Posted on 01/20/2002 5:02:48 PM PST by CCWoody
Here is the entire post
to the_doc-Balony-we are dealing with words here and their usage! Are we now in Alice and Wonderland where anything is what I say it is because I say it? Since when is love a necessary part of sex? To stretch it to mean what you to mean even though no one uses it that way is really grasping at straws!
To 'foreknow' means exactly what the english says it means -to KNOW (HAVE UNDERSTANDING OF, AWARENESS OF) SOMETHING BEFORE SOMETHING ELSE!
You know the only way your usage would work would be to say God knew the most private thoughts that we would have, one being, who would respond to the Gospel and who would not.
To bring love into this issue, when you have a man going into his daughter-in-law and sodomite rape show how desperate you guys are to defend a system that is not Biblical.
Even so, come Lord Jesus! 259 Posted on 08/22/2001 11:20:59 PDT by fortheDeclaration [ Reply | Private Reply | To 210 | Top | Last ]
What I was saying was that even the word meant that (to know intimatey) it would not change the meaning since God would know if the person would respond to the Gospel or not.
I explained this to Woody when he posted that snippet the first time. He knew I had defended Omniscience with Ps.39
To CCWoody- Hey Woody! What I was saying is that if you are going to use 'foreknow' in an 'intimate' conotation you would have to limit it to God knowing our most private thoughts!
Since you are attempting to make 'foreknowledge' mean 'forelove' and ignore the Biblical usage of the word 'to know' as a sexual one, I was stating that the only way it could be would be used as a 'love' synonym would to pretain to knowledge of the loved one.
I am quite aware that God knows ALL our thoughts AND motivations (Psa.139)
190 Posted on 08/23/2001 12:18:38 PDT by fortheDeclaration
I assert that Man's Will is not subjected to Force which compels him to do evil; rather, he Wants to do evil, and so he freely wills to do evil.
But, if you want to say that Romans 7:24 teaches that Man's Will is compelled to evil by the flesh, I'll grant the point for the sake of discussion -- as it forces you to an even harsher view of Man's Depravity against God, that of Martin Luther's "Bondage of the Will" rather than John Calvin's position of freedom within the context of depravity. So, if you want to say that Romans 7:24 teaches that Man's Will is compelled to evil by the flesh, I am willing to grant the point for argument's sake.
Thank you, but I will make my own statements. Here is the Biblical way to look at it. God foreknew that those cities would reject of their own free will God's free offer of grace (as seen in Sodom). That becomes part of God's Plan, He let them go their own way, honoring their choice.
And God foreknew that they would of their own free will Repent and accept God if He performed the salvific miracles before them. Remember that before Time, no "choice" of their had yet been made, so their was no "choice" of theirs to honor -- simply the foreknowledge of the different choices which they would make given different elections of grace, either of which Election of Grace the omnipotent God could freely choose to include in His plan, with the knowledge that His own election of Grace would create the conditions under which they would choose one thing, or the other. So whichever foreknown creative scenario God saw fit to create, He would be honoring their choice, because whichever choice they would make (repent or not repent) would necessarily be the dependent result of His prior election as to grace. After all, if God had seen fit to perform miracles, and they had (as He foreknew they would) Repented, He would have honored that Choice too, would He not? And neither choice was predestined to happen until He decided which foreknown creative scenario He was going to create.
The rebuke to the Jews is for their decision in freely rejecting God's greater grace (miracles). The Jews actions were also foreseen and therefore part of God's Plan, yet not part of God's directive will, but permissive will. How does that sound?
It sounds as if you have inappropriately placed a Choice of Man before God's choice to create. Obviously, you cannot do that. Before God decided which foreknown scenario He was going to create, there was no "choice" to "respect" -- neither choice had happened, and neither choice was predestined to happen, until after God decided what His own actions would be. When He decided he would perform no salvific miracles in Tyre and Sidon, THEN their foreknown choice to Not Repent became the predestined choice, and God respected that choice. But, if He HAD decided to perform the salvific miracles, THEN their foreknown choice to Repent would be the predestined choice, and God would have respected that choice.
But neither choice existed in fact until after He had determined whether or not He would perform miracles, so there was no choice to "respect" until after God had decided which foreknown scenario He would create.
You haven't evaded Absolute Predestination in the passage at all, merely tried to place the contingent and dependent choice of a Creature before the antecedent and precedent Creative choice of the Creator. But that is not possible for a Creationist.
Your argument is akin to saying God knew Man was predestined to choose to Fall before He created the universe, and God "respected" that "choice". But there was no "choice" of Man to respect at that point in time, only the foreknown potentiality that Man would Fall -- IF God decided to create the universe and IF God decided to create Man and IF God decided to place the Tree in the Garden. God was not forced to do any of these things; He could have not created the universe, or not created man, or not created the Tree in the Garden.
Thus, It was God's sovereign choice to create the conditions in which Man would Fall; He was under no obligation to create Man at all, and He could have freely chosen to create different conditions (i.e., no Tree in the Garden, etc) under which Man would not Fall. Likewise, it was God's sovereign choice to create the conditions in which Tyre and Sidon would Not Repent; He was under no obligation to create the Tyrians and Sidonians at all, and He could have freely chosen to create different conditions (i.e., ordained salvific miracles, etc) under which the Tyrians and Sidonians would Repent. To deny this, is to pretend that the choices of Men precede the Creation choices of God -- which is the worst kind of idolatry.
And thus, His free choices absolutely predestined their choices in all cases.
Run as fast as you like, yet the words of Christ bind you to acknowledge Absolute Predestination; though you rage against them still, you cannot escape them, hard as you try.
Gee, I am just not sure either. That is why I am ASKING you. You know a great deal about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, no? And about that subject, I simply require a "yes" or "no" answer, for my own information:
Well? Yes, or No?
"If a Saved Man commits murder and adultery, and is not Repentant, does he remain Saved?" ~~ I dont know the importance of the crimes listed...sin is sin... I dont know where the threshold would be in that case though....he obviously would have opportunity to repent. I would suppose if he didnt repent then that disobedience would open the door for Satan to begin to darken his understanding until line upon line he could fully return to unbelief. I just dont know at what point the Lord deliniates between the person remaining in faith and then crossing back into unbelief.
If a Saved Christian man committed adultery and murder and six months passed and he did not repent one bit, would he still be Saved if he died that night? Why or why not?
I have given up on your second question.
WHAT?!?! You are not even able to read eight verses of Matthew?
Good grief. You should sit at A.J.Armitage's feet and plead with him, "teach me, rabbi, for I am not even able to read eight verses in a row. I need your understanding, I am a child in the Faith, and you are learned and wise, and able to read and understand eight or more verses in a row!!"
Why don't you try again.
First, try reading the Scripture...
Now, we'll break it into three questions, concerning the specific evidence of this passage:
John 12:40 He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.
Ephesians 4:18 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:
2 Corinthians 4
3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
4 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. Ephesians 1
8 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
19 And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,
1Peter 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light;
Ezekiel 11
19 And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:
2 Corinthians 3:3 Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.
D, you know all this..The blind see and the lame walk..not on their own effort..
Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. - Revelation 4:11 KJVThe writer is declaring Christ worthy of glory and honor and power through the Father. All creation was created by and through Him but the power of the Father worked all these things for the pleasure of the Son. At least, this is my reading. The writer declares and affirms the legitimacy of Christ as King and Messiah and affirms his role in creation and that the purpose of creation is to glorify Him, the Son of Man. Some might argue that this verse applies to the Father, not the Son. I think that it refers to Christ because it is difficult to make sense of Revelations 5:8 otherwise.
Romans 9I don't see where God is indicating that He has any regard for your pro-choice philosophy of salvation in this passage.
- 15
- For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
- 16
- So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
- 17
- For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
- 18
- Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
- 19
- Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
- 20
- Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
- 21
- Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
- 22
- What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
- 23
- And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
- 24
- Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
If God knows and decides not to act is that not predestination??
Then quote yourself. Hey, just cite the number of the post. Confirm your contention that you "dealt with that". I'd be very interested in seeing what you think can "deal with" the passage I quoted, because frankly, I don't think you even tried to, and if I'm mistaken about you lying to us all, I still highly doubt that you actually did deal with it. How much clearer can "He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world" get? If I said that, you'd say I lacked spritual knowledge. But I didn't say it, the Bible did. There's no way around it that fits the clear meaning of the text; if you want to be an honest man, you have to take account of it in your thinking.
Now I am on to destroying the myth of "once saved always saved".
I've seen you boast like this on other threads. IIRC, you said something about no one there being able to compare to your "logos and rhema". Pride is really not good for you.
I should really turn down that kind of honor. All I'm done here, in any substantive sense, is quote or point to Scripture, and that only the most obvious. Still, it says what it says.
Actually, I've been, for the most part, talking about a single passage. But that one passage settles the whole issue, so I won't let it drop.
That is your opinion.
There you go again, OPie, copying and pasting the same stuff. Your #1008 is a repost of your #936. Have you not understood my replies thus far? You need to read Matthew 11:23, and my #962, more carefully.
In general terms, Calvinism has been utterly refuted over and over by many talented and eloquent posters along the following lines, yet still you soldier on.
It is not necessary for God to predetermine everything, both good and evil, in order to be Sovereign, for that would make God the author of evil.
(In fact, when you think about it, the evil that men do does not seem to threaten God's sovereignty or omnipotence in the Calvinist mind, as it makes damnation just. They consider fallen man fully free to do whatever evil he wills. It would appear that only the potential that a man might be able to choose good, in a way that does him and others good, so threatens God's sovereignty or glory in Calvinist eyes that God must predetermine everything, denying free will. How ridiculous.)
I wrote yesterday, "The Bible does not tell us the final outcome of anyone". You pointed out that Jude tells us the inhabitants of Sodom are in hell now.
You also reminded us that in LDS theology, hell does eventually deliver up its dead (Revelation 20:13, after the Millennium), who have by that time paid the uttermost farthing for their own sins. This is called the Second Resurrection. "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive" (1 Corinthians 15:22), Christ having atoned for Adam's transgression, which brought death into the world, man is held accountable only for his own sins.
1 Corinthians 15:40-42
40 There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.
41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.
42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. ...
Paul compares the glory of the celestial kingdom, where God and Christ dwell with those who are valiant in the cause of Christ, with the brightness of the sun. He compares the glory of the terrestrial kingdom, where the just dwell, with the brightness of the moon. Paul does not mention the name of the third kingdom, where the unjust dwell after they have suffered for their sins, whose glory is compared to the brightness of the stars, but we know it as the Telestial Kingdom (D&C 76:81-85). Though they are not left in hell forever, where God and Christ dwell they cannot come.
You were saying yesterday that this is an "escape clause" that alone refutes your Absolute Reprobation case for Christians who are LDS, but, you claim, not for other Christians.
So let's do this. We will consider the "final outcome", for our purposes, to be whether people who have died are with the righteous in peace now, or with the wicked in hell now. That modifies my statement as follows:
The Bible does not tell us the current state of anyone who has died other than Jesus Christ, God the Son, who stands at the right hand of God the Father, Abraham, in whose bosom the righteous dwell, and the inhabitants of Sodom, who are in hell.
Let me know if there are others you want to add.
The point still is that neither we, nor Augustine, nor Calvin, know the current fate of the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon, because the Bible does not tell us.
There were people who came to Jesus from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, and saw His miracles, before His rebuke of Chorazin in Matthew 11 and Luke 10.
Luke 6:17
And he came down with them, and stood in the plain, and the company of his disciples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judaea and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases;
Later He goes to that region, perhaps to escape the press of the multitudes in Israel, and a Syrophenician woman asks for her daughter's healing.
Mark 7:24 (compare Matthew 15:21)
And from thence he arose, and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and entered into an house, and would have no man know it: but he could not be hid.
There is more in the excellent post #1016 by xzins.
Now regarding Sodom, a careful reading of Matthew 11:23 shows that Christ did not say they would have repented, like Tyre and Sidon. He says the city would have remained until that day. I think the difference means something. In the days of Abraham and Lot, it would have been spared had ten righteous been found in it. There were not that many, and the righteous were apparently all removed before the fire and brimstone fell. Ten would have kept that city around despite all the wicked in it, so it is not fair to say that the city would have repented.
At any rate, we know from Genesis that they were all wicked and unrepentant when they perished in Sodom, and we know from Jude that they are in hell now.
We do not know these things about Tyre and Sidon, in fact there is evidence of considerable receptiveness from the current inhabitants of that region in contrast to the hardness of heart of the Jews in Bethsaida.
Your statement is fallacious in your 979: "God alone decided before all Time whether or not they would choose to Repent, by choosing whether or not they would be shown the miracles which He knew would bring about their Repentance.", because:
So you are not justified in your conclusion that God withheld from them the grace to repent and thrust them into hell, or even that the miracles were withheld from them.
QED
Surely plenty of those people are in hell now because they are unrepentant sinners, but even for those, you haven't shown that God withheld from them the grace to repent.
Another thought on Matthew 11:
As doc would put it, Jesus deals a crushing, fatal blow to Calvinism in verse 20:
20 Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not:
If Calvin were correct, He would have regenerated them (or not, as He chose) before expecting them to repent, and then caused their repentance. No point in upbraiding them for the hardness of their unrepentent hearts.
A preacher cannot regenerate, and so must preach repentance to both unregenerate and regenerate, but the Lord of all would not do so if Calvin were correct.
There are things like this all through the Bible that disprove Calvinism.
You know the answer to that. God is in control.
You asked if God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are of one mind.
I answer, Yes of course, the Bible says so. They are One God.
I will respond more fully as soon as I can. I spent a long time on that reply to OPie.
And so your silly mormon games begin. BTW, I guess I will probably prepare something about the mormon teaching that Adam is God. Which one of your prophets is attributed with saying that?
So all your gods generally agree then? My husband and I are usually of one mind but of course we are not gods:>)
Well, as I said to GWB, no one can force you to accept a compliment. ;-)
But my main point was not so much to butter you up, as to emphasize (by hyperbole) to "VaBThang" how inappropriate it was for him to trash-talk your reading of Scripture when he, apparently, cannot digest 8 verses at once. I was upbraiding him for his arrogance.
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