Can that not, and most likely mean, "nor did it come into my mind that th
Oops! Looks like something got deleted. Can that not mean, what?
Yes. Maybe you haven't read much of what I have posted. I have said more than once, that even mere compliance with God's law has results. I DO NOT DENY REAL CHOICE. Furthermore, logically, to put before humanity (not just Israel) the choice to choose or reject God, does not imply that God does not cause that choice. Where do you get that this verse proves your point?
My point was the God does not "imply choice" as your previous post had stated. He commands us to choose and tells us the consequences of doing so.
As for God causing the choice, that is not logical. It would mean that it was God who made the choice. In other words, you can cause an event but cannot cause a choice. If an event is causally determined then it wasn't chosen except, perhaps, by whomever caused it.
To say that one has a choice implies (logically) that there are real alternatives from which to choose. Put another way, for me to have a choice I must have the real ability to do OR to do otherwise and that it is me who chooses it. Otherwise, it either wasn't a choice at all or it wasn't me who made it.
To wax eloquent a few lines down a false tack proves nothing, nor is it logically convincing. Makes me think of a politician or activist speaker making a bald faced lie, then screaming about the blindness of denial.
You're deflecting.
If my comments are nothing by eloquent was based on a false track then it should be easy for you to refute my argument!
Huh? How do I undermine all argumentation? I undermine your confidence in your reasoning. The fact that two people reason, or argue, does not make both positions equally valid.
No, it isn't merely "your reasoning" as though your argument applied to just one person's line of thinking. You are undermining the ability of the human race's ability to think. You are questioning the veracity of reason itself. This is why you say that the logic is wrong but don't explain the fallacy and why you state that God is transcendent above our ability to reason.
That's very clever. I hear a representative of the FBI pompously declare all the steps of integrity necessary to gain a FISA warrant, as if that is therefore how they did it. You are saying something true, and expecting me to assume therefore that it applies to this situation?
I am expecting nothing except that you refute the argument if you think it flawed. You claiming that it's flawed doesn't mean that it is.
And it isn't "clever' either! I am responding to your own words. If I have misunderstood you then fine, explain/clarify yourself and how what I've said doesn't apply to what you actually meant.
Clete, my man, I don't want to continue down an argument concerning the integrity of one's own understanding.
Who said a word anout "one's own understanding"?
Not me!
Any one person could make any number of errors in his reasoning but just telling someone that their reasoning is faulty doesn't make it so and it is only through proper reason that such errors can be detected and corrected.
You here answer my protests about such trust in self, with a generic claim that I am wrong because logic is reliable. I am not saying that logic is unreliable. I'm saying that WE are unreliable. You argue that WE is all we have to make logic, but that is useless to say --it does not disagree with me that we are unreliable. You will say I am being disingenuous since I make arguments against yours --so what? --we do the best we can; you have proven nothing but my thesis, by pointing out my hypocrisy.
If all you are saying is that it is our use of reason that is unreliable then on what basis do you call anyone's logic wrong?
Think that question through before you answer because it answers itself. If you don't see how it does so then you are missing the point.
The point is that maybe it's your logic that's wrong! How would you know? How could you ever find out?
The answer to that question - the ONLY answer to that question - is sound reason. That is the only means by which you or anyone else has of knowing, understanding or communicating anything whatsoever. God Himself is entirely incapable of communicating a syllable of intelligible information, whether through His word or via direct revelation, without the use of reason. Indeed, God Himself is Reason! (John 1)
You sound to me like the Atheists who assume, since I believe in God, that I am opposed to science. Wrong.
You should stop trying to interpret what I say and just go with the words on the page. I wasn't implying any such thing.
Whether you're aware of it or not, antinomy is a concept that has a long history in all of philosophy and in Christian philosophy in particular and when you tell someone that doctrine precedes or over rules or in some other way trumps reason, you are employing the concept of antinomy. You may not have any problem with that. There are millions of Christians all over the world that do it all the time and are perfectly okay with the idea. But ideas have consequences and you are on a debate forum. Don't blame me for debating it. I'm not trying to attack you or to insult you in any way. I'm just debating ideas with the strongest possible arguments I know. If you think I'm wrong then figure out a way to refute me and then I'll respond with a rejoinder or if you can't do that (and I do say IF) then think through what your inability to refute me means concerning your doctrine and whether you should consider altering your position. Either way it goes, so long was we are all being honest we will all be sharper pieces of iron for the effort.
Clete
