How to become a Calvinist in 5 easy steps

[JAL]

Certainty for me is surety of mind, not of emotion.

And that's the rule of conscience. Duh.

 

[Clare73]

And that's the rule of conscience. Duh.

Not when conscience is all about what you "feel," which is emotion.

 

[Mark Quayle]

@Mark Quayle: Also interested to hear your thoughts on this too.

And what if you make mistakes in your reading comprehension? Especially if you're a mentally handicapped person, or someone without a strong education (including children and teenagers) , or an Alzheimer's patient? Should God regard your behavior as disobedience?

I mean, let's assume you acted with a clear conscience. You studied the law until you felt certain about the correct behavior, and then acted accordingly. Only made some mistakes in your exegesis and thus misconceived God's will for your life.

On what basis would a fair and loving God evaluate your behavior? Do you think He is likely to regard it as disobedience and rebellion? Or do you think He will be satisfied that you did your very best to do good - which is what the rule of conscience means?

My take on this, since you asked, is that you have denied your own thesis.

You say God uses our use of conscience to judge us. Does that not then demonstrate that conscience is not supreme in authority, but God is? Meanwhile, as I have said repeatedly, God looks upon the heart (there's your reference to how we follow the conscience) to judge the deeds. The DEEDS are judged! There is the final authority, God, using a far secondary authority (the heart, the use of conscience) to judge deeds. The conscience is only brought to bear on the judgement. It is not of itself an authority at all in the end.

 

[JAL]

Not when conscience is all about what you "feel," which is emotion.

Ridiculous. If I "feel" someone punch me in the face, that's not a mere emotion.

If I "feel" certain about something, that surety of mind (as you prefer to call it), can be based on exegesis, the Inward Witness, counseling, science experiments, etc. It need not be based on mere emotion.

A strawman is all you've got?

 

[JAL]

You say God uses our use of conscience to judge us. Does that not then demonstrate that conscience is not supreme in authority, but God is? Meanwhile, as I have said repeatedly, God looks upon the heart (there's your reference to how we follow the conscience) to judge the deeds. The DEEDS are judged! There is the final authority, God, using a far secondary authority (the heart, the use of conscience) to judge deeds. The conscience is only brought to bear on the judgement. It is not of itself an authority at all in the end.

For the millionth time, you're splitting theological hairs, and it's potentially dangerous/misleading to fellow Christians, for reasons explained at post 2492. Annoyingly you have kept pressing this point, even though I already acknowledged its (hair-splitting) veracity several times. (Sigh). Yes, again:
....(1) God is the final authority. HOWEVER:
....(2) He evaluates us by the rule of conscience.

How many more times do I need to repeat this?

Is this an egotistical issue for you, Mark? You seem to want everyone to think that you've made a monumentally innovative contribution to this discussion by describing God as the final judge/authority. Brilliant! How profound! Genius idea! None of us on this forum had ever thought of that masterpiece!

In terms of innovation, I'm the only one on these forums, to my knowledge, who has introduced, and fought for, the authority of conscience, and specifically as a direct rebuttal to Sola Scriptura. Scripture alone cannot be our only final authority since the Inward Witness (the Voice) is itself authoritative (Jn 10:27). As Andrew Murray put it, in a chapter entitled "The Voice of Conscience":

“The Holy Ghost speaks through conscience. If you disobey and hurt conscience, you make it impossible for God to speak to you.” (Andrew Murray, The Secret of True Obedience (Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 1999-9-29, v1.0)).

Sadly Andrew Murray merely hinted at his highly innovative conclusions, instead of going into detail, to avoid hostility and backlash from the hard-headed church. Sadly, then, most of the evangelical church is still insisting on Sola Scriptura. Admittedly charismatics do believe in the Voice, but generally not as a final authority in itself.

 

[JAL]

It's not about Ro 14 or 1Co 8.
It's about objective authority.
Of course it's an issue of conscience when it is not in the law.
The law however is an objective written code, legally altered not by subjective experience but only by proper authority.
You would replace objectivity with subjectivity in God's moral order.

So, in your view, the objective law has the final governance of our behavior. The subjective conscience has a say only on matters where the law is silent. Are you sure about that? Consider Matthew:

"At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. 2When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”

3He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. 5Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? 6I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. 7If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ a you would not have condemned the innocent. 8For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” (Mat 12:3-8).

They violated the objective law and yet remained innocent. How do you explain that? Isn't this the rule of conscience at work?

 

[JAL]

Another revealing citation from Andrew Murray:


"All the teaching through the [written] Word or men is made entirely dependent on and subordinate to the personal teaching of the Holy Ghost" (Andrew Murray, The Believer's Secret of Holiness (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1984), p. 199, italics mine).

Did everyone catch that? He's saying that the Voice is authoritative over exegesis.

 

[Clare73]

So, in your view, the objective law has the final governance of our behavior. The subjective conscience has a say only on matters where the law is silent. Are you sure about that? Consider Matthew:
"At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. 2When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”
3He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4He entered the house of God, and he

and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. 5Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? 6I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. 7If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ a you would not have condemned the innocent. 8For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” (Mat 12:3-8).
They violated the objective law and yet remained innocent. How do you explain that? Isn't this the rule of conscience at work?

Three things:
1) Jesus is God, the Lord of the Sabbath.
2) He wasn't "following his conscience."
3) He was giving the true understanding of the law: preservation of innocent (no conviction of crime) human life trumps all moral law.

 

[Clare73]

Ridiculous. If I "feel" someone punch me in the face, that's not a mere emotion.

If I "feel" certain about something, that surety of mind (as you prefer to call it), can be based on exegesis, the Inward Witness, counseling, science experiments, etc. It need not be based on mere emotion.

A strawman is all you've got?

When what is "felt" refers to the non-physical, it is referring to emotion.

 

[Mark Quayle]

For the millionth time, you're splitting theological hairs, and it's potentially dangerous/misleading to fellow Christians, for reasons explained at post 2492. Annoyingly you have kept pressing this point, even though I already acknowledged its (hair-splitting) veracity several times. (Sigh). Yes, again:
....(1) God is the final authority. HOWEVER:
....(2) He evaluates us by the rule of conscience.

Well, then, if you acknowledge the hair-splitting difference, that God is judge, why do you continue with the rule of conscience being the final authority?

2. He evaluates DEEDS by taking into account the heart. There is your rule of conscience. No, that's not hair splitting. He evaluates US by his own perfection, and according to his predetermined use of us, to include, if we are elect, the righteousness of Christ. If you can't see worlds of difference between the conscience and Christ's righteousness, then your god is, as you have shown, less than GOD.

3. Below you begin to attempt to deal with, for the first time in this question of the ultimacy of the rule of conscience, the rule of God's Word. That too is an authority above conscience. More below...

In terms of innovation, I'm the only one on these forums, to my knowledge, who has introduced, and fought for, the authority of conscience, and specifically as a direct rebuttal to Sola Scriptura. Scripture alone cannot be our only final authority since the Inward Witness (the Voice) is itself authoritative (Jn 10:27). As Andrew Murray put it, in a chapter entitled "The Voice of Conscience":

“The Holy Ghost speaks through conscience. If you disobey and hurt conscience, you make it impossible for God to speak to you.” (Andrew Murray, The Secret of True Obedience (Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 1999-9-29, v1.0)).

Sadly Andrew Murray merely hinted at his highly innovative conclusions, instead of going into detail, to avoid hostility and backlash from the hard-headed church. Sadly, then, most of the evangelical church is still insisting on Sola Scriptura. Admittedly charismatics do believe in the Voice, but generally not as a final authority in itself.

Does it never give you pause, when you are "the only one" who brings about some structure you never heard anywhere else or nobody else teaches, and believe it to be true? You seem to think that if you have followed a notion to its logical conclusions and it all checks out that your notion presumes nothing false in its very conception or in its logical sequence. Are you so sure you have jumped no logical steps? There may very well be a reason the rest of the church doesn't see fit to teach it!! It's true that the prophet is not received in his own town, but it's also true that a prophet who misrepresents the truth, while claiming, "thus saith the Lord", well ...I'll let Jude and Peter describe it. I don't want to break the rules of the forum. If Andrew Murray, or anyone, has "highly innovative" conclusions, that does not of itself render them reliable, and even renders them suspect.

Your reference to "the Voice", by which I certainly hope you mean the Spirit of God speaking to your heart and/or mind, brings to mind several things in my experience and which I have heard anecdotally. But see, here is a whole different matter; you deal here with conscience alone, as though the promptings of the spirit are only through the conscience. Andrew Murray is wrong. There is nothing I can do that will disallow God to do as he pleases. The Spirit does as it will, and has often dealt separately, as a voice, as an impression, and even as simply as changing one's preferences or their focus of thought. This "rule of conscience" is a different matter, and regardless of what the conscience does or says, and regardless of whether or not I obey my conscience, disobedience to the Spirit of God is still disobedience to God.

Since you mentioned Sola Scriptura, I will say this: If the 'Spirit of God' says or does anything contrary to the Word of God, it is not the Spirit of God saying or doing it. In other words, they are one and the same in authority, or the Word of God is the authority and the 'voice' I heard is not. Has you never thought something was right, and then realized that Scripture says otherwise, then 'heard' the voice of conscience saying, "but...", and then the 'voice' of conscience says, "Uhm, notice how you want this, but Scripture says, 'that'? You have a decision to make!" It is not the Spirit of God speaking through the conscience in both cases, but it IS the Spirit of God speaking through the Word of God. (And no, I am not saying that what we think the Word says is therefore necessarily right, nor even when the conscience agrees with what we think the Word of God says, that the conscience is right.)

 

[JAL]

When what is "felt" refers to the non-physical, it is referring to emotion.

Ridiculous. The term you preferred was "surety of mind", but if you don't feel sure - if you feel doubtful - there is no surety of mind.

Feeling certain (my term) and surety of mind (your term) are obviously the same thing.

 

[JAL]

Three things:
1) Jesus is God, the Lord of the Sabbath.

Exactly. The disciples listened to Jesus/God - they followed His Voice, not the objective law. Perfect example of the rule of conscience.

 

[Clare73]

Ridiculous. The term you preferred was "surety of mind", but if you don't feel sure - if you feel doubtful - there is no surety of mind.

Feeling certain (my term) and surety of mind (your term) are obviously the same thing.

Going in circles. . .

 

[Clare73]

Exactly. The disciples listened to Jesus/God - they followed His Voice, not the objective law. Perfect example of the rule of conscience.

The law regarding David and the showbread was followed: Preservation of innocent (no conviction for crime) human life trumps all moral law.

 

[JAL]

Going in circles. . .

Caused by the rampant intellectual dishonesty, strawmen, and deflection in your posts.

 

[Clare73]

Caused by the rampant intellectual dishonesty, strawmen, and deflection in your posts.

Assertion without demonstration. . .

 

[JAL]

The law regarding David and the showbread was followed: Preservation of innocent (no conviction for crime) human life trumps all moral law.

Can you show me the verse that says, " Preservation of innocent (no conviction for crime) human life trumps all moral law."?

Oh that's right. You made that up. For all your protests about our allegiance to objective law, you subscribe instead to a logical construct that you devised. I'm not saying that construct is necessarily wrong. But it's certainly not any objective law that I remember seeing in Scripture. Chapter and verse, please?

 

[JAL]

The law regarding David and the showbread was followed:

That's not what Jesus said. Jesus said David did what was unlawful to do.

Hm....Shall I believe you? Or Jesus? That's a tough one!

 

[Clare73]

That's not what Jesus said. Jesus said David did what was unlawful to do.

Hm....Shall I believe you? Or Jesus? That's a tough one!

Tough. . .particularly when you don't see that Jesus was showing that it was actually lawful.

 

[JAL]

Well, then, if you acknowledge the hair-splitting difference, that God is judge, why do you continue with the rule of conscience being the final authority?

2. He evaluates DEEDS by taking into account the heart. There is your rule of conscience. No, that's not hair splitting. He evaluates US by his own perfection, and according to his predetermined use of us, to include, if we are elect, the righteousness of Christ. If you can't see worlds of difference between the conscience and Christ's righteousness, then your god is, as you have shown, less than GOD.

Meaningless rambling and hair-splitting. You already admitted that the conscience is authoritative - there is never an exception to the rule of conscience, a situation where we should try to be evil. Enough going round and round in circles with you on this.

Again, this is not to say that conscience operates in a vacuum. As I have said repeatedly, it needs education from the Voice (prophecy) and, where such Direct Revelation is in short supply, we fallback on exegesis as a crutch.

You and Clare are both trying to endlessly nitpick my statements without contributing anything innovative, constructive, useful, or meaningful.

Does it never give you pause, when you are "the only one" who brings about some structure you never heard anywhere else or nobody else teaches, and believe it to be true? You seem to think that if you have followed a notion to its logical conclusions and it all checks out that your notion presumes nothing false in its very conception or in its logical sequence. Are you so sure you have jumped no logical steps? There may very well be a reason the rest of the church doesn't see fit to teach it!! It's true that the prophet is not received in his own town, but it's also true that a prophet who misrepresents the truth, while claiming, "thus saith the Lord", well ...I'll let Jude and Peter describe it. I don't want to break the rules of the forum. If Andrew Murray, or anyone, has "highly innovative" conclusions, that does not of itself render them reliable, and even renders them suspect.

More rambling. Obviously I never touted Andrew Murray as authoritative. I only ask people to believe things that I consider demonstrable logically and exegetically.

3. Below you begin to attempt to deal with, for the first time in this question of the ultimacy of the rule of conscience, the rule of God's Word. That too is an authority above conscience.

Odd that Jesus commended David and the disciples for doing what is unlawful to do. For someone so obsessed with nitpicking - accusing me of neglecting to pay attention to (hair-splitting) details - it is odd that this important detail seems overlooked.

Since you mentioned Sola Scriptura, I will say this: If the 'Spirit of God' says or does anything contrary to the Word of God, it is not the Spirit of God saying or doing it. In other words, they are one and the same in authority, or the Word of God is the authority and the 'voice' I heard is not. Has you never thought something was right, and then realized that Scripture says otherwise, then 'heard' the voice of conscience saying, "but...", and then the 'voice' of conscience says, "Uhm, notice how you want this, but Scripture says, 'that'? You have a decision to make!" It is not the Spirit of God speaking through the conscience in both cases, but it IS the Spirit of God speaking through the Word of God. (And no, I am not saying that what we think the Word says is therefore necessarily right, nor even when the conscience agrees with what we think the Word of God says, that the conscience is right.)

Are you proposing an exception to the rule of conscience? Get real. The Voice operates via the rule of conscience - it causes you to feel certain of the spoken message. This imposes a moral obligation. No, you don't have a "decision to make" at that point. And here's what you fail to understand. You have no direct access to Scripture, only to your fallible interpretations of it. That's why the Voice, and the conscience, always trump Scripture - not Scripture per se, but your fallible interpretations. Would a couple of examples help?
....(1) Paul the Pharisee - a bible scholar - instantly abandoned 20 years of exegesis based on the Vision/Voice on the Road to Damascus, literally in a single flash of Light. Why did he do that? Obviously because the Vision/Voice caused him to feel certain that Jesus is Lord.
....(2) In the fashion of Jewish separatism, Peter shunned the Gentiles until a Vision/Voice trumped his exegesis (Acts 10).

Your reference to "the Voice", by which I certainly hope you mean the Spirit of God speaking to your heart and/or mind, brings to mind several things in my experience and which I have heard anecdotally. But see, here is a whole different matter; you deal here with conscience alone, as though the promptings of the spirit are only through the conscience. Andrew Murray is wrong. There is nothing I can do that will disallow God to do as he pleases. The Spirit does as it will, and has often dealt separately, as a voice, as an impression, and as even simply as changing one's preferences or their focus of thought. This "rule of conscience" is a different matter, and regardless of what the conscience does or says, and regardless of whether or not I obey my conscience, disobedience to the Spirit of God is still disobedience to God.

Yes the promptings are always via the rule of conscience. God isn't obtuse. He knows that the Voice - no matter what kind of impression it is currently using, such as the voice of angels - is useless to us until it makes us feel certain of its authenticity. You didn't think this through. Which is odd because I've pointed this out probably a dozen times now.