Posted on 07/02/2010 6:56:08 PM PDT by Desdemona
Is that inward-gazing anywhere in the Gospel?
If the Protestants begin to realize that we are not saved by faith alone, but by faith embodied in good works done out of our onw free will, it is time for them to come home and stop protesting.
The real indictment of Sola Scriptura is that if Scripture requires a (Protestant) theologian to properly explain it it obviously isn't sufficient by itself.
Ah, I can always count on you to fail to see the obvious. of COURSE annalex never said anything about persistence being required for salvation, Judith Anne. I said he was persistent. Never let it be said that Judith Anne saw the humor in a post. It was a joke about persistence. Do you eat a lot of dry toast?
The differences as I currently understand them after our dialogue last night:
The Reformed determinist sees the universe as unfolding involuntarily with a first cause and a final cause, namely God's will. If a person knew the mind of God he could project every detail of the universe throughout time. To him the mind, soul and spirit are real and not illusions. Nevertheless they cannot cause anything to happen. The murderer and the Christian are both personally responsible because it is their nature to sin. To him, man is an actor in a movie being played out, he is real but has no freedom of movement at all.
My view is that predestination and free will are not mutually exclusive. And I point to prophecies and commandments throughout Scripture as evidence. I perceive God is the first cause and final cause of all that there is. And I perceive God's will includes freedom of movement both physical and mental. In my view, God knows every detail of the universe throughout time, but it is a dynamic not static universe. He certainly could disallow freedom of movement (static) but He has chosen not to do so (dynamic.) For instance, I perceive that Mary could have said "no thanks" but that Jesus would have been enfleshed nevertheless by other means.
And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out. Luke 19:40
To God be the glory, not man, never man.
It doesn't change the fact that he spoke to the whole crowd in parables first, including the disciples. Then he explains to the select few. Heavenly secrets revealed only to select individuals is Gnsotic.
In chapter 10 he had already told the disciples to preach from the house tops what he had told them in secret and at the end of Matthew he commands them to go with the message to the whole world
No, just the gospel, the good news that the kingdom of God is near. To the Jews that meant Israel will be restored. Besides, the only thing the disciples did among the "lost sheep of Israel" was to heal the sick. After the resurrection, the "good news" was that he will be back, not the secrets of heaven.
What allegedly happened to Paul on the way to Damascus was also Gnostic. He learned nothing from any man, as he assures us, but directly from the resurrected Christ, because God had set him apart for that in his mother's womb and then, at the right moment, revealed his Son in(!) him (Paul). Doesn't get much more Gnostic than that.
Matthew's so-called Great Commission calls on the disciples to teach (the good news, i.e. that he will be back) and baptize. Hardly revealing secrets of the heaven.
[the Bible tells us that hardening of the heart is God's doing] Where is that stated?
All over the Old Testament. Either everything is God's doing or it's a hit and miss uncertainty. The only way God's plan will work is if things happen exactly as God willed from all eternity, and Jesus tells his followers to acknowledge that ("Your will be done...").
So it is said, God did it though the people acted quite freely of their own will even if it seemed that way to them. Their "choice" was only to reject. That's not a choice.
Well, if God did it (harden their hearts) then the reaction of the preople was necessarily guided by the act of God and could not be a free will choice.
We are warned not to harden our own hearts
Yes, in the NT (except for John 12:40), but it is obvious from the OT that things would not have happened the way God wanted them if he hadn't done it himself, even if people thought that was their doing. Without God hardening the Pharaoh's heart Exodus would not have happened, and so many of Israelites' enemies would have opted not to fight...and the whole nine yards would be a totally different story.
I mean, you can say that Judas betrayed Jesus on his own, but he was pretty much "set apart" from the womb, as Paul would say, that he will be the fall guy, LOL. Without Judas, no arrest, without arrest no crucifixion, whiteout crucifixion no resurrection, without resurrection no Christianity...and even Jesus acknowledges in the Garden of Gethsemane "Your will be done..." or else the whole story falls apart.
Or to put it another way, why would an atheist be interested in someone he denies exists?
In many years of debate with atheists on this forum, I have noticed three types of atheists.
The first don't believe but don't care if you do. They are true atheists in my view. They simply don't care. They are unreachable.
The second don't believe and want to justify or excuse themselves to those who do. These I perceive are agnostic in their atheism. They are reachable.
The third are anti-God/anti-Christ activists. They hate God and are zealous to destroy all belief in Him. Like the demons, they obviously believe God IS. But they deplore Him. They are unreachable.
I think those are very astute and accurate observations.
And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. - John 17:20-23
If predestination exists it supersedes free will and if deeds are of no consequence why do you hold priests responsible and accountable for actions that were and are the will of God?
Thanks for the ping.
That's not what atheists believe. Most atheists acknowledge reason and with reason responsibility. Morality is based on pragmatic social, not divine, set of rules but it still holds people responsible for their actions. We react to situations, some within and others outside of our control. But we still have a choice, and if we choose we carry the reposnibility for our action.
To me the mind, soul and spirit are real and can cause things to happen. For that reason, both the murderer and the Christian are personally responsible for all their thoughts and deeds. The movie is being played out, the actors will follow the script but they may also ad lib within each scene to their own reward or peril. But no one and no thing can thwart the will of God.
But ad libbing doesn't change the outcome of the movie or the way scenes play out. It "adds flavor" perhaps but that's hardly qualifies as "causing things to happen." If it doesn't affect the intent, story and the ending it counts for naught. It's a feel good illusion that we can make things happen.
Do you know why you like certain foods, certain people, colors, etc? I don't. Some things turn us on and others turn us off for a verity of reasons.
I never make it my business to turn a thread into personal analysis. I don't go into why people are on these threads. I presume they are here because they want to be, for a good reason, whatever that reason may be. It's not my business. For personal question we have private mail.
Or to put it another way, why would an atheist be interested in someone he denies exists?
I never said I am an atheist and I never denied that God exists. This is something everyone is imputing to me, by mind reading and making it their business instead of dealing with issues.
I really don't know if God exists or not, and I really don't know what God is. That's not the same as saying I deny that God exists.
Personally, I dislike most atheists as they seem to be angry with God for some reason. I am not. Theirs is a misdirected anger, talking out their frustrations and disappointments on something they don't even know.
On the other hand, believers don't seem to know what God is either, so they make him out to be wherever their fancy takes them. Some are humble believers for whom faith is a private matter; others are militant fundamentalists who stop at nothing in order to establish their God as the one "true" God. My interest is with what people have made and make God out to be (hence my interest in the history/development/corruption of the Church and the Bible).
Some are asking me for more specifics about your niece’s current medical state and what’s going on with her.
Is that workable?
That is a very good question.
Let's review the facts as we know them from Scripture...
Every deed has consequences, and all men are responsible for everything they do, say and believe. As Christ reminds us, "For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." -- Matthew 12:37.
At the same time, God is in control of His creation. Not a hair falls from your head or mine without the determining decree/consent of God. Every sparrow numbered; every star named.
Sadly, due to the Fall, all men are fallen and none is righteous. Therefore God would be within His right to condemn every man on the planet. And if left to his own ability and desire, that is what would happen. All men would die condemned by the sins they had committed and for which they remain unrepentant.
But because God is good and gracious and loving, He determined to save for Himself a remnant who would be cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ on the cross to pay for their sins, none of which they could atone for themselves. Thus if a man has been justified by Jesus Christ and sanctified by the Holy Spirit, that man will feel sorrow for his sins and try very hard to sin no more. Gratitude will fill his once-selfish heart and he will know whom He has believed.
And all of that, every jot and tittle, is part of the plan God ordained from before the foundation of the world.
It just makes sense, if God is who He says He is. If God really wants something, He will get it. God is complete. He needs for nothing. He is self-contained and satisfied at all times.
Of course it is true that God is made sorrowful by sin, but that is because sin is repugnant to an all-holy God. But if God didn't want sin in this world, He could easily erase Satan from existence.
Yet He hasn't. So apparently Satan serves a function in God's plan.
Regarding the sins of pederast priests, those men are condemned by their unrepentance. The fruit of their lives shows that they are unredeemed because they refuse to "sin no more." Just like Rome is condemned for its perpetual hiding of the priests' sins and rationalizing those sins and deflecting the blame for those sins onto the victims, rather than eradicating those sins from its clergy.
And that, too, is all part of the plan of God, somehow. Do we understand this completely? No. Today we see through a glass darkly.
But with Scripture as our rule of faith and practice, made known to us by the indwelling Holy Spirit, we can be assured that God is in His heaven and in control of His creation. He's not an absentee landlord. He is the animating force of all existence. And as Paul reminds us, "all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."
Good post.
Another problem for the religious determinist is that we experience free will. We are deciding, for example, whether or not to post something to this thread. We experience choosing almost every moment of the day.
Denying this is real, makes our reality a huge illusion. Our foundation, not only for responsibility, but for cogent thought and discussion, disappears.
In addition, as has been often pointed out, it makes God the author of sin and the creator of beings who are created only for the punishment of hell.
And that makes Jesus’s ministry an exercise in futility.
This Dream Of You (Bob Dylan - Together thru Life album)
How long can I stay in this nowhere café
'fore night turns into day I wonder why I'm so frightened of dawn
All I have and all I know
Is this dream of you
Which keeps me living on
There's a moment when all old things
Become new again
But that moment might have come and gone
All I have and all I know
Is this dream of you
Which keeps me living on
I look away, but I keep seeing it
I don't want to believe, but I keep believing it
Shadows dance upon the wall
Shadows that seem to know it all
Am I too blind to see, is my heart playing tricks on me
I'm lost in the crowd
All my tears are gone
All I have and all I know
Is this dream of you
Which keeps me living on
Everything I touch seems to disappear
Everywhere I turn you are always here
I'll run this race until my earthly death
I'll defend this place with my dying breath
From a cheerless room in a curtained gloom
I saw a star from heaven fall
I turned and looked again but it was gone
All I have and all I know
Is this dream of you
Which keeps me living on
“Heavenly secrets revealed only to select individuals is Gnostic.”
Any and everything spoken in private or called secret constitutes Gnosticism... Sure...In the same way each and every appearance of “I” and “am” together is a quote of Ex. 3:14.
“No, just the gospel, the good news that the kingdom of God is near.”
The “good news of the kingdom” wasn't a one liner as anyone reading Jesus teachings would know. The disciple were to preach and teach ALL the things he had commanded them.
On the one hand you claim heavenly secrets WERE revealed and then when Jesus says teach ALL the things I have commanded,
“Hardly revealing secrets of the heaven.”
Jesus was no teacher of Gnosticism nor was Paul no matter how anyone might wish it were so or hope it or raise their noses to the wind hoping to catch a whiff of gnosticism and claim the Scriptures as just another gnostic writing.
All over the Old Testament. Either everything is God's doing or it's a hit and miss uncertainty. The only way God's plan will work is if things happen exactly as God willed from all eternity, and Jesus tells his followers to acknowledge that (”Your will be done...”).
Nope, false choice of alternatives. People can respond according to their own free will but God still accomplishes what He wishes. Pharaoh was an outstanding example of a person who had several opportunities to choose but God still accomplished exactly what He wanted to do, His plan, if you will, despite Pharaoh's choice of action.
“Well, if God did it (harden their hearts) then the reaction of the people was necessarily guided by the act of God and could not be a free will choice.”
That is your interpretation of the meaning and possibilities of the what took place. The account shows your conclusion is wrong and that understanding of free will is wrong.
More predestination? Nope, Just as Joshua said to the Israelite, ‘CHOOSE’ whom you will serve’ , and they said they had CHOSEN (lots of free will here) and entered into a covenant. (Josh. 12:15)
Throughout the account of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt it is made clear that it is Pharaoh's attitude and continued stubbornness toward God's command that constitutes God “hardening” his heart. (Ex. 9:12)
Pharaoh made his heart hard but since it was in reaction to acts performed by God it is attributed to Him.
The warning against hardening our own hearts is very O.T as both John 12 and Hebrew 4 quote from its words about hardening the heart. Not just a N.T. thing at all. (good grief!)
“...., but it is obvious from the OT that things would not have happened the way God wanted them if he hadn't done it himself, even if people thought that was their doing. Without God hardening the Pharaoh's heart Exodus would not have happened, and so many of Israelites’ enemies would have opted not to fight...and the whole nine yards would be a totally different story.”
No, it is not “obvious” at all. This is Pink Unicornism at its pinkest and unicorniest.
Playing “what if” with history may be fun as a mind game but has no explanatory value seeing what happened is what happened and that is what is available to us.
“I mean, you can say that Judas betrayed Jesus on his own, but he was pretty much “set apart” from the womb, as Paul would say, that he will be the fall guy, LOL.”
Yeah, that is a laughable statement. Of course it was God's will that Jesus become a sacrifice. Never any question of that. Saaaay, You're becoming great fun! I really didn't expect this at all.
“It’s exactly determinism. God’s determinism.”
I have often wondered if Cyrus could have refused to let Israel go out of exile.
Isa 44:28-45:13, That saith of Cyrus, [He is] my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid. (45:1) Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut; I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron: And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call [thee] by thy name, [am] the God of Israel. For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.
Isa 45:5 I [am] the LORD, and [there is] none else, [there is] no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me: That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that [there is] none beside me. I [am] the LORD, and [there is] none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these [things]. Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it.
Isa 45:9 Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! [Let] the potsherd [strive] with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands? Woe unto him that saith unto [his] father, What begettest thou? or to the woman, What hast thou brought forth? That saith to the deep, Be dry, and I will dry up thy rivers: That saith of Cyrus, [He is] my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid.
Isa 45:11 Thus saith the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me. I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, [even] my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded. I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the LORD of hosts.
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