God is POWER, Thus Spoke Calvinuthra

[lesliedellow]

The Jews have a habit of being sticklers for preservation of tradition. So what the vast majority of modern Jews believe is quite relevant.

Ancient Judaism's concept of hell is Sheol, which is place of punishment that lasts a maximum of 12 months after which the soul is raised again or destroyed.

Hopefully you will give Josephus some credit for knowing what his contemporaries believed:

"They [the Pharisees] also believe that souls have an immortal rigor in them, and that under the earth there will be rewards or punishments, according as they have lived virtuously or viciously in this life; and the latter are to be detained in an everlasting prison, but that the former shall have power to revive and live again."


In a previous passage:

"and when they determine that all things are done by fate, they do not take away the freedom from men of acting as they think fit; since their notion is, that it hath pleased God to make a temperament, whereby what he wills is done, but so that the will of man can act virtuously or viciously."

Substitute the word "providence" for the word "fate", and that could almost have been written by Calvin himself.

“Aion”

My dictionary of New Testament Greek gives "a very long time" as a possible translation of the noun αιων. It does not, however, list an equivalent meaning for the adjective αιωνιος. If you think that you can deduce the meaning of the adjective from the noun, I want to know when you think logic and natural languages last had anything to do with one another. As one computer programmer quipped, natural languages were designed by amateurs.

I also want to know why you there is not a single Bible translator on the face of the Earth who knows his job. Of the thirty odd versions of the Bible I have just looked through on biblegateway.com, do you know how many translated αιωνιος ιn the way you say it should be? Not one. Not even "The Message," which is user friendly if nothing else is.

 

[KCfromNC]

What you're saying is that people are Calvinists because they're not as balanced and emotionally stable as you? Some might call this ad hominem.

Or just realize it is par for the course for debates about religion. Since there's no evidence to go on it all comes back to personal opinions. Of course no one's going to find that convincing, so making up stuff about people who disagree is a common tactic to make one's argument look better.

 

[Received]

So he creates the reasons he follows?

Okay, leslie, I'll answer my own question. I always tell my wife that when she doesn't respond during an argument that something really must be up.

If God creates the reasons he follows, then this either presupposes a standard as to how he creates his reasons, or his reasons are pure caprice. If they're caprice, there's no need at all for reason, and we're left back at "God does it because God does it, and whatever he does is good" which implies no standard for action, and makes his actions somewhat nihilistic, and strangely makes people who use his "standard" bad people in many situations.

So we're back at 1) either God has a standard outside himself (which unless God is capricious, you've been arguing by appealing to reasons for his action), or 2) the both/and perspective mentioned above.

 

[bhsmte]

Okay, leslie, I'll answer my own question. I always tell my wife that when she doesn't respond during an argument that something really must be up.

If God creates the reasons he follows, then this either presupposes a standard as to how he creates his reasons, or his reasons are pure caprice. If they're caprice, there's no need at all for reason, and we're left back at "God does it because God does it, and whatever he does is good" which implies no standard for action, and makes his actions somewhat nihilistic, and strangely makes people who use his "standard" bad people in many situations.

So we're back at 1) either God has a standard outside himself (which unless God is capricious, you've been arguing by appealing to reasons for his action), or 2) the both/and perspective mentioned above.

Ok, what did you do to tick off your wife?

 

[Received]

Ok, what did you do to tick off your wife?

What do I do NOT to tick off my wife?

She's a stick of dynamite. I might have bruises on my ribs, actually.

MMmmmmm, ribs.

 

[Received]

You have no idea, bhsmte, what it's like having two therapists argue with one another. Within minutes we're attacking the validity of each other's schemas. It's ridiculous.

 

[bhsmte]

What do I do NOT to tick off my wife?

She's a stick of dynamite. I might have bruises on my ribs, actually.

MMmmmmm, ribs.

I know the feeling. At least, I used to know the feeling, but mine was clinically off the charts.

 

[lesliedellow]

Okay, leslie, I'll answer my own question. I always tell my wife that when she doesn't respond during an argument that something really must be up.

If God creates the reasons he follows, then this either presupposes a standard as to how he creates his reasons, or his reasons are pure caprice. If they're caprice, there's no need at all for reason, and we're left back at "God does it because God does it, and whatever he does is good" which implies no standard for action, and makes his actions somewhat nihilistic, and strangely makes people who use his "standard" bad people in many situations.

So we're back at 1) either God has a standard outside himself (which unless God is capricious, you've been arguing by appealing to reasons for his action), or 2) the both/and perspective mentioned above.

There is no other word for it. That is gobbledegook.

 

[Received]

There is no other word for it. That is gobbledegook.

Convenient.

 

[Received]

Calvinism: if it fits my theology it's great, and if it doesn't it's Chinese.

 

[SarahsKnight]

Okay, leslie, I'll answer my own question. I always tell my wife that when she doesn't respond during an argument that something really must be up.

If God creates the reasons he follows, then this either presupposes a standard as to how he creates his reasons, or his reasons are pure caprice. If they're caprice, there's no need at all for reason, and we're left back at "God does it because God does it, and whatever he does is good" which implies no standard for action, and makes his actions somewhat nihilistic, and strangely makes people who use his "standard" bad people in many situations.

So we're back at 1) either God has a standard outside himself (which unless God is capricious, you've been arguing by appealing to reasons for his action), or 2) the both/and perspective mentioned above.
​

There is no other word for it. That is gobbledegook.

Not that I am necessarily agreeing with everything the non-Calvinists have posted in their defense here (some of that did kind of sound like it could have been worded better, although I think I get what he's trying to say), Lesliedellow, but I really gotta ask you, because while Calvinists have some Biblical defense for their position and so do free-will folk, the fact is obvious that BOTH of our sides also have our own thoughts about God, and this is something you and those with your theology never seem to admit to (and SURELY it has crossed your minds at some point): A defense of Calvinists is that we cannot argue back with God no matter what He does, as per indicated by Romans 9:20, but seriously, what if you thought for a second that you might be one of the elect and God was against you from the very beginning as well as supposedly 80% of the rest of the human race, that He predestined you to destruction - ESPECIALLY if it's the kind of destruction that eternal torment proponents believe in for the unbelievers - as well. ... Would you just be able to say, ah, well, that's way God wants it. So it is good. Would you feel the same confidence in God and His goodness were you on the other side of the fence?

Now, you might say, well, we can be confident if we're one of the elect, that we're among the Beloved and He will make us perservere. Okay, but consider this, if God really does such a seemingly arbitrary thing as choosing who goes to Heaven and who goes to Hell before letting anyone even be born, do you put it past Him to also be of the kind of finicky mind that would let some hopeful believers throughout their lives THINK that they were chosen, only to reveal that they never were at the judgment because He never actually wanted them, almost as though He were just playing a little game with them all that time?


​

 

[lesliedellow]

Would you feel the same confidence in God and His goodness were you on the other side of the fence?

Whether I was a Calvinist or not, I doubt if I would be wildly enthusiastic to discover that I was on my way to hell.

 

[Received]

Whether I was a Calvinist or not, I doubt if I would be wildly enthusiastic to discover that I was on my way to hell.

There are too many people whose theology makes them pretty much live in a type of spiritual Hell. And, you know, Hell from the perspective of Hell is Heaven.

 

[Usus Vox Tractus]

Hopefully you will give Josephus some credit for knowing what his contemporaries believed:

"They [the Pharisees] also believe that souls have an immortal rigor in them, and that under the earth there will be rewards or punishments, according as they have lived virtuously or viciously in this life; and the latter are to be detained in an everlasting prison, but that the former shall have power to revive and live again."


In a previous passage:

"and when they determine that all things are done by fate, they do not take away the freedom from men of acting as they think fit; since their notion is, that it hath pleased God to make a temperament, whereby what he wills is done, but so that the will of man can act virtuously or viciously."

Substitute the word "providence" for the word "fate", and that could almost have been written by Calvin himself.




My dictionary of New Testament Greek gives "a very long time" as a possible translation of the noun αιων. It does not, however, list an equivalent meaning for the adjective αιωνιος. If you think that you can deduce the meaning of the adjective from the noun, I want to know when you think logic and natural languages last had anything to do with one another. As one computer programmer quipped, natural languages were designed by amateurs.

I also want to know why you there is not a single Bible translator on the face of the Earth who knows his job. Of the thirty odd versions of the Bible I have just looked through on biblegateway.com, do you know how many translated αιωνιος ιn the way you say it should be? Not one. Not even "The Message," which is user friendly if nothing else is.

Jerome was a bible translator. Surely you know about his sole and complete fabrication of "Lucifer"?

Surely you know about the telephone game?

There are several other aberrant translation errors that completely change the meanings of the passage. Would you like to see them as well?

 

[Usus Vox Tractus]

Whether I was a Calvinist or not, I doubt if I would be wildly enthusiastic to discover that I was on my way to hell.

Sheol is a limited time for pruning chastisement and this is for the recalcitrant. The repentant are forgiven.

 

[lesliedellow]

Sheol is a limited time for pruning chastisement and this is for the recalcitrant. The repentant are forgiven.

Do you know, I really couldn't care less what part Sheol played in Jewish spirituality in Old Testament Times. Or New Testament times for that matter. The Christian concept of hell clearly has its origins in the idea, shared by the Pharisees and Essenes, of a place of eternal punishment.

 

[lesliedellow]

Jerome was a bible translator. Surely you know about his sole and complete fabrication of "Lucifer"?

Surely you know about the telephone game?

There are several other aberrant translation errors that completely change the meanings of the passage. Would you like to see them as well?

The telephone game is a complete red herring, given the number of NT manuscripts there are, and the role of textual critics.

Oh I get it. I am supposed to believe that Isaiah 14 refers to Satan being cast into hell. Well sorry, but I don't.

 

[Received]

Do you know, I really couldn't care less what part Sheol played in Jewish spirituality in Old Testament Times. Or New Testament times for that matter. The Christian concept of hell clearly has its origins in the idea, shared by the Pharisees and Essenes, of a place of eternal punishment.

So you're saying the intertestamental period validates theological concepts we use today?

And "eternal" is the operational word here.

 

[lesliedellow]

So you're saying the intertestamental period validates theological concepts we use today?

And "eternal" is the operational word here.

I am saying that passages like Luke 16.19ff make it perfectly clear what Jesus understood by hell, and it wasn't the kind of shadowy half existence which Sheol represented.

 

[Received]

I am saying that passages like Luke 16.19ff make it perfectly clear what Jesus understood by hell, and it wasn't the kind of shadowy half existence which Sheol represented.

We also know that "Abraham's bosom" isn't Biblical (mentioned nowhere else), and Jesus really liked to drive home points by using imagery. And heaven forbid we take a story meant to drive home a bigger point literally and forget that if we did so we'd all sort of be going there given our callousness toward the poor. Or at the very least you can't vote Republican (you know, helping rich people and all).