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To: OrthodoxPresbyterian
"Causation" language, in the sense of an irresistible compulsion, isn't even relevant to the argument I am making here. It is enough simply to consider the matter in terms of statistical certainty (that is, 100% perfect, precise, and infallible foreknowledge of the different Choices which Men will make in response to different Elections of Divine Action).

On the other hand, statistical certainty has no bearing on the argument that I am making. (Are we even arguing about the same frickin' thing?!)

Prior to these Men ever having been born -- God's pre-creative Election to NOT perform the salvific Miracles therein, predestined as an absolute certainty the fact that they would NOT REPENT.

If you want to call that predestination, fine. It would be a correct usage of the term, though not in the sense that I have been taking it to mean for the sake of this argument. However, this predestination still does not affect man's free moral agency. God chose to not perform salvific miracles in Sodom, et al.. This does not impact the doctrine of man's moral free agency in any appreciable sense, nor does it really affect the doctrine of God's attribute of foreknowledge. God may have foreknown something, but until he 'spoke it into being' (so to speak), it was not caused. The foreknowledge and the omnipotence are separate. Likewise, man's non-repentance was contingent upon God's actions; but God's actions did not effectively cause man's choice. Man chose freely to react as he did based upon God's action. He might have chosen differently, but just as we can know the past with certainty as to the free actions made, so can God know the future with such certainty. It still doesn't mean that God's certainty necessitates our choices.

21 posted on 11/17/2002 10:17:47 AM PST by The Grammarian
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To: The Grammarian; RnMomof7; the_doc
The foreknowledge and the omnipotence are separate. Likewise, man's non-repentance was contingent upon God's actions; but God's actions did not effectively cause man's choice.

God's Election to NOT perform the salvific Miracles in Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom was certainly (given that God's Foreknowledge is always 100% precise as to the contingent outcomes of potential Divine Elections) statistically causative of the Men's Choice to NOT repent.

1.) We must correctly state that God's Election to NOT perform the Miracles therein statistically pre-determined as a 100% foreknown certainty the Decisions of these Men to NOT REPENT.

2.) And we must correctly state that God chose this Election of Action in preference to an election to perform the Miracles therein, an election which would have statistically pre-determined as a 100% foreknown certainty the Decisions of these Men TO REPENT.

3.) THEREFORE, We must correctly say that prior to Creation, these Men "being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil", God elected to ordain the creation of Events in a manner which Absolutely Predestined them to NON-REPENTANCE and eternal damnation. And that's nothing less than the Calvinist Doctrine of Reprobation in a nutshell.

Ergo, we have just proved the FACT of Absolute, Unconditional, Double Predestination.

26 posted on 11/17/2002 2:53:17 PM PST by OrthodoxPresbyterian
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