ARGH!!! Calvinism makes me furious!!!

[Yorzhik]

This is the first of two occasions where you allude to Jesus' critique of Jewish hypocrisy in Mt. 23:24, seemingly to divert the discussion away from the details in favor of some larger picture. Insodoing, you miss the point of Jesus' rebuke in that figure. Given the track record or your handling of figures of speech thus far, I am concerned about your use and understanding of them…

Thanks for the lesson about that figure, Jim. I already knew this figure, but what you said was concise and well written. I'll have to remember it when this topic is dicussed.

I prefer to "strain out gnats," for it is proper and needful to do if we are to clarify the terms and conditions of the Open View. Neither will I "swallow a camel," but I hesitate at this point to comment on what the referrent to such an act would be.

Okay, I see we have a communication disconnect here. When I say "don't strain the gnats" I mean we should "don't discuss the details", but discuss the foundations of an issue first (foundations would be like the base of a pyramid – big relative to the top). We should do this instead of the arguing conclusions or other things based on the foundational issues (which would be like what is above the base of a pyramid – small relative to the bottom). There you have it. Big and small. Gnats are small relative to camels, and tops of pyramids are small relative to bottoms of pyramids. The foundation of an argument is a big thing; it is wider, as it were, because it holds up every discussion above it. So, in an exaggerated sort of way, we want to get the camels (foundations) taken care of first before we move on to the gnats (the issues that stand on the foundation).

I am not, nor ever was, trying to evoke a direct correlation with Matt 23:23. I was merely referencing a biblical principle that there are big things and little things, weightier things and lighter things. I even added words to qualify what I was saying ("let's try to crystallize") so that you would know that we were going to try and make things more clear first before moving on to the details. The details would be the small things, hence the allusion to gnats, and making things more clear would be finding out what all these small things are based on – because at this point in the discussion we apparently cannot see the base of this discussion. I didn't refer to camels because I wasn't using the Matt 23:23 passage directly. Okay?

And the reason I propose that is because the OV claims that God is loving and merciful. I'm trying to find a way for God to work things together for those who love Him. I'm trying to find a way for God to behave consistent with the alleged desire to save all men without exception. I'm trying to find a loophole according to OV terms that will allow Him to do so. I would expect an OV proponent to be very helpful with this. What if this is that one thing I need to get around in order to embrace the OV system?

Great. I don't remember you being so succinct in this context before.

So, do you expect that God is working things together for our good here on earth?

We already covered this, Yorzhik. I already said, over and over again, that God would not choose or obligate Himself to intervening in every case, thus making reasonably certain no one could know for sure when He was intervening, if at all.

And I've never accepted your reason that God would not intervene in every case. Why not? He can mask every miracle if He wants, thus making reasonably certain no one could know for sure when He was intervening, if at all, and get the desired result you claim that the OV God is looking for far more effectively.

Here is the problem I'm having with your scenario. In your scenario God is doing secret miracles, here and there, to get the greatest effect, so that people have the best chance to love him. But that doesn't make sense. If He wanted the greatest effect, as you say the OV God wants, and He is not restricted to miracles here and there, which you have to agree the OV God isn't, then He would also be consistent with what we know of His character - and He would do miracles for everyone. In fact, if the OV God where doing miracles so the most people would be apt to love Him, then He would have created a "secret" pain just for Eve as she was contemplating the fruit on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Also remember that if you give one child a treat just because it is a nice day, it would be said to be unfair not to give your other child a treat as well, all other things being equal. I realize you are not obligated to treat your other children, but I know you try to be fair with them as well. I know I wouldn't feel right if I gave one child a treat just because it was a nice day but ignored the other child (all other things being equal).

But you seem to just ignore what I've said.

I'm not! I have been clear why I reject your reason that God would not do miracles for everyone. IF God is going to do miracles so all men without exception will be apt to love Him, THEN God will do miracles for everyone. Covertly if need be. God is very smart, your concern that God will be found out if He does miracles for everyone is not an issue. Do you have a GOOD reason why God would not do miracles for everyone? I won't ignore your next reason, just as I haven't ignored your first reason.

Why are you doing this? You don't seem to be following the terms I've stipulated, despite my best efforts to find a loophole for the OV conception of God. So far, it's not faring very well. So of course, if God knows that miraculous intervention turns people away from Him, He is smart enough to make it seem random enough that no one would know. Why am I having to go over this again? Of course, He would limit His intervention to events in which such intervention would be statistically favorable to larger quantities of people having more opportunities to choose to love Him. But I already covered all this. And here I am doing it again.

Why is random the only way to keep people from knowing it is Him? Your stipulation is not being followed because it doesn't make sense.

Let me see if I can state it in a clearer way. Here is the response to your scenario in one sentence: The OV God will not do miracles for some people, because if He did miracles for some people, He would do miracles for everyone. Now, you can draw some conclusions from that response.

Are you deliberately ignoring what we've already established? Why do you keep going back to your earlier misunderstandings of the scenario that I've since corrected? If you refuse to get this and to respect the discussion, I'll just have to place your name under the heading of Open Theists who refuse to answer questions along a simple line of reasoning.

Here is the simple line of reasoning – If God was doing miracles for some people so that they would be more apt to love Him, He would do if for everyone. I created two outcomes for your proposal. The first is in keeping with your proposal, and the second you can ignore if you want. I'm sure lots of people reading would ask, if the second example were not provided, "why not overt miracles?"

Two questions: (1) Was God pleased with the way His Son was beaten, whipped, tortured, mocked, spit upon, His bones dislocated, beard torn from His face, and murdered? And (2) Is God pleased with the number of people currently being saved?

No, and no. He could have improved each situation with secret miracles.

Progress! So would you then agree that it doesn't come down to "who has scripture that backs his view," but rather who is interpreting the scripture correctly?

I'm glad this makes you happy. I'm not so sure you can call this "progress" because I would have agreed with this statement before the beginning of this discussion. But with your interpretation of scripture that should be taken literally as taken figuratively, I seriously doubt your ability to interpret correctly.

Is God "Just" because He keeps His self-imposed rule? Or was He already Just before the rule was stipulated?

No, God keeps the rule because He is "Just". There was no "before the rule" God was Just from everlasting, and as long as God is real, reality exists, and Justice is just a part of reality.

Would you equate that power (to violate the "rule of justice") to the power to "create a rock too heavy to lift"?

No. Creating a rock to heavy to lift would be the same a making a square circle.

Does Justice ever change? For example, justice once called Sabbath-breaking a capital crime (i.e., the offender was executed). Justice no longer requires that. According to the OV, murder was not a capital crime (worthy of death) prior to the Flood, but it was afterward. So Justice was served differently. Please explain this on your view of Justice.

No, you are talking about laws. Laws change. Justice never changes.

If it cannot be done, then God is powerless to do it. So can God [i.e. does He have the power to] violate the rule of justice or not? Above you said He has the power to do it.

Yes, God is powerless to make a square circle, but He is not powerless to violate justice if His character is not taken into account.

BTW, God will be thrilled to know that I know Him well enough to understand Him in the way He has presented himself.

I assure you that God is not thrilled with the contradiction you've just stated. Or perhaps you did not say what you actually meant to say. Going by your words, you're on the horns of a dilemma. I look forward to its resolution.

Please point out the contradiction. I don't see it. God is happy with people that understand Him. I understand Him to the extent that He has presented Himself. Therefore God is thrilled. One might say "thrilled" is too strong, but that isn't a contradiction.

Hilston said previously:
'm coming to the conclusion that Open Theists do not understand God's holiness. Of course the innocent go straight to hell.

Yorzhik responded:
Hell is punishment for the guilty, and the innocent, by definition, are not guilty.

Did you even read my previous post on this? Didn't I say that "'innocent' does not mean pure as the driven snow"? Do you remember my saying that? If you're being forgetful, please work on that. If you're deliberately ignoring what I've previously written, we're done.

Again, we'll need to get to the foundation here. I haven't ignored what you've written, and I remember you said the innocent were not pure as the wind driven snow, too. I also remember that I've continually rejected your reasoning, so I don't understand why you are acting like this. The basis for your seemingly being upset is that "not pure as the wind driven snow" means anything. I took that into account and my answers stand as stated.

But like I said, we need to get to the foundation. According to the OV, who are the innocent? According to the OV, who are the innocent that go to heaven? According to the OV, who are the innocent that go to hell? According to the OV, who are the innocent on earth? And so that I can understand what you view as the problem, in your view, what are the answers in your view to these questions?

Perhaps we can get through this if you tell me why this subject is something you want to bring up.

I'm trying to understand the Open View. Your conception of God and His dealings with men is part of that view.

Hilston, I knew this already. I meant the question in the context of our discussion of the "innocent going to hell".

What do you believe Ro 3:10 and 3:23 mean? Are there any who do not deserve hell? I certainly deserve hell. Don't we all?

After I've been covered by the blood of Jesus? No, I don't deserve hell after that. Also, children, before they can make a decision to choose to love God or not, don't automatically deserve hell. However, I'm not sure how God will deal with them. Rest assured, it will be Just.

So to clarify, are you saying the innocent people who died in the WTC deserved those consequences?

They deserved those consequences as much as we all deserve to die because we are all mortals living in a fallen world.

But you certainly do seem to have a problem with more than just anthro-figures. You totally missed the gnat-camel figure in Mt 23:24.

I didn't miss the gnat-camel figure. You missed my use of big and small, foundational and detail.

But back to anthro-figures. This is quite a struggle. Your example is fine, as I've mentioned, but your example is a figure. What you said is not what you meant, and that it could be replaced with what was really meant. But this would be different from an anthro-figure in that what is said is exactly what is meant to humans, but what is said is intrinsically meaningless to God because of the nature of God. So an anthro-figure really cannot be replaced, but neither does it mean what it says to both parties communicating with each other. So, as it seems we keep running into, we should stop talking about the details and get to the foundational issues.

BTW, the reason I came to this understanding is because I spoke to a number of Rabbis about the Jewish tradition concerning this passage. They don't take it as a figure. Never have. In a nutshell, and I hope giving the short answer is acceptable, they count it as part of the non-transcendent part of God interacting with man on his level. Therefore, it is read exactly as it is written. They freely admit this is Jewish mysticism. Your usage seems to be the same way (minus the Jewish mysticism), is that correct?

How so? Please explain, because they are richly saturated with emphatic meaning on my view.

Emphatic? If you want to call them figures, then you're fooling yourself; you cannot give the emphatic meaning for each of the figures in the bible. You cannot give an emphatic meaning to "now I know" that I discussed immediately above. If all the figures are so emphatic, you could rattle off a replacement for any figure in the bible. I can. But as it is, it's like pulling eye-teeth to get a replacement phrase from you or anyone else that incorporates your view that these phrases are figures. Maybe it's better to not call them figures?

You can say "they are richly saturated with meaning on my view.", but don't use the word emphatic if you still want to call them figures. Unless, of course, you are using the word "emphatic" as a figure of speech.

That's funny. Because on my view, it shows amazingly vivid and meaningful communication. On your view, they become literal and denigrate the knowledge and character of God.

They only denigrate the knowledge and character of God if what I say isn't true about God. What are the interpretations of the passages that show God is transcendent above descriptions that can also be used on humans? And I'm not trying to get you to just list the passages for your side, I'm asking about the interpretation of those passages to see if we can determine what interpretations have the most weight.

Would you quit playing that inane trump card? Didn't we agree that God's Word has verses that support both sides? I can end every one of my claims with "I only say that because God says so." It doesn't further the debate. It's childish.

So you'll agree that I already knew that God is omniscient going in, right?

Hilston previously wrote: While that is the meaning conveyed, the figure is unduly weakened by replacing it with my words.

Yorzhik writes:
I don't think so. But that's just my opinion.

Which again shows that you don't understand the importance of figurative language.

No, really, "you passed the test" is much clearer than "now I know". –or- "I knew you could do it" is clearer and just as meaningful as "now I know".

God needed to hope that anyone who read it would have a presupposition that God was transcendent and immutable if He wanted the passage to be understood as a statement by a transcendent immutable God. It is a hopelessly confusing phrase if whoever read it was actually trying to understand the character of God using only a historical grammatical method when it is supposed to be a figure.

Yorzhik writes:
That's not my point, actually. My point is that you *can* replace them. Since your theology (and I mean the collective "your") has been so resistant to such a simple test, it makes us (collective OV'ers) think you want to be illogical.

That's your perception, Yorzhik.

And my perception is correct. Every figure has a meaning other than what is written/said. In the context of this discussion, this is the test that allows you to make sense. But you only complete the test when pushed because you somehow don't think you need to make sense. You think everyone should just agree or believe you because…

My view embraces the figure and the meaning it conveys. The resistance is in your understanding of figurative meaning. Tell me, Yorzhik, if you understand my "resistance to such a simple test," what is my view of Jonah 3:4?

I don't understand your resistance to such a simple test. It should be as simple to replace the figure, if you want to call it a figure, as you would explain the "short hand" figure in Num 11.

To you, this seems to be a forgone conclusion, but you can't prove it.

Probably not. But I'd say that a God that decrees that a man do some evil, and then hold him responsible for doing that evil is pretty good evidence that something isn't right about your view.

Yorzhik writes:... and much more.

Can I quote you?

Sure.

Both were tests, Yorzhik. Adam failed. Abraham passed. Both figurative statements were made after the tests were complete. One conveyed reprobation, one conveyed righteousness.

You are correct, I'm unclear. I also think that the Rabbi has a more cogent explanation than you do. However, in the OV, when God asks the question in the Garden of Eden, it doesn't matter where Adam is. The statement to Abraham, however, is required for God to justify why He is stopping the test.

I realize I've just jumped into a foundational issue again, and it probably won't help if we keep talking about Adam and Abraham until the foundational issue is resolved.

Where are you getting this stuff, Yorzhik? God statements in both cases occurred after He knew what the results of the tests were.

Yes. I'll try to be more clear, as always.

Sure. One the planks of my critique of Open Theism is that there can only be lipservice paid to trusting God. Statements like that are the kind that my friends and I sit around and talk about in utter amazement. "No, really. I'm not making this up. They really do believe this." They say the same thing I do: "Wow."

Ahhh, I see. Okay.

You say God is the master chess player, yet He couldn't figure out that Abraham would obey Him. That's illogical.

No it isn't. But let's go straight to your other comments about the master chess player that has solved for the game of chess:

What would you say of a Master Chess Player who admitted that something could happen in a game that "never entered his mind"?

– and -

The OV claim that God could be surprised by something that "never entered His mind" precludes the Master Chess Player analogy.

Let me ask bluntly again; what does "solved the game of chess" mean? Let's just get the definition for now, and we can add the dynamic of how it relates to God afterward.

 

[Clete]

Originally posted by Hilston

Here is a summary of my understanding of this debate thus far: This is all about the Open Theistic assumption that God is somehow subject to laws of justice and that He can be put in the dock for evaluation by finite humans.

This is patently false and insulting. God is subject to no one. No Open Theist on this thread, or any other for that matter, has suggested that God could be "put in the dock" as you put it!
This is not even a Open Theism issue to begin with! This issue has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not the future has been predestined or is foreknown or otherwise. This issue is simply and only about whether or not God is good ONLY because He says so or because what He does is actually good and would be whether He made the declaration of it or not.

It appears that the motive behind this assumption is twofold: (1) To further "humanize" God, and (2) to resolve the internal theodicy generated by the tenets of the Open View.

Firstly, I for one have no desire to humanize God. I do however want to know the objective truth concerning God and if that leads me to an understanding of God character that is more like the humans which He created in His image than what is generally held by orthodox Christianity then I will be happy to stand on the authority of His revealed and perfect Word and upon sound reason regardless of which conclusions such standing causes you or anyone else discomfort.
Secondly, there is no system that more easily and eloquently resolves the problem of evil than does Open Theism! Indeed, Open Theism would be meaningless if evil did not exist, for without options there is no freedom to choose, and without freedom there is no contingency and without contingency there is no open future. It is the Calvinist who must relegate justice to a mere afterthought of God's, a meaningless fancy of His whim, an arbitrary judgment from a bully who calls himself a just God.

If God can be shown to be subject to a higher standard than Himself, and if scriptures that place Him above all laws and accountability can be explained away, then these goals would be accomplished.

Straw man city! I nor anyone on this thread has suggested that such a higher standard exists. You have created this idea out of thin air (not necessarily intentionally) or totally misunderstood our position or both.

One of the theodicy-riddled tenets is that God can never decree evil or desire for evil to happen. The Open Theist is then hard-pressed to explain the passages that indicate God's foreordination and desire for the evil that was done to His Son.

What was done to His Son was what would have been required of you a me had Jesus not endured it! Further, God endured it of HIS OWN FREE WILL!!!!
Jhn 10:17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. 18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.

My initial protest arose upon the claim that "God is just because He does just things," that man somehow judges God's actions and determines that God is just by way of some innate sense of what justice entails.

These are two different claims, one I hold to, the other I do not.
God is just because He does just things. This is self evident. If God did unjust things then He would not be just.
This however is not based on an innate understanding of justice. The observation has been made that people have an innate sense of justice but this has not been presented as a basis for believing that God really is just for more reason than simply because He says so.

It is apparently assumed that there is "principle of justice" that applies to God, which gets Him off the hook for the murder of His Son.

This is a blasphemous statement! God did not murder His Son! A sacrifice was needed and God offered Himself as such, if you consider that to be murder, then you have more problems than you know.
Those individuals who participated in His execution may be guilty of murdering God but they were not aware of this. Thus Christ forgave them (Luk 23:34).
What God was doing was willingly paying the just penalty for sin of His own free will and cannot, therefore, be accused of murder.

The logical conclusion to that claim is the idea that God is somehow subject to some transcendent law of justice. Nevermind the fact that laws must be enforced in order to have meaning and relevance, which require a superior authority to enforce culpability. Despite this logical error, support for such a claim is offered by proposing that justice is somehow absolute, and therefore humans can apply that absolute standard to God Himself and decide whether or not God is just.

Must logic be enforced? Must reality be enforced? You have already agreed that God is subject to logic and reality, why is justice different? Why isn't justice (goodness) simply an extension of logic? Do you not agree that it is logical for a man's life to be forfeit if he has taken the life of another? Why is that so difficult to understand?

They conclude that God is just because He does just things, and therefore He cannot have desired and decreed the murder of His Son. God, rather than transcending the laws He declares to man, is subject to them, and therefore cannot have desired and decreed the murder of His Son.

Murder was wrong before there was a law stating such Jim. Remember Cain? Why do you suppose Cain was punished for having murdered his brother since there was no law against murder? It's because it was wrong Jim, it was just wrong. It had nothing to do with legalities.

I've argued that the idea of "absolute right/justice" and "absolute wrong/evil" are misguided, misleading and anti-biblical. Nowhere does scripture teach this idea.

You are THE ONLY Christian that I have ever come across who would ever say such a silly thing! You need to rethink this Jim. No offense intended, but your making a laughing stock of yourself.

Sin is defined as "missing the mark". The definition requires that a "mark" be already established.

Established? I thought it wasn’t an absolute! Why establish a mark? Why not just let it float out there for God to arbitrarily decide on His next whim?
Truly Jim, this is easily the most self defeating position I’ve ever seen you take.

That mark is more than the mere application of logic. That mark is a declared standard of righteousness/justice. "This is what to do. That is what not to do." Sin/evil is the violation of that standard of righteousness/justice. What is right/just for one dispensation is sometimes wrong/evil for another. That means right and wrong cannot be absolute. And if they're not absolute, they cannot transcend God Himself, who is infinite.

Laws are not absolute but right and wrong are. It is right to submit to the authority under which you reside. If a king gives and order for his general to carry out one day and then changes that order to something quit different the next, it is not wrong to follow the new order and to disregard the old one because in doing both you are being obedient to the authority you are under. Thus God, who is the law giver, has the authority to change the rules by which we must live and we are obligated to obey or face the consequences. Thus it is the law that is not absolute and which God is not subject to not right and wrong.

I submit that God is not subject to any laws whatever, and when the Bible tells us that God is just, or God is love, or God is wrathful, or God is holy, it is a description of His nature, not a limit or constraint upon His infinitude.

As stated, I would agree with this statement as long as we can agree on the meanings of the terms used. I assume by this statement that you do not consider logic to be a law but simply an aspect of reality. I submit, once again, that right and wrong are similarly aspects of reality. More precisely, a inevitable result of logic applied to reality.

Furthermore, God desired and decreed and purposed (did not merely predict) all the evil that was done to His Son. But He is not responsible or culpable for that murder, even though He decreed it, because He is above accountability and answers to no one.

Saying it doesn’t make it so Jim.
While I, of course, agree that the crucifixion was decreed, there is nothing that would logically require the conclusion that every minute detail was predestined and even if it were, it was only murder from the point of view from the humans who participated in the unjust execution of who they believed was just another trouble maker. It was not murderous from God’s standpoint in any regard. To say it was, is to lose sight of what was being done by whom, to whom, and why.

Currently, that is my view. I welcome any and all attempts to persuade me to modify or jettison it.

I thank you for taking the time to so clearly state your position. Our discussion was beginning to go in circles and I strongly suspected that either I was misunderstanding your position or you were misunderstanding mine. As it turns, it seems that you had my position a bit wrong and I didn’t even know what your position was in the first place! So perhaps now we can make some meaningful progress.
Again, I want to reiterate that while I may state my position in the form of arguments and that our discussion is clearly in the form of a debate, it is not my intention to actually win a debate so much as it is actually my desire to see where this goes. If I can be proven wrong, that is exactly what I want to have happen. I make no claim to knowing anything for sure on this particular issue.

God bless!

Resting in Him,
Clete

P.S. Once again, I have no time for editing. I’ve spell checked my post but have not proof read for grammar. If I’ve goofed something up that needs clarification just let me know. Thanks for your patience with not so great typing skills!

 

[Hilston]

Originally posted by Hilston: Here is a summary of my understanding of this debate thus far: This is all about the Open Theistic assumption that God is somehow subject to laws of justice and that He can be put in the dock for evaluation by finite humans.

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
This is patently false and insulting. God is subject to no one. No Open Theist on this thread, or any other for that matter, has suggested that God could be "put in the dock" as you put it!

I know that. I was stating my perception of the Open View and what this debate is about. I didn't expect you to agree with anything I wrote or how I characterized it. For someone to say, "I've considered God's character and I conclude that He is just" is putting God in the dock. That seems to be what Open Theists say, whether or not they agree about the insolence of such a statement.

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
This is not even a Open Theism issue to begin with! This issue has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not the future has been predestined or is foreknown or otherwise.

Sure it does. The Open View claims that man is libertarianly free. In order to maintain this view, the following must be true: (1) God must never decree evil, because if He did decree evil, then according to the Open View, such a decree would override the libertarian freedom espoused by Open Theists; and (2) the future must be open, because if it is not, at least partly, then that would infringe upon the libertarian freewill that Open Theists espouse. In order to justify the claim that God never decrees evil and can be surprised by the libertarian free wills of men, God must be subject to the same laws and similar limitations as men are (justice, logic and time). If it were true that God was truly above the laws He prescribes for men, then a major plank of Open Theism, the claim that God must be held accountable to the same laws of men and therefore cannot decree evil, would be undermined.

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
This issue is simply and only about whether or not God is good ONLY because He says so or because what He does is actually good and would be whether He made the declaration of it or not.

Have you personally seen God do anything good and just?

Hilston wrote: It appears that the motive behind this assumption is twofold: (1) To further "humanize" God, and (2) to resolve the internal theodicy generated by the tenets of the Open View.

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
Firstly, I for one have no desire to humanize God. I do however want to know the objective truth concerning God and if that leads me to an understanding of God character that is more like the humans which He created in His image than what is generally held by orthodox Christianity then I will be happy to stand on the authority of His revealed and perfect Word and upon sound reason regardless of which conclusions such standing causes you or anyone else discomfort.

Of course. But the fact remains that the more God can be humanized (limited, less knowledgeable, less empowered), the more support is generated for the Open View.

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
Secondly, there is no system that more easily and eloquently resolves the problem of evil than does Open Theism!

That is precisely what I'm exploring here and I'm glad we can discuss this.

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
Indeed, Open Theism would be meaningless if evil did not exist, for without options there is no freedom to choose, and without freedom there is no contingency and without contingency there is no open future.

There's where you're wrong. Compatibilist freedom does not preclude options or a non-contingent future.

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer It is the Calvinist who must relegate justice to a mere afterthought of God's, a meaningless fancy of His whim, an arbitrary judgment from a bully who calls himself a just God.

Do you have any quotes or references that support that allegation?

Hilston wrote: If God can be shown to be subject to a higher standard than Himself, and if scriptures that place Him above all laws and accountability can be explained away, then these goals would be accomplished.

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
Straw man city! I nor anyone on this thread has suggested that such a higher standard exists.

Sure you have, whether you acknowledge it or not. You seem to want to split hair about justice and laws and right and wrong. I challenge you to provide definitions that support the distinctions you're trying to make. When you say God is subject to justice or logic, you not only suggest, you emphatically assert that a higher standard exists.

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
You have created this idea out of thin air (not necessarily intentionally) or totally misunderstood our position or both.

To be completely forthright, I think this is something that is the logical conclusion of your claims, but you seem to have a cataract that prevents you from seeing it.

HIlston wrote: One of the theodicy-riddled tenets is that God can never decree evil or desire for evil to happen. The Open Theist is then hard-pressed to explain the passages that indicate God's foreordination and desire for the evil that was done to His Son.

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
What was done to His Son was what would have been required of you a me had Jesus not endured it!

So are you saying God wanted His Son to be whipped, tortured, mocked, spit on, cursed, flogged and murdered so that we would not have to endure that?

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
Further, God endured it of HIS OWN FREE WILL!!!!

Are you then saying He wanted this evil to happen?

Jhn 10:17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. 18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.

Hilston wrote: My initial protest arose upon the claim that "God is just because He does just things," that man somehow judges God's actions and determines that God is just by way of some innate sense of what justice entails.

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
These are two different claims, one I hold to, the other I do not.

They are inseparable. You cannot ascertain whether or not God is just unless you apply some standard of justice in your evaluation. Where does that standard come from, if not innately?

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
God is just because He does just things. This is self evident.

How is this self-evident? When did you see God do a just act?

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
If God did unjust things then He would not be just.

Hypothetically speaking, how would you know if He did do an unjust act?

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
This however is not based on an innate understanding of justice. The observation has been made that people have an innate sense of justice but this has not been presented as a basis for believing that God really is just for more reason than simply because He says so.

If not your "innate sense of justice," then by what standard do you conclude that God is just?

Hilston wrote: [i}It is apparently assumed that there is "principle of justice" that applies to God, which gets Him off the hook for the murder of His Son.[/i]

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
This is a blasphemous statement! God did not murder His Son!

I'm not saying that He did. I say He decreed the murder of His Son. But Open Theists can't separate the decree from the action. Because they equate decree and cause, they think that I am charging God with murder. So I've turned that around to say that the Open Theists, by applying a superior principle of justice to God, get Him off the hook for having anything to do with His Son's murder, whether by decree or cause (which the OV equates).

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
A sacrifice was needed and God offered Himself as such, if you consider that to be murder, then you have more problems than you know.

If God offer Himself to be murdered, does that mean He wanted the murderers to commit evil acts of sin and blasphemy?

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
Those individuals who participated in His execution may be guilty of murdering God but they were not aware of this. Thus Christ forgave them (Luk 23:34).

You said yourself that they were guilty. That makes their actions evil. So regardless of whether or not they were later forgiven, you seem to have a contradiction on your hands by implying that God wanted evil to be done by them to His Son. Please clarify your position on this.

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
What God was doing was willingly paying the just penalty for sin of His own free will and cannot, therefore, be accused of murder.

I would say He willingly paid the just penalty for sins -- plural -- of His own compatibilist free will. As truly sovereign, God cannot be duly accused of anything, period.

Hilston wrote: The logical conclusion to that claim is the idea that God is somehow subject to some transcendent law of justice. Nevermind the fact that laws must be enforced in order to have meaning and relevance, which require a superior authority to enforce culpability. Despite this logical error, support for such a claim is offered by proposing that justice is somehow absolute, and therefore humans can apply that absolute standard to God Himself and decide whether or not God is just.

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
Must logic be enforced?

The laws of logic are not moral laws, rather, they are descriptions of reality.

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
Must reality be enforced?

Reality refers to all that is real. It has no legislative intent or meaning.

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
You have already agreed that God is subject to logic and reality, why is justice different?

I did not agree to that. God is not subject to anything, period. That is what being infinite means. Logic describes aspects of His nature and character. Reality is a term that refers to what is real, so that necessarily includes God. Neither of these things is above God or subjugates God.

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
Why isn't justice (goodness) simply an extension of logic?

Because the laws of goodness change. The laws of logic do not. The former differ according to the standard of righteousness currently in place (e.g. executing disobedient children); the latter are universal and invariant (e.g. modus ponens).

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
Do you not agree that it is logical for a man's life to be forfeit if he has taken the life of another? Why is that so difficult to understand?

It's easy when you pick something like murder as a capital crime. What about disobedient children? Does logic tell you to execute disobedient children? What about kidnapping. Does logic tell you that a kidnapper should be executed? What about adultery? Does logic tell you that adulterers should be executed?

Hilston wrote: They conclude that God is just because He does just things, and therefore He cannot have desired and decreed the murder of His Son. God, rather than transcending the laws He declares to man, is subject to them, and therefore cannot have desired and decreed the murder of His Son.

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
Murder was wrong before there was a law stating such Jim. Remember Cain? Why do you suppose Cain was punished for having murdered his brother since there was no law against murder? It's because it was wrong Jim, it was just wrong. It had nothing to do with legalities.

Then Cain was unjustly punished. Cain sinned, right? That means he "missed the mark." What was the mark? He had to know that there was a law against murder. Whether or not it is explicitly revealed in scripture, we rightly conclude that the law existed, just as we rightly conclude that Cain knew the difference between a proper sacrifice and an improper one. You're claim that there was no law against murder is an argument from silence. It is a mere assumption.

hilston wrote: I've argued that the idea of "absolute right/justice" and "absolute wrong/evil" are misguided, misleading and anti-biblical. Nowhere does scripture teach this idea.

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
You are THE ONLY Christian that I have ever come across who would ever say such a silly thing!

That doesn't impress me. If it's so silly, show me in scripture where it says otherwise. Then explain to me whether or not we should execute our children if they disobey us.

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
You need to rethink this Jim. No offense intended, but your making a laughing stock of yourself.

So did Jesus and Paul. I'm in good company.

Hilston wrote: Sin is defined as "missing the mark". The definition requires that a "mark" be already established.

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer Established? I thought it wasn’t an absolute!

McFly, the fact that it must be established indicates a non-absolute. If it always existed (i.e. as an absolute), it wouldn't have to be established, right?

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
Why establish a mark? Why not just let it float out there for God to arbitrarily decide on His next whim?

Um. What?

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
Truly Jim, this is easily the most self defeating position I’ve ever seen you take.

Ya know Clete, every time you make these asinine pronouncements ("That's the silliest argument I've ever heard" and "this is easily the most self-defeating position I've ever seen you take"), you end up looking like a feckless dolt because you can't back your statement.

Hilston wrote: That mark is more than the mere application of logic. That mark is a declared standard of righteousness/justice. "This is what to do. That is what not to do." Sin/evil is the violation of that standard of righteousness/justice. What is right/just for one dispensation is sometimes wrong/evil for another. That means right and wrong cannot be absolute. And if they're not absolute, they cannot transcend God Himself, who is infinite.

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
Laws are not absolute but right and wrong are.

How do you define "right"? It is conformity to the Law. What is "wrong"? Rebellion against the Law. Your idea that "right" and "wrong" exist without Law is logically indefensible.

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
It is right to submit to the authority under which you reside. If a king gives and order for his general to carry out one day and then changes that order to something quit different the next, it is not wrong to follow the new order and to disregard the old one because in doing both you are being obedient to the authority you are under. Thus God, who is the law giver, has the authority to change the rules by which we must live and we are obligated to obey or face the consequences. Thus it is the law that is not absolute[,] and which God is not subject to[,] not right and wrong.

I think you've equivocated yourself into a corner. Which of the following would you say is God's view of what is "right"?:

• Conforming with or conformable to justice, law, or morality: do the right thing and confess.
• In accordance with fact, reason, or truth; correct: the right answer.
• Fitting, proper, or appropriate: It is not right to leave the party without saying goodbye.
• Most favorable, desirable, or convenient: the right time to act.
• In or into a satisfactory state or condition: put things right. In good mental or physical health or order.

hilston wrote: I submit that God is not subject to any laws whatever, and when the Bible tells us that God is just, or God is love, or God is wrathful, or God is holy, it is a description of His nature, not a limit or constraint upon His infinitude.

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
As stated, I would agree with this statement as long as we can agree on the meanings of the terms used. I assume by this statement that you do not consider logic to be a law but simply an aspect of reality.

No. Logic comprises laws that describe reality. God is not subject to them. God is infinite. He will not violate the laws of logic because that would be impossible for an infinite being to do. That is a function of His infinitude, not a limitation of it (the very concept of which is incoherent).

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
I submit, once again, that right and wrong are similarly aspects of reality. More precisely, a inevitable result of logic applied to reality.

Does logic applied to reality tell you that a false prophet should be executed?

Hilston wrote: Furthermore, God desired and decreed and purposed (did not merely predict) all the evil that was done to His Son. But He is not responsible or culpable for that murder, even though He decreed it, because He is above accountability and answers to no one.

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
Saying it doesn’t make it so Jim.

Hey Clete, remember when you asked me this?:

I do not know why exactly because all you do is ask me to answer a question that is somehow supposed to lead me down the path to figuring out how I'm wrong. Just tell me plainly. What is wrong with what I believe and why and then tell me what you think is right and why, that's how conversations are supposed to go, right?

So I happily answer your request and what do you do? You come back with: "Saying so doesn't make it so." No crap, Clete. Did you forget your own request? Did you forget my own stated purpose of what I wrote? Let me remind you: "Here is a summary of my understanding of this debate thus far." Is your trigger finger so itchy that you can't resist letting the bullets fly at the slightest imagined provocation?

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
While I, of course, agree that the crucifixion was decreed, there is nothing that would logically require the conclusion that every minute detail was predestined and even if it were, it was only murder from the point of view from the humans who participated in the unjust execution of who they believed was just another trouble maker.

That's not what Isa 53 says. It is more detailed than all the evangelists' accounts combined, and it was prophetic! If the requirement was the shedding of Christ's blood and His death, then why did He have to go through all of that? Why not just get punched in the face, get a bloody nose, then die from a heart attack?

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
It was not murderous from God’s standpoint in any regard. To say it was, is to lose sight of what was being done by whom, to whom, and why.

Of course. But since you agree that Christ's murder was decreed, will you then concede that God decreed evil?

Hilston wrote: Currently, that is my view. I welcome any and all attempts to persuade me to modify or jettison it.

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
I thank you for taking the time to so clearly state your position. Our discussion was beginning to go in circles and I strongly suspected that either I was misunderstanding your position or you were misunderstanding mine. As it turns, it seems that you had my position a bit wrong and I didn’t even know what your position was in the first place! So perhaps now we can make some meaningful progress.

I do hope so. I've learned a lot in these recent conversations. I hope it can continue.

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
Again, I want to reiterate that while I may state my position in the form of arguments and that our discussion is clearly in the form of a debate, it is not my intention to actually win a debate so much as it is actually my desire to see where this goes. If I can be proven wrong, that is exactly what I want to have happen. I make no claim to knowing anything for sure on this particular issue.

That's honorable, and I respect that. The feeling is mutual. I will admit, however, that I am here to debate, because that is how I learn. At every turn in my theological journey, the changes I've experienced and embraced have resulted from debate.

 

[Hilston]

Yorzhik,

While working on my reply to your post, one of your statements jumped out at me:

Yorzhik writes:
... He can mask every miracle if He wants, thus making reasonably certain no one could know for sure when He was intervening, if at all, ...

I guess I'm surprised to hear you say that. I was trying to give God a pass according to OV tenets. If you believe God could do this, why do you suppose He doesn't?

Yorzhik writes:
... and get the desired result you claim that the OV God is looking for far more effectively. [Ephasis added]

Do I have that wrong? What result is the OV God looking for?

Jim

 

[Clete]

Originally posted by Hilston

Yorzhik,

While working on my reply to your post, one of your statements jumped out at me:

Quote:
Yorzhik writes:
... He can mask every miracle if He wants, thus making reasonably certain no one could know for sure when He was intervening, if at all, ...

I guess I'm surprised to hear you say that. I was trying to give God a pass according to OV tenets. If you believe God could do this, why do you suppose He doesn't?

This seems to be a meaningless question that is impossible to answer.
If the miracles were masked to the point no one could tell they were happening then how are you going to say that they are or are not happening. The whole premise is that you cannot tell! So based on that premise, to say one way or the other is to go against the very premise upon which the question is based. It is a meaningless question.

The proper question is...
Why would you suppose that such masked miracles that you can’t even tell are happening are necessary or profitable in the first place?

Or asked another way...
By what means have you determined that performing masked miracles is the most effective means to get the most people saved possible?

Another question is...
Quantity is not always analogous to quality. Why do you suppose numbers of people saved is God greatest concern? Isn't the means by which something’s is accomplished at least as important as the accomplishment itself?

Resting in Him,
Clete

P.S. I hadn't noticed your response to my post until now. Sorry about that! I'm not sure how I missed it. It is sort of a long one, so be patient with me!

 

[Hilston]

Clete,

You may need to go back to earlier dialogue between Yorzhik and me to understand that your questions have already been answered.

Clete writes:
If the miracles were masked to the point no one could tell they were happening then how are you going to say that they are or are not happening. The whole premise is that you cannot tell! So based on that premise, to say one way or the other is to go against the very premise upon which the question is based. It is a meaningless question.

It is not my view that is being discussed here. I don't believe God does any miracles today except regeneration. I'm exploring Yorzhik's view of the miraculous. Do you, as an Open Theist, believe God is doing miracles today?

Clete writes:
The proper question is...
Why would you suppose that such masked miracles that you can’t even tell are happening are necessary or profitable in the first place?

Please see earlier discussion. Yorzhik claims every situation can be improved. Open Theists claim that God does not do miracles because, when people know miracles are happening, the miracles end up being counterproductive and turn people away from Him. So I'm suggesting secret miracles so that God is able to (a) improve situations and (b) not turn people away by an abundance of miracles.

Clete writes:
Or asked another way...
By what means have you determined that performing masked miracles is the most effective means to get the most people saved possible?

By means of arithmetic, Clete. If God can secretly foil the work of terrorists and prevent 3,000 people from dying, then statistically speaking, there's a chance that some of those 3,000 people will get saved.

Clete writes:
Another question is...
Quantity is not always analogous to quality. Why do you suppose numbers of people saved is God greatest concern? Isn't the means by which something’s is accomplished at least as important as the accomplishment itself?

But don't OVers believe God desires that all (the whole quantity of) men be saved? Who are you to question God's desire for quantity? Further, it seems you are saying God would rather save a few people without lifting a finger than saving a lot of people by interacting against evil in the world. Is that what you're suggesting? That's what it sounds like to me.

 

[Clete]

Originally posted by Hilston
I know that. I was stating my perception of the Open View and what this debate is about. I didn't expect you to agree with anything I wrote or how I characterized it. For someone to say, "I've considered God's character and I conclude that He is just" is putting God in the dock. That seems to be what Open Theists say, whether or not they agree about the insolence of such a statement.

Then all of Christianity is insolent! Making such decisions about the trustworthiness of God is how people get saved Jim! This is a ridiculous argument you are making!
The Bible purports to be written by God. If we believe what the Bible is saying, are we being insolent if we have more reason to believe it than just because it makes such a claim? Are we being insolent because we trust in substantive evidence as the Bible itself says we are to do?
Hbr 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Was Moses insolent when he said...
Deut 32:3 For I (Moses) proclaim the name of the Lord:
Ascribe greatness to our God.
4 He is the Rock, His work is perfect;
For all His ways are justice,
A God of truth and without injustice;
Righteous and upright is He.

The Open View claims that man is libertarianly free. In order to maintain this view, the following must be true: (1) God must never decree evil, because if He did decree evil, then according to the Open View, such a decree would override the libertarian freedom espoused by Open Theists;

Whether it would override freewill or not, it cannot happen! If God decreed evil, then He would be evil. God does not decree evil, period.

(2) the future must be open, because if it is not, at least partly, then that would infringe upon the libertarian freewill that Open Theists espouse.

An open future is requisite to freedom. So what? That has nothing to do with whether or not God is really just or if He simply says that He is.

In order to justify the claim that God never decrees evil and can be surprised by the libertarian free wills of men, God must be subject to the same laws and similar limitations as men are (justice, logic and time).

You have this backward. God must be limited to reality (justice, logic and time) because He is surprised occasionally by the undecreed sometime good and sometimes evil actions of men.
And because to say that he was not limited to reality would be the equivalent of saying that He is not real.

If it were true that God was truly above the laws He prescribes for men, then a major plank of Open Theism, the claim that God must be held accountable to the same laws of men and therefore cannot decree evil, would be undermined.

It is you who have the burden of proof then not us. There is no record of God decreeing reality. Plus, every moment of every day testifies to our freedom, not to mention the testimony of the Biblical record, all of which you must overcome in order to show that freewill is an illusion and that God can do willy-nilly whatever He likes and is still able to honestly call Himself good, right and just.

Have you personally seen God do anything good and just?

I will not respond to this except to say...
Stupid question.

Of course. But the fact remains that the more God can be humanized (limited, less knowledgeable, less empowered), the more support is generated for the Open View.

Another meaningless ploy to obfuscate the point!
You could have just as easily said,
"The fact remains that the more God can be shown in His true light, the more support there is for the Open View."
Not that you think that humanizing God is putting Him in His true light or even that it is His true light. And that's the point! You've said nothing! All you've done is to take another jab at making the "humanizing God" accusation again.
Entirely unresponsive to the point I made in response to the accusation!

Compatibilist freedom does not preclude options or a non-contingent future.

Yes it does.
Freedom is the ability one has to do, or to do otherwise.
If the future is set in place, by whatever means, then one's ability to do otherwise does not exist, and, therefore, neither does one's freedom.

Clete said, "It is the Calvinist who must relegate justice to a mere afterthought of God's, a meaningless fancy of His whim, an arbitrary judgment from a bully who calls himself a just God."

Jim asked in response...

Do you have any quotes or references that support that allegation?

Are you denying having made the claim as your wife did in the kitchen, that God is just "because He says so"?

You seem to want to split hair about justice and laws and right and wrong. I challenge you to provide definitions that support the distinctions you're trying to make. When you say God is subject to justice or logic, you not only suggest, you emphatically assert that a higher standard exists.

I make no such "emphatic assertion" as you put it.
God is real and is therefore "subject" to reality, for want of a better term.
God's existence is fundamentally logical. God cannot both be present and absent at the same time. God cannot make a rock that He cannot move and then move that same rock. In short God cannot do the logically absurd because such that cannot be, they are not real.
Likewise God cannot be just and do unjust things, it is logically absurd and cannot happen without the word justice being stripped of all meaning.

To be completely forthright, I think this is something that is the logical conclusion of your claims, but you seem to have a cataract that prevents you from seeing it.

Show me the syllogism.

So are you saying God wanted His Son to be whipped, tortured, mocked, spit on, cursed, flogged and murdered so that we would not have to endure that?

Perhaps not those specific punishments but perhaps much worse than that in Hell! If you do not agree with this in principle, you are not saved. It is a key component of the Gospel message that, "by His stripes, we are healed."
God willing took our punishment upon Himself during His crucifixion. This is at least half of the gospel message, is it not?

Referring to the crucifixion, Jim asked...

Are you then saying He wanted this evil to happen?

Evil?
Was killing the Passover Lamb evil?
No of course it wasn't.
However, I do understand the thrust of your question and would say that it has a yes and no sort of answer.
Wanted it to happen is, perhaps, to strong a word. He did know that it would happen though, and used the freely evil actions of others to perform the greatest good that has ever been accomplished.
God used His own enemies actions against them and in so doing, utterly defeated Satan, Hell, and death forever.
By the way, the phrase "freely evil" is somewhat redundant. Without freedom, evil is meaningless.

They are inseparable. You cannot ascertain whether or not God is just unless you apply some standard of justice in your evaluation. Where does that standard come from, if not innately?

Asked and answered.
Logic. Justice is the logical and thus appropriate reaction toward the wrong doer.
If someone wrongs someone else, it follows logically that they should have the same done unto them.
Again, the Golden Rule surfaces.
The Golden Rule is even followed by God Himself! The chief commandment is to love God with all you heart, soul, mind, and strength. And yet we love Him, because He FIRST loved us!
Our love for Him is manifested in different ways than His love for us is (we worship God, not the other way around, for example) but the principle still holds. God wants for us to love Him, and so He does not force us to because that would negate the love but instead He loves us first! Loves us in spite of the evil for which we are guilty. So much so that while we were yet sinner, God died for us so that we might live with Him in an eternal relationship full of real love and affection. A goal, by the way, which is utterly futile and meaningless if men are not truly free.

Clete said, "God is just because He does just things. This is self evident."

Jim asked...

How is this self-evident? When did you see God do a just act?

Then Jim quoted my very next sentence, which answered the previous question...
If God did unjust things then He would not be just.

To which he responded by asking another question...

Hypothetically speaking, how would you know if He did do an unjust act?

First of all, I would like to know why you asked the first question when the very next sentence in the paragraph I had written answered that question. Do you just like to make fourteen mile long posts for the fun of it or what?
It's as if you read my posts one sentence at a time and respond as you go without ever taking into consideration the actual point that is being made which may take more than one sentence at a time to get across.
It is supremely annoying and is a waste of both your time and mine! There is no need for our responses to each other to take 2 or 3 hours to go through and type up! We are only two iterations away from a very simple three paragraph post for goodness sakes! If this style of response keeps up for long, Knight will have to get yet another server upgrade!

If not your "innate sense of justice," then by what standard do you conclude that God is just?

Asked and answered.

I say He (God) decreed the murder of His Son. But Open Theists can't separate the decree from the action. Because they equate decree and cause, they think that I am charging God with murder. So I've turned that around to say that the Open Theists, by applying a superior principle of justice to God, get Him off the hook for having anything to do with His Son's murder, whether by decree or cause (which the OV equates).

First of all, I do not equate decree with cause, this is more of your mind reading that doesn't seem to work very well.
God decrees things all the time. That does not mean that He causes them to happen, at least not directly. It does however mean that He IS responsible (ultimately) for them.
If a mob guy orders a murder to take place, is he guilty of murder even if he isn't the one who actually did the killing?
Yes of course he is.
Why wouldn't the same be true of God?

If God offer Himself to be murdered, does that mean He wanted the murderers to commit evil acts of sin and blasphemy?

Asked and answered.

You said yourself that they were guilty. That makes their actions evil. So regardless of whether or not they were later forgiven, you seem to have a contradiction on your hands by implying that God wanted evil to be done by them to His Son. Please clarify your position on this.

For the most part this has already been addressed above but...
They did not know they were killing God. No sacrifice would have been sufficient to pay for such an act and so the victim forgave them of the debt which is His (the victims) just and sole right to do.
So with the act of murdering God having been forgiven, then the only thing left is the sacrifice being offered by God in payment for the rest of the sins of the whole world.
Justice from beginning to end. There really is no mystery here.

I would say He willingly paid the just penalty for sins -- plural -- of His own compatibilistic free will. As truly sovereign, God cannot be duly accused of anything, period.

I am not saying that He could be "duly" accused! I am not saying that He would be required to defend against an accusation that came unduly. I am saying that He would be able to IF He decided to entertain the accusation. Which He has done more than once in the Bible in the books of Job, and Jonah to name two and there are others.

Clete asked: Must logic be enforced? Must reality be enforced?

The laws of logic are not moral laws, rather, they are descriptions of reality.

Reality refers to all that is real. It has no legislative intent or meaning.

I'll take that as. "No" and "No".

Clete said: "You have already agreed that God is subject to logic and reality.."

Jim responded...

I did not agree to that.

Quite right, you didn't. I'm not sure why I even said that. Sorry.

God is not subject to anything, period. That is what being infinite means. Logic describes aspects of His nature and character. Reality is a term that refers to what is real, so that necessarily includes God. Neither of these things is above God or subjugates God.

The above highlighted sections of what you said here are contradictory.
God is either part of reality and therefore subject to its limitations, including logic, or He is not real. Which is it?

Because the laws of goodness change. The laws of logic do not. The former differ according to the standard of righteousness currently in place (e.g. executing disobedient children); the latter are universal and invariant (e.g. modus ponens).

First of all, the execution of disobedient children as described in the Bible should still be on the books, your statement seems to suggest otherwise.
Secondly, God's character is the ultimate expression, if not the very standard of what is right. His character does not change and therefore neither does right and wrong.
The laws may change for many reasons, and if those reasons be just, which they will be if God is the one making the changes, then we, being under God authority, are compelled to follow them.
This doesn’t mean that right and wrong have changed, only the law.
In other words, it is wrong to disobey God. If He tells us to kills lambs one a year then you are wrong if you don't. If He says don't kill lamb's once a year any more than it is wrong to continue to do so. In both cases, it is obedience that is the issue not the killing of lambs.

It's easy when you pick something like murder as a capital crime. What about disobedient children? Does logic tell you to execute disobedient children? What about kidnapping. Does logic tell you that a kidnapper should be executed? What about adultery? Does logic tell you that adulterers should be executed?

It would if I were privy to all the pertinent information and consequences of such actions which God is too a far greater extent than I am.

Then Cain was unjustly punished. Cain sinned, right? That means he "missed the mark." What was the mark? He had to know that there was a law against murder. Whether or not it is explicitly revealed in scripture, we rightly conclude that the law existed, just as we rightly conclude that Cain knew the difference between a proper sacrifice and an improper one. You're claim that there was no law against murder is an argument from silence. It is a mere assumption.

No it isn't! God expressly forbid that he should be killed!
If it is your contention that everyone would have wanted to kill Cain because they had such a law in place then why would God has countermanded that law?
The fact is, that we have no record of any such law being in place and God's reaction to the murder is evidence that no such law existed as is the rest of the Biblical record where we have such statements as "And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

hilston wrote: I've argued that the idea of "absolute right/justice" and "absolute wrong/evil" are misguided, misleading and anti-biblical. Nowhere does scripture teach this idea.

Clete said, "You are THE ONLY Christian that I have ever come across who would ever say such a silly thing!"

That doesn't impress me. If it's so silly, show me in scripture where it says otherwise. Then explain to me whether or not we should execute our children if they disobey us.

Nope, I will not be brought to the level of defending something that any third grade child knows.
As yes, as I said earlier the execution of disobedient children would be just. However, the government is the only body whom God has given the authority to perform executions, so for us to do so ourselves would be unjust because it would be taking authority we have not been given.

So did Jesus and Paul. I'm in good company.

Foolish attitude and another silly thing to say.

McFly, the fact that it must be established indicates a non-absolute. If it always existed (i.e. as an absolute), it wouldn't have to be established, right?

McFly? Um, you did see the end of that movie, right?
If an absolute existed it would be the standard, that's the point.



All right, that plenty! Way more than enough, really!
I cannot beleive how long this post is!!!
I'm sure that there is plenty that you would like for me to respond to in the rest of your post, but I just frankly don't care any more. It feels as if responding to these super long posts has turned into a full time job, and I'm just not interested enough to spend that much time on it.

I don't mind continuing the discussion but you are just going to have to find a way to be dramatically briefer with your responses. It simply is not necessary to respond to every sentence like this! It's tedious and boring both for me and anyone who might wish to read it!

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Clete]

Originally posted by Hilston
By means of arithmetic, Clete. If God can secretly foil the work of terrorists and prevent 3,000 people from dying, then statistically speaking, there's a chance that some of those 3,000 people will get saved.

Let's say that a full 10% got saved.
How do you know what the consequences of having the other 90% stay alive will be?
If 300 were saved, how do you know that the effect of the other 2700 would not cause more than 300 people elsewhere to be lost?
You don't. You can't!
Your argument is meaningless because you don't have the brains to figure out what the real out come would be either way, nobody does. This has been my whole point from the beginning of this whole issue. You simply are not qualified to make such decisions about what should and should not be allowed to happen by God, whether the future is open or not.

But don't OVers believe God desires that all (the whole quantity of) men be saved?

That's what the Bible clearly teaches. And as such we can assume that God is and has done everything that is right and good, that He is able to do given the reality of the situation, to bring that about.

Who are you to question God's desire for quantity?

I didn't. I just pointed out that it is not as much a forgone conclusion as you make it sound. Besides, according to your understanding of justice, God could just forget about sin all together, call it all good, and take us all to heaven! Problem solved.

Further, it seems you are saying God would rather save a few people without lifting a finger than saving a lot of people by interacting against evil in the world. Is that what you're suggesting? That's what it sounds like to me.

No it doesn't. It doesn't sound like that at all and you know it. This is just the latest model to come out of the Jim Hilston straw man factory.
No one has said anything about God not interacting against evil. In fact, Open Theists say the reverse! It is Calvinism that claims God orchestrates and decrees evil not us. We are the ones saying that God hates evil and actively fights against it. We are simply saying that God will not violate His own nature and will not do that which is unjust in order to increase His take on judgment day.
Besides all that, it's not up to us. God gets to decide by what means His lost creation with be saved if they are saved.
Justice would be Hell for us all. Anything short of that is mercy. God is not obligated to show mercy, even by His own righteous character! So ANY steps taken by God toward us is more than we deserve. Unbelievers do not have standing to make a claim against God because He didn't keep that building from falling before they had a chance to believe.
While there is life there is hope, and that in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is all that we need, more than we deserve and far more than God was obligated to give. To suggest otherwise is blasphemy.

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Hilston]

Hi Clete,

Shorter post. I left out quite a bit. If there's anything you said earlier that you would like me to respond to, please give me a holla.

Clete writes:
The Bible purports to be written by God. If we believe what the Bible is saying, are we being insolent if we have more reason to believe it than just because it makes such a claim? Are we being insolent because we trust in substantive evidence as the Bible itself says we are to do?

Give me an example. What substantive evidence has demonstrated God's character to you?

Clete writes:
... If God decreed evil, then He would be evil. God does not decree evil, period.

Why do you insist on this premise? Where does it come from? There is no scripture that says this. In fact, it says quite the opposite: God decrees evil. Was the execution of Christ evil? Before you answer, be reminded that you said this:

"While I, of course, agree that the crucifixion was decreed, there is nothing that would logically require the conclusion that every minute detail was predestined and even if it were, it was only murder from the point of view from the humans who participated in the unjust execution of who they believed was just another trouble maker. [emphasis added]"

If there is any question that Christ was unjustly executed, see Ac 13:28, which says explicitly that "... they found no cause of death in him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain."

So God decreed an unjust act. Yet God is not evil. God did not cause or compel the actions men took of their own volition. But He did decree that they would act accordingly.

Originally posted by Hilston:
[According to the Open View] In order to justify the claim that God never decrees evil and can be surprised by the libertarian free wills of men, God must be subject to the same laws and similar limitations as men are (justice, logic and time).

Clete writes:
You have this backward. God must be limited to reality (justice, logic and time) because He is surprised occasionally by the undecreed sometime good and sometimes evil actions of men.

That is, unless you misunderstand what the Bible means when it refers to God being "surprised." If you're wrong about that, then your thesis falls apart. Rather than trying to properly understand what the writer means when he says the infinite God is surprised by the finite, Open Theists first assume that God must not be infinite.

Have you heard the allegory of the man who thought he was dead? His friends and family tried to convince him that he wasn't dead. They got books from the library, took him to see his priest, etc. No one could convince him. One day, his wife decided to take him to the family physician. The physician spent time showing the man, scientifically, through examples, through medical textbooks and anatomical diagrams, what it means to be dead, how death is defined, how medical professionals know and certify when someone is truly dead. After all that, the physician asks the man if he understands and he is clear on all that. The man affirms, "Yes, it that's all clear. I understand."

"Ok, then," the physician says, "tell me one characteristic of a dead person."

"Dead men don't bleed."

"Correct," said the physician. "May I see your finger?"

The man complies and watches as the physician pricks his finger with a straight pin. To the man's amazement, blood trickles out of the puncture wound and he exclaims:"Look at that! Dead men DO bleed after all!"

That's Open Theism. They'll sit there and agree with verse after verse about God's greatness, His infinitude, His ever-present power holding all things together, down to the sub-atomic level, even His sovereignty. But then we come to a verse that says something never entered God's mind, and instead of saying, "This must be a figure of speech that I need to better understand," they instead jump to the conclusion: "An infinite being is finite after all!"

Originally posted by Hilston:
If it were true that God was truly above the laws He prescribes for men, then a major plank of Open Theism, the claim that God must be held accountable to the same laws of men and therefore cannot decree evil, would be undermined.

Clete writes:
It is you who have the burden of proof then not us. There is no record of God decreeing reality.

Sure there is.

Eph 1:11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated [decreed] according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

The "all things" refers to reality. He works all things according to the boule of his own thelema. These words here refer to the process by which God decrees reality.

Col 1:16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: 17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

The word for 'consist' is sunistao, hold together, stand together. "In Him" all things hold together. God is infinite; He transcends all things. Thus reality is defined by Him. He is the uncreated and infinite reality. The created portion of reality is held together in Him.

Clete writes:
Plus, every moment of every day testifies to our freedom, not to mention the testimony of the Biblical record, all of which you must overcome in order to show that freewill is an illusion and that God can do willy-nilly whatever He likes and is still able to honestly call Himself good, right and just.

No one is saying freewill is an illusion, although it may seem that way at times. Are you familiar with the recent Dateline program that chronicled the discovery of two college-age women who were twins separated at birth? They meet after 20 (?) years apart, only to find out that they wear the same clothes, use the same shampoo, liked the same music, etc. Yet they knew all their choices in each of these areas were freely made. There are even more remarkable examples that are well-documented in the several separated-twin studies. In one case, twin gentlemen in their 40s discover each other and find out that they married women with the same first name, twice (both had been married twice), chose the same name for their dogs, drove the same kind of car, the same color, wore the same kind of clothes, drank the same kind of beer, and vacationed in the same 1-mile stretch of beach every year, yet they had never met until well into their 40s. Were their choices freely made? Of course. Were their choices also predestined? Of course. That is compatibilism and it is firmly grounded in reality, Clete, regardless of how hard the Open Theist pounds his pulpit and protests otherwise.

Originally posted by Hilston:
Have you personally seen God do anything good and just?

Clete writes:
I will not respond to this except to say ... Stupid question.

It would be stupid if the question had nothing to do with evaluating God according "substantive evidence" [YOUR words, Clete!]. Now please answer the question. I'm not the only one who is wondering if you can give a cogent response.

Originally posted by Hilston:
To be completely forthright, I think this is something that is the logical conclusion of your claims, but you seem to have a cataract that prevents you from seeing it.

Clete writes:
Show me the syllogism.

Major premise: God is subject to reality.
Minor premise: "Subject" means to be under or subjugated to a higher authority.
Conclusion: God is subject to a higher authority.

Clete writes:First of all, I do not equate decree with cause, this is more of your mind reading that doesn't seem to work very well.

Then you and 1Way need to compare talking points. He even advised Lion to argue this way in order stump me.

Clete writes:
God decrees things all the time. That does not mean that He causes them to happen, at least not directly. It does however mean that He IS responsible (ultimately) for them.

Please look up the word responsible and stop assigning it to God. Oh wait, I forgot. You guys DO put God under a higher authority, so I guess the word does apply. My God is bigger than yours. He answers to no one. Your God not only answers to a higher standard/authority, but He encourages you guys to judge Him and determine whether or not He is just on the basis of your own application of "logic."

Since you are fond of syllogisms, here's another one:

Major premise: God decreed the torture and execution of Christ.
Minor premise: The torture and execution of Christ were evil.
Conclusion: God decreed evil.

In order to disagree with the conclusion, you have to demonstrate a flaw in the major and/or the minor premises. If you cannot find an error in either premise, then the conclusion logically follows.

Clete writes:
... However, the government is the only body whom God has given the authority to perform executions, so for us to do so ourselves would be unjust because it would be taking authority we have not been given.

Are you saying, on the Open View, that God would be in favor of a government that wielded the sword of execution against disobedient children?

 

[Big Finn]

So God decreed an unjust act. Yet God is not evil. God did not cause or compel the actions men took of their own volition. But He did decree that they would act accordingly.

What a twisting of scripture and the plan of salvation.

The only thing that was decreed was that Christ would give His life as a sacrifice for sin so that we might be saved. If you are going to call this God decreeing evil, well, then you've missed the whole plan of salvation in your determination to uphold something as sick and twisted as the CV of scripture.

The crucifixion of Christ demonstrates the hatred of evil for goodness and love. It shows how much the devil hates humanity, Christ, and God. Yet, in the Hilston mind, it shows three things:

1. That God originates and plans all evil.

2. How God does evil things.

3. It shows just how much the devil just does what God tells him to.

In the Hilston mind the devil isn't a rebel and doesn't fight against God. He's an obedient, faithful servant doing just what his Master would have him to do.

If nothing else tells you how false Hilston's view is, the fact that he makes the devil into a good, faithful servant who just does all the evil that comes from the mind of God, this ought to. In Hilston land evil doesn't originate from the devil, its origin is in the mind of God.

Thus, the devil isn't a liar and the father of lies as the Bible says, God is. The devil only does exactly what God ordered him to, so if he tells a lie he's only doing what was conceived and planned out in the mind of God. All the misery, death, suffering, pain, and unutterable horror of sin is all just the master plan of God to make Himself look really good. God plans and executes evil so He looks righteous but is in fact the father of all evil.

Man, that's just too sick to even be contemplated. God, the ultimate hypocrite.

What I don't get is how anyone's mind can be so sick as to think that someone whose mind has conceived, planned, and executed all the evil the world has ever seen is righteous, good, loving, and has only the best interests of his creation at heart. Oh, that's right. This god of Hilston's only has his own best interest at heart, not his creation's. He gets pleasure from killing, maiming, and torturing those he created. It's his greatest achievement. It's how he makes himself look good and other's look evil. In other words it's all about appearances, not the reality. Conceiving, planning, and getting others to execute the evil you plan isn't bad if you're Hilston's god. It's called righteousness when he does it.

Hilston, you are one sick puppy and the devil has so far under his thumb it's incredible. Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil.

 

[Hilston]

Big Finn,

Big Finn writes:
What a twisting of scripture and the plan of salvation.

The only thing that was decreed was that Christ would give His life as a sacrifice for sin so that we might be saved.

Then could Christ have just willfully succumbed to a heart attack? Would that have satisfied the decree?

Big Finn writes:
If you are going to call this God decreeing evil, well, then you've missed the whole plan of salvation in your determination to uphold something as sick and twisted as the CV of scripture.

It's what scripture says, Big Finn. The Bible says that the Christ was delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, whom the Jews had taken by lawless hands, tortured and executed (Ac 2:23). The Bible says that Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, gathered together against Christ to do what God's hand and purpose predetermined to be done (Ac 4:27,28). The Bible says the Jews executed the Christ in ignorance. But the things they did to him things are what God has thus fulfilled which He foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer. (Ac 3:17ff). You can't deny what these verses say. The only way you can deal with them is to twist them to mean something other than what they say. Read 1Way's butcher-job of these verses in the Prescriptive/Decretive thread.

Big Finn writes:
The crucifixion of Christ demonstrates the hatred of evil for goodness and love.

Did it have to be a "crucifixion"? Could it have been a different, less evil action and still counted as a sufficient sacrifice?

As to all that tripe about God originating evil, doing evil, the devil doing what God tells him to do, the devil not being a rebel, but rather a good, faithful servant who just does all the evil that comes from the mind of God, and all the misery, death, suffering, pain, and unutterable horror of sin just being the master plan of an evil God trying to make Himself look really good, those are some pretty awful beliefs, Big Finn. Is the guy who believes that stuff expected to show up? Or are you posting in the wrong forum?

Big Finn writes:
Man, that's just too sick to even be contemplated. God, the ultimate hypocrite.

I agree. Whoever came up with that stuff must be pretty sick and twisted.

Big Finn writes:
What I don't get is how anyone's mind can be so sick as to think that someone whose mind has conceived, planned, and executed all the evil the world has ever seen is righteous, good, loving, and has only the best interests of his creation at heart.

You get it, Big Finn, because you invented it. No one here believes that.

Big Finn writes:
Oh, that's right. This god of Hilston's only has his own best interest at heart, not his creation's. He gets pleasure from killing, maiming, and torturing those he created. It's his greatest achievement. It's how he makes himself look good and other's look evil. In other words it's all about appearances, not the reality. Conceiving, planning, and getting others to execute the evil you plan isn't bad if you're Hilston's god. It's called righteousness when he does it.

You forgot the part where Hilston drinks the blood of Open Theist babies.

This is the first sign of defeat, Big Finn. At least when Jesus, John the Baptist, and Paul railed against false beliefs, they did so accurately, without distorting anything. That's what made their rebukes so powerful and significant.

In your case, it is the opposite. A distortion of everything. That makes your "rebuke" (more like a re-puke) impotent and insignificant. But this is what I've come to expect from those who cannot answer the Bible itself on these matter, who will not engage the discussion with any intellectual earnest and honesty. It is a sure indication of desperation when, instead of answering the questions and actually discussing the points of the argument, you rather erect an elaborate straw man that is much easier to dismiss. It's easier to ignore a sick and twisted person of your own creation. I'm beginning to see that Open Theists are experts at this sort of thing. But it's one thing to do this to another human, to cast him in a negative light to make oneself feel better, it's quite another to do this to the scripture and to God Himself, which is what the Open View is actually working so hard to do: Re-creating God in man's image.

Big Finn writes:
Hilston, you are one sick puppy and the devil has so far under his thumb it's incredible. Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil.

Try to get this, Big Finn, because your integrity depends on it. If God decreed the torture and execution of Christ, that is not calling evil good. It is still evil.

 

[Yorzhik]

Yorzhik writes:
... He can mask every miracle if He wants, thus making reasonably certain no one could know for sure when He was intervening, if at all, ...

Hilston responded:
I guess I'm surprised to hear you say that. I was trying to give God a pass according to OV tenets. If you believe God could do this, why do you suppose He doesn't?

Because God has already given mankind everything mankind needs to love God. If they don't love God because they don't want too, they have been warned. God wants people's love to be genuine, not forced via secret coercion. If He is going to do a miracle, it is going to be out in the open – honest interaction, as opposed to secret and therefore non-interactive action.

Yorzhik writes:
... and get the desired result you claim that the OV God is looking for far more effectively. [Ephasis added]

Hilston responded:
Do I have that wrong? What result is the OV God looking for?

Yes and no. God is trying to maximize the number of people that love Him, but not at the expense of integrity or justice. So, yes, He's trying to maximize the number of people that love Him. But, no, He won't do anything within His power (not taking His character into account) to accomplish it.

 

[Big Finn]

As to all that tripe about God originating evil, doing evil, the devil doing what God tells him to do, the devil not being a rebel, but rather a good, faithful servant who just does all the evil that comes from the mind of God, and all the misery, death, suffering, pain, and unutterable horror of sin just being the master plan of an evil God trying to make Himself look really good, those are some pretty awful beliefs, Big Finn. Is the guy who believes that stuff expected to show up? Or are you posting in the wrong forum?

You're already here, Hilston. So is Zman.

You guys say God declared all things. Calvinism claims nothing happens without God first saying it is going to happen. Thus, God is the first one to whom doing evil ever occured, for He, according to the CV'ers, decreed all things, and nothing happens unless He first ordains it.

You can't have it both ways, Hilston. Either your god did or did not decree all things, and if he did, then he first thought up and imagined all the evil that is in the world. In your theology evil couldn't have existed without him inventing and decreeing its existence before it ever took place. Thus your god is the inventor of all evil, and you say he does all that he does because he is out to glorify himself.

 

[harvestmoon]

thing is though, i dont think we were forced to crucify jesus. God knew that it would happen, but he didnt move our hands. right before jesus died, he said, "forgive them lord, for they know not what they do."
well if god forced us to kill jesus, why would we need forgiving. this whole idea of a blood debt being settled was, i agree, kalvins bitter influence in christian theology, and we'd be better off without it.

get over it my friends. quit feeling perpetually guilty and simply feel the love.

 

[Hilston]

Big Finn writes:
You're already here, Hilston. So is Zman.

This is why you ought not to be taken seriously. A beneficial, respectful and intelligent discussion usually involves two people trying to understand each other and exchanging ideas and differences of opinion. You show neither respect nor intelligence in your posts.

Big Finn writes:
You guys say God declared all things. Calvinism claims nothing happens without God first saying it is going to happen.

Is Zman a Calvinist? Not by my estimation. Neither am I. As to what Calvinism says, do you have a reference we can check to make sure you know what you're talking about?

Big Finn writes:
Thus, God is the first one to whom doing evil ever occured, ...

Um. What? You seem to have an extra verb in there; or maybe an extra participle. Please check that gerund and maybe recast the sentence so I can understand what in the world you're trying to say.

Big Finn writes:
... for He, according to the CV'ers, decreed all things, and nothing happens unless He first ordains it.

Eph 1:11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

Isa 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: 11 Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.

Big Finn writes:
You can't have it both ways, Hilston. Either your god did or did not decree all things, and if he did, then he first thought up and imagined all the evil that is in the world.

He did, and I have no problem with that, knowing that God has a justifiably good purpose in everything, even the evil, He has decreed. That is why I trust Him. That is why I put my confidence in Him. The Open Theist has no genuine trust or confidence, because God could change His mind, He could be taken by surprise, He could be blindsided by something that didn't even enter His mind. For Him to decree the horrific evil done to His Son so that I would be saved (justifiably good purpose) is perfectly compatible with the determinist view and compatibilist freewill.

This is what you have yet to deal with, Big Finn. The Bible says that the Christ was delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, whom the Jews had taken by lawless hands, tortured and executed (Ac 2:23). The Bible says that Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, gathered together against Christ to do what God's hand and purpose predetermined to be done (Ac 4:27,28). The Bible says the Jews executed the Christ in ignorance. But the things they did to him things are what God has thus fulfilled which He foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer. (Ac 3:17ff). You can't deny what these verses say. The only way you can deal with them is to twist them to mean something other than what they say.

The fact that these verses do not bode well for the Open View is affirmed by your convenient avoidance of addressing them and your proclivity for misrepresentation and straw-man construction. It's a strong indicator that you're desperate and that your legs have been cut off.

Big Finn writes:
In your theology evil couldn't have existed without him inventing and decreeing its existence before it ever took place. Thus your god is the inventor of all evil, and you say he does all that he does because he is out to glorify himself.

I never said that. I don't know why He decrees what He decrees except to say that He purposes good in all of it, according to the scripture. God works all things together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose. On the Open View, what would be an example of this verse in real life?

 

[God_Is_Truth]

Originally posted by Hilston



Is Zman a Calvinist? Not by my estimation. Neither am I. As to what Calvinism says, do you have a reference we can check to make sure you know what you're talking about?

you don't think subscribing to TULIP makes you a calvinist?

 

[Hilston]

Originally posted by God_Is_Truth

you don't think subscribing to TULIP makes you a calvinist?

Of course not, no more than being an Arminian or Open Theist makes you a dispensationalist. Theology regards systems of thought; not disjointed packages of doctrine. Calvinism is more than the five points. Are you aware of how much John Calvin wrote? Most of what passes for Calvinism (and Augustinianism, for that matter) in this forum is horrendously distorted, yet no one seems to care. It is rather pathetic.

As to my view, TULIP is an inadequate characterization of the atonement.

It would be more precise and biblically accurate to say it this way:

• 
  Tn.Un1.Un2.Un3.Ppn
  Ti.Ui1.Ui2.Ui3.Ppi
  Tb.Ub1.Ub2.Ub3.Ppb

Total depravity (for the nations, Israel, Body of Christ), Unconditional election (of the nations, Israel, Body of Christ), Unconditional redemption (of the nations, Israel, Body of Christ), Unconditional grace (for the nations, Israel, Body of Christ), and Perseverance/preservation (of the nations, Israel, Body of Christ).

A true Calvinist (even Calvin himself) would want nothing to do with my view.

 

[Big Finn]

Hilston,

You're going to mock my grammer, English, and logic when you make statements such as the following?

Yes, they had the ability to choose otherwise. Was it possible for them to choose otherwise? No, because God put it in their hearts to act freely of their own volition.

Ability:

Main Entry: abil·i·ty
Pronunciation: &-'bi-l&-tE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -ties
Etymology: Middle English abilite, from Middle French habilité, from Latin habilitat-, habilitas, from habilis apt, skillful -- more at ABLE
1 a : the quality or state of being able <ability of the soil to hold water>; especially : physical, mental, or legal power to perform b : competence in doing : SKILL
2 : natural aptitude or acquired proficiency <children whose abilities warrant higher education>

Main Entry: pos·si·ble
Pronunciation: 'pä-s&-b&l
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin possibilis, from posse to be able, from potis, pote able + esse to be -- more at POTENT, IS
1 a : being within the limits of ability, capacity, or realization b : being what may be done or may occur according to nature, custom, or manners
2 a : being something that may or may not occur b : being something that may or may not be true or actual <possible explanation>
3 : having an indicated potential <a possible housing site>
synonyms POSSIBLE, PRACTICABLE, FEASIBLE mean capable of being realized. POSSIBLE implies that a thing may certainly exist or occur given the proper conditions <a possible route up the west face of the mountain>. PRACTICABLE implies that something may be effected by available means or under current conditions <a practicable route up the west face of the mountain>. FEASIBLE applies to what is likely to work or be useful in attaining the end desired <commercially feasible for mass production>.

You make a mockery of the English language and the meaning of words in an attempt to uphold your theology. If something is not possible for you, it is not within your ability to do.

No one can act freely if they have only one course of action available to them to choose. The analogy would be a fork in the road with only one choice of paths. That simply doesn't exist. A fork in the road by definition has to have multiple paths.

Main Entry: 1fork
Pronunciation: 'fork
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English forke, from Old English & Old North French; Old English forca & Old North French forque, from Latin furca
1 : an implement with two or more prongs used especially for taking up (as in eating), pitching, or digging
2 : a forked part, tool, or piece of equipment
3 a : a division into branches or the place where something divides into branches b : CONFLUENCE
4 : one of the branches into which something forks
5 : an attack by one chess piece (as a knight) on two pieces simultaneously

And you mock me...? :kookoo:

 

[Hilston]

Big Finn,

You weren't being mocked. I asked you an earnest question. The question still stands. Please re-word the sentence so I can understand it. I make whacky sentences, too, and I appreciate when people ask me to re-word it. Try to not being so thin-skinned and let's have a conversation. That's the unfortunate thing about forums like this. You guys assume the worst, assume malice, assume disingenuity, assume suspect motives. I ask a simple question and you end up desperately consulting your dictionary to try to throw something back in my face.

Well after all your effort, I need only to answer the following statement to demonstrate how very little you still understand of this issue:

Big Finn writes:
No one can act freely if they have only one course of action available to them to choose.

You simply don't get. It's not a matter of available choices. It's a matter of what the person wants to choose -- his will.

Big Finn writes:
The analogy would be a fork in the road with only one choice of paths. That simply doesn't exist. A fork in the road by definition has to have multiple paths.

There were any number of choices available to the murderers of Christ. But could they have chosen them? With respect to God's decrees, no. With respect to the definition of ability, yes. Having the ability to choose otherwise, would they have? No. Why? Because they wouldn't want to.

When I'm given the choice of brocolli or brusselsprouts, I have two options. Can I choose brusselsprouts? In terms of ability, yes. In terms of will, no, because I hate them. I don't expect you to understand this, given the cataract of your Finite-Deity Theism. I this offer for others who may be reading and are earnestly seeking understanding.

I have not yet begun to mock!:freak:

 

[Clete]

Jim,

Sorry about the wait! I've been a little busy these last couple of days and haven't had a lot of time to post anything but short responses. I should be able to respond to your post very soon, perhaps as early as tonight, but I have to do a little research first. I think I have resolved my circular reasoning issue and as it turns out, we might both be right to one degree or another about this "Why is God good?" issue.

Oh and by the way, thank you so much for making your post as brief as you did! I really appreciate that. I know you don't really try to make your posts super long on purpose, your just responding the way you think is best. I actually have a tendency to do the same thing myself! I apologize for my impatience and am sorry if I was overly harsh about it in my last post.

I'll post again soon.

Resting in Him,
Clete

P.S. In the mean time, would you care to respond to the point harvestmoon made about God knowing that the crucifixion would happen but that He did not move the hands of those who performed the act. And that if He had made them do it, why would they need to be forgiven for it.