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There is a huge difference between being forced to do something, and being induced to do something. If I am much stronger than you, and rip your hands loose from the door jamb and drag you out of your room, I am forcing you. But if I appeal to you—let's say, I change your mind— and you decide to...

I assume that God is self-aware, but I'm not sure he is introspective, in the sense that we are. I would think that his introspection would concern his attributes, and that, not singly; but we think how we can improve, what we do wrong and right, how we fit in, how we feel now, etc. The ways in...

To me, that is a disagreement of how one should end their thinking on the matter, or the end of what can be known about it so far. I'm not sure if that is what you are saying, but that is what it sounds like to me. My conclusion concerns the technical view, of intellect. Mine says there are...

Then their freedom is not truly free in the same sense that his is truly free. Not only does that mean the obvious, that they can not do everything that he can do, but that their choice is not completely independent of his causation. This to me obviously does not mean that he makes their choices...

Sounds like another contradiction. You say "exactly" to 'only God has truly free will'. Then you say "and those to whom he chooses to give it. If he can give it to others, then they have it, no? Thus, NOT only God has truly free will, if I follow what you are saying. I find a logical fault at...

I'm not sure. Does not causation constrain us? Govern us?

How is that not self-contradictory? You said that you DO mean that Scripture and Dogma are of equal authority. Then, below that, you say, (somewhat poetically, it seems to me), that in the hierarchy of revealed truth, holy scripture is the summit. If the Scriptures are indeed the Word of God, my...

Hello I'm wondering how they "know" there is no such thing as 'nothing'; but they sure don't have any way to prove there is a 'nothing'. I keep hearing claims that are, let's say, poetic. Not quite accurate. Granted that vacuum as we think of it, is not nothing. We still don't quite know what...

Opinion here, also. Logic tells me that causation is exhaustively pervasive. That does not mean that human choice is puppetry, since God is hierarchically causing. Also, I have to say that even atheistic causation, while very logical, neglects causation by 'extra-natural' causes, such as the...

I don't recall hearing any Arminians saying (as such) that grace is the fundamental source of "free will", but I have heard some say that it is a gift of God, or a God-ordained fact. Both of those are, to me, by definition logically contradictory to the notion of libertarian free will —i.e...

I hope by that you don't mean to imply equal authority to the Bible and to Catholic dogma. And there is this, that I have noticed repeatedly, and specially when spending long hours "just reading through" the Bible: That God is consistently visible throughout. His heart in Genesis is the same...

I can't speak to what @Xeno.of.athens was intending. I, myself, am not very familiar with the history of Calvinism and Reformed theology, as such. As for the two lapsarian points of view, I had heard of them and understood them but forgotten about them. I have read RC Sproul's Chosen by God...

True that! Haha! —Wait. Did you just call me, "Carrion"? Or were you signing off? Anyhow, to your 1) above, which I completely agree with as to your use of it, (I think), I would not word it that way myself, because I want it unequivocally understood that all things descend causally from God...

Irrelevant to your argument, what they believed. But to the notion that there is such a thing as 'limited free will', show it to me, with precision of meaning —no sloughing— without a contradiction between "limited" and "free". HOW is it saying the person made a choice? I'm not saying that one...

Exactly! Well said. As a Biblical definition of the faith through which we are saved, it cannot be of human origin. And being of Divine origin —to wit, being generated by the Spirit of God— it is altogether capable of producing lasting, continual, results, 'fruit', 'growth'.

Sometimes, reading your many posts on Catholic Theology et al, (and I don't mean this in a condescending nor in an antagonistic way), I get the feeling the official theology of the Catholic Church is a hodgepodge of what different writers write, or maybe what a consortium got together to write...

As I told @Clare73 in another thread, "I admit it could just be "me". I'm having a hard time accepting terminology that doesn't immediately counter the notions of arminianistic* and particularly pelagianistic* theology. Maybe the fact that I find myself reacting so, is largely because of my...

Hello, Claire. Please don't take the following as a reprimand or anything like that. Maybe it can be seen as logically complementary or fitting-to your wording, or as just further definition —I don't know. I completely agree with and applaud the idea you support here, that there is reason that...