I'm not changing any common meanings, I am using them. :) The distinction I am drawing is that "command" is from a superior TO a subordinate. God gives His children many commands in the scriptures. "Ordain" means to decree that "X" will happen by means I determine. Many times an ordination will include commands, but it doesn't have to. Therefore, God does not communicate to His children saying "I command you to do evil". And no one has cause to say "I hear and obey you God, I will do evil". That doesn't happen.
FK: "Kosta, you still harp on Pecca Fortier even after I posted an extremely lengthy dissertation on it that I don't remember you even challenging."
Guilty as charged, FK. I can't answer all lengthy diatribes from a dozen or so concurrent posters. If I found something new or something that hasn't been rehashed in the past, or if I had changed my mind vis-a-vis Luther's pecca fortier, I would have replied. My silence is usually an indication that something is "same old, same old."
I have never seen you address any of the arguments in that paper so I just assumed you couldn't refute any of the arguments. I suppose I am forced to continue to do so until I see otherwise. I gave you access to a good refutation of your view of pecca fortier (coincidentally six months ago today) and you dismissed it with virtually no comment. That just tells me that you are uninterested in what Luther was really talking about.
FK: It was God's choice by ordination, and Adam's choice by execution.
Huh? It is my choice by "ordination" and the computer's "choice" by execution?
No, I reject the premise of any comparison between God and man, and man and computer. It doesn't fit at all. If anything, there are some on the Apostolic side that see man as machine, but none on the Reformed side.
If God wills us to do things then we do it, like a computer. No choice of execution here.
No, not like a computer at all. Man has a will.
No, according to the Reformed theology, God specifically made the serpent, and placed him in the garden so as to deceive Eve and make Adam fall for it. God didn't just "let it happen." He orchestrated the whole thing—out of "love" no doubt.
While God certainly made the serpent, the Bible says no where that God "commanded" him to go into the garden and do what he did. He just appears and we presume that a sovereign God must have allowed that. But, it WAS a knowing allowance.
If I put my "power" over you (i.e. by hypnosis), so that you cannot resist, and make you commit a crime while in that state, claiming that I am "guilty" only of "allowing it to happen" would not stand.
No. Hypnotism is a positive act. I was fine before, but then you acted and I was hypnotized. God does nothing like that when sin is ordained. By comparison God just leaves the room, leaving the person to his own devices. God leaves him CLOSER to his born nature. That is moving in the opposite direction of hypnotism.
FK: Of course Adam wanted to sin.
This means you are suggesting that Adam's created nature (before the Fall) was sinful? That's a new one!
No, I am not suggesting anything of the sort. Adam was not created with a sin nature. The Bible is clear about that. I was saying that Adam wanted to sin at that particular time, i.e., that he was not compelled to sin by God acting directly on him. If you disagree that Adam wanted to sin, then who do YOU say forced him to sin?
Reformed theology leads exactly to that end: if God didn't want evil in the world, then evil would not be in the world. The only reason evil exists in the world is because God made it.
Evil is not a "thing" to be made, it is not a creation. It is the absence of God. If God had put His positive protection on all things for all time in the universe, then there would be no such thing as evil. However, God chose differently. If you blame God for that, then you place a duty upon Him.
So, God creates all men with defective will because of Adam?
Defective nature, yes. Paul talks extensively about this.
Or is it that Adam's nature changed after the Fall and fallen humans have fallen offspring by nature?
No, that can't be the case because for example:
Jer 1:5 : "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."
There are several other examples just like this. God creates each one of us.
Thus, like a drug-addicted baby, whose addiction is not his, but his mother's fault, man's addiction to sin is a consequence of Adam's sin and not his sin.
It sounds like you're sort of trying to take both sides of the position. :) Man does not create man, God does. God creates all things. When God creates us now, Adam's sin "goes into" the new creation. God obviously set it up that way, since there was no requirement that Adam's sin be passed down, but by God's ordination.
FK: Under the Apostolic view, God appears to let His children run amok, doing whatever they want at all times.
Nonsense, FK. The Church doesn't teach that, and you know that. :)
I don't know that. :) I have been told a thousand times that God never interferes with the free will of men. When does He do so?
ordain "1: to invest officially (as by the laying on of hands) with ministerial or priestly authority 2 to establish or order by appointment, decree, or law [Marriam-Webster's Dictionary]
Seems to me you are not only changing the common meanings, but inventing them. :) Convenient. Ordination contains is synonymous with command or expresison of authority in every instance.
I have never seen you address any of the arguments in that paper so I just assumed you couldn't refute any of the arguments. I suppose I am forced to continue to do so until I see otherwisep
Well, in all fairness, perhaps I should have and I apologize. If you still have a copy, please resubmit and I will make sure I respond.
My previous experience with Luther leads me to believe that he was not irrefutable.
No, I reject the premise of any comparison between God and man, and man and computer. It doesn't fit at all
And I reject your rejection! How's that for an FK argument? :)
No, not like a computer at all. Man has a will
But, it's God's will one way or another. That's what the Reformed believe. So, what good is it that you have a will if you are predestined to do as God wants you to do?
While God certainly made the serpent, the Bible says no where that God "commanded" him to go into the garden and do what he did
Well, is it the serpent's will or God's will working through the serpent? Or was God caught off guard? /sar/
God leaves him CLOSER to his born nature
which is God's creation! certainly that nature doesn't exist independent of God.
If you disagree that Adam wanted to sin, then who do YOU say forced him to sin?
In the Reformed theology, Orthodox Judaism and Islam, the answer is God. Or else God is not in control. :)
No, that can't be the case because for example: Jer 1:5 : "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."
Then where does the "original sin" come in? Man's nature changed after the Fall in that man became mortal and all his offspring are mortal; that's what is meant by "nature."
Man does not create man, God does. Then our sin-nature is made by God intentionally! Then we are manufactured into sinners by God's own hands. I will use the FK argument here: I reject that.
i>God obviously set it up that way, since there was no requirement that Adam's sin be passed down, but by God's ordination.
Did you get that in the Bible?
I have been told a thousand times that God never interferes with the free will of men. When does He do so?
He doesn't interfere but He intercedes.