RAPTURE and the Theological Term is
curmudgeon
*RAPTURE*
>From the Latin "rapio" (caught up), the belief that the church will be
caught up (Greek harpazo, 1 thess 4:17) and united with Christ at his second
coming.
One point of contention among theologians is the time of the rapture,
especially in relation to the great tribulation period associated with the
end of age.
The views regarding the related timing of these events lead to the
designations pre-, mid-, and posttribulationists for the views that the
rapture occurs prior to, during or at the end of the tribulation.
Some theologians view the rapture as a biblical image referring to the
church's greeting the returning Christ.
*curmudgeon*
"The best read illiterate in the country"
((( s.r.c.b-s is a moderated group. All posts are approved by a moderator. )))
((( Read http://srcbs.org for details about this group BEFORE you post. )))
George the Guy Who Watches Terrapene carolina triungus
On Apr 1, 6:09 pm, "curmudgeon" <briticanlan...@bresnan.net> wrote:
> *RAPTURE*>From the Latin "rapio" (caught up), the belief that the church will be
> caught up (Greek harpazo, 1 thess 4:17) and united with Christ at his second
> coming.
I do not find (Greek harpazo) in 1 thess 4:17, but I find (Greek
arpagesometha) which has about the same mening. If that means Rapture
then, it has already happened to Phillip (see Acts 8:39) and to a man
(Second Corinthians 12:1-4) (Greek arpagenta) in verse 2 and (Greek
hrpage) in verse 4.) Seems like thare have been Raptures before.
bwme...@toast.net
On Thu, 2 Apr 2009 11:12:55 -0500 (CDT), George the Guy Who Watches
Terrapene carolina triungus <gpa...@bayou.com> wrote:
>On Apr 1, 6:09 pm, "curmudgeon" <briticanlan...@bresnan.net> wrote:
>> *RAPTURE*>From the Latin "rapio" (caught up), the belief that the church will be
>> caught up (Greek harpazo, 1 thess 4:17) and united with Christ at his second
>> coming.
>
>
>I do not find (Greek harpazo) in 1 thess 4:17, but I find (Greek
>arpagesometha) which has about the same mening. If that means Rapture
>then, it has already happened to Phillip (see Acts 8:39) and to a man
>(Second Corinthians 12:1-4) (Greek arpagenta) in verse 2 and (Greek
>hrpage) in verse 4.) Seems like thare have been Raptures before.
After 35 years of prayerful study of this subject, sometimes over 10
hours in one day, teaching it in open Bible studies (where
communication is not only allowed, but solicited), consulting
sometimes 15 commentaries on some aspect of it, . . .
I KNOW that the following is basically RIGHT:
http://bwmministries.com/ChristianCommentaries/What_Future_Holds/WorldFuture.html
It is also the essential view of many other Believer students of the
subject, including many of Dallas Theological Seminary faculty, John
MacArthur, Dr. Henry Morris, and the one Loren just suggested to me,
Dr. Renald Showers (in his book, "Maranatha Our Lord Come!").
True; I know there's probably something here or there, in it, that I
have wrong (eg, I disagree already with Dr. Showers on a part of his
view of the 1st half of the "70th Week"), but those will only be minor
details. And all of us do have more to learn, which of course implies
none of us has everything right yet. That's why God tells us to teach
one another (which modern "churches" have no concept of whatever).
God's Word is INFINITE!
As Dr. Stewart Crane challenged his audience once, "You can throw out
everything you want, of what I'm going to tell you, --- and my
conclusion will still stand!" Or, "don't throw the baby out with the
wash!" Or as God put it, "he that answereth a matter before he heareth
it, it is folly and shame unto him." "And God hath no pleasure in
fools." All these say the same thing.
The statement George made above, "Seems like there have been Raptures
before," with application to Phillip, or even to Paul, in 2 Cor. 12,
completely misses everything about The Rapture. What it is actually
doing is IGNORING the Doctrine of the Rapture. And George is not
alone; that is the major approach to the Rapture everywhere.
The Rapture has about as much similarity to those events as lightning
has to the lightning bug.
Please, let's pay some SERIOUS ATTENTION to that Imminent Event which
God tells us to pay attention to (eg 1 Thess. 4:18), which He defines
as That Blessed Hope! (it's a shame it hasn't been called that,
instead of "the Rapture.") --- Titus 2:13
"Looking for {that is, it's imminent!} THAT BLESSED HOPE [the Greek
definite article, "THAT" identifies this as THE PRIMARY HOPE WE HAVE,
above any other, today}, the appearing of the Glory of our Great God
and Saviour, Jesus Christ"
For any human being to see that glory would kill him on the spot! In
fact, it would blow him right out of existence, just as His Presence
on the Great White Throne is going to do to the present universe, in
Rev. 20:11. As Scripture has made clear in a number of other places,
as well.
But we who are Believers WILL see it!!! That makes another otherwise
inexplicable Scripture clear: 1 John 3:2-3 ---
". . .we shall be LIKE HIM!!! Because, we SHALL SEE HIM EXACTLY AS HE
IS!!!" God (the Lord Jesus) said, "no man can see Me and live."
So the only way possible for us to see Him as He is, in 1 John 3, is
that we first be made like Him. And that is central teaching of the
Rapture (which did not happen either to Philip or to Paul, and has not
happened to any person, dead or alive, as yet, other than Christ, the
Firstfruits).
"Behold, I tell you a Mystery {something kept secret up to now}. Not
all of us {the "us" identified in ch. 1:1-3} are going to die! But
all of us ARE going to be changed! In a moment {in less then .0125
second} . . . the dead {those who are Christ's} shall be raised with
immortal utterly indestructible bodies of utter Glory like His; and WE
{still living on the earth} shall {likewise be changed}"
And instantly transported to some location high above the Pacific
Ocean to an enormous cloud cathedral to meet Him and them in the
atmosphere. Transported 8217 miles in that .0125 seconds! And
immediately from there into the Presence of the Father (1 Thess.
3:13), where no man dead or alive has ever yet been, save He Who came
down from thence to save us (John 3:13, 8:24-28, etc).
This has never happened yet! No way! It's still gonna happen; and
it's just around the corner! It's imminent, in other words!
If it were not so, 1 John 3:2-3 would be utterly impossible! So would
many other Scriptures, eg Hebrews 12:24-29.
Bob
Christ Died to Save You
lsen...@hotmail.com
I've come to the position of being a pan-rapturist. You are raptured
according to what position you hold. Personally, I'm pretrib.
Seriously, mid and posttrib have serious issues. Midtrib has no
answer to Rev 6. If that aint the wrath of God occurring in the first
half of the week, then please explain to me what is. But posttrib has
an even bigger problem. Posttrib can only be viable if it is also
amil. If the rapture was to occur just prior to the end of Trib, then
why would there be 1) any need to separate the sheep from the goats or
2) where would the righteous non-glorfied body believers come from to
populate the millennium?
George the Guy Who Watches Terrapene carolina triungus
On Apr 7, 11:02 am, lsend...@hotmail.com wrote:
> I've come to the position of being a pan-rapturist. You are raptured
> according to what position you hold. Personally, I'm pretrib.
>
> Seriously, mid and posttrib have serious issues. Midtrib has no
> answer to Rev 6. If that aint the wrath of God occurring in the first
> half of the week, then please explain to me what is. But posttrib has
> an even bigger problem. Posttrib can only be viable if it is also
> amil. If the rapture was to occur just prior to the end of Trib, then
> why would there be 1) any need to separate the sheep from the goats or
> 2) where would the righteous non-glorfied body believers come from to
> populate the millennium?
According to the first verse in the book of Revelation, the things the
book of Revelation speaks of were to occur with speed after it was
written. If the first verse is correct, which I think it is, then the
events predicted are now history. Therefore, I would think the pre
and post boys could come to some conclusion as to which of two past
events came first.
bwme...@toast.net
On Thu, 9 Apr 2009 21:24:06 -0500 (CDT), George the Guy Who Watches
Terrapene carolina triungus <gpa...@bayou.com> wrote:
>According to the first verse in the book of Revelation, the things the
>book of Revelation speaks of were to occur with speed after it was
>written.=20
Non sequitur.
There are two other ways to understand this verse, both of which are
obviously true; whereas the "events predicted are now history" is
obviously utter nonsense:
> If the first verse is correct, which I think it is, then the
>events predicted are now history. Therefore, I would think the pre
>and post boys could come to some conclusion as to which of two past
>events came first.
"must shortly come to pass" --- to which the Arabic version adds, "in
future ages." As for "after it was written" is concerned, it is
apparent that it was actually "written" long before John wrote these
things, since it was "sent to John" by the angel.
But those two observations are somewhat beside the point, and merely
additions to it, because first of all, the purpose of the Book is
given as instructions to the 7 Assemblies in Asia, regarding what
things THEY would shortly have to face. (One of those "churches,"
Thyatira, did not even exist when John wrote --- and this was a major
objection against the canonicity of Revelation. See my other posts on
this.) Revelation appears as a "survival manual" to those "churches"
who were going to have to face the terrible things of The Day of the
Lord (Rev. 1:10). John is referring to "The Tribulation," Rev. 1:9,
and portraying himself as sort of an on the spot reporter there with
them in that Tribulation. He says he WAS on the Isle of Patmos.
However "weak" that may sound to you, (and I agree that it will, to
anyone who is not a futurist, believing it is not Prophecy, as God
says it is) it is really the only realistic view: to claim the things
It speaks of having already happened is as nonsensical as the Jews'
attempt to deny the Prophecy of Psa. 22:16-17.
But in addition, secondly, there are different ways to understand the
clause "must shortly come to pass:" (Just as there are different very
valid ways to understand the Lord's Words which the blasphemers love
to take up on, "this generation will not pass till all be fulfilled.")
=93Shortly=94 (Greek en tachei) means literally. =93in speed.=94 (Have y=
ou
ever heard of a "tachometer?" It doesn't tell you when you're going to
get there! It tells you that once things get to moving they're going
to be moving fast!)
(1) it can mean the events are imminent (and they are NOT; only the
Rapture is imminent, which must precede these events; therefore these
events are NOT imminent)
(2) when He does come, the events described in this book will all take
place in a short period of time.
Bob
Christ Died to Save You
http://bwmministries.com/ChristianCommentaries/What_Future_Holds/WorldFut=
ure.html
lsen...@hotmail.com
On Apr 9, 9:24=A0pm, George the Guy Who Watches Terrapene carolina
triungus <gpat...@bayou.com> wrote:
>
> According to the first verse in the book of Revelation, the things the
> book of Revelation speaks of were to occur with speed after it was
> written.
Rev 1:19 is the key to the entire book and if you don't know
your Greek, you miss out on John's point. Like in Jn 1:14 and
Rev 4:1, John makes a very calculated use of the Greek
ingressive aorist tenes. 1:19c speaks to the entrance into
an entirely new condition even as Jn 1:14 does regarding the
incarnation.
The English reader confuses "occurs with speed", i.e.
to soon come to fruition, with "occurring suddenly." This
is easily illustrated by the NT writers reference to the
return of Christ for the Church. It is an event that is to
occur suddenly, "in a twinkling of an eye" not something
which was to occur in the 1st century, though Peter
seems to regard it occurring in his own generation but
after his early death.
>=A0If the first verse is correct, which I think it is, then the
> events predicted are now history. =A0
>
You presume an either/or situation when in fact it is a
both/and or an already/not yet situation. Again, the
key is 1:19 where ch 2-3 were written to real, at that
time local churches and yet.... a typifying of the
evolutionary era's of the Church, concluding with the
apostate church of the Tribulation.
>
>Therefore, I would think the pre
> and post boys could come to some conclusion as to which of two past
> events came first.
>
What is the title of this epistle? It is the Revelation of
Jesus Christ. Has that too occurred? Has Satan already
been bound? Has 2/3rds of Israel, in the land Israel,
been annihilated? And what about the religious whore
on the back of which all the end time religions homogenize?
There is also the small matter that Revelation is predominately
Hebraic in its prophetic structure. In point of fact, if you don't
have a firm grasp on the Jewish Testament prophecies, you
almost certainly revert to an allegorical method of interpreting
it's disclosure. Chapters 6-18 have everything to do with
Israel's purification as Daniel, Eze. Isa. Joel, and especially,
Zephaniah detail. Christ returns,in ch 19, which an already
glorified Bride, i.e. Church. Therefore the Church had to
have been removed at sometime prior, significantly prior or
there would not be any righteous men left to populate the
millennial kingdom on earth.
George the Guy Who Watches Terrapene carolina triungus
On Apr 13, 3:38 pm, bwmey...@toast.net wrote:
> However "weak" that may sound to you, (and I agree that it will, to
> anyone who is not a futurist, believing it is not Prophecy, as God
> says it is) it is really the only realistic view: to claim the things
> It speaks of having already happened is as nonsensical as the Jews'
> attempt to deny the Prophecy of Psa. 22:16-17.
>
> But in addition, secondly, there are different ways to understand the
> clause "must shortly come to pass:" (Just as there are different very
> valid ways to understand the Lord's Words which the blasphemers love
> to take up on, "this generation will not pass till all be fulfilled.")
If one has a little faith, one can accept that it did shortly come to
pass, and that it did come to pass in that generation.
I am sorry that blasphemers are disagreeing with your theology. But,
this does not mean that all who disagree with your understanding of
scripture are blasphemers. Might I suggest that, on occasion, you may
think you see blasphemers, when they are not actually there. It is
alright to be an accuser. They are needed. In the Old Testament one
of God=92s helpers was an accuser. But as we can see from the book of
Job, sometimes an accuser can kind of over do it.
Bart Goddard
bwme...@toast.net wrote in
news:441EEF4E-9C29-E7AF...@art.srcbs.org:
> After 35 years of prayerful study of this subject, sometimes over 10
> hours in one day,
Yeah, I have students like that. "I studied my butt off for
that test and only got 45%!!" Obviously, studying alone doesn't
give one correct knowledge. One must study the right stuff with
the right attitude and the right approach. If you dig a hole
in the wrong place, there's no solution to the wasted work.
You have to fill in the hole AND then dig in the right place.
> I KNOW that the following is basically RIGHT:
Right. Your mere 35 years of _private, unreviewed_ study
is somehow more authoritative thatn 2000 years of
publicly tested doctrine and theology.
It doesn't matter how big a font you use on the word
"KNOW", unless you have a decent argument to back it up.
> If it were not so, 1 John 3:2-3 would be utterly impossible! So would
> many other Scriptures, eg Hebrews 12:24-29.
No, 1 John 3:2-3 happens when we're all taken to Heaven, and no
"rapture" is necessary here. You have no argument.
Next time you spend 35 years "studying" something, you should
get a good tutor. One's own brain isn't a good enough critic of
one's own fantasies.
B.
--
Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
bwme...@toast.net
On Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:07:34 -0500 (CDT), George the Guy Who Watches
Terrapene carolina triungus <gpa...@bayou.com> wrote:
>> But in addition, secondly, there are different ways to understand the
>> clause "must shortly come to pass:" (Just as there are different very
>> valid ways to understand the Lord's Words which the blasphemers love
>> to take up on, "this generation will not pass till all be fulfilled.")
>
>
>If one has a little faith, one can accept that it did shortly come to
>pass, and that it did come to pass in that generation.
"little faith" is right.
The kind of faith that turns the Word of God into utter nonsense; and
then accuses the opponent of having no faith.
The Passage is Matt. 24:23 ---=20
23 Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there;
believe it not.
24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall
shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they
shall deceive the very elect.
{yes; vs. 24 has ALMOST come to pass, except for the "great signs
and wonders, IMO. And except that there was nothing there that
might deceive the Elect. However . . .:}
25 Behold, I have told you before.
26 Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert;
go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.
27 For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto
the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
{when you take up my challenge to exegete this, please bring in the
parallel passages to this event.}
28 For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered
together.
29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be
darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall
fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
{And please give the historical reference for these events}
30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and
then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the
Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
{Here is one of the parallel passages to include above}
31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and
they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end
of heaven to the other.
{I know you preach unbelief, but please give something from history
that can associate with this other than as absolute nonsense as
a comparison.}
32 =B6 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet
tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:
33 So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it
is near, even at the doors.
34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all
these things be fulfilled.
***************
Don't tell ME "if I had a little faith." I BELIEVE THESE THINGS! YOU
DON'T. Like most others on this group.=20
Otherwise exegete the above in some sensible manner, please, what the
many prophecies above are supposed to mean, and when in history they
all took place in the indicated exact sequence.
"My Sheep Hear My Voice . . ."
"The Scriptures cannot be broken."
I don't understand how an event occurring at the Mt. of Olives at
Jerusalem will shake the entire earth so that every human being will
be aware of it at that instant; but that's what the above passage
teaches, and I DON'T HAVE THE SLIGHTEST PROBLEM BELIEVING IT.
Like every other Believer who has been saved by His grace.
I believe that when He comes, the 2nd Advent, there won't be a human
on earth that won't be aware that something unprecedented in all
history has just happened. I believe that He's going to come with all
His saints, who are gathered for the occasion from one end of the
Universe to the other. Any person who tells us these things have
already happened is not a Believer, IMO.
Here are two BELIEVING exegeses of the above passages:
>From "Misunderstood Texts of the New Testament" -
by Sir Robert Anderson
**********************
This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled
(Matthew 24:34).=20
This is a favorite verse with the rationalists, for in their ignorance
they cite it as discrediting Holy Scripture. Is it not clear, they
ask, that the Lord's words have failed?=20
Here is Dean Alford's interpretation of it: It may be well to show
that genea has in Hellenistic Greek the meaning of a race or family of
people.=20
See Jeremiah 8:3, 70. Compare Matthew 23:36 with verse 35 . . . 'This
generation' did not slay Zacharias so that the whole people are
addressed. See also chapter 12:45, in which the meaning absolutely
requires this sense. He further cites chapter 17:17; Luke 16:8
and 17:25; Acts 11:40; Philippians 2:15. And he adds, "In all these
places genea is genos, or nearly so."=20
Some scholars explain the passage by reference to the fact that the
word rendered "this" may with equal correctness be translated "that."
Thus the statement would mean that the same generation which sees the
setting up of the abomination of desolations (v. 15) will see all
these things come to pass. Our only difficulty, therefore, in
interpreting it is that it involves our adjudicating between
alternative solutions which are equally satisfactory and equally
scholarly.
*****************
I might add that it is not even necessary to choose just one of the
two.
Bob
Christ Died to Save You
http://bwmministries.com/ChristianCommentaries/What_Future_Holds/WorldFut=
ure.html
George the Guy Who Watches Terrapene carolina triungus
On Apr 15, 11:07 am, George the Guy Who Watches Terrapene carolina
triungus <gpat...@bayou.com> wrote:
> On Apr 13, 3:38 pm, bwmey...@toast.net wrote:
>
> > However "weak" that may sound to you, (and I agree that it will, to
> > anyone who is not a futurist, believing it is not Prophecy, as God
> > says it is) it is really the only realistic view: to claim the things
> > It speaks of having already happened is as nonsensical as the Jews'
> > attempt to deny the Prophecy of Psa. 22:16-17.
>
> > But in addition, secondly, there are different ways to understand the
> > clause "must shortly come to pass:" (Just as there are different very
> > valid ways to understand the Lord's Words which the blasphemers love
> > to take up on, "this generation will not pass till all be fulfilled.")
>
> If one has a little faith, one can accept that it did shortly come to
> pass, and that it did come to pass in that generation.
>
> I am sorry that blasphemers are disagreeing with your theology. But,
> this does not mean that all who disagree with your understanding of
> scripture are blasphemers. Might I suggest that, on occasion, you may
> think you see blasphemers, when they are not actually there. It is
> alright to be an accuser. They are needed. In the Old Testament one
> Job, sometimes an accuser can kind of over do it.
>
OK Bob, you wrote =93{And please give the historical reference for these
events}=94.
I do not know exactly how those things that are pictured in such
apocalyptic language happened. Sometimes, teachings are not intended
to be easily understood (Mk. 4:11-12). I did not see things in the
first and second centuries happen as I am only 78 years old. That is
where faith is needed, one might say that faith is the evidence of
that which we do not see. Had I seen the events, you speak of, take
place I would know it without any faith. Faith comes in when you do
not see something take place, yet you believe it took place.
I do not know why one would take offence at my saying, =93If one has a
little faith, one can accept that it did shortly come to pass, and
that it did come to pass in that generation.=94 I said =93If one has a
little faith=94, did not say, =93If Bob has a little faith=94. I take no
offence at Luke=92s writing, about faith being able to uproot a mulberry
tree and move it into the sea (Lk. 17:6). I got two mulberry trees in
my back yard and there are some limbs I would like removed and I have
not removed them with either saw nor faith, much less move the trees
to the sea.
lsen...@hotmail.com
On Apr 15, 11:07=A0am, George the Guy Who Watches Terrapene carolina
triungus <gpat...@bayou.com> wrote:
>
> If one has a little faith, one can accept that it did shortly come to
> pass, and that it did come to pass in that generation.
>
step out in front of an on rushing car because the light has turned
red for it but the walk light has turned white for you. Why do you
tempt this? It's because you have at least a minimal understanding
of the braking system of the vehicle and the rules of the road.
What you're advocating is faith based on nothing. This is not
biblical faith, obviously, but also it is not operative faith either.
Again I ask, when did Satan and his evil horde get thrown
to earth to raise all sorts of wicked havoc only to have Christ
return and bind and confine him? Satan obviously is not
bound now. Just as obviously, the 2nd advent has not yet
occurred, unless you wish to jump in bed with the likes of
the Jehovah's (false) Witnesses who finally were forced to
say that "he" returned spiritually, not actually.
lsen...@hotmail.com
On Apr 18, 5:00=A0pm, George the Guy Who Watches Terrapene carolina
triungus <gpat...@bayou.com> wrote:
>
> I do not know exactly how those things that are pictured in such
> to be easily understood (Mk. 4:11-12).
>
that context and reasonability matter little to you. Why do
you think that James 3:1 is stated so soberly?
Mk 4:11 is addressed to who? The disciples.
Mk 4:11 is before or after the giving of the Spirit?
Does Luke 24:27 rebut your supposition concerning the
application of Mk 4:11 to the discussion?
A better reference would have been Dan 12:9.
>
> I did not see things in the
> first and second centuries
>
Neither did the fathers who all were millennialist up till
the end of the 2nd century.
>
> happen as I am only 78 years old. =A0That is
> where faith is needed,
>
faith or dreams? Jude 8
>
> one might say that faith is the evidence of
> that which we do not see. =A0
>
This is definitely NOT what Heb 11:1 is teaching.
>
> Had I seen the events, you speak of, take
> place I would know it without any faith. =A0Faith comes in when you do
> not see something take place, yet you believe it took place.
>
Faith is in something intrinsic, not something
dubious, or unknown. How many people are duped
by these TV evangelist by employing this same silly,
naive sort of "faith"?
You should read Warfield's volume on Biblical Doctrine
wherein is a chapter on the psychology of faith.
>
> I do not know why one would take offence at my saying, =3D93If one has a
> little faith, one can accept that it did shortly come to pass, and
> that it did come to pass in that generation.=3D94 =A0
>
The Christian faith is reasonable. It's not rationalistic, but
reasonable. We are you to reason things out. The Bereans
reasoned out whether or not what Paul was teaching was
scripturally true. Now which of this things came to pass
in any generation.....
1/3rd of the earth smitten (Rev 8:7)
1/3rd of the sea smitten (Rev 8:8)
1/3rd of the rivers smitten (Rev 8:10)
1/3rd of the sun, moon & stars smitten ((Rev 8:12)
200 million man army and 1/3rd mankind killed (Rev 9:13)
Where and who where the 144,000 Jewish witnesses?
Where and who were the two witnesses who were
killed half way through the 70th week of which the entire
world was observant of?
etc. etc. etc.
>
>I said =3D93If one has a
> little faith=3D94, did not say, =3D93If Bob has a little faith=3D94. =A0I=
take no
> offence at Luke=3D92s writing, about faith being able to uproot a mulberr=
y
> tree and move it into the sea (Lk. 17:6). =A0I got two mulberry trees in
> my back yard and there are some limbs I would like removed and I have
> not removed them with either saw nor faith, much less move the trees
> to the sea.
>
You're probably a very nice man who faithfully
attends church and loves to read his bible. But
I am afraid that you have not so studied it so as
not to be made ashamed at His coming. Handling the
word of God is not relegated to the clergy only, but
that does not equate to say that it does not require
knowledge, training and skill.
George the Guy Who Watches Terrapene carolina triungus
> clause "must shortly come to pass:" (Just as there are different very
> valid ways to understand the Lord's Words which the blasphemers love
Patton responded: If one has a little faith, one can accept that
it did shortly come to
pass, and that it did come to pass in that generation.
lsend...@hotmail.com wrote:
=94Faith is based on what? It is always based on knowledge. You
step out in front of an on rushing car because the light has turned
red for it but the walk light has turned white for you. Why do you
tempt this? It's because you have at least a minimal understanding
of the braking system of the vehicle and the rules of the road.
What you're advocating is faith based on nothing. This is not
biblical faith, obviously, but also it is not operative faith either.=94
My response is: I would say faith based on scripture that said
something would happen before a generation came to an end and some
other things would shortly come to past. So those bits of scriptures
man not be the most important, but I would not consider them
=93nothing=94. That sounds a bit strong.
Isend, I can understand your agitation and your personal attack
concerning what I am =93advocating=94. I have known lots of other
Christians and many of them also get very upset when their doctrines
are questioned.
Bart Goddard
lsen...@hotmail.com wrote in news:CCB7B670-9F2C-DAEA-F200-105AA5A21854
@art.srcbs.org:
> Faith is based on what? It is always based on knowledge.
If faith is based on knowledge, then we have salvation by
works. The true Gospel has faith as a gift. Infants and
comatose and sleeping people can have faith, even though
they have no knowledge.
B.
--
Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
Bob Felts
Bart Goddard <godd...@netscape.net> wrote:
> lsen...@hotmail.com wrote in news:CCB7B670-9F2C-DAEA-F200-105AA5A21854
> @art.srcbs.org:
>
> > Faith is based on what? It is always based on knowledge.
>
> If faith is based on knowledge, then we have salvation by works.
Logically weak, since knowledge could be given as a gift, just like
faith.
What is the difference between faith and knowledge? Are they two
separate things? Are they like things?
It's hard to argue without agreed upon definitions.
> The true Gospel has faith as a gift. Infants and comatose and sleeping
> people can have faith, even though they have no knowledge.
Then what is faith?
lsen...@hotmail.com
On Apr 24, 1:40=A0pm, Bart Goddard <goddar...@netscape.net> wrote:
> lsend...@hotmail.com wrote in news:CCB7B670-9F2C-DAEA-F200-105AA5A21854
> @art.srcbs.org:
>
> > Faith is based on what? =A0It is always based on knowledge.
>
> If faith is based on knowledge, then we have salvation by
>
This is simply not true. Two books you could read which would
clear this up for you. Either "Sola Scriptura!" by Soli De Gloria
publications or Warfield's "Works" vol 9, pp 313-342, "On Faith
In Its Psychological Aspects." Even Augustine rejects your
conclusion.
By no means is it by works, but by grace. The Father first
drags (Greek) us to the Son. The Spirit regenerates us then
enlightens us to the Truth. You confuse cause for effect.
>
>The true Gospel has faith as a gift. =A0Infants and
> comatose and sleeping people can have faith, even though
> they have no knowledge.
>
No. You again confuse cause and effect. We are not saved
by our mental, emotional and volitional acceptance of the
Truth. As Ps 14, 58 and Rom 3 clearly teach, "NO ONE
seeks after God."
As for those who are unable to reason, the scriptures are
explicitly silent on those accounts. And if we do not have
God's revelation on a point, then we are not to speculate
and worse, for a position/doctrine on that speculation.
Paul is pretty clear on this.
lsen...@hotmail.com
On Apr 25, 10:33=A0am, w...@stablecross.com (Bob Felts) wrote:
> Bart Goddard <goddar...@netscape.net> wrote:
> > @art.srcbs.org:
>
> > > Faith is based on what? =A0It is always based on knowledge.
>
> > If faith is based on knowledge, then we have salvation by works.
>
> Logically weak, since knowledge could be given as a gift, just like
> faith.
>
> separate things? =A0Are they like things?
>
> It's hard to argue without agreed upon definitions.
>
we get on that 100 ton jumbo jet expecting it to lift off the
ground and its pilot getting us to our destination. Here again,
faith is preceded by knowledge. We don't have to be aero-
nautical engineers to believe that big hunk of metal will actually
lift itself off of the ground. All we have to it watch them do it
as we drive into the airport.
Notitia, as the Reformers classified it. There is a minimum
amount of information which we must appropriate by faith
in order to believe. "Belief comes from hearing and hearing
from the word of God."
Also, as I have repeatedly stated over the years, the consent
of belief is fundamentally different from the consent of the will.
Augustine paraphrased put it something like, "We know what
rests on reason but we believe what rests on authority." Faith
is a conviction based, grounded in authority verses grounded
in reason. Its not that faith is unreasonable or void of reason
but rather belief is the primary condition of reason and not
reason being the final basis of belief. The activity of reason
underlies all faith while an activity of faith underlies all know-
ledge because reason in the final analysis rest on authority
which is beyond itself.
Pragmatically, it is the 2nd law of thermodynamics where
a higher power must reach down to the lower in order for the
lower to ascend to the higher. The lower can never accomplish
it left to itself.
>
> > The true Gospel has faith as a gift. =A0Infants and comatose and sleepi=
ng
> > people can have faith, even though they have no knowledge.
>
> Then what is faith?
>
"Volitions look to the future and represent our desires while
beliefs look to the present and represent our findings"
[Warfield, p. 315]
Though I don't have the time to develop it, this whole question /
dilemma all rests upon one's understanding of the the
incomprehensibility of God. Might I suggest you read Van Til's
Sys. Theo. This issue of incomprehensibility is a foundational
issue that must be resolved before one can proceed on to Theo
Proper let alone doctrines within soteriology.
Bart Goddard
lsen...@hotmail.com wrote in news:E1D1EB5A-A6B9-17C8-8C62-
A9FC1A...@art.srcbs.org:
> I provide a simple, experientially repeatable example. By faith
> we get on that 100 ton jumbo jet expecting it to lift off the
> ground and its pilot getting us to our destination. Here again,
> faith is preceded by knowledge. We don't have to be aero-
> nautical engineers to believe that big hunk of metal will actually
> lift itself off of the ground. All we have to it watch them do it
> as we drive into the airport.
You don't have to watch them either. You don't have to
believe that jets can fly. If you get on one, it flies you
to your destination, whether you believe it or not. If you're
a babe in arms, and carried onto the plane without your
knowledge, then, by golly, you STILL get flown to your
destination.
Yet, you insist that some knowledge is required for someone
to be flown to their destination. Odd.
> Notitia, as the Reformers classified it. There is a minimum
> amount of information which we must appropriate by faith
> in order to believe.
And there's the blatant works righteousness. It's always
"Jesus plus some little thing, the smallest thing, the
most insignificant, tiniest thing." Like that little tiny
piece of dog pooh in the brownies.
B.
--
Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
Bart Goddard
wr...@stablecross.com (Bob Felts) wrote in
news:161AEC4A-B143-4D2C...@art.srcbs.org:
>> > Faith is based on what? It is always based on knowledge.
>>
>> If faith is based on knowledge, then we have salvation by works.
>
> Logically weak, since knowledge could be given as a gift, just like
> faith.
That's a model of "knowledge" that 1. I never heard of and
2. I'm pretty sure is un-usable.
> What is the difference between faith and knowledge? Are they two
> separate things? Are they like things?
>
> It's hard to argue without agreed upon definitions.
We don't need to be too precise here to understand what's
what. In any definition of knowledge, I have to be cognitively
active to "know" something. I can't think that 1+1 = 2 if
I'm not awake and functioning and happen to have the need to
add small integers.
If I have to be able to think, "Gee, Jesus is sure swell"
in order to be saved, then here is an action which some people
are unable to perform, but which I can perform, and by being
able to perform it, I get saved.
>> The true Gospel has faith as a gift. Infants and comatose and
>> sleeping people can have faith, even though they have no knowledge.
>
> Then what is faith?
I'd rather talk about what it is not. It's not knowledge.
B.
--
Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
Bart Goddard
lsen...@hotmail.com wrote in
news:9330FF0B-C01B-72D1...@art.srcbs.org:
>
> On Apr 24, 1:40=A0pm, Bart Goddard <goddar...@netscape.net> wrote:
>> lsend...@hotmail.com wrote in
>> news:CCB7B670-9F2C-DAEA-F200-105AA5A21854 @art.srcbs.org:
>>
>> > Faith is based on what? =A0It is always based on knowledge.
>>
>> If faith is based on knowledge, then we have salvation by
>> works. =A0
>>
> This is simply not true. Two books you could read which would
> clear this up for you.
Right. Any wacko book by any wacko author that you happen
to agree with is authoritative.
> By no means is it by works, but by grace. The Father first
> drags (Greek) us to the Son. The Spirit regenerates us then
No, you confuse action with inaction.
> No. You again confuse cause and effect.
Loren, you know less about cause and effect than anyone else
I know, and I know a whopping lot of people. It doesn't matter
a whit whether knowledge is cause or effect here, since
basing salvation on an effect is just as bad as basing on
a cause which is not God. And knowledge is not God. And
faith is not God.
It's not a confusion of cause and effect, but the "basing"
which is the problem.
B.
--
Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
Bob Felts
Bart Goddard <godd...@netscape.net> wrote:
> wr...@stablecross.com (Bob Felts) wrote in
> news:161AEC4A-B143-4D2C...@art.srcbs.org:
>
>
> >> > Faith is based on what? It is always based on knowledge.
> >>
> >> If faith is based on knowledge, then we have salvation by works.
> >
> > Logically weak, since knowledge could be given as a gift, just like
> > faith.
>
> That's a model of "knowledge" that 1. I never heard of
Well, then, that settles it.
> and 2. I'm pretty sure is un-usable.
>
Really? Do you have _anything_ that wasn't first given to you by God?
And what do you do with the passages where God gives knowledge to
people?
> > What is the difference between faith and knowledge? Are they two
> > separate things? Are they like things?
> >
> > It's hard to argue without agreed upon definitions.
>
> We don't need to be too precise here to understand what's what.
Sloppy definitions -> sloppy reasoning.
> In any definition of knowledge, I have to be cognitively
> active to "know" something. I can't think that 1+1 = 2 if
> I'm not awake and functioning and happen to have the need to
> add small integers.
>
Right.
> If I have to be able to think, "Gee, Jesus is sure swell"
> in order to be saved,
And therein lies the problem. Faith is the result of grace, just like
knowledge is the result of grace. Infants can be saved, not because
faith does not require a mental capability that they haven't yet
developed, but because of grace which, given time, results in the mental
capability, which demonstrates itself as faith.
> then here is an action which some people are unable to perform, but which
> I can perform, and by being able to perform it, I get saved.
>
>
> >> The true Gospel has faith as a gift. Infants and comatose and
> >> sleeping people can have faith, even though they have no knowledge.
> >
> > Then what is faith?
>
> I'd rather talk about what it is not.
Are you channelling Matthew? Have you two been dopplegangers all along?
Apophatic theology from you?
> It's not knowledge.
It's certainly one type of knowledge. "The assurance of things hoped
for and the evidence of things not seen" requires cognition -- for
assurance and evaluation of evidence.
Bob Felts
Bart Goddard <godd...@netscape.net> wrote:
[...]
>
> You don't have to watch them either. You don't have to believe that jets
> can fly. If you get on one, it flies you to your destination, whether you
> believe it or not. If you're a babe in arms, and carried onto the plane
> without your knowledge, then, by golly, you STILL get flown to your
> destination.
>
Right. The argument is whether or not the infant has faith, even though
they reached their destination via grace. The answer is clearly "no",
since faith requires cognition. Salvation does not, but faith does.
[...]
lsen...@hotmail.com
On Apr 30, 11:12=A0am, Bart Goddard <goddar...@netscape.net> wrote:
> lsend...@hotmail.com wrote in news:E1D1EB5A-A6B9-17C8-8C62-
> A9FC1A672...@art.srcbs.org:
>
> > I provide a simple, experientially repeatable example. =A0By faith
> > we get on that 100 ton jumbo jet expecting it to lift off the
> > faith is preceded by knowledge. =A0We don't have to be aero-
> > nautical engineers to believe that big hunk of metal will actually
> > as we drive into the airport.
>
> believe that jets can fly. =A0If you get on one, it flies you
> to your destination, whether you believe it or not. =A0If you're
> a babe in arms, and carried onto the plane without your
> knowledge, then, by golly, you STILL get flown to your
> destination.
>
> Yet, you insist that some knowledge is required for someone
>
Come on Bart. Why would anyone take the time and trouble
to get on the airplane if it didn't already know that planes
fly? People don't think that planes are bars or churches or
coal mines. They know what they are and what they hope
to achieve by them. KNOWLEDGE precedes the action of
faith.
>
> > Notitia, as the Reformers classified it. =A0There is a minimum
> > amount of information which we must appropriate by faith
> > in order to believe.
>
> And there's the blatant works righteousness.
>
Paul was warning Tim against in 2 T 2:14. You can't put
your faith in something unless you already have some knowledge
of the object. Duh!
You only argue because you want to disagree. Not because
you have a valid point.
lsen...@hotmail.com
On Apr 30, 11:12=A0am, Bart Goddard <goddar...@netscape.net> wrote:
> lsend...@hotmail.com wrote innews:9330FF0B-C01B-72D1-3E28-4915CF27DD99@ar=
t.srcbs.org:
>
>
> > By no means is it by works, but by grace. =A0The Father first
> > drags (Greek) us to the Son. =A0The Spirit regenerates us then
>
> No, you confuse action with inaction. =A0
>
Bart, you like everyone to think that you're this big logician
an yet you write silly contentless replies like this. Why not
reply in a mature, substantial way?
BTW, where is your rebuttal to the Greek?
>
> > No. =A0You again confuse cause and effect. =A0
>
> Loren, you know less about cause and effect than anyone else
> I know, and I know a whopping lot of people. =A0It doesn't matter
> a whit whether knowledge is cause or effect here, since
> basing salvation on an effect is just as bad as basing on
> a cause which is not God. =A0And knowledge is not God.
>
"I AM the Truth."
>=A0
> faith is not God. =A0
>
"I AM the Way."
>
> It's not a confusion of cause and effect, but the "basing"
> which is the problem.
>
You can't even take off your rose colored glasses long
enough to actually comprehend the point. You've just
got to disagree and be disagreeable while you're at it.
>
> --
> Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
>
> ((( s.r.c.b-s is a moderated group. =A0All posts are approved by a modera=
tor. )))
> ((( =A0 Readhttp://srcbs.orgfor details about this group BEFORE you post.=
=A0 )))
Bart Goddard
>> You don't have to watch them either. You don't have to believe that
>> jets can fly. If you get on one, it flies you to your destination,
>> whether you believe it or not. If you're a babe in arms, and carried
>> onto the plane without your knowledge, then, by golly, you STILL get
>> flown to your destination.
>>
>
> Right. The argument is whether or not the infant has faith, even
> though they reached their destination via grace. The answer is
> clearly "no", since faith requires cognition. Salvation does not, but
> faith does.
"By grace ye are saved through faith...". If there's some other
vehicle for grace, besides faith, Scripture is silent about it.
Any theory you propose for the salvation of infants that isn't
by the ONE Biblical formula is pure conjecture.
B.
--
Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
Bart Goddard
>> and 2. I'm pretty sure is un-usable.
>>
>
> Really? Do you have _anything_ that wasn't first given to you by God?
If you want to follow that line, then the Pharisees can say
"We don't teach salvation by works, because God gave us the
power to do the works that save us."
Did Christ die to pay for our sins or did He die to show us
how to save ourselves?
> And what do you do with the passages where God gives knowledge to
> people?
Doesn't matter. God gives us apples, but it has nothing to do
with faith or salvation.
>> If I have to be able to think, "Gee, Jesus is sure swell"
>> in order to be saved,
>
> And therein lies the problem. Faith is the result of grace, just
> like knowledge is the result of grace.
Two problems. Faith is not just the result of grace, but also
it's vehicle. Grace abounds, but it's not applied to a person
accept by faith. That's the biblical formula "through faith."
The picture of being "graced" and then later having faith
result denies that faith is the vehicle for grace.
> Infants can be saved, not
> because faith does not require a mental capability that they haven't
> yet developed, but because of grace which, given time, results in the
> mental capability, which demonstrates itself as faith.
And if an infant dies before "faith" appears, how is it saved?
You say "it has grace which came not by faith." Scripture knows
nothing of the kind.
> Are you channelling Matthew?
Oooohhh. No you did not. Where's my hockey stick?
>Apophatic theology from you?
Most of theology is negative. Until there is a heresy,
there's no reason to write treatises against it. The
ecumenical creeds are nothing but statements against
heresies. I don't think it's possible to define "faith"
(that is, "saving faith") properly. But it is possible
to say what it is not. So Lutheran theology is full of
statements like, "We accept no model or definition of
'faith' which excludes anyone, including infants and
the unconscious."
>> It's not knowledge.
>
> It's certainly one type of knowledge. "The assurance of things hoped
> for and the evidence of things not seen" requires cognition -- for
> assurance and evaluation of evidence.
No. An infant, without cognition, is assured of being cared
for by its parents. That's why it cries when it needs
something.
B.
--
Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
Bart Goddard
lsen...@hotmail.com wrote in
news:4B861215-579D-5BF3...@art.srcbs.org:
>> Yet, you insist that some knowledge is required for someone
>> to be flown to their destination. =A0Odd.
>>
> Come on Bart. Why would anyone take the time and trouble
> to get on the airplane if it didn't already know that planes
> fly?
Because they're infants, and they don't know one way
or the other. They _trust_ (i.e. have faith in) their
parents to take care of them. It's not a trust/faith
of the brain, but of the heart. They're taken on the
plane and they arrive at their destination. End of
story.
And can't you even follow your own analogy?
> You only argue because you want to disagree. Not because
> you have a valid point.
Ad hominem is the last refuge of the someone who realizes
he's wrong. And that'd be you. Since you've, once again,
gone off topic and onto some perceived flaw in my character,
this conversation is over, and you're back in the killfile.
Ta-ta.
B.
--
Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
Bob Felts
Bart Goddard <godd...@netscape.net> wrote:
> wr...@stablecross.com (Bob Felts) wrote in
> news:04FA4A9A-AF6F-1A6D...@art.srcbs.org:
>
>
> >> You don't have to watch them either. You don't have to believe that
> >> jets can fly. If you get on one, it flies you to your destination,
> >> whether you believe it or not. If you're a babe in arms, and carried
> >> onto the plane without your knowledge, then, by golly, you STILL get
> >> flown to your destination.
> >>
> >
> > Right. The argument is whether or not the infant has faith, even though
> > they reached their destination via grace. The answer is clearly "no",
> > since faith requires cognition. Salvation does not, but faith does.
>
> "By grace ye are saved through faith...". If there's some other
> vehicle for grace, besides faith, Scripture is silent about it.
Grace _does not need a vehicle_. It's grace. It comes however God
pleases. No "vehicle" was needed for Lazarus to be raised from the
dead. It wasn't through faith that Lazarus came alive. It was through
faith that the realization came that it was by grace.
> Any theory you propose for the salvation of infants that isn't
> by the ONE Biblical formula is pure conjecture.
Salvation by grace is pure conjecture? You completely misunderstand
what "through faith" means.
Bob Felts
Bart Goddard <godd...@netscape.net> wrote:
> wr...@stablecross.com (Bob Felts) wrote in
> news:C43A6A48-96AB-5853...@art.srcbs.org:
>
>
> >> and 2. I'm pretty sure is un-usable.
> >>
> >
> > Really? Do you have _anything_ that wasn't first given to you by God?
>
> If you want to follow that line, then the Pharisees can say "We don't
> teach salvation by works, because God gave us the power to do the works
> that save us."
>
Mate in 5 (or whatever. I pulled the number out of my a**. I don't
have time to graph the endgame). The next move is to say, "what does
God say about your use of that power? Do you, in fact, do the works
that save you?"
> Did Christ die to pay for our sins or did He die to show us how to save
> ourselves?
He died to pay for our sins. So the question becomes, how did you, a
spiritually dead person, blind and deaf to the Gospel, come to know
this? Did you open your eyes, or did God open your eyes? If God opened
your eyes, how did you figure this out?
>
>
> > And what do you do with the passages where God gives knowledge to
> > people?
>
> Doesn't matter. God gives us apples, but it has nothing to do with faith
> or salvation.
>
How do you know that God gives us apples and they aren't simply the
non-telological product of time, chance, and natural selection?
>
> >> If I have to be able to think, "Gee, Jesus is sure swell" in order to
> >> be saved,
> >
> > And therein lies the problem. Faith is the result of grace, just like
> > knowledge is the result of grace.
>
> Two problems. Faith is not just the result of grace, but also
> it's vehicle.
I dealt with this in another post. Grace needs no vehicle.
> Grace abounds, but it's not applied to a person accept by faith.
Bart, listen to you subconscious. That wasn't a typo -- it was a
"freudian slip".
> That's the biblical formula "through faith." The picture of being
> "graced" and then later having faith result denies that faith is the
> vehicle for grace.
Oh, so _I'm_ saved because I exercised faith, but Joe Unbeliever over
there is damned, because he did not have faith.
What's wrong with this picture? Something about "not of yourselves"?
>
>
> > Infants can be saved, not because faith does not require a mental
> > capability that they haven't yet developed, but because of grace which,
> > given time, results in the mental capability, which demonstrates itself
> > as faith.
>
> And if an infant dies before "faith" appears, how is it saved?
By grace, just like everyone else who is saved.
> You say "it has grace which came not by faith." Scripture knows nothing
> of the kind.
>
"I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and compassion on whom I have
compassion. ... So it depends not on human will or effort but on God who
shows mercy".
>
> > Are you channelling Matthew?
>
> Oooohhh. No you did not. Where's my hockey stick?
>
If you can't find it, I'll loan you my baseball bat.
> >Apophatic theology from you?
>
> Most of theology is negative. Until there is a heresy, there's no reason
> to write treatises against it. The ecumenical creeds are nothing but
> statements against heresies. I don't think it's possible to define
> "faith" (that is, "saving faith") properly.
Yet Scripture does define it. "The assurance of things hoped for, the
evidence of things not seen." The writer of Hebrews obviously was
neither a mathematician nor a philosopher, but still got it right.
> But it is possible to say what it is not. So Lutheran theology is full
> of statements like, "We accept no model or definition of 'faith' which
> excludes anyone, including infants and the unconscious."
Ah, but that's because your cataphatic definition of faith includes
"vehicle for grace". You have to fall back on the apophetic because
this definition is fundamentally wrong.
>
>
> >> It's not knowledge.
> >
> > It's certainly one type of knowledge. "The assurance of things hoped
> > for and the evidence of things not seen" requires cognition -- for
> > assurance and evaluation of evidence.
>
> No. An infant, without cognition, is assured of being cared
> for by its parents. That's why it cries when it needs
> something.
It cries because it's wired to do so. It has no assurance that it will
be satiated. This is just another side effect of erroneously making
faith the "vehicle" for grace.
lsen...@hotmail.com
On May 2, 12:32=A0pm, Bart Goddard <goddar...@netscape.net> wrote:
> lsend...@hotmail.com wrote innews:4B861215-579D-5BF3-B4A7-4BCE09D93982@ar=> >> to be flown to their destination. =3DA0Odd.
>
> > Come on Bart. =A0Why would anyone take the time and trouble
> > to get on the airplane if it didn't already know that planes
> > fly?
>
> Because they're infants, and they don't know one way
> or the other.
>
logic in such a counter? Infants don't make a choice. The
parent or guardian makes it for them. If they are old enough
to act as you say....
>
> They _trust_ (i.e. have faith in) their
> parents to take care of them. =A0
>
.... then their knowledgeable faith / trust isn't in the plane
but in their parents, of which they _know_.
>
> It's not a trust/faith
> of the brain, but of the heart. =A0
>
The scriptures include reason as a function of the
heart. Are you unaware of this? And even so, your
logic is neither crystalline nor fluid. In a strictly
modern sense, the heart merely pumps blood. It
is the mind from which reason, volition and emotion
flows. Error comes when one of these acts either
independent of the other two or it acts out of
harmony. Perhaps an illustration of the nature of
God.
>
>They're taken on the
> plane and they arrive at their destination. =A0End of
> story. =A0
>
Where is "choice" then? Where is faith, of which we
are discussing? You're attacking the illustration not
the argument. Again I ask, come, let us REASON
together, not mince about word illustrations.
>
> And can't you even follow your own analogy?
>
I'm following fine. It is you who confuse analogy
for the point in question. Let me remind you, it is
that faith always operates off of some appreciation
of knowledge. I hesitate to say "facts" unless I
place it in quotations for what some consider factual
knowledge is merely deception. The scriptures call
us, time after time, to weight, to test, to prove that
which is true as opposed to that which is false. God
gave a gift, our spirits with which to reasonably
seek after and find the true spiritual truth.
Again, a life of faith is not what we today would term
rationalism. However, faith is always reasonable.
>
> > You only argue because you want to disagree. Not because
> > you have a valid point.
>
> Ad hominem is the last refuge of the someone who realizes
> he's wrong. =A0And that'd be you. =A0Since you've, once again,
> gone off topic and onto some perceived flaw in my character,
> this conversation is over, and you're back in the killfile.
>
The point was valid and I was only seeking to call you
to step back and think out the issue we are discussing. I
have given you two good reference works to read. You
poo poo them off hand. Thus I am reasonable to conclude
that you are not here to discuss and acquire knowledge
and understanding, but merely to display and defend you
opinion. That is too bad. That is why it seems these NG's
often accomplish so little.
2 Tim 2:14, 15
lsen...@hotmail.com
On May 3, 5:58=A0pm, w...@stablecross.com (Bob Felts) wrote:
> Bart Goddard <goddar...@netscape.net> wrote:
> >news:04FA4A9A-AF6F-1A6D...@art.srcbs.org:
>
> > >> You don't have to watch them either. =A0You don't have to believe th=
at
> > >> jets can fly. =A0If you get on one, it flies you to your destination=
,
> > >> whether you believe it or not. =A0If you're a babe in arms, and carr=
ied
> > >> onto the plane without your knowledge, then, by golly, you STILL get
> > >> flown to your destination.
>
hough
> > > they reached their destination via grace. =A0The answer is clearly "n=
o",
> > > since faith requires cognition. =A0Salvation does not, but faith does=
.
>
> > "By grace ye are saved through faith...". =A0If there's some other
> > vehicle for grace, besides faith, Scripture is silent about it.
>
> pleases. =A0No "vehicle" was needed for Lazarus to be raised from the
> dead. =A0 It wasn't through faith that Lazarus came alive. It was through
> faith that the realization came that it was by grace.
>
it is often because there is a failure to distinguish the two vantage
points, that being God's and man's. From man's perspective it is
"whosoever will's" while from God's perspective it is "chosen before
the foundation of the world."
In the logical progression of the Pauline argument in Roman's, he
concludes that the Gentiles are_without_excuse and that the
religious (Jewish) paradigm (semi-Pelagian) is equally without_
excuse thus "ALL, both Jew and Greek are under sin." Then
he quotes the only repeated psalm, ps 14 & 53, and like Jude
and 2 Pet 2, repetition is not a mistake, it is the Spirit emphasizing
the reality. Both the Psalms and the Pauline argument amended
by the quotation of the Psalms, likewise presses home the
point that all are "dead in trespasses and sins," slaves to
the "prince of the power of the air" (Satan) and that among
the believing remnant, there were none who were not called
out living "in the cravings of the flesh" all being by "nature
children of wrath."
Regeneration is wholly a work of God. The believing saint,
having his/her eyes opened, being enlightened to the wrath
of God upon and the offer of Christ's propitiatory sacrifice,
confess their sin, accept Christ's offer in response to having
already been "born from above." Men are not spiritually born
again via their own determined choice any more than they
had a part in their physical birth. "It is ALL from Him,
through Him and to Him." The chosen man who is drawn
(dragged) by the Father, regenerated by the Spirit, made
a member of Christ's body, cannot respond in any other
way but to believe. What is the basis upon which no
separation from the love God but that we did not merit
it to begin with, therefore, no demerit can lose it.
Bob Felts
<lsen...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On May 3, 5:58=A0pm, w...@stablecross.com (Bob Felts) wrote:
> > Bart Goddard <goddar...@netscape.net> wrote:
> > > w...@stablecross.com (Bob Felts) wrote in
> > >news:04FA4A9A-AF6F-1A6D...@art.srcbs.org:
> >
> > > >> [Bart]
> > > >> You don't have to watch them either. You don't have to believe that
> > > >> jets can fly. If you get on one, it flies you to your destination,
> > > >> whether you believe it or not. If you're a babe in arms, and carried
> > > >> onto the plane without your knowledge, then, by golly, you STILL get
> > > >> flown to your destination.
> >
> > > > [wrf3]
> > > > Right. The argument is whether or not the infant has faith, even though
> > > > they reached their destination via grace. The answer is clearly "no",
> > > > since faith requires cognition. Salvation does not, but faith does.
> >
> > > [Bart]
> > > "By grace ye are saved through faith...". =A0If there's some other
> > > vehicle for grace, besides faith, Scripture is silent about it.
> >
> > [wrf3]
> > Grace _does not need a vehicle_. It's grace. It comes however God
> > pleases. No "vehicle" was needed for Lazarus to be raised from the
> > dead. It wasn't through faith that Lazarus came alive. It was through
> > faith that the realization came that it was by grace.
> >
> I am often aware that when the discussion of this doctrine divides,
> it is often because there is a failure to distinguish the two vantage
> points, that being God's and man's. From man's perspective it is
> "whosoever will's" while from God's perspective it is "chosen before
> the foundation of the world."
>
This is a false dichotomy since man's perspective and God's perspective
should be the same. At issue is "what is the source of the 'whosoever
will's". One group says "man's will is free", another says "man's
choices are rooted in God's prior choices."
[...]
>
> Regeneration is wholly a work of God. The believing saint,
> having his/her eyes opened, being enlightened to the wrath
> of God upon and the offer of Christ's propitiatory sacrifice,
> confess their sin, accept Christ's offer in response to having
> already been "born from above." Men are not spiritually born
> again via their own determined choice any more than they
> had a part in their physical birth. "It is ALL from Him,
> through Him and to Him." The chosen man who is drawn
> (dragged) by the Father, regenerated by the Spirit, made
> a member of Christ's body, cannot respond in any other
> way but to believe. What is the basis upon which no
> separation from the love God but that we did not merit
> it to begin with, therefore, no demerit can lose it.
>
Amen.
Bart Goddard
>> "By grace ye are saved through faith...". If there's some other
>> vehicle for grace, besides faith, Scripture is silent about it.
>
> Grace _does not need a vehicle_. It's grace. It comes however God
> pleases.
Maybe. But if you don't have Scripture to support it, (and
you don't) then your just speculating. Heck, maybe there's
4 or 5 more persons in the Godhead which haven't been revealed
to us. But do you think it wise to try to deal with God in a way
He has chosen not to? He says "Saved by grace through faith."
And gives us no other formula. Why are you hunting around
for another formula when 1. the one we have is best possible
and 2. there simply isn't another one?
> No "vehicle" was needed for Lazarus to be raised from the
> dead.
Jesus voice was the vehicle.
> It wasn't through faith that Lazarus came alive.
Sure it was. This is the original problem of you insisting
"faith" be congnitive. It doesn't need to be. Lazarus
heard his Shepherd's voice and responded, even though
he was dead.
>> Any theory you propose for the salvation of infants that isn't
>> by the ONE Biblical formula is pure conjecture.
>
> Salvation by grace is pure conjecture?
No "Salvation by grace not through faith" is pure conjecture.
>You completely misunderstand
> what "through faith" means.
No, you misunderstand what "faith" is. It's not as 3-dimensional
as you insist.
B.
--
Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
Bart Goddard
lsen...@hotmail.com wrote in
news:419C3DBE-9C31-7660...@art.srcbs.org:
> On May 2, 12:32=A0pm, Bart Goddard <goddar...@netscape.net> wrote:
>> lsend...@hotmail.com wrote
>> innews:4B861215-579D-5BF3-B4A7-4BCE09D93982@ar=
> t.srcbs.org:
>>
>> >> Yet, you insist that some knowledge is required for someone
>> >> to be flown to their destination. =3DA0Odd.
>>
>> > Come on Bart. =A0Why would anyone take the time and trouble
>> > to get on the airplane if it didn't already know that planes
>> > fly?
>>
>> Because they're infants, and they don't know one way
>> or the other.
>>
> Again, where is your common sense let alone reasonability/
> logic in such a counter? Infants don't make a choice.
Exactly. That's the whole point. Try, just once, to
think a complete thought: The infant doesn't have any
cognition about what planes do or what they're for. He
just trusts his parents to take care of him. And, voila,
he arrives at his destination.
B.
--
Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
Bart Goddard
> On May 2, 12:32=A0pm, Bart Goddard <goddar...@netscape.net> wrote:
>> lsend...@hotmail.com wrote
>> innews:4B861215-579D-5BF3-B4A7-4BCE09D93982@ar=
> t.srcbs.org:
>>
>> >> Yet, you insist that some knowledge is required for someone
>> >> to be flown to their destination. =3DA0Odd.
>>
>> > Come on Bart. =A0Why would anyone take the time and trouble
>> > to get on the airplane if it didn't already know that planes
>> > fly?
>>
>> Because they're infants, and they don't know one way
>> or the other.
>>
> Again, where is your common sense let alone reasonability/
> logic in such a counter? Infants don't make a choice.
Exactly. That's the whole point. Try, just once, to
think a complete thought: The infant doesn't have any
cognition about what planes do or what they're for. He
just trusts his parents to take care of him. And, voila,
he arrives at his destination.
B.
--
Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
lsen...@hotmail.com
On May 8, 7:57=A0am, w...@stablecross.com (Bob Felts) wrote:
> <lsend...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I am often aware that when the discussion of this doctrine divides,
> > it is often because there is a failure to distinguish the two vantage
> > points, that being God's and man's. =A0From man's perspective it is
> > "whosoever will's" while from God's perspective it is "chosen before
> > the foundation of the world."
>
> This is a false dichotomy since man's perspective and God's perspective
> should be the same. =A0
>
That is not the biblical picture. As I quoted, scripture presents the
two
views. From the human conscience, I hear the gospel, evaluate it,
evaluate my sin and the need of a Savior, I confess and turn away.
But the reality is that God the Father dragged me (Jn 6:44 "draw" is
an incorrect translation) before His Son, the Spirit regenerated my
spirit, enlightened my conscience and granted to me the faith
to accept/believe/trust in Christ. It is not a false dichotomy. It
is
the very nature of salvation.
> At issue is "what is the source of the 'whosoever
> will's". =A0One group says "man's will is free", another says "man's
> choices are rooted in God's prior choices."
>
Choice is not part of the formula. . . of either group. Dead
men do not make choices. Choice is even outside of the
equation. Self-determination is causative. You cannot
choose outside of your inclination/bias/nature/disposition.
"No man seeks after God." i.e. NO man is inclined to
choose God. The moralist cannot change his disposition
any more than the leopard can change his spots. There
is no self originating volitionary resolution. Dead man's
inclination is a positive determination of the will in but
a single orientation, toward but a solitary goal. Volition
or "choice" is merely a selection out that singularity. It
always has but one goal, one determined end. That
end is always self. Choice is always indifferent toward
the thing which it chooses. Rather, it is the end which
is at the heart of the matter. The drunk would drink
water if it accomplished the same end as a pint of
your finest whiskey.
It is you who now is charged with the advocation
of a false dichotomy.
>
> > Regeneration is wholly a work of God. =A0The believing saint,
> > having his/her eyes opened, being enlightened to the wrath
> > of God upon and the offer of Christ's propitiatory sacrifice,
> > confess their sin, accept Christ's offer in response to having
> > already been "born from above." =A0Men are not spiritually born
> > again via their own determined choice any more than they
> > had a part in their physical birth. =A0"It is ALL from Him,
> > through Him and to Him." =A0The chosen man who is drawn
> > (dragged) by the Father, regenerated by the Spirit, made
> > a member of Christ's body, cannot respond in any other
> > way but to believe. =A0What is the basis upon which no
> > separation from the love God but that we did not merit
> > it to begin with, therefore, no demerit can lose it.
>
> Amen.
>
How can you say "Amen" to what was written and yet
take issue with what was first stated?
lsen...@hotmail.com
On May 8, 7:57=A0am, Bart Goddard <goddar...@netscape.net> wrote:
> lsend...@hotmail.com wrote innews:419C3DBE-9C31-7660-C3CF-F3092DE6EFA3@ar=
t.srcbs.org:
>
> > Again, where is your common sense let alone reasonability/
>
> Exactly. =A0That's the whole point. =A0Try, just once, to
> think a complete thought: =A0The infant doesn't have any
> cognition about what planes do or what they're for. =A0He
> just trusts his parents to take care of him. =A0And, voila,
> he arrives at his destination. =A0
>
Faith ALWAYS has an object. You are confusing
objects. The child does not place his faith in
the plane, but in the parent. Knowledge is of
that parent precedes that particular act of
faith.
Bart, you are really causing me to lose
respect for you analyzing capabilities. I
may not have agreed with you in times past
but now I find that even a simple discussion
as this one, it seems beyond you to follow
without prejudice. There is nothing personal
here.
If I may, what is you major objection to the
declaration that faith is based upon knowledge?
Faith must be preceded by knowledge otherwise
it would not know the object into which it is
placing its trust. There is no such thing as
faith in faith. The constructs just will not allow
it by definition.
Bob Felts
<lsen...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On May 8, 7:57am, w...@stablecross.com (Bob Felts) wrote:
> > <lsend...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > > I am often aware that when the discussion of this doctrine divides, it
> > > is often because there is a failure to distinguish the two vantage
> > > points, that being God's and man's. From man's perspective it is
> > > "whosoever will's" while from God's perspective it is "chosen before
> > > the foundation of the world."
> >
> > This is a false dichotomy since man's perspective and God's perspective
> > should be the same.
> >
> That is not the biblical picture. As I quoted, scripture presents the
> two views.
If the two views don't see the same thing, then one of them is wrong.
> From the human conscience, I hear the gospel, evaluate it, evaluate my sin
> and the need of a Savior, I confess and turn away. But the reality is that
> God the Father dragged me (Jn 6:44 "draw" is an incorrect translation)
> before His Son, the Spirit regenerated my spirit, enlightened my
> conscience and granted to me the faith to accept/believe/trust in Christ.
> It is not a false dichotomy. It is the very nature of salvation.
>
How many realities do you hold there to be? Both of your positions can
be unified into one.
> > At issue is "what is the source of the 'whosoever will's". One group
> > says "man's will is free", another says "man's choices are rooted in
> > God's prior choices."
> >
> Choice is not part of the formula. . . of either group.
Of course it is. "You did not choose me but I chose you." [John 15:16a]
> Dead men do not make choices.
Equivocation on the use of the term "dead". Total depravity says that
dead men do choose, but that they always make the wrong choice.
> Choice is even outside of the equation.
Have you forgotten the human experience? Whatever the underlying
mechanism, we choose.
> Self-determination is causative. You cannot choose outside of your
> inclination/bias/nature/disposition. "No man seeks after God." i.e. NO
> man is inclined to choose God.
So they choose self. A choice is still made.
> The moralist cannot change his disposition any more than the leopard can
> change his spots. There is no self originating volitionary resolution.
If you mean what I think you mean, the proper response is "so?"
> Dead man's inclination is a positive determination of the will in but a
> single orientation, toward but a solitary goal. Volition or "choice" is
> merely a selection out that singularity.
A selection is still a choice.
> It always has but one goal, one determined end. That end is always self.
> Choice is always indifferent toward the thing which it chooses.
You romantic, you. Try that line on your wife.
> Rather, it is the end which is at the heart of the matter. The drunk
> would drink water if it accomplished the same end as a pint of your finest
> whiskey.
You are conflating the choice "to get drunk" with the means to
accomplish it ("whiskey or water").
>
> It is you who now is charged with the advocation of a false dichotomy.
I maintain my "not guilty" plea.
> >
> > > Regeneration is wholly a work of God. The believing saint, having
> > > his/her eyes opened, being enlightened to the wrath of God upon and
> > > the offer of Christ's propitiatory sacrifice, confess their sin,
> > > accept Christ's offer in response to having already been "born from
> > > above." Men are not spiritually born again via their own determined
> > > choice any more than they had a part in their physical birth. "It is
> > > ALL from Him, through Him and to Him." The chosen man who is drawn
> > > (dragged) by the Father, regenerated by the Spirit, made a member of
> > > Christ's body, cannot respond in any other way but to believe. What is
> > > the basis upon which no separation from the love God but that we did
> > > not merit it to begin with, therefore, no demerit can lose it.
> >
> > Amen.
> >
> How can you say "Amen" to what was written and yet
> take issue with what was first stated?
Because you're wrong on part of your argument doesn't mean you're wrong
on everything.
Bob Felts
Bart Goddard <godd...@netscape.net> wrote:
> wr...@stablecross.com (Bob Felts) wrote in
> news:A18FD57B-A5B4-EA3E...@art.srcbs.org:
>
>
> >> "By grace ye are saved through faith...". If there's some other
> >> vehicle for grace, besides faith, Scripture is silent about it.
> >
> > Grace _does not need a vehicle_. It's grace. It comes however God
> > pleases.
>
> Maybe.
I think you prove my point for me in just a bit.
> But if you don't have Scripture to support it, (and you don't) then your
> just speculating.
Oh, come on, Bart. If I didn't think Scripture supported it, I wouldn't
be arguing for it. You know that, just like I know you think Scripture
supports your position.
> Heck, maybe there's 4 or 5 more persons in the Godhead which haven't been
> revealed to us.
There might be. But since it hasn't been revealed, we can't know.
> But do you think it wise to try to deal with God in a way He has chosen
> not to? He says "Saved by grace through faith." And gives us no other
> formula. Why are you hunting around for another formula when 1. the one
> we have is best possible and 2. there simply isn't another one?
>
The argument isn't over the formula. The argument is over what "through
faith" means. You and I have different definitions of "faith". You
think it doesn't require cognition and I do. Espeically since Scripture
uses "assurance" and "evidence" when defining faith -- and these
presuppose cognition.
Then we also disagree on what "through faith" means. You see it as
being the vessel for grace (which is nowhere explicitly taught in
Scripture) and I see it as the means by which grace is seen (which, IMO,
is the point of Heb 11).
>
> > No "vehicle" was needed for Lazarus to be raised from the
> > dead.
>
> Jesus voice was the vehicle.
>
So are there two different vehicles?
> > It wasn't through faith that Lazarus came alive.
>
> Sure it was. This is the original problem of you insisting
> "faith" be congnitive. It doesn't need to be. Lazarus
> heard his Shepherd's voice and responded, even though
> he was dead.
>
You have a bootstrapping problem. Lazarus heard his Shepard's voice,
because His voice enlivened Lazarus so that he could hear.
If grace comes through faith then why does person A have it and person B
does not? Where does person B obtain the faith so that grace may flow?
[...]
lsen...@hotmail.com
On May 9, 9:49=A0am, w...@stablecross.com (Bob Felts) wrote:
> <lsend...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > On May 8, 7:57am, w...@stablecross.com (Bob Felts) wrote:
> > > <lsend...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
it
> > > > is often because there is a failure to distinguish the two vantage
> > > > points, that being God's and man's. From man's perspective it is
e
> > > > the foundation of the world."
>
ve
> > > should be the same.
>
e
> > two views.
>
> If the two views don't see the same thing, then one of them is wrong.
>
this, from the Reformed view, man sees himself as the cause of his
repentance and turning but he is confused by his existentialism. It
was God who was the cause and his salvation being the effect.
>
> > From the human conscience, I hear the gospel, evaluate it, evaluate my =
sin
> > and the need of a Savior, I confess and turn away. But the reality is t=
hat
> > God the Father dragged me (Jn 6:44 "draw" is an incorrect translation)
> > before His Son, the Spirit regenerated my spirit, enlightened my
t.
> > It is not a false dichotomy. =A0It is the very nature of salvation.
>
> How many realities do you hold there to be? =A0Both of your positions can
> be unified into one.
>
Does not the consciousness of Christ illustrate this point? He was at
once God and man. Having carefully studied and deliberated on the
subject as a PhD theme, Christ's consciousness at His first advent was
not that of the Divine nature. He truly experienced chronological
knowledge and events. What He not also holding all things together by
the power of His will? Certainly. But the mystery of His conscious
darkening of His Divine awareness of all things, qualifies the state-
ment that He was tested in all points as we -i.e. chronological
limited
awareness. Jn 8 for the Greek reader expresses Jesus' surprise at
the sudden casting of the adulterous woman before Him. Lk 2:52
and elsewhere records that "He grew in stature and wisdom."
Now, was this limited consciousness of Christ a separate reality,
a false reality compared to His eternal Divine consciousness?
>
> > > At issue is "what is the source of the 'whosoever will's". One group
> > > says "man's will is free", another says "man's choices are rooted in
> > > God's prior choices."
>
> > Choice is not part of the formula. . . of either group.
>
> Of course it is. =A0"You did not choose me but I chose you." [John 15:16a=
]
>
You're not following the argument, perhaps because it seems you did
not read the whole argument before returning a pondered reply. God
has but a single inclination. Perhaps as you read further into my
argument, you came to realize the dynamic involved.
>
> > Dead men do not make choices.
>
> Equivocation on the use of the term "dead". =A0Total depravity says that
> dead men do choose, but that they always make the wrong choice.
>
Dead men have but a single inclination therefore all "choices" are
but means to gain the singular goal. So choice is not of importance
in the thick of it. As I teach my students and exhort the elders of
the church, we are casing shadows if we major in the externals. Our
major is to be rooted in the internals. "As a man thinketh, so he
is."
"Be transfigured by the renewing of you mind." The eternals are
secondary. You can pick off all the rotten fruit from the tree but
unless
you address the issue of the roots, it is a vain pursuit.
My point was that "choice" or what some mistakenly call
"free-will" is not at the heart of the matter.
>
> > Choice is even outside of the equation.
>
> Have you forgotten the human experience? =A0Whatever the underlying
> mechanism, we choose.
>
But never from outside of our orientation/inclination. The dynamics
of this is fixed. A bad tree cannot produce good fruit. The bad tree
is the inclination, the fruit are the choices made.
>
> > Self-determination is causative. You cannot choose outside of your
> > inclination/bias/nature/disposition. "No man seeks after God." =A0i.e. =
NO
> > man is inclined to choose God.
>
> So they choose self. =A0A choice is still made.
>
No. You are not grasping the dynamic. Does the effect ever reach
back to the causality? Never. Did you ever reach back to have some
influence on your physical birth? Never. Regeneration is being born
from above. Did you have any causality in this? Never. The
response to the Gospel was a choice which flowed out of the new
man, the new divinely created inclination/spirit.
>
> > The moralist cannot change his disposition any more than the leopard ca=
n
> > change his spots. There is no self originating volitionary resolution.
>
> If you mean what I think you mean, the proper response is "so?"
>
Man does not chose God. God has to first create the new inclination
and that assures that the process of sanctification will be made
complete.
>
> > Dead man's inclination is a positive determination of the will in but a
> > single orientation, toward but a solitary goal. =A0Volition or "choice"=
is
> > merely a selection out that singularity.
>
> A selection is still a choice.
>
But it is the selecting of two different grades of gray. It cannot
select red or white or blue. The central action of the will is its
steady state inclination while the superficial action it its momentary
volition in a particular instance. As an illustration, a thief. A
thief's covetousness is the central activity of his will. The act
of stealing something is secondary and superficial. I'm not
denying nor dismissing the accountability of the action, the
necessity of the external to produce guilt. But the thief could
chose to refrain from the action of stealing but not from
refraining his covetous desire for a particular object. The
act of restraint from the external may be no more than the
squad car seen sitting outside the store window. But that,
in reality, does not change the inclination nor can it ever
change it. A man can reverse his sinful choice but never
his sinful inclination.
>
> > It always has but one goal, one determined end. =A0That end is always s=
elf.
> > Choice is always indifferent toward the thing which it chooses.
>
> You romantic, you. =A0Try that line on your wife.
>
Mark 7:6 And He said to them, "Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you
hypocrites, as it is written, ' This people honors Me with their lips,
But their heart is far away from Me."
And what else do they say? Men give love to get sex while women give
sex to get love. What is the orientation vs the volition?
>
> > Rather, it is the end which is at the heart of the matter. =A0The drunk
> > would drink water if it accomplished the same end as a pint of your fin=
est
> > whiskey.
>
> You are conflating the choice "to get drunk" with the means to
> accomplish it ("whiskey or water").
>
Illustrating that choice is not the issue. The issue is resolving the
craving of the inclination. Choosing this or that is purely of a
secondary
importance compared to the obtainment of the goal.
>
> > It is you who now is charged with the advocation of a false dichotomy.
>
> I maintain my "not guilty" plea.
>
and I maintain that you are not understanding of the dynamic.
gkmc...@comcast.net
On Apr 15, 12:07=A0pm, George the Guy Who Watches Terrapene carolina
triungus <gpat...@bayou.com> wrote:
> On Apr 13, 3:38 pm, bwmey...@toast.net wrote:
>
> > However "weak" that may sound to you, (and I agree that it will, to
> > anyone who is not a futurist, believing it is not Prophecy, as God
> > says it is) it is really the only realistic view: to claim the things
> > It speaks of having already happened is as nonsensical as the Jews'
> > attempt to deny the Prophecy of Psa. 22:16-17.
>
> > But in addition, secondly, there are different ways to understand the
> > clause "must shortly come to pass:" =A0(Just as there are different ver=
y
> > valid ways to understand the Lord's Words which the blasphemers love
> > to take up on, "this generation will not pass till all be fulfilled.")
>
> If one has a little faith, one can accept that it did shortly come to
> pass, and that it did come to pass in that generation.
>
> I am sorry that blasphemers are disagreeing with your theology. But,
> this does not mean that all who disagree with your understanding of
> scripture are blasphemers. =A0Might I suggest that, on occasion, you may
> think you see blasphemers, when they are not actually there. =A0It is
> alright to be an accuser. =A0They are needed. =A0In the Old Testament one
> of God=3D92s helpers was an accuser. =A0But as we can see from the book o=
f
> Job, sometimes an accuser can kind of over do it.
>
> ((( s.r.c.b-s is a moderated group. =A0All posts are approved by a modera=
tor. )))
=A0 )))
George:
Be consistent. Your position DEMANDS that ALL of the book of
Revelation be
fulfilled, not just the parts you choose.
That this is NOT the case is OBVIOUS when chapters 20 and 21 are
considered.
The text, at the beginning, as you wrongly interpret it makes no
differentiation between the first
chapters and the last two, i.e., 20 and 21..
IF you are teaching that all of what is described in chapters 20 and
21 are
past, which you must if you are consistent, then nobody will believe
you are
in your right mind.
Gary McNees
Bart Goddard
>> > Grace _does not need a vehicle_. It's grace. It comes however God
>> > pleases.
>>
>> Maybe.
>
> I think you prove my point for me in just a bit.
>
>> But if you don't have Scripture to support it, (and you don't) then
>> your
>> just speculating.
>
> Oh, come on, Bart. If I didn't think Scripture supported it, I
> wouldn't be arguing for it. You know that, just like I know you think
> Scripture supports your position.
Thennnnnn.....where is it? Scripture says salvation comes by
grace through faith. Where is your Scripture that says it
ever comes by this or that other means? The fact that you have
no citation here is telling.
> The argument isn't over the formula. The argument is over what
> "through faith" means. You and I have different definitions of
> "faith". You think it doesn't require cognition and I do.
Fair point. Matthew 18 has Jesus saying that the "little
children" belive in Him. Now where is the cognition?
> Then we also disagree on what "through faith" means. You see it as
> being the vessel for grace (which is nowhere explicitly taught in
> Scripture) and I see it as the means by which grace is seen (which,
> IMO, is the point of Heb 11).
"Vehicle", not "vessel". I see faith as the mouth which
receives grace. I don't think we differ here.
>> Sure it was. This is the original problem of you insisting
>> "faith" be congnitive. It doesn't need to be. Lazarus
>> heard his Shepherd's voice and responded, even though
>> he was dead.
>>
>
> You have a bootstrapping problem. Lazarus heard his Shepard's voice,
> because His voice enlivened Lazarus so that he could hear.
It's not a bootstrapping problem, it's a problem of Calvinist
over-analyzing. Ezekiels bones behaved the same way. Grace
comes through faith, but part of that grace is the granting of
faith. It's that "God's Word accomplishes what it says" bit.
> If grace comes through faith then why does person A have it and person
> B does not? Where does person B obtain the faith so that grace may
> flow?
God gives it, through the Word.
Bart
--
Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
Bart Goddard
lsen...@hotmail.com wrote in
news:EB3CE8BC-459F-4877...@art.srcbs.org:
>> Exactly. =A0That's the whole point. =A0Try, just once, to
>> think a complete thought: =A0The infant doesn't have any
>> cognition about what planes do or what they're for. =A0He
>> just trusts his parents to take care of him. =A0And, voila,
>> he arrives at his destination. =A0
>>
> Faith ALWAYS has an object. You are confusing
> objects.
No, you're dodging back and forth between two (at least)
points. If the infant has faith in his parents, rather
than the plane, then you at least admit that the infant
_has faith_ and _without cognition_. End of story.
> Bart, you are really causing me to lose
> respect for you analyzing capabilities.
<shrug>
> If I may, what is you major objection to the
> declaration that faith is based upon knowledge?
The exercise of knowledge is a work. In your model,
in order to get on a plane to Frankfurt, I have to
make the synapses in my brain work through the
schedules, choose a flight, get on the plane.
_Thinking_ is a work (at least for those of us
who do it for a living.) I reject any definition of
"faith" which excludes infants, autistic people,
or unconcious people. And your definition does.
> Faith must be preceded by knowledge otherwise
> it would not know the object into which it is
> placing its trust.
And you're losing respect for my analytic skills?
After a sentence that says "It must have KNOWledge
or else it wouldnt KNOW"? That's the whole point
here: Cognitive knowing is not a requirement for
faith, and it doesn't do a dang bit of good to say
"But if you don't KNOW then you won't KNOW".
All sheep hear the Shepherd voice, whether their
brains work like ours or not.
B.
--
Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
lsen...@hotmail.com
On May 22, 1:34=A0pm, Bart Goddard <goddar...@netscape.net> wrote:
> lsend...@hotmail.com wrote innews:EB3CE8BC-459F-4877-CBD3-7CEBBB233F4C@ar=
t.srcbs.org:
>
> >> Exactly. =3DA0That's the whole point. =3DA0Try, just once, to
> >> think a complete thought: =3DA0The infant doesn't have any
> >> cognition about what planes do or what they're for. =3DA0He
> >> just trusts his parents to take care of him. =3DA0And, voila,
> >> he arrives at his destination. =3DA0
>
> > Faith ALWAYS has an object. =A0You are confusing
> > objects. =A0
>
> No, you're dodging back and forth between two (at least)
> than the plane, then you at least admit that the infant
>
this is hopeless. I thought you were one of the more
intelligent, able to reason people here. I must have
you mixed up with some one else. You just don't
get it.
lsen...@hotmail.com
On Apr 9, 9:24=A0pm, George the Guy Who Watches Terrapene carolina
triungus <gpat...@bayou.com> wrote:
>
> According to the first verse in the book of Revelation, the things the
> book of Revelation speaks of were to occur with speed
>
and this is why some people never get beyond the basics
in bible interp. Even if you don't know Greek, if you knew how
to use a good Greek resource like TDNT, you would realize
that speed is not chronologic rapidity, but that when the
moment of its occurrence, it will happen suddenly.
Those who have actually studied something other than
a surface opinion, are pained to see so many off-the-cuff
interpretations. Paul warns Timothy that such casual
handling of God's word will bring shame at His coming.
2 Tim 2:14-15
Bart Goddard
Bob, I've read this several times, and can't make sense
of some of your responses.
>> >> and 2. I'm pretty sure is un-usable.
>> >>
>> >
>> > Really? Do you have _anything_ that wasn't first given to you by
>> > God?
>>
>> If you want to follow that line, then the Pharisees can say "We don't
>> teach salvation by works, because God gave us the power to do the
>> works that save us."
>>
>
> Mate in 5 (or whatever. I pulled the number out of my a**. I don't
> have time to graph the endgame). The next move is to say, "what does
> God say about your use of that power? Do you, in fact, do the works
> that save you?"
This doesn't seem to be a propos. The pharisee wants to say
"God gave me the ability to save myself by giving me the ability
to obey His laws." Can he, on the basis of such reasoning,
assert that he's not teaching salvation by works?
>> Did Christ die to pay for our sins or did He die to show us how to
>> save ourselves?
>
> He died to pay for our sins. So the question becomes, how did you, a
> spiritually dead person, blind and deaf to the Gospel, come to know
> this? Did you open your eyes, or did God open your eyes? If God
> opened your eyes, how did you figure this out?
It seems like having one's eyes opened would be tantamount to
the "figuring out." Even that seems like a side issue, since
the a priori question is "what does my knowledge have to do
with it?"
>> > And what do you do with the passages where God gives knowledge to
>> > people?
>>
>> Doesn't matter. God gives us apples, but it has nothing to do with
>> faith or salvation.
>>
>
> How do you know that God gives us apples and they aren't simply the
> non-telological product of time, chance, and natural selection?
Again, very tangential. God gives stuff to people. Do they
then get to assert that they're not following a salvation-by-
works doctrine, because they did the works only by dint of
God's gifts? Second, I'm asserting that apples and knowledge
are quite similar in their relationship to faith.
A big part of this is that you insist that faith is knowledge.
Since I don't accept that, your arguments based on it don't
carry any weight. The discussion, I think, is really about
whether faith is knowledge.
>> Two problems. Faith is not just the result of grace, but also
>> it's vehicle.
> I dealt with this in another post. Grace needs no vehicle.
Not the issue. The issue is whether God has chosen to
grant grace only via faith. You want to assert that it
can come by other means. There are two problems to deal
with there. First, your view of faith as knowledge makes
knowledge the vehicle, and then you wrongly accuse me of
making knowledge the vehicle. Second, there's no Scriptural
support for grace coming any other way, so your best argument
is from (sort of) silence.
>> Grace abounds, but it's not applied to a person accept by faith.
>
> Bart, listen to you subconscious. That wasn't a typo -- it was a
> "freudian slip".
There's no slip here. It sounds tinny in YOUR ears because
you think faith is knowledge. It's not. It's a change of
heart, not a change of mind.
>> That's the biblical formula "through faith." The picture of being
>> "graced" and then later having faith result denies that faith is the
>> vehicle for grace.
>
> Oh, so _I'm_ saved because I exercised faith, but Joe Unbeliever over
> there is damned, because he did not have faith.
>
> What's wrong with this picture? Something about "not of yourselves"?
What's wrong with the picture is that you're seeing through
faith-is-knowledge eyes. If you cram Lutheran doctrine into
Calvinist doctrine, _of course_ you get a contradiction.
"Exercise" is your word, not mine (unless you understand that
"exercise" is passive, and you don't.) Salvation IS the granting
of faith. You have faith because you've been graced. You have
a problem only because you make faith into a work (knowledge.)
>> > Infants can be saved, not because faith does not require a mental
>> > capability that they haven't yet developed, but because of grace
>> > which, given time, results in the mental capability, which
>> > demonstrates itself as faith.
>>
>> And if an infant dies before "faith" appears, how is it saved?
>
> By grace, just like everyone else who is saved.
Same two gaps: You have no Scriptural support that grace
comes without faith. And second, you think faith is knowledge
which an infant can't have.
>> You say "it has grace which came not by faith." Scripture knows
>> nothing of the kind.
>>
>
> "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and compassion on whom I have
> compassion. ... So it depends not on human will or effort but on God
> who shows mercy".
Which only supports your case if you think mercy and grace and
faith can be separated. Begging the question.
>> >Apophatic theology from you?
>>
>> Most of theology is negative. Until there is a heresy, there's no
>> reason to write treatises against it. The ecumenical creeds are
>> nothing but statements against heresies. I don't think it's possible
>> to define "faith" (that is, "saving faith") properly.
>
> Yet Scripture does define it. "The assurance of things hoped for, the
> evidence of things not seen." The writer of Hebrews obviously was
> neither a mathematician nor a philosopher, but still got it right.
But the translation here is very bad. Admittedly, this was Luther's
fault, as he was the first translator to use "assurance" here. He
later admitted his mistake. Yet it propogates. Note that the
KJV has "substance". Faith itself is the evidence of things
not seen. Note that just before the write of Hebrews says:
Hebrews 10:22 Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of
faith...
How can faith BE assurance when we supposed to have assurance OF faith.
Are we supposed to have faith in faith? Or assurance in assurance?
This shows that "assurance" in Hebrews 11 is not a good translation.
Grace is the "unseen", and faith is the evidence of it.
>> But it is possible to say what it is not. So Lutheran theology is
>> full
>> of statements like, "We accept no model or definition of 'faith'
>> which excludes anyone, including infants and the unconscious."
>
> Ah, but that's because your cataphatic definition of faith includes
> "vehicle for grace". You have to fall back on the apophetic because
> this definition is fundamentally wrong.
Your definition is based on a very bad translation of Hebrews 11:1.
You might resolve this before you give up on my definition.
Bart
--
Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
Bob Felts
Bart Goddard <godd...@netscape.net> wrote:
> wr...@stablecross.com (Bob Felts) wrote in
> news:8DC53FE5-9332-7267...@art.srcbs.org:
>
> Bob, I've read this several times, and can't make sense
> of some of your responses.
>
I wish I had a witty response for this. I just hope I can remember my
train of thought...
> >> >> and 2. I'm pretty sure is un-usable.
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> > Really? Do you have _anything_ that wasn't first given to you by
> >> > God?
> >>
> >> If you want to follow that line, then the Pharisees can say "We don't
> >> teach salvation by works, because God gave us the power to do the
> >> works that save us."
> >>
> >
> > Mate in 5 (or whatever. I pulled the number out of my a**. I don't
> > have time to graph the endgame). The next move is to say, "what does
> > God say about your use of that power? Do you, in fact, do the works
> > that save you?"
>
> This doesn't seem to be a propos.
Let me see if I can reconstruct this 4 month old discussion.
Lsenders made the statement: "Faith... is always based on knowledge."
Bart: "If faith is based on knowledge then we have salvation by works."
Felts: "Logically weak, since knowledge could be given as a gift, just
like faith."
Bart: "That's a model of 'knowledge' that 1. I never heard of and 2. I'm
pretty sure is unusuable."
Felts: I made a snarky, but valid, dismissal of the first objection. I
rebutted #2 on the basis that everything that we have, including
knowledge, is a gift from God.
Bart: If you want to follow that line, then the Pharisees can say "We
don't teach salvation by works, because God gave us the power to do the
works that save us."
Felts: The next move is to say, "what does God say about your use of
that power? Do you, in fact, do the works that save you?"
Bart: The pharisee wants to say "God gave me the ability to save myself
by giving me the ability to obey His laws." Can he, on the basis of
such reasoning, assert that he's not teaching salvation by works?
Your last response is really the same as your penultimate response, to
which I would give the same reply.
I think what got missed in the last exchange is the "me/you"
distinction. When I hear "salvation by works" I think "salvation by
what _I_ do", regardless of whether it is some action or thought. To
me, "I am saved because I did/do/am doing this" and "I am saved because
I believed/believe/am believing" are equivalent. And both are wrong.
When I hear "salvation by faith" then I think "salvation by what _God_
does on my behalf by His grace." This may be heretical, but I have no
problem with salvation by works, because it is what Christ did for me
that is salvific.
Your example of the pharisee, then, stresses the "me" aspect, not the
"Him" aspect. If the pharisee were to say, "I don't do the works that
save me; it is God who is working in me and through me that saves me"
then I'd have a hard time arguing with him. But that's something
pharisees never say. Their focus is on "I", not "Him".
Does this make better sense?
BTW, I deny the premise that started this whole thing. Lsenders is
wrong: faith is never based on knowledge; all knowledge is based on
faith. But that's a different argument for another time.
[...]
>
> >> [Bart] Did Christ die to pay for our sins or did He die to show us how
> >> to save ourselves?
> >
> > [Felts] He died to pay for our sins. So the question becomes, how did
> > you, a spiritually dead person, blind and deaf to the Gospel, come to
> > know this? Did you open your eyes, or did God open your eyes? If God
> > opened your eyes, how did you figure this out?
>
> It seems like having one's eyes opened would be tantamount to the
> "figuring out."
So God opened your eyes with the result that you figured it out.
> Even that seems like a side issue, since the a priori question is "what
> does my knowledge have to do with it?"
It's a result of God's a priori work. Since all knowledge is built on
faith, God gives both the faith, and the knowledge, of what He has done.
That's why faith isn't the "vehicle"; grace is it's own vehicle.
>
>
> >> > And what do you do with the passages where God gives knowledge to
> >> > people?
> >>
> >> Doesn't matter. God gives us apples, but it has nothing to do with
> >> faith or salvation.
> >>
> >
> > How do you know that God gives us apples and they aren't simply the
> > non-telological product of time, chance, and natural selection?
>
> Again, very tangential.
No, it isn't Bart. It may be epistemologically deep, but it's
important. How do we know what we know? We're back to the me/Him
distinction. Either our knowledge is given to us by God, by grace; or
we obtain knowledge through our own efforts. If our knowledge is given
to us by God, then how do we know this? Simply by faith. But that
requires the a priori work of Grace for us to "see" this.
[...]
> A big part of this is that you insist that faith is knowledge.
> Since I don't accept that, your arguments based on it don't
> carry any weight. The discussion, I think, is really about
> whether faith is knowledge.
>
You're a mathematician. Do you know that in Euclidean geometry that
given a line L, and a point P not on L, that one and only one line can
be drawn through P that is parallel to L? Do you know that in one
non-Euclidean geometry that no lines can be drawn through P that are
parallel to L? The answer is, of course, that yes you know this. The
question, then, is how do you know this? The answer is, by faith. All
knowledge rests on faith and faith is a special type of knowledge.
>
> >> Two problems. Faith is not just the result of grace, but also
> >> it's vehicle.
>
> > I dealt with this in another post. Grace needs no vehicle.
>
> Not the issue.
Yes, it is. If grace needs a vehicle then it has to be something that
the infants and comatose can at least get in, or be put in.
> The issue is whether God has chosen to grant grace only via faith. You
> want to assert that it can come by other means.
I assert that it needs no means; it is its own means. The question then
becomes, "how does one know/apprehend/understand that one has been
graced?"
> There are two problems to deal with there. First, your view of faith as
> knowledge makes knowledge the vehicle, and then you wrongly accuse me of
> making knowledge the vehicle. Second, there's no Scriptural support for
> grace coming any other way, so your best argument is from (sort of)
> silence.
My argument isn't from silence, but from a) epistemology and b) the
Biblical defintion of grace. "It depends not on human will or
effort..." and "and that not of yourselves."
>
>
> >> Grace abounds, but it's not applied to a person accept by faith.
> >
> > Bart, listen to you subconscious. That wasn't a typo -- it was a
> > "freudian slip".
>
> There's no slip here. It sounds tinny in YOUR ears because you think
> faith is knowledge. It's not. It's a change of heart, not a change of
> mind.
>
Oh, come on, Bart. The heart is no more a cognitive element than is the
liver. In modern terms, a "change of heart" is equivalent to changing
the software that our minds execute. God changes our "software". How
do we recognize this? Why, by faith.
[...]
>
>
> >> >Apophatic theology from you?
> >>
> >> Most of theology is negative. Until there is a heresy, there's no
> >> reason to write treatises against it. The ecumenical creeds are
> >> nothing but statements against heresies. I don't think it's possible
> >> to define "faith" (that is, "saving faith") properly.
> >
> > Yet Scripture does define it. "The assurance of things hoped for, the
> > evidence of things not seen." The writer of Hebrews obviously was
> > neither a mathematician nor a philosopher, but still got it right.
>
> But the translation here is very bad. Admittedly, this was Luther's
> fault, as he was the first translator to use "assurance" here. He
> later admitted his mistake. Yet it propogates. Note that the
> KJV has "substance". Faith itself is the evidence of things
> not seen.
Which I have no problem with. In fact, it ties directly into my
geometrical questions.
> Note that just before the write of Hebrews says:
>
> Hebrews 10:22 Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of
> faith...
>
> How can faith BE assurance when we supposed to have assurance OF faith.
> Are we supposed to have faith in faith? Or assurance in assurance?
One could just as easily say, "Let us draw near with a true hear in full
assurance of the evidence of things not seen..."
>
> This shows that "assurance" in Hebrews 11 is not a good translation.
>
> Grace is the "unseen", and faith is the evidence of it.
Sure sounds like a geometrical axiom to me.
>
> >> But it is possible to say what it is not. So Lutheran theology is
> >> full of statements like, "We accept no model or definition of 'faith'
> >> which excludes anyone, including infants and the unconscious."
> >
> > Ah, but that's because your cataphatic definition of faith includes
> > "vehicle for grace". You have to fall back on the apophetic because
> > this definition is fundamentally wrong.
>
> Your definition is based on a very bad translation of Hebrews 11:1.
It makes no difference to the definition whether it's "substance" or
"assurance".
> You might resolve this before you give up on my definition.
>
Let's see what the next round brings.
Bart Goddard
>> Bob, I've read this several times, and can't make sense
>> of some of your responses.
>
> I wish I had a witty response for this.
Leave the comedy to us professionals.
> Let me see if I can reconstruct this 4 month old discussion.
>
> Lsenders made the statement: "Faith... is always based on knowledge."
> Bart: "If faith is based on knowledge then we have salvation by
> works." Felts: "Logically weak, since knowledge could be given as a
> gift, just like faith."
> Bart: "That's a model of 'knowledge' that 1. I never heard of and 2.
> I'm pretty sure is unusuable."
> Felts: I made a snarky, but valid, dismissal of the first objection. I
> rebutted #2 on the basis that everything that we have, including
> knowledge, is a gift from God.
So far so good. But: your "snarky but valid" dismissal isn't
so valid. The point of "I never heard of" is that "if this
is a model of knowledges, it's likely not a common one, and
if we're going to communicate, please either use words in
their ordinary sense, or else define your specialized terminology."
I sure don't see how "everything is a gift from God" somehow
makes the proposed model of knowledge usable.
> Bart: If you want to follow that line, then the Pharisees can say "We
> don't teach salvation by works, because God gave us the power to do
> the works that save us."
> Felts: The next move is to say, "what does God say about your use of
> that power? Do you, in fact, do the works that save you?"
And now I'm completely lost. I'm asserting that "that power"
doesn't exist, so how am I supposed to answer the first question?
The answer to the second question is "no", but what's the point
of it?
> I think what got missed in the last exchange is the "me/you"
> distinction. When I hear "salvation by works" I think "salvation by
> what _I_ do", regardless of whether it is some action or thought. To
> me, "I am saved because I did/do/am doing this" and "I am saved
> because I believed/believe/am believing" are equivalent. And both are
> wrong.
I don't think that's what got missed. I agree with your last
two sentences. "Salvation by works" means "my" works.
> Your example of the pharisee, then, stresses the "me" aspect, not the
> "Him" aspect. If the pharisee were to say, "I don't do the works that
> save me; it is God who is working in me and through me that saves me"
> then I'd have a hard time arguing with him. But that's something
> pharisees never say. Their focus is on "I", not "Him".
Exactly. Just as the focus on "knowledge-faith" is a focus on
"I".
Let me try my hand at reconstructing the argument:
Loren: Faith is knowledge.
Bart: Faith can't be a work or quality of man, and knowledge is
so faith can not be knowledge.
Bob: If God gives knowledge, then doesn't it become God's work?
Bart: If you take that line, then it seems the same to me that to say
"God gave me knowledge=faith, which I use properly to save
myself, and so this is not salvation by works" is
equivalent to "God gave me this chicken, this knife and
the abilities to catch the chicken and weild the knife.
So when I sacrifice this chicken, thereby remitting my
sins, I'm not really practicing salvation by works."
Bob: Snarky, drunken mumbling.
>> >> [Bart] Did Christ die to pay for our sins or did He die to show us
>> >> how to save ourselves?
>> >
>> > [Felts] He died to pay for our sins. So the question becomes, how
>> > did you, a spiritually dead person, blind and deaf to the Gospel,
>> > come to know this? Did you open your eyes, or did God open your
>> > eyes? If God opened your eyes, how did you figure this out?
>>
>> It seems like having one's eyes opened would be tantamount to the
>> "figuring out."
>
> So God opened your eyes with the result that you figured it out.
I disagree. One can stare at, say, a passage of Scripture for
a long time, know exactly what the words are, understand what
the sentence means, etc., but not quite "get it." Then suddenly
it hits. The "figuring out" IS the "opening of the eyes."
Your last sentence suggests that, instead, God just tweaks a
brain cell here and there, and then you have the power to
understand deeper things. But the understanding itself is
the gift of the Spirit, and not your own works.
>> Even that seems like a side issue, since the a priori question is
>> "what
>> does my knowledge have to do with it?"
>
> It's a result of God's a priori work.
And my response is still "So?"
> Since all knowledge is built on
> faith, God gives both the faith, and the knowledge, of what He has
> done. That's why faith isn't the "vehicle"; grace is it's own vehicle.
This still assumes that faith is somehow knowledge (or something
so like knowledge that I'm betting you can't tell us the
distinction.)
Faith is the emptiness God creates in us and into which He
pours His grace. Faith is the "clean heart" God creates in
us, which hungers for His Word/grace. This is the sense of
"vehicle", not that Grace needs a car to get around in.
>>
>> >> > And what do you do with the passages where God gives knowledge
>> >> > to people?
>> >>
>> >> Doesn't matter. God gives us apples, but it has nothing to do
>> >> with faith or salvation.
>> >>
>> >
>> > How do you know that God gives us apples and they aren't simply the
>> > non-telological product of time, chance, and natural selection?
>>
>> Again, very tangential.
>
> No, it isn't Bart.
Yes it is.
> It may be epistemologically deep, but it's important.
Maybe to some discussion, but not to this one.
> How do we know what we know? We're back to the me/Him
> distinction. Either our knowledge is given to us by God, by grace; or
> we obtain knowledge through our own efforts. If our knowledge is
> given to us by God, then how do we know this?
The issue here is "whether knowledge", not "whence knowledge"
or "what is knowledge". What's the point of going on and on
about "knowledge", when the issue is whether "faith is knowledge"?
> You're a mathematician. Do you know that in Euclidean geometry that
> given a line L, and a point P not on L, that one and only one line can
> be drawn through P that is parallel to L? Do you know that in one
> non-Euclidean geometry that no lines can be drawn through P that are
> parallel to L? The answer is, of course, that yes you know this. The
> question, then, is how do you know this? The answer is, by faith.
> All knowledge rests on faith and faith is a special type of knowledge.
Certainly this is where Loren's confusion comes from: The
secular use of the word "faith" takes such a meaning. That's
why the non-believers accuse us of "blind faith" and why it's
a derrogatory term. Saving faith is a different animal.
I have faith in the ice over a lake because I can test its
thickness and I have experience with ice. Knowledge informs
faith. I trust the ice to hold me up, and that trust is
based on knowledge and evidence. Now, back to your favorite
verse: (Saving) faith IS the evidence. See how different?
>> >> Two problems. Faith is not just the result of grace, but also
>> >> it's vehicle.
>>
>> > I dealt with this in another post. Grace needs no vehicle.
>>
>> Not the issue.
>
> Yes, it is. If grace needs a vehicle then it has to be something that
> the infants and comatose can at least get in, or be put in.
No. First, if it's grace's vehicle, then only grace needs
to get in it, not the infant. Second, that's not the usage
of "vehicle" here. Think more of "King Lear was Shakespeare's
vehicle for exploring the interplay of...."
>> The issue is whether God has chosen to grant grace only via faith.
>> You
>> want to assert that it can come by other means.
>
> I assert that it needs no means; it is its own means.
Which changes the question back to something unknowable.
Again, it's not whether it "needs", but whether God choses.
You don't have evidence that God choses to save without
faith.
> The question
> then becomes, "how does one know/apprehend/understand that one has
> been graced?"
Why would that be the question, unless one has already
assumed that faith=knowledge?
>> There are two problems to deal with there. First, your view of
>> faith as
>> knowledge makes knowledge the vehicle, and then you wrongly accuse me
>> of making knowledge the vehicle. Second, there's no Scriptural
>> support for grace coming any other way, so your best argument is from
>> (sort of) silence.
>
> My argument isn't from silence, but from a) epistemology and b) the
> Biblical defintion of grace. "It depends not on human will or
> effort..." and "and that not of yourselves."
Again, this assumes that faith is knowledge. A funny thing,
coming from a guy who says that faith isn't knowledge.
You keep insisting that faith has the same attributes as
knowledge (thereby making it "of yourselves") and then
declaring that Grace isn't through faith, because then it
would be "of yourselves". It's pointless to assert the
second, if the first is not true, and it's not.
>> >> Grace abounds, but it's not applied to a person accept by faith.
>> >
>> > Bart, listen to you subconscious. That wasn't a typo -- it was a
>> > "freudian slip".
>>
>> There's no slip here. It sounds tinny in YOUR ears because you think
>> faith is knowledge. It's not. It's a change of heart, not a change
>> of mind.
>>
>
> Oh, come on, Bart. The heart is no more a cognitive
Right. That's the point. It's not _cognitive_ at all.
Faith is not a cognitive thing.
>> Grace is the "unseen", and faith is the evidence of it.
>
> Sure sounds like a geometrical axiom to me.
Sounds like a definition to me.
> It makes no difference to the definition whether it's "substance" or
> "assurance".
Oh, it most certainly does. Is faith the evidence, or is
faith knowledge based on the evidence. It's the whole
argument here.
B.
--
Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
((( s.r.c.b-s is a moderated group. All posts are approved by a moderator. )))
lsen...@hotmail.com
On Sep 16, 10:04=A0pm, w...@stablecross.com (Bob Felts) wrote:
>
> BTW, I deny the premise that started this whole thing. =A0Lsenders is
> wrong: =A0faith is never based on knowledge; all knowledge is based on
> faith. =A0But that's a different argument for another time.
>
I would suggest you read Warfield, vol 9, chapter
"On Faith In Its Psychological Aspects."
Most people bristle at have a reference noted, but
this is a very interesting analysis.
However, it can easily be distilled. You HAVE TO HAVE
knowledge of the object you are putting your faith into
which means that knowledge precedes faith. Simply, if
you don't know your object there isn't anything to place
your faith in! This is the Reformed position of efficacious
faith requiring three parts:
1) notitia: knowledge of the object
2) accentia: agreement of its validity
3) fuducia: placing one's full weight upon such
And, both biblically and logically (based on the depravity
of all men) faith itself is a response to God having already
drawn, regenerated and enlightened. Reviewing Ps 14/53
and the Pauline use & context in Rom 3, it is fairly evident
that his conclusion (11:35-36) requires this paradigm. The
NT use of *grace & peace* illustrates this. It is only via
the grace of God's intervention in and thru Christ and His
work, that we now have, peace with God. Something
which is definitely not accomplished by us finite, sinful
creatures.
Bob Felts
Bart Goddard <godd...@netscape.net> wrote:
> wr...@stablecross.com (Bob Felts) wrote in
> news:57A4BABA-67DB-D9B8...@art.srcbs.org:
>
> > [wrf3] Let me see if I can reconstruct this 4 month old discussion.
> >
> > Lsenders made the statement: "Faith... is always based on knowledge."
> > Bart: "If faith is based on knowledge then we have salvation by
> > works." Felts: "Logically weak, since knowledge could be given as a
> > gift, just like faith."
> > Bart: "That's a model of 'knowledge' that 1. I never heard of and 2.
> > I'm pretty sure is unusuable."
> > Felts: I made a snarky, but valid, dismissal of the first objection. I
> > rebutted #2 on the basis that everything that we have, including
> > knowledge, is a gift from God.
>
> So far so good. But: your "snarky but valid" dismissal isn't so valid.
> The point of "I never heard of" is that "if this is a model of knowledges,
> it's likely not a common one, and if we're going to communicate, please
> either use words in their ordinary sense, or else define your specialized
> terminology."
>
> I sure don't see how "everything is a gift from God" somehow makes the
> proposed model of knowledge usable.
>
I'm not sure what we're disagreeing about here. All knowledge is based
upon a foundation of one or more assumptions (aka self-evident truths,
aka axioms), which include the rules of logic, which are used to derive
more knowledge based upon the logical framework derived from the axioms
along with input from the external world.
More on the "salvation by works" issue in a bit...
>
>
> > Bart: If you want to follow that line, then the Pharisees can say "We
> > don't teach salvation by works, because God gave us the power to do
> > the works that save us."
> > Felts: The next move is to say, "what does God say about your use of
> > that power? Do you, in fact, do the works that save you?"
>
> And now I'm completely lost. I'm asserting that "that power"
> doesn't exist, so how am I supposed to answer the first question?
> The answer to the second question is "no", but what's the point
> of it?
>
It's really pretty simple. Salvation is either the result of the work
of God on behalf of man, or it's the result of the work of man. It's
clear that one of the things God does on behalf of the saved is to give
them their faith in the first place. Well, if God gives faith, He can
also give knowledge, and power to work. A Christian says, "the work
that "i" do is due to Christ working in me, to will and to do according
to _His_ good pleasure." The Pharisee says, "I am doing the work using
the power God gave me."
>
> > I think what got missed in the last exchange is the "me/you"
> > distinction. When I hear "salvation by works" I think "salvation by
> > what _I_ do", regardless of whether it is some action or thought. To
> > me, "I am saved because I did/do/am doing this" and "I am saved
> > because I believed/believe/am believing" are equivalent. And both are
> > wrong.
>
> I don't think that's what got missed. I agree with your last
> two sentences. "Salvation by works" means "my" works.
>
But we have to have language to describe salvation by God's work.
>
> > Your example of the pharisee, then, stresses the "me" aspect, not the
> > "Him" aspect. If the pharisee were to say, "I don't do the works that
> > save me; it is God who is working in me and through me that saves me"
> > then I'd have a hard time arguing with him. But that's something
> > pharisees never say. Their focus is on "I", not "Him".
>
> Exactly. Just as the focus on "knowledge-faith" is a focus on
> "I".
>
> Let me try my hand at reconstructing the argument:
>
> Loren: Faith is knowledge.
> Bart: Faith can't be a work or quality of man, and knowledge is
> so faith can not be knowledge.
> Bob: If God gives knowledge, then doesn't it become God's work?
> Bart: If you take that line, then it seems the same to me that to say
> "God gave me knowledge=faith, which I use properly to save
> myself, and so this is not salvation by works" is
> equivalent to "God gave me this chicken, this knife and
> the abilities to catch the chicken and weild the knife.
> So when I sacrifice this chicken, thereby remitting my
> sins, I'm not really practicing salvation by works."
> Bob: Snarky, drunken mumbling.
>
I knew I forgot something. (Runs off to get alcohol...)
Let's take the chicken out, since Christian's don't say "I sacrificed
Christ" (except when admitting our complicity in the Crucifixion).
God gave me faith, so when I believe, I'm not practicing salvation by
works since all I'm doing is living according to the new nature given to
me.
Substitute for "faith" as necessary.
>
> >> >> [Bart] Did Christ die to pay for our sins or did He die to show us
> >> >> how to save ourselves?
> >> >
> >> > [Felts] He died to pay for our sins. So the question becomes, how
> >> > did you, a spiritually dead person, blind and deaf to the Gospel,
> >> > come to know this? Did you open your eyes, or did God open your
> >> > eyes? If God opened your eyes, how did you figure this out?
> >>
> >> It seems like having one's eyes opened would be tantamount to the
> >> "figuring out."
> >
> > So God opened your eyes with the result that you figured it out.
>
> I disagree.
But you then turn around and agree with me.
> One can stare at, say, a passage of Scripture for a long time, know
> exactly what the words are, understand what the sentence means, etc., but
> not quite "get it." Then suddenly it hits. The "figuring out" IS the
> "opening of the eyes."
>
So how does this work? How does inspiration come?
> Your last sentence suggests that, instead, God just tweaks a
> brain cell here and there, and then you have the power to
> understand deeper things. But the understanding itself is
> the gift of the Spirit, and not your own works.
Right. Isn't that what I said, "God opened your eyes with the result
that you figured it out?" There is no understanding of spiritual things
without God "tweaking" something (and I've never said what the exact
mechanism is, because I don't know. He may very well tweak a brain
cell. He may do something else.)
>
>
> >> Even that seems like a side issue, since the a priori question is
> >> "what does my knowledge have to do with it?"
> >
> > It's a result of God's a priori work.
>
> And my response is still "So?"
>
A priori works don't need a vehicle.
>
> > Since all knowledge is built on faith, God gives both the faith, and the
> > knowledge, of what He has done. That's why faith isn't the "vehicle";
> > grace is it's own vehicle.
>
> This still assumes that faith is somehow knowledge (or something so like
> knowledge that I'm betting you can't tell us the distinction.)
>
> Faith is the emptiness God creates in us and into which He pours His
> grace. Faith is the "clean heart" God creates in us, which hungers for
> His Word/grace. This is the sense of "vehicle", not that Grace needs a
> car to get around in.
>
Faith is the trust God creates in us which He does by His grace.
>
>
> >>
> >> >> > And what do you do with the passages where God gives knowledge to
> >> >> > people?
> >> >>
> >> >> Doesn't matter. God gives us apples, but it has nothing to do with
> >> >> faith or salvation.
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> > How do you know that God gives us apples and they aren't simply the
> >> > non-telological product of time, chance, and natural selection?
> >>
> >> Again, very tangential.
> >
> > No, it isn't Bart.
>
> Yes it is.
>
You can't evaluate evidence absent a worldview, and you cannot have a
Christian theistic worldview unless God grants it.
> > It may be epistemologically deep, but it's important.
>
> Maybe to some discussion, but not to this one.
>
> > How do we know what we know? We're back to the me/Him
> > distinction. Either our knowledge is given to us by God, by grace; or
> > we obtain knowledge through our own efforts. If our knowledge is
> > given to us by God, then how do we know this?
>
> The issue here is "whether knowledge", not "whence knowledge"
> or "what is knowledge". What's the point of going on and on
> about "knowledge", when the issue is whether "faith is knowledge"?
>
Because epistemology answers both "what is knowledge" and "what is
faith", so that it can be decided whether "faith is knowledge". Faith
is self-evident knoweldge.
>
> > You're a mathematician. Do you know that in Euclidean geometry that
> > given a line L, and a point P not on L, that one and only one line can
> > be drawn through P that is parallel to L? Do you know that in one
> > non-Euclidean geometry that no lines can be drawn through P that are
> > parallel to L? The answer is, of course, that yes you know this. The
> > question, then, is how do you know this? The answer is, by faith.
> > All knowledge rests on faith and faith is a special type of knowledge.
>
> Certainly this is where Loren's confusion comes from: The
> secular use of the word "faith" takes such a meaning. That's
> why the non-believers accuse us of "blind faith" and why it's
> a derrogatory term. Saving faith is a different animal.
>
Only because the source comes from God when He "tweaks" brain cells (or
however He does it).
> I have faith in the ice over a lake because I can test its
> thickness and I have experience with ice. Knowledge informs
> faith. I trust the ice to hold me up, and that trust is
> based on knowledge and evidence. Now, back to your favorite
> verse: (Saving) faith IS the evidence. See how different?
>
If faith IS the evidence, then you aren't doing the equivalent of
testing thickness and coefficients of friction of ice. One is
self-evident, the other is knowledge, certainly informed by external
events, but ultimately resting on self-evident truths. In one, you do
the work of gathering knowledge; in the other, it is given by God's
grace.
[...]
>
>
> >> The issue is whether God has chosen to grant grace only via faith. You
> >> want to assert that it can come by other means.
> >
> > I assert that it needs no means; it is its own means.
>
> Which changes the question back to something unknowable. Again, it's not
> whether it "needs", but whether God choses. You don't have evidence that
> God choses to save without faith.
>
Sure I do. "For He has mercy on whom He has mercy and compassion on
whom He has compassion."
[...]
>
> >> There are two problems to deal with there. First, your view of faith
> >> as knowledge makes knowledge the vehicle, and then you wrongly accuse
> >> me of making knowledge the vehicle. Second, there's no Scriptural
> >> support for grace coming any other way, so your best argument is from
> >> (sort of) silence.
> >
> > My argument isn't from silence, but from a) epistemology and b) the
> > Biblical defintion of grace. "It depends not on human will or
> > effort..." and "and that not of yourselves."
>
> Again, this assumes that faith is knowledge. A funny thing,
> coming from a guy who says that faith isn't knowledge.
Huh? Faith is the foundation on which knowledge is built, which makes
it a part of the set of knowledge.
> You keep insisting that faith has the same attributes as
> knowledge (thereby making it "of yourselves")
No, since it's given by God. We cannot believe that God exists except
it be granted by God.
> and then declaring that Grace isn't through faith, because then it would
> be "of yourselves".
No, grace isn't through faith, because grace is the necessary
precondition of having (saving) faith.
[...]
>
> >> >> Grace abounds, but it's not applied to a person accept by faith.
> >> >
> >> > Bart, listen to your subconscious. That wasn't a typo -- it was a
> >> > "freudian slip".
> >>
> >> There's no slip here. It sounds tinny in YOUR ears because you think
> >> faith is knowledge. It's not. It's a change of heart, not a change
> >> of mind.
> >>
> >
> > Oh, come on, Bart. The heart is no more a cognitive
>
> Right. That's the point. It's not _cognitive_ at all.
> Faith is not a cognitive thing.
Can't be otherwise.
>
> >> Grace is the "unseen", and faith is the evidence of it.
> >
> > Sure sounds like a geometrical axiom to me.
>
> Sounds like a definition to me.
>
>
> > It makes no difference to the definition whether it's "substance" or
> > "assurance".
>
> Oh, it most certainly does. Is faith the evidence, or is
> faith knowledge based on the evidence. It's the whole
> argument here.
>
Evidence cannot be evaluated absent faith.
Bob Felts
<lsen...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Sep 16, 10:04=A0pm, w...@stablecross.com (Bob Felts) wrote:
> >
> > BTW, I deny the premise that started this whole thing. Lsenders is
> > wrong: faith is never based on knowledge; all knowledge is based on
> > faith. But that's a different argument for another time.
> >
> I would suggest you read Warfield, vol 9, chapter
> "On Faith In Its Psychological Aspects."
>
> Most people bristle at have a reference noted, but
> this is a very interesting analysis.
>
> However, it can easily be distilled. You HAVE TO HAVE
> knowledge of the object you are putting your faith into
> which means that knowledge precedes faith. Simply, if
> you don't know your object there isn't anything to place
> your faith in!
Complete nonsense and can be demonstrated to be complete nonsense.
The only way knowledge exists if via a framework of accumulated
knowledge. At the bottom are the unproven "self-evident" truths upon
which every other bit of knowledge is derived.
You cannot have knowledge of God without first having the axiom "God
exists". That's why every attempt to "prove" that God exists is
mis-guided, anti-Biblical, and foolish.
Bart Goddard
lsen...@hotmail.com wrote in news:F3CB0D8C-FB40-530B-8D2E-
A6659B...@art.srcbs.org:
> You HAVE TO HAVE
> knowledge of the object you are putting your faith into
This is very similar to your other consistent logical error.
It's called 'begging the question.' Since you implicity
define 'faith' in your sentence as something which man
can get a hold of and "put" somewhere, then you presuppose
your conclusion that knowledge and faith are very similar
things.
If your argument presupposes its conclusion, it's not an
argument at all.
Once you have (unscripturally and illogically) assumed that
faith is a blob of something that you have and can "put
into" something, you've already committed horrid heresy.
If faith needs an object, then man CAN'T be walking about
with disembodied faith which he can distribute here and
there as he pleases. Scripture knows "believing", it
knows nothing of "putting faith into".
Bart
--
Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.