We might need to start another thread and state you position, so of what you are say I agree with, but some seems to contradict what you said.No, you've been attempting to answer asked of the op, presuming to speak for @FutureAndAHope in answer to a question that was never asked you. It was @FutureAndAHope that broached the atter of people being made to believe and it was that statement made by @FutureAndAHope that prompted my inquiry.
I know the answer to my question.
@FutureAndAHope, apparently, does not. Or, rather they have either been unable or unwilling to answer the question asked. Patience, kindness, forbearance, hope, and trust (1 Cor. 13:4-7) was extended to you despite you trying to answer a question than was never asked of you concerning anything you'd posted, and the end result is, "I have been addressing your question with you." No, what you've been doing is interfering with an exchange between to other posters because you think my question has something to do with your views.
It does not.
I do not even know what your particular doctrinal stance might be! And at Post 2 you did not know mine, either. The op is important because @FutureAndAHope's soteriology is fairly Pelagian. They've never acknowledged that in all the years I've traded posts with them, but that is where he's arguments lead.
For those who do not already know...
Our (Christians as a whole) doctrines cover a spectrum of beliefs ranging from the strict determinist on the monergist end to the strict autonomous-volitionalist on the synergist end of these doctrines. Pelagius argued sin did not have a completely depraving effect on humanity, that some semblance of an ability to come to God in one's own still-sinful unregenerate state existed. This was a matter of debate among the earliest ECFs but by the time Augustine and Pelagius lived the matter had become sufficiently divisive that Augustine's peers asked him to address Pelagius' teachings. It was Pelagius' views, not Augustine's that were deemed unorthodox. Sadly, we do not have a record of Pelagius arguments in Pelagius' own words because only Augustine's letters survived the passage of time. Whatever Pelagius argued, it was Augustine who won the debate and Pelagianism was deemed heretical. Several centuries past until the time of the Reformation and Bucer's, Luther's and Calvin's (and others') departure from Catholic soteriology. All three of those men were Roman Catholic (RC). They did not want to leave the Roman Catholic Church (RCC), and if the Reformers hadn't been murderously persecuted, we might all still be RC. Arminius, the first prominent synergist of note was an adherent of Augustinian soteriology, just not of Calvin's Augustinian soteriology. Arminius has been a Calvinist apologist and throughout his entire life Arminius subscribe to the doctrine we now call "Total Depravity." Arminius was NOT Pelagian. A couple of hundred years later John Wesley showed up with his Moravian-influenced emphasis on experientialism and Pietism (not pietism), loosening the historical, orthodox, and mainstream view on the depraving effects of sin. Experientialism eclipsed creedalism among a large portion of Protestantism during the Restoration Movement of the 19th century and Pelagian and semi-Pelagian view returned or became more prominent (they were never fully eradicated). They occur now under the doctrines of Traditionalism (a supposed appeal to the pre-Augustinian ECFs) and Leighton Flowers Provisionism. Unblessedly, many synergists 1) do not know this history, 2) do not know the differences (nuanced or blunt) between these synegristic doctrines, and 3) often conflate them. Many Wesleyans, for example incorrectly think they are Arminian when they are not. So do many Traditionalists and Provisionists.
No one has ever gotten an honest answer out of @FutureAndAHope when asking about this.
One of the things EVERYONE should garner from this thread is that @FutureAndAHope does not like to have his views examined and he will not discuss them with any substance (or anything resembling a logical, focused, topical exchange. He jumps around, creating red herrings, straw men, false equivalences, and other fallacies that the less-practiced poster indulges so the conversation gets far afield of the original claims made by @FutureAndAHope. Look and see. Read the opening post, and then read their last post. They are unrelated except in some vague tangential eisegetic way. I happen to have witnessed this for years, so I'm a little better at catching it when it happens. Another thing that will be noticed (as more than just I observed) is that he does the same thing with outside sources that he does with scripture: He misreads it. He reads it with his own spin in mind. Notice what I just said. It's not Pelagius' spin, or Arminius' or Wesley's or Flowers' spin..... it is his own spin. That's not obvious here but in the other thread where he and I traded posts he linked the thread to a source he later identified as himself. In other words, when he sought to provide an authoritative source outside of scripture (like Irenaeus or Calvin), he used himself and did not tell anyone until he was challenged about that source.
In other words, the ops @FutureAndAHope write are not assertions of classical doctrines. They are asserting their own views and not being forthcoming about their sources. They're not forthcoming about Irenaeus or Calvin. Neither are the forthcoming about using themselves to justify themselves. I speak to these issues because I've been trading posts with this poster for years and have some familiarity with their methodology, not just their content. I lie of omission is still a lie.
Lastly, because these things are not fully disclosed by @FutureAndAHope, otherwise devout and earnest synergists think the conversation is just another classic debate on monergism versus synergism so they get baited into thinking they share common views with @FutureAndAHope when that may not be the case (and is often not the case). It's like trying to have a conversation on eschatology and all the different Dispensationalists wreck the thread supporting one another when the reality is they may hold views completely contrary to their fellow Dispensationalists. Synergism is not monolitihic. Neither is monergism. In other words, @FutureAndAHope's ops mistreat fellows synergists unawares.
So do not be so quick to fasten yourself to @FutureAndAHope's views.
And use some discernment when trying to answer any poster's questions asked of a specific other poster based on some specific statement made by the other. The forum is an open forum and anyone can post anything to anyone as long as they abide by the terms of use. However, while all things may be permitted, they are not all profitable and everyone should avoid the problem of Proverbs 26:17.
No harm, no foul, and I took no offense in your posts (or the stated motive behind it) but you weren't doing what you thought you were doing because you did not read my inquiry correctly.
Now.....
If you'd like to discuss God's foreknowledge and what God foreknew, I'm happy to do that with you - especially if you and I can model a healthy function conversation and set an example for @FutureAndAHope to learn from, and hopefully, one that all the lurkers can likewise learn from and commend. You should start with a summary of your views on God's foreknowledge and what He fore knew as it pertains specifically to Ephesians 1:3-12 and Romans 8:29-30. Anything else is ff-topic from the op and I don't indulge off-topic content beyond a post or three.
You'll also need to ditch the idea you were just trying to address my question
I'll start with something atypical in the average discussion of divine foreknowledge relevant to the two scripture passages cited: the matter of eternity. Eternity is timeless. Time is a created condition of creation, a measure of cause-and-effect, and God does not exist solely within His creation. Nor is He limited by any of the limitations He designed into creation. God is not limited by time or space (or singularity as the two are more accurately labeled). Therefore, when we read of "fore-" we necessarily know we are reading about something inherently a before and and after occurrence. We also know that language is a reference solely to temporal conditions and not something applicable to eternal conditions where God knows past, present, and future simultaneously because He is the great I AM for whom all of creation is always ever present. God always exist in the now, never the past or the future. Furthermore, the degree knowledge is a function of time, space, and experience, God's knowledge is never before or after or conditioned upon temporal cause-and-effect. He is..... omniscient.
And that is what we should ALWAYS have in mind when reading all of scripture.
God is the Creator, not a creature subject to the limitations of His creation. When we place those limits on God we are 1) anthropomorphizing God and 2) elevating ourselves to an idolatrous position of being arbiters of God's faculties. When the eternal nature of God is applied to the matter of salvation then certain logically necessary conclusions ensue, and they ensue inescapably. This is how Ephesians 1:3-12 and Romans 8:29-30 should be read.
Although the larger truth is Romans 8:29-30 is just two verses in a six-chapter exposition and those two verses should NEVER be removed from all the rest of the exposition states (which is what happened in this op).
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