Posted on 01/20/2002 5:02:48 PM PST by CCWoody
Since Jesus understands REAL FREE WILL, and since "all things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made," and since He is the 2nd Person of the Trinity, and He is all-Powerful, therefore, be it affirmed that God is POWERFUL ENOUGH to make it so that mankind has real free will, to include the capability to "want" both sides of any issue.
Yup. You say that God is POWERFUL ENOUGH to make it so that mankind has real free will, to include the capability to "want" both sides of an issue.
Do you believe that God is LOVING ENOUGH to make it so that mankind has real free will, to include the capability to "want" both sides of an issue?
(1) God is LOVING ENOUGH.
(2) God is NOT loving enough.
We have already established that God is POWERFUL ENOUGH to do so.
Ok! Let's take your premise to its logical conclusion. God must have real free will. Therefore, God must be CAPABLE of wanting anything; even to sin.
According to your definition of "real" free will God must be CAPABLE of sin! That's pretty sick you know.
Either God is in control or God is not in control; which is it?
No, according to my definition God must be confronted with a real choice. That, my friend, is the point of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness by Satan. It is not a temptation unless both the good choice and the bad choice are POSSIBLE.
Hebrews 4:15 Hebrews 4 Hebrews 4:14-16 For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.
As I have said: I am entirely willing, for the sake of discussion, to throw out the Calvinist doctrine of Total Depravity and suppose that Man, even in his natural, Fallen state, nonetheless possesses wholly uninhibited free will and utterly unencumbered natural moral competence to Repent and "choose life".
Because even making these allowances doesn't help your position one bit.
I am not herein particularly concerned with proving Calvinism per se, but simply the precedent doctrinal matter of Absolute Sovereign Predestination -- that God, of His own Sovereign Will, absolutely pre-determines the individual choices of Men, to Repent or not to Repent.
Let's take it from the top. Assume that Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom possess all the free will and natural moral competence you want, and God has still absolutely pre-determined what their choices are going to be, by His control of the factors (such as displays of miracles) which inform their Free Will.
Here it is again:
True, or False?
You know that what Jesus is teaching here: that God has specifically pre-determined the individual choices of Men.
These are the specific words of Jesus.
And I accuse you of understanding His words, and hating them.
Prove me wrong. Answer the question.
Of course not! Creation is "control". Did God have foreknowledge at the time of creation or not? Check your Bible!
Do you believe that God is FAIR/JUST?
Now you're just being silly.
It has already been seen that your "counter-arguments" were crushed within minutes after leaving your keyboard. We have already established that only the adoption of the Mormon heresies of "second-chance afterlife" and "escape-hatch Hell" permit the possibility of evading Absolute Predestination in Matthew 11. To wit:
In all your points, only one would be fatal to my case -- the adoption of Mormon heresies upon the matter of Hell. Proof as follows:
1.) God grants us all the grace to repent.
Argument Denied, on grounds that God knows how much Grace will actually result in a Man choosing Repentance, and He dispenses Grace variably, as He sees fit. With some, He rips open the heavens and manifests Himself to them in visible power and glory on the road to Damascus; with others He does not. God foreknew how much Grace would be required to predestine Sodom to a choice of Repentance (performance of miracles equivalent to Capernaum), and He chose not to, thereby predestining Sodom to Damnation instead. Your Argument fails.
2.) God is just. He takes into account the light each person has been given. In Luke 12:48 He says, "But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more."
Argument Denied, on grounds that even if true, it is irrelevant. If Tyre and Sidon are burning even now in Hell, it remains true that harsher judgment is reserved to Chorazin and Bethsaida. Perhaps the fires of hell burn hotter for them; but if God predestined Tyre and Sidon to Non-Repentance by His own Election, you still have a doctrine of Absolute Reprobation and are merely arguing the details of the ultimate Judgment. Your Argument fails.
3.) God has foreknowledge of all things, but He does not share that foreknowledge with us, especially with Calvinists who think they know what He knows.
Argument Denied: incorrect premise. He certainly revealed one aspect of His foreknowledge in Matthew 11; He tells us quite directly that He foreknew the performance of Capernaum-equivalent miracles in Sodom would have predestined them to freely choosing Repentance. He chose not to, choosing to leave them instead in Non-Repentance unto Damnation. Your Argument fails.
4.) The Bible does not tell us the final outcome of anyone. Augustine and Calvin may think they know those inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon are in hell now, but they don't. Neither do you. God in His mercy may have sent opportunities their way. Plus, He judges them individually. ~~ 5.) The people of Chorazin and Bethsaida (and only those who rejected His ministry of their own free will) will be worse off in the Day of Judgment than the people of Tyre and Sidon. How can that be if the result is eternity in hell for both? Are we to invent "hotter parts of hell" for this purpose? As I said, you do not know their outcome.
As I said, this point alone would be fatal to my position -- if its suppositions were true. We know that Capernaum will be judged more harshly than Sodom, for this the Lord tells us; but unless we subscribe to the Mormon dogma that Sodom may have been offered a "second chance" after Death or even in Hell, it is otherwise not logically possible to escape Absolute Reprobation in Matthew 11.
Mormons can evade Absolute Predestination in Matthew 11. Christians cannot.
Your right. How could I have been so wrong! </SARCASM>
What you really want to say is that God must ask permission from his "dirt" before He can do anything.
For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth."Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.
You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?" But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, "Why have you made me like this?" Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
False.
The logical "because" that is left out is that you are saying God chose not to perform these miracles because it is God's nature to not intervene in a loving manner, that God makes petulant or capricious decisions. Therefore, it is false because the nature of God is humble, loving, righteous, and fair. You have proposed an erroneous (albeit unspoken) reason to explain the hypothetical condition that Jesus proposed.
Au contraire. I am not asking you to examine any matter of "because" whatsoever. Imagine any explanatory motivation for God that you like; I am simply asking that you do affirm the Biblically recorded facts of the case -- that God, of His own Sovereign Will, absolutely pre-determines the individual choices of Men, to Repent or not to Repent.
Let's take it from the top. Assume that Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom possess all the free will and natural moral competence you want, and God has still absolutely pre-determined what their choices are going to be, by His control of the factors (such as displays of miracles) which inform their Free Will.
Here it is again:
True, or False?
You know that what Jesus is teaching here: that God has specifically pre-determined the individual choices of Men.
These are the words of Jesus.
And I accuse you of understanding His words, and hating them.
Prove me wrong. Simply answer the question as to the actual recorded facts of the case:
True, or False?
I probably consistently post more scripture than anybody else who posts on this thread. If you will notice, the ones who are offended are not the unbelievers (see OP's posting to Doctor Doom) but the ones who profess to be saved. But, then you are correct in that there are some who claim to be saved, but clearly aren't and howl against everything we post!
The benefit is that I am trying to learn a thing or two from those more mature than me in the faith. I just have to wade through a host of garbage to learn it.
Yup.
I'm happy to affirm that Man was created with "the capability to 'want' both sides of an issue" as you put it, to want to obey God, or to disobey God, and could have chosen either.
And, thereafter, Man Fell.
And I further affirm, that as a result of this Fall, that all of the spiritually-vital, God-pleasing Wants of Man's original Nature are lying dead in a pool of their own blood at the base of the Tree of Knowledge, murdered by Man's own hand. That ever since the Fall, his Will is free, but the Wants which inform his Will have been wholly remanded over to depravity and hatred of God.
Taken together, then, Man has free will, and Man hates God; and so he hates God freely and willfully.
But all that is immaterial to the case at hand. To wit:
As I have said: I am entirely willing, for the sake of discussion, to throw out the Calvinist doctrine of Total Depravity and suppose that Man, even in his natural, Fallen state, nonetheless possesses wholly uninhibited free will and utterly unencumbered natural moral competence to Repent and "choose life".
Because even making these allowances doesn't help your position one bit.
I am not herein particularly concerned with proving Calvinism per se, but simply the precedent doctrinal matter of Absolute Sovereign Predestination -- that God, of His own Sovereign Will, absolutely pre-determines the individual choices of Men, to Repent or not to Repent.
Let's take it from the top. Assume that Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom possess all the free will and natural moral competence you want, and God has still absolutely pre-determined what their choices are going to be, by His control of the factors (such as displays of miracles) which inform their Free Will.
Here it is again:
True, or False?
You know that what Jesus is teaching here: that God has specifically pre-determined the individual choices of Men.
These are the actual words of Jesus.
And I accuse you of understanding His words, and hating them.
Prove me wrong. Answer the question as to the recorded facts of the case.
No, according to your definition God must be CAPABLE of the real choice to sin. This is what you said; CAPABLE! And this is dreadfully wrong as it denies the very nature of Christ!
I still don't get your point. What is strange?
Peace,
JW
So, I am permitted to assume that God is all powerful, perfectly loving, and perfectly righteous. That means that I can search for an explantion of his actions that are consistent with His nature: All powerful, all loving, and all righteous.
DID GOD CHOOSE NOT TO PERFORM MIRACLES IN TYRE AND SIDON?
False. God did perform miracles in Tyre and Sidon.
Mt 15. 21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession."
Mark 7 30 She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone. 31 Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. 32 There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man.
DID GOD CHOOSE NOT TO PERFORM SUFFICIENT MIRACLES OF THE TYPE PERFORMED IN CHORAZIN AND BETHSAIDA SO AS TO PROVOKE A GENERAL REPENTANCE?
FALSE. There is no evidence in Jesus' words to indicate that the lack of sufficient miracles was a result of God's intentional choosing.
WERE MIRACLES OF THE TYPE PERFORMED IN C/D NOT PERFORMED IN T/S SO AS TO PROVOKE A GENERAL REPENTANCE?
TRUE. This number and/or type of miracles were not performed. However, there is no indication in this verse that this reflected the desire of God, simply the choice of God. (e.g., "God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." Another example of God's desire compared with God's choice.)
God's desire about Tyre and Sidon is shown in Jesus' above compassion when in Tyre as well as in:
Acts 21 2 We found a ship crossing over to Phoenicia, went on board and set sail. 3 After sighting Cyprus and passing to the south of it, we sailed on to Syria. We landed at Tyre, where our ship was to unload its cargo. 4 Finding the disciples there, we stayed with them seven days. Through the Spirit they urged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem.
That they should seek the Lord, if haply the might feel after him and find him, though he be not far from every one of us.(Acts.17:27)
Why not include the verse prior? It upholds the Sovereign Predestination view...
Acts
26: And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
27: That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
Like I said before: You sir, are quite adept at taking things out of context.
Not the Big Sky country, huh?
I have answered your true/false question and just now posted it. Throughout it I use God's words and demonstrate a high regard for God and his words.
I understand the use of hyperbole and assume your being dramatic in the above accusation. I will point out, however, that it makes you seem a little weird. Is that the impression you're hoping to give?
Kinda like you get it confused with "happiness"?
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