musterion
Well-known member
Idiot.
John Calvin said this....
- Thread starter Clete
- Start date
Idiot.
beloved57
Well-known member
Yes it is the One True God you have problems with! That's my God, not yours!
Dialogos
Well-known member
Which is easy to assert, but not so easy to prove given the scriptures I have provided, and you have largely ignored.
More Ad Hominem attacks. I'd bet that more than half of your responses are logical fallacies or Ad Hominem attacks.Clete said:
You are right about one thing, I don't care if I "land on your ignore list" or not.Clete said:
But you don't get to have your cake and eat it too, Clete. Either the providence of God is mutually exclusive to the will of man or it isn't.
If you are going to claim that it isn't mutually exclusive in one place then you lose the right to attack Calvinists for claiming that it isn't mutually exclusive in others.
Now we come to the scriptures, when I cite clear biblical evidence saying the following:
You respond by saying:me said:
Irrelevant?Clete said:
:AMR:
How dare you claim that God's word is irrelevant?
Why do you think that your own logical conclusions are more relevant than God's Word?
:nono:
I think we may have finally come to the core of the problem, Clete.
You decide on the basis of your own reasoning what the scriptures can and can't say and then take your conclusions to the text. When those conclusions are clearly refuted by the scriptures, you simply wave God's word aside, with your flip and dismissive reply of "irrelevant."
:nono:
Then you have the audacity to try and follow up your dismissal of God's word with a logic lesson?
^^^^This is Irrelevant^^^^Clete said:
God's word is relevant, your flawed logic is irrelevant.
Not only is it irrelevant, it is wrong. You have simply served up a non-sequitur argument and called it "logical."
It isn't logical at all, in all actuality. A and B don't necessitate C from a logical standpoint. Your argument hinges on a hidden premise that it is unjust for God to punish a nation for something that he decreed that nation would do. I dispute that assumption. Your "logic lesson" is nothing more than begging the question and wasting everyone's time.
Furthermore, the scriptures proves your argument false because God did bring about the destruction of Jerusalem using Babylon as the instrument of that destruction and then God punished Babylon. Furthermore, God is a God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is He, therefore you logic is tragically wrong.
The bible refutes your silly non-sequitur argument and your attempt to hedge the scriptures illustrates this quite nicely.
Nice try, but you aren't going to weasel out of what the text says in passage, after passage after passage.Clete said:
"Because you have not obeyed my words,
9 behold, I will send for all the tribes of the north, declares the LORD, and for Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants, and against all these surrounding nations. I will devote them to destruction, and make them a horror, a hissing, and an everlasting desolation.
10 Moreover, I will banish from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the grinding of the millstones and the light of the lamp.
11 This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. (Jer 25:8-11 ESV)
Throught that passage God says He is actively engaged. He is the one who sent for Babylon, He is the one who brought them, He is the one who devotes them to destruction and He is the one who banishes the voice of gladness from Judah.9 behold, I will send for all the tribes of the north, declares the LORD, and for Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants, and against all these surrounding nations. I will devote them to destruction, and make them a horror, a hissing, and an everlasting desolation.
10 Moreover, I will banish from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the grinding of the millstones and the light of the lamp.
11 This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. (Jer 25:8-11 ESV)
You need more proof?
6 For thus says the LORD of hosts: "Cut down her trees; cast up a siege mound against Jerusalem. This is the city that must be punished; there is nothing but oppression within her.
7 As a well keeps its water fresh, so she keeps fresh her evil; violence and destruction are heard within her; sickness and wounds are ever before me.
8 Be warned, O Jerusalem, lest I turn from you in disgust, lest I make you a desolation, an uninhabited land."
(Jer 6:6-8 ESV)
God warns that He will give the command to attack!
" 'Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands and with which you are fighting against the king of Babylon and against the Chaldeans who are besieging you outside the walls. And I will bring them together into the midst of this city.
5 I myself will fight against you with outstretched hand and strong arm, in anger and in fury and in great wrath. (Jer 21:4-5 ESV)
5 I myself will fight against you with outstretched hand and strong arm, in anger and in fury and in great wrath. (Jer 21:4-5 ESV)
Listen up Clete!!!!!
"I myself will fight against you with outstetched hand and strong arm...(verse 5)"
This is the WORD OF THE LORD!!!!!
So much for God "simply getting out of the way...."
So now, you tell me Clete, how are you going to explain away all of these passages?
Or are you ready to allow your flawed understanding to be corrected by the Word of the Lord and admit that God did not simply step aside and passively allow Babylon to destroy Jerusalem?
Dialogos,
I've ignored nothing. My initial argument, which remains my primary argument, is specifically to tell people to simply read the passage. Your excerpts and your convoluted interpretations need no response other than the passage itself. You can't even seem to follow the natural flow of a conversation. I never said the passage taught that God simply stepped aside and passively allowed Babylon to destroy Jerusalem. I said "if" He did that then there would be no problem but that's not the same thing. The statement was in response to your previous post, not an argument in attempt to refute your original post from weeks ago! :bang:
The simple fact is that the passage does not teach what you seem to genuinely think it teaches. This means that your mind has been corrupted to the point that it is no longer possible for you to be convinced by neither scripture nor plain reason. A point I've made in various ways several times before and the primary reason I simply refuse to engage you in any manner which you would prefer. You're effectively insane. What profit is their in answering a lunatic on his own ground? It legitimizes your position without affording me any opportunity to even make progress in the discussion never mind convince you or those who seem to follow you around like puppies, of anything. There is no upside! It is far far better to let you think you've beaten me! You're going to think that no matter what I say or what lengths I go in an attempting to untangle your insanity.
I'm going to attempt one more thing and then I'm finished. I want to ask you a question and see whether you're consistent even with yourself. Ready? Here it is.
Is there anything act, if it could be shown (hypothetically speaking) that God did it, that would cause you to conclude that God is unjust?
Put another way...
Is it at all possible for you to even hypothetically postulate an action that if God did it, God would be unjust?
Asked in yet another way...
Is ANY act that God might do (whether He's actually done it or not) just by virtue of the fact that God did it? For example, could God justly declare murder and rape to be morally acceptable (HYPOTHETICALLY SPEAKING)?
Answer the question or not - I do not care - I know the answer already anyway.
Resting in Him,
Clete
I've ignored nothing. My initial argument, which remains my primary argument, is specifically to tell people to simply read the passage. Your excerpts and your convoluted interpretations need no response other than the passage itself. You can't even seem to follow the natural flow of a conversation. I never said the passage taught that God simply stepped aside and passively allowed Babylon to destroy Jerusalem. I said "if" He did that then there would be no problem but that's not the same thing. The statement was in response to your previous post, not an argument in attempt to refute your original post from weeks ago! :bang:
The simple fact is that the passage does not teach what you seem to genuinely think it teaches. This means that your mind has been corrupted to the point that it is no longer possible for you to be convinced by neither scripture nor plain reason. A point I've made in various ways several times before and the primary reason I simply refuse to engage you in any manner which you would prefer. You're effectively insane. What profit is their in answering a lunatic on his own ground? It legitimizes your position without affording me any opportunity to even make progress in the discussion never mind convince you or those who seem to follow you around like puppies, of anything. There is no upside! It is far far better to let you think you've beaten me! You're going to think that no matter what I say or what lengths I go in an attempting to untangle your insanity.
I'm going to attempt one more thing and then I'm finished. I want to ask you a question and see whether you're consistent even with yourself. Ready? Here it is.
Is there anything act, if it could be shown (hypothetically speaking) that God did it, that would cause you to conclude that God is unjust?
Put another way...
Is it at all possible for you to even hypothetically postulate an action that if God did it, God would be unjust?
Asked in yet another way...
Is ANY act that God might do (whether He's actually done it or not) just by virtue of the fact that God did it? For example, could God justly declare murder and rape to be morally acceptable (HYPOTHETICALLY SPEAKING)?
Answer the question or not - I do not care - I know the answer already anyway.
Resting in Him,
Clete
Nanja
Well-known member
The content of your posts is proof that you have no spiritual rest in Christ at all,
for rest in Him is Salvation: No rest, no Salvation!
Neither do you have any knowledge of the True God of the scriptures, nor His Gospel, but walk in the vanity of your mind:
Eph. 4:17-18
This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them,
because of the blindness of their heart:
kardia - a) the soul or mind, as it is the fountain and seat of the thoughts, passions, desires, appetites, affections,
of the understanding, the faculty and seat of the intelligence, purposes, endeavours
https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G2588&t=KJV
2 Cor 4:3-4
But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds
of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
~~~~~
1Mind1Spirit
Literal lunatic
musterion
Well-known member
1Mind1Spirit
Literal lunatic
:Shimei:
Saying it doesn't make it so.
Make an argument or keep your personal opinions about my relationship with God to yourself.
Dialogos
Well-known member
Then you proceeded to argue that the scriptures I cited were irrelevant and that we should all be looking at the so-called logical arguments you present to frame the issue.
It appears that you only want to rely on the passage insofar as you are able to bring your conclusions into the text.
Now you are just back-peddling.Clete said:
You would have us to believe that you didn't actually mean to infer that this is what God did, but rather what God could do in order to escape your perverted accusations that a Sovereign God is unjust precisely because He is sovereign.
But I am confident that pretty well everyone sees right through your attempt to back out of your own argument.
Its clear that the "If God stepped aside...." argument was part of your attempt to argue that A God who both caused Babylon to destroy Jerusalem and also punished Babylon for her role in doing the same is unjust.
Clete said:
Then you tell us how God can avoid the implications of your flawed syllogism.
Clete said:
Which is why, basically, I just don't believe you when you say the following:
Clete said:
The reality is that you were confronted with clear scriptural evidence that (A) in your argument:
... Is true. God did compel Babylon to destroy Jerusalem according to God's decree, design and command.Clete said:
Now, this alone presents serious problems for your theology.
Open Theism has to create an exception (one of many) where it concedes that God "sometimes" does direct the will of one or more free agents.
I call this the Calvinist escape clause of Open Theism.
This example, and others, are so clear cut that Boyd, Sanders, et. al, willingly admit that God does cross the line of "free will" and compel individuals or even nations to do His will thus leaving them without any option to do other than what God has ordained.
Even Open Theists are Calvinists "sometimes."
:chuckle:
I find this particularly hypocritical because one of the biggest criticisms that is thrown at Calvinists is that a God who does exactly what Boyd and Sanders admit God sometimes does is unjust, unloving, etc, if He did it "all the time."
Nevertheless, you inability to deny (A) leaves you with only one option now, doesn't it. You must deny (B).
Clete said:
But the scriptures are just as clear on this.
(Jeremiah 51:49 ESV) Babylon must fall for the slain of Israel, just as for Babylon have fallen the slain of all the earth.
Case closed!
This renders your argument entirely impotent.
That's easy enough to just say, not so easy to demonstrate, especially since I have quoted and explained passages of scripture and you have simply put your fingers in your ears.Clete said:
Ad Hom. Logical fallacy.Clete said:
Meaning you are going to ignore all the scriptures I gave you and the exegesis that I provided, you are going to ignore the fact that God's word defeats your argument. You are going to ignore all of that and give us one more philosophical argument, aren't you?Clete said:
This is telling. You and I start from completely different places, Clete.
I start with the scriptures, you start with philosophy. That's why I can cite scripture and you can call it "irrelevant."
Why would I entertain such foolishness?Clete said:
God is just.
Full stop.
Case closed.
I'm not interested in hypothesizing what, humanly speaking, would cause me to conclude that God is unjust because God is just and any argument that would tempt me to think otherwise is foolish.
Again, God is just, all that He does is just.Clete said:
The Scriptures proclaim this as truth (Dt 32:4)
I don't need to engage in such meaningless hypothetical tripe.Clete said:
I trust my God, I don't need to be constantly looking at Him with a suspicious eye, wondering if He measures up to my standards of justice.
I just trust Him.
George Affleck
TOL Subscriber
How do you reconcile the fact that, just as God prepared a colt for Jesus to ride on into Jerusalem He also declares that someone must fulfill the scriptures with regard to betrayal?
Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus.
For he was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry.
What are the odds that this would happen without supernatural direction?
George Affleck
TOL Subscriber
Well, I guess nobody has any answers.
musterion
Well-known member
That does not equate to God deciding in eternity past who is saved and who burns.
1Mind1Spirit
Literal lunatic
That's right.
It's still just as Paul phrased it.
What if?
Which when translated for you, means, what do you think yer gonna do about it?
I mean really, hunh?
beloved57
Well-known member
God made some people as vessels of wrath and fits them for destruction Rom 9:20-22!
Nanja
Well-known member
Yes, God does whatever He pleases with His Creation.
Dan. 4:35
And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will
in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand,
or say unto him, What doest thou?
Job 23:13
But he is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth.
~~~~~
beloved57
Well-known member
Amen!
First let me say that I appreciate your intellectually honest questions. I'll try to answer them as best I can.
Colts aren't people and they aren't at risk of Hell fire for sinning. He can force them to do anything at all without any implications concerning His own standards of justice.
Judas did not have to betray Jesus!
I will never cease to be amazed at people's ability to read their doctrine into a passage. I'm reminded that I too am susceptible to this. It is the single hardest aspect of formulating a sound theology and must always be guarded against.
Peter quoted the passages from the Psalms that he was referring to.
Which of them states "One of the Messiah's followers will betray Him and his name will be Judas."?
Which of the two passages referred to by Peter in Acts 1 even predicts that such a thing will happen?
NEITHER!!!!
You're confused because you do not understand what is meant by "fulfilling scripture". There is more than one way for Scripture to be fulfilled. Not every passage that is "fulfilled" is a predictive prophesy. In fact, more often than not, the fulfillment of Scripture has nothing to do with what we commonly mean when we speak about prophetic passages of Scripture. There are predictive prophecies, to be sure! There are many of them. But Peter is not referring to a predictive prophesy, he is merely teaching that the events concerning Judas were parallel to events that occurred in Scripture - and intentionally so.
So, to clarify, God knew Judas' heart and used him in such a way to parallel Scripture so as to give evidence that these events weren't just happening by mere chance but were being orchestrated by God.
Now before anyone goes all nuts and starts accusing me of contradicting myself, slow down and try to understand this. Judas did not have to betray Jesus! He could have repented! Imagine if he had repented and refused to betray Jesus. Do you suppose that God's plan of salvation would have been undone? Only Calvinists think that God is so inept. Had Judas repented do you suppose that there was no other way for Jesus to end up in the hands of the Sanhedrin? There was probably a thousand different ways God could have accomplished the same result without Judas' help.
Further, had Judas not betrayed Jesus, there is no biblical predictive prophecy that you or anyone else could point to that had gone unfulfilled. If Judas had repented, he'd just be one of the twelve apostles and you'd think no differently of him than you do of Bartholomew.
Resting in Him,
Clete
George Affleck
TOL Subscriber
Why does it not equate?
Did God not choose Judas to betray Jesus in order to fulfill the scriptures?
George Affleck
TOL Subscriber
If all of the 12 apostles had made the free will decision not to betray Christ, how would the prophecy that needed to be fulfilled, be fulfilled?
"Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus.
For he was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry."
In addition, God's inerrant Word declares that this prophecy was indeed about the specific man Judas although David did not know his name at the time.
Jesus also declared "Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?"
Jesus chose them. They did not choose Him. And He also chose one to betray Him to fulfill the scriptures.