Prayer works?

[Aviel]

Unless it is you who does not know the meaning of God's foreknowledge,

"FORE... knowledge"... "knowledge of an event BE-FORE".......it happens..

So, in the case of God's "Foreknowledge" = that is "Knowledge of all things that will happen next, before they happen next."

To KNOW is not the same as to CAUSE., and that is where Calvin's theology became ERROR and just kept getting worse.


Notice this....

The OT over 105 times gives the exact situation that is going to occur regarding the coming Messiah.

Like : where He will be born.....in "Bethlehem"...

So, that is not the bible CAUSING IT............or Pre-destining it... That is the Bible REVEALING IT, as "Fore-Knowledge".

That is how God does it..

He KNOWS what is coming, and He often reveals it in the BIBLE. as "Fore-knowledge" or Prophecy....

 

[Clare73]

"FORE... knowledge"... "knowledge of an event BE-FORE".......it happens..

So, in the case of God's "Foreknowledge" = that is "Knowledge of all things that will happen next, before they happen next."You

To KNOW is not the same as to CAUSE., and that is where Calvin's theology became ERROR and just kept getting worse.


Notice this....

The OT over 105 times gives the exact situation that is going to occur regarding the coming Messiah.

Like : where He will be born.....in "Bethlehem"...

So, that is not the bible CAUSING IT............or Pre-destining it... That is the Bible REVEALING IT, as "Fore-Knowledge".

That is how God does it..

He KNOWS what is coming, and He often reveals it in the BIBLE. as "Fore-knowledge" or Prophecy....

You still have not done your Biblical homework on post #123.

 

[Aviel]

You still have not done your Biblical homework on post #123.

I did more then that.

I sectioned your #123, and answered it in sections..

Lets look at the last thing you posted.., and i'll teach on this again for you.

"I have chosen you"..

And that is True.......Jesus chose and God showed which., which is Why Jesus said to the Father, "i have lost none that you gave me".. and then he mentions Judas.

So, that choosing is for the Ministry of Jesus...they were His ministry Team, in Training. = His Apostles.

Now, in the Time of the Gentiles.... = God chooses by "the call of God" that calls someone into a specific ministry../

Pastor, Teacher, Evangelist, Prophet, Missionary

And God knew He was going to call them, but He didnt pre-destined them to be called, exactly like a believer is known by God's Foreknowledge, but not chosen by it..,

 

[Clare73]

I did more then that.

I sectioned your #123, and answered it in sections..

In which post did you answer it?

 

[Aviel]

In which post did you answer it?

The next one i posted to you, after you posted that one.

I took out the Calvin Theology that you posted and just replied to it, and also to "i have chosen you" as you were trying to conform that verse into Calvin's "pre-destined",.. theology., also.

see, a Calvinist takes the bible and tries to rewrite it as Calvinism.. as that is what He causes His Disciples to do.

 

[Clare73]

The next one i posted to you, after you posted that one.

Which responses thereto you have not addressed. . .

 

[Mark Quayle]

I can demonstrate that if you can't comprehend that the reason you are reading this post, and will choose to respond or not, is because you have free will to choose to do it., then that proves you are not understanding the situation.

So, if you believe that because God knew, before you were born... that you would be listening to me today......and you are pre-destined by God...to hear me, then you should be careful to listen, more carefully, as you are pre-destined to hear it.

Right?

You dont want to insult God's "Knowing'..

So, be careful with that, @Mark Quayle

HA! I guess the same would apply to you then!

But if God predestined for you (or me) to spout foolishness, does that mean that I (or you) should listen carefully?


BTW, I noticed you didn't accept the challenge.

 

[Mark Quayle]

The next one i posted to you, after you posted that one.

I took out the Calvin Theology that you posted and just replied to it, and also to "i have chosen you" as you were trying to conform that verse into Calvin's "pre-destined",.. theology., also.

see, a Calvinist takes the bible and tries to rewrite it as Calvinism.. as that is what He causes His Disciples to do.

Which responses thereto you have not addressed. . .

@Aviel. As I have pointed out before, neither @Clare73 nor I are Calvinists. Please try to understand, Calvin is not the author of our beliefs. I don't know whether to call it shifting the goalposts, or beating up on a strawman —maybe a red herring... It's irrelevant to the discussion what you think of Calvin, as I have told you before.

 

[Mark Quayle]

God directly caused Adam to live. God indirectly causes Adam's children to live. And God very indirectly causes children born today to live. So, there are degrees of causing. God is the first cause of everything, a distant first cause for things happening now, a closer first cause for things happening soon after creation. It is misspoken when people say God causes everything; truly God caused Satan to be created yet God does not sin while the devil does almost nothing but sin, it is misspoken to say God sins because the devil sins and God made the devil.

Of course! Who is saying God sins?

 

[bbbbbbb]

Of course! Who is saying God sins?

I think what he is getting at is the concept that if God causes all things to happen, including sin, therefore, God is not purely good, being the causative agent of sin.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

Of course! Who is saying God sins?

Whoever says that God causes everything says by implication that God causes sin(s).

 

[Mark Quayle]

I think what he is getting at is the concept that if God causes all things to happen, including sin, therefore, God is not purely good, being the causative agent of sin.

To me, that notion is silly. God is not the only cause of sin. He caused everything that led to Adam's sin. But you can't reasonably get to the idea that something can come to pass that does not descend logically from God creating, and that, creating with knowledge of what would come of his creating.

 

[bbbbbbb]

To me, that notion is silly. God is not the only cause of sin. He caused everything that led to Adam's sin. But you can't reasonably get to the idea that something can come to pass that does not descend logically from God creating, and that, creating with knowledge of what would come of his creating.

Although I am on your side, I will take the position of a certain individual's advocate here. The niggling question is the origin of sin. One can easily say that Satan is the author of sin, as we see clearly in Genesis 2. However, how did Satan come to that role? If God's creation, including the angels, was flawless and perfect, without any sin, how did Satan and the demons come to their sad position? Why did God not create Satan, et. al., with no capacity for sin? Did God give angels free will? If so, could they have had no other option than to obey God? Who gave them the option to disobey God?

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

Although I am on your side, I will take the position of a certain individual's advocate here.

If one reasons that God caused everything because he created everything and foresees everything thus implying that God is responsible for everything having both created it and foreseen how it would work out. This ought to be problematic for any theology that advocates it. It, without question, implicates God in sins as both the cause of them and as the planner of them.

 

[bbbbbbb]

If one reasons that God caused everything because he created everything and foresees everything thus implying that God is responsible for everything having both created it and foreseen how it would work out. This ought to be problematic for any theology that advocates it. It, without question, implicates God in sins as both the cause of them and as the planner of them.

The niggling question still remains. Where did sin originate?

 

[Clare73]

The niggling question still remains. Where did sin originate?

From desiring something more than desiring God.

 

[bbbbbbb]

From desiring something more than desiring God.

Did the individual who originated this desire have free will?

 

[Mark Quayle]

Although I am on your side, I will take the position of a certain individual's advocate here. The niggling question is the origin of sin. One can easily say that Satan is the author of sin, as we see clearly in Genesis 2. However, how did Satan come to that role? If God's creation, including the angels, was flawless and perfect, without any sin, how did Satan and the demons come to their sad position? Why did God not create Satan, et. al., with no capacity for sin? Did God give angels free will? If so, could they have had no other option than to obey God? Who gave them the option to disobey God?

I see that as considering sin as a "thing" like any other thing. It is carefully called, "the privation of good", and said to not be a thing of itself any more than darkness is of itself more than the absence of light. God's light causes that there is either no darkness at all, or, the light being in his careful hands, that there is some darkness. Darkness, then, is a mental conception, and not a "thing" in and of itself. God caused that there be darkness. God caused that there be sin. He did not generate darkness, nor sin.

Of course, this will feel like playing with words, or worse, equivocating, to some people, but they don't seem to realize how our mental constructs and uses of words are, as CS Lewis calls them, "the babel we think we mean."

 

[bbbbbbb]

I see that as considering sin as a "thing" like any other thing. It is carefully called, "the privation of good", and said to not be a thing of itself any more than darkness is of itself more than the absence of light. God's light causes that there is either no darkness at all, or, the light being in his careful hands, that there is some darkness. Darkness, then, is a mental conception, and not a "thing" in and of itself. God caused that there be darkness. God caused that there be sin. He did not generate darkness, nor sin.

Of course, this will feel like playing with words, or worse, equivocating, to some people, but they don't seem to realize how our mental constructs and uses of words are, as CS Lewis calls them, "the babel we think we mean."

Thank you. If light has eternally existed, then its absence also seems to have eternally existed. Thus, sin, as well as darkness, has no origin, any more than God or light does. Is this your understanding?

 

[Mark Quayle]

Thank you. If light has eternally existed, then its absence also seems to have eternally existed. Thus, sin, as well as darkness, has no origin, any more than God or light does. Is this your understanding?

No. 'When'* God was all there was —i.e., before he created anything— there was no darkness.

But James (1:13-17) tells us where sin originates. It could, I think rightly be called a perverting principle, but even then, it derives from what it perverts, and not from its own being.