Free will, and original sin --a discussion continued

[rnmomof7]

The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit...1 Corth 2:14

 

[Clete]

Who is it that determine what is "just"?

That's just the point! Can you not see how this question tacitly concedes the point?

Your default mindset is that justice is determined as if it could be something other than what it is. God did not sit down one evening and decide what justice was going to be. He did not determine what it means to be righteous or what it means to love someone. These words are used to convey certain concepts and it was the words that were created not the concepts that they are tied too.

In other words, a rose by any other name is still a rose. No one, not even God, had this word lying around waiting for a concept to tie it too. There is a plant that produces a particular kind of flower and whether we call it a rose or a fart, it doesn't change what it s.

The same goes for right and wrong! There are concepts that those words are tied too. If you help your neighbor who is in need, we call that "good". If you do unto a criminal as he did to his victim, we call that justice but those things are not righteous because we use the term "righteous" to identify it, they are what they are whether we call it "righteousness" or "califactal" or "purpline" or whatever other made up word you want to use.

God did not decide what is and is not righteous and if He had then there is no sense at all in which you could meaningfully call God righteous or just! Besides that, to say that God created or determine justice is to say that God created Himself!

Do you believe that God is just? Do you affirm that God is righteous? Why? Why is God righteous? Is it simply because He said so or is it because of how God conducts Himself in thought, word and deed?

Deuteronomy 32:4 He is the Rock, His work is perfect; For all His ways are justice, A God of truth and without injustice; Righteous and upright is He.

John 5:31 “If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true.​

36b for the works which the Father has given Me to finish—the very works that I do—bear witness of Me

Clete

 

[Clete]

Sin is violating Gods law.. God can never violate His own law because He is the one that determine what is sin ....

Well, it all depends on what you mean by "sin", doesn't it.

There is a valid sense in which the word "sin" can be used to refer to a violation of God's law but that's a very limited sense of the word. As with most words, the word "sin" actually has a sphere of meaning and is very often used as a synonym for the word "evil" and it is in this later sense in which your statement falls apart because God did not determine what evil is as I just went through in the post prior to this one.

If we go with the God only "foresees" theology, who is god in that theology ? Who is the primary actor ? Seems to me that makes man god and God simply a responder

Well, that's rediculous!

First of all, what does it even mean to say that God "foresees theology"? It doesn't seem to make any sense. And even if it did make sense, in what way would it lead to the conclusion that man is god and God simply a responder? That seems completely disconnected altogether!

Regardless, the Arminian position (exhaustive divine foreknowledge) is just as unbiblical and even less rationally consistent than the Calvinist position, but that's a topic for another thread.

Clete

 

[JAL]

That's just the point! Can you not see how this question tacitly concedes the point?

Your default mindset is that justice is determined as if it could be something other than what it is. God did not sit down one evening and decide what justice was going to be. He did not determine what it means to be righteous or what it means to love someone. These words are used to convey certain concepts and it was the words that were created not the concepts that they are tied too.

In other words, a rose by any other name is still a rose. No one, not even God, had this word lying around waiting for a concept to tie it too. There is a plant that produces a particular kind of flower and whether we call it a rose or a fart, it doesn't change what it s.

The same goes for right and wrong! There are concepts that those words are tied too. If you help your neighbor who is in need, we call that "good". If you do unto a criminal as he did to his victim, we call that justice but those things are not righteous because we use the term "righteous" to identify it, they are what they are whether we call it "righteousness" or "califactal" or "purpline" or whatever other made up word you want to use.

God did not decide what is and is not righteous and if He had then there is no sense at all in which you could meaningfully call God righteous or just! Besides that, to say that God created or determine justice is to say that God created Himself!

Do you believe that God is just? Do you affirm that God is righteous? Why? Why is God righteous? Is it simply because He said so or is it because of how God conducts Himself in thought, word and deed?

Deuteronomy 32:4 He is the Rock, His work is perfect; For all His ways are justice, A God of truth and without injustice; Righteous and upright is He.

John 5:31 “If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true.​

36b for the works which the Father has given Me to finish—the very works that I do—bear witness of Me

Clete

Again, well said.

God claims to be the light of the world. But in Calvinism, He brings just as much grief, pain, and darkness into the world as the devil himself, if not more so. Indeed He IS the devil, since the devil is just a puppet on His strings.

 

[JAL]

If we go with the God only "foresees" theology, who is god in that theology ? Who is the primary actor ? Seems to me that makes man god and God simply a responder

Why must God be an absolute control-freak in order to qualify as a good leader? Is that the only type of leader that you esteem?

 

[Mark Quayle]

(Sigh). It's not real freedom of choice in a deterministic system where God is First Cause. The only reason you mention "choice" is to try to exonerate your system from blatant ethical contradictions. But it's completely tongue-in-cheek.

No, Mark. Determinism and libertarianism are not the same thing.

Sure, as long as an arsonist burns people to death for his own glory, it is morally upright.

Again, for the 30-g-zillionth time, I'm not debating on whether people have a sinful nature. The debate is WHY they have a sinful nature, for example did Adam ever have real liberterian freedom? If not - if it was all deterministic - neither Adam nor anyone else DESERVES to have a sinful nature.

Ok. So you are saying that the will of man supercedes that of God. Enjoy your delusion.

 

[JAL]

Ok. So you are saying that the will of man supercedes that of God. Enjoy your delusion.

I'm saying that it was God's WILL for Adam to have some degree of real libertarian freedom. Again, God is supposed to be the light of the world. But in your system, He's actually darker than the devil because He's the one deterministically pulling the devil's strings.

 

[Mark Quayle]

I've heard of a serial arsonist burning a house down even though a few people were alive inside. I was APPALLED. In my eyes that's incredibly diabolical.

But you apparently can't relate to this. Your conscience has no compunctions at all. You have no qualms about God engineering things as to dump 50 billion people into the fires of hell. I sure hope you never become an arsonist because, based on what you've been saying, you would be ABSOLUTELY MERCILESS.

I guess I'm wasting my time here. I'm asking a poster devoid of a conscience to revise his theology based on ethical contradictions. What a useless endeavor. I was hoping to at least appeal to the law of non-contradiction (i.e. the undermining of hope) but I see that isn't working either.

You apparently still haven't read the potter and clay discourse. "Who are you, oh [human]" There are trees. You want to point out there is a forest, and no doubt there is, but it is made of trees. Paul is talking directly to your argument, and denying there is anything wrong with God predestining vessels to destruction. He even says you have no basis from which to argue otherwise. We were made by him --not made along with him.

Romans 9, again: "18 So then, God has mercy on whomever he wants to, but he makes resistant whomever he wants to. 19 So you are going to say to me, "Then why does he still blame people? Who has ever resisted his will?" 20 You are only a human being. Who do you think you are to talk back to God? Does the clay say to the potter, "Why did you make me like this?" 21 Doesn't the potter have the power over the clay to make one pot for special purposes and another for garbage from the same lump of clay? 22 What if God very patiently puts up with pots made for wrath that were designed for destruction, because he wanted to show his wrath and to make his power known? 23 What if he did this to make the wealth of his glory known toward pots made for mercy, which he prepared in advance for glory?"

 

[JAL]

You apparently still haven't read the potter and clay discourse. "Who are you, oh [human]" There are trees. You want to point out there is a forest, and no doubt there is, but it is made of trees. Paul is talking directly to your argument, and denying there is anything wrong with God predestining vessels to destruction. He even says you have no basis from which to argue otherwise. We were made by him --not made along with him.

Romans 9, again: "18 So then, God has mercy on whomever he wants to, but he makes resistant whomever he wants to. 19 So you are going to say to me, "Then why does he still blame people? Who has ever resisted his will?" 20 You are only a human being. Who do you think you are to talk back to God? Does the clay say to the potter, "Why did you make me like this?" 21 Doesn't the potter have the power over the clay to make one pot for special purposes and another for garbage from the same lump of clay? 22 What if God very patiently puts up with pots made for wrath that were designed for destruction, because he wanted to show his wrath and to make his power known? 23 What if he did this to make the wealth of his glory known toward pots made for mercy, which he prepared in advance for glory?"

Did you ever read post 462?

 

[JAL]

I think I gave you the wrong number, hold on...

 

[JAL]

Updated, it was post 462.

 

[JAL]

Ok. So you are saying that the will of man supercedes that of God. Enjoy your delusion.

What do you mean by supersede? Why must God be an absolute control-freak in order to qualify as a good leader?

Suppose you have several beverages in the fridge such as orange juice, grape juice, and lemonade. During supper, your child, employing his own free will, selects one of them. Apparently you would react like this:

"How dare you supersede my will!"

Again, why do you think a good father must be an absolute control-freak? Why couldn't it be the GOOD WILL of the father to let his children have some degree of real libertarian freedom?

 

[Clete]

Again, well said.

God claims to be the light of the world. But in Calvinism, He brings just as much grief, pain, and darkness into the world as the devil himself, if not more so. Indeed He IS the devil, since the devil is just a puppet on His strings.

“The devil, and the whole train of the ungodly, are in all directions, held in by the hand of God as with a bridle, so that they can neither conceive any mischief, nor plan what they have conceived, nor how muchsoever they may have planned, move a single finger to perpetrate, unless in so far as he permits, nay unless in so far as he commands, that they are not only bound by his fetters but are even forced to do him service” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 17, Paragraph 11)

 

[Mark Quayle]

What do you mean by supersede? Why must God be an absolute control-freak in order to qualify as a good leader?

Suppose you have several beverages in the fridge such as orange juice, grape juice, and lemonade. During supper, your child, employing his own free will, selects one of them. Apparently you would react like this:

"How dare you supersede my will!"

Again, why do you think a good father must be an absolute control-freak? Why couldn't it be the GOOD WILL of the father to let his children have some degree of real libertarian freedom?

su·per·sede
/ˌso͞opərˈsēd/

variant spelling: supercede
verb

1. take the place of (a person or thing previously in authority or use); supplant.

Again, you mischaracterize --"control freak"?! We aren't talking about a human, here. God is in control by virtue of WHO HE IS. You impugn his nature. You may as well tell him his jealousy, or his wrath is wrong too. You have been anthropomorphizing him this whole many posts.

He is not us. He is not creature. He is not effect. HE IS. Can't you see how different that is??? His very being implies everything else is logically, as relates to cause-and-effect, downstream from him. That logically means that he controls all things. You may as well ask if the Almighty can make a rock too big for him to pick up, as to suggest that there is something outside of his control.

 

[Mark Quayle]

He had a good reason for needlessly sending perhaps 50 billion people to hell? You're not even entitled to that option. Here's why. In YOUR metaphysics, God is supposedly infinite. An infinitely self-sufficient God, by definition, has no NEED (and thus NO REASON) to precondemn men, not even for pleasure - an infinitely self-sufficient God can supply His own pleasure. This is called the Problem of Evil - the fact that an infinitely self-sufficient God has no basis for even allowing the possibility of suffering, much less CAUSING it !!!!

You say you gave me the wrong number. Well, I'll deal with this anyway. "NEEDLESSLY"??? Really? Sin against God demands justice. Besides submitting The Creator to your broken line of logic, you again place yourself against Romans 9. If it says he has reason to "precondemn" men, he has reason. Pretty simple really. Because it gives you spiritual indigestion is no reason it isn't true. But if it helps, think of it as predestining their later condemnation. If they had no sin, they would not be condemned.

You present a supposed Creator, whose plans, somehow, by him being the victim of circumstance beyond his control, are overwhelmed by Satan's and free-willing self-appointed enemies' (fallen humanity's) work. And now he must fly by the seat of his pants, acting and reacting according to how his creation runs his creation. No doubt he's wringing his hands up there now, worried about what we might do next.

Logically, your thinking extrapolates to even disallow him "miracle". God cannot, by extrapolation of your precepts, even interfere or intervene in the affairs of free-willing man. Or do you suppose that those too will not have results influencing the free-willing of humans? HOW, exactly, does your free will operate outside of God's choice?

 

[Mark Quayle]

Mark, after 450 posts deep in this thread, you know very well where I stand on libertarian freedom. Don't force me to explicitly re-use that word in every single sentence I write.

Determinism is pure nonsense. It contradicts the spirit of everything written in the bible regarding God's goodness and fairness. There are only maybe a couple of alleged exceptions, as far as I know, primarily the Potters passage in Rom 9, but I've already addressed Rom 9:22 and, as I recall, you didn't respond to my summary of that verse.

I probably glossed over your dealing with Rom 9. As I remember, you only talked about the focus and use of the context, as though that defeated, instead of supported, the principles Paul lays out in vs 14 to the end. If you can find that post and ask me to look at it again, I will try to deal with it more specifically.

 

[Mark Quayle]

“The devil, and the whole train of the ungodly, are in all directions, held in by the hand of God as with a bridle, so that they can neither conceive any mischief, nor plan what they have conceived, nor how muchsoever they may have planned, move a single finger to perpetrate, unless in so far as he permits, nay unless in so far as he commands, that they are not only bound by his fetters but are even forced to do him service” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 17, Paragraph 11)

No wonder the devil gnashes his teeth. In declaring independence from God he is submitted to eternally opposing God in all his thoughts and deeds, which very opposition God uses for his own good purposes, and not Satan's hopes at all.

 

[Clete]

No wonder the devil gnashes his teeth. In declaring independence from God he is submitted to eternally opposing God in all his thoughts and deeds, which very opposition God uses for his own good purposes, and not Satan's hopes at all.

Can you really not see it when you contradict yourself inside of one sentence?

Your doctrine doesn't teach that God "uses every opposition" it teaches that God commands every opposition!

 

[Mark Quayle]

Can you really not see it when you contradict yourself inside of one sentence?

Your doctrine doesn't teach that God "uses every opposition" it teaches that God commands every opposition!

If he commands it, does he not use it? I've contradicted nothing but your definition of free will --itself a self-contradictory belief in the illogical "Rule of Chance", or do you believe we free agents are with each decision causeless first cause?

 

[Clete]

If he commands it, does he not use it? I've contradicted nothing but your definition of free will --itself a self-contradictory belief in the illogical "Rule of Chance", or do you believe we free agents are with each decision causeless first cause?

I am just continually stunned by Calvinst's inability to think clearly enough to follow what should be a childishly simplistic point.

You suggest that is Satan who rebels and God who uses that rebellion. First of all, when taken to it's logical extreme, that alone is blasphemy but let's not even go there. Let's just keep the point super simple.

Here's the point....

Your doctrine does not teach the Satan rebels against God! It teaches just the exact opposite. It teaches that every single thing that Satan says, thinks, does or wants to do was all commanded by God Himself before time began and that Satan is just doing what God commanded that he do.

Read the quote again...

“The devil, and the whole train of the ungodly, are in all directions, held in by the hand of God as with a bridle, so that they can neither conceive any mischief, nor plan what they have conceived, nor how muchsoever they may have planned, move a single finger to perpetrate, unless in so far as he permits, nay unless in so far as he commands, that they are not only bound by his fetters but are even forced to do him service” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 17, Paragraph 11)