The Bible, The Church, Tradition, Authority, and the Canon - Page 6

[Purple Sage]

Smokering, can you elaborate on how (some) Calvinists defend the position that the words "love", "all", and "world" have different meanings than what they seem to plainly say?

God causing someone to sin is not the same as God Himself sinning (which I agree is impossible, not only theologically but very possibly logically). In your view, God has occasionally interfered with LFW and directly caused sin, right? How is that theoretically different from a view in which He always does it? Isn't that just a matter of degree?

I can't speak for Bluegoat, but my understanding is that God is not interfering with LFW by causing someone to sin, but rather that He knew what was in the hearts of these people and He orchestrated events to occur utilizing the free decisions that He knew the people would make in order to produce a certain outcome.  Why do you think it is impossible for God to do that?

I also find it somewhat amazing that some people become Christians due to Calvinism.  My conversion was just the opposite.  Free will and God's love for all men (as defined by non-Calvinists) is what compelled me to accept Christianity.

[Thao]

The reason I come across so rabidly pro-logic in my posts here is that I think there need to be very valid reasons (logical ones, as it were!) for determining it to be insufficient in any particular theological instance. I've seen it abandoned so many times as a cop-out, or because someone didn't like the implications of the alternative interpretation, or for other dodgy reasons, that I get a bit defensive about it.

I don't doubt that some people avoid unpleasant logical conclusions as a cop-out, or because they don't like the implications. But there are also other reasons why people may not agree. In my case, I disagree with you not because I dislike the implications - as I said before, I'm not a Christian so I don't have a horse in this race - nor do I have any reason to "cop out". When we had that conversation some time ago about predestination, I started out from a position of agreeing with you - I thought that Calvinism was the only logical choice if one accepts the Bible as their authority and that others just refused to see that. But by the end of the conversation, I had come to the conclusion that in order to make the logic work, Calvinism has to twist the meanings of words in ways that I don't think is justified. It's not just the word "love" (Side note: I was surprised when you said the "love thing" is a straw man, because I got that straight from you in that conversation. Back then you were saying that God DOES love the elect, just with a different kind of love. Have you now changed your position?). Some other examples: the distinction between "choose" and "freely choose". It's an absurd distinction to me. Choice by definition requires a certain amount of freedom - there is no such thing as "unfree choice", it's an oxymoron, like "round square". There can be limited choice, such as the choice between an apple and a banana. But we would never give someone just an apple and say, "choose". Likewise, those Calvinists that believe God does not love the elect have to interpret words like "world" and "all" as being "part of the world" and "some". Because of this, I've come to the conclusion that Calvinism may be more logical, but it contradicts Scripture. As I see it, there is no logical AND scriptural explanation for that issue.

Now, I don't expect you to agree with me, and that's fine. I agree with you that the debate is pretty well played out and at this point all we can really add to our respective positions is "Is too!" "Is not!" about twenty more times .

but it does make them less "Christian" in the sense of being the kind of Christian commended in the Bible. Rational thinking is a virtue or a duty in a way that musical appreciation isn't.

I'm curious - can you tell me on what you base this? Besides just the fact that Paul used reason in his letters, I mean. Where is rational thinking praised as a virtue and duty?

The denomination I grew up in very strongly put reason in second place after faith (they had this little train diagram they used with the kids - Faith was the engine, then came Reason, and Feelings was the caboose). So maybe those verses were downplayed. Actually that is a conversation I'd find interesting - the relationship between reason, faith, and feelings and which, if any, is superior. Is it too off-topic for this thread? It does relate, I think, in the sense we probably use all three to some extent in choosing which authority (Bible alone or Bible + Tradition) to rely on.

[Bluegoat]

Originally Posted by Smokering 

Are you sure?  I'd suggest that maybe he did - and he knew about the decision that wasn't made as well.

But perfect definite foreknowledge means that He didn't just foresee multiple options, He knew which one was the "real" option - which choice would actually be made. His knowing that is logically contingent on someone actually making that choice.

What if both were made,?

 It is interesting though that Christ was limited in ways that God is not - he wasn't omniscient, he was bound by time and space, he was tempted.  And I think it is important to remember that it is in perfectly adhering to God's will that we have perfect freedom.  Although we are in a sense free to sin, it is sin that makes us slaves to our passions, and to the events around us.  The Incarnation does tell us something about God, about his nature if you want to put it that way; he is able to empty himself while still remaining God.

One Person of the Godhead "emptying Himself" is surely different from all Three emptying Themselves, though, surely? There was never a point in which none of the Persons in the Godhead were omniscient or omnipotent.

It depends.  First, would free will mean God was totally emptying himself?  I don't think so really.  Secondly, the realities we see in Christ are telling us something more generally about God.  In fact it is through the Son that there is a creation, and it is the Son that had to empty himself for creation.  There is something about our relationship with God that requires that kind of suffering, that kind of emptying, that kind of self-giving by God.  Can we quantify what that is all about>  It doesn't seem so.  But does it inform the kinds of things we think God might be able to do?  It does for me.

I am still not sure why you think freedom makes God powerless?  I don't know of anyone except perhaps a Deist who might say that.  Of course he could intervene, and most Christians believe that at times he does, for some reason of his own.  Do you not believe in miracles?  That is just an example of God intervening when we don't expect him to.  I am also surprised that you feel that God cannot control the things he wishes to while accommodating human freedom.  I got sent a "meeting creator" email recently to arrange a group meeting.  It takes in the dates that everyone is free and sets up the most advantageous time for the meeting.  If a wee computer can do that, I don't worry that God can't manage to arrange history where he wants to.

Miracles are God intervening in the physical laws of the universe. Predestination is God interfering in human decisions, which is a different kettle of fish. Obviously I don't have a problem with it, being a Calvinist, but Arminians tend to recoil from the idea, saying that God wants us to love Him freely and so on. Which makes it odd that they'd be OK with God doing it sometimes. Why is it OK sometimes, but not always?

I don't know if we can really answer this question - why it would be just some times but not others.  I suppose what I would say is that God would not over-ride what is essential to our freedom, what makes us human.  But I'm also  not sure I would say he does it - over-ride our freedom.  I do, however, think he could.

But history is inextricably linked to human decisions. Wars happen because people decide to make war; plagues happen in part because of human decisions about hygiene, quarantine and so on; economic growth is tied to people deciding to buy things. You could argue that if God wanted to stop a war from happening, He could let everyone freely decide to go to war and then thwart them "guerilla-style" through a series of technical blunders, communication breakdowns or outright miracles; but that wouldn't be much in the way of "freedom", would it? And it's not the pattern we see in Scripture, where God happily makes people bless Israel instead of cursing her, or causing Pharaoh to harden his heart against the Israelites.

I wonder how specifically God needs to set up history?  It may be that he is able to achieve his ends while allowing a lot of possibilities.  I doubt God spends a lot of time stopping wars if we are determined to have them - I suspect God's ends are not often that specific.  It isn't a situation where God has to either set up a set of laws and let things run out like clockwork, nor does he need to interfering the pattern that has been set.  Things can be arranged to fall out to achieve God's ends while at the same time taking account of every choice individuals make, or would make, or could make.  And of course if every possible choice is always made, that changes the whole perspective on the thing.

Your computer program presumably only works if everyone is free at some point for the meeting. Under a LFW perspective, what if God wanted to spread the Gospel to a remote tribe in Ethiopia, but no missionary freely chose to go there? Would He override someone's free will "just this once"?

Not one missionary out of millions of people?  Even if he made him an offer he couldn't refuse?  Do you think he couldn't co-ordinate the choices of all people through history so an appropriate person would be available at the right time?  OTOH I suppose he might let us suffer the consequences of our stiff necks.

Yeah - I don't think substitutionary atonement can really be pushed to far to be honest.  But I am not saying that the rational is wrong.  I am saying it is not the only, or highest, way of being, and it is not God's way of Being (or not-Being).  I am also not saying we can gain no knowledge from Scriptures, and I don't see where anyone has suggested that - it is a very tindery straw man.  What I am saying is what we know about God is only through our own interactions with him.  In that sense, you might say that it is subjective.  What we know about God is filtered by our own way of knowing.  Just as I am sure my actions from my dog's POV have some doggy interpretation, we only see God according to our own mode.  That is ok, because God created it, and so it is true, and it is even connected to God's mode.  And what is more, perhaps unlike dogs and humans, we can see that God's mode is different than ours.

You haven't given me any reason to believe that rationality is not God's way of Being, though. You're just asserting it. I don't see it in Scripture - quite the reverse. Why do you believe it?

I did give a reason.  Do you think God is finite, or that he has limits?  To be unlimited includes unlimited by our reason and categories.  As for Scripture: Thao already mentioned Job, which is an apophatic theology if I ever saw one, summarized with ".Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know?"  There is the fact that when God talks to people he uses an intermediary, or they cannot see him all, or he is somehow obscured (as in the cloud, or when only his hind parts are seen and his face is hidden), or there is the case of the burning bush where he is actually in a form which in some ways defies logic.  Paul tells us that God " alone is immortal and lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see".  Or in Romans we have, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counselor?  Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? "  And there are any number of places that refer to God's infinity.

Why do you think he couldn't have stopped the man's hand or his decision?  He could stop either I suppose, though not without destroying the hand as a hand for that moment, or the free will for that moment.  Since free will, and hands, are good things, why would God want to destroy them?  On the other hand, is the murderer actually able to really destroy anything God has made?  (Re: Pharaoh I think that Pharaoh was probably implicated.  If Pharaoh wasn't that kind of guy, he wouldn't be Pharaoh.) 

I don't think free will is necessarily a good thing. (And, huh? The hand would still be a hand even if God stopped it hitting the daughter.) Sure you can adopt an "it'll all pan out in the end" approach - Paul says that the sufferings of the present time will be as nothing from a heavenly perspective. But if your defense for LFW is that God can interfere with it if He wants to, why is there such an objection to God always "interfering"?

A hand (or whatever) isn't a hand if it doesn't function as a hand.  A thing's end is part of what the thing is.  If God created free will, then it's good..The point here was that God interfering in the action would mean the destruction of an objective good.  When I say that God can interfere, what I mean is that if he chose to, he could.  Nothing is stopping him, he has the power to do so.   He doesn't because he doesn't choose to.  Power can be made manifest in inaction as well as action.

God cannot be emotional - you need to have a body to have emotions.  Usually (though one could define it differently I suppose) it also implies change.  I don't know that I would say it results in pantheism - though I suppose it might - but saying that God's nature or attributes must be the same as those of creation seems to be very close to a kind of pantheism.

Why do you need a body to have emotions? There are disembodied spirits (of humans) in Heaven who are described as having emotions; angels are described as having emotions, too. I don't see how this follows at all - just because emotions are linked to hormones and so on in humans doesn't mean they always are. Nor do I think it's unreasonable to expect common attributes between God and His creation - we are made "in His image", after all.

Sure God and creation share things, and creation is a revelation of God.  But pantheism doesn't differentiate between the two.  When we say that the attributes we see in creation must be the same as God's, then we are moving, I think, towards a pantheistic position.  We have to expect similarities, but also differences.

If you want to define emotions as orientations of the will, I am fine with saying God, angels etc have them.  In Heaven the two (emotion and will) are presumably united in humans.  I would tend to say that God, or an angel, had an orientation of will toward joy rather than an emotion of joy. Emotions are usually defined as psychological and physical states, which is physical.  I think this is a case of Scripture describing things in human terms rather than in reference to the things themselves.  God is not properly wrathful - but under some circumstances we may exist in a state where we perceive wrath from him.

There are many many places where God's love and will for all of creation is found.  When you ask if I am a universalist in this context I am not sure what you mean.  I think Christ died for all people, that we have all been "saved" whether we know it or not, or accept it or not.  It is simply a fact that we are connected to God in this way, and even those who go to Hell (and I hope that there are none) are in fact still bound up in God's love.  That isn't the traditional understanding of a universalist, but it may be from your POV.

Hmm - OK. Universalists generally believe that there will definitely be no-one in hell, but your view is definitely unusual from my perspective. Are you saying we're all saved, but the salvation isn't efficacious unless it's accepted? Or that you can be saved but still go to hell?

Yes, that is how I would have defined a universalist too. I guess I would say yes - the salvation isn't efficacious unless one accepts it; but I do think even then one is saved.  I think Hell has to do with the state of our relationship with God.  He loves even the dammed, but what is the experience of that love to someone who is rejecting it?  In essence they have dammed themselves rather than God damming them.  If we cling to things that are not of God, his love burns them away, and we experience that more the more we cling to them.

I'm not sure what Calvinists mean by "common grace"?

Oh, sorry. Common grace is basically good things God gives to (more or less) everyone, regardless of whether they are elect or not - sort of "general goods" that tend to make the world a nicer place. Romantic love is considered to be one of these things - it won't get anyone to heaven, but it's not given out only to a select few. The beauty of the world is another; the joy of having children, or a love of music or art or mathematics;  friendship; that kind of thing.

So if the non-elect (is there a catchy name for them?) have the law written on their hearts, is that supposed to be a grace for themselves, or for other people who see them?  It kind of seems like it would suck for them, at least in the long term.

With regard to human nature - sin is essential the act of choosing not-God.  It is severing our connection to him and moving away into nothingness.  That's why we become less than fully human, and subject to death as the result of sin.  But what does it mean if God himself has chosen not-God?  How can God move away from himself?  I can make God encompass that in my theological model, but I'm not sure how you can because it seems to be a logical contradiction.  I don't see how sin is possible in this view, and that means God is condemning those who are not sinning at all.  And that is not really copacetic with divine justice.

God causing someone to sin is not the same as God Himself sinning (which I agree is impossible, not only theologically but very possibly logically). In your view, God has occasionally interfered with LFW and directly caused sin, right? How is that theoretically different from a view in which He always does it? Isn't that just a matter of degree?

I am not able to say yes or no to this I'm afraid, so I really can't answer.  But if God caused a person to sin, I am not sure that it would "count" if that makes sense.  It wouldn't belong to the person. (But - thinking about it, I think That suggests to me that God may not interfere, because I can't see how the sinful act could fail to affect the person psychologically.  Still, I think I would not bet on it either way.)

Secondly, in the cases I was thinking about with groups, I'm not sure you could argue that they used SS.  They also looked pretty closely at what the early Church actually did and taught in the writings of the Fathers and in the liturgies.  So they were accessing Tradition, even if they didn't know it.  And until they had actually completed their journey they would probably tell you that they were still not part of the Church - they didn't for example have access to the Sacraments.  So it would seem in that case if you said that SS led them there, then it lead them to a way of existing as Christians that actually destroyed SS.  That speaks to the power of Scripture and the Holy Spirit, but would not perhaps be a recommendation for SS.

Even so, they had to use their private judgment, Scripture and reason to come to the conclusion that those writings were true. Those are techniques which Tradition declares epistemically unreliable, so having come to a belief in Tradition, how could they trust the process that led them there?

It says they are unreliable alone for some things, though not useless, and God's ability to step in is not limited by Tradition.  Revelation in general doesn't destroy that which is below it, it takes it up.  Remember that Scripture and Tradition are part of the same Revelation.  Would you say that a person who decided after studying that the Bible was God's word would have put his own process of discernment in question?

[CherryBomb]

Originally Posted by Bluegoat 

So if the non-elect (is there a catchy name for them?) have the law written on their hearts, is that supposed to be a grace for themselves, or for other people who see them?  It kind of seems like it would suck for them, at least in the long term.

I believe the term is "reprobate."

Anyway, sorry to post and run earlier (I'm bad about that!)

Quickly, since kids are being nuts- Catholicism and TULIP (and yeah I know many Calvinists don't like the TULIP terminology,but I'm trying to keep my brain in order).

Catholics and Calvinists can agree on total depravity, technically speaking. Not much to add there.

Catholics can accept unconditional election (or reject it), but yes, only single predestination.  Double-predestination, the belief that God not only positively chooses some for salvation but also for damnation, is not allowed.  The alternative would be "passive reprobation."  Basically that God positively predestines some to salvation, and passes over the rest.  They don't come to God, not because He positively damns them, but because of their inherent sin.

Limited atonement...Catholics must maintain that God desires the salvation of all men.  The grace of the atonement is sufficient for all, but that grace isn't efficacious (obviously,or there would be no need for hell).  In other words, the sufficiency of Christ's atonement is unlimited, but the efficiency isn't.  You could also say that Christ intended to make salvation possible for all, but not actual for all.  I don't see a problem with this, because it's easy to imagine that what one desires and what one intends aren't necessarily the same.

Irresistible grace...again, a Catholic could say that God gives efficacious grace to some, but they must acknowledge that He gives sufficient grace to all, which presupposes that the atonement was intended to be sufficient for all.

Perseverance of the saints....Catholics are free to hold to this, to an extent.  There's a lot there that I don't have the time to get into right now, but the Church does teach there is such a thing as the gift of final perseverance.  But, not everyone who comes to God receives that gift.  Catholics also must maintain that a person can experience initial salvation but not go on to final salvation.

And now my kids are painting on each other, so I have to go...

[Smokering]

Smokering, can you elaborate on how (some) Calvinists defend the position that the words "love", "all", and "world" have different meanings than what they seem to plainly say?

The same way non-universalists in general do. Apparently all-encompassing statements in the Bible aren't always as inclusive as they seem to be; just like in regular language. "The whole town turned out to see the football game" doesn't mean every single citizen did, it means a general, significant, possibly majority trend. On Palm Sunday, the Pharisees exclaimed "Look how the whole world has gone after him!" (John 12:19); obviously they didn't mean the WHOLE world, just a large group of people in and/or around Jerusalem. So context can determine whether an "all" is meant to mean "absolutely all" or not. The Calvinist position is that it is Scripturally clear that not all men are saved, and there are verses which indicate that God does not love the elect (plus, as Thao has pointed out, it would be a strange definition of the word "love" if God creates them specifically to damn them, which is the Calvinist view); therefore, those positions inform the readings of "all"-type statements.

Also, a quick google search for verses about God's love indicates that nearly all the generic "God loves us" statements are written by Christians to Christians. The exception is "For God so loved the world", but the context of the verse - "that whoever believes in Him shall not perish", not "that nobody should perish", makes it plausible that "the world" is referring to a lot of people from many people groups scattered throughout the world, or even the world in a more abstract sense, as His creation.

There are verses in the Bible which can be used to support limited atonement (although honestly, I'm not sure where I stand on this issue - DH is a four-pointer Calvinist, and his arguments seem sound on the face of it, but I haven't really studied the issue long enough to make a definitive statement) - the same ones that non-universalists in general use. John 6:37-39; John 10:14-15 and so on. These give some support to the view that God died only for some, although you can debate the issue of efficacy and... stuff. It really has been awhile since I studied it!

I can't speak for Bluegoat, but my understanding is that God is not interfering with LFW by causing someone to sin, but rather that He knew what was in the hearts of these people and He orchestrated events to occur utilizing the free decisions that He knew the people would make in order to produce a certain outcome.  Why do you think it is impossible for God to do that?

But what if nobody freely made choices that facilitated God's plan? What about my missionary analogy?

That's all I have time for now; gotta go get groceries.

[Bluegoat]

Originally Posted by CherryBomb 

Originally Posted by Bluegoat 

So if the non-elect (is there a catchy name for them?) have the law written on their hearts, is that supposed to be a grace for themselves, or for other people who see them?  It kind of seems like it would suck for them, at least in the long term.

I believe the term is "reprobate."

Anyway, sorry to post and run earlier (I'm bad about that!)

Quickly, since kids are being nuts- Catholicism and TULIP (and yeah I know many Calvinists don't like the TULIP terminology,but I'm trying to keep my brain in order).

Catholics and Calvinists can agree on total depravity, technically speaking. Not much to add there.

That's interesting, I'm not sure I would have expected that.  As far as I know the Orthodox generally reject total depravity.
 

[CherryBomb]

Originally Posted by Smokering 

Smokering, can you elaborate on how (some) Calvinists defend the position that the words "love", "all", and "world" have different meanings than what they seem to plainly say?

The same way non-universalists in general do. Apparently all-encompassing statements in the Bible aren't always as inclusive as they seem to be; just like in regular language. "The whole town turned out to see the football game" doesn't mean every single citizen did, it means a general, significant, possibly majority trend. On Palm Sunday, the Pharisees exclaimed "Look how the whole world has gone after him!" (John 12:19); obviously they didn't mean the WHOLE world, just a large group of people in and/or around Jerusalem. So context can determine whether an "all" is meant to mean "absolutely all" or not. The Calvinist position is that it is Scripturally clear that not all men are saved, and there are verses which indicate that God does not love the elect (plus, as Thao has pointed out, it would be a strange definition of the word "love" if God creates them specifically to damn them, which is the Calvinist view); therefore, those positions inform the readings of "all"-type statements.

Right, but it's easy to discern that "the whole town turned out to see the football game" is probably an exaggeration, because it's unlikely that the whole town could fit into the seats.  Likewise, it's relatively easy to determine that "the whole world has gone after him" is an exaggeration, since the whole world isn't present...they're just figuratively stating that a whole hell of a lot of people in the area were going after Christ.  I don't see how it's anywhere near that cut and dry with the verses like John 3:16.

Also, a quick google search for verses about God's love indicates that nearly all the generic "God loves us" statements are written by Christians to Christians. The exception is "For God so loved the world", but the context of the verse - "that whoever believes in Him shall not perish", not "that nobody should perish", makes it plausible that "the world" is referring to a lot of people from many people groups scattered throughout the world, or even the world in a more abstract sense, as His creation.

Right, but is anyone (other than universalists, I guess) arguing that Christ meant to imply that nobody would perish?  I don't see how it follows that because Scripture specifies that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, that means "the world" is meant to be an abstract statement, or mean the world, but only "kind of."  God desires for all to be saved (ie loves the world) but only some will accept Him (ie whoever believes in Him shall not perish).

[CherryBomb]

Originally Posted by Bluegoat 

Originally Posted by CherryBomb 

Originally Posted by Bluegoat 

So if the non-elect (is there a catchy name for them?) have the law written on their hearts, is that supposed to be a grace for themselves, or for other people who see them?  It kind of seems like it would suck for them, at least in the long term.

I believe the term is "reprobate."

Anyway, sorry to post and run earlier (I'm bad about that!)

Quickly, since kids are being nuts- Catholicism and TULIP (and yeah I know many Calvinists don't like the TULIP terminology,but I'm trying to keep my brain in order).

Catholics and Calvinists can agree on total depravity, technically speaking. Not much to add there.

That's interesting, I'm not sure I would have expected that.  As far as I know the Orthodox generally reject total depravity.
 

I think you're correct about the EO.  A Catholic wouldn't use the term "total depravity" but in essence it's compatible with Church teaching.  The Church teaches that, because of the Fall, we can't do anything out of supernatural love unless God gives us the special grace to do so.  God's grace is absolutely necessary to pull us out of sin.  Second council of Orange and council of trent (I think) go over this.

[Bluegoat]

Originally Posted by CherryBomb 

Originally Posted by Bluegoat 

Originally Posted by CherryBomb 

Originally Posted by Bluegoat 

So if the non-elect (is there a catchy name for them?) have the law written on their hearts, is that supposed to be a grace for themselves, or for other people who see them?  It kind of seems like it would suck for them, at least in the long term.

I believe the term is "reprobate."

Anyway, sorry to post and run earlier (I'm bad about that!)

Quickly, since kids are being nuts- Catholicism and TULIP (and yeah I know many Calvinists don't like the TULIP terminology,but I'm trying to keep my brain in order).

Catholics and Calvinists can agree on total depravity, technically speaking. Not much to add there.

That's interesting, I'm not sure I would have expected that.  As far as I know the Orthodox generally reject total depravity.
 

I think you're correct about the EO.  A Catholic wouldn't use the term "total depravity" but in essence it's compatible with Church teaching.  The Church teaches that, because of the Fall, we can't do anything out of supernatural love unless God gives us the special grace to do so.  God's grace is absolutely necessary to pull us out of sin.  Second council of Orange and council of trent (I think) go over this.

Yes, that makes sense.  It would relate to the differences in the understanding of original sin and our nature as being actually changed I expect.
 

[Smokering]

It's not just the word "love" (Side note: I was surprised when you said the "love thing" is a straw man, because I got that straight from you in that conversation. Back then you were saying that God DOES love the elect, just with a different kind of love. Have you now changed your position?). Some other examples: the distinction between "choose" and "freely choose". It's an absurd distinction to me. Choice by definition requires a certain amount of freedom - there is no such thing as "unfree choice", it's an oxymoron, like "round square". There can be limited choice, such as the choice between an apple and a banana. But we would never give someone just an apple and say, "choose".

Well, it's a strawman to apply it to all of Calvnism, as there are differing viewpoints within it; it's like disagreeing with universalism and saying it invalidates Arminianism. I think you mean "God DOES love the non-elect", right? Yes, I have changed my position on that. I think it's very possible, Scripturally speaking, that God doesn't love the non-elect at all. I think it might be possible that God still loves them in some sense - a non-salvific sense - in the sense that He extends to them common grace.

When you say "free" choice, free from what? I disagree that choice implies freedom; choice is simply making a decision about two or more alternatives. There are plenty of choices that are extremely coerced, but still choices - a person with a gun to his head may not be freely choosing to give the bank robber the money, but he still had option B: ie, not to. And your apple analogy doesn't fit with Calvinism - the Calvinist view is that the man thinks he's freely choosing between the apple and the banana. Just like Elizabeth Bennet, if she had actual sentience, would think she were freely choosing to marry Mr Darcy and that she had other real options (ie. not marrying him), even though Jane Austen was really in control of her actions. Even if Elizabeth Bennet knew of Jane Austen's existence and was aware her destiny was being written, she wouldn't know what the ending was, so she'd still have to choose using the feelings and reasons available to her - the choice would still feel free.

I'm curious - can you tell me on what you base this? Besides just the fact that Paul used reason in his letters, I mean. Where is rational thinking praised as a virtue and duty?

In the famous passage about believers' freedom in the area of eating meat and celebrating Sabbaths, Paul says "Each man should be fully convinced in his own mind". The Bereans were praised for examining the Scriptures daily to see if Paul's teachings were true. Christians are told to love God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. Christians are warned to be wary of false teachers (which requires them to be able to differentiate good theology from bad). James 1:5 tells Christians who lack wisdom to ask for it - "wisdom" means more than just intelligence or rationality, but I think it encompasses both. Jesus rebukes Jewish leaders for their lack of knowledge of the Scriptures. Teaching (which requires rational thinking, as it's more than just regurgitating Bible verses) is called a spiritual gift, along with mercy, acts of service and so on. Ephesians tells fathers to "instruct" their children in the Lord.

Plus, yes, there's the fact that Paul uses reason in his letters - he expects Christians to follow logical arguments, sometimes quite complex ones, even though some of his audience were slaves and relatively uneducated.

Right, but it's easy to discern that "the whole town turned out to see the football game" is probably an exaggeration, because it's unlikely that the whole town could fit into the seats.  Likewise, it's relatively easy to determine that "the whole world has gone after him" is an exaggeration, since the whole world isn't present...they're just figuratively stating that a whole hell of a lot of people in the area were going after Christ.  I don't see how it's anywhere near that cut and dry with the verses like John 3:16.

No, it's not that cut and dried, which is why a broader theological context is needed to interpret it correctly. The Calvinist view is that there are enough logical and Biblical arguments that God doesn't love the wicked, to make the "all isn't quite all" interpretation more plausible. Obviously, not everyone agrees.

Right, but is anyone (other than universalists, I guess) arguing that Christ meant to imply that nobody would perish?  I don't see how it follows that because Scripture specifies that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, that means "the world" is meant to be an abstract statement, or mean the world, but only "kind of."  God desires for all to be saved (ie loves the world) but only some will accept Him (ie whoever believes in Him shall not perish).

I think there are Calvinists on both side of this issue. It's related to the complex will argument (God's decretive vs preceptive will), but do we have to get into it here? This thread is getting complicated enough, and it's not really relevant to the main issue. You could start another thread on it if you want, but I probably don't have time to participate in it right now (I'll be cutting way back on my internet time on January 1 as it is).

[Smokering]

What if both were made,?

What, in separate universes? Then God would still know which choice was made in which universe, so in each universe that choice would be fixed by His perfect definite foreknowledge, so each Gerry would have no real ability to choose other than what God had foreseen, so you'd now have two people making non-free choices.

It depends.  First, would free will mean God was totally emptying himself?  I don't think so really.  Secondly, the realities we see in Christ are telling us something more generally about God.  In fact it is through the Son that there is a creation, and it is the Son that had to empty himself for creation.  There is something about our relationship with God that requires that kind of suffering, that kind of emptying, that kind of self-giving by God.  Can we quantify what that is all about>  It doesn't seem so.  But does it inform the kinds of things we think God might be able to do?  It does for me.

Free will would mean God was giving up His sovereignty to a limited degree. I simply don't see how that could work.

I don't know if we can really answer this question - why it would be just some times but not others.  I suppose what I would say is that God would not over-ride what is essential to our freedom, what makes us human.  But I'm also  not sure I would say he does it - over-ride our freedom.  I do, however, think he could.

Why do you think freedom makes us human? Freedom from what? There are people who are less "free" than others in various senses of the word (slaves, addicts, the mentally incapacitated), but we don't think of them as less human. Isn't it begging the question to assume freedom is an essential component of humanity?

I wonder how specifically God needs to set up history?  It may be that he is able to achieve his ends while allowing a lot of possibilities.  I doubt God spends a lot of time stopping wars if we are determined to have them - I suspect God's ends are not often that specific.  It isn't a situation where God has to either set up a set of laws and let things run out like clockwork, nor does he need to interfering the pattern that has been set.  Things can be arranged to fall out to achieve God's ends while at the same time taking account of every choice individuals make, or would make, or could make.  And of course if every possible choice is always made, that changes the whole perspective on the thing.

You're saying it can work, but can you demonstrate how? I don't see how it's possible. For instance: a war influences which babies are born. God does care about souls, even if you say He doesn't care about war; but they're interrelated. God can't save a person who was never created because his mother was killed by a bomb.

Not one missionary out of millions of people?  Even if he made him an offer he couldn't refuse?  Do you think he couldn't co-ordinate the choices of all people through history so an appropriate person would be available at the right time?  OTOH I suppose he might let us suffer the consequences of our stiff necks.

Well, there are people who haven't heard the Gospel yet, despite millions of Christians existing, so it's hardly far-fetched. What do you mean by "co-ordinate the choices"? Even the birth of a person who'd grow up to want to be a missionary is dependent on human choices (to continue the pregnancy to term, for one).

I did give a reason.  Do you think God is finite, or that he has limits?  To be unlimited includes unlimited by our reason and categories.  As for Scripture: Thao already mentioned Job, which is an apophatic theology if I ever saw one, summarized with ".Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know?"  There is the fact that when God talks to people he uses an intermediary, or they cannot see him all, or he is somehow obscured (as in the cloud, or when only his hind parts are seen and his face is hidden), or there is the case of the burning bush where he is actually in a form which in some ways defies logic.  Paul tells us that God " alone is immortal and lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see".  Or in Romans we have, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counselor?  Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? "  And there are any number of places that refer to God's infinity.

Limits? Well, yes. Insofar as He is holy, He is limited to not being unholy. None of the verses you mention imply that God is beyond logic. That God has far greater intelligence and wisdom than we do, sure, so that we will never be able to know all that He knows; but that doesn't imply that He thinks along different logical principles. And a burning bush violates physical laws, but not, as far as I can see, logical ones.

A hand (or whatever) isn't a hand if it doesn't function as a hand.  A thing's end is part of what the thing is.  If God created free will, then it's good..The point here was that God interfering in the action would mean the destruction of an objective good.  When I say that God can interfere, what I mean is that if he chose to, he could.  Nothing is stopping him, he has the power to do so.   He doesn't because he doesn't choose to.  Power can be made manifest in inaction as well as action.

What? A paralysed hand is still a hand; what else would you call it? It's not a Platonically perfect hand, but it's still a hand...

Sure God and creation share things, and creation is a revelation of God.  But pantheism doesn't differentiate between the two.  When we say that the attributes we see in creation must be the same as God's, then we are moving, I think, towards a pantheistic position.  We have to expect similarities, but also differences.

If you want to define emotions as orientations of the will, I am fine with saying God, angels etc have them.  In Heaven the two (emotion and will) are presumably united in humans.  I would tend to say that God, or an angel, had an orientation of will toward joy rather than an emotion of joy. Emotions are usually defined as psychological and physical states, which is physical.  I think this is a case of Scripture describing things in human terms rather than in reference to the things themselves.  God is not properly wrathful - but under some circumstances we may exist in a state where we perceive wrath from him.

Re the bolded: sure, we're not disagreeing on that. We're simply disagreeing on where the similarities and differences are to be found. I don't see that saying God is rational puts one in great danger of becoming a pantheist, any more than saying God is wrathful or loving or just.

Yes, that is how I would have defined a universalist too. I guess I would say yes - the salvation isn't efficacious unless one accepts it; but I do think even then one is saved.  I think Hell has to do with the state of our relationship with God.  He loves even the dammed, but what is the experience of that love to someone who is rejecting it?  In essence they have dammed themselves rather than God damming them.  If we cling to things that are not of God, his love burns them away, and we experience that more the more we cling to them.

Out of curiosity, is this a "standard" Anglican or EO position? I don't think I've come across it before, although I vaguely recall CS Lewis has made a few comments sort of along those lines.

So if the non-elect (is there a catchy name for them?) have the law written on their hearts, is that supposed to be a grace for themselves, or for other people who see them?  It kind of seems like it would suck for them, at least in the long term.

You could go with "the wicked" or "the damned" if you wanted to be really dramatic, I guess. :p Or "non-Christians", but I know you have issues with the Calvinist use of that term. I'm not quite sure who common grace is "for" - the Bible does say "All things work together for good for those that love God", and certainly Christians are happier in a world where people have creativity, a tendency not to murder each other, romantic love etc. But then, so are non-Christians. It could be for both, I suppose. Would it suck more for the damned to have experienced some joy and goodness during life? I dunno; maybe.

I am not able to say yes or no to this I'm afraid, so I really can't answer.  But if God caused a person to sin, I am not sure that it would "count" if that makes sense.  It wouldn't belong to the person. (But - thinking about it, I think That suggests to me that God may not interfere, because I can't see how the sinful act could fail to affect the person psychologically.  Still, I think I would not bet on it either way.)

Why would the sin not belong to the person, any more than any other predestined act? Insofar as that person's will, reason and impulses exist, they made the choice - consciously - to sin. There's no "real" person hiding in the background who would have chosen differently: insofar as the person existed, he sinned. Just as if God caused someone to pull a tooth, that person still pulled a tooth.

It says they are unreliable alone for some things, though not useless, and God's ability to step in is not limited by Tradition.  Revelation in general doesn't destroy that which is below it, it takes it up.  Remember that Scripture and Tradition are part of the same Revelation.  Would you say that a person who decided after studying that the Bible was God's word would have put his own process of discernment in question?

Catholics with whom I've argued this before have made pretty blanket statements that reason and Scripture are unreliable in general when it comes to Scripture. Does the EO have a more nuanced take on it?

I wouldn't say that someone who decided that the Bible was God's word would have invalidated his own process of discernment, because I'm SS! We believe reason, Scripture and private judgment are epistemically valid ways of coming to truth.

[Bluegoat]

Originally Posted by Smokering 

What, in separate universes? Then God would still know which choice was made in which universe, so in each universe that choice would be fixed by His perfect definite foreknowledge, so each Gerry would have no real ability to choose other than what God had foreseen, so you'd now have two people making non-free choices.

No, the choice is made in one universe.

Free will would mean God was giving up His sovereignty to a limited degree. I simply don't see how that could work.

This is also the argument used against the Incarnation though.

Why do you think freedom makes us human? Freedom from what? There are people who are less "free" than others in various senses of the word (slaves, addicts, the mentally incapacitated), but we don't think of them as less human. Isn't it begging the question to assume freedom is an essential component of humanity?

I was assuming a free-will position to show how it would work in response to your.  If God gave humans free will, it would be an objective good, and it would be an essential component of our humanity (in the same way other things are.)

I

You're saying it can work, but can you demonstrate how? I don't see how it's possible. For instance: a war influences which babies are born. God does care about souls, even if you say He doesn't care about war; but they're interrelated. God can't save a person who was never created because his mother was killed by a bomb.

I'm not sure how to say it in any way I haven't.  Free will may mean God allows for a number of possibilities, even perhaps that some people won't be born.  But God also knows the free will choices that every person makes - or that they could or would make given the circumstances - before he creates.  He also gets to decide the start state.  There is no reason I can see that God would not be able to incorporate human free will into the universe.  God is the beginning and the end - he starts things off but also draws them towards him.

 

Well, there are people who haven't heard the Gospel yet, despite millions of Christians existing, so it's hardly far-fetched. What do you mean by "co-ordinate the choices"? Even the birth of a person who'd grow up to want to be a missionary is dependent on human choices (to continue the pregnancy to term, for one).

As above.

 

Limits? Well, yes. Insofar as He is holy, He is limited to not being unholy. None of the verses you mention imply that God is beyond logic. That God has far greater intelligence and wisdom than we do, sure, so that we will never be able to know all that He knows; but that doesn't imply that He thinks along different logical principles. And a burning bush violates physical laws, but not, as far as I can see, logical ones.

So would you then argue that he isn't infinite?  I don't agree obviously, and I don't think Scripture agrees, and the early Church don't seem to agree either.  And they were reading the same Bible.

What? A paralysed hand is still a hand; what else would you call it? It's not a Platonically perfect hand, but it's still a hand...

Yes, we'd still call it a hand, just like we'd call a dead body a human.  But qua hand, it isn't.  These kinds of imperfections are a result of the Fall.  To have God blast what he says is good isn't impossible - there could be other things at work - but as a general statement I think it is fair to say that God doesn't blast his own good works.

Re the bolded: sure, we're not disagreeing on that. We're simply disagreeing on where the similarities and differences are to be found. I don't see that saying God is rational puts one in great danger of becoming a pantheist, any more than saying God is wrathful or loving or just.

It's one thing to look at God's characteristics and see them reflected in creation.  We have to be more careful looking at the characteristics of creation and attributing them to God. I don't think it's going to make people want to go out and run naked in the woods though - it's just a similar kind of error.

 

Out of curiosity, is this a "standard" Anglican or EO position? I don't think I've come across it before, although I vaguely recall CS Lewis has made a few comments sort of along those lines.

I don't think it's uncommon among Anglicans, but it isn't universal.  It seems a fairly common idea in the East, but I don't know how common.  C.S. Lewis did seem to suggest that - in the Great Divorce I would say it was implied in some ways.

So if the non-elect (is there a catchy name for them?) have the law written on their hearts, is that supposed to be a grace for themselves, or for other people who see them?  It kind of seems like it would suck for them, at least in the long term.

Would it suck more for the damned to have experienced some joy and goodness during life? I dunno; maybe.

I was thinking that since is is the law which will convict them, it would be better not to have it?  And just kind of disapear like dead animals do.

 

Why would the sin not belong to the person, any more than any other predestined act? Insofar as that person's will, reason and impulses exist, they made the choice - consciously - to sin. There's no "real" person hiding in the background who would have chosen differently: insofar as the person existed, he sinned. Just as if God caused someone to pull a tooth, that person still pulled a tooth.

In which case I wouldn't say it was a sin - it was what God "told" him to do.

It says they are unreliable alone for some things, though not useless, and God's ability to step in is not limited by Tradition.  Revelation in general doesn't destroy that which is below it, it takes it up.  Remember that Scripture and Tradition are part of the same Revelation.  Would you say that a person who decided after studying that the Bible was God's word would have put his own process of discernment in question?

Catholics with whom I've argued this before have made pretty blanket statements that reason and Scripture are unreliable in general when it comes to Scripture. Does the EO have a more nuanced take on it?

I'm not sure that the Catholics you were arguing with gave you accurate answers on this.  In fact, I am pretty sure they didn't.  If anything, Catholics are more likely to rely on reason than the East, because they see God's attributes as ideentical with his Being, and the East doesn't really think about it that way. But Reason is part of our mode of Being and is part of God's expression of himself in our mode of Being.  We need to be careful though about using it to describe God in himself.  

With Scripture and Tradition - both are part of the same deposit.  In the same way you say we need Scripture, I'd say we need Scripture and Tradition, otherwise it's like from your POV trying o be a Christian with just the Epistles or something similar.  It's not that it would be a total failure necessarily, but one would likely come out with some incorrect understanding.  As far as the authority to interpret- it's closer to the way confessional Protestants operate - it isn't individuals but the group that has authority.

I wouldn't say that someone who decided that the Bible was God's word would have invalidated his own process of discernment, because I'm SS! We believe reason, Scripture and private judgment are epistemically valid ways of coming to truth.

But the person couldn't have used Scripture to decide that Scripture was true.  So you must think reason is sufficent alone for some things.  Why then do we require Scripture at all?

[Thao]

Well, it's a strawman to apply it to all of Calvnism, as there are differing viewpoints within it; it's like disagreeing with universalism and saying it invalidates Arminianism. I think you mean "God DOES love the non-elect", right? Yes, I have changed my position on that. I think it's very possible, Scripturally speaking, that God doesn't love the non-elect at all. I think it might be possible that God still loves them in some sense - a non-salvific sense - in the sense that He extends to them common grace.

I see. I wasn't applying it to all of Calvinism, just referring to what I understood your position to be based on our previous conversation. So, if that is true, and our moral law and conscience come from God, why is it that the human conscience is so repelled at the idea of a loving God creating sentient beings whom He doesn't love and condemns to eternal torment? Is that part of our fallen nature? Another question: if God loves you because you are one of the elect, does that mean that your children will also be elect? Or might He give you a child (whom He knows you will likely love more than your own life) that He hates and has destined for Hell? Is that a loving act? ( I know these aren't questions of logic, I'm just exploring the implications of the idea that God doesn't love everyone, because it is a new one for me.)

When you say "free" choice, free from what? I disagree that choice implies freedom; choice is simply making a decision about two or more alternatives. There are plenty of choices that are extremely coerced, but still choices - a person with a gun to his head may not be freely choosing to give the bank robber the money, but he still had option B: ie, not to.

What you are calling extremely coerced choices, I was calling limited choices. In the example you give, the person still has the freedom to choose between giving up the money or getting shot. That would be limited choice between two very unpleasant options, but the person still has the freedom to choose between the two (or maybe to execute an awesome kung-fu roundhouse kick and send the gun flying - hee, hee, I love kung fu movies). Perhaps we are getting stuck on the word "freedom" - I don't mean it in the sense of absolute freedom to do anything one desires, but rather in the sense of having free will. The word "choice" necessarily requires that one can actually choose between at least two things, no matter how unpleasant. But in Calvinism, the person with a gun to his head has NO choice, not even a coerced or limited one - if God has predestined him to get shot, he cannot choose to give up the money.

the Calvinist view is that the man thinks he's freely choosing between the apple and the banana. Just like Elizabeth Bennet, if she had actual sentience, would think she were freely choosing to marry Mr Darcy and that she had other real options (ie. not marrying him), even though Jane Austen was really in control of her actions. Even if Elizabeth Bennet knew of Jane Austen's existence and was aware her destiny was being written, she wouldn't know what the ending was, so she'd still have to choose using the feelings and reasons available to her - the choice would still feel free.

Right, so in Calvinism what you are talking about is false choice. The appearance of choice, but it is an illusion.I get that. I do wonder, though, why God would tell us to make a choice when He knows we can't really do so. Or tell us to love Him when we can't really love Him (I believe that love also requires choice, or else it is not real love). Why write the Bible at all, since we are not creatures but simply automata?

In the famous passage about believers' freedom in the area of eating meat and celebrating Sabbaths, Paul says "Each man should be fully convinced in his own mind". The Bereans were praised for examining the Scriptures daily to see if Paul's teachings were true. Christians are told to love God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. Christians are warned to be wary of false teachers (which requires them to be able to differentiate good theology from bad). James 1:5 tells Christians who lack wisdom to ask for it - "wisdom" means more than just intelligence or rationality, but I think it encompasses both. Jesus rebukes Jewish leaders for their lack of knowledge of the Scriptures. Teaching (which requires rational thinking, as it's more than just regurgitating Bible verses) is called a spiritual gift, along with mercy, acts of service and so on. Ephesians tells fathers to "instruct" their children in the Lord.

Thanks for these.

[Bluegoat]

Originally Posted by Purple Sage 

I also find it somewhat amazing that some people become Christians due to Calvinism.  My conversion was just the opposite.  Free will and God's love for all men (as defined by non-Calvinists) is what compelled me to accept Christianity.

Apparently there is a big upswing in Calvinism in the US right now.

[Smokering]

No, the choice is made in one universe.

OK, now I'm confused. You said "what if both choices were made", right? Both made in the one universe? I don't get it.

This is also the argument used against the Incarnation though.

Yes, but I addressed that - one Person of the Godhead giving up certain attributes has different implications from those attributes disappearing from the Godhead altogether.

I'm not sure how to say it in any way I haven't.  Free will may mean God allows for a number of possibilities, even perhaps that some people won't be born.  But God also knows the free will choices that every person makes - or that they could or would make given the circumstances - before he creates.  He also gets to decide the start state.  There is no reason I can see that God would not be able to incorporate human free will into the universe.  God is the beginning and the end - he starts things off but also draws them towards him.

I still don't get it. If you're saying God instantiates a universe in which everyone chooses things that fit in with His plans for history, then the same problem applies as it does to Gerry and the apple - those people aren't freely choosing, because in that foreknown universe they have no other real option.

So would you then argue that he isn't infinite?  I don't agree obviously, and I don't think Scripture agrees, and the early Church don't seem to agree either.  And they were reading the same Bible.

I said He has limits. I'm honestly not even sure what "infinite" means in this context - it seems like a rather vague term. If you say God is "infinitely loving" He is still loving, and therefore not not-loving, and therefore He has limits. The moment you say God has attributes of any kind, you are admitting He has limits - no limits would mean that He had every attribute, and/or no attributes. The Bible ascribes definite attributes to God.

Yes, we'd still call it a hand, just like we'd call a dead body a human.  But qua hand, it isn't.  These kinds of imperfections are a result of the Fall.  To have God blast what he says is good isn't impossible - there could be other things at work - but as a general statement I think it is fair to say that God doesn't blast his own good works.

Er, I wouldn't call a dead body a human. I'd call it a corpse. But anyhoo. God "blasts" His good works all the time. Noah's Flood? Every time a human being dies? Any time someone's youthful beauty disappears with age?

I was thinking that since is is the law which will convict them, it would be better not to have it?  And just kind of disapear like dead animals do.

Better from the perspective of the non-elect, probably. Although I'm not sure it's possible - I think human souls are immortal by definition, so I don't think anyone has that option. From God's perspective, of course, I don't think it would be better (or He'd have done it!).

In which case I wouldn't say it was a sin - it was what God "told" him to do.

Nope. God "told" him to follow the commands in the Bible, repent his sins and believe. What God caused him to do is a different matter. "God made me do it" isn't any better an excuse than "the devil made me do it" - in both cases, the human party was fully complicit, willing and in most cases probably convinced he was acting under his own steam. He couldn't claim that apart from God, he would have been good, because apart from God he wouldn't have been anything; everything is caused by God (in the Calvinist view, of course).

But the person couldn't have used Scripture to decide that Scripture was true.  So you must think reason is sufficent alone for some things.  Why then do we require Scripture at all?

...Because reason is a methodology, and you can't have an epistemology without something to apply the methodology to? Also, from the Christian perspective, Scripture gives us a basis for believing in the basic reliability of reason. Without Scripture, you'd have to find some other justification for believing it works.

I see. I wasn't applying it to all of Calvinism, just referring to what I understood your position to be based on our previous conversation. So, if that is true, and our moral law and conscience come from God, why is it that the human conscience is so repelled at the idea of a loving God creating sentient beings whom He doesn't love and condemns to eternal torment? Is that part of our fallen nature? Another question: if God loves you because you are one of the elect, does that mean that your children will also be elect? Or might He give you a child (whom He knows you will likely love more than your own life) that He hates and has destined for Hell? Is that a loving act? ( I know these aren't questions of logic, I'm just exploring the implications of the idea that God doesn't love everyone, because it is a new one for me.)

In practical terms, I think it's because secular culture has absorbed the idea that God is Love at the expense of any other attributes, so people feel cheated when God exercises wrath or justice at the expense of their definition of love. I'd say it's part of fallen nature in a way; in that we can believe that everything God does, even the existence of evil, is ultimately for an objectively good end, or we can complain about the way things are, even though we have no reason to believe God "owes" us any kind of mercy or good treatment.

There are Calvinists who believe in paedobaptism, so I'm not quite sure of their position on the children of Christians; but I think they'd agree that it's possible for a Christian's child to go to hell, yes. Is it a loving act? Not in any particularly intuitive way I can see, but why does every act of God have to be a loving act? He has other attributes. Again, you could take "all things work together for the good of those that love Christ" to mean that it might, in some way we can't comprehend, benefit from it; but I'm not sure the verse is meant to be taken that way.

What you are calling extremely coerced choices, I was calling limited choices. In the example you give, the person still has the freedom to choose between giving up the money or getting shot. That would be limited choice between two very unpleasant options, but the person still has the freedom to choose between the two (or maybe to execute an awesome kung-fu roundhouse kick and send the gun flying - hee, hee, I love kung fu movies). Perhaps we are getting stuck on the word "freedom" - I don't mean it in the sense of absolute freedom to do anything one desires, but rather in the sense of having free will. The word "choice" necessarily requires that one can actually choose between at least two things, no matter how unpleasant. But in Calvinism, the person with a gun to his head has NO choice, not even a coerced or limited one - if God has predestined him to get shot, he cannot choose to give up the money.

Again, when you say "free will" - free from what, free to do what? Theopedia defines LFW thusly: "Libertarian free will means that our choices are free from the determination or constraints of human nature and free from any predetermination by God", and I think that's a fairly standard Arminian definition. I think the idea that people can choose outside their nature is extremely dubious - for one thing, it runs counter to the principle that we always choose what we most strongly desire at the time. So according to LFW, an addict is as "free" to say no to heroin as a non-addict. That simply isn't what we see in the real world. (And Calvinists hold to the doctrine of total depravity or total inability, which states that it is impossible for a sinner to repent of his own nature - it's simply not "in him" to do so. Paul uses the metaphor of a dead body - not dying and struggling, but beyond the point of being able to help himself at all.)

In a sense you're right that humans have no "real" choice under the Calvinist view. Calvinists affirm will, so they believe that humans' choices are meaningful; they are, with all the will and reason and feelings and desires that exist, actually choosing between options they see as real (because after all, even if they believe in predestination they don't know what they're predestined to choose, so it's not like they can opt out of the choice process). If required to explain their choice before God, they could give an accurate account of their reasoning and impulses which led to their decision, and that account would not be a lie; as far as it went, it would be perfectly true. So in that sense, choices are "real". Metaphysically, behind the scenes, no, they're not; God has determined what will happen. But if you object to that, you must also object to the Arminian view - because, as I have argued, perfect definite foreknowledge means that humans' choices are also predetermined, so they don't have any real option either.

I don't see that saying something is ultimately caused by God means it isn't "real", though. God caused me to fall in love with my husband; that doesn't mean I didn't "really" fall in love; God caused me to go to Uni, but that doesn't mean I didn't "really" go; if God causes me to sin, it doesn't mean I haven't "really" sinned, or that I'm not culpable. None of these things are "free" in the libertarian sense, but that doesn't make them not meaningful.

Right, so in Calvinism what you are talking about is false choice. The appearance of choice, but it is an illusion.I get that. I do wonder, though, why God would tell us to make a choice when He knows we can't really do so. Or tell us to love Him when we can't really love Him (I believe that love also requires choice, or else it is not real love). Why write the Bible at all, since we are not creatures but simply automata?

I don't think love requires choice - I had no choice in loving my daughter, it was more or less biologically programmed into me. And we are definitely not automata. We have will. Automata don't. We're not puppets or robots who are unaware of what our creator is doing with our limp bodies. We are fully complicit in everything God causes us to do - the bad (sin) and the good (love).

 Apparently there is a big upswing in Calvinism in the US right now.

There is; I think it might be partly a reaction to liberalism, which many people don't find intellectually viable. Unfortunately a lot of the new Calvinist groups seem to be extremely right-wing, somewhat militant, rather unpleasant types (heck, Westboro are apparently Calvinist!). I think I liked it better when nobody had ever heard of us...

[lilyka]

True.
 

Originally Posted by Bluegoat 

Originally Posted by CherryBomb 

Originally Posted by Bluegoat 

So if the non-elect (is there a catchy name for them?) have the law written on their hearts, is that supposed to be a grace for themselves, or for other people who see them?  It kind of seems like it would suck for them, at least in the long term.

I believe the term is "reprobate."

Anyway, sorry to post and run earlier (I'm bad about that!)

Quickly, since kids are being nuts- Catholicism and TULIP (and yeah I know many Calvinists don't like the TULIP terminology,but I'm trying to keep my brain in order).

Catholics and Calvinists can agree on total depravity, technically speaking. Not much to add there.

That's interesting, I'm not sure I would have expected that.  As far as I know the Orthodox generally reject total depravity.
 

[Bluegoat]

Originally Posted by Smokering

No, the choice is made in one universe.

OK, now I'm confused. You said "what if both choices were made", right? Both made in the one universe? I don't get it.

In the mathematical/physics theory I am thinking of, as I understand it, there is one individual who makes the decision, but then each possible decision actually comes to pass.  A new dimensional reality is created for each possible choice at the moment of the decision being made.  Thao may be able to say more about this, she seems to be interested in this stuff).

Now, I have no idea if that is true, but it could be.  And I don't think that there is likely any way for us to test this - so we could never really know.  If so, it could mean that there is really no way to logically settle questions about choice and God's relation to it, because we are unable to come to a conclusion on a vital bit of knowledge.  If there is no way to be sure of the facts than any logic we apply is not going to be definitive.

This is also the argument used against the Incarnation though.

Yes, but I addressed that - one Person of the Godhead giving up certain attributes has different implications from those attributes disappearing from the Godhead altogether.

How is an attribute disappearing from God altogether?  Let me rephrase my original statement.  Many of the Platonists in the early Christian period were unwilling to become Christians because they would not believe that God could empty himself in any way.  As far as they were concerned Christians in suggesting the Incarnation were suggesting heresy - it was totally illogical that God could do that.  You are suggesting that God giving up something in relation to free will would be the same kind of problem, it seems to me.  But that does not mean that that attribute disappears from the Godhead altogether, and I'm not sure how you could construe it that way. Also it is given up freely on God's part, and has its root and source in him still.  And the Incarnation shows that self-giving - and self-giving that is a kind of suffering -  is in some way part of God's way of relating to us.  I think that knowledge impacts the other things we might consider it possible for God to do.

 

I still don't get it. If you're saying God instantiates a universe in which everyone chooses things that fit in with His plans for history, then the same problem applies as it does to Gerry and the apple - those people aren't freely choosing, because in that foreknown universe they have no other real option.

No, I'm not saying that.  They could have chosen the other way.  Perhaps God would have had to arrange things differently?  That isn't what being free is about though, that they are born into a situation where they get to choose bananas.  Wherever they are born, they get to choose something.

I said He has limits. I'm honestly not even sure what "infinite" means in this context - it seems like a rather vague term. If you say God is "infinitely loving" He is still loving, and therefore not not-loving, and therefore He has limits. The moment you say God has attributes of any kind, you are admitting He has limits - no limits would mean that He had every attribute, and/or no attributes. The Bible ascribes definite attributes to God.

It has quite a precise definition in mathematics, and that is how it has been used in theology as well. It "refers to a quantity without bound or end."  The attribute issue is an interesting one.  The West is inclined to use the idea, though usually they are careful about the way they identify them with God.  Anselm for example talks about God's attributes but inevitably tells us that God is "above justice" or "above mercy".  The East does not say God has attributes at all.  Rather we experience/relate to God through "attributes" which they call energies (and they are really God), but God in himself, in his essence, has no attributes.  I think this relates to the idea of modes of being, but I would have to look more into that to say for sure.  I'm not sure that language is used.

Er, I wouldn't call a dead body a human. I'd call it a corpse. But anyhoo. God "blasts" His good works all the time. Noah's Flood? Every time a human being dies? Any time someone's youthful beauty disappears with age?

I'd say these things are related to the Fall.  And it isn't clear that animals and plants were ever intended to be immortal as individuals.  I've wondered actually if we might have unfettered free will in the New Earth - like we could defy gravity if we wanted to.  But of course we would be perfectly to conformed to God's will, so we would only do it if he wanted us to.   Which makes me think - maybe that is part of the issue.  In an unfallen world, we'd have perfect freedom, but we would only do what God wanted, including possibly some range of free choices.  But since we have buggered that up, while we still have a kind of freedom, we are constantly hampered in it by not only our passions but our circumstances.  We can choose not-God, but the more we do, the fewer real choices we have.  They become narrower and narrower.  If that were true, you would in a way be correct - much of what we do would be no choice at all, or seriously limited.   

Nope. God "told" him to follow the commands in the Bible, repent his sins and believe. What God caused him to do is a different matter. "God made me do it" isn't any better an excuse than "the devil made me do it" - in both cases, the human party was fully complicit, willing and in most cases probably convinced he was acting under his own steam. He couldn't claim that apart from God, he would have been good, because apart from God he wouldn't have been anything; everything is caused by God (in the Calvinist view, of course).

So God told him to do one thing and caused him to do another?  That is pretty much the crux of that problem for me.

...Because reason is a methodology, and you can't have an epistemology without something to apply the methodology to? Also, from the Christian perspective, Scripture gives us a basis for believing in the basic reliability of reason. Without Scripture, you'd have to find some other justification for believing it works.

But I don't see what the difference is?  Why would the SS individuals be able to "keep" their pre-scripture reasoning and the Tradition people not?  As far as I can see both would allow reason to be effective in that context, and both would see a place for Grace as well.

 Apparently there is a big upswing in Calvinism in the US right now.

There is; I think it might be partly a reaction to liberalism, which many people don't find intellectually viable. Unfortunately a lot of the new Calvinist groups seem to be extremely right-wing, somewhat militant, rather unpleasant types (heck, Westboro are apparently Calvinist!). I think I liked it better when nobody had ever heard of us...

I can understand that desire, though there were some weirdo Calvinists in the past as well (not to single them out for weirdness).  When I was in high school I was reading some different literature that came out of Quebec before the Quiet Revolution.  They were Catholics, but with a real Jansenist influence.  They seemed to take the more unpleasant things some Calvinists thought and the more unpleasant things some Catholics thought, and then remove all the nice bits as well.  It's no wonder that the Quebecois pretty much rejected religion later on. 

[Thao]

In practical terms, I think it's because secular culture has absorbed the idea that God is Love at the expense of any other attributes, so people feel cheated when God exercises wrath or justice at the expense of their definition of love. I'd say it's part of fallen nature in a way

Actually, as I continue to process this, I think I was more talking about our concept of justice than of love. My conscience says that punishing someone for their actions when they had no real choice to do otherwise is unjust. This is enshrined in our legal code as well; we don't punish people (children and people who are judged to be insane) whom we believe were not able to choose their actions. Do you think this is also a result of our secular culture? If not, why is it in our consciences?

There are Calvinists who believe in paedobaptism, so I'm not quite sure of their position on the children of Christians; but I think they'd agree that it's possible for a Christian's child to go to hell, yes. Is it a loving act? Not in any particularly intuitive way I can see, but why does every act of God have to be a loving act? He has other attributes.

Yes, if God loves you, then every act He does toward you must be a loving act i.e. motivated by His love for you. Of course he has other attributes, but surely you aren't saying that God turns off one attribute completely in order to turn on another? God may judge you, or be wrathful toward you, but he must love you at the same time He is exercising these other attributes. Like a parent disciplining a child - from the child's perspective it may seem mean and unfair and unloving, but from the larger adult perspective it is done out of love for the child's good (ideally, anyway!). Again, this goes to the heart of the definition of love: it is constant, and is always seeking good for the loved one. If God loves you one day and then turns it off the next day to exercise his wrath on you, it is no more true love than a parent who is loving towards their child one day and then beats them irrationally the next.

Again, you could take "all things work together for the good of those that love Christ" to mean that it might, in some way we can't comprehend, benefit from it; but I'm not sure the verse is meant to be taken that way.

As far as I can see, this is the only rational way to explain why a God that loves you would inflict the incalculable pain of give you a child who is damned, which is on its face most definitely not a loving act. Somehow it must be for your greater good, although we can't possibly imagine how. But this argument is the same one I was making earlier, and which you rejected - that there may be additional facts out there, not given in the Bible and unknowable by us, which would resolve this conflict.

Calvinists affirm will, so they believe that humans' choices are meaningful; they are, with all the will and reason and feelings and desires that exist, actually choosing between options they see as real (because after all, even if they believe in predestination they don't know what they're predestined to choose, so it's not like they can opt out of the choice process). If required to explain their choice before God, they could give an accurate account of their reasoning and impulses which led to their decision, and that account would not be a lie; as far as it went, it would be perfectly true. So in that sense, choices are "real".

I'm not sure I understand your distinction between will and free will any more I did your distinction between choice and free choice. But to go back to the analogy of our justice system: insane people and children have will and reason. An insane person can explain to the court how the great flying purple frogs told them to commit the crime. Or a three-year-old child can explain to the court that they pulled the trigger on the gun that killed their friend because they believed flowers would come out the barrel like in a cartoon. Such accounts would be entirely truthful. And yet our system does NOT consider such perpetrators responsible for their actions, even though they clearly committed crimes. Our sense of justice says that the limitations of their minds rendered them incapable of making a "real" or culpable choice. So rather than punishing the person, the court will send them to a medical institution or back home to their parents. It seems to me that if justice is defined by God's character, and God is as you describe, then it means that our courts are unjust, and the truly just resolution would be to imprison the insane person or child for their crime.

But if you object to that, you must also object to the Arminian view - because, as I have argued, perfect definite foreknowledge means that humans' choices are also predetermined, so they don't have any real option either.

I'm not sure I agree, as I still don't understand the concept of "logical precedence" for an act which takes place in time - but please keep in mind that I am not arguing for the Arminian view, as there are certainly scriptures that seem to refute it as well. (Heck, I'm not even sure I believe in free will, but it has nothing to do with God!) What I am arguing is that neither view is perfectly logical, which is usually an indication that key facts are lacking.

Edited by Thao - 12/31/10 at 2:00pm

[Smokering]

Quote:

Actually, as I continue to process this, I think I was more talking about our concept of justice than of love. My conscience says that punishing someone for their actions when they had no real choice to do otherwise is unjust. This is enshrined in our legal code as well; we don't punish people (children and people who are judged to be insane) whom we believe were not able to choose their actions. Do you think this is also a result of our secular culture? If not, why is it in our consciences?

1. I'd say it's fairness rather than justice. Justice simply means "according to the law" - God makes the laws, so by definition whenever He follows His own rules He is being just. He's hardly bound to obey our legal system.

2. There's a qualitative difference in how God relates to us and how He expects us to relate to others. God is "allowed" to kill whoever He wants; we're not.

3. We believe that the insane were not fully complicit in the crimes they committed, and that children weren't acting with "informed consent" because of their lack of maturity. Neither situation applies to Calvinism. The first doesn't, because humans are fully complicit in any sins they commit. They don't have a split personality - half controlled by God, the other (virtuous, naturally!) half watching impotently screaming "Nooo, I don't want to do this!". Insofar as they exist, they sin; their actions are not separable from their personality (which God also caused) or soul (which God also caused!). The second situation doesn't apply because under God's law the sin itself, not the consequences of it, are the issue (very different to our legal system!). Even if a person were unaware that his sin could cause someone to get run over or become infected with an STD or whatever, conscience means that he's usually aware of the fact he was sinning. Consciences can be seared, but they don't tend to start out that way.

4. It's equally "unjust" for God to reward the good deeds of people which were also ultimately caused by His decree, not by free will. Secular society doesn't tend to object to that one. It seems like we feel God owes us good treatment and a happy afterlife, but there's no particular reason why this is so. God has absolute rights over us.

Yes, if God loves you, then every act He does toward you must be a loving act i.e. motivated by His love for you. Of course he has other attributes, but surely you aren't saying that God turns off one attribute completely in order to turn on another? God may judge you, or be wrathful toward you, but he must love you at the same time He is exercising these other attributes. Like a parent disciplining a child - from the child's perspective it may seem mean and unfair and unloving, but from the larger adult perspective it is done out of love for the child's good (ideally, anyway!). Again, this goes to the heart of the definition of love: it is constant, and is always seeking good for the loved one. If God loves you one day and then turns it off the next day to exercise his wrath on you, it is no more true love than a parent who is loving towards their child one day and then beats them irrationally the next.

I think one attribute can override others, yes. Theologians generally consider holiness, not love, to be God's primary attribute. It isn't all about us. If the existence of the damned had a good end unrelated to the benefit of the elect (and I'm not saying this is the case; I think I agree with you on this), then God might well choose to work out that good regardless of his love for us. I love my daughter, but not everything I do is motivated by love for her, even when it affects her - I have other considerations, like errands I have to run, my own mental health, my love for other people such as DH, deadlines....

It seems to me that if justice is defined by God's character, and God is as you describe, then it means that our courts are unjust, and the truly just resolution would be to imprison the insane person or child for their crime.

I think it would be extremely silly to "play God" in that manner in secular courts, as His relationship, responsibility and rights regarding us are qualitatively different to out relationships, responsibilities and rights to others. God loves us, but His love is rightly expressed, in some circumstances, as "Those I love, I chasten" - that doesn't mean it's appropriate for a husband to "chasten" his wife, especially as God has laid out rules and principles governing that relationship. God shows mercy, which is rightly expressed as pardoning murderers and rapists; but that doesn't mean it's appropriate for humans in legal positions of power to pardon murderers and rapists. Yes, attributes such as justice and love stem from God's character, but that doesn't mean we're little Gods or that he's a big human. We're contingent, He's not; He's omniscient, we're not.

In the Bible, we see hints of how God intends justice to work among humans in His laws for Israel, which in some ways aren't too dissimilar from our justice system today (although definitely more, ah, hands-on); and in the New Testament, His attitude towards the legal system is pretty much "Obey it as far as you can without disobeying Me", along with injunctions to champion the oppressed. I'm not sure I'm qualified to comment on how well or badly our current legal system reflects God's principles for human justice, but I see no reason they should pretend to be God and inflict justice in the manner that He does. There's just no Scriptural support for that position.

[Smokering]

In the mathematical/physics theory I am thinking of, as I understand it, there is one individual who makes the decision, but then each possible decision actually comes to pass.  A new dimensional reality is created for each possible choice at the moment of the decision being made.  Thao may be able to say more about this, she seems to be interested in this stuff).

Now, I have no idea if that is true, but it could be.  And I don't think that there is likely any way for us to test this - so we could never really know.  If so, it could mean that there is really no way to logically settle questions about choice and God's relation to it, because we are unable to come to a conclusion on a vital bit of knowledge.  If there is no way to be sure of the facts than any logic we apply is not going to be definitive.

Isn't this even more damning for free will? It makes free will irrelevant, because if every choice comes to pass no matter what the decision is, what's the point of choosing? It doesn't change the outcome, which will always be multiple outcomes, so the choice is just as illusory as in Calvinism. A person choosing not to kill will still kill in one reality, and not in the other. Anyone's being a saint or a sinner will be simply an accident of which reality they popped into at God's instantiation - not a result of freely choosing good or evil. You could say of Mother Theresa "Well, mathematically speaking she had to do a lot of good in SOME life, but I must have done just as many good works in some other reality, and she must have been a killer".

How is an attribute disappearing from God altogether?  Let me rephrase my original statement.  Many of the Platonists in the early Christian period were unwilling to become Christians because they would not believe that God could empty himself in any way.  As far as they were concerned Christians in suggesting the Incarnation were suggesting heresy - it was totally illogical that God could do that.  You are suggesting that God giving up something in relation to free will would be the same kind of problem, it seems to me.  But that does not mean that that attribute disappears from the Godhead altogether, and I'm not sure how you could construe it that way. Also it is given up freely on God's part, and has its root and source in him still.  And the Incarnation shows that self-giving - and self-giving that is a kind of suffering -  is in some way part of God's way of relating to us.  I think that knowledge impacts the other things we might consider it possible for God to do.

It means that in certain limited aspects, God has no sovereignty, and humans have little "pockets" of sovereignty. If any part of the Godhead retained sovereignty over human will it wouldn't be free, so it must disappear entirely from the Godhead insofar as it applies to human will. And I'm not sure that incomplete sovereignty is even a coherent concept.

No, I'm not saying that.  They could have chosen the other way.  Perhaps God would have had to arrange things differently?  That isn't what being free is about though, that they are born into a situation where they get to choose bananas.  Wherever they are born, they get to choose something.

I'm confused again. It sounds like you're saying God has to contort His plans for history to accommodate free will, which is not how He describes His actions in Scripture. The pattern is "I do whatever I want", not "I work my purposes out as long as I can work it around people's choices, and sometimes I have to change things around a bit because nobody's choosing to act as I need for X to happen". What about "A man's mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps"?

It has quite a precise definition in mathematics, and that is how it has been used in theology as well. It "refers to a quantity without bound or end."  The attribute issue is an interesting one.  The West is inclined to use the idea, though usually they are careful about the way they identify them with God.  Anselm for example talks about God's attributes but inevitably tells us that God is "above justice" or "above mercy".  The East does not say God has attributes at all.  Rather we experience/relate to God through "attributes" which they call energies (and they are really God), but God in himself, in his essence, has no attributes.  I think this relates to the idea of modes of being, but I would have to look more into that to say for sure.  I'm not sure that language is used.

I'd say God is "above the way He expects humans to operate justice", and "above the way God expects humans to operate mercy", but not above those qualities per se. I covered this a bit in my last post to Thao.,

So God told him to do one thing and caused him to do another?  That is pretty much the crux of that problem for me.

Yes. Just as He told Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, but then hardened His heart - in that case, for the explicit purpose of making His power known among the Egyptians (some of whom may have joined Israel as a result). Why is it a "problem"?

But I don't see what the difference is?  Why would the SS individuals be able to "keep" their pre-scripture reasoning and the Tradition people not?  As far as I can see both would allow reason to be effective in that context, and both would see a place for Grace as well.

Because SS allows for the validity of reasoning as an epistemic tool. Catholicism, at any rate, doesn't. You say it allows it in some circumstances, but it seems that creates more problems than it solves - is there an infallible list of circumstances in which it's OK and in which it isn't - not to mention an explanation for those delineations? I've read blanket statements by Catholics on this subject all over the place - including one of those books that was approved by the Vatican - and never seen exceptions to the rule that reasoning and Scripture are unreliable mentioned. Do you have an "official" source for it?

Fair warning to everyone: today's January 1, and I'm cutting significantly back on my Internet time this year after today (20 minutes a day Sun-Fri, if anyone's interested!). So I may not be able to respond very fully or often to posts from here on in.