Posted on 01/16/2006 12:59:35 AM PST by Gamecock
In post 97 you posted the following in response to the original article:
Ignoring scripture is the quickest path to bad theology.The implication was pretty clear. You disagreed with the Reformed understanding of man's will as presented in the article on the basis of the Scripture you quoted. I sought clarification by asking the following question in post 99:Regarding King Saul and King David:
1Sa 13:14 But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the LORD hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the LORD hath commanded him [to be] captain over his people, because thou hast not kept [that] which the LORD commanded thee.
Do you believe it's reasonable or just for God to command men to do something and then graciously grant the obedience to that command to whom He chooses?That question was not meant to be any sort of re-statement of your position in different terms. It was simply a relevant question given the Scripture you quoted and the implications ostensibly being drawn from it.
However, rather than make any attempt to either answer the question or even seek clarification, you come back swinging in post 111 (bolded for emphasis):
Why do YOU feel the NEED to twist things? Is that the way you are? You love someone so you COMMAND them to do something? Your mind is so twisted that you can't imagine someone loving you so much to die for you to save you from eternal damnation? You're clueless when it comes to perfect love. God doesn't COMMAND, He invites.However, your employer WILL command you to do something - tell him/her that you don't think it's reasonable or just. Your 'love of a paycheck' will submit you to obedience.
Lastly, who do YOU think you are to question ANYTHING about The Almightly? You are merely a mortal man with a sinful nature. Fear of The Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
I replied in 115 by asking you to settle down and explaining that I was not making implication about what you said in your original post, only using the Socratic method in discussing it. Your response?
I answered your question first by telling you what you want a 'why or why not' to is not a true statement to begin with. It's as twisted as asking why or why not is snow red. Go back to your Socratic man-made methods because the things of God appear to be of no concern to you and, obviously, out of your reach of comprehension. Again, God doesn't command, He invites. Your best bet is to try your questioning on someone that's intrigued with man-made methods, such as yourself.This led to my pointing out the fact that you don't seem interested at all in discussion, a fact further supported by your last response:
There is no doctrine - your question wasn't truthful - so rational discussion was not your intent. You can be firmly convinced in your mind but when it reaches your heart there would be no desire to make untruthful statements and expect an answer. ......you're anything other than an arrogant, prideful nuissance :) You make a deceitful statement, I call you on it, and I'm being arrogant, prideful nuisance ?? A typical childish response when one can't get their way. I won't play in our 'teaching by questioning' sandbox so you call me names and stomp your feet. Telling it like it is is not being prideful, it just an irritant to you.It took reading through that whole rude invective twice to glean what appears to be your response to my original question; namely, that the premise of my question (that God commands things of men) is flawed because God does not command men, He only invites them.
Assuming that is indeed what your objection was, don't you think you could have found a more constructive, peaceful means of pointing out your disagreement with my question rather than immediately attacking me? I would have gladly discussed whether or not your criticism of the premise of my question withstood the test of Scripture and plain reason. But instead you respond abusively, condescendingly, and accusatively.
Now, we can proceed with a rational discussion, or not. The choice is yours. I am more than willing to do so without personal attacks if you agree to reciprocate.
What will it be?
God's election is not based simply on His whim, but on His foreknowledge (Rom. 8:28, 1 Pt. 1:2)--that is, on His eternal perspective. From that perspective, all time is before Him at once, and those who are elect are already chosen, "written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain, from the foundation of the world."
Yet, even from within that eternal perspective, God recognizes the element of human choice: "'Do I actually delight in the death of the wicked?' says the Lord YHVH. 'Is it not [better] that he should turn from his ways and live?'" (Ezk. 18:23). If God does not delight in the destruction of the wicked, but would rather that they repent, and yet there are those who do not repent and are therefore destroyed, it must be that there is a choice: "I call Heaven and earth to record today against you. I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life, so that both you and your seed may live" (Deu. 30:19). That choice happens within the temporal sphere.
The Calvinist errs in being so focused on the eternal perspective that they remove all human responsibility--and therefore make God out to be a cosmic monster who does indeed delight in casting the wicked into hell without giving them the chance to repent. They also, ironically, limit the sovereignty of God by declaring that God could not make the sovereign decision to give man a choice.
Conversely, there are those who so over-emphasize the freewill of man that they declare that even God does not know the future. Not anyone here, mind, but there are indeed those who make the case.
This is a balanced soteriology, from which one can say both, "I accepted the Lord" and "the Lord accepted me" without a hint of contradiction.
So men can be spiritually neutral?
"Knowledge of the sciences is so much smoke apart from the heavenly science of Christ." -- John Calvin
In the light of scripture, which is the reservoir of the TRUTH, it is revealed over and over that we participate in the process.
As Buggman so eloquently expressed in Post #142:
The Calvinist errs in being so focused on the eternal perspective that they remove all human responsibility--and therefore make God out to be a cosmic monster who does indeed delight in casting the wicked into hell without giving them the chance to repent. They also, ironically, limit the sovereignty of God by declaring that God could not make the sovereign decision to give man a choice.
Conversely, there are those who so over-emphasize the freewill of man that they declare that even God does not know the future. Not anyone here, mind, but there are indeed those who make the case.
This is a balanced soteriology, from which one can say both, "I accepted the Lord" and "the Lord accepted me" without a hint of contradiction.
"So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy." -- Romans 9:16"For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth" -- Romans 9:11
It isn't "mercy" if it's earned in any way. It's wages due.
And if God wanted all men saved, all men would be saved.
Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." -- Titus 3:4-7"But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,
"For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth" -- Romans 9:11
"So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy." -- Romans 9:16
It's no coincidence these are the same verses I offered Campion.
I disagree.
Just because God thinks something does not mean that that something has come into existence.
I'm not so hot on the idea that all time is before him at once.
I do not believe God is bound by time, but to say that I am simultaneously before God as an infant or as an old man on his deathbed seems to defy the principles of reality that have been established in the bible.
Are God's thoughts pensive? Does He muse? At any time inside or outside of time does God contemplate alternatives?
Because if you answer "yes" to any of these you are stating there is a point inside time or outside time that God does not "know" everything.
God's knowledge is certain and fixed; His will is definite and defining.
Think about it. Can you honestly envision God pondering His next move? At any time?
Frumanchu said earlier today that to discuss "Can God have choices" is like discussing "Can God create a rock that God cannot lift."
So far as the argument that something IS in existence at the very moment God has thought about it is to deny the existence of time and of sequence.
If God intends for something to exist (as He contemplates it outside of time), that thing WILL exist (inside of time.)
To deny that is to deny the very nature of God, IMO, and results in a speculative God, like the Greeks and Egyptians assumed.
"That day shall not come until the man of sin be first revealed, who sits in the temple of God showing himself that he is God..."
Christ has not yet returned.
Precisely. Does God tell us He will return?
Yes.
Will He return?
Yes.
Is there any chance in the universe that Christ will NOT return?
No.
Life is definite, determined once for all time by the will of God.
Now you're saying exactly what I've been saying.
You should agree with me more often...it really lessens my stress, ya know. :>)
Hardly. Either I'm not being clear, or you don't have a good response so you're just trying to be cute.
My money's on the later. 8~)
Will Christ return, or is God still deciding that one?
I've been saying all along that it WILL happen. I've only maintained that it has not ALREADY happened....it does not yet have EXISTENCE.
I know I'm cute -- but I'm not trying to be.
(PS: So you're one of those "Latter" day kind of folks, huh?)
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