[Dionysiusdecordealcis]

Can't you read? I said, the nature of a gift is that it can be refused. The anti-free-will folks deny that we can refuse God's gift. Your response is to a different question: whether a gift having been refused remains a gift. On that point I said that a gift must be accepted in order to complete the gifting process, in order for it to be a gift in the full sense. A refused gift remains a gift in a crippled sense. So you are wrong to say that a refused gift is a full gift regardless whether it is accepted or not.

And in your answer to the wrong question you implicitly concede my point, though you didn't realize it. Your answer presumes that a gift can be refused because we all know that gifts can be refused and that a "giver" who will not permit his gift to be refused is not truly a giver but a raper, an imposer, someone who does not give generously and give without caring whether his gift is refused but a "giver" who rapes the freedom of the recipient of his "gift." A "giver" who will not let his "gift" be refused is no giver at all but a tyrant. Your answer to the wrong question gave away the anti-free-will case and concede our free-will point.

[Forest Keeper]

Can't you read? I said, the nature of a gift is that it can be refused. The anti-free-will folks deny that we can refuse God's gift. Your response is to a different question: whether a gift having been refused remains a gift. On that point I said that a gift must be accepted in order to complete the gifting process, in order for it to be a gift in the full sense. A refused gift remains a gift in a crippled sense. So you are wrong to say that a refused gift is a full gift regardless whether it is accepted or not.

Yes, I can read. And between your insults I read what you used as an example for your point:

Or to put it another way: if I give my sister-in-law a gift of some tickets to the New York Knicks game and she angrily refuses them because I forgot to pass a message on from her to her mother-in-law and her mother-in-law is now not speaking to her, my "gift" to her has become nothing but a pair of tickets. Had she received them, I would have gifted her and she would have been gifted and grateful. True, my intent to gift her, to be kind to her, is still very real and true even if she refuses to receive. But as real as my intent is, she has received no gift--no gift-reality exists, no gift exists. She was offered one, true, but she has not received it and no gift was given.

You clearly condition the existence of a gift to whether it is accepted. I merely pointed out to you that you were wrong about that, the gift exists regardless of whether it is accepted. The nature of the gift is independent of whether it is accepted or "received". You are the one who made up this "gifting process" out of thin air, but that is independent of what a gift is.

And in your answer to the wrong question you implicitly concede my point, though you didn't realize it. Your answer presumes that a gift can be refused because we all know that gifts can be refused and that a "giver" who will not permit his gift to be refused is not truly a giver but a raper, an imposer, someone who does not give generously and give without caring whether his gift is refused but a "giver" who rapes the freedom of the recipient of his "gift."

An interesting reference to God, but it is consistent with your other insults. Of course in the normal course of life we see gifts that are accepted and refused. But some gifts cannot be refused. When I buy socks for my child it is because he needs them. I give them freely and out of love because I know he needs them. I expect nothing in return. The child is uninterested in the socks, but since I have the full authority as the parent, he is not free to refuse them. I know what is best for my child, so he shall have socks.