accusation over and over again like they are really trying to convince themselves and not me. You are no exception to this pattern of behavior! You act as if I should just take your word for it and that just isn’t going to happen.
You accuse me of promoting rationalism and when I demonstrate that I am not, you don’t respond to my defense with any sort of rejoinder or counter argument, you just repeat the accusation. The word rationalism means something very specific and I very simply do not fall under that definition. As I’ve said before, the only difference between you and I concerning the issue of using sound reason is that I give it more than just lip service. I am actually willing to reject a truth claim based solely on the fact that it is irrational and you are not. That is not rationalism AMR! That’s being rational but it is NOT rational
ISM. Rationalism is when you believe that all truth can be attained solely by way of the use of sound reason. I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT IS SO! The revelation contained within the Scripture is absolutely vital and could not have been discovered by mankind by either empirical or rational means, without God having revealed it too us. That single sentence utterly disqualifies me as a rationalist. You cannot be a rationalist and accept the existence of divine revelation. The two are mutually exclusive. Further, I do not reject knowledge which is gained by empirical science. In short, I do not rely entirely or even mostly upon the intellect as the basis of knowledge and I am therefore NOT a rationalist, I’m just not. I don’t care if Decarte himself showed up and said otherwise (which of course he wouldn’t), saying it doesn’t make it so.
Now, surprise everyone here and actually respond to that defense against your accusation rather than sticking your head in the sand and pretending like I didn’t just blow the whole idea out of the water. I am not a rationalist but hold tightly to both Scripture and sound reason just as Luther himself did and as you yourself claimed to do in your inaugural post on this website.
Sanders is hardly objective. In this paper he misrepresents classical theism's understanding of immutability and omniscience. Even when purporting to objectively compare and contrast "Classical Theism (Calvinism)" versus "Free Will Theism", he insists that classical theism defines omniscience as "God knows all that is logically possible to know" and immutability as "God never changes in any respect: will, thoughts, or emotions". Both definitions are incorrect and a professional philosopher like Sanders knows better.
Saying it doesn’t make it so AMR! :bang:
Do you have any intention of ever actually substantiating the claims you make? Or is it that you really do think that we should all just take your word for it?
Is Wikipedia objective enough for you?
Omniscience is the capacity to know everything infinitely, or at least everything that can be known about a character including thoughts, feelings, life and the universe, etc.
There is a distinction between:
• inherent omniscience the ability to know anything that one chooses to know and can be known
and
• total omniscience actually knowing everything that can be known.
Many modern theologians argue that God's omniscience is inherent rather than total, and that God chooses to limit his omniscience in order to preserve the freewill and dignity of his creatures.[1] Certain theologians of the 16th Century, comfortable with the definition of God as being omniscient in the total sense, chose to rebuke created beings' ability to choose freely, and so embraced the doctrine of predestination.
Immutability is the doctrine of classical Christian theism that God cannot change; this has been variously interpreted to mean either that God's nature cannot change but that God can, or that God himself cannot change at all.
The doctrine of immutability means that God is changeless. This belief holds that any change in a being will result in a change either for the better or for the worse. Since God is the most perfect being, any change in him could only be for the worse, hence God cannot change.
If you want to poke fun at Wikipedia as a source I wouldn’t blame you in general but if you’ll look up the sources used in the articles you’ll find the information quite credible. If that isn’t good enough for you then how much money do you want to wager that I can find a dozen more sources that say almost exactly the same thing?
Your suggestion that Sanders lied concerning the definitions of these terms couldn’t be more laughable and disgraceful. What did you think; that I or any number of others here on this website didn’t know enough about the internet to look up the definition for themselves? You should be ashamed of yourself.
Open theism’s re-definitions of the God of theism are:
1. God is vulnerable, open to the failure of at least some of His intentions
2. God is not immutable as traditionally understood, i.e., He changes His mind in ways that are more relational
3. God is sometimes mistaken in His beliefs about what will happen
4. God is not omnipotent as traditionally understood; His efforts are sometimes defeated
5. The attributes of God must be redefined with Love at the center
I did not mean "redefined" in any pejorative sense, only that classical theism gives no special emphasis to any one of God's attributes, while open theism clearly believes that God's love is a dominant characteristic of God. I am encouraged that we have at least some framework for future dialog.
Indeed! Progress is always a good thing. However, I would submit, and have done so already many times, that while you say that you give no special emphasis to any one of God’s attributes, the fact is that you do because you have no choice. There are passages which force you to make a decision about which of God’s attributes is going to take precedence of another and the Calvinist invariable puts that emphasis on God’s quantitative attributes (i.e. His power, His knowledge, His size, etc) rather than His qualitative attributes (i.e. relationship, personality, righteousness, justice, etc).
Incidentally, the use of the terms quantitative and qualitative is primarily for the purpose of simply making the distinction. It is not intended to suggest that there is something wrong with God’s power or size but merely that such attributes have to do with quantity rather than quality. A table maker, for example, can make two tables of totally different size and weight without having to make one worse in quality than the other because size does not speak to quality (necessarily).
I am going to press my luck and ask if you have any disagreements with the following characteristics of open theism:
1. God not only created the world ex nihilo but can (and at times does) intervene unilaterally in earthly affairs.
2. God chose to create us with incompatibilistic (libertarian) freedom—freedom over which He cannot exercise total control.
3. God so values freedom—the moral integrity of free creatures and a world in which such integrity is possible—that He does not normally override such freedom, even if He sees that it is producing undesirable results.
4. God always desires our highest good, both individually and corporately, and thus is affected by what happens in our lives.
5. God does not possess exhaustive foreknowledge of exactly how we will utilize our freedom, although He may at times be able to predict with great accuracy the choices we will freely make. (Src: David Basinger in Pinnock’s The Openness of God)
The only thing that I would change is in point two, “cannot” should be “does not”. God is capable of exercising total control but chooses not to in order to make it possible for us to love Him.
Clete said:
Calvinism is no more valid based on its success in convincing people of the truth of its error than is Mormonism or Catholicism.
And things were going so well, yet you now degenerate into hateful rhetoric. You just can't help yourself.
How in the world do you get anything hateful out of that simple statement of fact?
It was a perfectly valid argument AMR! Mormons have convinced millions upon millions of people all over the globe that their lie is the truth. Does that make their lie true? NO! Of course not! But that is the exact same form of argument that you are using in defense of Calvinism and the argument is no more valid for you than it is the Mormon. That isn’t hateful, its just true! You really need to get a grip AMR. I am not being hostile here. Believe me, you could tell the difference if I were! I don’t know if its just a difference in how you and I relate to those around us or what but one way or another you’ve got me all wrong. You do not know me, okay? Stop reacting to me as though you do. You get it wrong every time!
I have asked you this before and you equivocated in your response. So I ask again, are you asserting that I am not a saved (born again) Christian? Since you are so interested in not rehashing topics, please settle this question for me, and all five-point Calvinists like me, without equivocating. Either answer the question clearly or cease the histrionics.
I did not equivocate, AMR. I stated plainly that I believe most Calvinists are saved. There are some who believe in the wrong Jesus and have no understanding of what sin is or why they need a savior and are confused on those issues solely because of Calvinist doctrine and are therefore not saved. Those are, however, it would seem to me, to be in the minority. If you believe that God became a man and died in payment for the sin debt that you owe and that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved – period. I don’t care what else you get wrong. If you get that much right, you will be saved, although perhaps by the skin of your teeth. A man can unwittingly blaspheme God every day of his life and still be saved.
The "we" in your "we can show" is no doubt the two TOL Bobs (Hill and Enyart), who argue incorrectly that Augustine was so loyal to Plato.
Resorting to “hateful” ad hominems are we?
Don’t be a hypocrite AMR. If you don’t want me to resort to histrionics then don’t do it yourself.
And no, it isn’t merely Bob Hill and Bob Enyart who make these arguments. I have been doing it now for a quite a considerable amount of time and have argued the point in many ways that neither of them have. As has Knight and Turbo and Poly and any number of people on this website who initially learned the arguments from Bob Enyart and Hill. I have further read the same arguments from prominent Open Theism authors as well.
But even if none of that were true. Would the fact that two and only two people in the whole history of the world had ever pointed out the connections between Calvinism and Plato, would that make their arguments invalid or false?
If not, then why did you bring it up?
The two-Bobs could not be more wrong. Augustine rejected many Platonistic conclusions.
No kidding. Both Bob’s would agree with you completely. That isn’t the argument and I think you know that. If you don’t know that then you need to stop commenting on what Bob Hill and Enyart say until you are actually familiar with their arguments.
The two-Bobs also like to selectively quote Augustine to bolster their own arguments that Augustine somehow believed in "absolute immutability". Augustine nor Calvin taught such a doctrine.
This is a lie. An outright lie! This is just inexcusable!
I can quote your own precious Westminster Confession as well as several self-proclaimed Calvinist that would sooner die than admit that God is anything other than absolutely immutable because in their minds and according to the WCF any change would indicate a lack of perfection because the perfect can only change for the worse and God is utterly perfect in every respect. A line of reasoning which originated with Aristotle and introduced to the church by Augustine who when attempting to deal with the problem of evil said explicitly that he would automatically reject any explanation that required him to believe that God was mutable.
You parrot what you see here and there, especially from the two Bobs, without studying all of Calvin's or Augustine's works. Any reference to absolute immutability of God by Augustine or Calvin was with respect to God's character and attributes.
This simply cannot be so! Every time an open theist makes that claim, that God’s character is immutable, do we get the reaction that says, “Yeah, exactly! That’s what Calvinism teaches!” or do we get hostility and accusation of heresy?
If this is all the Calvinist mean by immutable then why in the world isn’t there agreement on this point between the open theist and the Calvinist?
The answer is in the fact that you tacked on “and attributes” at the end of your definition. God’s attributes define God’s whole existence. If none of God attributes can change then God cannot change at all! What is it that you think can change about God that wouldn’t qualify as an attribute? It’s meaningless double talk. God can either change or He cannot. If He can change in any way whatsoever the it would not be accurate to refer to Him as being immutable. You might could refer to those parts of Him (Calvinist deny that God has parts by the way) that cannot change as immutable but to say that God Himself is immutable is to say that God cannot change in any respect.
This open theist smokescreen is annoying and only hurts their cause, for it makes them appear fanatical and unlearned.
Yeah, right!
If it’s so fallacious then prove it. Instead of just saying that we’ve misunderstood Augustine and Calvin, prove it. Prove that Calvin believed that God was in some meaningful way changeable without at the same time affirming that God was absolutely immutable and then discounting the contradiction as an antinomy.
I don't know what this means. No one that is intellectually honest and learned of Calvinism, or Arminianism would deny the connection to the Greeks.
Well be that as it may, Calvinists deny it all the time. They do so because they intuitively understand the implications of such influence and don’t want to admit that confirmed historical linkage between a known pagan and any so called Christian doctrine would be more than sufficient cause to call that doctrine into doubt and warrant an extensive reexamination of that doctrine with the pagan influence removed.
The Greeks were doing some serious thinking about supreme beings, objective truth, etc. If only the open theists would admit the same, especially given the influence of Aristotle on open theism's limited divine foreknowledge. In fact, most of the big thinkers behind open theism are professional philosophers. Should I be whining about open theism's connection to godless departments of religion in universities? No. It makes no sense to anyone that understands theological development. Or are we to claim that formulation of doctrine should ignore the thinking of other minds, when and only if that thinking can be aligned biblically? Gheez. Like you I want to put the subject to bed and set the record straight.
You still seam to be stuck on a misunderstanding of our use of the argument. We do not reject Calvinism on the basis of its Greek influence but on the basis of its Greek ORIGIN. We demonstrate the clearly lineage through history of vital Calvinist doctrines and show that their origin is not Biblical but pagan. We then insist, on that basis, that the doctrine should be reexamined Biblically. The Calvinist, most times, never allows us to get to the second part of that because they refuse to accept the clear teaching of history and acknowledge the genesis of their own beliefs. The point the Open Theist is making is basically to assert the consistent application of the Calvinist’s own policy of Sole Scriptura but they refuse almost every time. I can think of only one exception, you might be on the verge of being the second.
Resting in Him,
Clete
)
