Oh btw, I copied and pasted that from Monergism.com...that is definatly not my own work, it's much too good.
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While We're on the Subject of Total Depravity...
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Godzchild said:
I'm sorry, but you are under the wrong conception that the kingdom is a far off event, when all believers are co-inheritors in the Kingdom of God, NOW and future.
You are misapplying a snippet of Scripture lifted out of it's context to try to make it say something it does not.
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Godzchild said:
Once again, the context, which is very important or else anyone can come to all kinds of crazy conclusions, as many have in the past and continue to do, is speaking of regeneration. Those who are born of the Spirit inherit the kingdom, not those born of flesh and blood.
That is the context.
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Augustine_Was_Calvinist said:
Actually I don't think I'm doing that at all. I know the Kingdom of God is within me - that's not the argument. I'm asking why God would have one rule for us and another for Jesus.
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tiger,
From what I understand Pelagius advocated hyper-freedom of the will -- a freedom that said that man was never born in original sin, therefore there is no necessary depravity that necessarily entails grace as sufficient reason to repent. This universally considered a heresy by the major beliefs within the church. Now, there are some rather contemptuous thinkers who like to emphasize the pervading semi-Pelagianism, as they see it, as expressed in non-Calvinistic circles (not suprisingly, the people who make such claims are Calvinists, such as J.I. Packer [who actually, according to an essay by Walls, should perhaps be better considered an Arminian on the points he presents]). Of course, you can call anything not of a doctrine of extremity such by using the conjunct semi, but now I'm digressing.
To put it shortly, and emphatically, I am not a Pelagian, as much as I am not a Calvinist.
Excellent, and I can see why this is perceived to be the case. But now we're using two different understandings of freedom. When you have one side advocating something with a term, and another who advocates something differently with the same term but with a different meaning, you no longer have the same term. The concept of accountability ties in with the ability to do otherwise -- or the ability to choose on a relative scale according to or against an ideal you have. This isn't what the bible really teaches. It's freedom is more a freedom of the soul, and rightly so. If Christ sets you free, you are free indeed. Nothing can be argued against this point.
With this in mind, the point seems a red herring. It isn't addressing the freedom non-Calvinists have in mind, but rather points to a different form of freedom. The non-Calvinist is simply saying that if someone commands something and the person commanded is unable to do it, the commandment is nonsensical, like commanding a rock to deny gravity.
But wait a minute: I never said I agreed with his biblical concept of freedom to the extent that it negates the essence of what the non-Calvinist would hold as freedom. Freedom is holiness -- ok. But what I want to know is how. And surely this is by a freedom of the will. Faith is a form of action, not cognitive assertion -- this is Hellenism seeping too deep into Christianity. It seems he races to the consequence without considering the process, and this is fallacious.
Wait a minute -- this response is taken with the underlying belief that the will is not free? Why on earth is he speaking as if people have freedom?
"If we affirm that the negation of our will negates our responsibility, how can we blame individuals who don't have freedom?" We don't. Blame is inherent to responsibility. The drunk is compelled by preceding desires, and this is what it means to be in bondage; hence, whatever actions the drunk does is not his fault, but the desires, that also sprang up involuntarily.
He is hiding behind obscurity. Freedom consists of relative detachment, and this freedom only actualizes in relation to two polarities in tension -- that is, when man is stuck between desire (the Id), and his moral ideal (the Superego). Who he is, the ego, determines which course to follow. To say that the strongest desire wins is to beg the question -- it is to deny the existence of the other polarity, which the libertarian considers essential to freedom. If the will is not determined, the effects are only of the person -- who else does he have in mind? This is because freedom is not what a man has, but what a man is.
From a psychological standpoint, especially from the first superfluous sentence of this paragraph, it is apparent he has a preceding distaste for freedom as it is. And these sorts of people you shouldn't want to read if you consider yourself a seeker of truth.
Question begging. If the nature is the person, then the person is subject to his nature, and nature is a shorthand way of saying a set of actions he has already committed but must still be compelled to follow. Man's essence precedes his existence; meanwhile, the libertarians would follow the existentialists in claiming that man's existence precedes his essence. Man is not born with an essence, a nature, and is never ultimately compelled to follow through with this essence or nature; this is what freedom means.
From what I understand Pelagius advocated hyper-freedom of the will -- a freedom that said that man was never born in original sin, therefore there is no necessary depravity that necessarily entails grace as sufficient reason to repent. This universally considered a heresy by the major beliefs within the church. Now, there are some rather contemptuous thinkers who like to emphasize the pervading semi-Pelagianism, as they see it, as expressed in non-Calvinistic circles (not suprisingly, the people who make such claims are Calvinists, such as J.I. Packer [who actually, according to an essay by Walls, should perhaps be better considered an Arminian on the points he presents]). Of course, you can call anything not of a doctrine of extremity such by using the conjunct semi, but now I'm digressing.
To put it shortly, and emphatically, I am not a Pelagian, as much as I am not a Calvinist.
Excellent, and I can see why this is perceived to be the case. But now we're using two different understandings of freedom. When you have one side advocating something with a term, and another who advocates something differently with the same term but with a different meaning, you no longer have the same term. The concept of accountability ties in with the ability to do otherwise -- or the ability to choose on a relative scale according to or against an ideal you have. This isn't what the bible really teaches. It's freedom is more a freedom of the soul, and rightly so. If Christ sets you free, you are free indeed. Nothing can be argued against this point.
With this in mind, the point seems a red herring. It isn't addressing the freedom non-Calvinists have in mind, but rather points to a different form of freedom. The non-Calvinist is simply saying that if someone commands something and the person commanded is unable to do it, the commandment is nonsensical, like commanding a rock to deny gravity.
But wait a minute: I never said I agreed with his biblical concept of freedom to the extent that it negates the essence of what the non-Calvinist would hold as freedom. Freedom is holiness -- ok. But what I want to know is how. And surely this is by a freedom of the will. Faith is a form of action, not cognitive assertion -- this is Hellenism seeping too deep into Christianity. It seems he races to the consequence without considering the process, and this is fallacious.
Wait a minute -- this response is taken with the underlying belief that the will is not free? Why on earth is he speaking as if people have freedom?
"If we affirm that the negation of our will negates our responsibility, how can we blame individuals who don't have freedom?" We don't. Blame is inherent to responsibility. The drunk is compelled by preceding desires, and this is what it means to be in bondage; hence, whatever actions the drunk does is not his fault, but the desires, that also sprang up involuntarily.
He is hiding behind obscurity. Freedom consists of relative detachment, and this freedom only actualizes in relation to two polarities in tension -- that is, when man is stuck between desire (the Id), and his moral ideal (the Superego). Who he is, the ego, determines which course to follow. To say that the strongest desire wins is to beg the question -- it is to deny the existence of the other polarity, which the libertarian considers essential to freedom. If the will is not determined, the effects are only of the person -- who else does he have in mind? This is because freedom is not what a man has, but what a man is.
From a psychological standpoint, especially from the first superfluous sentence of this paragraph, it is apparent he has a preceding distaste for freedom as it is. And these sorts of people you shouldn't want to read if you consider yourself a seeker of truth.
Question begging. If the nature is the person, then the person is subject to his nature, and nature is a shorthand way of saying a set of actions he has already committed but must still be compelled to follow. Man's essence precedes his existence; meanwhile, the libertarians would follow the existentialists in claiming that man's existence precedes his essence. Man is not born with an essence, a nature, and is never ultimately compelled to follow through with this essence or nature; this is what freedom means.
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