Replies

Your #1008: Now you're just being silly. It has already been seen that your "counter-arguments" were crushed within minutes after leaving your keyboard.

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.

God is Love, desiring the best for all, not creating people to damn them unless chosen for salvation.
God is fair and just, granting all the grace to repent and improve, not withholding the means to repent so they will be damned to hell forever.
God is all-powerful, accomplishing all His purposes, and granting true free will, properly defined, to all in the sphere in which He has placed us, so we can learn and grow, develop and improve.
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.)

Now to continue with the details:

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:

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:

You are confusing miracles with grace to repent,
You implicitly assume that God predetermines and controls whether people will repent or not, and causes them to repent (assume Calvinism, and lo and behold, Calvinism is proved),
You erroneously assume that miracles are the only way and only opportunity for God to obtain repentance from them, and
You do not know what you claim to know about their condition when they died and their condition now, as we do with Sodom.
You are relying too much on the miracles. Faith comes not by signs, but signs follow those that believe. According to your own Calvinism, regeneration must come before the reprobate pays any useful attention to such things.

Your logic, as I said, is dreadful.

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.

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.

It would be silly for me to trouble myself again with your #962; its arguments were already smashed in my #979. I see no need to revisit your failure in this regard.

In general terms, Calvinism has been utterly refuted over and over by many talented and eloquent posters... etc.

(Yawn) You state once again your personal opinion, as is your constitutional right.

That said, Mormons, of course, being unregenerate, possess zero spiritual discernment. Your silly protestations that Calvinism has been "disproved" have as much validity as if you were to tell me that the Divinity of Jesus had been "disproved". It would be absurd for a Christian to assign spiritual credit to the opinion of a Mormon in either case. We don't ask corpses to judge bake-offs.

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.

Sure it does. Jesus said that had equivalent miracles been presented to Tyre, they would have repented "long ago". Ergo, any Tyrians and Sidonians who would have Repented had they seen these miracles, and died impenitent during that long span of time, are in Hell (for they died impenitent).

Of course, the Mormon can deny this, believing as he does in a "second-chance afterlife". But the Christian cannot, and affirms that all who died impenitent during those long ages in which Tyre dwelt in spiritual darkness without the demonstration of those miracles which would have provoked a general repentance, is in Hell everlasting.

Even should I grant the point, we know that at least ten would have repented given the performance of miracles, for God would have spared the city for ten righteous -- and Christ said it would have "remained to this day" had God seen fit to perform salvific miracles in Sodom. Ergo, we know that the city would have Repented at least to the degree required for its preservation. But God, having this option available to His omnipotence, chose to damn Sodom instead.

And while Mormons believe in an "escape-hatch hell", Christians do not.

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: You are confusing miracles with grace to repent, You implicitly assume that God predetermines and controls whether people will repent or not, and causes them to repent (assume Calvinism, and lo and behold, Calvinism is proved), You erroneously assume that miracles are the only way and only opportunity for God to obtain repentance from them, and You do not know what you claim to know about their condition when they died and their condition now, as we do with Sodom. You are relying too much on the miracles. Faith comes not by signs, but signs follow those that believe. According to your own Calvinism, regeneration must come before the reprobate pays any useful attention to such things. Your logic, as I said, is dreadful.

"My logic is dreadful"?!

Mormon, if a gourmet chef samples a 6-course meal prepared by a McDonald's fry-cook, and tells the McDonald's fry cook that the meal is poorly prepared... it probably is. The chef is a professional, and knows what he is doing in the kitchen, and how to do it. The fry-cook might be making a sincere affort, but he is severely out of his depth.

On the other hand, Mormon, if a McDonald's fry-cook tells a gourmet chef that the meal is poorly prepared... the fry-cook is behaving like a petulant child. For all he knows, the meal is ethnic Nepalese gourmet, and is prepared perfectly, and the fry-cook just has no taste for Nepalese fare. He doesn't even know what he is talking about; he doesn't comprehend the practice of cooking well enough to critique the chef.

You, White Mountain, our resident McDonald's fry-cook of logical argumentation, are behaving as that petulant child.

Logic, in actual practice, is like gourmet cooking. It is a learned skill. And I have warned you before not to put on airs with me and affect the pretense that you are actually schooled and knowledgeable in the proper practice of the discipline

You ain't. And you are out of your depth. As someone who has been on the inside of the American Debate Association national tournament as a member of the single most successful university debate program in the history of American professional debate, I am qualified to make this judgment, because I know what I am talking about.

You, on the other hand, are merely playing a bluff -- and fooling no-one. Sure, you can say, "your logic is dreadful", because your fingers can type the words. But you really have no more concept of how to judge good logic from bad, than the McDonald's fry-cook knows how to judge Nepalese cooking.

I warned you that you would be made to look silly.

Let's take just one portion of your points above:

You are confusing miracles with grace to repent,

Logical Analysis: I have never encountered such a shocking bad example of definitional incompetence in the world of professional debate. You should be embarrassed that you even made this point; and what is self-evidently worse, is that you do not even comprehend how bad an argument it is -- and how deeply it discredits you. To wit:

grace (gr

s)
n.

A favor rendered by one who need not do so; indulgence.

To exclude "miracles" from the definition of "grace" is as glaring a definitional error as you could possibly make. Miracles are a favor which ONLY God can bestow, which He owed no-one, which are totally unmerited by the recipient, which are clearly an indulgence from the natural order... there are few things more Gracious and Graceful than God's decision to demonstrate a miracle. Of course miracles are a form of Grace; and when effected for the purpose of provoking repentance, they are "graces to repentance" (for they are a Grace which is being effected for the purpose of provoking repentance).

You invented a pedantic definitional distinction between Miracles and Grace for the purpose of pretending that you had "identified" an "error" in my argument, to lend credence to your pretense of knowing how to practice applied argumentative logic. But -- not having a clue how the discipline of logic is actually practiced -- you blundered into one of the most shocking displays of definitional argumentative incompetence of which I have had to cringe at reading in years. "Confusing miracles with grace"? Miracles are a Grace, White Mountain, by any possible meaning of the term (Naturally, this error on your part invalidates most of the rest of your post. can you figure out why, or do I have to walk you by the hand and show you?) I am not confusing miracles with grace; you are confusing yourself with an actual practitioner of logic.

Your posts are riddled with these kinds of stunning amateurish errors. I have been kind to you so far in not thrashing you mercilessly for each and every one.

So don't put on airs with me. You just look silly.