Free Will Vs Predestination
Bill High, Marijuana Guy
Divide." Three of the chapters in this book are devoted to the ongoing
debate in Christianity concerning free will and predestination. Lutzer
takes the side of predestination, but his arguments are clearly in error
for many reasons, not the least of which is his invoking of Augustine's
support for predestination even though Lutzer finds him in error
regarding infant baptism. But there are many more important reasons to
doubt Lutzer's affirmation of the idea that God wills some to be saved
and damns the rest without any hope for them to ever receive salvation
as a free gift. Perhaps the most important are the serious
misinterpretations of various passages in the Bible which seem at first
glance to suggest that God does indeed select only a few to be saved and
hardens everyone else to keep them from being saved. God gave us all a
brain, and to use his own words, "Let's reason together."
I need only quote four verses for my purposes here. These verses all
serve as "evidence" that those who believe in predestination base their
belief on. The first verse is Romans 8:29: "For those God foreknew he
also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he
might be the firstborn among many brothers." The second is Romans 8:30:
"And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also
justified; those he justified, he also glorified." The third is
Ephesians 1:5: "he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through
Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—" And the fourth
is Ephesians 1:11: "In him we were also chosen, having been predestined
according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with
the purpose of his will,"
As I said earlier, at first glance these verses all seem to support the
idea that God saves some but damns the rest. However, let's be clear
about one thing. We as human beings love our family and our friends.
Suppose we were Jewish people who had just been brought to a Nazi death
camp. The officer in charge of the camp decides to send all of our
family and friends to the gas chamber, but he spares us in order to
show us that he is capable of compassion and mercy. We are then invited
to dine with this officer on a nightly basis, to enjoy his company, and
revel in the parties that he throws. Would any of us desire to spend
even a single second singing this person's praises because he saved us
while sending our loved ones to their deaths? Of course not! And the
same is true with regard to God. Which of us would be willing to spend
eternity worshipping and praising a god who sent many of our family and
friends to Hell without any hope for salvation but saved us to display
for all the cosmos to see his divine attributes of love, mercy, and
compassion? Only a fool would worship such a beast, and sadly there are
many such fools out there today.
As John Wesley once said, why should the devil be out there prowling
around like a hungry lion looking for souls to devour when he could just
kick back and relax because God is the true devil here and will do all
Satan's work for him. Clearly Wesley understood the dangerous and
demeaning doctrine of predestination was full of blasphemy. He would
not want to spend eternity worshipping such a monstrous god any more
than I would.
The truth of the matter is clear to anyone who wishes to think for
themselves instead of having others think for them. The Father knows
all things. He knows how many hairs on your head right at this moment
are gray, and he knows every possible outcome to every possible
situation. Any particular person at the age of 1 can make any number of
choices throughout his life, although he will only end up making far
less. He cannot obviously choose every path for each situation that
comes along. He can choose only one and perhaps two. But God knows the
outcome of all the choices that such an individual could make at any
time. Thus, the Father knows at any given time which persons would come
to His Son under the right circumstances, and which would never come to
Christ under any circumstances. There are clearly people in this world
who demand proof of God's existence on the one hand but would without
any doubt damn God to His face were He to show Himself to the skeptic.
Such people, among others, would never embrace Jesus Christ no matter
how much proof and evidence was given to them. So while Christ still
died for their sins as well as for everyone else's, only those whose
names are written in the Book Of Life were given to Christ. The rest
will not be judged according to their sins, but instead they will be
damned for rejecting Christ's sacrifice and his offer of forgiveness.
Then, should anyone admonish God for damning them when they were clearly
good people desserving of Heaven, the other books will be opened to show
them that they were clearly not good enough to be allowed into Heaven.
Let me say again something I said in the previous paragraph. John Smith
might wind up having 8,138,856 possible choices available to him
throughout his life, although he will only humanly be able to make a
paltry number of those choices. However, God is in a position to know
at any time what the outcome of all 8,138,856 choices would have been,
even if John Smith never makes 98% of those choices. So come judgment
day, when it is revealed that perhaps God gave all the lost some
prodding towards repentence and salvation but gave the saved much more,
any comndemnation of this by a lost sinner who might declare that "had I
been given as much prodding as Jane Doe over there, I would also have
been saved" would be immediately revealed as untrue. God could easily
show the condemned man the outcome of every possible prodding that God
might have imposed upon him within reason, remembering of course that
God cannot violate a man's free will, and the man can literally
experience himself rejecting God's prodding and know that this is what
he would have done had God done more to draw him to Christ.
No human being can ever fill God's shoes. Ever. So assuming that
verses concerning predestination literally mean that God has damned some
by decree in such a way as ensuring that no lost person will ever even
have a chance to be saved is clearly misguided. It seeks to provide the
simplest answer to a very difficult question, and this simple answer is
more than sufficient to turn the God of the Bible into the Satan of
Hell.
vernon
"Bill High, Marijuana Guy" <Billyb...@lalaland.bizarre> wrote in message
news:448C70...@lalaland.bizarre...
The unlearned think there is a difference between free will and
predestination.
Oh well
para...@technicianheaven.com
up with this stuff in alt.religion.christian :
Nice story, but it does not work at all.
First off, God is not a nazi death-camp commander, wrongfully killing
a bunch, but letting a few folks go.
He is more like the head of a "death row" where murderers, rapists,
and baby killers are awaiting execution after having fair trials by
juries of their peers. Instead, this guy let's HIS OWN SON go to the
electric chair and lets a few folks off because HIS OWN SON paid the
price.
WE DESERVE TO GO TO HELL on the basis of the deeds of our lives.
EVERY ONE OF US DOES. But God sent His own Son to take our place, to
pay the price, to redeem us from our JUST AND RIGHT PUNISHMENT.
And because we Christians KNOW we deserve death but have been given
everlasting life, we DO want to be with this KIND AND LOVING GOD who
did this thing.
Your theory is based upon the false premise that God is not Good.
I snipped the rest of your post to await your response to this
response.
parakaleo
vernon
"john weatherly @yoo.hoo>" <johnweath<nospam> wrote in message
news:mo6p82ddb56fl4ifr...@4ax.com...
> x-no-archive: yes
> On Sun, 11 Jun 2006 15:26:49 -0700, "vernon" <there@there> wrote:
> copyright 2006 John Weatherly; all rights reserved; no portion of
> this article may be used elsewhere without express written consent of
> the author
>
> If there were no difference between the two teachings, I doubt of
> Calvin would have wasted so much of his time trying to prove
> "predestination" and God's "sovereignty."
>
>
> john w
Predestination does not preclude free will. Calvin and Luther agreed to
that. Calvin presented it differently and was more legalistic. Luther
wanted (for a while) to remain in the RCC.
Predestination means (you did NOTHING to earn salvation).
The Father chooses.
Do you think that YOU had something to cause God to think you were so
wonderful and repentant (works) that He "presented" faith in and on you.
Eph 2:8-10.
1 Jn 1:8-10
bam
<para...@technicianheaven.com> wrote
>But God sent His own Son to take our place, to
> pay the price, to redeem us from our JUST AND RIGHT PUNISHMENT.
Not for the sins you deny.
BAM
Angelin...@gmail.com
> Predestination does not preclude free will.
If Father chooses which ones to "present faith upon", by definition
there will be those that are CHOSEN to not be presented with faith,
these are the ones that go to hell???
How was that their free will, if even before their birth they were
chosen to not have faith, and thus doomed before they could even take a
breath or make a decision.
H.E. Eickleberry, Jr.
news:448C70...@lalaland.bizarre...
[snip]
> No human being can ever fill God's shoes. Ever. So assuming that
> verses concerning predestination literally mean that God has damned some
> by decree in such a way as ensuring that no lost person will ever even
> have a chance to be saved is clearly misguided. It seeks to provide the
> simplest answer to a very difficult question, and this simple answer is
> more than sufficient to turn the God of the Bible into the Satan of
> Hell.
The problem with simple answers is that they are usually presented by
simpletons who can't handle complex answers.
The real answer is that both free will and predestiny exist as
simultaneously true statements, i.e. they form a paradox.
Then again, the predestination advocates tend to ignore the fact that there
is a word that goes in front of predestination...foreknew.
But when did God "foreknow" anyone?
At the judgment, which comes at the end of the story.
Hence, the cycle is
Foreknown > predestinated > called > justified > glorified, where the
glorification for keeping the faith to the end of the story establishes the
foreknowledge, and subsequent "predestination" at the beginning of the
story.
Otherwise, Christ's words are vain, and God becomes the criminal (which is
the sin of Calvinism).
If all were predestined to heaven OR hell, then Christ's instructions to
"take heed to yourselves" and "be thou faithful unto death" are empty and
void.
Does Christ says "behold, I kick down the door?"
No.
Christ says "behold, I stand at the door and knock."
He can't kick down the door of our hearts.
We have to open, and THAT requires conscious choice.
Ike
H.E. Eickleberry, Jr.
news:mo6p82ddb56fl4ifr...@4ax.com...
> x-no-archive: yes
> On Sun, 11 Jun 2006 15:26:49 -0700, "vernon" <there@there> wrote:
> copyright 2006 John Weatherly; all rights reserved; no portion of
> this article may be used elsewhere without express written consent of
> the author
>>
>
> If there were no difference between the two teachings, I doubt of
> Calvin would have wasted so much of his time trying to prove
> "predestination" and God's "sovereignty."
Of course Calvin would spend so much time trying to prove such a thing--he
was an antichristian monster who used Jesus to advance his own personal
agenda, returning to the Crusader mentality that Luther was trying to get
away from as Luther tried to return to Jesus' grassroots, bottom-up approach
to things.
Ike
Angelin...@gmail.com
para...@technicianheaven.com wrote:
> And because we Christians KNOW we deserve death but have been given
> everlasting life, we DO want to be with this KIND AND LOVING GOD who
> did this thing.
>
> Your theory is based upon the false premise that God is not Good.
> I snipped the rest of your post to await your response to this
> response.
>
So you don't think that God chooses/predestines which people to
"give faith" and allow into heaven, and which ones to not "bless
with faith" in Him ???
You think God loves everyone equally???
H.E. Eickleberry, Jr.
news:448c9f28$0$15623$8826...@news-taz.teranews.com...
>
> "john weatherly @yoo.hoo>" <johnweath<nospam> wrote in message
> news:mo6p82ddb56fl4ifr...@4ax.com...
>> x-no-archive: yes
>> On Sun, 11 Jun 2006 15:26:49 -0700, "vernon" <there@there> wrote:
>> copyright 2006 John Weatherly; all rights reserved; no portion of
>> this article may be used elsewhere without express written consent of
>> the author
>>>
>>>"Bill High, Marijuana Guy" <Billyb...@lalaland.bizarre> wrote in
>>>message
>>>news:448C70...@lalaland.bizarre...
>>>
>>>The unlearned think there is a difference between free will and
>>>predestination.
>>>
>>>Oh well
>>
>> The unlearned don't think there's a difference.
>>
>> If there were no difference between the two teachings, I doubt of
>> Calvin would have wasted so much of his time trying to prove
>> "predestination" and God's "sovereignty."
>>
>>
>> john w
>
>
> Predestination does not preclude free will. Calvin and Luther agreed to
> that. Calvin presented it differently and was more legalistic. Luther
> wanted (for a while) to remain in the RCC.
You don't seem to know much about Calvin OR Luther.
1) Calvin's teachings absolutely precluded the concept of free will. Luther
upheld predestination, but recognized the inconsistencies and incongruities
of those who spoke the name of Jesus, but not with any integrity.
2) It was never Luther's intention to break with the RCC. He wanted reform,
not revolution. Moreover, he didn't leave the RCC. He was excommunicated. He
didn't build a new church because he wanted to. He built one because he had
to.
> Predestination means (you did NOTHING to earn salvation).
Ah, no that grace.
Predestination is the concept (true or not true) that all things were
decided in advance.
Get your theological terms straight.
> The Father chooses.
Nope. We choose. The choices are revealed in the judgment. The judgment
determines the foreknowledge. The foreknowledge establishes the
"predestination."
> Do you think that YOU had something to cause God to think you were so
> wonderful and repentant (works) that He "presented" faith in and on you.
Absolutely. (Or vice versa, that one caused God to think one is so
despicable that they merit damnation.)
Jesus even said as much to His disciples: "The Father loves you BECAUSE you
have loved me, and believed that I came out from Him."
BECAUSE = God had a reason for loving the disciples even before the
disciples knew who Jesus was. Just because the effect (God loved them) came
before the cause (they loved God) in no way changes the fact that the cause
invoked the effect.
Hence, free will and predestiny both exist in an eternal paradox.
God is not the criminal here. We are.
Ike
singlew...@gmail.com
>
> So you don't think that God chooses/predestines which people to
> "give faith" and allow into heaven, and which ones to not "bless
> with faith" in Him ???
If we go along with the mainstream christian concept that God created
all of us out of nothing, that he created our will, or personality, our
very soul, then he most certainly predestines who will have enoug
faith, and who will go to 'heaven,' for at the moment He created each
one of us, no, through the process of His creating each one of us, He
knew the whole time, which one would go to 'heaven' and which would go
to 'hell'
He would have known -before- He created us out of nothing, what our
destiny was, for we are not about to suprise God, and show up at the
gate and have him say "wow, I didn't know you were going to make it up
here' <g>
This is why after a lifetime of observing Christian teachings, and
respecting the desire to do good and all that, I will never join with
them, for I can -never- accept the idea that I was created out of
nothingness, and that all that I am, all that I feel, and all that I
desire, came to be at the moment I was created. Can't be, and most
certainly is not a true fact.
For those who might get upset at such a perspective, I respectfully
wish to hear you explanation of why, if God created all that we are, do
some have to suffer in Hell? What could possibly be a reasonable
explanation for making something, knowing all along it would fail, and
then just torturing it for eternity? What does that make God? It makes
Him a sadist, for why not just create, to bless and teach, and reward?
Can't say its because I "chose to be this way" for that denies the fact
that God made -all- of me. My 'soul' my passions, my attitudes, and my
faith. To say that I developed those on my own is just stupid, and
shows off the ego of those who think that they were good enough to
'overcome' while others are not. Remember, even before you were created
from nothingness, God already knew your fate, yet He created those who
will burn for eternity nonetheless. Why? Because he wanted to see if
those He created to burn in hell, could suprise Him and not be evil?
On the other hand, those who are 'saved' (still don't know what the
heck that means) were predestined at the moment they were created, so
its not something anyone can work towards, or take any credit for
overcoming. Your fate was sealed when you came into existence, so there
is no way you could have failed to be 'saved' Its nothing to do with
faith, or works, effort, or desire, its just that God made you that
way.
>
> You think God loves everyone equally???
Given the above scenario of creation out of nothingness, accepted by
almost all christians, its obvious that He does NOT love us all
equally, or He would have created our passions and faith equally, so
that we could all enjoy His eternal love. To say otherwise, implies
that He created me to go to hell, and burn forever, and someone else to
live gloriously in Heaven, even tho he loves us both the same. No
chance, no sense, isn't true..
If he made one to burn, and one to glorify, the answer is obvious. That
is how I know that a part of me is eternal, even if the Bible appears
to dispute that notion.
Those who were created out of nothingness cannot ever live for
eternity, for if you were created, you can be destroyed..... If you had
a beginning, you must have an end. God is eternal, and defined that by
teaching us that He is without beginning, and without end. If we are
to live for eternity, the same applies to us.
Mark
Zephyros
Eickleberry, Jr." <Yeickleb...@comcast.net> wrote:
> "Bill High, Marijuana Guy" <Billyb...@lalaland.bizarre> wrote in message
> news:448C70...@lalaland.bizarre...
>
> [snip]
>
> > No human being can ever fill God's shoes. Ever. So assuming that
> > verses concerning predestination literally mean that God has damned some
> > by decree in such a way as ensuring that no lost person will ever even
> > have a chance to be saved is clearly misguided. It seeks to provide the
> > simplest answer to a very difficult question, and this simple answer is
> > more than sufficient to turn the God of the Bible into the Satan of
> > Hell.
>
> The problem with simple answers is that they are usually presented by
> simpletons who can't handle complex answers.
>
> The real answer is that both free will and predestiny exist as
> simultaneously true statements, i.e. they form a paradox.
What utter garbage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
God what got your head in this state?
Was it military service or something?
>
> Then again, the predestination advocates tend to ignore the fact that there
> is a word that goes in front of predestination...foreknew.
>
> But when did God "foreknow" anyone?
>
> At the judgment, which comes at the end of the story.
>
> Hence, the cycle is
>
>
> Foreknown > predestinated > called > justified > glorified, where the
> glorification for keeping the faith to the end of the story establishes the
> foreknowledge, and subsequent "predestination" at the beginning of the
> story.
Oh cobblers!
>
> Otherwise, Christ's words are vain, and God becomes the criminal (which is
> the sin of Calvinism).
>
> If all were predestined to heaven OR hell, then Christ's instructions to
> "take heed to yourselves" and "be thou faithful unto death" are empty and
> void.
>
> Does Christ says "behold, I kick down the door?"
>
> No.
>
> Christ says "behold, I stand at the door and knock."
>
> He can't kick down the door of our hearts.
>
> We have to open, and THAT requires conscious choice.
>
> Ike
>
> www.eickleberrybooks.com
What a crock of shi-e
Dear oh dear oh dear
Zephyros
Eickleberry, Jr." <Yeickleb...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> Of course Calvin would spend so much time trying to prove such a thing--he
> was an antichristian monster who used Jesus to advance his own personal
> agenda, returning to the Crusader mentality that Luther was trying to get
> away from as Luther tried to return to Jesus' grassroots, bottom-up approach
> to things.
>
> Ike
>
> www.eickleberrybooks.com
"Bottom up" be damned
You are the only ass in this post
Whattaloadacrap!!!!!!
Dear oh dear oh dear
What have you been up to????
Zephyros
Eickleberry, Jr." <Yeickleb...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> God is not the criminal here. We are.
>
> Ike
>
> www.eickleberrybooks.com
SPEAK FOR YOURSELF !
(and I believe you)
Whitey speak with forked tongue!
Zephyros
Eickleberry, Jr." <Yeickleb...@comcast.net> wrote:
> God is not the criminal here. We are.
>
> Ike
>
> www.eickleberrybooks.com
So you are a crook
your wife is a crook
Your daughter working for a Lutheran Charity serving the poor is a crook
your son is a crook
Your mother is a crook
Your father is a crook
I don't think so
Have you considered having treatment for depression
It is very common in vets
Especially when they take their war away from them
nuff said - mate you aren't well
(shiver)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Chuck Stamford
<singlew...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1150071773.1...@j55g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Angelin...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>>
>> So you don't think that God chooses/predestines which people to
>> "give faith" and allow into heaven, and which ones to not "bless
>> with faith" in Him ???
>
> If we go along with the mainstream christian concept that God created
> all of us out of nothing, that he created our will, or personality, our
> very soul, then he most certainly predestines who will have enoug
> faith, and who will go to 'heaven,' for at the moment He created each
> one of us, no, through the process of His creating each one of us, He
> knew the whole time, which one would go to 'heaven' and which would go
> to 'hell'
God creates the "soul" as well as the body, but we have to come to some
understanding of what a "soul" is before we start using the word to say
things about concepts like predestination as it is used in the NT. So what
is the soul? How is the soul of a new born different from that of an old
person? In what, exactly, does a "soul" consist, and how does it function?
I would suggest to you the following for your consideration:
1.) While it is true God creates the souls of men, it also seems true that
men have some control over what those souls become. Many people share basic
"personality traits", and there is good evidence that some of these traits
are present from birth. But do all persons who share such traits share
experiences in life as well? Are two people, both of whom were born with
quick tempers, both "predestined" to have their lives ruled by this trait?
Or can we say that one or both of them may at some point in their lives take
control over this predisposition toward anger, and rule over it? So can we
say, without resorting to theological fatalism (which is just a special case
of logical determinism), that God in creating a person's soul creates what
that person becomes? If so, I'd like to see you formalize the argument
that's supposed to give us an affirmative answer to that question, because
I'd like to take a critical look at it myself.
2.) God didn't create out of absolutely nothing. Such things as "possible
states of affairs" seem to be every bit as eternal in their existence as is
God (and some hold that these things; things like properties, propositions,
and the like, simply "are" the thoughts of an omniscient and eternal God,
although I personally have my doubts on that score). If that's true, then
God's act of creation is His act of actualizing some maximal set of
propositions (a "possible world") that then becomes, out of this enumerable
set of possible states of affairs the actual world; THIS world. If God is
good (omnibenevolent), powerful enough to actualize any of these worlds
(omnipotent), and knows all of them completely (omniscient), then this
actual world would be the one of them that contains the greatest amount of
good relative to the amount of evil it contains. And any argument offered
to show that the actual world is not this kind of possible world (and thus
demonstrate that God is either not omnibenevolent, or not omnipotent, or not
omniscient, or doesn't exist at all) must show that there is some other
possible world God could have created that, had God actualized it, would
have contained a greater amount of good relative to the amount of evil than
this actual world, or a lesser amount of evil relative to the amount of
good. I'd predict that's going to be one tough argument to construct!
>
> He would have known -before- He created us out of nothing, what our
> destiny was, for we are not about to suprise God, and show up at the
> gate and have him say "wow, I didn't know you were going to make it up
> here' <g>
This is true. God's choice of which possible world to actualize must have
been made (it's difficult to express these things without resorting to
language that implies God makes choices "in the past", when the truth is
that God's choice to actualize a world is eternal, and so that choice, to
not only create THIS world, but to create ANY world, is every bit as eternal
as is God Himself) for some purpose, and made on the basis of perfect
knowledge of all possible worlds. In many of those possible worlds you
exist, but are different than you actually are in this one. In many more of
these possible worlds you don't exist at all.
But God's choice of which possible world to actualize can't have been based
on just what you, individually, would freely choose to do in them if they
had been made actual. Possible worlds are a bit bigger than that, and there
is more at stake in actualizing one of them than just what you freely choose
to do with the actual existence you're given by God in actualizing one of
them that contains you.
Clearly, in His choice of which possible world to create, God is responsible
for your actual existence, but this in no way logically contradicts you
being significantly free in that world...which is THIS world.
>
> This is why after a lifetime of observing Christian teachings, and
> respecting the desire to do good and all that, I will never join with
> them, for I can -never- accept the idea that I was created out of
> nothingness, and that all that I am, all that I feel, and all that I
> desire, came to be at the moment I was created. Can't be, and most
> certainly is not a true fact.
Nor is it a true fact that this view is inherent in the Christian faith, or
necessary to any coherent Christian theology. It is certainly held by many
who are Christians, but it isn't fundamental to Christian theology.
>
> For those who might get upset at such a perspective, I respectfully
> wish to hear you explanation of why, if God created all that we are, do
> some have to suffer in Hell? What could possibly be a reasonable
> explanation for making something, knowing all along it would fail, and
> then just torturing it for eternity? What does that make God? It makes
> Him a sadist, for why not just create, to bless and teach, and reward?
>
> Can't say its because I "chose to be this way" for that denies the fact
> that God made -all- of me. My 'soul' my passions, my attitudes, and my
> faith. To say that I developed those on my own is just stupid, and
> shows off the ego of those who think that they were good enough to
> 'overcome' while others are not. Remember, even before you were created
> from nothingness, God already knew your fate, yet He created those who
> will burn for eternity nonetheless. Why? Because he wanted to see if
> those He created to burn in hell, could suprise Him and not be evil?
>
> On the other hand, those who are 'saved' (still don't know what the
> heck that means) were predestined at the moment they were created, so
> its not something anyone can work towards, or take any credit for
> overcoming. Your fate was sealed when you came into existence, so there
> is no way you could have failed to be 'saved' Its nothing to do with
> faith, or works, effort, or desire, its just that God made you that
> way.
Try forgetting for a moment about being saved or lost. The critical issue
here is whether or not God's foreknowledge of future events "determines" or
"causes" those events to occur. If it does, then there is something to be
said for your above perspective, and you have a good reason for believing
it. If it doesn't, or at any rate, can't be shown in some logically
compelling fashion that it does, then you would have much less reason for
holding to that perspective.
So let's ask a bit different question: If God, who is omniscient, knows
from all eternity that Bob will mow his lawn next Saturday, does Bob have it
within his power to refrain from mowing his lawn next Saturday?
The first thing to notice about this question is that basically it is not a
question that just applies to the Christian concept of God, or any logical
problems such a concept might contain. It is an age old philosophical
question that is used to inquire into the truth or falsehood of logical
determinism; the view that "logically" free will is impossible. And this
can be seen by asking this same question in another form. So:
If the proposition "Bob will mow his lawn next Saturday" is true now, before
Bob mows, then is it logically possible for Bob to refrain from mowing his
lawn next Saturday?
And you should know that philosophical opinions here vary. There are what
seem to be good arguments for Bob's not having any choice to mow next
Saturday, and some, what I consider to be, very good arguments that he does
have a choice in the matter. But these arguments center around propositions
called "counterfactuals" (which take the form "If A, then B would have been
true"), which are propositions that by their very nature seem to divide the
philosophical world into camps of opinion about them. For example, some
hold that they are neither true nor false; others hold that all propositions
are either true or false, so counterfactuals must be either true or false,
even if we can't possibly know which is the case for any one of them. As
another example of their inherent complexity and sublty, they prompt us to
look at something called "logical ordering of events", and see how that
ordering differs from a chronological ordering of events. In short, they
are a very important sort of proposition in philosophy in general, and vital
to the any inquiry into logical determinism.
And so they are also vital to any inquiry into the truth of the very similar
"theological fatalism" (which is how you are looking at the "Christian"
understanding of God's foreknowledge here). But because of the many
pitfalls to any logical inquiry they represent, it is not possible here to
examine why it is that theological fatalism is a flawed view of God's
foreknowledge. Instead, let me recommend to you a book on the subject, "The
Only Wise God: The Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom",
by William Craig, a noted Christian philosopher. If nothing else, it should
show you why fatalism is not a universal or essential element of Christian
theology.
And if, as you've implied, it is fatalism that's been holding you back from
making a commitment to Christ, then welcome, brother, to the kingdom of God
and Christ. The door is now open, and we welcome those who reject fatalism
to the wedding feast. Of course, we welcome fatalists as well, but I
personally encourage them to spend more of their time enjoying the food, and
less of it expounding on their theological views ;-)
Being "born again" is not a miracle of God that instantly turns one into a
brilliant theologian or philosopher. We don't suddenly come to possess all
knowledge; we get ONE new piece of knowledge that is so fundamental that it
serves as a "cornerstone" for an entire structure of beliefs, and colors
every experience we have from then on.
>
>>
>> You think God loves everyone equally???
>
> Given the above scenario of creation out of nothingness, accepted by
> almost all christians, its obvious that He does NOT love us all
> equally, or He would have created our passions and faith equally, so
> that we could all enjoy His eternal love. To say otherwise, implies
> that He created me to go to hell, and burn forever, and someone else to
> live gloriously in Heaven, even tho he loves us both the same. No
> chance, no sense, isn't true..
Added to what I've already said here (and there is a LOT more that could be
added, but this will have to do for now) is whether or not it is true that
God creates us in the sense that He creates everything we ever are. I see
that as a very problematic idea. After all, God created me when I
experienced temporal becoming; when I began to actually exist. Now I
suppose opinions would vary on when that is for a person (conception,
reaching the "age of reason", etc.), but I'm 58 now, and I can tell you that
I'm not the same as I was when I was 45, or 35, or 25, or 15, let alone
since God created me!
This brings us back to the "soul" that God creates, and what it is or seems
to be. I have looked at this for some time now, and tried to consider it
carefully, and I've come to the conclusion (so far) that our souls are our
cognitive faculties; our faculty of perception, reasoning, memory, sympathy,
and the like, and that it is by these faculties that we form the beliefs
that we form. There also seems to be a cognitive structuring of these
beliefs as we form them, and that this belief "structure" is in large part
what we, as persons, are. There is, of course, also what we do. We are not
just what we believe. But since all of our actions are taken on some belief
(be it true, false, misguided, incoherent, or insane) or other, in a sense
we ARE just what we believe, and this belief structure we all have really IS
"us" when we're talking about that immaterial part of ourselves.
So if it is true that we have these belief structures (and the
epistemological account of "justified true belief" here since at least
Locke, and the Enlightenment, is that we do), and it is true that they to a
very large degree define who we are, and it is OBVIOUSLY true that these
structures are erected BY US over time as we experience life and reach the
conclusions and decisions we do in fact reach (in short, form and hold onto
the beliefs that we do form and hold onto), then it certainly seems to be
the case that we have a good deal to say about what sort of persons we are
or will become. And if that's true, then it ENTAILS that God DIDN'T create
us as we are in every respect. So I would have to argue that the idea that
He did create us the way we are in every respect and for all of our lives is
just wrong. And if you take that idea out of your argument above, it pretty
much just dissolves, and there remains no good reason for believing that God
doesn't love all of us equally; the saved and the lost.
And there is always the fact that Scripture tells us Christians that God's
Son became Incarnate and died for the sins of the whole world, and that it
is God's desire that none perish. So we have express statements to the
effect that God loves all equally, and no good logical argument to compel us
to disbelieve these statements. That may not be enough to "prove" these
statements are true, but it certainly gives us no grounds for supposing they
are false.
>
> If he made one to burn, and one to glorify, the answer is obvious. That
> is how I know that a part of me is eternal, even if the Bible appears
> to dispute that notion.
>
> Those who were created out of nothingness cannot ever live for
> eternity, for if you were created, you can be destroyed..... If you had
> a beginning, you must have an end.
This isn't necessarily true either. While it is a misnomer to call
something that has a beginning, but no end, eternal; it is certainly
logically possible that something that has a beginning can have no end (the
conceptualization of filling the set of all natural numbers by adding one
element at a time, for example, or drawing a line, for another, has a
beginning, but no end). You seem to be suggesting that having a beginning
to exist makes it logically impossible to exist forever, and I can't even
imagine the argument you could construct that would demonstrate this notion
is even possibly true, much less necessarily true, which it would have to be
to prove the truth of this very strong claim you're making here.
God is eternal, and defined that by
> teaching us that He is without beginning, and without end. If we are
> to live for eternity, the same applies to us.
It is no part of traditional Christian doctrine that we will live
"eternally". I'll grant you that the word "eternal" is sometimes used in a
non-theological sense, and at such times, often used in less than a precise
manner to mean "forever", but that is a matter of usage, not doctrine.
Christians believe in life "everlasting", that we will be with Christ
"forever"; not that we have always been with Christ for eternity now, and
will continue that life with Him forever. We believe Jesus when He said,
"Unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God", which
entails he will not enter into "eternal life" (another instance of an
imprecise, non-theological usage of the word). So we believe that "eternal
life", in this sense, is "everlasting life" (having begun with this
"rebirth", and having no end), and is NOT the same as God's eternal
being/life (which has no beginning or end).
I know that's a bit confusing, but it's because the NT often speaks about
things from two different perspectives. Clearly, if God is omniscient, then
from all eternity He has known us completely even before we came to actually
exist, and this knowledge, being omniscient, can't be added to. So from
God's perspective, we are as much "with Him" from eternity as we will ever
be in any temporal reality. He will not know us any better at some later
time when we are actually "with Him" than He has already known us for an
infinite duration before He ever actualized our existence. So from God's
perspective we ARE with Him eternally if we are ever with Him actually, and
the NT sometimes speaks from this perspective.
But from our perspective, we are not eternally with God because we don't
even eternally, actually exist. From our perspective, we begin to exist, we
begin to have a salvic relationship with the eternal and omniscient Creator,
and we live with Him forever afterward - temporal meets eternal. And the NT
also speaks from this perspective as well.
Chuck Stamford
Chuck Stamford
<Angelin...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1150068520.0...@y43g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
Predestination doesn't necessarily mean God chose people not to have faith.
It means God chose one of a huge number of possible worlds to actualize, for
His own good reasons, and that in that possible world that then became
actual, God knew who would freely choose to trust in Him, and who would not.
There is presently no successful argument for God's foreknowledge
determining what anyone will freely choose to do. I'll grant you the idea
that it does has a strong initial intuitive appeal, but the more you
actually delve into the question from a philosophical perspective, the less
appealing that intuition becomes.
Saving faith seems to be a cooperative venture just like any other belief we
form. When I look in my backyard and see a tree, God has supplied the tree,
the light that reflects off it into my eyes, my other visual equipment, my
cognitive faculty of perception, whereby I tend to form the belief that it
is a tree I'm seeing, and I merely supply the trust in that belief. It's
pretty much the same basic formula with saving faith. It truly IS the gift
of God to all persons, but at the same time it is truly up to each one of us
individually to accept it. And God's foreknowledge of who will and who
won't trust in that gift doesn't determine who will and who won't.
Chuck Stamford
Chuck Stamford
"H.E. Eickleberry, Jr." <Yeickleb...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:rqqdndgziYFJOhHZ...@comcast.com...
> "Bill High, Marijuana Guy" <Billyb...@lalaland.bizarre> wrote in
> message news:448C70...@lalaland.bizarre...
>
> [snip]
>
>> No human being can ever fill God's shoes. Ever. So assuming that
>> verses concerning predestination literally mean that God has damned some
>> by decree in such a way as ensuring that no lost person will ever even
>> have a chance to be saved is clearly misguided. It seeks to provide the
>> simplest answer to a very difficult question, and this simple answer is
>> more than sufficient to turn the God of the Bible into the Satan of
>> Hell.
>
> The problem with simple answers is that they are usually presented by
> simpletons who can't handle complex answers.
>
> The real answer is that both free will and predestiny exist as
> simultaneously true statements, i.e. they form a paradox.
>
> Then again, the predestination advocates tend to ignore the fact that
> there is a word that goes in front of predestination...foreknew.
>
> But when did God "foreknow" anyone?
>
> At the judgment, which comes at the end of the story.
Right up to here you had me nodding along in agreement. But this can't be
right if God is omniscient, because to be omniscient means to know the truth
of every true proposition, and true propositions are ALWAYS true if they are
true at all. Ergo, God foreknowledge includes knowledge of future events,
just as the term implies. To suggest that God comes to know what He
"foreknows" contradicts His omniscience and renders "foreknowledge"
indistinguishable from mere knowledge. It is to suggest that an omniscient
God comes to know at a time t2 what He does not know at time t1, and this is
a contradiction in terms.
>
> Hence, the cycle is
>
>
> Foreknown > predestinated > called > justified > glorified, where the
> glorification for keeping the faith to the end of the story establishes
> the foreknowledge, and subsequent "predestination" at the beginning of the
> story.
It seems to me you're trying to describe the logical ordering to God's
foreknowledge here, but this isn't quite right if that's what you're doing.
The logical order to God's foreknowledge of future events is, it seems,
event > true proposition > Divine knowledge > predestination > called >
justified > glorified. The integral aspect here is that it is the future
event itself grounding the logical ordering that ensues from it.
>
> Otherwise, Christ's words are vain, and God becomes the criminal (which is
> the sin of Calvinism).
>
> If all were predestined to heaven OR hell, then Christ's instructions to
> "take heed to yourselves" and "be thou faithful unto death" are empty and
> void.
>
> Does Christ says "behold, I kick down the door?"
>
> No.
>
> Christ says "behold, I stand at the door and knock."
>
> He can't kick down the door of our hearts.
>
> We have to open, and THAT requires conscious choice.
I think there needs to be a distinction made here between forming beliefs
and holding onto them. When I experienced God in my life, in that moment
one of the last things that seemed possible to me was "freely" choosing not
to believe what was happening. I could no more have formed the belief it
was not God's voice I was hearing than I could form the belief that the
searingly hot stove onto which I'd just placed my bare hand wasn't really
hot. In that moment I was simply a creature designed for a purpose being
utilized by its Designer for that purpose...and rightly enough, He didn't
ask for my permission first! (Well, maybe that's a bit strong. There was
the one prayer I'd said ten years before asking that if He existed would He
please let me know without using any one else to do it...but that's a ten
year lapse between request and answer, and I'd changed my mind about wanting
to know many times in between...or at least I thought I had) So if we're
talking about beliefs we form from experience, especially an experience like
mine, then it seems to me the case that we don't have a lot of control over
a good many of them, and in this sense, my experience of God is just that:
an example of God kicking down the "door" of my unbelief.
But sadly real life isn't like a Hollywood love story, and in the 25 some
years since that time, I have had many opportunities, some even partially or
temporally taken, to DECIDE not to continue to trust in that initial belief
over which I initially had no control. What I'm saying is that I generally
have much more control over what I will continue to believe than I have over
what beliefs I will form, and I believe this is generally true for most of
us, and that it is true for saving faith.
It is also my belief that God's knowledge of all true propositions includes
the truth of all counterfactual propositions. Thus it is not necessary for
God to give to all persons equal evidences or experiences for forming a
basis upon which to trust in Him with a saving faith for God to equally love
all persons He creates. God would know that "if" He did "A" for person "P1"
and "P2" and "P3", then only P1 would freely form the belief he could trust
in God for his salvation. But God would also know such things as "if" He
did everything possible for P1, P2, an P3, only P1 and P2 would freely form
this belief, and knowing this truth, God would then have no reason for
providing to P3 every aid to belief (or perhaps continuing in belief) He
supplied to P1 and P2.
Chuck Stamford
Fred A Stover
"john weatherly @yoo.hoo>" <johnweath<nospam> wrote in message
> It is my understanding of "predestination" from Calvin's view
>
> that God chooses who will be saved. Conversely, if SOME will be saved
> (those God chooses), then others will not. And this selection is made
> before one is ever born.
God chooses some and not others, but when is the choice made? I remember
something Calvin wrote that seems to contradict many Calvinists. Calvin
wrote that God reaches out to all but only grasps his predestined elect.
This differs from what many Calvinists say, for they say he only reaches out
to grasp his elect which is predestined. Calvin's statement that God reaches
out to all, precludes any decision beforehand or he wouldn't be reaching out
to all. In scripture who is elect is a matter of foreknowledge: "Elect
according to the foreknowledge of God " (1 Pet. 1:2), and what is
predestined is that the elect will be conformed to the image of his son:
"For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the
image of his Son" (Rom 8:29).
>
> The flip side of that coin is that if you are not chosen by God (for
> whatever are His reasons), then no matter how you may beg or plead or
> grovel, you are hellbound, and there's not a damned thing you can do
> about it.
>
> "You are chosen", or you aren't.
>
> period.
>
> And that is the dark side of "predestination" that makes it a teaching
> straight from hell.
>
> I have asked MANY a Calvinist, "Do you believe that some are chosen
> for salvation, while others aren't."
>
> ALL have blindly nodded, "Yes, I believe that."
>
> If some are NOT chosen, then those who are not chosen are chosen for
> DAMNATION before they are ever born.
>
> plain and simple.
>
> no matter HOW some (you ? ) try to sugar-coat it.
>
> And MY Bible does not teach that.
>
> "That WHOSOEVER believes..."
>
> 'For God does not will that ANY should perish..."
>
> "but that ALL should be saved..."
>
>
> john w
>
>
>
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~
Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as
a little child, he shall not enter therein. (Mark 10:15)
"Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his
servants the prophets" (Amos 3:7)."
"Behold, I will send you EL YH [LORD God] the prophet before the coming of
the great and dreadful day of the Lord" (Mal 4:5)
"Why then say the scribes that ELYH [Elijah] must first come" (Matt 17:10)?
"For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery,
lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is
happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in" (Rom
11:25).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~
Vexen
<snip>
> I need only quote four verses for my purposes here. These verses all
> serve as "evidence" that those who believe in predestination base their
> belief on.
I would rather say that /Christian/ determinists base their Christian
beliefs in predeterminism on some of these verses; obviously the
scientific arguments for determinism are much more concise, accurate,
scientific, all-encompassing and explicit, such as the simple case of
causality: All our 'choices' are caused by preceding factors which
eventually precede our time of birth. Etc.
I thought (I am not a Christian) that I would point out a few more
verses in addition to the ones you list, which do indeed continue to
tell Christians that early Christian authors were deterministic.
> The first verse is Romans 8:29: "For those God foreknew he
> also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he
> might be the firstborn among many brothers." The second is Romans 8:30:
> "And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also
> justified; those he justified, he also glorified." The third is
> Ephesians 1:5: "he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through
> Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-" And the fourth
> is Ephesians 1:11: "In him we were also chosen, having been predestined
> according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with
> the purpose of his will,"
So, there is also Ephesians 2:8-10: "For it is by grace you have been
saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift
of God - not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God's
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God
prepared in advance for us to do."
Versus one to four talk about how particular people once lived in sin,
but that 'the spirit' comes to work in particular people to reform
them. These people, who become reformed, are those who God has chosen
to reform, as we have seen earlier in Ephesians. Here, the author of
Ephesians explains that it is not by personal effort that you are
saved. It is 'not from yourself' but it is 'the gift of God' that saves
people. Specifically, then, God chooses some people and grants them the
gift of God, those who are chosen before time, according to God's plan,
to conform to Jesus. Those who are chosen by God are automatically
destined to 'do good works' which 'God prepared in advance for us to
do'. It's not that people choose to do good, and are therefore accepted
into Heaven, or even that people choose to do good and therefore come
to accept Jesus. The Bible clearly states that God makes specific
people do specific 'good works', which God has chosen that certain
people will do.
Those who do good works are those who God has predetermined to do good
works. There is no free will involved.
> As I said earlier, at first glance these verses all seem to support the
> idea that God saves some but damns the rest.
And also the addition quote from Ephesians supports that idea too. It
not only supports it, but is quite specific about it.
In case that extra verse isn't enough, there is yet more in Romans that
you didn't mention. It follows on nicely from a question you ask:
<snip>
> Would any of us desire to spend
> even a single second singing this person's praises because he saved us
> while sending our loved ones to their deaths? Of course not! And the
> same is true with regard to God. Which of us would be willing to spend
> eternity worshipping and praising a god who sent many of our family and
> friends to Hell without any hope for salvation
St Paul tussled with this question, and supplies us with an answer as
clear as the varied verses from Ephesians & Romans that we've already
seen:
Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad - in
order that God's purpose in election might stand: 12not by works but by
him who calls - she was told "The older will serve the younger". 13Just
as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated".
14What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15For he says to
Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have
compassion on whom I have compassion" [Exodus 33:19]"
Romans 9:10-15 [NIV]
The answer given as an answer by Paul makes no sense... it doesn't even
address the question: Is God just? How can a just God predetermine
people to sin, to be hated by God, and predetermine them not to
'conform to Jesus', and then judge those people for that
predetermination that was beyond their control? None of these are
answered by Paul's quote from the Jewish Scriptures. Thankfully Paul
does not leave his attempted discussion there. He goes on to affirm
that free will does not affect our fate, and then he asks finally and
directly: If our actions and nature are determined by God, how can god
blame us for those actions? The Biblical text runs thusly:
"It does not therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's
mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharoh: "I raised you up for this very
purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be
proclaimed on all the earth." [Exodus 9:16] Therefore God has mercy on
whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who
resists his will?" " Romans 9:16-19 [NIV]
And that is the clincher; the ultimate question. Paul has asked "Is God
unjust?" for its denial of free will, for its disregard for what our
choices and intentions are. Paul now has a mortal present that same
question. His answer is a shocker:
"But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say
to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'"[Isaiah 29:16,
45:9] Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump
of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?"
Romans 9:20-21 [NIV]
The answer is: Tough!
God is unjust, simply because it can be! There is no justification, God
makes some people "for noble use", chosen and predestined to do good
works 'which God prepared in advance' 'according to his purpose'. If
you're not lucky enough to be created for a noble purpose, then you are
for common use, relegated to hell and torment, a life without
conformity to Christ, and not only is this unjust and painful situation
created by God, Paul then says that you have no right to even raise a
concern! You can't ask, "Is God Just?" or "How can God still blame us
for our actions?", Paul simply states that it doesn't matter, it is
tough, God 'hardens who he wants to harden', those who were not noble
are waste, space-filler, used, abused... and this unholy mess was all
created by God, according to the Bible! No free will is involved, no
Human volition can change whether we were made for noble purposes to do
pre-planned good acts, or whether we were made for common use, to be
discarded and "punished" simply for not having been created right!
You are right when you point out that this is a dilemma.
> Only a fool would worship such a beast, and sadly there are
> many such fools out there today.
It is true that God is not just and unfair: And according to The Bible,
God definitely doesn't like being quizzed on this matter! But when
pressed to answer, Paul is honest about God's lack of justice. Paul
states multiple times, in accordance with the rest of the scripture we
see on this post, that free will and personal choices are not the
important factor in salvation: Paul then goes further in Romans 9 and
admits that God is arbitrary, and it's simply tough that people were
created for 'common use' as slaves of Satan, and that only some are
created for 'noble purposes'.
Such is the God of the Christian Bible.
<snip Wesley>
> The truth of the matter is clear to anyone who wishes to think for
> themselves instead of having others think for them.
The truth is, if there is free will and if there is a moral God, then
much of the New Testament is simply wrong.
<snip omniscience>
<snip Jesus>
<snip>
> remembering of course that
> God cannot violate a man's free will,
I don't think you'll find any biblical reasoning behind that statement
- your opening verses and my supporting ones show clearly that free
will is simply not an issue. Only God's will determines who was creaed
for good works.
<snip stuff about shoes>
> No human being can ever fill God's shoes. Ever. So assuming that
> verses concerning predestination literally mean that God has damned some
> by decree in such a way as ensuring that no lost person will ever even
> have a chance to be saved is clearly misguided. It seeks to provide the
> simplest answer to a very difficult question, and this simple answer is
> more than sufficient to turn the God of the Bible into the Satan of
> Hell.
Well that's what you get for relying on scripture... I do not think it
possible for any moral person to worship the God portrayed in the
Bible, so in that I commend your thoughts on the matter; it simply, as
you say, can't be true that a good God would behave in the way
described in Romans, Ephesians, 2 Timothy 1:9 (another one I haven't
mentioned, but it's the same as the rest), and Ecclesiastes 7:13
(no-one can fix what god has made crooked).
Oh another verse just before I finish, this time not from St Paul but
from the late book of Revelations, 13:8, 8, which also clearly states
that God, in advance, predestined certain people to worship the Devil,
and thusly not be moved by the spirit, not be chosen, not be chosen to
do good works, and in total of all these seperate statements in the
Bible, well and truly have no free will to determine their own fate.
Thankfully though, I'm not a Christian so I'm not compelled to believe
that if there was a god, it would have to predetermine people in the
way the NT describes.
--
Vexen Crabtree
http://www.vexen.co.uk/religon/christianity_freewill.html
H.E. Eickleberry, Jr.
news:msbjg.93161$TK1.57209@fed1read06...
>
> "H.E. Eickleberry, Jr." <Yeickleb...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:rqqdndgziYFJOhHZ...@comcast.com...
>> "Bill High, Marijuana Guy" <Billyb...@lalaland.bizarre> wrote in
>> message news:448C70...@lalaland.bizarre...
>>
>> [snip]
>>
>>> No human being can ever fill God's shoes. Ever. So assuming that
>>> verses concerning predestination literally mean that God has damned some
>>> by decree in such a way as ensuring that no lost person will ever even
>>> have a chance to be saved is clearly misguided. It seeks to provide the
>>> simplest answer to a very difficult question, and this simple answer is
>>> more than sufficient to turn the God of the Bible into the Satan of
>>> Hell.
>>
>> The problem with simple answers is that they are usually presented by
>> simpletons who can't handle complex answers.
>>
>> The real answer is that both free will and predestiny exist as
>> simultaneously true statements, i.e. they form a paradox.
>>
>> Then again, the predestination advocates tend to ignore the fact that
>> there is a word that goes in front of predestination...foreknew.
>>
>> But when did God "foreknow" anyone?
>>
>> At the judgment, which comes at the end of the story.
[snip]
> Right up to here you had me nodding along in agreement. But this can't be
> right if God is omniscient, because to be omniscient means to know the
> truth of every true proposition, and true propositions are ALWAYS true if
> they are true at all. Ergo, God foreknowledge includes knowledge of
> future events, just as the term implies. To suggest that God comes to
> know what He "foreknows" contradicts His omniscience and renders
> "foreknowledge" indistinguishable from mere knowledge. It is to suggest
> that an omniscient God comes to know at a time t2 what He does not know at
> time t1, and this is a contradiction in terms.
Ah, no, but explaining why gets into a complex discussion of
three-dimensional time, and singularities versus temporalities, which itself
leads to a complex discussion of God's perceptions versus our perceptions,
and so on.
At this level, I am simply pointing to the paradoxical verses and saying
that both statements type A (cause leads to effect) and type B (effect leads
to cause) are both true.
In another post, I pointed out the fact that Paul made a logistical error in
his citation of the confrontation between God and Pharaoh. Paul says cites
"God hardened Pharaoh's heart," but neglected to mention that there are
actually three types of statements in the Exodus account of the
confrontation, fairly evenly dispersed throughout:
Statement type 1: "God hardened Pharaoh's heart..."
Statement type 2: "Pharaoh hardened his heart..."
Statement type 3: "Pharaoh's heart was hardened...," without reference to
cause or effect.
Hence, God hardened Pharaoh's heart because Pharaoh hardened his heart
against God, BUT God hardened Pharaoh's heart BECAUSE Pharaoh hardened his
heart against God.
In the end, cause and effect evaporate, and everything simply becomes a
truism written into the fabric of the universe--Pharaoh's heart was
hardened, without reference to cause or effect: Pharaoh chose to oppose God
and God chose to oppose Pharaoh are both true statements, and both free will
and predestiny are true.
It is important to note that Paul was just trying to make one point, hence,
he only examined one aspect of a three-dimensional argument--be careful of
pride: If God had not given us something to have faith in, we would all be
lost. Hence, we may accept or deny the faith, but that there is a faith to
have (or not have) came from God.
>> Hence, the cycle is
>>
>>
>> Foreknown > predestinated > called > justified > glorified, where the
>> glorification for keeping the faith to the end of the story establishes
>> the foreknowledge, and subsequent "predestination" at the beginning of
>> the story.
>
> It seems to me you're trying to describe the logical ordering to God's
> foreknowledge here, but this isn't quite right if that's what you're
> doing. The logical order to God's foreknowledge of future events is, it
> seems, event > true proposition > Divine knowledge > predestination >
> called > justified > glorified. The integral aspect here is that it is
> the future event itself grounding the logical ordering that ensues from
> it.
No, no, no, no, no.
There is no "seems" to it. I'm citing the statements exactly as Paul stated
them, without inserting "other" terms as you have done.
Paul set the order as foreknowledge > predestinated > called > justified >
glorified. [Romans 8:29-30]
From our perspective, the middle part is the start (called), the end is the
middle, and the beginning is the end; but, from God's perspective (not
relying on temporal order) it is exactly as stated, fulfilling the prophecy:
"That which has been is now, and that which is to be has already been, and
God requires that which is past."
Never happened. God never kicks down the door. There may have been a delay
for whatever reasons, but God CANNOT kick down the door--it is a violation
of His own rules, for God is "willing" that all would come to repentance."
If God is willing to save everyone, why doesn't He do it? Answer: He can't
come in uninvited--that violates choice, and choice is necessary for love.
> But sadly real life isn't like a Hollywood love story, and in the 25 some
> years since that time, I have had many opportunities, some even partially
> or temporally taken, to DECIDE not to continue to trust in that initial
> belief over which I initially had no control. What I'm saying is that I
> generally have much more control over what I will continue to believe than
> I have over what beliefs I will form, and I believe this is generally true
> for most of us, and that it is true for saving faith.
>
> It is also my belief that God's knowledge of all true propositions
> includes the truth of all counterfactual propositions. Thus it is not
> necessary for God to give to all persons equal evidences or experiences
> for forming a basis upon which to trust in Him with a saving faith for God
> to equally love all persons He creates. God would know that "if" He did
> "A" for person "P1" and "P2" and "P3", then only P1 would freely form the
> belief he could trust in God for his salvation. But God would also know
> such things as "if" He did everything possible for P1, P2, an P3, only P1
> and P2 would freely form this belief, and knowing this truth, God would
> then have no reason for providing to P3 every aid to belief (or perhaps
> continuing in belief) He supplied to P1 and P2.
Okay, now after all that, we're back to square one--God cannot kick down the
door. If you let Him in, He may take over the house, but He can't kick down
the door.
Now here's an even stranger proposition--according to Jesus in the parable
of the sower, people can even ask Him to leave after they have let Him in
(with disastrous consequences).
Ike
--
www.eickleberrybooks.com
******************************
The Tree of Life (from "The Character Map")
The Beloved
Faith Hope
Righteousness Judgment Compassion
Courage Integrity Diligence Grace
Discipline of Thought Service Desire Decision and Belief
Glory Honor Power Wisdom Riches Blessing Strength w/Thanksgiving
He Who Loves
******************************
Remove X from address to reply
H.E. Eickleberry, Jr.
>
>>
>> So you don't think that God chooses/predestines which people to
>> "give faith" and allow into heaven, and which ones to not "bless
>> with faith" in Him ???
>
> all of us out of nothing, that he created our will, or personality, our
> very soul, then he most certainly predestines who will have enoug
> faith, and who will go to 'heaven,' for at the moment He created each
> one of us, no, through the process of His creating each one of us, He
> knew the whole time, which one would go to 'heaven' and which would go
> to 'hell'
Ah, no.
You are relying on the concept that God somehow created our characters
BEFORE we were created, and decided in advance who would and would not be
saved, which makes God the criminal rather than us (which was one of
Calvin's many errors).
God knew us before we were born, but God did not preset our characters. Our
characters develop with circumstance, but God already knew the results, and
even took steps to amplify the character we choose, hence, cause leads to
effect and effect leads to cause at the same time, until there is no cause
or effect--only truisms.
Ike
vernon
> "vernon" <there@there> wrote in message
> news:448c9f28$0$15623$8826...@news-taz.teranews.com...
>>
> decided in advance.
>
> Get your theological terms straight.
Get an education, not Mantra.
>> The Father chooses.
>
> Nope. We choose. The choices are revealed in the judgment. The judgment
> determines the foreknowledge. The foreknowledge establishes the
> "predestination."
Yes we all know that you are self righteous and "deserve"
B.S.
Jesus said that the Father chooses, oh self righteous deserving one.
Get an education and quit wasting the time of "Christians".
vernon
>
> <Angelin...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1150068520.0...@y43g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>> vernon wrote:
>>> Predestination does not preclude free will.
>>
Yep, we are so great that we deserve salvation.
I sure am glad I'm not one of those sinners. (better than they)
vernon
"john weatherly @yoo.hoo>" <johnweath<nospam> wrote in message
> x-no-archive: yes
> On Mon, 12 Jun 2006 02:54:31 -0700, "Chuck Stamford"
> <shell__...@cox.net> wrote:
> copyright 2006 John Weatherly; all rights reserved; no portion of
> this article may be used elsewhere without express written consent of
> the author
>>
> Calvinists who would completely disagree with you.
>
> They say Calvin teaches that God chooses those who He will redeem.
> PERIOD. That is known as part of God's "sovereignty." HE SELECTS those
> He will redeem.
>
> Conversely, if you are not "selected", you are doomed, and there ain't
> a thing you can do to get "redeemed."
>
> It is MY contention that since God is all-powerful, God is CAPABLE of
> redeeming every single soul on earth.
>
> Which is where free will comes in. God CHOOSES ALL men. We are the
> ones who-- by free will-- reject that salvation.
>
> Which totally angers those who believe in "sovereignty', since we are
> saying we have the POWER to REJECT God's sovereign choice.
>
> I believe it boils down -- NOT to a matter of God's choice-- but a
> matter of man's will.
>
Yep, we are sure are strong willed.
Mary Poppins, Think hard enough.
Pastor Dave
>> How was that their free will, if even before their birth they were
>> chosen to not have faith, and thus doomed before they could even take a
>> breath or make a decision.
>
>Predestination doesn't necessarily mean God chose people not to have faith.
>It means God chose one of a huge number of possible worlds to actualize, for
>His own good reasons, and that in that possible world that then became
>actual, God knew who would freely choose to trust in Him, and who would not.
That's ridiculous! It is sad when people become so
desperate to hang on to their doctrine, that they don't
care how badly they mutilate the Bible, to make it fit
their doctrine! (:
What you are citing, is "foreknowledge", not
predestination. Predestination does not involve,
"freely choosing Him".
The Bible makes it clear that NO ONE would choose God
of their own accord. And in John 6:44, the word that is
translated into "draw", means "to drag". It is not just
a polite little nudge by God. It is a dragging, because
the person does not want to go.
"For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish
foolishness..." - 1 Cor 1:18a
"But the natural man receiveth not the things of
the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him:
neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned." - 1 Cor 2:14
You people contradict yourselves. You claim that
salvation is by God alone and not with human help.
Yet you want to take credit for half the work of
coming to Him! (:
Predestination means just what it says and you don't
get to twist the Bible, to force it to fit your man made
doctrine!
Predestination eliminates a free will choosing of God.
Ephesians 1:3-5
3) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ:
4) According as HE HATH CHOSEN US in him
BEFORE the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before him in love:
5) Having PREDESTINED US unto the adoption of
children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the
good pleasure of HIS WILL,
>There is presently no successful argument for God's foreknowledge
>determining what anyone will freely choose to do. I'll grant you the idea
>that it does has a strong initial intuitive appeal, but the more you
>actually delve into the question from a philosophical perspective, the less
>appealing that intuition becomes.
Philosophical? Is that what you place above Scripture?
Since when are we supposed to be able to tell God what
would be good to do?
>Saving faith seems to be a cooperative venture
So you are half the cause of salvation then.
You need to pay attention to what I wrote above.
--
"Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass,
till all these things be fulfilled." - Matthew 24:34
O
/
/
<><[]()X()[]><>><>><>><>><>><>><>><>><>><>><>><>><>><>
\
\
O
"For the word of God is sharper than any two edged sword."
When Christianity becomes religion,
it leaves the heart hungry.
bam
"Vexen" <ve...@vexen.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1150111222....@h76g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Bill High, Marijuana Guy wrote:
> <snip>
>> I need only quote four verses for my purposes here. These verses all
>> serve as "evidence" that those who believe in predestination base their
>> belief on.
>
> I would rather say that /Christian/ determinists base their Christian
> beliefs in predeterminism on some of these verses; obviously the
> scientific arguments for determinism are much more concise, accurate,
> scientific, all-encompassing and explicit, such as the simple case of
> causality: All our 'choices' are caused by preceding factors which
> eventually precede our time of birth. Etc.
Yes, in that we are made in God's image and recognize (though not clearly) a
natural law instilled in all men's hearts.
>
> I thought (I am not a Christian) that I would point out a few more
> verses in addition to the ones you list, which do indeed continue to
> tell Christians that early Christian authors were deterministic.
>
>> The first verse is Romans 8:29: "For those God foreknew he
>> also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he
>> might be the firstborn among many brothers."
Yes - few are chosen.
The second is Romans 8:30:
>> "And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also
>> justified; those he justified, he also glorified." The third is
>> Ephesians 1:5: "he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through
>> Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-" And the fourth
>> is Ephesians 1:11: "In him we were also chosen, having been predestined
>> according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with
>> the purpose of his will,"
One could argue forever who "us" is, and who "those" are. These are fairly
complex passages, and one wishes he could ask St. Paul for further
explanation. Because if predestination were applicable to all, Jesus would
have merely told us that, and there would have been no need to instruct,
correct or give false hope to half (or whatever percentage gets condemned)
the world.
> So, there is also Ephesians 2:8-10: "For it is by grace you have been
> saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift
> of God - not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God's
> workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God
> prepared in advance for us to do."
Yes - by our nature.
>
> Versus one to four talk about how particular people once lived in sin,
> but that 'the spirit' comes to work in particular people to reform
> them. These people, who become reformed, are those who God has chosen
> to reform, as we have seen earlier in Ephesians. Here, the author of
> Ephesians explains that it is not by personal effort that you are
> saved. It is 'not from yourself' but it is 'the gift of God' that saves
> people.
Correct. But we are required to co-operate with grace.
Specifically, then, God chooses some people and grants them the
> gift of God, those who are chosen before time, according to God's plan,
> to conform to Jesus.
But are these the only ones who are saved, or are these certain individuals
chosen for a particular mission? If so, please give biblical support.
>Those who are chosen by God are automatically
> destined to 'do good works' which 'God prepared in advance for us to
> do'.
Perhaps. But are these the only ones saved?
>It's not that people choose to do good, and are therefore accepted
> into Heaven, or even that people choose to do good and therefore come
> to accept Jesus. The Bible clearly states that God makes specific
> people do specific 'good works', which God has chosen that certain
> people will do.
But are these the only ones saved?
> Those who do good works are those who God has predetermined to do good
> works. There is no free will involved.
Yes there is free will - there is just no overpowering temptation toward
evil. All people will that which is good - we're made in God's image.
> St Paul tussled with this question, and supplies us with an answer as
> clear as the varied verses from Ephesians & Romans that we've already
> seen:
>
> Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad - in
> order that God's purpose in election might stand: 12not by works but by
> him who calls - she was told "The older will serve the younger". 13Just
> as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated".
> 14What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15For he says to
> Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have
> compassion on whom I have compassion" [Exodus 33:19]"
Again, could apply to individuals, but not the mass of humanity. St. Paul
does not explain this verse - he asks the right question, (Is God unjust?),
but doesn't answer it. His quote about Moses, only seems to affirm the
unjustness. So once again, you wish you could raise your hand and ask St.
Paul a few more questions. Ahh..but you say that below.
But does it apply to all men? Or just some who will make great changes in
history?
>
> God is unjust, simply because it can be! There is no justification, God
> makes some people "for noble use", chosen and predestined to do good
> works 'which God prepared in advance' 'according to his purpose'. If
> you're not lucky enough to be created for a noble purpose, then you are
> for common use, relegated to hell and torment, a life without
> conformity to Christ, and not only is this unjust and painful situation
> created by God, Paul then says that you have no right to even raise a
> concern!
But that is you who interpret "common use" to mean damnation. I don't see
that at all. Common use means what it says.
>You can't ask, "Is God Just?" or "How can God still blame us
> for our actions?", Paul simply states that it doesn't matter, it is
> tough, God 'hardens who he wants to harden', those who were not noble
> are waste, space-filler, used, abused... and this unholy mess was all
> created by God, according to the Bible! No free will is involved, no
> Human volition can change whether we were made for noble purposes to do
> pre-planned good acts, or whether we were made for common use, to be
> discarded and "punished" simply for not having been created right!
I don't see that. I see that some are chosen for particular tasks, but it is
also possible that even without the special graces, or those whom "God
hardened", that their ultimate fate would have been no different anyway.
>> It is true that God is not just and unfair: And according to The Bible,
> God definitely doesn't like being quizzed on this matter! But when
> pressed to answer, Paul is honest about God's lack of justice. Paul
> states multiple times, in accordance with the rest of the scripture we
> see on this post, that free will and personal choices are not the
> important factor in salvation:
Where? Does this apply to all men?
Paul then goes further in Romans 9 and
> admits that God is arbitrary, and it's simply tough that people were
> created for 'common use' as slaves of Satan, and that only some are
> created for 'noble purposes'.
Once again you have jumped to a personal conclusion that common use means
those destined for Hell.
> The truth is, if there is free will and if there is a moral God, then
> much of the New Testament is simply wrong.
Or - *you* are wrong.
> Well that's what you get for relying on scripture... I do not think it
> possible for any moral person to worship the God portrayed in the
> Bible, so in that I commend your thoughts on the matter; it simply, as
> you say, can't be true that a good God would behave in the way
> described in Romans, Ephesians, 2 Timothy 1:9 (another one I haven't
> mentioned, but it's the same as the rest), and Ecclesiastes 7:13
> (no-one can fix what god has made crooked).
So you are now free to follow your concupiscence without guilt. Isn't that
nice? And you can blame God for all your sins if you are ever accused - it's
a bad bet.
> Oh another verse just before I finish, this time not from St Paul but
> from the late book of Revelations, 13:8, 8, which also clearly states
> that God, in advance, predestined certain people to worship the Devil,
> and thusly not be moved by the spirit, not be chosen, not be chosen to
> do good works, and in total of all these seperate statements in the
> Bible, well and truly have no free will to determine their own fate.
I see nothing about Devil worship in that quote:
Rev 13:8 And all that dwell upon the earth adored him, whose names are not
written in the book of life of the Lamb which was slain from the beginning
of the world.
> Thankfully though, I'm not a Christian so I'm not compelled to believe
> that if there was a god, it would have to predetermine people in the
> way the NT describes.
The fact that you're not a Christian does not exempt you from judgement at
the end of your life. It merely means that you don't believe there will be
one. So have a nice life. You remind me of a slave who pretends he doesn't
mind his situation.
BAM
para...@technicianheaven.com
alt.religion.christian :
>
><para...@technicianheaven.com> wrote
>
>>But God sent His own Son to take our place, to
>> pay the price, to redeem us from our JUST AND RIGHT PUNISHMENT.
>
>Not for the sins you deny.
>
>BAM
>
You deny you have sins? I don't deny any sins I commit at all. Why
would I? Why would ANY Christian deny their sins?
That is just plain silly, bammy.
parakaleo
Pulpitfire
In this case, Dave is stark-raving correct. Philippians 2:13 says it is
God who works in us both to will and do of His good pleasure. This
doesn't make us robots, it means God gives us a nature which obeys Him
of it's own free-will. Until such time as God imparts saving faith to
an individual, they have nothing but a fallen nature, which is capable
of nothing but opposing that which it knows to be God's will: "Ro 8:7
Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to
the law of God, neither indeed can be." No unregenerate person has the
capacity to make a favorable decision towards God, until such time as
God imparts saving faith, a new nature, and works in them to will and do
of His good pleasure.
--
=============================================
Christ died for our sins, and God raised Him from the dead.
Rely on this finished work alone for salvation (1 Cor. 15:1-3;
Eph. 2:8-10). www.pulpitfire.org
=============================================
para...@technicianheaven.com
alt.religion.christian :
>
Yes, the Bible says that God chooses/predestines which people are
going to be saved, and God loves everybody. Equally? I don't know,
and neither do you.
parakaleo
para...@technicianheaven.com
with this stuff in alt.religion.christian :
>news:448C70...@lalaland.bizarre...
>
>[snip]
>
>> No human being can ever fill God's shoes. Ever. So assuming that
>> verses concerning predestination literally mean that God has damned some
>> by decree in such a way as ensuring that no lost person will ever even
>> have a chance to be saved is clearly misguided. It seeks to provide the
>> simplest answer to a very difficult question, and this simple answer is
>> more than sufficient to turn the God of the Bible into the Satan of
>> Hell.
>
>The problem with simple answers is that they are usually presented by
>simpletons who can't handle complex answers.
People like you, huh?
>
>The real answer is that both free will and predestiny exist as
>simultaneously true statements, i.e. they form a paradox.
>
>Then again, the predestination advocates tend to ignore the fact that there
>is a word that goes in front of predestination...foreknew.
But unlike those who don't believe in predestination, we DO recognize
"God CHOSE" and "He PREDESTINED US."
>
>But when did God "foreknow" anyone?
>
>At the judgment, which comes at the end of the story.
Eph 1:3-6
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has
blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in
Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE
WORLD, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5
having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself,
according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the
glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
NKJV
You underestimate the abilities and knowledge of God. You also seem
to have difficulty in understanding that "foreknow" means "to know
BEFORE something happens."
>
>Hence, the cycle is
>
>
>Foreknown > predestinated > called > justified > glorified, where the
>glorification for keeping the faith to the end of the story establishes the
>foreknowledge, and subsequent "predestination" at the beginning of the
>story.
>
>Otherwise, Christ's words are vain, and God becomes the criminal (which is
>the sin of Calvinism).
Or so YOU claim anyway.
Rom 9:21
21 Does not the potter have power over the clay , from the same lump
to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
NKJV
God is the potter, and we are the clay. If you would bother to read
the WHOLE passage (I just posted the main line to save bandwidth and
keep from confusing you too much. . .), you will find that God DID
make "vessels for dishonor."
>
>If all were predestined to heaven OR hell, then Christ's instructions to
>"take heed to yourselves" and "be thou faithful unto death" are empty and
>void.
>
>Does Christ says "behold, I kick down the door?"
>
>No.
>
>Christ says "behold, I stand at the door and knock."
Jesus also said:
John 6:44
44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and
I will raise him up at the last day.
NKJV
John 6:65
65 And He said, "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to
Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father."
NKJV
So those whom GOD HAS DRAWN may knock at the door.
Nobody else can.
>
>He can't kick down the door of our hearts.
>
>We have to open, and THAT requires conscious choice.
Choice that God allows us to have, that we cannot deny since it would
make no sense to make any other choice.
I once folded a dollar bill in half to demonstrate God's Grace to an
unsaved friend. I stuck it into his pocket and told him, "that is
grace."
You didn't earn it.
You didn't deserve it.
You didn't do anything to get it except to allow me to stick it into
your pocket.
Just like salvation from God.
You didn't earn it.
You don't deserve it.
You don't "DO" anything but have the faith God gives you.
Same kind of thing.
parakaleo
Dale
Angelina asked:
> >You think God loves everyone equally???
parakaleo answered:
> Yes, the Bible says that God chooses/predestines which people are
> going to be saved, and God loves everybody. Equally? I don't know,
> and neither do you.
Well did the the Lord shed important light on this important question
~176 years ago: "Behold, the Lord esteemeth all flesh in one; he that
is righteous is favored of God." (1 Ne. 17: 35)
Indeed, it is only in and through Jesus Christ that any man may become
"righteous"...
~Dale
Lunatic Fringe
para...@technicianheaven.com wrote:
> Rom 9:21
> 21 Does not the potter have power over the clay , from the same lump
> to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
> NKJV
>
> God is the potter, and we are the clay. If you would bother to read
> the WHOLE passage (I just posted the main line to save bandwidth and
> keep from confusing you too much. . .), you will find that God DID
> make "vessels for dishonor."
Looks like you and Shirton will now be at each other's throughts.
Shirton has vehemently denied that God predestines to the wicked to
hell, yet interpreted Rom 9:21 to say that very thing--that God
deliberately created unrighteous persons destined for hell. Why? I
guess because he felt like it.
>
> Jesus also said:
> John 6:44
> 44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and
> I will raise him up at the last day.
> NKJV
>
> John 6:65
> 65 And He said, "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to
> Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father."
> NKJV
>
> So those whom GOD HAS DRAWN may knock at the door.
Your interpretation is wacko. Christ himself taught, "come unto me ALL
ye that are heavy laden and I will give you rest." He didn't invite
only those who are fortunate enough to have been given a winning lucky
salvation lottery ticket as a result of God's choice rather than their
own.
>
> Nobody else can.
Each person can seek after Jesus. Everyone has free will. The grace
of God is sufficient for all who seek after Him. Otherwise, your God
is imperfect and unable or unwilling to treat all his children fairly.
> >
> >He can't kick down the door of our hearts.
> >
> >We have to open, and THAT requires conscious choice.
>
> Choice that God allows us to have, that we cannot deny since it would
> make no sense to make any other choice.
>
> I once folded a dollar bill in half to demonstrate God's Grace to an
> unsaved friend. I stuck it into his pocket and told him, "that is
> grace."
>
> You didn't earn it.
> You didn't deserve it.
> You didn't do anything to get it except to allow me to stick it into
> your pocket.
Red herring. Just because the gift is free doesn't mean it's not
available to all who chose to accept it.
>
> Just like salvation from God.
I don't think salvation is that cheap and easy. Otherwise, there would
be no purpose for us to live lengthy lives striving to do God's will.
>
> You didn't earn it.
> You don't deserve it.
> You don't "DO" anything but have the faith God gives you.
But every man must exercise faith and endure to the end and remain
righteous and not backslide.
>
> Same kind of thing.
You're nuts.
>
> parakaleo
Nemesis
> returning to the Crusader mentality that Luther was trying to get
> away from as Luther tried to return to Jesus' grassroots, bottom-up approach
> to things.
So Luther's "return to Jesus' grassroots, bottom-up approach to things"
included demanding that all Jewish synagogues and books and people
should be destroyed? Luther advocated such and was an avowed
anti-Semite and THAT is VERY un-Scriptural. The doctrines of men have
nothing to do with the divinely-breathed Word of God.
No one man has all the answers whether it be Calvin, Luther or [place
your name here].
singlew...@gmail.com
Chuck Stamford wrote:
>
> I would suggest to you the following for your consideration:
>
> 1.) While it is true God creates the souls of men, it also seems true that
> men have some control over what those souls become
I don't agree, obviously. God created every part of us. None if it is
ours. It all came from Him. I don't think it is within the power of a
creation, to alter itself. Such a capability must be inherent, and must
have come from the creator.
.> Many people share basic
> "personality traits", and there is good evidence that some of these traits
> are present from birth. But do all persons who share such traits share
> experiences in life as well? Are two people, both of whom were born with
> quick tempers, both "predestined" to have their lives ruled by this trait?
> Or can we say that one or both of them may at some point in their lives take
> control over this predisposition toward anger, and rule over it?
If they find a method to harness that inner strength, its because God
put it there. I don't think a creation can make changes to its basic
structure.
>So can we
> say, without resorting to theological fatalism (which is just a special case
> of logical determinism), that God in creating a person's soul creates what
> that person becomes? If so, I'd like to see you formalize the argument
> that's supposed to give us an affirmative answer to that question, because
> I'd like to take a critical look at it myself.
If we adopt the mainstream theory of 'out of nothing' then I cannot see
how man could develop any individual traits of his own. All things come
from the creator. All things....
>
> 2.) God didn't create out of absolutely nothing.
That is the presumption I am basing this on, its not my belief. That is
what I was taught in Bible schools, Methodist, Catholic, Born Again,
and a handful of other churces. God created everything out of nothing.
I don't personally accept that, but I do for the sake of discussing
what I think is this major paradox.
> good. I'd predict that's going to be one tough argument to construct!
Until you rephrase that paragraph into useful language, I can't
construct anything.......:-)
>
>
> >
> > He would have known -before- He created us out of nothing, what our
> > destiny was, for we are not about to suprise God, and show up at the
> > gate and have him say "wow, I didn't know you were going to make it up
> > here' <g>
>
> This is true. God's choice of which possible world to actualize must have
> been made (it's difficult to express these things without resorting to
> language that implies God makes choices "in the past", when the truth is
> that God's choice to actualize a world is eternal, and so that choice, to
> not only create THIS world, but to create ANY world, is every bit as eternal
> as is God Himself) for some purpose, and made on the basis of perfect
> knowledge of all possible worlds. In many of those possible worlds you
> exist, but are different than you actually are in this one. In many more of
> these possible worlds you don't exist at all.
Again, I don't follow your logic. I exist in more than one world?
The bottom line of the theology in question is that it appears to me
that God created me, for the express purpose of burning in hell, and I
am sorry, but that offends my senses <g> He knew the moment he created
me, and I submit that even before, that I would be an evil person, and
would go to hell. I can't support a being that would be so cruel. Why
would He creates something that he knew would fail.
Who builds a house, knowing it will not stand? Who designs cars,
knowing they will not work properly? Who builds anything, knowing full
well it will fail? (besides the government <g>)
>
> But God's choice of which possible world to actualize can't have been based
> on just what you, individually, would freely choose to do in them if they
> had been made actual. Possible worlds are a bit bigger than that, and there
> is more at stake in actualizing one of them than just what you freely choose
> to do with the actual existence you're given by God in actualizing one of
> them that contains you.
Again, nice words, but everyone who will suffer endless torment in the
fires of hell, was predestined to go there, which means their creator
made them with the intent of torturing them for eternity. They had no
choice, as that is the way that they were made.
>
> Clearly, in His choice of which possible world to create, God is responsible
> for your actual existence, but this in no way logically contradicts you
> being significantly free in that world...which is THIS world.
If all that I am, all that is in me, all my characteristics and all of
my passions were created by Him, I am not responsible for my actions,
and I have no agency to choose for myself.
If you combine flour, sugar, yeast, water, and salt, in the proper
quantities, you will get bread, not steak, not jelly, not grass or
flowers. You cannot add a 'mystery' component that will allow the
mixture to decide for itself what it will become. You define the final
product by the elements that you put into the bowl, and if you do it
properly, it will turn out just the way you ordered it up, based on the
ingredients.
>
> Nor is it a true fact that this view is inherent in the Christian faith, or
> necessary to any coherent Christian theology. It is certainly held by many
> who are Christians, but it isn't fundamental to Christian theology.
Yes, I believe that it is, because everyone I ever spoke with believes
that they did not exist in any shape or form, no part of them was in
existence, until God created them, and that all that they are, was made
by God. That is pretty standard theology, as far as I know. Do you know
of christian churches that teach that a part man existed before he came
to be a human on this earth?
> The critical issue
> here is whether or not God's foreknowledge of future events "determines" or
> "causes" those events to occur. If it does, then there is something to be
> said for your above perspective, and you have a good reason for believing
> it. If it doesn't, or at any rate, can't be shown in some logically
> compelling fashion that it does, then you would have much less reason for
> holding to that perspective.
I don't know what more I can say, other than to repeat myself. Using
the concepts I was taught, no part of me ever existed before God
"formed me in the womb". That implies that all that I am, He made. The
intelligence to make my own choices is not my intelligence, but it is
given to me, by Him. When He was in the process of forming me, he was
well aware, knowing the end from the beginning, that I would fail, and
burn in hell. That being rather inarguable as far as I can tell, I have
to ask Him, and myself, what was the point in creating me, if my fate
was already sealed, the moment I came to be?
Now, if you want to add the random elements of chance and choice, you
have to have something in the mix that God did not have control over.
If He has control over all the ingredients, then the outcome will
exactly what He planned it to be, and He is totally responsible for
that result. If a random element outside His control is included, then
He will still know the outcome, but He will not be totally responsible
for it, and therefore cannot be considered the creator of the failure.
Imagine yourself as the only being in the universe, and you start to
create other beings. As God, you know the destiny of each of those
beings, and you know that many, many of them will spend eternity in a
hell that you created, and yet you go ahead and create those beings
anyway? I can't imagine how that makes any sense, from a loving, caring
point of view.
I know you want me to do a better job of explaning, and I may not be
able to put it forth as clearly as I would like, but first I need to
understand why the above is not cruel, and why a loving Father would do
such a thing.
>
> So let's ask a bit different question: If God, who is omniscient, knows
> from all eternity that Bob will mow his lawn next Saturday, does Bob have it
> within his power to refrain from mowing his lawn next Saturday?
No, he does not. He must mow the lawn, if we take the omnisciense to
the microscopic level, which may or may not apply to the original
point.
If God knows that Bob will mow his lawn, and Bob doesn't, then Bob has
suprised God, and frankly, I don't see how that can be. Be sure we
don't deteriorate into details like drinking water, and mowing the lawn
:-) The issue is, when God created us out of nothing, did He already
know our fate, and if so, why did He bother to create something, simply
to destroy it? The idea, as I understand it, is to let us learn and
grow, and improve ourselves, and make our own choices, but without the
notion that something inside of us is uniquely ours alone, there is not
fair test. The game is over before we even get started, and nothing we
can do during this life will alter that.
>
> If the proposition "Bob will mow his lawn next Saturday" is true now, before
> Bob mows, then is it logically possible for Bob to refrain from mowing his
> lawn next Saturday?
>
Not seeing the connection. Sorry. If God knows I will have five
children, I will have five children, or God is wrong, and we know that
cannot be.
> And you should know that philosophical opinions here vary.
Oh yea, ... I know that :-)
>
> And so they are also vital to any inquiry into the truth of the very similar
> "theological fatalism" (which is how you are looking at the "Christian"
> understanding of God's foreknowledge here).
So you are saying that Christians, in general, don't believe that they
were created out of nothing, and that God does not know the end from
the beginning? Something in our makeup, is uniquely ours, and was not
created by God?
> And if, as you've implied, it is fatalism that's been holding you back from
> making a commitment to Christ, then welcome, brother, to the kingdom of God
> and Christ. The door is now open, and we welcome those who reject fatalism
> to the wedding feast. Of course, we welcome fatalists as well, but I
> personally encourage them to spend more of their time enjoying the food, and
> less of it expounding on their theological views ;-)
I cannot worship, or follow a God who creates people, just to burn them
in hell. I do thank you for the kind invite tho :-)
>
> After all, God created me when I
> experienced temporal becoming; when I began to actually exist. Now I
> suppose opinions would vary on when that is for a person (conception,
> reaching the "age of reason", etc.), but I'm 58 now, and I can tell you that
> I'm not the same as I was when I was 45, or 35, or 25, or 15, let alone
> since God created me!
But I am referring to eternity, and to our supposedly eternal
existence, and ultimate fate, which makes the difference between 1 and
75 rather moot. I don't count your age, as much as the issue of did any
part of you exist before you were born, or did you come out of
nothingness. Did God know your fate, before you were were created, and
it it possible for God to be wrong about your eternal destiny? Can you
suprise God? <g>
> or will become. And if that's true, then it ENTAILS that God DIDN'T create
> us as we are in every respect. So I would have to argue that the idea that
> He did create us the way we are in every respect and for all of our lives is
> just wrong. And if you take that idea out of your argument above, it pretty
> much just dissolves, and there remains no good reason for believing that God
> doesn't love all of us equally; the saved and the lost.
Again, please note I assumed a position based on a concept that I do
not accept, in order to make a point, so I do not wish to be accused of
really believing that God does not love us all equally. According to
that accepted position, which I was taught as a youth, by a variety of
'men of God,' from a number of different sects, that God made all of
us, every part of us, and knew when He did it, that some would fail,
and be subject to eternal torment, and I find that abhorrent, and
unacceptable. Your position is well stated, but it doesn't address the
point that He made me, knowing I would suffer eternal torment.
If your position is that when God created you, he took something that
He did not create, and put it in the mix, then there is much more to
talk about, for I would like to know where you think that part came
from, and where that is supported in scripture.
>
> And there is always the fact that Scripture tells us Christians that God's
> Son became Incarnate and died for the sins of the whole world, and that it
> is God's desire that none perish.
Then He ought not have made beings that He knew would perish.....?
>we have express statements to the
> effect that God loves all equally, and no good logical argument to compel us
> to disbelieve these statements.
I have to repeat, because I don't like even saying it <g> that I
believe He does love us all equally)
(side bar) The words "God loves you" mean nothing. Its the application
of those words that matter, and people who feel shortchanged by God,
who feel they have gotten a "raw deal" or that God has abandoned them,
are not at all made to feel better simply because the Bible says so.
The truth of the principles of the Gospel is in the application of
those ideas. People who seem to have found the words to be true, ought
not forget that many more find them to be untrue, and people who feel
loved by God, ought not beat people who do not feel that way, over the
head with words from the Bible, for they are just words. I have often
felt unloved by God. I am just a weak person. I have my moments. How I
feel, and what is true, are not always going to be the same thing. When
a person feels unloved, simply being told that "God loves you" does not
help, and in fact, it often aggravates the person even more. Know what
I mean?
(side bar off)
>
While it is a misnomer to call
> something that has a beginning, but no end, eternal; it is certainly
> logically possible that something that has a beginning can have no end
I don't agree at all. A beginning, implies an end. An end, implies a
beginning.
If God created us, He can destroy us. If something has a beginning, it
has an end. If something has no beginning, it has no end. I believe
that is just rational, logical thought. Science says that nothing can
be created, only reorganized. If it exists today, it will exist
tomorrow, and forever. Its structure may change, water, ice, water,
ice, but the basic elements will continue forever.
> But from our perspective, we are not eternally with God because we don't
> even eternally, actually exist. From our perspective, we begin to exist, we
> begin to have a salvic relationship with the eternal and omniscient Creator,
> and we live with Him forever afterward - temporal meets eternal. And the NT
> also speaks from this perspective as well.
Is not 'forever' the same as 'eternally?'
Thanks for your point of view. I don't claim the ability to express it
all in a conscise manner that will satisfy all, but it matters that one
does not think I am just arguing for the fun of it. Its a major issue,
it was so even before I cared about God, and long before I came across
teachings that helped me understand exactly what my existence is all
about.
Best Regards,
Mark
singlew...@gmail.com
H.E. Eickleberry, Jr. wrote:
>
>
> You are relying on the concept that God somehow created our characters
> BEFORE we were created, and decided in advance who would and would not be
> saved, which makes God the criminal rather than us (which was one of
> Calvin's many errors).
>
I am not trying to convict God :-) nor am I looking for someone to
blame. I also do not imply that He 'decided,' so much as He 'knew" our
fate, before, or during, our creation.
> God knew us before we were born, but God did not preset our characters. Our
> characters develop with circumstance, but God already knew the results, and
> even took steps to amplify the character we choose, hence, cause leads to
> effect and effect leads to cause at the same time, until there is no cause
> or effect--only truisms.
I want to be clear, that I assumed a position I disagree with, to make
a point. not just argue for the heck of it.
Its not about anything other than, did God know if we would go to
heaven or hell, before, or during the time that He created us? Yes, or
no?
If yes, then that seems rather cruel and vindictive.
If no, then we have within ourselves the capacity to 'suprise' God?
And I would like to hear your understanding, of what went into the
recipe for a man :) Did God add something that He did not create, or is
all that we are, his doing?
How did God know us, before He created us, unless a part of us already
existed? (Jeremiah)
This position is based on the teachings I garnered in a number of
different churches, that God created all of us, out of nothing, and
that no part of us existed before He created us "in the womb" Is that
not a true assumption of the mainstream christian world?
Thanks,
Mark
H.E. Eickleberry, Jr.
LOL
Jesus said the Father chose because we choose.
"The Father loves you BECAUSE you have loved me and believed I came out from
Him."
But such are the silly sots that only read half the Bible at a time.
> Get an education and quit wasting the time of "Christians".
A Christian hears the voice of Jesus, and responds accordingly.
You do not.
If you did, you would hear ALL that He has to say instead of picking and
choosing verses to make the Bible say what you want it to say.
Ike
H.E. Eickleberry, Jr.
news:tvtq821phj7n4dvk6...@4ax.com...
> "H.E. Eickleberry, Jr." <Yeickleb...@comcast.net>, popped up
> with this stuff in alt.religion.christian :
>>"Bill High, Marijuana Guy" <Billyb...@lalaland.bizarre> wrote in
>>message
>>news:448C70...@lalaland.bizarre...
>>
>>[snip]
>>
>>> No human being can ever fill God's shoes. Ever. So assuming that
>>> verses concerning predestination literally mean that God has damned some
>>> by decree in such a way as ensuring that no lost person will ever even
>>> have a chance to be saved is clearly misguided. It seeks to provide the
>>> simplest answer to a very difficult question, and this simple answer is
>>> more than sufficient to turn the God of the Bible into the Satan of
>>> Hell.
>>
>>The problem with simple answers is that they are usually presented by
>>simpletons who can't handle complex answers.
>
> People like you, huh?
>>
>>The real answer is that both free will and predestiny exist as
>>simultaneously true statements, i.e. they form a paradox.
>>
>>Then again, the predestination advocates tend to ignore the fact that
>>there
>>is a word that goes in front of predestination...foreknew.
>
> But unlike those who don't believe in predestination, we DO recognize
> "God CHOSE" and "He PREDESTINED US."
But God chose for a reason, therefore we choose (or do not choose).
>>But when did God "foreknow" anyone?
>>
>>At the judgment, which comes at the end of the story.
> Eph 1:3-6
> Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has
> blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in
> Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE
> WORLD, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5
> having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself,
> according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the
> glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
> NKJV
And now for a reciprocal statement:
Mt 10:32 Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess
also before my Father which is in heaven.
We can play "swap statements" all day, and the only thing that you will
manage to prove is that 2) We choose and God chooses are simultaneously true
statements and 2) you lack the ability to think three-dimensionally.
> You underestimate the abilities and knowledge of God. You also seem
> to have difficulty in understanding that "foreknow" means "to know
> BEFORE something happens."
>>
>>Hence, the cycle is
>>
>>
>>Foreknown > predestinated > called > justified > glorified, where the
>>glorification for keeping the faith to the end of the story establishes
>>the
>>foreknowledge, and subsequent "predestination" at the beginning of the
>>story.
>>
>>Otherwise, Christ's words are vain, and God becomes the criminal (which is
>>the sin of Calvinism).
>
> Or so YOU claim anyway.
>
> Rom 9:21
> 21 Does not the potter have power over the clay , from the same lump
> to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
> NKJV
>
> God is the potter, and we are the clay. If you would bother to read
> the WHOLE passage (I just posted the main line to save bandwidth and
> keep from confusing you too much. . .), you will find that God DID
> make "vessels for dishonor."
Right.
And then I cited the fact that, in building this thesis [from Romans 8],
Paul neglected to mention the OTHER statements about Pharaoh which
demonstrated that God had cause to harden Pharaoh's heart, and did NOT
choose arbitrarily to attack Pharaoh.
In other words, Pharaoh established Pharaoh's fate, not God; but Pharaoh's
fate was established within the confines of God's will.
>>If all were predestined to heaven OR hell, then Christ's instructions to
>>"take heed to yourselves" and "be thou faithful unto death" are empty and
>>void.
>>
>>Does Christ says "behold, I kick down the door?"
>>
>>No.
>>
>>Christ says "behold, I stand at the door and knock."
>
> Jesus also said:
> John 6:44
> 44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and
> I will raise him up at the last day.
> NKJV
>
> John 6:65
> 65 And He said, "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to
> Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father."
> NKJV
>
> So those whom GOD HAS DRAWN may knock at the door.
A and B have nothing to do with each other.
God cannot violate free will against our wishes.
That only those whom God draws can come to God in no way changes the fact
that God cannot kick down the door.
Like I said, we can play "swap verses" all day long, and you still won't
understand what is going on, for lack of perception.
> Nobody else can.
>>
>>He can't kick down the door of our hearts.
>>
>>We have to open, and THAT requires conscious choice.
>
> Choice that God allows us to have, that we cannot deny since it would
> make no sense to make any other choice.
It shouldn't make any sense to ANYONE to make another choice, but they do.
"Many are called, few are chosen," not "All those who are called are
chosen."
> I once folded a dollar bill in half to demonstrate God's Grace to an
> unsaved friend. I stuck it into his pocket and told him, "that is
> grace."
>
> You didn't earn it.
> You didn't deserve it.
> You didn't do anything to get it except to allow me to stick it into
> your pocket.
>
> Just like salvation from God.
>
> You didn't earn it.
> You don't deserve it.
> You don't "DO" anything but have the faith God gives you.
>
> Same kind of thing.
Which is the error of Calvinism.
A covenant relationship has two parts, and both sides have to meet their
agreement.
God agrees to save us and give us the riches of the Kingdoms.
We agree to keep acquire, keep, and perish in the faith as required.
Those who don't pay a heavy toll, or, as Peter wrote, "It would have been
better for them not to know they way at all..."
H.E. Eickleberry, Jr.
news:1150130893....@j55g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> H.E. Eickleberry, Jr. wrote:
>> returning to the Crusader mentality that Luther was trying to get
>> away from as Luther tried to return to Jesus' grassroots, bottom-up
>> approach
>> to things.
>
> So Luther's "return to Jesus' grassroots, bottom-up approach to things"
> included demanding that all Jewish synagogues and books and people
> should be destroyed? Luther advocated such and was an avowed
> anti-Semite and THAT is VERY un-Scriptural. The doctrines of men have
> nothing to do with the divinely-breathed Word of God.
As Luther became ill in his old age he made certain inconvenient statements
since dismissed by the Lutheran churches as deriving from such senility.
But, of course, you wouldn't confess that.
Luther didn't write these statements in "On the Jews and Their Lies" until
1543, and died in 1546.
Prior to that, he wrote with great respect (but much frustration) regarding
the Jews, as did Paul when he said that the Jews were our enemies for the
Gospel's sake, but beloved for the election's sake.
But, of course, lets focus on the ravings of tired and sick old man, and not
the phenomenal work he accomplished before that, right?
Ike
H.E. Eickleberry, Jr.
news:1150134865....@j55g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> H.E. Eickleberry, Jr. wrote:
>>
>>
>> You are relying on the concept that God somehow created our characters
>> BEFORE we were created, and decided in advance who would and would not be
>> saved, which makes God the criminal rather than us (which was one of
>> Calvin's many errors).
>>
>
> I am not trying to convict God :-) nor am I looking for someone to
> blame. I also do not imply that He 'decided,' so much as He 'knew" our
> fate, before, or during, our creation.
>
>> God knew us before we were born, but God did not preset our characters.
>> Our
>> characters develop with circumstance, but God already knew the results,
>> and
>> even took steps to amplify the character we choose, hence, cause leads to
>> effect and effect leads to cause at the same time, until there is no
>> cause
>> or effect--only truisms.
>
> I want to be clear, that I assumed a position I disagree with, to make
> a point. not just argue for the heck of it.
>
> Its not about anything other than, did God know if we would go to
> heaven or hell, before, or during the time that He created us? Yes, or
> no?
Be careful: Knowing before and deciding before are two different things.
That God knew but didn't say is one thing.
That God would choose in advance without giving everyone a fair shake,
making the judgment a kangaroo court is another.
> If yes, then that seems rather cruel and vindictive.
>
> If no, then we have within ourselves the capacity to 'suprise' God?
Ah, neither.
> And I would like to hear your understanding, of what went into the
> recipe for a man :)
What went into the recipe for man? Biological succession from one direction,
and distinct spiritual creation from the other.
1st Genesis account: God creates all the other living things, then the
biological man (generic, i.e. the Gentiles).
2nd Genesis account. God creates Adam, then all the other living things, and
brings them to Adam to name.
3rd Genesis account--the two parties got together, and that's when the
trouble started as "seed" confronted "seed."
> Did God add something that He did not create, or is
> all that we are, his doing?
Chuckle
"Where there is no law, no sin is imputed."
Before the confrontation, the Gentiles, like the animals, engaged in what we
would know label "sinful" behavior, but, since they had no law, no sin was
imputed, as one could not convict a lion for "murder."
Adam and Eve did not know sin, but had one law--"don't touch that "tree,"
(i.e. the Gentiles).
When the two got together, the Gentiles became conscious of the law, and
Adam and Eve became conscious of sin.
We have been laboring in the conflict ever since, wavering between "the tree
of life" and the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil."
> How did God know us, before He created us, unless a part of us already
> existed? (Jeremiah)
Now that's a good question, but complicated.
Consider Jesus' statement to the Pharisees: "My Lord said unto my lord, 'sit
thou at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool." Jesus asks
"If Christ is David's son, why is it that he calls him Lord?"
Answer: Jesus came in the middle, but has been to both beginning and end
(and is, technically, still there, that which is eternal lying outside that
which is temporal).
so, as we walk the same path, part of us is back there, too.
Of have you not read...
"Where were you when I laid the foundations of the world...when the morning
stars and sons of God shouted for joy?"
> This position is based on the teachings I garnered in a number of
> different churches, that God created all of us, out of nothing, and
> that no part of us existed before He created us "in the womb" Is that
> not a true assumption of the mainstream Christian world?
Ah, no, that would be a controversy in the "mainstream Christian world,"
(whatever that is).
> Mark
Ike
SongBookz
<johnweath<nospam>@yoo.hoo> wrote:
>x-no-archive: yes
>On Mon, 12 Jun 2006 06:41:46 -0700, "vernon" <there@there> wrote:
> copyright 2006 John Weatherly; all rights reserved; no portion of
>this article may be used elsewhere without express written consent of
>the author
>>
>>"Chuck Stamford" <shell__...@cox.net> wrote in message
>>news:ARajg.93159$TK1.90173@fed1read06...
>>>
>>> <Angelin...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>> news:1150068520.0...@y43g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>>>> vernon wrote:
>>>>> Predestination does not preclude free will.
>>>>
>>
>>Yep, we are so great that we deserve salvation.
>
>I see that you are only capable of thinking in black and white
>extremes.
>
>Most see in-betweens and in color!
>
>Must it be either
>
>God Chooses!!!
>
>or
>
>MAN CHOOSES!!!
>
>(deep bass voice)
>
>I don't like your brand of Christianity, Vern! It's very much an
>"either-or" proposition for you.
>
>You see no shades of gray, no in-between, no POSSIBILITIES.
>
>I think I'll stick with my views! They seem so much more "A Loving
>God" to me than yours!
>
>john w
Hah! Choke! Spue!
You of the you aren't a Christian if you don't believe in x, y and z
crowd.
Practice what you preach, buckeroo.
Terrell D Lewis
http://songbookz.blogspot.com/
http://lastofall.blogspot.com/
para...@technicianheaven.com
alt.religion.christian :
><snip previous>
>
>Angelina asked:
>> >You think God loves everyone equally???
>
>parakaleo answered:
>> Yes, the Bible says that God chooses/predestines which people are
>> going to be saved, and God loves everybody. Equally? I don't know,
>> and neither do you.
>
>Well did the the Lord shed important light on this important question
<snipped the smith fiction>
No, 176 or so years ago, smith only wrote fiction.
Joker
>Divide." Three of the chapters in this book are devoted to the ongoing
>debate in Christianity concerning free will and predestination. Lutzer
>takes the side of predestination, but his arguments are clearly in
>error
>for many reasons, not the least of which is his invoking of Augustine's
>support for predestination even though Lutzer finds him in error
>regarding infant baptism. But there are many more important reasons to
>doubt Lutzer's affirmation of the idea that God wills some to be saved
>and damns the rest without any hope for them to ever receive salvation
>as a free gift. Perhaps the most important are the serious
>misinterpretations of various passages in the Bible which seem at first
>glance to suggest that God does indeed select only a few to be saved
>and
>hardens everyone else to keep them from being saved. God gave us all a
>brain, and to use his own words, "Let's reason together."
>I need only quote four verses for my purposes here. These verses all
>serve as "evidence" that those who believe in predestination base their
>belief on. The first verse is Romans 8:29: "For those God foreknew he
>also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he
>might be the firstborn among many brothers." The second is Romans
>8:30:
>"And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also
>justified; those he justified, he also glorified." The third is
>Ephesians 1:5: "he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through
>Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—" And the
>fourth
>is Ephesians 1:11: "In him we were also chosen, having been predestined
>according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity
>with
>the purpose of his will,"
>As I said earlier, at first glance these verses all seem to support the
>idea that God saves some but damns the rest. However, let's be clear
>about one thing. We as human beings love our family and our friends.
>Suppose we were Jewish people who had just been brought to a Nazi death
>camp. The officer in charge of the camp decides to send all of our
>family and friends to the gas chamber, but he spares us in order to
>show us that he is capable of compassion and mercy. We are then
>invited
>to dine with this officer on a nightly basis, to enjoy his company, and
>revel in the parties that he throws. Would any of us desire to spend
>even a single second singing this person's praises because he saved us
>while sending our loved ones to their deaths? Of course not! And the
>same is true with regard to God. Which of us would be willing to spend
>eternity worshipping and praising a god who sent many of our family and
>friends to Hell without any hope for salvation but saved us to display
>for all the cosmos to see his divine attributes of love, mercy, and
>compassion? Only a fool would worship such a beast, and sadly there
>are
>many such fools out there today.
>As John Wesley once said, why should the devil be out there prowling
>around like a hungry lion looking for souls to devour when he could
>just
>kick back and relax because God is the true devil here and will do all
>Satan's work for him. Clearly Wesley understood the dangerous and
>demeaning doctrine of predestination was full of blasphemy. He would
>not want to spend eternity worshipping such a monstrous god any more
>than I would.
>The truth of the matter is clear to anyone who wishes to think for
>themselves instead of having others think for them. The Father knows
>all things. He knows how many hairs on your head right at this moment
>are gray, and he knows every possible outcome to every possible
>situation. Any particular person at the age of 1 can make any number
>of
>choices throughout his life, although he will only end up making far
>less. He cannot obviously choose every path for each situation that
>comes along. He can choose only one and perhaps two. But God knows
>the
>outcome of all the choices that such an individual could make at any
>time. Thus, the Father knows at any given time which persons would
>come
>to His Son under the right circumstances, and which would never come to
>Christ under any circumstances. There are clearly people in this world
>who demand proof of God's existence on the one hand but would without
>any doubt damn God to His face were He to show Himself to the skeptic.
>Such people, among others, would never embrace Jesus Christ no matter
>how much proof and evidence was given to them. So while Christ still
>died for their sins as well as for everyone else's, only those whose
>names are written in the Book Of Life were given to Christ. The rest
>will not be judged according to their sins, but instead they will be
>damned for rejecting Christ's sacrifice and his offer of forgiveness.
>Then, should anyone admonish God for damning them when they were
>clearly
>good people desserving of Heaven, the other books will be opened to
>show
>them that they were clearly not good enough to be allowed into Heaven.
>Let me say again something I said in the previous paragraph. John
>Smith
>might wind up having 8,138,856 possible choices available to him
>throughout his life, although he will only humanly be able to make a
>paltry number of those choices. However, God is in a position to know
>at any time what the outcome of all 8,138,856 choices would have been,
>even if John Smith never makes 98% of those choices. So come judgment
>day, when it is revealed that perhaps God gave all the lost some
>prodding towards repentence and salvation but gave the saved much more,
>any comndemnation of this by a lost sinner who might declare that "had
>I
>been given as much prodding as Jane Doe over there, I would also have
>been saved" would be immediately revealed as untrue. God could easily
>show the condemned man the outcome of every possible prodding that God
>might have imposed upon him within reason, remembering of course that
>God cannot violate a man's free will, and the man can literally
>experience himself rejecting God's prodding and know that this is what
>he would have done had God done more to draw him to Christ.
>No human being can ever fill God's shoes. Ever. So assuming that
>verses concerning predestination literally mean that God has damned
>some
>by decree in such a way as ensuring that no lost person will ever even
>have a chance to be saved is clearly misguided. It seeks to provide
>the
>simplest answer to a very difficult question, and this simple answer is
>more than sufficient to turn the God of the Bible into the Satan of
>Hell.
Is it even just a little conceivable that God simply knows the ending of
every choice we can make? He knows the beginning from the ending right?
Since our life is a series of choices that finally take us to the end, who's
to say God doesn't just see ever possible ending? As we go along and ask
what we should do, God can guide us back to a path, or line of choices, that
would have the most benefit for us. Nothing scriptural here, just a random
wondering.
--
Joker
"...God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me."
Gen. 21:6
para...@technicianheaven.com
stuff in alt.religion.christian :
>
>para...@technicianheaven.com wrote:
>> Rom 9:21
>> 21 Does not the potter have power over the clay , from the same lump
>> to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
>> NKJV
>>
>> God is the potter, and we are the clay. If you would bother to read
>> the WHOLE passage (I just posted the main line to save bandwidth and
>> keep from confusing you too much. . .), you will find that God DID
>> make "vessels for dishonor."
>
>Looks like you and Shirton will now be at each other's throughts.
Thoughts? Or Throats? Or what?
(Just the old teacher in me. . .) :-)
>Shirton has vehemently denied that God predestines to the wicked to
>hell, yet interpreted Rom 9:21 to say that very thing--that God
>deliberately created unrighteous persons destined for hell. Why? I
>guess because he felt like it.
I'm not sure what Jeff thinks about this matter, but I'm not worried
he'll go for my throat, and I wouldn't go for his over such a matter.
God makes the decision and both he and I would certainly let it be
safely in God's hands.
>>
>> Jesus also said:
>> John 6:44
>> 44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and
>> I will raise him up at the last day.
>> NKJV
>>
>> John 6:65
>> 65 And He said, "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to
>> Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father."
>> NKJV
>>
>> So those whom GOD HAS DRAWN may knock at the door.
>
>Your interpretation is wacko.
Hmmm. So quoting the text is "interpretation," huh? I don't think
so. . .
>Christ himself taught, "come unto me ALL
>ye that are heavy laden and I will give you rest." He didn't invite
>only those who are fortunate enough to have been given a winning lucky
>salvation lottery ticket as a result of God's choice rather than their
>own.
If you say so. Perhaps those who come are only those who are led to
come, granted to come by the Father. Perhaps scripture agrees with
scripture. It sure appears to disagree with you.
>
>>
>> Nobody else can.
>
>Each person can seek after Jesus. Everyone has free will.
SHOW ME one single scripture in the Bible that says that "everyone has
free will." I don't think you can.
We can decide to be good and faithful servants. We can decide to be
slothful servants. But WE do not get to choose Who owns us. GOD gets
to make that decision.
>The grace
>of God is sufficient for all who seek after Him. Otherwise, your God
>is imperfect and unable or unwilling to treat all his children fairly.
>
Imperfect and unable or unwilling only by YOUR standards, not by God's
standards.
Rom 9:21-24
21 Does not the potter have power over the clay , from the same lump
to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
22 What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known,
endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for
destruction, 23 and that He might make known the riches of His glory
on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory,
24 even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the
Gentiles?
NKJV
Unless you can pretend that this is a "pottery class" for someone, you
are out of luck. GOD is the potter and we are the clay.
And UNLESS YOU CAN "EXPLAIN" how God made some vessels for "dishonor"
means something "else," you are stuck with the fact that God made some
people to go to Hell.
And unless you want to call God unwilling or able or unfair in sending
ANYONE to Hell, then you have to "explain" why God didn't make ALL men
come to Jesus, rather than just a few.
>> >
>> >He can't kick down the door of our hearts.
>> >
>> >We have to open, and THAT requires conscious choice.
>>
>> Choice that God allows us to have, that we cannot deny since it would
>> make no sense to make any other choice.
>>
>> I once folded a dollar bill in half to demonstrate God's Grace to an
>> unsaved friend. I stuck it into his pocket and told him, "that is
>> grace."
>>
>> You didn't earn it.
>> You didn't deserve it.
>> You didn't do anything to get it except to allow me to stick it into
>> your pocket.
>
>Red herring. Just because the gift is free doesn't mean it's not
>available to all who chose to accept it.
>
I didn't give YOU the dollar.
And only those who are DRAWN by the Father will/are able to accept
His salvation.
>>
>> Just like salvation from God.
>
>I don't think salvation is that cheap and easy. Otherwise, there would
>be no purpose for us to live lengthy lives striving to do God's will.
Sure there is. Because we LOVE HIM. Not for self. For HIM. That is
what love is about.
>>
>> You didn't earn it.
>> You don't deserve it.
>> You don't "DO" anything but have the faith God gives you.
>
>But every man must exercise faith and endure to the end and remain
>righteous and not backslide.
Not to keep from "losing" his salvation. We cannot snatch ourselves
from God's hand; we are not greater than God.
John 10:27-29
27 My sheep hear My voice , and I know them, and they follow Me. 28
And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither
shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. 29 My Father, who has given
them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out
of My Father's hand
NKJV
Note the condition for anyone (that would INCLUDE OURSELVES, of
course) from God's Hand in verse 29.
HE holds us (we don't do it by "obeying the rules"), and it is HIS
GRIP we would have to escape. Verse 29 shows us we cannot do that.
We can be slothful servants, and receive few rewards in heaven, or we
can be good and faithful servants and receive great rewards.
But slaves don't get to choose who owns them.
>
>>
>> Same kind of thing.
>
>You're nuts.
>
No, I am an ordinary Christian, orthodox in my beliefs.
It is YOU who seem to want to make yourself the keeper of your soul
instead of letting God keep you in HIS hand, not me.
parakaleo
singlew...@gmail.com
>
> Be careful: Knowing before and deciding before are two different things.
No problem, but I asked what the difference was, relative to this
topic. I have always tried to understand why God (again, using this
premise) would create -anyone- when He knew all along that some of them
would spend eternity in endless torture and torment.
He knew I would suffer and endless hell, yet He created me anyway. I
can't accept that, and don't see how else the mainstream christian
world can see it any other way, unless there was a variable in the mix,
that He did not create, but made use of, which accounts for the
differences between mother teresa and Pol Pot. It is that variable that
I seek to understand, not just a sigh, and a "god knows, so leave it
alone" (not implying that is what you are doing. Its been a lifelong
question, not well explained)
>
> What went into the recipe for man? Biological succession from one direction,
> and distinct spiritual creation from the other.
So is all of man created of God, or is there something outside of His
creation? I think we know about the biology, but its the spiritual
perspective that holds the key.
>
> > Did God add something that He did not create, or is
> > all that we are, his doing?
>
> Chuckle
>
Doing my best :-)
> "Where there is no law, no sin is imputed."
Can't understand the relevance of that. I am not talking about sin, and
the weakness of man, I question the concept that God would create a
man, knowing all along, that the man would be evil, or at least fail to
keep His commandments.
Now, if God created man, and the plan was to richly reward those who
followed, but still reward in some way, all his creations, even if they
don't live up to His laws, that is different, but it seems that either
man does exactly what He says, or he inherits an eternal hell.
I don't think the LDS concept of degrees of heaven are taught in the
christian world. Its all or nothing. My born again sister has already
told me my fate is eternal burning in hell, although I know she is not
the judge, <g> the point is, she has been taught, and believes that
there are two results to the creation of a man. Heaven, or hell. No
place for good people who won't toe the line, or for people who choose
another course.
> Before the confrontation, the Gentiles, like the animals, engaged in what we
> would know label "sinful" behavior, but, since they had no law, no sin was
> imputed, as one could not convict a lion for "murder."
Can't keep it together here, when bringing in animals and other
creations, and the meaning of sin....
>
> > How did God know us, before He created us, unless a part of us already
> > existed? (Jeremiah)
>
> Now that's a good question, but complicated.
>
> Consider Jesus' statement to the Pharisees: "My Lord said unto my lord, 'sit
> thou at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool." Jesus asks
> "If Christ is David's son, why is it that he calls him Lord?"
>
> Answer: Jesus came in the middle, but has been to both beginning and end
> (and is, technically, still there, that which is eternal lying outside that
> which is temporal).
>
> so, as we walk the same path, part of us is back there, too.
I cannot apply what you are trying to get at here. The question is, how
could God know me, before I came into existence?
> "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the world...when the morning
> stars and sons of God shouted for joy?"
Hmmm, don't want to stretch the topic, but who were these sons of God,
and morning stars? If God was all there was until man, and yet these
sons of God and the 'morning stars' were with Him..........its starting
to unravel right about here :-)
>
> > This position is based on the teachings I garnered in a number of
> > different churches, that God created all of us, out of nothing, and
> > that no part of us existed before He created us "in the womb" Is that
> > not a true assumption of the mainstream Christian world?
>
> Ah, no, that would be a controversy in the "mainstream Christian world,"
> (whatever that is).
>
I consider mainstream to be catholics, methodists, baptists, born
again's, and such to be mainstream, and having attended many of them,
and been friends with so many, I know of not one who believes that any
part of them existed before they came to be in the womb.
Apparently, you believe that some part of you was, prior to the
creation of your body and subsequent birth? You were a morning star, or
son of God, you were with Him at the creation? That is how He knew
Jeremiah before He formed him in the belly?
Mark
para...@technicianheaven.com
???
God chose us, then DREW US TO HIM, and we chose according to HIS draw,
not our own.
>
>>>But when did God "foreknow" anyone?
>>>
>>>At the judgment, which comes at the end of the story.
>
>
>> Eph 1:3-6
>> Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has
>> blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in
>> Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE
>> WORLD, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5
>> having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself,
>> according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the
>> glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
>> NKJV
>
>And now for a reciprocal statement:
>
>Mt 10:32 Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess
>also before my Father which is in heaven.
Nothing "reciprocal" to it that I can see. Of course, we who were
chosen BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD WILL confess Jesus. That is
something that ALL CHRISTIANS DO.
Not to "get our salvation." But because we Love Him.
I talk about my wife every day to people.
I talk about my sons.
I talk about my Lord, Jesus Christ.
We tend to talk about (confess before men) those we love.
That is how we are, of course.
That doesn't contradict a word that I have posted.
>
>We can play "swap statements" all day, and the only thing that you will
>manage to prove is that 2) We choose and God chooses are simultaneously true
>statements and 2) you lack the ability to think three-dimensionally.
Nice try, but God chose BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD, then HE
DREW US WHOM HE CHOSE to Him and led us to "choose" Him.
And your own ability to think is the only ability in question here.
Well not quite. God didn't choose Pharaoh from BEFORE THE FOUNDATION
OF THE WORLD, and BY HIS OWN CHOICE (the Potter chooses which pieces
He makes for what purposes, the clay doesn't) made pharaoh as a vessel
for dishoner.
>
>In other words, Pharaoh established Pharaoh's fate, not God; but Pharaoh's
>fate was established within the confines of God's will.
GOD chose. Pharaoh didn't. God did not draw pharaoh. GOD, not
pharaoh is the potter.
>
>>>If all were predestined to heaven OR hell, then Christ's instructions to
>>>"take heed to yourselves" and "be thou faithful unto death" are empty and
>>>void.
>>>
>>>Does Christ says "behold, I kick down the door?"
>>>
>>>No.
>>>
>>>Christ says "behold, I stand at the door and knock."
>>
>> Jesus also said:
>> John 6:44
>> 44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and
>> I will raise him up at the last day.
>> NKJV
>>
>> John 6:65
>> 65 And He said, "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to
>> Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father."
>> NKJV
>>
>> So those whom GOD HAS DRAWN may knock at the door.
>
>A and B have nothing to do with each other.
>
>God cannot violate free will against our wishes.
God never said He GAVE US ANY "FREE WILL" anywhere in the whole Bible.
"Free will" is a SECULAR belief, and is not Biblical.
>
>That only those whom God draws can come to God in no way changes the fact
>that God cannot kick down the door.
No, it means that GOD (not people) determine who can come to God, and
that those He draws, come.
>
>Like I said, we can play "swap verses" all day long, and you still won't
>understand what is going on, for lack of perception.
In other words, if I disagree with you, I "lack perception."
BOY do I have some ocean-front property in Nevada to sell you!
YOUR "perception" is so good that you might just buy it!
>
>> Nobody else can.
>>>
>>>He can't kick down the door of our hearts.
>>>
>>>We have to open, and THAT requires conscious choice.
>>
>> Choice that God allows us to have, that we cannot deny since it would
>> make no sense to make any other choice.
>
>It shouldn't make any sense to ANYONE to make another choice, but they do.
>
>"Many are called, few are chosen," not "All those who are called are
>chosen."
No, just those who are DRAWN are chosen.
>
>> I once folded a dollar bill in half to demonstrate God's Grace to an
>> unsaved friend. I stuck it into his pocket and told him, "that is
>> grace."
>>
>> You didn't earn it.
>> You didn't deserve it.
>> You didn't do anything to get it except to allow me to stick it into
>> your pocket.
>>
>> Just like salvation from God.
>>
>> You didn't earn it.
>> You don't deserve it.
>> You don't "DO" anything but have the faith God gives you.
>>
>> Same kind of thing.
>
>Which is the error of Calvinism.
No, it isn't error, but YOU sure seem easily confused!
>
>A covenant relationship has two parts, and both sides have to meet their
>agreement.
>
>God agrees to save us and give us the riches of the Kingdoms.
>
>We agree to keep acquire, keep, and perish in the faith as required.
>
>Those who don't pay a heavy toll, or, as Peter wrote, "It would have been
>better for them not to know they way at all..."
>
No ikey, you really are confused.
parakaleo
para...@technicianheaven.com
alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic :
>
>para...@technicianheaven.com wrote:
>> And because we Christians KNOW we deserve death but have been given
>> everlasting life, we DO want to be with this KIND AND LOVING GOD who
>> did this thing.
>>
>> Your theory is based upon the false premise that God is not Good.
>> I snipped the rest of your post to await your response to this
>> response.
>>
>
>
>So you don't think that God chooses/predestines which people to
>"give faith" and allow into heaven, and which ones to not "bless
>with faith" in Him ???
>
I agree with God said in the matter. You might try reading Ephesians
1 sometimes, and pay attention to the "predestination" words.
parakaleo
Angelin...@gmail.com
para...@technicianheaven.com wrote:
> Yes, the Bible says that God chooses/predestines which people are
> going to be saved, and God loves everybody. Equally? I don't know,
> and neither do you.
>
> parakaleo
I know that God HATED Esau before he was even born, so doesn't look
like he loves everyone.
How do you know that he loves you??? Maybe he hates your guts???
H.E. Eickleberry, Jr.
news:abkr825n6i8fkk4av...@4ax.com...
Jesus said "whosoever," not "who I chose."
Then you Calvinists come along and make God the criminal, saying people
didn't have a fair shake from God.
> Not to "get our salvation." But because we Love Him.
>
> I talk about my wife every day to people.
> I talk about my sons.
> I talk about my Lord, Jesus Christ.
>
> We tend to talk about (confess before men) those we love.
> That is how we are, of course.
>
> That doesn't contradict a word that I have posted.
>>
>>We can play "swap statements" all day, and the only thing that you will
>>manage to prove is that 2) We choose and God chooses are simultaneously
>>true
>>statements and 2) you lack the ability to think three-dimensionally.
>
> Nice try, but God chose BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD, then HE
> DREW US WHOM HE CHOSE to Him and led us to "choose" Him.
Nowhere does the Bible say God chose before the foundation of the world.
It says God foreknew us before the foundation of the world.
It says God predestined those who believe to be conformed to the image of
Christ.
It says God predestinated us to the adoption.
Nowhere does it say God chose beforehand, making exclusive offers to one
group of people that He doesn't make to everyone.
That's the crime of Calvin (amongst a stack of others).
> And your own ability to think is the only ability in question here.
As declared by Jesus, cause led to effect and effect led to cause at the
same time.
Joh 15:16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you,
that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain:
that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
Joh 16:27 For the Father himself loveth you, BECAUSE ye have loved me, and
have believed that I came out from God.
Ya' just gotta' love John: After his Revelation experience, he became the
master of paradoxical understanding, making statements like "no man has at
any time seen the Father" and "whoever has seen the Father has seen me," or
"in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God."
The problem is, it leaves single-minded dimwits like you in the dirt.
"If you said you did not know, you would have no sin; but you say you
know, and do not know, therefore your sin remains with you."
Yes, quite.
Statement type A: God hardened Pharaoh's heart.
Statement type B: Pharaoh hardened his heart.
Statement type C: Pharaoh's heart was hardened.
Just as John points out the paradox of we choose/God chose, the author of
Exodus points out the paradox of we reject/God rejects.
Paul missed that early on.
> God didn't choose Pharaoh from BEFORE THE FOUNDATION
> OF THE WORLD, and BY HIS OWN CHOICE (the Potter chooses which pieces
> He makes for what purposes, the clay doesn't) made pharaoh as a vessel
> for dishoner.
And you build on Paul's early error.
>>In other words, Pharaoh established Pharaoh's fate, not God; but Pharaoh's
>>fate was established within the confines of God's will.
>
> GOD chose. Pharaoh didn't. God did not draw pharaoh. GOD, not
> pharaoh is the potter.
God rejected = Pharaoh reject. Order is of no consequence.
God chose = we chose. Order is of no consequence.
That was the point of John's paradoxical statements.
Hence, extreme Arminianism and Calvinism are both in critical error.
>>>>If all were predestined to heaven OR hell, then Christ's instructions to
>>>>"take heed to yourselves" and "be thou faithful unto death" are empty
>>>>and
>>>>void.
>>>>
>>>>Does Christ says "behold, I kick down the door?"
>>>>
>>>>No.
>>>>
>>>>Christ says "behold, I stand at the door and knock."
>>>
>>> Jesus also said:
>>> John 6:44
>>> 44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and
>>> I will raise him up at the last day.
>>> NKJV
>>>
>>> John 6:65
>>> 65 And He said, "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to
>>> Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father."
>>> NKJV
>>>
>>> So those whom GOD HAS DRAWN may knock at the door.
>>
>>A and B have nothing to do with each other.
>>
>>God cannot violate free will against our wishes.
>
> God never said He GAVE US ANY "FREE WILL" anywhere in the whole Bible.
> "Free will" is a SECULAR belief, and is not Biblical.
Nope. It is biblical.
De 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have
set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life,
that both thou and thy seed may live:
>>That only those whom God draws can come to God in no way changes the fact
>>that God cannot kick down the door.
>
> No, it means that GOD (not people) determine who can come to God, and
> that those He draws, come.
Nope: that's from Calvin's misreading of the Bible.
>>Like I said, we can play "swap verses" all day long, and you still won't
>>understand what is going on, for lack of perception.
>
> In other words, if I disagree with you, I "lack perception."
No. You disagree with the Bible, therefore you lack perception.
> BOY do I have some ocean-front property in Nevada to sell you!
> YOUR "perception" is so good that you might just buy it!
My perceptions are just fine--I see the paradox and the three-dimensional
relationship in things.
You do not.
>>> Nobody else can.
>>>>
>>>>He can't kick down the door of our hearts.
>>>>
>>>>We have to open, and THAT requires conscious choice.
>>>
>>> Choice that God allows us to have, that we cannot deny since it would
>>> make no sense to make any other choice.
>>
>>It shouldn't make any sense to ANYONE to make another choice, but they do.
>>
>>"Many are called, few are chosen," not "All those who are called are
>>chosen."
>
> No, just those who are DRAWN are chosen.
Wrong again.
"The Lord is willing that all would come to repentance."
If the Lord could impose His will on the creature, all would come to
repentance; but He can't, so they won't.
>>> I once folded a dollar bill in half to demonstrate God's Grace to an
>>> unsaved friend. I stuck it into his pocket and told him, "that is
>>> grace."
>>>
>>> You didn't earn it.
>>> You didn't deserve it.
>>> You didn't do anything to get it except to allow me to stick it into
>>> your pocket.
>>>
>>> Just like salvation from God.
>>>
>>> You didn't earn it.
>>> You don't deserve it.
>>> You don't "DO" anything but have the faith God gives you.
>>>
>>> Same kind of thing.
>>
>>Which is the error of Calvinism.
>
> No, it isn't error, but YOU sure seem easily confused!
Yeah, it is.
God created Adam and eve with will, and set before them choice.
Likewise, in the hearing of the Gospel, God sets before the creatures with
will the opportunity to choose again, and get out of the prison they made
for themselves.
Anyone who says otherwise makes God the criminal rather than man.
>>A covenant relationship has two parts, and both sides have to meet their
>>agreement.
>>
>>God agrees to save us and give us the riches of the Kingdoms.
>>
>>We agree to keep acquire, keep, and perish in the faith as required.
>>
>>Those who don't pay a heavy toll, or, as Peter wrote, "It would have been
>>better for them not to know they way at all..."
>>
> No ikey, you really are confused.
Nope, I'm zeroed in, otherwise, Jesus would not have repeatedly said "take
heed to yourselves." He put the burden of responsibility on ours shoulders.
You put it back on God's to His condemnation, which, in itself will result
in YOUR condemnation.
H.E. Eickleberry, Jr.
news:n5lr82pkd3ijg0fbs...@4ax.com...
And you need to pay attention to the fact that "foreknew" comes before
"predestination."
Ike
bam
<para...@technicianheaven.com> wrote in message
news:cssq825imho5ll4dg...@4ax.com...
> "bam" <mcca...@bellsouthblahblah.net>, popped up with this stuff in
> alt.religion.christian :
>>
>><para...@technicianheaven.com> wrote
>>
>>>But God sent His own Son to take our place, to
>>> pay the price, to redeem us from our JUST AND RIGHT PUNISHMENT.
>>
>>Not for the sins you deny.
>>
>>BAM
>>
> You deny you have sins?
No. What would you ask? I confess my sins.
>I don't deny any sins I commit at all.
Yes you do. When you miss Mass on Sunday you sin. Birth control is a sin.
Divorce and remarriage is are sins. Criticising the Catholic Church is a
sin. Apostasizing is a sin. You have tons of sins you won't admit.
>Why
> would I? Why would ANY Christian deny their sins?
I wouldn't know. I don't. You tell me.
>
> That is just plain silly, bammy.
No, it's far far worse.
BAM
singlew...@gmail.com
para...@technicianheaven.com wrote:
>
> <snipped the smith fiction>
>
> No, 176 or so years ago, smith only wrote fiction.
There is plenty of fiction in the Bible, so people who live in glass
houses......
Mark
(should get dressed in the basement <g>)
H.E. Eickleberry, Jr.
news:1150145434.8...@c74g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> H.E. Eickleberry, Jr. wrote:
>
>>
>> Be careful: Knowing before and deciding before are two different things.
>
> No problem, but I asked what the difference was, relative to this
> topic. I have always tried to understand why God (again, using this
> premise) would create -anyone- when He knew all along that some of them
> would spend eternity in endless torture and torment.
Because love requires one to take a chance.
Its the difference between a clone and offspring.
A clone is just a boring carbon copy of its originator.
A child is the product of its father and mother, but in the fusion of the
two becomes its own character.
> He knew I would suffer and endless hell, yet He created me anyway. I
> can't accept that, and don't see how else the mainstream christian
> world can see it any other way, unless there was a variable in the mix,
> that He did not create, but made use of, which accounts for the
> differences between mother teresa and Pol Pot. It is that variable that
> I seek to understand, not just a sigh, and a "god knows, so leave it
> alone" (not implying that is what you are doing. Its been a lifelong
> question, not well explained)
You shouldn't accept that--it's not right.
God lays out the opportunities, and knows the results, and even calculated
the formula to get His desired results.
But God keeps that information to Himself.
To us, he has set before us good and evil, life and death, and told us to
choose good, that we might live.
>> What went into the recipe for man? Biological succession from one
>> direction,
>> and distinct spiritual creation from the other.
>
> So is all of man created of God, or is there something outside of His
> creation? I think we know about the biology, but its the spiritual
> perspective that holds the key.
God created two primary entities in this story.
The "sons of men," i.e. the Gentiles, i.e. the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil, etc. etc.
The "sons of God," i.e. the children of Adam, i.e. the tree of life, etc.
etc.
This "two-tree" metaphor runs from the beginning of the Bible to the end of
it.
The resolution to the two-tree analogy is that God will take one-half of the
branches off the "natural" olive tree (Israel) and graft in branches from
the unnatural "olive tree" (the Gentiles).
The faithful "branches," regardless of origin, will live.
The unfaithful "branches," regardless of origin, will burn.
Hence, God will still get His tree of life, and He will destroy the other.
It may seem a bit drastic, but it is necessary--God isn't looking for
clones. He wants children.
>> > Did God add something that He did not create, or is
>> > all that we are, his doing?
>>
>> Chuckle
>>
>
> Doing my best :-)
Not a problem.
>
>> "Where there is no law, no sin is imputed."
>
> Can't understand the relevance of that. I am not talking about sin, and
> the weakness of man, I question the concept that God would create a
> man, knowing all along, that the man would be evil, or at least fail to
> keep His commandments.
A the relevance is that, before Adam and Eve sinned, there was no sin in the
world, NOT because there were no sinful behaviors, but because there was no
law.
The Gentiles were merely higher animals, not held to any law.
Adam and Eve had the law, but never broke it.
When the two got together, and Satan (one "seed") enticed Eve (the other
"seed) to break the law (which she plainly declared she knew) everybody got
in trouble--Adam, Eve, AND the Gentiles.
> Now, if God created man, and the plan was to richly reward those who
> followed, but still reward in some way, all his creations, even if they
> don't live up to His laws, that is different, but it seems that either
> man does exactly what He says, or he inherits an eternal hell.
Well, didn't God tell Jew and Gentile alike what will happen?
> I don't think the LDS concept of degrees of heaven are taught in the
> christian world. Its all or nothing. My born again sister has already
> told me my fate is eternal burning in hell, although I know she is not
> the judge, <g> the point is, she has been taught, and believes that
> there are two results to the creation of a man. Heaven, or hell. No
> place for good people who won't toe the line, or for people who choose
> another course.
I've never seen anything in the Word other than the possibilities heaven and
hell.
As to LDS teachings, I don't go in for cult fads :)
>> Before the confrontation, the Gentiles, like the animals, engaged in what
>> we
>> would know label "sinful" behavior, but, since they had no law, no sin
>> was
>> imputed, as one could not convict a lion for "murder."
>
> Can't keep it together here, when bringing in animals and other
> creations, and the meaning of sin....
OK.
Consider this: When God told Peter in a vision to preach the Gospel to the
Gentiles, He used the symbols "cattle, creeping things, beasts of the field,
and fowls of the air" to represent them, each being a designation for the
modes of thought prevalent among the Gentiles.
Cattle = humanists.
Creeping things = universalists.
Beasts of the field = legalists.
Fowls of the air = spiritualists.
Now go back and read the second Genesis account in which Adam comes first,
not last, and God sets out to create a "helper" for Adam. What does God
create?
Cattle
Beasts of the field
Fowls of the air.
But there is one missing.
The last designation--creeping things (for idolaters)--doesn't enter the
picture until God curses Satan.
In other words, there are two creation accounts moving in opposite
directions to designate two origins of the species.
The first account arrives at the biological man.
The second account starts with the spiritual man.
The, when the two got together, all hell broke loose.
>> > How did God know us, before He created us, unless a part of us already
>> > existed? (Jeremiah)
>>
>> Now that's a good question, but complicated.
>>
>> Consider Jesus' statement to the Pharisees: "My Lord said unto my lord,
>> 'sit
>> thou at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool." Jesus
>> asks
>> "If Christ is David's son, why is it that he calls him Lord?"
>>
>> Answer: Jesus came in the middle, but has been to both beginning and end
>> (and is, technically, still there, that which is eternal lying outside
>> that
>> which is temporal).
>>
>> so, as we walk the same path, part of us is back there, too.
>
> I cannot apply what you are trying to get at here. The question is, how
> could God know me, before I came into existence?
Because you will be at the judgment, and will witness the creation, even
though you haven't been there yet; but, from God's perspective, it has all
already happened.
We are in a linear/cyclic singularity.
God is outside of it.
>> "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the world...when the
>> morning
>> stars and sons of God shouted for joy?"
>
> Hmmm, don't want to stretch the topic, but who were these sons of God,
> and morning stars? If God was all there was until man, and yet these
> sons of God and the 'morning stars' were with Him..........its starting
> to unravel right about here :-)
Only from the rigid temporal perspective.
One has to develop the broader, non-linear perspective that Jesus used to
toy with the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians.
Time isn't the absolute constant we think it is.
>> > This position is based on the teachings I garnered in a number of
>> > different churches, that God created all of us, out of nothing, and
>> > that no part of us existed before He created us "in the womb" Is that
>> > not a true assumption of the mainstream Christian world?
>>
>> Ah, no, that would be a controversy in the "mainstream Christian world,"
>> (whatever that is).
>>
>
> I consider mainstream to be catholics, methodists, baptists, born
> again's, and such to be mainstream, and having attended many of them,
> and been friends with so many, I know of not one who believes that any
> part of them existed before they came to be in the womb.
And they didn't.
The believers go BACK to the beginning from the end.
;-)
> Apparently, you believe that some part of you was, prior to the
> creation of your body and subsequent birth?
Not exactly.
Jesus was born in the middle of the story.
Between His death and resurrection, in Spirit, He went to the end to break
the seals that would get Satan and His minions kicked out of heaven (which
occurs at the end of the story), then when back to the beginning of the
story to work His way through the creation fulfilling His role as "angel of
God" (or, "the Lord").
"...you go tell that fox I cast out devils today, and the rest of today and
tomorrow I do cures, and the third day I will be perfected; but today I
walk, and tomorrow I walk, and the third day I walk."
So now we have the resurrected Jesus appearing and disappearing all over the
place. Where did He go? He dined with Abraham. He wrested with Jacob. He
closed up Noah in the ark. And so on. And so forth.
Then Jesus ascended.
So it's not so much that we were "there" at the beginning (or before) but
that we went BACK there (which, from our perspective, means we were already
there, even though we haven't been there yet.)
> You were a morning star, or
> son of God, you were with Him at the creation?
That remains to be seen.
A "morning star" represents new opportunity, so that would refer to the
spiritual ascension, and the Sons of God are declared and complete, so that
would refer to the perfect ascension.
1) Bodily existence.
2) Spiritual existence.
3) Holy existence.
> That is how He knew
> Jeremiah before He formed him in the belly?
God knew Jeremiah from the results at the end of the story even before the
game had started.
Bill High, Marijuana Guy
>
> Bill High, Marijuana Guy wrote:
> <snip>
> > I need only quote four verses for my purposes here. These verses all
> > serve as "evidence" that those who believe in predestination base their
> > belief on.
>
> beliefs in predeterminism on some of these verses; obviously the
> scientific arguments for determinism are much more concise, accurate,
> scientific, all-encompassing and explicit, such as the simple case of
> causality: All our 'choices' are caused by preceding factors which
> eventually precede our time of birth. Etc.
>
> I thought (I am not a Christian) that I would point out a few more
> verses in addition to the ones you list, which do indeed continue to
> tell Christians that early Christian authors were deterministic.
>
> > The first verse is Romans 8:29: "For those God foreknew he
> > also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he
> > might be the firstborn among many brothers." The second is Romans 8:30:
> > "And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also
> > justified; those he justified, he also glorified." The third is
> > Ephesians 1:5: "he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through
> > is Ephesians 1:11: "In him we were also chosen, having been predestined
> > according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with
> > the purpose of his will,"
>
> saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift
> of God - not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God's
> workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God
> prepared in advance for us to do."
>
> Versus one to four talk about how particular people once lived in sin,
> but that 'the spirit' comes to work in particular people to reform
> them. These people, who become reformed, are those who God has chosen
> to reform, as we have seen earlier in Ephesians. Here, the author of
> Ephesians explains that it is not by personal effort that you are
> saved. It is 'not from yourself' but it is 'the gift of God' that saves
> people. Specifically, then, God chooses some people and grants them the
> gift of God, those who are chosen before time, according to God's plan,
> to conform to Jesus. Those who are chosen by God are automatically
> destined to 'do good works' which 'God prepared in advance for us to
> do'. It's not that people choose to do good, and are therefore accepted
> into Heaven, or even that people choose to do good and therefore come
> to accept Jesus. The Bible clearly states that God makes specific
> people do specific 'good works', which God has chosen that certain
> people will do.
>
> Those who do good works are those who God has predetermined to do good
> works. There is no free will involved.
I am inclined to disagree. The Bible is clear that testing will come
upon those who are born again, but the idea that chosen people will do
works chosen for them to do is not an obvious conclusion from reading
the New Testament. And most of the ideas concerning predestination are
based on Paul's teachings. Paul absolutely makes it sound like whatever
we do, we have been predestined to do it. I don't agree with everything
Paul wrote. He was an apostle, like Peter, but he was not one of the
twelve. In some areas of theology Paul can be quite understanding and
sympathetic compared to modern day fundamentalists; however, in other
areas he can be even more extreme than modern day fundamentalists. We
know that Peter erred when it came to siding with the Jews who insisted
that the Gentiles follow the law before they could be accepted as
Christians. Why couldn't Paul also have erred in places? There are too
many verses outside of Paul's writings which stress free will. Paul's
letters may be interesting reading, but I don't take everything he says
as gospel truth.
>
> > As I said earlier, at first glance these verses all seem to support the
> > idea that God saves some but damns the rest.
>
> And also the addition quote from Ephesians supports that idea too. It
> not only supports it, but is quite specific about it.
>
> In case that extra verse isn't enough, there is yet more in Romans that
> you didn't mention. It follows on nicely from a question you ask:
>
> <snip>
> > Would any of us desire to spend
> > even a single second singing this person's praises because he saved us
> > while sending our loved ones to their deaths? Of course not! And the
> > same is true with regard to God. Which of us would be willing to spend
> > eternity worshipping and praising a god who sent many of our family and
> > friends to Hell without any hope for salvation
>
> St Paul tussled with this question, and supplies us with an answer as
> clear as the varied verses from Ephesians & Romans that we've already
> seen:
>
> Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad - in
> order that God's purpose in election might stand: 12not by works but by
> him who calls - she was told "The older will serve the younger". 13Just
> as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated".
> 14What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15For he says to
> Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have
> compassion on whom I have compassion" [Exodus 33:19]"
>
> Romans 9:10-15 [NIV]
>
> The answer given as an answer by Paul makes no sense... it doesn't even
> address the question: Is God just? How can a just God predetermine
> people to sin, to be hated by God, and predetermine them not to
> 'conform to Jesus', and then judge those people for that
> predetermination that was beyond their control? None of these are
> answered by Paul's quote from the Jewish Scriptures. Thankfully Paul
> does not leave his attempted discussion there. He goes on to affirm
> that free will does not affect our fate, and then he asks finally and
> directly: If our actions and nature are determined by God, how can god
> blame us for those actions? The Biblical text runs thusly:
>
> "It does not therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's
> mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharoh: "I raised you up for this very
> purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be
> proclaimed on all the earth." [Exodus 9:16] Therefore God has mercy on
> whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
> One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who
> resists his will?" " Romans 9:16-19 [NIV]
>
> And that is the clincher; the ultimate question. Paul has asked "Is God
> unjust?" for its denial of free will, for its disregard for what our
> choices and intentions are. Paul now has a mortal present that same
> question. His answer is a shocker:
>
> "But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say
> to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'"[Isaiah 29:16,
> 45:9] Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump
> of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?"
> Romans 9:20-21 [NIV]
>
> The answer is: Tough!
>
> God is unjust, simply because it can be! There is no justification, God
> makes some people "for noble use", chosen and predestined to do good
> works 'which God prepared in advance' 'according to his purpose'. If
> you're not lucky enough to be created for a noble purpose, then you are
> for common use, relegated to hell and torment, a life without
> conformity to Christ, and not only is this unjust and painful situation
> created by God, Paul then says that you have no right to even raise a
> concern! You can't ask, "Is God Just?" or "How can God still blame us
> for our actions?", Paul simply states that it doesn't matter, it is
> tough, God 'hardens who he wants to harden', those who were not noble
> are waste, space-filler, used, abused... and this unholy mess was all
> created by God, according to the Bible! No free will is involved, no
> Human volition can change whether we were made for noble purposes to do
> pre-planned good acts, or whether we were made for common use, to be
> discarded and "punished" simply for not having been created right!
>
> You are right when you point out that this is a dilemma.
>
> > Only a fool would worship such a beast, and sadly there are
> > many such fools out there today.
>
> It is true that God is not just and unfair: And according to The Bible,
> God definitely doesn't like being quizzed on this matter! But when
> pressed to answer, Paul is honest about God's lack of justice. Paul
> states multiple times, in accordance with the rest of the scripture we
> see on this post, that free will and personal choices are not the
> important factor in salvation: Paul then goes further in Romans 9 and
> admits that God is arbitrary, and it's simply tough that people were
> created for 'common use' as slaves of Satan, and that only some are
> created for 'noble purposes'.
>
> Such is the God of the Christian Bible.
I don't agree. I think the true God of the Bible was given attributes
that are alien to him, attributes given to him by Paul. I can say this
because in my readings of the various gospels and the secular histories
of the times the events of these gospels were supposed to have taken
place in, it seems quite obvious to me that Matthew fudged the truth a
little, exaggerating some things and making up other things in order to
really convince skeptics that Christ was the messiah. The simple truth
was sufficient, but Matthew felt compelled to include a fictitious
slaughter of all boys under two by decree of Herod. Obviously had any
such slaughter taken place, it would have been big secular news. But
the only place we find its mention is the Bible. Those who try and
defend Matthew's account of this non-event are not much different from
Mormoms who try and defend the credibility of the Book Of Mormon. Then
there's the Star of Bethlehem. The prophecy that Jesus would be called
a Nazarene. I accept that Christ came to Earth, was crucified and died
as a sacrifice for us, rose from the dead, and will return again one
day. I believe he performed miracles, and I believe that he calls all
men to repent and accept him as their savior. Some will. Most won't.
The Calvinists try way too hard to figure out why an all-powerful God
would sacrifice his son just so a few would freely choose to come to
salvation. There really isn't anything to figure out.
>
> <snip Wesley>
> > The truth of the matter is clear to anyone who wishes to think for
> > themselves instead of having others think for them.
>
> The truth is, if there is free will and if there is a moral God, then
> much of the New Testament is simply wrong.
Some of the New Testament might be wrong is a better way of putting it.
We have to remember that the Bible was written by men who were inspired
by God, but they were not dictated to as though they were personal
secretaries of the almighty. If the Bible was the infallible, inerrent
words of God, then there would be no contradictions, no disagreements
among his followers in the New Testament, and no misunderstandings
possible about anything the Bible had to say. God didn't give us a
brain and then tell us to forget about our minds and just blindly follow
our pastors.
>
> <snip omniscience>
> <snip Jesus>
> <snip>
> > remembering of course that
> > God cannot violate a man's free will,
>
> I don't think you'll find any biblical reasoning behind that statement
> - your opening verses and my supporting ones show clearly that free
> will is simply not an issue. Only God's will determines who was creaed
> for good works.
>
> <snip stuff about shoes>
> > No human being can ever fill God's shoes. Ever. So assuming that
> > verses concerning predestination literally mean that God has damned some
> > by decree in such a way as ensuring that no lost person will ever even
> > have a chance to be saved is clearly misguided. It seeks to provide the
> > simplest answer to a very difficult question, and this simple answer is
> > more than sufficient to turn the God of the Bible into the Satan of
> > Hell.
>
> Well that's what you get for relying on scripture... I do not think it
> possible for any moral person to worship the God portrayed in the
> Bible, so in that I commend your thoughts on the matter; it simply, as
> you say, can't be true that a good God would behave in the way
> described in Romans, Ephesians, 2 Timothy 1:9 (another one I haven't
> mentioned, but it's the same as the rest), and Ecclesiastes 7:13
> (no-one can fix what god has made crooked).
>
> Oh another verse just before I finish, this time not from St Paul but
> from the late book of Revelations, 13:8, 8, which also clearly states
> that God, in advance, predestined certain people to worship the Devil,
> and thusly not be moved by the spirit, not be chosen, not be chosen to
> do good works, and in total of all these seperate statements in the
> Bible, well and truly have no free will to determine their own fate.
>
> Thankfully though, I'm not a Christian so I'm not compelled to believe
> that if there was a god, it would have to predetermine people in the
> way the NT describes.
You sound like an atheist. It's hard to understand how someone can be
an atheist with so much evidence of intelligent design in nature. Such
design would never teach anyone about Christ, but it would show humanity
that a superior being exists with the power to create that which man
sees and is presently investigating.
para...@technicianheaven.com
alt.religion.christian :
>
><para...@technicianheaven.com> wrote in message
>news:cssq825imho5ll4dg...@4ax.com...
>> "bam" <mcca...@bellsouthblahblah.net>, popped up with this stuff in
>> alt.religion.christian :
>>>
>>><para...@technicianheaven.com> wrote
>>>
>>>>But God sent His own Son to take our place, to
>>>> pay the price, to redeem us from our JUST AND RIGHT PUNISHMENT.
>>>
>>>Not for the sins you deny.
>>>
>>>BAM
>>>
>> You deny you have sins?
>
>No. What would you ask? I confess my sins.
>
>
> >I don't deny any sins I commit at all.
>
>Yes you do. When you miss Mass on Sunday you sin.
The Bible says NO SUCH THING. I worship every single day of my life.
I worship in a church building with my brethren in Christ on Sundays.
The Bible NEVER ONCE USES THE WORD "mass" or "mess" or "mush" in it
anywhere.
>Birth control is a sin.
The Bible never says any such thing. Most catholics in the
child-bearing age group in America are said to use birth control, btw.
>Divorce and remarriage is are sins.
Never done that. Don't plan to either. Been married to my only wife
ever for 39+ years. Not planning any changes.
>Criticising the Catholic Church is a
>sin.
Not according to the Bible. The Bible does not contain ANY "catholic
church" or rcc.
>Apostasizing is a sin.
I would never do that. Never have. Did leave a heretical group once,
but the leaving the rcc is NOT apostasizing from God at all.
>You have tons of sins you won't admit.
Only according to YOU, NOT according to God.
And YOU don't count. YOU are NOT GOD.
parakaleo
para...@technicianheaven.com
alt.religion.christian :
>
Smith said HE believed the Bible to be the word of God.
And EXACTLY what parts of the Bible do you believe to be fiction?
parakaleo
btw, be sure not to throw rocks. . .I throw back. :-)
para...@technicianheaven.com
alt.religion.christian :
>
He is too kind to me to hate me. If He really hated me, He would not
be so kind to me.
Besides, He loves me enough to send His Son to die to pay for my sins.
What religion are you? What kind of group do you worship with?
parakaleo
singlew...@gmail.com
para...@technicianheaven.com wrote:
>
> Smith said HE believed the Bible to be the word of God.
Everyone always leaves out the rest of his testimony, which is "so far
as it is translated correctly. Joseph often spoke of the Bible
containing the word of God, but he never declared it the perfect,
unalterable truth, containing no errors, or even supposing it to be all
of God's will.
>
> And EXACTLY what parts of the Bible do you believe to be fiction?
PARABLE [a usu. short fictitious story that illustrates a moral
attitude or a religious principle], (Webster's Ninth New Collegiate
Dictionary)
You thought I would fill the list will all kinds of scripture and
books of the Bible :-) No, I can't do that, but parables are fiction,
and there are many, many parables, therefore there is a lot of fiction
in the Bible.....
I do believe that many of the stories in the OT are basically old,
urban-type legends that were passed down from generation to generation,
until they were considered truths. I don't think any of them discredit
the words of God contained therein, but I do believe they contribute to
much of the confusion, and contradictions that exist in the christian
world. I don't think that is earth shattering, but it does mean we need
to be careful, and not consider every single word written, to be the
word of God.
>
> btw, be sure not to throw rocks. . .I throw back. :-)
I am wearing my helmet.......
Mark
Chuck Stamford
<singlew...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1150133529.5...@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>
> Chuck Stamford wrote:
>
>>
>> I would suggest to you the following for your consideration:
>>
>> 1.) While it is true God creates the souls of men, it also seems true
>> that
>> men have some control over what those souls become
>
> I don't agree, obviously. God created every part of us. None if it is
> ours. It all came from Him. I don't think it is within the power of a
> creation, to alter itself. Such a capability must be inherent, and must
> have come from the creator.
>
> .> Many people share basic
>> "personality traits", and there is good evidence that some of these
>> traits
>> are present from birth. But do all persons who share such traits share
>> experiences in life as well? Are two people, both of whom were born with
>> quick tempers, both "predestined" to have their lives ruled by this
>> trait?
>> Or can we say that one or both of them may at some point in their lives
>> take
>> control over this predisposition toward anger, and rule over it?
>
> If they find a method to harness that inner strength, its because God
> put it there. I don't think a creation can make changes to its basic
> structure.
>
> >So can we
>> say, without resorting to theological fatalism (which is just a special
>> case
>> of logical determinism), that God in creating a person's soul creates
>> what
>> that person becomes? If so, I'd like to see you formalize the argument
>> that's supposed to give us an affirmative answer to that question,
>> because
>> I'd like to take a critical look at it myself.
>
> If we adopt the mainstream theory of 'out of nothing' then I cannot see
> how man could develop any individual traits of his own. All things come
> from the creator. All things....
What did you have for breakfast yesterday? Stop. Did you just form a
belief about your past? Did God create that belief in you, or did you form
it yourself using the cognitive faculty of memory He gave you when He
created you? Or did you "recall" a previously formed belief about what you
had for breakfast (one that you formed while you were eating it, let's say);
have this belief "delivered" to you by your memory faculty? And if that's
what just happened, where was this belief you have when you didn't
consciously have it in mind, thinking about it?
Look, the only pertinent point here is that we all apparently have these
cognitive faculties that are almost unimaginably complex in their
interactions with each other, and whose SOLE function is to provide us with
beliefs. And one of these faculities is called by many epistemologists our
"noetic structure". How it is "structured" is beside the point right now,
but conceptually it acts very like a depository for the beliefs our other
faculties deliver to us; a sort of "reservoir" of beliefs that we spend our
whole lives filling with the beliefs we form from the experiences we have.
This noetic structure, then, has for my purpose here two important aspects.
The first is that it accumulates beliefs over time. We are not born with a
noetic structure filled with beliefs. The second is that what is left of us
as "us", if we subtract our physical bodies, just is this reservoir of
beliefs. And it isn't much of an exaggeration to say that we are what we
believe.
Now I'm not talking about religious doctrine here, okay? None of what I've
just said above is going way out on a limb in the field of epistemology.
This, or something very like it, is the "working model" of human cognition
in that field, and has nothing at all to do with religious beliefs as some
sort of special class of belief. But what should be clear from this
conceptual model for our point of contention about God creating all of us
out of nothing is that that's not necessarily true. On this model, God
creates all of our cognitive faculties, but has designed those faculties to
preform a certain function; the function of forming and holding onto
beliefs. And if we just are, as I've suggested, the sum of our beliefs and
continually functioning faculties, then it should be clear that while we
obviously begin as what we are, we are designed so that changing what we are
is normal; is simply our cognitive faculties functioning at least basically
as they were designed to function.
So although it may well be true that God created us out of nothing, we have
here at least a conceptual model of human cognition able to tell us it is
not necessarily true that this means we are continually what God created, if
we take "created" to mean "formed" or "determined" by God.
>
>>
>> 2.) God didn't create out of absolutely nothing.
>
> That is the presumption I am basing this on, its not my belief.
Fine.
That is
> what I was taught in Bible schools, Methodist, Catholic, Born Again,
> and a handful of other churces. God created everything out of nothing.
> I don't personally accept that, but I do for the sake of discussing
> what I think is this major paradox.
>
>> good. I'd predict that's going to be one tough argument to construct!
>
> Until you rephrase that paragraph into useful language, I can't
> construct anything.......:-)
You'll have to give me more of a clue as to what to do to it than that.
It's in English. What else is wrong with it?
>>
>>
>> >
>> > He would have known -before- He created us out of nothing, what our
>> > destiny was, for we are not about to suprise God, and show up at the
>> > gate and have him say "wow, I didn't know you were going to make it up
>> > here' <g>
>>
>> This is true. God's choice of which possible world to actualize must
>> have
>> been made (it's difficult to express these things without resorting to
>> language that implies God makes choices "in the past", when the truth is
>> that God's choice to actualize a world is eternal, and so that choice, to
>> not only create THIS world, but to create ANY world, is every bit as
>> eternal
>> as is God Himself) for some purpose, and made on the basis of perfect
>> knowledge of all possible worlds. In many of those possible worlds you
>> exist, but are different than you actually are in this one. In many more
>> of
>> these possible worlds you don't exist at all.
>
> Again, I don't follow your logic. I exist in more than one world?
I'm not sure where to start here. Are you familiar with the possible worlds
analysis of logical necessity? Or the possible worlds analysis of the truth
value of counterfactual propositions as a class of propositions?
>
> The bottom line of the theology in question is that it appears to me
> that God created me, for the express purpose of burning in hell, and I
> am sorry, but that offends my senses <g> He knew the moment he created
> me, and I submit that even before, that I would be an evil person, and
> would go to hell. I can't support a being that would be so cruel. Why
> would He creates something that he knew would fail.
>
> Who builds a house, knowing it will not stand? Who designs cars,
> knowing they will not work properly? Who builds anything, knowing full
> well it will fail? (besides the government <g>)
But there's a premise here that seems to be at least possibly true that
you're simply ignoring as if it didn't exist at all. That premise is,
"there is no possible world that an omniscient, omnipotent, and
omnibenevolent God can create/actualize containing moral good but no evil"
And here is another premise you're ignoring: "God's perfect foreknowledge of
events does not determine in any causal way that those events will occur"
The first thing you need to do here is carefully consider these two
propositions, instead of just sweeping them under the rug, so to speak. Are
they true? Can we find some sound argument demonstrating that they're true?
If we can, then we have a very good start toward at least a better
understanding of the problem than you have right now.
>
>>
>> But God's choice of which possible world to actualize can't have been
>> based
>> on just what you, individually, would freely choose to do in them if they
>> had been made actual. Possible worlds are a bit bigger than that, and
>> there
>> is more at stake in actualizing one of them than just what you freely
>> choose
>> to do with the actual existence you're given by God in actualizing one of
>> them that contains you.
>
> Again, nice words, but everyone who will suffer endless torment in the
> fires of hell, was predestined to go there, which means their creator
> made them with the intent of torturing them for eternity. They had no
> choice, as that is the way that they were made.
So you see what you're doing here? Do you see that having been invited to
reconsider the problem, you simply fall back on what YOU think predestined
"means"; that the connotation of the word includes "intent". How does it
follow from simply knowing that something will happen that the knower
intends it to happen?
Predestination means what I was trying to tell (actually lead you to would
be more accurate...NOW I'm going to tell you) you it means, so I'm going to
try again starting with a few fundamentals:
1.) Possible worlds are worlds that exist, but don't actually exist. A
possible world is a maximal set of propositions true in that world. So, I'm
"actually" under six feet tall. But is it true that I have to be under six
feet? Isn't it logically possible I could have grown to six feet or more?
And if I did, then I'd "actually" be six feet or over, and I'd "possibly" be
under six feet.
In any case, there are propositions that are actually true, but could
possibly be false, and there are propositions that are actually false, but
could possibly be true. Such propositions are called "contingently true" or
"contingently false" propositions (sometimes referred to as "accidently"
true or false). Then there is another whole type of proposition that is
necessarily true or false. For example, the proposition "1 + 5 = 6" is a
necessarily true proposition, which is to say it is "impossible" that it be
false. There are also any number of these types of propositions. Finally,
just to round out the bare bones starting point here, contingently true
propositions can also "become" necessarily true. This happens, as just one
example out of several, when a conjuction of two or more contingently true
propositions "entails" the truth of some other proposition. Perhaps an
example would illustrate this:
a) Socrates was a man
b) all men are mortal
c) Socrates was mortal
In the above modus ponens argument we have three contingently true
propositions; contingently true because each of them, taken individually,
are possibly false. Socrates could conceivably have been a centaur, men
could conceivably have been created immortal, and Socrates could have been
immortal. But on the truth of the first two propositons, the truth of the
third "becomes" necessary. The conjuction, then, of the first two is said
to "entail" the truth of the third; making the third *on the truth of the
first two* necessary. This is sometimes referred to as a propostion being
"weakly" necessary, to distinguish it from the "strong" necessity of a
proposition such as "all bachlors are unmarried".
So I hope this helps you see that contingently true propositions depend for
their truth values on some set of propositions in which they are an element
of that set. The third proposition in our modus ponens example above
depends for its truth value on the set of two propositions that make up that
argument. Now all we need do is conceptually expand this set of true
propositions until no more can be added to it without making one or more of
them false, and you end up with what is called a "maximal set of
propositions true in that set", or for short, a "possible world".
These possible worlds, then, all exist. They are all really possible, and
any one of them would have actually existed if they had been "actualized"
or, as we Christians say, "created". So you see, it is not really true that
God created out of nothing at all. There are all of these possible worlds
for God to choose from to actualize one of them.
Now, returning to your idea that predestination "entails" intent on the part
of the Creator; that doesn't seem to be true, and here's why: For it to be
true, it would have to be NECESSARILY true, because your objection needs an
ENTAILMENT between the connotations of "predestination", and "intent", and
the only real entailment I can see here is that if God freely chooses to
create a world, that "entails" He HAS to choose from one of these possible
worlds (and not just any one of them; one that He can actually create...but
I don't want to go into this wrinkle in "omnipotence" here because if you
thought the above background was lengthy...maybe another time.) So you
can't just SAY predestination entails intent because the idea is intuitively
appealing, you have to DEMONSTRATE that entailment relationship between the
concepts "predestine" and "intend", and that's going to be a very tough
demonstration to make! It would REQUIRE that you PROVE that there is some
possible world that God could have created in which there is nothing but
moral good, but instead, chose a possible world that contained both moral
good and evil. This, and ONLY this demonstration would then "entail" that
God intended to create a world containing evil, which would then "entail"
that God intended some persons who instantiated this evil would go to hell.
And without that demonstration, there is no good reason not to suppose that
the omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent Creator simply created the best
world He could possibly create; the possible world that had the best ratio
of moral good to evil. And if God has some obligation not to actualize this
world because of what will happen to the people who manifest the evil in it,
then He must have the SAME obligation TO actualize this world because of
what will happen to the people who manifest the moral good it contains. And
this symmetry in God's obligations (not that God has any obligations at all,
but just to keep your objection in sight while I point this out to you) in
creating a possible world are indeed symmetrical, you seeing yourself on the
dirty end of the stick not withstanding.
>
>>
>> Clearly, in His choice of which possible world to create, God is
>> responsible
>> for your actual existence, but this in no way logically contradicts you
>> being significantly free in that world...which is THIS world.
>
> If all that I am, all that is in me, all my characteristics and all of
> my passions were created by Him, I am not responsible for my actions,
> and I have no agency to choose for myself.
But since no one seriously holds to that belief, Christian or non-Christian,
we don't really have to spend much time on it. We FORM many of our
characteristics and passions in the cognitive process of forming and holding
beliefs. Case in point: this belief that you have that everything you are
for all of your life God created. There's absolutely no good evidence or
argument to support that belief, yet you hold onto it. That's not "God"
doing that in you...that's YOU.
In every aspect of our lives, no matter what our religious beliefs, we
manifest the fundamental truth that we are responsible for who and what we
become. Why do we get angry with others if they are not responsible? Why
do we teach, learn, have expectations and hopes if all is determined from
all eternity? Why get out of bed?!! The truth is, you can't go an hour in
your typical day without acting in some way that simply denies the truth
that everything there is about all of us is predetermined.
>
> If you combine flour, sugar, yeast, water, and salt, in the proper
> quantities, you will get bread, not steak, not jelly, not grass or
> flowers. You cannot add a 'mystery' component that will allow the
> mixture to decide for itself what it will become. You define the final
> product by the elements that you put into the bowl, and if you do it
> properly, it will turn out just the way you ordered it up, based on the
> ingredients.
All I can say to this is we're not talking cooking, we're talking human
cognition, and this is a hopelessly naive analogy of that wonderous bit of
human nature.
>
>>
>> Nor is it a true fact that this view is inherent in the Christian faith,
>> or
>> necessary to any coherent Christian theology. It is certainly held by
>> many
>> who are Christians, but it isn't fundamental to Christian theology.
>
> Yes, I believe that it is, because everyone I ever spoke with believes
> that they did not exist in any shape or form, no part of them was in
> existence, until God created them, and that all that they are, was made
> by God. That is pretty standard theology, as far as I know. Do you know
> of christian churches that teach that a part man existed before he came
> to be a human on this earth?
No, but what you have to understand here is the part of this that is YOURS,
and the part of this that is inherent to Christian theology. YOU are the
one who makes "created us as everything we are" into "we will never act
other than God created us to act". You're taking something
straightforward - creation ex nihilo - deducing something from it that is no
part of traditional Christian theology, adding that deduction to what
creaton ex nihilo used to mean in Christian theology before you got your
hands on it, then presenting it to me that what you've constructed IS
inherent Christian theology.
I'm no special Christian, and I object to your rendetion of Christian
theology here, and there are millions just like me who do. You need to get
out more.
>
>
>> The critical issue
>> here is whether or not God's foreknowledge of future events "determines"
>> or
>> "causes" those events to occur. If it does, then there is something to
>> be
>> said for your above perspective, and you have a good reason for believing
>> it. If it doesn't, or at any rate, can't be shown in some logically
>> compelling fashion that it does, then you would have much less reason for
>> holding to that perspective.
>
> I don't know what more I can say, other than to repeat myself. Using
> the concepts I was taught, no part of me ever existed before God
> "formed me in the womb". That implies that all that I am, He made.
I'm going to stop you right here and challenge you to prove this. I want
you to prove to me that from you being created ex nihilo (out of nothing) it
necessarily follows that you are now nothing more than what God created
then.
The
> intelligence to make my own choices is not my intelligence, but it is
> given to me, by Him.
Do you use it fully in every choice you've ever made? Are you willing to
deny you have the choice to use your intelligence or not?? It's one thing
to be intelligent; to have the "equipment", so to speak, and quite another
to use it to make decisions. Ever been in love? Ever let desire cloud your
judgment? Or pain? Or fatigue? Or just let your mind wander when the
intelligent thing to do was focus? Ever been driving and fiddling with the
radio because your favorite song just started to play, and by the grace of
God just happen to look up just in time to avoid killing yourself?
We may be very intelligent, but the choice to use that intelligence is OURS,
not God's!
When He was in the process of forming me, he was
> well aware, knowing the end from the beginning, that I would fail, and
> burn in hell. That being rather inarguable as far as I can tell, I have
> to ask Him, and myself, what was the point in creating me, if my fate
> was already sealed, the moment I came to be?
You're still breathing aren't you? Then you haven't yet "failed". You were
designed by God to be everlasting, and you WILL last forever. How about
making an effort to make it a successful forever? A good start would be
putting forth some genuine effort to test some of these, to be quite frank,
pretty flaky notions you have about one thing following from another
necessarily.
>
> Now, if you want to add the random elements of chance and choice, you
> have to have something in the mix that God did not have control over.
> If He has control over all the ingredients, then the outcome will
> exactly what He planned it to be, and He is totally responsible for
> that result. If a random element outside His control is included, then
> He will still know the outcome, but He will not be totally responsible
> for it, and therefore cannot be considered the creator of the failure.
And free will is this "random element" inherent in Christian theology. Not
ALL Christian theology, mind you. As I said before, there are Christian
fatalists, but they're a confused lot and a good reason to praise the grace
and mercy of God, not having made near perfect understanding a requirement
for loving Him and being loved by Him.
>
> Imagine yourself as the only being in the universe, and you start to
> create other beings. As God, you know the destiny of each of those
> beings, and you know that many, many of them will spend eternity in a
> hell that you created, and yet you go ahead and create those beings
> anyway? I can't imagine how that makes any sense, from a loving, caring
> point of view.
>
> I know you want me to do a better job of explaning, and I may not be
> able to put it forth as clearly as I would like, but first I need to
> understand why the above is not cruel, and why a loving Father would do
> such a thing.
I hope that by now, after spending all this time trying to show you why it
"might" make sense, you're beginning to see at least a glimmer through the
crack in this objection to a loving Father as Creator. If being loving is
being moral, then a Being who IS love would want to create a world that
contains moral goodness. That seems simple enough. Now for the crucial
premise: it may be true that any possible world that God could actualize
that contained moral goodness, also contained evil; that moral goodness
isn't possible without the possibility of moral evil. So God's choice here
is to refrain from creating any morally good world at all, or creating one
that also contains evil. And if God CAN create a world with morally good
people in it, and goodness is its own reward, then a morally good and loving
God would want to create a possible world that contained a maximal number of
them and a minimal number of evil people. (this is poorly stated - people
aren't evil, people do evil and suffer its consequences...likewise, people
aren't good, people do good and enjoy its consequences) And there is no
good reason not to believe that this actual world is such a world.
Especially when we include here the nature of sin in Christian theology;
that it is passed from one generation to the next; that it is deceptive;
that it tends to harden hearts; all of which (and more) might make it that
the ratio of good to evil in any possible world doesn't remain constant, but
over time the ratio of evil might tend to increase while the ratio of good
decreases. It might be the case that over time God's purpose runs up
against a sort of law of diminishing returns, and so "maximal good" may mean
that point at which the good no longer outweighs the evil, and at that point
God just rings the curtain down on the whole thing, having saved what He
can.
>
>>
>> So let's ask a bit different question: If God, who is omniscient, knows
>> from all eternity that Bob will mow his lawn next Saturday, does Bob have
>> it
>> within his power to refrain from mowing his lawn next Saturday?
>
> No, he does not. He must mow the lawn, if we take the omnisciense to
> the microscopic level, which may or may not apply to the original
> point.
>
> If God knows that Bob will mow his lawn, and Bob doesn't, then Bob has
> suprised God, and frankly, I don't see how that can be. Be sure we
> don't deteriorate into details like drinking water, and mowing the lawn
> :-) The issue is, when God created us out of nothing, did He already
> know our fate, and if so, why did He bother to create something, simply
> to destroy it? The idea, as I understand it, is to let us learn and
> grow, and improve ourselves, and make our own choices, but without the
> notion that something inside of us is uniquely ours alone, there is not
> fair test. The game is over before we even get started, and nothing we
> can do during this life will alter that.
>
>>
>> If the proposition "Bob will mow his lawn next Saturday" is true now,
>> before
>> Bob mows, then is it logically possible for Bob to refrain from mowing
>> his
>> lawn next Saturday?
>>
>
> Not seeing the connection. Sorry. If God knows I will have five
> children, I will have five children, or God is wrong, and we know that
> cannot be.
The critical thing to see here is the ordering of events. On a
chronological ordering of events, God's foreknowledge that you will have
five children is prior to you're actually having five children, and on this
ordering of events it appears that God's foreknowledge of the number of
children you will have somehow determines how many children you will have.
But there is another ordering of events available here; a "logical
ordering". To see it, we have to talk about what logically "grounds" what
in this state of affairs. So what is the logical ground for God's knowledge
that you will have five children? It is the fact that you will freely (more
or less...having children is a remarkably poor example here ;-) choose to
have five children. His foreknowledge of the number of your children is
then chronologically prior to you having any children at all, but logical
posterior to you having them.
But then here's the rub: God transcends time. He is eternal AND
omniscient, which means that whatever He knows (and being omniscient, He
knows all true propositions as true) He has known independent of time
existing! But if that's true, then it can't also be true that God foreknows
events in the above "chronological ordering" to events...which leaves God's
foreknowledge of events the only "ordering" scheme standing as a basis for
God's foreknowledge of events!
Voila! God's foreknowledge of what you will eventually do, depends upon (is
logically grounded by) what you will eventually do, so it can hardly be the
case that God's foreknowledge causes or determines what you will do. If His
foreknowlege of what you are and what you will do doesn't determine what you
will do and become, then it seems to me we have good reason for rejecting
any notion that predestination necessarily includes intent. It may include
intent; it can include intent; it doesn't have to include intent. Thus God
could predestine with the intent that some go to Heaven, without also
predestining with the intent that some go to Hell.
>
>> And you should know that philosophical opinions here vary.
>
> Oh yea, ... I know that :-)
>
>>
>> And so they are also vital to any inquiry into the truth of the very
>> similar
>> "theological fatalism" (which is how you are looking at the "Christian"
>> understanding of God's foreknowledge here).
>
> So you are saying that Christians, in general, don't believe that they
> were created out of nothing, and that God does not know the end from
> the beginning? Something in our makeup, is uniquely ours, and was not
> created by God?
No, I'm saying that God created us with a limited ability to modify
ourselves. This ability is free will. God has it; He gave it to us in a
limited fashion, and in that limited fashion it works for us as it works for
Him. The Father couldn't love the Son if the Father didn't have free will.
Selfless loving is impossible (and so is selfish love for that matter)
without free will. We cannot love God unless we can do it freely, just like
we can't love one another without doing it freely. Not even God can force
or determine selfless love.
>
>> And if, as you've implied, it is fatalism that's been holding you back
>> from
>> making a commitment to Christ, then welcome, brother, to the kingdom of
>> God
>> and Christ. The door is now open, and we welcome those who reject
>> fatalism
>> to the wedding feast. Of course, we welcome fatalists as well, but I
>> personally encourage them to spend more of their time enjoying the food,
>> and
>> less of it expounding on their theological views ;-)
>
> I cannot worship, or follow a God who creates people, just to burn them
> in hell. I do thank you for the kind invite tho :-)
Even better! Come on in!! I promise you that's not the God who is waiting
for your love.
>
>>
>> After all, God created me when I
>> experienced temporal becoming; when I began to actually exist. Now I
>> suppose opinions would vary on when that is for a person (conception,
>> reaching the "age of reason", etc.), but I'm 58 now, and I can tell you
>> that
>> I'm not the same as I was when I was 45, or 35, or 25, or 15, let alone
>> since God created me!
>
> But I am referring to eternity, and to our supposedly eternal
> existence, and ultimate fate, which makes the difference between 1 and
> 75 rather moot. I don't count your age, as much as the issue of did any
> part of you exist before you were born, or did you come out of
> nothingness. Did God know your fate, before you were were created, and
> it it possible for God to be wrong about your eternal destiny? Can you
> suprise God? <g>
>
>
>> or will become. And if that's true, then it ENTAILS that God DIDN'T
>> create
>> us as we are in every respect. So I would have to argue that the idea
>> that
>> He did create us the way we are in every respect and for all of our lives
>> is
>> just wrong. And if you take that idea out of your argument above, it
>> pretty
>> much just dissolves, and there remains no good reason for believing that
>> God
>> doesn't love all of us equally; the saved and the lost.
>
> Again, please note I assumed a position based on a concept that I do
> not accept, in order to make a point, so I do not wish to be accused of
> really believing that God does not love us all equally. According to
> that accepted position, which I was taught as a youth, by a variety of
> 'men of God,' from a number of different sects, that God made all of
> us, every part of us, and knew when He did it, that some would fail,
> and be subject to eternal torment, and I find that abhorrent, and
> unacceptable. Your position is well stated, but it doesn't address the
> point that He made me, knowing I would suffer eternal torment.
>
> If your position is that when God created you, he took something that
> He did not create, and put it in the mix, then there is much more to
> talk about, for I would like to know where you think that part came
> from, and where that is supported in scripture.
It's called free will, and it is well supported in Scripture. In fact, it
is even better supported than is God's absolute sovereignty if all we're
going to do is count verses that either express or imply one or the other.
But who's counting? ;-)
>
>>
>> And there is always the fact that Scripture tells us Christians that
>> God's
>> Son became Incarnate and died for the sins of the whole world, and that
>> it
>> is God's desire that none perish.
>
> Then He ought not have made beings that He knew would perish.....?
To finish that sentence, "...unless He had a darned good reason for doing
so". I hope by the time you read this you will have begun to see that there
is at least a possible "good reason" God created a world where people will
perish from the evil they freely do. I'm not at this point expecting to see
any real "flip" in beliefs from you, but perhaps just the acknowlegment that
what you're objecting to might not be the case at all.
>
>>we have express statements to the
>> effect that God loves all equally, and no good logical argument to compel
>> us
>> to disbelieve these statements.
>
> I have to repeat, because I don't like even saying it <g> that I
> believe He does love us all equally)
>
> (side bar) The words "God loves you" mean nothing. Its the application
> of those words that matter, and people who feel shortchanged by God,
> who feel they have gotten a "raw deal" or that God has abandoned them,
> are not at all made to feel better simply because the Bible says so.
> The truth of the principles of the Gospel is in the application of
> those ideas. People who seem to have found the words to be true, ought
> not forget that many more find them to be untrue, and people who feel
> loved by God, ought not beat people who do not feel that way, over the
> head with words from the Bible, for they are just words. I have often
> felt unloved by God. I am just a weak person. I have my moments. How I
> feel, and what is true, are not always going to be the same thing. When
> a person feels unloved, simply being told that "God loves you" does not
> help, and in fact, it often aggravates the person even more. Know what
> I mean?
>
> (side bar off)
Yes I certainly do, and I hope this wasn't brought on by anything I was
saying.
>
>>
> While it is a misnomer to call
>> something that has a beginning, but no end, eternal; it is certainly
>> logically possible that something that has a beginning can have no end
>
> I don't agree at all. A beginning, implies an end. An end, implies a
> beginning.
If I can give you counter examples that have a beginning but no end, then
the simple fact is that I've proved your idea here is false. I gave you a
couple of them if I recall, so I don't understand this reaction to them. Is
your love affair with this belief so strong you're willing to ignore all
evidence that it's false? What could possibly be the appeal here?
A beginning doesn't imply (I'm not sure how you're using "imply" here, but
I'll try to string along as best I can) an end, it implies that whatever has
it is finite, but of indefinite duration, or size, or length, or whatever.
>
> If God created us, He can destroy us.
But now you're comparing apples and oranges! God CAUSED us to begin, and
that DOES entail the possibility that we have an end. But see, here you're
no longer talking about infinities of duration or size; you're talking about
the implications of causation. Whatever begins to exist is caused to exist
by something else. And because this thing, whatever it is we have in view
("us" here) is caused to begin to exist, it follows that it is POSSIBLE that
it can be caused to cease to exist.
If something has a beginning, it
> has an end. If something has no beginning, it has no end. I believe
> that is just rational, logical thought.
No, it is naked assertion. Rational logical thought procedes from
necessarily true premises to a conclusion; iow, from a sound logical
argument for the conclusion reached. You apparently don't have any such
argument for this conclusion. You certainly haven't offered any, and this
is your second chance to do just that. And if you don't have any argument
for what you're saying is true, then what you're saying is, by defintion,
naked assertion, and that's no way to find the truth of anything.
Science says that nothing can
> be created, only reorganized.
Really? Well..."science" says that until it gets in the way of something
else science would like to say. I'll give you that much.
It is a "scientific" theory that the universe began with the "Big Bang".
The consensus here is so large that this theory is called the "working
model" of the universe at present. That theory includes the hypothesis that
the universe began to exist out of nothing at all, and refers to this
phenomenon by the quaint term "the singularity". Just one of several
examples I could give you of science dropping some sacrosanct physical law
when it becomes too inconvenient to hold onto it any longer.
If it exists today, it will exist
> tomorrow, and forever. Its structure may change, water, ice, water,
> ice, but the basic elements will continue forever.
Not true...or at least, not demonstrably true. Our assurance of living
forever doesn't come out of some logical principle about things with
beginnings having no end, because...well...there is no such logical
principle. It comes out of the nature of our Creator. That nature includes
Him being omniscient and eternal. Given that He is, it would not only be
absurd for Him to create in His likeness what didn't last as long as He did,
but we have His assurance of the fact.
>
>
>> But from our perspective, we are not eternally with God because we don't
>> even eternally, actually exist. From our perspective, we begin to exist,
>> we
>> begin to have a salvic relationship with the eternal and omniscient
>> Creator,
>> and we live with Him forever afterward - temporal meets eternal. And the
>> NT
>> also speaks from this perspective as well.
>
> Is not 'forever' the same as 'eternally?'
As I was trying to point out to you, it depends. If we're talking
philosophy, then no; there is a real distinction, and an important one,
between "being eternal" and "being everlasting" that needs to be preserved.
But in most other contexts, it probably doesn't matter all that much unless
someone starts to use the ambiguity to support a notion that couldn't be
supported without that ambiguity. Then it starts to matter again!
>
> Thanks for your point of view.
And thanks for yours, Mark.
I don't claim the ability to express it
> all in a conscise manner that will satisfy all, but it matters that one
> does not think I am just arguing for the fun of it. Its a major issue,
That is certainly is. In fact, it is much to big an issue to be reaching
conclusions about it based mostly on intuition, which it seems to me plays a
big part in your conclusions here so far. You always know when you're
intuiting your way to a conclusion: when someone comes along as asked you
how you arrived at that conclusion, you can't tell them anything that makes
any sense when it's critically analyzed. So you generally just end up
repeating the conclusion over and over again.
I've got a REALLY good book you should read. It's only about 250 pages,
comes in paperback, and you can pick up a copy for less than $20. It's
Alvin Plantinga's "The Nature of Necessity" [Clarendon], and it's the best
treatment of what we've been talking about here I've ever seen. He's a
brilliant mind and a great philosopher, but he writes with humor and so that
the layperson can follow his line of argument without too much difficulty.
I'm confident that reading it carefully would give you a whole different
perspective on these issues, and one that would be of benefit to you.
Chuck Stamford
para...@technicianheaven.com
And since mormonism has never "corrected" the translations of the
Bible, and since the language of the NT especially is so precise and
well-known, "as far as it is correctly translated" in reality only
means, "as far as a mormon likes what it says."
Jesus referred to the OT scriptures (generally quoted verbatum from
the Greek Septuagint. . .and we have several complete copies of that
from before He was born of Mary) as God speaking through. . .
That's good enough for me.
And when you start deciding to choose what you like and what you don't
like, you tread on a slippery slope.
parakaleo
bam
<para...@technicianheaven.com> wrote in message
news:apfs82t8e3vt6sj1f...@4ax.com...
> "bam" <mcca...@bellsouthblahblah.net>, popped up with this stuff in
> alt.religion.christian :
>>
>><para...@technicianheaven.com> wrote in message
>>news:cssq825imho5ll4dg...@4ax.com...
>>> "bam" <mcca...@bellsouthblahblah.net>, popped up with this stuff in
>>> alt.religion.christian :
>>>>
>>>><para...@technicianheaven.com> wrote
>>>>
>>>>>But God sent His own Son to take our place, to
>>>>> pay the price, to redeem us from our JUST AND RIGHT PUNISHMENT.
>>>>
>>>>Not for the sins you deny.
>>>>
>>>>BAM
>>>>
>>> You deny you have sins?
>>
>>No. What would you ask? I confess my sins.
>>
>>
>> >I don't deny any sins I commit at all.
>>
>>Yes you do. When you miss Mass on Sunday you sin.
>
> The Bible says NO SUCH THING.
Lesson.
1. The Church "sanctified" the Bible.
2. You + bible does not = Church. Church is greater than Bible and you put
together.
As I said, you deny your sins. Somewhere you picked up a doctrine of
"biblical justification", but you never bother to explain the doctrine. It's
more of pea shoooter than something that will hold up to inspection.
> I worship every single day of my life.
> I worship in a church building with my brethren in Christ on Sundays.
Mass, you bum - you can't worship God as a heretic. Once again, you're
denying your sins - you are not forgiven - you have tons of unforgiven sins.
> The Bible NEVER ONCE USES THE WORD "mass" or "mess" or "mush" in it
> anywhere.
So what? The Bible doesn't say to scrap Saturday and worship on Sunday
either. What are these stupid puerile arguments you're using to defend your
sins?
>>Birth control is a sin.
>
> The Bible never says any such thing. Most catholics in the
> child-bearing age group in America are said to use birth control, btw.
You know nothing. Once again, you deny your sins.
>>Divorce and remarriage is are sins.
>
> Never done that. Don't plan to either. Been married to my only wife
> ever for 39+ years. Not planning any changes.
What about her?
>>Criticising the Catholic Church is a
>>sin.
>
> Not according to the Bible. The Bible does not contain ANY "catholic
> church" or rcc.
The Catholic Church is the only Church in scripture.
>
>>Apostasizing is a sin.
>
> I would never do that. Never have. Did leave a heretical group once,
> but the leaving the rcc is NOT apostasizing from God at all.
Once again, you deny your sins.
>>You have tons of sins you won't admit.
>
> Only according to YOU, NOT according to God.
You blasphemer. You claim to speak for God???? (according to God - now I've
heard everything)
BAM
singlew...@gmail.com
>
> And since mormonism has never "corrected" the translations of the
> Bible, and since the language of the NT especially is so precise and
> well-known, "as far as it is correctly translated" in reality only
> means, "as far as a mormon likes what it says."
>
> Jesus referred to the OT scriptures (generally quoted verbatum from
> the Greek Septuagint. . .and we have several complete copies of that
> from before He was born of Mary) as God speaking through. . .
This is about as old a conflict as there is in anti mormon forums, but
to this day, it seems that the anti mormons do not stop to try and
understand. No one here, expects anyone to change their mind, but to
at least try to understand the point of view. Jesus did not quote more
than a small percentage of what is in the OT, therefore, that small
amount of words does not sanctify the entire OT.
Using that logic, the BOM is the Word of God, as it contains quotes
from the Bible as given by Jesus Himself. He referred to some words, in
some of the books that found their way into the Bible. He never did,
and as far as I know, never has, said that the OT was perfect, and
contained only His word. I must confess, that if I was going to believe
any book, any scripture, was the word of the Lord, I would want to
hear it, directly from Him. Reading within the pages of a book, a
declaration that the book is correct, is just not something I would
anchor my faith on. How hard is it to write a book about Jesus, and
have Him saying that this book is my word?
> That's good enough for me.
I respect that.
Its not for me to try to change your mind. Why is it that anti mormons
cannot respect LDS people's choices as well, but instead, must always
attack, attack, belittle, demean, and attack again? I search in vain
through the complete and final, all encompassing word of God, known as
the Bible, for a scripture that teaches God's children to be mean
spirited, abusive, mocking, and constantly attacking those with whom
they disagree. I do read about meekness, mild mannered teaching, long
suffering, being an example, and treating thy fellow man as you would
have him treat you, and I also read a commandment that says 'Love one
another" and that by this, they will know ye are my disciples.
If that is God's word ( I believe those are His words) how is it that
the Bible thumping anti mormons are more concerned with bashing
mormons, and declaring them as dumb, evil people, than they are about
following the commandments of the Lord, found in a book that they
swear is perfect, and includes all of God's word?
> And when you start deciding to choose what you like and what you don't
> like, you tread on a slippery slope.
You are on the same slope, having chosen what you like, and don't like.
Its no different.
In Matthew, the Lord states:
7 Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying,
8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me
with their lips; but their heart is far from me.
and what of this command by the Lord in the Bible:?
3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but
considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of
thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and
then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's
eye.
The Lord doesn't seem to mind pointing out the hypocrisy in those who
profess to follow Him, yet seem to revel in the bashing of others, and
the mocking of their faith and decisions............
What is the point in believing one has the infallible word of the
creator of the universe, and then rather than live it, chooses to go
out and violate some of its most basic commandments? It is amazing, the
weakness of all men, (me included) that they can hold in one hand,
what they firmly believe is the word of Almighty God, and then not obey
it.
No one who is being bloodied about the head and shoulders is going to
respect or consider the position of the person beating them, who
claims to be on God's side. If its just about bashing and being abusive
for the thrill of it, not much anyone can do about that, but when it
comes from someone who is reigning down punishment and venomous
attacks, all the while shouting "I have the word of God, dammit, you
are so freaking stupid, and wrong, it sickens me!!" well, there is not
going to be much of a desire to listen, or give back any respect.......
:-)
Mark
para...@technicianheaven.com
But because He doesn't contradict Himself, "whosoever" comes WILL BE
only those He chose, because the Bible says that GOD CHOSE, not men.
Rom 9:15-18
15 For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whomever I will have
mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion."
16 So then it is not of him who wills , nor of him who runs , but of
God who shows mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, "For
this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in
you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth." 18
Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.
NKJV
>
>Then you Calvinists come along and make God the criminal, saying people
>didn't have a fair shake from God.
Why do you lie so, icky? You KNOW we have never said any such thing.
YOU claim we say things we never said, then YOU condemn the things we
never said as though YOU want us to believe we should believe you.
YOU are a liar, icky. We Christians have NEVER said any such thing.
>
>> Not to "get our salvation." But because we Love Him.
>>
>> I talk about my wife every day to people.
>> I talk about my sons.
>> I talk about my Lord, Jesus Christ.
>>
>> We tend to talk about (confess before men) those we love.
>> That is how we are, of course.
>>
>> That doesn't contradict a word that I have posted.
>>>
>>>We can play "swap statements" all day, and the only thing that you will
>>>manage to prove is that 2) We choose and God chooses are simultaneously
>>>true
>>>statements and 2) you lack the ability to think three-dimensionally.
>>
>> Nice try, but God chose BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD, then HE
>> DREW US WHOM HE CHOSE to Him and led us to "choose" Him.
>
>Nowhere does the Bible say God chose before the foundation of the world.
Eph 1:3-6
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has
blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in
Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the
world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5
having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself,
according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the
glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
NKJV
Did you tear that page out of your Bible?
>
>It says God foreknew us before the foundation of the world.
>
>It says God predestined those who believe to be conformed to the image of
>Christ.
No, it says God predestined US. God chose US.
YOU can twist it any way you want, but the scripture above condemns
you when you do. It is right there, in black-and-white (for most of
us), and if we doubt, we can each go to our own translations and
check.
>
>It says God predestinated us to the adoption.
Yep. Every Christian.
>
>Nowhere does it say God chose beforehand, making exclusive offers to one
>group of people that He doesn't make to everyone.
Many are called, FEW are chosen.
>
>That's the crime of Calvin (amongst a stack of others).
If icky the liar says so.
>
>> And your own ability to think is the only ability in question here.
>
>As declared by Jesus, cause led to effect and effect led to cause at the
>same time.
Hmmm. Jesus chose.
>
>Joh 15:16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you,
>that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain:
>that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
Hmm. Jesus chose.
>
>Joh 16:27 For the Father himself loveth you, BECAUSE ye have loved me, and
>have believed that I came out from God.
For you to pretend that God only loves us because we love Jesus is
fallacious in light of:
Rom 5:8-11
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were
still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been
justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. 10
For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the
death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved
by His life.
NKJV
God loved us while we were ENEMIES of God too. HE saved us, we do not
save ourselves. HE keeps us, we do not keep ourselves.
>
>Ya' just gotta' love John: After his Revelation experience, he became the
>master of paradoxical understanding, making statements like "no man has at
>any time seen the Father" and "whoever has seen the Father has seen me," or
>"in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
>God."
>
>The problem is, it leaves single-minded dimwits like you in the dirt.
Sorry icky, but you have problems with your people skills, and you
have problems with your honesty. You have no credibility.
>
> "If you said you did not know, you would have no sin; but you say you
>know, and do not know, therefore your sin remains with you."
I've never said I have no sin, but as John said:
1 John 1:8-10
8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth
is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to
forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If
we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is
not in us.
NKJV
I confess my sins, and I am fine. HE cleanses me, HE forgives me.
And I am safe in God's Hands.
You left out the part where it made God the potter and pharaoh the
clay. That gives us a whole different context. You ignored the
passages in which GOD CHOSE before the beginning of all things. You
pooh poohed the part where GOD is in charge, not man.
>
>Just as John points out the paradox of we choose/God chose, the author of
>Exodus points out the paradox of we reject/God rejects.
>
>Paul missed that early on.
That is because YOU made it up.
>
>> God didn't choose Pharaoh from BEFORE THE FOUNDATION
>> OF THE WORLD, and BY HIS OWN CHOICE (the Potter chooses which pieces
>> He makes for what purposes, the clay doesn't) made pharaoh as a vessel
>> for dishoner.
>
>And you build on Paul's early error.
The Apostle Paul I know. YOU however are a nobody.
>
>>>In other words, Pharaoh established Pharaoh's fate, not God; but Pharaoh's
>>>fate was established within the confines of God's will.
>>
>> GOD chose. Pharaoh didn't. God did not draw pharaoh. GOD, not
>> pharaoh is the potter.
>
>God rejected = Pharaoh reject. Order is of no consequence.
Only in YOUR mind, apparently.
>
>God chose = we chose. Order is of no consequence.
Again, only in YOUR mind. The Bible doesn't say that.
God made HIS choice before the foundation of the world.
Pharaoh was led to making his choice much later.
>
>That was the point of John's paradoxical statements.
>
>Hence, extreme Arminianism and Calvinism are both in critical error.
And you, the all-wise one have just discovered the "real" answer, huh?
LOL!
<snipped the rest>
parakaleo
singlew...@gmail.com
>
> The "sons of men," i.e. the Gentiles, i.e. the tree of the knowledge of good
> and evil, etc. etc.
>
> The "sons of God," i.e. the children of Adam, i.e. the tree of life, etc.
> etc.
>
> This "two-tree" metaphor runs from the beginning of the Bible to the end of
> it.
>
> A the relevance is that, before Adam and Eve sinned, there was no sin in the
> world, NOT because there were no sinful behaviors, but because there was no
> law.
>
> In other words, there are two creation accounts moving in opposite
> directions to designate two origins of the species.
>
> The first account arrives at the biological man.
>
> The second account starts with the spiritual man.
>
> The, when the two got together, all hell broke loose.
>
> >> > How did God know us, before He created us, unless a part of us already
> >> > existed? (Jeremiah)
> >>
> >> Now that's a good question, but complicated.
I am afraid I learned a lot about your perspective, but you never
really addressed the question.
> Because you will be at the judgment, and will witness the creation, even
> though you haven't been there yet; but, from God's perspective, it has all
> already happened.
>
> We are in a linear/cyclic singularity.
>
Well my friend, I must admit, this has been enlightening, and I do
appreciate the time it took to explain your perspective. I will reserve
the right to respectfully disagree, and even put forth the question of
how did you come up with all that "time travel" and linear/cyclic stuff
from the Bible? :-) If you can substantiate your perspective using the
words of the Bible, I would be impressed for I have never heard such
an explanation. Although I have not been in ever church, in every
state, in every denomination, I have been around, and never heard
anything quite like it.
Either way, as I said, I appreciate reading your pov.
However, I am still left with a paradox, based on the assumption that
God knows the beginning from the end, and that at some point, in the
existence of God, I was not a part of it. Then God created me. At that
point, He would already know my destiny. God created two destinations,
heaven and hell. Then he created "100" people At the end of time,
whenever that is, or was :-) 50 will be burning in eternal torment and
torture, and 50 will be living with God, apparently blissfully happy,
forever. I am not able to see why that is not an example of creating
something that you know full well is going to suffer for eternity.
Why create something that you know is going to hell? What is the point?
I could live without your comment about the LDS church being a cult,
but I only threw it out there not to make anyone accept or buy into it,
but to point out that IF there were degrees of rewards, and IF there
really was no hell, as the LDS church teaches, (except for those who
deny the holy ghost, but we don't need to dispute the details), IF God
created all things, and when all was said and done, all things were
rewarded in some manner, then within that, I can see a loving and
caring God. Lacking a 'reward' of some kind for ALL of His creations,
I would put forth that He is rather vindictive and mean towards some of
his children.
On the other hand, note that I assumed this position, based on what I
was taught in my long lost, younger days <g>, and do not believe this
to be true, but it is a very large reason why I think mainstream
chrisitanity is based on an incorrect doctrine, and a house built on
the sand, cannot stand against the storm, neither can you get good
fruit, from a sick tree.
Much obliged for you time and effort.
Mark
H.E. Eickleberry, Jr.
news:q9ut82tipm2tc4v2m...@4ax.com...
> "H.E. Eickleberry, Jr." <Yeickleb...@comcast.net>, popped up
> with this stuff in alt.religion.christian :
[snip]
>>Jesus said "whosoever," not "who I chose."
>
> But because He doesn't contradict Himself, "whosoever" comes WILL BE
> only those He chose, because the Bible says that GOD CHOSE, not men.
But whosoever comes chose Him. That's how marriages work.
It's that element of dualism you can't perceive, i.e. the prophets going
back and forth between "you" chose and "God" chose.
It's not a contradiction. It's a paradox, one simpletons like you can't
handle.
> Rom 9:15-18
> 15 For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whomever I will have
> mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion."
> 16 So then it is not of him who wills , nor of him who runs , but of
> God who shows mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, "For
> this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in
> you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth." 18
> Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.
> NKJV
And in the chapter right before this one, Paul makes the logistical error of
NOT citing the three types of statements about Pharaoh made in Exodus, The
"God did it statements," the "Pharaoh did it" statements, and the "I dunno'
who done it" statements.
And what other paradox does Paul present?
"We are saved by grace through faith, and that not of yourselves, lest any
man should boast."
That being the case, what is THIS doing in Paul's writings?
2Ti 4:7 I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept
the faith:
Hmmm. Sounds like a boast to me.
But what it really is is another non-contradicting contradiction, i.e. a
paradox.
Jesus adjured those who followed Him to acquire, keep, and die in the faith.
Those are instructions.
Instructions require the exercise of will.
In fact, Jesus even put the responsibility on OUR shoulders, saying "take
heed to yourselves" and "in your patience, possess ye your souls."
But you lop-sided Calvinists can't seem to get those facts in your silly
heads.
>>come along and make God the criminal, saying people
>>didn't have a fair shake from God.
>
> Why do you lie so, icky? You KNOW we have never said any such thing.
That's precisely the premise of Calvinism.
God chose beforehand, therefore we have no say in the matter.
Bunk! Jesus said otherwise.
> YOU claim we say things we never said, then YOU condemn the things we
> never said as though YOU want us to believe we should believe you.
Hon, everybody who has studied Calvinism knows what Calvinism says, and the
final result of the beast's teachings--God becomes the criminal.
> YOU are a liar, icky. We Christians have NEVER said any such thing.
You say it all the time when you say God puts vain offers on the table.
[snip]
>>Nowhere does the Bible say God chose before the foundation of the world.
>
> Eph 1:3-6
> Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has
> blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in
> Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the
> world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5
> having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself,
> according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the
> glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
> NKJV
>
> Did you tear that page out of your Bible?
Nope. It is the end of things that is the beginning of things:
When did God decide who was chosen? At the judgment.
How can there be a righteous judgment if God already decided? Because the
judgment is both the end and the beginning of the story.
But what is the basis of the judgment? Faith in Jesus.
But if we have to have faith, why were given faith? Because we were chosen
in the judgment.
But weren't we chosen before the beginning of the story? Yes, from the final
list established at the judgment.
And around the Great Cycle we go.
>>It says God foreknew us before the foundation of the world.
>>
>>It says God predestined those who believe to be conformed to the image of
>>Christ.
>
> No, it says God predestined US. God chose US.
Go back and look again: It says God predestined us TO BE CONFORMED TO THE
IMAGE OF CHRIST, not "predestined us" by itself.
> YOU can twist it any way you want, but the scripture above condemns
> you when you do.
Nope. You condemn yourself when you ignore Jesus' instructions telling us to
acquire, grow, and die in the faith, then turn around and make God the
criminal in this story.
> It is right there, in black-and-white (for most of
> us), and if we doubt, we can each go to our own translations and
> check.
Is there something that comes after the word "predestined?"
Yes.
Predestined to be conformed to Christ's image is not "preselected."
>>It says God predestinated us to the adoption.
>
> Yep. Every Christian.
>>
>>Nowhere does it say God chose beforehand, making exclusive offers to one
>>group of people that He doesn't make to everyone.
>
> Many are called, FEW are chosen.
>>
>>That's the crime of Calvin (amongst a stack of others).
>
> If icky the liar says so.
Calvin was an antichristian beast who used Jesus as an excuse to advance his
own agenda, returning us to the crusader mentality that Luther rejected.
>>> And your own ability to think is the only ability in question here.
>>
>>As declared by Jesus, cause led to effect and effect led to cause at the
>>same time.
>
> Hmmm. Jesus chose.
Hmmm. We chose.
"The Father loves you BECAUSE you have loved me, and believed that I came
out from Him."
Because is because--God has a reason...because.
Buy a clue.
>>Joh 15:16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you,
>>that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should
>>remain:
>>that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
>
> Hmm. Jesus chose.
>>
>>Joh 16:27 For the Father himself loveth you, BECAUSE ye have loved me, and
>>have believed that I came out from God.
>
> For you to pretend that God only loves us because we love Jesus is
> fallacious in light of:
No, it is the counterpart to the citation below.
One does not disprove the other.
They establish a paradox.
THAT'S what you lop-sided imbeciles can comprehend.
> Rom 5:8-11
> 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were
> still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been
> justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. 10
> For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the
> death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved
> by His life.
> NKJV
>
> God loved us while we were ENEMIES of God too. HE saved us, we do not
> save ourselves. HE keeps us, we do not keep ourselves.
"Blessed is whoever reads, and hears, and KEEPS the words of this prophecy."
There is that paradox again.
How about this one?
"In YOUR patience, possess YE YOUR souls."
There is that paradox yet again.
Picking and choosing your way through scriptures while ignoring the others
that move in the opposite direction is the downfall of all cultisms,
including Calvinism.
>>Ya' just gotta' love John: After his Revelation experience, he became the
>>master of paradoxical understanding, making statements like "no man has at
>>any time seen the Father" and "whoever has seen the Father has seen me,"
>>or
>>"in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
>>was
>>God."
>>
>>The problem is, it leaves single-minded dimwits like you in the dirt.
>
> Sorry icky, but you have problems with your people skills, and you
> have problems with your honesty. You have no credibility.
You would like to think so, but I've already established the paradoxes in
the minds of the readers, and every time they read their Bibles, they'll see
them. And from now on, they know that Calvinism is horseshit.
>> "If you said you did not know, you would have no sin; but you say you
>>know, and do not know, therefore your sin remains with you."
>
> I've never said I have no sin, but as John said:
The verse didn't say anything about sin.
It said "If you said you did not know..."
You say you know, but you don't know, even after it has been told to
you--therefore your sin remains with you. You stick to one set of verses
while ignoring the others because you can't factor them into your
theological position, and arrive at a theology that makes God the criminal,
and the judgment a farce.
> 1 John 1:8-10
> 8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth
> is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to
> forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If
> we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is
> not in us.
> NKJV
>
> I confess my sins, and I am fine. HE cleanses me, HE forgives me.
> And I am safe in God's Hands.
Your holding on to a sin--ignorance in light of instruction.
[snip]
>>>>And then I cited the fact that, in building this thesis [from Romans 8],
>>>>Paul neglected to mention the OTHER statements about Pharaoh which
>>>>demonstrated that God had cause to harden Pharaoh's heart, and did NOT
>>>>choose arbitrarily to attack Pharaoh.
>>>
>>> Well not quite.
>>
>>Yes, quite.
>>
>>Statement type A: God hardened Pharaoh's heart.
>>
>>Statement type B: Pharaoh hardened his heart.
>>
>>Statement type C: Pharaoh's heart was hardened.
>
> You left out the part where it made God the potter and pharaoh the
> clay.
Yeah, that's it--run back to Paul's statement (which only examines one
aspect of a triune mystery) instead of paying attention to the subject at
hand.
> That gives us a whole different context.
Wrong. That gives us an erroneous context, used the way you use it.
Paul was citing Exodus. To Exodus we must go. And Exodus has three different
statements regarding Pharaoh.
Hence, there was more to the story than Paul perceived at the time.
> You ignored the
> passages in which GOD CHOSE before the beginning of all things. You
> pooh poohed the part where GOD is in charge, not man.
You pooh pooh the parts where God says to choose:
"I have set good and evil before you this day: Choose the good, that you
might live."
Typical ignoramus.
>>Just as John points out the paradox of we choose/God chose, the author of
>>Exodus points out the paradox of we reject/God rejects.
>>
>>Paul missed that early on.
>
> That is because YOU made it up.
I didn't make up anything--it's all in Exodus. Go read it. And then repent
of your lies.
>>> God didn't choose Pharaoh from BEFORE THE FOUNDATION
>>> OF THE WORLD, and BY HIS OWN CHOICE (the Potter chooses which pieces
>>> He makes for what purposes, the clay doesn't) made pharaoh as a vessel
>>> for dishoner.
>>
>>And you build on Paul's early error.
>
> The Apostle Paul I know. YOU however are a nobody.
LOL
In other words, the biblical facts are the biblical facts, but you can't
deal with them, so bring on the peripheral attack.
FACT: There are three types of statements made in regards to Pharaoh in
Exodus.
1) God hardened Pharaoh's heart.
2) Pharaoh hardened his heart.
3) Pharaoh's heart was hardened.
That's three sides of a triangle.
Unfortunately, Paul only dealt with one side in Romans.
He got to the rest later.
>>>>In other words, Pharaoh established Pharaoh's fate, not God; but
>>>>Pharaoh's
>>>>fate was established within the confines of God's will.
>>>
>>> GOD chose. Pharaoh didn't. God did not draw pharaoh. GOD, not
>>> pharaoh is the potter.
>>
>>God rejected = Pharaoh reject. Order is of no consequence.
>
> Only in YOUR mind, apparently.
Only in God's mind, which you can't perceive.
>>God chose = we chose. Order is of no consequence.
>
> Again, only in YOUR mind. The Bible doesn't say that.
Yeah, it does.
"That which has been is now, and that which is to be has already become, and
God requires that which is past."
And around the cycle we go.
> God made HIS choice before the foundation of the world.
>
> Pharaoh was led to making his choice much later.
Pharaoh's choice led to God's choice and vice versa.
>>That was the point of John's paradoxical statements.
>>
>>Hence, extreme Arminianism and Calvinism are both in critical error.
>
> And you, the all-wise one have just discovered the "real" answer, huh?
> LOL!
Yes
Jealous?
That's what all this really boils down to--you didn't know it, your cult
didn't teach it, so you attack it, your doctrines being more important to
you than truth: Just like the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians before
you.
Ike
Jude Alexander
<singlew...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1150228012.4...@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
You're communicating with a guy from the world of Bizarro who is a heap of
dead man bones.
vernon
"H.E. Eickleberry, Jr." <Yeickleb...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:mY2dnRIyC6KQMBDZ...@comcast.com...
> "vernon" <there@there> wrote in message
> news:448d6e0d$0$15697$8826...@news-taz.teranews.com...
>>
>> "H.E. Eickleberry, Jr." <Yeickleb...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>> news:9JWdneicdaA5NxHZ...@comcast.com...
>>> "vernon" <there@there> wrote in message
>>> news:448c9f28$0$15623$8826...@news-taz.teranews.com...
>>>>
>>> Predestination is the concept (true or not true) that all things were
>>> decided in advance.
>>>
>>> Get your theological terms straight.
>>
>> Get an education, not Mantra.
>>
>>
>>>> The Father chooses.
>>>
>>> Nope. We choose. The choices are revealed in the judgment. The judgment
>>> determines the foreknowledge. The foreknowledge establishes the
>>> "predestination."
>>
>> Yes we all know that you are self righteous and "deserve"
>> B.S.
>>
>>
>> Jesus said that the Father chooses, oh self righteous deserving one.
>
> LOL
>
> Jesus said the Father chose because we choose.
>
> "The Father loves you BECAUSE you have loved me and believed I came out
> from Him."
A RESULT of Eph 2:8-10 and Jn 1: 8-10
Yes we all know that you are self righteous and "deserve"
>
> But such are the silly sots that only read half the Bible at a time.
>
>> Get an education and quit wasting the time of "Christians".
>
> A Christian hears the voice of Jesus, and responds accordingly.
>
> You do not.
>
> If you did, you would hear ALL that He has to say instead of picking and
> choosing verses to make the Bible say what you want it to say.
>
Yes we all know that you are self righteous and "deserve"
Yes. we all know that you are so righteous that The Father HAD to accept
you.
Yes, we all know that you DESERVE salvation because you did something.
The rest of us are saved sinners.
vernon
"john weatherly @yoo.hoo>" <johnweath<nospam> wrote in message
news:o65r829qgbngpa09k...@4ax.com...
> x-no-archive: yes
> On Mon, 12 Jun 2006 06:41:46 -0700, "vernon" <there@there> wrote:
> copyright 2006 John Weatherly; all rights reserved; no portion of
> this article may be used elsewhere without express written consent of
> the author
>>
>>"Chuck Stamford" <shell__...@cox.net> wrote in message
>>news:ARajg.93159$TK1.90173@fed1read06...
>>>
>>> <Angelin...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>> news:1150068520.0...@y43g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>>>> vernon wrote:
>>>>> Predestination does not preclude free will.
>>>>
>>
>>Yep, we are so great that we deserve salvation.
>
> I see that you are only capable of thinking in black and white
> extremes.
>
> Most see in-betweens and in color!
>
> Must it be either
>
> God Chooses!!!
>
> or
>
> MAN CHOOSES!!!
>
> (deep bass voice)
>
> I don't like your brand of Christianity, Vern! It's very much an
> "either-or" proposition for you.
Well you don't like God's either or Christianity.
Many will do miracles and say Lord, Lord and (WHAT)?
>
> You see no shades of gray, no in-between, no POSSIBILITIES.
>
> I think I'll stick with my views! They seem so much more "A Loving
> God" to me than yours!
>
> john w
>
1. The path is narrow. "The light ( very narrow) and the darkness." Yep
black or white.
2. My sheep will hear my voice.
3. NONE are righteous.
4. None come to ME except through the Father.
vernon
"Pulpitfire" <pulpi...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:128qt0d...@news.supernews.com...
> Pastor Dave wrote:
>> On Mon, 12 Jun 2006 02:54:31 -0700, "Chuck Stamford"
>> <shell__...@cox.net> spake thusly:
>>
>>
>>>> How was that their free will, if even before their birth they were
>>>> chosen to not have faith, and thus doomed before they could even take a
>>>> breath or make a decision.
>>> Predestination doesn't necessarily mean God chose people not to have
>>> faith. It means God chose one of a huge number of possible worlds to
>>> actualize, for His own good reasons, and that in that possible world
>>> that then became actual, God knew who would freely choose to trust in
>>> Him, and who would not.
>>
>> That's ridiculous! It is sad when people become so
>> desperate to hang on to their doctrine, that they don't
>> care how badly they mutilate the Bible, to make it fit
>> their doctrine! (:
>>
>> What you are citing, is "foreknowledge", not
>> predestination. Predestination does not involve,
>> "freely choosing Him".
>>
>> The Bible makes it clear that NO ONE would choose God
>> of their own accord. And in John 6:44, the word that is
>> translated into "draw", means "to drag". It is not just
>> a polite little nudge by God. It is a dragging, because
>> the person does not want to go.
>>
>> "For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish
>> foolishness..." - 1 Cor 1:18a
>>
>> "But the natural man receiveth not the things of
>> the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him:
>> neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
>> discerned." - 1 Cor 2:14
>>
>> You people contradict yourselves. You claim that
>> salvation is by God alone and not with human help.
>> Yet you want to take credit for half the work of
>> coming to Him! (:
>>
>> Predestination means just what it says and you don't
>> get to twist the Bible, to force it to fit your man made
>> doctrine!
>>
>> Predestination eliminates a free will choosing of God.
>>
>> Ephesians 1:3-5
>>
>> 3) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
>> Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings
>> in heavenly places in Christ:
>> 4) According as HE HATH CHOSEN US in him
>> BEFORE the foundation of the world, that we should
>> be holy and without blame before him in love:
>> 5) Having PREDESTINED US unto the adoption of
>> children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the
>> good pleasure of HIS WILL,
>>
>>
>>> There is presently no successful argument for God's foreknowledge
>>> determining what anyone will freely choose to do. I'll grant you the
>>> idea that it does has a strong initial intuitive appeal, but the more
>>> you actually delve into the question from a philosophical perspective,
>>> the less appealing that intuition becomes.
>>
>> Philosophical? Is that what you place above Scripture?
>> Since when are we supposed to be able to tell God what
>> would be good to do?
>>
>>
>>> Saving faith seems to be a cooperative venture
>>
>> So you are half the cause of salvation then.
>>
>> You need to pay attention to what I wrote above.
>
> In this case, Dave is stark-raving correct. Philippians 2:13 says it is
> God who works in us both to will and do of His good pleasure. This
> doesn't make us robots, it means God gives us a nature which obeys Him of
> it's own free-will. Until such time as God imparts saving faith to an
> individual, they have nothing but a fallen nature, which is capable of
> nothing but opposing that which it knows to be God's will: "Ro 8:7 Because
> the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of
> God, neither indeed can be." No unregenerate person has the capacity to
> make a favorable decision towards God, until such time as God imparts
> saving faith, a new nature, and works in them to will and do of His good
> pleasure.
>
Saul / Paul being an excellent example.
vernon
"john weatherly @yoo.hoo>" <johnweath<nospam> wrote in message
> x-no-archive: yes
> On Mon, 12 Jun 2006 13:45:24 GMT, Pastor Dave
> <_-_Anania...@gmail.com> wrote:
> copyright 2006 John Weatherly; all rights reserved; no portion of
> this article may be used elsewhere without express written consent of
> the author
>
>>
>>3) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
>>Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings
>>in heavenly places in Christ:
>>4) According as HE HATH CHOSEN US in him
>>BEFORE the foundation of the world, that we should
>>be holy and without blame before him in love:
>>5) Having PREDESTINED US unto the adoption of
>>children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the
>>good pleasure of HIS WILL,
>
>
> "... that WHOSOEVER believes on Him SHALL NOT PERISH!!!..."
RESULT, none are righteous.
> "... for God does not wish that ANY should perish! It is His will THAT
> ALL come to salvation...."
RESULT, none are righteous.
>
> I think, Dave, that you -- like many other Calvinists, blind in one
> eye, half-blind in the other -- choose your proof passages VERY
> carefully, while pretending that the others aren't in the Bible at
> all!
>
> And if it were as "black-and-white" "clear-cut" simple as you profess,
> there would not have been a controversy raging around this dilemma for
> CENTURIES!
>
>>
>>
>>>There is presently no successful argument for God's foreknowledge
>>>determining what anyone will freely choose to do.
>
> I suppose that depends on how you mean "successful."
>
> And perhaps you chose the wrong part of the wrong argument to
> underline twice.
>
>
> I'll grant you the idea
>>>that it does has a strong initial intuitive appeal, but the more you
>>>actually delve into the question from a philosophical perspective, the
>>>less
>>>appealing that intuition becomes.
>
> "Less appealing..." to who?
>
> The hard-core Calvinist?
>
>
> I personally am very proud to believe in the version of Christianity
> in which Jesus has His arms open wide to everyone on the planet.
>
> And the caption is a fragment of the verse. It says,
>
>
> "W h o s o e v e r W i l l M a y C o m e !! "
RESULT
>
>
> (sounds like a touch of free will to me)
Becasue you have been sucked in by old RCC and new pentacostal and secular
humanism teaching.
>
> Or this uncomfortable one:
>
> "Behold, I stand at the door and knock.
>
> If ANY one hears my voice, and opens the door, I WILL come in!"
>
> (this one ALSO sounds a tad like free will)
ONLY those who are Mine will here My voice.
John 12:40
>>
>>Philosophical? Is that what you place above Scripture?
>>Since when are we supposed to be able to tell God what
>>would be good to do?
>
> In our prayers?
>>
>>
>>>Saving faith seems to be a cooperative venture
>>
>>So you are half the cause of salvation then.
>>
>>You need to pay attention to what I wrote above.
>
> Perhaps YOU should pay more attention to the Bible, and less attention
> to the notes you took during Pastor Billy Bob's last sermon.
>
> Ya think?
>
> (and I am teasing you in the most gentle way)
>
> I am TRYING to say, a strong argument can be made for both sides.
>
> I prefer the side that says that if tomorrow, the light broke, and
> every person on the planet prayed the sinner's prayer sincerely, ALL
> could be saved, not just the "few who God had pre-selected."
>
> I believe He pre-selects ALL of us!
>
> My proof text?
>
> "For God loved the world SO MUCH, that He gave His One and Only Son,
> so that WHOSOEVER believed on Him, would not perish, but have
> everlasting life!
Whosoever is those whom God chose.
RESULT
>
> For God did NOT send His Son into the world to CONDEMN the world (or
> 99.99999999999999% of it), but so that the whole world could be saved
> through Him.
HIS world, not Satan's world.
A Christian is "in" the world and not "of" the world.
>
> John 3:16-17
>
> Nor do I forget (as do some), that He even lowered Himself to die on a
> cross to save such as me (and you).
The sacraficial lmb whose blood was shed for HIS, including the ones grafted
onto the vine.
>
> Wretches both of us!
>
>
> john w
>
vernon
"john weatherly @yoo.hoo>" <johnweath<nospam> wrote in message
> x-no-archive: yes
> On Mon, 12 Jun 2006 11:10:22 GMT, "Fred A Stover"
> <freds...@email.com> wrote:
> copyright 2006 John Weatherly; all rights reserved; no portion of
> this article may be used elsewhere without express written consent of
> the author
>>
>>> It is my understanding of "predestination" from Calvin's view
>>>
>>> that God chooses who will be saved. Conversely, if SOME will be saved
>>> (those God chooses), then others will not. And this selection is made
>>> before one is ever born.
>>
>>God chooses some and not others, but when is the choice made?
>
> I'm going to stop you right there. That very statement ^ ^ ^
> That very teaching, is -- to me-- a teaching straight out of the belly
> of hell.
>
> PERIOD.
>
> John 3:16
> For God so loved the WORLD that He gave His one and only Son, so that
> WHOEVER believes... shall NOT perish..."
>
> I see not one word about 'those God chooses to go to heaven..."
>
> I see "that WHOSOEVER BELIEVES will not perish.
>
>
>
Try John 12:40
AND
God hated xxxx before he / they were born/
vernon
>
> Luther didn't write these statements in "On the Jews and Their Lies" until
> 1543, and died in 1546.
>
He was just repeating his RCC teachings which began in the 4th century.
Yes, one has to be ignorant or senile to believe anything from RCC.
para...@technicianheaven.com
>>
>> And since mormonism has never "corrected" the translations of the
>> Bible, and since the language of the NT especially is so precise and
>> well-known, "as far as it is correctly translated" in reality only
>> means, "as far as a mormon likes what it says."
>>
>> Jesus referred to the OT scriptures (generally quoted verbatum from
>> the Greek Septuagint. . .and we have several complete copies of that
>> from before He was born of Mary) as God speaking through. . .
>
>This is about as old a conflict as there is in anti mormon forums, but
>to this day, it seems that the anti mormons do not stop to try and
>understand. No one here, expects anyone to change their mind, but to
>at least try to understand the point of view. Jesus did not quote more
>than a small percentage of what is in the OT, therefore, that small
>amount of words does not sanctify the entire OT.
But He DID quote from almost every book, and He DID consider the words
there to be "God speaking through. . ."
>
>Using that logic, the BOM is the Word of God, as it contains quotes
>from the Bible as given by Jesus Himself. He referred to some words, in
>some of the books that found their way into the Bible.
The truth is that smith not only copied (and often bastardized by
making changes to it) stuff from the King James Bible, but he even
copied some errors from the English translation.
Just because it is a bastardized miscopy in many places does not put
it on par with what Jesus did with the OT.
>He never did,
>and as far as I know, never has, said that the OT was perfect, and
>contained only His word. I must confess, that if I was going to believe
>any book, any scripture, was the word of the Lord, I would want to
>hear it, directly from Him. Reading within the pages of a book, a
>declaration that the book is correct, is just not something I would
>anchor my faith on. How hard is it to write a book about Jesus, and
>have Him saying that this book is my word?
You forget that the Bible is NOT one book but 66 of them bound
together under one cover.
The bom however is nothing more than stuff cobbled together by joseph
smith with NOBODY BUT SMITH able to corroborate what the text says,
and he is dead.
>
>> That's good enough for me.
>
>I respect that.
>
>Its not for me to try to change your mind. Why is it that anti mormons
>cannot respect LDS people's choices as well, but instead, must always
>attack, attack, belittle, demean, and attack again?
Probably for the same reason mormon missionaries keep coming to our
doors, telling us that joseph smith claimed his god told him that all
of our "professors" were corrupt, teaching the doctrines of men,
having a form of godliness, but no power, etc. and telling us we
should take the "smith truth test," praying about the bom until we
convince ourselves and have a "burning bosom" experience and join your
religion.
Same kind of stuff.
> I search in vain
>through the complete and final, all encompassing word of God, known as
>the Bible, for a scripture that teaches God's children to be mean
>spirited, abusive, mocking, and constantly attacking those with whom
>they disagree.
We are not mean spirited, abusive, although we do tend to mock "holy
underwear," "secret handshakes," and "little men living on the moon,
dressed somewhat like pilgrims" when we read these things written BY
YOUR RELIGIOUS GROUP.
>I do read about meekness, mild mannered teaching, long
>suffering, being an example, and treating thy fellow man as you would
>have him treat you, and
Hmm. You mean like Jesus, huh? HE sat down, braided a whip, then
supposedly (according to YOU anyway) meekly chased out the
money-changers by saying "now, now, would you mind please leaving"
very kindly? Or Jesus when he called some folks, "White-washed
sepulchers?" Or called them "brood of vipers?"
Mild and meek like that?
>I also read a commandment that says 'Love one
>another" and that by this, they will know ye are my disciples.
We DO love one another. We DO NOT love heresy, false teachers, false
prophets or false religions.
>
>If that is God's word ( I believe those are His words) how is it that
>the Bible thumping anti mormons are more concerned with bashing
>mormons, and declaring them as dumb, evil people, than they are about
>following the commandments of the Lord, found in a book that they
>swear is perfect, and includes all of God's word?
Just like the jonestown folks, the mooneys, and others who follow
false prophets. Like the smithite "Fundamentalists," Strangites," and
other mormon false prophets too, huh?
Yes, Jesus would be opposed to all of these false prophets including
smith and your current "prophet" in slc.
>
>> And when you start deciding to choose what you like and what you don't
>> like, you tread on a slippery slope.
>
>You are on the same slope, having chosen what you like, and don't like.
>Its no different.
I have chosen to obey EVERY WORD in the Bible. So far you have not
shown ONE SINGLE WORD IN THE BIBLE that I do not obey.
>
>In Matthew, the Lord states:
>
>7 Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying,
>8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me
>with their lips; but their heart is far from me.
And YOU try to "apply" that passage to everyone who disagrees with
you, don't you.
What you fail to see that this passage applies to YOUR OWN LEADERS,
and not to us. WE FOLLOW THE BIBLE.
>
>and what of this command by the Lord in the Bible:?
>
>3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but
>considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
>4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of
>thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
>5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and
>then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's
>eye.
He is talking about PERSONAL SIN, not false doctrines, false prophets,
or false gods.
We do not attack mormons as individuals for their personal sins. I
don't accuse you of adultery, fornication, being a thief, etc.
I attack the false teachings (which you apparently follow) offered by
false prophets and false teachers.
>
>The Lord doesn't seem to mind pointing out the hypocrisy in those who
>profess to follow Him, yet seem to revel in the bashing of others, and
>the mocking of their faith and decisions............
Jesus attacked false doctrines and those who taught them, the scribes,
sadducees, and pharisees. So did Paul
And that is what I attack as well.
>
>What is the point in believing one has the infallible word of the
>creator of the universe, and then rather than live it, chooses to go
>out and violate some of its most basic commandments?
That is part of your false assumption. We Christians do NOT "go out
and violate some of its most basic commandments." Some who CLAIM to
be Christians do (JUST as some who CLAIM to be mormons violate some of
mormonisms most basic commandments and teachings), but Christians do
not.
>It is amazing, the
>weakness of all men, (me included) that they can hold in one hand,
>what they firmly believe is the word of Almighty God, and then not obey
>it.
Are you accusing me of not obeying what the Bible says I should do?
If so, what? Please SHOW ME so that I may change if that is true.
>
>No one who is being bloodied about the head and shoulders is going to
>respect or consider the position of the person beating them, who
>claims to be on God's side.
Sometimes you have to destroy the walls of the false before you can
build on a new foundation of TRUTH.
One lady I know, a fifth generation mormon was offered a tape by Dr.
Walter Martin by her lady-friend (a friend of my wife's). She was
FURIOUS when she found out that Martin was not a mormon and that the
content of the tape slammed the mormon religion badly, and she
determined to "prove him wrong if it took her forever." After about 6
months she had left the mormon religion and had become a Christian
instead. She now worships at a Baptist church.
>If its just about bashing and being abusive
>for the thrill of it, not much anyone can do about that, but when it
>comes from someone who is reigning down punishment and venomous
>attacks, all the while shouting "I have the word of God, dammit, you
>are so freaking stupid, and wrong, it sickens me!!" well, there is not
>going to be much of a desire to listen, or give back any respect.......
>:-)
Only wackos do that. We Christians do not do that. I would hope you
mormons would not do that either.
We can disagree, but we can do so agreeably.
parakaleo
singlew...@gmail.com
> The truth is that smith not only copied (and often bastardized by
> making changes to it) stuff from the King James Bible, but he even
> copied some errors from the English translation.
>
Well, we almost had a useful, nearly friendly exchange going there for
a while, so hey, we gave it a shot :-)
The mere fact that you shut down all conversation with indefensible
comments that start with "the truth is" makes it impossible for any
give and take, or sharing of opinions. You seem to think that what you
just wrote is all about your hatred of the church, but it is about how
much you hate the people as well, and hardly moves the topic towards
anything more than an ugly reply.
One person decides that the church is false, and you think that means
you are right, and others are wrong? That is stupid. People quit their
churches, and abandon their faith every day. That is not a reflection
on the doctrine of whatever church or belief system they belong to. Its
just one person making a choice.
I am probably gonna have to repeat the disclaimer, as I am not a true
member of the LDS Church anymore. I do not attend, I do not have any
contact with it in any manner. I am not interested in it anymore. I
have told this many times, so you offend me not at all when you accuse
me of being a mormon. It does offend me tho, that you refuse to listen
when I tell you that I am not :-) I am not here as a brother in Christ,
trying to convert people to Him. I am not under the same law as you
are from Him, as you claim to be trying to teach people about the true
gospel, so you are going to have to put away your wip, and teach the
Gospel the way that the Lord commands you to do. He never told you to
go and beat people, and belittle them. Any and all of His commandments
to his disciples are clearly about meekness, long suffering, and the
true love of Christ.
You do not treat people here with the love of Christ, you attack them,
and belittle them, just like this post that I didn't bother to quote.
You fail to see what the Lord taught. You think that one very minor
outburst in HisTemple, in direct violation of His law, justifies you
going about and whipping everyone with your own viewpoints and words.
That is just wrong if your intentions are to change people's minds,
and get them to see whom you consider to be the Lord, and I doubt very
much that he would approve of your comments, and your attitude towards
me, and so many others. If you are just here to fight, and get a good
time dissin people with impunity, that is different. Go for it, no one
can stop you. If you are hear to represent the Lord, maybe take a look
in the mirror?
I will tell you one thing that did initially draw me to check out the
LDS church a long time ago. They were nice. They were friendly. They
did not mock my present beliefs. when I told them what I had been
taught, they did not go off the deep end, and declare me to be an idiot
for believing that. They spoke in normal tones, and they had a
reasonable answer to every question I had to ask. That got my attention
in a hurry.
If you and many others here were truly interested in getting people to
'come to your church' you would do better to present yourself, and
your beliefs, and let others make their minds up. No one reacts
positively to being put down, and accused of being stupid, and having
been duped. I know that you know this to be true, and it eludes me
sometimes why you profess to be trying to show people the error of
their ways, by calling them idiots, or some other derogatory term,
rather than offering something better. You cannot convince anyone by
just saying you are right, you have to put forth something to make them
want to learn what you know.
Go out and wack a dog upside the head, and then call it over to you
because you want to help it. Won't work.
I have said it before, and no one took the challenge. I am not
associate with the LDS church. What do you have that I should want? I
have questions, and you folks don't have the answers, so why would I
follow you? (I know, I have to follow the Lord, but you know what I
mean <g>)
Besides, you have to be able to prove your beliefs, more than you have
to disprove their beliefs, and so far, I have not seen any proof of
your beliefs. I have seen others put forth their beliefs, but it is
not hard to use the Bible to discredit those beliefs. Most anti mormons
who want mormons to quit, don't even really know why the believe the
Bible, other than "because it says so in the Bible" I do not believe
you can use the words of the Bible, to show it to be His word.
Sorry, I really thought we were at least sort of getting along. Your
last post kind of show a venemous attitude that cannot be worthy of
the time it would take to refute and reply to each point.
Its usually easier to keep it to one topic, one concept, one doctrine,
get it squared away, and then pick another one. The posts tend to grow
in size, and become unmanageable, and time is short for all of us.
Mark
para...@technicianheaven.com
So you don't like the Apostle Paul, huh? What other parts of the
Bible do you think are wrong?
So what religion ARE YOU, icky? Certainly not any Christian faith I
have ever seen, to reject the Apostle Paul so badly.
I am really curious.
What religion ARE YOU? Or are you too ashamed to admit that you are a
"loner" with nobody else who would agree with you or claim you?
Just curious.
parakaleo
H.E. Eickleberry, Jr.
[snip]
> Try John 12:40
> AND
> God hated xxxx before he / they were born/
And God hated arbitrarily?
My, you do think evil of God.
God hated because He already saw what Esau and his descendants would do (and
do to this very day). However, Paul doesn't deal with the "because" in this
passage--just the result.
Ike
H.E. Eickleberry, Jr.
And even MORE ignorant and senile to believe anything from you.
Ike
H.E. Eickleberry, Jr.
news:1150228012.4...@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
There are four (at least) episodes in Jesus' life that were contingent upon
a three-dimensional concept of time.
Here is one of them.
From "The Character Map," copyright 2005 VirtualBookworm Publishing
******************************************************************
Jesus vs. Pharisees
Jesus posed a mysterious question to the Pharisees, as stated in Matthew
22:41-46 et al.:
"While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a
question, saying, 'What do you think concerning Christ? Whose son is He?'
"They said unto Him, 'The Son of David!'
"Then He asked them, 'Why, then, does David, in spirit, call Him Lord,
saying, 'The LORD said unto my Lord, 'You sit at my right hand until I make
your enemies your footstool?' If David then called Him Lord, how is He his
son?'
"And no man was able to answer Him a word, nor did any man ask Him any
more questions from that day forth."
Jesus, fully intending to shut up the Pharisees once and for all, posed this
unusual question to them, which He derived from His own knowledge of Psalm
110: If Christ is Lord, and David is lord, how could it be that Christ
called David lord, while, at the same time, David called Christ Lord.
If the prophesied Christ is the son of David, and David came before the
Christ, then how could Christ be there before David for the lord David to
call Christ the Lord?
This question can blow more than a few mental microchips, so let me rephrase
it: Who came first, David or Christ?
Though the Pharisees could not answer this simple question, we can because
we have insider information: David was Jesus' lord because David came before
Jesus and held the throne of God before Jesus arrived on the scene; but
Jesus, raised eternal, is not subject to temporal time, and He held the
throne of God before He lent it to David, for, as we discussed earlier, all
the thrones of this world belong to the Lord.
Hence, Jesus always was David's Lord, though David is lord over Jesus. David
came first temporally, but Jesus came first eternally, i.e. the last became
first and the first became last. Hence, Jesus is both the root and the
offspring of David. [Rev 22:16]
******************************************************************
> If you can substantiate your perspective using the
> words of the Bible, I would be impressed for I have never heard such
> an explanation.
Not to be trite, but I wrote a 285-page book about it, going through all the
details would be redundant.
However, John lays out a grid in reference to three-dimensional time.
Beginning and Ending = time in a line.
First and Last = time in cycles.
Alpha and Omega = non-linear access to time.
One of Jesus' favorite countermeasures against the Pharisees, Sadducees, and
Herodians was tripping them up with time related issues, like saying "before
Abraham was, I AM," declaring that 1) He existed before Abraham even though
He came after Abraham, and 2) He was the Lord whom Abraham knew, the Great I
AM.
> Although I have not been in ever church, in every
> state, in every denomination, I have been around, and never heard
> anything quite like it.
I shouldn't be surprised--there is a lot of prophetic information in the
Bible that is simply glossed over because it puts a kink in people's pet
theologies, (like the argument between free will and predestiny, when, in
fact, both concepts are true).
> Either way, as I said, I appreciate reading your pov.
>
> However, I am still left with a paradox, based on the assumption that
> God knows the beginning from the end, and that at some point, in the
> existence of God, I was not a part of it. Then God created me. At that
> point, He would already know my destiny.
Right, but He can't say anything about it except in prophetic glimpses, or
you wouldn't make the decisions you do.
> God created two destinations,
> heaven and hell. Then he created "100" people At the end of time,
> whenever that is, or was :-) 50 will be burning in eternal torment and
> torture, and 50 will be living with God, apparently blissfully happy,
> forever. I am not able to see why that is not an example of creating
> something that you know full well is going to suffer for eternity.
Because there is no character without contrasts. One cannot know hot without
cold. One cannot know wet without dry. And one cannot learn love without
experiencing hate, and disdaining it. Hence, the "two-tree" proposition is
necessary.
The unfortunate byproduct is that it leaves us with a 50/50 (or worse)
proposition. The downside has to exist to create the upside.
But there is no excuse--everyone has been, is, or will be told. Hence, we
are saddled with personal responsibility.
> Why create something that you know is going to hell? What is the point?
So that there can be those who go to heaven.
> I could live without your comment about the LDS church being a cult,
> but I only threw it out there not to make anyone accept or buy into it,
> but to point out that IF there were degrees of rewards, and IF there
> really was no hell, as the LDS church teaches, (except for those who
> deny the holy ghost, but we don't need to dispute the details), IF God
> created all things, and when all was said and done, all things were
> rewarded in some manner, then within that, I can see a loving and
> caring God. Lacking a 'reward' of some kind for ALL of His creations,
> I would put forth that He is rather vindictive and mean towards some of
> his children.
1) Not everyone is His child.
2) "The Lord is willing that all would come to repentance." God WANTS
everyone to come on over, but He can't make them do it--that violates
choice, and choice is required to create the concept of love (and the
corollary, hate).
> On the other hand, note that I assumed this position, based on what I
> was taught in my long lost, younger days <g>, and do not believe this
> to be true, but it is a very large reason why I think mainstream
> chrisitanity is based on an incorrect doctrine, and a house built on
> the sand, cannot stand against the storm, neither can you get good
> fruit, from a sick tree.
>
> Much obliged for you time and effort.
Not a problem.
A LOT of people are disturbed by the idea that God can be both "man of war"
AND "love," but omnipotence REQUIRES that God be in charge of both, or you
are looking at two gods (a popular religious myth that even appears in
Gnosticism), but that just ain't so.
In fact, see the "tree" in my sig. below?
That is an outline of character as disbursed throughout the prophecies.
In order for God to finally bring all things into order, that tree has to be
completely balanced, and the only way to do that is to throw out anything
(or anyone) who brings disorder to the balance. (And we can't do it--only
God can, for how can the creature being judged have any judgment?)
Which, of course, brings us right back to the "two-tree" analogy that runs
from Genesis to Revelation.
H.E. Eickleberry, Jr.
news:gDFjg.54982$qd2....@bignews6.bellsouth.net...
Nevermind Jude--a butterfly kicked him in the head and he hasn't been right
since.
Ike
H.E. Eickleberry, Jr.
news:gcru82d2ov27h2703...@4ax.com...
Okay folks, notice the unmarked snip and the failure to address the issues.
Paul said "we are saved by grace through faith, and that not of yourselves
that any man should boast," then turned around and boasted "I have kept the
faith."
The problem isn't Paul: He dealt with the paradoxes as best he could.
The problem is you. YOU can't perceive the dualities (and even triunisms)
presented in the texts when they are ALL compared (and not selective chosen
to reinforce one lop-sided notion).
> So what religion ARE YOU, icky? Certainly not any Christian faith I
> have ever seen, to reject the Apostle Paul so badly.
I never rejected Paul.
You don't understand Paul (and not much else of the Bible either).
I get along with Paul just fine.
You, on the other hand, look right past his statements when you can factor
them into your erroneous theology.
> I am really curious.
>
> What religion ARE YOU?
I am a Lutheran.
Or are you too ashamed to admit that you are a
> "loner" with nobody else who would agree with you or claim you?
Oh, and this from the bullshit artist that wouldn't put up a reference to
her church's or church organizations website so we could all find out she
was full of crap about her 19th century cultic eschatology.
Your such a clueless hypocrite.
Oh, and hey, how about the patently false statement about me "making up"
stuff from Exodus?
Did you go check it?
Of course not--God forbid you be proven wrong yet AGAIN, right?
vernon
> "vernon" <there@there> wrote in message
> news:448f32c0$0$28046$8826...@news-taz.teranews.com...
>
> [snip]
>
>> Try John 12:40
>> AND
>> God hated xxxx before he / they were born/
>
> And God hated arbitrarily?
So. YOU think it is arbitrarily.
O.K.
> My, you do think evil of God.
>
> God hated because He already saw what Esau and his descendants would do
> (and do to this very day). However, Paul doesn't deal with the "because"
> in this passage--just the result.
>
> Ike
>
Thank you for showing yourself to fit John 12:40.
That arbitrary God at work.
vernon
>> Yes, one has to be ignorant or senile to believe anything from RCC.
>
> And even MORE ignorant and senile to believe anything from you.
>
> Ike
>
That's a compliment coming from a self righteous person, who ACTUALLY think
he had a part in the grace of God.
Thank you very much.
vernon
Show where Paul "opted" to follow Jesus.
vernon
Time is a man made or needed crutch.
H.E. Eickleberry, Jr.
LOL
Now THAT'S the dumbest statement I've heard one make in a long time.
Time is a physical property of the temporal universe, but ONLY the temporal
universe--that which is eternal can enter or leave the temporality at any
point. (Hence, Daniel's "River of Life" (Chadekel river) analogy.)
That is the basis of Jesus' "I AM" statement, having come after Abraham, but
existing before Abraham.
The same with Jesus "My Lord said unto my lord" question. David was father
of Christ, but Christ was Father of David.
Or Jesus' "Fox" simile in which He lays out the non-linear sequence of
events between His death and resurrection.
And so on, and so forth.
Jesus steps out where He wants, and steps back in where He wants, beginning,
middle, or end.
Ike
singlew...@gmail.com
> This question can blow more than a few mental microchips, so let me rephrase
> it: Who came first, David or Christ?
> Though the Pharisees could not answer this simple question, we can because
> we have insider information:
Where did you come up with "insider information?"
The Pharisees did not believe that he was God. He told them that he
was "I AM" the God who spoke to Abraham. That is not a trick question,
requiring any special insider information.
Anyone who would accept Him as God, would know that He came before
Abraham. Not believing Him, they would say that Abraham came first,
because the figured that Jesus had only recently been born. Sorry,
that one is too easy to use for an example :-)
Keep going......
>
> I shouldn't be surprised--there is a lot of prophetic information in the
> Bible that is simply glossed over because it puts a kink in people's pet
> theologies, (like the argument between free will and predestiny, when, in
> fact, both concepts are true).
Yes, and I am not sure you have the answer to most of the either, but
keep going <g>
What religion do you subscribe to?
> > However, I am still left with a paradox, based on the assumption that
> > God knows the beginning from the end, and that at some point, in the
> > existence of God, I was not a part of it. Then God created me. At that
> > point, He would already know my destiny.
>
> Right, but He can't say anything about it except in prophetic glimpses, or
> you wouldn't make the decisions you do.
>
But that still does not explain a self declared loving, caring God,
creating creatures that He knows He will be sending to Hell. He may
well know that they will fail, but what could possibly be the reason
for such devestating punishment for someone He created.I think you
should back away from your points for just a moment, and keep it a bit
simpler, as I don't subscribe to your theology, and so I can't seem to
get an answer from you :-) I am happy to read it, and ponder it, but I
am still wanting to know why God would make someone, only to destroy
them.
I don't really apply these words to God, as I am working from a
presumptive pov, but that sounds sadistic, like someone who buys a dog,
trains it, and when it does not follow the letter of the law, he wips
it, beats, it, and bashes it head in so it lives in fear and torment
for the rest of its time. In our society, such a person goes to prison,
rightfully so. God gets a free pass for doing the same thing with some
of us, ......why?
> > God created two destinations,
> > heaven and hell. Then he created "100" people At the end of time,
> > whenever that is, or was :-) 50 will be burning in eternal torment and
> > torture, and 50 will be living with God, apparently blissfully happy,
> > forever. I am not able to see why that is not an example of creating
> > something that you know full well is going to suffer for eternity.
>
> Because there is no character without contrasts. One cannot know hot without
> cold. One cannot know wet without dry. And one cannot learn love without
> experiencing hate, and disdaining it. Hence, the "two-tree" proposition is
> necessary.
>
I am sorry. That is not an answer. Its possible I am just not posing
the question correctly.
You are just talking about good vs evil, and that is irrelevant to
what I am trying to understand
At this point, its not a matter of 'what is sin' or what did Adam and
Eve do in the garden, nor is it really an issue of time. I can see what
you have concluded, but it does not address the notion that the creator
of all things, creates, and then punishes on purpose. After all, that
is His plan. He has created countless billions and seems to have no
problem making more, event tho He knows many will suffer forever.
> The unfortunate byproduct is that it leaves us with a 50/50 (or worse)
> proposition. The downside has to exist to create the upside.
Why could God not make it so that even those who did not live up to His
expectations, at least find a bit of happiness and comfort for
eternity. Why would a loving, caring Father make "half" His children
burn in torment?
>
> But there is no excuse--everyone has been, is, or will be told. Hence, we
> are saddled with personal responsibility.
What about people who died who never heard of Jesus Christ. How will
they be told? What about little children who die soon after birth? What
about the totally handicapped who cannot begin to fathom the teachings
of the Gospel, much less the concepts that you subscribe to?
>
> > Why create something that you know is going to hell? What is the point?
>
> So that there can be those who go to heaven.
So in order for you to go to heaven, it is requisite that I burn in
hell, and that is fair and reasonable? That would mean that if I wanted
to go to heaven, it could only happen if others go to hell? God made
some to go to hell, so others could live in glory with Him forever?
C'mon. No way.... I could not live for eternity knowing that in order
for me to be happy, someone suffers unquenchable fire and burning.
>
>
> 1) Not everyone is His child.
Excuse me?
>
> 2) "The Lord is willing that all would come to repentance." God WANTS
> everyone to come on over, but He can't make them do it--that violates
> choice, and choice is required to create the concept of love (and the
> corollary, hate).
>
Let's visit that some other time, okay? :-)
>
> A LOT of people are disturbed by the idea that God can be both "man of war"
> AND "love," but omnipotence REQUIRES that God be in charge of both, or you
> are looking at two gods (a popular religious myth that even appears in
> Gnosticism), but that just ain't so.
And again, that does nothing to clarify an explanation to the question
of why God creates, with the express purpose of destroying. That sounds
vindictive, and cruel. Again, a titanic reward for those who choose
Him, but a complete and utter destruction forever, for those who are
decent, but just don't measure up? I cannot accept that notion.
> Which, of course, brings us right back to the "two-tree" analogy that runs
> from Genesis to Revelation.
As we say here in ARM, Bible references, please. No Bible references,
and it simply isn't true.
Thanks for you time and patience :-)
Mark
H.E. Eickleberry, Jr.
"It is hard for you to kick against the pricks."
Jesus was on Paul's case all along, earnestly getting his attention. Again,
Jesus couldn't violate will. In Paul's case, Jesus just knocked a little
harder, needing Paul to present the inside testimony that only Paul could
provide.
Ike
Fred A Stover
news:jutr82p0its6loa8e...@4ax.com...
> x-no-archive: yes
> On Mon, 12 Jun 2006 11:10:22 GMT, "Fred A Stover"
> <freds...@email.com> wrote:
> copyright 2006 John Weatherly; all rights reserved; no portion of
> this article may be used elsewhere without express written consent of
> the author
> >
> >"john weatherly @yoo.hoo>" <johnweath<nospam> wrote in message
> >news:rrfq82he2pkgvg99i...@4ax.com...
> >> It is my understanding of "predestination" from Calvin's view
> >>
> >> that God chooses who will be saved. Conversely, if SOME will be saved
> >> (those God chooses), then others will not. And this selection is made
> >> before one is ever born.
> >
> >God chooses some and not others, but when is the choice made?
>
> I'm going to stop you right there. That very statement ^ ^ ^
> That very teaching, is -- to me-- a teaching straight out of the belly
> of hell.
>
> PERIOD.
You're being ridiculous. He makes the choice at the end: "he that endureth
to the end shall be saved." (Matt 10:22): "whosoever was not found written
in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire" (Rev. 20:15).
> John 3:16
> For God so loved the WORLD that He gave His one and only Son, so that
> WHOEVER believes... shall NOT perish..."
>
> I see not one word about 'those God chooses to go to heaven..."
>
> I see "that WHOSOEVER BELIEVES will not perish.
They don't perish because He chose them?
> I remember
> >something Calvin wrote that seems to contradict many Calvinists. Calvin
> >wrote that God reaches out to all but only grasps his predestined elect.
> >This differs from what many Calvinists say, for they say he only reaches
out
> >to grasp his elect which is predestined. Calvin's statement that God
reaches
> >out to all, precludes any decision beforehand or he wouldn't be reaching
out
> >to all. In scripture who is elect is a matter of foreknowledge: "Elect
> >according to the foreknowledge of God " (1 Pet. 1:2), and what is
> >predestined is that the elect will be conformed to the image of his son:
> >"For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to
the
> >image of his Son" (Rom 8:29).
>
> And I know that you have had that pumped into your head since you were
> a tadpole, and so you pretend to understand it, and it "makes some
> sort of sense to you."
Are you thinking in the wrong box? It is the scriptures I cited which say
that election is a matter of foreknowledge, and that it is predestined that
the church elect will be conformed to the image of His Son.
>
> But for the MANY I've discussed this with who have not been born into
> this teaching,
>
>
> it's gobble de gook!
>
> plain and simple!
>
> You are NOT giving me "The Word of God..."
>
> You are giving me YOUR UNDERSTANDING of the Word of God.
>
I cited the verses. They are His word, perhaps you might try understanding
them.
> And I don't understand it the way you do!
>
> Of course, I was raised in the home of a pastor's daughter, and we
> were taught-- and learned-- that anyone who heard the gospel and
> responded to that gospel COULD BE SAVED.
So why do you have a problem understanding it?
>
> That is NOT what John Calvin taught, no matter how much YOU choose to
> rationalize.
When He said God reaches out to all, that didn't mean God reaches out to
all?
If not, explain why not.
When he said God only grasps His elect, that doesn't mean he doesn't grasp
everyone?
If not, explain why not.
>
> AND...
>
> Kindly do not quote the KJV to me. If you can't use a modern
> translation, we'll stop right here.
You're going to hold your breath until I stop using the version I prefer?
Why would I use a modern version with much prophecy translated out of it?.
>
> I am one of MANY who don't read the KJV. (and the translators and the
> book printers have made a small / large FORTUNE printing and
> translating modern versions because so many don't read or don't LIKE
> the KJV.
When they render both the literal wording and the Author's literary style
into English, let me know.
>
> I am one of them.
>
> john w
>
--
http://stores.ebay.com/fasTrack-on-the-Bay_W0QQssPageNameZl2QQtZkm
Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as
a little child, he shall not enter therein. (Mark 10:15)
"Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his
servants the prophets" (Amos 3:7)."
"Behold, I will send you EL YH [LORD God] the prophet before the coming of
the great and dreadful day of the Lord" (Mal 4:5)
"Why then say the scribes that ELYH [Elijah] must first come" (Matt 17:10)?
"For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery,
lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is
happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in" (Rom
11:25).