Calvinist Robots

[chestertonrules]

I guess the problem is that your definition of robot is not the same as most. I can train my dogs some but I sure cannot make them do squat.

A dog can not decide to act against his nature.

A human can.

 

[PETE_]

A dog can not decide to act against his nature.

A human can.

How so?

 

[Thekla]

How so?

(if I can interject; our true nature - as we were created - is for/toward God. We can reject this by choice.)

 

[PETE_]

(if I can interject; our true nature - as we were created - is for/toward God. We can reject this by choice.)

Maybe Adam and Eve were created that way, but we are not born with a nature for/toward God

 

[Evergreen48]

(if I can interject; our true nature - as we were created - is for/toward God. We can reject this by choice.)

 

[Evergreen48]

Maybe Adam and Eve were created that way, but we are not born with a nature for/toward God

I guess that's why such as little children make up the kingdom of heaven. Because they were not born with a nature for/toward God?

 

[Evergreen48]

How so?

Because dogs do not have the Spirit of the living God breathed into them. Humans do.

 

[Thekla]

Maybe Adam and Eve were created that way, but we are not born with a nature for/toward God

They were created with this nature, and it was good (kalos) but they were not complete (teleios); our true nature is covered, but not absent or we would be the same as animals. We may behave animalistically (due to the distortion or covering), but we are not animals.

 

[&Abel]

How so?

I'll give you a good example:

oxycodone addiction

your body actually believes it needs it to survive and you feel as though you are dying when you quit cold turkey

and yet with knowledge and understanding and realization of the destruction of the drug in their life a person has the ability to face the pain and resist the temptations of the body(That go far beyond any other temptation I have felt) for what is right

 

[Evergreen48]

Well, all that can be said there is that although you might have counted yourself as being a Calvinist in the past, you nevertheless didn't understand Calvinism. There are reasonable grounds on which to oppose certain of Calvin's teachings, but "roboticism" is not one of them.

The charge is so obviously untrue to anyone who knows the theology that it can only be put off to either 1) misunderstanding or 2) a desire to say something that is groundless merely for the shock value in it. I will consider you to be in the first category, but I still know that some people talk that way for the other reason.

Third generation Calvinist here. I cut my teeth on it. How long have you been a Calvinist?

 

[JacobHall86]

I guess that's why such as little children make up the kingdom of heaven. Because they were not born with a nature for/toward God?

Scripture to support that.

 

[chestertonrules]

Scripture to support that.

Matt 19

14Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

 

[ArcticFox]

Say one is helping the poor so that they will look generous to their peers.

Volunteering at church to appear more godly

The pharasees were pretty good at it, just remember the account of the two men praying in the temple

Or trying to do something good to appease one's own conscience ....

Sin that people clap for

 

[JacobHall86]

Matt 19

14Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

Nowhere does it say that children are without sin.

 

[chestertonrules]

Nowhere does it say that children are without sin.

So?

 

[Tzaousios]

Matt 19

14Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

Nowhere does it say that children are without sin.

Do children, even infants, sin as in how Augustine of Hippo illustrated it?

Augustine of Hippo, The Confessions 1.7.11

Chapter VII.—He Shows by Example that Even Infancy is Prone to Sin.

11. Hearken, O God! Alas for the sins of men! Man saith this, and Thou dost compassionate him; for Thou didst create him, but didst not create the sin that is in him. Who bringeth to my remembrance the sin of my infancy? For before Thee none is free from sin, not even the infant which has lived but a day upon the earth. Who bringeth this to my remembrance? Doth not each little one, in whom I behold that which I do not remember of myself? In what, then, did I sin? Is it that I cried for the breast? If I should now so cry,—not indeed for the breast, but for the food suitable to my years,—I should be most justly laughed at and rebuked. What I then did deserved rebuke; but as I could not understand those who rebuked me, neither custom nor reason suffered me to be rebuked. For as we grow we root out and cast from us such habits. I have not seen any one who is wise, when “purging” anything cast away the good. Or was it good, even for a time, to strive to get by crying that which, if given, would be hurtful—to be bitterly indignant that those who were free and its elders, and those to whom it owed its being, besides many others wiser than it, who would not give way to the nod of its good pleasure, were not subject unto it—to endeavour to harm, by struggling as much as it could, because those commands were not obeyed which only could have been obeyed to its hurt? Then, in the weakness of the infant’s limbs, and not in its will, lies its innocency. I myself have seen and known an infant to be jealous though it could not speak. It became pale, and cast bitter looks on its foster-brother. Who is ignorant of this? Mothers and nurses tell us that they appease these things by I know not what remedies; and may this be taken for innocence, that when the fountain of milk is flowing fresh and abundant, one who has need should not be allowed to share it, though needing that nourishment to sustain life?

 

[chestertonrules]

Do children, even infants, sin as in how Augustine of Hippo illustrated it?

Only out of ignorance and by nature, if you can call that sin.

Jesus didn't seem to be offended by it, whatever we may call it:

Matt 19

14Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

 

[Rick Otto]

Originally Posted by Evergreen48

I guess that's why such as little children make up the kingdom of heaven. Because they were not born with a nature for/toward God?
​

Do you think He might've been referring to their helplessness?
After all, He was rebuking apostles for exclusionist behavior.
The association with of the kingdom with children was not in the context of a discussion on original sin:

Mark 10:13-16 13 And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. 14 But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. 15 Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. 16 And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them. The remark was in reference to their vulnerability, it had no positive inference about their character. Jesus was rebuking apostles for exclusivist behavior.

 

[Rick Otto]

Originally Posted by JacobHall86

Nowhere does it say that children are without sin.
​

So?

So that isn't what there is about children that makes the kingdom belong to such as them.

 

[JacktheCatholic]

So that isn't what there is about children that makes the kingdom belong to such as them.

Coffee?

When I tell my 7 year old to do something she will do it without question. When I tell my 18 year old to do something she tells me what she thinks and she has told me more than once that she disagrees with me.

When God tells us something she would be as the 7 year old and simply do it with a trust that does not question the Father.



BTW

Good morning Rick.