Posted on 07/02/2010 6:56:08 PM PDT by Desdemona
I'm sorry, I just can't resist it:
Either one is as much religion as science.
Yas, I now.
Well if we are going to “share” I got an oldie but goodie.
God uses people most effectively..
>
> GOD Is Busy
>
> If you don’t know GOD, don’t make stupid remarks!!!!!!
> A United States Marine was attending some college
> courses between assignments. He had completed missions
> in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the courses had a professor
> who was an avowed atheist, and a member of the ACLU.
>
> One day the professor shocked the class when he came in.
> He looked to the ceiling and flatly stated, GOD if you are real
> then I want you to knock me off this platform. I’ll give you exactly
> 15 min.’ The lecture room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop.
> Ten minutes went by and the professor proclaimed, ‘Here I am
> GOD, I’m still waiting.’
>
> It got down to the last couple of minutes when the Marine got
> out of his chair, went up to the professor, and cold-cocked him;
> knocking him off the platform. The professor was out cold.
> The Marine went back to his seat and sat there, silently.
>
> The other students were shocked and stunned, and sat there
> looking on in silence. The professor eventually came to,
> noticeably shaken, looked at the Marine and asked, ‘What
> in the world is the matter with you? ‘Why did you do that?’
> The Marine calmly replied, ‘GOD was too busy today protecting
> America’s soldiers who are protecting your right to say stupid
> stuff and act like an idiot. So He sent me.’
>
> The classroom erupted in cheers!
>
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So Satan was not entering a clean vessel here. A “fall guy”??? He realized his actions were wrong, meaning he knew the difference between right and wrong. He knew what he was doing. Unable to repent? Matthew 27:3 saya he did repent. Possessed? or Influenced or guided?
“Read Luke 22:2-4. Judas betrays Jesus while possessed by Satan, in order for God's plan to stay on course, and on time.”
Whatever Judas or Satan did His plan would do as He wished.
Seeing that you anticipate Christian unity to come from adherence to the Bible, let us start with Eph 2:8-10:
Grace does not come of works, is a gift entirely from God, and man should nboast that he receives it. That is what “Not of works” says in a very clear text. That “good works” are necessary for salvation is also clear from the next verse.
Read the Bible attentively and you will reach unity with the One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church as, God’s prayer is, everyone who longs for salvation shall.
Why didn't you ask if you fail to grasp the connection?
Free will is what man does, whose existence is temporal. He does not foreknow his actions absolutely; he has to decide based on what he knows from the past.
Predestination is what God does, Whose existence is eternal and outsside of time. He foreknows absolutely what man will eventually end up doing. He can predestine man to his eventual end by giving him trials and opportunities, which temporal man then is free to handle.
Therefore, what man does in the temporal plane and what God does in the eternal plane coexist without a logical difficulty.
The difficulty would be insurmountalbe if either of the two conditions I enumerated were not true. If God existed only temporally, He could predestine anoyone. If man consciously existed outside of time, he would not pursue choices that, he would foreknow, are not predestined, just like we today do not attempt to walk through walls.
Thanks for the ping.
DECREED
I don't pretend to understand the mysteries concerning FREEWILL vs PREDESTINED. I don't think anyone mortal does. I just know BOTH are in Scripture. And, that there's some seeming tension kept in Scripture between them. And that we are foolish to trash either one.
Just don’t decide to
REWIRE it.
There might not be enough colors for the different wires to go around this time.
I still think Dr Walter Martin’s explanation is best.
IMAGINE . . .
A computer as vast as the known multiverse . . .
every choice of every organism was already programmed in.
At THE LEVEL OF each organism, there was a realistic perception of SIGNIFICANTLY FREE CHOICE.
NOT 100% determinism. NOT 100% FREE choice. There’s genetics, conditioning, learning, opportunity, perversity, selfishness, habit, social pressures . . . Yet, a significant degree of free will. Some days we choose vanilla. Some chocolate. Some mixed.
HOWEVER, GOD THE PROGRAMMER also has infinite and ultimate AND CERTAINLY COMPLETE FREE WILL.
HE can adjust the program, even the wiring, to achieve HIS WILL at any point with any component, organism, context, conditions, opportunities, experience.
AT THE LEVEL of human choice, we have some. And responsibility accordingly. And the chance to CHOOSE LOVE, accordingly.
Else the instructions in the NT to choose Life, CHOOSE Love are deceptive lies, blather.
LOLOL!
The next time the National Academy of Science holds a Colloquium on Physical Cosmology, I'll be sure to count the theologians participating.
That is some of the most targeted, succinct sarcasm I've read in a long time.
It should come with a warning. What mariners used to call "a shot across the bow."
Again I'd like to underscore the observer problem associated with man trying to understand time.
We mortals persistently sense time as a line, an arrow of time, as events move from past>present>future. In reality, we never sense anything in the present due to the time lag between sensation and cognition.
God has no such limitation.
And geometric physics strongly suggests there may be more than one dimension of time. What we think is a line may be a plane or volume, what we call past, present and future existing concurrently as a moment.
But even that observation refers to the space/time continuum, part of the Creation. And God the Creator is not limited by His own creation.
Even the word "eternal" is inadequate when we meditate on God because eternal only means time without limitation. It binds us to an arrow of time in our meditations.
So I strongly suggest the word "timeless" when meditating on God the Creator in contrast to His Creation, a property of which is space/time, i.e. geometry.
If one meditates with the term "timeless" it becomes obvious that when God says a thing, it is. Indeed, it is because He said it.
By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. - Psalms 33:6
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. - John 14:6
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life. - John 6:63
To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers. John 10:3-5
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die [literally, muwth muwth or death death]. Genesis 2:17
And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou [wilt]. - Matt 26:39
According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. Ephesians 1:4-6
And please accept my apology, I should have pinged you to the related post at 1036.
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