Calling All Calvinist/Reformed Christians!

[dcyates]

How do Calvinists interpret texts like 2 Kings 20.1-6, Jeremiah 3.6-7, and 18.7-10 (just for a few examples) in light of their "classical" position regarding God's perfect and complete foreknowledge?

 

[Clare73]

How do Calvinists interpret texts like 2 Kings 20.1-6, Jeremiah 3.6-7, and 18.7-10 (just for a few examples) in light of their "classical" position regarding God's perfect and complete foreknowledge?

Hold on!

The Cavalry is coming!

In the faith,
Clare

 

[dcyates]

Hold on!

The Cavalry is coming!

In the faith,
Clare

Thanks. Apparently I'm in desperate need of rescuing.

 

[Rescued One]

Why are you asking in Unorthodox Theology?


2 Kings 20:1-6, "You shall die and not live...I will add 15 years to your life." | Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry


I'm not sure what your question is regarding Jeremiah 3:6-7.

 

[strangertoo]

2 Ki 20:1 In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live.

Dunno that God has any '-ists' and '-isms' , He seems to be ONE to me , and Jesus takes his few saints from here and there all over when he comes , not a group beforegand in one place in this world [because of the tasks Jesus set saints of God -which few do - Matt 7:14, Rev 13:4-8,Jude 1:14 ]

but I can see that all God said is that Hezekiah would die , not be taken in translation like Enoch ... which spurred him into action which saved his life A LITTLE LONGER, but he did die eventually ...

Hebrews 11:5 By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.

 

[strangertoo]

Why are you asking in Unorthodox Theology?


2 Kings 20:1-6, "You shall die and not live...I will add 15 years to your life." | Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry


I'm not sure what your question is regarding Jeremiah 3:6-7.

Jeremiah 3:7 And I said after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me. But she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it.

It would seem the reference is to the House of Israel not returning to worship of God yet [by Jeremiah's time]:-

Deuteronomy 28:64 And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone.

yet the NEW covenant given by Jeremiah to 'those whose fathers broke the old covenant', the Jews and the House of Israel ,as it says, says they WERE rejected and yet now are accepted [Jer 31:31-34, repeated in the NT- Heb 8:8-12]

so there is no paradox here only the fact that the 'anointed' king of re-united Israel [ 'Christ' from the Greek, 'Messiah' from the Hebrew] does not fully re-unite Israel as the nation of king-priests, the royal priesthood of the kingdom of Jesus [1Pet 2:9-10]come to all men, until the new earth, just a remnant for now, 144,000 saints , most living AS GENTILES since the House of Israel was scattered long before the 'Jews' [House of Judah] were

John 18:36 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world

Revelation 5:10 And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.

2 Peter 3:13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

Exodus 19:6 And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.

NOTE: the Jews mostly reject both Jesus as Messiah and the House of Israel [as idolaters] ... but the House of Israel finally 'come out' from amongst the gentiles to convince the Jews [so many ironies, so many lies sourced from hurt egos in authoritarian religion of men's countless various traditions of men that simply cannot be ONE Truth of God]:-

Isaiah 7:8 For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people.

Deuteronomy 32:21 They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.


1 Peter 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:
10 Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.


Jer 31:31 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:
33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD,I will put my law in their inward parts,[NOTE: c.f. John 16:13] and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

So much clearer if one READS CAREFULLY every word of God BEFORE deciding prematurely on FAITH in the grossly divided traditions of sinners under Satan...

1 John 3:8 He that committeth sin is of the devil...

and if one Loves, instead of remaining a sinner, then God will confirm all Truth of God Himself, as Jesus promises [John 16:13] and the new covenant states [Heb 8:10-11] ...also John 14:16-16:7

2 Timothy 2:19 Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure
having this seal:

The Lord knoweth them that are his.

And:
Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.

blessings for obeying God and Loving, not abusing with sin any longer

 

[dcyates]

Why are you asking in Unorthodox Theology?

Only because I was told to.

2 Kings 20:1-6, "You shall die and not live...I will add 15 years to your life." | Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry

God foreordained that he would change his mind here?!? Does that honestly sound logical to you (or anybody)? Furthermore, if God foreknew that he was going to change his mind concerning Hezekiah's death, doesn't that show considerable cruelty on his part?
God: "Get your affairs in order, fella, because you are definitely going to die -- and soon."
Hezekiah ("weeping bitterly"): "What?!? Please, no! I've been good! I've faithfully served you!"
God: "Just kidding."

I'm not sure what your question is regarding Jeremiah 3:6-7.

Notice that God "thought" one thing was going to happen, but it didn't ("I thought, 'After she has done these things, she will return to me'; but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it").

What does this imply? What does it mean?

(And don't forget Jer 18.7-10.)

 

[strangertoo]

What does this imply? What does it mean?

(And don't forget Jer 18.7-10.)

[/quote]

I think I finally worked out what this thread is about maybe [LOL?] :-

Malachi 3:6 For I am the LORD, I change not

yet God says He can change what happens if and when men change...

It CAN seem like a paradox ...

until one realises that God is time-less , which makes it impossible for God as spirit to change ...

but equally means that God knows everything at any time ... including all the changes that life is about...

so what we see and talk about as changes are just an inevitable 'timeline' , completely fixed to God and only seeming to be cause and effect to us because we hardly understand what time is ...

I think I began to understand this only when I started getting bored waiting for folks to catch up with accepting what has been known and written down for millennia... the only problems being that men can lie and so they do, even to themselves, even about God ... so it can come to seem that we don't know because we even unlearn oiur conscience which tried to tell us how to all be happy in life... [LOL?]

 

[Clare73]

How do Calvinists interpret texts like 2 Kings 20.1-6, Jeremiah 3.6-7, and 18.7-10 (just for a few examples) in light of their "classical" position regarding God's perfect and complete foreknowledge?

It seems the Cavalry has been detained.

Could not all of these situations have been just as God planned them to be
in order to make his power and glory known (Ro 9:17)?

Jer 18:7-10 is what is meant by "God changing his mind."
We see there that his mind to punish the unrepentant and to forgive the repentant does not change,
only his way changes in accordance with his mind.

In the faith,
Clare

 

[Rescued One]

God foreordained that he would change his mind here?!? Does that honestly sound logical to you (or anybody)?

God doesn't really change His mind. He has always declared that wickedness brings punishment and repentance brings mercy. He is just and doesn't allow wickedness to go unpunished.

"Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:"
Exodus 19:5

He changes the hearts of people who have previously been under Satan's power.

25In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;
26And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
2 Timothy 2:25-26

He said that He would purify for Himself a people zealous of good works.

"...purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works."
Titus 2:14

 

[Rescued One]

It seems the Cavalry has been detained.

Could not all of these situations have been just as God planned them to be
in order to make his power and glory known (Ro 9:17)?

Jer 18:7-10 is what is meant by "God changing his mind."
We see there that his mind to punish the unrepentant and to forgive the repentant does not change,
only his way changes in accordance with his mind.

In the faith,
Clare

 

[strangertoo]

sin, by its essence, has nasty consequences ... that is what makes it evil to men... God allows that to turn men against sin 'automatically' in time... men provide the trial for saints by their sins against God's own few [even in mass religion sinners attack the saints and kill them after false witness against them] ...

God really doesn't have to actively 'punish' the wicked in the way men punish one another to wield power by fear, as 'evil' is only evil because it is more destructive by far than 'Love' , so evil punishes itself in the end... capitalism cares bot for the earth or life on it, and so destroys nature on which men depend ,that is only evil because men then suffer because life on earth fails and later man has no food from nature, so we starve in billions instead of the 50,000 a day which most men , except God's few saints, ignore today...
later, in the kingdom come, God removes the least evil of men by translation to spirit at 'judgement day', leaving the hard-line leaders to make each others lives a misery with their wicked devices by which they raped this earth and robbed the poor before... the 'lake of fire' is simply the trial of their way, poetic justice,again God does not need to do anything active, the wicked punish each other by their sins against one another once God has removed the 'easy prey' ,the meek and mild of this earth , saved first so that the evil could learn too that God is RIGHT, Love is the only way for men to all live happily together [but it needs every single man to Love for God to be satisfied with His creation, for him to have shown he is the God of Love of all men... thus God needs not punish men at all, His plan does that for him,men learn about evil by suffering from it, it drives men to try Love and find out it really is a better choice for each and every man than sin... that is what make things into sins, they are more harmful than Love... there is always a better way than every sin.... better for each, better for all....

Psalms 10:2 The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor: let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined.

Psalms 37:7 Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.

 

[Look Up]

God foreordained that he would change his mind here?!? [WRT 2 Kings 20:1-6] Does that honestly sound logical to you (or anybody)? Furthermore, if God foreknew that he was going to change his mind concerning Hezekiah's death, doesn't that show considerable cruelty on his part?
God: "Get your affairs in order, fella, because you are definitely going to die -- and soon."
Hezekiah ("weeping bitterly"): "What?!? Please, no! I've been good! I've faithfully served you!"
God: "Just kidding."

First, I agree the Christian reader (as the OT readers at the time of Scripture authorship) should take the reactions of God to human behavior at face value. God does act differently toward human beings with respect to the way He would have acted if the human behavior were other than what it was.

But as a Calvinist, I also believe the Scripture presents God as knowing all things in advance, indeed as foreordaining (or predestining) all things (with the usual and perhaps unusual Scripture proof texts with which I presume you are sufficiently familiar--messianic prophecy such as concerning Jesus' betrayal among them), yes, and that God is holy and righteous.

So the question becomes one of reconciling or harmonizing apparently contrary Scriptural ideas. This exercise entails what I would call systematic theology, among other disciplines. And logic is part of systematic theology.

(P.S. I have had my frustrations with systematic theology, even with Calvinist systematic theology, apparently or in fact going to unwarranted places, but that does not mean I dismiss all systematic theology ... which I do not, nor believe anyone entirely can.)

What I think at this point might be helpful, though, is your further clarification as to how you would respond to the question, "Does God foreknow His own reactions?"

I am perhaps especially curious as to what you believe about divine foreknowledge. My apologies if you have already made that clear elsewhere on this forum; I am at present unaware of it if it exists.

Meanwhile, you either claim it is illogical or otherwise reject as untenable and indeed also as cruel the notion that "God foreknew [a sentence before seems to imply you also mean "foreordained"--yes?] that he [God] was going to change his mind concerning Hezekiah's death."

Somehow this seems close to a crux of your argument. God did not know (?) that Hezekiah would plead for his life. If God had known, He was playing the celestial cat toying with a Hezekiah-mouse within reach of divine claws--though you may not be pleased with all possible implications of the metaphor.

Of course after admitting my belief that one ought to take the reactions of God seriously, I may not be the ideal representative of the position against which you are arguing, but I may be sufficiently representative to respond first that I am sometimes (as here) skeptical of claims as to what God must be or not be like. I am unconvinced God could not have foreordained His own reaction to Hezekiah's plea, not to mention Hezekiah's plea itself and His own declaration of Hezekiah's pending death before that.

You will find my claim unsatisfying, but it stimulates my sincere counter-question, "Why not?"

Why must God be illogical to have foreknown or foreordained His own reactions? Whether or not it "sounds" logical, what does the Scripture say about God?

Does Scripture claim both that God reacts to human behavior AND that God foreknew and foreordained human behavior (unless you wanted to stick to one of the two--either foreknow or foreordain)? Is it premature to harmonize Scripture by claiming divine foreordination of reaction "sounds" illogical?

Do we, in fact, entirely understand divine causality? Divine nature?

"He [God] turned their [Egyptian] hearts to hate His people ... " Psalms 105:25

"... I [God] set every man against his neighbor" Zech. 8:10

"If the mighty works done in [Chorazin and Bethsaida] had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented ..." Matt. 11:21

"It has been granted you that for the sake of Christ you should not only to believe in him but also suffer for his sake" Phil. 1:29.

"For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things" Rom. 11:36.

Similarly, why must God be cruel in the scenario argument you have outlined above? Could one not argue Hezekiah's distress (at hearing the news he was about to die) stemmed in part from his own lack of trust in and acceptance of Providence? Or that Hezekiah lacked faith, but God meant Hezekiah's distress for his own good as well as God's glory?

It may be that my response here foreshadows our irreconcilable and divergent opinions, or that greater profit may be had in phasing into related concepts such as more broadly the divine sovereignty/human responsibility or free will debate ... or into theodicy issues or both (although my own hindrances to discussion such as ill health continue).

Aslan is not a tame lion, but He is good.

 

[dcyates]

I think I finally worked out what this thread is about maybe [LOL?] :-

Malachi 3:6 For I am the LORD, I change not

But strangertoo, what does the rest of this verse say? The verses preceding v. 6 speak of God bringing his judgement against the people of Israel. But then God clarifies the situation: "But because I, YHWH, do not change, you sons of Jacob will not be destroyed."
So what's being communicated here? That God never ontologically changes? Or, that he's not fickle; that he will keep his covenant promises to Israel? As the following verses testify, God is telling his people to return to a proper relationship with him and, in turn, he will bless them.
In point of fact, all the verses where God declares that he doesn't change have to do with how, despite his people constantly disobeying him and failing to live up to their side of the covenant, he is not like them and is nonetheless ultimately trustworthy and reliable.

yet God says He can change what happens if and when men change...

It CAN seem like a paradox ...

until one realises that God is time-less , which makes it impossible for God as spirit to change ...

Yeah, all due respect, strangertoo (and I mean that sincerely), but understanding "timelessness" like this is very Greek, not Hebrew.
The ancient Greeks (along with everybody else in the ancient world) believed that time was cyclical; that what goes around literally comes around. They believed that everything that happens has already happened before sometime in the distant past, and will happen again sometime in the distant future. Viewing time this way, it's easy to see how the philosopher Plato would conclude that THE god -- the Ideal god -- would possess perfect and complete foreknowledge of all future events, if only because it's all happened before.
Moreover, considering the huge influence that Greek/Hellenistic philosophy exercised on early Christian theology, it's easy to see how this attribute was appended by the early Church fathers (esp. St. Augustine) to the God of the Bible.
However, there was one, single exception to those who saw time as cyclical: the Hebrews. Based on revelation, they were the only ones to view time as linear; with a definite beginning point and moving inexorably forward moment by moment, with each moment never to be repeated again.
If time is linear, then certainly God knows all possible outcomes among all present causes. He certainly knows what he himself is going to do in the future (which accounts for biblical prophecy). But the attribute of omniscience is not put in jeopardy here, even if God's knowledge of all future events is neither perfect nor complete, simply because the future hasn't happened yet; there's nothing there to be known.

but equally means that God knows everything at any time ... including all the changes that life is about...

so what we see and talk about as changes are just an inevitable 'timeline' , completely fixed to God and only seeming to be cause and effect to us because we hardly understand what time is ...

I don't think time is that difficult a concept.

I think I began to understand this only when I started getting bored waiting for folks to catch up with accepting what has been known and written down for millennia... the only problems being that men can lie and so they do, even to themselves, even about God ... so it can come to seem that we don't know because we even unlearn oiur conscience which tried to tell us how to all be happy in life... [LOL?]

I'm not sure what you're saying here. If you didn't understand it, why were you bored waiting for everybody else to "catch up" with what you already knew and, presumably, understood?

 

[strangertoo]

You will find my claim unsatisfying

... its a pity you didn't read the rest of the thread...

 

[strangertoo]

But strangertoo, what does the rest of this verse say?The verses preceding v. 6 speak of God bringing his judgement against the people of Israel. But then God clarifies the situation: "But because I, YHWH, do not change, you sons of Jacob will not be destroyed."
So what's being communicated here? That God never ontologically changes? Or, that he's not fickle; that he will keep his covenant promises to Israel? As the following verses testify, God is telling his people to return to a proper relationship with him and, in turn, he will bless them.

You will find out that it is BOTH , the one explains the other

the spirit cannot change because as creator it is 'logically prior' to created time ... time-less , so cannot change

In point of fact, all the verses where God declares that he doesn't change have to do with how, despite his people constantly disobeying him and failing to live up to their side of the covenant, he is not like them and is nonetheless ultimately trustworthy and reliable.

true, but there is more to it than trustworthiness, God cannot change because He is holy, separated from the physical in essence, time is the evry essence of physicality, God is spirit, not physical at all ... untouchable by time

Yeah, all due respect, strangertoo (and I mean that sincerely), but understanding "timelessness" like this is very Greek, not Hebrew.

It's not Greek or Hebrew, it's the very essence of the spirit, and not timeless but time-less, WITHOUT time because time is created

The ancient Greeks (along with everybody else in the ancient world) believed that time was cyclical; that what goes around literally comes around. They believed that everything that happens has already happened before sometime in the distant past, and will happen again sometime in the distant future. Viewing time this way, it's easy to see how the philosopher Plato would conclude that THE god -- the Ideal god -- would possess perfect and complete foreknowledge of all future events, if only because it's all happened before.

this is NOT about the evolution of religious heresies, it is aboutthe difference between spirit and the physical , that the creator is different IN ESSENCE from the created world ... that the space-time universe begins and ends , time begins and end, but God is the same , 'outside' time ,not bound by time, endlessly existent without time NOT eternally existent in time

God knows all possible outcomes among all present causes. He certainly knows what he himself is going to do in the future (which accounts for biblical prophecy). But the attribute of omniscience is not put in jeopardy here, even if God's knowledge of all future events is neither perfect nor complete, simply because the future hasn't happened yet; there's nothing there to be known.

for God there is no array of 'possible outcomes' , just seeing the whole thing as one from outside it ,outside time... prophecy is trivially easy for God , and He takes trouble to show us that in order to understand Him

I don't think time is that difficult a concept.

I believe you, and Newton thought the same, but he has been proven wrong... Hawking said famously that imaginary time may be more real than real time, but even Hawking does not understand time the way the spirit explains it

I'm not sure what you're saying here. If you didn't understand it, why were you bored waiting for everybody else to "catch up" with what you already knew and, presumably, understood?

I simply hate the inanity of life of mankind who refuses to listen to God and so live happily Loving one another instead of believing how clever are the lies of politics, religion, money, armies, police, destruction of the planet and natures stability by capitalism ... to me it is pain and sadness to watch men do exactly what God said they will do ,make the planet dead and so destroy almost all men ... for nothing but being fooled into doing so by a few greedy blind evil sinners in the money-bubble con-game... Satan's little toys ... it is to me boring to be unable to stop it [as I once told God that I could, because men would listen to reason, see that Love is a better way by a mile than capitalism and the many insist on a Loving society ... which God says will not happen in this world , but in the new earth... now I have proved Him right [as always happens in my arguments with Him LOL?] I am bored knowing what is coming so long before it happens... and nothing I can do makes any difference to the many until the new earth... at best all I can achieve is to wake up a few more saints to stop sinning and so be baptised of the spirit ... God is teaching me patience is integral to Love because Love is about everyone without exception, but I am a slow learner,so get bored still

 

[elopez]

How do Calvinists interpret texts like 2 Kings 20.1-6, Jeremiah 3.6-7, and 18.7-10 (just for a few examples) in light of their "classical" position regarding God's perfect and complete foreknowledge?

2 Kings is not God literally changing His mind. He knew from eternity what was going to occur and planned on changing His mind.

Jeremiah 3:6-7 is not an example of God changing His mind. God had simply hoped for better for Israel and Judah. It is an anthropomorphic expression so we can convey better on our terms. Statements that are from our human perspective then should only be expected.

Jeremiah 18 is not God changing His mind. It is again another anthropomorphic expression of the sorrow God felt that creation became so corrupt. God assuredly did not reverse the decision of creation, for He allowed humanity to exist through Noah. This among all is probably the more poorer example one might try to give in favor of open theism.

Consider the one verse that dismantles any further argument on God changing His mind:

"God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?" - Numbers 23:19

 

[dcyates]

It seems the Cavalry has been detained.

Lol! Sorry.

Could not all of these situations have been just as God planned them to be in order to make his power and glory known (Ro 9:17)?

If this is indeed the case, then why use such inaccurate, not to say, even deceptive language?

As for Romans 9.17 (and practically the entire chapter for that matter), let me begin by confessing that I'm always uneasy whenever I see somebody drawing a theological conclusion based on virtually any text from Romans. It's a notoriously unwieldy letter with numerous rabbit trails, all kinds of archaic rhetorical devices employed, complex and nearly impenetrable arguments, and untold translation difficulties out of all proportion to its popularity (I seriously can't count how many Bible study groups in which I've been involved in one way or another where Romans was inevitably chosen as the book to study.)

So, with that in mind, as far as I'm concerned, to properly and most accurately understand its intent, it's of especial importance when it comes to Romans that we always rely on Paul's own summary of his argument -- if he gives one. And fortunately for us, in this instance he does. With v. 30 Paul begins his summation by asking, "So, what are we to say then?"

Now, if the way Calvinists interpret Romans 9 is correct, Paul would have answer his rhetorical question with something along the lines of: "God is sovereign and he alone determines who will be elect and who will not, and no one has the right to question him." However, Paul's answer is nothing like this. Rather, he summarizes his argument by concluding:

"So, what are we to say? This: that Gentiles, even though they were not striving for righteousness, have obtained righteousness; but it is a righteousness grounded in faith! However, Israel, even though they kept pursuing a law that offers righteousness, did not reach what the Law offers. Why? Because they did not pursue righteousness as being grounded in faith, but instead as if it were grounded in doing legalistic works."

In other words, Paul explains everything he's been talking about in this chapter by appealing to the morally responsible choices of both Jews and Gentiles. The Jews didn't "strive" by faith, though they should have (cf. Rom 10.3), but rather chose to put their faith in their own works. This theme is found throughout Rom 9-11. For instance, Paul later explains that as a nation the Jews "were broken off because of their unbelief" (11.20).

Jer 18:7-10 is what is meant by "God changing his mind."
We see there that his mind to punish the unrepentant and to forgive the repentant does not change,
only his way changes in accordance with his mind.

In the faith,
Clare

Okay. But even if we assume that God is always consistent in how he treats people based on their repentance or lack thereof, if his "way changes in accordance with his mind," doesn't that necessitate his mind changing, as well?

 

[Look Up]

... its a pity you didn't read the rest of the thread...

The above in response to my "You will find my claim unsatisfying." Throughout my post, of which "You will find my claim unsatisfying" is part, I address dcyates alone. I am thus perplexed as to what you mean.

 

[Albion]

Why are you asking in Unorthodox Theology?

Only because I was told to.

​

I can't imagine why you'd be told that, but for a good answer to your question, the place to go is the Reformed forum: Semper Reformanda.