ARGH!!! Calvinism makes me furious!!!

[Flipper]

Yes, props to the new Postee Of The Day. I'm sure Ravi Zacharias will be thrilled to learn of his elevated status on TOL.

Well done for making an attempt at a rewrite though, Clete. Superficial though it was, it was more than some of the Christian plagiarists who have frequented this site.

Compare and contrast:

Ravi Zacharias, "Jesus Among Other Gods":

So he brought the professor of psychology along with him. He said, "Ravi, there are two kinds of logic," (actually, he's wrong: there are more.) "One is the either/or logic. If you make a statement that is true, the opposite of it is false. It is called the Law of Non-Contradiction. The same question at the same time, meaning the same thing, cannot elicit two opposite answers. If you ask my wife, 'are you expecting a child?' and at the same time if she says yes, and I say no, what will you say?

"You'll probably say, that's the wrong question, they have a weird sense of humor, she's not his wife, or she hasn't talked to him. You wouldn't walk away saying 'thank you'." Why not? Because the same question at the same time, meaning the same thing, cannot elicit two opposite answers. That's the either/or logic - the Law of Non-Contradiction - you cannot contradict yourself."
...
So finally he established: Either/Or Logic, the Law of Non-Contradiction, is Western. Both/And logic, the Law of Dialectic, is Eastern. Karl Marx used it: take the employer and the employee, put them together, you get the classless society. Nobody ever shows you one, but at in theory they talk about it. So there it is: Either/Or logic is Western, and Both/And logic is Eastern.

I said, "Sir, have you finished?"

He said, "Yes."

I said, "What you are telling me is this: when I am studying Hinduism, I either use the Both/And system, or nothing else. Is that right?"

Do you know what he said? He put his knife and fork down and he said, "The Either/Or does seem to emerge, doesn't it?"

You see, he was using Either/Or logic to prove the Both/And logic. And the more he tried to clobber the Law of Non-Contradiction, the more it clobbered him. The psychologist said, "I think, John, this discussion is over; let's go back."

So what I say to you, Ladies and Gentlemen, is this: Jesus' claim was reasonable. The question is, was he right?

Jesus' claim was reasonable. All religions are exclusive. I looked at that professor and said, "Sir, I've got some shocking news for you: Even in India, you look before crossing the street. It is either the bus, or you, not both of you." It has nothing to do with Eastern and Western; it's what best reflects reality.

Clete Pfeiffer's POTD:

The law of non-contradiction simply states that two contradictory statements cannot both be true at the same time in the same context. Either one is true and the other false, or they are both false. Both cannot be true simultaneously. Now, if someone tried to deny this and said, "The law of non-contradiction is false," he would have a problem. Without the law of non-contradiction, there is no such thing as true or false, because this law itself draws the line between true and false. So we can't call it false without assuming that it is true.

Some, especially those involved in eastern religions deny this simple truth. Rather than holding to the western idea of an ‘either, or’ logic, they embrace a ‘both, and’ logic and they have very elaborate lines of thought that lead them to conclude that a ‘both, and’ form of logic is a superior means of determining truth. They flatly reject any western criticism of their religious beliefs that are based upon an ‘either, or’ form of argument. They say that the ‘both, and’ form of logic is the only way in which their system can be understood. You seem to be making this same claim about predestination and free will. Your argument in a nutshell is that the issue of predestination and free will is not an ‘either, or’ proposition but rather it is a “both, and” sort of an idea. And you insist that the ‘either, or’ logic is invalid. And there in lies a major problem with the ‘both, and’ logic. Those who hold to it must insist that one use either the ‘both, and’ logic or nothing at all. You see, the ‘either, or’ logic always emerges. The harder you try to fight against it, the more it beats you up! Even the Hindu looks in both directions before crossing the street, because he intuitively knows that it is either the bus or him, not both him and the bus.

I will allow you some points for tailoring the argument to predestination, but not many.

Ravi Z does enjoy telling that little story. But I can't help wonder how many debates and arguments he leaves out of his otherwise pleasing sermons; the ones in which he took lumps and bruises. He's good, but there are better. I might also add that his side of the argument effectively shortcircuits boolean logic, which means that in Zarcharias World, none of the computers work.

Anyway, well done for spotting it first, Christians! It would have been pretty embarrassing if you had to be informed of the arguments of your leading thinkers by some kind of an atheist.

 

[1Way]

Flipper - What a crock. I also hear Ravi teach this same teaching, I heard that same teaching perhaps 8-9 years ago, but I'm quite sure that Ravi does not have a copyright on "either or" logic. And I bet he would be honored to have someone roughly minic the core analogy and terms.

Once you understand the logic of it, you can apply it wherever it applies. How many ways are there to present the law of non-contradiction? Who cares if Ravi did a wonderful job of championing "either or"? It's still right no matter who says it. Your charge of plagiarism is a cheap shot. But thanks for the R .Z. post, I think it makes Clete's treatment look all the more well crafted. Truth is at it's heart, exclusive, said in another way, if "A" is right, then "non-A" is wrong, so the law of non-contradiction is the workhorse for the exclusivity of truth, and is the functional equivalent to all truth claim evaluations, either it is true, or it is false, it can not be "both (and)" because that would violate the law of non-contradiction.

I agree that parts of the presentation is a re-wording effort, and parts are done purposefully keeping similarity, but the bottom line is, Ravi has no special corner on truth and logic, the things he taught would still be true even if he never lived, and I bet Ravi would be elated to hear the hallmark analogy about the Eastern man looking both ways before crossing the street, because it's either him or the bus, "both and" seems like very unimportant issues when truth of your life is on the line.
(Hmm, seems like this discussion has happened before, very popular and powerful teaching)

You say

Ravi Z does enjoy telling that little story. But I can't help wonder how many debates and arguments he leaves out of his otherwise pleasing sermons; the ones in which he took lumps and bruises. He's good, but there are better. (1) I might also add that his side of the argument effectively shortcircuits boolean logic, which means that in Zarcharias World, none of the computers work.

(2) Anyway, well done for spotting it first, Christians! It would have been pretty embarrassing if you had to be informed of the arguments of your leading thinkers by some kind of an atheist.

(1) Not remotely. The foundation of boolean logic is attainable through charts and graphs remember? The discrete units of data in boolean logic are arrived at one step at a time, and the answer is still reducible to a yes or a no, an on or an off signal. Secondly, computers run on bits and bytes of data all of which are represented in binary code! Binary code is nothing but "on and off" signals. So unlike your baseless accusations, the entire computer analogy strictly epitomizes "either or" logic.

(2) Who would care when an excellent argument is presented, what matters is the truth of the matter, not when it arrived. What is pretty embarrassing is what you just did, pose yourself as an authoritative critic of something you are very wrong about, and trying to shame us in the process. :down:

 

[Clete]

Flipper,

Give me a big fat break!You can't possibly be serious!
I read Ravi Zacharias' "Can Man Live Without God" about 4 or 5 years ago and his little vignette about the Hindu looking both ways before crossing the street stuck in my mind and I used it here. It hardly amounts to plagiarism. In fact, I seem to remember it quite vividly with him having called the man crossing the street a Hindu, it appears I had read that into the story. Thanks for posting the direct quote though, I was unable to find it last night or else I would have quoted it directly myself. Ravi is a hundred times more eloquent than I and he makes the same extremely valid point much better than I could hope to on my own. The only "rewording" effort on my part was simply an attempt to make the same argument from memory without the benefit of having the book in front of me.
Ravi is not my only source either. In the last week, I bet I've read at least a dozen different articles on the subject and pulled arguments and ideas from more than one of them. In fact, one sentence in particular is a verbatim use of a sentence used at the following website...
http://www.myfortress.org/

I do not feel obligated to give full disclosure of every source I use when I post on this site nor should I feel so obligated. If I'm using big (or even not so big) chunks of someone else’s material then I give the proper credit but the use of a single sentence in order to flesh out an argument that I otherwise came up with myself does not require that I fully disclose the source of that single sentence. If someone asked me about it I would happily give them whatever resources I had but if everyone had to fully disclose the source of every argument they made it would become impossible to communicate.
Further, citing such sparsely used sources leads to an additional problem which you have demonstrated for us quite nicely and that is it gives the opposition something besides the argument to focus on. The real issue isn't about where I learned these arguments from but rather whether or not the arguments are sound. Giving me a hard time about recounting an argument that I read in a book quite a long time ago misses the entire point. But since you seem to think that this is a particularly important issue, I'll give you a list of resources that I commonly use for your future reference.

Bob Enyart - Anything that he has every said or written or recorded in any form may be used by this poster at any time to formulate arguments on a variety of issues.

Ravi Zacharias - Perhaps the most brilliant Christian mind in the past 1000 years if not ever. Again, I could use anything he has said or written at any time to formulate arguments on nearly any issue.

Miles J Stanford - His book "The Complete Green Letters" is simply brilliant. I know basically nothing of grace which Mr. Stanford does not cover in this book. Much of his other writings are good as well but not as universally as Bob's and Ravi's.

I also use information found at the following websites on a regular basis...

http://www.biblicalanswers.com/
http://www.blueletterbible.org/
http://www.m-w.com/home.htm

And there are many, many more. I could give a complete listing of all the links and books at my disposal but I don't want to. Anyway this is the stuff I use most often. I encourage you to read it all and please point out to me every instance where you believe that I've plagiarized something.

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Flipper]

I notice that when Norm Geisler recently represented this argument in his own words, he gave Ravi Z credit where credit was due. Furthermore, although all computer operations are based on binary operations, the rules of boolean logic are not conditional on binary.

But if you want to get hung up on either/or, I would also be interested to see how you would fit a quantum computer into RZ's logical world.

 

[Clete]

1Way,

I hadn't read through your entire post before writing mine. Interesting how I ended up making a couple of very similar points! I wonder if Flipper will think I plagiarized you?

Oh and by the way, said...

Not remotely.

I think I remember Vizzini using that phrase when he was in his battle of wits with The Dread Pirate Roberts (Westley) in the movie "The Princess Bride" back in '87. You dirty plagiarizer you!

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Flipper]

Clete: Pretty weird coincidence, don't you think?

You know, your treatment of either/or, both/and and the law of non-contradiction, seguing into Eastern logic. I agree that your post didn't include a debate with a psychology professor (which lopped off a lot of additional text but that would have been a bit rich. Then the observation that attempts to fight against either/or gets you beaten up by it. Finally, you both happened to give the same example of the road-crossing hindu's logical dichotomy on account of a bus. That's an awful lot of coincidence.

I wouldn't have even seen your post as I'm singularly disinterested by Calvinism. it's just that when it went POTD, I read it and thought it sounded extremely familiar.

 

[Yorzhik]

Flipper, thanks for bringing that up. Except for the concept of either/or logic, and the mention of the Hindu looking both ways, I see the evidence exonerates Clete.

And quite frankly, when I explain either/or logic someday, I'll probably be accused of plagiarism, even though I will actually only be using "either/or logic" and "the Hindu crossing the street" as a mnemonic. Put more simply, I will use those phrases to remember the form of the whole argument.

 

[Rolf Ernst]

Knight, Post 847, page 57--

Knight--

Since you don't approve of a free will decreed by God, determined by what God knew the free choices of His creatures would be, maybe you would define for us what man's free will constitutes. What are the powers of man's free will? What is man's free will able to do versus God's free will? Or do you believe man's free will must be able to trump God's will for man's will to be truly free? Do you believe God foregoes any of Hius purposes out of regard for man's free will?

 

[Rolf Ernst]

Questions for those opposed to God's decree on grounds that it is (supposedly) contradictory to man's free will:

1. "Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months is with thee, you have appointed his bounds that he cannot pass." (Job 14:5)

"You hide your face, they are troubled; you take away their breath, they die..."

Do you believe on the basis of these verses that God has appointed the time of a man's death??

The bible says, "Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world."

Do you believe on the basis of this verse that God's works are, from the beginning of the world, firmly and unchangeably established?
If you would answer, no please explain what you believe the verse means. What is all involved in the true meaning of the verse?

These questions are lead in questions to others which I will SPRING on you later, so please think about them before answering. Thanks

 

[Clete]

Originally posted by Rolf Ernst

Questions for those opposed to God's decree on grounds that it is (supposedly) contradictory to man's free will:

Supposedly?
They are contradictory. That's why you have to bend over backward to make them somehow coexist.

1. "Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months is with thee, you have appointed his bounds that he cannot pass." (Job 14:5)

"You hide your face, they are troubled; you take away their breath, they die..."

Man is not immortal and God has established a limit to the legth of a human life. Gen 6 suggests that the limit is 120 years although I do not believe that this is anything more than general true. In other words, here may be an occational exception to this general rule but not commonly and not to a significant degree.
At any rate it is not necessary to beleive based onthese verese that God has ordained a specific number of days for each individual person. The verse is speaking about man and death in general terms and so must not be applied in any specific sense.

Do you believe on the basis of these verses that God has appointed the time of a man's death??

Generally yes.
We will not live past aproximately 120 years of age.

The bible says, "Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world."

Do you believe on the basis of this verse that God's works are, from the beginning of the world, firmly and unchangeably established?

No. planned for perhaps but that's the most you could get from this verse. It could also mean that God remembers everything that He has done from the beginning. Both of these are assuming that the translation is correct. The passage could also mean that God makes things known from the beginning. In fact, the foot note for Acts 15:18 in the NKJV reads, "15:18 NU-Text (combining with verse 17) reads Says the Lord, who makes these things known from eternity (of old)."
Th point is that no such doctrine as predestination or even divine foreknowledge can be established with this verse of Scripture.

These questions are lead in questions to others which I will SPRING on you later, so please think about them before answering. Thanks

I know that you asked Knight these questions directly but I have taken the liberty to put in my two cents because I think that you ask honest questions that are of interest and as long as you don't freak out on me again I think I would enjoy the conversation. If you can make a commitment to try not to freak out, I will promise to try not to freak you out, if you know what I mean. Deal?

Resting in Him,
Clete

no time for editing right now. Sorry for any typos! I'll edit later.

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Flipper... this is a great thread with some excellent arguments being made. Please don't become a distraction with your mindless garbage. I am asking you to kindly.... get lost.

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Originally posted by Rolf Ernst

Knight, Post 847, page 57--

Knight--

Since you don't approve of a free will decreed by God, determined by what God knew the free choices of His creatures would be, maybe you would define for us what man's free will constitutes. What are the powers of man's free will? What is man's free will able to do versus God's free will? Or do you believe man's free will must be able to trump God's will for man's will to be truly free? Do you believe God foregoes any of Hius purposes out of regard for man's free will?

Man's freewill is a will all to himself.

Man's freewill is not specifically guided or coerced (although it can most certainly be influenced).

Man's freewill is not written in advance and then carried out like a computer program. Man's freewill unfolds in the ever passing moment.

This freewill has limitations in various ways but within these limitations it is the will of each individual man and it is guided by each man's heart. And therefore each man is ultimately responsible for the decisions and actions made using this freewill.


How do you define freewill Rolf?

 

[Rolf Ernst]

Knight, Post 843--You claim a difficulty in me saying that God foreordained whatsoever comes to pass, and also that He did NOT foreordain the wicked intents and motivations of His enemies.
You claim that there is a contradiction there.

I had earlier quoted Jesus saying, "from within, from out of the hearts of men proceeds evil..."

My statement concerning God's decree was that He has foreordained whatsoever COMES TO PASS.

Sennacharib had wicked intents and evil motivations in his heart and they did not COME TO PASS because God had not decreed from everlasting that Sennacharib's evil intents would COME TO PASS.

Sennacharib's wicked motivation and intents issued from his own heart as a product of his free will. But man's free will is impotent. His intents did NOT come to pass because God did not decree that they would be among those things that would COME TO PASS. They were OUTSIDE God's decree and therefore, did not COME TO PASS.

As any OVer would wish, the evil intents, the wicked motivations of His enemies is also outside His decree in regard to the events, outside the WHATSOEVER COMES TO PASS which God DOES decree.

That does NOT mean God does not have the right to execute judgement on them for those things which He was not pleased with nor intended to decree. Oner of the seven things God hates is a heart that devises wicked imaginations. The fact that many of them do not come to fruition does not exclude god from the right to execute judgement against such imaginations.

Pride is also a sin which does not issue in something which is among WHATSOEVER COMES TO PASS, but God nonetheless
promises that "pride goes before a fall, and a haughty spirit before destruction."

As I said before, "you want free will?" You got it! Don't blame anyone else or accuse God for what YOU chose to do with it."

 

[1Way]

Flipper - You said

Furthermore, although all computer operations are based on binary operations, the rules of boolean logic are not conditional on binary.

Conditional, yes and no. The rules for boolean logic are reducible to digital information, that is to say that boolean logic is approachable through binary, thus either or logic. Like you said, everything in a computer is foundationally worked through binary, EVERYTHING, so necessarily, binary information processing (the logic of "either or") allows us access to boolean, and so we can play games and do fantastic things on a computer, all of which rest completely on the backbone of an "either or" system.

I would say that the rules of boolean logic are conditional on either or, because without "either or", you can never get to boolean logic, boolean is "either or" logic combined with different relationships; of inclusion, or exclusion, or selective inclusion, or selective range, etc. While either or tends to answer only one question or issue at a time, boolean takes that process and allows us to interface with sets of information. So there simply is no dichotomy you are trying to levy against either or as being in some way incompatible with computer function and boolean logic.

Quantum computer? You liberals are all alike. Whoever invented the idea of anti-matter was just like you. For all eternity, no matter if you are Eastern or Platonic or Newtonian or not, matters are

either

true

or

false

You never get a single discreet issue being both true and false!

But those who are opposed to the truth, I can see why they even try to reject truth on a logical basis. Very bad form, very illogical. LOL, you just can not accept the truth hu? Too confining is it? Or?

 

[1Way]

I can just here flipper now,,,

What I am saying is true, and it is false, both! :darwinsm:

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Rolf, how do you define freewill?

 

[Rolf Ernst]

Clete--In post #870 you say God's decee and man's free will are contradictory. Prove it by the example of what transpires concerning Abimilech, the king of Gerar, and Sarah. Include in your analysis Abimilech's dream, his assertion of his own choice (the integrity of his heart), and God's acknowledgeing the validity of his claim to persnal integrity alongside God's assertion that He had restrained him.

What do you see in the text? Can you see God's decree concerning the matter? Can you see Abimilech's exercise of His will? And can you also see God exercising His power in the matter?

It is like a picture puzzle in McDonalds--can you find all the items, and define how they relate to one another??

As I have said before, man's free will and God's decree are NOT contradictory. They ARE complementary.

 

[Clete]

Rolf,

In order to be free there has to be contingency. I must be able to choose to do or to do otherwise. If contingency is absent so is freedom. The Calvinistic understanding of the soveriegnty of God removes all possibility of any contingency and in so doing removes the possiblity of freedom. The closest you can get is an illusion of freedom, but feeling like you're free isn't the same as being free for real.

This should be more than enough to establish that the two doctrines are contradictory. The only way to get to the conclusion that they are not is to redefine the terms.

Which brings us to Knight's question...

Rolf, how do you define freewill?

I would love to see an answer from you on this.

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Z Man]

I first wanna say, wow... Hehe.. For some reason, I hadn't been getting any e-mails to let me know anyone had replied to this thread yet, so I was sitting for a while, just waiting. That's why I haven't replied lately. Finally I thought I'd just pay the site a visit and check the thread out, to see if it was still there. Good thing I did! Anywho, sorry bout that guys...

Now, on to the debate!



Clete,

Thank you for finally replying. I hope I wasn't being annoying in 'reminding' you about it..

While I am grateful that you did take the time to reply, I feel that you somewhat avoided the main focus of my last post. When I made statements against interpreting the Bible with logic, I wasn't necessarily making the point that we are not suppose to interpret it at all with any sort of logic or reason. My point was simply that it is wrong to use what logic you've learned in life and from your surroundings to interpret the Bible.

For example, we look around and see people doing whatever it seems they want to do. We can choose to do this and that, whenever and where ever we please. One may say, "Hmmm.. I have free will". With that assumption, they will then read the Bible with that premonition in thier head - that free will exists. That's interpreting the Bible 'deductively', and that's wrong. Anyone can then read the Bible and interpret it to say whatever they want it to in order to support their fanatical views and doctrine, which is built upon their 'secular' logic.

Instead of using 'deductive' reasoning to interpret the Scriptures, we must use 'inductive' reasoning. We must interpret the Scriptures by using the Scriptures itself. We must build our doctrine solely upon what is taught in them, rather than what we have been taught from someone else, or have managed to teach ourself through our own experiences here on earth.

As for the non-contridiction thing, I think where we differ is in how 'free' we think man's will is. You believe that 'free will' means just that; that we are free to do whatever we want, whether good or bad, without any limitations whatsoever, from ourself or from any other outside 'forces'. I do not. I beleive that man has a will, of course, but that it is not 'free' as you would mean 'free' to be. We are limited by sin and God Himself. So if you are asking if I believe that total predestination and free will as you would define free will, exist at the same time, my answer would of course be no. That is not the case. I do, however, believe that God is absolutely sovereign and that we are responsible for our own actions at the same time. That's Biblical. And I've proven it.

However, you reject this idea. You think it 'doesn't make sense logically'. And that's how we got off on this tangent... Anyways, you believe that if God was absolutely sovereign and we were held responsible for our actions still, then that would make God unjust. And to that I ask, how in the world do you not see an unjust God in Scriptures, if that is what you truly believe??? Who hardened Pharaoh's heart, THEN told him to let the Israelites go? Who opposed the hatred of His people, yet turned the hearts of the Egyptians to hate His people? Who punished David for doing exactly as He had told him to do? Who 'hid the things of God' from Jerusalem, then wept for them because of it? Who controls sickness, yet had compassion on those who are sick? Who hates adultry and made a law against it, stating that anyone who commits such an act shall surely die, then turns right around and ordains that Absalom should lie with his father's wives?

Tell us Clete, in your view, how is God not unjust and 'contridictory' when He has done all these things, and many more?!

 

[Z Man]

Originally posted by Knight

Rolf, how do you define freewill?

A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. (Prv. 16:9)

We have a will, but it's not free...