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Here you repeat yourself, so me too. Where did I say he has sovereignty over his decisions? What does that even mean? He has sovereignty. His decisions are sovereign. It is meaningless to say he has sovereignty over his decisions. He is not like us. If I said that, in those words, it's a typo or something.
No but we're supposed to behave like God right? And He is the God of double predestination, right? So given that He punishes people for behavior over which they have no real liberterian freedom to control, then we should do the same, right?
Nevermind. It's not important. The main point of my applying that term to you is that we agree that God has real libertarian freedom. We don't have to agree on terminology. You had used that word earlier, and so I thought to use it here, but the terminology isn't the key issue here.
You seem to me to be anthropomorphising God. God is not subject to our "reality". He does behave according to his nature, but even to say that is to comfort our minds, not to quite make accurate sense. His nature is not other than him, to which he must acquiesce. He certainly does not behave according to our nature. To call him a person, in the same way that we are persons, is to credit man with the same dignity of being that God possesses. Again, he is not like us.
If His design bound them into sin, then He is unjust for punishing them, since it was beyond their control. Also if this is how God behaves, we should follow suit, we should punish people for things beyond their control.
This is a blanket question. Better to make some distinctions treated separately.
Again you misrepresent the facts. You imply merely that their behavior is the result of circumstances (behavior) over which they have no control. Well, do they sin or not?? And willfully, at that!
Where do you find the authority for humans to punish sin in their peers? That is God's job, and though he delegates, he does not give carte blanche. What innocent person did God cause to sin to 'befall' on? Sin did not befall on Adam. Adam freely chose sin --who said otherwise? Your caricatures do not represent Reformed Theology. Men since then, bound over to sin, freely choose sin, as is their nature to do, I might add.
You're saying we cannot understand God on these issues, right? That His personhood isn't analogical to ours. That's your claim, right? You just contradicted yourself. If we cannot understand Him, then you had no right assert, as you did a moment ago, that God is free. Here again is the basic logical incoherence in the Reformed system. If words and definitions diverge, and thus mean ONE thing to us, and something ELSE to God, then every relevant aspect of theology becomes incoherent - this is the annihilation of theology itself.
C'mon guy. You're just dancing again. You made it clear enough that God, in your view, predesigns our behavior. We lack sufficient freedom to change the outcome.
Yes, if we are talking about a category that seems forbidden to us, then yes, it is tautological to claim that I should not do what God does. Putting people in prison is not, however, forbidden. It's simply a matter of trying to do it with true justice. Defined how? My definition? No. You keep saying that God's definitions outrank mine. So it follows that if God puts people in prison (hell) for behavior beyond their control, we should do the same.
(1)Sigh. C'mon guy. You already implied that God predesigned Adam's fall. He lacked sufficient freedom to change the outcome.
Who said otherwise? Certainly not I. Of course Adam freely chose to sin. But the Reformed tradition holds that Adam's sinful nature transmitted to his unborn progeny. This is a contradiction because "transmitted taint" is an oxymoron. It is logically incoherent to speak of copying a sinful nature from one man to another. Why so? Sin isn't something that HAPPENS to me. For example if I got infected with a disease that altered my passions causing erratic behavior, my new nature cannot be called a sinful nature. There's nothing sinful about it, because sin implies voluntary choice. That's why even the Reformed theologian Donald Bloesch admitted that the transmission of the taint is an insoluble problem.
The sinful nature is you. You aren’t separate from it and thus are held responsible. You seem to think of sin as some sort of clothing one wears and can take of voluntarily. If that were possible there was of no need Christ’s death and resurrection. I think the issue you have is the lack of understanding of the implications of free will. Free will is a concept that nothing influences your decisions. This is different than the reformed view of will in which your nature dictates your decisions. How can nothing influence your decisions? There is always something that influences your decisions whether it be from your nature or the environment that surrounds you or even God himself. Responsibility just means that you are the ownership of your actions which doesn’t contradict the reformed view of will. Does a man in a wheelchair have the ability to choose to walk if he is paralyzed from the waist down? Neither can a man choose God from the results of a sinful nature unless God himself intervenes.
Correct.
See above.
Somewhat true, but slightly overstated. Your current nature INFLUENCES your decisions, indeed at times even dictates them, but does not ALWAYS fully dictate them. Libertarian freedom obtains on those occasions when the final outcome of a deliberation isn't predeterminate. In these cases, your freedom can potentially move you in a direction opposite to the one your nature felt most strongly inclined.
Again, that's an overstatement. You seem to be arguing against a strawman.
Correct. See above.
Where there is no real libertarian freedom, culpability is incoherent and punishment unjust.
Thank you. Case in point. I take it you'd want to throw that man in hell for not walking.
Actually conversion is not really what I've been debating on this thread, as yet. My focus has been on the events prior to conversion. Why does he have a sinful nature to begin with? I've already argued it logically impossible for Adam's stain to copy over to his progeny.
1) Temptation is from the devil when he offers a choice to sin. I think the will is tested when you are tempted so there was real temptation in the wilderness. Was Jesus going to fall to temptation? Of course not. But was he tempted? Yes. Was it just theatre? No because the temptation was actually experienced by Jesus. I assume we would both agree that God knew that Jesus wouldn’t fail. But there has to be a reason as to why Jesus didn’t fall into temptation. Was it the immunity you described? I think you see immunity as black and white rather than a spectrum. If it takes 500 immunity points to resist and the devil has 499 temptation points then it would be a very small margin of immunity. Of course that is a simplified and erroneous view of temptation but I use it to illustrate the various degrees that one can be tempted.
@Mark Quayle rated this "Funny" and then remarked:
Meanwhile, nearly 300 post later:
If there is no possibility of failure, it's not real temptation. It's a lie and a farce or, to use your term, pure theater.
Wrong. I totally disagree. You see that's the difference between me and Reformed theologians - I'm actually logically consistent.
Um...maybe He freely chose to remain righteous?
Now you've just contradicted yourself. In the first post to me, you insinuated that the concept of libertarian freedom is an oxymoron because our nature fully dictates our decisions. Now you are backpedaling, stating that Jesus had freedom to do other than what He actually did.
Ditto.
Now you're vacillating again, oscillating back to the original claim. It has been said that determinists are rarely consistent. I find this to be very true.
Huh? That's precisely what free will means. Free will means you have a real choice.
