Posted on 01/20/2002 5:02:48 PM PST by CCWoody
I'm afraid you still don't understand our position. Man has the same true free will as God has. That is the mainstream Calvinistic position. (Do you want to claim for man more free will than God's?)
Doc, the question was related to foreknowledge. In terms of foreknowledge, God was not blinded by some decision on his part to "not look" at individual's decisions.
Rather, God knew God would create humanity with non-repealable true free will. Therefore, when he looked through time, all the results he saw, and he saw all results, were results that had already been based on true free will.
I'm not sure you had followed the entire discussion up to that point.
Paranoid?
Note that my request to Woody to produce something on the glory of God came from a request I made on another thread, in public.
Note that folks knew I was going to be out-of-pocket over the weekend due to the fact that I posted that fact on this thread last Friday morning, and due to the fact that they have known this as a result of our discussions over the past two years.
Me thinks that you complain too much.
Come on Jerry. If you read all the posts related to that comment, you'll see that we were joking around about WWF tag-team calvinists. I even asked that they give me two trades and a draft pick to be named later.
I understand you're a pastor? Is that true?
Yes, I saw the "tag team" comments, but you also appeared to insinuate something more sinister. Possibly it is I who am paranoid, but just because you are paranoid doesn't mean that they aren't out to get you. ;>)
Now, on to something related to the thread, God's foreknowledge.
We (the Calvinist united front) have always stated that God's foreknowledge is not a passive knowing, but rather an active participation. It is a planning facility, which is something that OPie has been trying to get across with his insistence that his rather serious questions on Matthew 11 be addressed. God certainly could have tailored the circumstances of our lives in such a way as to either bring us to Chrit or keep us in darkness. The fact that I was born in North America, and the fact that I would eventually end up in a place where a co-worker would pester me with the truths of the Gospel was foreknown by God. By the same token, the fact that there have been countless others who were born in heathen lands without a Gospel witness is also foreknown by Him. Should He desire it, He could arrange to bring a credible witness to them. The fact that He doesn't (in many instances) is a result of His planning.
God knew exactly what would elicit repentence in Tyre and Sidon, and determined tht He would not allow it to occur. He also knew that far greater miracles in Capernaum would not elicit repentence, except in the hearts of those that He had foreknown to repent. He could have changed the intensity and composition of His witness in either place, yet chose not to do so as a result of His good pleasure.
It is abundantly clear that "pas" does not mean "all without exception". How do we know this? Due to the fact that "pas" is used in a multitude of places in Scripture where interpreting it as "all without exception" would make Scripture nonsensical. (If I had the time, I would find a message that I posted over a year ago that demonstrates this fact, maybe someone else can find it.)
No, I believe that it is you who are allowing the traditions of man to blind you to the truth of Scripture. You really should heed what doc has to say, he is extroadinarilly gifted by the Holy Spirit in the area of discernment.
Salvation is a total personal experience you cannot leave anything out of it--and that includes intellect.
Shadow we are to love God with our minds. But the blind natural eyes do not see it. Only those that have spiritual eyes can see the gospel..the intellectual understand comes later not first.It is a result of the New Birth not it's cause!
1 Corinthians 1:18 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
Remember what Paul said in Romans
8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
The unregenerate mind does not seek God ,it does not want God. It is deaf to the gospel message.consider this
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.
5 For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.
And this
Ephesians 2
2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
Ephesians 4
16 From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.
17 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
> 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:
The mind can not comprehend the things of God Shadow..God has to make what is dead in you alive before you can see it..The blind see and the dead live because of His Grace not their intellect, You must be a new man ..born again spiritually to hear and understand the gospel
Ephesians 4 22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
The mind that sees spiritual things comes from God Shadow,you have it backwards
2 Timothy 1 . 7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
You still have not answered my simple question X If God saves us only because He loves us why does he not save all of mankind..Does He love some of mankind more than others?
These scriptures address the issue of choice..Why is God's Grace sufficent for some and not for others? If God has perfect foreknowlege He could easily see that every man has the necessary grace and circumstances to choose Him
Why would he withhold that grace when it is within His power to give it? Is that not predestination to damnation?
I hope you were not referring to me.
JW
hahahahaha! RESISTANCE IS FUTILE! YOU WILL BE ASSIMILIATED [into Calvinism]!
Indeed everything God created is good..but that begs the question..why did god put the tree into the garden with the command not to eat from it? did not god know that they were going to break his command?
Genesis 6:6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.
Do you really think that the God of the Universe "repents" like a man ? Do you really think the sinless perfect God can make a mistake and has changed His mind? That verse is an "anthropomorphism"
"God is not a man ,that He should lie,Neithor the son of man ,that He should repent"NU 23:19,P>"The strength of Israel will not lie .nor repent;for He is not a man,that He should repent" 2 Sam 15:29
Viva is my friend so I basically want to stay out of this..but I will put this two cents in
Is it possible for God to "want " something He can not do?
If the word "all" is to be taken literally, as the English usage of it ,then we must assume a universal atonement ,like the Unitarian/ Universalists .We would have to believe that non Christians would be saved..athetists...Muslims.....All would mean ALL.
But I think we do agree that to be saved one must come through the cross of Christ..there is no other way. So that Greek "all" can not mean an English "all".
Now we can disagree on how the "all" that it does mean comes,but it definitely does not mean an English "all"!
JW
You are misreading this scripture to mean what you want it to mean instead of Pauls intent..If your reading was correct there would be no need for the "Great Commission" or missionary work at all.We would be best to leave them heathans
Romans
Verse 21. But as it is written,.... In Isaiah 52:15;
to whom he was not spoken of, they shall see, and they that have not heard shall understand; for the Messiah was not spoken of to the Gentiles; they were strangers to the covenants of promise; the oracles of God were committed to the Jews; God gave his word and statutes to them, and not to any other nation: and yet, according to this prophecy, the Gentiles were to see him whom they had no account of; not in the flesh with their bodily eyes, in which sense only, or at least chiefly, the Jews saw him; but with the eyes of their understanding, by faith, as exhibited and evidently set forth before them as crucified, in the Gospel and the ordinances of it: and though they had heard nothing of him, having for many hundreds of years been left in ignorance, and suffered to walk in their own ways, until the apostles were sent among them; whose sound went into all the earth, and their words to the end of the world; yet when this would be the case, according to these words, they would understand the mind and will of God, the mysteries of his grace, the nature of the person and offices of Christ, the design of his coming into the world, and the way of salvation by him; all which was greatly brought about and accomplished, in the ministry of the Apostle Paul among them.
The passage is very pertinently cited and applied by the apostle. The whole paragraph is to be understood of the Messiah, from whence it is taken, as it is owned, and accordingly interpreted by many Jewish writers, both ancient {b} and modern {c}; and these words particularly respect the kings and nations of the world, who are represented as struck with silence and wonder, when, upon the preaching and hearing of the Messiah, they should see him by faith, and spiritually understand what is declared concerning him. The difference between the apostle's version of these words, which is the same with the Septuagint, and the text in Isaiah, is very inconsiderable.
The first clause of the Hebrew text may be literally rendered thus, "for him, who was not spoken of to them, they shall see"; and the apostle's Greek in this manner, to whom "it was not spoken of concerning him, they shall see"; the sense is the same, and person intended Christ: the latter clause, which we from the Hebrew text render, "and that which they had not heard, shall they consider"; and here, "they that have not heard, shall understand," has nothing material in it, in which they differ; for in the former part of it both design the Messiah, and the things concerning him, the Gentiles had not heard of; and the latter is rendered and explained by the Targum, and by R. Sol Jarchi, as by the apostle, wlktoa, "they shall understand"; and which fitly expresses the sense of the Hebrew word used by the prophet.
{b} Targum in Isa. lii. 13. Pesikta in Kettoreth hassammim in Num. fol. 27. 2. Tanchuma apud Huls. Jud. Theolog. p. 321. {c}
Baal Hatturim in Lev. xvi. 14. R. Moses Aishech in lsa. lii. 13. Vid. R. Aben Ezra in ib.
What you are looking at is a past participle ("born") serving as a predicate adjective. A present tense copulative ("is") links the subject with the adjective which modifies it. The net result is a present situation of having been previously born of God.
CCWoody's point, for what it's worth (!), is that even at the exact instant in which a sinner believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, the grammar text is saying that this person was already born of God--necessarily so.
When I get a chance, I'll find the Greek text and see what it says--unless someone beats me to it.
Your worrying about all these bits and pieces of sermons presented in isolation, which sermons were transcribed in frontier conditions and not published by the Church as Scripture, distracts people from what they should be doing -- studying the Word of God and patterning their lives thereby.
You do not make a serious study of the teachings of these men of God to get the overall tone of their teaching, but instead look for stuff you can attack with. This behavior does not prepare you for heaven, Woody, as the other people you attack need to know. You owe me a bigger and bigger apology as time goes on, Woody.
However, I will offer a few comments, which you will use to attack again, if the past is any guide.
From your first quote you could accuse President Young of thinking that our father Adam had become so united with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that he speaks of all four in one breath. I don't know that I would go that far. From what I have read, I am not comfortable that his sermon was transcribed correctly. This seems to be such an anomaly when compared with his other statements.
From your second quote, President Young says that three beings organized the earth, two of whom are God the Father and God the Son. The third was the archangel Michael, a spirit child of God the Father, who was later placed on the earth he helped create, that is, his spirit (pneuma in Greek) became the breath of life to the physical body that God created, in His image, for him. After this he was known as Adam. The same thing happened to each of us in our mother's womb, for we all lived with God as His spirit children before we were born.
So President Young says these three formed a quorum, or organizational unit, for the purpose creating the earth, just like Diety, or the Godhead, which is also organized as a quorum of three: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.
Your third quote is from Heber C. Kimball, who is clearly talking about God the Father, but why he refers to Him as "the first man" in this instance I do not know. We do have this from the Pearl of Great Price (LDS Scripture), emphasis mine:
Moses 6:57
57 Wherefore teach it unto your children, that all men, everywhere, must repent, or they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God, for no unclean thing can dwell there, or dwell in his presence; for, in the language of Adam, Man of Holiness is his name, and the name of his Only Begotten is the Son of Man, even Jesus Christ, a righteous Judge, who shall come in the meridian of time.
Moses 7:35
35 Behold, I am God; Man of Holiness is my name; Man of Counsel is my name; and Endless and Eternal is my name, also.
Your remaining quote:
They will come up tribe by tribe, and the Ancient of Days, He who led Abraham, and talked to Noah, Enoch, Isaac, and Jacob, that very Being will come and judge the twelve tribes of Israel. He will say, "You rebelled, and you have been left to the mercies of the wicked." (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses volume 11 page 327)We will find out at the Day of Judgment how Christ, the Judge of all (see below), will delegate the judgment of the human family. We know that He has delegated the judgment of righteous Israel to His twelve apostles (see below). The quote above seems to refer to the judgment of wicked Israel. It is quite conceivable that Adam, after his death, assisted God and labored under His direction to return as an angel to visit Abraham, Noah, etc. I would wish to visit my righteous prophet-descendants, if I were Adam. As I said, we will find out when the time comes, and until then, it really is not necessary to speculate.
2 Corinthians 5:10
10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.
Book of Mormon, Alma 11:44
44 Now, this restoration shall come to all, both old and young, both bond and free, both male and female, both the wicked and the righteous; and even there shall not so much as a hair of their heads be lost; but every thing shall be restored to its perfect frame, as it is now, or in the body, and shall be brought and be arraigned before the bar of Christ the Son, and God the Father, and the Holy Spirit, which is one Eternal God, to be judged according to their works, whether they be good or whether they be evil.
Matthew 19:28
28 And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
D&C 29:12
12 And again, verily, verily, I say unto you, and it hath gone forth in a firm decree, by the will of the Father, that mine apostles, the Twelve which were with me in my ministry at Jerusalem, shall stand at my right hand at the day of my coming in a pillar of fire, being clothed with robes of righteousness, with crowns upon their heads, in glory even as I am, to judge the whole house of Israel, even as many as have loved me and kept my commandments, and none else.
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