Posted on 01/01/2006 4:48:03 PM PST by HarleyD
"There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright" (Job 1:1)
Hello, Houston, we have a problem...bleep.
As for your (and Calvinist favorite) verse, +Paul was reminding us that none of us is truly Christ-like but the importance is in how +Paul finished his sentence -- that everyone comes short of the glory of God.
All of us are born mortal and tainted with death. Compared to God we are always a "failure." But some among us are true saints and, within the context and constraints of humanity, some are capable of being righteous, even perfect, as the OT makes it plain.
I am sorry, this doe snot show that non-Christians are all evil. Try again.
"Hello, Houston, we have a problem...bleep."
No problem, Houston, Job said his righteousness was more than God's but when confronted with God Job repented,
Job 42:3 "Who [is] he that hideth counsel without knowledge? therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor [myself], and repent in dust and ashes."
Carry on Houston the interpretation was just an anomaly.
"But some among us are true saints and, within the context and constraints of humanity, some are capable of being righteous, even perfect, as the OT makes it plain."
What the Old Testament makes plainis that we have all sinned and none are righteous before God without the shedding of blood for sin.
Isa 64:6 "But we are all as an unclean [thing], and all our righteousnesses [are] as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. And [there is] none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee: for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities."
You use the phrase "within the context and constraints of humanity" however if man has true free will there should be no context and constraints. Every moral decision should stand on its own, but that, as you concede, is not the case. In fact every man makes morally incorrect (sin) decisions. If every one born, by necessity, came down with the same disease you would say it was inherited or congenital. Yet you deny the same concerning man's inclination to sin when faced with the overwhelming evidence. You say man is capable of being morally perfect and yet there has never been such a person, excepting our Lord, in all of history.
That strains, stretches, and snaps all credibility. All leaders, all those in authority, dominate either partially or fully by definition. In the cases of good leaders it is a blessing, in the cases of bad ones it is a tragedy. Which ones does God pick? Which ones are abusers of power? How do you know?
I suppose that throughout history, whenever a man has dominated another man in accordance with your beliefs, that is one of the exceptions made by God, but in all other cases it was just an abuse of power? Judges in authority, going back to the OT, dominated the accused before them and pronounced death sentences. I suppose that only those decisions you agree with were from God and the rest were abuses. I'm guessing all this because I am unfamiliar with any scripture supporting any of your theory.
God has ordered many times that His people dominate and destroy another for His purposes. He has also ordered that another people dominate and subdue His people. I don't understand at all where you get the idea that it is not a part of God's will that sometimes men are to dominate other men. It is everywhere in the Bible.
Well, it is everywhere in the Old Testament, but not in the New Testament, which defines Christianity. The NT says we should respect authority, because authority is from God, but it means morally justified authority. The unrighteous cannot claim their authority is from God. [hint: it is from the devil]
To do so fits right into the whole false argument on this thread by the Calvinsits: that the righteous and the unrighteous, one way or another, obey God's will.
Job 1:1 states with certainty and unambiguosly that Job was a "perfect man, upright." It doesn't state that "Job said his righteousness was more than God's..."
As I commented before, you are confusing original man, man created by God in Adam, and man after the fall. Christ took on the former nature, our original nature as considered by God in Genesis 1. I have no disagreement with St. Thomas. His comments of grace added to man refers to man AFTER the fall. I ask that you try to make the distinction, as we do.
I have no further comments regarding "Romish" anything.
Regards
To say Augustine is in line with Catholic teaching and Catholic teaching is in line with Orthodox is confusing to say the least. You'll find the Orthodox, while respecting Augustine, don't hold much store in his writings. I can appreciate the Orthodox position simply because Augustine's writings are not in line with what they believe. However this poses a more difficult problem for Catholics who supposedly revere Augustine. It would be far more consistent for Catholics simply to say they don't believe Augustine's writings then to pretend he supports Catholicism as it exists today. This would make merging with the Orthodox far easier.
But you don't really want to argue this forever now, do you?
Actually, no. However, this seems to be a thread that I have started to pull that continues to unravel the sweater. God's sovereign will over His creation touches every single issue facing Christianity today. If one does not believe that God is in full control then they really don't believe God can answer prayer, He guides our footsteps, everything that happens in our lives is a blessing from God, He provides for us and sustains us, on and on and on.
What we end up with is man at the center of attention with a God that dotes on him. Man becomes an OK person with a little help-who is free to follow whatever path he chooses. God sits back and occasionally pops His head in when needed. Man's wickedness and God's glorious mercy are both minimized. This is not the view of scriptures - Old or New Testament.
As far as your quote of Augustine in The Problem of Free Choice I would have to review the context of the book. The only thing I can verify is that the book is not a discussion of free choice as it is a problem of evil. Calvinists believe that man has a free will. This will is bound until Christ sets us free. Once freed Christians are capable of exercising our will-for good or for bad. God expects us to exercise this will for good and has given us His Holy Spirit to guide this will. If we refuse to submit to God's guidance then He will chastise us.
I see nothing in Augustine's quote that would contradict what I have stated nor do I see anything that would contradict what Augustine states in A Treatise of Predestination. As Augustine rightfully points out, if man has free will then there is no need to pray for the salvation of others; however how can we have faith if faith has not been bestowed (Chap 15).
." It doesn't state that "Job said his righteousness was more than God's..."
Job 35:1 "Elihu spake moreover, and said, Thinkest thou this to be right, [that] thou saidst, My righteousness [is] more than God's? For thou saidst, What advantage will it be unto thee? [and], What profit shall I have, [if I be cleansed] from my sin?"
I have read the book and am reading "Problem of Free Choice" again. I don't find anything in it that the Orthodox would disagree with, in my opinion. It is addressed to the Manichaeans, who believed in a dualism between good and evil, which Orthodox certainly do not follow. It was written before Pelagius began to highlight man's ability to come to God without God's help. Pelagius even quotes Augustine several times from this book. However, in Augustine's Retractions, he doesn't "retract" what was written in "Problem of Free Choice", but clarifies, since he was addressing a different and opposite audience in the Manichaeans as the Pelagians.
It would be far more consistent for Catholics simply to say they don't believe Augustine's writings then to pretend he supports Catholicism as it exists today. This would make merging with the Orthodox far easier.
I am admittedly not an expert in St. Augustine's entire corpus of writings... Certainly, Orthodox do not take the same precise view regarding original sin as he did - and the West would later define at Trent. But I see this as two sides of the same coin. I don't see our positions as contradictory but complimentary. And St. Augustine synthesizes OUR common faith to a large degree. There is many more things that he writes that Orthodox would agree with, then disagree with. From our past discussions, I have found St. Augustine often taken out of context or twisted to come up with a different paradigm then his pupils, such as Prosper of Acquitaine was teaching.
What we end up with is man at the center of attention with a God that dotes on him. Man becomes an OK person with a little help-who is free to follow whatever path he chooses.
Harley, we are dealing with two truths that APPEAR contradictory - but we must hold to, even if we do not fully understand it. This mystery is given to us by revelation, which cannot lie. There cannot be false revelation. So we try to hold both concepts as true and realize that we cannot fully explain their interaction. These truths are, of course, God's foreknowledge and man's free will. By the way, St. Augustine covers these ideas rather well in Book 3 of "Problems of Free Choice" - which is in a dialogue format which you may find enjoyable to read. St. Augustine and the Church both hold that foreknowledge does not cause an event, though it implies that it is certain to happen. Therefore, God's foreknowledge is compatible with free action, as he mentions in 3.3.10. In this same book, He also discusses how evil does NOT spoil the beauty of creation, again in Book 3. In Book 2, he argues that God is not responsible for sin, explaining how the created will is free and not determined, and even discusses an argument for the existence of God in the same book (again, all by dialoguing). The book covers evil AND free choice, and who is responsible for evil. Again, this is written against the Manichaeans, who thought evil was a divine principle separate from the good divine principle. But because God is the cause of all created things, and evil exists, St. Augustine certainly felt compelled to explain the cause of evil, which is the free will. Thus, free choice is explained and defended in the book.
Calvinists believe that man has a free will. This will is bound until Christ sets us free.
How does man have free will that is bound? If one cannot make but one choice, it is not free. Your definition of free will appears to be different than St. Augustine or the Catholic/Orthodox posters here. Thus, we seem to be talking past each other. St. Augustine clearly says that man can freely choose good. One would presume "not without God", as he clarifies when addressing the Pelagians.
Once freed Christians are capable of exercising our will-for good or for bad.
I haven't found Augustine to make such a distinction yet. However, it is common experience that man CAN make morally good decisions without being regenerated by God through Baptism or by faith in Christ. Perhaps it would be wiser to say that no one can please God until they have faith in Him. I disagree with the interpretation that all of man's actions are sinful before this "regeneration" - but I do not believe that an "unregenerated" man can achieve eternal life. Thus, man cannot come to God without God. Nor does God save man without man, as Augustine noted.
As Augustine rightfully points out, if man has free will then there is no need to pray for the salvation of others; however how can we have faith if faith has not been bestowed (Chap 15).
Augustine says that man clearly has free will. In "Problems of Free Choice", he says that "man has a will, a good will, of supreme value. It lies within the power of this will to possess the supreme good or not, because nothing is so fully in the power of the will than the will itself" Pelagius used this very line in his argument that man didn't need God to come to eternal life. Augustine said "man has a good will - a will by which we seek to live rightly and virtuously and to reach the heights of wisdom" (1.2.25). Pelagius made the mistake and Augustine provided the corrective by saying that man's free will is limited and must rely on God. But we still have free will and the ability to choose God or not.
I have found that St. Augustine has different definitions of "free will". For example, when an action is not impeded, it is considered free will. Another sense of free will is the power of choice. He comments that if every desire is satisfied, there is no scope of choice (such as in heaven). But it seems clear that he believes that man is confronted with conscious choice - because he is confronted with the choice of either good or bad conduct. And as he mentions, God's action on man does not take away a good (free will) that He has already given man.
I'll have to do some reading on Predestination and Grace and Nature next.
Regards
Amen. Great analogy.
Amazing how the misreading of Genesis colors entire theologies.
You say man is capable of being morally perfect
Yep. Straight from Plato. An excellent essay is found here on the difference between the Greek view of mankind and the historic, Old Testament view...
When God created the world, he saw that it was good (Gen. 1:31). The world was created for God's glory (Ps. 19:1); the ultimate goal and destiny of creation is to glorify and praise its creator (Ps. 98:7-9). The Hebrews had no concept of nature; to them the world was the scene of God's constant activity. Thunder was the voice of God (Ps. 29:3, 5); pestilence is the heavy hand of the Lord (I Sam. 5:6); human life is the breath of God inbreathed in man's face (Gen. 2:7; Ps. 104:29). To be sure, the world is not all it ought to be. Something has gone wrong. But the evil is not found in materiality, but in human sin...""The Old Testament view of God, man, and the world is very different from Greek dualism. Fundamental to Hebrew thought is the belief that God is the creator, that the world is God's creation and is therefore in itself good. The Greek idea that the material world is the sphere of evil and a burden or a hindrance to the soul is alien to the Old Testament.
All as God ordained from before the foundation of the world, for His glory and the welfare of His saints.
The mystery is all in the error of Pelagius-not in Augustine who clearly understood the concept of man's free will and God's sovereignty. I would suggest you augment your reading with Augustine’s On Grace and Free Will to provide a clearer picture of his views. Space limits me against posting larger section of this text but snippets. However the text is absolutely clear and consistent with what I stated earlier; God inclines mens hearts and we are saved by His mercy and grace.
There is NO discussion of God's "foreknowledge" that we will do the right thing. Augustine states here and elsewhere this is the Pelagius error.
Now He has revealed to us, through His Holy Scriptures, that there is in a man a free choice of will…. For they are given that no one might be able to plead the excuse of ignorance, as the Lord says concerning the Jews in the gospel: "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin…. The apostle also says: "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold back the truth in unrighteousness; because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them. "
What is the import of the fact that in so many passages God requires all His commandments to be kept and fulfilled? How does He make this requisition, if there is no free will?
For the will is at fault in the case of the man of whom it is said, "He is not inclined to understand, so as to do good." [sic: Man's will is corrupted.]
Pelagius, maintained that the grace of God was given according to our merits,--…He pronounced, indeed, the required anathema upon the dogma, but how insincerely his later books plainly show; for in them he maintains absolutely no other opinion than that the grace of God is given according to our merits. Such passages do they collect out of the Scriptures,--like the one which I just now quoted, "Turn ye unto me, and I will turn unto you,"--as if it were owing to the merit of our turning to God that His grace were given us, wherein He Himself even turns unto us. Now the persons who hold this opinion fail to observe that, unless our turning to God were itself God's gift, it would not be said to Him in prayer, "Turn us again, O God of hosts;"… And yet He says: "No man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father."
But these people find some room for human merit in the clause, "If thou seek Him," Let us return now to the Apostle Paul, who, as we have found, obtained God's grace, who recompenses good for evil, without any good merits of his own, but rather with many evil merits. Let us see what he says when his final sufferings were approaching,… writing to Timothy: "There is henceforth laid up for me," he says, "a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day." Now, to whom should the righteous Judge award the crown, except to him on whom the merciful Father had bestowed grace? And how could the crown be one "of righteousness," unless the grace had preceded which "justifieth the ungodly"? How, moreover, could these things now be awarded as of debt, unless the other had been before given as a free gift?
When, however, the Pelagians say that the only grace which is not given according to our merits is that whereby his sins are forgiven to man, but that at which is given in the end, that is, eternal life, is rendered to our preceding merits: they must not be allowed to go without an answer.
His last clause runs thus: "I have kept the faith." But he who says this is the same who declares in another passage, "I have obtained mercy that I might be faithful." He does not say, "I obtained mercy because I was faithful," but "in order that I might be faithful," thus showing that even faith itself cannot be had without God's mercy, and that it is the gift of God. [sic: Didn’t we once talk about loss of salvation? We are faithful because God had mercy]
This question, then, seems to me to be by no means capable of solution, unless we understand that even those good works of ours, which are recompensed with eternal life, belong to the grace of God, because of what is said by the Lord Jesus: "Without me ye can do nothing."
Why, therefore, do those very vain and perverse Pelagians say that the law is the grace of God by which we are helped not to sin?... I have said this to deter your free will from evil, and to exhort it to good by apostolic words; but yet you must not therefore glory in man,--that is to say, in your own selves,--and not in the Lord, when you live not after the flesh, but through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the flesh.
It has, however, been shown to demonstration that instead of really maintaining free will, they have only inflated a theory of it, which, having no stability, has fallen to the ground. Neither the knowledge of God's law, nor nature, nor the mere remission of sins is that grace which is given to us through our Lord Jesus Christ; but it is this very grace which accomplishes the fulfilment of the law, and the liberation of nature, and the removal of the dominion of sin.
Now if faith is simply of free will, and is not given by God, why do we pray for those who will not believe, that they may believe? [sic: Isn’t this the question I asked earlier?] This it would be absolutely useless to do, unless we believe, with perfect propriety, that Almighty God is able to turn to belief wills that are perverse and opposed to faith. Man's free will is addressed when it is said, "Today, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts." But if God were not able to remove from the human heart even its obstinacy and hardness, He would not say, through the prophet, "I will take from them their heart of stone, and will give them a heart of flesh."
The Pelagians think that they know something great when they assert that "God would not command what He knew could not be done by man." Who can be ignorant of this? But God commands some things which we cannot do, in order that we may know what we ought to ask of Him. For this is faith itself, which obtains by prayer what the law commands…. It is certain that it is we that will when we will, but it is He who makes us will what is good, of whom it is said (as he has just now expressed it), "The will is prepared by the Lord."
Let no one, then, deceive you, my brethren, for we should not love God unless He first loved us. John again gives us the plainest proof of this when he says, "We love Him because He first loved us." Grace makes us lovers of the law; but the law itself, without grace, makes us nothing but breakers of the law. And nothing else than this is shown us by the words of our Lord when He says to His disciples, Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you." For if we first loved Him, in order that by this merit He might love us, then we first chose Him that we might deserve to be chosen by Him. He, however, who is the Truth says otherwise, and flatly contradicts this vain conceit of men. "You have not chosen me," He says.
I think I have now discussed the point fully enough in opposition to those who vehemently oppose the grace of God, by which, however, the human will is not taken away, but changed from bad to good, and assisted when it is good.
I think, sufficiently clear that God works in the hearts of men to incline their wills whithersoever He wills, whether to good deeds according to His mercy, or to evil after their own deserts; His own judgment being sometimes manifest, sometimes secret, but always righteous.
Well, it is everywhere in the Old Testament, but not in the New Testament, which defines Christianity. The NT says we should respect authority, because authority is from God, but it means morally justified authority. The unrighteous cannot claim their authority is from God.
Pilate was obviously NT. In addition, throughout the NT Christians were persecuted and martyred, IOW, dominated. This had to have been the will of God. The faith continued to grow. The alternative is to say that satan's will dominates God's will here on earth.
[continuing] To do so fits right into the whole false argument on this thread by the Calvinists: that the righteous and the unrighteous, one way or another, obey God's will.
This isn't a matter of conscious obedience to God's will. This is a matter of whether or not God's will is actually done on earth. How many billions of prayers have been said to that effect? Did God command us to pray for that in vain?
For example, this snippet:
"WITH reference to those persons who so preach and defend man's free will, as boldly to deny, and endeavour to do away with, the grace of God which Calls us to Him, and delivers us from our evil deserts, and by which we obtain the good deserts which lead to everlasting life: ..."
Note, Catholics DO NOT "deny" or "endeavour to do away with the grace of God which calls us to Him". That would be out of context and directed at Pelagianism. Never once have I noted a Catholic say "I can come to God of my own free will alone". It is critical to make that distinction, Harley.
Pelagius, maintained that the grace of God was given according to our merits,--…
Here, St. Augustine is refering to one who can come to God by his own merits. He and the Church are pretty clear that one cannot merit the initial gift of faith. Much of the subsequent information is along this line.
Now if faith is simply of free will, and is not given by God,
Again, Harley, you need to read this more closely. Do we say "free will is not given by God"? Of course not. This is Pelagianism. Again, you must read St. Augustine and remember who he is attacking - that concept that man can come to God WITHOUT God! Free will is a gift given by God, and God indeed aids it. I don't see anything from St. Augustine that I would disagree with in any of your snippets.
I think I have now discussed the point fully enough in opposition to those who vehemently oppose the grace of God, by which, however, the human will is not taken away, but changed from bad to good, and assisted when it is good.
Yes, God assists my will to do the good that He desires. It is not an either/or of God or man doing it. Otherwise, the will is not free.
Regards
Again, Job 1:1 says, states as a firm fact that Job was a perfect man. Do you deny this?
Does not the OT state that (at least) one man was perfect and that he was Job?
The Orthodox and Catholics do not deny that. We hold that man is born spiritually ill and in need of healing. We never believed that we can heal ourselves, but always that we need a Healer, as the sick need a doctor. As such, we must be willing to be healed, to follow and obey the healer's commands. We do not do the healing, the Healer does, and we cooperate with him for our own good, but He does not compel us to submit; He only invites.
You, on the other hand, believe that man is not only ill, but dead and requires a miracle to come to life. As someone who is dead, you cannot ask to be brought back to life. God simply picks among spiritual corpses and resurrects those He chooses; others remain dead.
There is no cooperation, there is no obedience, there is no redemption, there is no repentance, there is no human will, there is no human life, there is no humanity; just dead souls God created for His own glory as you often say.
That is not what Jesus Christ taught. That is not how the Jews understood their own Scripture either. That is entirely a product of some of +Augustine's writing and Calvinist distortions of his writings.
You say man is capable of being morally perfect and yet there has never been such a person, excepting our Lord, in all of history
I am not saying is: the Old Testament is! Job 1:1 clearly states that Job was an upirght, perfect man. What the Church is saying is that some are better at it than others, and we do believe that Ever-Virgin Theotokos was without sin and was therefore a perfect (hu)man, first among saints, save for the mortal nature inherited from our acentral parents.
God did not create man to dominate other men. God simply gave us the power to dominate, the freedom to choose. How we use that poiwer and how we choose determines if our dominion is of God or not. Man has the freedom to reject God.
"The LORD said to Samuel, "Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them." [1 Sam 8:7]
"'But you have today rejected your God, who delivers you from all your calamities and your distresses...'" [1 Sam 10:19]
If the power of Pilate was that of God, Christ would have obeyed it. Instead, He made it clear that Pilate had no power over Him.
To which I replied Apparently that is contrary to the reality and history of mankind, HD. In fact, your own sect believes God makes the unrighteous happy, rich and powerful.
Somehow your quote was left out. Sorry.
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